Toronto

Until today I couldn’t really say “I’ve been in Toronto”. When I was a teenager I spent a few hours there on a trip to Niagara with my American family, I remembered the CN tower and around but that was all. So when D. and C. proposed to spend the weekend in Toronto while I was visiting Waterloo for work, I thought it was a great opportunity. A. could join for the weekend from Florence and we would enjoy what the city has to offer in the end of winter: good food, nice walks, theater shows…

We walked all over the city, from the Old Toronto to the East Bayfront, and the Distillery district, through China town to Kensington market and back to the Waterfront… stopping for a bite, a show, or design stores (on King street)…

Here are a few recommendations for enjoying you stay in Toronto.

– stay: I would recommend the Old Toronto where you can find all the big 5 stars hotels. It’s convenient to walk everywhere or so. We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton. Nothing exceptional about it but great efficient service.

– coffee/breakfast: Hot Black Coffee on Queens street is a nice tiny coffee shop open early in the morning. Nice Chai latte, and a wide selection of items for breakfast: muffins, toasts…

– lunch: El Catrin is a Mexican restaurant in the distillery district, their vegetarian tacos were amazing, inventive and refreshing.

– dinner: Actinolite is THE place to eat. A restaurant with a chef that uses exclusively local and oc course seasonal products and makes an inventive, perfectly balanced menu, with the right textures and flavors, and the perfect size. Plating was also great. There is no Michelin guide of Toronto but if there was, it would surely be in with 2 stars at least.

Picture from Actinolite website

March 19, 2018

Italia!

What was supposed to be a nice and peaceful trip to Italy and France started with quite a bit of a commotion with a few centimeters of snow in Paris… and I landed in Paris at 4:00AM only to learn a few hours later that the flights to Florence I was successively checked-in were all cancelled and I decided to fly to Roma instead and take the train and I arrived in Florence 12h later than expected… My long expected visit to the San Lorenzo market, to buy fresh fruits, vegetables, pasta, flowers and cheese was postponed… but not for long! As soon as I came back from work in Pisa on Thursday I went grocery shopping and I could enjoy cooking again the seasonal vegetables that we don’t have in Japan: chards, corn salad… Sometimes with pasta, sometimes with gnocchi, always with fresh cheese. Here is one of my favorite recipe with corn salad, a fresh simple recipe but really tasty (picture below). I spare you the chard recipes because they were really too simple and the pictures talk for themselves.

Corn salad one plate:

– 100g of corn salad

– 2 branches of celery

– 6 green asparagus

– a handful of pine nuts

– freshly grated Parmigiano

– olive oil, salt and pepper

Wah the vegetables, blanche the asparagus. Chop the celery in dice, chop the asparagus. Mix them together and add the pine nuts. Stir. In the plates, start with corn salad, top with the mixed celery-asparagus-pine nuts, add olive oil, salt and pepper and finish with grated Parmigiano. Enjoy!

Have a great week ahead!

February 11, 2018

Le petit nice

After the buzz of a family Christmas celebration, the noise and the fuss, it is now quiet, even peaceful and time to celebrate my birthday. My parents booked a table at le Petit Nice, a three Michelin star restaurant in Marseille that I like very much for the excellent Mediterranean cuisine and the beautiful view from the dining room. It’s been a really long time I haven’t been there, probably at that time it was not Gerald Passedat but his father Jean-Paul, so I was glad to go again, and with the grey and cold day, it was even more adequate. Since I came last time the place has been nicely refurbished, with classic modern flair, and Jean-Paul Passedat welcoming you at the entrance is just great! As expected the menu (adapted for my taste) was perfect and two dishes really surprised me and enchanted me taste-wise more than the others. The first one was the turbot with fennel. A magic fish preparation with several fennel versions: seeds, roots, juice etc… The second dish that was really unique was the dessert with cacao, persimmon and black olives. The mise en bouche was just strickingly beautiful, like a piece of Mediterranean sea in the plate. If you are in Marseille and want a great culinary experience, do not miss the place!

And to continue the pleasure of the experience the book is really great! With some recipes to try very soon!

Le petit nice

17 rue des Braves, 13007 Marseille

website not fully operational and up to date (the dining room is now much nicer)

December 29, 2017

Life in Florence

So, it’s been four days we’ve been in Florence, except for Sunday that we spent walking around the city as described here, it’s been a rather studious time. A. leaves early in the morning while it’s all dark and comes back late at night, and this gives me more than plenty of time to work, write and spend a little hour or two outside walking around the city in the cold and shopping for lunches and dinners.

