Category: Life-style

A nice custom

In Japan when you go to a bice restaurant there a nice custom of leaving the restaurant with a present, generally food present. Many of the Japanese restaurants we jave been practice this custom, but I don’t know where it comes from. I need to investigate more!!!! 

I remember some delicious pound cake from Robuchon, sometimes so breads or some cookies or chocolates in French restaurants. In Japanese restaurant it is often some pickles or some rice and this time we had again dinner at Itosho, a Shojin cuisine restaurant, it was some nice green peas rice. To which I added a scrambled egg to make a perfect quick dinner the next day! A very nice way to prolong the experience!

Have a beautiful Sunday! 

Japanese style quiche

Today we were invited at our neighbors places for a group session of Vipassana meditation and a dinner aftewards. I was busy all afternoon harvesting plums and didn’t see time flying, but absolutely wanted to prepare some food to bring rather than simply buying drinks. So in a rush, the thing I am the best at is making quiches. So I prepared a Japanese style quiche. Japanese style meaning that I used buckwheat flour, katsuo bushi flakes and soya sauce. For the topping I used tomatoes and red onions, with a egg base of soya milk and soya sauce, making it taste a bit like chawanmushi, this Japanese egg-base preparation that is steamed. It was simple to prepare and cooked in 30min in the oven, which is hand-free to continue doing what I was busy with.

As for the meditation, it was my first group meditation and I was curious to see what it was, even if I am a total novice and know very little about the different methods except for a bit of Zazen, so trying Vipassana was interesting, but I guess it requires a steady practice to feel any benefit from it and I not sure I am ready for that… we’ll see. Yet discovering it and discussing with some steady practitioners was very interesting. A great experience! 

Done!

Today, the first exhibition I curated opened at my university museum. It’s a small museum, with a lot of local visitors, and exhibitions about the work done at the university in the present and past, and its history. Having a 3 months exhibition about human and robot is a new thing. It was very exciting preparing it and I was more than happy today for the opening event to see the museum full during the whole time with crowds waiting to try the interactive exhibits we prepared. I am feeling proud and happy to have been able to setup this exhibition with my colleagues. And even more when A. came to visit it. Thanks!

Oh! By the way, last night I didn’t cook. It is not often, but once in a while, we order pizza. .. oops…

Rainy season!

Just as planned, this week is pretty busy, I have many duties overlapping, committees I am in charge of, official events to attend and adding up to my lectures, students supervision and research projects and writing. The exhibition preparation is taking most of my (rather short) remaining available time.

So this week no tennis at lunch break, very little cooking, no house chores (thanks A.), up early in the morning and until fairly late, and very little posts because I used all my commuting time to work. At last, today I have decided to take a bit of time for TPS and to update you with some very simple and quick recipes that have saved our dinners this week. Nothing fancy at all but still fresh and tasty. Though, I was hoping the exhibition will be all set and ready by the beginning of the week and we will only have to work details by now, I also knew that working with other people is never that simple, except with some with whom I’m totally in synch, and those I am working with this time hardly meet deadlines, or rather like to work in last minute rush. Everyone finds its way to doing things in the end, last minute rush is definitely not mine, so I had to let go a real lot of things. Learning to let go was an interesting experience though. Back to cooking… so, knowing that my schedule will definitely be affected by last minute changed, last weekend in Ohara I packed on long lasting fresh veggies that will be easy to combine together and rapidly cooked: asparagus, peeled horse beans, red bell pepper, tomatoes, broad beans, celery… and this week I prepared them one way or another, Japanese, Italian, whatever… when I don’t have much time to cook we usually eat vegan adding tofu, cucumber with miso while dinner gets ready… My top favorite from this week are: the orecchiette with tofu asparagus and horse beans; broad beans, asparagus and tomatoes with soya sauce and Japanese koshihikari rice; celery, tomatoes and black pepper risotto. All of these recipes  require very little preparation time (the longest is peeling the broad beans after blanching them) and no specific caring while cooking, perfect to catch up with A. or work a little longer. 

Happy rainy season!!!

D-9 before the opening!

As many of you may know, I’m a roboticist, cooking is just a hobby. I am the head of 20 people research lab in a national university in Tokyo. Just google me to check!! My days are pretty full with my job but I can’t help doing more than my shre and taking opportunities to do new things, to learn new things. This time, as I mentioned before, I am leading the preparation of an exhibition at our science museum where some colleagues and me will exhibit some of our research work. This keeps me even more busy: preparing the website, thinking about the layout, the exhibits… I’m hoping to make something where people entertain themselves while they learn about human and robots. And the opening is only in 9 days, or almost 8 now, and there is so much left to do!!! Obviously my cooking time has decreased significantly and it is rather simple comfy food that I prepare. I use a lot of legumes these days, because they are versatile, nourishing and easy to accommodate with vegetables. I prepared a simple warm soup with peas, lentils and barley, added a big tomato, a carrot, and finished with some fava beans. Topped with or without cheese. Dimply delicious, and ready to continue working!!!

Golden week

So, here we are, right in the middle of the golden week. All our friends have left and we’re planning to spend a few days doing some DIY and gardening. Having friends at home I spent a lot of time in the kitchen to prepare them my classics: breakfast with freshly baked bread, creamy scrambled eggs, local products: ham, fresh fruits… For lunch, it is more about vegetables and salads, and for dinner, since evenings are still chilly, cocotte cooked Isumi pork filet with new potatoes and angelica. And the little bonus for dessert: fruits tarts with coconut custard. All my recipes are meant to take the best of the local ingredients with simple preparations.

