Japanese Food
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Cookies inspired by Japanese cuisine

Bertie A. Kinser

Masako, an Osaka-based mother and baker extraordinaire, creates cookies inspired by Japanese cuisine. While the tiny treats may look like mini meals, they’re actually simple sugar cookies topped with intricately sculpted icing – a delicious and inventive craft she showcases on Instagram.

An avid baker, Masako has documented her collection of cookies for about a year now. While always impressive, her dessert designs have come a long way—though she’s always had a penchant for recreating familiar foods. In the past, she often paid homage to classic snacks like bacon, hot dogs, and cupcakes, as well as a delicious assortment of strikingly realistic cakes. She’s also reimagined bouquets of flowers, festive holiday trimmings, and even impressive icing drawings of beloved movie characters. Few of her creations, however, were as detailed as the Japanese food-inspired treats she beautifully bakes today.

Far from your average cookies, Masako’s latest creations transcend sprinkles, frosting,

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Food Traditional
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What is nomadic cuisine? Find out at this new Latin fusion restaurant in Wynwood

Bertie A. Kinser

Feb. 4—Andean culture is about to meet Latin fusion in Wynwood.

Restaurateur Diego D’Alvia, who owns the Rex- Best Chivito in Town restaurants in Buenos Aires, is opening Wakyu Restaurant & Bar in Miami next week.

The 2,000-square-foot restaurant, which has indoor and outdoor seating, considers its kitchen experimental. Helmed by Milan-born Chef Matteo Gritti, it aspires to what it calls “nomadic-inspired” cuisine.

What does that mean?

It means you can start with light dishes such as the Krunchies Tuber & Beet Hummus. You can hit the raw bar and order hot and cold fresh tapas. Want something cold? Try the Phantom Ceviche with Patagonia trout, vegetable pickles and green gazpacho which blends Spanish, Peruvian and Mexican flavors. Prefer hot tapas? Get the Arancini stuffed with goat cheese and burnt aioli.

Main courses include the Octopus in The Coral Reef with eggplant, beetroot and red coral, Wayku’s nod to Surf

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Japanese Food
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Pandemic cuisine: Odd pairings, old favorites on the menu

Bertie A. Kinser

NEW YORK — Whether it’s kimchi, beets or broccoli, the pandemic has had a strange impact on food cravings that goes beyond the joy of comfort eating.

Nearly a year into isolation, many people are embracing foods long forgotten or rejected for taste, texture or smell. Some have forced themselves to re-evaluate health-focused foods to help boost their immune systems. And with home cooking at a high, there’s a new adventurousness in the kitchen.

For Maeri Ferguson, 31, in Brooklyn, it’s all about pears.

After recovering from COVID-19, she spent months without normal taste and smell. So many foods she loved just didn’t satisfy. Now, Ferguson can again sense sweetness, saltiness and spiciness, but most foods lack nuance in flavor.

Not pears.

“My whole life I always passed on pears. Not because I didn’t like them. They just intimidated me,” Ferguson said. “I didn’t understand the differences between varietals, how

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World Culinary
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What’s in your pandemic pantry? These staples turn home cooking into cuisine

Bertie A. Kinser

Molly Broder re­members it like it was yesterday.

When she and her husband, Tom, opened Broder’s Cucina Italiana in 1982, “no one in Minnesota had even heard of balsamic vinegar,” she said. “Olive oil was almost impossible to find. Grocery stores only carried a tiny pyramid-shaped bottle called Pompeii, enough for one rarely cooked recipe.”

What a difference a generation makes. Actually, in kitchen terms, countless generations have transpired in just a few decades as items once considered esoteric have expanded kitchen shelves exponentially.

The result: Today’s pantries are truly, madly, deeply richer and fuller than 30, 20, even 10 years ago. The quantity and quality of packaged food has skyrocketed, and so has its availability. Once found only at ethnic markets and co-ops, now most grocery stores carry expansive selections.

The cupboards of enthusiastic home cooks have dozens of new and/or improved products — oils and vinegars, pastas and

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