Cherry blossom for a very special blog

I am back. I am back and totally inspired by a post I read on She Who Eats. The post is simply out of this world, filled with stories, pictures and information on how to use cherry blossom. Chika, the woman behind She Who Eats, makes one of the most delicious food blogs on the net today. I am totally seduced by her energetic long posts, her enthusiasm and her talent to put things together. If for any reason you never crossed with Chika and her blog She Who Eats before, click on the link and let her take you too.




I have written a post about She Who Eats before, about the incredible influence Chika's machine-free ice creams had on me, and how I simply had to start making ice cream after I saw hers. Her ice cream posts are many, among them are some of my favorites, like Come and Almost Gone with the Monsoon which is actually a post about cherries with cherry ice creams and cherry desserts and of course the monsoon. Anyway, she has a real talent to write and to develop a post around a single topic, she is totally unique.



Some amazing things about Chika: she is a regular user of honey, she likes white chocolate, she makes milk jam from scratch, using real milk & cream and she makes machine free ice creams. She makes milk jam with honey, totally awesome, I thought it was only me who would dare to try it. But her blog is a lot more than desserts and recipes. It is full of stories, travels, parties, celebrations, pictures and filled with love. Recently she was a finalist on Saveur's 2011 election for best dessert blog. Well, she got my vote but she didn't make the prize this time, but she will sometime soon, I am sure.




Chika is very modest, a little shy and might not have yet acknowledged that she writes some of the best posts of the food blog universe. She is a real inspiration to me, she makes me want to do things and try more things. Below I listed some of my favorite posts with links, you can try them yourself.

On cherry blossom, a magical post
A trip to Europe and the end of the beginning of a summer
Chocolate & love
Lychees, lychees cake and ice cream
Those cherries I mentioned before
Japan & Melon ice cream magic
More ice creams love.
A trip to Tasmania
Apple trees on a cloudy day




Sweet in Pink and a little salty is one of the best post she has every written. It is amazing because it is long and full of details and if you are like me and love long post this is the one. But more than abundance of content, it is full of enthusiasm, love, passion and dedication. Can you imagine how hard she worked to put all those pictures and information together? In a week of a troubled blogger?

On Sweet in Pink Chika takes you deep into the world of cherry blossom and shows examples of the uses one can make with cherry blossom extract, salt dried flowers, liqueur and sugar making the perfect translation of traditional Japanese ingredients to European cuisine language. So, there you have scones, tartelettes, panna cotta, jellys, muffins, crêpes, cheese cake, donuts, sablés, biscuits made with cherry blossom side by side with astonishing Japaneses specialties which include bentos with cherry blossom gohan. Simply amazing.



It was Sunday, I had just read Sweet in Pink and I was touched. After a long and busy week of work I was able to stop, to look and to notice that our own cherry tree was filled with flowers, blooming, beautifully pink. Cherry trees are quite late in Norway so I still had a chance to take the pictures that follow this post and dedicated them to Chika. It was a cold cloudy day but I like the results.