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You know what this means. Also, here’s how to make your own homemade sauerkraut. Let’s just bask for a moment on its humble beginnings. A first glance at a local farmer’s market. The embarrassing heft of this sweet, oversized vegetable. The delicate kneading of salt into once firm cabbage flesh. Okay, that’s enough. If you asked me for some, let me know in the comments or send me an email. I already bought jars for it!

PROTIP: It’s AWESOME mixed up in hot brown rice. OMNOMNOM!

I am not really a TV watcher. That said, I do enjoy documentaries and cooking shows, as well as a handful of Japanese dramas. No Reservations, however, is my favorite show on television right now. 

Anthony Bourdain is awesome, and he actually makes me want to travel more. He’s a fifty-something chef, traveler and culinary adventurer who samples local subculture with a level of reverence and respect that puts every other globetrotting gastronome to shame. From New York to Ghana, Bourdain doesn’t just try a handful of restaurants and split; he does his best to immerse himself in the local culture’s past time. He eats with the local cooks, partakes in whatever they do for fun, visits the marketplaces (my favorite), and attempts to truly understand the people he’s with. He drinks a lot of local booze, shoots guns, buys narcotics and attacks plates of offal with a fervor not associated with the typical American. Seriously, if you love food and life as much as I do, check this guy out. We are kindred spirits. 

Here is his blog: http://anthony-bourdain-blog.travelchannel.com/

Here are the “Asia Special” episodes - I am actually posting these because they are more relevant to this blog, but tonight is my first time seeing them. I watched up through episode 3. I’ll admit; these are good, but the episodes in Ghana and Brazil are some of my favorites.

Unlimited brain taping would be nice, because then we could just go update it everynight while we slept. Anyway, download this song and listen to it, because that’s what it’s there for.

brain taping unlimited

Making sauerkraut is easy. It’s quite possibly the simplest fermented food to make. While browsing a local market in Kent called Carpinito Brother’s Inc., I found these enormous, heavy cabbages for 19 cents a lb. I bought two at 10-12 lbs a piece and I also picked up two Brussels sprouts stalks. 

The one on the right was around 12 lbs. I cut it into sixths so I could actually work with it. I went to work, corsely slicing the cabbage into thin strips. It went pretty quickly, and there was a lot of water in the cabbage, which is a good thing. The raw cabbage was also sweet, so I hove a feeling this batch of kraut is going to rock. So, shred your cabbage and put it in something you can mix in.  I had tio mix in in a big, food-grade 5 gallon plastic bucket, but usually a big mixing bowl is enough. Add 3 TBSP salt for each 5lbs. of vegetable mass and mix it up really well, incorporating the salt into the cabbage with a rubbing motion.

When all your cabbage is shredded and salted, pack it tightly into a pickling crock, enameled pot or food-grade bucket. A crock is best, as it is porus, and allows the ferment to ‘breathe’, but I’ve used all of the above with success.

Lastly, and also a very important step, is to weight and cover the sauerkraut. Tamp down the contents and weight it all down with a plate and a weight. I’ve used large boiled, scrubbed rocks as weights, but this time I used a large glass jar full of water. I covered the whole thing in cheesecloth, tied it off, and draped a clean dishcloth over everything.

Now, a bit of observation will be necessary at first. Every few hours, within the first 24 hours, press down on the weight. You are trying to get the brine that will eventually form to rise above the level of the cabbage. If the cabbage is dry, and the brine fails to rise in the first 24 hours, dissolve 1/2 a TBSP of salt in a cup of water and pour it over the cabbage - repeat until it does. 

After a few days, you may notice bits of mold bloom on the top of the brine - this is normal. Just skim it off. The actual fermentation process, or the initial first stage of it, is entirely anerobic, and happens under the brine. Every few days, skim the mold, turn the cabbage over in the brine to incorporate it, re-tamp and cover. Taste it after a week, two weeks, until it reaches the saltiness and texture you desire. I have only let it ferment for two weeks in the past, but you can go four weeks or more.  If it is in a cooler environment the process may take a bit longer. 

