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Eater
4 days ago
- General
- Eater
The Easiest Way to Add Whimsy to Your Tablescape Is Through Chopstick Rests
Verdant green okra, golden brown croissants, glossy dango, roasted fish: No, this isn't a farmer's market or a boulangerie or a Japanese night market or a themeless dinner party; it's a peek into Namiko Hirasawa Chen's kitchen drawer, dedicated to her meticulously organized collection of hashi oki, or chopstick rests. 'I've liked miniature hashi okis since my childhood,' says Chen. 'I've been collecting them since college and my mom has a beautiful collection. Whenever we travel in Japan on family trips, we always stop by a local ceramic store to buy hashi oki.' Chen's collection, collected over nearly 30 years of cooking and traveling back and forth to Japan, is as vast as it is eclectic, a summation of her journey as the cook behind JustOneCookbook, the internet's largest English-language Japanese cooking site. It's also an inheritance, in more ways than one, from her mother — the original hashi oki collector in the family. If you peruse the hundreds of recipes that Chen has tablescaped on her website, you'll notice her photos include pieces from her collection — some of which she found, some she inherited from her mother — from the tiny ceramic eggplant she staged for her miso-glazed eggplant recipe to the shiitake mushroom hashi oki seen in her sukiyakidon recipe. For Chen, hashi okis are an unsung yet essential supporting player in Japanese tablescaping, and an easy, affordable, and meaningful way for hosts to elevate their dining tables. 'I think it's one of the most inexpensive investments out of all of the tableware that people can make,' Chen explains. While statement tableware pieces can run a pretty penny, hashi okis are remarkably affordable and approachable, with many priced around $10 in the United States — and even less in Japan, due to favorable exchange rates. 'Ever since I started blogging, I'm always thinking about how I can match my hashi oki with the dish based on the color, season, or food,' Chen says. 'It's a small thing that makes a huge difference in the presentation of a meal.' While the cutlery rests you see in restaurants and food editorial spreads typically adopt a sterile, brutalist aesthetic designed with function and minimalism in mind, hashi okis are, in contrast, delightfully whimsical. They are usually handmade by craftsmen in Japan and are endlessly varied in form, function, setting and origin. Occasionally, they are maximalist for the sake of being maximalist, despite serving a simple, sanitary function: to hold the tips of your used chopsticks. In an era of laissez-faire, anything-goes tablescaping, hashi okis are a perfect outlet for self-expression and experimentation. For the most part, Chen likes to match her hashi okis with the ingredients in the dishes she makes, but she also likes mixing it up, letting her intuition guide her. Namiko Hirasawa Chen 'Hashi okis are definitely necessary for a proper set up,' Chen says. 'I pick things that bring me joy. For summer, I'll use a hashi oki shaped like a fan or made of clear glass, but if I'm serving a vegetable-based dish, I'll use a vegetable hashi oki.' Her absolute favorites are hashi okis shaped like Mount Fuji. Chen's husband and business partner, Shen Chen, has his own preference. 'My favorite is the iron tea kettle hashi oki, the tetsubin, that can match a set-up that involves tea,' he says. 'There's an indescribable happiness that comes with matching hashi oki with a meal. Hashi oki really completes the story of the meal.' While hashi okis can be an endless outlet for creative tablescaping, there are limits towhat constitutes a traditional Japanese tablescape, Chen says. For example, your chopsticks and hashi oki should never be positioned vertically in your set-up ('That's a big no no,' says Chen) but instead placed 'between yourself and the plate horizontally.' Part of this is etiquette ('it's rude to point the dirty tips of your chopstick to someone else,' Chen explains) and context ('When chopsticks are vertical, it's used for a funeral in Japan'), but there's also a deeper history at play, one that dates back to hashi oki's origins as a ceremonial tool in 7th century Japan. Long before they arrived on dining room tables, chopstick rests were originally used by members of the clergy of Shinto shrines as a way to maintain the purity of their chopsticks when offering sacred food to the gods. Called mimikaware (耳土器), these clay rests were unglazed and, like their namesake, ear-shaped, and used in a horizontal orientation with chopsticks to signify a sacred boundary between the divine realm of nature and the impure human world. While mimikaware evolved and in the Heian period became hashi oki for aristocrats and the imperial family, this sensibility lived on as chopstick rests arrived at dining tables for the general public during the Meiji period with the introduction of western-style communal dining to Japan. Today, when Japanese people say 'itadakimasu' before a meal and lift their chopsticks from their hashi oki, they invoke a piece of this history, breaking a symbolic barrier with the impure to consume a sacred gift from the divine: food. It's this ethos — that dining and table settings are deeply intentional acts, loaded with history, meaning, and, yes, beauty — that Chen inherited from her mother, and one that she hopes to impart to diners looking to shape their own tablescapes with hashi oki, whether it's found online or at tableware stores across Japan. This sensibility is a large part of the reason why hashi okis are a prominent featured category on the Chens' tableware store, JOC Goods, which they launched last September after visiting 15 kilns across Japan. The process of starting the business, along with a trip they made to kilns in the Aichi prefecture last February, furthered their appreciation for the craftsmanship and deep history behind something as simple and small as a hashi oki. Jason Leung for Just One Cookbook 'In Japan, there are different regions and different regions have different clay, which leads to different styles of ceramics and craftsmanship,' explains Chen. 