Editor’s note: In the Taste of Life series, cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.

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As a child, the cooking expert known as “Yummy” loved to read. She was also a foodie and became fascinated by the food that appeared in her books.

When she was reading “Winnie-the-Pooh,” she became curious about the honey and condensed milk eaten with bread. She was also a fan of the picture book series “Kagi-basan” (Old lady with the keys) and thought the gratin that appeared in one of those stories looked delicious.

But the book that truly enticed her to the world of food was an old collection of essays that she found on a bookshelf at home. It was “Sutekina Anatani” (To the charming you), published by Kurashi-no-Techo Co., featuring essays on food, fashion and other aspects in life accompanied by small illustrations.

Although the book had a lot more writing than pictures, Yummy, who was still in elementary school, read it avidly. “I was excited about these foods that I had never heard of before. I would fantasize about how they would taste,” she says.

Wanting to try radish with butter and salt, she asked her mother to buy some. “To be honest, I was not sure whether it tasted good or not, but I did get a sense of accomplishment,” she recalls.

She grew up in a farming family, and traditional Japanese cooking, like simmered dishes and grilled fish, usually appeared on the dinner table. “Although I learned the basics of cooking from my mother, I had a yearning for Western-style dishes I saw in books and television,” says Yummy.

Hoping to eat gratin like she had read about in her picture book, she often asked her mother to make it. Then one day, her mother bought her a cookbook for children so that she could try making it herself.

She followed the steps in the book to make gratin. The recipe required many steps and left a lot of dishes to clean up. Nevertheless, she made it many times for her family.

“The spirit of ‘when I want to eat something special, cook it myself’ was fostered around this time,” she says.

The simple flavor of this dish, which doesn’t require consomme or other special seasonings, takes her back to those days. It is an easy recipe that only requires cooking in a frying pan and then browning in a toaster.

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Yummy: Born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1976, she is a cooking expert. After graduating from Joshibi University of Art and Design, she worked as a textile designer before joining Kaldi Coffee Farm, a store chain that sells imported food and ingredients.

Her cooking blog, which she began in 2006, drew attention and she published her first recipe book the following year. She adds fun aspects to the recipes she offers. Her most recent book, “Yami-san no Ouchi de Sekai-isshu Reshipi” (Yummy’s around-the-world recipes at home), is published by Shufunotomo Co.

BASIC COOKING METHOD

Main ingredients (Serve 1)

2 asparagus, 1/4 onion, 50 grams shelled shrimps, 1 Tbsp oil, 300 ml water, 1/4 tsp salt, 30 grams macaroni (boiling time of 9 minutes), 1 Tbsp flour, 100 ml milk, 20 grams cheese for pizza

1. Peel asparagus, cut 4 cm from tip. Cut the rest at an angle into 1-cm wide slices. Finely slice onion. Devein shelled shrimp by making incision in back. Knead with salt (not listed above), rinse with water and pat dry.

2. Pour oil into frying pan and place on medium heat. Cook asparagus and shrimp until slightly brown and remove. Cook onion in the same pan until tender. Add water and salt and bring to a boil. Add uncooked macaroni and boil for 9 minutes.

3. Turn to high heat and cook out water but not to the extent that the ingredients burn. Return asparagus and shrimp. Add flour and mix. Add milk by small degrees and simmer until sauce thickens.

4. Apply butter (not listed above) inside heat-resistant container. Move ingredients to container, sprinkle cheese on top and brown in toaster.

About 500 kcal and 2.0 grams salt per portion
(Nutrient calculation by the Nutrition Clinic of Kagawa Nutrition University)

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From The Asahi Shimbun’s Jinsei Reshipi (Life Recipe) column