I will keep everyone updated on the progress of this batch. (Oh, and let me know if you want some - I will end up with 12 lbs. of this stuff!)

One of the reasons I started cooking Japanese food was miso. I love miso. I love the deep earthy smell of hatcho miso, the sweet light taste of shiro miso and the robust saltiness of aka miso. One of my favorite breakfasts is a bowl of miso soup with wakame and tofu, a bowl of brown rice with a pickled plum and a cup of hot green tea. Miso forms a strong foundation in Japanese cooking; as essential in the Japanese chef’s kitchen as butter or milk in a Western chef’s kitchen. So naturally, I make my own miso.

The process is simple. Mash up cooked soybeans, add salt and koji (Aspergillus oryzae), pack into a container and wait. Of course, the ratios of salt, koji and rice are important, as well as moisture, temperature and length of fermentation. I will focus on the actual process in another post; I really just want to share the success of a recent batch with you guys.

This latest batch was a 5-week sweet shiro(white) miso. I used a lot of koji in this one so it fermented very quickly. I’ve also done a 2-month shiro miso and a 1-year aka(red) miso, but I wanted another batch of shiro miso because it’s what we eat most often.

I packed it in a cedar tub with a layer of saran wrap on the surface of the miso, followed by a wooden press and a heavy stone, a wooden lid, and finally a wrapping of wax paper.

Upon opening the lid and removing the stone I was greeted with some surface molds; these do not affect the product. They are simply scraped away and discarded (although I’ve heard of miso makers mixing it in.)

I carefully scooped the miso out and processed it in four batches in my tiny, inefficient food processor. It’s the only thing I ever actually use my food processor for. You can leave the miso course and grainy, but I prefer it smooth.

Creamy, delicious miso! The entire apartment smells like fermented goodness. The miso is sweet and pungent from the fermentation process, as only homemade miso smells.

I heated up some dashi stock and mixed in the miso. I added cubed tofu, wakame seaweed and thin-sliced negi (Japanese leek). It was so good! I want to start another, longer ferment miso, perhaps barley instead of soy. Miso can be made with any grain or legume, as long as you have koji as well.

The following book, Wild Fermentation, has been indispensible for me in my miso-making adventures; be sure to check it out! Please let me know if you have any miso-making stories of your own! Ittadakimasu!

It took me awhile to actually get into reading manga. I like anime enough, but it seemed like the manga I started with was just boring to me. I initially started with Marmalade Boy, which I like, but at the time it was just too expensive to buy every one. I tried reading Lone Wolf and Cub, Negima, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, XXXHolic, Gunslinger Girl… there were a few others, over about a four-year span. I eventually stumbled on Yotsuba&, and everything changed.

I loved the Azumanga Daioh anime, so I searched around for more like it. I found out that the author of the manga wrote one called Yotsuba& as well. As it hadn’t been turned into an anime yet, I picked up the manga, and was instantly hooked. Each issue follows Yotsuba, a young girl, as she hilariously and bravely tries to understand the world through a series of seemingly mundane experiences. From learning how to swing on a swingset to fishing in a stream, catching cicadas to battling global warming, Yotsuba (mostly)fearlessly marches through life. It is innocent and awesome. Naturally, I searched around for more slice-of-life manga.

I don’t really get into the magical girl, mecha, space opera stuff. I don’t really like violence. I like reading about people living in Japan. I like seeing the manga-ka draw tables of traditional Japanese food, shelves of bentos at 7-11, market stalls full of vegetables, rice paddies, Tokyo… In addition, being a foodie and all, I love manga that deals with cooking, notably Yakitate Japan. Yakitate Japan is about a boy who is born with “Hands of the Sun”, the perfect temperature for kneading bread. He sets out to create a bread that will replace rice in the hearts and minds of the Japanese. There’s another cooking/romantic comedy manga called Mixed Vegetables which I really like. Mixed Vegetables doesn’t have nearly the depth of the others. It is about the daughter of a famous baker who wants to be a sushi chef and the sun of a famous sushi chef who wants to be a baker. Naturally, they want to hook up based on ulterior motives but I imagine, eventually, they will fall in love like everyone wants. Romantic comedy ensues, I assure you!

