A Full Flavor of Sonoma

Fun time at SHED

On the second day in Sonoma, we started our morning at Healdsburg farmers market with Kyle.


So relaxing.


Then, we visited SHED, one of my favorite shops in California, and they have been a big supporter of our donabe. They welcomed us with a special brunch in their private backyard.


Brunch feast!


So beautiful and delicious. After the feast, I wanted to just take a nap!


But, we had more activities in the afternoon. We visited 32 Winds Winery. Such a beautiful winery. Sherry welcomed us and hosted a tasting.


We enjoyed their wines so much.


Then, we visited Freeman Winery. It was great to see Akiko-san again. She gave us a tour of the winery. I love their elegant Pinot Noir very much.

Donabe Sushi Rice for Chirashi Sushi

My Tasmanian Ocean Trout Chirashi Sushi

I was invited to my friend's birthday dinner.

My friend and her husband import premium seafood to the US, and they generously provided all the seafood for us to cook for the dinner party.

I was assigned to Tasmanian ocean trout. It was freshly filled, packed, and delivered to the kitchen just a day after the fish arrived to LA. So, I made sashimi of this super fresh fish, first.


White gloves on! Jody and Jimmy took these silly looking photos of me, as well as the top photo...thank you!


I made sushi rice with my double-lid donabe rice cooker, Kamado-san, and spread half of the sliced ocean trout over the sushi rice (garnished with thinly sliced omelet and chopped red shiso). You can find the basic chirashi sushi recipe in toiro kitchen's website here. Just change the toppings to make variations. The dish was a huge hit at the party! Of course, the quality of the fish was outstanding, and people were also just so amazed by how delicious the sushi rice itself was. I received comments from many people that they could actually taste each grain of the rice and the flavor was so delicious. I must say, it's because the rice was made in Kamado-san! It's the donabe magic.


I also made crab salad.


There were so many dishes and also wines...9 to 10 seafood courses and a dozen wines (among 10 people)! What a feast!

Happy doanbe life.

Happy Donabe Test Kitchen for My Birthday!

What's cooking in a classic-style donabe, "Hakeme"?

My dear friends put together a dinner party to celebrate my birthday, the other night. The theme was DONABE TEST KITCHEN. I gave them some of the draft recipes from my upcoming donabe cookbook (to be published in Fall 2015 by Ten Speed Press), then they made dishes by following the recipes. How exciting, at the same time, I was a bit nervous, as my recipes were going to be tested without any photos or my personal instructions!

It was also weird (in a nice way) that these are all donabe dishes, and I didn't have to cook at all. I just showed up with Jason, and my friends were already cooking in the kitchen.


Asako made two dishes out of tagine-style donabe, "Fukkura-san". These were steam-fried vegetables with sesame-tofu dipping sauce, and kimpira gobo (steam-fry burdock root and carrot in soy-based seasoning).


Sonya made steamed shrimp and tofu gyoza with donabe steamer, "Mushi Nabe".


Table was set beautifully, and we began the donabe dinner. All the dipping sauces were out of my recipes for the book, too!


They made two kinds of rice dishes with double-lid donabe rice cooker, "Kamado-san". Peggye made yuzu-kosho pesto rice. Sonya made Butter scallop rice.


The "nabe" (hot pot) course was "Kamo-nabe" (duck hot pot) with classic-style donabe, "Hakeme".


The meat came out perfectly tender. We saved some broth, to do the "shime" (finishing) course with soba noodles! We dipped the cold soba noodles in the hot broth to enjoy.


After the donabe courses, we enjoyed special baumkuchen (layered cake...originally brought to Japan from Germany about 100 years ago, and has been localized and become a very popular dessert in Japan), which I brought back from Japan.


All the doanbe dishes they made were absolutely delicious, and I couldn't believe they made them from scratch out of my recipes, even without photos of the finished dishes. The best thing was that they all loved the recipes!! Oh, we opened some really special wines and sake, including 1995 Champagne Cristal Rose, 2002 Champagne Dom Perignon, 2002 Comtes Lafon Meursault-Charmes, 2004 Armand Rousseau, Charmes-Chambertin, 2002 Domaine des Lambrays, Clos des Lambrays, and Dassai Junmai Daiginjo.

Super happy donabe birthday dinner!!!