philosophy

I am only what I am. I hope it's enough.

maki — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:19:04 +0200

My niece Rena at age 6, enjoying teuchi udon (handmade udon noodles).

I am occasionally asked via email or Twitter or even in person, to post a recipe that is Asian but not Japanese. In most cases, I have to say that I have no idea how to make it. Well that wouldn’t be exactly true: I could look it up online or in cookbooks and replicate a recipe here. But then, so could you. So could anyone.

Just because I am of Asian descent, does not mean I know anything about most Asian cuisines other than Japanese, and the Asian cuisines that have established themselves in Japanese culinary culture. For instance, certain types of Chinese cooking have been made popular by the resident Chinese communities in Japan (the city where my mother lives, Yokohama, has a vibrant Chinatown for instance). Because of the long and complicated history between Korea and Japan, not to mention attempts in recent years for the two countries to establish a closer cultural relationship, Korean cuisine is also well known and loved in Japan. So, I can tell you how to cook some dishes from those cuisines.

But then again, they are versions of those cuisines that are popular in Japan, and probably differ in varying degrees from the way they are in their countries of origin. The longer their history in Japan, the more they’ve been adapted to Japanese tastes. For example, Japanese gyoza dumplings differ quite a bit from the ones you get at Hong Kong style dim sum palaces. Japanese style steamed buns are also rather different from the originals. That doesn’t make them less tasty, but they are adaptations for sure, that have developed over decades.

I’ve never been to any country in Asia other than Japan - a situation I hope to be able to rectify soon. But the point is, my familiarity with most other Asian cuisines is far less than my familiarity with most European or North American cuisines. I have lived for most of my adult life either in the U.S. or Europe. I know more about Marmite or how to make a home-style Swiss fondue, than pad thai or pho. I love those dishes, but I don’t feel confident writing down how to make ‘authentic’ versions.

On the other hand, if you want a strong opinion about what makes for good himono (half-dried fish), or how handmade soba or udon should taste, or why nukazuke pickles are so tricky to get right…well you’re in the right place. And don’t even get me started on the whole subject of sushi or wagashi, or what makes a good Japanese style curry or tonkatsu.

My mother enjoying some mitarashi dango

I do of course like to experiment and try out new things as much as anyone. I’m fine with posting deviations of classic recipes, or something that is ‘of the style of’. But when it comes to writing down the directions for real classic dishes, I tend to stick to what I know, the dishes that I grew up with, or the ones transmitted to me by better, wiser cooks than I.

So, that’s why you don’t see much general Asian cooking here. You’ll see some results of experiments - Maki’s versions as it were. On the other hand, I have all the weight of the experience of the women (and some men) of my family behind the classic Japanese dishes I post here. They are hovering over what I write, for real (my mother and one of my aunts check out my site all the time and give me feedback, especially if I get something wrong) as well as in spirit.

Real beef

maki — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:56:36 +0200

As opposed to the previous post, this is about real meat.

First, I got an email from one Tony McNicol, a Tokyo based photographer and journalist (he’s originally from the UK). On his site, he has several fascinating photo essays depicting some off-the-beaten-track slices of Japanese life. One of them is about Kobe beef, which is a very special (and expensive) kind of beef.

[Kobe Beef, June 2009 - Images by Tony McNicol. Used with permission.]

Kobe beef is (as Tony says) not just wagyuu, and it doesn’t mean beef from the city of Kobe. It is beef from a particular kind of cow, in a particular place, in a special way. Only about 2000 of these specially raised cows are slaughtered every year, and it it sold at retail (if you can get a hold of it) for $500 a kilo.

Now, it is quite obvious that Kobe beef is not some kind of happy accident of nature. It is a manmade product in all senses of the word. The cows were bred to be a certain way, and they are raised with plenty of human intervention. It is really agriculture - which is, after all, the process of growing food for human consumption - taken to its extreme.

This reminded me of another manmade meat product, which for various reasons has been the center of controversy, especially in the U.S., for a few years: fois gras. A few people object to the method of producing a duck or goose with a fatty liver, called gavage, which involved force feeding food into the bird’s gullet with a tube. These few people have been very vocal, and in some places successful. The anti-gavage movement has even spread in a small way to Europe, though most people here (from my very unscientific observations and conversations - though some EU countries have started the procedure to ban gavage) shake their heads at the very notion of the government trying to ban its consumption.

The best observations on the fois gras conflict in the U.S. that I have read is in from Incanto, an Italian restaurant in San Francisco (via Elise’s Twitter). Note that I think it’s the best partly because I wholly agree with the opinions expressed there. (It’s also quite well written, as are their past newsletters, which you can also read on their site. It’s the first time the quality of writing on their web site or newsletter has made me want to visit a restaurant!)

The point made there that I agree with the most is this: I think there is far too much preaching and pushing of ones opinion on other people going on in the food world. It is one thing to decide for yourself, and possibly for your family, how and what you eat. It’s quite another to try to force others to do so, particularly through government legislation. I tend to be sort of left of center when it comes to politics, but some of the tactics used by people and organizations who have a particular food agenda makes me want to shy away from them - even if I actually share their particular stance on a food issue.

