Meet Aiko

Aiko was born in Kagawa, a Japanese prefecture near Osaka known for its udon. The only girl in her large family, she learned to cook from her mother and grandmother. She moved to the US in 1979 and worked as a travel agent, until retiring. Now she finally has time for her main passion: sharing her food. 

No matter what she’s cooking, Aiko always follows Japanese principles of cooking like mottainai, or avoiding waste, ichiju sansai, or creating a balanced menu and cooking seasonally, and omotenashi, or the art of hospitality.  

When asked what makes Japanese food so special, Aiko shared, “We just try to make the food taste like itself. We eat a lot of vegetables, and most importantly, we eat seasonally.” 

In addition to her love of cooking, Aiko is also a passionate watercolorist and gardener. She lives in Manhattan with her husband, and has two community garden plots on the Upper West Side where she grows Japanese cucumber, Japanese eggplants, shiso (an herb in the mint family), and myoga, or Japanese ginger. She has one grown son and two grandchildren.

Aiko’s Japanese cooking has been featured by Food & Wine, Evan Kleinman’s Blog, Gothamist, The New York Times, and She’s Facing Freedom.