Gina Collia-Suzuki
Frightfully serious art historian and incredibly silly novelist

Gina Collia-Suzuki's Blog

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Feb.15.2011

I've not cooked much of anything for the past month, mainly due to to the fact that Ryoma and I have both been ill, but I'm back in the kitchen now, along with my trusty sous chef... yay! Anyway, I thought it would be nice to try another Indian dish this evening, and I've opted for this one...

Feb.15.2011

The Treasure Box of Greater Learning for Women

'Onna daigaku takarabako' (Treasure Box of Greater Learning for Women), first published in Japan in 1716 and generally accepted as being the work of Kaibara Ekiken (1630-1714), is a short treatise concerning the correct behaviour of the female sex. Some time back, I added a page to this site,...

Jan.09.2011

Wikipedia and the Quest for Online Mediocrity

There are a number of sites on the Internet that are interesting, informative, well-written and, most importantly, accurate. And then there's Wikipedia. There are currently 3,521,679 articles on the English Wikipedia site, all of which have been written by volunteers. Choose any of its articles...

Jan.08.2011

Vegetable Filo Samosas with Mint Raita

I love samosas, but I find the pastry casing a bit heavy sometimes, so I thought I'd try the filling in a filo pastry casing for a change. The pastry wrapping process might sound complicated, but it's straightforward once you've wrapped one samosa and know what you're doing, as long as you make...

Dec.31.2010

In Paris... And in the Pink

Take Carrie Bradshaw's love for shoes and double it and you'll have a rough idea of how much I love handbags. I cannot stand shopping for clothes, can't understand the appeal of lingerie shops and rarely enter a shoe store if I can help it, but I will happily browse the handbag stores, or handbag...

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Nov.25.2010

Fangs for the Memories

Ryoma and I were talking today about the letters that we wrote when we were children, and I began thinking about the first formal letter I ever wrote. When I was eleven years old, I persuaded my mother to buy me a book called 'The Dracula Collection: Selected paintings from the Unique Gallery of...

Nov.16.2010

It's All in the Past

Historia, by Nikolaos Gyzis, oil on panel, 1892. Why is history so important? If I had a penny for every time someone has asked me that question during the past year... I'd have about £2.57 in my piggy bank. How would you feel about having your memory wiped? Not too happy, I imagine. You'd have a...

Nov.01.2010

Fancy a Spot of Shopping

The expression on this chap's face mirrors the one that took hold of mine when I first learned that within the large shops of 18th century Edo (Tokyo) there was no such thing as window shopping. Ladies of that period did not spend Saturday afternoon trying on every pair of size fives in the...

Oct.31.2010

Two-Potato Vindaloo

I think I've mentioned before (several hundred times) that I'm a fan of the humble spud. So, this evening we thought we'd have a go at making a potato vindaloo. Vindaloo was created in the Portuguese-Indian colony of Goa, and the name was derived from the Portugese carne de vinha d' alhos (meat...

Oct.20.2010

The Poor Poet

I was sitting here, in bed, working on some background research for the book I'm writing, when all of a sudden Carl Spitzweg's painting of 'The Poor Poet' (1839) popped into my head. Not that I mean to imply that I'm broke and living in an attic; I have £1.50 in my purse, so I'm practically wealthy...

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Oct.07.2010

Utamaro Revealed - Updated Trailer

I thought it was about time that the Utamaro Revealed trailer got a bit of an update, as the old one was put together two years ago, when I didn't really know my way around any sort of presentation software. So, the above video is the result of a day's fiddling with Keynote, which is an incredibly...

Oct.03.2010

Open Wide... Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing

I've spent the past week in bed, and not in a good way. A dose of norovirus with a good splash of acute sinusitis completely knocked me off my feet. It also tried to starve me to death; I couldn't keep anything down. At the same time, poor Ryoma, who has been running around like a blue-arsed fly (...

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Sep.26.2010

Winter Vegetable Pie

The weather has turned cold and I'm starting to think about Christmas, so winter must be on its way. So, in preparation for the cold spell that's just around the corner, we thought we'd make a hearty, warming pot pie. This is based on Delia Smith's recipe, with just a tiny amount of deviation, and...

Sep.11.2010

Vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese

Whilst eating the Lentil Savoury yesterday evening, Ryoma remarked to me that an adapted version of the ingredients would make a good sauce for a vegetarian Spaghetti Bolognese. So, this evening we had a repeat run, with a little deviation, and it turned out that he was right. It didn't need much...

Sep.10.2010

Lentil Savoury

I have always been a fan of the humble lentil. There's something very comforting about lentil dishes and they always remind me of the winter days of my childhood. After a very hectic week, during which far too much take-away has once more been consumed, what could be better than a warming cheesy...

About Gina

Gina Collia-Suzuki is a writer, artist and art historian based in the UK. Having developed a deep interest in eighteenth century Japanese art and culture at an early age, she began studying Japanese woodblock prints whilst training as an artist in the 1980s....

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