By Kayoko Akabori
Originally posted on March 31, 2008

When the routine bites hard/ And ambitions are low
And the resentment rides high/ But emotions won’t grow
And we’re changing our ways/ Taking different roads
Then love, love will tear us apart again
- Joy Division

Recently, a few of my closest friends have been going through devastating breakups- couples who have been together for 3 years, 5 years, 7 YEARS.

Why the sudden onslaught of break-ups? Let me tell you: it’s March.

March is a shameless adulteress who cheats on Winter with Spring. March makes promises of Spring, but refuses to abandon Winter entirely. This leaves people anxious, restless, sick of being housebound. While they wait around for warm weather, they begin pondering profound subjects such as their “lives”, “meaning”, and “existence”. The first thing to go is always the relationship.

Oh, I know all about the heartbreaks that March brings. Rewind to 2005. He threw an outrageous tantrum, paced back and forth in my living room for 2 hours, gave me back my keys, and slammed the front door. I watched the whole scene from the couch. Yes, it was a mess. Yes, we broke up- for real this time. Yes, it was in March.

Breaking up blows. Can I get an AMEN?

So to celebrate the final days of this miserable month, and to somehow spiritually reach out to all those in tragic break-up mode, I baked bread with Stacy and Amy this weekend. (Stacy just got married. Amy is a Serial Craig’s List Dater. I rush home on Friday nights to watch LOST by myself).

Can you imagine me, Kayoko– the clumsiest, most impatient anti-baker ever– baking bread? It’s unheard of, I know, but it was glorious!

Baking bread must be the most loving form of food creating- you must nurture it, let it grow, play with it, and keep a close eye on it, in order for it to reach its full potential. I LOVED this entire process- it is super easy, economical, and you feel like you are a part of a secret society (Amy: “People have been baking bread for thousands of years!”).

We baked three types of bread (links to recipes): the ever-magical “No-Knead Bread” from Bittman and the Sullivan Street Bakery, Focaccia from Delicious Days, and two loaves of Honey Wheat from All Recipes. You need to let the first two rise for at least 12 hours.

Here are the ingredients for all 3 recipes. This is it!Yeast before:
Yeast after- check out that head!:
Here is an easy to follow Bittman video for the No-Knead Bread that you should watch before starting. Bittman is the messiah.

Preparations for the No-Knead and focaccia:

19 hours later- It has RISEN! This is the No-Knead:

Throw No-Knead dough in a hot cast iron pot:
Almost there- about 40 minutes into it. We needed to constantly check on it:

It’s done! What a beauty- I would say that it took about 70 minutes for this to thoroughly finish. You need to keep tapping the top until you get a hollow sound at all angles. This was perfect- just shy of being burnt, golden crust, spongy inside- PERFECT:
Focaccia- also need to let this dough rise overnight. It didn’t rise as much as we wanted, but it was fine. We added roasted zucchini, peppers, and fresh rosemary on top. Genius! It was delicious:

Honey-wheat. This did not need to rise overnight. Next time, we will grease the measuring cup before pouring in the honey:

Kneading with love. Stacy said it felt like a baby. It did! Had this supple, bouncy flesh-like feel. This may have been the funnest part, the kneading, pulling and pounding. Tip: let dough rise in warmer-than-room temperature, Amy said. So close the doors and windows.

This recipe makes so much dough!
Buttering the top:
Almost done:
I had to leave before the honey-wheat came out, which was sad. But Stacy sent me these pictures. Look at these- they could be entered into pageants! We all agreed that the No-Knead loaf was better than anything you could buy in the city (I’m sorry, but I shouldn’t have to trek into Soho for a baguette from Balthazar). As Amy said, it was elastic, spongy. It had depth. The crust was perfectly done- crunchy, hard, but not burnt. Ideal sandwich bread.

The focaccia was also awesome- not too greasy, just nicely coated with olive oil. I highly recommend adding the peppers- it adds some acidity, which balances out the oil.

About the honey-wheat, Stacy said: “Texture is rich and soft. Sweet in the best way!!” Sorry to miss it.

