Onggi

Onggi

uyguguygu   02.38   Comment  

Onggi, the traditional clay fermentation pots used in Korea, are everyday works of art. It's kitchenware with a 7,000 year old legacy that quite literally breaths because it has a microporous surface that facilitates fermentation.

Like the food stored inside of it, a high quality Onggi gets better with age. Many families here in Korea have handed their Onggi down from generation to generation and these human size clay pots sit like sentinels on rooftops, balconies, and in back yards all over the country, even in a ultra-modern city like Seoul. As you walk through neighborhoods of all kinds you see Onggi of different sizes everywhere. If food is the heart of a culture, Onggi is the shell that protects Korea's traditional cuisines.

Several weeks ago I decided it was high time to learn how to make some of the traditional Korean fermented dishes so I purchased two food safe Onggi for myself. Instead of the enormous ones that sell for several hundred thousand won (or around $200 - $300 dollars)  I bought two small ones that fit in a modern fridge. They arrived a few days later shipped from a workshop in rural Korea, packed carefully with newspaper and Styrofoam. They came, surprisingly, with two types of lids - the traditional type as well as a modern mesh and glass lid courtesy of the pottery shops that I ordered them from.

While I was searching for Onggi, which are surprisingly hard to find in stores, I did a little bit of research and learned that the craft of Onggi seems to be a dying art. In most kitchens, they have been replaced by plastic fermenting containers that can be purchased quite cheaply at just about every store here in Korea, even Daiso, the equivalent of the dollar store here.

Of course, using Onggi has it's disadvantages - it's breakable, heavy, they don't transport well, and I found that it was difficult to find Onggi that's food safe around Seoul. When I was looking around in markets for an Onggi a woman at an antique store cautioned me that many that are sold in the markets are designed to go to tourists and sit on shelves. The origins of the glaze are uncertain and may contain things like lead. She advised me to go online and purchase one there which was surprisingly easy.

Several weeks after my Onggi arrived at my house I took a trip to a small village about three and a half hours away from my house. A friend and I visited the Han Hyang Lim Onggi museum in the golden evening light of one of our very first crisp autumn days. We didn't stop to read any of the signs but we enjoyed the outdoor Onggi garden very much. It was terraced into the mountain behind the museum that afforded us a picturesque view of the entire valley.

Buying Kitchen Knives in Kyoto - Part II

Buying Kitchen Knives in Kyoto - Part II

uyguguygu   07.27   Comment  

This is the second part of a two part series on buying kitchen knives in Kyoto. You can find the first part here. 

職人はまず経験を身につけます。ここで「伝統」という言葉を使うのは抵抗があるのですが、職人に経験を身につけさせるには、伝統が必要です。

First, the craftsman gains experience. We hesitate to use the word "tradition" here but for the craftsman to gain experience tradition is necessary. 

Kayakawa Hamonoten, a small knife shop owned by a nearly 80-year-old Kyoto born man named Hayakawa Masaya, is tucked away on the south side of town in a classic Kyoto residential neighborhoods where traditional style homes and shops mingled in maintained but worn buildings. 

The owner was not there on the blistering Wednesday I arrived but I had the pleasure of meeting Nakashita Kenji, who ran the shop when the owner was not there. He spoke slightly more English than the proprietor at Shigeharu and we were able to easily pick out exactly what I wanted -  a small all purpose knife, with something engraved on it. He placed three or four knives of that description in front of me and I chose the one that I wanted, a simple and relatively inexpensive chef’s knife with carbon steel enclosed in stainless steel. On a whim, I also asked for a sharpening stone.

“Do you know how to use this?” he asked me as he chose one from the piles of stones he had for sale on the floor underneath the knife cabinet.

I told him I did not.

“I'll show you,” he offered, asking if I had time. He walked me across the shop to the sharpening basin behind the counters and cabinets crowded into the tiny shop space. Reaching into the water, he pulled out a double sided stone similar to the one I intended to purchase. He set it on the wooden plank that extended from the edge of basin into the water and rifled in a drawer to pull out a dull, worn kitchen knife, perfect for practicing on. . 

