Last weekend, we had a little overnight trip to Door County. The fall colors were starting to set in in some places, and the lake water was amazingly clear. We drove around, enjoying the crisp, autumnal air, spent a few calming moments on a serene cobblestone beach, admired the Milky Way with our mouths open, and generally got refreshed. It makes me feel old to say that I really loved Door County, but I did.

On the way back to Chicago from the tip of the peninsula, we stopped at a farm market, operated by the Seaquist Orchards, and picked up half a peck of honey crisp apples. They were so sweet and crisp--as their name implies--that they had the same power to tempt us to eat them impulsively as chocolates and cookies do. Though I'm not a big fruit eater in my normal life, those apples made me one, if temporarily. I've had them piled up on the dining table, and they're already down to two-. (Apparently it's the case with other people, too, for we saw quite a few farm markets and pick-your-own orchards on the peninsula emphasizing honey crisps on their signs.)

The apples are so good we've been eating them fresh, but I did play with them once. Using some leftover wonton wrappers, I made appetizer/dessert wontons.

I'd come across an interesting idea of using shichimi, Japanese seven-spice mix, in sweet desserts, and I'd wanted to try it. (Unfortunately I don't remember where I read about that idea.) The spicy kick and the citrusy aroma of the shichimi I had at hand seemed perfect for pairing with apples, so I jumped at the opportunity. For the filling base, I mixed softened cream cheese, some sugar and a pinch of shichimi. To bridge the spice mix and the apple, I decided to fold in a thin slice of ginger in each wonton. After wrapping the shichimi cream cheese mixture, diced apples and ginger slices, I shaped the wontons into small parcels, and deep-fried them till crispy.

The result: I could have used a lot more shichimi. When I taste-tested the shichimi-sprinkled cream cheese before frying, it had an unmistakable aroma and heat of the shichimi. But apparently the frying process made much of that heat and aroma evaporate into thin air, and the finished wontons had only the slightest hint of shichimi left. This was a disappointment, but there was a nice surprise as well: the ginger slices lightened (jazzed up, might I say?) the whole thing fantastically. I thought the ginger would be a nice, refreshing touch in this fat-heavy combination of cream cheese and deep-frying, but the ginger worked even better than I expected. Cooking also brought out the tartness in the apple that wasn't very pronounced when eaten fresh.

We had the wontons as an appetizer, but this would be a nice dessert, maybe paired with vanilla ice cream (drool...). Next time I make this, I'll use a lot more shichimi and see how that works.

What I didn't realize while in Japan was how many aromatic ingredients the Japanese traditional cooking relies on. When I thought of Japanese cuisine, I usually wouldn't think of herbs and spices--I was more inclined to associate them with exotic cuisines like Thai and Indian, not my mundane Japanese food. But living in a foreign country, where the mainstay of Japanese herbs and spices are hard to come by, has made me realize that there are, indeed, a lot of aromatics involved in the Japanese cooking. And by gory, good ones are hard to find.

Ginger is probably the easiest to find, although the "shin-shoga," fresh ginger shoot just growing out of a thin, not-yet-plump ginger root (that looks a bit like fa fingerling potato)--a delicacy that powerfully signifies the advent of early summer--seems impossible to find. Dried spices like sansho (prickly ash) are also stocked in Japanese markets. When it comes to fresh herbs, things get a bit tougher. Fresh herbs--like cilantro-like mitsuba, sharp and tangy kinome (young leaves of sansho; prickly ash), and pale but potent myoga--are sometimes found in Mitsuwa, a large, suburban Japanese market, but they're invariably expensive and I can't say they're the freshest of all. Citrus fruits are the worst: the USDA doesn't seem to like the idea of importing of citrus fruits of any kind from abroad (which is not surprising, considering the danger of the citrus canker). So, if I wanted yuzu, sudachi, or kabosu, which all have generically citrusy yet unique flavors, I don't have any choice but to go for overpriced and odd-tasting bottled juices.

