Last week, NYC pastry chef extraordinaire Pichet Ong was a guest judge on Top Chef Just Desserts (aired September 22).  As he was introduced, some of my photos of his desserts were shown on the episode: Foie Gras Taco and Warm Date Cake (see below). I shot the desserts in his restaurants P*ong and The Village Tart in Manhattan. Those restaurants are now closed unfortunately, but you can still find him, and his desserts, at his newest NYC projects, Qi and Coppelia.

Pichet is so talented and makes the most beautiful dishes that are equally delicious.

photos by Erin Gleeson

Although we don’t see many kudzu vines taking over large patches of land in the west, it is often referred to as the “mile-a-minute-vine” in the South. It all started in 1876 when someone thought it would be a good idea to introduce the kudzu plant from Japan to the U.S. Instead of providing some nice exotic-looking shade, it became America’s first horticultural Asian Invasion. It’s been “so successful” that every year, U.S. power companies spend $1.5 million dollars repairing downed and damages power lines due to kudzu. The costs of controlling kudzu and its negative impacts on native species have been devastating.

I have always been fascinated by kudzu and it took me a LONG time to make the connection that kudzu and kuzu were the same. Kudzu is the mispronunciation of the Japanese word kuzu. Kuzu appears on dessert menus throughout Japan. There is kuzumochi, kuzukiri and kuzuyu. All are desserts using kuzuko (kudzu starch) and usually have a milky white appearance.

Kuzuko (Kudzu starch)

Kuzuko is also used in my favorite Japanese dessert of all time, mizu-yokan. Yokan (red bean paste dessert) seems to be one of the very last Japanese foods to catch on in the states, but there is no way I can contain my enthusiasm for it. The recipe below is from my mom and is a delicious summertime treat incorporating red bean paste, kuzu and matcha. Japanese sweets are often made to showcase tea, and I can’t image a better pair than a cup of green tea and a serving of mizu-yokan.

This dessert is two-tiered. It takes a mizu-yokan recipe and a matcha-kuzu kanten (agar) and plates them next to one another. The processes for both the mizu-yokan and matcha-kuzu kanten are nearly the same so don’t be intimidated.

MIZU YOKAN

INGREDIENTS
3 tsp kudzu starch*
100 cc (2/5 cup) water
1 package (4 grams) kanten powder*
400 cc (1 2/3 cup) water
2/3 c sugar
200 g (1/2 of a typical 400 g package) koshian (smooth) red bean paste*

*You can purchase kudzu starch, koshian red bean paste and kanten at the Japanese market

METHOD

1. Combine kudzu starch with 100 cc of water. Mix well.

2. In a pot, combine 400 cc of water with kanten powder package and place on high heat. Stir the mixture well until it starts to boil.

3. Add the sugar and koshian to the pot. Using a wooden spoon stir until the mixture is very smooth and silky then bring heat down to low and remove scum off the surface. Keep on low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Add some of the mixture from Step Three to the kudzu mixture bowl with a spoon. Repeat three to four times until everything is in the bowl from Step One. Transfer the mixture back to the pot.

5. While stirring the mixture, make sure to keep the wooden spoon touching the bottom of the pot for five minutes on high. This avoids air bubbles in the end product.

6. Remove the pot from heat and place in an ice bath. Mix well until smooth. Remove from ice bath. Transfer into an appropriate container (i.e. something you use for jello or single serving desserts) and chill for several hours until firm.

… and now let’s do it again, this time with matcha…

KUZU MATCHA KANTEN

INGREDIENTS
2 tsp matcha powder
3 tsp kuzu starch
100 cc (2/5 cup) water

1 package (4 grams) kanten powder
550 cc (2 1/5 cup) water
2/3 c sugar

METHOD

1. Combine kudzu starch and matcha powder with 100 cc of water. Mix well.

2. In a pot combine 550 cc of water with kanten powder package and place on high heat. Stir the mixture well until it starts to boil.

3. Add the sugar to the pot. Using a wooden spoon stir until the mixture is very smooth and silky then bring heat down to low and remove scum off the surface. Keep on low heat for 5 min, stirring occasionally.

4. Add some of the mixture from step three to the kudzu mixture bowl with a spoon. Repeat three to four times until all everything is in the bowl from step one. Transfer the mixture back to the pot.

