Welcome to my website! Here, you'll learn what I've been working on recently, gain instant access to a (not-quite-complete) archive of my past articles, and see what I've been blogging about.
1955 iron and steel sculpture by Japanese American artist Ruth Asawa, at LACMA's "California Design, 1930-1965" show.
19th-century Nuxalk Raven mask from the Michael Audain/Yoshiko Karasawa collection, Vancouver Art Gallery, left; "Jelly Swarm" by origami artist Joseph Wu at the Vancouver Aquarium.
My blog Walking and Talking is about the various subjects I cover: culture, food, art, Japanese-American life, health and my West Village neighborhood in New York City. Lately I've been interested in Manzanar, the WWII internment camp where the U.S. government imprisoned 10,000 people of Japanese descent, including my father and his family. I wrote this essay about my 2009 pilgrimage to Manzanar.
Eating Disorders and Nutritional News is a blog about eating disorders that I write with my co-author, Dr. Marcia Herrin. We've covered subjects as diverse as calorie postings in chain restaurants (we're against the practice), innovative research in the field, new books on eating disorders and health insurance reimbursement.
I had fun testing three online cooking school sites and learned how to make perfect chicken stock for this Wall Street Journal article, Getting Your Culinary Chops from Digital Masters.
My latest contributions to Edible Manhattan include my tour of Manhattan's Chinatown with Buddakan chef Yang Huang and a look at the East Village Sake shop Sakaya. In Tradition: Osechi, I look at how Japanese ex-pats ring in the New Year. My Edible Hudson Valley profile Harrison, NY chef Jason Wood Artisan Upstart, tracks his unconventional path to the kitchen.
This article I wrote for IN New York magazine, Stepping Up to the Plate, views the USDA's newly revised nutritional guidelines through the eyes--and creations--of some of New York City's top chefs.
The serialization of my 18-part essay on Discover Nikkei, about three photographers who documented the WWII concentration camp Manzanar--Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and inmate/photographer Toyo Miyatake--came to an end with this final installment. You can read the entire series from the beginning starting here. DN also published my review of the collected works of photographer Patrick Nagatani, Desire for Magic, and two L.A. exhibit featuring Nagatani's work.
My most recent contributions to the website Cravings include interviews with chefs Craig Koketsu and Sara Jenkins, as well as tributes to dishes at Food L.A., Lemaire in Richmond, VA, and LaSpada's hoagies in Boca Raton, FL.
Here's what happened when I tested four online travel sites for this consumer column in The Wall Street Journal. No Blood Spilled in This Top to Tail, also for the Journal, is about the creative ways chefs come up with to use every scrap of local farmers' summer bounty. If you can't view the whole article online, look at this version, in my Articles section.
Also available for your reading pleasure are my latest Psychology Today blog posts, one a look back on 2011 and another one on a new educational documentary film. Worth checking out are my latest Walking and Talking blog posts, on how ex-pat Japanese in New York celebrate New Year's, and a Brooklyn latke festival.
