Now, lest you get any crazy ideas… no, I do not have a cookbook deal to announce. No, this will never be available for purchase. No, most of these recipes will never be posted on Fridgg (my mother would murder me). And no, I will never be writing my own cookbook (I’ll leave that to the other Allison Day, who does quite a fine job of it! Seriously, go buy her cookbooks, she’s awesome.)

No, this was just a little pet project, that turned into a really big pet project, that we finally finished just in time to order them and hand deliver each and every one of them to all my family members at Thanksgiving last year.

Suffice to say, if I ever had any urge to write a cookbook, I’ve gotten it all out now. Between cooking, photographing, writing, designing, and editing an entire cookbook, we nearly lost our minds… and we didn’t even have to develop the recipes! Mad respect for all the actual published cookbook authors out there – it’s a heck of a lot of work.

Sadly, both of the people who inspired me to put together this cookbook – my grandmother, who was responsible for all these recipes becoming family favorites, and my dad, who wrote the original “Mrs. Kaji’s Cookbook” when I was a child – passed away before we finished this project. However I was lucky enough to be able to show both of them a good number of the photos before they passed away, and both were very happy with the result.

So why am I sharing this now? Well, today would have been my grandmother’s birthday, so I figure there’s no better day to show off something we made in her honor.

Plus it’s just a really good excuse to show off the photography that Son did for the cookbook. (And I also want to point out – LOOK AT HOW BEAUTIFULLY HE DESIGNED THE ENTIRE COOKBOOK. He’s amazing.)

So, without further ado, here are all the dishes and photos that went into the cookbook:

okazu, stir-fried vegetables

crescent tuna melt

spaghetti casserole

barbecued frankfurters, tempura

spaghetti sauce

beef stew

enchiladas

teriyaki chicken

sweet and sour chicken wings, fish sticks

miso soup

fried rice

potato salad, chicken chow mein

cube steak, family steak teriyaki

lazy man’s pot roast

burrito meat, strawberry jam

chocolate layer cake with chocolate ganache

tsukemono, seven layer dip

cheese roll

rice stuffing, bread stuffing

candied yams, yam pie

banana cream pie

cream puffs, gelatin salad, finger jello

ritz cracker peanut butter sandwich cookies

snickerdoodles

date bars, refrigerator cookies

pecan bars

rolo pretzels, shoyu almonds

shoyu chex mix, hot chocolate mix

wontons

(This was our cover photo, hence the odd layout.)

stuffed somen salad

chinese chicken salad, shrimp and cucumber tsunemono

deep-fried pork strips

First thing in the morning on Saturday, we headed off to the airport.

And ate some slightly crushed macarons for breakfast.

This is a totally normal thing to do in Europe, I promise.

We jumped on an Air Berlin plane.

On our flight within Germany, there was a group of guys goofing off, and going up and down the aisle. In the US they might have been met with annoyance, but here the flight attendants let them make an announcement over the comm system. We couldn’t understand a thing they said (it was all in German, of course), but these guys had the entire flight cracking up.

Soon, we landed in…

Dusseldorf!

Just kidding, this was a short layover before our final destination.

Off we go again.

(This time with snacks!)

And soon, we landed in Venice.

Our true destination!

Since the airport itself is on the mainland, we had to find transportation to get to the island of Venice. I believe there’s a train you could take, or you could hire a taxi to drive you to the island.

But come on, this is Venice! Of course we took the Vaporetto.

It’s a bit of a long walk from the terminal to the Vaporetto.

But soon, we made it to the docks.

It was a very bumpy ride on the Alilaguna water bus, definitely an interesting experience.

We took the orange line to the Rialto stop.

Hello, Venice!

We made our way away from the Grand Canal, in search of our hotel.

The area just east of the Rialto is quite touristy, with lots of high-end shops. We breezed past there as quickly as we could, and avoided it for the most of the rest of the trip.

Soon, after a few twists and turns (and wondering if we’d gotten lost), we found our hotel – the Superior Starhotels Hotel.

After a little trouble with our room key (we had to get it reprinted twice), we dropped our backpack in the room and headed out to explore.

Sadly, we neglected to get any photos of our room (we take so many photos every time we travel, but always neglect to get a photograph of our hotel room!) But it was the most charming room, with a beautiful, private view a quieter canal.

We didn’t get far before stopping for gelato.

When in Italy…

After all, it was quite a warm day…

And I’m pretty sure my five year-old self would have been quite pleased to learn I had ice cream for breakfast at least once in my life!

