Aya Yamasaki

A holiday tradition my husband Ryan and I share is to bake crescent cookies from Ryan’s Nana, using a straightforward recipe with just five ingredients. Every time we bake these cookies, we think of Nana dearly and reminds me how she laughed. Love her!

A lovely surprise and a detail I encountered the other day in a rideshare car: a decorative plastic curtain was hung between the backseat and the front seats. This made my short ride quite enjoyable as I looked through the floral motifs.

Sometimes I treat myself to buy interesting sounding books from this independent book shop called On Reading, based in Nagoya, Japan and Seikatsu Forever was one of the books I recently picked up. The book is a full of humorous and sincere Tanka poems and essays about Naomi’s mundane life that makes you chuckle. 

Naomi Terai also works under Habotan and she hand crafts these adorable clay dolls, in the US, my friend Oitama sells her dolls - you should check them out! 

Since we do a family get-together holiday on Thanksgiving, for Christmas, Ryan and I have this “lock-in, nosh-down” event at our humble home. Basically, we just snack and sip beverages all day in a lounge wear—a very care-free way of spending Christmas, I think. We’ve been enjoying this event so much, these past years (post covid, ofc), we invited our lovely friends and it was so much fun! Our Nosh list always changes, but regular faces are charcuterie & panettone from Mario’s Italian Deli & Market in Glendale.

This holiday season, I was all about the color red, which became almost a color therapy for me. We usually don’t have a Christmas tree or any special holiday decorations, but this year, I felt like having some cheerful colored things like these red & white flowers—I don’t know what they are called.

One joyous thing I do every new year is to prepare a casual version of the Osechi (Japanese new year meal).

This year, I made Ozoni, a light dashi-based soup with mochis, spinach, carrots and a grilled shrimp, which symbolizes longevity in Japan. I also made some decoratively-cut pickles, shaped like the mum flowers. The last dish I prepared was a simply sliced Kamaboko, fishcake, topped with generous amount of the soy-marinated Ikura! The way to start your new year right…with good-looking symbolic food.

I started helping a children’s librarian prepare kids’ craft classes in 2022. I usually go there once a week or so. There is this perfect team work in place. Usually the librarian brings all the photo-copied papers that need to be cut, and I come in and cut them out one by one. It is a very rewarding moment for me as I love this Little Tokyo branch and I could give back a little! I cut out a bunch of illustrated dragons for the new year’s zodiac on my recent volunteer visit.