Tag: anniversary

Celebrating 18 years in Japan

18 years ago today we arrived in Tokyo with not much of a plan, I would be working at the University of Tokyo for 2 years, and A. would see how the job market is for him. Not speaking a word of Japanese, but with a few good friends in Tokyo, Japanese and French.

18 years later we are still there… still discovering, still learning.

I took this opportunity to browse the website we created when we moved in 2004. A journal where we shared our life day after day more or less, with pictures and movies (you will see two soon at the end of this post, but not today because my phone doesn’t want to save them…). We never called it a blog because we never used any such platform, rather, A. developed for us a custom site I could easily use to upload posts, images and recipes, because even back then I was sharing recipes!!!

The very first one I shared may have been nikku jagga, if not shiitake and chicken takikomi gohan. The pictures were bad… really… not that they are much better now 😉 but I have made some progresses and digital cameras and screens resolution have improved a lot. Those pictures back then were supposed to be seen in tiny size, we compressed them a lot to have enough space on our server!!! Judge by yourself below, if you can ever guess what is in the bowl.

My very first nikku-jagga in 2004

I’m a forward looking person, so I will spare you a review of these 18 years. They are what they are, and I am happy like that. But sure things are that those bowls are still in use, and today, incidentally I ironed with the cordless iron I bought when we moved in, with the same ironing table you will see in the movie…

No recipe today but I may dig one from my old website…

P.S.: the top picture is a 2004 picture of Shinobazu ike, of the now gone Novotel. A beautiful pagoda-like construction, now replaced by an ugly insipid common tower mansion.

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!!!

🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

Best wishes for 2016 + TPS 1st anniversary

On January 1st last year I started Tokyo-Paris sisters. The idea came for several reasons:

  1. the need to revive the cooking and life-style part of gentianeetantoine.com, a website I started when we moved to Japan in 2004 and where pretty much everyday during 7 years I shared our discovery of Japan and our trips in Japan and abroad. The cooking part was a public space mainly dedicated to our friends and family where I shared Japanese recipes I was trying and French recipes I was preparing.
  2. I needed a cooking diary to remember year after year what I am cooking and how because, as you may have noticed I cook without books and got inspiration on the moment, and forget as quickly as the idea came, and a picture is often better than notes.
  3. I wanted to do something with my sister.

Now that we’ve been on for a year I realized it’s a lot more fun than I expected and I really like this moment I spend, mostly in the train, writing something about what I’ve cooked, or reading what Prune has been writing, I also realized that most of the posts are about food which at first was not intentional, though I wanted a cooking diary, I thought about mixing it with many more things that I am excited about or Prune is excited about, but for some reason I restrained myself and Prune may have too. Anyway, TPS is going on and starting fresh in 2016 with many more recipes, some travel and hopefully home decor and life style. Everyday brings something different, let’s enjoy that!

Best wishes for 2016!! 

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