日報

I don't remember when I started cooking, but there's one thing I've always wondered.

"What the heck is 'a suitable amount'?"

In every recipe, there's always one "suitable amount" somewhere. Usually, it's for salt and pepper. Sometimes, it suddenly appears for things like sesame seeds. What the heck is a suitable amount?

I'm looking at a cookbook because I don't know, so telling me "a suitable amount" is no help. If a teacher said, "This part is a suitable amount," during class, I'd panic. If my boss said, "Your salary for next term will be a suitable amount," I'd start looking for a new job.

I've been cooking all this time, thinking, "What the heck is a suitable amount?"

Time passed, and I started doing YouTube. As a result, I began putting recipes in the description box.

...No, but it really is "a suitable amount." A suitable amount is a suitable amount. It's an approximation. Writing "a little bit," "to taste," or "it depends on the person" just doesn't look right, so I use "a suitable amount."

I apologize for complaining about all the recipe books up till now.

A suitable amount means a suitable amount!

When I'm cooking, I sometimes feel like my personality really comes through.

I tend to prefer things to be neat and tidy, and when I'm cutting ingredients, I want all the ingredients in a single dish to be the same size, and I tend to chop them as finely as possible.

Making them the same size makes them look better and easier to eat. Chopping them small means they cook faster and are easier to prepare.

I could probably come up with some theoretical reasons for it, but am I really thinking about those things? It feels more like I just "want them to be the same size and finely chopped."

For fried rice, I want to chop the ingredients as finely and evenly as the rice grains, and I think I chop soup ingredients smaller than most people.

I always do it that way because I think it tastes best, but I no longer know whether my personality came first, or the culinary theory.

I received some bamboo shoots because it's their season. As I was writing this, I just realized that the kanji for bamboo shoots (筍) is made up of the radical for bamboo (竹) and the kanji for season (旬)! They really are a seasonal delicacy.

I immediately blanched them, and the sweet, delicious aroma was incredible! After boiling, I sliced and tasted them, and they were delicious! They had a corn-like fragrance and sweetness. Were bamboo shoots always this good?

When I think of bamboo shoots, I only think of takenoko gohan (bamboo shoot rice). So I made some, and that was also delicious!

I didn't like them much as a child, and even as an adult, I didn't actively seek them out. I'm not sure if it's because these particular bamboo shoots were so good, or if I've matured and can now appreciate seasonal ingredients, but either way, they were incredibly tasty.

It's fun to discover new things you like. These bamboo shoots truly reminded me of the charm of seasonal foods.

"Give your dreams limbs."
These words were something like a company motto at my previous job,
or at least, they were highly valued,
and I still hold them dear.

After quitting my salaryman job
and opening this "kikkake" (opportunity/きっかけ) as an independent venture,
they've become even more important to me.

To achieve your dreams, taking action is crucial.
There's so much you only realize once you take action.
Through action, you understand how distant your dreams are.
Without action, you won't reach your dreams.
Even with action, there's no guarantee you'll reach them,
but at least you take that first step and start giving them "limbs."

Starting kikkake, I've once again realized the importance of "limbs."
In fact, I even think "limbs" are more important than the dream itself.

My dream is for kikkake to become
a stepping stone for all of you,
to make your lives just a little bit better.
I hope to grow it little by little.
That's what I'm thinking.

There's one thing I'm not good at in cooking.
That's "whisking eggs."

When I make tamagoyaki, I don't whisk them much, so it's still okay, but when I make tamago kake gohan, I'm terribly clumsy at whisking the egg.

My hand gets tired while whisking with chopsticks, and by the time I'm done, I'm out of breath. I often have to take breaks.

I've even bought egg whisks, but I haven't found one that I thought was great, so I always end up whisking with chopsticks and getting out of breath.

Then, one day, I happened to ask someone to beat an egg for me, and I was surprised when they brought it back without whisking it much at all.

I don't like it when the firm part of the egg white, commonly known as "durun," remains, so I used to whisk until the durun was gone.
So, maybe I was just getting tired because I was whisking more than other people, and I wasn't actually clumsy.

Nevertheless, even after that, when I whisk eggs, I continue to whisk until the durun is gone.
In the end, I still get out of breath, so nothing has really changed, and the things I'm not good at remain things I'm not good at.

Someone brought up the topic of whether to eat the strawberry on a shortcake first or last, for the first time in a while. By the way, I'm "team eat the strawberry first."

I'm not sure if it's due to the old drama "Strawberry on the Shortcake" or if it was a classic question even before that, but whenever I'm asked this, I always say I eat it first. Then I get diagnosed as "the type who enjoys the good stuff first."

That's not it. The fresh cream is sweeter than the strawberry, so if I eat the strawberry afterward, it tastes sour. That's why I eat it first. That's all.

In fact, I'm the type to eat the things I dislike first. With bean rice, I eat all the beans first because I don't like them.

When I get these kinds of diagnoses, sometimes I can explain myself, and sometimes it just ends with people thinking I'm "the type who enjoys the good stuff first."

Well, whether you eat the strawberry first or last, it's delicious and makes me happy either way, so it doesn't really matter.