bruneton

Awhile back, we received this jam from my host-sister.

I thought I had written about it but couldn't find it, nor could I find a photo of the bottle when we received it.

Bruneton Preserves are made in France, in a small town called Longes, by Philippe Bruneton.

This jam is made with cherries, syrah wine and a touch of cinnamon.

The cinnamon isn't overpowering which is nice.

We've tried it on toast, oatmeal pancakes and in yogurt.

I love that there are lots of whole cherries in this.

I'm glad we got to try this, it is delicious.

Thank you! 

sending virtual hugs

Sending virtual hugs to Paris...so so sad seeing Notre Dame Cathedral in flames yesterday morning on the news.

These were some photos of the cathedral from our Paris trip in 2011.

I know it will take time, but I hope they will be able to restore the damaged areas.

merci beaucoup

I really appreciate the friendships made from this blog.

Though I've never met most of my virtual friends face to face.

They know how to brighten my day with a surprise.

Merci mon amie! xoxo

(care package contents: Jacques Genin Pates de Fruit, Les Jardins de Gaia Babouchka Gout Russe Tea, Schar Gluten Free Wafer Bar, Sesame Candy & Cookie, Kaoka Noisettes, Rapunzel Chocolate Chips, Pere Louis Chocolate Coconut Bar)

l-o-n-g

Lately I've been buying baguette from Bigot (bee-go). Most places charge between 240 and 260 yen, the size of the baguette range too.

Some charge the higher of the price range and give you a teeny baguette...boo!

I like the fact that Bigot's baguette is about 60 centimeters (that is nearly 2 feet) and only 241 yen (tax included)...yeah, I measured it.

When you toast it, the outside gets crispy and the inside kinda chewy.

I know in France most people keep their baguette in a cloth bag, but in Japan, they give you a plastic one.

I usually re-use the plastic bag I receive and put other breads into it afterwards.

This was the view of our mountains yesterday with a sprinkling of snow.

p.s. I've added a QR code for this blog (in the Buttons Galore section), just scan the code with your reader and bookmark us.

It's Friday here, hope you have a great weekend!

things I'm liking

Well, there was no snow this weekend, not even a flurry, but the wind was fahreezing cutting through everything and anything you were wearing...still hoping for a white Christmas, though I know Satoshi is not.

So many things to post, so little time, so I'm putting them all in a "things I'm liking" post...starting off with the 400 grams of La Mere Poulard's chocolate chip cookies. Not liking that it is 100 grams less than her buttery sables, those are 500 grams.

Kinda liking Italy's Crik Crok chips...while I liked the flavor, the texture reminded me of crunchy Pringles and there was just way too much salt.

The kinoko tartine from Anri...a fourth of a baguette slathered with white sauce, lots of mushrooms and cheese.

Earlier this year, I tried the chocolate kakinotane which Kameda and Meiji collaborated on, this time they added almonds.

I would have enjoyed this more had the almonds been covered with chocolate too, seemed out of place.

Maisen's tamatoro menchikatsu pocket sandwich...whew, a mouthful to say.

Tamatoro is a shortening and fusing of two words: tamago (egg) torori (oozy)

Menchikatsu is a hamburger deep fried

Even though this sandwich was sitting out, the egg was still oozy.

This sandwich was huge, delicious and only 399 yen. (I would've liked a little veg in there but it probably would have made things a bit soggy)

Love socks with toes (not exactly sure what they call them in English).

I heard that they keep your feet warmer than regular socks because each toe is covered, kind of like gloves for your hands.

Oh and if you happen to have athlete's foot (I don't) it is perfect for keeping each toe from touching each other and spreading germs...

MUJI sells these socks that are made in Japan.

Another company, Tabio sells socks with toes that are made in Japan too.

I didn't know this but sock making is a large industry in Nara prefecture, Tabio and MUJI's socks are made there.

The pink socks are a perfect style for wearing ballet type flats.

Keith's chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies. We received these from my parents and have been enjoying them with coffee. (thank you!)

It looks like there are quite a bit of crumbs at the bottom of the bag, which I'm looking forward to sprinkling on ice cream.

Kinder's Happy Hippo Cacao...a wafer filled with milk creme and hazelnut creme.

Delicious and cute.

Gingerbread crunch by The Cookie Kitchen, we also received these from my parents.

Be careful, don't break a tooth, these are kinda on the hard side, the spices are so festive. (thank you!)

La Mere Poulard's crepes dentelles...thin thin wafers rolled into a little stick of sorts then covered with milk chocolate.

These stay very crisp because of the chocolate...yum!

And lastly, Antenor's black sesame pudding.

Not very aesthetic but very delicious, nutty from the sesame.

Bummed that they used a plastic bowl though.

What have you been enjoying?!

'tis the season

Christmas is coming, what a great way to celebrate with all sorts of sweet treats from around the globe.

