One of the simplest of sandwiches that I enjoy is a fresh cucumber sandwich on Japanese shokupan (morning toast). It’s reminiscent of a tea sandwich, yet lacks the daintiness that is typically associated with a tea sammy. After all, if you’re only going to eat cucumbers, your sandwich is going to need to be a tad bit on the “hefty” side. Over the summer I was the happy recipient of fresh organic Japanese kyuri or...
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There’s really no great English translation for “hiyashi chyuka” that would embody the true deliciousness of one of my favorite summer-time Japanese dishes. The dish is essentially cold aldente ramen noodles served on a plate and garnished with fresh vegetables and proteins. It might be difficult not to conjure up an image in one’s head of instant ramen noodles served cold on a plate. The noodles are not similar to that...
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Have you ever gone grocery shopping and lost a bag of groceries? If not, welcome to my world! I can laugh about it now, but there was a moment of confusion (sadly this confusion struck three hours after I returned from the market and not as I was putting groceries away) when I couldn’t find the cantaloupe that Bebe picked out for us. I thought that it might have rolled out of the bag in the trunk of our car… but alas that...
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One of the things about Mondays that I just can’t seem to shake is that I often feel as though I’m recovering from the weekend. While that statement might have had a different meaning in my twenties where I was often recovering from late nights dancing and clubbing with my besties, today, it means something entirely different. It means that we spent some time on Saturday in the hot sun at Nene’s (Bebe’s big sis)...
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At times I get homesick for my Mom’s cooking. Despite our recent warmer weather, we had a slight cooling trend with a touch of June gloom which prompted a craving for tonjiru, or traditional Japanese pork soup. It’s a miso based soup and the ingredients might vary just slightly from one family to the next, but ours consistently includes carrots, onions, gobo (burdock root), konyaku (devil’s tongue root), and pork. Usually,...
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In my culture, there are certain Asian-fusion dishes that usually make an appearance at potlucks. One such dish is the ramen salad. If you didn’t grow-up going to Japanese-American boy scout jamborees and Eagle Scout ceremonies, or Japanese-Hawaiian family potlucks where there are always jello cheesecake squares (recipe available here) and soy sauce chicken (recipe available here) next to the ramen salad, it wouldn’t be uncommon...
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I have a black thumb. Unfortunately, I didn’t inherit my paternal grandfather’s amazing green thumb and ability to grow gorgeous rose gardens, tall beautiful sunflowers, wisteria nor every vegetable imaginable. My grandparents grew everything from fig trees, strawberries, avocado, lettuce, edamame, corn, potatoes, brown onions, green onions, peas, and of course Japanese cucumbers, to name a few. Me? An occasional container of basil,...
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I’m not sure about everyone else, but I often find lone vegetables in the crisper drawer of my refrigerator calling out for attention. These little guys are often overlooked because there is only one or two of them left, or even worse, only half of something is wrapped up in plastic wrap such as half a zucchini or onion. On this day, I had two very small yellow squash leftover from a pasta salad that I made, in addition to an almost...
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