Menu & Greetings献立・ご挨拶

近頃は、年を追うごとに春と秋は早足で瞬く間に過ぎて行くように感じられます。特に秋の到来は、なかなか実感できず、漸く秋らしくなったと思えば、師走の声が聞こえてくる、さすがに何か気忙しい気持ちになります。

１２月１３日は「正月事始め」といい、お正月に年神様を迎える準備を始める日とされています。歳暮の礼、大掃除、障子を貼り替、門松、〆飾り、鏡餅などの準備を調えます。

お正月の準備と言えば、今でも子供の頃の様子が思い出されます。昭和の頃は、十二月も半ばになると街の商店には正月用品が並び始めます。通り沿いに行商が店を出し、しめ飾りや暦売り、箒など歳末の日用品を売り始めていました。また公設市場では、黒豆、棒鱈、数の子などおせち料理の材料が並び、いつにも増して賑やかな売り声に包まれていました。年の瀬の忙しい中、大人たちがお正月の準備をしている一方、私たち子供の目当ては、独楽(こま)や凧、羽子板で、おねだりしては、お正月の準備とばかりに夢中で遊んだことが思い出されます。

いよいよ蟹に鰤など冬の食材も揃ってきます。野菜も寒さが厳しくなれば一段と甘くなり美味しくなってきます。柏屋の冬のお料理をどうぞお楽しみください。

In recent years, it feels as though spring and autumn pass in the blink of an eye, each seeming shorter than the year before. Autumn in particular is hard to grasp; just when it finally begins to feel like autumn, the sound of December is already near, and everything suddenly begins to feel rushed.

December 13th is known as Shōgatsu Koto-hajime, the day when preparations for welcoming the New Year begin. Year-end gifts are arranged, houses are thoroughly cleaned, shoji screens are re-papered, and New Year’s decorations are readied, one by one.

Whenever I think of these preparations, memories from my childhood come back to me. In the Shōwa era (1926–1989), as mid-December approached, shops in town began to fill with New Year’s goods. Street vendors lined the roads, selling shimenawa decorations, calendars for the coming year, brooms, and other necessities for the year’s end. Public markets grew livelier than usual, their voices rising above displays of ingredients for osechi—black beans, dried cod, herring roe, and more. Amid the adults’ busy preparations, we children had our own excitement: spinning tops, flying kites, and playing battledore and shuttlecock, fully absorbed in play as the New Year quietly drew closer.

By this time of year, winter delicacies such as crab and yellowtail begin to appear. As the cold deepens, vegetables grow sweeter and all the more delicious. We hope you enjoy Kashiwaya’s winter cuisine to your heart’s content.

*Heavy Snow/Winter Solstice: The traditional East Asian calendars divide a year into 24 solar terms. “Heavy Snow” is the 21th solar term and starts from  7 December.  “Winter Solstice” is the 22nd solar term and starts from 22 December.