5. While stirring the mixture, make sure to keep the wooden spoon touching the bottom of the pot, for five minutes on high. This avoids air bubbles in the end product.

6. Remove the pot from heat and place in an ice bath. Mix well until smooth. Remove from ice bath. Transfer into an appropriate container (i.e. something you use for jello or single serving desserts, there are trays especially for Japanese desserts that you can buy at Japanese supply stores like Daiso) and chill for several hours until firm.

Remove from container and cut into single serving rectangles or cubes.

Special tray for Japanese desserts like kanten and yokan, available at Japanese kitchen stores like Daiso

A small, flat spoon works well as a utensil. I would like to buy some small wooden spoons especially for this dessert, but for now I just have a small silver spoon.

The mizu yokan‘s cold, smoothness is a cool treat for the summer. The kudzu in the matcha kanten creates a silky, milky texture that melds with the bitterness of the matcha powder. What a combo.

If tons of kudzu are disposed of in the U.S. every year, I think the perfect solution would be to manufacture lots of premium kudzu starch and export it to China, Korea and Japan. We’d get rid of all that kudzu and dig ourselves out of the recession! Mr. Obama, are you listening?

Let’s start this post by trying to pronounce its title. Easy, no? The Danish language is in a league of its own.

Imagine a gurgling sound, the deep noise of a drunk blond viking with too much mead in his mouth. While Americans speak with the front of their mouth, Danes create the words way back in the mouth coming almost from the throat. You can actually keep a conversation going in Danish for very long without even opening your mouth more than a few millimeters.

Give up, huh? Well, phonetically the title spells: kæɐ̯nəˌmεlˀgsˈkʌlˌsgɔˀl and as usual when our modern, depraved brains give up, Google steps in and pronounces it for us.

So back to the actual subject of this post: kærnemælkskoldskål. Kærnemælk means buttermilk and koldskål is the name of a classic Danish dessert. It’s perfect for those long warm evenings when you sit outside in your garden having dinner under the trees. During the early summer months in Denmark, it often doesn’t get dark until 1am, and then already at 3:30am the sun is peeking back up from the horizon. Kærnemælkskoldskål is also great after a meal or as a cooling afternoon dishy snack. It’s available pre-made in all Danish supermarkets, and if you’re not in Denmark you can easily make this dish yourself.

Most Danes are very much into dairy products, even the government recommends you drink half a liter of milk per day for good health and so most Danes like this dish a lot. It’s not really considered a fine dining experience, just more like an everyday dessert for the whole family–therefore it might be frowned upon if you served it for guests. But of course, only in this country. For everyone else it would be considered a nice, simple and light dessert that can easily be “dressed up” to look like a classy work of art.

You can serve it plain or as most do with kammerjunkere which are sweet vanilla flavoured biscuits. Watch this (lame) Danish commercial for kammerjunkere:

You can buy these biscuits, make them yourself, or actually just use any that you can find–it’s the combination between the lemon sour dairy koldskål and the sweet biscuits that really does the trick. But you can also sprinkle granola and/or freshly sliced fruit on top for extra delight.

Let’s make it!

KÆRNEMÆLKSKOLDSKÅL

INGREDIENTS
for 2 people

4 pasteurized egg yolks (I’m missing an egg in the picture, there should be 4)
4 spoons of sugar
Half a stick of vanilla or two teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of shredded organic lemon zest
1/2 liter of buttermilk
1/2 liter of yogurt
2-3 spoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice

METHOD

1. Start by parting the eggs–you want only the yellow yolks.

2. Whip the yolks with the sugar and vanilla.

You want a fluffy light eggnoggy looking texture.

3. Wash your lemon–you want it to be organic to avoid any poisonous pesticides getting into your dessert.

4. Shred a good teaspoon full of zest. This gives the dessert a certain bite.

Introducing Danish organic “old days” kærnemælk (buttermilk) from Osted Dairy:

[Is this kind of packaging available in the US? It's a sustainable and carbon-fingerprint light design. Very flexible and strong, it keeps the milk safe while avoiding annoying old school paper cartons. It takes up very little space in the trash can when folded and when burned it turns into non-toxic fumes.]