One of the lovely things about being further north than we’re used to in late spring, is how late it stays light outside.

In LA at this time of year, the sun would be setting before 8pm.

But in Stuttgart, we’d get more than an extra hour of sunlight every evening.

This came especially in handy midway through our time in Stuttgart – we were there for just over a week, arriving in Germany on a Tuesday evening and leaving a week later on a Wednesday morning.

On Friday, after several long days of work, our German coworkers decided it was time for everyone to go party!

So at around 7pm that evening (though with that light, doesn’t it look like it’s first thing in the morning?!) we all hopped on the train.

And headed to…

The Stuttgart Spring Festival!

Apparently this festival is quite a big deal.

We were told people travel from all around to attend this festival. And apparently it’s quite common for everyone to don their lederhosen and dirndl for the festival – the closer we got to the festival, the more people we saw dressed up!

The festival is huge, filled with all sorts of rides, carnival games, and dozens of food stalls.

We found a table with all of our coworkers, then each of us gradually wandered off to find something to eat.

(So many options!)

Son and I started off with probably the least German food at the entire festival – salmon salad with honey mustard sauce.

(After all the rich food we’d been eating in Europe, we were craving something a little lighter and healthier.)

But not to worry!

Our health kick didn’t last long.

When in Germany… gotta try the currywurst.

And, of course, couldn’t skip the bratwurst!

After all that, it was time to find dessert.

We kept coming back to this Baumstriezel shop… so finally decided to try one.

Baumstriezel is like a very thin rolled pretzel, backed on cylindrical forms, then coated in whatever topping you desire.

We got a cinnamon-sugar baumstriezel – very tasty.

Then got to watch drunken Germans dancing on tables to American country music.

As you do.

We headed back to the hotel after that… it may be the weekend, but we had an early morning the next day! After all, there’s so much to discover in Europe, had to make the most of it…

Refrigerator tetris.

Lunch with a good friend.

Bánh bột lọc for breakfast.

Everything… is beautiful… at the ballet!

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Love this idea. Who would your alter ego be?

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Where are you wandering this week?

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Especially in Stuttgart. Germany was by far the greenest (both in color and in eco-friendliness) of the countries we visited.

Coming from California, where we’re perpetually in a drought… all this green (and cold, and rain) is unheard of for us.

So beautiful.

While in Stuttgart, our coworkers took us out somewhere around the city every night of our trip.

The first night was at a restaurant called Cafe del Sol, which one might compare to a Red Robin or a Cheesecake Factory – huge, loud, great for groups, with a long menu of food that wasn’t anything amazing, but wasn’t bad either.

(I got the Penne Honey – honey mustard sauce on penne with chicken and rocket – which wasn’t bad, while Son tried the “Asian Noodles”… which had very little to do with anything we’d consider Asian. I wasn’t feeling too hot that day, so we didn’t get any photos.)

The second day, they had reservations at a restaurant named Hegel Eins.

(By the way, it was explained to us that in Germany, graffiti is more a form of street art, and not necessarily a sign of a bad neighborhood like it often is in the US.)

The restaurant was located in a museum, and was completely empty when we all arrived.

It was a very interesting, but also very odd place.

When it came time to order, Son opted for the Weiner Schnitzel.

I decided to try the Rabbit Ragu.

(Between the two of us, Son definitely made the better choice. His weiner schnitzel was fantastic! My rabbit ragu was bland, and not that great.)

After dinner, they brought out dessert plates for all of us to share.

It included some sort of strawberry rhubarb cup, a chocolate cake, and popcorn ice cream.

We all hesitated over the rhubarb, and dug into the cake.

And also discovered… popcorn ice cream is strangely delicious.

I haven’t yet replicated any of the dishes we tried in Germany, but first on my list is that popcorn ice cream…

Bread, ham, and butter.

So very simple. But often it’s the simplest things that are the best.

This was another treat from the France portion of our trip. We bought it at the bakery right before we left Paris, and ate it that night after we arrived at the hotel in Germany.

(And then instantly regretted not discovering it earlier in our trip!)

It’s so simple, it’s almost embarassing to post a recipe for it – but something about the combination of crusty bread, good ham, and high-quality European butter is just so very delicious.

Jambon Beurre

Ingredients

• crusty baguette
• thick-sliced ham
• good-quality European butter

Cooking Directions

1. Cut the baguette into sandwich-sized lengths. Slice each piece in half, lengthwise.
2. Spread each half with a thick layer of butter.
3. Layer several slices of ham on the bottom half of the bread, then top with the other half.
4. Enjoy!

