[Rivertontalk] A review: Japanese Cooking Class

[Hannes Stueckler]

My wife and I tried the Japanese cooking class offered by Yuki Diggs, and I
must say that we really enjoyed it.

If I was to summarize the experience, I would say "Good, down-home Japanese
cooking."

In more detail:  The class focused on several simple everyday dishes that
are common in Japan.  Yuki showed us how to prepare several items that you
were likely to experience when you sat down with a regular family for
regular dinner.  They were wholesome and delicious, and they also have that
exotic flavor that you would expect from a foreign cooking class.  How
exotic?  Well, that is your own choice.  Possible ingredients range from the
mundane (soy sauce and ginger) to spicy hot relishes to dried sea weed and
fish flakes.  The beauty of the cooking method is that you can modify the
base recipes and ideas to suit your taste.  Yuki is a good guide and will
tell you what goes well with what.

The class is taught in the kitchen of their home, which is small, but tidy.
I suspect that if there were more than five or six people per session it
would be quite crowded.  Yuki did most of the preparation and cooking, and
her husband, Clay, helped with translation (when needed) and generally
supplied us with stories of his year in Japan.  Various exotic ingredients
were displayed on the dinner table, and we were given explanations as to
what they were, their various uses, and where we could expect to purchase
them.

We would have liked a little more hands on time in the food preparation, but
watching Yuki do it gave us the general idea.  We took our own notes of
ingredients and quantities.

After the food was prepared, we sat down and ate.  It was very good, and it
came with some schooling in Japanese table manners.  It turns out that there
are some things you just don't do with chopsticks, unless you are at a
funeral, of course.  Details, details.

The format of the class is still being worked on, as this was Yuki's first
time teaching cooking, and I look forward to seeing what she has to offer in
the future.

For this session, the dishes were easy to prepare and did not require any
particularly special ingredients.  Some of the future dishes will likely
require us to "order in" ingredients, but we were supplied with websites
that carry the required items.  I suspect that Yuki will have a wide variety
of recipes to teach us over the coming months.  We are definitely going
back, and I hope to take some friends with us.  It was a fun "date night"
for my wife and I.

Contact them at:
Clay and Yuki Diggs
diggsclay at yahoo.com

Sincerely,

Hannes Stueckler