Baking bread was actually one of my 2008 resolutions. It was one of those daunting tasks that I had been fearing- it seems like such a pain in the ass! But I’ve learned that all you need is a little bit of time, and willingness to nurture it for an afternoon. It’s that simple. You too can be a part of this secret society.

A word to the wise: next time you want to break-up with your partners, bake bread together. I think it might help. No talking, just kneading. Or No-Kneading. This should inevitably lead to hot, passionate sex on the kitchen floor. YESSS!

Starting tomorrow, break-ups should officially be put on hold until March 2009.

LOVE happenings to look forward to in April:
- Wong Kar Wai’s My Blueberry Nights is released in the US
- After a 11 year “break-up”, Portishead’s new album Third officially comes out
- New episodes of LOST (Desmond and Penny!)
- Tulips! (my favorite, hint hint)
- My BIRTHDAY!!! Let’s all make out!

In 2 of the 5 above films, the doomed couples do not get back together in the end. The first three people to email me which films wins a prize! Email answers to umamimart@gmail.com

Film montage starting at top: © United Artists; © Focus Features; © Golden Harvest Co.; © New Line Cinema; © 20th Century Fox.

Trekked over the Bay Bridge last week (that $4 toll, about to be $6, is gonna be the bank-account-death of me) and visited North Beach. The Coit Tower greeted me with open arms on this sparkly, cloudless, “summer” day. Hellooooo San Francisco!!!! Thank you for clearing up for five minutes. Appreciate it.

This particular trip was centered around getting my ass to Liguria Bakery before it closed. Why? Cause they shut down at 2pm OR whenever they run out of their focaccias. And from what I hear, they are known to sell out well before 2pm. What? Just for focaccia? For real?

Yes. For real. All for the love of the Limited Edition!

Nestled in the heart of North Beach, Liguria is right down the street from Tony’s Pizzeria, and is in a heavily touristy area of the neighborhood. I showed up at 1pm, finally found a parking spot (nightmare), and practically ran over to the bakery. I got there and the door was unlocked. Hooray!

I walked in and the ladies behind the counter stopped their chatter. They, and a few friends sitting in chairs (probably their chairs) stared at me blankly. I was a foreigner who had just dared to step into their secret clubhouse. I was interrupting.

This reminded me of the same sort of treatment I got when walking into shops in Sicily, or small towns in Italy in general. It scares the hell out of me, but at the same time, I kinda love the silent, intimidating abuse.

I tried my best to act like I knew what I was doing. HA! I asked if they had any focaccias left. She said she only had garlic and pizza and raisin. I was more than a little bit scared of this lady, and had no time to calculate. Without hesitation, I said I would take all three. She said, ‘Well, that makes it easy,” and gave me a smile.

SCORE!

But where were the focaccias? They weren’t lined up anywhere in the front. She walked into the dark dungeons of the back.

And she came out with these three HUGE PIECES of focaccia. No joke, the size of your head. Wait, no– BIGGER than your head.

She stacked one on top of the other, masterfully wrapped them up in parchment paper, and tied it with a single piece of string. If this isn’t old-school La Mamma Italiana style, I don’t know what is.

The space is so super sparse, that it was almost as though they were getting ready to move out. Oh, but they’ve been here, in this exact spot, for nearly ONE HUNDRED YEARS, and they ain’t going anywhere. The Bay Area needs its focaccieria, damn it!

Paper and string wrapping station.

The Menu. Yup, only focaccias here. It’s a FOCACCIERIA! And cash only, foolios.

The lady and I are practically friends at this point (ok, not really, but she is nice to me), and I asked her how early they started making the focaccias. She said 1am on weekdays, 3am on weekends. Whoa. She said that the amount of focaccias they actually produce fluctuates day-to-day according to how many orders they have in, etc. Sounds pretty unpredictable, hence, closing time is never never static.

Alright, on to the focaccias. I brought them over to Yoko’s where we were having a little potluck for a childhood friend of ours who was in town. I didn’t feel like cooking, so this was the perfect thing to bring. There were large grease spots seeping through the paper. YES!

We put them in the oven to heat up. The entire house began to smell like garlic and bread!