First off though is not a sweet treat... A french classmate went to Belgium recently and brought back this cute sachet filled with lavender, perfect for Christmas (merci!)

Mini pandoro from MUJI. I had read about pandoro on Rowena's blog, but had not tried it myself.

Have you seen how big Pandoro or Panettone are?! Lucky for me, MUJI had these mini-sized (like the size of a big muffin), perfect for a taste.

This Italian eggy bread/cake reminds me of what we have in Japan called castella.

And if you try pandoro, then you have to try the Italian panettone too.

Another mini-size made by MUJI.

This one was more bread-like filled with raisins and citrus peels.

I preferred the pandoro while Satoshi preferred the panettone.

A small box of La Mere Poulard's Les cookies du Mont Saint Michel (France).

These cookies are packed with chocolate chips...yum!

Weiss Contrella Classic Lebkuchen (Germany)...I had envisioned something more like gingerbread, maybe a little more crisp, but these were soft, a little spicy, very sweet and dipped in chocolate.

With a cup of tea though, they were perfect.

Rounding out our Christmas treats, shortbread from Scotland.

Walker's buttery shortbread are delicious.

What are you enjoying these days?

things I'm liking

If you take a look near the left corner of the photo there is a box of sugars.

Belle de Sucre, has an assortment of sugars called Meli-Melo.

I opened this box of sugars and was surprised, it was only held closed by a piece of plastic around the box.

On the inside, the sugar wasn't in a package or anything. Lots of trust in that one piece of plastic...

These are cute and colorful.

Byron Bay's muesli cookie..."crammed with oats, currants, cranberries, apricots, almonds, sunflower seeds & linseeds."

Soft and moist, this cookie is definitely crammed with "stuff"...delicious.

I found a bag of peanuts at the market recently.

In Japanese they are called rakkasei. I was hoping they were raw so that I could make a batch of boiled peanuts, but found out they had already been roasted.

At 200 yen for 300 grams, I thought these were a steal.

What are you enjoying?

things I'm liking

It's the end of the month, I'm cleaning out some photos and posting some random stuff I'm liking.

The weather was beautiful the other day, so I went to check out Aramaki Rose Park, I packed myself a bento, and went to check out the roses.

There was a slight rose fragrance in the air, though the rose bushes looked a little shorter than when we visited in the Spring.

I won these assorted coffees from Starbucks Japan. They were giving them away to 5000 people if you signed up for their online newsletter and as part of their celebration of 15 years in Japan...woot!

For this contest, you had to choose what you wanted to win. They were giving away a latte machine or a case of pre-made lattes or these coffees.

I figured everyone would choose the machine, and I don't have space for a case of pre-made lattes, so I went with the assortment.

I think it was a good choice. (Thank you!)

Muji's Rooibos Ginger Chai tea. Good with a little sugar and splash of milk, perfect in the evenings as rooibos is non-caffeinated.

Mini Reese's PB cups...they have no wrappers on them so be careful not to eat the whole bag in one sitting!

Muji's Amatriciana, just heat the bag in a pot of boiling water and pour over your favorite pasta.

I added a sprinkling of parmesan cheese and some ground pepper...delicious on a rainy day.

True North's almond pecan cashew clusters...serving size is 5. One cluster is the size of a sugar cube, let me tell you, they are hard to stop at just 5!

It is kinoko (mushroom) season here, I sauteed these (shimeji, eringi & maitake) with some chicken consomme, garlic, a little butter & chili pepper and served it over rice like a donburi (bowl).

Satoshi gave me the thumbs up for this dish.

La Bien Nommee's salted caramel with dark chocolate sauce which we got in France...this sauce gets firm in the refridge, but is still very delicious on hot scones.

Coco Ichibanya's curry furikake...starts off sweet and then the spiciness kicks in...good on rice!

A piece of cooked kabocha, mashed together with a hard boiled egg, some mayo and ground pepper...delicious on crusty baguette!

What are you liking these days?

p.s. Happy Halloween! if you're celebrating, be safe!

paris

The last time we were in Paris was on our honeymoon and it was for less than a day!

This time around, I was excited to see more of the city and more of the food of the city.

So, after a light hotel breakfast on our last full day in Paris, we started at Poilâne.

Even though this place mainly makes bread, I had wanted to try their tarte aux pommes (apple tart). This was very flaky and had just the right amount of apples.

The lady who was passing out samples of the punitions happily allowed us to take some photos inside the shop.

We also got some punitions (300 grams) but I'll talk about them a little later in this post.

Kinda around the corner from Poilâne is Le Grande Epicerie, which translates to me as gourmet supermarket heaven.

Pretty much every food item you can think of is sold here.

We picked up some items for lunch as well as some items I had been wanting to try.

