French Revolution

Franglais: A New Series for the Huffington Post

2010-08-27T18:06:00.007-04:00

Hello hello! Some of you may know that I have started writing a new series for the Huffington Post: Franglais, a culinary iteration of the kind of French-American patois I grew up speaking and eating. So, all the recipes are half American-inspired, and half French. Just like me. I hope you love it as much as I do. Here is last week's, my first, installment of Franglais, reprinted: Black and Bleu.

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Food to me is all about comfort. The comfort of knowing that your heart is still beating and your clock is still ticking because you’re hungry. And if you’re hungry for food, you’re hungry for life. One of the most terrifying things I can imagine is a woman who has lost her appetite. Dead girl walking (and not eating). The horror.

But sometimes, to be fair, life can really punch you in the face. And those are the days you need a little more comfort than others. And in my mind, those days when the subway never comes or your dog mistakes your closet for the toilet are the days that earn you free hedonistic, bacchanalian license in the kitchen. How good could life be, after all, without a few little sins?

This recipe is for the black and blue days. You’re supposed to put steak on a black eye, so why not on a bruised heart or ego? And one slathered in butter, crusted in pepper, and crowned with a dollop of Roquefort will go a lot further to soothing what ails you than a slab of meat cold from the fridge.

Black and Bleu is a simple rendition of tried and true Steak au Roquefort (with a direct influence from Steak au Poivre). The black is from the crust of black pepper than encases a medium-rare New York strip, and the blue is from the two-ingredient Roquefort sauce mounded on top. The heat from the peppercorns and the piquancy from the Roquefort pack a one-two punch in the mouth that will send the rest of your troubles packing. I love this recipe because it is so overtly indulgent, so obviously something you wouldn’t eat every day. So it becomes special. But, with five ingredients, and less than ten minutes of cooking, it’s something you can treat yourself to after the most harrowing of encounters, or just to make any week night special: for you, for two, for a crowd.

What did I do to be so black and blue? Next to nothing! And next to nothing tastes really good. Bon app!

Black and Bleu Recipe

per person

INGREDIENTS

1 8 to 10-ounce New York strip steak

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

2 tablespoons black peppercorns, freshly ground (see note #1)

1/4 pound Roquefort cheese

1 tablespoon heavy cream

Freshly snipped chives (optional)

PROCEDURE

1. Rub each steak all over with butter. Season with salt, and crust with ground peppercorns.

2. Sear the pepper-crusted steak in a very hot sauté pan (or cast iron skillet if you have one) 3 to 4 minutes per side, and then finish by placing the pan in a 450 degree F oven until your desired doneness (see note #2). Allow steak to rest 10 minutes before slicing or serving.

3. Meanwhile, make the Roquefort topping by crumbling the cheese and mixing it with the cream with a fork. Spoon on top of the steak, and snip fresh chives over for garnish.

NOTES

1. To grind peppercorns, place them in a clean coffee grinder and whiz them around to a rubble.

2. Searing a steak can get tricky. For the steak pictured above, I seared the steak 4 minutes on the first side, 3 on the second, and ran it into the oven for another 3 or 4 minutes. For medium-rare to medium, you want the steak to feel like the fleshy part of your hand beneath your thumb if you touch your thumb to your index or middle finger (an old cook’s trick).

Home Improvement

2010-08-06T13:06:00.002-04:00

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BBC Radio Recipe: Blueberry Galette

2010-07-29T20:13:00.003-04:00

Galette is what I like to call pie for dummies (like me). The crust is folded free-form around a nest of sweet summer blueberries. Too easy to be so good.

Blueberry Galette

1 250-g short crust, rolled into a round 1/4-inch thick
400 grams blueberries
3 tablespoons flour
1/4 to 1/2 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
Milk for washing the crust

1. Stir the blueberries together with the sugar and pinch of salt.
2. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.
3. Roll out the dough, and place it on a baking sheet.
4. Add the flour to the blueberries, and thoroughly mix.
5. Mound the blueberries in the center of the dough, and fold up the edges to make a sort of open-centered pie.
6. Use a pastry brush to brush the exposed crust with milk.
7. Bake for about 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes. The crust should be golden, and the blueberries bubbling.

BBC Radio Recipe: Rack of Lamb with Basil Pistou Crust

2010-07-29T20:09:00.008-04:00

This is a recipe I've been making for years! Combine a simple basil pistou with fresh bread crumbs, and pack it onto a rack of lamb. Roast for a glam, but easy and traditional, dinner party center piece.

Basil Pesto Crusted Rack of Lamb

2 cloves garlic

1 large package of basil, stems torn off (about 80 g)

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

6 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 cup fresh bread crumbs

500 g rack of lamb, Frenched

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

2. Make the pesto by blitzing together the garlic, basil, pine nuts, and olive oil in the food processor. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Pulse the bread crumbs into the pesto to make a paste.

