Pierre Herme – Azure

Ever since I started Le Cordon Bleu a month and a half ago, I had almost no chance to eat any dessert other than the ones made by me. On top of the large quantities of things I churn out at school every Thursday and Friday, I also get the itch to make something of my own once in a while. As a result, Jason’s colleagues and our friends and neighbors have been having desserts pushed on them on an almost daily basis. Needless to day, this put a severe damper on my quest to taste test every Pierre Herme dessert on sale in Japan. But I did find a rare gap where there was no dessert at home and I took the opportunity to taste one of PH’s classic items, the Azure.



The azure contains two of my all-time favorite flavors: chocolate and yuzu. In fact I’ve had my eyes on it from the beginning but somehow have always bypassed it, probably because it looks plain compared to PH’s other creations and did not contain any exotic flavors such as cilantro or saffron. However, I was in the mood for something simple and uncomplicated that day and Azure fitted my needs exactly. It is a layer of chocolate ganache and a layer of yuzu cream, sandwiched between a piece of dark chocolate and a piece of chocolate sablee cookie. No fancy decorations or unexpected surprises. It’s simplicity at its best. It might even be my favorite so far.

For other Piere Herme items, see here.

Why can’t life always be peachy and perfect?

Ok, to be fair, my life is not too shabby. We’ve got our health, Libby’s still going strong at age seven, and we are happy with the way things are for the most part. So I shouldn’t complain, right? But it's my blog, so I am going to anyway, damn it!

It all started three weeks ago when we went to Hong Kong for the weekend to see some friends. Since we only had two days and have exhausted most of the tourist attractions on a prior visit, we focused our attention on food. After the first day I started to break out in hives, little bumps like mosquito bites here and there, nothing major. I figured it must’ve been the fengshui or something I ate that didn’t agree with me. I expected the problem to go away when I got back to Tokyo. It didn’t, and in fact got even worse. My stash of Claritin only relieved the symptoms when I took it but never made the problem go away. The problems with western medicine!

So frustrated by the ever present itchiness somewhere on my body, I almost gave in to Jason’s constant nagging and went to see a doctor. Luckily though, I talked to my parents, two veteran allergy sufferers, first. Their theory, and mine, is that some allergies come from within, caused by a toxin inside the body that somehow got triggered by an outside factor. According to them, to make it go away, I have to stop eating any food that could be allergy-triggering or are “heating.”

We Chinese believe that certain food will “bring on” diseases, or in other words, make the body susceptible to illnesses. We say they are “fah.” We also divide food in three general categories: cooling, heating and neutral. I am somewhat familiar with the heating and cooling properties of food but am completely clueless when it comes to which food brings on illnesses. So I asked my mom to give me some examples of food that’s “fah.” “Well, cilantro is a big one,” she said matter-of-factly.

Wait! Woah! Hold on a minute! Cilantro??!! Fragrant, green, healthy-looking cilantro? I just bought a big bunch and in a race against time to prevent it from rotting away in my fridge have been putting it in everything. I even made ice cream with it. No wonder my allergy is not getting any better!

After I calmed down she told me more. Seafood is no good, although fresh water fish is benign. (not helpful because there ain’t no fresh water fish sold in Japan, except for that very seasonal ayu) Spicy food of any kind is bad (I found fresh jalapeno pepper for the first time in Tokyo and had been eating nothing but spicy food lately). Chicken, and especially turkey should not be eaten either, and it’s best not to touch beef or cheese. Hmmm, I think that’s about 80% of my daily diet right there. Add to it the “heating” food such as oranges and anything red in color, I’ll have to eat nothing but rice and green vegetables until my allergy clears up! And no turkey? What about Thanksgiving?!

“So, um, is there anything left for me to eat at all?” I asked. “You can always eat pork and duck!” mom offered enthusiastically. Sure, that helps! The only way I know how to cook a duck is to roast it, and what’s that going to do to my waistline if I make it a daily item on the menu?

Arrrrgh! This is all so irritating. I guess with a mom that’s allergic to just about everything she touches and a dad whose pollen allergy is so severe that he used to schedule his overseas trips to coincide with the peak of allergy seasons, it’s a small wonder that my allergy problems didn’t manifest until now. Still! Why can’t I eat everything I want and be happy?!

