Can Cooking Benefit Your Mental Health?
February 18, 2021
Five ways home cooking supports your mental health, from a sense of accomplishment and creative expression to building patience and connecting with others.
The Journal · Stories from Oishya
The Oishya Journal
Stories from the workshops, the table, and the long way around.
Featured · From the Journal
In this issue
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Ideas For Celebrating Big Occasions At Home
February 11, 2021
Five ways to celebrate birthdays and milestones at home during lockdown, including video call parties, drive-by parades and booking an online experience.
How To Overcome Cooking Fatigue
February 9, 2021
Seven ways to beat cooking fatigue during lockdown, from online cooking classes and YouTube tutorials to recording family recipes and buying better tools.
12 Cooking Tips You’d Wish You Learnt Sooner
February 4, 2021
Preheat the pan and your roast veg never need flipping. Twelve small habits like that, including an egg-yolk wash and a warm knife for cake.
Best Valentine’s Day Gifts For Your Loved One
January 25, 2021
Ten Valentine’s Day gift ideas for a partner who loves food, from a mini projector and breakfast tray to a Japanese knife set and Kintsugi plates.
Valentine’s Day Ideas For Quarantine
January 25, 2021
Cook the same meal over Zoom, build a blanket-fort cinema, or graze a charcuterie board all day: ten ways to spend Valentine’s at home.
How To Find Your Ikigai
January 21, 2021
What ikigai means and how to find yours by listing your values, what you enjoy and what you do well, then living where the three overlap.
Knife Hacks For Perfect Cutting
January 21, 2021
Five knife hacks for cleaner cutting, using the spine to scoop food, matching the knife to the task, and pinching the blade for control.
How To Make A Charcuterie Board
January 20, 2021
How to build a charcuterie board, choosing the board, then slicing meats and cheeses and arranging fruit, nuts, dips and crackers around them.
Cooking steak like a pro (and mistakes you should avoid)
January 15, 2021
How to cook steak well and the mistakes that ruin it, from underseasoning and stabbing the meat to forgetting how thick a steak should be.
The Concept Of Wabi-Sabi In Wooden Objects
January 14, 2021
Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect: how wabi-sabi turns wood’s uneven grain and quiet asymmetry into the whole point.
Wooden Handles: Maple Burl
January 12, 2021
What turns soft maple into a handle that shrugs off water? Resin forced deep under pressure, leaving the burl dense, tough and waterproof.
Best Way To Store Kitchen Knives Around Children
December 31, 2020
The safest way to store kitchen knives with children around, weighing drawers, knife blocks and wall-mounted magnetic strips on safety and care.
How To Organise Your Fridge: Zero Waste
December 23, 2020
Best-before is a suggestion; expiry is the one to obey, and leftovers go after four days. A step-by-step fridge reset that cuts food waste.
How to Host An Unforgettable Dinner Party
December 17, 2020
A practical timeline for hosting a dinner party, from the guest list two weeks out to lighting candles and pouring water before guests arrive.
How To Cut Onions Without Crying
December 3, 2020
Why onions make you cry comes down to a sulphur compound that turns to acid near your eyes, plus tricks like a fan, freezing and cutting the root.
12 Things Every Home Cook Should Have In Their Kitchen
November 26, 2020
Twelve kitchen tools worth owning, starting with two good knives and a sharpening stone, then a wooden spoon, scissors, pans and a saucepan.
10 Christmas Gift Ideas For Him (Inspired By Japan)
November 18, 2020
Sake, a knife set forged by the same methods as 1,000-year-old katanas, a sushi kit and brass chopsticks. Ten Japan-inspired gifts for him.
10 Christmas Gift Ideas For Her (Inspired By Japan)
November 18, 2020
Kintsugi tableware carries a message: mend the break in gold and show it off. That, plus nine more Japan-inspired gifts for her.
What Makes Japanese Kitchen Knives So Good?
November 12, 2020
Rockwell 58-65 steel against Europe’s 52-56, a 15-degree bevel instead of 20, and a blade hammered light enough to draw toward you.
