New rythm

Pfou… it’s not easy to find a mew rythm when days at work are 13h and one day you start early, the other you finish late… even less easy when A. has meetings until quite late… Cooking dinner past 22:30 when lunch is that far away and you’re starving requires food that can be prepared quite rapidly… but I still want to eat fresh, seasonal, local food. There are a few tricks to do that:

– trick No 1: stock on daikon radish, carrots and miso. It takes 2minutes to peel and cut daikon sticks (even faster than carrots!!) and 3minutes for a carrot or two. Dipped in miso they are the perfect snack!

– trick No 2: pack on food that can be prepared in hot simple pot and don’t need to much time to prepare (no peeling…): kabocha, sweet potatoes, carrots… in 10min they can be cooked and preparing them is simple: wash & cut!

– trick No 3: prepare your rice cooker in the morning and schedule cooking or cook rice in a thick pan on gaz directly (it reduces cooking time to a mere 20min)

And while you eat you veggies with miso and you smell the veggies roasting and the rice boiling you can open your mail, chat about your day and admire the result of your first experience of making pottery on a wheel!

November 9, 2017

La rue du supplice

When we moved to Tokyo in 2004, during the first few months every evening on my way back home I was taking one of the small residential street around Tokyo university, and every evening from one of the house in that street a delicious smell was tempting me, a smell that was the promise of a delicious Japanese dinner. It could be the smell of dashi, the smell of soya sauce, the smell of tempura, or the smell of sesame oil. At that time it was a smell that I really envied because we were unable to cook it at home, even just to find the ingredients was hard, cooking them was just impossible, and because we had no money to afford wasting food by trying silly recipes (an habit that I have kept actually, I only try recipes that I know will work for me). I called this street the “rue du supplice” because I always took it when I was very hungry and when I knew dinner would be some somen with ketchup and fried or scrambled eggs (what we lived on for a few months before being adventurous with the Japanese cook book!). It was a real ordeal and a real pleasure to take that street, the fantastic smell… only later once home emphasized the monotony of our dinner.

Last night, I had this very same feeling again passing one of the house nearby the university when I smelled the sesame oil… it made me craving for some real Japanese food. But since we have some guests I cooked some traditional summer recipes from Provence: oven grilled summer veggies, soupe au pistou, fougasse etc… so this all Japanese food craving is still waiting… soon probably..,

July 15, 2017

Veggies and grain

This week A. is very busy with work, with visitors from his headquarters, meaning dining out for him and dinner alone for me, and also taking care of the house chores. When it’s the case I usually come back late from work too and cook some rather simple meals that while it cooks give me free hands for the laundry… With the fridge full of fresh summer vegetables, it was even easier: grains and vegetables every day!!!! Brown rice, barley… with bell pepper, eggplant, zucchini, green beans… and topped with some gratted cheese, or some fresh mozzarella, or nothing…

It is always the same base: first in a pan I heat some olive oil, add the vegetables that need a bit of roasting or are longer to cook (eggplant, carrot…), then the main grain, the herbs (mainly rosemary from the garden this week)… then I cover with water, cook under cover, add the vegetables that need less cooking (green beans, zucchini…) and remove the cover for the last minutes of cooking. That’s it! And the weekend is almost there, with a hot Sunday apparently! Take care

brown rice, zucchini, eggplant and rosemary

June 30, 2017

Done!

Today, the first exhibition I curated opened at my university museum. It’s a small museum, with a lot of local visitors, and exhibitions about the work done at the university in the present and past, and its history. Having a 3 months exhibition about human and robot is a new thing. It was very exciting preparing it and I was more than happy today for the opening event to see the museum full during the whole time with crowds waiting to try the interactive exhibits we prepared. I am feeling proud and happy to have been able to setup this exhibition with my colleagues. And even more when A. came to visit it. Thanks!

Oh! By the way, last night I didn’t cook. It is not often, but once in a while, we order pizza. .. oops…

May 27, 2017

Rainy season!

Just as planned, this week is pretty busy, I have many duties overlapping, committees I am in charge of, official events to attend and adding up to my lectures, students supervision and research projects and writing. The exhibition preparation is taking most of my (rather short) remaining available time.

So this week no tennis at lunch break, very little cooking, no house chores (thanks A.), up early in the morning and until fairly late, and very little posts because I used all my commuting time to work. At last, today I have decided to take a bit of time for TPS and to update you with some very simple and quick recipes that have saved our dinners this week. Nothing fancy at all but still fresh and tasty. Though, I was hoping the exhibition will be all set and ready by the beginning of the week and we will only have to work details by now, I also knew that working with other people is never that simple, except with some with whom I’m totally in synch, and those I am working with this time hardly meet deadlines, or rather like to work in last minute rush. Everyone finds its way to doing things in the end, last minute rush is definitely not mine, so I had to let go a real lot of things. Learning to let go was an interesting experience though. Back to cooking… so, knowing that my schedule will definitely be affected by last minute changed, last weekend in Ohara I packed on long lasting fresh veggies that will be easy to combine together and rapidly cooked: asparagus, peeled horse beans, red bell pepper, tomatoes, broad beans, celery… and this week I prepared them one way or another, Japanese, Italian, whatever… when I don’t have much time to cook we usually eat vegan adding tofu, cucumber with miso while dinner gets ready… My top favorite from this week are: the orecchiette with tofu asparagus and horse beans; broad beans, asparagus and tomatoes with soya sauce and Japanese koshihikari rice; celery, tomatoes and black pepper risotto. All of these recipes require very little preparation time (the longest is peeling the broad beans after blanching them) and no specific caring while cooking, perfect to catch up with A. or work a little longer.

