Daily One Inch Button - Eggplant

When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, I had a friend named Eric who one time got a grilled eggplant dish when my family went out to eat at some restaurant. I thought it looked pretty gross at the time and I didn't care for the taste. My, how things change.

A couple of decades later, eggplant is of course my favorite vegetable. I wonder why there's no eggplant sushi. Did you know that most of the world's eggplant comes from New Jersey? It is, indeed, a fact. That is why eggplant most likely is coming to you from New Jersey with love.

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Daily One Inch Button - Rerun - General Tso

Please Note: We are running a rerun due to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. The text is a bit different from the original because I live in NY now.

When I was a kid I used to eat General Tso's chicken whenever I would go to Chinese restaurants. I switched to tofu for awhile but now that I live in NY I take every opportunity to enjoy some great General Tso when I go out for Chinese food. (In China they just call it "food." Mmm. Who was General Tso? A chicken, apparently.

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Daily One Inch Button - Omurice

Omelet? Omelette? No, omurice. What's that, you ask? Great question. It's the deliciousness of an omelet with the tremendous power of rice. Yes, it etymologically derives from the words omelet and rice and is, in fact, a Japanese concoction said to have come about at the turn of the twentieth century in the Ginza district.

Would you like to make your own omurice? Well perhaps the awesome film Tampopo can help you, courtesy of this instructional video. If you prefer a little less comedy in your instruction, try オムライスの作り方[how to make an omurice] instead. Either way, you can get your learn on, so to speak.

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Daily One Inch Button - Soy Sauce

Would it be naive of me to assume that everyone is familiar with the world famous Kikkoman soy sauce commercial? It wasn't until years later that Matsubara sensei told me that there was a pun in the song - "show me / show you" is funny because "show you" is a good homonym for "shoyu" which is what soy sauce is known as in Japan - and has been since the seventh century, when it was introduced by Buddhist monks.

Fun fact: Japan is the leading nation in producing tamari. Fun fact two: the word "umami" is a word used to describe soy sauce's distinct taste.

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Daily One Inch Button - Cholent!

Mmm... cholent. Tasty. Good just about every day of the week but, strangely enough, even better on Shabbos. Seriously.

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