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Whenever I go see my 92 year-old grandma and have a conversation over tea, she drops all kinds of wisdom bombs on me. And she does it so casually, I never really notice the impact her words have on me until I...

Myoga madness continues as I experiment with the harvest from my sister's myoga plant. Last week, I topped raw myoga on tofu. This week, I make a stir fry with myoga and slices of pork shoulder. I am very inexperienced with...

My sister has a giant myoga plant that is thriving in a shady spot by her chicken coup coop. Powerful myoga buds started busting through the styrofoam container walls a few weeks ago. The plant was inherited from someone who could...

At Japanese restaurants, sushi is usually served alongside with gari (pickled ginger). Why? It's a nice way to cleanse your palate so that you can enjoy each piece of fish, without mixing the flavors in your mouth. These pickled gingers are widely...

On the very special occasion that a visitor from Japan would bring Toraya to our home in Cupertino, I would actually be excited about eating. I was a very picky, skinny child, but whenever my mom busted out the Toraya I...

If you have been to Japan, you've been to MOS burger, the best burger chain. Apparently it is coming to the U.S., which will be great.  Their burgers -- from the regular MOS burger with bolognese sauce, to tonkatsu burger with cabbage, to real-deal teriyaki...

After I posted salt koji recipe a couple of weeks ago, I found out koji is literally a miracle condiments. This is the easiest thing to make, as long as you can find koji (usually at the Japanese grocery store), and the result is...

As some of you may remember, I made umeboshi (pickled plum) last year, while Kayoko & Co. were doing the same on the west coast. I used yellow plums instead of Japanese plums, while the west coast group used real Japanese plums,...

As I've written about in the past, I have developed an annoying food allergy. I've discovered that stone fruite are definitely not for me.  Not that I need to carry an epi-pen, or that my face breaks out, or my body is covered with...

Hi, welcome to my new column, MOTOism. I'll mostly be cooking here, as always, with the occasional restaurant rant, to keep everyone on their toes. It's summer, it's hot, and it's time to make an easy dessert that doesn't boil the kitchen. Over the...

Shio koji, or 塩麹 (salted koji) is a going through a major boom in Japan right now. What is it?  It is a mix of salt and koji mold. Wiki says, "Koji (Aspergillus oryzae) is a mold used in Chinese and Japanese cuisine to ferment soybeans. It is also used in the making...

Gochi opened quietly in 2005, in a little non-descript strip mall on the back roads of Cupertino. It was actually a bit traumatizing for me -- they bought out a nasty dive bar called the Peacock Lounge where my friends and I used to go when visiting...

My partner Washi recently got a job as a salaryman. This may not seem that odd until you consider the fact that he is living in Berkeley, California and to qualify as a salaryman, you are usually employed by a Japanese corporation....

In Japan, everything is made easy for busy housewives who have to raise kids, clean the house, yet also have to cook and make dessert. You throw things in a microwave and five minutes later, you can a serve main course to your hungry kids and...

After reading Moto's post about making anko (sweet bean paste), I began to reminisce about my visit to a wagashi (traditional Japanese confectionary) shop in Koishikawa, Tokyo called Ikko-an. All of the wagashi are made by hand by the owner Chikara Mizukami, while his wife works...

Protein is a great thing to carry around. It stays together and packs an energy-filled punch, in comparison to a salad or veggie stir-fry --which can either take up lots of space or taste very bad because of a temperature change. Hunks of hamburg or...

My most recent obsession is making anko (sweet bean paste) from scratch. As I wrote in my strawberry daifuku post a couple of weeks ago, using bean paste as dessert doesn't really exist in the west. But I am trying to find ways to...

There was an egg festival in my bowl of rice the other day. I placed a raw egg yolk on a mound of ikura (salmon roe) on top of my steaming hot bowl of rice. The orange hues are sexy and appetizing, glimmering in my...

On paper, nagaimo sounds like a miracle food. Nagaimo is a type of yam with hardly any calories, while simultaneously lowering blood pressure and cholesterol. It's also full of potassium and fiber and ideal for the diet of a diabetic. And that list doesn't even include its...

Karasumi (or bottarga) is salted and dried mullet roe. It comes in two sacks and are hard, like a candy bar. Its deep, oceany, salty flavor is reminiscent of caviar. But the texture is not like caviar, because it's a dense mass of eggs dried...