Umami Mart

*Johnny Lopes is based in San Francisco and is currently traveling through Southeast Asia for two months. Follow what he’s eating on his Flickr feed.

You know what’s inside your Brita filter, right? Charcoal. You know the best way to keep the fridge from smelling bad? Put a piece of charcoal in it. Due to its purifying effects, people in Japan take powdered charcoal as a daily supplement, and some people even say it saves you from radiation. There’s no […]

Zatar (sometimes za’atar) is a Middle Eastern spice made up (usually) of a blend of salt, sumac (a tart red dried fruit powder), sesame seeds and thyme. I roll out some store bought pizza dough (from Trader Joe’s) and drizzle it with lots of olive oil. Then sprinkle with a good amount of zatar and a […]

So this weekend I was having a few people over for a potluck birthday party and I took it upon myself to make the dessert. A long time ago I remembered making a super delicious rye bread layer cake — crunchy, fresh and sweet with raspberry cream–but I couldn’t find the old recipe so I […]

By Kayoko Akabori Originally posted on March 31, 2008 When the routine bites hard/ And ambitions are low And the resentment rides high/ But emotions won’t grow And we’re changing our ways/ Taking different roads Then love, love will tear us apart again – Joy Division Recently, a few of my closest friends have been […]

Trekked over the Bay Bridge last week (that $4 toll, about to be $6, is gonna be the bank-account-death of me) and visited North Beach. The Coit Tower greeted me with open arms on this sparkly, cloudless, “summer” day. Hellooooo San Francisco!!!! Thank you for clearing up for five minutes. Appreciate it. This particular trip […]

My dear friend Leslie alerted me about this bakery when she found out I was going to Chicago. Her friend Sandra Holl had just opened Floriole Cafe & Bakery in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago, and she urged me to make a visit. Sandra and her husband had a supportive following through the farmer’s […]

In Japan, there are a LOT of food items you can only find in a specific to a town, city, or area. ご当地グルメ or “local gourmet food” items are something tourists must get when they visit the area. Some of the foods are too weird to ever become popular, and others get national attention, becoming […]

After a 4-year, 4-month hiatus, I am back in Berkeley. Robotland (a.k.a. Tokyo) was good to me, but finding myself shuffled in line at the Berkeley Bowl between one of these, and Zack de la Rocha‘s doppelganger on a weekly basis has got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Not only is it great […]

As I mentioned in my last post, I pretty much fucked up my first attempt at making bread pudding- mostly due to my inability to follow directions. Surprise, surprise, I know. This time around, I followed the recipe as closely as I possibly could, given my ADD rebelliousness in the kitchen. And what happens when […]