I’m coming to you semi-live from the new Victrola Coffee Roasters (aka V2) at Bellevue and Pike. Semi-live because there’s no wireless yet–or possibly, based on yesterday’s experience at Tully’s, people have started turning off the wi-fi when they see me approaching. But they’ve carved out a gorgeous, bright space in what I think was probably an old car dealership. (You can see more on Victrola’s blog.) This part of Pike Street used to be an auto row, and there are still a couple of dealerships.

Like the original Victrola, which no one will be calling V1, this one has excellent coffee; prices include two ristretto shots and tax; and they’re playing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Even without wireless, I’ll be hanging out for a little while to do some paperwork and probably spill coffee on it. I figure nobody has any cause to be embarrassed about coffee stains in Seattle.

I’ve never had okonomiyaki. One day, Iris and I will take a father-daughter trip to Japan, and we will feast on sushi, go to an eel restaurant, visit yakitori and okonomiyaki stands, and bring some plastic food home as souvenirs.

Okonomiyaki is a pancake. You mix up a batter that contains flour, yam, and (this being Japanese food) powdered fish products. Add some cabbage and scallions and pork, and you’ve got a basic one, though of course there are countless variations. There’s a ketchup-like sauce that always goes with it, and kewpie mayo is optional.

Again, this is all hearsay. I’ve never had okonomiyaki because it’s never really come up and I’ve never made an effort to go out in search of it. Once I came across an okonomiyaki stand at Ranch 99 supermarket in Richmond, BC, but I’d already had dim sum at Sun Sui Wah and there was a big line.

Anyway, after I had lunch at Samurai Noodle today, something put okonomiyaki into my mind. Probably it was the fact that they’re both discussed on this eGullet thread. So when I got to Uwajimaya, I picked up an Otafuku Okonomiyaki Kit. I bought the kit because it promised instructions in four languages. And did it ever deliver:

Let’s make Okonomiyaki with your family!

Hello people of the world! Are you looking for fun meals for your home? In Japan there is a fun food for family and friends when they gather. It is Okonomiyaki! Okonomiyaki developed from an Edo era snack. These days, Japanese add a variety of their favorite ingredients to create the style of Okonomiyaki that is a popular, nutritious, and fun meal. Everyone can enjoy an “Okonomiyaki Party” at home! You cannot help having one!

Of course, you will need:

15cm of pork.

It’s fair to say that there is nothing the makers of the Otafuku Okonomiyaki Kit could have done to make me more excited about cooking this up tomorrow. It looks like the instructions call for thinly sliced pork belly like they sell at Uwajimaya, but I didn’t get any, so I’m going to substitute bacon. I assume this won’t ruin it. Seriously: cabbage, scallions, pork, flatbread. Why have okonomiyaki and I not hooked up before?

Apparently, okonomiyaki figures in a popular manga work, Ranma 1/2:

> Rumiko Takahashi’s manga _Ranma 1/2_ features a young, entrepreneurial okonomiyaki chef named Ukyo Kuonji. Ukyo wears okonomiyaki spatulas strapped to her clothing at all times, and uses the utensils for arts both culinary and martial.

(via Wikipedia)

While I was waiting to check out, I ran into my friend Sara Dickerman, food columnist for Slate and Seattle Magazine. She looked into my basket, on top of which was a big package of pork fat. “Ooh, I need some of that,” she said. “Where did you find it?” Last month, Sara wrote an article which Slate teased as Why food writers are obsessed with pigs.

I stopped in at Tully’s near Uwajimaya before doing some shopping (especially replenishing my Cacao Pretz supply), and the employees tried to sell me on the new Yerba Mate concoctions.

> **Employee 1:** You know you want the mate.

> **Employee 2:** Have you TRIED the mate?

> **Me:** No.

> **Employee 1:** It’s like a unicorn.

> **Employee 2:** It’s like a unicorn with wings. Which is like Pegasus, you know. But with a horn.

> **Employee 3:** Would you please order something so they’ll shut up?

> **Me:** I’ll have a cappuccino.

Employee 1 was a trainee, and as she fumbled with the cash register I noticed that there were two buttons on it labeled UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW. I don’t mean they had little arrows on them. They had the actual *words* UP ARROW and DOWN ARROW. I know making fun of cash register interfaces is about as clever as doing a bit about the airline safety spiel, but this really made me laugh.

Then I stopped laughing, because the wi-fi was broken.

Perhaps the most frustrating category of recipe is the one that is neither easy nor hard but embodies the slogan of the game Othello: a minute to learn, a lifetime to master. Yesterday, as I made stracotto ravioli, I felt myself standing at the beginning of a very long road, an Appalachian Trail of pasta. I almost wished the ravioli would come out lousy so I could abandon the whole idea. Unfortunately, they were pretty good.

Incidentally, when I was a kid, I had a travel Othello game. On the front of the box was the usual slogan, but the back showed a young couple from the rear, a travel Othello game wedged into the man’s back pocket. The slogan, I swear: “Whither thou goest.” Why yes, that *is* a travel Othello game in my pocket! It just occurred to me to Google for “othello whither thou goest,” and here it is. This, as far as I’m concerned, is the sort of thing that makes life worth living.

Detour over. I began with leftover Italian pot roast (stracotto) and a recipe from Biba Caggiano’s Trattoria Cooking, a book I highly recommend. You take some leftover pot roast and sauce and throw it in the food processor with a couple of eggs and Parmigiano. Making ravioli filling does not require a lifelong pursuit of excellence. It’s easy.

Then I made some pasta dough, was too impatient to let it rest very long, and started rolling it through the pasta machine. Making ravioli is a very mechanical process. If you’re inexperienced, as I am, it takes a long time, but it isn’t actually hard. You keep repeating the same steps: cut off a chunk of dough, roll it thinner and thinner; then spoon filling onto the pasta, fold it over itself, and press it shut. Then cut with a pizza roller or whatever is handy. Because I’m phobic about filled pastas coming open and disgorging their contents into the cooking water, I also crimped the edges with a fork.

What was good about my homemade ravioli: the filling, and the fact that there were enough left over for me to have for lunch today. What was not so good: the pasta, which had a snappy texture kind of like the controlled-atmosphere “fresh” pasta at the supermarket. (Many years ago, I took some of that Buitoni beef ravioli and served it with Thai green curry sauce. I haven’t done it again, but it wasn’t bad, either.)

When in doubt, consult the eGullet Culinary Institute. The three-part stuffed pasta class is a classic of the genre. It suggests that probably (a) I should be using lower-protein flour, like the Italian *tipo 00;* (b) I didn’t knead or rest the dough long enough; and (c) man, that tortelli with asparagus and pecorino recipe sure looks good.

I served the ravioli in a simple butter and thyme sauce. (Sage butter is the classic, but I already had thyme in the fridge.) Iris, upon being presented with her plate, said, “But there’s MEAT in those bites.”

“But you like meat,” I replied. By then, however, she was already stuffing bites into her mouth. Stracotto ravioli: it’s a big hit among the younger set.

Rebekah Denn kindly linked to me from her column today in the P-I. If that’s how you got here, welcome, and the piece reprinted in Best Food Writing 2006 was:

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