Hello Japan!

Reader Aaron writes:

Just wanted to drop you a note with a photo of pretzels baked using your recipe here on Sado Island in Japan. I am staying with a family who owns a bakery/restaurant on the island (Oasis Bakery in Ogi). There was a festival celebrating Fall foods and they created some special goods to sell including your pretzels. The sourdough starter was seeded with “Sake Kasu”, the leftover husks from the Sake fermentation. It worked great and the pretzels came out beautifully.

I couldn’t be prouder! Three cheers for local variation! Wish I could have been there to sample them, and of course wash them down with a few cans of Asahi. Not the little ones, mind you, the big jobs that you get out of the vending machines. Oh yeah, that’s the stuff.