My Love for Cooking and Food 10/12/09
October 13, 2009
I have been always interested in food. One of my college friends from Toho Conservatory in Tokyo, who is a trombone player, told us one night that each dinner is very important because we will eat only about 25,000 dinners for the rest of our lives. We were 20 years old, and that was his estimate. I thought “Oh My Gosh!! That sounds so few occasions–” (of course I thought in Japanese!!) . I have had some undesirable food, but occasionally I have reminded myself about his wisdom.
Food is a big portion of our culture! As a Japanese I always take food as medicine too. Isn’t it great to enjoy your meal and it will became good for your health?? First of all I think it is beneficial to eat many different food a day (we believe 30 different food a day!) because each one has own value. I try to eat little bit of everything! And seasonable vegetable has a strong nutrition. For instance strawberries in summer have better quality than ths ones in winter. At home my breakfast includes brown rice, seaweed soup with anchovies, natto (farmented soy beans!! My husband hates it!), umeboshi (salty plumes!! again my husband hates it!!), yogurt with topping of granola, soy-powder, sesame-powder, prunes, wheat bran, whole ground flaxseed, and seasonable fruits (often I get oranges and grapefruits from our back yard) , OJ, milk, and green tea. Of course I take little bit of everything. My husband eats cereal, and joins me for the part of Western food!
I love cooking! I love playing with food! It is nice to hear nice comments from family and friends on my cooking. Cooking is relaxing and creative. I usually don’t follow recipe. I open the fridge and start combining the food. That is fun!
We eat 3 times a day, and it is important to enjoy the food. Also food can be poisonous, and can be healthy. I don’t think it is good to eat “Sugar Free and Fat Free” kind of food all the time because it does not taste good so we eat more or we are not satisfied after eating. And I heard (I don’t have scientific proof) that the process of making caffeine-free coffee is worse than taking caffeine. Well—caffeine exists naturally in many food.
I will cook Salmon with Daikon (fall-winter is the best season to eat Daikon which is Asian white radish) topping, Abura-age & Gan-modoki (kinds of Tofu), sliced seaweed and Daikon stew, brown rice, and potato salad (left over!) for tonight. Fun fun fun–!