As humans, we have to eat to survive, and except for a very few people, we rely on other people to grow or make the food for us. It is good to keep a vigilant eye on the process by which food reaches our tables, but “your way” is not always the “right way” for everyone. We all have to make our own decisions, and hopefully we can continue to do so.

I'm moving! I'm moving! But where to go?

maki — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 19:31:28 +0100

I just thought I’d give an update as to what’s up with me these days. I’ve talked about this a bit here and there, but the house that was on sale since sometime mid-last year finally sold a few weeks ago, and I am formally moving out of the house I have inhabited off and on, mostly on, for about 10 years on the 26th. (This is why there hasn’t really been a lot of serious cooking around here lately.)

Now, I do not know yet where I am going to be moving. You might think this is a bit nuts, but I am in a very fortunate situation in that at this point the nature of my work, most of which can be done via online communication, allows me to live almost anywhere there is a high speed internet connection. So I do not have to stay in the Zürich area, or even in Switzerland. This freedom of choice has me in a mild state of panic and a deep state of confusion though. Where do I go? Where do I go? I keep on flipping through real estate ads in wildly different areas of the world, figuring out what is affordable. Invariably, I’m thinking like a food-obsessed person though.

Where in the world (where I have the right to live, or could easily get a working visa) should I go that will make my tastebuds happy and the cook inside me satisfied?

Anyway, let’s pretend that there are no tiresome restrictions like visas and such. If eating well were the only criteria, where in the world would you move to?

Of course in reality, I do have to consider things like visas, bureaucracy, stability of governments, availability of affordable healthcare and such, not to mention a pretty tight budget for the move. But for the moment I’m just letting my imagination run free here. In March I’m off to a particular favorite corner of the world to see if living there is realistic…

Looking Forward to 2009 with a Wish List Notebook

maki — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 11:37:53 +0100

How was 2008 for you?

For me, this year was good and bad, like most years, but mostly it’s been a year of limbo. We decided to sell the house we live in, but procrastinated about actually making it ready until rather late in the year. Not the best of timing considering what’s been going on in the general economy, though thankfully Switzerland doesn’t seem to be as hard hit as some other countries when it comes to the real estate market. Nevertheless, the house is not sold yet, while more than half my possessions are packed away in boxes, and I’ve felt just unsettled.

For this reason though, I’m really looking forward to next year, when I’ll be moving to a new place. I don’t even know where it will be yet, but it’s very exciting to contemplate.

An unexpected side-effect of the house selling decision: I took it as an opportunity to do a deep level de-cluttering. I threw away, gave away, or sold tons of stuff, still have a couple of boxes full of books and junk that I no longer want, and about 70% of the things I wanted to keep are packed away in boxes. And, although I have had to unpack a few things, like my winter coats, I’ve come to realize that I really don’t need a lot of things, and that having a relatively clutter free house, where I can find things without rooting through piles of things, feels so good. This includes quite a lot of kitchen equipment (e.g. the combo panini maker/waffle iron, the ultra-modern was-a-gift glass fruit bowl that is too small to hold more than a couple of apples, the 3 extra almost identical ladles…) that is packed away, but I probably can let go and do without. And cookbooks. I’ve only really missed a few of the couple of hundred cookbooks I have. I think I’ll do another round of culling on them.

And looking forward to 2009…the Wish List Notebook

So, as I’ve said, I’m really looking forward to 2009. One thing I am doing today, is to open up a brand new notebook and write down a Wish List. I read about this in a little Japanese book called How to make a ‘Wishing Notebook’ that draws luck and happiness (運と幸せがどんどん集まる「願いごと手帖」のつくり方). Rather a bold claim, but I do like what it says.

Basically, it’s about making a list of things that you want to happen, in positive/affirmative terms. It says that To-Do lists are rather negative, since they often just list things you think you ‘have’ to do. I’m the queen of to-do lists that often don’t get completed, so this rather struck home with me.

Here are the recommended points for making a Wish List, paraphrasing:

Don’t make it a (must)-to-do list. Instead of “I have to do…” think in terms of “I want to do…”, “I want to be…” “I want to have…”. This way you can see what you really do want instead of what you think you want or ‘must’ do. The trick when making the Wish List is to pretend that these wishes will be granted just because you wish them, as if a fairy godmother was granting them for you. The very acts of writing down your wish list and reviewing it should make you feel happy, not stressed, and help you to define what you really want.

For example, instead of writing down “Join gym and get in shape”, you might write something like “I want to climb up that hill in my neighborhood effortlessly without huffing and puffing, and really enjoy the view”, or “I want to be able to play with my two-year old without becoming exhausted, so that we can really enjoy our time together”.
Don’t limit yourself when writing down your wishes. Don’t negate your wishes just because they may seem farfetched right now, or you see too many obstacles. Reach high and don’t be afraid of failure. So what if you, say, dream of going to Paris but can’t see how you’ll get the money? Write it down anyway.
Be as clear and specific as possible.Too many people write down things that are too vague, such as “Get organized” or “Lose weight” or “Become a better cook”. By being very specific you can really envision yourself in that situation, and once you actually achieve it you’ll feel a lot better too.