5. Pour a half a liter of the sour milk into the yolk mix while stirring elegantly with a spoon.

Introducing yogurt:

Same packaging as the kærnemælk. While I really do like the technical and environmental side of the design, the aesthetics (label/logo/info layout) is just a mess and very un-sexy. It’s probably designed by the dairy farmer himself, DIY-countryside style. It could be much much nicer to look at though.

6. Shake it well and pour half a liter in as well while stirring.

Yellow marble.

7. Add the lemon zest.

Introducing organic mini kammerjunkere–mini biscuits with vanilla:

Kærnemælkskoldskål gets so much better when you add crunch and contrast.

Sliced fresh Danish strawberries.

8. Drop a bunch of each into the bowl and decorate with a leaf. Serve chilled with a glass of Asti wine.

Happy August!

There’s just something about growing your own food.

In this Brave New World of global import/export where you can basically die from eating the wrong vegetable (big cucumber scandal in Germany with lots of casualties), is a home grown meal the new epitome of “comfort food” (as in “food that doesn’t kill you”)?

For an urban citizen like me it’s definitely an exciting feeling to pluck the fruit off the bush and instantly eat it.

Warm weather has finally blessed Denmark with blue skies and deep yellow sun, and I’m summering in the countryside at my parent’s beach farm to take the stress off of a depressing spring. Everyone’s here–the cats, the chickens, the whole family. Before we arrived my parents have spent the last three weeks eating strawberries with cream for dessert every evening. The darn berries just keep popping out and it’s such a waste not to eat them.

But three weeks is a long time and my parents are so fed up with this, so when we arrived I decided to shake up the dessert a little. How about a Strawberry Pavlova? Pavlova is the national dessert of New Zealand, however they use kiwis (not the bird but the fruit, mind you) which we do not grow on these longtitudes. So here’s a Danish version.

+++

Fresh Strawberry Pavlova
(for 4 people)

4 egg whites
200 g cane sugar
1 pinch of salt
5oo ml cream
3 teaspoons powdered sugar
1 vanilla bean stalk
500 g (approx. 1 lb) fresh strawberries
1 orange, un-contaminated please!
1 heap of mint leaves

+++

Our vegetable & fruit garden. It could be so much more if my parents didn’t spend so much time watching Mad Men or shopping for cake but there you go.

I start by picking all the berries that have ripened enough today for consumption.

Mr Cat is giving a helping paw.

Fresh and ripe, full of vitamins– especially a good source for iron.

Once inside I need some fresh mint leaves– there must be some in the indoor greenhouse…

There you go.

Start by whipping up the egg whites.

Whip it!

Whip it real good!

Grab the cane sugar.

When the egg whites are showing white peaks, add the sugar slowly while you keep whipping it. Real good.

Add a pinch of salt.

Turn on your oven by now and set it to 150˚C / 320 F˚

Whip it all until you have smooth, even meringue cream.

Shape a container with baking paper to keep the batter inside and not flowing all over the place. You could even use a heart shaped cake form if it’s wide enough. You don’t want the batter to lay thick as it swells up a bit during baking.

All ready to go in!

Bake the stuff for 45-50 minutes. It needs to be crisp on the outside and doughy/caramel stringy on the inside.

After baking take it out and cool it on a wire rack.
Dum di dum, this is going well…

FUCK!!! What a mess! The caramelized sugar cane sticks to the paper like glue!

Is this why they invented non-stick baking paper?

There goes my beautiful bottom layer. Oh well, let’s just enjoy life and ignore my sloppyness.

Whip the cream into whipped cream adding the icing sugar and vanilla.

Cut the strawberries into halves.

Cover the meringue bottom layer with the whipped cream and spread the strawberries over the cream.

Pick the mint leaves off its twigs and sprinkle over the cake.

Slice the orange peel a la julienne across the cake, and voila!

Delicious! This was a very nice variation of the good old Danish strawberries & cream dessert. The meringue adds a nice crunch and the mint and orange toppings contribute with a fresh sensation to all the sweetness. Next time I think it would be nice to add nuts to the meringue layer for even more crunch. And maybe some more orange into the whipped cream to give an even more sour/fresh contrast to all the sugar.

Hmm, this almost looks like the tutti frutti version of a pizza, no?

Bon appetit from the low evening sun of Northern Jutland!

