In My Kitchen : May 2026

Welcome dear IMK friends, sorry to say that April was a truly an Awful April... Longtime followers will know that in the last few years I moved from Australia to Canada to France, and it's all going pear shaped at the moment, mid life crisis I guess. Anyway, let's take a distracting moment in the kitchen.. 

For my monthversary baking project, I made a matcha cake which collapsed after I took it out of the oven but was nevertheless delicious. It fit in well with Awful April. You can also see that my selection of family photos also includes a castor that I drew, it says "life is short, eat cabbage"... 

I continued my annual tradition of making sourdough hot cross buns, but these didn't work out so well, a bit dense and chewy to go along with my Awful April .. 

We celebrated Easter with this magnificent dark chocolate easter egg from our local chocolatier Bernachon, stuffed full of goodies, that little chocolate chicken is filled with hazelnut ganache!

We also got a colomba, a traditional Easter bread that is eaten in the north of Italy. It's very much like a panettone in texture and composition but is covered with these little pellets of sugar. 

This was probably the most ambitious thing I made in Awful April, the fish pie from Recipetineats which I spruced up with lots of leek and fennel. We had friends visiting from New York and for dessert we had some wonderful strawberries, a real treat in spring in Paris. 

(There was a funny after episode too. I had bought an el cheapo bottle of wine to cook for the fish pie, and when Canadian friends dropped by a few days later we had finished all the nice wine at home so we offered them the el cheapo wine and they said wine in France is just delicious! didn't have the heart to tell them it was a 3 euro bottle from the supermarket...)

Off on a trip...

So I came up with this idea to take G on a big train trip because I adore trains (and I want to train him to love trains too), and since S was invited for academic reasons to Budapest we set out on our train adventure. It was badly timed, I had been struggling with eczema for weeks, I was terribly depressed, and had a bad head cold.. zero appetite, but anyway here are some photos of our trip. 

We took the train from Paris to Zurich (4 hours) where we caught up with S' little brother and his new lovely girlfriend. She was very sweet and gave us a goodie bag with these beautiful cups (the Starbucks series), a couple of cute wooden spatulas and a little box of chocolates. 

My dream in life is to have a make your own muesli bar like the one in our hotel breakfast.. 

We then took the overnight train from Zurich to Vienna (10 hours), and it was a real adventure squeezing into our tiny compartment, perfectly comfortable and we all slept well to the rumbling along of the train. We were astonished to see that they brought us breakfast in the morning (choose your own breakfast adventure) just before arriving in Vienna.. 

I was so sick from my cold that I literally had just 3 cups of tea in Vienna while lying on the couch all day at my friend's place. On the way back to the station I bought this topfengolatsche which is a typical Austrian pastry stuffed with curd, and we ate it on the train together (rather, G ate 90% of it), so this is literally the only food picture I have from Vienna!

The train from Vienna to Budapest was easy (3.5 hours) and the Hungarians on my train were so friendly, many old ladies besotted with G - must be unusual to see a mixed Chinese baby in the Hungarian countryside. We arrived in Budapest and went straight to a fancy dinner at Vakvarju, this was the dessert which was a tradition goat curd pudding with pearls and purées of strawberry and a tuile of basil. Very fancy. 

What else did we eat in Budapest? I have no idea! but one night a restaurant owner gave G this as a dessert, it's a frozen treat of cottage cheese covered in chocolate..  

Apero on the street anyone? This was leftover Prosecco from the night train! 

This was a picnic dinner in our hotel room because I couldn't stand the idea of eating meat anymore.. so if you are curious how much food costs in Budapest, this dinner of a loaf of gluten free bread, crackers, small chunk of cheese, cherry tomatoes, maquerel, peas and carrots in a can, hummus, a bag of mixed nuts, 3 oranges and a couple of little desserts cost us 7800 forints (21 euros or 25 US dollars).. how does that compare to prices in your town? 

I'm usually a big supermarket souvenir shopper but I was just too sick this time to do anything other than pick up some paprika (the bircher muesli was from Vienna) and this cookbook at the airport with the last of our Hungarian coins... 

The curveball... 

Here is my little monster curled up with his latest friend called Zuri. He usually hates stuffed toys but really took to this one, I think because S' brother's girlfriend gave it to him and she's very pretty (and he loves pretty ladies). He normally sleeps with a rabbit called Mr Rabbit so he has been inventing all sorts of stories about the two of them since we got home to Paris. He's at a gorgeous age where he is asking lots of what's that? why is that like that? kind of questions. It's also amusing to see him switch between languages or correcting our accents in French!

That's it for me this month, feel free to write me if you have been through a mid life crisis.. I need all the tips I can get. Sending this to Sherry who hosts the monthly IMK series, have a great month everyone! 

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! 

In My Kitchen: March 2026

Where did February go? Do we as parents just spend all our time wondering where time goes? G has been saying funny things that I really want to write down like 

Le poisson est triste, parce qu'il a perdu sa maman (the fish is sad because he lost his mother) 

Louise a mangé le gâteau au chocolat (Louise ate the chocolate cake) 

Viens, mama! on attend le bus ici, le numéro 10 (come mama! we wait for the bus here, number 10) 

Il pleure parce qu'il a perdu sa tétine (he's crying because he lost his dummy) 

He's also learning to request hot or cold milk.. exciting times! 

In My Kitchen... 

I brought back these sablé cookies from Trouville, aren't they pretty and delicate with the abbey printed on them? 

