I cried because I couldn’t give it to the boy I liked.

──Please tell us about your Valentine’s Day memories.

(Saori Kimura, same below) When I was in elementary school, I made some chocolates with my mother and went to give them to a boy I liked, but I was so embarrassed that I came home. When I got home, I burst into tears, saying, “I made it with all my effort and put so much effort into wrapping it!” (laughs).

I knew that many of my classmates had given chocolates to the boy, so I was embarrassed and thought, “If I give one to him, everyone will know that I like him.” So I ended up going to give it to the boy with my mother. He wasn’t there, so I gave it to the boy’s mother, so maybe my feelings were conveyed indirectly (laughs).

— Such a sweet memory! How about now that you’re an adult?

I went to an all-girls school for middle and high school, and I exchanged sweets with my close friends. When I was a player, I made chocolate chip cookies with my teammates and ate them.

──Valentine’s Day with friends seems like a fun time too. What kind of Valentine’s Day have you spent with your husband, Yujiro Hidaka?

When I was playing for a Turkish team, my husband came to Turkey, so I made him a chocolate cake and gave it to him. I looked for a simple recipe that only requires mixing and cooling, and wrote a message on the plate with jam. But it wasn’t very tasty. My husband’s reaction was not so good either (laughs).

“Okay, let’s go to a cafe,” I thought, and headed out to get something to wash it down.

By the way, there are many kinds of sweets in Turkey, including the famous baklava (a traditional baked confectionery made with pistachios), which are all almost too sweet. But it’s scary how quickly you get used to them. By the time I returned to Japan from Turkey, I had grown to love them and was eating them with vanilla ice cream (laughs).

–This episode really shows Kimura-san’s love for sweets (laughs). Does your husband like sweets too?

My husband also likes them. He especially loves the rusks from Gateau Festa Harada. Among them, his favorite is the “Goutte des Rois White Chocolate” covered in white chocolate. He used to say, “I’m happier with Harada’s rusks than with chocolate,” so I used to go buy them often (laughs).