Hikes

Spring and fall are the perfect seasons for hiking in Japan. The temperatures are just right not to get a sweat but not to freeze or die of over heat, bugs are fewer and either the flowers and tender greens, or the crimson colors of fall make a picturesque scenery. There are plenty of options to go hiking in Chiba and I won’t overview them here. There are few things I take in consideration when searching for a hike: the path needs to mainly be a non drivable road. What’s the point walking on the road side?? The path should be a loop or as much as possible not use twice the same route. There are very few hiking trail in Isumi to my knowledge, and one of our favorite is now impracticable as bamboos grew all over the path. So our favorite options are in Otaki and Katsuura. We’ve been to Yorokeikoku 養老渓谷 in the fall many times, for the maple trees, the monkeys… and for the spring we could never find something that was satisfying. I usually like the sight of the ocean in the spring as a remembrance that the swimming and bodyboarding season will start soon for me (though some people surf all year round, I find it hard to get in the water when it’s freezing cold outside). Actually Katsuura, about 20-30min drive south of Isumi, has quite a few hiking options, and this time we found a scenic short hike I thought was really worth mentioning.

South of Katsuura is the small town Ubara 鵜原 mainly a fishing port and a nice little hike called Ubara utopia 鵜原理想郷 that takes you up the hills with a stunning view of the ocean and the cliffs and down the beaches and tiny fishing harbors in coves.

The hike is rather short, count 1h maximum, but is really worth. It takes you through tunnels carved in the very soft rocks and going up and downs in a beautiful vegetation and to scenic views. Everything is very well indicated so no headache about which way to go, and the parking space at the starting point is large enough and easy to find (other parking options are also possible on the beach side). We came by scooter so it was even easier for us to park.

If you plan to come for the weekend, there is a small ryokan just at the beginning of the hike: Ubarakan 鵜原館 which seems to have a nice rotenburo (outdoor bath) and a few bathes in the carved stone caves and room with ocean view!!! We haven’t tried it yet so I have no idea how good it is…

After the hike we rode back home and it was time for tea and a little snack, so I decided to make one-bite scones. I am recently testing a new scone recipe and I think now I have the perfect balance to share with you. And with all the spring greens around I prepared a seasonal classic: macha white chocolate. Here is this version but it works with anything.

Scones

– 150g of flour

– 30-40g of sugar (depending on what you use for flavoring, for white chocolate use 30)

– 1tsp of baking powder

– a pinch of salt

– 40g of butter at room temperature

– milk (quantity will slightly depend)

– 2tsp of macha powder

– 2 handfuls of white chocolate chips

In a bowl mix the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, add the butter and knead to mix everything together. Add the milk slowly while kneading. If you want a uniform green color add macha now, otherwise wait until the end. Stop adding milk when the dough is moist but not sticky. If you’ve added to much milk just add a bit of flour!!!

I wanted a non uniform green color so I added the macha at the end and the white chocolate. Shape the scones and bake at 180deg for 10-15min depending on the size of your scones.

April 14, 2019

Cheeses from Chiba

When we first settled in Isumi, and I found a cheese factory right down our valley I was really happy! Soon after that At Ohara harbor market I found Takahide farm and another Yojuemon cheese factory. This was more than enough in a country that doesn’t have a strong milk and cheese culture and I was fully satisfied. To be honest the closest cheese factory: Komagata, was good enough when I knew only that one, but as soon as I found Takahide, I stopped buying cheese there, as Takahide cheeses are so much better. Takahide has three delicious original cheeses: a reblochon style, a small creamy one that recently comes in different maturity (the more matured one on the picture below is just perfect) and a blue cheese, that is so perfectly made that even I who don’t really like blue cheese I love! The plus with Takahide is that they have also mozzarella and fromage blanc, and for those who like ice creams, and what for me is really important, they have their own milk farm. So when going to the cheese shop you can see the cows and how well treated they are. Takahide cheeses won several international awards and have attracted a lot of media attention a few years ago and the shop, which use to be a small counter inside the cheese factory is now a little cafe space where you can drink a delicious coffee and eat a pizza made with fresh mozzarella while looking at the cows.

Yojuemon makes ricotta mainly, or at least that’s what I always buy from them. And it’s a really good one. I usually buy at Ohara harbor market on Sunday morning.

But the whole point of this post is not to review what I already more or less said before… it’s to introduce a new cheese factory. This one is not in Isumi, but in Otaki, on the way to Yorokeikoku. It is called Sen 千. I discovered it thanks to some people I follow on IG. Sen is open only the first Sunday of the month, but luckily we had no plan but to go to Katsuura to see the Hina matsuri last Sunday, and with the terrible rain we thought that a drive in the country to see plum trees blossoming and early sakura would be great. So we headed up to Sen. The place is really cute, old houses, polish garden on top of a hill. Picturesque.

We were warmly welcome, and the cheese shop offer several varieties of cheese, even raclette cheese!!! I bought one small cheese but when the owner realized we were French we start chatting (in French) about her stay in France to study French cheeses, and the cheese she makes, and she offered me one of her award winning hash cheese. We also took a tour of the old buildings.