FOCACCIA PORN!

Seriously, we all loved this and couldn’t get enough. The consistency of the bread is unreal: it’s at first crispy, then your teeth just sort of sink into a dense oblivion, and the flavors come out more as you chew. It tasted of freshly pressed olives and whatever sprinkling came on top.

My favorite was the raisin. The bursts of sweet grape were like rays of sunshine. The bread itself isn’t sweet at all, so it’s just a fantastic, simple combination of bread, olive oil, and raisins.

The pizza was unlike a usual pizza– much lighter and cheeseless. It was awesome.

The origins of focaccia is very muddled according to Wiki (Roman? Etruscan?), but in reading this great article on Liguria Bakery, the founders emigrated from Genova in the beginning of the century. The focaccia is well-associated with “Ligurian” cuisine in Italy, where the region’s capital is the port town of Genova.

The bakery is now still family-owned, run by the founder’s grandson. It certainly has maintained its old-school Italy vibe, which I loved very much– this is about as “historical” as it gets, around these parts. Same location for 100 years!

So now we know– when in North Beach, visit Liguria. Take a deep breath, walk inside with confidence, and make small talk with the ladies like you’re a part of the club. And get there before noon, just to be on the safe side.

LIGURIA BAKERY
1700 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA
T: 415.421.3786

My dear friend Leslie alerted me about this bakery when she found out I was going to Chicago. Her friend Sandra Holl had just opened Floriole Cafe & Bakery in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago, and she urged me to make a visit.

Sandra and her husband had a supportive following through the farmer’s market grapevine for years, selling their baked goods in Chicago. They finally pulled the trigger and opened Floriole in April– a HUGE two-story, airy, brick and mortar space full of light and Frenchie charm (think country farmhouse in Provence).

Le petit dejeuner.

Sandra and her staff make EVERYTHING from scratch, even their pot of yogurt with jam! So creamy and delicious.

Their croissant was off the scale– it’s SO HARD to find a good croissant in the States, that when I do, I tend to gorge on a few in one sitting. The croissant is my measure stick as to how I rate bakeries. Floriole’s was buttery, flakey, with crispy (but not burnt!) edges. Perfection. This jambon, fromage et moutarde-filled croissant was OUT OF CONTROL.

Macarons!

Sandra was kind enough to give us a tour of the kitchen. Again, it was SO HUGE. It must be a dream-come-true for her, to have such a grand  work space for her creations.

Le Torch!

Temperature controlled bread-making room.

Sandra’s baby.

Baby #2.

HA!

Upstairs. Great party space.

Window into the kitchen.

Intelligentsia in the espresso machine. Keepin it local.

Gorgeous!

Wishing Floriole and Sandra many years of success! Please start a mail order service for your croissants! Maybe you can eventually open a satellite location in the Bay Area?

Next time, I MUST try your ramp sandwich.

FLORIOLE CAFE & BAKERY
1220 W Webster Avenue
Chicago, IL
T: 773.883.1313

Top photo by Matt K.

In Japan, there are a LOT of food items you can only find in a specific to a town, city, or area. ご当地グルメ or “local gourmet food” items are something tourists must get when they visit the area. Some of the foods are too weird to ever become popular, and others get national attention, becoming available throughout Japan.

Any food fad in Japan is always very temporal. Panna Cotta, Nata de coco, Belgian waffles, tiramisu, Krispy Kreme, for example, all became very popular, and went away a year later. (I maybe wrong about Krispy Kreme, since they seem to still be doing good).

Started in a bakery in Hokkaido, Chikuwa Pan (tube shaped fish cake wrapped in bread dough) got national attention and  is apparently very hot in Japan right now. I glanced at an article recently and thought it was a great combo– a major bread company took it and started to sell it in cosmopolitan areas as well.

I love bread with savory stuff inside. Japan totally transformed the notion of bread and made it their own. The Japanese treat bread almost the same as rice, stuffing anything from potato salad, ham, curry, to even noodles (noodle with bread is such a carb overload). My grandmother used to put pickled vegetable on buttered toast, which in concept is similar to Vegemite, I think.  Even in the US, hot dogs are used to stuff bread, puff pastry, etc.

