Welcome to The Avocado’s weekly discussion of Japanese pop culture! Earlier this week I got my copy of Makiko Itoh’s newest cookbook, Real Japanese Cooking. I’ve been following her progress for a couples years on Patreon, so I already knew this was a real labor of love, but now that I have it I am blown away by how thorough and complete it is. If you’ve ever wanted to try cooking Japanese food, this really does seem like only book you need. It has everything! I’ve written about Itoh’s recipes and books before, so you already know I’m a big fan. But to quickly recap, I started using Itoh’s Just Bento website and books in college when I first became interested in Japanese cooking, and I learned so much. Itoh creates accessible recipes that are easy to understand, and she includes smart substitution suggestions too, both of which were very important to me as an inexperienced cook living in a very small Texas town without access to many ingredients. Even now that I’ve gotten a little more confident in the kitchen, I still rely on easy-to-comprehend recipes and need help with ingredients substitutions. So I very much appreciate Itoh’s approach to recipes.

But my favorite thing about this book so far is all of the cultural explanations that she included. I’m actually reading this cookbook, not just looking at recipes. I’m currently working my way through the book, marking the recipes I know I’ll want to try first (most of them are for New Year’s dishes), but I’ll of course share when I start to make stuff! If you’re looking for a Japanese cookbook, I highly recommend you consider this one!

And, as always…

What have you been watching/reading/playing/eating/listening to lately?

Happy Wednesday! 🍙