When I first started learning to cook I was pretty religious about sticking to my recipe. Learning a new skill can be stressful, and nobody wants to put hours into a meal only to have it turn out badly. So I’d bounce between the stove and my cookbook or the computer, the sink, and my cutting board – like a chicken with her head cut off, which made it kind of hard to enjoy the process.

After a little while I started to notice patterns in the recipes I used the most, and understanding those patterns has made me a much more confident, relaxed, and competent cook. I no longer feel bound to a recipe and can add or subtract ingredients without worrying if it will ruin my dish. It’s changed me, I tell you, and I want you (everyone! all of you!) to be able to do the same. This little series, which I’m calling “foundations of flavor” will be devoted to demystifying recipes a bit, and I hope it will make you feel a little less tethered to your cookbook.

The first pattern I noticed was that my recipes always started with vegetables. Even the meat-centric recipes asked me to begin by chopping rabbit food. Not only that, but the recipes usually started with some combination of the same seven vegetables, namely: onion, garlic, celery, carrot, pepper, ginger, and scallion.

This roster of players is so ubiquitously, fundamentally necessary to good flavor that almost every country arrived at their own definitive foundational combination (with a few additions based on what’s regionally available). Here are SOME (there are soo many) of the most common:

Mirepoix (French) – carrot, celery, onion

Trinity (Cajun/Creole) – bell pepper, onion, celery

Batuto (aka soffritto, Italian) – onion, carrot, celery, garlic (and sometimes parsley)

Suppengrün (German) – leek (a type of onion), carrot, celeriac (the root of the celery plant, which tastes suspiciously like celery)

Sofrito – (Spanish) garlic, onion, peppers, tomatoes, and sometimes paprika

You can also get through a lot of Chinese and Indian recipes with scallion, ginger, and garlic, and every single Latin country has their own distinct version of sofrito based on these same ingredients (with the addition of some chiles).

What’s cool about these vegetables is their insane versatility and ability to play together so well, in so many unique ratios and combinations. They’re also pretty much the cheapest veggies in the produce section. I probably have at least five of them on hand at any given moment.

You’ve used these vegetables before. You’ve probably made mirepoix and sofrito many times, but maybe you didn’t realize it because you didn’t know the name or reason. These flavorful vegetables are important to good food, like underpinnings to an evening gown. When used properly you might not notice them specifically, but their absence would be immediately apparent and problematic. They are what take a soup from flat to full or a sauce from insipid to enticing. They are the supporting layers that add nuance and complexity to every good dish.

And now that I’ve beat that weak metaphor to within an inch of it’s life, you understand. If you want to turn broth into soup, add mirepoix (and maybe some noodles). If you want to turn tomatoes into sauce, add batuto and olive oil. If you want to make beans taste like dinner, add sofrito. Go forth, and cook.

April is National Grilled Cheese Month! Which is almost over, but it’s not like you need a lot of notice to throw together a grilled cheese. Especially when you understand how to do it up right.

What’s to understand, you say? Cheese and bread and a pan, right? There’s really not much more to it, but a few easily-overlooked tweaks can take an average grilled cheese and make it mind-blowing. Which it kind of needs to be if you’re going to justify eating one.

Tip #1 – Add condiments. You don’t need a lot. Just a little accent to add some complexity to an otherwise straightforward (sometimes simplistic) sandwich. Think of it as a little pairing. Mayo or mustard (or both) get along famously with cheddar. Brie loves honey, and you almost can’t taste how awesome swiss is without a tiny bit of ham. Here I made a little garlic-cilantro mayo to go on my avocado pepperjack sandwich – you see I’ve got a theme going.

Just a few tablespoons of mayo, some chopped cilantro, pepper, and about a half a clove of grated garlic. Nothing to it, but it adds flavor and tang that brings out the richness of the avocado and keeps the melted cheese from getting rubbery as it cools.

Tip #2 – Cook your sandwich on medium-low heat. I know you’re anxious to eat, but there’s nothing worse than a burned grilled cheese that’s cold inside. Especially if you’re using mild fillings like swiss or mozzarella. The burned flavor totally overpowers everything else you’ve got going on. Low and slow. If you remember nothing else, remember: low and slow. It is worth it.

