Dreams of sourdough

Wednesday, 1 April 2026

In My Kitchen: April 2026

Spring made a brief appearance in Paris and then disappeared again! We were in Lyon last weekend visiting friends (no amazing food pics this time, but that's a different story altogether) and it was bitterly cold.. here's a look over the last month in my kitchen.

S was at a nerd conference in New York and brought me a stash from Trader Joe's - the Green Goddess is amazing on roasted vegetables!

I made another crêpe cake with altering layers of nutella and mascarpone, this was the leftover slice that I heated in the microwave briefly - everything melted!

I've been going to the most amazing tofu shop after my 24hr shifts for fresh tofu and taking home lots of takeaway. Here is the purple rice congee with a bit of omelette and peanuts. My grandma used to say "have everything possible with congee, you never know what will happen next"

We celebrated our wedding anniversary with this lovely bottle of bubbles from the local caviste

On the food side it's hard to go to a fancy unagi restaurant with a 2 year old, so we ordered these delicious (eye wateringly expensive) unagi bento boxes from Nodaiwa - special occasion treat, they were so good, each mouthful of eel melted in the mouth and all the accompaniments were refined and well done too

Pasta Wednesday continues, here with orecchiette, guanciale and ricotta - a great creamy recipe that reminds of carbonara but lighter

For pi day I had some offcuts of pastry that I put on top of our quiche just for fun...

I made a traditional flan patissier with an Asian twist - black sesame instead of vanilla.

It was a real lesson in French social etiquette to not bring something to work that's not "classic"! I had quite a few coworkers turn up their noses:

one said, je n'aime pas la couleur (I don't like the colour)

one said, je n'aime pas la texture (I don't like the texture)

one said, je n'aime pas le goût (I don't like the taste)

two said, je n'aime pas le sésame (I don't like sesame)

but the rest devoured it!

There was so much sesame custard left that I turned the rest into these sourdough milk buns

I continued my latest interest in flan with this excellent specimen from a boulangerie next to Parc Montsouris where we had a picnic to celebrate the first day of spring

Our medical student (wannabe neurosurgeon) showed up with this yoghurt cake one Sunday, I was impressed by his efforts - it was light and fluffy inside. It's a classic French recipe said to be so easy the kids can do it, using the yoghurt pot as a measure

Spring has brought quite a lot of good moods and food sharing, one day a nurse brought her waffle maker and made fresh waffles for everyone, another day another nurse made these cinnamon flavoured beignets (kind of like donuts) freshly fried, so delicious!

The boulangerie next to G's childcare changed hands, the patissier stayed the same but the boulanger has changed and the bread no longer tastes the same...

Here is a random lunch in the sun, from the Tibetan food truck that comes to Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière on Fridays. Their momos are so so good! And the couple is super friendly. They always give out little cups of fried veg chips to the long waiting line...

Onto the curveballs.. I know that only one is allowed but I'm going to break the rules this month because I really wanted to share them with you!

We bought a teeny tiny toy piano for G!

With much sadness, our local bookshop (open since 1834) shut up shop. It was our go-to bookshop and we tried to buy all our books and cards there to support their business, but alas it obviously wasn't profitable. Sadly it's going to turn into a hipster coffee shop.. One of the great things about France is that people still read, but even in the last few years I see less and less people reading and more and more people on their phones...

I leave you this month with my little monster practising the great French tradition of ripping the end of the baguette off with your teeth. The childcare shut down randomly for two days (a leaking pipe or something) and we had the most random glorious mid-week vacation, here we are having a picnic at the Chateau de Versailles.

Sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings for the monthly IMK event, have a great month everyone!

Sunday, 1 March 2026

In My Kitchen: March 2026

Where did February go? Do we as parents just spend all our time wondering where time goes? G has been saying funny things that I really want to write down like

Le poisson est triste, parce qu'il a perdu sa maman (the fish is sad because he lost his mother)

Louise a mangé le gâteau au chocolat (Louise ate the chocolate cake)

Viens, mama! on attend le bus ici, le numéro 10 (come mama! we wait for the bus here, number 10)

Il pleure parce qu'il a perdu sa tétine (he's crying because he lost his dummy)

He's also learning to request hot or cold milk.. exciting times!

In My Kitchen...

I brought back these sablé cookies from Trouville, aren't they pretty and delicate with the abbey printed on them?

