In My Kitchen: April 2025

So welcome to my kitchen where my first news is - I got the job! It's incredible to look back on the last few years of life - moving to Canada, then to Paris, learning French, doing the medical requalification exam and now going back to work as a specialist in France..

Back to the kitchen, where March just about flew by.

Fancy Fridays...

A tradition I started back in November when I wanted to do a "project" so on Fridays we have a three course meal. 

S is now best friends with the caviste of our neighbourhood who advises him on different wines to try

Baba ghanouj with sourdough pitas

Roast eggplant lasagna - in my baby fog brain I made the entire lasagna and then turned around saw the whole tray of roast eggplant - I forgot to put the eggplant in! So I had to unpick and redo the whole thing again, a messy mess but delicious and worth it in the end 

Another Fancy Friday, S does the candles and the wine...

I made the Asian glaze salmon from Recipetineats and pickled some cucumber for a "poke bowl"

Another Fancy Friday, this one was the roast eggplant and spicy edamame noodle from Community the cookbook by Hetty Lui McKinnon before she got all famous. I used udon this time (in place of soba), just as good!

Last Fancy Friday of the month was at the airport.. more on that later. This was actually a pretty good salmon rice bowl from Monoprix at CDG

Other things in the kitchen...

We are veering from our usual plant based diet with preparing meat & fish for the baby, here we had some of left over poached chicken breast (a Nagi winner again) as a simple noodle bowl for a lunch

We got a massive package of sauces and some huge chunks of parmesan from my MIL in Italy

We had excellent pizza one day from La Manifattura which apparently won some awards in Paris. Every element was outstanding - puffy crust, perfect tomato sauce, top notch quality anchovies, creamy fior di latte, even caper leaves..

I continue my love of the French frozen supermarket chain Picard with this frozen fried rice. Who knew that you can freeze fried rice and eat it from the microwave straight?? 

Here is Cyril Lignac's yoghurt cake. Our friend Emily and her partner came to visit us from Toronto and we got in lots of chamber music. I haven't played group music since I was pregnant! We even got to play Schubert's string quintet which is a rare and wonderful treat. 

Onto the curveballs..
Two curveballs this month because life is too short for one! 

The cherry blossoms at our local park. So gorgeous and transient, like life really.. 

So with my return to work looming I decided to take an impromptu trip home to Sydney.. why not? I travelled a lot as a youngster but travelling with a toddler is a different level. Especially a 15 month old who just learned to walk and doesn't stay still! However, he is instant best friends with my dad's current guide dog puppy, who has unfortunately (or fortunately?) failed guide dog school so he is going to be a pet. Labradors are so gentle with children. 

That's it from me this month, thanks to Sherry for hosting and have a great April everyone!