March 31, 2011
Before the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, Sendai was a city that made my favorite miso. One tablespoon of Sendai miso goes into my dashi every morning for a breakfast consisting of miso-shiru, rice and umeboshi. In recent weeks, Sendai has come to symbolize much more to me than just a great producer of miso, […]
March 28, 2011
My colleague Kristen who produces videos for Japan Society’s Youtube channel, asked me if I knew of any onigiri (rice balls) shops since they wanted to showcase them in an upcoming video. I thought, “How about I teach how to make onigiri in the video?†That’s how this project started. I had a lot of […]
March 24, 2011
For a few days after the quake hit in Sendai, public television networks in Japan refrained from running advertising due to the instability of the whole situation. I remember a similar commercial-less time period immediately after 9/11. To fill up time in between news reports, Japanese networks ran a series of public service announcements by […]
March 11, 2011
“Where the hell are we? Did we miss it?” I ask as we drive further and further away from the city center. Geary Boulevard is still bustling, but we’re way past Japantown now, and the storefront signs are getting harder to read. Besides, why would a restaurant like Kappou Gomi be all the way out […]
March 3, 2011
Go to any sushi restaurant in Japan and notice that “ikura” or salmon roe, is either written in katakana or hiragana. I was curious as to why it was often written in katakana–the alphabet designated to loanwords. I asked the master at Sushi Danran about this curiosity. He told me that “ikura” イクラ comes from […]
February 28, 2011
My MO-obsession (baking with rice flour) has returned, and this time, it’s the MOcaron. Now that I know exactly what to do when it comes to macaron-making, substituting almond flour with other ingredients is not that hard. Having said that, I had no idea whether rice flour would work. Since the first recipe I used […]
February 24, 2011
Kayoko let me borrow Japanese homecooking maven Elizabeth Andoh’s new book “Kansha: Celebrating Japanese Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions” and for that, I am brimming with kansha (thanks). I had always wanted to try my hand at making shira-ae (sesame tofu dressing) after playing the goma-ae (sesame dressing) card one too many times. So while I […]
February 17, 2011
Mottainai is said in Japan when something perfectly usable is abandoned or sent to the trashcan. In the past ten years, Japan has seen a trend in awareness regarding waste and reusing whenever possible. It’s ironic that this has become a trend because the idea of reuse goes way back and is intrinsic to Japanese […]
February 10, 2011
Living in Tokyo meant that I had very little access to cereals, orange juice with lots of pulp, fig bars and other high fiber food stuffs that are so ubiquitous in the U.S. I always considered myself to have a very “normal” digestive system and never felt I needed extra help to move things along. […]