When I first started writing about cooking with Japanese ingredients in unorthodox yet simple and delicious ways, way back in the 90s in Japan, I knew that I couldn’t be the ONLY person interested in cooking this way. I knew that using global ingredients to breathe fresh life into simple dishes we already know how to cook — eggs, salads, rice dishes, simply prepared fish and meat dishes, pasta, etc. — was fun, nourishing, liberating, healthy, and even life-changing — because our steady stream of really happy guests confirmed it. Busy people who grew up eating “ethnic” cooking in restaurants were especially open to simple combinations of great produce/meats/fish with “ethnic” flavors like miso, tamarind, lemongrass, umeboshi, etc., with recurring starring roles from ace ingredients like Greek yogurt, pickled ginger, flavored salts, fresh herbs in large quantities, good oils, etc. Sometimes in my cooking classes I hand out the above schemata just to give the whole idea a slightly more visual flavor.
I’ve been encouraged by all the comments, emails, and feedback I get from readers. It’s kind of a cool little tribe we have here, and I’m grateful to the entire breakaway community.
My idea du jour: I’d love to open up this space to anyone who’d like to contribute a short essay and photo on some aspect of breakaway cooking. If you’ve got a killer breakaway dish, idea, or even experience that you think the community would enjoy, just let me know. I will of course continue to do most of the writing, but the parachuting of our baby daughter into the world sometime around November 21 means, perforce, that I’ll have a lot less time on my hands! Lots more on that development later!
