Sep 20

Thanks to Leah Zoller (CIR Ishikawa-ken, Anamizu, 2009-11) for sharing the below.  Leah is currently a writer and translator for The Art of Japan: Kanazawa, an art-based tourism project via a METI grant to the Cooperative Association for the Promotion of Kanazawa-Kaga Maki-e in Kanazawa, Ishikawa.

Ishikawa AJET has just published a digital cookbook for charity.  The book is designed for the English-speaking expat in Japan.

CLICK HERE for details and to purchase the Ishikawa AJET Digital Cookbook.

When I moved to rural Ishikawa in 2009, I had to entirely revamp my philosophy on cooking: how to work with the ingredients I had available in my small town; how to cook without a full-size oven; how to deal with metric measurements; and how to cook for one. I started this project with the hope that any JET, regardless of cooking skill or Japanese language ability, could arrive in Japan and immediately have a guide to simple home-cooking and be able to make the food s/he wants to eat.

The recipes are written in English with the Japanese terms for the ingredients right on the page, along with helpful hints for navigating the grocery store. Measurements are in metrics, and the recipes are meant for Japanese kitchen equipment, so you never have to worry about recipes not fitting in the oven range or not cooking through. Furthermore, 30 JETs and friends and I did extensive testing on the recipes to make sure they all were easy to understand and actually worked correctly. The recipes are a mixture of Japanese, foreign, and fusion food, and include a large number vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free recipes.

Because this is a pdf, we were able to save on printing costs and keep things more environmentally friendly. The pdf is interactive: there are hotlinks to recipes from the indices, and the document is searchable. Our design team did a fantastic job, and it’s a very useful friendly layout.

The cookbook costs 1000 yen, and all proceeds go to Second Harvest Japan, a charity that brings food and supplies to food banks, orphanages, single mothers, immigrants, et al. This charity has been critical in the relief efforts after the Tohoku Earthquake.

The original post on the Ishikawa JET Blog is here: http://ishikawajet.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/master-cooking-in-japan-with-the-ishikawa-kitchen/

Payment options include using paypal for a downloadable pdf (see link) or contacting AJET directly at ishikawaajet@gmail.com to pay via furikomi and receive the document by email.


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