Japanese homemaker Kirina Mochizuki has always considered okonomiyaki savory pancakes the ultimate comfort food: simple, satisfying and cheap.
These days, though, it's a struggle to get the dish, a favorite among Hiroshima natives like herself, on the table. With the price of cabbage — a key ingredient — tripling recently, Mochizuki makes daily trips to the supermarket in search of discounted produce, or resorts to using dried seaweed.
"I never imagined that okonomiyaki would become a delicacy," the mother-of-two said, adding she had also taken to regrowing leek in a glass of water using the usually discarded root base.
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