First bread of the year

When we left Japan in December it was still the end of autumn, in our garden the Japanese mapple trees were all red, the gingko had just lost all its leaves, the camelias were starting to bloom. 15 days later, the mapple leaves have all fallen, at first sight only the camelias haven’t changed, but with a closer look, the daffodils are blooming, the magnolias  and the plum trees are full of buds already big, and the garden is metamorphosing slowly towards spring. From now on it’s going to be the coldest days, but the garden needs a lot of attention to get ready for spring: tree treaming, weed removing, cutting, grooming, planting… So we spend a lot of time outside in the cold, and there’s nothing better to start such days with a warm energizing rustic bread for breakfast. My recipe is simple: 50g of rye flour, 200g of white flour, 170g of water, 14g of sordough, 4g of natural dry yeast, 6g of salt. 20min cooking at 230deg, plus 5min in the oven cooling down. Perfect with jam, honey, butter or whatever pleases you!!!

Mapple butter

Beautiful Saturday morning, blue sky, big Mount Fuji covered in snow, it could have been a perfect day if only I were not obliged to spend the best of the day stuck inside doing my duty as department secretary. One beautiful day lost is nothing you can make up for. ..

At least to cheer me this morning I baked us pancake to eat with the amazing Canadian mapple butter our friends from Canada, now visiting Japan, brang us. Mapple butter is made with 100% of mapple syrup and has the creamy consistence of honey. I find it’s the perfect spread for breakfast with wholewheat breads or fluffy pancakes. This mirning I made simple vanilla pancakes to go with. Deliciously simple. Thanks Dana & Chris!

Kidney beans and cod

Monday is workout day! To start the week in shape and full of energy, on Monday evening, before dinner, I practise 1h of Pilates. Once I am done, it’s way time to think about dinner, and if we want to eat before 22:30, it’d rather be quick to prepare. One plates are usually what I go for, but tonight I was more in the mood for a warming dish. I had this beautiful piece of cod from Hokkaido, so I prepared a very simple kidney beans raggu.

In a heated pan I added olive oil, a big ripe tomato diced, 2 little laurel leaves, salt and pepper, once the tomato was soft enough I added the cod cut in big chucks, pepper again, and cooked under cover for 3-5min at medium heat. I rarely use canned food but I must admit that when in a hurry canned beans are really handy, so I almost always have a can of chick peas, a can of red beans and a can of kidney beans, these cans are also my emergency food in case of natural disaster, i.e. earthquake because in 2011 when the big earthquake stroked we didn’t have any ready-to-eat food (neither anything to eat because I was shopping day to day) in case it would be necessary, so I’ve learned my lessons. So back to our dinner recipe, I drained the kidney beans and rinced them, then in a heated pan with olive oil I cooked them quickly. I added two or three spoons of the water from the tomato. Then I served. On the side I prepared sautéed leek and shiitake.

Midnight dinner

There are days like that… When from morning to evening I have not even a minute break (literally), I swallow my lunch in one bite between two meetings and I finish the day my head spinning with things I still have to do and I may forget… So when finally home we take off to the country I’m still completely hyper!

There’s nothing better then once arrived to ho for a midnight stroll in the garden, pick some fresh basil and prepare for a peaceful (at last) yet late dinner with energizing gnocchi and fresh veggies (tomato, broccoli), basil and a delicious olive oil. Simple but really efficient!

Have a nice week end! 

Plain and simple

Well well well… I was hoping that this week would be slightly less busy than the previous but, we’re Friday and it’s not going to happen. Running from one meeting to an other, from a lecture to an other, to solving problems in the lab, and revising papers, preparing my next talk coming much too fast, I hardly managed to squeeze in time to study Japanese and to practice kyudo but that’s all I could do. So food-wise we’ve been going for super plain and simple food: veggies, pasta, rice and beans. It’s also getting colder and a lot of people seem to have caught colds, so we’re packing on fresh fruits: tangerine, apple…

Not to say that I can’t wait to be tonight for two reasons: 1st because I’m supposed to receive a present, oh oh oh!; 2d because we should spend the week end in Ohara and I’ll have plenty of time to cook and paint (and see if Pablo is still there!)

 A bowl of plain Japanese rice with soya beans and sesame
A bowl of plain Japanese rice with soya beans and sesame

Adopt me!

Or how to be or not to be trapped by a stray cat with a lovely fur and a cute face… Indeed, it’s been a few weeks this cat has been around our house (basically since we came back from France) but I thought it my have been some of our neighbors cat so I didn’t give her anything and anyway couldn’t approach her. But then when 3 weeks ago we learn from our old neighbor that it is indeed a stray cat I thought she might be hungry so I started to feed her with katsuobushi and she seemed to like it very much, spent most of her time with us but still was innaprochable, yet we named Pablo. Last week-end we made a move and decided to build her a little place since it’s getting colder at night, she started to answer her name or it seemed and didn’t leave the premises of the house, even more, she’s been staying literally with us while we were gardening, she tried many times to get in the house and succeeded twice, and she broke my heart when we left, since she accompanied us to the car, a place she never go with us usually. Now, this week end I’m working and we are staying in Tokyo, and I wonder if she’s waiting for us. I’m not sure we want to adopt a cat but this one is definitely trying her luck with us, and already adopted us.