So for instance instead of “Get organized” you might write down “My desk is a pleasure to sit at. I can open a drawer and retrive things instantly. The surface is clear except for my computer and a few personal treasures, and a bud vase with a fresh flower placed it in every day.” Or instead of “Lose weight”: “I go to my favorite boutique and grab some pants in my size, but when I try them on in the dressing room they are too big for me now. I walk out with pants that are two sizes smaller.”
Think about utilizing things you already have. Not all wishes have to be ones pie-in-the-sky remote ones that you have to work on from scratch. Everyone has already been working on something for awhile. See what you have achieved so far and how you could expand on something. For example, if you have a blog, you could think about ways to improve it in some way. Or if you consider yourself a pretty good dancer, what about taking lessons to become a really great dancer? And so on.
Pair wishes that will require effort with fun things. Although it would be great to have a real fairy godmother that will grant your wishes without you even trying, that’s not possible with a lot of wishes. So, when you write down those harder wishes, try to combine them with a purely fun outcome.

Examples: “Get accepted by first choice university, and go to Disney World to celebrate!” Or “Get a promotion at work and a raise. Buy myself a brand new pair of shoes, because I can afford it!”
Include some wishes for what you want from people in your life too. Again, be as specific as possible. Don’t just limit yourself to your close family and friends either - extend it to anyone in your life that you’re concerned about. The example given in the book is where one person who was concerned about the inappropriate way a co-worker dressed for work wrote down “[name of person] learns how to dress in work-appropriate clothes”. She claims that this worked. I’m just a bit skeptical, but hey, you never know.
Stay away from negative words. Use positive words. Let’s say you hate your job and you want to get another one. Writing down “Quit my job” is negative, so instead write “Be in a workplace that is friendly where I feel a real sense of accomplishment”.
Make sure the wishes you write down are yours. Somewhat related to no. 6. If you have an empathic nature, you may right down wishes that you think you want, but you really don’t - it’s the people around you that want it. For example, are you really sure you want to move to a different state/country, or is it your partner that really wants it? Are you sure that you want Brand X car, or is your spouse that wants it, and would you rather take a luxurious vacation in the tropics?

The book recommends writing down about 30 wishes to start, and to date each one. Then, put the notebook away in a safe place, and don’t look at it for a while. This differs a lot from every other book I’ve read about this kind of thing I think, which mostly urge you to review your lists monthly, weekly, daily, hourly. The author calls it “Banking your wishes”. After a while, take the notebook out and look through it. Maybe none of the wishes have come true yet, but don’t worry. You may have even forgotten about some that you wrote down. For wishes that have come true, write in the date when it happened, and perhaps a short memo about it.

It may sound a bit New-Agey-touchy-feely, which I’m not that into normally. But something about this makes sense to me. The “Banking Wishes” concept does call for physically writing down the list on paper, instead of on some web site or in some ‘personal productivity’ app, and I really like that too. Anyway, I’m going to give it a try and see how it goes. At the very least, I love the relaxed approach.

In any case, I’d like to wish all the wonderful Just Hungry and Just Bento readers a Happy New Year! I’ll see you on the other side in 2009.

5th Anniversary Giveway Day 4: Regrets, I've had a few

maki — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:16:09 +0100

For a few months in 2006, I changed the banner graphic of the site every month to reflect the season.

There are a couple of things that I wish I had done differently during the last five years as far as Just Hungry was concerned. If you are a newish food blogger, or any kind of blogger, perhaps this will help you avoid these mistakes.

Don’t take long, unexplained absences

From about August 2004 to February 2005, I just got too busy with other things in my life and stopped posting on the site for more than six months without explanation. I even got some concerned emails asking if I was okay. This was particularly bad timing for a variety of reasons. When I did come back, I found that the site was almost forgotten, especially in the general food blogging community. My readership was way down of course, and it took a long time to get it back to pre-hiatus levels. I still think that if I hadn’t taken such a long time off, Just Hungry would be much better known than it is and so on, but there’s no taking that time back now. Anyway, if you plan to make your blog, any blog, grow as much as possible, don’t take very long and unexplained vacations from it or people will think it’s dead!

Don’t change the site design so much

I’m a web designer in my working life (or, used to be…nowadays I do more non-web work, but that’s another story). Partly because of that, I kept changing the design of the site drastically almost every few months. This was good for me, but it may have hurt the site a bit. When I changed the design the last time back in early 2007, I even got some emails asking if it was ‘the same site’! So the lesson to be learned here is that re-designing just on a whim is not necessarily a good idea! Plus, it takes a lot of time away from actually writing good things for your site. People come to your site for the content, not really for the site design (though I do think that having an attractive site doesn’t hurt.)

And also - not necessarily mistakes, but a subject that is not talked about much on food blogs (if they are at all):

The monetization issue, and the hard work of a food blogger

This subject includes some things I did do, some I didn’t do, and some things I occasionally get asked about. If you have already decided that you are not interested in making money from your blog, then you can skip this part.

Earning money from a blog is not as easy as some people will make you believe. There are lots of blogs out there that cover this subject in depth (Problogger is a good place to start), but here I’d like to talk about some things specific to food blogs.

