To Apricot

Where am I going...

I used to be very strict about my self.
I don't allow myself to do things that I am not happy with. I always thought that it is better to change the job if you are complaining everyday when you go home. I thought it is waste of time.
I was even strict about other people sometime, like my husband. If I asked him how his day was, I didn't like hearing "OK...." nor " So so....". I always wanted to hear details and at least a thing that made him happy.

How about me now...? I am complaining a lot everyday. I have nothing to say when my husband asks me about my day. Maybe " OK " or " so so" . I know I need a change, but I don't know where to go...

Since I was a little girl, I had practiced a thing every day for more than 15 years. Since I quit that, I have been kind of not be able to decide what my next project is.
I have tried couple different things past 10 years. Then finally " Pastry " is the thing that I want to pursue next.

But, now I am in the middle of dark. I don't see any path to take me to the end.... I am worry which direction I am taking... It is Pastry, but which kind? Wedding cakes? Fine plated desserts? Owning a cafe? Being in a restaurant business? Food styling?

One day I was talking to my husband how I feel, and he said that as long as I stay something to do with food, I am on the right truck. That made me feel so much better.

Maybe I was lucky to do a thing for more than 15 years when I was a child.

I know I have a lot more to learn and experience no matter what I do.
Only what I can do is being myself and keep trying!!

Special Day, Special Dinner.

Few weeks ago, something good happened to us. So we decided to go out to eat. It was my husband's day, so he got to pick a place.

Most of the time when he picks the food, he wants to have Asian food, especially Japanese, especially good sushi. And we always go to the same restaurant called Ushiwakamaru for Sushi.

It is not the most expensive place for sushi.In NYC there are so many places where they charge us 1.5 times more.... However, Ushiwakamaru is kind of an inexpensive place for the quality of the food.

We always prefer to sit on the counter where you can order in person to the chef, and you can chat with them. However, since a master chef at Ushiwakamaru is very good and busy, there is always no seat available in front of him.

This time, because of the last minute reservation, we had to take a table seat. Anyway, the food was amazing. I have to say that they are one of the best sushi ever since I remember....
They are that good!.

If you are going there for your first time, I recommend you to have Toro-taku roll. It is a roll with Pickled Daikon radish and Tuna fish. We can't finish our meal without having it. I heard that the master has special skill for making an amazing roll. not to tight.... not too lose.... kind of.....yummy! I want to have more and more....

We had such a good time there. For our next time, we made a reservation in front of the master chef!(on my husband's special day... again)
I am so excited!!

On my birthday.

Every year on my Birthday, we try to have a good dinner at a good restaurant. Last year we went to Joel Robuchon at four season hotel. It was one of the best meal ever...

This year, we finally decided to go to Per se. Luckily, we had a friend who works there, so it became even more special day for us.

It was a rainy day, but the view from per se was still good enough for me. We had one of the best seat to see the view. As soon as we sat on the seat, they poured champagne and gave us amuse.

Then we got our menu for the night. The first thing I saw on the menu was that they printed the title saying
 " Happy Birthday XXXX(my name)". I was very surprised and impressed by that. I have been to couple of good restaurants so far, but non of the places did that for me. The experience made me feel I was very welcomed and I was admired by their professional hospitality.

Off course the meal was fantastic! The best part of the meal for me was the dessert. (off course...)
They gave us almost as many dessert courses as their main meal, about 6 to 7 courses... It was great!
We ate them all, and took some chocolate for home...

It was a special day, and I know that it doesn't happen often.... but I am just happy that I experienced the best food and hospitality on my special day with a person I love.

I learned things beyond just food the night.

A beautiful chocolate day

On my day off, I had a chance to visit my friend, Phiphi, to learn working with chocolate. Phiphi is actually a very talented chef at a high-end restaurant in New York. I only met him twice so far, but I feel like I know him very well. He is a person who can give you that friendly feeling.

Again, Phiphi is very talented. Not only technically, but also mentally genius. What's great about him, I think, is that he thinks being a chef is also being a teacher. He believes passing his knowledge to his worker is very important and he enjoys to do that with his busy schedule everyday. It is not that I have been a teacher before, but I think teaching is one of the most difficult job to do. First of all, you need to be very very good at what you are teaching. Secondly, you have to be very patient. And, you need to trust your students to let them try. 

I don't  have many experiences with chocolate. I have only worked with it very limited time till now. Even though he knew how much I can do, he was very kind to explain step by step. And he let me try most of work that we did today. And he never discourage me in anyway.

Having such a good day, I just remembered that this is the feeling I was missing for a while. Doing something that stimulate me with a person/ people whom you can respect and who also respect you.

I am so lucky to know him. I appreciate my friend who introduced Phiphi for me. As long as I have a chance, I want to learn from him.

Thanks, Phiphi.

 

My goal of this year....

Recently, I am disciplining myself with a thing. It is that to do the best you can for every possible task you have. Try not compromise for anything. It is very hard. There are always temptation around you.
One of my favorite chef said once that if you could manage repeating the highest performance for your ordinary tasks, that makes you to become extraordinary.
I really believe in that.

Here is a place where people are doing the job everyday. The place called Financier. This is a french pastry place where you can get all kinds of cakes and cookies. I love this place so much! Whenever I have some errands to go to financial district, I always stop by there. I don't have my favorite one yet. I have been trying as many different one as I can. Every time I try new one, it is so good that I easily fall in love with...
Their pastry looked so beautiful. And you can almost tell that those pastry are made by someone who really care what their job is, and how their job will be seen by people who buy them.

I think to get techniques and skills are very important. However, those comes after the hard discipline of mental practices.

