バリバリ (baribari): (Japanese onomatopoeia) crunchy, crispy, the sound of tearing, gung-ho.

The three of us were sitting at a Vietnamese restaurant in Nagano. Having eaten Vietnamese all of once before moving to Japan, I poked at a noodle dish with my chopsticks. “I think there’s coconut milk in this sauce,” I said. “Coconut milk’s not that hard to find. I wonder how you make this.”

“L, the conclusion you always come to is ‘I’ll make it myself!'” my friend said. Her friend, who had only met me yesterday, nodded vigorously.

I’ve spent hours pondering over the making of the mysterious シターパルカレー (kabocha curry) at the Indian restaurant near the station. Spent weeks perfecting cookie recipes to work in my Japanese oven range. I spend meals out with friends talking about other food we’ve eaten.

I came to Japan to start a career in cultural exchange, but it was in Japan that I truly learned how to cook.  I post a lot of my food pictures to facebook and I write about life in Japan on three other blogs, but until now, there’s been nowhere for me to share my food experiences and recipes. And so, of course, there was only one possible option for the title of this blog:

I’ll make it myself! 自分で作るぞ！