Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

My friend's bar, Flat, in Roppongi, with the jinga-like tower of french fries topped with fried thyme.

Carbonara. (Forgive me if I don't know how to spell it; I do know how to make it.) Eggs and bacon and pepper and cheese, perfect for anytime of day, can make for one or 10, is done and in the bowl in the time it takes to boil water and pasta. What's not to love.

Got 100 percent. Bring it, Indy!

Cranberry and cherry pinwheels, which are flavored with orange. Yum!

Lamb shanks, osso bucco style, with polenta, feta, lemon and parsley. Yum.

Do not miss the ginko nuts. It's also oyster and ikura season (salmon roe). Also, sweet potato ice cream, which is best in Kamakura but you can get at the Sensoji Temple. In Harajuku, you can make your own Okonomiyaki at Sakura-Tai. Vendors should start selling roasted sweet potatoes on the street soon. They put them in paper cones, like a vegie ice cream cone. No wonder people here are so skinny. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

I'm not going to lie. I love free stuff.

Mine was my mom's frail but unused Better Homes and Gardens, the one with the red and white cover. I made the peanut butter criss-crosses, over and over again, with crunchy peanut butter. I still use it when I need to check on substitutions (standard to metric) or when I can't remember how to make sour milk. And I love looking at the meat maps of the cow and pig.

I usually eat a whole avocado, in endless forms. It's comforting and fatty, but it's better than eating a whole block of cheese. In a grilled tortilla, with or without scrambled eggs. In five-minute salad -- two shredded carrots, dash of soy sauce and sesame oil, poached egg. With wakame, a handful of sliced leeks, soy sauce or prepared soba broth. On any greens with nearly any dressing (and, now that I think about it, any cheese). Whizzed in the blender with a little vegetable broth, soy milk or milk, and cilantro. That cool, creamy soup is cozy on a summer night.