I’ve now explored both the San’Ambroggio market and the San Lorenzo market, got to see everything twice or thrice to decide what to buy choosing between all the delicious cheeses, fresh pasta and all the fruits and vegetables that are alien to Japan. I must say that I passed on fish, not being fully satisfied with the stands and on meat as there was too many options and I am not good with meat too much… but I guess that I will have to try some for A.. For the moment I’m sticking to speck and San Daniele and it’s been perfect. I also got my tea from La Via del Te as recommended by Giula from the beautiful Juls’ kitchen. And really I am more than happy with my little kitchen and the simple cooking I can do!

So far the things I have really been enjoying are the greens: I packed on lamb’s lettuce, rucola, zucchini, fennel and artichokes and I have been using them in many various preparation. My best being this delicious dish of pasta with olive oil roasted fennels and zucchini and topped with rucola. It is so simple and so fresh, and so easy to make, that here is my recipe:

Pasta with zucchini, fennel and rucola (for 2)

– 125g of pasta

– 1 zucchini

– 1/2 fennel

-1 handful of rucola

– olive oil, salt and pepper

– additionally some fresh parmigiano or some other cheese

Boil the water for the pasta and the pasta. In the mean time, wash and cut the fennel and the zucchini, and in an olive oil greased frypan cook them, but not overcook them! Add the drained pasta, salt, pepper, and olive oil, top with rucola and stir, serve immediately. Add cheese if you like!

And have a great Wednesday!

December 20, 2017

Firenze!

Good morning from Florence! So here we are, finally in Italy, this time it’s not Sicily but Tuscany, and it’s not for the Christmas holidays with the family but a business trip. Nonetheless it’s the Christmas season and it’s Italy with panettone and Christmas songs everywhere and the many delicious food to eat! In order for me to have enough space to work and to cook A. has rented us an apartment where I have a small kitchen to play with, and just 12h after landing in Florence I was already happily cooking lunch for us!

What was I doing during 12h? Well I slept 6, then woke up at 6AM in the dark… right… it’s Europe, it’s winter and it’s dark until 7:00 or 8:00…
Waking up early is still a great thing, because while it’s still all sleepy and empty and the sun is rising slowly we first enjoyed walking around the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio before it’s getting impossible to enjoy. And then only we went for some important shopping: food! We first went just around our apartment to Eataly (but honestly when you’re in Italy you don’t need Eataly, there’s so much more to explore!) and at the San Lorenzo market, where they have a food court on the second floor of the mercato centrale where you can buy, take away or eat there plenty of Italian food: pizza, fresh pasta, curd meat, Fiorentina beef, fish… no city is escaping the hipster food fashion with all the good and the bad… Anyway… I got there and around some essentials: olive oil, parmigiano, panettone, honey, tangerines, and for the lunch: fresh vegetarian ravioli with spinach and ricotta and some speck. Everything for a day outside walking all over the city in the cold, because it is quite cold indeed in the narrow and shaded streets of the city.

all what's needed to start with! — all what’s needed to start with!

It is impressive how quickly the city gets crowded on Sunday with groups first and then just crowd and past 11:00 am it gets really crazy, so to avoid most of the crowds we then headed for the Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte, from which the view is worth the small additional climb from piazzale Michelangelo! It’s so quiet and green. And I recommend the funny bucolic and almost rural walk down through the via dell’Erta Canina among the olive trees and the cypress trees. And well that’s how my first day ever in Florence went… beautifully and deliciously! And there five more to come!

December 18, 2017

Long weekend

After a series of very rainy weekends, so many that I don’t even count them anymore, a perfect autumn weekend was more than welcome, and even better: it was a long weekend. We spent sometime in Tokyo and most of the time in Ohara with D. and C.. The planning was simple: outdoor activities and delicious healthy local food. And it was easy with such a weather, the garden providing persimmons and herbs, and the farmers market full of autumn vegetables. So basically ocean swimming and hikes, drives and cooking together was our agenda. Among the many things we cooked were black wheat bread, whole wheat fougasse, muesli pancakes, hot pot veggies with snapper for girls and pork filet for guys, and a thin crust mushrooms quiche, vegan and gluten free. Now it’s time to get back to work, with a busy week ahead! Have a beautiful one!