Chikalicious

   I have couple favorite places for dessert. Chikalicious is one of them.
The place is not so new that already a lot of people know about the place, and there are a lot of fans.

I didn't became a big fan until about two years ago. It was the time  when I started my pastry career seriously. When you care about a thing little more than what it was, all the sudden you can recognize a lot of new things that you didn't care or see before. And you will start wondering about a lot of how/ why?

In her place, the dessert is not too complicated. It is  pure and clean. Nothing is overpowering. Sometime you can almost tell what it is and how to do it. But at the same time you know that you are missing something very important in order to make such a dessert. They can be experiences, attentions or techniques.

   The other day, Chika came to where I work to have a lunch with her friends and husband. I was very excited the fact that she is going to have what I plate. The end of the meal, I had a chance to talk to her. She was very polite and humble. She told me how she started her food career and more. Then, she told me she enjoyed the meal very much.

From the conversation, or the energy she had, I could tell she is a very hard worker and always open for new ideas.

   

Nowadays, there are so many way to learn new recipes, technique and more..... Those information are open for everyone.

I think what's important for us is try something new as often as we can,(it can be very small thing, like buying a fruits never tried before..) and keep trying until something hit your brain.

Flavored Brioche

I love bread more than any kind of carbon-hydrate.
I was born and raised in Japan, but I never preferred rice over bread. I remember during my college time in Japan, Starbucks first came to near I was living. I went to there almost every day to have their pastry and cafe-mocha.  I never got tired of eating good pastry or bread as long as I remember.

When I first came to NY, I was addicted to Scone. I know Scone is such a simple bread that everybody can make. As a new in US,I almost had never had scone like that before. Our scone in Japan is more like English afternoon tea version which I don't love too much. I liked country-style/ looking-like-stone kind of Scone.

OK, let's stop talking about my old story....

Ever since I learned how to make delicious brioche from my French Chef, I enjoy making it whenever I have a chance. Recently, we baked our Miso flavored brioche at work. Miso is one of  our staple ingredient in Japanese cooking. But I have never thought of making Brioche with it. In addition to the Miso, we mixed chopped scallion. The brioche came out so good!

So, at home, I tried to make caramelized onion brioche and sake lees brioche. The former one came out very good. The sake lees one needs more improvement.

It was a good start for my Brioche experiment. My next project is Tomato Brioche!

Blaue Gans

It was a rainy day when I went to Blaue Gans.
It is an Austrian Place by Chef Kurt Gutenbrunner. I was very curious about his places for long time.

It was a summer couples year ago, I was so into Guinness beer that I could drink every day. Since then I have been interested in their food and beer. But I never had a chance to explore what really Germany or Austrian food is.

Even though I was more interested in another place from chef Kurt Gutenbrunner, wallse, (because they are little bit less casual. I passed by there few days ago, and it looks so nice!!), I decided to try somewhere more reachable. The decor was very artistic and cool. They had great beer from Germany and Austria and their food was very authentic.
My friend and I ordered couple different stuffs from their appetizer and sausage menu. My friend was very excited about their Pretzel because one of him friend strongly recommended. I only had Pretzel once in my life so far, so I am not right one to say anything more than yummy ! or not yummy...
Whatever we had there was fine, but we were very confused too. We couldn't just be happy eating them. We had to think and discuss about them...
You know,sometime when you are eating something you really like, you don't need any explanation about it. You just love it, so keep eating it.
Our experience there wasn't like that. The end of the dinner, we knew that we need to study more about Australian food to appreciate better.
It was very interesting night for us...
  

A class with Chef Michael Laiskonis

Recently, I took a class at ICE. The class was given by my long time hero chef Michael Laiskonis from Le Bernardin. In fact, I have never been to the restaurant yet (I want to so bad....). Only time I saw him before is at the food & wine show in NYC last year. Usually, to like chefs, I need to go to restaurants to eat their desserts, and I fall in love with what he or she does. It is not too easy to happen to me though...
However, Chef Michael, he is an exception. From the moment I saw his blog, I couldn't stop thinking about having his desserts, meeting him and learning from him. I was inspired by how much he is generous about sharing what he tries or what he learns everyday in the kitchen to everyone. And he is always trying something new!

At the class, we learned how to use herbs in the desserts.
I love herbs in general, especially in savory cooking. But, it was nice to know how to combine those herbs into ice cream and mousses. My favorite one in the class is Rosemary Ice Cream.

It was such a good experience for me.

I feel that a lot of times people are too busy and tired from what they have to do everyday. However, if you take a small extra effort, there are so many new and inspiring opportunities waiting out side of their everyday circle.

 

 

My best friend leaves to Italy

One of my best friend left to Italy the beginning of this month.
She is in a program to do intern ship for three month in a farm in Italy, and going to travel around the world for one and half month.  It is all good for her and I am very excited to hear all the story she will be experienced.
To cerebrate her voyage, we had a dinner at a Japanese restaurant where you can have so many varieties of good sake and very good Japanese food. I should say this is one of the best sake place in the city. I was so interested in tasting sake that I studied little bit before I go. As you can imagine, usually, more you pay , better sake you get. So, I decided to have Hakkaisan junmai ginjo. It was like a water in a good way. Very smooth and pure. It goes well with traditional Japanese food that they serve there, such as ka-ku-ni(stewed pork belly ) and Gyu-su-ji ni-ko-mi(slow cooked beef with daikon radish in miso flavored broth). My friend had a good time there too. One of her favorite dish with her sake was a-n-ki-mo(monk fish liver).
We had such a good time, and we left feeling of that we have to come back to the restaurant as soon as  she comes back to city!

A day before she leaves to Italy, she stooped by where I work to have a lunch.
This is the real last time to see her for next five months..... I miss her so much....