So I made chikuwa pan the other day.

Chikuwa is available at any Japanese grocery store here in NYC, but they are not the best kind. They are also kept in the frozen food isle, which is unfortunate.  Fresh chikuwa is something you gotta try when you go to Japan. The recipe is quite simple. I am not even going to write about the bread part since you can basically use any soft bread recipe (a dinner rolls one works fine).

What else do you need?

12 chikuwa
1 can of tuna fish (in water)
Kewpie mayo
Egg wash

While the bread rises, cut chikuwa lengthwise. Mix tuna fish and mayo, and stuff it inside of chikuwa’s hole. Don’t over stuff it.

Divide bread dough into 12, and roll it out into a thin and long rope, then wrap it around the chikuwa.

Once you wrap the chikuwa, rest for about 30-45 minutes, then egg wash it. If you want, you can pipe a thin line of mayo on the center.  Bake it in 350˚ until golden.

Tuna in the center, chikuwa, then bread outside. Just the way it should be.

I need to tweek this next time. First of all, bread was a bit too tough. I need to use softer bread recipe, such as a hamburger bun recipe or something– it may be too sticky to stretch into rope, but that texture is more suitable for this recipe. The chikuwa was mediocre and the tuna was a bit too fishy to my taste.

I don’t think I will use tuna next time.  Maybe corn and mayo? Cheese?

After a 4-year, 4-month hiatus, I am back in Berkeley. Robotland (a.k.a. Tokyo) was good to me, but finding myself shuffled in line at the Berkeley Bowl between one of these, and Zack de la Rocha‘s doppelganger on a weekly basis has got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Not only is it great to be back under the California sun, it’s specifically great to be back in Berkeley where I really feel like I can eat and buy locally.

I live five minutes away from the OG Acme Bread Company. Having access to the same fresh bread as Alice Waters within a three-block radius is phenomenal.

I went to Peet’s the other day on Fourth Street in Berkeley. I had another “Oh yeah, Berkeley!” moment at Peet’s, when I broke open my tea-bag package.

Okay, this isn’t food, but I was equally ecstatic to find that the detergent that I picked out today at the market was based in Berkeley.

My twenties are almost over, and like clockwork, my body is ready to settle. During my time in Tokyo, I felt transient — buying small bottles of condiments and cheap, temporary houseware. I couldn’t even commit to a coffee filter holder!

But Berkeley has got me ready to commit and for the first time in my life, I’ve taken a giant stride into being commited – I bought my first coffee filter holder.

The lady at Coffee Conscious on Gilman Street sold me this lovely coffee filter holder made in Holland for $3, along with some amazing coffee grounds. The following picture symbolizes my full-fledged willingness to run into the arms of domestication:

I fully believe that if you break up once with a boy, you should stay away from him forever. But I never broke up with Berkeley — I just told him to wait for me. Thanks for waiting… I am so glad I came back to you.

As I mentioned in my last post, I pretty much fucked up my first attempt at making bread pudding- mostly due to my inability to follow directions. Surprise, surprise, I know.

This time around, I followed the recipe as closely as I possibly could, given my ADD rebelliousness in the kitchen. And what happens when you follow directions when baking? SUCCESS!!!

Again, here’s the recipe sent over to me by Michelle. It’s totally straightforward, using minimal ingredients, which I like.

+++

1 baguette
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F

+++

Cut enough baguette into 1-inch cubes to measure 4 cups. I used Japanese-style shokupan, not a baguette. It was fine.

In a shallow baking pan toast bread in middle of oven until crisp but not golden, about 5 minutes. Melt butter and in an 8-inch square baking pan toss with bread.

In a bowl whisk together milk, cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and a pinch salt and pour over bread, stirring to coat.

I soaked raisins in Amaretto and added to the pudding.

Before the milk is added.

After- milk is actually filled to the brim! The last time I made this, the batter barely coated the bread. Fail.

Chill pudding, covered, 1 hour. Oh shit, I didn’t cover it!!

