For more years than Nikkei Place has existed at 6688 Southoaks Crescent in Burnaby, a dedicated group of volunteers have helped raise funds to realize the dream of a place that honours, preserves, and shares Japanese Canadian history and heritage. Nikkei Place opened in 2000, and the Auxiliary committee raised funds to create and later expand a community kitchen spacious enough to produce all of the delicious sweet and savoury treats that are specialties at the NNMCC seasonal cultural festivals throughout the year, New Year’s mochitsuki (pounding of ritual rice cakes), Breakfast with Santa, and food contributions for innumerable NNMCC commemorations, celebrations of life, and special events. In imagining a cookbook that honours, preserves, and shares the best of the NNMCC Auxiliary, we wanted to offer something more than an inventory of recipes. We hope that these pages will give a taste of the story of friendship and community that the Auxiliary has built over the years.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Metro Vancouver for the production of this book.
“The recipes in this book together with the authors’ personal anecdotes have been selected by the Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre Auxiliary Committee members. The foods created by these recipes reflect our Japanese cultural heritage and many have proven to be very successful at our fundraising events over the years. We hope they will be a lasting guide for others in the future. We wish to acknowledge the many hundreds of Auxiliary volunteers who have been instrumental in making our events so successful over the past 19 years. They have helped generate much needed funds for the NNMCC’s museum programs and building maintenance, as well as assisting other community organizations and programs.”
— NNMCC Auxiliary Committee 2021