An update about me!

Kokochi has been full of posts about my kids, well, because that's what's important to me. Today though, this is about me : )

First, I left Evernote last week. It was definitely a difficult decision as I've been working with incredibly smart and creative people. I very much believe in what Evernote is doing, and will be an Evenote user for the rest of my life. But I'm super picky about how work fits into my life & family, and the commute became too much. Plus, I missed working with Japan which hadn't been my focus. However, I am very grateful for the amazing things I learned, and will keep turning to Evernote for examples in how things are done right.

Another reason was, well, I found an incredible new opportunity. This week, I started working for COOKPAD, which many of you know is the #1 crazy popular recipe sharing site in Japan, but also many of you don't know because it only exists in Japan. The team in Japan has been working hard on an English language site, en.cookpad.com, translating over 16,000 recipes from the pool of over 1.7 million recipes submitted by Japanese home cooks. You'd be hardpressed to find a Japanese person who does not know Cookpad. My job is to figure out how to adapt the site to the N. A. market, and get people here to love it and use it.

I'm excited that my job is about food, recipes, home-cooking, Japanese culture, and sharing. Part of my job is to try out the English version of the receipes to see how they translate here. One thing that bummed me out while commuting to Evernote was that I cooked far less than I wished. I had so little time between getting home and kid bedtime that cooking became a game of efficiency. I used Munchery, the home-delivered chef-cooked food, many times so I could have a break and just come home to a delicious meal with no scrambling. It knawed at me that my kids weren't seeing me cook a lot or even if I cooked, it was more necessity vs. joy, experiementation, and creativity. So I feel Cookpad will be great for our family! More new recipes! More Japanese dishes!

Also, for the time being, I'm working from home. No office here yet until I get the ball rolling, so no more commuting. 

My first focus is to gather feedback about the translated recipes so I can identify changes we need to adapt them here. I would love if everyone tried a recipe or two from en.cookpad.com, and let me know what you think. This is just the beginning, more features are coming so stay tuned!

 

 

Comments

[David Grover]

Helen has just started trying cooking. I pointed her here to try some recipes out.

[T]

Cookpad is beyond awesome. Congrats on the new adventure. Keep us informed about what fantastic things result in this project.

[Trebsworld]

That's so amazing, Mie! Sounds like a great opportunity and a fun job.

[Troy_mmx]

weird; I discovered Jon's blog when I was interested in the JET program ~ 10 years ago and JET bloggers had lots of interesting things to say about their daily lives working there. After leaving JET In the wilds of Kyushu he got up to Tokyo and eventually made it there.

and some years later I discovered your occasional blogging via google from a mention of IIRC am/pm convenience store in Japan.

So it makes sense these two blogging words would intersect I guess.

Reading your blurb I think you've got a great opportunity by the tail here.

Just last week at work people were over the moon about some teriyaki chicken skewers they got from a Chinese food truck. I tried "二本" but they were horrible compared to what is available on the street in Tokyo when I lived there.

Having lived in Japan for most of the 1990s, I'm not the biggest fan of all of Japanese cuisine -- as a picky eater the "morning set" at hotels and tray lunches at old-school corporate cafeterias were particularly difficult -- but the good stuff is most certainly very good.

My first visit to a Tenya was amazing (until I discovered even better fast-food tempura in Shibuya), and I loved getting a "nami" order of gyudon at the Nakau place near work (I settle for the individual Ajinomoto packet now).

Koreans vastly outnumber Japanese here in the US and at least where I live in California AFAICT all the "Japanese" food outlets are actually operated by Korean-Americans.

Not that this is a bad thing, but there's a good market for bringing some authenticity and enlightened editorial guidance back to Japanese food!