Time for the year-end wrap up! 明けましておめでとうございます！
Top Posts of 2015 (published in 2015)
I hosted my first Feminist Friday on this blog for my blogging group.
I discovered a vegan mock unagi (Japanese eel) recipe.
I started recapping a postwar (1956) guide Japanese cookbook for American GI’s wives. Which I should finish.
I gave someone a rare gift–and they wanted it.
I made a damn good dairy-free cake.
I went back to Japan during Halloween and ate all the Halloween pastries.
Bonus
My favorite (crack) post I wrote: “Will Graham Goes Grocery Shopping“
My favorite recipe I published: Ful Medames with Fresh Fava Beans (I made this a lot in Japan and it took me 3 years to publish!)
Did I Meet my 2015 Goals?
Cook with mushrooms. Faux-unagi was a great start, but I want more!
My partner and I took second place in the JETAA Iron Chef competition’s Shiitake Challenge. (Although I haven’t really published any mushroom recipes here.)
Work with fondant, then make my own. I think this will take my fandom desserts up a notch.
Cook with my new Sprinkle Bakes cookbook C got me for my birthday because they are a goddamn treasure.
I made the Sprinkle Bakes Anatomical Heart Cake, which uses fondant, but otherwise did mostly buttercream for my geeky cakes. I did make fricking sprinkles, though.
Also, my absolute food idol Janice Poon featured the cake on Feeding Hannibal.
Learn to cook with local berries. I made some gooseberry tarts last year that never made it onto the blog, but I also want to cook with marionberries and huckleberries.
Boom! Strawberry-Gooseberry Pie and Rhubarb Berry Crisp!
Make rice-cooker cakes again. My parents got me a Zoujirushi rice cooker for my birthday, and I’m very pleased with it so far.
This one was kind of a fail–I made chai bread, but I wasn’t 100% satisfied with how much it rose, so I need to make/buy more chai mix and do it again.
Shop at the farmers’ markets more. I try to go to one every other week if I don’t have weekend plans, but I want to get more of my basic produce there instead of just fruit and wine.
My partner and I have gone every Sunday that we’ve been in town since spring. Here’s a recipe I made with some of the pasta and produce I bought there this summer.
2016 Goals
-Finish the review of Japanese Food and Cooking (1956) – my copy of the book has a couple chapters missing from a printing error, so I need to consult Google Books.
-Help use the ridiculous amount of bread flour we have at home by making rice-cooker breads and publish at least two rice-cooker recipes. Priority: chai bread.
-Make fondant from scratch.
-Learn how to make cocktails with all the unusual bitters and liquors C has (rhubarb bitters? chokecherry liquor?)
-Make agedashi dofu from scratch.
May all your cooking dreams come true in 2016!
I'll Make It Myself! 
If you wanted to do chai bread when I was in town, that’d be okay with me. :)
Noted ;) Need to make that chai spice mix and JUST DO IT–it’s just like 3 hours of turning the cake and warm functions on and off ><
Making fondant from scratch is not that bad. I’ve done it a number of times to make chocolate covered cherries. The trick is to give yourself lots…. of time! If you try to rush it or change up the recipe at all, it can get gritty.
I’m interested in reading more about your rice cooker breads. I hate to run the oven in summer, so I’m always experimenting with crockpots and pressure cookers. I’ve never considered using a rice cooker to make bread.
Looks like you have a fun year planned for us. : )
Thanks for the comment and the advice–glad to hear from someone who’s done it before! I think the fondant will have to be a weekend project :3
I’m going to try chai bread v.2 this week and hope to report back!