So here are my recipes:

Cocotte pork filet

– 1 pork filet, the size depends on the number of persons you are cooking for

– 2 large new potatoes/person

– a bouquet of fresh angelica (ashitaba)

– olive oil

– salt and pepper

Cover the bottom of your cocotte with 1mm of olive oil. Set the pork filet and start cooking at low heat. Brush the new potatoes undr water to remove soil and dust and the thickest skin. Cut them in 4, add them in the cocotte. Cook under cover for 25min, stir regularly. Wash the ashitaba, cut the hardest part. Add to the cocotte with salt and pepper, and continue cooking until the bottom is all golden, and stir a few times while cooking at high heat. Finish with a bit of olive oil to melt all the extracts. At the moment of serving cut roughly the ashitaba with scissors.

Coconut custard fruits tart 

The recipe is basically the same as here except that I  added some fresh coconut in the custard, and added mangoes to the strawberries. The result was 12 superb little tarts! I now often do individual fruits tarts to avoid having to cut them and damaging there beautiful balance and aspect. I also find it easier to keep them that way.

Golden week(end)

The golden week in Japan is this blessed moment in spring when there are several bank holidays and when usually the weather is perfectly warm but not hot and the nature is full of dpring greens, flowers and days are getting longer with a beautiful light. This is a time when we usually have msny friends coming to our country house and I can cook a lot of different things for them. This weekend was the beginning of the golden week. Ot was just a normal weekend for us since we are working Mondayand  Tuesday, but it was a wonderful lively weekend with friends.

For our friends visiting on Sunday I prepared a mix of Japanese food and French food with all the seasonal and local ingredients. I prepared my classic bamboo shoot and capers salad, some spelt bulgur salad, some olive fougasse with olives my mother has made, and a big cocotte of new onion with zucchini and rosemary. The new onions are so sweet and soft that I cook them as whole, with just olive oil, salt and pepper, then later I had the zucchini which required much less cooking. For the meat eaters, some porc slices are nice to add. And after a long lunch in the garden, what best than going to the empty beach at sunset watch some surfers and play with our friends dog?

I wish you an excellent week!

Double luck!

I was thinking that these days I don’t cook much and in particular I haven’t created new recipes as often as I usually do. Indeed, I am busy with work, handling a lot of things at the same time, and the beginning of the new term at the university, with new students in the lab, teaching and budgeting is always a period with a lot of pressure. On top of which, because more is better, I have taken the lead for an exhibition at the science museum of the university and the opening is in just one month, so there is a lot to do and prepare. Of course I have an amazing group, with great people that are always ready to challenge themselves. But in the end of the day I have little energy left to think about creating a new recipe, as I also concentrate on this recipe/cooking contest entry. So last night when I stepped in the kitchen at 21:00 past the first great news was a package from Poland from our friend who knows how much I love the Polish traditional potteries which I find suits very well Japanese food, and every once in a while sends us one. I now have a pretty collection!!!

Then I started to cook some vegetables sautéed for our dinner, and I was thinking that it was really not enough as a meal and A. would complain I don’t feed him enough!!! 😉 And just at this perfect moment (timing couldn’t be better), the doorbell rang and after a short time A. came back to the kitchen with a warm dish of bamboos shoot rice prepared by our neighbor who has been to the country to pick bamboo shoots. Isn’t that lovely! And here the perfect dinner was ready! Thanks a lot I. and Mrs W.!!!!!

My collection of Polish crafted potteries
My collection of Polish crafted potteries

Parisian addresses for travelers

Our hotel life in Paris is continuing with a few nice discoveries and rediscoveries that I really want to share for those away from home in Paris. First of all the hotel. Finding a good hotel in Paris with all the services and the quietness is nit an easy task.

Hotel:

After trying many many hotels in many different places, left bank, right bank, I think we’ve finally found our home in Paris: La Reserve. I wanted to stay at the Mandarin oriental again, because I liked the swimming pool and the large rooms, but A. didn’t like it that much (sloppy room service and poor attitude of the security staff and bellmen at the door) so he convinced me to try La Reserve, and there has been no disappointment from start to end. The pool is nice, little used, the hotel is sizable and the staff super nice, the rooms are very quiet and well furnished. The service is very personalized and all is about smiles and freshness. The location is also great (nearby many galleries and in the midst of green) and the little things like the courtesy chauffeur are just nice surprises. 

Restaurants: 

Flora Danica, is a real classic Danish restaurant in the Maison du Danemark on the Champs Élysées, that has been there forever in Paris. We used to go when we lived in Paris. It has changed many times but the quality of the food is steady and the dishes are simple and delicious. The nordic Scandinave interior is beautiful and cosy. The dishes, mainly salmon and mackerel are really nice. Ingredients come first, no fancy arrangements.

Haï Kaï is a restaurant in the 10eme by the Canal Saint Martin. A hipster area of Paris. The place interiror is very simple and the dishes really great. The discovery menu is mking some ambitious and provocative combinations, the a la carte menu is more considerate and has some beautiful dishes like the merlan au beurre or the Parisian gaspacho.  A nice new address in Paris with a cheffe (woman chef!).

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