Sunday, January 19, 2025

Burns night delicacies.

A man emerges from the Coffee Shop, sees a pal in the barbers, pops in for a wee blether and then re-emerges holding his coffee and with his dog in tow. Man walking his dog and man having his hair cut. This just about sums up the relaxed  pace of life here as we head into the last stretch of January.

We receive a lengthy list of things to do and things to pack from the Palo Alto architects/gardeners. This is to be our first architectural stop in Tokyo :https://shigerubanarchitects.com/works/hh/curtain-wall-house/ . We are also sent a reading list ahead of our April voyage so we can 'maximize' the experience. This is rather like being given homework. The Palo Alto folk seem to take leisure very seriously. The ship is referred to as a 'motor vessel' which seems a strangely archaic use of language.


Things may be slow but the bakers is  prepared and ready for the Burns Night Festivities.


I ignore the Burns Biscuits but order a Wee Timrous Beastie ...


.... and a Haggis Truffle.


A cheese cake in the shape of the bards cottage has a roof of fudge icing . It would have made the grade but I'll wait to see what other offerings appear during the week.

'Puppy' has made another bid for freedom. She appears in the kitchen where she's given a Grissini by 'The Font'. This is noisily enjoyed. The farmers wife has bought  a dog whistle. Puppy is focused on her Grissini and ignores the  sound of the whistle and the ever louder calls to come home. Puppy is what a dog psychologist might best describe as a 'free spirit'. 


Cooking as relaxation:https://nickcurtola.substack.com/p/chicken-and-lentil-stew

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not too sure about the Haggis Truffle, to be honest. On the other hand, the soup looked good. I usually don't cook, but my husband has been in Japan for the past two weeks so I've been doing my best. I am not sure I will find it relaxing, but today I will tackle what Jamie Oliver assures me is "the humblest [apple] crumble ever". (Anything to take my mind of what is about to happen in DC.) The house in Tokyo looks interesting. Thanks to earthquakes, fires, war, etc., Japanese people seem to have the general expectation that buildings, especially houses, will come and go rather quickly, and this seems to foster creativity. The most recent earthquake standard was adopted in 1981, so there are now few homes left that were constructed before then.

Lisa in France said...

Sorry, that was me, Blogger gets me too!

Coppa's girl said...

The Tokyo house looks sadly out of place with it's surroundings and I can only imagine how irritating those curtains must be to the neighbours (and possibly the inhabitants) when there's a high wind! In fact if you take the curtains away, it's just a rather ordinary glass walled house.
That's quite a selection of Burns' Night "sweeties". I wonder how that fabulous bakery you had in France would interpret the occasion?