Flour days

My name is Sonoko Sakai. My home is in Santa Monica, California.  I am Japanese.  I am a home cook. I started this blog in March 2009.  This blog is devoted mostly to home life and Japanese home cooking; you will also find me blogging about other places, Tokyo in particular, which is my other home.

My dream - I want to grow my own buckwheat, make soba by hand, and make people happy.

    The Poetical Pursuit of Food

Japanese Recipes for American Cooks by Sonoko (Kondo) Sakai 

My Grandmother and my mother were my best cooking teachers. I spent a lot of time in their kitchens in Tokyo and Kamakura.  In the mid-80s, I wrote a Japanese cookbook titled The Poetical Pursuit of Food, Japanese Recipes for American Cooks (Potter)  to share their kitchen stories and recipes.  While working in films during these past  twenty years,   I have remained an active home cook and contributed stories to the Los Angeles Times Food Section, Herald Examiner, Saveur magazine and Bungei Shunju.  Since my cookbook came out, more people around the world are eating Japanese food and appreciating its goodness.  Japanese home cooking, however, is still relatively unknown and often misunderstood as something challenging and too exotic to make at home.  I launched this food blog to share my love in Japanese home cooking on a regular basis. Japanese cuisine can actually be quite simple to prepare at home.  It is also very healthy and varietal.  Like any other cuisine, there are some fundamentals you will need to know. You will see how I incorporate Japanese and Western ingredients in my everyday cooking.  Some things that haven't changed at all in the way I cook are my ultimate culinary goals: Health and Pleasure.  Vegetables are at the core of my diet.  I love seafood and meat but I eat them sensibly.  I use locally grown, whole and natural foods whenever possible. I  still practice the poetical pursuit of food, and believe life is art.   

Culinary training: I am a graduate of the Comprehensive Professional Soba-making Course of Tsukiji Soba Acadmy in January 2010.  

All the pictures were taken by me with a Canon G10, unless noted.

 About the Haiku - my 86 year old Father, Toshio Kondo (TK) has written most of them.  He writes about ten a day.  It's the secret to his longevity.    The translation can be better. I need to work on it.

Contact me at sonokosakai@verizon.net.  Your are welcome to send me comments, questions, suggestions and requests as well as corrections. Because of the volume of e mails received, I am unable to answer all e mails so please do not take it personally if I do not answer your inquiry. I do read all of the e-mails.  

Copyright:

All contents of Cooktellsastory.com are copyrighted by Sonoko Sakai, unless stated explicitly otherwise.