Elizabeth White (Toyama-ken, 1995-98)

Here’s a link to the JET alum writing on their site, including the latest column by Devon Brown (Tokyo-ken, 2002-04) titled “Taking One for the Team.”

And here are links to columns from past issues:

BACK ISSUES – JET Alumni Association
2008 Issues: December • June • May • April • March • February • January
2007 Issues: December • November • October • September • August • July • June • May • April • March

For anyone interested in contributing to future issues of Sushi & Sake, please feel free to contact Elizabeth via e-mail.

Happy hanami season, everyone!

JET alumni Kevin and Aaron seek to educate the masses about Japanese manners on their new blog, iSpeakJapanese. The video covers all the basics that can be a mystery to gaijin, including indoor and outdoor shoes, chopsticks, and tipping as well and a funny tale to boot.

MEF alum Bruce Rutledge, founder of the Chin Music Press in Seattle introduces new members of his staff.

Devon Brown (Tokyo-to, 2002-2004) shares her tips for a hanami picnic this weekend.

Devon Brown (Tokyo-to, 2002-04) is a freelance writer with a focus on food.  You can read more of her writing at TravelingTastebuds.blogspot.com.

Everyone knows how to boil pasta, right? -Think about the last soggy rigatoni salad you ate before you answer that question. The good news, is that making perfect pasta is easy is if you know the rules.

To find out what those rules are, click here.

Have you ever walked into a Mexican restaurant only to find it staffed entirely by Chinese people? For those of you outside the New York area, I’m sure the answer is no. Last week I wrote a piece about this subject for bushwickbk.com and thought it might be interesting to share with a wider audience.

In 1991, motivated by the market saturation of Chinese restaurants, a Chinese immigrant named Mr. Zheng opened…

Click here for the rest of the story

America is a wonderful place and I have to thank Alex Russel and his guest post for introducing me to an American snack original: musubi. Hawaii is known for mixing and melding multiple cultures to create something that is uniquely Hawaiian and Spam musubi is a crown jewel in this tradition. Made with spam, the ubiquitous canned ham brought to the islands by World War II soldiers, musubi proves to be a hearty snack worthy of the President of the United States. You can take Obama out of Hawaii, but…

Click Here for the rest of the story

Call me jealous because I am. I do not have a mixer. I have neither the counter space nor an extra $300 for one of those beautiful KitchenAid mixers that comes in so many lovely shades. The only good thing about being mixer-less, is that I get to be really self-righteous when it comes recipes that call for mixers, but could easily be done by hand. For those of you who suffer from this same affliction, there is a nice consolation prize.

Living in Japan I baked a lot…

*Click here for the rest of the story and a great cookie recipe.*

Devon Brown (Tokyo-to, 2002-04) shares her thoughts on making do without quality tomatoes during the winter season (although the jarringly springlike weather this past week would seem to indicate that summer might not be as far off as we think).

James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of The Order of Odd-Fish, shares his charmingly illustrated experience of visiting an old friend while meeting some new fans.

For about a year I was holed up in my apartment writing articles I would never allow people to read. I only shared my work in large anonymous or protected forums like writing contests or classes. My work needed to be out there, but I wasn’t ready to stand behind it.

But now it’s time for me to take a step out into public as a writer and I feel like I’m stepping in front of a batting machine. On the first anniversary of my writing career, I am jello soft and unprepared for the inevitable criticism that lies ahead. People are actually reading my blog and I write two regular columns accessible to anyone with internet access. On the web, everything is open for comment and I fear the next snide remark or disagreement with my opinions will break me.

I need some quick advice about building backbone from some of you veterans out there because the balls are flying and I can only bob and weave for so long. To all seasoned writers, bloggers, authors and artists did this happen to you and how did you deal with it?

Help out Devon and other JET alum writers by posting your comments below.  Yoroshiku!

Devon Brown (Tokyo-to, 2002-04) is a freelance writer with a focus on food.  You can read more of her writing at TravelingTastebuds.blogspot.com.

Remember about a year ago when the whole microwave popcorn = cancer thing broke out? After years of eating a snack that smelled like hot plastic and left a slight tingle on my tongue I came to the conclusion that maybe it was time to put the packets away and return to the old fashioned method. So over this past year I’ve pretty much perfected the process and a recent blog post by famed food writer Michael Rhulman inspired me to share because, while his method is good, mine is better. http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2009/01/popcorn.html#comments

Click here to read the rest of the post…

]]> http://jetwit.com/wordpress/2009/02/02/traveling-tastebuds-how-to-pop-every-kernel/feed/ 0 http://jetwit.com/wordpress/2009/01/26/growing-pains-a-freelancers-follow-up-by-devon-brown/ http://jetwit.com/wordpress/2009/01/26/growing-pains-a-freelancers-follow-up-by-devon-brown/#comments Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:30:19 +0000 jetwit http://jetwit.com/wordpress/?p=2968 Devon Brown (Tokyo-to, 2002-04) is a freelance writer with a focus on food.  You can read more of her writing at TravelingTastebuds.blogspot.com.

In a recent post titled “Growing Pains”, she sought some perspective on the business of freelance writing.  In a subsequent JetWit post, we aggregated the responses of writers in the JET alum community in response to Devon’s question.  Below she shares her new perspective:

Growing Pains: A follow up on an over edited piece by a newbie freelance writer

The jury is in and it seems I’ll just have to man up.

The freelance writing world can be a cold hard place and the fact that I’m getting paid and will have a byline in a national mag is going to have to be consolation for my hurt ego.  The rational part of me knows that magazines have their own voice and until I’m so big and famous that they’re willing to pay me $5 for every single word I type, I’m gonna have to deal.

Thank you to everyone who offered up some insight.  I  heard of some horror stories that I hope to never experience myself.

On the upside, I did get a final PDF of my piece.  Seeing it in print was awesome!

Ok, it lacks the sophistication of sashimi and the artisanship of kaiseki, but of all the school lunches that were put in front of me those first few weeks living in Japan, curry rice was the only thing that made me feel like I might not wither away in a world of seaweed wrapped rice balls and soups brimming with tiny dried fish with tiny black eyes.

Even lukewarm (as almost every Japanese school lunch is served lukewarm) it still tasted good. As a matter of fact I have never in my life eaten as many cold meals as I did in Japan. Ice cold hamburger covered in gravy anyone? Maybe it’s best to save that rant for another post because this is about celebrating a dish that has crossed nations to bring warmth to the stomachs and minds of not only finicky expats, but Japanese natives as well.

I’m sure this will come as a shock, but curry is not native to Japan and didn’t even become popular until the 1960′s. We have British colonialism, that wonderful melder of cultures, to thank for its introduction from India.

The weather is getting colder and my stock pot is begging for a chance bubble and permeate the walls of my kitchen with the smell my mother once described as “ethnic”. For those of you who haven’t tried it, Japanese curry is only bested by instant ramen as the easiest Japanese meal to recreate here at home. You need only dissolve a few curry briquettes, found at your local Asian food store, into a pot of boiled veggies and meat before you are brought back to the days of multi-coursed school meals accompanied by profane rap music (that only you can understand) blasting over the PA system.