Tip #3 – Grill your sandwich open. It makes guessing when the cheese is melted a lot less…guessy.

Tip #4 – Add fillings at the right time. Here, for example, I waited until the cheese was completely melted before I added the avocado – which tends to get mushy with extended exposure to heat. Another classic topping to add late: tomato slices – because they are watery and retain heat and will basically destroy your mouth if you let them get too hot.

There’s really nothing else to know. Mash the sides together, let them get friendly.

And eat!

Happy cheese grilling!

I ate a lot of food in Japan, and took a lot of photos. Not all the photos I took were pretty enough to merit their own post, but I think they’re interesting. So I thought that maybe all together they’d be worth sharing.

Behold: an experiment in photo quantity over photo quality.

1: Japanese pasta salad, 2: Hand rolls (and I helped!), 3: Korean cold noodles with kimchi

4: Katsu-don at a “family restaurant”, 5: Actual cronuts from the local kombini, 6: Fried chicken

7: A little Japanese cheeseburger, 8: A bowl of noodles with pork belly and powdered cheese, 9: Oranges

10: When you drop your gyoza in your ramen, 11: Kimchi and pork stir fry, 12: Pork-stuffed lotus root

13: Chicken nanban (fried with a mayo-egg sauce on top), 14: Tonkotsu ramen, 15: Burdock root

16: Biscotti from Coci’s Oven in Nakatane, 17: A ramen whose name I refuse to repeat, 18: Mo’s burger

19: Salad and cat plates, 20: Chicken tail yakitori, 21: Chicken hearts, livers, intestines, skin, OH and meat

22: My favorite veggie stir fry, 23: Gyoza, 24: Japanese breakfast with burdock root, fish, and rice with yolk

25: Cooking chicken at our table, 26: Anchovy sashimi (I think), 27: Shiso and mushroom tempura

28: Some kind of gelatinous sweet thing with crushed peanuts, 29: Tonkatsu, 30: Herb tea with roasted wheat

31: Pork and veggie stir fry, 32: Boiled peanuts (not the only ones I had) 33: HUGE avocado tuna roll

34: A really good salad, 35: Spring rolls at the Sun Pearl, 36: Sashimi at the Sun Pearl

37: A BLT with a hard-fried egg, 38: A fancy meal at a set-meal place, 39: My favorite pastry

40: Salt-broiled fish with miso soup, 41: “Western” style breakfast, 42: Lunch special at Hana Outa

43: Men’s almond Kit Kat (of course) 44: Thai style yakisoba (pad thai), 45: My favorite vending machine drink

46: Nabe stew with kimchi broth, 47: Tiny tanegashima fishies, to eat whole. 48: Tempura sweet potato

49: Tongue and other off-cuts at Korean BBQ, 50: Intestines on the grill, 51: Japanese pomelo

52: Broiled amberjack collar with shredded diakon, 53: Chicken tartare with egg yolk, 54: Sashimi

55: Soba noodles with seaweed and fish cakes, 56: Egg don, 57: New year soba with tempura

58: Tanegashima red rice, 59: Notorious chicken sashimi, 60: Fried fish and avocado burger

61: Chicken curry, 62: Random fried snack from the kombini in Hakone, 63: Sweet potatoes, cooked and dried

64: Japanese bento from the kombini, 65: Consomme served on JAL, 66: My favorite garlic fried rice

So much food, right? Looking at them all lined up makes me hungry. Some of my favorite meals are undocumented too, because of  bad lighting or just overwhelming enthusiasm for my meal, which makes it hard to remember to whip out the camera.