First off, if your primary purpose for starting up a blog is to start earning money from it, it’s my humble opinion that food is one of the last categories you should be considering. Why, you ask? Well, one of the main ways any blog can start earning some revenue is to place Google Adsense, or other contextual, ads on it. The hard truth is, most food related Adwords (the words that trigger the appearance of contextual ads) are very cheap, and you, the site owner, earn very little off them in comparison to other categories. I have to laugh at those splogs that scrape content off other food blogs and expect to pick up some Adsense money really. They really should be scraping sites about car insurance or something :) (I’m kidding of course - scraping is very, very bad.)

Keep in mind also that maintaining a food blog is really a lot of work. Think about it: A typical food blogger spends lots of time and effort cooking things, photographing the results, and then finally writing up an interesting post about it including a recipe that has to work properly. Or, they go out to lots of restaurants - usually paying their own way, unless they are very lucky and have a sponsor somewhere. Most well known food bloggers invest in a good quality camera to take good photos, not to mention other gear like tripods, macro lenses and even studio setups. Some even go get special tableware and props to display their food to the best advantage. And usually, food bloggers have to do all of this by themselves, or with one partner.

So, you really have to love, love thinking and writing about food to maintain a food blog for an extended period so that its audience grows enough. But let’s say you’ve overcome that hurdle. How do you make money from this endeavor? Here are the revenue sources that a successful food blogger might have:

Contextual ads, such as Google Adsense
Joining an ad serving group that serves theme-targeted ads, such as BlogHerAds, BlogAds, etc.
Affliate links, such as Amazon, where you earn a commission on sales
Selling ad space directly to companies with related products or services - this is not easy but can be done, and is probably the ‘best’ kind of advertising
Do speaking, consulting or teaching that is related to your blog subject
Publishing a cookbook or other related book

I have done all but the last one. I don’t earn enough from either Just Hungry or Just Bento to quit my dayjob (and neither do I want to at this point really) but the revenue is non-negligible. It’s now definitely my second job - one that I enjoy a lot, but nevertheless a job. Other food bloggers I’m sure have also done a combination of the above. Quite a food bloggers have published books - the revenue generated this way of course depends on how well the book sells.

One more thing: Whenever you decide to monetize your site, I think it is very important to be sure that you are happy with what is being advertised. For example, I am very happy to have Japan Centre in London as an advertiser, because I was a happy customer before we even got into contact, and their store is a perfect fit for my sites. I would never carry an ad from a company or for a product I disliked, no matter how lucrative the offer may be. I also try to keep an eye on the kind of contextual ads that appear. You want to present content that you believe in to your readers at all times, and that includes the ads.

I’ve rambled on a bit today, but finally on to today’s giveaway!

Just Hungry 5th Anniversary Giveaway Item 4: An eclectic assortment of Japanese craft and knitting books

Please check the giveaway rules in the first post. Do try to remember to keep it to one comment per item/entry, thanks! (I’ve noticed that sometimes people seem to get impatient and post the same comment twice. I use a spam-preventing tool called Mollom, which sometimes can cause a short delay between the time your comment is entered and the time it appears. So please wait a bit before submitting another comment.) Remember: You need to give me your email address (in the email entry area) where I can contact you if you win, your name (or nickname), and your location (country).

Today’s giveway is a bit off track maybe, so I am anticipating less interest in them than the other items (but hey, you never know.) I know that a lot of people who visit Just Hungry and Just Bento are interested in Japanese culture in general, and many are crafters and knitters. I love crafty things as much as I love cooking, and I could extend the day to about 32 hours instead of 24 I’d start up a crafty blog. Anyway, I have tons and tons of Japanese craft (手芸, shugei) books, and these come from my vast collection. (Please feel free to spread the word about this giveway to craft or knitting related sites and so on.) I apologize for the wonkiness of the photos below.

Book 1: Vintage lace knitting book (Lacy Handknits)

This is a book published by Ondori in 1982. The styles are sort of ‘80-ish but fairly timeless (and I hear ’80s fashion is coming back anyway!). A couple of examples:

It has both knitting and crocheting patterns. All are in chart form as with all Japanese knitting books. Sizing is small (e.g. bust circumference around 80cm) though I guess experience knitters/crocheters can adjust them. This is a vintage book, so there is some minor creasing and so on, but the photos are clear and unfaded and the pages are clean.

Book 2: Vintage unisex knitting book (I Love Sweaters! Sweaters For Me and My Boyfriend)

Another Ondori publication, published in 1983. This one is all knitting. Back in the ’80s, the “pair look” (where BF and GF would wear matching outfits) was big. So, half of the designs in this book have His and Her versions. Fortunately most of them are not matchy-matchy in an obvious way. The rest of the book has sweater and vest designs for women. Examples of contents:

Sizing is more generous than the lace knitting book - around 85cm chest for women and 100cm for men. All charted and/or with Japanese instructions. The designs are fairly timeless. Again, this is a vintage book, so some pages are a bit dog-eared and so on, but is otherwise in good shape.

