In My Kitchen: October 2025

Where did September go? Someone told me once that once you have kids time just starts to fly, is it true??  

At work... 

The French eat their radishes with butter, and here was how it was served at the cafeteria, with a 250g block of butter!!!

A sunny day calls for lunch in the park - omelette, stuffed tomato, rice with mystery sauce, side of corn bean salad and a slice of melon, bread and cheese of course. The cafeteria feeds us well!

There are quite often get togethers "le pot" for various occasions at work, and only in France it's acceptable to have a glass of prosecco while on call! Here with an excellent strawberry cheesecake, one of a selection of delicacies...

At home... 

Our friend brought us these cute little sacher tortes from Vienna. They are the classic sacher torte but in round form, chocolate cake with plum jam inside. Very decadent and rich.  

S has been buying me little treats from the boulangerie near G's childcare for my long 24 hour shifts. Here was an excellent fig tart, the shell crisp with just a light layer of crême patissière and look at the topping of luscious figs!

Another on call, another beautiful tart - this time a raspberry one. 

A Fancy Friday we had with roasted fennel topped with lemon and parmesan, delicious! 

I've written about my love of Picard before, and their icecream is also excellent! 

We continue our Sunday lunch at grandpa's series with home cooked Chinese food - here Chinese greens, chicken soup with wombok, vermicelli and tofu, "fake crab" - an egg omelette dish made with vinegar and ginger to simulate the taste of crab, and mung bean sprouts with tofu (home sprouted) 

Finished one of our Sunday lunches with a cheese course - a tomme with pesto, a Saint Marcellin, and a mouldy chevre that I've forgotten the name of

on weekends I've been baking our daily bread and this was a particularly handsome one...

I've been wanting to bake something crazy for a while - I finally managed this dark chocolate and coconut swirl 

We also finally found freselle, a kind of super dry cracker from the south of Italy - in Brussels of all places! and enjoyed them with some heirloom black tomatoes. 

In Brussels...

One weekend we went to Brussels to visit S' sister who just had an adorable baby girl, unfortunately we were all sick and it was a freezing miserable weekend (and we had to keep away from the baby!) I had a checklist of foods I wanted to eat in Brussels and we barely managed any of it... anyway we did stop by a great Italian place and had coffee and cannoli there. 

And at the train station we picked up some waffles for the childcare and my workplace, and some chocolate with pistachio for us. 

The Curveball...

My little monster loves walking around the supermarket with the trolley! He went to the beer section one day and was fixed on the La Chouffe beer, probably because it had a picture of a smurf on it (there were so many smurfs in Belgium!) Anyway it's been really interesting to see the parallel development of 3 languages, and he also knows a few words in Chinese that he only uses with my dad! He has been standing in front of the fridge shouting cena (dinner in Italian)! dîner (in French)! dinner! tofu! compo (compote = mashed apple in French) eat! snack! We remind ourselves often to bottle these precious memories because in the blink of an eye he will be no longer so little. 

Sending this to Sherry who hosts the IMK series, have a great month everyone!