In fact, Andoh’s lessons are making us more attentive to the beautiful detail of the everyday: the angle of a snow pea as it rests delicately against a cube of ivory-colored tofu; the perfectly formed petals of a single flower placed in our room at a ryokan, a Japanese traditional inn. Most memorable is lunch at one of Japan’s preeminent restaurants, Sugi no I, in Kanazawa. We eat in the hush of a private room that opens onto a garden whose reflection periodically flickers across the dark, lacquered table.
When our server learns that we are Andoh’s pupils, she scurries off to fetch the proprietor, her husband. To our astonishment, he enters the room on his knees, the highest mark of deference a Japanese can extend. In his hand is a laminated copy of one of Andoh’s articles. It is for her that he shows such reverence.
Later, when we relay this to Andoh, she becomes suddenly still. “I wish my sensei, Yanagihara, were alive to hear this. He was ridiculed for taking me on,” she says quietly, her eyes filling with tears. “He was the only one who believed I didn’t have to be Japanese to become a Japanese cooking teacher. He would have been so proud.”
Watching her taste our happyokai meal, we feel much the same. We have attempted to transcend our Western ways. We have prepared five dishes, mindful of the taboo against groupings of four, as the Japanese character for this numeral is a homophone for the word death.
We have served our menu Japanese style in small individual portions—composed of pieces easily managed with chopsticks—presented all at once, and at room temperature. We are desperately hoping to make her proud.
We watch nervously as Andoh takes a taste. For a moment there is no reaction. Then she smiles. “Very good,” she says at last, “and very Japanese.”
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