Eat Me Drink Me | Through The Cooking Glass

Slowly munching my veggies like a ruminating quadruped I can still taste the piping-hot baozi, a faux meat dish at Xuxiangzai, Beijing’s Veggie haven

Have you ever opened a cheese and wondered what small rodent just died in the immediate vicinity? Or who suddenly started cooking bacon? As I progress in my lifelong quest to make the perfect Grilled Cheese Sandwich it is only since I escaped the U.S. that I am truly beginning to glimpse the undiscovered country [...]

I grew up on hotdogs, pb&j & grilled cheese. So when some wonderful little elf left an exquisite LOAF of pure uncut White Bread on my porch for God only knows why, I had to take the poor waif in and protect it, piece by honkey slice piece, by putting cheese next to it, melting [...]

Was it just me or did 2009 seem like a bad hangover? Now more than ever Eat Me Drink Me feels that in this the January morning of 2010 we all need some hair of the dog, if only to clear the blurry vision, the settle the nerves and to brace for whatever potential boons [...]

What is the genius of Belgian Trappist Monk tradition? What does it mean: Trappist Beer and why is it six dollars a bottle? After a bit of imbibed research and some hard sought questions in a few local European Beer Pubs, I’ve found out some interesting facts about what makes a Trappist Ale so special, [...]

As of November 2008 I’m a Friend of Laphroaig. Which means what exactly? Turning 33 is a momentous occasion in the life of a Man Who Walks Like Jesus. I feel like Johnny Cash more and more and thusly I need to get back to my roots, specifically my Scottish roots and drink Real Whisky [...]

Leaves of the Perilla plant, what the some ill-define as “Japanese mint,” is a taste universe all its own. Shiso in Japanese these versatile Perilla leaves, aka the Beefsteak plant, with a flavor so much more distinct than mere mint, tend to do godly things when combined with fish. Take some sashimi quality raw whitefish [...]

Retro/Proto-grading on homegrown rockets of herbal bliss, somewhere in the precarious balance between taste bud ecstasy and practical applications of time and space, is where reside my abilities to create, implement and cook up recipes of a questionable kind of originality. I’m in no way saying here that Everything Has Been Done where food is [...]

Yatai (屋台), literally meaning “Person Stand”, seat from 10 to 15 people and are 180+ licensed and operating strong in three main areas throughout Fukuoka six (and sometimes seven) days a week. Boasting by far the largest amount of portable restaurants in Japan, somehow this Kyushu outpost has maintained deep roots with the centuries old [...]

Manny Santiago explores the Foodie paradise of the Dong Hua Men Night & Sihuan Markets in Beijing as he travels overland from Kyoto to California

Come the Japanese New Year, when some particularly enthusiastic families and co-workers across the archipelago once again dust off their bamboo rice steamers, big wooden hammers, not forgetting the Sake, and head off to the local community center, school, or as in my case, the abandoned yacht club, it raises the hairs on the neck [...]

Visualize if you will, a spry young man in his work kimono, made of an easy to clean light fabric, walking down the dirt-paved roads of the old capital Kyōto to the clickety-clackety of hundreds of Japanese sandal-wearing passers-by as they go about their daily business, smiling and nodding while the deciduous trees rain orange [...]

What began as a morning experiment in breadmaking turned into an entire day of feasting and tasting, laughter and gaiety, all thanks to the serendipitous alignment of weather, food, drink, people and the all-important Lazy Saturday Afternoon. Winter Strawberries. Tomatoes in Spring. Summer Sanma. Persimmons in Fall. Season is everything. And seasonal cooking is big, [...]

We’ve gotten used to Pesto from a Bottle. Which is basically textureless, overly-preserved, old-man-scalp oily green pooh. Exactly. Why not make your own? It’s relatively quick, it gives great wrist/hand exercise (other than the usual way) and it tastes better than any pesto sauce you’ve ever had in your life…unless you happen to have 20 [...]

Spanakopita, literally Spinach Pita (Pita from the Arabic, but meaning “pie”), otherwise known as Greek Quiche or merely Down Home Spinach Pie, for those linguistically challenged of you out there, comes from Greece. I like to have a few alternative names on the tip of my tongue ready to go for this one as after [...]

Mole (pronounced Mo-lay, gringo) Poblano, the brown kind of mole is, after being the national dish of Mexico, often accused of looking like various kinds of doodie. Do not buy into this cheap, lazy way of thinking of one of the best foods (next to avocados, chocolate, pulque…) to come off the pages of the [...]

Jalapeños are small, spicy quasars in my universe of food. Small enough to carry around in pockets for impromptu picnics, yet possessed of an efficiency of flavor deep enough to soothe the Aztec shaman raving bloodlust mad in my head (and actually they go great with brie!). I’ll be honest here: sometimes I drift off [...]

I am in mid-burn. My groin region feel like it’s midsummer in Tijuana at the Free Clinic, and while the buen Doctor sits chatting up the Donkey-girl from last night’s show, he’s also haphazardly telling you in no uncertain terms that your inflamed, red-as-the-Japan-sun verga – as he put it – “could very well melt [...]