Cooking Through My First Year Away From Home
Oyakodon with chicken, eggs, and onions
When I moved from Japan to go to college in the U.S., I was excited to start my new adventure and to meet new people. Going to orientation and participating in events, somewhere I thought I would quickly find a group of friends and feel instantly at home. But as the initial excitement subsided, and the celebration of orientation was replaced with the repetitiveness of class, I began to feel a deep loneliness — was it always this hard to make close friends?
Yearning for comfort, I would find myself scrolling through old videos on my phone, and printing out lots of photos of high school friends and family to post on my bedroom wall. I brought my favorite pillow with me, and even pinned up letters from my parents next to my bed. I thought recreating a familiar space would console me when I felt lonely, but despite my efforts, it still wasn’t home. The reality was, I was sharing a single bedroom with a roommate that I wasn’t quite close friends with, in a country far away from family.
On days when I felt particularly homesick, cooking became my escape. Desperate to avoid the crowded dining hall and stress of finding someone to eat with, I would take my big cooking pan and head to the communal kitchen to find some peace alone.
That first-year kitchen was a place of nightmares — a constantly broken, moldy sink and crusty countertops of unwashed cutting boards and laid out knives. But unshaken, I would take a big roll of paper towels to carefully move aside the mess, and clear a little space to make a meal that I longingly missed: a simple oyakodon with chicken, eggs, and onions.
How to Make a Soft and Comforting Oyakodon
Ingredients for 2 servings
- 200g of chicken breast, in cubes
- 2 eggs
- 1 onion, thinly sliced
- Seasonings: 2 tablespoons each of soy sauce, sake, mirin; 1 tablespoon of sugar, 2 teaspoons of dashi powder
