As a teenager growing up in the East Bay, Yuji Ishikata veered away from formal schooling. Instead, he gained his education by working at local restaurants and grocery stores, including Berkeley Bowl and Tokyo Fish Market (@tokyofishmarket). As a Yonsei — a fourth-generation Japanese American — that’s where he embraced his community of elders and peers while developing a love for culinary expression. Now a chef himself with more than 15 years of experience in the food industry, @ishikatanotabekata is inviting others to experience the tight-knit traditions he was raised around. And for him, there’s nothing more representative of those traditions than Japanese New Year, which he’ll ring in with a one-day East Bay pop-up featuring dishes rooted in the childhood nostalgia and intergenerational joy inherent to the holiday. The menu will offer four meal options: an ozoni soup kit, for making a fish broth–based mochi soup that Japanese households eat on New Year’s Day; hamachi kama (the fatty, oily collar of yellowtail fish marinated in sake pulp); a temaki hand roll kit — a create-your-own-adventure food experience that allows diners to make their own sushi with spicy tuna, salmon skin and roe, pickled plums, shiso and more; and the osechi ryori box, the traditional full-fledged holiday meal whose components — including chikuzenni (simmered chicken and root vegetables), umami no ebi (simmered shrimp) and namasu (daikon and carrot salad) — are served up in decorative boxes. Read the full story at the link in our bio. 🔗 ✍️: @alan_chazaro/KQED 📸: @jseicommunity