Below freezing outside,a fireplace within

A winter day in Hokkaido, when the highest temperature stays below freezing. I woke up in a log house in the quiet, snowy hills. Behind the glass door of the fireplace, logs were burning softly.

The living room had a fireplace, a sofa and a table built from logs. I sat in a chair by the fire with my morning coffee. It tasted better than usual, surely because of the cold outside. The night had dropped to minus 14, yet the house stayed warm. Homes in Hokkaido are built to stand up to the cold.

The snow stopped and the sun came out. Standing at the window, I watched the white woods begin to glow. The log house sits in a snowy forest, and the snow by the door had piled up waist-high.

Let's go to town and have breakfast. One step at a time, I walked down the snowy road through the trees.

Breakfast was a seafood rice bowl at the eat-in corner of the town supermarket. Banners for seafood and soba lined the entrance, with a sign for the dining area.

In a black bowl: sea urchin, salmon roe, scallop, salmon and sweet shrimp. Every topping was fresh and, as they say here, namara good. Namara is Hokkaido dialect for "very." I ate slowly at a table by the window, with a bowl of soup. Only in Hokkaido can a neighborhood supermarket serve a bowl like this.

For dinner, too, I wanted something local. So I headed for a lake frozen solid from shore to shore. Drop a short rod through a hole in the ice: my first try at fishing for wakasagi, the pond smelt. A red float bobbed in the hole.

I sat on a folding chair and stared at the tip of the rod. Everything was ready for tempura at home. What if I caught more than I could eat? Under a blue sky, low hills ran along the far side of the snowfield. Still in my gloves, I opened an alcohol-free beer and set it down on the snow.

I jiggled the line just above the bottom, then held it still. I stuck with it until I forgot how cold I was, but not a single wakasagi bit.

To add insult to injury, I went home empty-handed and it started to snow. At the fish counter, though, I found packs of chika, a smelt that looks just like wakasagi. Down at the harbor, fishing boats were moored side by side, and a big-catch flag snapped from a mast. That is how I got my fish for dinner.

In the falling snow, I ducked under the noren curtain of a diner. Miso ramen soaked into my frozen body and mind. Shibareru, the local word, means cold enough to freeze.

Yellow wavy noodles, a slice of naruto fish cake, chashu pork and green onions. Steam rose from the kitchen beyond the counter. I couldn't miss zangi either, Hokkaido's specialty: chicken marinated in sauce and deep-fried, served piled high on a plate.

A counter with red stools, a wall of framed calligraphy and signed boards, a menu on the table by the window. A homely diner that warmed me to the core.

Along the highway stood a red building with a bear and a salmon perched on its roof: a seafood restaurant, with tanks full of crabs. I walked on through the snow-piled streets, looking across the snowfield to the trees and the town, toward the next stop.

Speaking of Hokkaido, you can't miss the dairy. At a dairy shop set up in a closed school building, I picked up jars of torori pudding and boxes of Noboribetsu cheese. A banner from the school's days still hung over the entrance: "Gentle and strong, the children of Satsunai."

I walked back along the snowy road through the woods. Afternoon light fell between the straight trunks. Firewood was stacked beside the front door, and two little mounds of snow sat in front of it. I'm home.

I fed the fire with a pair of tongs. It wouldn't be easy to do this every day, but there is something thrilling about building a fire in a fireplace. Flames rose behind the glass door, and the brick hearth slowly warmed the room.

Beside the fire, a Noboribetsu torori pudding. The spoon slid into the jar and came up with a wobbling, melting scoop, just as the name promises. It tasted of Hokkaido's wide land. I gazed idly at the flames and added one more log.

As the day ended, the lights came on in the log house in the snow. Snow lay thick on the roof, and a chimney rose above it.

Time to make dinner. I cut carrot slices into stars and sliced the swirled kamaboko fish cake. Since the wakasagi never bit, shitakke, the look-alike chika would step in. Shitakke is Hokkaido dialect for "well then."

I dusted the palm-sized chika with flour and slid them into hot oil. Lifted onto paper, their coating had turned golden. Into the clay pot went the udon and the toppings: an egg cracked on top, kamaboko, the star carrots and greens. Lid on, oven mitts on, and off to the table.

Outside the window, a little snowman stood on the night snow. The powder was too dry to roll, so I had carved a lump of snow round instead. With a twig for a face, it reminded me of an actor I like, so I named it Toshiyuki.

What I had wanted to eat in a room with a fireplace: the nabeyaki udon from the Ghibli film "Whisper of the Heart." When I lifted the lid of the clay pot, a soft-cooked egg and the star carrots appeared through the steam. The udon was made from Hokkaido wheat.

The fried chika could be eaten bones and all, hot, soft and really good. I poured the alcohol-free beer into a glass and raised it to myself. The nabeyaki udon the grandpa made in the film looked so delicious, and the fireplace is part of why. But I'm sure it's mostly because Shizuku had worked so hard.

A quiet night, as if cut off from the real world. I sat at the far table in the living room and watched the small flame in the fireplace. Outside, the lit log house and the snowman stood side by side in the snow. Why not sink slowly into the world of a story tonight?