In a recent “Taste of Home” by Sakamoto Tamako for the Daily Yomiuri, Sakamoto writes about her latest cooking adventure.

Sakamoto wrote, “As my second son loves growing vegetables, this summer we have been able to eat cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes and other vegetables, as well as many kinds of herbs, fresh from his garden.”

“Among those vegetables, I was especially impressed with the eggplants, which grew so well and tasted great.”

“There is a saying, “Oya no iken to nasu no hana wa senni hitotsumo mudaganai,” which means, “There never is waste as far as parents’ opinions and eggplant flowers are concerned.” Yes, the flowers almost always grow into tasty eggplants as far as I can tell.”

“One evening during the summer vacation, I was deep-frying some vegetables to cook natsuyasai to butaniku no agebitashi (marinated pork and deep-fried summer vegetables) for dinner. While cooking, I thought of giving some to my friends. I went out to my son’s vegetable garden, picked some eggplants and used them to make extra deep-fry. At that moment, I realized how nice it is to raise organic vegetables in a home garden as we can easily enjoy a healthy diet.”

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Chosun reported, “One of the most fashionable restaurants in Vienna, where even the Austrian prime minister had better book three months in advance for dinner, is called simply Kim kocht. The owner is a 43-year-old Korean woman named Kim So-hee, who originally went to Austria in 1983 to study fashion. After graduating from university, she worked in the fashion industry for seven years, but felt fashion was not her calling. “People who run restaurants never starve,” her mother used to say, being a restaurateur herself.”

“So Kim hired a chef from Korea and opened a Japanese restaurant in Vienna in 1996, but that partnership was short-lived and she decided to become a cook herself. She bought boxes of salmon and practiced making sushi and sashimi every night. “I am the kind of person who never gives up until I’ve accomplished something,” she says. In 2001, she was ready to proclaim it in her restaurant’s name: Kim kocht (Kim cooks).”

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In a recent “Taste of Home” food column by Sakamoto Tamako for the Daily Yomiuri, Sakamoto wrote, “Curry is a very popular dish among children and an easy one to prepare for them. In fact, it is so simple that kids can be taught to make it for themselves.”

“Bearing that out, both of the school camps that two of my children took part in this summer had a curry cooking class.”

“I like to cook curry not only from scratch but also with instant curry roux, as there are many tasty varieties of ready-made roux available.”

“When I have ample time to cook curry, I cook blocks of beef or pork, chunks of vegetables such as carrots and potatoes, stir-fried onion and grated apple.”

“When I don’t have enough time to let it simmer, I choose chicken or seafood with tomatoes, mushrooms and thinly sliced onions as they do not take long to cook.”

“And when I am really in a hurry, I choose the special combination of ground meat, chopped onion and eggplant as I think they make the perfect combination to cook in a limited time.”

“As I cook curry in a large pot, I usually serve the leftovers for lunch the next day. Some of my children complain about the well-cooked curry, as most of the solid ingredients have become dissolved in the curry paste by then.”

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Mainichi Daily News reported, “Rare pictures of German prisoners of war from World War I showing the Japanese how to produce sausages have been discovered.”

“Takashi Chiba, 37, a museum curator at the Kasumigaura-shi Kyodo Shiryokan in Ibaraki Prefecture, found the pictures in June while he was researching Yoshifusa Iida, a Japanese government official who was said to have spread sausage manufacturing methods across Japan.”

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