Occasionally I get the urge to cook what no sane, modern man or woman should ever try. Take today for instance—I thought, "Wouldn’t it be great to make Mom’s Japanese curry, but without the help of roux from a box?" Ha bloody ha-ha. Okay, so maybe starting this the day after the cioppino was not my brightest idea. Starting this after finishing a fish stock, a molten cake, a cioppino, and a pesto while also working on two loaves of bread was truly the pinnacle of brilliant scheduling. But like you, I thought, "I just need to make a roux. How hard could it be?" I’ve made roux thousands of times and killed thousands of roux babies. I eat roux for breakfast (okay, not really). But still!

Continue reading »

As a child I ate from a variety of cuisines which reflected the life and travel of my mother and her mother. My grandmother was a typical White Anglo Saxon Protestant (WASP), famous in the family for her apple pies, her delicious meat-and-potatoes Midwest cuisine, and her generous, welcoming table. She married a missionary of the church and traveled overseas with him to Hokkaidō. There she raised my mother with the help of a Japanese nanny, whom Mom fondly remembers as oba-san. Between my grandmother sharing her apple pies with the locals and, in turn, "oba-san" preparing traditional country-style Japanese meals for the family, my mother grew up in the epicenter of a small cultural exchange. She took this experience with her and traveled to the U.S., France, Spain, Mexico, and other countries, studying language, literature, and, occasionally, new cooking techniques and recipes. Later, she married a third generation Japanese son of Hawaii and adapted some of the recipes for him. I had the pleasure of enjoying the accumulated results descended through the line of women in my family.

Continue reading »