Category Archives: Uncategorized

Rice is nice, eat some twice

(Iris has said my next book should have that title. I demurred but said it would work for a blog post. Here it is.)

I go through rice phases. For a while, nothing would do but Thai jasmine. Lately it’s been medium-grain japonica rice from California. Sometimes I get a hankering for basmati.

Thailand and India export a lot of rice, which is why you see bags of basmati and jasmine at Trader Joe’s and probably your local supermarket. Japan exports practically no rice. It’s a small country, and they eat all of their rice and then some. The rice you eat at your local sushi place, assuming your local sushi place is in Seattle rather than Japan, comes from California. Brands like Kokuho Rose, Nishiki, and Neko Neko do their best to look Japanese, but it’s all Californian.

Not that this is a bad thing. California produces some very fine products such as meyer lemons, Korean tacos, and Laurie.

On a recent trip to Uwajimaya, however, I noticed that they do, in fact, carry Japanese rice, in 1-kilo bags selling for $20 to $35. The packaging, naturally, is gorgeous. Hmm…rare, high price, pretty sack. I put out the word on Twitter: anyone tried this stuff?

Hsiao-Ching Chou responded:

> Spent waaaay too much money on rice from Japan. I thought the flavor would be transporting. No.

I trust Hsiao-Ching, but I didn’t say no when Jay Friedman of [Gastrolust](http://gastrolust.com/) gave me two cups of Koshihikari rice from Tochigi prefecture. Just saying the word “prefecture” is transporting, don’t you think?

I made a cup each of Nishiki from California and the koshihikari. On appearance, the koshihikari won: it’s aggressively milled pearls of rice, shorter grain than the Nishiki. But they tasted the same to me.

Janice Martin of [Tanuki](http://tanukipdx.com/) pointed me to this blog post about newly harvested fall rice in Japan. Maybe I’ll look for that. It sounds even more expensive!

I also tried one other rice, *haiga mai,* which is rice (Californian, in this case) milled until the bran is gone but the germ remains, so there’s a little brown spot at the end of each kernel. It’s been called “brown rice for people who don’t like brown rice.” Well, I’m certainly one of those people, but I didn’t like this stuff, either, although I could be cooking it wrong. It cooked up a little mushy and left a weird carpet-like layer on the bottom of the rice cooker.

To make a very long story short, then, if you like medium-grain rice, the basic California stuff is just fine.

Two cheers for The Man

Two recent positive experiences with big, huge companies (and one ugly one).

We ordered some paper towels from [Amazon Fresh](http://amazonfresh.com/). When they arrived, I opened the package and found that some water had gotten inside and mildew was growing. Ew. I called the customer service number, and they not only sent the truck back the same day with a replacement, but they *didn’t charge me for the paper towels at all.*

On nights when Laurie is out, Iris and I sometimes order pizza, sit on a picnic blanket in the living room, and watch Harry Potter movies. Sometimes we order said pizza from [Pagliacci](http://pagliacci.com/), sometimes from a [national chain](http://www.pizzahut.com/). Last week, Iris really, really wanted the chain pizza. I looked at the web site and found there were no applicable coupons and that to order a medium thin-and-crispy pizza would cost almost $20. I balked. “Hey, Iris,” I said, “what about frozen pizza?”

“Could we heat it up?”

“Yes.” I went to QFC and got Red Baron Thin n’ Crispy Five Cheese, which was on sale for $3. I put some pepperoni and red onion on my half. Was it really great pizza? No. Was it every bit as good as Pizza Hut? Absolutely.

Buy it now

Hungry Monkey is out RIGHT NOW. I am so glad to be able to say this, since it feels like it’s been Coming Soon for about forty-seven years.

Buy it now…

…from Powell’s
…from Amazon
…from your local bookstore

…from Barnes & Noble.

Or ask at your local bookstore; if they don’t have it in stock, they should be able to get it from their supplier within a couple of days.

To answer a common question: you can’t buy the book directly from me, but I will send a signed bookplate if you send me a SASE.

Thanks for reading!

Sake n’ taters

On Gourmet.com:

[Stir-fried potatoes?](http://www.gourmet.com/food/2009/04/sichuan-potatoes)

> You could eat this thing raw, like jicama, but itâ€™s best served lightly cooked. Stir-frying is ideal. Cut the earth-apple into matchsticks with a knife or mandoline. Heat some peanut oil in a wok or skillet and add the earth-apple, a few dried red chiles and Sichuan peppercorns, and salt to taste.

And on Culinate:

[Sake it to me](http://www.culinate.com/columns/bacon/sake)

> “If one can’t handle much sake, best thing to do is to go into training until you can,” wrote Martin, who will not be hired by the Office of National Drug Control Policy anytime soon.

Go long

Hey, look, another post about knives! Does this thing have a fast-forward button?

I want to talk about why you should try a longer knife, but in order to do that, I need to talk about santokus first.

You know the santoku. It’s Rachael Ray’s knife. It doesn’t have quite the buzz it did a few years ago, but it’s still a hugely popular choice in American kitchens.

Why is this? I think it’s more than just a fad. A cook who switches from a more traditional American kitchen knife (such as a German chef’s knife or a Chicago Cutlery utility knife) to a santoku will notice several differences right away, not counting the orange handle:

1. **The santoku is light.** I mean, sure, a seven-inch santoku is going to be lighter than an eight-inch chef’s knife. But santokus are made thinner in general; a seven-inch santoku is lighter than even a six-inch German chef’s knife. Santokus also don’t have the heavy [finger guard](https://www.rootsandgrubs.com/2008/12/07/hanging-with-the-edge/) found on many German knives.

