Life in Florence

So, it’s been four days we’ve been in Florence, except for Sunday that we spent walking around the city as described here, it’s been a rather studious time. A. leaves early in the morning while it’s all dark and comes back late at night, and this gives me more than plenty of time to work, write and spend a little hour or two outside walking around the city in the cold and shopping for lunches and dinners.

I’ve now explored both the San’Ambroggio market and the San Lorenzo market, got to see everything twice or thrice to decide what to buy choosing between all the delicious cheeses, fresh pasta and all the fruits and vegetables that are alien to Japan. I must say that I passed on fish, not being fully satisfied with the stands and on meat as there was too many options and I am not good with meat too much… but I guess that I will have to try some for A.. For the moment I’m sticking to speck and San Daniele and it’s been perfect. I also got my tea from La Via del Te as recommended by Giula from the beautiful Juls’ kitchen. And really I am more than happy with my little kitchen and the simple cooking I can do!

So far the things I have really been enjoying are the greens: I packed on lamb’s lettuce, rucola, zucchini, fennel and artichokes and I have been using them in many various preparation. My best being this delicious dish of pasta with olive oil roasted fennels and zucchini and topped with rucola. It is so simple and so fresh, and so easy to make, that here is my recipe:

Pasta with zucchini, fennel and rucola (for 2)

– 125g of pasta

– 1 zucchini

– 1/2 fennel

-1 handful of rucola

– olive oil, salt and pepper

– additionally some fresh parmigiano or some other cheese

Boil the water for the pasta and the pasta. In the mean time, wash and cut the fennel and the zucchini, and in an olive oil greased frypan cook them, but not overcook them! Add the drained pasta, salt, pepper, and olive oil, top with rucola and stir, serve immediately. Add cheese if you like!

And have a great Wednesday!

December 20, 2017

Firenze!

Good morning from Florence! So here we are, finally in Italy, this time it’s not Sicily but Tuscany, and it’s not for the Christmas holidays with the family but a business trip. Nonetheless it’s the Christmas season and it’s Italy with panettone and Christmas songs everywhere and the many delicious food to eat! In order for me to have enough space to work and to cook A. has rented us an apartment where I have a small kitchen to play with, and just 12h after landing in Florence I was already happily cooking lunch for us!

What was I doing during 12h? Well I slept 6, then woke up at 6AM in the dark… right… it’s Europe, it’s winter and it’s dark until 7:00 or 8:00…
Waking up early is still a great thing, because while it’s still all sleepy and empty and the sun is rising slowly we first enjoyed walking around the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio before it’s getting impossible to enjoy. And then only we went for some important shopping: food! We first went just around our apartment to Eataly (but honestly when you’re in Italy you don’t need Eataly, there’s so much more to explore!) and at the San Lorenzo market, where they have a food court on the second floor of the mercato centrale where you can buy, take away or eat there plenty of Italian food: pizza, fresh pasta, curd meat, Fiorentina beef, fish… no city is escaping the hipster food fashion with all the good and the bad… Anyway… I got there and around some essentials: olive oil, parmigiano, panettone, honey, tangerines, and for the lunch: fresh vegetarian ravioli with spinach and ricotta and some speck. Everything for a day outside walking all over the city in the cold, because it is quite cold indeed in the narrow and shaded streets of the city.

all what's needed to start with! — all what’s needed to start with!

It is impressive how quickly the city gets crowded on Sunday with groups first and then just crowd and past 11:00 am it gets really crazy, so to avoid most of the crowds we then headed for the Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte, from which the view is worth the small additional climb from piazzale Michelangelo! It’s so quiet and green. And I recommend the funny bucolic and almost rural walk down through the via dell’Erta Canina among the olive trees and the cypress trees. And well that’s how my first day ever in Florence went… beautifully and deliciously! And there five more to come!

December 18, 2017

Long weekend

After a series of very rainy weekends, so many that I don’t even count them anymore, a perfect autumn weekend was more than welcome, and even better: it was a long weekend. We spent sometime in Tokyo and most of the time in Ohara with D. and C.. The planning was simple: outdoor activities and delicious healthy local food. And it was easy with such a weather, the garden providing persimmons and herbs, and the farmers market full of autumn vegetables. So basically ocean swimming and hikes, drives and cooking together was our agenda. Among the many things we cooked were black wheat bread, whole wheat fougasse, muesli pancakes, hot pot veggies with snapper for girls and pork filet for guys, and a thin crust mushrooms quiche, vegan and gluten free. Now it’s time to get back to work, with a busy week ahead! Have a beautiful one!