Last weekend I went to brunch and the cherry blossom festival with my sister and her husband. Brunch was at Farmers Fishers Bakers in Georgetown, and it was pretty great. I’m a sucker for buffets because you get to try a big, huge, ridiculous variety of stuff. I know most foods don’t perform that well in extended hot holding, but I think they’ve struck a pretty good balance here. They have lots of salads, grilled veggies, flatbread and spreads like pimento cheese and crab with artichoke, a make-your-own taco station, roasted meats, french toast, cheese grits, jambalaya, eggs scrambled to order, and then biscuits and cinnamon rolls which are brought to each table. The only thing that really shouldn’t work is their fried chicken, which is something that usually ought to be eaten straight out of the fryer for the best textural exprience. But their honey fried chicken was good enough that the slight loss of crispness didn’t really matter. Though I would recommend going for the dark meat pieces, cause white meat dries out a lot faster.

So it seems like they’ve been thoughtful about what they’re putting out, and steering clear of things that are just going to get nasty if they have to sit out for a bit. The other clever thing was the passed trays of fried shrimp, eggs benedict and florentine, and fancy pizza – all served to the tables within a few minutes of plating. It’s hard to resist absolute gluttony in a situation like this. We moaned to the waiter about how full we are and he said “here, you aren’t done when you’re full. You’re done when you hate yourself.” And so we continued.

The cherry blossom festival reminded me of Japan for two reasons. First, cherry blossoms are a big deal in the spring in Japan (they’re called sakura in Japanese, which is also the name of probably 25% of suburban Japanese restaurants in existence, right?). Second, the metro was as packed as the trains in Tokyo. But the flowers were beauteous and worth the proximity with sweaty strangers.

The highlight of the festival, apart from the blossoms, was a little bit of a break-dancing stage show we caught on our way through the crowd. Most of the dancers were hitting stunt after stunt without much time for swagging about in between. But then “Single Ladies” came on, and the only white boy in the group got up and basically did Beyonce’s choreography step for step. A blonde, bearded hipster with hips that did not quit.

I’m considering spring officially rung in.

One of the NASA team’s favorite haunts on Tanegashima was the Steppin’ Lion. It was one of the only restaurants on the island that made burgers, so we’d all head over when we were missing American food. The burgers are great, but even better is the jerk chicken, which also comes in burger form.

I was googling around for info about Tanegashima and found a few videos from French surfing magazine, Oui Surf. I was sort of tickled to see they’d made a video of the Steppin’ Lion. They captured it well, in my opinion.

Japon / Nourriture / Steppin Lion from ouisurf.ca on Vimeo.

And one about a Tanegashima specialty: chicken sashimi. Yes, I tried it. And no, it ain’t for me.

Japon / Nourriture / Tori Sashimi from ouisurf.ca on Vimeo.

Bodacious burgers and scruffy surfers that speak French. You are welcome.

All those buzzwords foodies like to throw around; local, artisan, organic – they’re good words. But they tend to lose their punch when written into every food establishment’s marketing copy ad nauseam. While I was in Tanegashima, I had the rare privilege of meeting people with businesses that can be described with all those words, but not because their PR department told them to. Just because they are.

My favorite restaurant on the island was South Border. It’s a cafe owned by a cute little surfer girl named Machi-san. Attached to the cafe is her husband’s workshop where he builds custom surf boards. Out front is a homemade pita-oven, a dog house, and it’s resident, Sunny.

Sunny is a perfect, good-natured dog who could teach Murdock a thing or two about manners.

Machi-san runs the whole cafe without help most days. She takes orders, cooks, makes coffee, and waits tables. The restaurant only seats about ten, but if it’s full she’s on her feet nonstop.

Machi-san is a particularly good baker. Every week or so she makes a new featured dessert like mocha cheesecake or whoopie pie. She’s got a really good sense of balance in her sweet dishes – none of which were cloyingly so. The pita oven is used regularly for, guess what, pitas. Which she stuffs with fresh veggies and house roasted meats for lunch.

I ordered the avocado chicken pita pretty much every time I went in. It was delicious, and her homemade whole wheat pitas were nutty and perfect. I gravitated toward this one the most though because I was homesick for turkey sandwiches. It hit the spot.