I was really impressed with the cashier, she put everything carefully into our shopping bags, trying not to smash anything. This was unlike the other cashiers at places we picked up our dinner from which were similar to convenience store/market types, some would just throw everything in the bag!

Since what I bought ended up to be quite heavy, we zipped back on the metro to our hotel, dropped things off then zipped back out to Montparnasse.

There is a huge tower called Tour Montparnasse, the elevator takes you 196 meters (643 feet) up in 38 seconds.

Great view of the city! especially since the weather was so nice.

From Montparnasse, we then headed to Pont d'Alma, where I'd heard it was a nice place to take photos of the Eiffel Tower from.

It was a great spot!

We then walked toward the Parc du Champ de Mars and happened to turn up rue de Monttessuy and wow!

Another awesome view of the Eiffel Tower.

At Parc du Champs de Mars, we found a spot on the grass to picnic on, "no alcohol" say the signs though I spotted some "hiding" their stash.

We did have some wine with us but saved it for later that day and drank sodas with lunch instead.

Lunch was bread, mine was a mini-ficelle topped with poppy seeds...yum!

And our main dishes were a grilled vegetable salad and a marinated seafood salad, which we shared.

I really liked these items and Satoshi liked them even more because he kept talking about it for the rest of the day.

One thing you have to keep an eye out for while picnicking are the crows and the pick-pocketers. All were out in full force and we ate leisurely but also while clutching our bags and lids for our food.

For dessert, a little of the punitions we had purchased earlier.

I first learned about them awhile ago here, these cookies are buttery, a little sweet, yet very sturdy, we packed some for our picnic and not one crumbled.

(I also packed the rest in my suitcase to bring back to Japan and again, not one crumbled, and my suitcase was pretty stuffed!)

So after lunch, we walked under the Eiffel Tower towards Trocadero, another great view of the tower and then we zipped on the metro to the Arc de Triomphe.

We found out that you can climb to the top of the Arc, so we did...284 steps later we were at the top...eep!

It's a spiral staircase, so go slow, or you may get dizzy. And there aren't many places for you to stop and catch your breath on the way up. (no one said you needed to be in shape for sight-seeing?!)

But, the view was spectacular, especially since the weather was nice.

After all that stair climbing, we checked out Publicis Drugstore, a place for sweets as well as other items.

Then at this point, we were feeling a little hungry, so we stopped in at the McDonald's on Champs-Élysées.

I had heard they served Ladurée macarons in the McCafes and Satoshi was in the mood for a burger.

As soon as we walked in, Satoshi excitedly says..."Kat, they serve beer here!"

So, I ordered him a burger and beer and I ordered myself some macarons (caramel, citron & pistache (pistachio)) and unfortunately a very sickly sweet iced tea.

I was impressed that they had sidewalk seating for customers.

The macarons were delicious, I liked them all--caramel had a caramel center, citron had a lemony cream & pistache had a pistache cream. All were very well flavored.

After a nice snack and time to rest our feet, we then headed to Blanche, to check out A l'Etoile d'Or, a not to be missed candy shop, but sadly they were closed.

I had missed an important piece of info when I looked up this place...to call on a Monday, because sometimes they are closed.

A little bummed, we then went on to Montmartre to see the Sacré-Coeur Basilica.

As we walked up the steep cobblestone path to the basilica, I found a little shop, La Cure Gourmande, selling nougat, calisson and other treats.

At this point, our feet weren't happy, but the basilica was beautiful. We rested twice in the pews.

We had wanted to go up to the dome area, but saw that it was 300-something steps up, looked at each other and said, "forget it".

So we headed back to the hotel, picked up some items for dinner and then readied our bags for our early departure the next day.

Even though most of our time in France was spent with a tour group and our trip was short, I think we got to see and do quite a lot.

The weather had been forecast to be rainy for most of our trip, but we were lucky to see more sunny days.

And even if the temperature was almost 20 degrees less than Osaka's (sometimes it was colder than that, brr!), I was just happy to be away from the awful humidity.

I shot a couple videos on our last day in Paris, here and here.

I hope you had as much fun as we did....Thanks for bearing with my rambles and "merci" Satoshi for taking me to Paris!

Poilâne
8 rue du Cherche-Midi
75006 Paris, France
Phone: 01.45.48.42.59

La Grande Epicerie de Paris
38 rue de Sèvres
75007 Paris, France
Phone: 01.44.39.81.00

Tour Montparnasse
33 avenue du Maine
75755 Paris, France
Phone: 01.45.38.52.56

Publicis Drugstore
133 avenue des Champs-Élysées
75008 Paris, France
Phone: 01.44.43.76.31

A l'Etoile d'Or (2022: out of business)
30 rue Fontaine
75009 Paris, France
Phone: 01.48.74.59.55

La Cure Gourmande
8 rue Steinkerque
75018 Paris, France
Phone: 01.42.23.42.02