[.ca] The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen: Inspired New Tastes (ISBN 4770029497)

Zen and the Art of Improvisation:
The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen is an excellent little cookbook with a passionate ethos that speaks to the Michelin star in all of us. Imagine Alice Waters meets Nigel Slater at a Zen barbeque, without the celebrity cook idolatry. A nice twist on Asia-Pacific, emphasizing citrus, vinegars and lots of fresh herbs. Try Crab with Lime Ponzu and Chipotle, Persimmon Yogurt Salad with Ginger, Red Onion and Mint, or Broiled Pork Loins with Dates, Umeboshi (pickled plum), and Walnuts. Gower brings more of a trans-cultural than cross-cultural quality to the kitchen - despite the Japanese inspiration - with his focus on fun, improvisation, spontaneity. This slender book is beautifully produced, with economic and lively writing, salivating photography and well-organized contents, glossary and index. Gower's book will appeal to the confident and unconfident cook alike, and especially the jester accustomed to breaking the rules. Anyone looking to break from tradition may want to give thanks to his Soy-Brined Roast Turkey with Ruby Grapefruit and Fennel Gravy. Or, do as I plan and spike Santa's gravy with a fine dusting of minced Habanero.

Zen and the Art of Improvisation:
The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen is an excellent little cookbook with a passionate ethos that speaks to the Michelin star in all of us. Imagine Alice Waters meets Nigel Slater at a Zen barbeque, without the celebrity cook idolatry. A nice twist on Asia-Pacific, emphasizing citrus, vinegars and lots of fresh herbs. Try Crab with Lime Ponzu and Chipotle, Persimmon Yogurt Salad with Ginger, Red Onion and Mint, or Broiled Pork Loins with Dates, Umeboshi (pickled plum), and Walnuts. Gower brings more of a trans-cultural than cross-cultural quality to the kitchen - despite the Japanese inspiration - with his focus on fun, improvisation, spontaneity. This slender book is beautifully produced, with economic and lively writing, salivating photography and well-organized contents, glossary and index. Gower's book will appeal to the confident and unconfident cook alike, and especially the jester accustomed to breaking the rules. Anyone looking to break from tradition may want to give thanks to his Soy-Brined Roast Turkey with Ruby Grapefruit and Fennel Gravy. Or, do as I plan and spike Santa's gravy with a fine dusting of minced Habanero.

West Meets East!:
If you like cooking, you might have one or two books you simply fell in love with the moment you open it - The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen was the one for me. Born and raised in Japan, I must admit most Japanese stick with their cooking style in a rigid way. They don't want to mess around with their traditions in the kitchen, depending on overly simple seasonings - salt, sugar, soy sauce, etc.... This also means that Japanese dishes have more room to suit your own taste when compared with French or other cuisines. This is where Eric Gower's culinary adventure started. Eric shows us his cooking on an "approachable" level, simple enough to cook for anyone who loves cooking but does not have the skills taught at culinary schools. Most dishes require less than half hour for preparation and are great for entertaining and making your families and friends "wow." And healthy! If you are a wine lover, I guarantee that all of his dishes would go well with your favorite wine. Also, they go perfectly well with plain rice or Eric's "Unplain Rice". It is my personal opinion from reading several Japanese cooking magazines, it seems that "30 minute cooking" is a key to attract reader's attention - and the other eye-catcher is "going well with hot steamy rice." Eric's cooking is not just for adventurous and curious folks in the western hemisphere but for Japanese as well (his book was first published in Japan). West meets East (rather than "East meets west" as others like Ming Tsai have done) - he created a completely different category in rather conservative Japanese cooking. Some ingredients may be a little unfamiliar for some people if you do not have access to an Asian grocery store or even a good "regular" super market--such as shiso. Don't let your interest go away because of this. This is another great thing about this book as Eric gives you some alternative ingredient choices and encourages us to do so and to tease your own creativity. Eric reminds you of an important fact with his extraordinary sensitivity and creativity - cooking must be fun. Following the recipes is great, but by using a little bit of your creativity, as suggested by this book, you will see another side of Japanese cooking. This book is great for any novice or the culinary adventurer. I strongly recommend "The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen."