Cody’s favorite pita was the pork with onions and garlic, which I also liked, but the lunch time show-stopper at South Border is the chicken curry. There are a lot of restaurants in Japan that serve curry, and Japanese curry is different from Indian or Thai or American versions. It’s sort of sweet and cheaply beefy when it’s bad, but when it’s good it’s rich and spicy and complex and balanced. This curry was literally the first curry in Japan I loved, and the best I had the entire trip.

And I got her recipe. Which I will share here in due time.

The cafe doubles as a little surf shop, selling themed trinkets and locally handmade beauty products.

A bumpy translation, but nothing lost here.

This was Machi-san’s whoopie pie with peanut cream. She got the recipe from an event that Wolfgang Puck hosted in Tokyo. I’ve never actually had Wolfgang Puck’s food, but Machi-san’s version was good enough to make me curious.

With the help of a bi-lingual Tanegashima native, I asked Machi-san why she opened the cafe. She said “I just wanted a place for my friends to hang out and have coffee when they visited the workshop, so I made one”.  I miss this place, and Machi-san’s cooking and general cuteness. Like so many places on Tanegashima, this one was the genuine article.

Staying in a country where you don’t speak or read the language sort of forces you to buck up in confusing situations. And when you don’t know the language, or even how to make the sounds of the characters in the alphabet, confusing situations abound. The first time we drove down the main drag in Minamitane, Cody pointed out of the car window to buildings that looked, to me, like houses or offices, saying “that’s a restaurant, and that’s a restaurant, and that’s a restaurant”. It’s like that a lot in Japan, but especially in Tanegashima. The general collective signage is minimal to begin with, and even when there are signs on storefronts, I can’t read them at all. We kind of had to get used to walking in unmarked, unfamiliar doors and seeing what would happen.

We’d heard that there was a sugar cane processing facility somewhere on the island that invited tourists. But when we arrived we couldn’t really tell if we’d come to the right place. But we gathered our tolerance for uncomfortable situations and pressed on.

Aha! Sugar cane. That’s a good sign.

And we kept walking, into a sanctum of steam. At this point we sort of figured that if we weren’t supposed to be there, we’d have been yelled at.

This is where they boiled the cane juice down into syrup.

These dudes were mostly unfazed by our presence. Which made for good candids.

That’s the sugar cane juice after it’s been boiled for a while and reduced.

This place pours out straight reduced sugar cane syrup to make this clear, foldable yet somehow breakable taffy/candy stuff for tourists to taste. Then they take crystallized sugar and add it to the big bowls to help the rest of the batch form crystals. The crystallized sugar is a lot more useful than the foldable stuff, for obvious reasons.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are given a shard of fresh sugar candy, take it and eat it, but do not chew it unless you want your teeth to be superglued together for 20 minutes.

These guys are stirring the sugar to encourage crystallization (I think).

And here’s a bag of the finished product. Really nicely textured, richly flavored stuff. It felt pretty special to get to see these people make sugar without the help of a lot of big machinery, almost like going back in time.

While we were in Tanegashima, the NASA team caused a bit of buzz, and a few people were invited to give presentations about space and the GPM satellite at some of the local schools. I was graciously invited to tag along. During our two visits I learned a few things.

Firstly, the shoes rule applies to schools as well as homes. Indoor shoes indoors, outdoor shoes outdoors. Also the schools are neither air conditioned nor heated, and the kids wear shorts and skirts.

Kids start learning english in elementary school.

They sit on the floor, and the little kids are very well behaved.

Tanegashima is isolated enough that we were probably some of the first Americans most of them had ever seen in person.

I learned from one of the JET teachers at this school that these kids have to eat everything they’re given everyday at lunch, and they have to help clean up the dishes. I like that. I think the uniforms help with that “we’re in this together” mentality.

That garden is planted and tended by the kids at this school. Nice work huh?

The backpacks! So cute but so expensive. I saw a few of these up close in a store, and they can run $400 or more, and are often made of full leather with metal framing. Serious luggage.

Noodle intermission. This is a long post.

A few days after we visited the elementary school, we got to go to the local Jr. High school which was beautiful and far too large for the number of students that attended.

Tweenager uniforms look a liiiiitle different.

