ON THE PLATE: Time for the summer daze now that the silly season is behind us

Well that went in a flash! I have to confess, I didn’t really attend to mailing any real Christmas cards for 2018.

Yep, I opted for the email route – and even then I only clicked the send button on Christmas Eve morning! Those last three weeks were just a complete whirlwind for me, and so I’m going to simply side step the issue of New Year’s resolutions and just step into 2019 with bravado. I’m confident family and friends will forgive me in time for my tardiness – or maybe I’ll be scrubbed from the 2019 Christmas card lists of others? Oh well? That’s the way it goes.

Now we can all surely kick back a little and enjoy the less frenetic pace of summery days, salads, barbecues, splashing round in the ocean, river, lake or pool and keeping cool. Time to read, relax and do as much, or as little, as you really need to.

Meals can be quick and simple affairs, with everyone giving a helping hand perhaps – to explore new taste sensations, new ingredients, and new cultures with the associated culinary delights. If I was going to make a New Year resolution, it would be to learn more about Japanese food. I hardly know anything about it, yet I do know that essentially it is such a healthy
cuisine, and the emphasis is on rice, pickled vegetables, seafood and seasonality. And what we all wish for and aspire to in general terms with the arrival of a new year is for good health.

If you have that, everything else will somehow fall into place I reckon.

Japanese cuisine features the gloriously ‘artful’ presentation of dishes, each often in their own small bowls.

The Japanese really do anticipate and celebrate each of the four seasons.

The term for seasonality is shun and celebrating the bounty of the sea with the first of the skipjack tuna fish, or the fruits of the mountains in autumn when the chestnuts are ready.

See, I have referred to autumn already – because we all know the weeks of summery days will simply fly by and soon it will be autumn!

So, buoyed by the prospect of exploring all things Japanese, here is a recipe that I hope you will love. It is quick to prepare, light, summery, healthy. May 2019 be a wonderful year for you and yours, and may the spread of Christmas joy and good spirits last for many weeks to come.