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Not many people have asked very much yet…

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but here’s some stuff about me all the same!

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Who are you?

You can call me Scout. I’m from the Pacific Northwestern United States, but I’ve lived in Tokyo, Japan, since the year 2000. I like to cook, I enjoy cooking for other people (especially birthday cakes & little lunch dates with friends!), and either doing that or my own mise en place is how I spend most of my time. Oh, also eating. And yes, I am fat.

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Why was this site created?

Hey, you’ve got me! I’m just someone who stays at home—mostly due to decreased mobility and a super fun panic disorder—with too much time on her hands. I thought it might be fun to write more & to share some of my experiences living in a very small apartment with an even ridiculously smaller kitchen.

Not to mention that there are a lot of other people trying to cook in small kitchens in Japan, and I’d like to either help them expand what they’re able to cook here…or just simply show people how someone else does something. For that reason, I’ll try to include notes for cooks in the rest of the world, but I’m mostly going to explain how I did things with a couple of dinky burners, alllmost half of one small counter, and a countertop oven similar to that which other people generally own in Japan.

(If they even own an oven at all! Unlike in the States, where I grew up, Japanese homes don’t automatically come with ovens (or even a stovetop for that matter!) so if you want to bake here, you have to drop a pretty penny and buy a small oven!)

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So, it’s a cooking blog?

Honestly, I don’t know quite what it is yet, though I’m leaning in that direction. Am I super pompous if I call it a lifestyle blog? Because it’ll probably have more of a focus on my life and experiences, rather than only the things I make…but I’ll do my best to throw in some recipes, too!

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And exactly how small is this kitchen?

It’s hard to say how big my kitchen is exactly, as I live in a small 1LDK (that’s a one bedroom + living room + dining room + kitchen) that I sometimes call my Home Sweet Rectangle…there aren’t really clear divisions between rooms, so I generally think of my kitchen as the one countertop with the stovetop & a sink & piles of mail; the shelf with all of my cookbooks, my small appliances, and my oven / microwave on it; as well as the space between there and my refrigerator…and ofc the refrigerator itself.

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Oh, come on, you can do better than that!

I’m planning to write more about my kitchen in detail, but suffice to say for now that I have a persnickety three-burner gas stove with a little slide-out fish grill that I call my toaster because I’m allergic to most sea creatures; exactly one 50 x 57 centimeter counter (that’s less than 20 x 22 inches!) where I do the bulk of my cooking; a nice enough sink; and my aforementioned little oven, which doubles as a microwave, on one tall shelf which also holds my recycling, miniaturized appliances, baking supplies, and scaled-down cookbook collection. Basically, everything I do in the kitchen requires a carefully choreographed dance in order to do much more than reheat food from the conbini.

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Do you have any training?

To write a blog? As much as the next person, I suppose. I was initially a writing & journalism major in college, but I bounced around a lot before finally graduating with an art degree “later in life”…which means that I’m mostly qualified to stand in front of other people’s artwork and say, “Hmmm…”

In between all that bouncing and about a zillion odd jobs—often in restaurants—I went to culinary school, and got all of the foundations in classical French cuisine which one needs for modern cooking in a tiny Japanese kitchen. In addition to working in the industry, I also taught baking & pastry at that selfsame school for some years.

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What is the one utensil you’d save in an earthquake?

Okay, so I have this amaaazing “twist whisk” which turns & clicks open or closed: in one direction, it’s a balloon whisk for whipping cream & such stuff. In the other direction it’s a flat whisk for stirring sauces or keeping a lovely custard from getting lumpy…and it fits in a drawer just beautifully! I heart it so much that, frankly, I’m amazed it’s not in my back pocket right now.

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Ask me some actual questions here, in the comments section on any blog entry, or on my twitter or instagram. I respond to any and all questions!. ♡

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