Author: Katie Slattery
Foodies in Japan: A Cooking Class Diary (1st of 2)
Part 1: We make sushi and learn the secrets of ramen WHAT IS THE FIRST THING that pops into your mind when someone mentions Japanese food? Is it sushi? Or Ramen? Tempura? Or something else? I love food, and cooking is a creative outlet as essential to my identity as writing. Those who have read…
How IBM Helped Hitler
Originally published here on April 14, 2015, as An Unexpected Answer Published to Substack on 04/18/2026 * Recently, a reader of Immigrant Soldier asked me an interesting question during an author presentation. “How did the Nazis find all the Jewish people, especially people like Herman’s family who didn’t practice the religion?” My first response was…
Japanese Shrine Stamps and our guide, Yuki
MY DAUGHTER ERIN AND I ARRIVED at Tokyo airport at 6:00 am on an overcast December morning. Two hours later, we met Yuki, our guide and driver for the next six days. He would become a friend who opened new windows into Japanese culture. Tired but eager to immerse ourselves in Japan, we waited for…
To the Man who Taught Bamboo Weaving
2023, Luang Prabang, Laos I WAS ONE OF A SMALL GROUP gathered around, eager to learn the craft of bamboo weaving. We sat at a row of worktables. You sat in front of us on a low stool not more than eight inches high, stripping the tough outer skin from lengths of bamboo with a…
Policing a Police State
Some weeks ago, I wrote about the Nazi SA and promised to follow up with a discussion of the SS (the Schutzstaffel) and the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei). * AFTER HITLER CAME TO POWER, Germany became a totalitarian state that used a complex and brutal system of policing to enforce its policies. The SS was soon the…
Sunday School Weekends
GROWING UP IN THE 1950s, my older sister, Una, and I were among the few neighborhood children whose mother worked. Mother was a third-grade teacher. She ran our home like a big kids’ classroom, enforcing rules and doling out chores. By the weekend, she was tired of dealing with children, including her own. To give…
A Traveler’s View of Japan’s Public Lavatories
ON OUR FIRST MORNING IN JAPAN, my daughter and I went to a small cooking class held on the second floor of a business building near our hotel. For several hours we learned to form rice balls, pat raw salmon into the correct shape, and roll chopped ingredients between layers of rice and dried seaweed.…
The Vanishing Kimono
THE IKEBANA INSTRUCTOR, a tiny woman with hands no bigger than those of a ten-year-old girl, expertly flipped the dangling sleeves of her teal-blue kimono out of the way as she placed one branch studded with plum buds and three saucer-sized, gold chrysanthemums into a low bowl. Later, at a tea ceremony, we watched as…