After having spent my later teen years plowing through the novels of Douglas Coupland, Bret Easton Ellis and other post modern cynics, I can’t help but see myself in so many typical Generation X situations. Meaning that you suddenly find yourself in a condition that requires an ironizing snark or a sarcastic comment–there’s just no other way. For example, visiting the stable tourist trap for Danish layer cakes–La Glace– in Copenhagen.

My sister and I have a thing for cakes. We just can’t leave the fuckers alone. And living in Copenhagen with all its French-inspired cake shops and new organic bakeries makes it even harder not to misstep and inhale a slice or two every so often.

But this place, La Glace, is not where we usually go. Only tourists (with the wrong guidebook obviously), old grandmas with their offspring, and suburban white trash who come into the city on Saturdays to shop for loose gym trousers and tv dinner trays with wheels, all go to have “posh cake” at the Glace.

No locals come here, they all know better. And I should too, but sometimes you have to take one for the team, in this case Team Umamimart.

The facade reflects old European style with lots of glass, gold and old bricks. The signs are inconsistent though, it looks cheap.

The window next to the entrance is an exhibit of what this place is all about: layer cakes, the timeless Danish staple dessert, and afternoon coffee companion. A circular birthday cake (not squarish as in the U.S.) with candles and flags is part of every Danish child’s birthday.

We glance through the windows. The lady inside gives us a very suspicious look. Are we cake crazy tourists on drugs or from the State Department of Health? Either represent a bad visitor, I guess.

Walnut cake: crushed walnuts in whipped cream, mocca frosting and caramellized walnuts. Lots of walnuts, huh?

Orange cake: Orange creme, macaroon base, orange frosting, caramellized oranges.

H.C. Anderson’s Cake: Lemon fromage, raspberry butter with star anis on juicy nut bottom layer. Decorated with white chocolate.

Rubinstein cake: Rum fromage, macaroon base, currants jelly, choux dipped in chocolate, hazelnuts and whipped cream. Wow, lots going on here.

We check the prices. EEEK!!

$10 for a slice (and that slice ain’t big, I can tell you that. This is Copenhagen, not Houston, Texas). This better be good.

They also offer strawberry cakes at $7.5 and smaller truffles at $6.

No idea what these cakes are. Being gay I dig the little flowers. Perhaps it is tradition, but I generally don’t like eating out of tinfoil it’s just too supermarket cake-ish.

The right window is a different story. No layer cakes here, just horror.

Yes yes, very bridezilla from afar. But get up close…

… SHOCK!! Yamahomo, don’t look!!! Macarons from hell! You may have nightmares for years!

For one, these are bad bad colours. Did they squeeze a salmon for the right amount of 1994 apricot-hairdresser-salon-wall-barf-inducing colouring? Also, the styling is sloppy. The macarons are drying and falling apart, its legs are gross and clumsy. Only a straight women would place this tray of macarons coulour scheme on a lime/pink striped underpaper. It a messy clash and it hurts the eyes.

Late June means streets crowded with drunk high school graduates screaming and fornicating in joy, set free from the chains of homework and obligations. That’s what they think, this is the real end of childhood and youth and it only gets worse from here. [If they knew this they would be crying in the streets, throwing themselves off tall buildings.]

Here is the hat they all wear for graduation, as a symbol of no way back.

To the left is a tray of marzipan cake which you eat at big events like new years eve and graduation ceremonies. Danish flags everywhere, it’s a party thing. On the right is the cake hat.

We enter the tourist scene.

Clean but slightly messy setup, like someone’s redecorated a 1895 living room into a coffee and cake cafe.

Silver, brass, glass.

The coffee is filter coffee served in silver pitchers. As if that makes it better?

We take a deep breath and glance at the menu.

Ok, so $10 for a cake slice and $10.5 for a cup of filter coffee? Bitches, you’re on drugs.

Oh yeah and hot chocolate is $13. Their pamphlet says it’s made on sweet milk, cream and “block chocolate” (industrial?).

The tourists stand in line, surrounded by others who have also obeyed their discount guide books and order the cake, only to realise the hollowness of this place. Cause La Glace is all talk and no walk.

This place is popular, there’s always a line.

The pamphlet on the table advertises 19 layer cakes. Not all are made every day. But you can order your own cake for 14 peeps for $140.