Book 3: Clay Sweets book

A Lady Boutique publication, published this year. Deco sweets, or cakes and other sweeties made with clay and used as room decor, phone straps and so on, are very popular in Japan at the moment. This is a book that shows you how to make them! Some examples:

It uses air-drying resin clays (the standard in Japan) but you can adapt the methods to oven baked clays like Fimo. The book is in brand new condition.

Book 4: Beaded Dollhouse: 1/24 scale furniture made of beads

A Boutique Mook (no. 531), published in 2005. This one is rather unusual I think - furniture (chairs, desks, bureaus, potted plants, what have you) made out of beads!

It has beading charts for you to recreate these glittering tiny marvels. The book is in brand new condition.

Book 5: Amigurumi For Beginners

An Ondori booklet published in 2004. It’s a beginner’s guide to making amigurumi, tightly crocheted little critters. Everything is charted, and is crochet only.

The book is in brand new condition.

So there you have it. Even if you never make anything in these books, if you are as fond of handcrafts as I am you’ll enjoy just looking through them!

DEADLINE: Your comment/entry must be posted before Midnight Greenwich Mean Time on Sunday, December 7th.

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you for participating! The winner will be announced next week!

5th Anniversary Giveway Day 3: The Meandering Path of Just Hungry

maki — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:19:42 +0100

The header graphic of the 2nd design of Just Hungry displayed one of these 4 illustrations at random.

As I wrote yesterday, when I started Just Hungry I had no plans at all about the theme of the site, other than it would be about food. I think that you could get away with that back then, when the number of actual food blogs was probably still in the low hundreds.

The focus of this site has evolved in a rather meandering way, and it is now mainly about Japanese home cooking, healthy eating, and the occasional food related travel report. This was as much guided by what site readers seemed to want to read here, as much was what I wanted to write about. In my regular eating life, I don’t just cook and eat Japanese food, and I confess I don’t always eat healthily either! But in general, I’ve found that when I stray from my main themes too much, reader numbers tend to go down. Since I do enjoy writing about the themes that people seem to like reading, that’s really fine with me.

Nowadays there are probably thousands of blogs dedicated to food, and if you are starting a new food blog and want to built up a reader base, you probably want to focus on something specific that would garner attention. Indeed I think the reason why Just Bento has grown much faster than Just Hungry did in its early years is that the focus is much narrower. (The traffic numbers for Just Hungry are still nearly 2 times that of Just Bento on average, but Just Bento has more RSS feed readers already.) Two of the most successful food blogs out there that I admire greatly and were in existence when Just Hungry started out, Simply Recipes and Chocolate & Zucchini, have always been quite focused, which I think accounts for their popularity to a great extent.

Still, I am quite happy to have Just Hungry remain quite general in its focus, because it gives me the freedom to go off on a tangent if I want to. It’s an outlet for me as much as anything else. For instance, I stopped doing detailed episode recaps of Top Chef after seasons 1 and 2, when I realized that the recap posts were attracting the wrong kind of attention (as in, a disproportionate share of trolls). I was quite put off talking much about food-related TV shows after that. But when I found a show I really enjoyed recently on BBC, Supersize Me, I felt like doing detailed recaps again and quite enjoyed them - and this time, perhaps because it was about food history, not a reality show, they didn’t attract trolldom! And while I may write mostly about Japanese food or good-for-you food, I can occasionally bust out and write about something loaded with, say, butter and bacon. (I’m thinking bacon-chocolate-chip-cookies, what do you think?) That’s the beauty of having your very own stage, or blog, to shout from.

And now, today’s giveaway!

Just Hungry 5th Anniversary Giveaway Item 3: The Way To Cook by Julia Child

Today’s giveaway is my favorite cookbook by far in English, The Way To Cook by Julia Child. It’s the one I turn to for recipes that work. As you might expect from the great lady Julia Child, it has lots of standard French recipes, but it also has a lot of great American classics like Boston Baked Beans, New England Boiled Dinner, and more. Published in 1989, it is timeless and classic, with beautiful photographs and clear, easy to follow recipes. (I wrote about my love for this book two years ago, and my feelings about it now are exactly the same.) It’s sure to become a much-loved book in your kitchen too.

Please note this book has standard U.S. measurements in cups, ounces and so on.

DEADLINE: Your comment/entry must be posted before Midnight Greenwich Mean Time on Saturday, December 6th. (You can find out the current GMT by typing in ‘What time is it GMT’ in Google. by the way.)

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you for participating! The winner will be announced next week. Check out the front page for the open giveaways you can still enter!

5th Anniversary Giveway Day 2, with some reminiscences

maki — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:16:25 +0100

The image that I used in my first page design banner. I still love it.

During this giveaway week, I thought I’d indulge myself by sharing some reminiscences about the past five years of Just Hungry. Today: Why I started the site.

I’ve always been obsessed with food on many levels, and I’ve also been blogging since about 1998 or so. This was back when blogs were still pretty obscure. One day I wrote a couple of things on my ‘weblog’; one about a visit to one of the first Apple Stores in New Jersey, one about a wierd/funny dinner experience. My ‘weblog’ post about the Apple Store somehow got discovered by an Apple fan forum. Many of the forum commenters disagreed with my opinion, and then proceeded to make vicious remarks about the rest of my site. I shouldn’t have bothered about these anonymous opinions, but they really stung me. I wasn’t used to it. So, soon after I deleted my whole site contents, dumped the homebrewed weblogging system I was using (that I really regret) and for a while my personal site was a stark Under Construction page.