I started reading more romantic comedy/teen drama/high-school drama stuff. I absorbed Genshiken, a story about a bunch of otaku and general otaku culture. The artwork and story is fantastic, the characters are well rounded and evolve with the series, the end is satisfying, and I never once felt like I was reading ‘filler’. I would say Genshiken and Yotsuba& are currently tied as my favorites, but Genshiken has already ended after 9 issues and Yotsuba& is still going, so we shall see.

I have recently picked up Marmalade Boy again and I love it even more now. I’m also reading Strawberry Marshmallow, Sunshine Sketch, Yotsuba&, Train Man and Kujibiki Unbalance. There are a few classic manga titles that I want to read as well, like Nausicaa and Maison Ikkoku, but this is an expensive hobby, and I have enough to keep up with as it is.

What do the new Miyazaki film, fried fishcakes and gelatinous coffee have in common? I experienced all of them last week!

First of all, we can all pretty much agree that Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) is a fantastic film. I’ve seen most of Miyazaki’s and Studio Ghibli’s releases, and Totoro is pretty close to the top for me. As a result, I kinda basically flipped out when I learned about Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea), Miyazaki’s recently released masterpiece. Recently released, that is, in Japan.

Well, I really wanted to see it. Actually, I thought I was downloading just the soundtrack and trailer, and it turned out to be the entire film. It was filmed in a theater screening via digital camcorder, and someone gets up to use the bathroom or something in one part, partially blocking the awesomeness of the film for like four seconds. The sound is scratchy and crappy and the video quality is terrible. There are no English subtitles but I could pick up most of the Japanese. That said, it is an amazing film. It is all hand animated, flows beautifully and is incredibly complex. The soundtrack is adorable. The characters are adorable. It has quickly become one of my favorite movies. I intend on purchasing it as soon as I am able.

If you recall my earlier post about Uwajimaya’s 80th anniversary, you will also recall my mentioning something called ’satsumage’. A bit of searching around revealed thet this is simply a deep fried fishcake. A DELICIOUS deep-fried fishcake, that is! I bought four of them (they were only 25 cents a piece!) and I should have bought more. Uwajimaya was crazy-insane packed with people, but we spent money and got 10% off, a free bag and some fishcakes, so it was a great sucess.

Finally, last but not least… coffee jelly is my new favorite dessert. I buy them in a 3-pack at Uwajimaya, and you also get 3 little coffee creamers to pour on top, but they are incredibly easy to make at home. This stuff is really big in Japan right now, or was a few months ago. It’s basically chilled, sweetened coffee jelly with cream on top. So good!

Here’s a quick recipe>>

And here’s an uncanny picture I took of it…

Anyone who knows me also knows that I am a huge Uwajimaya fanboy. As such, I was excited when I saw today’s newsletter in my inbox. From a blurb on said newsletter, I discovered that Fujimatsu Moriguchi, the founder of Uwajimaya, started his business in 1928 selling fishcakes, or satsumage, from the back of his truck in Tacoma. To celebrate this humble beginning, his children (I assume he is deceased, or otherwise unable to do it himself) will be frying up fresh, homemade satsumage and selling them in-store. Check it out!  

• In the Seattle location: 1pm - 3pm Friday, Oct. 17th
• In all Uwajimaya locations: 1pm - 3pm Saturday, Oct. 18th

They will also be having taiko drumming, and everything in the store is 10% off, so I will totally be there. I need to buy more brown rice, anyway.

Anyone should know that.