Chef Rocco DiSpirito Wants to Cook with YOU in YOUR KITCHEN!
If you are planning an important meal or want to share a significant moment over
food, then A&E and celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito can solve your cooking emergency!
Invite Rocco into your kitchen, and he will teach you what to cook, where to find
the ingredients and how to prepare the ideal meal for your special occasion.
• Are you planning a big announcement?
• Do you have a personal ‘hero’ you wish to thank?
• Are you celebrating a major life event?
• A soldier’s homecoming or a reunion?
• Want to reveal your dramatic weight loss?
• Do you need to impress someone or tell someone that you’re
sorry?
A&E is looking for people in the Los Angeles area who need Rocco’s
help.
To apply for the show, email CookWithRocco@gmail.com and include
your name, age, phone number, a recent photo and tell us why you need
to cook with Rocco. Or call our casting hotline 818-752-5559.

ofukuro no aji (the taste of momma's home cooking)

As a starving student in Japan, I was always lucky enough to homestay with mothers skilled in the art of making anything I pleased. Sukiyaki, tempura, oden.... anything. And of course, they'd always teach me how to cook, as well as eat the dishes. I was 16 when I cracked open my first raw egg into a bowl and dipped in a savory slice of shoyu-marinated beef. I had no clue that was the real way to eat sukiyaki. Oh, and it was divine.

Now that my childhood is dead and gone, the attitude is more like, "Go make it yourself! Sheesh." Now I'm the adult. Now I have to be that woman who lovingly prepares the meals.

So I got really lucky this weekend when I happened to be the guest in a Japanese home, and there happened to be a Japanese mother present. There were over a half-dozen chirping mouths crying, "Feed me. Feed me." Oh and, boy, did she. First she marinated several trays of kalbi and lamb, and grilled them outside. She also steamed and sauteed some heads of broccoli, pouring onto it a light soy-based sauce. Then she prepared sushi rice, nori sheets, and fresh crab and showed us how to make our own temaki rolls. (see below)

To finish off the meal, she brought out little dishes of shredded nori, fresh grilled salmon, pickled vegetables and a very plump umeboshi. "I'm going to teach you how to eat ochazuke Kyoto-style," she said, which immediately made me drool. Kyoto style is where you eat the toppings separately from the rice and tea. That way you enjoy every single taste by itself. The best moment of the night was watching one person plop an entire ume into his mouth thinking it was a cherry tomato. The reaction on his face was priceless.