4. Season the lamb with salt and pepper. Place it on a baking sheet drizzled with olive oil.

5. Pack the pesto paste onto the lamb.

6. Roast for about 30 minutes (63 degrees C)

*Note: the lamb in the above photo was made for someone who likes lamb well done, and was roasted for nearly 40 minutes.

BBC Radio Recipe: Radishes with Homemade Tapenade

2010-07-29T20:05:00.003-04:00

When I was staying at the Hotel La Jabotte in Cap d'Antibes, every afternoon they had cocktail hour. They served simple vegetables with little dips, like tapenade or caviar de tomate. Riviera cocktail hour inspired this recipe...

Radishes with Tapenade

350 g can black olives in brine (150 g olives)
1 tablespoon capers (in brine)
2 anchovy filets (in olive oil)
1 clove garlic
1 tbs lemon juice (1/4 lemon)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Freshly cracked black pepper
1 bunch French breakfast radishes

1. In a food processor, pulse together the olives, capers, anchovies, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and black pepper into a fine rubble.
2. Serve with the radishes, and sprinkle the radishes with Maldon salt.

BBC Radio Oxford: Seasonal Ingredients

2010-07-11T08:33:00.001-04:00

Today, I featured three recipes using only seasonal ingredients (seasonal especially in the UK in July, but seasonally available worldwide as well) on BBC Radio Oxford with Joel Hammer and his Sunday Brunch show (95.2 FM). Here is this week's seasonal shopping list:

Crab
Tomatoes
Cucumber
Onion
Fresh Garlic
Flat Leaf Parsley
Bell Pepper
Chili Pepper
Thyme
Courgette/Zucchini
Aubergine/Eggplant
New Potatoes
Halibut
Peaches
Raspberries

BBC Radio Challenge: Gazpacho with Crab

2010-07-11T08:32:00.005-04:00

Gazpacho is a cold Spanish soup, popular, of course, in summer for its temperature, as well as its peak-season ingredients. I once read that Flamenco dancers eat Gazpacho to stay slim--not a bad recommendation. I top off this version with crab, a seasonal seafood gem.

1 kg (10 tomatoes, 2.25 lb) vine-ripened tomatoes

1 English cucumber, seeded

1 bell pepper (orange, yellow, or red, seeded)

1/2 yellow onion

1/4 to 1/3 fresh head of sprouting garlic (or 2 cloves regular garlic)

1 20g package flat leaf parsley, stems torn off

2 cups tomato juice

1/2 cup olive oil

5 tbs cider vinegar

1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs

100g white crab meat

To make fresh bread crumbs, obliterate some good white bread in a blender, until you have a rubble. These keep very well in the freezer in a sealed plastic bag.
Take the bread crumbs out of the blender, and set aside. To seed a tomato, quarter it, and squeeze it over a bowl. The seeds will drop out. To seed a cucumber, split it in half lengthwise, and use a spoon to tunnel out the seeds.
Roughly chop the tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, onion, garlic, and parsley. Put the vegetables in the blender with the tomato juice, olive oil, vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste. Blend to a soup consistency.
Add the fresh crumbs to the blender and pulse to combine.
Decant the soup and refrigerate until ready to serve. Top with crab once spooned into a bowl.

This is not only a challenge to the BBC folk! If you want to take the seasonal Gazpacho challenge, try this recipe, and post a comment about it. Try varieties: replace some tomatoes with watermelon, add chili peppers, or replace the bell pepper with roasted peppers. Vary the herbs, substituting some of the parsley for mint or tarragon. Or replace the crab with goat cheese, or crème fraîche. Bonne chance! I look forward to hearing what you think, and what you come up with.

BBC Radio Recipe: Seared Halibut with Vegetable Crisps and Olive Oil-Smashed New Potatoes

2010-07-11T08:31:00.002-04:00

Seasonal eating is not just about produce: meats, seafood, even cheeses also have their peak seasons. This is a composed dish of seasonal products that can easily be deconstructed and made on three separate occasions. The potatoes, for instance, are an accomplishment in cheap and delicious simplicity and seasonality all by themselves. Together, they are a smash summertime dinner dish.

Seared Halibut with Vegetable Crisps and Olive Oil Smashed New Potatoes

For the Crisps:

1 aubergine/eggplant, cut paper thin
1 courgette/zucchini, cut paper thin
2 to 4 tablespoons flour
1/2 red chili, finely minced
6 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves reserved
2 teaspoons Maldon salt
Vegetable oil for frying

Heat the vegetable oil to 175 degrees C.
Toss the vegetable crisps with flour, and dust off the excess.
Fry in batches until very golden and crisp.
Remove to drain on paper towel.
Sprinkle with the salt, thyme, and chili.
Mound on top of the fish.

For the Fish:

750 grams halibut, steaks or fillets, skin on
2 tablespoons olive oil
Lemon wedges for serving

Season the fish with salt and pepper.
Heat the oil on medium-high heat.
Sear the fish 4 minutes per side.

