{"id":13668,"date":"2010-09-18T12:36:37","date_gmt":"2010-09-18T16:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=13668"},"modified":"2010-09-18T12:39:21","modified_gmt":"2010-09-18T16:39:21","slug":"interview-with-jet-alumfood-sake-tokyo-author-yukari-sakamoto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2010\/09\/18\/interview-with-jet-alumfood-sake-tokyo-author-yukari-sakamoto\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview with JET alumna\/’Food Sake Tokyo’ author Yukari Sakamoto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By JQ <\/em>magazine<\/strong><\/a>\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Justin Tedaldi<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>(CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page<\/em> here<\/a><\/strong> to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

Tokyo-born and American-raised JET alumna\u00a0Yukari Sakamoto<\/a> <\/strong>(Chiba-ken, 1989-1990) is a professional chef, sommelier, and writer who has spent much of her life in both the U.S. and Japan. Released earlier this year, her debut book Food Sake Tokyo<\/a><\/strong> <\/em>is the ideal guide for indulging in the best of Tokyo dining and drinking, whether you\u2019re a first-time visitor or a Japanophile foodie keen on discovering new favorites.<\/p>\n

How were you approached to write this book as part of the Terroir Guides series?
\n<\/strong>I contribute to Food & Wine<\/em> magazine and my travel editor there at the time, Salma Abdelnour, told me about the publisher The Little Bookroom. She praised their travel guides and thought my book would find a good home there. My agent, Lisa Ekus, sent my proposal to The Little Bookroom, and the publisher, Angela Hederman, embraced it immediately. The Little Bookroom has a series of foodie travel guides called the Terroir Guides, and my book was a perfect fit\u2014like Cinderella\u2019s glass slipper. I have heard how difficult it is to find a publisher who will accept a book proposal, and I am blessed to have found the perfect home.<\/p>\n

In the introduction to your book, you write that the popularity of the Slow Food movement has created a renewed appreciation for kyodo ryori<\/em>, or local foods. How long has this movement been going on, and what started it?<\/strong>
\nThe Slow Food movement has been popular for a long time. What has been extremely popular in the last few years are \u201cantenna shops.\u201d These regional shops represent prefectures from around Japan that feature local produce, beverages, and foods. For example, the Okinawa Washita shop in Ginza has a basement filled with awamori <\/em>(the local shochu<\/em>), including rare brands hard to find outside of Okinawa. The first floor has tropical fruits and vegetables and local specialties like shimadofu<\/em>, a dense tofu, and shikuwasa<\/em>, a citrus juice. I cannot say for sure what started it, but there are several contributing factors. Food safety scares and mislabeling of imported product have encouraged more consumption of local products. Popular food and travel programs promote regional specialties. And, there are an increasing number of ambassadors, like the governor of Miyazaki [Prefecture], Hideo Higashikokubaru, who enthusiastically promote Miyazaki products like wagyu<\/em>, mangoes, etc. I am always impressed at the number of customers at antenna shops. I often go out my way to shop at antenna shops to pick up rare shochu<\/em>, hard to find miso, or pickles.<\/p>\n

There are more than 100,000 restaurants in Tokyo. How did you pare it down to the ones listed in the book?<\/strong>
\nFirst of all, I focused on restaurants that represented a particular cuisine. And then I narrowed down the list based on geography, leaning toward easy to find restaurants, or those included in one of the areas covered by the book. I have lived in Tokyo for eight years and ate out a lot while there. Tokyo is a great dining city, especially for solo diners.<\/p>\n

Read the complete\u00a0interview here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JQ magazine\u2019s\u00a0Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02)\u00a0for Examiner.com.\u00a0Visit his NY Japanese Culture\u00a0page here to subscribe for free alerts\u00a0on newly published stories. Tokyo-born and American-raised JET alumna\u00a0Yukari Sakamoto (Chiba-ken, 1989-1990) is a professional chef, sommelier, and writer who has spent much of her life in both the U.S. and Japan. Released earlier this year, her debut […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,40,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-books","category-interviewprofile"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-3ys","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13671,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13668\/revisions\/13671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}