'We want people to know that when you see hashi oki, someone put care into making this, forming the clay, painting it, glazing it, baking it in the kiln, and inspecting it. So much is put into it compared to something that is mass produced.' If you're looking to buy hashi oki of your own, Chen recommends collecting individual pieces slowly over time, whether that be on your travels or browsing online. She believes that intentionality is key to the joy of hashi oki, and that your collection should reflect your personal tastes and experiences. 'I always pick things I feel connected to,' she says. 'If you have hashi oki you like, just using that every day, just stopping and looking at it, that can give you so much joy.' For the Chens, each hashi oki is a memory and a place; a reminder to pause, slow down, and appreciate the sacred in everyday life, whether that be a meal or a trip. There's the rustic, flat lotus root hashi oki they bought during an eye-opening 2023 trip to the Imbe township in the Okayama prefecture, the birthplace of the millennium-old craft of Bizen pottery known for its earthy red-brown tone and texture. There are the countless variations of ceramic hashi okis that they've found in stores across the Japanese countryside on summer family trips. And then, there are the hashi okis that started it all: the ones that Chen grew up setting on the table for her mother and carried with her halfway across the world in suitcases to the United States, where they now sit in her kitchen drawer, reminding her of how far she's come. Dining In With Eater at Home Highlighting the people, products, and trends inspiring how we cook now Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Boston Globe
04-03-2025
- Lifestyle
- Boston Globe
Make miso soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
But first you'll need miso, which can be found at many grocery stores. For the best selection, and some other ingredients you'll need, I recommend going to a Japanese grocery store, or any Asian grocer near you. You'll find many varieties of miso there, each with its own character. Get Winter Soup Club A six-week series featuring soup recipes and cozy vibes, plus side dishes and toppings, to get us all through the winter. Enter Email Sign Up To help sort through the options, I reached out to Namiko Hirasawa Chen, creator of In Japan, you'll find hundreds of kinds of miso, Chen says. But in the United States, the most common types are red, white, and yellow miso. There's also awase miso, a mixture of two or more kinds. Miso is made with a fermentation starter (koji) that is combined with the soybeans and salt. Rice koji is the most common of these, although you'll sometimes find soybean or barley. 'If you're new to miso, the easiest way to shop is by color. For a bolder flavor and saltier taste, go for red miso. Choose white miso for a sweeter, less salty, and more delicate taste,' she says. 'Remember that each type of miso has a different level of saltiness and intensity. My advice is to taste the flavor and decide how much you add to your soup. It's better to add less miso at first, taste your soup, then add more according to your preference.' Chen encourages home cooks to keep several kinds of miso on hand and experiment with different flavor combinations. But if you're looking for a starting point, she recommends Hikari Miso's Advertisement The other key to making miso soup is dashi, Japanese stock. It's quick and easy if you have the needed ingredients: kombu (dried kelp) and katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes). It also comes in convenient powder and packet form; the Sign up for the Winter Soup Club newsletter at Ryan Huddle Following is Chen's recipe for traditional miso soup with tofu, the kind you're likely familiar with from Japanese restaurants. I love to make it for breakfast. I'll eat it with a steaming bowl of rice and umeboshi, pickled plums, sometimes adding broiled salmon if I've got it. Miso soup is best when it's fresh, so prepare only as much as you need at a time. You can make the dashi in advance, so it won't take long. A good ratio to start with is 1 tablespoon of miso to 1 cup dashi. Then taste and adjust. Advertisement Miso soup can also be a canvas for creativity. 'In Japan, we cherish the changing of the seasons and enjoy many variations on miso soup with in-season produce and proteins,' Chen says. 'In spring, I make miso soup with cabbage or Manila (asari) clams. In summertime, I'll add fresh sweet corn or sliced okra. We also enjoy refreshing cold miso soup when the weather is very hot!' In the fall she might add kabocha, and cold weather calls for This recipe is your starting point. The rest is up to you. Scan this code to sign up for Winter Soup Club. Globe staff MISO SOUP WITH TOFU Serves 4 DASHI 4 cups water 1 large piece kombu (dried kelp), about 10 grams or a 4-inch square 1 cup packed katsuobushi (dried bonito flakes) 1. In a medium saucepan, combine the water and kombu. If you have time, let the kombu soak for 30 minutes. Over a medium-low flame, slowly heat the water, for about 10 minutes. Just before it reaches a boil, remove the kombu. (For a vegan or vegetarian miso soup, you can stop here and use this kombu dashi as your base.) 2. Add katsuobushi to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer briefly, about 30 seconds. 3. Take pot off the heat and let katsuobushi steep for 10 minutes. Strain liquid into a container. Use immediately, store covered in the refrigerator for 3-5 days, or freeze for up to 2 weeks. MISO SOUP 4 tablespoons miso 7 ounces soft or silken tofu, cut into ½-inch cubes Advertisement 1 tablespoon dried wakame seaweed 1 scallion, cut into thin rounds 1. In a medium saucepan, bring the dashi to a simmer over medium heat. Turn off the heat. 2. Put the miso in a ladle, then lower the ladle into the pot until the miso is just immersed in dashi, stirring the paste into the broth with chopsticks or a fork to incorporate. (Alternately, you can dissolve the miso in a small bowl in a bit of dashi, then stir back into the pot.) Depending on the size of your ladle, you may want to do this 1 or 2 tablespoons of miso at a time. Taste as you go until it's how you like it. 3. When the miso is fully dissolved and stirred into the dashi, gently slide in the tofu cubes, taking care not to break them. Let the soup warm them through; if needed, return the pot to a low flame to rewarm. 4. Add the wakame and scallions to the pot, then serve, ladling into individual bowls. Adapted from Namiko Hirasawa Chen, Devra First can be reached at
