The Plan to meet Elizabeth Andoh

Well, here I am, still in Raleigh but thrilled to report that I will be meeting Elizabeth Andoh, an accomplished cookbook author, when I go to Tokyo. I spoke to her on the phone today (she is in the states right now) and will finalize the plan with her tomorrow. It's a week before we leave to go to Japan and I am beside myself.

Here's a little info about Elizabeth that I grabbed from her website. It will give you a little history about her and then I'll tell you how I came to be acquainted with her.

Born and raised in America, Ms. Andoh's formal culinary training was taken at the Yanagihara Kinsaryu School of Traditional Japanese Cuisine, in Tokyo. Ms. Andoh is a writer, lecturer, and a business consultant, specializing in Japanese food and culture. She is a member of the International Association of Cooking Professionals (IACP) and the only non-Japanese member of the prestigious Japan Food Journalists Association (JFJ). She has written numerous magazine and newspaper articles for American publications such as Gourmet and The New York Times and authored several cookbooks, most recently WASHOKU: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen, winner of a 2006 Jane Grigson award for "distinguished scholarship" and nominated for a James Beard award in the category of International Cookbook.

As a lecturer on historical and cultural aspects of Japanese society and cuisine, Ms. Andoh speaks frequently to business and general-interest audiences on both sides of the Pacific.

As a consultant, Ms. Andoh provides the U.S./ Japan business community with a wide range of marketing, training, and support services; most of her clients are in the foodservice and hospitality industries.

For encouraging visitors to Japan to explore the indigenous food culture, Ms. Andoh was recently designated as a Yokoso Japan Taishi ようこそ・ジャパン大使 ("ambassador") by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (国土交通省Kokudo Kotsusho, abbreviated MLIT).


How did I come to be acquainted with Elizabeth Andoh you ask?

Well....Elizabeth has embarked upon a new book project

KANSHA

感謝

(literally, "appreciation")

that will celebrate Japan's vegetarian food culture. In researching the manuscript, Elizabeth is reaching out to a group of volunteers residing outside Japan (dubbed the Advisory Council) to test recipes and provide other sorts of valuable feedback. So that's me, I was fortunate to have been chosen to be on the advisory council. I had to write a short essay as to why I wanted to be on the council and what I could bring to it. As I understand it, there were hundreds of people who wanted to be on this council. I felt so elated to have been picked and what an opportunity. Sadly, it got cut short because of my accident but Elizabeth and other people have been supportive towards both Cliff and I and they kept in touch and even asked me to do a few things as my health improved.

Elizabeth is being assisted in managing this project by an enormously talented volunteer staff of foreign residents of Tokyo. One of those people on the staff is the woman who became my group leader and I wrote to her to exchange my thoughts and feedback regarding the recipes that came my way to prepare. Her name is Melinda Joe. She is is a freelance writer whose interest in food began at an early age, in the kitchen of her family's restaurant. She developed an appreciation of wine during her time at the University of California at Berkeley, where she received a degree in fine arts. After moving to Japan, she also fell in love with sake. A certified wine and sake professional, she is the bar editor for the award-winning Tokyo Food Page and the author of the sake-centric blog Tokyo through the Drinking Glass. Melinda lives with her husband and their cat in Tokyo. I've been in touch with Melinda as well, so Cliff and I will most likely meet her for a drink after we spend some time with Elizabeth. I am so thrilled.

I know this was long winded but worthy of filling you in because you might be interested in these people and what they are doing for the culinary arts.

I'll keep you posted on our visit with both Elizabeth and Melinda.