Then in 2003, I installed a spanking new copy of Movable Type and started writing again. By this time of course blogs were much more mainstream, and there were far more self-indulgent, navel-gazing blogs out there than my ‘weblog’ ever had been. My intention with my personal site was to give myself freedom to write about whatever I liked. I’d written a book (about CSS and Javascript) a couple of years prior, which was extremely restricted in terms of everything from content to format; this had really drained me mentally and physically, and for a while robbed me of the desire to do any kind of writing. So my blog was going to get my writing mojo back.

But yet…I couldn’t seem to get out of the safe place of talking mostly about web-geeky stuff. I still loved to write, but I couldn’t get out of a box I’d built around myself. Then, I somehow got a discount coupon for a new hosted blogging service called Typepad. Somewhat on a whim, I decided to start up a blog there and make it all about food. I called it I Was Just Really Very Hungry, after the title of one of M.F.K. Fisher’s essays (more about my admiration for M.F.K.Fisher).

I dove into the food blog without any kind of planning. Designing the site was easy for me (since I did that for a living). Content wise…I just wrote about the food I loved. Most of my early posts had a less than stellar one or simply no photo at all. (Food blog photography was not nearly as sophisticated, not to mention competitive, as it is now.) I didn’t really plan to make it a blog mostly about Japanese food either. But, since I am Japanese and I love Japanese food, that aspect of it gradually evolved.

There have been ups and downs, but five years later…it’s still here!

And now finally, today’s giveaway!

Just Hungry 5th Anniversary Giveaway Item 2: Saisai Gohan by Yumiko Kano

Please check the giveaway rules in the first post. Do try to remember to keep it to one comment per item/entry, thanks! Remember: You need to give me your email address (in the email entry area) where I can contact you if you win, your name (or nickname), and your location (country).

Saisai Gohan (菜菜ごはん) is a vegan Japanese cookbook by one of my favorite cookbook authors in any language, Yumiko Kano. I’ve referred to her works several times (a listing of several of her books) and she is one of my biggest inspirations when I want to cook healthy, tasty vegan Japanese food. She’s published several books on the same theme, but Saisai Gohan (which means ‘vegetable meal’) is the starting point.

All the recipes in Saisai Gohan are dairy and egg free. They do not use traditional dashi, but rely on the natural flavors and sweetness of the vegetables she uses (she doesn’t always add things like mirin or sake either, unlike most other Japanese cookbooks). Maple syrup or amazake are used as sweeteners, especially in her dessert recipes. It is not gluten-free since she does use wheat flour, seitan and fu, though many of the recipes are gluten-free. It even has desserts!

Please note that this is in Japanese, and does not come with a translation, so some knowledge of Japanese is useful; although there’s a clear photograph for each recipe, there are no step-by-step photos.

DEADLINE: Your comment/entry must be posted before Midnight Greenwich Mean Time on Friday, December 5th.

This giveaway is now closed. Thank you for participating! Be sure to check out the front page for the giveaways still open. The winner will be announced next week!

Oh noes, dashi is trendy now

maki — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:21:05 +0200

In the past few years, the popularity of Japanese food has exploded, with sushi leading the way. You might think that as the owner of a blog that is mainly dedicated to Japanese cooking, I’d be ecstatic about that.

I am happy, sure. It’s gratifying to gradually see the cuisine of my birthplace being recognized as something special. But on the other hand, I’m more than a bit skeptical. I wonder if, in a few years, hipster ‘foodies’ are going to turn their noses up at Japanese cuisine. “That was so naughties” they might be saying sometime in 2015, as they tuck into the latest craze for - I don’t know what.

There’s still a lot of misinformation bandied about about Japanese cooking. Take this article in this week’s New York Times Food Section, about how trendy chefs who are trained in traditional French techniques are using dashi more and more. It’s great to see this fundamental base of Japanese cooking (it’s so important that it’s the first basic Japanese recipe I ever posted here, almost 5 years ago) being embraced by Western chefs, but why the need to describe it as a substitute for meat flavor? Dashi certainly did not develop as a way for compensating for a lack of meat. There’s a pretty simple reason why kombu (a seaweed) and katsuobushi (dried fish shavings) are the most popular combination for making dashi: they both come from the sea. If you look at a map of Japan, it’s quite obvious why this would have come about. Even before the eating of four-legged animals was formally banned in the late 17th century by the Tokugawa Shogunate (生類哀れみの令), the staple protein for most Japanese people was fish, not meat - simply because most people lived near the coasts than inland. This may be more obvious if one looks at other popular dashi ingredients, like niboshi (small dried fish).

In any case, it’s no surprise that dashi has become popular. It’s so much easier to prepare than a meat based stock, and the base ingredients are easy to store. It’s so handy to make that any home cook can make a dashi as good as that of professional chefs - and many do, even though even easier to use dashi granules are available. (Do you know many people who still maintain a stock pot? I don’t.)

