Makiko Itoh

Makiko Itoh first became aware of her deep rooted love for the food of her home country, Japan, when she moved far away. Living in a place with only limited access to Japanese ingredients, she began to improvise ways to recreate the flavors of her childhood. Her first food blog, Just Hungry, was born as a result. A few years later she became obsessed with bento box lunches, those compact portable meals her mother used to make for her to bring to school back in Tokyo. Convinced that healthy, tasty more-than-a-sandwich-in-a-brown-bag meals would be popular around the world, she started a second food blog 2007 called Just Bento.

A former graphic and web designer and tech writer, she approaches the subject of food and cooking instruction in much the same way as tackling a programming problem, breaking it down into manageable parts and presenting the steps methodically. Ever a nomad, after living in Japan, the U.S., the U.K. and France, she is now back living in Switzerland with her husband, aka "the spousal unit". She has a monthly column on Japanese food in the Japan Times.