The interior wants to be cozy but something’s just off. We’re sitting in a basement and it feels like we’re in a half-assed Disneyland green room.

Core audience: old peeps. The thing on the left with the white glasses is actually a man. Closeted husband alert.

Our order arrives fairly quickly. Filter coffee is so much faster than real espresso machines, yay…

My sister refused to order her own coffee due to the rio-off price tag. So we share the cup illegally.

Cake addict pose.

I am so wearing the wrong thing for a cake date, sorry. I should’ve brought my vest and butterfly, where are my manners.

My sister ordered a slice of the Spring Cake: Raspberry fromage, chocolate truffle, raspberry puree on an almond base layer, topped with a green marzipan heart:

It’s quite tasty, although most of it is just foam. And it’s so small!!

I got the Lucky You: Pumpkin merenque, marscapone, caramellized and salted pumpkin seeds, chocolate mousse, raspberry ganache. Topped with pumpkin seeds.

Quite nice as well. The raspberry plays well as a contrast to the heavy chocolate, and the pumpkins seeds are crunchy goodies in all the splat splat foam.

Again, I could’ve eaten 5 slices.

The coffee was blah as predicted. Even two people couldn’t finish the pitcher.

I liked the long flags in the window and the cake slices. But this wasn’t enough to shake off the tourist trap feeling. La Glace is overpriced and they are resting too well on their laurels. Lower the prices or enlarge the tiny cake bites and they might get more stars from me. But again, this is not me or my friend’s scene. It’s a full blooded anacronism, a timewarp in the middle of Copenhagen which I really support had they only done it better and more upscale. I bet there are 2000 places in Paris or London who solve this job so much better.

La Glace means in French either “the ice / the ice cream / the window / the frosting”… take your pick. I should go to Paris, actually. The real scene for café and cakes. Will Umamimart sponsor me, pretty please?

If I had a garden, I would go crazy.

Everyone thinks having a big garden invokes peace and tranquility in the mind. WRONG! It gives you a constant nagging feeling of stress and frustration. The lawn must be mown, bushes cut, apples picked, weed removed, flowers planted, birds scared away, vegetables watered… Aargh it just never gives you a break.

But once in a while you (literally) get to harvest the results of your hard labour. Blackberries are in season and I suggested to my mom that we bake a pie.

Mosquitos are very much in season right now as well – picking these berries were quite a death match. I’m still scratching myself while writing this.

The berries are of course 100% organic and poison free– unlike my blood.

Not exactly a huge truck load of blackberries, but should be enough for a pie.

Back in the kitchen: start by washing the berries carefully– you don’t want to squish them into marmalade.

Ok, so here’s an overview of the recipe:

Pie dough:
150g butter (about 11 tbsp)
250g flour (about 1 cup)
75g icing sugar (about 1/3 cup)
1 egg

Berry fill:
400g blackberries (about 2 cups)
75g shredded marzipan (about 1/3 cup)
8 crushed macaroons
1.5 tablespoon sugar

Baking time: 200˚C (about 400˚F) in 35-40 minutes.

So much butter…

Prepare 250g white flour.

And add 75 icing sugar.

This food processor deserves a medal and a senior citizen discount card – it’s from 1985, can you believe that??

What machinery can you say that about these days? My new XBOX 360 controller lasted two days before it broke!

Pour everything in. Add one egg.

Blend it like there’s no tomorrow.

Place the fresh dough in the fridge for one hour or more. That lets it settle and makes it easier to work with later.

Those are my dad’s cans to the left by the way. If he doesn’t get his cold beer at dinner, you’re in serious trouble.

Paris Hilton’s VIP party room table?

Roll out the cold dough.

Save a good handful for the pie thread decor.

My mom’s circular pie bowl is dead in action, so we had to use this oval one which is less sexy but what can you do. Shred the marzipan for a smooth, delicious base.

Drop the berries in. So fresh!

Punish the macaroons using a bag and a rolling pin. Or sit on it if you have a big butt.

Sprinkle the crushed macaroons on top and finish off with a bit of sugar to give it that sparkle.

Finally, be creative with your hands and design the thread. We went for the classic woven look.

Smack it in the oven and bake for 35-40 min at 200˚C (about 400˚F)!

And ta-da, out comes this warm thing!

