Umami Mart

Aubergines are one of my favourite vegetables and I will always choose an aubergine dish if I can at restaurants (except if there’s beef, and I have to admit baba ganoush still defeats me). And nothing goes better with aubergine than oil. Life is tough. I grew up with a mother who cooked something different […]

I was never a big fan of tits. Maybe when I was a wee infant, but these days I have absolutely no interest. Women’s tits, elephant tits, it’s all a blur. Even if the coolest dinosaurs had tits, I’d still prefer a frozen daiquri and the newest episode of Project Runway. Except, sometimes the stuff […]

While I was still thinking about sloth and summerly posts, suddenly the editor changes the direction to R. What the hell does R mean? Me? This is such an Anna Wintour move, and I feel like Grace: love her, but hate her. However being a working bee, we have to comply with orders from the […]

One of my tasks as a wee lass in the early 90s was to wash the rice for dinner while my single mom did the rest of the preparation and cooking. She told me that the ultimate goal in rice-washing is to get the water clear. With my tiny hands, I would grind the rice […]

So I’m having an old friend over for dinner, and he’s a vegetarian. Don’t we all hate cooking for vegetarians? None of my tried-and-true-recipes-for-normal-carnivore guests, like Beetroot Chicken or Bloody Pot Roast Beef, would fit the food customs of my friend. Luckily I recently had a fab side dish at another (non-vegetarian) dinner party some […]

The eskimos have many words for snow, just like the Japanese have many words for seaweed. For those of us on the other side of the pacific, the lack of words for seaweed is problematic. It is very confusing when reading the translated English ingredients for nori, iwanori, wakame and kombu since they all say […]

Ah, summer. Nix that– the dead of WINTER here in the Bay Area. We’re below the Equator, didn’t you know? But for the sake of conversation, let’s say it’s summer. And summer means cold noodles, right? Thanks to Yoko, ya’ll are equipped with the definitive recipes to making your very own tsuyu. Japanify, holla! If […]

Although this month is designated for sloth, I don’t work Thursdays or Fridays this month so I have too much free time on my hands. I can’t think of anything else to do but stay in the kitchen. People think I’m a social butterfly, but in reality, I am a loser who stays in the […]

I am not a gardener. I have no interest in physical labour, no patience for watching stuff grow and I’m always too busy for watering. But after spending one year looking at a pack of Japanese Shiso leaf seeds I got from Yoko (a pure shisoholic) I had to cave in and try it out […]

As it’s hot, Hot, HOT in London at the moment, dinners have generally been cool affairs: cold noodles, salads and a tonne of watermelon. I fear I’ll be growing a watermelon soon. No, wait, that’s just my tummy. I’ll get myself to the gym once this gorgeous weather fades. I’ve grown to love salads as […]