cookbook addict

Many people associate Paris with world-renowned pâtissiers like Pierre Hermé or Ladurée for their macarons and other creations, and while the Japanese go gaga over French creations, the French have developed a love for all things Japanese - I know I have over the past year. Sadaharu Aoki has now been firmly established on the Parisian scene, from the moment he whipped out his black sesame éclairs and his matcha layered slices. He now owns a few places in Paris as well as Japan, and I think he has cleverly and subtly managed to fuse French techniques with Japanese flavours. So on the Sunday, after the marathon had been run and the champion showered, we were both starving but it was already mid-afternoon and there couldn't be anything too heavy involved. I suggested we board the bus that conveniently left from behind our hotel to take us directly to one of Aoki's teahouses on the Boulevard de Port Royal. It's a tiny shop with a few tables in a minimalistic environm...

This week, I received my first Japanese sewing book. When I realized many people sewed from such books and talked about it on their blogs, I thought that was a bit mad but kinda cool. Like they belonged to a special club . I also thought many of the clothes they made looked like oversized bags with sleeves, he he. That was until I saw Melissa's dress on tiny happy . I thought it was so pretty and stylish, in a simple way. The beautiful fabric certainly helped.  Stylish Dress Book -vol. 1 I wanted that dress, it's the one on the cover, dress E. I wasn't sure I'd actually manage to finish it because a) except for a few words of English, everything was in Japanese, and b) not being an expert seamstress, I didn't know if I could follow all the steps without botching anything. Turns out it wasn't that difficult, which also explains why so many people sew with these Japanese books. The patterns are simple, most have no zippers. I haven't tried sewing a zipper yet....

It's been a long while since my last post in English so it's only fair to try and break that bad habit :) One thing I particularly like about my new job -beside the fact that I speak English every day, have great workmates and enjoy the work itself- is that I can bring my lunch in and most people enjoy seeing my sometimes eccentric foodstuff. Last time I brought onigiri in they were really popular, probably because of my cute box and the fake grass they were sitting on. Onigiri are Japanese rice balls plain or stuffed with savoury things like tuna, ham, umeboshi (pickled apricots, pictured above), etc: They are Japan's answer to sandwiches when it comes to food on the go. I have shown how to make them here , but basically you need cooked and still warm Japanese rice -for which you need a rice cooker to save you the trouble of badly cooked rice that becomes mushy or stays too dry and hard- possibly some special molds or just your hands to shape them, and plenty of water...

Je vais faire une confession : je n'y connais presque rien en cuisine japonaise. Oui, j'ai testé les sushis et les brochettes yakitori dans ma jeunesse dans les petits restos près du Luxembourg à Paris. Mais bon, il n'est pas encore né celui qui me refera manger du tofu, quant au poisson, j'ai déjà parfois du mal quand il est cuit, alors cru... et puis les brochettes à la vache qui rit, c'est pas le summum de l'art culinaire non plus. Non, je ne connais pas encore la bonne cuisine japonaise (et je sais qu'elle existe). Mais hier, mes pas m'ont guidée vers la petite épicerie bio de la ville, à la recherche de gourmandises "santé" dont parlais certains blogueurs (pâte de noisettes confites, farine de châtaignes pour faire la galette de Cléa ...) et finalement, je me suis retrouvée avec du tahin équitable, de la pâte miso rouge fabriquée en France et de l'agar-agar. Alors, après avoir recherché (sur le net, car chez moi, point de cookbook japo...

Today, I woke up super early and made myself proper chai -real spices, milk, teabags, brown sugar. Then I enjoyed the quiet to do a little yoga while the sun was rising. Bliss.  The recipe makes 6 regular muffins and 8 silicon moulded ones. I then went on to make some apple and cinnamon muffins from Nigella's new book, Kitchen. I don't know what happened but they took me ages to prepare, then I let them get too brown. I blame Nigella who told me to set the oven on 200°C. Obviously she doesn't know my oven, so it's not technically her fault. W likes over-baked stuff (his mum raised him well) so he actually said thank you Nigella. Ha ha. (We, of course, do not communicate directly with her, we're not that type of insane ;) The muffins are delicious, but a bit too sweet -there's a half cup of honey plus 125g brown sugar in there. The honey gives a great taste, and they were easy to gobble up. More for an afternoon snack too. I don't know about you,...

Lors de mon week-end à Paris, j'ai acheté du jersey rayé pour me faire une marinière. J'ai dû ensuite attendre impatiemment que mes nouveaux livres de coutre japonais  arrivent contenant un patron de T-shirt. J'aurais pû utiliser un  vieux t-shirt pour tracer le patron, mais j'étais un peu nerveuse à l'idée de coudre du jersey, je voulais donc mettre toutes les chances de mon côté. En plus, depuis les manteaux, j'ai eu une petite série d'échecs qui m'a laissé un manque de confiance en moi. When I was in Paris, I picked up some stripey knit to make myself a marinière , or stripey tee. Then I impatiently waited for my new Japanese craft books to arrive with the pattern for the shirt. I sure could have used an old tee to trace a pattern but I was already nervous about sewing knit, I wanted to make things right, or as right as possible. I must confess to a small series of disappointing projects since the jackets that left me somewhat insecure. J'ado...

