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Lmaooo get on tiktok or youtube!! In any other situation except quarantine I prob would have never said that but I think the only way to be seen and experienced while social distancing is through social media and getting twitter famous is too insane and instagram famous ppl usually seem really boring their lives seem too curated. And this site is already dead and buried. Just do it for fun tho don’t get too caught up in numbers :+) which i know is hard lol but still. I know the joke is that everyone thinks they’re good enough to make a podcast or a newsletter or whatever but for some reason those youtube videos where people are just talking about something whether it’s a topic they researched or some interesting stories from their lives are so much more preferable to me even tho they’re basically like a podcast (i’m talking about like. those true crime channels where ppl are just putting on makeup or even just sitting there lol or video essays about specific topics) idk somehow it just comes off better on youtube imo.....

the one i make the most often is kombu tsukudani just bc it’s a quick and easy way to use up left over kombu from whenever i make stock for something lol otherwise i feel really bad just throwing it out

last winter i made this simmered kabocha recipe and it was really good! i love pumpkin in savory dishes :-) and of course you can omit the bonito flakes if you want this to be completely meatless

not strictly japanese but i saw a recipe from future neighbor (a korean youtuber) a while ago where he made eggplant tempura and i made it and it was delishhhhh def make sure to use japanese eggplant tho bc it’s easier to cut into wedges since it’s long and skinny (rather than like italian eggplant which is shorter and wider). honestly there are a million different fried eggplant recipes using some kind of batter from different cultures i don’t think you can ever go wrong with it

i was gonna say miso soup but it’s not purely vegetarian bc i use bonito flakes for it. i used to make miso soup without it and while it’s obviously still really good the bonito flakes do make it so much better i could never figure out why my homemade miso was never as good as restaurant miso soup and it was bc of the bonito flakes i think. whenever i make it i make a huge amount of it and have it for the next few days sometimes adding other stuff into it like mushrooms or clams

My fav ones:

Bottom of the Pot by Naz Deravian 

Taverna by Georgina Hayden 

My Korea by Hooni Kim

Peru by Gastón Acurio

Taste of Eastern India by Kankana Saxena

Also, while I like the books Samarkand by Caroline Eden and Eleanor Ford and Fire Islands (again) by Eleanor Ford I don’t really care for white people writing cookbooks about and profiting off of cuisines from cultures they’re not a part of. If I were redoing it I wouldn’t get them again 

also. some cookbooks that i really wanna get:

Oaxaca by Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral

Coconut & Sambal by Lara Lee

Jikoni by Ravinder Bhogal

In Bibi's Kitchen by Hawa Hassan and Julia Turshen

Nopalito by Gonzalo Guzmán and Stacy Adimando 

East by Meera Sodha