Meanwhile, my dad’s certainly not having any of that silly pie. He’s preparing his own favorite dessert: the cheapest store label nougat ice cream topped with whipped cream from a can and some bottled, artificial eggnog from Germany. So disgusting!

Then I’d rather have a slice of this: Freshly baked, homegrown blackberry pie with vanilla corn infused créme fraiche. Bon appetit!

Wine bar meets patisserie? Yes, please! Especially when it involves Pichet Ong.  Imagine a place where you can sit either with a book and cappuccino in the afternoon or with friends and Cabernet in the evening.

Reminiscent of a mini Parisian brasserie, the walls are decorated with antique mirrors and the leather booths are cozy. Order a coffee and a brie & pear tart, or a six course meal. There’s a bakery counter in the front and a great wine list in the back. Does it get much better than that?

THE VILLAGE TART
86 Kenmare Street at Mulberry
NYC

photo of radish salad © erin gleeson

Sweet and salty is something we do enjoy. Chocolate-covered salty rice crackers have been available in Japan, and they are pretty tasty. Sea salt with ice cream is available at some restaurants and it’s kind of refreshing.

I always get grossed out when I see many people at brunch eating pancakes or french toast with a side of bacon, all drizzled in maple syrup. I always ask for bacon on a separate plate. But I recently saw a recipe called “French toast bacon cupcake with maple buttercream frosting”. My curiosity was pretty high, and I decided to make this unthinkable combo of bacon in a cupcake.

I found two recipes, and somewhat combined them into one. Here is the recipe I ended up using. Both recipes were pretty peculiar, but I couldn’t be bothered to go to a store to buy vanilla pudding mix, or milk, so I just used what I had in the house.

1 cup of flour
1 cup of cake flour
1 table spoon cinnamon
1 table spoon nutmeg
1 table spoon baking powder
1 tea spoon salt
1 table spoon corn starch
1 stick of unsalted butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of regular sugar
1 tea spoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup of maple syrup
1/4 cup of heavy cream
1/4 cup of water
12 strips of bacon

Cook bacon. I cooked bacon in the oven. I find it a lot easier and less messier, but be sure not to cook them too crispy. Cool them and cut them into pieces, set aside.

Mix dry ingredients except for sugars together in a bowl, set aside.

Cream butter, then add sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix in dry mixture little by little, alternating with maple syrup/heavy cream/water. Don’t overmix, and finally stir in bacon.

Original recipe called for 1/2 cup of milk, but all I had was heavy cream, so I put 1/4 cup cream and 1/4 cup water. This might be completely wrong, but hey, it worked pretty well. Also I basically cut sugar amount by half. It is still sweet enough.

I had silicon muffin cups, and was going to use them. When I opened the container, it smelled like VERY stinky cheese. To my horror, they had bits of mold EVERYWHERE. You know these motherfuckas are very hard to clean, and I did wash them in dish washer, but I guess some particles remained there. Very grossed out and I threw out the whole thing. I can still smell it and makes me want to barf.

Since I don’t have muffin tin, I decided to make a cake instead. Muffin, cake, loaf, bundt, same difference. It’s just different shapes.

It took about an hour to cook the cake in a 325˚ oven.

It looks just like regular cake, right? While baking, it smelled like spice cake, especially with cinnamon and nutmeg, it smelled like autumn. No hint of bacon whatsoever.

So I brought it to work, without frosting, since I thought it would make too much mess. I brought them separately. I piped frosting from Ziploc bag, and it looks like a giant cupcake.

I gathered many of my colleagues, and served them pieces. Everyone was kind of grossed out by the concept, including me. Bacon + Cake = WTF?

Verdict – This is awesome. As you can see above, there are enough chunks of bacon in the cake, but it didn’t taste like bacon at all. Yes, by itself it is definitely bacon, but put everything together and it tasted very nice, with the mixture of sweetness from the maple buttercream and spiced cake, plus saltiness.

Here is the recipe for maple buttercream:

2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
pinch of salt
2 table spoon of maple syrup

Mix butter and maple syrup, add sugar.

I should have decorated the top with pieces of bacon.

What if I use whole package of bacon instead? Maybe I will try that next time.

N.B. Not the same thing as macarons, with which all Umamimartians seem to be obsessed.