Meet Hidemi Walsh - our 2011 Thanksgiving recipe competition winner

“I am Japanese and moved to the US 3 years ago from Tokyo to marry my husband. We were living in VA and moved to IN last year. I am 100% housewife so I have plenty of time to do housework! I do love to cook, especially to make dessert since I love sweets very much. I came to love to cook when I was in mid 20s when I was overweight. I wanted to lose weight so badly so started to cook and eat at home. No dining out, no junk food, even no sweets... well, just one or two bites sometimes.... I learned how to make healthy, nutritious yet delicious dishes from lots of cooking books and also from my mother who is a great cook. Thanks to my diet strategy, I lost about 50lb in one year!

“But I love to eat and can't resist sweets. So whenever I make desserts, I try to pick healthy ingredients. Pumpkin is one of them. I prefer creamy sweets, such as ice cream, cream puff, cake with lots of whipped or custard cream and of course crème brulee! I know it is a tradition for American people to make Pumpkin Pie for Thanksgiving but I just wanted to try something different. So I made Pumpkin Cream Puff Cake which was one of my entries and this Pumpkin Crème Brulee using fresh pumpkin. American pumpkin is different from Japanese pumpkin. It took me a while to figure out the right measurement to make the perfect Crème Brulee. But I think I managed to make the Pumpkin Crème Brulee I wanted to. I am very happy to know that other people like it too.

“There are lots of cultural differences between Japan and the US and they inspire me a lot. I love to learn and try new things. Food is one of them. I am learning how to cook traditional American dishes. But I still don't know what to do with a HUGE Turkey so it would be my next challenge for Thanksgiving recipes.

“Thank you very much for choosing me and I am very honored. Also I thank my husband a lot for being my TESTER and eating everything I cook. He is very sweet and brave enough to eat anything I cook. And I thank my parents-in-law who are also my testers. Now my mother-in-law is my American cooking teacher and my father-in-law is my sweet buddy who eats any sweets I make. Thanks to my family's support, I won.

“I was raised by eating fish and vegetables. Almost everyday, fish, fish and fish. I was born and raised in Sapporo in Hokkaido where is famous for seafood, ramen noodle and of course sushi. Our everyday meal were baked fish, sashimi, stir-fry, vegetable or shrimp, scallop tempura... meat was served only once or twice a week. Japanese people eat meat too but we eat fish a lot too. When I was little, fried chicken was my dream food. But my parents are fish people and my mother cooked based on my father's favorites. But now, I could eat and cook fried chicken anytime I like and it is funny I miss fish a lot now. When I moved to the US, I was surprised to see huge whole chicken, turkey, ham in supermarkets. They are bigger than my head! Meat department is so big but fish department is very small which disappoints me a little bit. But I am living in America and am learning how to cook those big meat. I am very impressed people cook wonderful turkey or chicken beautifully for holiday season. I leave it up to my husband who cooks turkey perfectly.

“Everything is bigger here which amazes me and I like, especially ice cream or pie or cake. There are lots of Japanese food I like but when it comes to a desert, I don't miss Japanese sweets much. I love creamy, big and sweet American desert which makes me feel like a little girl.”Click here for Hidemi’s winning "Pumpkin Crème Brulee" recipe.

Some of our past winners:

Maiah Albi
Lesa Roemke
Jill Drury

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