Author: Namie

roast quail, Christmas, New Year

Roast Quail with a Chestnut and Prune Stuffing

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Christmas this year was the quietest in my living memory, though not the most modest in the gastronomic sense. I had the pleasure of cooking the last jar of duck confit I made last winter and this decadent roast quail stuffed with the season’s staple vegetable. It being my LM’s 300th day birthday gave more of a reason to celebrate over this special meat and wine. My little mouse has been enjoying chestnuts, which are, strangely, recommended after 2 years of age in the west, 1 year in Turkey, and 6 months in Asia. What is allowed for a baby varies depending on the country and I get confused because our baby is mixed. So glad that the LM is now at the stage where she can eat almost everything we eat and her latest obsession is toasted seaweed 🙂 These birds had been providing my LM with fresh eggs over the past 3 months and, when they stop laying eggs, they finally ended up on our plate. Quail eggs are another forbidden food item …

healthy meal, jujube, turkey

Turkey Necks with Ginger and Jujube: Cheap, Healthy Lockdown Meal

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We are under the national weekend lockdown again last weekend. I was meant to write this post earlier but I have absolutely zero time these day to do anything else besides chasing after the little mouse, who crawls and tries to get into all drawers around the house. When she sleeps, unlike the pre-solids days, I’m busy either cooking baby food or searching for baby food ideas. I refrain myself from talking about baby stuff not to give the impression that this blog is turning into a mummy blog. However, it’s inevitable to mention her here and there since I spend all day with her and all I do involve her. I even did the 2020 harvest with her at the winery! Though it was an exciting and unusual experience, I felt sorry, even guilty for having put her through the tough situation where she was left in the hands of strangers while I was working and was restricted to the room without her favourite toys since the outside was too cold. I was absolutely …

Tbilisi New Wine festival

Foodie Guide to Tbilisi, Georgia

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With the current travel restrictions, reading about travel would only make you even more itchy to travel. It certainly did while I was sorting out the photos from my trips to Burgundy and Tbilisi last spring. Tbilisi is one of my go-to destinations for food and I look for every opportunity to go and appease my cravings. As I celebrated my birthday last week with Georgian wine, I thought I’d write about the trip to refresh my memory, having hubby relieving me from child care thanks to the 4-day lockdown. It was my first glass of wine since the delivery and I was literally ecstatic to have it with Roquefort, which I fought hard not to eat throughout my pregnancy since raw milk cheese was forbidden. Wine while breastfeeding? It’s perfectly ok as long as you drink sensibly after the last feed. Unlike the spontaneous first trip back in 2014, I got some recommendations from a foodie friend, who is crazy about Georgian cuisine and  has a local friend in Tbilisi. I tried to make …

Turkish food, caul fat

Happy Mother’s Day and Postpartum in Lockdown

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Hello folks, it’s been a very long time. Too many things have happened over the past year for me to even recount everything. Last year I was fully committed to wine making and WSET diploma and, as if they weren’t challenging enough, I decided to have a baby and carried her through the harvest. I thought I could take advantage of the super sense of smell on the tasting exams, which didn’t quite work out. However, it was proven quite useful when I was sniffing the fermenting wines and during the blending process of 2016 vintage. If my baby grows up to be a wine girl, no surprises there! My pregnancy was smooth and I quite enjoyed tucking into sucuk, kebab, katmar, kunefe and all other naughty desserts that I didn’t used to eat without feeling guilty. My cravings were for fatty and spicy food, and hubby drove to Istanbul and Izmir to provide me with the best croissants in Turkey. After 40 weeks, however, I started to get frustrated, not having any signs of …

bone soup

Oxtail Soup: Natural Healing and Immune Booster for Winter

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The second half of 2018 has flown by while I was lost in the vine and exam. What a remarkable year it has been, with many new opportunities and challenges thrown at me… all at once… I’ve muddled through somehow, despite some physical and mental hurts. Now that all wines are resting after pressing, it’s time for me to heal my burnt-out self with this soulful soup and prepare for the next rounds. You might think I’m being overly dramatic but surely, being responsible for an entire harvest for the first time is a full emotional ride. However, it has been such an enriching experience and I’m so glad that I was given the chance, even though, as they say, precious things come with a price. The price of not being able to share everyday moments with my family was one, but the bigger price was not being able to write for my blog or study for my WSET exam. I really missed the joy of writing and of course, cooking. December is a festive month …

Akitu NZ Pinot Noir

London Wine Scene: Amazing NZ Pinot Noir Tastings, Denbies Wine Estate

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It’s too hot to cook! These days I’m living on watermelon, cheese and ice cream, and occasional BBQ picnic. So, to fill the gap, I thought I’d write up a post about my experience while I’m still savouring in my mouth the flavours of delicious Indian, Thai, Italian, Spanish, French, Hawaiian food I scoffed down, while drinking copious amount of wine around the busy London city. First, I’ll start with my exam, because I know so many people are curious about it. The first classroom day was exciting to finally confirm that the fellow students, whose names appear at random online, were human not computer-generated avatars. After the exam and a short break, tasting workshops started and we evaluated a series of wines according to SAT (systemic approach to tasting). I really need to give credit to Chris, my level 3 instructor, for the very helpful SAT sheet he created. The students at my table rushed to take a photo of! A lot more emphasis was put on assessing the quality of each wine compared …