June 17, 2011
With the in-laws away in Paris, my sister-in-law, grandma, house chef Gracinha, and dog-in-law Pri (short for Princess or Priscilla, still not sure) have come to stay with us. The opportunity was ripe to finally ask Gracinha to show me her feijoada-lite recipe. I wrote about feijoada last year, as it’s Brasil’s national dish. Feijoada […]
June 2, 2011
Smelt. Fried, they are a great accompaniment to a pint of beer. Grilled and served with a bowl of white rice, they complete a Japanese breakfast. They also win the Cheap Bastards’ Choice Award, since they average $3.50/lb. The “Wakasagi” variety of smelt were introduced from Japan to the San Francisco delta in 1959 as […]
May 27, 2011
*Dear Martians, please welcome the newest addition to the Umamimart Familia, Jerkey. She is based in LA, and a good friend of Umamimart writer Sarah Nevada and Yoko’s cousin (and loyal reader) Tomo. We first met at the San Pedro Fish Market Umamiventure, back in June last year, and she is a huge pizzahead. She’ll […]
May 26, 2011
I admire killers. I admire butchers, mongers, soldiers and… Dexter. I admire them for the balls and boobies they possess to kill with confidence–without squealing or being a hesitant little sissy. They don’t do things like “name” their kill–like I did for my two soft-shell crab buddies Rod and Todd. I am a total squealer […]
May 16, 2011
I went to Miami for my birthday this year. I didn’t do much besides reading, lounging by the pool, drinking piña coladas, and eating. It was 90ËšF every day, sunny, dry, and my allergies disappeared while I was there. For those of you who suffer from severe allergies each spring–with stuffed-up noses, eyes and ears–the […]
May 2, 2011
I am hosting a rather important dinner party with lots of opinionated eaters this weekend, so I’ve been practicing and experimenting with what I may serve. In the last year or so, whenever you go to an upscale restaurant, you always encounter sous-vide this and sous-vide that. Â What is sous-vide? To explain it in simplest […]
March 7, 2011
About a year ago, Dickson’s Farm opened up a shop in Chelsea Market and I often go there to get my meat. It’s fresh, and sometimes you can see the guys butchering huge chunks of cow. It’s nice to buy meat where you can see it being cut up. Also, their prices are pretty decent […]
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 […]
January 24, 2011
Sylvan Mishima Brackett is the mastermind behind Peko Peko, a Japanese catering service in the Bay Area. After working as Alice Waters’ assistant for SIX YEARS (dude must have the patience of a Zen master. Just kidding, love you Alice!), he apprenticed in a soba shop in Saitama, Japan, then came back to the Bay […]
January 17, 2011
I am from a town so rural, you wouldn’t believe it. Although Japan is portrayed as a metropolitan, clean, and simple city to Westerners, that’s not how real Japan is all about. Whenever I say I am from Japan, first thing people usually ask is, “are you from Tokyo?” This is pretty stupid, since it’s […]