For the Olive Oil Smashed New Potatoes:

750 grams new potatoes
1/4 cup olive oil

Quarter the potatoes, and put them in a large pot of cold water. Cover, and bring to a boil. Salt the water.
Cook the potatoes until they are fork tender. Drain, and return to the hot pot.
Add the olive oil to the potatoes and smash lightly. Season with salt and pepper.

BBC Radio Recipe: Peach Melba

2010-07-11T08:30:00.002-04:00

I would never give you a seasonal menu without dessert! Peaches and raspberries are best in July. Served with ice cream, this dish is both traditional and iconic, as well as peak-season.

Peach Melba

4 peaches, cut in half

2 cups water

1.5 cups sugar

1/4 lemon

(optional: vanilla bean)

170 g raspberries

Vanilla ice cream

1. Combine the water, sugar, and lemon juice (and the optional vanilla bean) in a sauté pan, and simmer until the sugar has dissolves.

2. Add the peaches to the simmering liquid, and cook 5 to 6 minutes per side, depending on how ripe the peaches are.

3. Set the peaches aside to cool enough to remove their skins and stones.

4. Combine the raspberries with 1/4 cup of the peach cooking syrup, and leave to sit, mashing it up very slightly.

5. Serve with two peach halves, then a scoop or two of good vanilla ice cream, and the raspberry syrup on top.

All the Pretty Little Paris Meals

2010-05-20T18:01:00.000-04:00

Chocolate Ice Cream and Raspberry-Rose Sorbet from Berthillon

I just got back from a weekend in Paris--breathless! It seems a touch self-indulgent, and I certainly hope I don't make any readers smug and miserable, but I had to share with you what I ate:

Friday

Warm white asparagus with vinaigrette and baguette, with French onion soup on rue de Buci

A fresh galette sarrasin made before my eyes and stuffed with only shredded Gruyère from L'Avant Comptoir

Lobster salad with chiffonade preserved lemon peel, purple potato chips, sucrine lettuce, avocado, and haricots verts remoulade was followed by a seasonal assiette de legumes, a little pot of creamy brebis with honey, and a vanilla pot de creme, my favorite, at Le Comptoir. And a requisite carafe de vin blanc.

Saturday

A smoked salmon tartine with half a pain au chocolat and a pink grapefruit pressé at Les Deux Magots.

Peaches and pears bought from the fruit market on rue de Seine and devoured on the point of Ile de la Cité.

A little coupe of ice cream--dark chocolate ice cream and my favorite signature raspberry rose sorbet--from Berthillon.

A lunch of flûte, caviar d'aubergines, and tomme noire de Pyrenées, bought from Monoprix, was devoured in the Luxembourg gardens

Dinner at Pères et Filles. Tartare of crab, cucumber, and green apple, and more white asparagus with herb vinaigrette. Then, seven-hour braised lamb shank and fennel with rosemary, and a veal milanese with black olive polenta. Another bottle of white. And for dessert, Grom pistachio and vanilla.

Sunday

Another smoked salmon tartine and pamplemousse pressé at Les Deux Magots.

Back to Le Compoir for a three-hour lunch with friends. A bottle of Côtes de Provence. Mozzarella sweating milk and covered with fresh spring basil pistou. A salad of sucrine and spring vegetables. And then tuna, just seared, with loose Provençal pistou and tapenade, topped with a garden of soft, sweet, seared spring vegetables. Riz au lait with fresh caramel. And the nougat snatched from Mr. English's espresso saucer.

And my last bite at the Eurostar train station: a bag of old-fashioned potato chips. I am an American in Paris, after all.

French in a Flash: The Best Lentil Soup with Thyme and Bacon

2010-05-19T06:15:00.005-04:00

I love lentil soup. No other soup could ever take its place in my heart--not even the alluring scent and oozing hat on classic and decadent French Onion. And the position of the lentil in French cuisine, omnipresent and peasant-hearty, yet refined and delicate, has send me on a several year quest for my perfect lentil soup recipe.

Lentils are served differently in France than they are in the States. Rarely in America do we see lentils in any incarnation other than lentil soup, where in France they are served much as we serve potatoes: a hearty helping next to a seared side of salmon, instead of our standard mashed, or whole in salads, as we might make a potato salad, or add potatoes to bulk up a hearty salad of greens. Lentils are ubiquitous and cheap, but also extremely traditional. So traditional, that France even has its unique lentil variety: du Puy, which are smaller, darker, and resolutely firmer than our standard brown any-old lentil.