I've always wanted to make a crêpe cake and for this year's Chandeleur (a celebration of crêpes) I finally made it - here with coconut (I mixed half coconut and half normal cream) and lychee. The texture of the final cake was amazing - soft and ethereal ! 

Pasta Wednesdays continue.. here with gnocchi and smoked bacon, delicious!

Another Pasta Wednesday, spaghetti con vongole with a generous smattering of bottarga (salted cured fish roe) 

S was away in Marseille this month and he ate a sausage lentil dish there that he replicated at home for Valentine's day along with some excellent wine (the baby and I made the lego heart)

It's not Valentine's day without the Cyril Lignac special Valentine's edition equinox...  

Édition limitée Saint-Valentin : une crème légère parfumée à la vanille Bourbon, renfermant un cœur fondant de caramel et un croustillant praliné au Spéculoos. Une douceur irrésistible pour célébrer l’amour.

My SIL was also visiting for Valentine's and I made her these sablés with fleur d'orange and orange zest, very delicately perfumed and perfect with a cup of tea

I have been rather obsessed with Ottolenghi's tomato confit rice and it's been on our weekly rotation, here with chickpeas and feta as well. We just can't stop eating it, there's a depth of flavour that comes from slow roasted tomatoes that is irresistible

This was a last minute cake I made for a colleague at work - if you haven't tried it yet, Cyril Lignac's invisible apple cake is a real winner. Packed full of apples and just a smidgeon of batter, it takes barely 10 minutes to prepare (basically ready to go in by the time the oven preheats), and sets into a lemony custardy "cake" that tastes even better the next day. 

We celebrated Chinese New Year by all being terribly sick with the flu, but I was still determined to make our annual animal themed salad... it's fire horse year!

And despite our sickness we still made dumplings, though G refused to eat them as he was too sick.. 

I also tried out making our own glutinous rice cakes for Chinese New Year this year, inspired by Hetty Lui McKinnon's recipe. Highly untraditional, with pumpkin purée and coconut milk, cooked in the oven (the traditional recipe is just glutinuous rice flour, sugar and water, then steamed). This was stunningly delicious and I could have eaten the entire cake myself.. 

I've been having some troubles at work (too long and somber for an IMK) and one depressed day S brought home this rum baba, it was just what we needed, syrupy, soft but not soggy, unctuous vanilla chantilly cream... 

I leave you all with my curveball, my little monster with an organic bok choy full of holes (how often do you see holes in veg these days?), and a live worm even to attest its organic-ness. I tried to convince S to keep the worm as a pet but unfortunately he vetoed the decision... 

Sending this to Sherry who hosts the monthly IMK series. Have a great March everyone, and see you soon!

In My Kitchen: February 2026

 Starting with the non-kitchen related curveball today..

Somebody built this snowman on the helipad during our recent period of unusual snow in Paris - it was just beautiful, the whole world turned white, walking to work in a snow storm (all the buses stopped and the transport was chaos...) 

In Italy... 

We started January in Italy at the tail end of our holidays... 

Visit to our favourite pizzeria in Padova (Idon Pizzeria), and this was just about the most delicious pizza I've ever had with pumpkin cream, mozzarella, bacon and rosemary. If I could only share with you how fragrant this was... 

There were daily trips to Galateia, my favourite gelateria. It was Fior di Latte for baby G and a different flavour each day for me..

And since we are in Italy, why not some fresh pasta for breakfast? These were filled with beetroot and ricotta

S and I went away to Verona overnight and one of the unusual desserts we had there was this sbrisolona, a giant thick crumbly biscuit, served with a shot of grappa to either dunk the biscuit in or pour over the biscuit. I found it fascinating that the dessert was so alcoholic!

While in Verona we tried the locally famous risotto amarone, cooked in amarone wine till it turns this rich gorgeous burgundy, mixed with a ton of parmesan. so sumptuous. 

We also enjoyed this traditional Christmas cake called Nadalin, it's a star shaped pandoro, here cut in layers and filled with cream and chocolate chips, dusted with icing sugar. 

Back in France... 

January is galette season and this was a savoury galette I made with a lentil sweet potato filling for a dinner. 

We've been visiting our local fromagerie (Quatre hommes) on the weekends and getting some beautiful cheeses.. it's about twice the price of the supermarket (often more.. sometimes eyewateringly so) but it's a great way to celebrate all the gastronomy that France to often. It's also hilarious to hear G trying to name the cheeses and say over and over Fromage! Fromage! Fromage!  

S started a new tradition called Pasta Wednesdays. He bought a book on regional pastas and has been working through them - this one was a real hit, fettucini with olive tapenade, prawns, with a cannellini bean paste. 

I made this spanakopita one evening when S' uncle came over

These veg lasagnas were for a friend who just had a baby

We celebrated finding kale in our local bio shop by having this kale salad, so rare and precious in France

I made these mini lamingtons last week for Australia day. I drew the beaver in the background because my boss is crazy and apparently beavers keep you less stressed!

Still been going out to the forest sometimes for lunch. It's winter and the trees are bare, but the birds and ducks by the pond always bring peace 

Finally, the food related curveball...

I made a sweet galette too with the traditional filling (frangipane). The weird thing is, nobody found the fève! I guess someone might have swallowed it without realising, a frightening proposition. Baby G is turning into toddler G, hey?  

Sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings. Thanks for hosting and have a great February everyone!