Mom and Pop Dinner

Mom's New Year's dinner, clockwise from the top: tazukuri (dried sardines cooked in soy sauce, mirin, and sugar); namasu (Japanese radish and Korean carrot marinated in rice vinegar); kohada (small herring, pickled), kazunoko (herring roe); kuromame (black soybeans, simmered on the stove for hours); datemaki and kamaboko (sweet rolled omelette, left, and steamed fish paste, right). Also homemade roast beef.

Dad's contribution: sea bream and rice, cooked in an earthenware pot. To his credit, he spent over 20 minutes painstakingly pulling out all the bones with a tweezer.

I suspect that many people believe that their mothers are the best cooks ever.