When life gives you sour oranges, make ponzu sauce.

Ponzu is such a versatile condiment and its acidity adds a lot more dimension than regular soy sauce. It’s also extremely easy to make your own ponzu at home. Especially when you find sour oranges (called dai-dai in Japan, and sometimes called “bitter orange” here in the States), you should make your own batch of ponzu.

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Microwave cooking is big in Japan. Just like buying panties from vending machines. People do it all the time and there is no need to be ashamed when doing it.

One of the most genius ideas I acquired while living in Japan was microwaving a potato. Japan has these cute little jagaimo (potatoes) that make our russets look like the sumo wrestler equivalent of potatoes.

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I was always baffled by tamari. I had never used it until one of my friends and faithful readers of UM suggested that I should write about tamari vs. shoyu (soy sauce) on Japanify.

So this week, I purchased San-J brand’s Tamari (I chose that brand because I happened to have San-J brand’s Organic Shoyu stocked in my pantry right now).

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