++My Cooking Style++

Although I enjoy cooking in various styles, a lot of the things I cook use traditional Japanese food ingredients, like dried vegetables, beans, seaweed and vegetables in season (which I just love!!).
In terms of seasonings and food material, I like to cook with ingredients that are in season, organic, chemical-free and are made with old-style method.

When I cook at home, I tend to cook new recipes with typical Japanese food ingredients, rather than traditional dishes, simply because it is more fun to try new tastes and ideas when I cook. (I don’t so much enjoy cooking something I already know what it tastes like). And so the recipes I prepare for my workshop is a combination of traditional Japanese dishes along with dishes arranged into something more modern, using Japanese food ingredients.

Although my cooking style is very simple, a lot of people have described my cooking as being very “unique” ,“healthy” and “well-balanced”.

Our food diet gives us a very strong feeling of our seasons, and not only "shun" (in season) is the best time when those such food taste the best, it is also the time when our body should take them in, and so my daily menus, as well as my worshop menus are structured to value the sense of our 4 seasons.

I also have great interest in regional foods in Japan. Our regional food culture is so rich in variation and full of gray wisdom, which I think is very interesting to learn. My other interest is studying old recipes from Edo period (1603~1867). Edo period was a time when publishing became very popular and is said that several hundred cookbooks were published during this period. Since the current seasonings like soy sauce, miso, food ingredients, and cooking conditions are not the same as back then, it is almost impossible to accurately reproduce the recipes. Yet a lot of the recipes are full of creativity and are also very interesting to learn. And so I have incorporated some regional food menus as well as menus from Edo period in my workshop as well.