In his Olympic year, Oscar Pistorius steadily became an avid firearms collector, joining a gun-collecting club and purchasing a collection of firearms that included a .500 Magnum pistol and a civilian version of a military assault rifle.
When it comes to gender equality, Japan has never failed to disappoint.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Manchester United's Shinji Kagawa is back with a bang, becoming the first Asian player to score a hat trick in the English Premier League.
Makiko Itoh writes the Japanese Kitchen column and is the owner of two popular blogs about Japanese cooking: JustHungry.com and JustBento.com. She’s the author of “The Just Bento Cookbook,” now in its 6th printing.
For Makiko Itoh's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
After an unusually cold winter, the sight of spring produce is particularly welcome, especially the bright yellow-green of nanohana.
Before refrigeration became widespread in the late 1950s, fresh, unprocessed fish was only available to the well-to-do or people living on the coasts.
New Year’s is the most important holiday on the Japanese calendar. And as befitting such an important festival, the food traditionally served is lavish and elaborate. At the centerpiece of the New Year’s feast, which traditionally went on for as long as seven days, ...
The obsession with fresh, seasonal food in Japan extends to things that you may not even think of as having seasons, such as dried flour. Shin-soba-ko (new fall-harvest buckwheat flour, used in soba noodles) is eagerly anticipated every year by Japanese gourmets. While soba ...
Traditional Japanese confections, or wagashi, can take a little getting used to for Western palates: The sticky-gooey texture of mochi (pounded rice) and the sweet an (bean paste) filling that are often used are quite different from most European-style cakes and cookies. But one ...
Fall is in the air! With the return of cooler weather, your appetite may be making a comeback too. Luckily, fall is a great time for gourmets to indulge in Japan. There’s an abundance of fresh produce in season, and some of the tastiest ...
A little while ago a friend of mine who’s been living in Japan for few weeks texted me in a bit of a dither, saying, “This guy I barely know said I was sweet! Is he coming on to me?” It turns out the ...
When temperatures are in the high 30s Celsius you may not feeling like eating much of anything. But even on the hottest, stickiest day a cool, refreshing dish of tokoroten — a kind of noodles made from seaweed — can help revitalize even the ...
When the weather is swelteringly hot, there’s nothing more appealing than an ice-cold drink or snack. One of these is kakigōri, a mound of shaved ice that is topped with a sweet, sticky syrup. What makes it different from a snow cone is that ...
There are two basic skills you should master if you want to make authentic Japanese dishes at home. One is how to properly prepare and cook plain steamed rice — a task made easy these days with sophisticated electronic rice cookers. The other is ...