Once back home I prepared breads: fougasse with walnuts, and campagne bread and couldn’t wait to try them. Well to be honest, you don’t need bread. They were delicious just like that. It is very interesting because they are very different than Takahide cheeses, with probably stronger milk and cheeses flavors (probably due from her training in France!). The maturity also was great, with a creamy side below the crust. It was a great discovery!!

Now I have one favorite cheese farm and one favorite cheese factory!!!!

March 8, 2019

Memories

No cooking or recipe talk today… just talking about me and us. About what February 24th means…

12 years ago today A. and I got married… it took us years to find where and how we would do it, but suddenly, one day, in Tokyo, we found the place and everything was settled in less than two months. Planning for years is not really our style… The whole idea was to have fun and share that with friends and family here in Tokyo. This day ended in a flash, everything was so quick that every year I wish I could do it again… wear that beautiful off white kimono, walk to the shrine, share sake with A., enjoy the plum blossoms, and then take every one to a very unique kaiseki restaurant, and finish with champagne and plenty of friends, a shamisen performance from A.’s group and a memorable lion dance by our friend K.. I also perfectly remember not having time to eat and scavenging our room and ending up eating a whole box of macarons M. offered us!!! I am so grateful so many people came from all over the world to share that moment, and many more, with us… and thanks to those that were with us by thought.

I wish you a lovely Sunday!!!

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

February 23, 2019

Myoga

Now is the season for harvesting myoga, this little very fragrant plant, delicious eaten with silky tofu and soya sauce or in miso soup. Two weeks ago when I met with our old neighbor she told me that their used to be plenty of myoga in our garden, but I never found any. So after identifying the leaves I went and browsed the garden and found indeed quite a few spots with similar leaves, but nothing like the edible part of the myoga, though I dug around. I was quite disappointed… So when she came again this morning I asked her to show me how to pick myoga. And what I discovered is that myoga plants are gendered and in our garden now we have mainly only male plants… so we found only one myoga with an edible part. The part that is edible is actually the flower, or rather the bud or the stem of the flower. But it doesn’t grow on the plant, it grows independently on the ground about 15cm away from the leafy part. And it has a lovely flower with very thin petals.

Myoga has a very typical flavor that is one of the important flavor in Japanese food. I love eating it in miso soup or with tofu, but also pickled and in vegetables mixes. That’s what it has served for today. A pot of autumn veggies roasted in a pan and with a bit of white soya sauce and thin slice of aburage, and served with rice. Here onigiri filled with red shiso miso.

Really simple and very tasty!

October 6, 2018

Swordfish

When the season for swordfish starts I am always pleased to start eating some, in particular because it often arrives after several typhoons and fish options have been more than scarce in Isumi. After the long months of bonito, it is time for a change. And if I love sanma, which also marks the beginning of the autumn, I rarely cook some because of the smell. But swordfish is perfect for me. I like the consistency of the meat even better than that of snapper and sea bass, and it has not shape at all (I gave trouble eating fishes that have fish shapes in the plate… maybe another reason why I don’t eat sanma much!).

So, the swordfish (メカジキ mekajiki) season is starting and I found some beautiful pieces of Kesennuma swordfish. Kesennuma is a fishing port up north in Miyagi famous for tunas and swordfishes, and that was badly hut in 2011. They kind of made a brand of it, and the swordfish is actually really delicious.

I like to grill or pan grill my pieces of swordfish, with or with marinating it. Now sudachi, the small green citrus fruits ate in season, and swordfish marinated with the juice of 2 and some soya sauce and then grilled was a great and simple recipe!!!

How do you cook your swordfish???

September 15, 2018

Making bread

In the summer 2012 when we bought our house in Isumi I never imagined how much it would be a life changer. At first it was purely a fancy project to have a Japanese house and a garden, a place to do little DIY projects (since there’s nothing we can do in a rented apartment in Tokyo) and interior design… but these 6 years have provided us with a lot of opportunities for thinking about our life style, what we care for, and we want. But all that I’ll write about later. One thing, among a few others, I really got into is making bread (why and how is there). Handmade bread. Hand kneading is such a quiet and nice moment to talk and think after a busy day in the garden, at the seaside or on the tennis court. At first I was just trying to make bread and brioche with regular flour I could find in the supermarkets but I wasn’t happy with non organic flours, then started to bring back organic ingredients from our trips to France: fancy flours, dry sourdough, dry yeast, seeds and cereals. But this solution was not sustainable since my travels to Europe are irregular, that most of the organic products are usually contaminated with pests and they don’t suffer the Japanese climate to well in particular our house temperature variations and humidity variations are quite dramatic. From 2deg to 28deg and from 10% humidity to 90%. I’ve started back then to keep them in the vegetable drawer of my fridge, which is exclusively used for that now. You can keep them very long and without any pest and they don’t loose their taste. But little by little I learned about the locally produced flours and organic flours have started to appear on shelves here and there. Hokkaido is a very nice wheat producer and they have high quality flours. Cuoca offers a great variety of products when you make bread and a variety of Hokkaido flours (they also have French). I personally don’t shop online, I’d rather go to the shop in Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi where I can buy also fresh yeast and choose the flours I like on the spot. But one other great source for finding flours is when traveling around Japan. If you travel a bit in the countryside you’ll discover that many other regions than Hokkaido produce wheat, but likely at a lower scale, and are only sold locally at farmers cooperatives. Try “michi no eki” 道の駅 and JA fresh products markets, they are always a great place to find local food and locally produced rice, beans, and flours… I remember buying amazing black wheat flour near Shiojiri in Nagano prefecture and some super fine white flour in Nasu in Ibaraki prefecture. Options for making bread locally makes me feel better, they are more fit to the Japanese climate and I don’t have to carry kilos of flours anymore with me on my long haul flights! I still carry other staples that I can’t easily find in Japan… recently it’s been semolina, dry fruits, olives, olive oil, but that, it’s another story!

