４月２８日（日曜日）２０１９
６月１日（土曜日）に能楽師、大倉流大鼓の大倉正之助氏＜https://sho-okura.com/＞をお迎えして当店、多賀あさひやにて公演会を開くことは既にお伝えしていますが、加えて一噌流笛方の一噌幸弘氏<http://issoyukihiro.com/>にも来ていただくことになりました。 一噌幸弘氏も正之助先生と同様に伝統的な能楽の囃子方として演奏なさるほかにソロでの演奏、また作曲家としても大変活躍していらっしゃる笛の名手です。正之助先生の紹介でお忙しい中ご都合をつけて多賀までお出でいただけることになりました。素晴らしいお二人の演奏を「多賀あさひや」で聴かせていただけるとは夢を見ているような心地で興奮いたします。こんな機会は恐らく東京でもないと思います。 大変貴重な大鼓と笛の共演です。是非、皆様ご都合をつけてお出で下さい！I already announced the Ohtsuzumi (Large hand drum) concert by Shonosuke Okura on June 1st (Sat) ＜https://sho-okura.com/＞. Today, I would like to add one more great artist who will join the concert. Yukihiro Isso is a flutist of Noh and he also actively plays as a solo performer and composes music <http://issoyukihiro.com/>. I am so proud to have two great international performers in my cafe at Taga and excited to watch their performance. I guess that it is rare to see them both on the same stage even in Tokyo. I strongly recommend you to come to the concert by all means.

４月２６日（金曜日）２０１９
昨日は用事があって自転車で高宮の中山道を通りました。高宮は昔、近江国犬上郡にあって中山道の江戸から数えて６４番目の宿場で 今は彦根市高宮町になっています。道幅が狭いこの街道は車の通行は似合わず写真で見ると電柱電線がまったく邪魔でがっかりしますが この通りはなかなか風情があっていい感じです。通りかかってふと見ると、何と提灯（ちょうちん）屋さん！ 高宮には提灯やがあると聞いていましたが、ここだったのかと、思わず自転車を道脇に止めて写真を撮りました。先日の多賀大社の 古例祭の時も家の前に大きな祭提灯を下げましたが、それもここの職人さんが作ったに違いありません。 何とも言えずカッコイ〜イ！お店です。Yesterday, I went to Takamiya which is a town next to Taga and I went along Nakasendo with my bicycle. In Edo period, Takamiya was the 64th inn town on the road named Nakasendo from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto. It was only for people and horses in the old days, so the street is narrow which does not suit modern cars, and when I saw the photo which I took, I was so disappointed by the telephone poles and electrical wires. Even though they insensitively disturb the calmness here, I liked this tasteful street very much. When I was about to pass by, a big white paper lantern came into my view. It was a Paper lantern shop! There was a time I heard that there is a paper lantern shop in Takamiya. I immediately realized that this was it and got off the bicycle and put it at the side of the street to take photos. There is a big paper lantern for festival in my house and I hang it down in front of my entrance door on the day of the Taga Taisha Spring Old Festival, which was a couple days ago. I am sure the craft man of this paper lantern shop must have made it. This paper lantern shop is sooo cool!

