Before Christine left for Washington, she gave Nancy and I a cookbook outlining the history, ingredients and tools required for the preparation Japanese cuisine. It's a beautiful book; glossy pages highlight the weathered ancient prints and luscious photography in its pages.

I can't remember the name of what we cooked last night, so lets call it eggplant in miso sauce. First we had to cut the eggplant into bite-sized chunks and soak in salted water for thirty minutes. Meanwhile we mixed together three tablespoons of dark red miso paste, three tablespoons of Miriam, three tablespoons of water and two tablespoons of sugar. When the eggplant's bitter juices had been absorbed, we heated vegetable oil to smoking and stir-fried the eggplant. Eight minutes later we added the miso mixture, stir fried until the sauce was thickened, and viola, down home Japanese cooking.

It was fast, easy and delicious; with rice and cucumber salad we had a nice, light dinner. Next time, we're going to make either clay-pot udon in ginger broth or spinach with sesame seeds and soy sauce. Mmm.