“First,” he said pointing to the rough side, and then flipping the stone to the finer side, “Second.”

He sat down and lined up the knife at a 90  degree angle, then tilted the knife again to cut that angle in half to 45, and then tilted it again in half to cut that angle to 23 degrees. He once more tilted it, and ended up with roughly a 10 degree angle. 

As he began to pull the knife across the stone he told me to listen to the sound. 

“Listen,” he directed. He pulled and pushed the knife across the rough side of the stone. As he did this, the sound didn’t change. It remained a satisfying merger of metal on stone, a wearing down of an old worn thing, the mistakes and inconsistencies leaving as it was ground to an edge against that stone. I could see that his fingers were spread out across the blade of the knife and at each point of contact neither the angle nor the pressure changed. It was consistent. He showed me the edge, where a small bead had formed. He flipped the knife over and repeated the same thing, pointing out the consistent 10 degree angle, the pressure, the pull and the push, and most importantly, the sound as he scraped it.

After he had demonstrated the correct method, he began to do it incorrectly to show me the difference. The sound changed, it became more metallic, as if the blade was singing alone. He was manipulating the knife with inconsistent pressure. The blade seemed to be vibrating in response, and the sound rung.

Then, he changed the angle of the blade, tilting it away from the stone and though it sounded less metallic. The sound became narrower, more like a slice and less like a scrape. Quickly, he returned the angle, and spread his fingers out over the blade to regulate the pressure once more. Again I heard the right sound, the marriage of metal and stone. After a few more pulls he showed the edge to me. There was a fine burr where the metal had started to fold away and raise up. 

He flipped the stone over to the finer grit, and repeated the process on each side of the knife and each time he turned the knife the burr became smaller and smaller. He pulled the knife away from the stone, just a fine, minuscule burr left, even along the edge, almost undetectable by the eye.

“You try.” he said. I was a little unsure but I seated myself at the stone basin and he handed me the knife. I tried to replicate the position of his fingers, the angle of the knife, and the pressure that was consistent through the push and the pull. It was more difficult than it looked and he corrected the angle a few times. Eventually, after a little practice he seemed satisfied with the technique I had picked up. I handed him the knife and he inspected the edge. He had done most of the work to sharpen the knife, I had done a quarter of what he had done, and it had taken nearly twice as long, but in that time I was able to grasp the mechanics of the process. 

As we finished up, he took the knife that I had chosen and sharpened it, swiftly and quickly, at the stone basin and took a tiny chisel and engraved the kanji for “royal family” on one side of the knife. Finally, he wrapped it up, handed me the box, and I paid him for it. I thanked him and snapped his photograph.

I walked out of the air-conditioned shop into the heat of the Kyoto summer, blinded by the low hanging afternoon sun.

Now I'm back home in my kitchen in Seoul. I don't struggle and hack into my vegetables any more. My time spent cooking is made both more enjoyable and faster. When I hold the knives in my hand I’m reminded of those sweltering Kyoto days. Best of all, I pull out my sharpening stone every week or two and pass the knives over it, fine tuning the edge. I listen to the metal ringing against the grit of the stone and I practice my still shaky and slow passes. I know with time I will get better. This life, I am beginning to understand, is so much about practice, about being taught.  And about waiting. And about finding that one perfect thing at the end of all that waiting. 

You can find Kayakawa Hamonoten Sakaimachi-dori, halfway between Bukkoji-dori and Ayanokoji-dori. The closest station is Kawarmachi. Exit the station and head west along Shijo-dori. You will pass the Kyotodai Shrine on your left. Keep walking about six blocks and head left (south) on Sakaimachi-dori. It will be a block and a  half down. Keep your eyes open for a very small shop with the unique sign pictured on the first photo of this post. 

