Umami Mart

Last week I started this column as “Eat OUT Thursday” but I thought it would be fun if I alternated it between eating out and eating in every week. What do you think? I made quiche a few weeks ago. I was staying in Oakland and looking through Stacy’s fridge, therein lied all the ingredients […]

My friend Kiwa forwarded me this video- it’s chock-full of visuals and informative stats of why we should moderate our meat intake (without getting all super granola on us). This is something we’ve known for a while, but I haven’t been able to do it, have you? So why not cut it out completely on […]

Last month Yoko posted a story on a homemade yogurt she made from Bulgarian cultures, which I found really interesting because the method employed was totally different from the way I remembered my mother and grandmother used to make it. That prompted me to pay a quick visit to the internet to check the “official” […]

I have been living alone for seven years now. I love living alone. There is no one to be passive aggressive towards, plus everything in your fridge is still there when you get home. But the longer I live alone, the more I become oblivious to potentially unattractive behaviors (leaving used tissues everywhere) and fashions […]

I’ll have the alfalfa sprouts and a plate of mashed yeast. Famous Alvy Singer quote from Annie Hall when Alvy meets Annie at an outdoor cafe in LA, remember? Well, when Moet asked me to meet her at M Cafe de Chaya in West Hollywood and she mentioned “macrobiotic food,” I felt a wave of […]

I start every weekday with a serving of homemade yogurt over seasonal fruit. Ever since my boss gave me some cultures in a little plastic baggy over two years ago, I have been hooked. I have kept the cultures alive and well. It’s funny, I’ve found that the cultures have become a part of me. […]

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I figured I’d have some strawberry liqueur on hand to toss in some cocktails, or if I’m feeling lazy, in some bubbly. And there’s no way better to do it than to make it yourself at home. Although I’m a little late on the planning of this, as I […]

Dirt Candy is OPEN!!! It’s a stylish restaurant that makes you forget that there is no meat on the menu. Seriously, a vegetarian joint has never been hipper in atmosphere, or amenable to the carnivorous palette. There’s such a taboo against vegetable-only restaurants: they are always either too granola-y and dogmatic, or tasteless. Often both, […]

I told you that I would blog about BLT’s famous popover (I miss sunny Puerto Rico). Well, images from the restaurant weren’t good enough, also they gave a recipe card with it, so I decided to make it myself. I have had popovers at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners, and they were crispy on the outside, […]

I don’t make vegetable dish often. I am a very vegetarian unfriendly guy. I hate cooking for vegetarians. When looking at Japanese recipes, it’s so hard not to use either fish or meat. Even when the title say “vegetarian stir fry”, it somehow uses ground meat of some sort. I like using meat for my […]