Rice Balls

There's a place on 45th street between Lexington and Third called oms/b which serves rice balls. There's another café on Mulberry that does the same. I love the place on 45th. It's a small shop and very clean. Upon entering you can smell the cooked rice. I've only recently started eating rice balls. Simmy and I discovered the place on 45th a few months ago, and now, on my lunch trips uptown, I tend to favor it.

Rice balls remind me of Hirokazu Koreeda's After Life, a film about memory and the making of films. In one scene, a grandmother is remembering her childhood, before the war. She remembers sitting in a bamboo grove, making rice balls with her mother. She teaches the actors around her how to make them, showing them the proper size and technique, much as her mother must have done. The last time I sat in a bamboo forest was in Kamakura, Japan, at the Hokokuji Temple. For a small fee you could be served macha in a wooden bowl. It was late November, just after Thanksgiving, and I sat with the bowl warming my hands. On a small tray sat two candies shaped into plum blossoms. The damp air muted perception, but I could hear the murmur of conversation around me and the creaking of wood, and the sound of steps on stone. After I had finished the bitter tea and the candies, I sat until the warmth began to leave me, then gathered my things and rose to leave. Posted by eku at January 27, 2004 2:21 PM