I've always wanted to make a crêpe cake and for this year's Chandeleur (a celebration of crêpes) I finally made it - here with coconut (I mixed half coconut and half normal cream) and lychee. The texture of the final cake was amazing - soft and ethereal !

Pasta Wednesdays continue.. here with gnocchi and smoked bacon, delicious!

Another Pasta Wednesday, spaghetti con vongole with a generous smattering of bottarga (salted cured fish roe)

S was away in Marseille this month and he ate a sausage lentil dish there that he replicated at home for Valentine's day along with some excellent wine (the baby and I made the lego heart)

It's not Valentine's day without the Cyril Lignac special Valentine's edition equinox...

Édition limitée Saint-Valentin : une crème légère parfumée à la vanille Bourbon, renfermant un cœur fondant de caramel et un croustillant praliné au Spéculoos. Une douceur irrésistible pour célébrer l’amour.

My SIL was also visiting for Valentine's and I made her these sablés with fleur d'orange and orange zest, very delicately perfumed and perfect with a cup of tea

I have been rather obsessed with Ottolenghi's tomato confit rice and it's been on our weekly rotation, here with chickpeas and feta as well. We just can't stop eating it, there's a depth of flavour that comes from slow roasted tomatoes that is irresistible

This was a last minute cake I made for a colleague at work - if you haven't tried it yet, Cyril Lignac's invisible apple cake is a real winner. Packed full of apples and just a smidgeon of batter, it takes barely 10 minutes to prepare (basically ready to go in by the time the oven preheats), and sets into a lemony custardy "cake" that tastes even better the next day.

We celebrated Chinese New Year by all being terribly sick with the flu, but I was still determined to make our annual animal themed salad... it's fire horse year!

And despite our sickness we still made dumplings, though G refused to eat them as he was too sick..

I also tried out making our own glutinous rice cakes for Chinese New Year this year, inspired by Hetty Lui McKinnon's recipe. Highly untraditional, with pumpkin purée and coconut milk, cooked in the oven (the traditional recipe is just glutinuous rice flour, sugar and water, then steamed). This was stunningly delicious and I could have eaten the entire cake myself..

I've been having some troubles at work (too long and somber for an IMK) and one depressed day S brought home this rum baba, it was just what we needed, syrupy, soft but not soggy, unctuous vanilla chantilly cream...

I leave you all with my curveball, my little monster with an organic bok choy full of holes (how often do you see holes in veg these days?), and a live worm even to attest its organic-ness. I tried to convince S to keep the worm as a pet but unfortunately he vetoed the decision...

Sending this to Sherry who hosts the monthly IMK series. Have a great March everyone, and see you soon!

Thursday, 5 February 2026

In My Kitchen: February 2026

Starting with the non-kitchen related curveball today..

Somebody built this snowman on the helipad during our recent period of unusual snow in Paris - it was just beautiful, the whole world turned white, walking to work in a snow storm (all the buses stopped and the transport was chaos...)

In Italy...

We started January in Italy at the tail end of our holidays...

Visit to our favourite pizzeria in Padova (Idon Pizzeria), and this was just about the most delicious pizza I've ever had with pumpkin cream, mozzarella, bacon and rosemary. If I could only share with you how fragrant this was...

There were daily trips to Galateia, my favourite gelateria. It was Fior di Latte for baby G and a different flavour each day for me..

And since we are in Italy, why not some fresh pasta for breakfast? These were filled with beetroot and ricotta

S and I went away to Verona overnight and one of the unusual desserts we had there was this sbrisolona, a giant thick crumbly biscuit, served with a shot of grappa to either dunk the biscuit in or pour over the biscuit. I found it fascinating that the dessert was so alcoholic!

While in Verona we tried the locally famous risotto amarone, cooked in amarone wine till it turns this rich gorgeous burgundy, mixed with a ton of parmesan. so sumptuous.

We also enjoyed this traditional Christmas cake called Nadalin, it's a star shaped pandoro, here cut in layers and filled with cream and chocolate chips, dusted with icing sugar.

Back in France...

January is galette season and this was a savoury galette I made with a lentil sweet potato filling for a dinner.

We've been visiting our local fromagerie (Quatre hommes) on the weekends and getting some beautiful cheeses.. it's about twice the price of the supermarket (often more.. sometimes eyewateringly so) but it's a great way to celebrate all the gastronomy that France to often. It's also hilarious to hear G trying to name the cheeses and say over and over Fromage! Fromage! Fromage!