Judging for DMBLGIT

As some of you know, I won the “Edibility” category of the ninth “Does My Blog Look Good In This” photography contest last month. Through my win I found a friend in Chubby Hubby, a blogger from Singapore, and a fellow flickrist. I was an instant fan of his aesthetically pleasing and creative food photographs. So when he told me that he was hosting the tenth DMBLGIT contest and asked me to be a judge, I gladly accepted.

There are a total of 45 entries and picking out five top winners for each of the three categories (aesthetics, edibility, and originality) proved to be a difficult task. One photo did stand out in particular and I hope the other four judges will agree with me and give it high marks.

Well, keep an eye on the Chubby Hubby blog for winner announcement and let the best photo win!

Keep It Simple

A couple of months ago when we went to London, our friends whom we stayed with served us a typical French breakfast on their roof top terrace over looking the Tower Bridge. The first item on the menu was buttered toast dipped in soft-boiled eggs. Maybe it was the fabulous view, or maybe it was the crisp morning air, gooey egg yolks never tasted so good.

Last weekend, we found ourselves stuck at home because of a typhoon that was sweeping through Japan. Jason was surfing the net while flipping through a GQ magazine, and I was reading a book that had to be returned to the library soon. Suddenly he turned to me pointing at a page in the GQ in his hand, “Can we have this for lunch?” And it was the same soft-boiled egg and toast. Having just had a rather filling breakfast, this light fare seems the perfect solution. Plus the sauerkraut bread that I made during the week is turning hard and would be perfect for toast.

Ten minutes later we had ourselves a simple but sumptuous lunch of egg and toast. Who said one has to labor for hours in the kitchen to have a decent meal? Sometimes all you need is ten minutes (of course I’m not counting the hours spent making the sauerkraut bread).

The Scent of Autumn

Does anyone know the English name for this flower? It’s called “gui hua” (桂花) in Chinese and “kin no mokusei” (金の木犀) in Japanese, but what’s it in English?





I was pleasantly surprised my first autumn in Japan when I woke up one morning to a distantly familiar sweet fragrance that I hadn’t smelled since I was a kid in China. It wasn’t until then that I realized that all the trees in the yard were “gui hua” trees! Later when we moved out of that house, one of the things I didn’t want to let go of was those trees, them and my humongous kitchen that took up half the first floor. But that’s a subject for another time.

You know the saying about closing windows and opening doors (or is it the other way around)? I was thrilled to find out one of the trees in my current yard is a “gui hua” tree came autumn in our new apartment.

So what is the big deal about those trees besides the fact that they smell nice? First of all, you don’t know how lovely the fragrance is unless you’ve experienced first hand. It’s not as strong as rose or as sweet as gardenia. If I have to come up with a comparison, I would say it’s like the honeysuckle in that elusive almost-not-there quality, yet it sneaks up on you when you are not paying attention and shocks you with a freshness unknown to any other flowers. Secondly, it’s not just good for its smell. You can eat it. Here is how.

When the flowers are starting to bloom (they only lasts for about a week) pick the ones that had just opened (fully opened ones are not as flavorful). Do not wash, as that the fragrance will be washed off, and place in a small saucepan. Put in sugar and water in a 2:1 ratio and bring to a boil. Boil until syrup thickens and flower turns a dark golden color. Pour into a clean glass jar. This is your “gui hua” syrup. You can add it to any Chinese dessert such as almond tofu, glutinous rice balls or sweet eight-treasure porridge “八宝粥”. Or if you are ambitious, you can make gui hua flavored steamed lotus roots stuffed with glutinous rice, “桂花糖藕”, which I plan to try in the near future.

My Blog is One Year Old

I had some free time today so I thought I'd organize my blog entries into categories, and what do you know? I found out that I wrote my very first blog entry exactly one year ago to the day!

Two hours of hard labor later, I now have manually categorized every single blog entry I wrote in the past year. Now if you would turn your attention to the side bar, you'll find something called "Let There Be Order" - my low tech solution to blogger's lack of automatic sorting function.
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First Week at Le Cordon Bleu

Three people cut their fingers; one person never showed up; one girl lost her wedding ring (later found); another thought she’d lost her mind when she couldn’t find her things in the locker after class (she used the wrong locker and the rightful owner of the locker turned her things in to the administrator); many people locked themselves out of their own lockers (myself included, twice. LCB has a really stupid locker system). Yup, that about sums up my first practical session at Le Cordon Bleu. Eventful, huh!

