Umami Mart

Natto is the one of those foods that elicits strong reactions. I get overwhelmed with a sense of joy and excitement, but the response I hear from most people (who aren’t from or aren’t descendants of the eastern regions of Japan) is pure disgust. I remember how clueless I was junior year in college when […]

I actually made this a week after the first trial, hence my memory isn’t too clear. So after the first trial, from when I bought cheese curd at Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, I was determined to make the very best mozzarella. Unfortunately it’s very difficult to find curd in the city. Even a store […]

While rummaging through my fridge the other day (fine, fine, my parent’s fridge) I was delighted to find a hefty package of myoga. SCORE! It’s so difficult to describe, this myoga. Vegetable? Herb? Spice?? They grow in the ground, so maybe it’s just simply a bulb?? Colors: A gorgeous spectrum that moves from bone-white to […]

Kanpyo is a curious food – shaved calabash gourd. You can buy kanpyo dehydrated in white strips. You must prepare the dehydrated strips and marinate them to get them ready for the most common kanpyo dishes like futomaki rolls and side dishes. I wanted to make unohana – a mixture of tofu pulp and vegetables, […]

I finally had the guts to buy a goya because there was a half-cut goya on sale for 50 yen at my local supermarket last week. I had always envied my Okinawan friend who could nonchalantly cook up Goya-Chanpuru. Until last week, goya was much too intimidating for me to take up. Goya is a […]

I was inspired to make this when watching Jacques Pepin make it on his show the other day. He just made it look so easy- it’s a raw vegetable soup for god’s sake! No pots and pans- just your knife, peeler and food processor. It’s a lazyass cook’s call from heaven. I’m working at a […]

I had a busy weekend, and didn’t have time to cook so I dug up old pictures for this week’s ReCPY. When making burgers, inevitably you have to make fries as well. However, I cannot fry fries, since my BF doesn’t eat fried food. I have made oven baked fries, but it’s always a bit […]

My new thing is to mix two kinds of rice, hakumai (short-grain white rice) and genmai (brown rice). I used to alternate between brown and white depending on the day, but found brown rice alone to be too heavy sometimes. For example, eating a delicate condiment such as tai-chazuke (white fish condiment with tea poured […]

The word “blanched” is just a fancy way of saying “briefly boiled.” It’s my favorite kind of cooking: boil water, add vegetable, pour into colander seconds later. That’s it! This is what I do with bok choy when I buy it by the bagful in Chinatown or the local Asian grocer. It’s super cheap and […]

While my laziness usually outshines my brilliance in the kitchen, once in a while the stars align and I come up with a dish that is pretty damn awesome (but still in line with my laziness- I keep it real!). I found Japanese eggplant (tends to be slender with softer skin than the chubby American […]