In this soup, I have finally found my perfect match, my soul-in-a-bowl mate. I begin with a touch of sweet butter, and a bit of bacon, because rare is the French vegetable soup, ironically, that begins without either. Next, I add both our standard American lentil and the du Puy lentil, a duet that I find enhances and complicates the texture of the soup. The brown lentil softens, and thickens, while the du Puy lentil holds its shape with tenacity after the steady simmer. Shallots, carrots, and celery sweeten and infuse the broth, and above all, earthy, woodsy, resiny thyme give the salt-of-the-earth depth to the whole thing. I can't eat just one bowl. I absolutely lose control. And while most women wouldn't share their loved one, I'm willing to go, as we wink en famille, "à la française."

Click here for my lentil soup recipe.

And here is a catalog of all French in a Flash stories for James Bear Award-winning Serious Eats.

French in a Flash: Quatre Épices Candied Nuts

2010-05-07T02:06:00.004-04:00

Be sure to check out this week's French in a Flash column over on Serious Eats for one of my favorite recipes: Quatre Épices Candied Nuts. Some of you may remember the fresh almond trees from my Papiers Provence from last summer. Those almonds and the famed French walnuts get coated in a sweet amber of brittle sugar, salt, and quatre épices, a medieval-tasting blend of black pepper with sweet spices cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. There is some contention over the cinnamon, which is often swapped in favor of ginger, but I prefer the cinnamon with the nuts. Last time I made these I cracked all the brittle into shards, and put them in a big jar. The next time I knew, it was all gone. Poof! Like magic.

Lunch in Paris: A Review, with Recipes

2010-05-01T04:45:00.022-04:00

The truth is, I never read nonfiction. Fiction is more truthful. There is always some point in the last third of the book, some sentence, that boils the story down into the syrupy sap of truth, and the book hits a cord that resonates in perfect harmony with my life. I can feel it; I know it. Tears spring to my eyes, and I think, "that's me." My hair stands on end. I'm electrified by the talent and the humanity and the rawness of it. And I have to shake myself out of it. Truly true stories are rarely so truthful as that.

But Elizabeth Bard's Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes, was too tempting. A young American in France, telling a love story (always with bawdy potential when it involves the French), WITH recipes? I broke my rule, and I read it.

And immediately, though I never expected it (this is, after all, a memoir), I was hit by the truth. Not like a Mack truck to the head, but like a mirror, placed surreptitiously in my path. So much about Elizabeth was familiar. Her Ivy League education, and her subsequent Odysseus quest to find a career in the morass of her life. In those days that she spent trolling the market, determining which string bean was more delicious, I saw the years I spent after college, writing recipes, selling off little stories, fielding questions from friends of friends screeching, “You still don’t have a job!?” and calls from my grandfather demanding, “Why aren’t you at the office?” This is my office, Grandpa. And my favorite, when one of my oldest friends told me, “Maybe college was your time, and the working world is mine.” It was like in high school, when I was getting straight As and people used to run around the classroom howling “I did better than Kerry Saretsky!” Well, now everyone was howling. Elizabeth, through the pages, was like the only friend I’d ever had who GOT IT.

And her foray into a new country for the man she loved. That I recognized too. The frustration of being an independent, educated New Yorker who could ride the subway from the Bronx to Brooklyn, but couldn’t figure out what kind of laundry detergent was appropriate or how to top up an Oyster card or even which cadence to use when reciting a telephone number (Two numbers at a time? Three? All at once without taking a breath?) Although, the beauty and tenderness and awe with which Elizabeth described Gwendal’s culture was at times so poignant, and had so deeply penetrated her belief system, that I wished Mr. English was M. Français! I laughed at loud as her mother arrived with suitcases full of stuff “you just can’t get in Europe.” More like, we just WON’T get in Europe. Or her cravings for a New York pepperoni slice eaten standing up on a street corner. God, I could go for that right now!

But what I found most profound, and most truthful, is that fact that ex-pats live in a middleworld. Elizabeth describes how she wishes she and Gwendal could live on an island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, taking the best parts of France (and there are many) and the best parts of the States (there are also many) and get rid of all the riff raff that now, from having lived without of both cultures, suddenly seemed so clear. I will never become English, just as Elizabeth will never become French. We are both deeply and irrevocably American. But suddenly, you also stand apart from your own countrymen. You’ve been away. Elizabeth missed 9/11. I missed President Obama’s election. These parts of the collective country memory suddenly are no longer yours, and you identify a bit less and criticize, or recognize, a bit more. Elizabeth found herself rolling her eyes at Americans on the Métro who bumbled their French or made silly errors, just as I held my breath when I heard two Southerners order iced tea at Bumpkin in London last summer. The waiter stammered, “I don’t understand. You want me to brew you some tea, and pour it over ice? Would you prefer Earl Grey or English Breakfast?”

