prolog
Are you okay with not earning more? 7

1.
Even though it's the same menu every day, I miss home-cooked meals and run to them? Who knew a world like this existed? · 17
2.
I've decided not to look at cookbooks. · Greed is usually the root of trouble. · 47
3.
A woman silently dissolves soybean paste in water. Escape from the broth. 79
4.
The rest is just seasonal vegetables. · Highly recommended 'The Three Musketeers of Cheap Prices' · 99
5.
What's so great about pickled vegetables with rice bran? Rice bran soybean paste is the best chef's recipe. 169
6.
Adult Taste · Escape from Seasoning Hell · 199
7.
The Freedom to Not Make What You Can't Make · Let Go of Your Kitchen Utensil Greed · 225
8.
The Best 10-Minute Meals · Self-Eat · 247

Epilogue
Again, Freedom · 263

“I’m not anxious.
The support is ‘cooking’!”
The author, Emiko Inagaki, started a 'personal anti-nuclear power movement' in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident.
Washing machine, television, refrigerator, clothes, books… I organized all my belongings one by one and ultimately even gave up my status as an office worker.
However, he says that he does not feel anxious at all even though he is now living a life free from the 'miracle' of receiving a regular salary.
It is said to be completely free.
And he says that the support isn't 'talent' or 'money', but cooking, 'the freedom to make and eat food that I think is delicious.'


Since there is no refrigerator, we cannot stock up on groceries or prepare meals.
Since there are no cooking utensils, the dishes you can make are limited.
And yet I feel 'free'.
Because we are not bound by cookbooks, cooking utensils, restaurants advertised on TV or social media, or the standards for a bountiful meal set by others.
Because I don't depend on other people's values ​​to determine the way and direction of my life.

“It wasn’t because I had saved money or had any special talent that I was able to quit my job and become free.
Because it could cook.
It wasn't a shiny dish.
A simple, rustic dish that anyone can make, always the same.
I found myself finding it delicious.
For the first time in my life, I discovered a dish that I thought was truly delicious.
It wasn't some special dish from some unknown cookbook.
It wasn't a dish recommended by someone living somewhere.
It wasn't a special menu at a restaurant that required a reservation.

It was a dish that I could make myself, very easily.
When I realized that, I knew.
“I already have everything I need to be happy.”

“Since I have to cook every day, simple is best!”
“Why do I have to eat a different menu every day?”
The author, who insists that his simple meals are so delicious that he misses home cooking and runs to eat them even though the menu is the same every day, says that there is a world of infinite freedom in his 'one-pattern meal' consisting of 'rice, soybean paste stew, and pickled vegetables.'
Even if it is the same ‘rice, soybean paste soup, and pickled vegetables,’ the appearance and taste can be clearly different depending on the ingredients.


We live in an age where information about delicious food comes into our eyes just by breathing.
When information overflows, we tend to only focus on flashy things.
If you don't have your own taste buds for what's delicious, every time you look at a cookbook or watch a mukbang, you'll be drawn to new dishes and want to eat all sorts of things.
No matter how much I eat, I can never be satisfied.
Therefore, establishing the central axis of one's diet is essential for establishing independence and establishing a proper life.

“Self-reliance doesn’t just mean making money; it means being able to take care of myself.
If you can do that, you can live a rich life even if you don't necessarily have a lot of money.
If I can just cook the food I put in my mouth, I can survive somehow.
So, if you want to make your own life, you have to cook.
Whether man, woman, or child, no one should lose the ability to cook for themselves.
“It is an act of throwing away one’s freedom.”

“The happiness of eating freshly cooked ‘sunbap’!”
“Side dishes? I could make them, but I don’t want to.”
rice.
Just rice that exists naturally.
Bob, whose existence no one is impressed by.
However, since you have decided to live by eating 'rice, soup, and pickled vegetables', you must thoroughly experience the taste of it.
Above all, rice is the main character.
The author is determined and focused.
Immerse yourself in the world of rice.

On 'Sunbap Day', which comes once every three days, the theme of the menu on this day is, of course, 'How can we make this sunbap taste even better?' It is impossible to make a 'delicious side dish' that is more prominent than the rice.
Can be made but not made.
The table became simpler and simpler, and the simpler it became, the more delicious the food became.
Until now, I have lived without feeling such things.
The intense flavor of steak, the alluring sweetness of cookies.
I just wanted to taste those things and make them.
At that time, there was no room or opportunity for such an intimate taste to creep into my consciousness.
Of course, life needs sweetness.
But sweetness isn't just found in sugar.
Great happiness makes small happiness invisible.
But the truth is, an infinite world unfolds within small happiness.


“What’s wrong with being ordinary!”
“Let go of your greed for cooking utensils!”
Cooking utensils represent a life one step above our present.
For example, a pasta machine.
Just turn the handle and fresh pasta noodles will come out. With this, our house will be transformed into an Italian home.
It makes you wander in that kind of delusion for a while.
If I don't buy it, I feel anxious because it feels like I'm living a faded life.

However, the author says that there is no need to feel inferior if you cannot prepare a sumptuous meal that requires such tools on the table every day.

Life needs both the extraordinary and the ordinary.
You might think, how enjoyable it would be if every day were a festival, but if you think about it carefully, such a life would be truly tiring.
No, if every day is a festival, it's no longer a festival.
It's just a continuation of an unstable daily life.
Let us once again pay attention to the author's words.
A rich life is not a life of having more or more expensive things.
It is a life of living 'together' with everything we have, taking full advantage of their strengths.