This is Rice.

Going from the full-on New Zealand harvest to the Japanese start-of-spring has been more of an adjustment than I thought it would be. We’re going through fruit withdrawal. Still, it’s hard to complain when there is an abundance of fish and rice and wild vegetables and tea and homemade tsukemono (vegetables pickled in a ferment-y mash of rice bran).
After two weeks of surprisingly cold weather (made colder by this farmhouse, which for all its initial charm, is not the cosiest place to live) we are finally in what feels like full-on spring. This past week everyone has been getting their rice seedlings into the fields and today we went to the other side of the village to help with a planting. It was such a gorgeous scene - 70, 80-year-old men and women bent at the waist, bodies fully covered in several thin layers of fabric, wide-brimmed straw hats, knee-high galoshes. Bright green spikes poking out of the water.
(The particular family we were helping farms at the base of a small mountain. They’ve had a monkey problem. My 7-year-old-self [and my 31-year-old self only slightly less] wishes I were so lucky).
I found myself wanting to stick around until the rice harvest, which I imagine is a major event around here. The next best thing would be to eat the rice this family grows, which we did at dinner - and, um …I’m kind of speechless about this rice, actually. Unbelievable.