S started a new tradition called Pasta Wednesdays. He bought a book on regional pastas and has been working through them - this one was a real hit, fettucini with olive tapenade, prawns, with a cannellini bean paste.

I made this spanakopita one evening when S' uncle came over

These veg lasagnas were for a friend who just had a baby

We celebrated finding kale in our local bio shop by having this kale salad, so rare and precious in France

I made these mini lamingtons last week for Australia day. I drew the beaver in the background because my boss is crazy and apparently beavers keep you less stressed!

Still been going out to the forest sometimes for lunch. It's winter and the trees are bare, but the birds and ducks by the pond always bring peace

Finally, the food related curveball...

I made a sweet galette too with the traditional filling (frangipane). The weird thing is, nobody found the fève! I guess someone might have swallowed it without realising, a frightening proposition. Baby G is turning into toddler G, hey?

Sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings. Thanks for hosting and have a great February everyone!

Friday, 2 January 2026

In My Kitchen: January 2026

Welcome to 2026! December has all been about Christmas - funny I never got into it, having grown up in Communist China, but now with a toddler and an Italian family (who are very much into it) I'm getting into it more year by year!

I'm really into this oolong tea with white peach pieces that we brought back from China - it's so floral and fruity

For our Christmas lunch at the cafeteria we had venison stew, stewed greens and the most incredible potato gems, as well as pate en croute

Homemade stuff this month...

I've been on an orange theme this month - here is Claudia Roden's orange cake, I had a bit of batter leftover so made a mini one too for our afternoon tea - it really is the best "easy" cake to make!

Home candied orange peels that I dipped into chocolate and gifted friends, these are called orangettes in French - what a cute name!

Some of the peels I kept natural, and used these later

Such as in this sourdough stollen, my first attempt at making a stollen. This was more stodgy than I had imagined but people gobbled it up anyway (probably because of the yummy marzipan core)

The orange theme continues with mulled wine - also super easy to make as I found out. I think this might become a new Christmas tradition!

I continued my Christmas baking with gingerbread men, I've never actually made them before, and had a lot of fun drawing their expressions. I think next year I'll do a murder scene with red icing...

This matcha-misu was actually a reconversion from my failed bûche de noël. I tried to roll the matcha sponge and it cracked, so I decided to make it into a matcha-misu instead, with the cream spiked with candied orange peel and dark chocolate bark on top. It was a hit!

Christmas baking continued with chocolate and almond biscotti..

And ricciarelli - Italian gluten free biscuits with almond and cranberries

And finally this sourdough Christmas star with apricot jam and salted coconut... such a great combo!

More Christmas stuff...

Christmas is bûche de noël season in France - how cute are these creations?

We had one from Cyril Lignac our usual go-to fancy patisserie, flavours of clementine and almond, absolutely incredible!

We had another one from Eric Kayser our daily boulangerie where we go to buy bread often, this one was "tropical" with coconut and mango flavours. Also incredible!

I rarely buy things for myself but we were in la grande épicerie one day and I was drawn to this blue tea - who knew there was blue tea? I also misread the price label and almost had a stroke at the checkout, but hey this is my Christmas present! I haven't tried it yet, but I'm looking forward to drinking the most expensive tea of my life...

I worked on Christmas eve and the nurses put together this dinner spread - it was amazing! incredibly fleshy smoked salmon, foie gras, home made bricks (Algerian pastries), lots of charcuterie, crackers and dips, crudites, and McChicken nuggets!

And it couldn't be a party in France without a cheese platter! Kept cool by the 0 degree temps of Xmas eve...

The curveballs

Here is our little Christmas corner at home. The advent calendar was a present from S' sister a few years ago and this year we filled the pockets with our favourite memories of the year. The Christmas tree was made by the childcare, and the rest of our decorations by us (first time decorating ever!)

And here the Christmas windows are hugely popular. We live quite close to le bon marché and despite their excellent range, G decided that all he liked was the carrot window. We must have listened to that song 1000 times in December, as he just refused to leave every time we went to le lapin magique. We heard the song so much that I started playing it on the piano at home and G would dance. It's a sweet memory!

That's all folks, wishing you all a great beginning of 2026 and thanks to Sherry for hosting.