In My Kitchen: February 2024

This will have to be a super quick one as the baby naps in the other room! Our son G arrived on December 31 just before 2024 arrived, and his first life event was participating in the maternity ward newborn chorus to the sound of the fireworks on Champs-Elysées!

French hospital meals are not bad! Three courses every meal with usually some nice cheese at lunch.

Here was one of the dinners, supplemented by my dad's Chinese home cooked food on the right. I've been eating a ton of soybeans to boost milk production. 

This new patisserie "The French Bastards" (they are bloody brave to call themselves that in Paris!) opened recently up the road from us, and S went to take a treat from there to celebrate my discharge from hospital. This was a hazelnut/praline treat that was light and delicate!

My dad and my mother-in-law have been spending January with us, here we are celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday with a traditional Chinese celebration of long life noodles topped with pea & prawn. 

A pistachio tart from the French Bastards - they are really giving Cyril Lignac (the other major fancy patisserie in our quartier) a run for their money!

My sourdough son Barney went to sleep for two weeks while I had my human son, and here was his first resurrection

Cooking dinner for the first time outside of hospital, a simple mushroom/tofu stirfry and some beans, a bit of kim chi which I really missed

One evening our son forgot to cry and we got to have a candlelight dinner with leftovers. it was wonderful!

My sister-in-law and her fiancé came to visit from Belgium and they brought us this delicious sticky orange cake

This was from one of our low days when G was crying a lot. One of our favourites from Cyril Lignac! You see how sugar is getting us through the newborn daze... 

This loaf got left in the oven for too long because I was feeding the baby, but it turned out pretty good anyway! I'm grateful to be back baking my own bread 

No surprises here, the curveball this month is our beautiful son, who is now one month old. We have had the toughest but the most beautiful month of our lives. Even when it is incredibly hard (like the day he cried for 7 hours) we are filled with love every time I see him. Becoming a parent is an experience like no other, and to see your partner become a parent is also surprisingly overwhelming. To think that we have come this far, from the depths of the COVID lockdowns when S and I were plotting our move to Canada, is extraordinary. The fact that our parents are here with us is also incredible and they are delighted to have met their first grandchild. 

Sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings, who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen event. Have a good month everyone!