Short essays and notes on food, history, and the kitchen.
Where ideas live before they cool into a book.
- Travel & MemoryMay 8, 2026 · Travel & Memory · 2 min
The Holiday Effect: Why Mediocre Food Tastes Amazing
As you bite into a simple yet surprisingly delightful dish during your travels, consider this: a study published in 2016 revealed that food enjoyed in novel environments can enhance flavor perception, leading us to feel that even the most m
- NoteMay 1, 2026 · Japanese Cooking · 4 min
The Quiet Logic of Miso Soup
Miso soup has four ingredients, and at least three mistakes that almost everyone makes.
- Tools & GearMarch 20, 2026 · Tools & Gear · 5 min
Why Saibashi Are More Than Long Chopsticks
Cooking chopsticks are not eating chopsticks made longer. They are a different tool, with a different grammar of motion, and once your hand learns them tongs begin to feel like a hammer.
- Kitchen ScienceMarch 13, 2026 · Kitchen Science · 4 min
Why Eggs Cook to Eleven Different Temperatures
An egg is not one ingredient. It is two proteins on different schedules, plus a yolk membrane with its own logic, and the gap between them is where every great egg dish lives.
- Kitchen ScienceMarch 6, 2026 · Kitchen Science · 5 min
The Logic of Mirepoix
Two parts onion, one part carrot, one part celery, slowly sweated in fat. It is a recipe so old it has forgotten it is a recipe — which is precisely why it still works.
- Food HistoryMarch 6, 2026 · Food History · 6 min
Why I Write About Food as Translation
The History × Food Translation series is not, as the title might suggest, a series about food. It is a series about how meaning moves between bodies, eras, and civilizations — and food turns out to be the cleanest available test case.
- Kitchen ScienceJanuary 30, 2026 · Kitchen Science · 6 min
Low Heat Is Not Weak Cooking
Low heat is the heat that time uses. The most under-used technique in home kitchens, because impatience is louder than results.
- Kitchen ScienceFebruary 13, 2026 · Kitchen Science · 4 min
Stock, Broth, and Fond: A French Three-Way Distinction
English collapses stock, broth, and fond into a single word. French keeps them apart, and the separation runs deep — into how long you simmer, how far you reduce, and what the final liquid is for.
- Kitchen ScienceFebruary 6, 2026 · Sauces & BBQ · 7 min
What Makes a Sauce French?
A sauce becomes French not by ingredient, but by the way fat, acid, body, and time are combined. The mother sauces are not recipes — they are the grammar of Western cooking.
- NoteApril 24, 2026 · Tools & Gear · 6 min
How Japanese Cooking Tools Teach Restraint
A Japanese knife is sharper but does less. A saibashi is longer but holds less. The principle behind the toolkit is do less, well.
- Kitchen ScienceApril 24, 2026 · Kitchen Science · 5 min
What Carryover Cooking Really Means
The dish continues cooking after the heat is off. Most cooks know this. Most still pull at the wrong moment.
- NoteApril 17, 2026 · Japanese Cooking · 6 min
How to Make Miso Soup Feel Complete
The difference between a miso soup that fills a bowl and a miso soup that completes the meal is almost always two ingredients — chosen, not by recipe, but in conversation with the rest of the table.
- Kitchen ScienceApril 17, 2026 · Kitchen Science · 5 min
How to Sear Without Burning (the French Way)
French training teaches searing as the first step of a sauce, not the end of a steak. Once the goal shifts from a finished surface to a usable fond, every choice in the pan changes.
- Kitchen ScienceApril 10, 2026 · Kitchen Science · 4 min
Why Salt Is Not Optional
Salt does six things in a kitchen, and only one of them is making food taste salty. The rest is invisible chemistry — and removing salt removes most of what we recognize as cooking.
- Travel & MemoryApril 3, 2026 · Travel & Memory · 2 min
How Novel Foods Reshape Our Memories
A study conducted by neuroscientist Zhi-Yong Zhuang in 2020 revealed that unique food experiences can trigger memory retention more effectively than everyday meals.
- Recipe NoteMay 22, 2026 · Recipes · 1 min
Anticuchos
Grill tender beef heart skewers marinated in a rich Peruvian spice paste for a unique culinary experience.
- Recipe NoteMay 22, 2026 · Recipes · 1 min
Ayam Penyet
Ayam Penyet is a dish of braised and deep-fried chicken, served smashed with sambal terasi, common in Indonesian cuisine.
- Recipe NoteMay 22, 2026 · Recipes · 1 min
Bakso
Bakso are beef meatballs, often served in a clear broth flavored with garlic and pepper, common in Indonesian cuisine.
- Recipe NoteMay 22, 2026 · Recipes · 1 min
B'stilla
B'stilla is a Moroccan pastry made with spiced shredded chicken, layered with phyllo dough and almonds, often served during special occasions.
- Recipe NoteMay 22, 2026 · Recipes · 1 min
Canard à l'Orange
This classic Canard à l'Orange features a perfectly roasted duck paired with a vibrant bigarade sauce.