Until very recently, shiso was one of the elusive herbs. (It's the green leaf with rugged edges and pointed tip that you sometimes find on your sushi plate.) Granted, many Japanese people grow their own shiso (including my green-thumbed mom whose green genes I don't seem to have inherited), and I could grow my own--if only the apartment were a bit sunnier. Granted, too, shiso is available at Mitsuwa for not so bad of a price at about $1 for 10 leaves. But somehow, getting the shiso from Mitsuwa doesn't seem to work for me. Perhaps it's the precise calculation that each leaf costs 10 cents that makes me reluctant to use them extravagantly. Combined with their short shelf life (about three days before dark marks appear), my strange reluctance to use them in large quantities often leaves three or four dark, soggy leaves perishing in my fridge. So, as much as I like their minty and floral aroma, I've mostly stayed away from shiso. Until recently, that was.

When I was studying the perky herbs in the Tai Nam food market on Broadway the other day, I saw a bag of "pink mint" and picked it up. On the front, the leaves were green; on the back, purple. They looked like a smaller and little bit sturdier version of the beloved shiso leaves. I snuck a glance up and down the aisle, and seeing that there weren't anyone around, I pinched the tip of a leaf that was sticking out of the package. Sure enough, the leaf smelled exactly like shiso. I picked up a package, biked home and started cooking. This time, with a large bowl full of pseudo-shiso bursting out of the tight plastic bag, I felt I could be extravagant with them.

I had a handful of shiitake mushrooms and about half a pound of ground chicken in the fridge. An idea quickly formed in my head. I started by chopping up a generous--truly generous--amount of pink mint. The back side of the leaves were beautiful--its purple, tinged with green and a hint of gold, was almost ethereal. I admired the color for a moment, then mixed the chopped shiso leaves with ground chicken, an egg, some corn starch, sesame oil, salt and pepper. Stuffed onto the shiitake mushrooms and sautéed in a pan, the shiso-infused chicken meatballs became a refreshing and satisfying entrée. For the sauce, I mixed equal parts of soy sauce and mirin with a chopped pickled plum. There was so much pseudo-shiso that I even used them for garnish (gasp!). It felt good to use my favorite Japanese herb without worrying about the cost and calculating how many there are left in the fridge.

As it turned out later, pink mint (or tia to in phonetic Vietnamese) was a popular Vietnamese herb among the ex-pat Japanese people craving for the familiar taste of shiso. It was kind of funny to see so many food blogs scattered all over the world--from Bangkok to Paris--by Japanese cooks substituting shiso with tia to. So many of them expressed delight when finding this superb substitute for the familiar herb, often after a long search and an even longer dry spell. Though I don't know any of the bloggers personally, I felt a strange connection, maybe even a camaraderie of some sort, with the fellow ex-pats. All thanks to my unplanned move to a foreign country full of ethnic immigrants.

Green City Market seems to be hitting the peak of the harvesting season lately. What started out as a bunch of strawberries and asparagus is now a huge array of squashes, zucchini, daikon radishes, carrots, broccoli, onions, cherries and all kinds of beautiful berries. From the gorgeous offerings, we picked up (among other things) a bunch of small red carrots yesterday. Their dark, ruby-red skin hid a firm, orange flesh, and the green leaves were still perfectly perky when we stashed them in our increasingly veggie-filled refrigerator. It was a thing of beauty.

This morning, I felt compelled to use at least some of the farmers market bounty from yesterday. (I'd used the beautiful, dark-purple Japanese eggplant for dinner, but there were a lot more to enjoy.) Eying the bag of red carrots and a few remaining Jewel yams from this dessert, I got an idea. I had a potato, a purple onion and a bunch of green onions, so I should be able to make root veggie hash. What I had in mind was the spicy and savory breakfast potatoes from Lucky Platter in Evanston. (And maybe also the similarly appetizing one from m. henry in Andersonville.

I cut the carrots, potato and yams in medium-sized chunks, and diced the onion and green onions. In a pan, I slowly sautéed some minced garlic and onions, then added all the root vegetables. From there, all I need to do was to be patient; I'd discovered that the key to making good chunky hash is not to stir the potatoes. Rather, I'd need to let them become brown and crispy, slowly on lower-than-medium heat. So, this freed me up to make some scrambled eggs with oyster mushrooms (another prize from yesterday's Green City Market stroll). Toward the end, I added the green onions and let all the veggies slightly charred, just the way they are in Lucky Platter and m. henry. I love the concentrated veggie sweetness in charred onions and green onions, so I made sure they get the right treatment. A bit of salt and a few generous shakes of hot chili powder from the Spice House was enough for seasoning. (This hot chili powder was already in Patrick's cupboard when I met him three years ago. God knows how long it'd been sitting there before that, but it still has enough kick to spice up most everything!)

