Keiko Araki

Violin

At this moment …

We would find Keiko baking three-ginger cookies. "They have ground ginger, fresh ginger and crystallized ginger," she explains. "It's been awhile since I've made them, but I think they're supposed to be crispy."

On the CD player …

"We don't have a working CD player in the house (Keiko and Adam recently moved and are still unpacking), so I listen in my car. I like Cuban music; that's what I listen to for fun. I went to Cuba a few years ago for my brother's wedding and fell in love with the music."

In the kitchen …

Keiko specializes in Chinese food. "I can't live without my garlic press," she declares. "I'm also working on Indian cuisine. My best friend is East Indian and she and her dad are coaching me in Gujarati style. It can be really spicy and features different kinds of legume-type beans, lentils, chickpeas, etc. Getting the proportions of the different mixtures of spices right is very tricky. That's what I'm having trouble with right now."

On the music stand …

"Most of my music is in a box right now, so I'm just warming up with scales and then playing upcoming orchestra music." Keiko is also trying her hand at arranging opera arias for string quartet. "Adam has a string quartet and we thought it would be fun to have string quartet arrangements of Nessun Dorma and other arias."

And on the nightstand …

Keiko and Adam are taking turns reading The Hobbit aloud to each other. "I'm also reading various issues of the Smithsonian Magazine," says Keiko. "I have to get caught up."

Before you left …

Keiko would offer you some fresh-baked three-ginger cookies and introduce you to her black-and-white cat Zonker. "We also have two fire-bellied toads and two tree frogs: Vulcan, Romeo, Bonsai and Sen."