TORRINGTON – When you think of things to do in Torrington, attending a Japanese cooking class at Eastern Wyoming College (EWC) isn’t one of the first activities someone would think about doing.
To experience a little bit of Japanese culture in Southeastern Wyoming, there’s no one better to turn to than Akemi Glass.
Glass moved to the United States in 1991 after earning her associates degree in English Literature while she was attending school in Japan. She was born in Niigata, Japan and raised in Saitama, just north of Tokyo. She has three siblings who are still living in Japan.
Before moving to the United States, Glass was working as a stockbroker in Japan. Her dad’s cousin lived in Alabama at the time and helped Glass get everything lined up so she could move to the United States.
“I quit my job [in Japan] and then moved over to Alabama,” Glass said. “Then I moved to Missouri and got my degree as a registered dietitian.”
When she graduated from college in Missouri, Glass accepted a job in Powell in 1996 and has been in the state since then.
While living in Powell, she met her husband, Gary Glass. They had their first daughter Emi before moving to Evanston for a few years. While in Evanston they had their youngest daughter Sera.
Before Glass and her family moved to Torrington in 2005, they spent two years living in Japan. While in Japan, Glass’s husband worked at a local school assisting a Japanese teacher with teaching English to the students.
“When we decided to move back to Wyoming, I didn’t work until our youngest daughter was in preschool,” Glass said. “My first job in Torrington was working at the hospital.”
The first few years Glass lived in the United States, she enjoyed eating all the typical American foods with her friends. It wasn’t until after she had been here for about five years that she started to miss Japanese cuisine.
When her girls were born, she wanted to make sure they had an understanding of the Japanese language and that they would be able to speak it as a second language. All of Glass’s immediate family are still in Japan and it was important to her that her kids understood the language and could speak to her family.
“It was non-negotiable for the girls to be able to communicate with my family without having to go through me,” Glass said. “I basically taught them using Japanese textbooks I had gotten in Japan.”
While her kids didn’t enjoy it at the time, Glass says she thinks her kids have a real appreciation for learning the language now. Her oldest daughter is minoring in Japanese at the University of Wyoming and her youngest daughter is planning to minor in it as well.
Even though Glass enjoys living in the United States, there are some things she does miss about living in Japan. Especially the food.
“I miss the Japanese culture, language and especially the food,” Glass said. “I have to make it otherwise I can’t really eat it here. I can’t even buy the decent ingredients here.”
Missing the Japanese culture, especially the cuisine, is what led Glass to teach people for the past five years how to cook Japanese dishes at EWC.
Glass wasn’t the first person to teach people how to cook Japanese cuisine at EWC. She said there was a Japanese family who lived in LaGrange and the wife would come to EWC and teach sushi making. Glass would assist her with teaching the classes but didn’t teach on her own until the family ended up moving away.
Sushi making is the most popular class that Glass teaches. She makes sure to teach the class at least once a year. Some of the other dishes she’s taught are Ramen, Pot Stickers, Okonomiyaki, several different Japanese noodle dishes, tempura and Japanese curry.
“Usually, I teach one or two classes each semester,” Glass said. “Whenever I teach the classes, I always ask the students what they want to learn, and they usually always say sushi is good.”
Glass said it’s hard finding good Japanese food in the area, so she doesn’t really eat it unless she cooks it at home herself. She knows the sushi won’t be as good as the sushi she can make at home.
When she was living in Japan, Glass said she never dreamed about teaching people how to cook Japanese cuisine. Her mom would do all the cooking, or they would just buy dishes from local restaurants because the food there is really inexpensive and delicious.
“My mom didn’t really teach me how to make sushi,” Glass said. “I basically learned on my own when I came over to the states. I learned the other dishes from helping my mom cook. She doesn’t really have recipes of her own, just a little bit of this and a little bit of that.”
Glass said she and her family would often make trips back to Japan to visit her family and ensure the kids had an understanding of Japanese culture. She said it’s especially difficult to show them that culture living in a small town like Torrington, so taking her kids to Japan was something that was very important to her.
“I made sure the girls had the chance to go to school in Japan,” Glass said. “The girls got the opportunity to spend a few summers over there and had the opportunity to make some friends in Japan.”
If you are looking to expand your cooking repertoire or just looking for a fun activity to do with your family, be sure to be on the lookout for the next time Glass is teaching one of her cooking classes at EWC. Be sure to bring Tupperware as there are bound to be some leftovers for you to take home and enjoy later.
