Food Report: Sakura Season 2014

Part 2 First, I’m very jealous of you all in Japan enjoying or about to enjoy the sakura food! I like to follow food trends, so, for posterity, here are some foods from cherry-blossom season 2014. Most of these are from international brands and chains that localize their products for Japan. Just a heads up: I’m not…

Kitchen Library, 2013.8.29: Japanese Food

Putting the focus on links about Japanese food, I submit for your approval adorable animal doughnuts, what is and isn’t healthy about “the Japanese diet,” wagashi, and more!

New Resource: Japan-Friendly Recipes Master List

While living in Japan, I often got frustrated with the availability of ingredients, recipes that didn’t work in my moven, and other challenges to cooking in a Japanese kitchen. Now that I’ve repatriated, I wanted to have a special place on this blog to share Japan-friendly recipes, both my own and those of others, for…

Kabocha Soba Oyaki

The more I learn about cooking and food culture, the more I’ve become fascinated with cultural concepts of portable foods. As I’ve written before, Japan’s main example is onigiri, rice balls, but in the Shinshû/Nagano region, it’s oyaki, the steamed buns often made with savory fillings and soba-flour dough. Combine oyaki with another one of my…

“Deeply Ingrained Advantages”: American Media Discovers Kyûshoku

Can Japan solve America’s food identity crisis? Japan’s relatively low rates of obesity have caught the eye of the American news media, particularly in light of our own new government controls on junk food and measures intended to prevent childhood obesity. In January, The Washington Post ran the article “On Japan’s school lunch menu: A…

Earth Café (Veg* Out in Kanazawa Series)

Earth Café (アースカフェ) Location: Kanazawa City, Ishikawa pref. Type: Café, Lunch Veg Status: Completely vegan Languages: Japanese, English (bilingual menus and staff) To put it simply, Earth Café gets vegan food right. Despite enjoying cooking vegan food at home, I am often wary of it in restaurants. Just because it’s vegan doesn’t mean it’s healthy–…