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Summary: Cooking with Joy
Review: 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.
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Summary: West Meets East!
Review: 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."
Rating:
Summary: Simply Inspired
Review: In the ever evolving landscape of the culinary arts there has been a small but delightful new contribution to the gardens where East intermingles with West. Eric Gower shares a beautiful perspective on Japanese foods and cooking styles gained from over a decade of living in Japan blended with a well honed understanding and appreciation for traditionally Western foods and techniques. Taking delight in experimenting with some simple elements of both worlds Eric has distilled in this book a new set of flavors born of his simple yet inspired approach to good food. These simple inspirations give new dimension to common ingredients. The freshness of these inventions is complimented by a beautiful economy of means, very sympathetic to the busy pace of our times. On the whole the book provides not only a series of recipes but an approach to thinking about food and cooking that can enhance anyone?s forays into the culinary arts. Nicely crafted, the photography enhances the recipes themselves. From the depths of his appreciation for both Western and Japanese cuisine and culture, Eric offers up a delightful new range of flavors to freshen any cook?s perspective. Readily accessible and in flavorful harmony with our increasingly busy and quick paced culture.
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Summary: Ingredients as fresh as the concept
Review: Rarely does a cookbook come along that pushes the reset button of approaches and tastes. And, it is done so simply and elegantly and refreshingly. There is an ease to the presentations in this book--a subtle beauty--that generates a graceful, spiritual aura of peace in the kitchen while allowing anyone to turn out fresh dishes whose distinctive ingredients sing solos and harmony all in one. I thank the author for introducing me to new combinations of ingredients and helping me create brilliant flashes on new tastes.
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Summary: Creative Cookery
Review: Reading this cook book makes you hungry, and inspires you to get into the kitchen and try a new recipe. The tofu recipes were eye-opening for me. The recipes are simple to follow and produce great results. This is the essence of good cook book writing, and is really hard to achieve. It's what most cook books strive for, and fail to reach.
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Summary: Zen and the Art of Improvisation
Review: 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.
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Summary: LA Times review says it all
Review: What a fun recipe book! I am having a great time making the dishes Eric created with readily available ingredients brought together in unique and creative combinations. Recent guests raved about the Mint-Cilantro Udon with Fresh Ginger and Meyer Lemon. My desire to have a picture of the completed product is totally satisfied with this book and I love the format of opening to the recipe on one side and the picture opposite. This is a book I'll bring out regularly for guests and as well as easy dinners for the two of us.
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Summary: Delicious. Unique. Simple to Prepare.
Review: What a fun recipe book! I am having a great time making the dishes Eric created with readily available ingredients brought together in unique and creative combinations. Recent guests raved about the Mint-Cilantro Udon with Fresh Ginger and Meyer Lemon. My desire to have a picture of the completed product is totally satisfied with this book and I love the format of opening to the recipe on one side and the picture opposite. This is a book I'll bring out regularly for guests and as well as easy dinners for the two of us.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Good Fusion of Japanese Tastes and Western Wines
Review: `The Breakaway Japanese Kitchen' is a very nice little book by private chef Eric Gower of San Francisco. It should appeal to anyone who has an ongoing interest in Oriental tastes or has a serious commitment to opening an investigation of Oriental, specifically Japanese, tastes and techniques. While the book involves very few unfamiliar Oriental cooking techniques such as stir-frying or tempura or sushi rolling, the recipes do involve access to some very serious oriental ingredients such as Kabocha (Japanese pumpkin), Kabosu (Japanese green citrus), Konbu (dried kelp), Meyer lemons, Shiso (perilla, or beefsteak plant), Sudachi (Japanese limes), Togarashi (red chilis), Umeboshi (Pickled salty plums), and Yuzu (small Oriental citrus). And this doesn't include things like dashi broth, edamame (fresh or frozen), miso, nam pla, sake, soba noodles, and udon noodles which I know are available in a good megamart. Naturally, you can imagine relatively easy substitutions of lemons or limes for the esoteric citrus and sweet pumpkins for the Kabocha and southwestern chilis for Togarashi. But this doesn't entirely satisfy the reader when the author says that the tofu available in the United States is a poor cousin to the type available in Japan. The author is based in San Francisco, where the best Japanese versions of many of these products are probably available, but I suspect that many of these things are available only on the West Coast, and this annoys me a bit. I welcome any entree to Japanese tastes for the average American, but since the author is doing fusion recipes in the first place, why not make the effort to prepare recipes freely accessible to the housewife in Topeka.
I typically give five stars to books which inspire me or which I believe will inspire the average foodie and amateur cook such as books by Jamie Oliver and Jacques Pepin, or, which I believe should be read by the average foodie / amateur cook such as works by Shirley Corriher, Marcella Hazan, or Paula Wolfert. I will also give five stars to cooks which surprise me or do an exceptionally good job of serving a special audience, such as Rachael Ray (fast cooking) or Flo Brakker (desserts) or Peter Reinhart (bread). I will give only three stars if a book is good, but the average prospective buyer may not easily be aware that the book is aimed at a very special audience, and the buyer is not a member of that audience. The best example of this case is Charlie Trotter's book, `Raw'.
In the end, this book did not inspire me to run out in search of the perfect miso or the elusive Meyer lemon. But, the book does contain several recipes with few or no ingredients for which you cannot find suitable substitutions. And, several of these recipes interested me enough to make them, and I found them as good as promised. I was especially pleased to find the author do interesting things with very common ingredients such as potatoes in a book where rice is king. As the book is quite obviously for people who like or are disposed to like Japanese food, I give it four stars rather than the cautionary three stars.
As Mr. Gower has a very Occidental culinary background before he took up Japanese cuisine, he does us the rare service of pairing his Japanese dishes with very European / California wines. I am not a big fan of wines, but I believe this feature significantly increases the value of the book, especially joined with the relatively easy recipes. This makes the book a better than average source for entertaining if you have average chops in the kitchen and a good nearby megamart or good nearby oriental food market.
The author and his publishers have done a better than average job of food styling and culinary photography. The photographer performed the same service for `Nobu, The Cookbook' and the talent with the camera shows. Many dishes are plated and visually garnished with Japanese art objects. The effort pays off.
The book is a good introduction to Japanese tastes with largely western cooking techniques and wine pairings. A bit pricy for the size, but I'm sure you can find Amazon do it's usual discounting.
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