MEET THE SUMO WRESTLER TURN-CHEF

MEET THE SUMO WRESTLER TURN-CHEF

SAN FRANCISCO (Wireless Flash) – If you want to learn how to cook Japanese food, don’t go to cooking school, just become a sumo wrestler. That’s the advice of 260-pound Chef Koji Makiyama, who credits his success as a chef to cooking lessons he received while training to be a sumo wrestler. The 42-year-old chef says sumo wrestlers have to make their own food and, considering how much they eat, that means Makiyama spent as much time in the kitchen as on the wrestling mat. Although sumo wrestlers may look like fat slobs on the outside, Makiyama says their diet is actually healthy and full of fish and vegetables. Currently, he’s getting ready to open a new restaurant in San Francisco and he hopes it will be successful enough that he will be invited to appear on the cult Japanese TV show, Iron Chef.

Wed 05-02-01