Buying Kitchen Knives in Kyoto - Part I

Buying Kitchen Knives in Kyoto - Part I

uyguguygu   19.15   Comment  

This is the first part of a two part series on purchasing kitchen knives in Kyoto, Japan. The second post can be found here. 

" It requires a genuine fight to produce one well designed object of relatively permanent value" - George Nakashima

My kitchen here in Seoul is more taciturn than welcoming. It’s a small galley kitchen pushed up against the South wall of my long, narrow, light filled studio, just a row of appliances picked out by the apartment managers for functionality and economy. I have not added much to it over the three quarters of a year I’ve been here - just a few necessities, and I’ve been surprised that I’ve been able to cook so well with so little kitchen equipment. 

When I arrived here, the kitchen was outfitted with two sub par knives. I hacked my way through my first six months with them, chipping into carrots, using the dangerous tactic of wedging the knife into a sweet potato, and then slamming the whole unit, knife plus potato onto the cutting board with several loud THWACKS to slice them into french fries. Tomatoes and more delicate vegetables were simply crushed into asymmetric blobs. There was no hope with these knives so I didn’t even try. 

My chopping became more desperate as the summer produce hit the market near my house in Korea the new vegetables and fruit sat in their farm-dirt-still-on glory in front of the adjumma vendors sitting under sun umbrellas. I took home bagfuls for various meals - more sweet potato fries, attempts at traditional Korean cold noodles and stews, french cuisine inspired pan seared veggies, sautéed peppers and eggplants. I had a couple of close calls when I almost smashed my fingers with the knives, and I’d mutter under my breath, “This wouldn’t be happening if I had my knives from America. I need new knives.”

And then Kyoto came at the tail end of a trip to Japan full of food, drink, delicacies, and expertly prepared plates. After Tokyo and Kanazawa, Kyoto held such soul, craftsmanship, and so many sharp pointy objects used to create - it seemed that everywhere I looked people in Kyoto were making. Some were cooking, some were weaving. Some were putting together temples using Miyadaiku, a centuries old technique that involves complicated wooden joins. There were potters, leatherworkers, clothing designers, and they were all mixed up in this city, low and spread out, sitting between mountains and temples and flashes of red and gold, withering in the July heat. 

I knew I would be shopping for knives here and I had done my research before coming. I set out to Shigeharu (重春), one of the oldest knife stores in Kyoto. Shigeharu’s founding dates back to the Kamakura period (1190-1329), and the family initially started as sword makers.

When I walked into Shigeharu I was immediately struck by the fact that there were more tools in the shop than knives. I recognized many of them as woodworking and leather working tools, and noticed a pile of planers and chisels in the corner near an old stone basin and stacks of whetstones where the tiny, elderly shop proprietor had been sharpening these things prior to my arrival. He had a curious face, clear eyes, and warm, worn hands with short fingernails. They were immaculately clean. 

He didn’t speak any english, but we communicated using a translation app on my phone and his  precise detailed illustrations. To show what, I walked to the kitchen knives and pointed to a few of them - I was specifically looking for an all purpose chef’s knife to add to my set at home and carry me through the rest of my culinary adventures here in Korea. 

My only experience buying knives had been six years before where I simply walked into Macy’s and bought a kitchen-worthy set of J.H. Henkel knives with as much money as I could spare, some several hundred dollars. Buying a handcrafted carbon steal knife was a different story. Even though I had my research, there’s only so much you can learn from the internet - the rest has to be learned through experience and time spent with the creators.

The shopkeeper patiently worked through the difference in quality, in steel, in composition, and in the uses of the knives. He encouraged me to pick each of the knives up and took my hand, opened it up, and set the knife handle in it, closing each finger around it. He nodded his approval and said, “Good” in Japanese - “Ee.” He motioned to me to start rocking the knife itself back and forth, to feel the movement and the weight. 

Like so much else in Japan, the experience was completely tactile, meant to spark a feeling that what you were purchasing was good and right, that things worked as they should, and that beyond objects, they were extensions of your self meant to fit into the already constructed fabric of your life, not to define it with it’s newness or shine.

