Marsha Takeda-Morrison
@Marsha_JTMMarsha Takeda-Morrison is a writer and art director living in Los Angeles who drinks way too much coffee. Her writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Parents, Genlux, Niche, Mom.com, and other lifestyle, education, and parenting publications. She also covers pop culture and has interviewed the likes of Paris Hilton, Jessica Alba, and Kim Kardashian. While she spends a lot of time in Hollywood she has never had plastic surgery, given birth to an actor’s child, or been on a reality show. Yet.
Updated May 2023
Stories from This Author
Her Name Was Not Margaret
Dec. 10, 2024 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
My mother’s name was Margaret. But actually it wasn’t. Her kindergarten teacher gave her this name, after saying my mom’s actual name, Tsutako, was too hard to pronounce. “That’s just how it was,” my mother said. I never asked her how she felt about her American name, given to her by a hakujin woman who thought it was within her right to rename a five-year-old without consent from her or her family. At the first volunteer meeting at my daughters’ …
Sola Izakaya: This Place Feels Like Home
Dec. 1, 2024 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
My parents had a requirement for a good Japanese restaurant. “If the customers are speaking Japanese, it must be good,” they would always say, referring to the fact that if people from the homeland were eating there, the food would be authentic and delicious. They always felt at home in these places, as opposed to those that were filled with tourists or hipsters who held their ohashi the wrong way and pronounced edamame as “ee-da-mommee.” I have to admit that …
Wake Up and Smell the Green Tea: Japanese Breakfast is the New Way to Start Your Day
Dec. 15, 2023 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
I’ve been to Japan three times. Over the course of those visits I had so many delicious meals; rich, deep curries; ramen noodles immersed in intense, flavorful broth; sushi that was so fresh my cousin slapped it in the cup of her hand because she said it was still moving (yes, I actually did see it move and yes, it freaked me out.) But the meals that made the biggest impression are the breakfasts. I’d never had a traditional Japanese …
Want to make authentic Japanese food? Just One Cookbook’s Nami Chen is here for you
May 19, 2023 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
If you’ve ever looked to the internet for a ramen recipe, or maybe some tips on how to brew the perfect cup of matcha, chances are your search has taken you to Just One Cookbook, the website of Namiko Hirasawa Chen. Nami, as she’s known to her legions of fans, has become synonymous with traditional, authentic Japanese cooking and her clear, step-by-step recipes are revered by many home chefs, including myself. I chatted with Nami and her husband and business …
Leftovers
Oct. 12, 2022 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
“Nokorimono,” my mom said disdainfully. Leftovers. She was emphasizing the rule in our house as she often did, that yesterday’s food was perfectly fine for family, but not good enough to be served to guests. I was in middle school, and had just told her that a classmate would be coming over to work on a project. I had mistakenly asked if we could finish off the croquettes she’d made for dinner the night before. She bristled at the audacity …
Natto: A Love Story
Oct. 10, 2017 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
I love natto. But it wasn’t always that way. My mom gave me my first taste when I was around seven or eight years old and it didn’t go well. I gagged and begged her for a cup of water to wash the bitter taste out of my mouth. “It’s good for you,” she said, but I swore right then that not a single, slimy, smelly bean would ever touch my lips again. Growing up, I put it on the …
The Weight On My Shoulders
Oct. 19, 2015 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
I don’t remember exactly how old I was when this happened—maybe nine or ten—but I distinctly remember what the hotel room looked and smelled like. The bedspreads were ugly and itchy. There was a musty smell to everything, and we figured it was because the housekeepers never really cleaned, just moved the vacuum a few times over the carpet and called it a day. I refused to drink out of any of the glasses because I swore I saw a …
Spam: It’s What’s For Dinner. No, Really.
Oct. 26, 2012 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
Today I’m going to talk about Spam. I’m not talking about the kind in your online mailbox, I’m talking about the canned meat.Hey, where’d everybody go? Now that everyone, save for a few adventurous souls and the Asians, have left the room let me tell you about one of my favorite family traditions, Spam musubi, (pronounced moo-soo-bee), a kind of sushi concoction made out of Spam, rice, and seaweed. Hey look—now only the Asians are still here. Sure, being Japanese-American, …
Warning: Japanese lady say not-so-nice things about racists!
June 7, 2011 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
I was in my early twenties, at a dinner party. The host, a friend of mine, used the “N-word” in a conversation and after a couple of nervous giggles, everyone went on eating their pasta puttanesca like nothing had happened. I tried to, but couldn’t and I made a feeble attempt at approaching the subject, saying something like, “About that word—it was offensive but you know that, right?” my voice shaking the entire time. I remember there were no nervous …
Japan Quake: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
March 31, 2011 • Marsha Takeda-Morrison
I know the title of this post is “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” but it’s been really hard to find anything good about the disaster unfolding in Japan. Truth is, words seem so trivial and I don’t even particularly feel like writing about the quake, or the tsunami or the nuclear crisis that’s changing by the hour. And you know I don’t do sentimental or sad very well—I prefer to keep those thoughts bottled up inside and express …
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