I get shy around people I look up to. I have been attending the UC Berkeley food politics lectures on Wednesdays and have seen Michael Pollan a couple times. But have I spoken to him? Of course not. What would I say, "Your article Power Steer singlehandedly changed my life." I would be too embarrassed, or I would just become verklempt. What if he thought I was some crazy fan?
So when I attended the Washoku Dinner at Medicine last Thursday, I practiced some things that I was going to tell Elizabeth Andoh if I had the chance. I wanted to congratulate her on her James Beard nomination. I wanted to tell her that her book is now smudged and broken in, and only over a period of two months. I wanted to tell her about our fun New Year's Eve dinner and how it all came from her book.
So I was eating dinner and all of a sudden there she was standing next to me. "Do you have any questions about anything?" she asked. "Your book is just amazing," I started. "Thank you - what have you cooked from it?" Suddenly every Japanese word I knew flew out of my brain. "Well I love the salts," I said. The salts? Well I do love the salts. But what about the miso-marinated fish, or the yaki omusubi, or the negi miso or the satsuma imo to kombu no uma ni? That last one is sweet potato simmered with kelp -- I was just showing off. Anything would have been better than "the salts" which are one of the easiest things in the whole book to make. Ms. Andoh didn't skip a beat and she talked to me about the salts and I only became a little verklempt.