When I picked up the third knife he had pulled out of the case I knew that was the right knife - steel carbon, hand made, wooden handle. The weight and construction of the knife and the balance of it felt fluent in my hand. Unlike the other knives I did not feel like I needed to move my wrist to cut, the way it fit in my hand was not fatiguing, and when I flipped it left and right it felt controlled, but assisted, like driving a luxury car. The shop keeper stood near and nodded again, and I could see that he understood without speaking that one clicked with me as he started bundling up the other knives and preparing this particular one to be sharpened. He then boxed it up, wrapped it in paper, and sealed it with a foil seal as I pulled out the Yen I had brought to pay him; Shigeharu does not take credit cards. 

That evening I took a woodworking class (at a bar!) from a gentleman I met who puts together temples using the traditional techniques. He had asked me about my day and I described going to get a kitchen knife at Shigeharu. He nodded, expressing his familiarity with the store, but added that I might want to visit the place he goes to get his woodworking tools sharpened, a smaller, less storied shop called Kayakawa Hamonoten.

You can find the shop on Horikawa Street between Sanjo and Oike Streets, on the east side. If you find yourself at the Nijo Caslte gate, walk south for about five minutes. It will be on the left side of the street. 

Next week I'll talk about my visit to Kayakawa Hamonoten and my experience learning to sharpen knives there. 

You Should Know: Living Gluten Free: Recipe - Sweet Potato Medallions with Micro Greens, Feta, and Balsamic Glaze

You Should Know: Living Gluten Free: Recipe - Sweet Potato Medallions with Micro Greens, Feta, and Balsamic Glaze

uyguguygu   15.01   Comment  

(Note: This is part two in a gluten free living series! You can see part one here.)

Earlier this month I posted my top five tips for living gluten free. A few weekends ago my friend Stephanie, who blogs over at Sustaining the Powers, and I partnered (well...she cooked...I watched and took photographs and drizzled Balsamic Glaze over the final product!) to work on a very simple gluten free recipe. One of the great things about this recipe is that it is made entirely with foods that are already gluten free. You don't even have to think about replace this or that with expensive or hard to find ingredients.

These sweet potato medallions can be served as a side, main, or appetizer and take very little time to make and prep. The plate up beautifully and can be grabbed one at a time.

Stephanie is a fantastic cook and an amazing multi-tasker. She's also exceptionally skilled at working around dietary needs. Here's an example: one random Wednesdays night, I watched her make seven meals for seven people with different dietary needs on a whim simply because they were hungry. It wasn't even a dinner party! We just showed up and she fed us all. She used basic ingredients in her kitchen and had them all out, plated beautifully and deliciously. I'm still in awe of that skill and she's definitely one of my cooking and hosting inspirations and thrilled that she was willing to partner with me to bring a Gluten-Free Recipe to you!

Sweet Potato Medallions with Goat Cheese, Pecans, Microgreens and a Balsamic Vinegar Glaze

Ingredients:

• 2 medium sweet potatoes
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• ½ cup goat cheese
• Balsamic vinegar glaze or reduction
• ½ cup chopped pecans
• ½ cup microgreens (grow your own or find them near the sprouts and lettuce in the veggie section of your grocery)
• Salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 450. 
2. Spread 2-3 tbsp of olive oil on a jelly roll pan. 
3. Scrub sweet potatoes, but do not peel.  
4. Slice sweet potatoes crosswise in 1/2 inch thick medallions and place on oiled pan. 
5. Flip once so both sides get oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
6. Bake for 15 min. 
7. Turn over using tongs and bake for another 10 minutes, or until both sides of the potato are blistered and the center is soft. 
8. Top each medallion with crumbles of goat cheese, pecans, microgreens, and a light drizzle of balsamic reduction or glaze.