So what did we make? Fruit salad (to practice cutting fruits the correct way) and Flan au Caramel (aka pudding).



The first lesson wasn’t too bad because the subjects were relatively simple. Besides the salad and pudding, the teacher also demonstrated how to make crème brulee. The fruit salad was really nice due in large part to the quarter of a vanilla bean that was thrown into the mixture. The pudding was the creamiest and most flavorful I’ve ever had. Granted, I don’t usually order the humble flan au caramel in restaurants so I only have the convenient store variety as a yardstick, but I’m still pretty sure it was good. I have mixed feelings about the crème brulee, however. On the one hand, the full-on vanilla flavor was heavenly (can you see the vanilla seeds swimming on top?); but on the other hand, I felt that the texture was not as creamy as the one I made the more scientific way. (LCB does not believe in giving baking time so everything is done by eye-balling, without even a timer! I find this very hard to get used to.)

I hate to sound like a wimp but I was EXHAUSTED after a full day of class (3 hours practical plus 3 hours lecture). Interestingly it wasn’t the practical session that tired me out, it was all that Japanese thrown at me during lecture that gave me a huge headache. It felt exactly like the first week at work: brain overload. The problem is that I have to listen to the lecture in Japanese and take notes in English at the same time. Maybe I will go for the test for simultaneous interpretation after I’m done with LCB, but for now it’s taking every bit of energy and concentration I have in me. It’s still fun though, and I can’t wait till my next practical, where we make classic apple tart. It’s a beauty to behold. I hope mine turns out pretty.

In Two Days

In two days I start lessons at Le Cordon Bleu. Isn’t it exciting? I went to the orientation session last Friday and received my uniform (two jackets, a pair of pants, two aprons, a hat, and two kitchen towels, all with the LCB crest) and a serious-looking tool set.




Of course the first thing I did when I got home was to take a photo of the jacket and the tools to commemorate this landmark day. Next I labeled all the knives and spatulas and sharpening iron and brush and scraper and whatever else are in that heavy tool kit. I also tried out the chef’s knife and the vegetable peeler while preparing dinner that night. The knife was so sharp that I’m seriously worried because I’m known to be dangerous around sharp objects. The Wusthof peeler, on the other hand, was not as good as my OXO one as it didn’t have much of a grip. I might need to bring my own.

When the excitement subsided I started to get a little nervous. I mean, just by looking at all the tools you know they mean business. What if I can’t understand the teacher’s lectures? What if I fail the test and can’t go on to the next level? And what if, gasp, I don’t actually have any talent at patisserie? To calm myself down and stop my brain from going into overdrive imagining all kinds of worst-case scenarios, I decided to get organized and copy down the curriculum into my day planner. To my great relief, the first demonstration involves flan and crème brulee. Having made a very successful crème brulee only last week, I felt my confidence lift a little. As I read on, I found out that the first part of the basic course is almost entirely dedicated to tarts, specifically pate brisee and pate sablee, both of which I am pretty confident about. After all, I am the unabashedly self-proclaimed Queen of Tarts. This made me feel slightly better and I was able to breath normally again. I bet everyone gets a little pre-LCB jitters? I’ll find out soon from my classmates.

Oh, for those who are looking forward to more photos from my LCB lessons, I am afraid I am going to have to disappoint you. We were told at orientation that showing photos taken in class in a public media, either of the teacher demonstrating or of the teacher’s creations, is strictly prohibited. Blogging was singled out as a no-no, and I could swear the teacher looked in my direction (or is it just my guilty conscience?). We are allowed to show photos of our own work, however, so please drop by and see what I made in class. (I am just afraid that they are not going to be as pretty as the teachers’.) Personally I don’t know why they’re being so tight-assed about this. It’s not as if someone will be able to deduce the recipe just by looking at a couple of photos. However, I am trying to graduate from that school so I thought I shouldn’t break any rules lest my chance of getting a diploma is jinxed.