Here it is an hour later. Still a lot of pudding left! This is KEY!

Bake pudding in middle of oven until just set but still trembles slightly, about 50 minutes. Serve pudding warm or at room temperature.

Success!!!

Let’s look at a before and after, compared to the last time I made this. Look at how much more FULL it looks in the pan.

Bread pudding porn.

Look at how much it rose! It was just much more fluffy and not dry at all. I think next time, I’ll use 1 less egg cause it was denser than I would have liked. That’s the egg’s fault, right?

I highly recommend this recipe- it’s buttery, fatty goodness, and very easy. IF you follow directions.

In pure Yamahomo style, I’m battling myself in the kitchen. I’m doing so many recipe posts lately, I can’t stop! As you can tell, my unemployed ass is starting to cook more- what the hell else do I have to do, right??

This weekend, I had a stale baguette on my hands. I’m talking like 5 days stale. Like I could not crack it with my hands, stale. Like I had to pound on the cutting board with a sharp knife and wake everyone up in the house, stale. You get the picture.

But (again, in pure Yamahomo style), I wasn’t about to throw away this perfectly good piece of baguette, no matter how stale it was! So I nosed around, asking for a good bread pudding recipe.

There are hundreds of recipes for bread pudding on the I N T E R N E T, it gave me a fucking headache. Plus, I really am the worst baker, we all know this. I get a migraine just thinking about precise measurements.

But Michelle sent me this great recipe from her friend for buttered bread pudding. Sounds pretty awesome, right? The best part about this is how totally straightforward the ingredients and directions are. Here it is.

+++

1 baguette
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
1 cup whole milk
1 3/4 cups heavy cream
4 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cut enough baguette into 1-inch cubes to measure 4 cups and in a shallow baking pan toast bread in middle of oven until crisp but not golden, about 5 minutes. Melt butter and in an 8-inch square baking pan toss with bread.

In a bowl whisk together milk, cream, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and a pinch salt and pour over bread, stirring to coat. Chill pudding, covered, 1 hour.

Bake pudding in middle of oven until just set but still trembles slightly, about 50 minutes. Serve pudding warm or at room temperature.

+++

Totally easy right? Even the worst cook could pull this off. But this here cook lacks the most important quality imperative to baking: FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS.

Fail #1: First off, my bread was extremely stale. For bread pudding, all the recipes I looked through said that it should only be about a day or two old. I knew I needed to soak the bread in the milk for longer just to get the bread to soften up.

Fail #2: Since I only had about half a baguette, I halved all the ingredients. I only had half and half in the fridge so I substituted that for the milk and cream.

Fail #3: The recipe states to chill the pudding for an hour before putting it in the oven. Uhhhh, how about 12??? I started making the pudding and got a phone call from my ONE friend in Cupertino, asking me to come to a Greek food festival. Gyros, souvlaki, loukamades with a side of cute Greek boys???? PRIORITIES PEOPLE!

No really, I thought I would be gone for just two hours tops, but instead we ended up hopping from bar to bar in the Silicon Valley. GIRLS GONE WILD!

But in retrospect, I shoulda just stayed home and worked on this bread pudding cause it wasn’t as good as it should have been- Fail #3 was probably the kicker. Letting the bread soak overnight really just dried it all up- see the before it went into the fridge, and when I took it out 12 hours later. I think it’s supposed to be much gooier, right?

Doesn’t really help that I burned it slightly.

Oh, I added brandy-soaked raisins- which was a good call, but they burn easily cause of the alcohol so I’ve gotta watch out for that.

Kinda too dry, right?

Don’t get me wrong, I still ate this entire dish (FATTY), but I’m gonna try making this again tomorrow and actually follow the directions this time. Let’s see how I do- it’s a BREAD PUDDING OFF!!!

Jenny’s friend Pamela, who came on the Umamiventure, told me about this special bread from the Arcangeli Grocery in Pescadero. “Downtown” Pescadero really only consists of one main street called Stage Road. Drive down towards the end and you’ll run into this cute little grocer that sells wines, meats and produce.

We picked up the bread and it was still warm!!!