You Should Know: Living Gluten Free - Things I've Learned Along the Way

You Should Know: Living Gluten Free - Things I've Learned Along the Way

uyguguygu   08.29   Comment  

(This is part one of a series of Gluten Free posts. Look for a post on my favorite Gluten Free Resources coming up soon!)

I've been exclusively gluten free for many, many years. In addition to that my mother incorporated gluten free cooking into our lives even before I went gluten free myself because my sister has a pretty serious case of Celiac that manifested itself when she was a teenager.

My own gluten free journey started when I simply could not get well - I had cold after flu after ache after pain after migraine and underwent the same testing in college and got the same diagnosis. My life completely changed for the better after I took the gluten free plunge and living gluten free turned out to be pretty easy, even in the gluten-free stone age before special marked menus at restaurants and bakeries devoted to gluten free products.

1. Focus on Foods that are Already Gluten Free - This is my number one tip for people when I'm approached by people who are starting their gluten free journey, or are even in the middle of it and are finding it tougher and tougher to sustain the level of prep needed to feed a gluten free child or themselves. When you focus on foods that are already gluten free, like veggies, corn tortillas instead of wheat ones, sushi (if you get the right soy sauce!), and many soups you will find that you have a whole cache of foods that are gluten free without even trying. In fact, I generally think in specific cuisine options - I find Mexican, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian Food and Soups to be the ones we make the most often at home because they are easily modified (again, we use a gluten free Soy Sauce) or don't need to be modified at all.

2. Find the Gluten Free Hot Spots in Your Area - You know your neighborhood, city, or town and eating gluten free can be easier or harder where you live. I live in Denver which has been great for gluten free living! Almost every single restaurant has a gluten free option or two and most people here are familiar with this. But, it was not always so easy, both in the days before gluten free was a thing and in more rural ares. I have lived in Detroit (much harder!) and Milwaukee (Fair to middling, on the upswing!) in addition to Denver and have done extensive traveling around the country and internationally. Make sure you know where the gluten free friendly places are, both where you live and where you're going. This includes restaurants that allow you to "create" your own dish out of things on the menu ("Please give me a plate with fries, a side of fruit, and some of those cheeses you put on your hamburgers, but no hamburger...") or ones that do have a gluten free menu. It's also good to know where bakeries and gluten free friendly grocery stores are as well.

3. Celebrate Being Gluten Free - Being gluten free will give you an opportunity to experience things you wouldn't normally have done and meet people you wouldn't normally run into. Embrace this! I've always been a bit of a dessert connoisseur so when I travel I seek out gluten free bakeries and those often are located in interesting neighborhoods off the beaten path of a city or are tucked away in small towns. My mother-in-law has really risen to the challenge of having a gluten free family member and we've gone to some great ones in quaint little towns around Philadelphia and I can remember one memorable moment where I made my husband pull a U-turn on our way out to the beach from their house because the words "gluten free" caught my eyes on a sign. Tucked in among the dunes of New Jersey was a gluten free bakery in an old stone house from the 1700s with the most amazing Angel Food Cake. If I hadn't been gluten free we would have missed out on that awesome side trip!

4. Always Pack a Gluten Free Snack - It's not always easy to be gluten free, especially when you're traveling. Hunger can strike at any moment and you could be somewhere where there simply isn't any food you can eat, like an airport, a gas station rest stop on a road trip, or a conference or work event you can't easily leave. To fix this make sure you've packed snacks. I generally go almost everywhere with an apple (they hold up well!) a zip lock bag of a high protein snack like nuts, and a packet from my favorite snack company graze. Having a snack means I'm not stressing about being hungry and getting cranky while doing so.

5. Only Buy Pre-made Gluten Free Foods When Absolutely Necessary - The most expensive part of being gluten free are the pre-made gluten free foods. You can spend your entire grocery budget on these things if you're not careful! I find that baking mixes, recipe books, and ingredients are much, much cheaper and budget friendly. I've established, over the years, a repertoire of easy baked goods and I keep a lot of staple gluten free ingredients like cocoa powder, almond flour, corn starch, and guar gum on hand so I can get busy cooking when the inspiration strikes. Learning how to bake your own does involve trial and error - I've had to toss entire batches of things many times before - but eventually you get your go-to things down. My one exception to buying pre-made gluten free foods is a loaf of bread that I pick up every week to two weeks. I just don't have time to make a loaf of bread every week and having that on hand makes packing lunches extra easy!

