Cherries

When I was a child, every year for mother day, which in France is at the end of May, we would go to my grandparents country house in Le Castelet to have a family lunch. From those lunches I remember catching tadpoles in the small stream that was running down the garden and picking cherries in the giant cherry trees near that stream. The trees were so old and big that we could spend the whole day in the trees picking and eating cherries, there would still be so many left. For me, cherries are great eaten from the tree, big, ripe and juicy Burlat or from the market stand. I love to keep one seed in my mouth for hours and work it like the sea would work a pebble. Since we’ve been in Japan it’s been quite hard to find cherries, and cherries by kilos like you see them in the south of France or in Italy… the only cherries you can find are from the US, or the local ones are from Yamagata and are sold by the handful, not more. They have different varieties of cherries from dark burgundy to almost white, large or small. I still love them large and almost black! I don’t buy cherry often but when I do I usually prepare them in clafoutis, and when I don’t have enough for one clafoutis I mix them with other seasonal fruits.

I find that clafoutis are the perfect option for breakfast on a rush as they combine both fruits, carbs and protein, and they are easy to eat when not yet really awake when we wake up early. They are also easy to eat on the go because there easy to wrap. Perfect for breakfast on the beach after a morning swim or a bodyboarding session.

I wish you a great week and love to hear how you like your cherries!

Summer!

This week P. Got married, and it was the first weekend of real summer feeling. Very hot weather, blue skies, beautiful ocean swims, hydrangeas blooming everywhere and rice growing fast. The farmers market was full with summer fruits: plums, cherries, peaches, blueberries, melons, watermelons…  so I decided to prepare a light a simple fruit tart with a simple crust based (flour, egg, brown sugar and a bit of butter) and to juste add the fruits (one peach, a handfull of cherries and two of blueberries) on top and bake everything for 20-30min. The simplicity of the preparation reveals perfecty the taste and sweetness of the fruits and the crust, rather dry, pumps the sweet juice of the peaches, while the berries and the cherries pop in the mouth!

Have a beautiful week ahead! 

Clafoutis

Yes! The season for clafoutis is coming again! I love summer and summer fruits simple recipes like clafoutis, tarts and simply poached fruits with herbs or spices. The clafoutis recipe is really simple: 4 ingredients only: flour-eggs-milk-sugar, but you can easily make some variations by changing the balance between the ingredients, or using vegetal milk rather than cow milk. Recently I’ve been using quite a lot of a new organic non-modified soya milk and again I used it this time. I wanted also a rather thick consistency so I used more flour than usual and fewer eggs (only 3). And since cherries are really sweet, and I had plenty, and I prepared the clafoutis for breakfast I used very little untreated natural sugar. Nothing new here, just that the season has arrived again and many clafoutis will be made this summer too I guess!!!

Cherry clafoutis 🍒

We unusually spent the weekend in Tokyo because A. promised his shamisen group to play with them at a volunteer concert in an old folks day care. And I had to go and sing too!!! I like these concerts because giving a bit of our time for these people, it’s always a nice. Though it can be a really depressing moment (I really don’t want to grow old). And this weekend was also the first giving a real taste of summer. I’ve craved for outdoor swimming but outdoor pools will only open in June… I’ve craved for summer fruits and summer recipes. So for once I bought some non-local products: American cherries and prepared a traditional cherry clafoutis for our breakfast. Clafoutis can never go wrong and are always perfect for breakfast with tones of fresh juicy fruits and a simple base of flour-sugar-egg-milk. I use brown sugar only and soy milk, but one can use whatever is available. Now the question of pitting the fruits arises and of Prunellia always pit them, I never pit the cherries. When pitted they have a tendency to shrink and melt in the dough and dry, while not pitted they just bake in their own juice under the skin, ready to deliver it when in the mouth. How do you like yours?

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