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A chick with knives

Japanese people use big knives in the kitchen. A 6 to 8 inch blade santoku or chef's kitchen knife and a big cutting board are must-have items if you cook at all. Before coming to the US, I always thought everyone used big knives to cut food at home. 

Recipe: Roasted Tomatoes

Beans for Dessert?! 

While looking for dessert recipes that don't use any type of flour (including gluten-free flour), I ran across several black bean brownie recipes. As I read through people's comments, I noticed that many people were skeptical of using black beans as a primary dessert ingredient at first. For me, though, it wasn't weird at all. Growing up in Japan, I ate a lot of bean-based desserts. Many traditional sweets called "wagashi" are made of beans. Adzuki beans are probably the most popular beans used, but we also eat white kidney beans, black beans, soy beans, and green peas to name a few (ok, so peas are not technically beans).