Perhaps it is the exhaustion of being an outsider that makes us cringe. Or the memory of home painfully so far away that requires us to keep our own countrymen abroad at an emotional arm’s length. Tired of being tourists to the crowds, and things to be pitied, helped, and babied at home, we force ourselves to grow into our Franco-English doppelgangers. But at the end of the day, you will never live fully in America or fully in France or England again. You will always live somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Lunch in Paris is not a love story. It is actually not really even about lunch—dinner seems more dominant. It is a story of coming into one’s own, a coming of age tale, a bildungsroman as we call it in lit crit. Elizabeth may move to France for love, but she always knew Gwendal would be there. What she least expects to find in France is herself. Amongst the rows of haricots verts, amidst the lonely times when her greatest company is the two fish she found at the market, and in the silent din of a foreign language swarming around her head, she really begins to think about what she really wants, to dig to the base of it, which we all have to do at one time or another. Lunch in Paris is the truth. It is a story of true things: of how hard your twenties are, when you have to find yourself, your husband, your career, all right now, at the very same time, and everyone wants to know about it, thank you very much. How love can be doubted, difficult, and deep in the same nanosecond. In her quest and her questions I found such a kindred spirit that I felt I had known her for years. Bard’s book shows that life isn’t a one-ingredient recipe, but a delicate balance that, like any good dish, takes years of practice to perfect.

And that is what I loved most about the book: the lack of separation between the recipes and the story. They, like food in our lives, are woven in through thick and thin, weddings and funerals. They are authentic, but also diverse and simple. I appreciated that she made real home recipes, some Moroccan, some light, some from her own Jewish heritage. It is really French home cooking, not French farmhouse cooking. When I finished the book, I set about trying some of her recipes, and created my own little dinner in Paris right at home. I took a few recipes of Elizabeth’s, and a few of mine.

I started with my favorite lunch in Paris in honor of the title: chilled Artichoke Vinaigrette, which I eat every time I am there at a little restaurant whose name I never remember in the Place Dauphine. It is light and refreshing, but the mustard in the vinaigrette is as acerbic as French wit. I like that. I usually wind up dunking my baguette in there too.

Next, I made Kir Violette. Elizabeth gives the recipe for Mayur’s Champagne Cocktail, a kind of violet Kir Royale and French 75 mix. It reminded me of a cocktail I had in Provence last summer at the Hotel La Jabotte in Antibes, a gorgeous mix of Champagne and crème de violette. When I brought bottles of the violet liqueur to take back with me at Nicolas, the French wine dealer, the man behind the counter smiled and exclaimed, you’re going to make some great Kirs with this! And I had never thought of simply adding it to wine and making floral-infused Kirs. So, this recipe is my own, but inspired by Elizabeth, that darling Antibes hotel, and Mr. Merchant at Nicolas. Admittedly, it’s not easy to find crème de violette, but if you do, buy a few bottles for good measure.

Then, I turned to Elizabeth’s recipes. First, pork spareribs glazed in honey and rosemary. They may be from a Paris bistro, but they reminded me intensely of Provence, where rosemary, more even than lavender, is king. The vinegar gave the ribs themselves a slight tang, but then the honey and rosemary gave such a lightly fragranced sweetness to the meat that I found myself wondering why we always cover up our ribs in barbecue sauce or the glaze they use in Chinese restaurants. These are summer—light and Provençal.

And finally, because who can resist this, molten chocolate cakes. In all honesty, it is something I never make at home. But I am going to now! This recipe was so easy, and so ravishing, that I already have plans to rethink the flavors in a thousand different ways. Next is lavender white chocolate. It ate two right out of the oven. Burns were irrelevant in the face of molten chocolate!

Elizabeth, for the story, for the recipes, for the triumph: bravo.

Artichokes Vinaigrette

Serves 4

Artichokes

4 artichokes

A pot full of water

1/2 cup white wine

tablespoon flour

salt

Vinaigrette

1/4 cup Dijon mustard

1/4 cup white wine vinegar

salt and pepper

1 to 2 teaspoons finely chopped shallot

2 teaspoons honey

1/2 cup light olive oil

First, busy yourself trimming the artichokes. Holding the globe down on the counter, force all your weight onto the overhanging stem so that it snaps off—this is better than cutting because it removes tough fibers from the heart. And it allows the artichoke to sit up on the plate with excellent posture. But, secretly, I love the stems, so I run a paring knife around them to cut off the tough skin and the ends, and I throw them in the pot as well.

Next, take a serrated knife and cut off the top of the artichoke where all the top leaves meet. Then, take kitchen shears and snip the sharp tip off all the remaining leaves. Intricate, but easy enough, and you’re done.

Put the artichokes and the stems in the water, wine, and flour mixture. Weigh the artichokes down with a plate so they are fully submerged in the water. Cover, and bring to a boil. Add a handful of salt, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cover mostly, leaving a bit of room for steam to escape, or the pot will probably boil over.

Once the water has boiled, simmer for an additional 45 minutes to one hour, or until the leaves come off easily, and are tender enough to eat.

Meanwhile, make the vinaigrette by whisking together all the ingredients except the oil. Then, add the oil a little bit at a time, and whisk to emulsify. I find that using a small whisk really helps the emulsification process.

