Socca

Simply the best and most delicious local snack you could possibly find in Nice, South of France. Wanna experience the most typical Niçoise way of life? Munch on Socca. Period. With your fingers of course, just tear large yummy pieces apart, no fork allowed. Socca is the basic combination of chickpea flour, olive oil, water…

Grilled Mushrooms Skewers and Carrot Salad with Sriracha and Feta Cheese

There comes again this time of the year when Spring is kicking out Winter, and I am trying and kicking out a few kilograms. When the weather gets less cold and the body needs less heat thus calories, it is indeed the best time of the year to get back to a healthier diet, and…

The Mustard Tart from my Childhood

Once upon a time, there was this specific trip, when I was almost 13 years old and a junior highschool student, that has marked with a cross the beginning of many years of me  having regular sleep-overs at one of my best friend’s of the time, Céline. We had already known each other for a…

Sweet Potatoes & Fried Bananas. Marshall Islands.

After a really cold Christmas week in Nice, 2018 has opened to a wonderful warm and sunny first day, which I think is excellent news to get the year started with good spirit. I began the day by doing a little bit of gardening on my balcony in the morning, enjoying the strong rays of…

Roasted Pumpkin over Roquette

A few months ago, my Aussie friend Sue went and tried a new restaurant in Canberra, the Tipsy Bull. Among other vegetarian dishes, she ate a very well plated Roasted Pumpkin salad with candied walnuts, that I surprisingly found really attractive although I am usually not too keen on everything “pumpkin” in the first place….

Roasted Butternut Squash Sweet Potato and Chestnuts

Butternut Squash for Dummies. I’m almost tempted to use this title. This is again this time of the year when I start cooking new ingredients for the first time of my life. Errors and trials isn’t really a thing to me, but exploring unknown paths definitely is. And then when it comes to food or…

Focaccia Bread

Nothing’s more comforting at home than the warm smell of handmade bread coming out of the oven. Especially when the afternoon hours are flying and nightfall is right around the corner, and you realize there’s no more bread at home for dinner. Animated by a massive wave of laziness to go outside that Sunday, I’ve…

Guacamole. Mexico.

Within a month, I’ll be off to Mexico for holidays. I can’t wait to discover the beauty of the country of course, and I can’t wait to find out about the local food, which I love and which I’m eager to discover much more of, especially when it’ll be prepared for me by the Mexicans…

12 Dishes, All Fresh and Cooling

When Summer hits and we try to keep running full speed with our daily duties, isn’t it good and satisfying to be able to sit around a table full of fresh items and cooling dishes that help us beat the heat? Sit back and relax, this week is starting to be so freaking hot that…

Sichuan Eggplants

I have traveled to Sichuan province (China) in 2003. Departing from Beijing with a friend, we had made the decision to experience traveling like the Chinese do when they go home, twice a year, when come the National Holidays, the first week of May and then the first week of October. All transportation modes included,…

Pissaladière Niçoise

There is no Southern French bakery that I know of that does not make and offer Pissaladière in Nice and its extended area. Moreover, everyone should note that there could not be a complete experience when visiting Nice without trying Pissaladiere at least once. One could say Pissaladiere is our local pizza, which technically wouldn’t be…

Between Buddha Bowl and Bibimbap

A healthy Buddha looks fat. Not the bowl, the statue. Not the Indian one, but the Chinese Buddha. Fat belly, fat ears, fat smile. I have no clue why we, in the Western part of the world, call such a healthy and fancy dish a Buddha Bowl! Is it because we end up with a round…

Spicy Chicken Soup with Mushrooms

Tonight as often, I am acting like a typical (and proud) Chinese. Indeed, when living in China, I’d eat soup during Winter to keep warm and fight the flu, and I’d eat soup as well during Summer to keep hydrated all along the hot tropical sweaty season of Southern China. Now that Summer is hitting hard…

Granola, Healthy Booster Breakfast

I’ve been seeing these Granola mixes made by other bloggers for ages, yet I haven’t gone through with making one of my own, until today, hooray!!! Recently watching one more of those Gordon Ramsay’s home cooking videos may have been the trigger (I think I can call myself a fan by now). I’ve seen him do…

Olives Tapas

There’s nothing more casual yet enjoyable than sharing tapas during a get-together with friends. There also are times when we feel like enjoying tapas without inviting friends over, just because they are available in the fridge, so easy to grab and very tempting! That is, of course, if you have – like me – some nice tapas recipes that…

Eggplant, Saffron and Tomato based Persian Stew. Iran.

Once in a while, I like to try a nice vegetarian dish. To be honest here, I usually like so much eating meat that the vegetarian dish I cook must be super tasty so that it makes me forget about the absence of meat. On-on, spices! To mark a difference with my habits, I’ve decided to make a…

Yogurt and Oven-Baked Apples with Cinnamon and Walnuts

Since I’ve lived in China for many years, eating dessert has become the opposite of mandatory for me at the end of a meal. I even ended up not enjoying so much anymore the taste of sweet foods, and developed a larger interest for savory dishes. But my husband hasn’t lived in Asia, and he has…

Wild Mushrooms Stew

Fall is usually not my favorite season of the year. This year though, I’ve decided that being grumpy about it would do me no good whatsoever, and that I could actually make an effort trying to find out what lots of people actually love about this time of the year. And I think I’ve made a…

3 Delicious Recipes to Use your Brunoise Cut Sunshine Veggies

Being a Mediterranean, my natural choices for food often go to anything with a nice drizzle of olive oil and aromatic herbs. If you travel anywhere in the South of France or in Italy, olive oil is the main oil for cooking and seasoning (but not for frying). It gives this feeling that the sun…

Israeli Salad, aka Chopped Salad, Israel.

I’m sure this weekend a lot of you, falafel lovers, will enjoy a nice pita pocket filled with those nice crunchy chickpea balls. The Rugby World Cup is beginning just as I write these lines, and pita with falafel just sounds like the right fix for a game night dinner, doesn’t it?! First of all, did…

Sunshine Veggies: Roasted “Tian” with Mozzarella

The “Sunshine Veggies” season is still on but will slowly be closing up soon in Nice as we progressively come out of Summer. We are lucky in this Southern area of France, because summertime is actually lasting much longer than in any other area of the country, and our veggies can keep bathing in the…