Check out the huge chunks of artichoke baked right into the loaf!

The bread was soft and fluffy and the tart from the artichoke was perfect. Pamela said she drives all the way from San Francisco (about and hour drive) to get this bread. I’d say it’s worth the drive- it’s really unique, there’s nothing out there like it!

On our way back, we took the back roads and drove all the way down Stage Road. Lots of hills and expansive greenery, it was a lovely drive. There were these awesome copper statues that were outside this one house. Check out this gun-toting skeleton- how badass is this??

ARCANGELI GROCERY
287 Stage Road
Pescadero, CA
T: 650.879.0147

How do you like your fiber? I hope you like it hot.

I’ll show you what I created.

Not shown is the homemade tofu. Instead of painstakingly cooking soy beans, I bought soy milk at a Japanese grocery store. It was from a tofu store in Kyoto, and contained just soy and water, so I thought it would make a decent one. Yep, I was right. It was very tasty.

Also I made bunch of Japanese style pickles. For this, I will post a detailed method soon. Unlike western style pickling, Japanese do it a very weird way, very stinky, and uses things like egg shells, rice bran, beer, etc. Sounds fascinating, right? Behold, my obsession with pickling will be revealed shortly.

Below is umami porn. I have a party coming up this weekend, and this is one of the items I will serve. I made them and they are in my freezer waiting to be cooked. My famous dumplings. It’s just ground pork, Chinese chives, ginger, salt, pepper, soy sauce, and egg. I buy skins since it’s too much to make them. How uniformly assembled! I didn’t use Joyce Chen’s dumpling maker, FYI.

Remember my post on the Japanese vegetable delivery service? That huge daikon radish turned into daikon, chicken and pumpkin cooked in soy base soup.

Japanese green pepper (which is a lot thinner than American kind) stuffed with ground pork, with a thick teriyaki style sauce.

My friend went home to Indonesia and brought this back. Krupuk, or shrimp crackers. They are awesome. It’s simple cooking, just fry them.

When it’s dry, it’s just about, say, 3 inches.

Check out this video. It’s ALIVE!!! How it grows is quite amazing. I have no idea what’s in it, but after you fry them, the whole house smelled like fried fish… Pretty gross, and somehow, something was stuck on the frying pan, which took me like 10 minutes to clean. Normal food shouldn’t grow like this, so there must be some foreign ingredients in this. But it tastes good. Shrimp+Cracker+Fried= AWESOME!

Finally, the highlight of this weekend was making authentic New York style bagels. My cooking mind is very bi-polar. While I was making dumplings, I decided to make bagels. I don’t think ahead, and when I feel like making something, I just go buy ingredients and make them. When I was reading about New York style bagel, the key item was malt syrup. So I went to Whole Foods, where I saw Chace Crawford in front, and while I was texting that information to my friend Molly, Bobby Flay was talking RIGHT next to me. My celeb sightings for the weekend!

Back to bagel making. The recipe was something like this.
11 1/4 cups of bread flour
3 3/4 cups of warm water
3 1/2 table spoon of yeast
5 teaspoon of sugar
2 1/3 teaspoon of oil
5 teaspoon of malt syrup
5 teaspoon of salt

Mix water, sugar and yeast, rest it till it kind of bubbles up. Then add salt, syrup and oil.

Add flour, and it makes VERY stiff dough. Knead it for 10 minutes. It was VERY stiff and I almost thought it was too stiff and about to add more water, but it is supposed to be stiff, so I just kept kneading.

Finally it became the shape and texture it should be, and I put it in a bowl to rise.

After its risen, some recipe says to make a string and attach ends to make round shape, but my recipe said to make a tight ball, then put your finger through in the middle and make a hole. What a brilliant idea!

Then the distinctive part of bagel making, you boil them for 45 seconds each side in hot water and malt syrup mixture.

Bake them in 400F for 17-20 minutes, and check this out! This will make umami porn, for sure.

Maybe I have some Jewish blood in me somewhere. Come to think of it, I do sometimes talk like a nagging Long Island mother. That might be why my challah bread, as well as these bagels are pretty close to professional level!

Shalom.