When the artichokes are tender, remove them gently from the water, and sit them in a bowl upside down. This will allow any excess water to drain away from the flesh of the artichoke.

Refrigerate until cool. Serve with the vinaigrette.

Kir Violette

1 glass dry white wine, chilled

1 dash of crème de violette

Pour a glass of white wine, and then add the dash of crème de violette, and watch the bluish hue invade the glass.

Oven Roasted Pork Ribs with Honey

Travers de Porc au Miel

(by Elizabeth Bard, from Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes)

1/2 cup rosemary honey (or other strong honey)

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed with the back of your knife

1 1/2 teaspoons dried rosemary, or a few sprigs of fresh

4 pounds pork spareribs, cut into individual pieces

Whisk together the honey, oil, vinegar, sea salt, and garlic, and dried rosemary (if using).

Place the ribs in a large zipper-lock plastic bag and pour in the marinade. If using fresh rosemary, add the whole sprigs to the bag. Refrigerate for 1 1/2 hours, turning occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 300°F.

Arrange the spareribs in a single layer in a large roasting pan. In a small saucepan, bring the marinade to a boil. Pour it over the ribs and roast in the oven for 2 to 3 hours, turning once or twice. Remove the ribs from the oven and skim a bit of fat from the sauce.

You can let the ribs rest overnight at this point. Reheat them gently in the sauce.

Yield: Serves 4

Kerry’s Note: After making these, I discovered several things. First, do marinate them for the whole time. Second, use the fresh rosemary for sure, and bruise it before throwing it into the marinade. Third, I lined a rimmed baking sheet with foil and sprayed it with nonstick cooking spray before I turned out the ribs and sauce to bake. They get very sticky, and it’s just really helpful with cleanup. Fourth, you’ll probably want to rotate the ribs a bit when they’re in the oven, and I found just over two hours to be enough. In fact, there wasn’t any sauce left at all: it turned into this fantastic glazy goo. Which is how I like it.

Individual Molten Chocolate Cakes

Moelleux au Chocolat “Kitu”

(by Elizabeth Bard, from Lunch in Paris: A Love Story, with Recipes)

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

5 ounces dark chocolate (70 percent cocoa)

A good pinch of coarse sea salt

2 eggs

2 egg yolks

1/4 cup sugar

1 tablespoon flour

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the top of a double boiler or in the microwave. Add sea salt.

Meanwhile, beat together the eggs, egg yolks, and sugar with a whisk or an electric beater until light and slightly foamy.

Add the egg mixture to the warm chocolate; whisk quickly to combine. Add flour and stir just to combine. The batter will be quite thick.

The unmolding is the tricky part of these little cakes; the only foolproof solution I’ve found is to use Reynolds foil cupcake liners (paper liners don’t work; they stick). Use 5 or 6 liners stacked together so they’re rigid enough to make a freestanding mold. Make 6 of these molds. (If you can’t find the foil baking cups, use small ramekins, generously buttered.)

Divide the batter evenly among the molds. (You can make the cakes in advance to this point and chill them until you’re ready to bake. But be sure to bring the batter back to room temperature before baking.)

Baking time will depend on your oven; start with 7 minutes for a thin outer shell with a completely molten interior, 8 minutes for a slightly thick crust and a gooey heart.

Yield: Serves 6

Kerry’s Note: I made this with Green & Black’s chocolate and it was excellent. I also made it with salted butter, because it was all I had, left over from a purchasing mistake (I NEVER buy salted butter), and I was lazy. Don’t do that. You can really taste it. I belted the butter and chocolate together in the microwave by placing them in a large bowl, microwaving on high for 15 seconds, stirring, and repeating about 3 or 4 times until just melted. And finally, the batter really will get thick once you add the flour, even though it seems so runny beforehand. Also, instead of using Elizabeth’s cupcake wrapper method, I used silicone cupcake cups, which I sprayed with nonstick cooking spray and lightly floured. After removing the cakes from the oven, I let them sit 2 minutes, and unmolded them with absolute ease.

French in a Flash: Nicoise Chickpea Chips

2010-03-05T03:29:00.009-05:00

Nicoise Chickpea Chips

I wrote in this week's column that to me, Nice is France's Venice, and if you've been to either, you'll be able to imagine the food position of the other. A lonely traveler, upon entering either city, you immediately notice difference. In Venice, it's the canals, and the arched-cat-back bridges. In Nice, it's the feel of walking off the beach and into a fortress, with medievally serpentine streets and the feeling of grey stone against the blue, blue sky. And then there's the food. In Venice, it's a handful of things you rarely see again miles from the canals: cuttlefish, squid ink, chilies, saffron. And in Nice, the heart of the Riviera, in that city fortress is a bastion of dishes you won't find outside the castle walls: socca, chickpea flour pancakes, zucchini flower beignets, pissaladiere, legumes farcies. My time in Nice was one of the fullest times of my life, because I stopped nearly everywhere for something I absolutely HAD to try.