LA Times review says it all:
"Cookbook Watch" FROM THE WILD, WILD EAST AN INVENTIVE COOK CORNERS FUSION AND TAKES JAPANESE FOOD ON AN ADVENTURE. By Regina Schrambling , Special to The Times Japanese and fusion are two cuisines that make me nervous. One is daunting and the other usually a disaster. But the best new book I've cooked from in months dabbles in both - with dishes such as edamame in mint pesto and shiso with corn - and nothing is lost in translation. "The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen" (Kodansha, $27) is by Eric Gower, a self-trained San Francisco cook who lived in Japan for 15 years and whose first cookbook was written in Japanese. Like a photographer who knows his technique so well he will shoot out of focus for greater effect, Gower takes Japanese ingredients and concepts into territory undoubtedly never explored in Tokyo. Or California. Gower clearly is so comfortable with the flavors and traditions of his second home that he can take a mad-scientist approach to them and make every recipe work in a few steps and very little time. Tofu baked with a pistachio-mint pesto is a combination that would never occur to me, but it's one of the most amazing things ever to come out of my oven. This is not "Japanese Cooking for Dummies," although a kitchen virgin would have no trouble mastering any of the 45 recipes, each gorgeously photographed by Fumihiko Watanabe. One of the few typical Japanese dishes is a twist on tonkatsu in which the breaded pork cutlets are baked rather than fried. More often Gower borrows concepts and tastes to produce Western food with just enough Eastern exoticism. His lively interpretation of coleslaw is dressed with ginger and brown rice vinegar and garnished with roasted peanuts. His beet salad is a wonderment with smoked trout, ginger and walnuts; his pot roast is braised with soy sauce and orange (and a hint of very un-Asian chipotle chile). The tofu recipes would convert a carnivore. Even his rice is a hemisphere away from Uncle Ben's: He seasons it with bay leaves and Dijon mustard and substitutes carrot juice for water. With all those, you can forgive him for including the requisite miso-glazed fish. Gower has a thing for pesto, but he takes one of the most clichéd concepts into another universe. His version made with ground dried shiitakes and roasted almonds borders on brilliant. Like the other reinterpretations, one with edamame and another with pistachios, it was just as great as a sauce for steamed green beans and a spread for bruschetta as it was on pasta. "Breakaway" lives up to its title in other ways. It includes no appetizers or desserts, and it makes a persuasive case for taking as much care with the choice of serving bowls as with the food in them. (A list of sources is included.) None of the recipes calls for anything more exotic than shiso leaves, miso or brown rice vinegar, all easily located in an Asian grocery. But the vinegar alone was worth the detour: It's as smooth and deep as balsamic but tarter and not as syrupy. Not every one of Gower's creations is a winner - potatoes with sake were soggy, for instance - and yields are sometimes off. But those are quibbles. After I cooked four dishes for a dinner party, one guest went out the next morning to buy his own copy of the book. At a time when originality seems to be the missing ingredient in far too many cookbooks, "Breakaway" is a good cure for the comfort-food blues.

Cooking with Joy:
I was born and brought up in Japan and has lived in the United States for many years. After reading "The Breakaway Japanese Kithchen" by Eric Gower, I started to experiment his recipes such as: White Fish w/Miso & Apricoot Glaze; Japanese Coleslaw; Beet Salad w/ Ginger, Smoked fish & Walnut; Marmalade "Bacon" w/Meyer Lemon & Ginger; Scallops w/Miso,Ginger & fruit; etc. They were wonderful, great-tasting healthful and inovative recipes. To me they were eyeopening experiments. Gower generosly shares special tips for real richness one could create in every day life. "The Breakaway Japanese Kithchen" activates much of a reader's inspiration and spontaneity for cooking for joy. They are meals combining healthfullness with good taste. The upmost treat this book offers are the brilliant sentences and thoughts Gower lays on every page. While they are carefully compacted in beautifully simple lines, they nicely present integrity of Gower's full-hearted and full-minded ideas on cooking, foods, wine and every day life. Orchestrated with exquisitely presented pictures and layouts, Gower's book is definately inspirational and enjoyable as a fine art work. This is literally a book for readers of all ethnics. As a Japanese, I particularly appreciate this book which let me literally "breakaway" from Japanese conservative values that sticked to me for years. Most non-Japanese people would be amazed, as Gower points out in his book, how diehard the Japanese conservative values are -which are still deeply rooted in the present day Japanese minds. Such internalized values used to influence my way of cooking even when I tried to experiment beyond the tradition. Such guilt-driven feelings seemed hard to overcome even after many years living in the United States, Europe, Asia and other places. Thanks to Eric Gower's book, I have gained tremendous freedom and confidence. Cooking has become genuinely fun each day. I would like to explore more delicous recipes from this book and surely to enjoy each one of them. I will become a "flexible", "improvisational" and fully "confident" cook -as his book encourages everyone to be.