Freelance Announcer Aika Kanda: Struggling with Cooking is Tough. Japan’s Fastest Halloween Party!

I can’t sleep because I’m anxious to succeed.

After returning home, I immediately began preparing. But when I started cutting the ingredients, I thought, “Hmm? How big is a bite-size piece?” I got confused. When I was single, I thought bite-size meant around 2 cm, but after getting married, my husband once told me, “Since your body size is different from mine, that’s too small!” From that, I learned that “bite-size” is subjective, and it depends on the person. So, I thought, “Who should I base it on this time!?” After much deliberation, I decided to cut everything into various sizes. As a result, the pieces looked uneven. In the end, it looked like I hadn’t thought about it at all, and I felt disappointed.

Perhaps because of that, that night I lost confidence about whether the party would be a success. I became nervous and couldn’t sleep until around 3 a.m.

Then came the day of the party. As soon as I walked into the room, holding the five bags of okonomiyaki flour and dramatically saying “Ta-da!!” Tsuchida-san immediately asked, “How many are you planning to make?” I smiled and replied, “10 servings?” But he pointed to the front of the bag and said, “No, no, no!” There it was written: “For 10 servings.” When I checked the back of the package, it said, “Instructions for 2 servings.” I had mistakenly assumed one bag was for two servings and ended up buying enough flour for 50 servings. Naturally, we couldn’t finish it, and by the end of the night, four unopened bags of okonomiyaki flour remained.

This autumn, okonomiyaki has appeared on the Himura family’s table multiple times. Now, I can make it quickly, and I no longer hesitate at the supermarket. I’ve taken another step up the ladder of culinary knowledge.

His first book, which compiles this series “Where is the Royal Road? is now on sale to great acclaim!

Ai Kanda / Born in 1980 in Kanagawa Prefecture. After graduating from the Faculty of Science, Department of Mathematics at Gakushuin University, she joined NHK as an announcer in 2003. She left NHK in 2012 and became a freelance announcer. Since then, she has mainly worked on variety shows, and is currently a regular main MC on the daytime show “Poka Poka” (Fuji TV).

 

From the November 1-8, 2024 issue of “FRIDAY