From all we cookedI loved the quiche quite a lot so here is the recipe.

Mushrooms quiche:

– 1.5 cup buckwheat flour

– 1.5 cup rice flour

– 4tbs olive oil

– about 1/2 cup water

– plenty of different types of mushrooms of your choice (enough to generously cover your pie dish

– rosemary

– salt and pepper

Mix the buckwheat flour and rice flour, add the olive oil and stir. Add the water little by little while continuing stirring. Stop addind water when the dough is crumbly dry. Since there is no gluten in both flour it is better to keep the dough drier. Knead briefly to obtain a silky dough.

Roll it thinly and set in a pie dish. Wash and cut thinely the different mushrooms. Toss them in the pie crust, add a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary branches. Bake at 180deg in the oven for 30min.

November 6, 2017

Kurashiki – 倉敷

This year so far, we haven’t traveled much abroad, rather we traveled to many places in Japan that were on my bucket list: we went to the north part of Okinawa, to Hakuba in the summer, to Takayama, to the Kiso valley etc… one other place on the list was Kurashiki. So when our visitors from France asked where we could go together, I opted for that destination. October is a perfect time to travel in Japan, the weather is usually nice, warm but not as hot as in the summer, and there is a beautiful light.

Because I didn’t have much time with moving and work, I didn’t really prepare our trip in detail, except for train tickets and hotel booking. I prepared it in the train on the way, and I think I did some pretty good job to entertain us 48h. The historical old town of Kurashiki, very well preserved with no electric poles like in Tsumago, with its canal, its weeping willows, and its tiled black and white cellars, is beautiful but actually it is very small. We hesitated visiting the Ohara museum, the first museum of western art in Japan, but then decided that there was better things to see than some Rodin sculptures or some Monet paintings. Instead we preferred the Ohashi house, the Ohara house, and the folk craft museum. Once we also had checked in the nicest cafes and the craft shops, and tried some craft workshop (A. and I finally made our first pottery on a potter’s wheel!!), we were surprised that there is actually more than that to visit… if you have a car… which is actually very easy to find! And much less crowded!!! In particular, the Tamashima area has a few interesting places to visit: Yunoki house, Entsuji temple and Tashima Haguro shrine. One thing also that was worth the drive, is the view from the top of the Washuzan at sunset. The view point is perfect to see the Seto Ohashi and the various small islands in the Seto Inland sea.

At work on the potter's wheel — At work on the potter’s wheel

October 11, 2017

Where is “home”?

It’s a bit of a weird week, with travel, changes, so I’m getting a bit lost!

We went to Shanghai for two days, where A. was working, abd I took this opportunity as a writing retreat when I was not disturbed abd could focus on my work. It was very productive, the weather very helpful to forced me inside with almost constant pouring rain. Just 30min of swimming in the morning and a rapid tour of the food corner of the nearby department store where it was funny to see so many Japanese products as luxury ones! We came back to Tokyo last night, this morning we received the keys of our new apartment and we are moving tomorrow within Tokyo and Sunday to Ohara. I also have quite some work to do at the lab with the students preparing some key presentations for their graduation. But, nothing’s better than a home cooked meal to get plenty of good energy and I prepared some very simple Japanese things: multigrain mixed with rice, eggplant and miso, scrambled eggs, and jumbo umeboshi. A good reason to take a little break!

staple food of grains and beans at Shanghai department store's food corner — staple food of grains and beans at Shanghai department store’s food corner

September 22, 2017

Yamanashi!!

The last stop of our trip was in Yamanashi prefecture to visit wineries and fruits orchards. I had know idea what too expect and what we would actually see, and it was a great surprise! First the place we stayed at (Fuefukigawa onsen – 笛吹川温泉) was fantastic with a chef preparing delicious cha-kaiseki cuisine and adjusting easily with my very special food restrictions. We had plenty of local products at each dinner and breakfast there and it’s been a long time since I haven’t had proper cha-kaiseki. Probably since my last cha-kaiseki class too many years ago… so I was really happy! Then we went to visit on foot the surroundings and were enchanted by the mix of orchards and residential areas near Erinji, a remarkable temple with old beautiful pine trees. In the orchards one can find grapes of course, but also peaches, chestnuts, persimmons, apples… Most people may be chocked by the excess of care given to the fruits: each may have a little paper hat to protect it, and in may cases they are wrapped in a little paper bag. It results in fruits that are almost all perfect, protected from bugs, heavy rain, direct sun…

Many places on the road sides sell fruits to eat directly on the spot or take away, it gives a very casual, not Japanese atmosphere that was very interesting!!!

