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The more we change, the more we stay the same! As a child, I loved Hello Kitty and spent hours drawing Japanese-style characters of my own imagination. Today, I do pretty much the same thing for a living... Perigee has just released Cute Yummy Time, my book about making adorable food that features my Scottish Fold cat, Basil Farrow.

I created an adventure story to accompany the 70 recipes, and illustrated every page with cutie characters. Where did I draw inspiration? From my childhood doodles of puppies and chicks.

The round, simple shapes and Japanese sensibility mirror my childhood creativity.

When I was about ten, I sketched several comics where birds fell asleep while drifting in a river... and fell over a raging waterfall. The exact same incident happens to La Carmina and Basil Farrow. And the waterfall is even called Death Falls!

Oliver the Owl was one of my favorite comic creations. I resuscitated him for Cute Yummy Time, and even paid tribute to his drifting log.

My cookbook Cute Yummy Time was published October 6th, book signing dates and more to be announced -- stay tuned to my daily Japanese cute-meets-morbid blog for the latest La Carmina news.

Cute Yummy Time, La Carmina, cooking, Japanese culture, kawaii, Perigee, cookbook