Home Cooking with Japan's First Lady: Family Dishes from the Hatoyama Kitchen - Softcover

Hatoyama, Miyuki

Softcover

ISBN 10: 4770031319 ISBN 13: 9784770031310

Publisher: Kodansha USA, 2010

Synopsis

In Home Cooking With Japan's First Lady, Miyuki Hatoyama offers 40 original recipes for healthy, delicious food that's as easy as it is fun to prepare. Ranging from quick meals that can be put together in a few minutes, family favorites and party foods made simple, to comfort dishes with a splash of modernity, all the recipes have been created by Hatoyama and are the culmination of years of experience. An exciting and innovative blend of Japanese and Asian cuisine with Western touches, using ingredients readily available in the U.S., every dish reflects Hatoyama's inimitable flair. In addition to the recipes, the book features a foreword by Yukio Hatoyama, the Prime Minster of Japan; attractive full-color photos of each dish and its preparation; and essays about her own philosophy of cooking and hospitality.

About this title

About the Author

MIYUKI HATOYAMA is the wife of Yukio Hatoyama, Japan's 93rd Prime Minister and the seventh President of the Democratic Party of Japan. Born in Shanghai, she was raised in Kobe, Japan, where she attended Missionary school. After a brief career as an actress in theater and television, she moved to the U.S. when she was in her twenties. It was here that she developed her interest in cooking, learning a great deal from American recipes, and merging them with her own unique taste. It was here, also, that she met Yukio Hatoyama and gave birth to her first son in California. After ten years, the family returned to Japan, where Miyuki supported her husband's political career. Her cooking, already enjoyed by so many in the States, began to gain popularity in Japan, along with her affable, unpretentious personality. Miyuki Hatoyama is now the author of three cookbooks in Japanese; Home Cooking With Japan's First Lady is her first book in English.

Reviews

Readers expecting a collection of quaint, traditional Japanese dishes from Hatoyama, wife of Japan's Prime Minister (who provides a foreword), will be pleasantly surprised at the variety and quality in this slim collection of recipes originally prepared for the Hatoyamas' friends and family. Over the course of four sections (family favorites, comfort food, fast appetizers and "my best recipes"), Hatoyama provides a number of toothsome surprises; expected dishes like Yellowtail Shabu-Shabu are the exception rather than the rule, exemplified in creative, eclectic fare like Tuna Carpaccio, Breaded Lamb Chops, Whisky-battered Seafood, Baked Napa Cabbage en Cocotte, and a simple Prosciutto and Cream Cheese Salad. Though Hatoyama's instructions are clear and easy to follow, readers may encounter some frustration: one recipe calls for an oven heated to the odd temperature of 390ºF (unobtainable without digital temperature controls), and a recipe for Roasted Ham and Pineapple instructs cooks to preheat the oven to 325ºF, then "increase the oven temperature to 220ºF." If they can overlook the occasional error, the only complaint from fans of eclectic Asian flavors will be the book's brevity.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Kodansha USA
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 4770031319
• ISBN 13: 9784770031310
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 104