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Everyday Harumi

by Harumi Kurihara

Description
Everyday Harumi is written expressly for a Western audience to make Japanese cooking more accessible than ever before. Harumi wants cooks to see how easy it is add simple Japanese cuisine to a cook's existing repertoire of American, Italian, and Mexican dishes and hopes that meals of Yakatori or Ginger Pork will one day be as familiar on American tables as spaghetti and meatballs or tacos.

Harumi begins the book with a quick primer of all of the essentials a cook will need to delve into the art of Japanese cooking. Toasted sesame seeds, Japanese soy sauce, tofu, wasabi, superfine sugar, nori seaweed are all ingredients that can be easily found in the ethnic sections of supermarkets or at a specialty shop. She also walks readers through the basic sauces which serve as the foundation of Japanese and discusses cooking techniques, such as chopping skills and how to serve rice, as well as the art of setting the table Harumi-style.

With the purchase of a few staples, it's time to create magic in the kitchen. Harumi presents easy recipes for soups, starters, snacks, party dishes, main courses, and family feasts, including Sirloin Steak in a Miso Marinade; Chicken Thighs with Leek Sauce); Tonkatsu (a fried pork cutlet); Onigiri Rice Balls with Minced Chicken (a perfect party food); Green Beans with a Sesame Dressing, and Quick Pickled Cucumbers.

Harumi's own inspiration derived from her traditional upbringing in a big family in central Japan and later as a full-time housewife and mother is to create delicious, unpretentious, fashionable meals without great expense. This philosophy, coupled with Jason Lowe's stunning photography, makes Everyday Harumi a warm and approachable cookbook which invites readers into Harumi's world of authentic, healthy Japanese food everyday.

About the Author:
The charismatic Harumi Kurihara took her domestic talent as a housewife and her passion for cooking to create a phenomenal lifestyle brand in Japan. She has sold more the 20 million copies of her books and magazines worldwide and has a chain of more than 60 shops and cafes in her native country that sell her home, cooking, and clothing lines. In 2007, Harumi's first U.S. cookbook, Harumi's Japanese Home Cooking, was published and won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for Best Cookbook of the Year. A year later came the release of Harumi's Japanese Cooking. She has been featured in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Washington Post. She is married to Reiji Kurihara, a former TV anchorman.