I hope that this was helpful for you! What other questions do you have about gluten free living that I can help answer?

***

All photos were taken at the incredible Bloom Bake Shop in Middleton, Wisconsin. Can you believe that every single dessert pictured was gluten free? Many of them were vegan, too! We were there for gluten free wedding cake tastings for my sisters upcoming wedding. Annemarie, the proprietor of the bake shop, was an incredible hostess and an outstanding baker. I haven't eaten a donut in almost a decade and yet she created donuts that were so good I went to sleep dreaming of them!

C'est La Vie!

C'est La Vie!

uyguguygu   05.00   Comment  

Last week I splurged and bought the Laudree Sucre cookbook on line. I've been obsessed with macarons ever since my very first visit to Paris and I've fed my obsession with visits around town to various macaron makers and a visit or two to the Laudree in New York City as well. With the new cookbook in hand my friend Jess and I decided to attempt our very first batch of macarons. 

By the end of the experience we decided to re-name what we made "gluten free sandwich cookies" instead of macarons since that's really what they looked like, not the perfectly round fluffy macarons that we anticipated from looking in the cookbook! 

The point, of course, of all that baking was to have fun and I would say we did that pretty successfully! We laughed our way through the vague directions and chit chatted about anything and everything. 

One of the  great joys of my life here are the wonderful friends I have made. I have learned so much about being a faithful and consistent friend from them, about opening up, even about the scary stuff about yourself you'd never want to admit to anyone, and how sharing in experiences with people can grow you together and separately. 

***

This photo set was taken by the amazing Jessica Triggs! Love to her, always. 

***

I'm wearing Madewell Skinny Skinny Jeans, Madewell Sandals (out of season - similar here), and a j. crew shirt (on sale!). Keepin' it simple. 

Not Quite a Bed and Breakfast...

Not Quite a Bed and Breakfast...

uyguguygu   20.09   Comment  

Our house is run, at certain seasons, like a home hotel. Whoever is staying at our house comes after work or on a weekend day and I feed them dinner and we sit around my tiny table using every spare chair in the house. We talk over life and love and all manner of other things. Then we all head to sleep, my guests sprawled out around the house on air mattresses and the couch. I feel happiest when my house is full, the company is laid back, and I can enjoy the adventures and stories, and experiences of life they are having.

I have really been finding my cooking groove lately. My sister, who's entire life revolves around food, would be proud. My grocery budget, however, isn't. Regardless of that I have really enjoyed the process of making dinners these days - and it is a process - a walk to the grocery store (five blocks there and back), prep, serving, and best of all eating and conversation and building relationships. It's a bonus when the food is delicious, in season, and exactly what I want to eat that day.

My friend S, on a whim, took me to Costco with her today. I had never been but I was excited to see the inside of the legendary store that both treats its workers right and has all sorts of food in bulk. While I was there I found gluten free cheese ravioli, something I have not had in many, many years. So many, in fact, I can't remember ever having cheese ravioli. With that in my (giant!) shopping cart I knew exactly what I was going to be serving for dinner: Gluten free Cheese Ravioli in a Garlic and Olive Oil sauce inspired by Seven Spoons - my variation gets rid of the crab and lemon zest. I picked up a loaf of rosemary bread to fill the carb needs of my husband, and lightly tossed mixed greens in the Jalapeno Vinaigrette I made from Sprouted Kitchen. It's a little more elaborate than our usual weeknight meals but you can't say no to inspiration when it strikes.

As someone who previously detested cooking I can say I am reformed.

What have you been eating for dinner these days? How do you manage your grocery shopping and cooking?