Joi Ito's Web

Shigeaki Saegusa and Yoshiko Morita

Saegusa-san invited me to join a lunch at Yoshiko Morita's today. Mrs. Morita is the widow of Akio Morita, the co-founder of Sony. Saegusa-san is a family friend and was the composer of the requiem for Akio Morita memorial. She had seven of us over to her house for home-made sake kasu stew. sake kasu is a by-product of producing sake. Good kasu can only be obtained from a sake brewer. The Morita family business is brewing sake. Mrs. Morita explained that it was their main business and the whole electronics thing was a side business for them. ;-)

We talked a lot about cooking and I got a chance to brag about my Turkey recipe. She said that she always has Christmas Turkey made at the Maxim's in the Sony building based on her recipe. I told her I would send her my recipe.

Mrs. Morita is a very dynamic and interesting person. She is involved heavily in the arts, and loves great food and interesting company. She is also a great social dancer. When I first met her, she was doing a the jitterbug at Saegusa-san's birthday party.

It was also fun visiting the house that described in such detail in John Nathan's book about Sony. We talked about John Nathan who she liked. John is the father of an old friend of mine, Zack. John is also a well-known translator of Japanese works such as the works of Mishima and Kenzaburo Oe.