Spending my first year(s) after college in Japan, a foreign country where I can't make everything I've grown up with back in the U.S.A. I don't speak/read Japanese very well (ex. cooking tragedies). Cookies, cake, pie, taco, potatoes, baked breaded chicken, cheese burger, meat loaf (various), hot cocoa, tea, pasta Special chocolate chip cookies, meat loaf, pork roast, real mashed potatoes, lasagna, stuffing/dressing, brownies Macha (green tea)flavored sugar cookies ~ My first batch of rice in a Japanese rice cooker, resulted in burnt rice! Lesson learned, learn what the Japanese means before you start cooking with it.