Just Hungry

Although, I am a bit late on the entry, I just wanted to say thanks for your time, creativity, endless effort, and sharing heart with your two sites.

Since becoming a member about two months or so ago, I have read your post and comments from fellow readers every day.

I’ve used your many helpful ideas and tips and cooking and to this day I have not come across any blog site that so wonderful and helpful and FREE such as yours.

So thanks so much fro a Pacific Islander in South America.

Ciao,
O

Hi Maki, can you tell us how to make seaweed salad and octopus salad? I am not sure if it is real Japanese food but my friends and I are definitely very fond of it. Thank you for the great websites. I made some food last night using your recipes and they turned out wonderful. Keep up the good work!

I came across your site while looking for ways to give my family a more healthy diet. I am doing this by adding more Asian recipes (mostly Japanese and Vietnamese so far) and ingredients to our meals and cutting back on meat and starch.

I live in Phoenix, Arizona and have a hard time accessing the fresh, inexpensive fish and Japanese ingredients that were readily available when we lived in Portland, Oregon. I have resort to what I can find at Korean groceries (for some reason more accessible here than Japanese)and make due with whatever fish happens to be fresh at the store.

I really only wanted to say “great site” and that it would be an often used resource for me. But I do have one question. I read your post about brown rice, which my family loves. I have sister in law who lived in Kyoto for about twenty years and claims that people rarely eat brown rice in Japan. I just wondered if that were true, and if that is changing now. Not that it’s important but I’m just curious.

Hi Maki,
I stumbled about this website via Google while trying to find out how to braise pork belly. Thanks for an incredibly interesting, entertaining, and informative website about Asian cooking. As a second generation Asian American, I am trying to learn how to cook the many delicacies I love from family meals and traveling abroad. I appreciate the posts about seemingly simple things, like how to make tofu and differences among rice cookers and grains of rice.
I too am a Francophone, after spending a year in Lyon. Please post on different discoveries and experiments with Provencial cuisine! I personally loved the seafood and olive oil emphasis (though there will always be a spot for butter in my heart and pantry).

Looking forward to future posts and yummy pork belly!

jenny

Hi Maki,
I was so delighted to find your site while doing research for my family’s visit to Zurich in May. I am looking forward to checking in regularly for recipes and news but am writing to see if you have any food recommendations for family restaurants (we will be taking our seven year old son on his first trip out of the US) near the University, and Niederdorf or Zurich generally. Our son especially likes pizza. We will have a microwave and refrigerator in our hotel room so I imagine I will be shopping at the Coop, markets….Are there any other options for “take out” food?
Any suggestions at all about Zurich will be most welcome.
Thank you again,
Mary

hi Maki — i keep up with just hungry/just bento/hungry for words via RSS, and thought that instead of just lurking, i should thank you for all the great blogs! as a hapa girl who grew up in Okinawa, Japan, moved to Los Angeles, and then ended up marrying a German man, i heart these blogs in a special cultural-swirl kinda way. let’s just say that making your bunny bao from last Easter for my Chinese mom was super oyakoukou-esque, and thanks to some of those bento recipes, no more hungry natsukashii-ness; now i can have full-belly manzoku! thank you for all the care & time you take in crafting the photos and text for each post — your zest for enjoying life is shared and appreciated!

Hi Maki,
(i tried to write you this thank-you note before, but i think my internet connection went all wonky — so if you’ve already seen this, sorry!) in any case, i just wanted to thank you for keeping up such marvelous blogs (i follow just hungry/just bento/hungry for words via RSS). being a hapa girl who grew up in Okinawa and then after moving to America, married a German guy, i especially super-puffy-heart love your blogs in a unique cultural-swirly way. i used to get so natsukashii for certain foods, but thanks to the two “just” sites, i can make them for myself and eat them with my carefully maintained keroppi chopsticks, yay! and this note is what, a year late? because i made those awesome bunny bao for my Chinese mom, and that was definitely oyakoukou-esque. so vielen vielen Dank for all the time & exquisite effort you put into making your blogs fun, beautiful, and practical. keep it up!

Hi Maki-san. A while back, I saw an anime which mentioned making a “Cheese Lemon Custard Chiffon Pie” (チーズレモンカスタードシフォンパイ). There are no English websites on this pie, but I did find a few Japanese pages that mention the pie, but no recipe. I placed links to these Japanese pages on my blog entry about the anime that talked about this pie (if you go to my blog, just use the search function for “cheese lemon custard chiffon pie” and that will take you to my entry, where at the bottom of the entry, you’ll find the links to the Japanese pages).

Anyway, have you ever heard of this pie? I’m really keen on making it so having the help of a native Japanese person fluent in Japanese would be great. Besides, if I actually get to make it, I can report on how it went. ^_^

Thanks!

Dear Maki,

I enjoy reading your site, thank you! Here’s a question for you, and all your readers…

I am doing a small, informal research project on the history/trends in wagashi (food culture) as related to globalization. One topic I am looking at is changes in Wagashi in expatriate communities. I am originally from Hawaii, so I already have a few sources on that, but I don’t have any experience with other communities. Thus, I thought I might ask: what is wagashi like in your country? How is it same or different from what you might find in Japan, expecially in terms of ingredients, preparation, appearance, and occasion? Or, perhaps, how have you adapted your wagashi to your new location?

Dear Maki,

Thanks for providing so much great information. I live in Japan, speak Japanese, and have tried Japanese recipes before, but your site is the only source I’ve found that clearly explains the how and why of Japanese food and cooking techniques in a down-to-earth way. I really like the way your writing avoids the “Japanese mystique” and makes Japanese cooking seem so much more accessible. I hope you have a book deal in the works; I would definitely buy it.

I was wondering if you know anything about sakura-based western-style desserts. What ingredients do people use to get that sakura flavor? Starbucks had an amazing sakura chiffon cake for the past few months, but I haven’t had any luck googling recipes. (I actually wanted to ask you the same thing about yuzu desserts, but from googling it seems like people tend to use yuzu-cha. Cheaters! XD ) Anyway, if you have any hints I would really appreciate it!

Thanks again, I’ve really enjoyed the recipes on this site that I’ve tried, and I can’t wait to try more.