While in my parents’ place I baked many pompes a l’huile for Christmas, but I didn’t bake any bread. There are a few nice organic bread shops and bakeries around. But now that we are back to Isumi, it was mandatory to bake some bread. I started this year with a very simple bread: rye and whole wheat, with a handful of flaxseeds. And since the house is rather cold, I kept the bread all night in the room with us for it to rise, and only baked it much later. It has risen very slowly but the result was a very soft yet dense bread. With jam, honey, butter, or whatever, it’s delicious for breakfast. And it goes together with the book I am reading about Roland Feuillas, a guy who has been working for the last 12 years in making bread with traditional wheats grown traditionaly too. This reading has revived in me this idea that I should grow my own sourdough, but I still don’t know how to manage the trips between Isumi and Tokyo every weekends, and the longer one abroad and to keep it alive properly… If you have some experience in raising sourdough I’ll be happy to learn from you!!!
2018!
Here we are already!!! So best wishes for this new year!!! Last year we promised a few new things for TPS, but we in the end didn’t feel it was reasonable to start this new adventure. Indeed, in retrospect in 2017, P. hasn’t contributed much and it seems that she has no plan to do contribute much in 2018… but who knows? On my side, the end of 2017 has given you a glimpse of what 2018 will look like for me: a lot more travel to Europe and in particular to Florence in Italy. That will be a great excuse for me to cook more Italian food and produces than ever, to try to master pasta and gnocchi, and some others of the many Tuscany’s delights. I’m also hoping to make a Tuscany olive oil tour-and-review later in the spring or the summer. Of course, fresh, seasonal and local ingredients will always be the core of my homemade cooking, and mixing French, Italian and Japanese influences, techniques and produces will continue to be the essence of my preparations. And they will remain mainly vegetarian, sometimes vegan.
Happy 2018!!