Every time we travel, Son and I always come back with a long list of foods we want to try making at home.

(Usually, that list includes every single thing we ate on our trip.)

Normally, it remains a long list, and we never actually get around to trying to cook any of the foods we had on our trip. But for some reason, this trip was different – I actually managed to replicate, or make my own version of, many of the foods we ate in Europe.

I had originally intended to post each travel post with a recipe… but let’s be realistic, I’d never have written a single post if I’d had to try to cook something for every single restaurant we tried. And also, life has a tendency of getting away from me – although we’re long past the London portion of the trip, there are still a good five recipes that I actually did make, that haven’t made it to the blog yet!

But such is life.

The recipes will show up here and there, I imagine.

But let’s start with this one: as I mentioned in the post about our dinner at Les Cocottes, I’ve never before been so enamored with a salad. Something so good… I just had to try it out at home!

The lovely thing about this is that it’s incredibly easy to make, and quite elegant to serve. The most difficult part about this is poaching the eggs… which isn’t even that hard to do! (Seriously – this was my first time ever in my life poaching eggs, and I was terrified… and then it turned out to be nothing at all.)

There’s a bite from the frisée, a tang from the vinnaigrette, richness from the bacon, and creaminess from the poached eggs. Serve with some toasted baguette slices, and you’ve got the perfect lunch – or an excellent start to a dinner party!

Lyonnaise Salad

Recipe from The Kitchn

Ingredients

• 4 cups (about 4 oz) frisée lettuce, torn into large bite-size pieces
• 1-2 slices thick bacon, sliced against the grain into 1/4″ pieces
• 1 tbsp white vinegar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 medium shallot, finely minced
• 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• salt and pepper, to taste

Cooking Directions

1. Cook the bacon pieces in a small skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown. Remove from heat. Transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain, reserving the rendered fat.
2. Fill a saucepan with 4 inches of water and add the white vinegar. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer. Crack each egg into small bowl, being careful not to break the yolks. With a slotted spoon, stir the simmering water to create a whirlpool, then slide the first egg into the middle of the swirl. Using the back of the spoon, coax the whites to stay close to the yolk. Repeat with the second egg. Simmer the eggs for 2-3 minutes. When cooked, use the slotted spoon to transfer each egg to a bowl of warm water. Trim off any straggling pieces of cooked egg white.
3. Place the frisée in a large bowl.
4. Reheat the skillet with the rendered bacon fat over medium heat. Add the shallots and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the red wine vinegar and mustard and stir to combine. Stir in the bacon pieces.
5. Immediately pour the hot dressing over the greens and toss. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.
6. Divide the salad between two bowls and top each with a poached egg. Season the eggs with additional salt and pepper, if desired. Serve immediately.
7. Enjoy!

Happy Pi(e) Day!!!

As a unabashed math nerd, this is definitely my favorite food holiday.

Because really, who doesn’t love an excuse to eat pie?!

And since pi(e) day falls oh so close to St. Patrick’s Day, a Beef and Guinness Pie fits the holidays perfectly!

I had originally intended for this to be part of the Fridgg Top Ten series we were doing for about a month. It was so much fun to have an excuse to cook all sorts of recipes that I might not otherwise! But it took so much time… and there were a lot of things that I was “supposed” to make that just weren’t things that would get eaten around here – like waaaay more desserts that a household of two can (or should!) reasonably consume.

You’ll still see some of the recipes – there were quite a few things that got cooked and photographed for future Top Ten posts that will show up on Fridgg eventually. But this is the year where we’re letting go of all the things that just don’t work for us… and the Top Ten series just wasn’t working.

But back to the pie! Definitely no regret about trying this recipe out. I made it during a period of cold and rain… so I can authoritatively tell you that it’s perfect comfort food.

Confession… we didn’t use the Guinness. We don’t love the taste, don’t typically have beer in the house, and let’s be honest, I was just plain too damn lazy to go out and get some just for this recipe. So I replaced it with an equal amount of beef stock.

Don’t do what I did. Holy mother of ducks, was it salty! If you don’t want to use the Guinness, maybe replace it with a different beer, or use half beef stock and half water instead?

But despite the beef stock faux pas, this was still really, really tasty.

Whether you’re celebrating Pi(e) Day or St. Patrick’s Day… you should definitely try this!

