Naoko Takei is a cookbook author, teacher, and the founder of Toiro in Los Angeles, a cookware shop devoted to the traditional pottery of Iga, Japan. Naoko specializes in cooking with the Japanese donabe (pronounced doh-NAH-bay), an earthenware pot used for soups, stews, braises, steaming fish and vegetables, as well as for grilling or roasting.
Naoko wrote the book on donabe — really. She co-authored Donabe: Classic and Modern Japanese Clay Pot Cooking (Ten Speed Press) with Kyle Connaughton, chef of Single Thread Farm, a Michelin three-star restaurant in northern California.
The donabe, literally “clay pot,” dates to 8th-century Japan and was widely used in the Edo period for a communal meal set in the middle of the dining table over a charcoal-heated grill. Naoko fell in love with the taste of rice cooked in a double-lidded donabe called kamado-san. So she reached out to the manufacturer and started importing donabe to Los Angeles and teaching cooking classes from her home kitchen.
Naoko, known for her straightforward approach to combining simple ingredients for pure flavors, continues to teach cooking classes at her shop and at events, utilizing various types of donabe and showcasing artisanal ingredients and products from Japan.