I just hope that the use of dashi doesn’t turn out to be a fad, along with the rest of Japanese cuisine. But if it happens, I won’t be surprised, given the fickleness and the food-as-fashion thinking that drives much of the culinary world.

(Footnote: Someone reminded me that Swiss cuisine has been a big victim of food-trendiness. First there was fondue, which was wildly popular in the ’70s and then became oh-so-totally passé after that. Then there was the mid-’90s craze for making piles of food on top of rösti, the crispy potato pancake that is a staple of the German parts of Switzerland. What do we call trend-chasing food dilettantes - foodistas? Food victims? :))

About Japanese ingredients and substitutions

maki — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 02:28:08 +0200

[Updated to add Substitution section.]

I haven’t exactly counted it up, but of the thousands of comments left on Just Hungry, not to mention Just Bento, probably at least a quarter are questions about ingredients or ingredient substitutions. So I thought I might put down what my criteria are for what kind of ingredients I choose to feature in the recipes on either site, especially when it comes to Japanese recipes. [Update added on August 15th, 2008]: I’ve also added some suggested, and acceptable, substitutions.

Can I get a hold of it?

In case you didn’t know, at the moment I live in a country with a fairly miniscule Japanese expat or immigrant population (the last I heard there were less than 2000 Japanese people living in the Zürich area). There is only one real Japanese grocery store near me, and it is quite small with a limited selection of products. There’s also an equally small (though slightly better stocked) Korean grocery store, and a couple of Chinese grocery stores. (See Where I shope for Japanese/Asian ingredients in Zürich.) I supplement what I can get locally by placing an order with Japan Centre a few times a year.

My point is, that what I can get is fairly limited compared to many people, though more generous than others. So by sticking to what I can get here, I think that I’m in a good middle ground for people trying to cook anything Japanese. If you live in a region (e.g. most of California, New York City, or Hawaii) with big Japanese expat/immigrant populations, you have a much bigger selection available to you than I do!

(My mom also sends me things from Japan periodically, but I do not include the more exotic things in the recipes here, though I might mention then in passing.)

Is it available by mailorder?

I also periodically check to see if certain ingredients are available online. Some online merchants don’t have very comprehensive listings on their web sites, but by emailing them they can tell you if they have something in stock.

Where to look for Japanese ingredients

In order of the likelihood of finding Japanese ingredients:

Japanese grocery stores, including online stores. This is obvious. Please consult the Worldwide Japanese grocery store list for your area, and go to your nearest store to see what they have! That’s the best way to get acquainted with unfamiliar ingredients.
Korean grocery stores. A lot of Japanese ingredients are used in Korean cooking.
Chinese grocery stores and general Asian grocery stores. Chinese grocery stores tend to stock less Japanese ingredients than Korean grocery stores, but you can still find a lot of things.
Health food stores, including online stores. Many dry and/or vegan ingredients, such as rice flour, kuzu powder, agar-agar, miso and so on can be found at health food stores.
South East Asian grocery stores (Thai, etc.) These stores don’t stock Japanese ingredients per se, but some of the fresh product and things can be used.
South Asian grocery stores (Indian, Sri Lankan, etc.) These can be a surprisingly good source for ‘exotic’ vegetables and such that are used in Japanese cooking.

Is it a widely used ingredient in Japanese cooking?

In general, I try to stay away from any ingredient that might be considered to be too regional or esoteric in Japan, and stick to ingredients that are likely to be in any Japanese kitchen.

Is the recipe something that is normally made in Japan?

When I do traditional Japanese recipes here, I try to stick to ones that are commonly made in Japanese homes (vs. something exotic, regional or so complicated it’s only available in restaurants).

The exception to this rule is when I try to make something that is readily available in Japan, but not necessarily elsewhere. An example of this is really fresh tofu. The hard work required is worth it for the results.

Ingredient substitutions

In certain cases, you can make substitutions without a problem. I try to include substitution recommendations whenever possible, or when I am fairly sure it would work. For instance, many Japanese recipes call for katokuriko （片栗粉）which is a flour made from potato starch, but this is hard to get outside of Japan in most places. Cornstarch (or cornflour) has a very similar texture and performs the same function, so that is an easy substitute. Using honey or syrup instead of maple syrup will change the flavor a bit but also works.

In some cases though there is no substitution. If you are making kuzumochi, you really can’t use anything other than kuzu powder if you want the same texture.

Sometimes you just need to try out a substitution to see if it works. For instance, when I call for a specific rice flour like shiratama-ko or joushinko, but you can’t get it, try substituting a rice flour you can get and see how it goes. (I ‘ve made rice dumplings with red rice flour from Sri Lanka, and it turned out fairly well.) The worst that can happen is that you end up with an inedible dish that you have to throw away, but that’s not the end of the world. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes!