2. **The santoku is sharp.** It’s sharp because it just replaced a dull knife that was probably never sharpened, but also because santokus tend to be sharpened differently. I don’t want to cause high school geometry flashbacks, but basically, santokus tend to be sharpened at a more acute angle than Western chef’s knives. Think of a the top corner of a tall, skinny, pointy triangle versus the top of a squatter, wider triangle.

3. **The santoku is less likely to leave food sliced partway through.** The blade of a santoku has less *belly* than that of a Western chef’s knife. More of it makes contact with the cutting board at one time, because it’s less curved and more straight. Having tried both, there’s just no contest: flatter is better.

4. **The santoku has those funny indentations on the blade.** Not all santokus have these, but most do. These things don’t do anything. They don’t prevent food from sticking to the side of the knife. Sorry.

Wow, the santoku really has a lot going for it. Let’s check the chart.

Having observed all of these advantages, I went ahead and bought myself a fancy, expensive santoku. It looked fabulous, it was comfortable in the hand, and it was wicked sharp. And after three weeks, I was totally fed up with it and sold it.

Why? It was too short. For some jobs, six-and-a-half inches of steel is just fine: stripping corn off the cob, cutting up a red pepper, and so on. But for others–shredding a big bunch of chard, slicing an extra-large onion, cutting meat for stew–it’s like ladling out soup with a teaspoon. Yeah, you *can* do it, but why?

So what I really wanted was something with the very real advantages of the santoku, with enough length to do big jobs, but light and nimble enough not to feel like driving a tank on small jobs. Let’s turn back to the chart.

I wanted that mystery knife. If you’ve read my knife column on Culinate, you already know that it exists and it’s called a *gyuto.*

To reinterate, the gyuto has all advantages of the santoku, plus length. A big knife is not (just) a poseurish manly-man thing. It makes cooking easier in so many ways. It makes a great meat-slicing knife (I can finally produce paper-thin slices of salami). It can decimate a big cabbage in no time.

The fact that gyutos tend to be thin and light means you have a choice when you buy your first one. You can buy the same size of knife you already use and enjoy the light weight and other cool features. This was what I did initially.

Or you can take the advice of [Chad Ward](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061188484/?tag=mamstesgrubshack):

> One of the nicest things about the thinner, lighter gyuto is that you can use more knife for the same weight penalty. For example, an 8-inch European-style chef’s knife weighs about ten ounches. A comparable gyuto weighs between 6 and 6-1/2 ounces. A 10-inch gyuto might weigh a little more than 9 ounces. So you can trade up from an 8-inch chef’s knife to a 10-inch gyuto and get more reach and cutting ability. Or you could go up a little in length to 240mm (a standard size for gyutos, about 9.5 inches), get more reach, *and* reduce the weight hanging off the end of your wrist.

That’s what I ended up doing. The knife I use most often is a [240mm gyuto](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014CE4D2/?tag=mamstesgrubshack) that weighs 8.5 ounces. I just chopped up a pound of rhubarb for a [crumble](https://www.rootsandgrubs.com/2006/04/23/be-a-rube/), and the extra length made it a breeze.

Prepping ingredients faster is more fun and expands your repertoire: it puts less mental distance between you and finished dish. (Also, I like to maintain a minimum of physical distance between me and a finished dish.) Practice is one way to get faster. A longer knife is another.

Nothing in life is all upside, however, and there are two problems with gyutos. First, there’s the the one identified by reader Thom the first time I mentioned I was considering buying one: “Addiction to gyuto is very expensive. Very, very expensive and only gets worse.” This is true. I currently own three gyutos. One of them, I should mention, is that same 240mm size and weighs *4.5 ounces.* That’s, like, lighter than a hamburger. I actually prefer the heavier knife, but if you want a crazy razor blade like that, they’re out there.

The second problem is maintenance. I’m about five months into learning to sharpen, and I’m just starting to get pretty good. I have cut myself many times, and I’ve spent a lot of money on sharpening supplies. I don’t think most people, even really dedicated home cooks, are going to want to go down this road. In Seattle, luckily, we have [Epicurean Edge](http://epicedge.com/), where Daniel O’Malley sharpens Japanese knives with amazing skill at a reasonable price. The trouble is, there aren’t a lot of O’Malleys. There’s a [guy in Philadelphia](http://japaneseknifesharpening.com/) and [another in New York](http://korin.com/Our-Services). And…well, that’s about it. If you buy a gyuto, sooner or later you’re going to have to send it to one of these guys or do it yourself. (In fact, some gyutos are sold *unsharpened,* on the assumption that *of course* you’re going to sharpen your own knives.)

One other idea: if you’re on a first-name basis with your favorite local chefs (I’m going to bet this describes, oh, several dozen of my readers), ask them whether they use Japanese knives and where they get them sharpened. Gyutos are really popular among professional cooks.

If you do go the mail-in route, either save the original box from your knife or invest in [one of these](http://www.cutleryandmore.com/details.asp?SKU=14441).

Finally, a word about Shun knives, the best known name in Japanese cutlery. I’m going to roll out the chart one more time to explain why I don’t recommend them.

The Shuns are something of an east-west hybrid, like Ming Tsai. They are high quality knives that look great. But they’re expensive, heavier than the average gyuto, and have a blade with more belly, a design decision I really don’t understand. (The flat belly of a gyuto, if you’re wondering, does not preclude chopping herbs by rocking the blade up and down.) I think my [Togiharu gyuto](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0014CE4D2/?tag=mamstesgrubshack) is far superior to the Shun, and it costs half as much. Admittedly, it doesn’t look as cool.

Phew! I’m going to tuck into this rhubarb crumble now.

Roots and Grubs

The home of Matthew Amster-Burton