Je me suis sentie un peu plus créative ces derniers temps, aussi bien dans ma cuisine que derrière la MAC I've been feeling a bit more creative lately, both in the kitchen and at the sewing machine. The before picture Le mois prochain, nous allons déménager, alors en triant un peu ma garde-robe, j'ai pensé remodeler certaines pièces plutôt que de m'en débarasser. Cette marinière Petit Bateau m'a été offerte il y a des lustres. Je n'ai jamais trop aimé la coupe, un peu baggy, mais pas assez pour cacher les parties un peu trop arrondies de mon corps, juste suffisamment pour les faire ressortir. Also, we'll be moving next month so while I've been sorting out my wardrobe, I thought I'd refashion some of the items in there, starting with this red marinière from Petit Bateau, which I got as a present many moons ago. I never quite liked the fit, which was a bit loose, but not enough to hide the plumpy bits of my body, just enough to make them stick out...

The other day, I escaped over the border to France, to the nearest town -Thionville- in order to buy some fabric. The store is called Mondial Tissus. They have good value fabrics, and lots of choice. It's a bit messy and bazar-like, it's hard to get hold of a sales assistant, some of them are terribly moody, but hey, it's France, and it's cheaper than here. First on my to-do list is a blanket with sleeves, aka snuggie, slanket, or snuglet. I usually need a blanket to snuggle on the sofa in the evening because I feel cold and my husband doesn't. I always have cold hands and feet and nose from mid-October to May. So when I heard about Slankets, I got pretty excited (yes, I'm sad like that ;)) but of course I wanted to make one myself and was lucky to find that thick fleece on offer. It's light blue with dark blue snowflakes embroidered. Classy ... I also bought the fine brown cord and the ethnic-style print to make another dress from my Japanese book. I love c...

I have a friend who swears by Bill Granger's recipes when trying to lose weight. Not all of them are waistline-friendly, particularly not his cakes, but only my naivety would have me believe that anyway. I recently caught Bill on my food channel, and I had a good browse in the three books by him that I own, and boy, do I wish I could live like he does : in the sun, near the beach, in his not-too-beige, not-too-bright décor without the crazy lady upstairs (and by that I really mean my neighbour). The kids never seem to make a fuss and there's time for friends... what friends anyway? Ahhh, but then I'd have to live in Sydney... I'd so miss the rain and the never-ending autumn that begins in August and ends in June......................................................................not! Ha ha! But back to the topic, yes he has a light hand when it comes to butter and oil, and he is into fresh flavours - lime, coriander, mint, chilli... his portions seem human-sized (as o...

Recently I was lucky to come across the following vintage sewing books, one is a 1975 Reader's Digest opus, the other is from Singer, I'm guessing late 60s early 70s. The orange one is pretty thorough, encompassing children's clothes, women's, dolls', furniture -make your own block sofa-, sewing from commercial patterns, etc. All in technicolour Seventies style. The second one has a bit less, mainly clothing, and the pics are B&W, every pattern has a name and a subtitle, all in cheery, enthusiastic tones, and look at those photos, I wish I were that happy ! All the models are in movement and so damn grinning. The downside is that you have to draw the patterns yourself, following a grid system. But such a wealth of things to make and wonder at for such a mall price. And I had a few good hearty laughs too.   The following would find its place in any modern Japanese pattern book:   And the ubiquitous wrap skirt -reversible!- of any beginners' book.   I really l...

Je ne sais par quel bout commencer pour raconter mon expérience du Japon. Le bruit et la fureur des grandes villes? Le calme et la sérénité des temples et jardins? La politesse des gens? Leurs délires vestimentaires? Autour de la gare de Shinjuku Alors pour commencer, jour 1 du séjour. Le quartier de Shinjuku autour de la plus grande station de métro du monde. Electric Town, ses magasins de produits électroniques et ses boui-bouis divers. Lost in Electric Town Certains boui-bouis ont un distributeur de ticket dehors, on choisit, on paye puis on entre et on donne son ticket à un cuisinier. Boui-boui avec distributeur de ticket D'autres ont un distributeur intérieur. En fait, on voulait manger du tonkatsu mais la grande différence du Japon avec l'Europe c'est que les étages regorgent aussi de restos, pas seulement les rez-de-chaussées, du coup on a atterri dans un boui-boui à nouilles, le resto à tonkatsu se trouvant en fait à l'étage. Mais pas grav...