After spotting her post on instagram, we invited Sonoko Sakai, food writer and cooking instructor to join us this week for a discussion on umeboshi. Sonoko grew up in Japan where every June she would ...

Stay on top of what’s happening in the Bay Area with essential Bay Area news stories, sent to your inbox every weekday. Bay Area-raised host Ericka Cruz Guevarra brings you context and analysis to ...

Umeboshi are the passion of this woman who's been making them for over half a century.

When Japanese writer Tsutomu Mizukami (1919–2004) was 9, he entered a Zen temple in Kyoto as a “kozo”—a novice monk who had taken the first step into a monastic life but was not yet fully ordained.

Ayako Iino grew up in Nagoya, Japan, the largest city in the Chūbu region. Like many kids, she watched her mom make umeboshi, a traditional salt-cured plum pickle (and alkalizing dietary staple that’s ...