11 Best Kitchen Gifts For Christmas
November 5, 2020
Most kitchen gifts get used once, then forgotten. These eleven don’t, from a Sakai Kyuba knife set to an Aomori Hiba cutting board.
4 Knife Safety Tips
October 28, 2020
Four ways to stay safe with kitchen knives, keeping them sharp, using a large wooden board, and choosing a knife that fits your hand.
7 Ways You Are Accidentally Destroying Your Kitchen Knives
October 22, 2020
Seven everyday habits that quietly wreck your knives, including the dishwasher, air drying, drawer storage and scraping the board with the edge.
Secrets Of Japanese Business Etiquette: Personal Habits
October 20, 2020
Personal habits that trip up foreigners in Japanese business, from handshakes and nose-blowing to small talk that the other side won’t return.
Secrets Of Japanese Business Etiquette: Business Meetings
October 20, 2020
How Japanese business meetings run, from seating by rank and tight timings to interpreters, confirmation calls and slides translated into Japanese.
Secrets Of Japanese Business Etiquette: Business Attire
October 20, 2020
A black suit with a white shirt reads as funeral attire in Japan. Seasonal suit colours, winter coats, and separate rules for men and women.
Secrets Of Japanese Business Etiquette: Business Cards
October 20, 2020
Carry 100 cards for a week in Japan, and never slide one across the table. Giving and receiving business cards without causing quiet offence.
Secrets Of Japanese Business Etiquette: Greetings And Bowing
October 20, 2020
How greetings and bowing work in Japanese business, where first meetings run formal and foreign executives are usually judged more leniently.
10 Best Storage Ideas For Small Kitchens
October 15, 2020
Ten storage ideas for cramped kitchens, from magnetic knife racks and cabinet-top bins to floating spice strips and islands with built-in drawers.
Why Should You Oil Your Chopping Boards
October 8, 2020
Why wooden chopping boards need oiling, and how mineral oil keeps them from drying, staining and cracking. Covers the what, how and when.
The steel decides when it's ready. Not me. — Our Sakai blacksmith, on patience
From the workshops
Stories from the places our knives are made.
Japanese Knife Care: 5 Essential Rules for a Lifetime of Sharp Cutting
April 4, 2026
Five rules for caring for a Japanese knife, covering hand washing, the right cutting board, whetstone sharpening, and proper storage.
The Story Behind Oishya: From Japan’s Knife Villages to Your Kitchen
April 4, 2026
The story of Oishya, a brand born from trips to Sakai and Seki that works with Japanese workshops to make knives for European home cooks.
Best Kitchen Gifts for Summer 2026: 10 Ideas They Will Love
April 4, 2026
Ten kitchen gifts for summer 2026 cooks, from a Sakai Kyuba santoku and brass chopsticks to walnut cutting boards and a three-knife set.
A note from Kamila
Why we write a journal at all.
We grew Oishya through stories, not ads. The articles we wrote, the workshops we visited, the meals we cooked. This journal is where that work lives.
Some pieces teach you about steel and edges. Some are recipes. Some are just the long way around to saying that good tools, made by people we know, are worth keeping.
On the table
Meals worth keeping.
Japanese Knife Care: 5 Essential Rules for a Lifetime of Sharp Cutting
April 4, 2026
Five rules for caring for a Japanese knife, covering hand washing, the right cutting board, whetstone sharpening, and proper storage.
The Story Behind Oishya: From Japan’s Knife Villages to Your Kitchen
April 4, 2026
The story of Oishya, a brand born from trips to Sakai and Seki that works with Japanese workshops to make knives for European home cooks.
Best Kitchen Gifts for Summer 2026: 10 Ideas They Will Love
April 4, 2026
Ten kitchen gifts for summer 2026 cooks, from a Sakai Kyuba santoku and brass chopsticks to walnut cutting boards and a three-knife set.
Blades behind the stories
The knives these stories are about.
Every story here started with a blade. Find the one that matches the way you cook.
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