Beef and Guinness Pie

Recipe from Abbe’s Cooking Antics.

Warning: if you’re going to make this, read all the directions ahead of time! In total it will take at least 5 hours to make, although most of that time is hands-off so you can do something else at the same time.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2 sticks celery, chopped
• 4oz white mushrooms, sliced
• 1lb good quality stewing steak
• 1 tbsp fresh rosemary, chopped OR 1 tsp dried rosemary
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 heaping tbsp plain flour
• 9 fl oz Guinness (half a can)
• 4 fl oz beef stock
• 4oz cheddar cheese, grated
• 2 store-bought pie crusts, or your favorite recipe for a double crust
• 1 egg, beaten

Cooking Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large ovenproof saucepan on a low heat.
3. Add the onions and fry gently for about 10 minutes.
4. Turn the heat up, add the garlic, carrots, celery, mushrooms, beef, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Stir it all together gently.
5. Cook for 3 or 4 minutes, then stir in the flour and cook for a minute before pouring in the Guinness and beef stock.
6. Bring to a simmer, then cover the pan with a lid and place in the preheated oven for about 1 and half hours.
7. Remove the pan from the oven and give it a stir then put it back into the oven and continue to cook for another hour, or until the meat is very tender. Remove from the oven.
8. If at this stage your beef pie filling is still a bit wet, put it back on the stovetop and simmer gently to reduce the sauciness a bit. If it’s too wet your pie base will turn to mush – too dry and you’ll have no sauce in your pie.
9. When you’re happy with the consistency, stir in half of the cheese, and remove from any heat.
10. Allow to cool for at least an hour (to prevent a soggy pie bottom).
11. Preheat the oven to 375°F.
12. Grease a pie dish with butter.
13. Dust a clean work surface with flour and roll out one half of your pie crusts to 1/8″ thick.
14. Line the base of your greased pie dish with the crust.
15. Roll out the remaining crust to the same thickness, large enough to form a lid.
16. Spoon the pie filling into your crust-lined pie dish.
17. Scatter the other half of the cheddar across the top of the pie filling.
18. Brush the beaten egg around the edges of the crust, then place the second pie crust on top.
19. Pinch the edges together to form a crust and trim to fit the pie dish.
20. Brush the top with beaten egg and make a small slit with a knife in the center of your pie crust, to allow steam to escape.
21. Bake the pie for 45 minutes, or until the pastry is cooked, puffed, and golden.

We stayed in Hotel DORMERO, which reminded me of a Vegas hotel – it was gigantic, had a bunch of restaurants, and even had a threater connected to it.

Plus their breakfasts were

Work was productive, but obviously the best part of the trip was the food.

A certain somebody (*cough* Son *cough*) couldn’t get enough of the bretzels (soft pretzels) with butter that showed up in our conference room every morning.

But only half of the bagels came with butter… so one of our awesome German coworkers ran to the grocery store to pick up some Kerrygold butter for the rest of the pretzels.

(German meeting food is way better than American meeting food!)

And ordinarily, you’d think, cafeteria food? Mehhhh.

But the cafeteria food we got on that trip was the best food we had in Germany.

And not that’s not a judgement on the rest of the food we had in Germany – the cafeteria food was just that good!

Lunch included German favorites such as currywurst, schnitzel, spaetzle, and spargle (white asparagus).

And it was all SO good.

(Plus, “spargle!” is just fun to say.)

Not to mention, pastries!

One of our German coworkers brought in these delicious pastries that are apparently a Stuttgart specialty – they’re called “bobbes”, which apparently means “butt” in Swabian (the region of Germany that we’re in).

And on our last day, one of our coworkers brought in these strudel pastries (I never quite got the name of them). Very tasty.

The food in Germany was a delight!

(And three years later, a certain somebody is *still* craving those bretzels…)

Stuffed peppers.

(Me from a decade ago is wondering what the **** is wrong with me, to be voluntarily eating bell peppers?!)

(Me right now asserts that these are actually ridiculously delicious, and yes I’m questioning my sanity too.)

Our koi pond.

The little monsters are getting huge!

We’re mostly just amazed they’ve survived this long.

Friendship rose.

Current dinner: green curry with sweet potatoes and green beans, miso salmon, and brown rice.

Made a ginormous batch of all three last weekend, and we’ve eaten it every night since (and haven’t gotten sick of it yet!)

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Adore this article about a great friendship that crosses generations.

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Where are you wandering this week?

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