Easy pantry ingredients...

For the Oscars on Sunday, I am making these Nicoise Chickpea Chips (see my column French in a Flash at Serious Eats for the full recipe and article, as always). They are easier to make than homemade potato chips, but more unique. Think of them as haute couture snacks on your red carpet table. Except, all that is involved is gently crisping canned chickpeas in hot olive oil, and then tossing them with lemon zest and fleur de sel. To me, though they are certainly not traditionally Nicoise, they evoke all the flavors of the city: the chickpeas, the salty sea air, the deep fry that seems to come on everything, the lemon husks left over from drizzling beignets. Nice memories of Nice. Bon app!

Nicoise Street Food

Zucchini Flower Beignets

Socca

Pissaladiere

Super Bowl Dimanche!

2010-02-07T04:41:00.009-05:00

I admit it. I'm not a football fan. But I am an eater, and so that makes Super Bowl Sunday one of the best days of the year. Did you know that today is the number one avocado consumption day of the year? Instead of guacamole, or last year's avocado chevre dip (which I still make regularly), this year I am frying avocado and zucchini in a seltzer batter and serving it with tarragon-laden green goddess dressing. And to go with my garden of fries, traditional old chicken wings--except they've gone French. I fry chicken drummettes (you could bake as well) and toss them with a sticky glaze of honey and Dijon and old-fashioned grain mustards. They are sweet and spicy and sticky but a bit more soigne than regular buffalo wings. And I hope your team wins. Because, as usual, I'm bringing the food. But I don't know who's playing!

Bon app! Et bonne chance!

Click here for the Honey Dijon Chicken Drummettes recipe.

Click here for the Avocado and Zucchini Fries with Green Goddess Dip recipe.

Click here for all French Revolution Super Bowl Recipes! (including the Spicy Merguez Baguette Sandwich, the Monaco beer cocktail, Crudites with Roquefort Dip, Avocado and Chevre Dip with Root Chips, and famed Loaded Baked Potato Chip Nachos)

Last Supper

2010-01-26T04:57:00.003-05:00

Maybe this happens to you too. When I leave a place, like home, for instance, I don't only think about all the people and the places I will miss. I think about the food. I dream about the food. And I obsess about the food. Take it or leave it. That's me. I start planning a series of "last suppers" a week in advance. There's nothing I can do to change it. And in my efforts to suck down every last bite of a place, I usually eat way, way too much. Again, everyone has a vice. And I kind of like mine. It's tasty.

Leaving New York to come back to England inspired a manic incarnation of my need-to-eat syndrome. I went to the Vinegar Factory and had about three raspberry-jam stuffed corn muffins, that crumble and stick to the roof of your mouth in that solid-peanut-butter way that good corn muffins have. I had the black squid rice and shrimp enchiladas at Maz Mezcal--because it's not that easy, sorry, to find adequate Mexican in the UK, no matter what anybody tells you. (If you know of some, please tell me, because I'm dying for it!) As I shoved spoonfuls of saffron rice studded with oily black ink and squid bodies and olives and roasted pequillos and peas upon forkful of tender wine-soaked shrimps shrouded in corn tortillas and tomatillo sauce into my mouth, and I chased with still more excruciating bites of refried beans and double-salted tortilla chips. Some people gaze across a landscape. Others breath it in. I inhale it--off a plate.

I made other stops for specific things that aren't part of the UK food culture. Like Yura for a great turkey sandwich--an American staple that hasn't been imported into England. Piles of king crab dumplings and Kiss of Fire sushi rolls at Haru. I mean, this was all in the space of a few days, and I'm still standing.

But last but not least was my trek over to The Shake Shack. I took my father, who had never been before, and walked across the park to pre-emptively burn some of the all-American calories we were already guilty about consuming. As I stood in line to order my shack burger, fries, seltzer, and vanilla shake, I did stop and smell the fryers a bit. Perhaps I learned to leave New York by eating up the entirety of the Big Apple because the restaurants are the kitchens of New York. In the way a kitchen is the heart of a home, so a restaurant is the heart of the City. Kids were weaving their way through anxious, hungry legs that stamped like a herd's in line. Couples were discussing the sourcing of the Yukon gold fries, and just why exactly they were less fat than other fries. The sun glinted in from the glass-paned walls, and I squinted out onto Columbus Avenue. I remembered coming to this very spot with my friend Amanda, who used to live a block away, and ordering a salad with blue cheese dressing and a side of fries when it was another restaurant. It was New York, and I wanted every last drop of it.

