Relish Shokudo: Wonderful Woman, Invincible Woman 17

February 11th, National Foundation Day
I met up with Nacchan at Oyamazaki Station, and we headed toward Relish Shokudo in the light rain without using umbrellas.

"How did you find a place like this? I never would have noticed it."
When we arrived in front of the cafeteria, Nacchan said that in surprise.

Relish Shokudo is a cafeteria run by the cooking school and lifestyle goods store Relish, which apparently moved here last autumn.
There is a shop selling vegetables and such along the Saigoku Kaido road, and if you pass that and enter the alley, you will find the entrance to the cafeteria.

I had been curious about this place for a long time.
It used to be a small shop called "Pakomu" that sold bread and sweets, where a petite, modest, and kind-looking grandmother would mind the store alone. When no one was around, if you called out "Excuse me!" in a loud voice, the grandmother would come out from her home in the back after a while.
When I was a child, I frequently visited my family doctor, Miyake Clinic. On the way home, my mother would always take a slight detour and buy me pudding or jelly here.
Going to Miyake's meant I could get sweets at Pakomu. That was always something I looked forward to.

However, Pakomu closed when I was in junior high or high school, and eventually, Dr. Miyake passed away as well. For over thirty years, the site of the old Pakomu remained with its gray shutters pulled down.

When I returned home at the end of last year, the gray shutters had been repainted white, and a cute cafeteria sign had been put up.
That was Relish Shokudo.

Even buildings with closed shutters that I pass by casually every day might be places filled with irreplaceable memories for someone else.
I was thinking about that as I entered the cafeteria.

I took off my shoes and stepped up the high, old-fashioned entryway. Old Japanese houses have high steps at the threshold. It's just right for sitting down to put on shoes, but a bit high for stepping up and down directly.
While there is something endearing about the slight inconveniences of old buildings, I also think they aren't very kind to the elderly or people with disabilities.

A staff member wearing a triangular headscarf and an apron guided us inside.
The doors had been removed, creating a spacious area where the Japanese-style room, Western-style room, and veranda were all integrated.

On the wall, which serves as a blackboard, the recipe for the monthly set meal is drawn in chalk with text and illustrations.

In the alcove, copies of "Kurashi no Techo" (Lifestyle Notebook) from the year Nacchan and I were born were on display.

"It looks like a shop that would appear on 'Furu Cafe' (Old Cafe), doesn't it?"
"I know, right?"
We had that conversation while looking around the cafeteria, scanning every corner.
I suddenly wondered what kind of life the grandmother had lived here.

Since Valentine's Day was approaching, I had prepared chocolates for Nacchan. As it turned out, Nacchan had also brought chocolates for me and my mother.
However, since I had work the next day, I wasn't going to stop by my parents' house and would head straight home after my date with Nacchan ended.
I couldn't give my mother the fig chocolate sandwich that Nacchan had bought for her.
When I got home and checked, I saw it had a long shelf life. I'm going back to my parents' house in March for my grandfather's memorial service, so I'll take it with me then and eat it with my parents.

While eating, we started talking about how we don't want to do housework on the weekends.
"I've decided to clean my room on Thursdays and the toilet on Fridays."
When I said that, Nacchan replied,
"Me too! I clean the toilet late on Friday nights."
I found it quite interesting that we were similar in that regard as well.

Both Nacchan and I get home around 7:30 PM after work. We had a lively discussion about what we do for dinner on weekdays.
Things like how Chinese cabbage can be frozen if you cut it up beforehand, or how it's convenient to julienne carrots and keep them in the fridge. Finding ways to prepare dinner in a short amount of time is an important mission.

The main dish was delicious, but the miso soup and the side dish of stir-fried Chinese cabbage with a spicy kick were also great. When I feel that these kinds of unpretentious side dishes are delicious, I realize I've become an adult.
(Well, I've just become a middle-aged woman, but I think it's not so bad to get older in moments like this.)

I wanted to eat something sweet, but Nacchan and I were heading to the Asahi Beer Oyamazaki Villa Museum of Art afterward. Since I wanted to have cake at the museum's tea room, I held back here.

It was drizzling and the footing was bad, so we decided to take the bus to the Oyamazaki Villa. We put on our shoes at the entrance, and when I checked the clock, there were less than two minutes until the bus departed.
Nacchan and I dashed at full speed up the wet slope to Yamazaki Station, where the bus would leave.

When I arrived at the station out of breath, a smiling, white-haired old man was standing next to the shuttle bus.
After greeting him and boarding the bus, the old man put away the step stool with practiced ease and drove smoothly up the narrow, sloping road toward the Oyamazaki Sanso Museum.

Relish Cafeteria ↓

A few days later, I sent a LINE message to my mother saying that I had met Natchan, and that since a cafeteria had opened where Pacom used to be, we should go eat there together sometime.
She replied that she had already been to the cafeteria to eat, and that it wasn't Pacom; Pacom was two or three doors down from the cafeteria.

I was terrified that I had been creating memories in my head on my own.
Perhaps all the memories I had held onto, believing them to be true, were merely products of my imagination.
I thought to myself, I can no longer trust myself.

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