４月２３日（火曜日）２０１９
多賀大社の春の古例大祭が昨日（４／２２）執り行われました。今年は祭り日が平日の月曜日だったので人出が 心配されましたが、お天気に恵まれて、正確には分かりませんが人出もそこそこあったのではないかと思われます。 指揮太鼓の音がドンドンと遠くから近づいてくると、おわたりがやって来ると分かって表に出ます。案内のパンフレット によると、関係者全員で午前８時半から本殿でおまつりがとり行なわれるとあり、午前十時半におわたりの行列は先ず栗栖の 調宮神社へ向かいそこで休息。午後１時に栗栖を出発して本社に戻り、今度は馬頭人とお使い殿も加わって町内尼子の打籠（うちごめ）の 馬場に向かいます。打籠のお旅所で祭事を行なって、お渡りの行列は多賀大社へ戻りますが、この行き帰りに行列がカフェの前を お通りになります。騎馬の方々も歩く方々もお渡りのご一行はさぞかしお疲れになったことでしょう。りっぱな騎馬行列の古例大祭でした。Spring Old Festival was held at Taga Taisha yesterday. This year the festival day, April 22nd, turned out to be a Monday and everybody was worried whether many people would come to see because it was the weekday. I don't know the exact number of the people but a pretty good number of people came for the festival because of the fine weather. When we heard the sound of drum from the person who was walking at the head of the line, we recognized that the procession was approaching and stood outside of the front door of the cafe to watch. According to the brochure, the festival starts at 8:30 at the Grand Shrine with all related members and at 10:30 the procession leaves for Totonomiya shrine in Kurusu. After festivities and a break there, they come back to the Grand Shrine again. This time Batohjin (people in charge of the festival) were added to the procession. A procession of 40 people riding horses, about 400 walking, and Mikoshi passed by my house. They all must have been very tired. It was a really big old Spring Festival.

４月２０日（土曜日）２０１９
知り合いの方からワラビをいただきました。わらびは春から初夏にかけて平原や谷間の酸性土壌に生息するシダ科の 山菜とwikipediaにありました。調理するには灰汁（あく）抜きから始めなければならないので、灰も一緒について いました。ワラビを調理するのは初めてです。教えてもらった通りに沸騰した灰汁に漬けて一晩置き、よく洗って 更に水を取り替えながら漬けて調理の下準備をしました。さて、これをどう調理して食べるかただいま試案中です。I got Warabi (bracken from my acquaintance. According to information from Wikipedia, Warabi is a species of fern. It is abundant in sunny places such as grasslands, valley and wilderness. It prefers to grow in acidic soil, and is counted as one of the wild vegetables. From spring to summer, we collect young shoots (leaves) whose leaves are not open yet and use them as sprouts. Since we need to remove the harshness before it is cooked, I also got ash with Warabi. It was my first challenge both to remove harshness of Warabi and to cook them. As I learned from my acquaintance, I first put Warabi in boiled ash water and took them out, washed them clean, and placed the Warabi in water overnight. Now it is time to cook. I am in the middle of thinking how I should cook and eat it.

４月１５日（月曜日）２０１９
あっと言う間に４月も半ばになってしまいました。 東北や北海道の桜の開花情報が聞こえていますが、滋賀の桜はこのところの強い風に吹雪のごとく散っています。 縦長の日本らしく順々に桜の風景が北上して面白いと思います。 さて、お知らせです。来る６月１日（土曜日）に能楽師大倉流大鼓の大倉正之助氏をお招きして公演をしていただきます。 大鼓はお囃子の中の一つの楽器ですが、大倉正之助さんは単独で独自の手法で演奏なさることでも有名で、日本は勿論、 世界各国でも活躍していらっしゃいます。多賀あさひやの古民家に大倉さんの神秘的で深い、うっとりと するような大鼓の調べが響きわたるのが楽しみです。是非、お出で下さい。 April is going by fast and it is already the middle of the month. I hear flowering information of Sakura from Tohoku and Hokkaido , but at the same time cherry blossoms in this area are falling because of the strong wind these days. By the way, I would like to announce the performance of Ohtsuzumi (Large hand drum) by Shonosuke Okura which will be held on June 1st. Ohtsuzumi is one of the instruments which serves as the musical accompaniment of Noh, and Master Shonosuke Okura is famous for being a solo performer who plays the large hand drum in his special way. He is playing actively not only in Japan but also around the world. It is a great pleasure to have him in my cafe, Taga Asahiya. You will enjoy his deep, mysterious and beautiful sound resonate in my old Japanese house. I would like to share the feeling of the excitement.

