I know.
Not your usual coupling.
But if you knew me, it’s not so far-fetched.
Wandering Jew could’ve been my middle name.

I was living in Tokyo and decided to host a seder for the gaijins (foreigners) I knew — mostly Jewish, mostly alone.

Food wasn’t a concern.
The main courses and the sides had all been ordered from the Jewish Community Centre.
Even the kosher chicken was being flown in from Arizona.
Don’t ask. Somebody in Japan must’ve had a loser cousin in Tucson who needed to make a living. 

More about that later.

Never mind — I was making good money teaching English to executives and sarari men.
I could indulge in my favourite sport: shopping.

And in Tokyo, shopping isn’t just fun — it’s an aesthetic experience.

I hadn’t thought much about how I was going to get the stuff I already bought back to Canada.
But I furnished my little Tokyo real estate like a queen.
Most was from gomi (garbage) shopping. Tiny homes = no storage = free furniture for gaijin.

Perfectly good couches, chairs, computers — tossed onto the street.

The more precious pieces were from my forays to the Sunday markets dotted around the city.
At the antiques market, I found the most gorgeous lacquer bowls. Now I had the perfect excuse for buying them.
Perfect for the chicken soup.
That American chicken was one lucky piece of meat.
Maybe I picked up a kimono or two.
The knick-knack opportunities were endless.

A friend who’d lived in Japan for decades once told me:
Never ask the price of something outright.
If you want to buy, you show you’re serious. Talk. Ask. Learn.
Then buy — or walk away.

SO JAPANESE!

The Japanese have an unbelievable sense of aesthetics.
If you’re lucky enough to be invited into someone’s home — and I was —
you might see a family heirloom plate underneath a velvet painting of a gaucho.
Smoking.
Mysterious.

One friend said:
They have a perfect sense of beauty,
but absolutely no sense of the ugly.

Next: the gefilte fish.
Or as my clan says — the g’hackte fish.

I remembered my first years in Israel. Friday afternoons, there would be a carp swimming in the bathtub.

My mother boiled up the water, knocked the fish over the head then threw it in the big pot.

All of a sudden, it flew up and out and onto the floor. Squirming. Slithering. My mother screaming and jumping around. She would never make gefilte fish again — every.

We both shared the disgust.
It stinks up: Your apartment. Your clothes. Your hair.
Like making latkes at Chanukah.
You see a pattern here?

My mother’s comment: “s’iz nisht poyln far der milkhumeh.”

Luckily, one of my guests had his mother visiting from Perth.
A Holocaust survivor. And again luckily, not as precious as my mother.

I knew who I was dealing with.

Five o’clock in the morning, we took a taxi to Tsukiji fish market.
If you’ve never been, and you’re going to Tokyo — don’t miss it.
It’s where fishermen bring in their catch, still squirming.
Giant tunas the size of pickup trucks.
And that’s why sushi tastes like heaven there — because it was swimming that morning.

Survivor Mom knew what we needed.
There are rules, as always.
She explained.
I translated.
Our man in rubber boots — cigarette dangling — got to work. Three kinds of fish … I really don’t remember. I think every region in Poland had their special recipe.

He was so excited. How often do two Jewish women come in and teach him about their culture, about their fish? It was a break for him and us.

We wandered the market, gathered what we needed.
Dripping package in hand, we returned home.
I borrowed a pot from a Japanese neighbour.

Within an hour, everyone around us wanted to help.
We were guests in their country. And Jewish.
Some Japanese believe we’re the lost tribe of Israel.
And in Tokyo, neighbours are close.
You could lean out your window and have a conversation without raising your voice.

Once, I tossed out a carpet. I tied it up as best I could.
The next morning?
It was wrapped in plastic and tied with twine. Like a Presento.
Neatly left for the trash collectors.

I didn’t embarrass myself.
And the wa — the neighbourhood harmony — remained intact.

Back to seder prep.

When I returned home, I found a miracle in my mailbox:
A box of Manischewitz matzoh ball mix — from my mother! and
bouillon cubes. Remember the Arizona chicken? Those cubes saved my Jewish tukhes.

My mother later told me they were included by Saul Cohen,
the kosher butcher in Hamilton and my father’s best friend. 

The seder was going to be perfect.

I picked up the chicken.
Final items.
Soup was made early that morning. Tasted it. Disaster. It tasted like phishy water. Remember the Arizona chicken? Those cubes saved my Jewish tukhes.

Six o’clock.
My guests arrived.
The whole evening was haimish — warm, familiar.

We sang.
We retold the story of Egypt.

The one gentile in the group stunned us — reading her passage in perfect Hebrew.
Turns out, she’d lived in Israel while working for Knight Ridder.

Then came the soup.
I placed a matzoh ball in one of the beautiful lacquer bowls.
And there it was.

Problem.

The matzoh ball took up the entire bowl.
No room for soup.
Not a drop.

I told my mother the story the next day.

“They grow in size when you boil them!”

“How was I to know?? I’d never ever cooked a bloody thing in my life!” Let alone matzoh balls!