Happy New Year! 明けましておめでとう！ 2014 is the Year of The Horse and true to family tradition, on January 1st my parents lined-up in front of their local Japanese market to get their free New Year’s zodiac ceramic. My Mom takes my Dad along with her so that he can get an extra ceramic to ensure that both my brother and I get one. Our ceramic horse is proudly decorated in our home as I write! (Photo Credit: Hideki Ueha) This...

      My favorite osechi ryori, or Japanese New Year’s dish is kazunoko. It’s caviar made of herring roe, simply seasoned with dashi konbu (seasoned seaweed), katsuo dashi (bonito broth) and shoyu (soy sauce). Kazunoko is typically found in Japanese supermarkets only at the end of the year, which is quite unfortunate because I wouldn’t mind eating this year round. I’m sure there must be other markets that sell this...

The day after Christmas, if not sooner, my Mom and I begin our Oshogatsu (Japanese New Year) menu discussions. Each year, our menu changes slightly, but my Mom still undertakes the bulk of cooking our family’s Osechi Ryori (traditional Japanese New Year’s dishes). Slowly but surely, each year I’ve been learning how to make a new osechi ryori dish. This year will be no different as I contemplate which dish to...

  Happy Holidays! Christmas just snuck up on me and it feels as though the last few weeks quickly flew by. I’m a bit sad that in just another day our Christmas celebrations will all be over but it’s been a wonderful season so far. I was looking for a quick and easy treat that Bebe and a few friends could make at a little holiday cookie decorating party last week. Of course, I went straight to Googling and found these adorable...

  Usually, I’m quite the motivated cook in the kitchen. However, these days (ok it’s been more like a few months now), all I wish for is some type of cooking-kitchen-elf who will make dinner magically appear. Let’s also include lunch for that matter, since a few days out of the week I also need to feed Bebe lunch on days she’s not in school and the appearance of a cooking-kitchen-elf twice a day wouldn’t be so...

Today, I’m sharing a family journal post so we can one day look back and remember these days…. ♥ Our baby beta fish just died. Bebe expressed her sadness and disappointment on the loss of a friend, shortly thereafter she says: “I have a GREAT idea, Mommy! We can cook the beta fish and eat it for dinner. Although the fish was about an inch long and wouldn’t provide meaningful sustenance for a meal, that’s besides the...

Of all the foods my Mom makes, the more I think about it, the more I’m certain that gyoza, or potstickers, are hands down my favorite dish. Sometimes my Mom would set aside a few gyoza for lunch the next day which she would simply boil in a hot pot of water. It only takes a few minutes for the sui-gyoza to cook, which are quickly drained and then served with a simple sauce of ponzu (citrus – soy dressing) and spiced with Japanese...

Today, I picked up Bebe from school and afterwards as we walked to the library, she held my hand and simply said to me in that sweet voice of hers, “I love you Mommy very much”, to which I responded, “I love you too.” An older woman happened to be walking nearby and overheard Bebe, and commented to me on how precious these moments are. I wholeheartedly agree. I look back at our year and realize we have much to be...