Thank you for coming back.

This month, my father will be 88. So, I visited my father’s house in Takasaki to celebrate his 88th birthday with my brothers this weekend! Before going there, I was thinking that we could go to some onsen resort, relax in an onsen, and eat a gorgeous set of sashimi using his birthday as an excuse. But he didn’t really want to go to an onsen, as he had lost strength and appetite after receiving surgery for stomach cancer. Therefore, I prepared some dishes easy for his stomach, which my late mother used to cook often, including sashimi, yakitori, non-oil kimpira gobo (stir-fried burdock root), nikujaga (potato and beef stew), eggplant covered with sesame dressing, quick pickled cucumbers, and home-made udon noodles (with summer vegetable tempura for my brothers). They are typical farm family dishes! We talked lots, saying that my kimpira was very close to that of our mother, and the nikujaga was – somewhat more sophisticated? It was the first time to have a meal with everyone in my family after a long time. My father lives alone now, so he looked very happy. It was nice. I think my late mother was happy about that. I hope my dear father will be able to celebrate his 90th and 99th birthdays!




*The information herein is as of July 2019.

Writer:Fumiko Ogawa

The wife of a couple who run a bakery near Kanda Station, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo. She writes mainly about everyday and miscellaneous matters that happen around her and also in her neighborhood. She distributes her writings as "Weekly Column Kanda This and That" to the shop's customers and they are very popular. She is from Takasaki City, Gunma Prefecture.

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