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!