September 9, 2018

Bosso

As planned I didn’t have much time to write in the past days, busy with work: final grading, entrance exams, proposals to submit and research to supervise as usual though. And at home it’s been busy too, with friends visiting and a feverish A. to take care of. But the noticeable thing of this week is the turn in the weather and since the 16th it is definitely not summer anymore. Days have noticeably shortened, there is a cool wind and we turned off the cooler. It is perfect now for open drives, walks around the rice fields to watch rice harvesting and have lunch outside in the shade. And one place I really like, just halfway to Isumi from Tokyo, is the pizzeria Bosso by the lake in Ichihara. It is a small restaurant with seats indoor that have view on the lake and outdoor, facing the lakeside museum, there is a terrace shaded by wine with plenty of grapes, where you can eat the takeaway pizza. Not only the place is really nice, the staff is super friendly and nice, and the food always surprises me. They use local fresh products for the pizze, both cheese and vegetables. The Noka pizza (農家ピザ) uses plenty of seasonal vegetables thus changes regularly and I really love it, it is always a surprise! This time, on the cheese base there was a massive amount of fresh myoga, okra and ginger as in the picture below.

So if you are in the Ichihara area this place is a must try!!!! The nearby museum, the Ichihara artmix events etc.. are also worth a visit. My favorite riding club is also in the area.

Bosso pizzeria:

Chiba-ken Ichihara-shi, Funyu75-1

Website

August 18, 2018

Away from the heat

I am quite ok with the heat in the summer, I move slowly, plan things ahead to never have to run, carry water with me and dress lightly. And if I can swim it’s perfect. I guess my body is also used to it from growing in the South of France. But little Parisian A. is more affected. So we decided to drive north a bit in the Nasu area and the Oku Nikko area for a very short refreshing time. The last time we visited the area was in 2007 in the winter, so quite a change of scenery and a few things have changed since then. Noticeably the Nikki club has closed last summer so we couldn’t stay there again, instead they have transformed the staff quarters into a much cheaper hotel called Artbiotop, where one can experience some craft activities and see the beautiful installation of Ikegami: the water garden. Overall Nasu was almost as hot as Tokyo during the day but nights were a bit cooler. It only really gets cooler when hiking mount Nasu at 1700m and in Oku Nikko by the Chuzenji lake where we visited the British and the Italian residences that have opened to the public since we first came in 2004. And of course we had yuba, a traditional product of Nikko, soba and river fishes. And we discovered by chance a very nice place to eat, while everyone rushes to Chus, the very marketed place to be downtown, we went to Cu-eri, a nice little restaurant that cooks local products with plenty of herbs in a French inspired way.

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July 23, 2018

Spring savory delights

Nothing to do with the recipe I am presenting today, but the other night we went to check the newly opened Tokyo midtown Hibiya. A new building with many shops, a large Toho cinema and a terrace garden with a view on Hibiya park and the imperial palace. The place just opened so it was very crowded in apparence but the overall place was quiet and walking around was smooth and nice. Shops are for the most the same as elsewhere. Brand names, big and small, chains. Nothing really to impressive. The only thing that I found fun and interesting was the retro corner on the 3rd floor, with some craft, a barber, a book store and some sculptural clothes.

There is one trend tough that I find quite interesting. 15 years ago when we arrived in Tokyo there a few cinemas, mainly old, that little by little were closing down, until it was a real pain to find one. Recently many of the new shopping places downtown have a large dedicated cinema. Toho cinemas are really spreading and now it is really easy to find a screening in original version too. Yet movies release is still super delayed compared to other countries and we usually watch the “new” movies on the international itunes store before they are available in Japanese theaters!!! And what to eat with a good movie? Pasta or a good and simple Japanese vegan meal with rice and sautéed vegetables. To celebrate spring I really like snap peas, for the crunchy texture, the little tart and sweet taste, and the brillant green. And I also love the salted sakura flowers with rice in particular, but not only ( I made some sable last weekend and it was great!). And since I still have some lotus root (I bought a giant one!) I cooked the all thing to be served together. Sautéed in a little of oil for the lotus root, then add a little of water to steam the snap peas on top, finish with soys sauce. For the sakura, I wash the salt in water and add them to the cooked and hot rice. Serve all and eat happily while watching a movie!!

April 6, 2018