Out of curiosity, I'd sampled a small piece of the red carrot when I was cutting the veggies. That tiny piece was more than enough to fill my mouth with the almost pungent, green flavor of carrots. So, I was surprised, when I tasted the carrots in the hash--there was no hint of that pungent carrot flavor left in them. Instead, the red carrots had become as sweet as the jewel yams. I would have believed it if someone had told me that there's a ton of sugar added to the dish. Thanks to the slow cooking, all the root veggies had turned extra sweet and flavorful, without the least trace of the flavors they have when they're raw. Not that I hate the raw carrot flavor to the guts (I have to admit I'm not a huge fun of it, though...), but it was a pleasant reminder of the botanical basics, which I tend to forget, when seeing them as merely an "ingredient," that carrots are roots, a part of the plant that is a reservoir of sugary energy for the leaner days.

Apparently I was too excited to make this dish. Three little yams, one potato and three small carrots didn't seem like much when I cut them, but I'm completely stuffed two hours after our sumptuous breakfast of root veggies and eggs. Do I regret all those calories, though? No way! Coming from a country (or is it just my family?) that doesn't feast on hearty weekend breakfast, I'm utterly in love with this very American (it seems) luxury.

Monday was our first summer day, with the temperature in the mid-80s. The sky was blue with a few thunderstorms in the horizon. It was too nice of a day to waste indoors, working at computers. So we decided to pack a picnic lunch and spend our lunch hour at the lake.

I had a small red cabbage, half a carrot, and a bunch of snow peas (among other things) in the fridge, and I'd also wanted to experiment with cole slow with an Asian twist. Back in April, when Tom and I had an Iron Chef Battle (the not-so-secret ingredient was garlic), Tom made a fabulous Asian slow, and I had that in mind.

Recently Tom had also given me a portion of Szechuan Peppercorn from Spice House, so I decided to use it as the flavor backbone. Often used in Ma Po Tofu, Szechuan peppercorns have moderate heat and wonderfully refreshing, slightly minty aroma. This was actually my first time to see them in their original shape (I'd only seen them in ground form), and I really liked the reddish shell with subtle bumpy texture and the creamy green seed that showed between the cracked halves of the shell. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to remove the shells. Out of sheer laziness, I decided to just ground the whole thing, removing only a few conspicuous twigs from the ground peppers.

I shredded all the veggies, and made the vinaigrette:

1 table spoon of olive oil
1 table spoon of vinegar
1 chunk of ginger, minced
1 pinch of Szechuan peppercorns, ground
2 tea spoon of soy sauce
2 tea spoon of sugar

When I tasted the vinaigrette right after mixing, olive oil dominated everything else--even the Szechuan peppercorns. Since I thought the flavors might settle better as the veggies soak up the vinaigrette and the flavors from the veggies in turn seep into the dressing, I tossed the veggies in the vinaigrette and let the slow sit in the fridge for a while. Meanwhile, I baked the (frozen, out-of-the-box) battered cod in the oven and also warmed two pieces of French peasant bread. When, after about 20 minutes, I took out the bowl of cole slow from the fridge, the olive oil had been tamed by other flavors. Hooray!

We packed our lunch, stuffed a backpack with a beach towel, two cans of soda and eating utensils, and headed for the Evanston beach. It was a quiet day at the beach, and we managed to secure a park table. It might have been a bit too windy--while we ate, the tree above us kept adding its leaves and bark pieces to our salad--but it was nice to be out. A little boy raced on the lake shore path back and forth, back and forth, on his colorful training bike, while his mom read by the small mobile crib of his little sister. An older couple were having their brown-bag lunch at the table next to ours, and a young couple sweettalked, leaning on a rock. (It was so relaxing that I forgot to take a picture of the finished lunch box!)

We had to head back soon, but if we hadn't had to, we would have spent the whole afternoon there on the green grass, reading and talking. The Japanese say "I feel like my hair is being pulled back" when she doesn't want to leave, and it was one of those "hair being pulled back" moments.