Happy rainy season!!!

May 26, 2017

Parisian walks

So, here am I in Paris just for one day before heading to Aix-en-Provence for work. Spring is turning heads here as much as sakura and hanami were in Tokyo and the beautiful warm weather and the jetlag invite for random walks and terraces farniente. With the Paris marathon raging on the right bank we decided to stay on the left bank and enjoy the fresh green of spring with a walk in the hospital La Salpetriere that has a beautiful park nearby the central church, before heading to the classic chic jardins du Luxembourg and finish on the Seine bank after browsing the art galleries in the 6eme. Paris is definitely a city to visit on foot, selecting random streets and seating here and there randomly to have a drink and a break. I personally love to seat at the jardin du Luxembourg drink stands at les Editeurs, place Saint Sulpice or place de l’Odeon. My favorite drinks when jetlagged and in France are some childhood drinks: diabolo menthe (mint syrup and sparkling soda) or straight freshly squeezed lemon juice. Have a beautiful week ahead!

Fontaine Medicis in the jardins du Luxembourg

April 9, 2017

Canola with miso

It is nice to change shopping place once in a while because different markets have different products and it opens up to new opportunity for trying new recipes or new combinations. So this weekend instead of shopping in Ohara I shopped in Kuniyoshi, a small village 10km away. I love their coop shop because they have many different products in particular for fish and meat. So I got a beautiful sashimi of sabre fish and prepared it very simply with white rice, canola boiled in dashi and served with miso (one classic use of canola in Japanese cuisine), and I pan fried some tiny lotus roots and the fish. That’s it!

Canola with miso – 味噌和え菜の花

– 1 bundle of canola

– 1 small handful of katsuobushi

– 1 tbsp of miso of your choice

Wash quickly the canola under running water, remove the hardest parts if any. In a pan boil 1/3L of water, add the katsuobushi in a dashi bag. Bring to a boil. Add the canola and cook for 5min. Drain and rince with cold water. Squeeze them gently to remove all the water. Cut in 3 or 4 the whole bundle. Serve woth miso on top. (You can also mix the miso with it but it might break the leaves and flowers, so I prefer not to)

January 29, 2017

Home cooking again at last!

I made it through! I was organizing with some colleagues and friends a conference in Tokyo and it was quite an intense week to be sure that everything would work right and attendees will be pleased. Of course this kind of work is not my main work and it’s just on the side of regular work, so my days have been pretty busy and on top of that I’ve had plenty of lunch/dinners out and some official events to attend on the side. So when it was over yesterday afternoon I passed out in the train back home and it took me a good hour to be able to do something again! But most of all I was impatient of eating some homemade food. Not that eating out in Tokyo is bad, it is usually easy to find healthy food, but I always find that it lacks vegetables or fruits. But of course I was facing an empty fridge and had no strength to go out too far for shopping, so my only option was the small supermarket down the house. They have very little choice of decent quality products (couldn’t find any domestic tofu, it had to be American or Canadian…) so I passed on that one, and so the only things that were good enough were some mushrooms and some leeks. Good enough to make a meal for two with enough options. Then tart? pasta? or risotto? It ended being a risotto. And I was the happiest in my kitchen cooking for A.. Now one more day at work before we can head to the country with our friend D. visiting. Expecting a lot of good work done, good chat and good cooking!!!!
Have a nice end of the week!

October 7, 2016

Cooking and recipe contests

No, I haven’t quit writing for TPS, it’s just that sometimes work is taking really all my time, even the one in the train, one of the moments I prefer to write. so this week, no workout (but with the muscle pain I had from the surfing and paddle boating Saturday, and the stairs climbing at Kai, stretching and abs were more than enough), very little cooking and more disappointing I missed the deadline for several recipe and cooking contests. Because Yes! I really enjoyed it and I want more!!! So after some search I found a few with submission deadline September 15th, but September 15th was also the deadline for too many things at work and I didn’t have time to do my homework and prepare and adequate recipe for each contest (I’ve learn my lessons). Too bad… But I’m sure there’s gonna be new ones soon!

Below is one of my new recipe for a simple healthy dinner with quinoa, myoga, cucumber, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and soya sauce. I wish you a good weekend!

September 16, 2016