Some acceptable substitutions

[This section added on August 15, 2008]

Mirin and sake. I think more people ask about substitutes for these two ingredients than anything else put together. Both are alcoholic beverages (though mirin is never drunk and is only used in cooking). Mirin is stronger and sweeter than sake. Sake can be used as a substitute for mirin (with an added pinch of sugar), and vice versa. If you cannot get a hold of either, you can use sweet sherry or Chinese shiaoxing wine. If you cannot use alcohol for religious or other reasons, even though most of the alcohol will evaporate after cooking, just leave it out - it will affect the flavor, but there’s no reasonable non-alcoholic substitute that I can think of. See also: The role of alcohol, onion and garlic in Japanese meat dishes (also applies to fish dishes in many cases) (Vinegar is not a good substitute. Vinegar makes things sour. I can’t believe there are people saying that vinegar is a substitute for sake. Is vinegar a good substitute for wine in a recipe? Please.) Mirin style seasoning or mirin choumiryou (example here) has less than 1% alcohol content, so it can be used as a mirin substitute in terms of flavor. However, mirin style seasoning often has additives like MSG and sugar, so I’m not a fan of it. If you do leave out mirin from a recipe, you can add a bit of (or more) sugar to the recipe to compensate for the sweetness at least.
Japanese-style or sushi rice. Keep in mind that ‘sushi rice’ is a name given by non-Japanese sellers to Japanese style or japonica medium grain rice. Medium-grain Italian rices that are used for risotto, such as vialone and arborio, are acceptable substitutes for Japanese rice; long grain rices including basmati and jasmine rice are not.
Dashi stock. Japanese stock is usually made from kombu seaweed, dried bonito flakes (katsuobushi), dried fish called niboshi, or a combination of all or two of these. (See basic dashi recipe.) You may find it difficult to find these ingredients, or they may be too expensive. Powdered or granular dashi stock is similar to stock cubes, and can be used instead of made-from-scratch dashi; keep in mind that dashi granules are saltier and often contain MSG. See also vegan dashi stock made with dried shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed. If you can’t get a hold of any of these, you can use a basic vegetable stock instead - it won’t taste that Japanese but it’s better than plain water at least!
Miso and soy sauce. There are no substitutes for these. As to whether you should stick to Japanese soy sauce or use other kinds - I do believe that Japanese soy sauce tastes quite different from, say, Chinese soy sauce, but your palate may not be able to detect a big difference. Kikkoman is the most famous Japanese brand, and is available worldwide.
Japanese tonkatsu sauce or okonomiyaki sauce, or “bulldog” sauce. Bulldog is the brand name of a popular line of barbeque-type sauces that are used in a lot of dishes, from panfried noodles (yakisoba) to deep fried pork cutlets (tonkatsu) , okonomiyaki, takoyaki and more. If you’re in the U.S., you can use A-1 Steak Sauce, maybe tempered with a little added sugar and/or ketchup. Elsewhere, you can use Worcestershire sauce for the flavor if not the texture.
Rice vinegar. White balsamic vinegar is the best substitute, but that’s rather more exotic I think than rice vinegar! You can use also use a mild white wine vinegar instead, with a pinch of sugar to mellow it out.

In the vast majority of recipes here on Just Hungry as well as on Just Bento, I try to stick to these flavoring ingredients, plus universal ones like salt, pepper and sugar, so hopefully you won’t run into too many problems around here at least.

Are there any other ingredients you’d like to know possible substitions for? Let me know in the comments.

Meat and the environment

maki — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:38:59 +0200

Today is Green Day, and we’re being bombarded with Green Day Sales, reminders as to how Green this company or the other is, and so on. It’s a big topic nowadays.

I feel that the things that we can do as individuals is getting increasingly muddy. For a while it seemed like biofuels were a solution, but now the huge demand for plant-based fuels may be causing serious food shortages. Food miles and locavorism may not be as clear cut a solution either. Michael Pollan says we should start growing our own vegetables, but that’s not possible for a lot of people, for space or time reasons.

Is there something relatively easy we can do? Sort of. Meat has a huge carbon footprint, so eating less of it may do more than pretty much anything else in terms of slowing the process of global warming.

When you see the photo above, what does it make you think of? Until a few years ago, I would have thought “Mmm, meat heaven!”. Nowadays I’m not as enthusiastic. As I have gradually reduced the amount of meat in my diet, I’ve found that I enjoy meat less and less. As a matter of fact, the meat products that I do enjoy are ones that have been cooked or prepared in such a way that the essential meatiness of the meat is changed or masked. I still love things like sausages, ham and dried meats - and bacon, of course. When I cook meat, I prefer to use Asian or Japanese methods that mask the gaminess or meatiness. For example, I have a hard time dealing with roast pork with crisp crackling, the way people love to eat pork in Britain and some parts of Germany (it’s a Franconian speciality). The pigginess of the meat is very assertive, and I can’t enjoy it.

On the other hand if pork is prepared as nibuta, with aromatic vegetables, sake and mirin, I love it. And I eat far less of it at a meal than with a typical Western-oriented meal because it’s so richly flavored.

If you’re a dedicated meat lover, the idea of weaning yourself off it may be very difficult to contemplate. One way to do this fairly painlessly may be to switch to eating more Asian food, including Japanese, where meat is used more as a flavoring than the main star, and vegan protein sources have been incorporated as a matter of course for generations. And there’s nothing wrong with an occasional steak or hamburger - just as long as it is occasional.

Something to think about perhaps.