CHINESE ALMOND COOKIES

Opening my 75th Birthday gift from Matthew Mori I was reminded of my long ago craving for authentic almond cookies.

 

Tamaki, (Tommie) to her friends, taught me many important things. One of the most important was almond cookies from a Chinese bakery near one of the bus stops on her way to work. There were many times she took me to China Town and we'd stop at that magnificent bakery on the way home with a large still-warm box of almond cookies for those occasions we'd be visiting family at Aunt Stella's home in Whittier, California. 

 

In Chinese cosmology, heaven has 9 levels,

九天),  Jiǔ Tiān  or

三十六天,  36 heavens, Sānshíliù Tiān

 

I imagine one of them has the scent of fresh-out-of-the-oven almond cookies.

 

My mother taught me to always arrive with a hostess gift or a treat for the family, if not the best almond cookies, then a one pound box of See's candy.

 

I learned from my friend Yuji of Niimi in Okayama Japan of the importance of bringing a treat for the Buddhist priest who was essential to finding the Kobayakawa side (which my mother never knew existed) of my family ancestry.   

 

Click HERE for Yuji's short form documentary. 

TOBY'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY

I lived in a little town that at the time, seemed like a village. It was 1947.  Monte Vista was a whole world to me, it was an entire universe.

My grandmother, Elisaida, was the matriarch of the family who made decisions large and small. The first to affect me was her decision that I’d live in the Manzanares family home on Sickles Street while my parents Tamaki Ishihara and Rizziero Manzanares began the journey to build a home for our new family.

I wanted, needed to know everything, to understand why things unfolded the way they did. For my family, there were never too many questions. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, everyone stopped to answer my questions, no matter how grand or inconsequential.

 

It was in our family home that my voracious appetite