Strawberries!

Yeah.

- [Rachel] Is this is what we're after?

- [Blake] This is what we're after and fresh picked today.

Oh my God.

There's nothing better than the farmer's market strawberries like when you take a bite and it's actually red all the way through.

- [VO] These farm fresh berries have a spicy road ahead of them.

They'll bring the sweet heat in a fermented hot sauce made by Blake Baird, founder of Lunamor's Larder.

Ooo those golden raspberries are so pretty.

- They're so pretty.

This to me, this is like my Bloomingdales.

- [VO] I'm Rachel Belle.

Host of Your Last Meal podcast, cookbook author and long time journalist.

Today on The Nosh from neurospicy hot sauce to an education in soy sauce we are getting saucy.

[ music ] So how did this hot sauce business come to be?

Because you are primarily a high school principal.

As a way to unwind and kind of enjoy life on weekends I'll often do a lot of fermenting.

I've been doing fermenting foods for going on 20 years now.

and my wife was getting really sick of having several hundred bottles and jars fizzing and bubbling away all over the house.

And then a little over a year ago, I was, received an autism diagnosis, which explained a lot, but I was talking with my therapist and she was asking about, you know, what brings you joy?

And I was talking about food and fermentation within the ADHD, and the autism both is that, again, that constant, constant craving for novelty, that sensory stimulation and having this outlet as a way to explore that diagnosis and how that manifests and shows up in my inner world and my outer world has been just a wonderful tool for sort of building understanding of self and the world around me.

And now here we are with seven flavors.

Good to go.

Wow all because of your therapist.

Yeah.

Thanks, Mikayla.

Not all hot sauces are fermented.

- Correct.

What is the process like?

and how does that lend to the flavor?

So the difference is, instead of having a large amount of vinegar added to make it shelf stable I take the fresh produce, pack it into a bucket, and then submerge it in a salt brine, which then generates a large amount of lactic acid, generates a ton of various probiotic compounds and also fundamentally changes the flavor.

Can we try this one?

- Yeah, let's give it a shot.

It's just cucumbers, serrano chilies and lime again with that salt and water.

And that's all that's in here.

Mmm.

It's so bright.

- [Blake] Yeah.

- [Rachel] And tangy I love this one.

Ok, what should we try next?

So our mildest one is going to be Strawburied Alive.

It's a strawberry balsamic and Fresno Chile.

These are these are my flavors.

Honestly this is my goes on just about everything sauce.

These are these are so good.

Mmm!

You get the fruit first and then the spice.

I've never even heard of a mushroom hot sauce before.

Really tastes like if you had an angry Thanksgiving.

An angry Thanksgiving?

- [Blake] Angry Thanksgiving.

So maybe like 50% of Americans with their families [Blake] -Yeah - [Rachel] that they don't usual see throughout the year.

Sometimes I do want to put hot sauce on something like chicken pot pie.

- [Blake] Yeah.

and none of them seem right.

- [Rachel] This would be the perfect thing... - [Blake] This works really well for that.

- [Rachel] I'm so happy to have been introduced to these hot sauces.

This is going to add new flavor to my kitchen.

And I'm also just happy for you for finding this outlet.

It seems like it's just another additional piece of joy in your life.

- [Blake] It is a big bright spot of joy.

- [VO] If you have a love affair with condiments, Mixed Pantry will make you swoon.

Owner Tak Kunimune carefully curates his Belltown specialty food store with products made by Asian American and Pacific Islander owned brands or products imported from Asia.

-[Rachel] That's really good - [Tak] I know.

It's pretty substantial, right?

-[Rachel] -I like this a lot.

-[Tak] I know.

[VO] Tak was a food scientist, then a tech worker, but he was craving a connection to community, culture and food.

How many chili crisps do you have?

Because I've never seen so many in one place.

[Tak] I've actually never counted myself to be honest.

Sorry, but I think we have about three dozen or so here.

Oftentimes people think, oh, it's Asian flavors.

Or like, oh, that's all just all Chinese, but Asia is such a huge area, right?

