I first learned about ramen – real deal Japanese ramen that is – two years ago. Like many niche interests I stumbled upon it via the internet. There was just something about the heartiness of a bowl of ramen… and the fact that people obsessed over it piqued my interest. It felt like I discovered a whole new world.

As luck would have it I was about to embark on a two-month trip to Asia, including two weeks in Japan.

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The Aviation is one of the last great cocktails created before Prohibition, having been invented just a few years before the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. It made its first appearance in print in 1916 in Recipes for Mixed Drinks by Hugo Ensslin, who bartended at the Hotel Wallick gin Times Square near 43rd and Broadway.

It’s unclear whether Mr.

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Photos by Erin Gleeson

We did it! With the loving support from our friends, family, and community, Yoko and I have opened Umami Mart, a retail shop in Oakland, CA, specializing in kitchen + barware from Japan.

The idea for starting a brick-and-mortar shop really derived from necessity. We had been running our online shop for nearly two years, and the inventory was eating up Yoko’s apartment, ie her life.

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Nothing says summer like watermelon! Slice watermelon into approx 1 inch rings, then remove the rind from each slice with a small knife. Place one watermelon “round” onto each salad plate, then top with a layer of thinly sliced fresh mozzarella (about five pieces, or however many you fancy!), followed by a layer of finely chopped mint, basil (approx 1/4 cup each) and a sprinkling of nuts (I used almonds and walnuts, but you can use any kind).

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I recently became a permanent resident of this country, and to celebrate my newly acquired freedom, we went to Le Bernardin. Though I know a lot about food, I haven’t been to many top-notch restaurants because I end up bitching about its flaws. If you are paying $250 a person for a dining experience, don’t you expect it to be superb, from food to decor to service to every tiny aspect such as the flower arrangements, or how the tables are set up?

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The world is full of burger places. There is one in almost every strip mall in America, and then there are the chains which are often the culprits or the scapegoats of many a country’s poor eating habits. Burgers stretch the gut, go well with less healthy things like milkshakes, chili fries, extra cheese, and bacon. People think of burgers when it comes to fast food, but Brazilians go out of their way to spend their nights at a burger joint.

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Yay, there’s finally a real farmer’s market in Copenhagen!

After decades of supermarket deathbore, a new race of DIY vendors, small farmers, honey harvesters and local produce hippies will show up in their home-built vans with truckloads of cheap, fresh, delicious and organic fruits of the earth, and deliver the goods our generation has been raving about for the last 15 years!!!

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Ramen, as some of my fellow writers have observed, is totally taking over North America. People are obsessively eating, finding new shops, and eating more. New chains from Japan are opening like once a month here in New York City.

Funny thing about ramen is it used to be really difficult to find recipes, but thanks to the internet and this ramen boom, I can find recipes even in English.

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When customers visit Ippuku (where I work) and see the shochu collection, they invariably say, “Oh wow, look at the beautiful sake collection!” I’m tired of correcting them, but I have to, and I tell them that those bottles are not sake, they are shochu! And then, they think for a minute and say, “Oh, soju!”.

It’s so annoying. Ippuku is a Japanese restaurant, why would we have Korean soju?

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Despite being in the U.S. for nearly 30+ years, Japanese cuisine instantaneously conjures up the word “raw.” Sushi has proved itself the winner despite criticism ranging from “this is unsanitary,” to, “I am ingesting unsafe levels of mercury,” to, “This is just plain gross, slimy and/or stinky.” Japanese food and sushi have virtually become synonymous in the States, so it is interesting to see how diners are accepting another type of Japanese food that is almost the exact opposite of raw fish.

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