'Food Knit'

At lunchtime I like to walk over to Kinokuniya Bookstore in Little Tokyo and poke around in the food and fashion magazines and books. They also sell wonderful Japanese notebooks with smooth paper for fountain pens and erasers that look like miniature sushi. The other day I turned up a little book titled "Food Knit" (Toho Shuppan, $21) in the crafts section. It's mostly in Japanese with a few English subtitles. Doesn't matter, there's nothing to read. Just feast your eyes on these insanely intricate knitting projects -- a knitted hamburger with frilly mohair lettuce, a fruit tart with a fluted crust, a whole steamed fish, pasta with squid rings, bento boxes, dim sum and, my favorite, a tray of nigiri sushi with knitted nori and tiny faux salmon roe. It's not really a pattern book, though there are instructions (in Japanese) for a few simple items. 

Kinokuniya Bookstore, Weller Court, 123 Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka St., Suite 205, Los Angeles, (213) 687-4480. 

-- S. Irene Virbila

Illustrations from "Food Knit"