- [Rachel] Right.

Like there's so many different cultures, different ethnicities, just that that Asian diaspora is just fascinating and a beautiful thing.

So you have this magic fridge full of condiments, right?

-[Rachel] Can we try a couple other things?

-[Tak] Sure thing!

-[Tak] All right.

Well, let's start from the sour things.

Okay Okay.

Coming from Cabi, sweet yuzu vinaigrette.

That is very good.

- Tak] Right?

- [Rachel] Mmm.

This is Wu Yin's black vinegar coming from Taiwan.

I would drink this just with seltzer.

- [Rachel] There's a fruitiness to it - [Tak] Yeah.

So plum-y.

And then we gonna go to Nong's Khao Man Gai sauce.

This, this is a chicken and rice sauce right here.

Yum.

Bowl of rice and a little bit of a Costco rotisserie chicken and just pour it over.

And here is the last one.

This is Kaya.

So in Singapore, the breakfast classic would be a buttered toast with a thick layer of Kaya and a black coffee.

But, you know, it hasn't really made it quite to the US yet.

- [Rachel] Tell me your story.

What inspired you to open Mixed Pantry?

Mixed pantry only carries items that's imported from Asia or done by AAPI community members only.

The entire purpose of this is to carve out the space so that we can, like, combat these sterotypes and try to diminish all of these different wrong ideas around our community members.

Instead of saying like, hey, you know, like, stop saying like, my food is stinky, cheap, dirty, all these different stereotypes that Asian food have.

I can just share the best thing that I could find on the market.

And you going to for sure be that ally for our food culture.

Cause you're going to be falling in love with these items.

- [VO] Everyone's heard of a wine tasting, but what about a chili crisp or soy sauce tasting?

Tak offers both by appointment.

If you come into your store, you see that there are dozens of different soy sauces.

-[Tak] Yeah.

- [Rachel] And personally, when I go to the Asian market, I don't know which one to choose Right.

You know, so maybe this can help me get a better idea of what to pick.

So this one is a white soy sauce and one of the five official types of Japanese soy sauce.

This is almost entirely wheat.

Even though it's a soy sauce, it's really floral.

It is.

It's, yeah, it's very good.

- [Tak] I love using this to make some, like, salad dressing and whatnot.

-[Tak] And then this is a twice brewed saishikomi sauce.

It's packed with the savoriness lowest in the salt content as this style for the soy sauce types.

Oftentimes it's used for the raw fish pairing.

Sushi, sashimi pairing.

It is absolutely wonderful.

And some people actually drop a few drops on the, vanilla ice cream and stuff like that.

- [Rachel] Ohh!

- [Tak] Yeah, isn't that crazy?

- [Rachel] I want to do that!

- [Tak] I know.

Kind of like balsamic.

It's not just salty.

There's a flavor.

- [Tak] Exactly.

- [Tak] And then last but not least, this is tamari.

So it's much, much thicker.

If you can kind of twirl around.

You can see that for sure.

- [Rachel] It's more viscus.

Yeah.

I consider this as like a barbecue sauce of Japan.

It's almost smoky.

-[Tak] I really is.

There's so many layers of wonderful flavors.

It's so fun to come in and just get to try everything and to find new products that I would never have tried... - [Tak] Definitely - [Rachel] ...if I hadn't come in here before.

I am so grateful and thankful that you explored it with me.

I really wanted to reconnect with my kids.

Like my kids are four and six year old girls.

They are different identity from mine.

I'm a Japanese immigrant and they're half white and half Asian.

And when I became a father, I remembered my college days and my friends were saying, oh, I don't understand my immigrant parents.

So, I wanted to create a space that we can really openly talk about identity together, and explore together, being able to create a space where we can constantly discuss those kind of identities through something that really connect people.

Right?

Food.

It means a lot to me.

I wanted something that put the roots down somewhere in the neighborhood and say like, hey, we are here and we are here at all time.

That's what this place is.

Okay, rolling.

Ready?

Action!

Okay.