Want to know more about what to see and where to stay? Leave a comment!!!

August 9, 2017

Nakasendo, Magome juku – 中山道・馬籠宿

Terraced rice fields along the hike to Magome

We are still on the road both by car and by foot with A. And after Tsunan, Hakuba, Azumino, Matsumoto, Kamikochi, Takayama, Gero, Ena we are now in the Kiso valley, or rather on the old road Nakasendo, in a very nice little inn where we are the only guests and very well taken care of. Our hike today, shortened by the heat has taken us to Magome juku, an old post town on the Nakasendo, one of the roads widely employed to travel between Kyoto and Tokyo in the past, a still very well preserved place with very picturesque views and old houses. Back at our inn: Shinchaya, our host had prepared a huge dinner as could be expected in every minshuku and ryokan. What is great with minshuku compared to ryokan is that it is more homemade-like food and easy to get recipes directly from the cook! For addresses and tips about traveling in the Kiso valley, please leave a comment!

This time the nice surprise was what is called yakimochi – 焼き餅 but it is not made of rice! The recipe is quite simple and the results quite delicious!

Yakimochi – 焼き餅 from Shinchaya

– a few taro – 里芋

– buckwheat flour

– salt

– soya sauce

– fresh ginger

Boil the taro, and peel them. Mash them with a fork, add some salt and the buckwheat flour to obtain a smooth mix. Make paddies with the mix and grill them (oven, pan…). Peel and grat the fresh ginger. Serve the grilled paddies with soya sauce and the ginger.

August 5, 2017

Wasabi – 山葵

Wasabi is an important ingredient in Japanese cooking. It is of course used for sushi, but also with tofu, soba noodles… It is an autochthonous plant that grows naturally nearby clear streams. Historically it was first used as medicine in Nara period (700AD) before being popularized as food during the middle age: Muromachi period (1300~). And probably with the sushi boom in the early 1900’s wasabi has been more in demand and a few farms were created. That’s then that the now world biggest wasabi farm started. Daio farm started in 1910 but it took about four decades to become a decent wasabi farm and what it is now. One can easily imagine the landscape transformation such an installation has provoked and how intensive production to meet demand and keep price low affects the rural and natural areas. Yet Daio wasabi farm is an interesting place to visit and it is quite beautiful. The super pristine waters needed for the culture of wasabi, the little plants in the rock bed and the curvy lines of the field bordered by leafy willow trees are really quiet and peaceful. It is a very different landscape from those usually seen in Japanese. Picturesque like a Seine and Marne village cherished by the Japanese painters in the 1900’s or the japonism painters (top picture). Visiting Daio farm is a really nice stroll. It is also possible to see people at work to extract the stem from the plant (upper picture), visit the little history museum and try some wasabi food (we had ice cream). Since they also sell fresh wasabi at the farm I was looking for a cookbook or something to learn more about how to use wasabi, but none was available. An other time…

Daio wasabi farm: free entrance, open all year round from 9:00〜17:20, count 1-2h stroll

August 3, 2017

Learning new recipes

We are now in Hakuba for the second stop of our little Japanese road trip. Staying as usual at La Neige Higashikan where we are pampered as usual. We spend our days hiking and visiting the surroundings, which are very different from the winter. It’s the first time ever I go to the mountain in the summer (I am more of a sea person) so seeing all the lifts, and the lush green pasture is very new to me and going up the mountains and hiking among the streams and the flowers was a great experience!!!

What was really great is also to have dinner at our favorite Hakuba restaurant: the humming bird. The chef and his wife received us like kings! They opened the restaurant just for is and cooked us some delicious local cuisine, like awabitake: some delicious mushrooms from Nagano area, rhubarb compote… and some home made pickles that tasted very different than what we usually eat. The secret of such sweet taste was very simple but new to me: to pickle it they used plum syrup!!!

Pickles in plum syrup:

– plum syrup in enough quantity to cover the vegetables

– cucumbers

– 1 dry red pepper (togarashi)

Wash the cucumbers, remove a bit of the peel to create stripes. Cut the red pepper in thin slices. Add the red pepper in the plum syrup. Dip the cucumbers and wait a few hours to one day. Remove the cucumbers, wash them briefly. Cut and serve.

Have a beautiful month of August!!!

August 1, 2017