Unpredictability

Well, well, well, Friday evening after an other long day at work and a busy week, I was really happy to get back home, finish packing for the week-end and go and pick-up the car downstairs to leave.

It was without counting on a little unexpected event: damned new car with tones of high tech sensors and the ones measuring tire pressure… OK, so let’s put some air in the damn tire, drive a bit, decide that it’s not a good idea to drive to the country in the middle of a rainy night with a defective tire, park the car back and go back home with the luggage and just a bit upset: it’s rainy, and I can sleep one more night on my dream pillows!!!

Saturday morning we went to had our tire check: flat tire due to a vis!!! And while it got repaired we walked in a nearby open house village, you know these places where they have models home you can visit. Found a nice one and decided to visit, and got plenty of ideas and hints for the reform of our bathroom in Ohara, a thing that we’ve had in mind for a few years already!!! First nice discovery of the day!

With our repaired tire and ready to drive car we finally head to the country but we decide on our way to stop at Ichihara lakeside museum to try their pizzeria with view on the lake. They serve homemade pizze prepared with local products, and really enjoyed it: fresh, simple, delicious, and local! Perfect, second nice discovery of the day!

We then decided to have fun and drive the small roads of inner Chiba: Naka Bosso (中房総) and took the long way to Ohara. We discovered the beautiful Yoro valley, its old fashioned onsen and a very mountain like landscape and atmosphere, extremely different than the one of the Pacific coast, though it’s only 30km away!  A recommendation to enjoy soon the autumn colors and a good fun drive! Third discovery!

And we finally arrived home at tea-time, for which I quickly baked an apple tart with a thin sable dough and one apple thinly sliced on top, nothing else. This unpredictable flat tire just led us into a beautiful day!

Summer in Japan

 Ichinomiya hanabi taikai
Ichinomiya hanabi taikai

Tokyo summer is hot and often humid but it’s an amazing season and it’s usually short (too short), with the peak of summer starting from the second half of July until usually the first typhoon of August. During the summer there are two things really important: summer festivals (夏祭り-natsu matsuri) and fireworks (花火大会-hanabi taikai). Recently we haven’t beeb to often to summer festivals, they’re often too early during weekdays (they usually start at dusk and last only one or two hours), too crowded on weekends.  For fireworks, well, it’s a bit the same actually. There are a lot of huge fireworks all around Japan, and we’ve seen plenty. In Tokyo: Arakawa hanabi, Sumidagawa hanabi, Edogawa hanabi, Tokyowan hanabi… are probably the most famous. We are lucky enough to live by the Sumida river and have an ideal view on Sumidagawa hanabi taikai so usually we would watch it from home. But this year we had the chance to watch also seaside hanabi taikai: the one from Ichinomiya, and the small one from our village Ohara. Big hanabi drain a real lot of crowd and require a real organization if you want to attend and see them properly, you need to secure a place to park your car/bike/bicycle, to secure a spot with a good view, and a return route. Taking the train is usually not an option, most stations around are either closed or just so crowded that it’s almost insane. How many times did we get caught in traffic, in crowd flows of drunken people, for me it spoils the whole event… Smaller hanabi taikai in the countryside are shorter, less impressive, more confidential but much easier for logistics and with a local family atmosphere that beat largely the the huge ones. Now, I definitely like that one better. The one in Ohara for example lasted only 30min, but we could easily access to the beach and find a nice and quiet spot to enjoy it. There are many all around Japan, I can only but recommend you to try!

And if you don’t have the chance to see a big one at least you can buy fireworks in any konbini and have your own little firework at home or on the beach) and that is a lot of fun!!! 

 Playing with fireworks in the garden
Playing with fireworks in the garden

Power lunch

My husband and I usually play tennis together every Saturday morning for aboug 2h, and sometimes the stakes are really high: we play for the color of our new car, its model, the options,  and sometimes even what we’ll have for lunch. That’s how my husband win his piece of meat ;). After our game we usually head to the beach for a refreshing swim, so once we’re back home we’re literally starving so I need to fix something quick and nourishing. Japanese rice is always a good option because it can be cooked unsupervised and gives me enough time to drop by the shower! Cucumbers, tomatoes and all other vegetables that can be eaten raw, Japanese pickles, scrambled eggs… are also very handy. Finally, leftover and tofu make our lunch look like something awesome.

This time it’s a mixture of all that. Plain white rice topped with some sesame seeds, sesame-tofu from Mount Koya, miso green beans, and raw cucumber.

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