Homemade Lemon Teriyaki Sauce...and stuff to eat it with...

Summer is here. Tank tops, iced tea, nectarines, cherries, light meals, crickets, green everything.  Summer means I start having itches for dinner parties on lawns, picking berries with my lady posse and staying up late. Swimming in the river, wide brimmed hats and popsicles. I love that a hot summer day is reason enough to invite people over and drink something with fresh lime juice in it. This summer I want to experiment with some new flavors. Violets most likely. I am also experimenting with my new neighborhood. My two very cool and lovely friends happen to live on the same street as me. I know, the odds against that happening are sky-high, but here we all are. Kate and Sarah are their names. It was sheer luck and determination that we all found places to live together on our lovely one-way, dead-end street. I love it when the stars line up like that! We all have kids. We all just drop by each others houses and hang out. We have dinner together every week or more. Lucky us. The kids loop back and forth from house to house to yard. Like a real old-fashioned neighborhood before stranger danger ruined things!
Sometimes when I make a special dish, I get bummed if we are not all together and it turns out extra special. Tonight that happened. I made lemon, ginger teriyaki sauce. I always make my own because it is so easy and the flavors are light years better than the bottled kind.  Teriyaki is all about ingredients, so once you have the essential components, it just needs to simmer. I decided to eat it with grated carrots and turnips, toasted sesame seeds and a poached egg on top. I loved it.
Teriyaki is essentially a soy sauce marinade. Incredibly versatile. An easy way to impress your friends at dinner! This batch makes a modest amount (about 1/2 cup) so if you are cooking for a crowd, double or triple it.

Lemon Teriyaki Sauce:

1/3 cup mirin (sweet rice wine)
1 tbls shoyu
1 tbls fresh lemon juice
1 tsp honey
1 tbls toasted sesame seed oil
1 heaping tsp. fresh grated ginger

Simmer in a saucepan until it coats the back of a spoon. Mine took about 15-20 minutes. Right before it is ready, it starts to bubble become slightly foamy. The sugars are starting to caramelize and the sauce is thickening.