Little getaway: Bise

In the end of winter when spring is coming but too slowly, there is nothing such as a little getaway to the southern islands for a bit of real spring, with temperatures above 20 degrees and the ocean around 22 degrees. And with my parents visiting we all took off to Okinawa main island for the weekend. It’s only 2h30 flight away from Tokyo, but it’s a totally different world! This time we headed to Nago and enjoyed the sea, the nature, the culture of the Ryukyu islands. Very typical architecture, pristine blue water, lush green of the tropical forest… Swimming, marine sports, hiking are probably the main activities. The biggest surprise of our trip was probably Bise. A beautiful small village by the sea with alleys of trees that create a magic atmosphere, and where for some reason we’ve not been before. We stayed in a house just by the sea and surrounded by these beautiful trees. We also enjoyed some local food of course, the delicious tofu from Okinawa, with a different mode of preparation than tofu from the mainland (they keep it warm in the supermarket instead of having it in a fridge!); the umi budo; the gusuku seaweed; the pork long cooked and all melty; the natural black sugar; the shikwasa and the tankan citrus fruits to count only a few. The best to visit the island is to rent a car, it’s very easy to drive around. To stay in Bise try Ocean Blue or Chanya for a unique beach side experience. The huge marine park near Bise has a beautiful exhibition about the Pacific islands culture that I warmly recommend.

Other things to do in Okinawa main island: Shuri-jo and a walk in the narrow streets around; Nakamura house; Gyokusendo caves; beach, beach, beach

March 6, 2017

Hummingbirg @Hakuba

As I was writing two years ago, when you live in Tokyo, Hakuba is the ultimate place for winter sports. The snow condition is amazing, they have wonderful tracks of all levels both for skiers and snowboarders in Happo-one, some back country options, even in Iwatake a cross country course (though it’s not easy to find equipment) and some snow shoeing options now. My favorite hotel is still La neige. But today I want to focus on my favorite restaurant there: the “Hummingbird”. Every time we go to Hakuba we go there and it is always perfect. The chef: Hidefumi Hasui, after working in the largest Japanese restaurant in New York during the 70’s and 80’s and working as graphic designer, he now cooks alone in his kitchen very delicious simple, home style cuisine with simple local fresh products. Exactly the kind of cuisine you want to eat after a day outdoor in the cold and the little variety of food in ski resort cafeterias (Japanese typical ski food being udon and curry rice, and now with the foreign crowd from Australia they’ve added pizza, French fries and fried chicken… so there’s a lot of room for improvement here!). His pickles are a must, as well as the grilled salmon and the zosui – 雑炊, something that is in between rice soup rice porridge and risotto, I also love his tofu salad with tones of herbs, salad and tomatoes. The restaurant is very tiny and only a dozen of people can have dinner there every night, served by the only waitress, so booking is mandatory. With his popularity increasing every year, during the winter pick season booking one week ahead or more is now timely. During the lowest season the restaurant is open only for reservations so again, call a few days before going. Whenever you go to Hakuba, go to the hummingbird absolutely, but give a call first!

Restaurant info: Hummingbird

〒399-9301 Nagano-ken, Kitaazumi-gun, Hakuba-mura, Hokujō

長野県北安曇郡白馬村和田野の森4715-1

tel: 026-172-7788

February 18, 2017

Treasures from Nagano & soba recipe

One of the thing I love in traveling is to find new products or locally produced natural products that are not easy to find otherwise. Shinshu – 信州, the region of Nagano, is quite well known for the production of apricots, apple and buckwheat. So after our weekend in Hakuba I could not come back without some of these local products, bought on the way between Nagano and Hakuba (that’s when it comes handy to rent a car!). Of course the season for apples and apricots is way past but I found some dried fruits, which are perfect for breakfast or snacks and will perfectly accompany my Sicilian almonds. I also found some natural honey and some wheat meal.

Soba (buckwheat noodles) are something I really love but finding good soba is not always easy, so I barely cook some. And I haven’t tried to make some yet. But in Nagano, it is quite easy to find hand made noodles. And since spring is in the air these days I cooked them in a very simple fresh and green manner.

Soba with tofu and spinach:

– 180g of dried buckwheat noodles

– 1 small bundle of fresh spinach

– 1 pack of baby spinach salad

– 1 block of thick fried tofu – 厚揚げ

– some broccoli sprouts or some pumpkin or sunflower seeds

– 1/4 of lemon juice

– 1tbs of soya sauce

In a large pan boil water. Wash the bundle of spinach and cut them in 2cm pieces. Add to the boiling water, add the noodles. Cook them until al dente or as you like them. Drain them.

While the noodles are boiling, cut the tofu and wash the baby spinach. Set the baby spinach in the plates. Heat the tofu in a fry pan for a few minutes at medium heat. Serve the noodles mixed with the spinach, add the lemon juice, the soya sauce, the tofu. Finish with the broccoli sprouts or the seeds.

And have a beautiful Friday!

February 16, 2017

My Japanese style vegan soup

Largely inspired by the quinoa soups (winter and autumn) I made, I wanted something more Japanese. So I cooked in a pan: one sweet potato, one large sato imo, a piece of kabocha and a leek in a bit of olive oil, and in an other pan I cooked a mix of seeds and beans together with brown rice, I cooked them as you would cook regular Japanese rice. I didn’t cook the veggies and the rice together to avoid over cooking the veggies, to keep their beautiful colors (black rice has a tendency to color a lot) and limit the stickiness of the rice and seeds. Just before serving I added a bit of boiling water to the rice mix to make it soupy, and I deglazed the veggies with a large table spoon of soy sauce. I served the rice mix, the vegetables and topped with golden sesame seeds. A rich and tasty soup for a winter evening.