From all we cookedI loved the quiche quite a lot so here is the recipe.

Mushrooms quiche:

– 1.5 cup buckwheat flour

– 1.5 cup rice flour

– 4tbs olive oil

– about 1/2 cup water

– plenty of different types of mushrooms of your choice (enough to generously cover your pie dish

– rosemary

– salt and pepper

Mix the buckwheat flour and rice flour, add the olive oil and stir. Add the water little by little while continuing stirring. Stop addind water when the dough is crumbly dry. Since there is no gluten in both flour it is better to keep the dough drier. Knead briefly to obtain a silky dough.

Roll it thinly and set in a pie dish. Wash and cut thinely the different mushrooms. Toss them in the pie crust, add a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary branches. Bake at 180deg in the oven for 30min.

November 6, 2017

Kurashiki – 倉敷

This year so far, we haven’t traveled much abroad, rather we traveled to many places in Japan that were on my bucket list: we went to the north part of Okinawa, to Hakuba in the summer, to Takayama, to the Kiso valley etc… one other place on the list was Kurashiki. So when our visitors from France asked where we could go together, I opted for that destination. October is a perfect time to travel in Japan, the weather is usually nice, warm but not as hot as in the summer, and there is a beautiful light.

Because I didn’t have much time with moving and work, I didn’t really prepare our trip in detail, except for train tickets and hotel booking. I prepared it in the train on the way, and I think I did some pretty good job to entertain us 48h. The historical old town of Kurashiki, very well preserved with no electric poles like in Tsumago, with its canal, its weeping willows, and its tiled black and white cellars, is beautiful but actually it is very small. We hesitated visiting the Ohara museum, the first museum of western art in Japan, but then decided that there was better things to see than some Rodin sculptures or some Monet paintings. Instead we preferred the Ohashi house, the Ohara house, and the folk craft museum. Once we also had checked in the nicest cafes and the craft shops, and tried some craft workshop (A. and I finally made our first pottery on a potter’s wheel!!), we were surprised that there is actually more than that to visit… if you have a car… which is actually very easy to find! And much less crowded!!! In particular, the Tamashima area has a few interesting places to visit: Yunoki house, Entsuji temple and Tashima Haguro shrine. One thing also that was worth the drive, is the view from the top of the Washuzan at sunset. The view point is perfect to see the Seto Ohashi and the various small islands in the Seto Inland sea.

At work on the potter's wheel — At work on the potter’s wheel

October 11, 2017

Hadaka matsuri – はだか祭り

Some time ago I wrote about Ohara main event: Hadaka matsuri, when dozens of mikoshi enter the sea and it’s a very festive and lively event on the beach. Actually, the event lasts two days, the mikoshi travel around and enter the sea on the first day, and on the second day they parade in the city and they all gather at dusk on the elementary school ground for a great final parade, where they run and throw the mikoshi up in the air. The all parade is lit up with traditional paper lanterns and candles. It’s a very beautiful moment, with each mikoshi team wearing different colors. This year I found that there were really a lot of girls in the teams and their white closes and colorful towels and haramaki were very beautiful in simplicity. I recommend anyone in the area to come to that beautiful matsuri for the two days to enjoy the full event!

September 25, 2017

Where is “home”?

It’s a bit of a weird week, with travel, changes, so I’m getting a bit lost!

We went to Shanghai for two days, where A. was working, abd I took this opportunity as a writing retreat when I was not disturbed abd could focus on my work. It was very productive, the weather very helpful to forced me inside with almost constant pouring rain. Just 30min of swimming in the morning and a rapid tour of the food corner of the nearby department store where it was funny to see so many Japanese products as luxury ones! We came back to Tokyo last night, this morning we received the keys of our new apartment and we are moving tomorrow within Tokyo and Sunday to Ohara. I also have quite some work to do at the lab with the students preparing some key presentations for their graduation. But, nothing’s better than a home cooked meal to get plenty of good energy and I prepared some very simple Japanese things: multigrain mixed with rice, eggplant and miso, scrambled eggs, and jumbo umeboshi. A good reason to take a little break!

staple food of grains and beans at Shanghai department store's food corner — staple food of grains and beans at Shanghai department store’s food corner

September 22, 2017