Tweens in Japan are just like tweens in America, a little rowdy, but generally good.

And this character, kept winking at me and waving to me before and after the first of the two presentations we did that day. Harbinger of events to come.

After the second presentation, I was quickly surrounded by tween girls. It was the cutest and weirdest experience of all my time in Tanegashima. Luckily I was holding the camera when it started. But handed it off to Cody just in time to capture the rest.

They wanted to shake my hand?

I am an object of curiosity?

This cutie was the leader of the pack. She came up to me and asked, in English, “do you like chocolate?” and it turned out we had that most important thing in common.

I’m sure the language barrier gives them an advantage, but I was pretty charmed by these kids.

Just like that, I’m back in Maryland. Ok, so it’s been two and a half weeks since we left Tanegashima, but we’ve been in almost constant motion since, and it feels like so much happened so quickly. And so passively, if that makes any sense (I know it doesn’t). But its like all I did was start putting my things in bags, and before I knew it I was hugging everyone goodbye and getting on a plane and driving across the country. Cody and I spent ten days in Tokyo before flying to Texas, which was its own kind of twilight zone (and we got sick and lost a few days so that didn’t help). In Texas I got to reunite with my darling pup and hear my sisters’ high school choir sing and eat awesome Texas food.

But now all of a sudden I’m back, with wickedly persistent jet lag. And while the mild dusting of snow we got yesterday and the smell of my favorite American shampoo have made me really happy to be home, I feel like Tanegashima was some kind of dream. Like I tripped in a field of poppies (i haz puns) and I’m just now being dragged out by a pile of dirty laundry and adulty obligations.

Did I actually spend a quarter of a year here?

It’s just too weird.

These were familiar sights three weeks ago.

Food comas.

Glimpses of lives.

Unreal food.

And this? I’m not sure it really happened either (sometimes I think it shouldn’t have… (fast forward to the 1:20 mark, unless you like watching people sit around awkwardly)).

Three months is a long time to be away from reality. And unpacking from a trip that huge is like setting off a clothes bomb. I still don’t know where my nail clippers are. I’m having fun getting back into cooking (oh how I’ve missed it), but I’m not even close to finished with blogging about Japan, so expect a mix of things in the future. I’m ready to shake off the sand and get back to daily such and such, but that was one heck of a dream.

I am embarrassed that I still haven’t finished posting about Yakushima (monkey island). But I have lots and lots more pretty pictures from our adventures, so I’ll be catching up for a while.

I mentioned in my birthmas post that I had pizza for dinner on Christmas. Well, this was the place: Il Mare.

For my birthday dinner, we got to start with a fantastic crab and tomato risotto, made with these crabs that are local to the Tanegashima and Yakushima area. I can’t remember what they are called, but they look really weird and taste really good.

That’s the chef/owner, Ohya-san, making our pizzas. He serves really good, really fresh tasting blood orange juice and mango juice, (which go surprisingly well with dinner) and his menu has rotating specials based on what’s in season.

The toss.

Our favorites were the bacon and garlic pizza and the four cheese pizza. This is probably the only place in a hundred mile radius that cooks with blue cheese. We peeked in the kitchen while they were cooking and saw a nice, big wheel of blue being crumbled for the four cheese pizzas. The bacon is house made too, which is really impressive even by Italian or hipster American standards.

There’s my very cheesy four-cheeser with a lovely charred rim. I didn’t get a good photo, but Ohya-san makes beautifully crusty bread, as well as his perfectly chewy and crispy pizza dough, from scratch. His was easily the best pizza and bread I’ve had in Japan, and even better than a lot of the places I eat pizza and buy bread in the US. We asked Ohya-san if he traveled to Italy to learn to make pizza and bread like that, but he said “No, I just study and practice a lot”. He had me fooled.

I know Yakushima is far away for most of the people reading, but if you ever find yourself there, make sure to visit Ohya-san at Il Mare. He’s built a gorgeous restaurant with house-made everything on hard work and passion, and I can’t overstate the level of respect I have for what he’s made. Also, it’s just ridiculously delicious. Go.