
6

"Chef Chris Ono runs the pop-up Hansei celebrating Nikkei cuisine at the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center (JACCC) in Little Tokyo. The tasting menu, which explores the chef’s fourth-generation Japanese American experience, features a version of his mother Janice Higashi’s fried chicken. Growing up, Ono’s mother made cornflake-crusted chicken wings coated in a teriyaki sauce and paired with a cabbage slaw. The recipe came from one of the many cookbooks Higashi collected from Japanese American churches and community centers in the ’60s and ’70s. Because Japanese American families had difficulty sourcing panko following the Japanese American incarceration in World War II, they improvised by using cornflakes, says Ono. The chef’s take on the dish is served as a snack in the museum’s garden at the start of Hansei. Instead of using chicken wings, Ono soaks chicken liver in milk, sears it, then spices it with shiso and myoga ginger before encrusting it in cornflakes; it’s finished with teriyaki seasoning." - Jean Trinh