Lucy’s love affair with Japan started when she was 15. She visited Japan for the summer. As a student of Japanese, she discovered her love of languages. Languages connect people, as does a love of food. She lived with a Japanese family in Okayama, which tested her assumptions about Japanese people. Returning to the States, she shared with her family how much Japan had impacted her dreams. At that moment, she decided to return to Japan one day. No one believed her! She majored in Japanese and Japanese Culture in college.
Spending her junior year abroad in Tokyo, she attended Waseda University and lived with the Mitsui family. Every week, she and Mr. Mitsui would go to a local diner for dinner and talk, laugh and enjoy home cooking like grilled mackerel with miso soup, rice and pickles. She was their 21st foreign daughter but they remained number one in her heart until their deaths. After obtaining her degree from USC in Japanese and Japanese culture, she married a Japanese national and ended up living in both Tokyo and Nagoya, where she had the privilege to live as a local in that culture. While Lucy currently resides in the Bay area, Japan will remain in her heart forever.
Her culinary resume in Japan includes being a restaurant critic, food historian, writer, and the owner of her very own cooking school, Lucy’s Kitchen. As the editor of Gochiso-sama! (Thanks for the Meal)—her original culinary newsletter on Japanese cuisine, she shared her original Japanese recipes. As a food blogger, she continues her Japanese journey with a food blog (www.thanksforthemeal.net).
Lucy’s cookbooks The Wonderful World of Osechi: Japanese New Year’s Recipes and Easy Japanese Recipes for the Home Cook are available for purchase, both through Kindle and softcover through Amazon.
Why Thanks for the Meal?
Lucy created this website as a way to share her love of Japanese food by introducing, teaching, and promoting Japanese recipes, ingredients, and food history. As for choosing “Thanks for the Meal” as the blog’s name, well that has special meaning too. Read about it here >>
“Sushi Girl”
This artwork was created by Sally Lewis who reinvigorated and refreshed the logo from my original newsletter (Gochiso-sama!) on Japanese cuisine. I fondly call her “Sushi Girl.” Based on a drawing from the Edo Period (1603-1868), I believe.