In My Kitchen, May 2023

Can someone please tell me where, just where is the time going? It is flying past and our time in Toronto is coming to an end... at the end of June I will be finishing my fellowship and moving to Paris with S. So much change in our lives!

Let's take a look into my kitchen this month ... We've been travelling a lot!

First up I have some homemade ramen noodles from Oji Seichi, a ramen shop near where one of my previous workplaces. These noodles were really beautiful, springy with lots of bounce and a great mouth feel.  

We made our own veggie ramen with a shiitake mushroom & miso based broth. The toppings were shiitakes (they turned out so meaty!) black fungus, asparagus, carrot, seaweed and a just-set egg. It was pretty good!

Always a tradition for me at Easter time to make sourdough hot cross buns. Here was a batch for friends and a giant one for me. I glazed them with maple syrup. 

You could eat it like a cake! 

For Easter, S and I went away to stay in a tiny cabin on a farm. It was so beautiful - there were friendly goats that headbutted you, horses that would come up for a nuzzle, geese everywhere (I even saw a goose threesome, it was... incredible). The breakfast each day was very generous and came on a big tray like this. We also saw stars, such a rare treat when we live in a big busy city. 

We had a crazy week of heatwave in Toronto where the temperature almost got to 30 Celcius. We had a party on the patio at Princess Margaret Hospital, and I made this delicious vegemite cheese star. I didn't say anything about the vegemite till everyone had had a piece, because so many people here don't "like" Vegemite! 

Some Garrett popcorn I brought back from Chicago - this is a seriously addictive mix of cheesy and caramelised 

My friend from Australia visited for a week and we went up north for a long weekend. Algonquin Park is absolutely stunning at any time of the year, and we were amazed to see the ice in lakes melting. We also stopped by a maple farm to pick up some local maple syurp. These bottles look like Goldilocks!

S and I have a Tortilla Thursday tradition. When we first moved here I bought one of those giant bags of Maseca for making tortillas and we've been eating the same bag all year! He's now pretty good at flipping them. We usually have a pile of salad and some kind of salsa. Here it was with corn and orange capsicums - so good!  

The curveball this month... We were in New York for a long weekend and the cherry blossoms in Central Park were just stunning. 

There's something about natural things that come for a short season that make one feel a grand sense of awe - how is it possible that these cherry blossoms can be so beautiful, so delicate and so short lived? No wonder all of New York was out here walking amongst the cherry avenues, with a gentle shower of pink fluffy petals every time the wind sighs. (See, it even inspires poeticism..)

I'm sending this to Sherry who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen series. Thanks Sherry!