One of Katsuyo Kobayashi's strengths is that she is 100 percent reliable. With 140 books published to date, even the most inept cook can take home her latest compilation of recipes and come up trumps every time. Not only are they easy to make, good to eat and affordable, but joy of joys, some are now available in English.

This suggests "The Quick and Easy Japanese Cookbook" as the perfect Christmas gift: a collection of over 60 recipes under the headings fish, meat, vegetables, eggs, tofu, rice/noodles and soups, plus the basic techniques for preparing rice, "dashi" stock and "mentsuyu" noodle stock. And I say this as a convert who has bought Japanese cookbooks but rarely used them, because the instructions all seemed just too darned complicated, and the resulting dishes never looked as good as in the photos.

"The image of Japanese food scares many foreigners," observed Kobayashi last week. "They think, ' "washoku," "kaiseki" -- difficult.' But I focus on real Japanese family style food -- the kind most people eat every day at home. This type of cooking is diverse, with influences from all over the world. Some recipes are from China, adapted to Japanese taste. You'll also find Japanese-style curry, 'omrice' (savory rice wrapped in an omelet) -- even Japanese-style hamburgers, flavored with sake and soy sauce."