January 11, 2017

御年賀 – o nenga

It is a tradition in Japan to exchange small presents at the beginning of the year (these mist be inexpensive presents of about 500yens), and these small presents are usually food. It is of a great variety and most department stores or food shop offer to prepare such items. They must be wrapped and have the proper 御年賀 paper on them. Only paper, no ribbon or other decoration, and eventually the name of the person offering it written (to make it easier to identify from whom it comes from and return the gift). Yesterday at the yearly shamisen’s concert we have exchanged many 御年賀 and it is always fun and nice to discover what we have received. Classic gifts are rice crackers, dry fish, taukudani (seaweed or small fishes cooked in soya sauce), sweets of all kind… I really love this custom, finding what to offer and opening all our presents and thinking about how to eat them. It’s a good occasion to discover products we don’t usually eat since I don’t usually buy prepared food, and then to learn how to cook them!!!

January 10, 2017

7 herbs – 七草

Every year in Japan, on January 7th it is a custom to eat 7 herbs rice porridge おかゆ. Since I am not a huge fan of rice porridge I develop a new recipe every year (other recipes). Last year I prepared a 7 herbs rice omelet. This year I prepared it with grilled cod. I cooked some plain white rice. I grilled some fresh Hokkaido cod cut in pieces, and the turnip, then I simply washed the herbs and chopped them roughly and add both the cod and the herbs to the rice. Simple, tasty and delicious! How do you eat your 7 herbs???

January 9, 2017

Souvenirs from Sicily

After one week in the south of Sicily trying local products and visiting historical sites, it was obvious I would not come back to Japan with empty hands. And with both Christmas and my birthday I was spoiled. Here is a bit of the Sicilian delights and gears I took back with me. Starting from the top right corner and going clockwise. First a new ravioli rack and the wooden roller, for large ravioli this time. I already tried it for the foie gras ravioli and for the ricotta ravioli, amazing! Very easy to use, larger ravioli seems much easier to make than smaller ones! Then a cooking book of Sicilian cuisine: “la cucine Siciliana”. My rusty Italian has gotten much better this year, so reading in Italian would not be a problem. Then some speck, some fresh ricotta salata. A little gnocchi rack to shape my gnocchi instead of using a fork! Sicilian flours for bread and pasta, polenta. A ceramic fruit plate from Caltagirone, I am totally in love with these ceramics, but I had a hard time finding some vintage ones. And in the background a new apron! So, very soon on Tokyo-Paris sisters some recipes using all these! And you, what do you bring back when you travel?

January 2, 2017

Lemon and ricotta tart

A. cooks once a year and it is for making my birthday cake. I like to have it with tea, because then it all about the cake rather than having it for dessert. Every year I choose the cake I would like to eat and he makes it the way I like it. He usually searches for recipes on the internet, and from this base adjusts it to the gears and ingredients we have, and to my taste. Since he has little experience he usually gets a bit of help or some advises from who is available around. This year, since we were in Sicily, country of citrus fruits, I chose a lemon tart with meringue. But I like my cakes not too sweet, not too buttery, not too creamy, so my mum and I helped him a bit. The result was amazing. So here is what he did for a 25cm tart: first pre-heat to 180deg ghe oven.

for the dough: a classic sablé dough with 200g of flour, 1 egg, 75g of butter. Mix all the ingredients and roll the dough to the size of your pie dish. Bake for 10min, the dough must not change color too much.

for the lemon filling: instead of preparing lemon curd we opted for something easier. The zest and the juice of 2 lemons is mixed with 2 egg yolk and 1 egg, 120g of brown sugar, and 4tbs of fresh ricotta. Mix all the ingredients to obtain a smooth creamy texture. Set in the dough. And cook in the oven at 180deg for 30min.

for the meringue: 2 egg white, 70g of icing sugar, a pinch of salt. Beat the egg whites and the salt until firm, continue beating and add the icing sugar slowly until all is smooth, shiny white and firm. Put the mix in an icing bag and decorate the tart as you like. Bake at 180deg for 10min. Check to be sire the meringue doesn’t burn.

We finished the decoration with some very thin slices of Sicilian sweet lemon grilles on the oven for a few minutes.

Best wishes!!!

December 31, 2016

Kabuki-za

A few years ago one of the main kabuki theater in Tokyo, the Kabuki-za in Ginza closed, was demolished and rebuilt. It reopened a year ago and since then we’ve been a few times to see performances. The theater completely renewed still has a very old style flair, the outside being almost untouched (expect for a tall tower on top of the old-style theater. The inside has been improved a lot but is still very traditional. The performances have also been dramatically improved, probably thanks to the renewal and the media covering of the Nakamura family, one of the kabuki actors group at Kabuki-za, with more attractive plays and even new compositions, more beautiful costumes and makeups that refer directly to Edo era period. This time we went for one of favorite plays: renjishi, or the lion dance. It is always a beautiful play, with a lot of shamisen playing and a very energetic dance, beautiful costumes. Since pictures are forbidden during performances I can only recommend you check by yourself. As usual there are 3 or 4 different plays in one session and all are really very interesting and different in style, acting and purpose. If you are not a Kabuki amateur you may be tempted to buy cheap tickets with poor view, if you do so be sure to bring some binoculars. Kabuki is not just about the music or the overall performance, it’s about facial expressions and costumes. Details matter, so to enjoy the performance you want to see them. That’s why I would actually invest in some better seating, even for a first time, the experience is all the more interesting. Finally, with all these renovations at Kabuki-za, they implemented a system of personal subtitles device. Contrarily to opera their was no subtitles in kabuki. These devices can berented fir 1.000yens, and are really worth. Much better than the audio system they do not impede with the enjoyment and they provide much more than the subtitles, they explain context, history if the play, characters and cultural features.

November 10, 2016