４月６日（土曜日）２０１９
ボストンからの帰りはスイス経由で成田に着きました。これは単に切符代がこちら回りの方が安かったからですが、成田ボストンが太平洋線だったので、地球を一周したことになります。直行便より時間は掛かりましたが、スイス航空に乗ってみたこと、乗り継ぎとはいえヨーロッパに入ったことなど、それなりに楽しかったです。白地に赤の日の丸と赤字に白のクロス。デザインは違いますが日本とスイスは国旗の色合いが似ています。九州ほどの小さな国ですが、多言語が使われていることでも知られています。 朝ご飯の箱に書かれた文字。英語、ドイツ語、フランス語、イタリア語までは分かったのですが最後の言葉に「？？」と思ったのでCAの女性に聞いて、それでも分からなかったので書いてもらったらRumantsch （ロマンシュ語）という言語でドイツ語というよりラテン語に近い言葉だそうです。スイスの中でも４００人ぐらいしか使っていないと教えてくれました。私の窓からはアルプスは見えませんでしたが、ハイジが遊んでいそうな丘や森の景色がきれいでした。On the way back to Japan from Boston, I had a layover in Switzerland. It was because the air ticket for this route was cheaper than the pacific route. When I went to Boston from Japan, I took the pacific way, so I went around the earth this time. Although it took more hours than if I had taken direct flights for both ways, I enjoyed this stopover because it was the first time to get on Swiss Airlines, and I could enter Europe even though it was only for a few hours in transit. Red circle on white background is the Japanese national flag, and white cross on a red background is the Swiss flag. Those are different designs but similar color combination. Switzerland is a small country whose size is similar to Kyushu, but it is known as a multilingual country. I found many languages on the box for breakfast on the plane. From the top, English, German, French, Italian and ...??. Since I didn't have any idea about the last language, I asked the cabin attendant about it. She told me about it but I couldn't catch it, so I asked her to write down the name for what it is. It is "Rumantsch" and only about 400 people in Switzerland are using that language. I could not see the Alps from my window, but I saw beautiful hills and woods where I could picture Heidi playing.

３月２５日（月曜日）２０１９


ステンドグラス作家の宮嶋幸雄さんが先日カフェに作品展の案内を持って来てくださり、これまでの作品の写真集を奥様が 見せて下さり、その時に作品の行程や見方、難しさなど教えて下さいました。それで、今回ボストン美術館に展示してある ジョン・ラ・ファージ(1835-1910)とルイス・カムフォート・ティファニー(1848-1933)の作品をもう一度見たくなり行ってきました。二人 はアメリカ美術工芸運動の中心になった人物です。作品は見事で、ラファージは浮世絵に興味を持ちアメリカにおけるジャポニスムの火付け役になったとも言われ1886年に来日しています。アメリカ館を見て疲れたので休んでいたら非常警報が鳴り出し館内の者は全員外で待機させられ、戻れた時は閉館まで残り２０分ほど。伊藤若冲の絵も見ておきたいと大きな美術館の中をアチコチ歩き回りながらやっとたどり着いたのですが、あいにく改修工事中で日本の作品は殆ど見られず、快慶(1189-1223)の弥勒菩薩像に対面しただけで帰ってきました。The other day, stained glass artist Mr. Yukio Miyajima came to my cafe with his wife to bring the information of his art exhibition. He explained the process of creating stained glass work and told me the difficulty of his work as his wife showed many photos of his work to me. As I remembered that Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has some stained glass collections of John La Farge (1835-1910) and Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), I went to the MFA yesterday to see them. La Farge and Tiffany were artists of the American Arts and Crafts movement. Their stained glass are marvelous. La Farge was intrested in Hokusai who worked with Japanese wood print and he sparked Japonism in the US. He visited Japan in 1886. When I was resting after looking around Art of The Americas, suddenly the fire alarm started ringing and we were all forced to evacuate. By the time we were allowed to re-enter, there was only 20 min left until closing. I wanted to see the painting of Jakuchu Ito who was a Japanese painter in Edo period, so I tried to get to the Japanese art section but it was not easy to find because the museum was huge. When I finally got there, I found that they were in the middle of a renovation and I could not see most of the exhibitions.What an unfortunate day it was! I only appreciated beautiful Maitreya Bodhisattva by Kaikei (1189-1223) and came home.