And then I sat down at the glorified picnic table with my dad and my burger. That soft, buttery bun. The crumbling beef, the oozing vinegary sauce. The crisp resilience of the crinkle fries that we shared across the table. That sweet, thick, oozing ketchup. And the shake that wouldn't budge up the straw--so different from the milk-based shakes of the UK. It was all-American, and I ate it all up to the last crumb. The only thing I didn't take a bite out of that day was American Pie. But that's on my list for next time.

French in a Flash: Lamb and Rosemary Brochettes with Apricot Crème Fraîche

2010-01-24T15:03:00.005-05:00

A few weeks ago on Serious Eats I received a virulent comment from someone who was very upset about the simplicity of my recipe. And in some ways, I understand that. Why do I get to sit up high somewhere on the Internet pontificating what some people consider child's play?

But today, I had lunch with one of my oldest friends, who also, happily, lives in the UK. She said to me, "Kerry, I work until nine every night. I don't know how to cook. I don't keep a stocked pantry. You have to tell me what to make."

And as I sat there, I realized she reminded me of someone else: me! I too am in my twenties, and am in school, and don't have a proper kitchen apparatus at this particular moment (my recipes have to be conjured up away from school--either at Mr. English's, or when I am back in the States). Often we feel like "good" means "difficult" or "complicated." But when it comes to food, I am taken back to one of my least favorite classes of all time: Mr. Martin's sixth grade math. The algebra--that didn't really stick with me. But one thing did: KISS--Mr. Martin's mantra of Keep It Simple, Stupid. If you use terrific ingredients, and you know how (or you have someone like me to tell you!) to mix and match, food is better when it isn't subtle, but when it's all about a few perfect flavors simply assembled into a fresh, uncluttered meal that contrasts beautifully against our often haggard, extremely cluttered and complicated lives.

I think this week's French in a Flash column for Serious Eats exemplifies just that. These lamb brochettes are party food for idiots--they just can't go wrong, and they are impressive to look at, distinctive and delicious, and use authentical Provencal flavor pairings (apricot, rosemary, and olive oil--stolen from an old Papier Provence that I shared with you). All you have to do is heat a grill pan, skewer some lamb onto a rosemary twig, drizzle on some olive oil, and stir together some apricot jam and creme fraiche. I really love these, and despite their simplicity and graceful ease, I'm sure you will too! BON APP!

For the full story and recipe, as always, click here!

French in a Flash: Boeuf aux Carottes

2010-01-15T08:51:00.006-05:00

So much of my inspiration for my food comes not only from the home cooking Maman dished up over the years, but also the incredible restaurants I've been able to sit at in France and abroad. This dish, Boeuf aux Carottes, comes from a little restaurant in the Place Dauphine--and I didn't order it, Mr. English did. He has great taste (obviously)! But I think I probably ate more than half because it was so good--cubes of beef collapsing into their sauce, sweet like sugar just from the abundance of carrots that added a sprinkle of sunshine to the dish. So humble, and so flawless. It warms body and soul, and I had to recreate it this week for French in a Flash, because I am absolutely freezing! I use short ribs instead of the traditional beef stew meat, but you could viably choose either. Bon app!

For the full story and recipe from my column French in a Flash on Serious Eats, as always, click here.

French in a Flash: White Bean Bisque with Garlic Chips

2010-01-08T06:31:00.003-05:00

I'm in Florida, and it's freezing! People roll their eyes, but we Floridians are entirely unequipped for this weather. If I were in New York, and it was thirty degrees, I'd wear a coat, maybe some gloves, but down here, it's a free(zing) for all--I swear I still see t-shirts.

This week's column will warm you up with minimum effort. I fry window panes of garlic to make garlic chips, and then use some of the garlic-infused oil to sweat out some shallots. Add to that some rosemary, and some canned white beans, a bit of stock or water, and 15 to 20 minutes later, you have soup--soup that's rich, velvety, and aromatic of Provence, my summer oasis hallucination in this winter desert. You can easily make this more resolution-worthy by cutting out the butter and cream, although then it'd be less like a bisque, and more like bean soup, but I won't tell...

As always, click here for the full story and recipe from my column French in a Flash on Serious Eats.

FINALIST!

2009-12-16T18:36:00.002-05:00

I have the best readers ever. Thanks to your votes, French Revolution's pumpkin beignets won the miscellaneous division of Bon Appetit's holiday blogger bakeoff, and has made it into the finals, along with four other delicious, gorgeous desserts. Click here to see the final selection.

And thank you so infinitely much for casting your votes!

VOTE!

2009-12-09T07:28:00.002-05:00

I went to a very feminist all-girls' school in New York. There were all sorts of legends about the founder: a suffragette mauled to death on a wheel--they got more and more wild and heroic until she was the feminine reincarnation of Hercules, singled-handedly accomplishing the immortal task of securing women in the vote on the great, grey streets of New York. A great mural dominated the second floor hallway, of women doing men's work. And in math, when we reached the number 19, we were told over and over again to remember: the 19th Amendment, in 1919 (even though we subsequently discovered it was passed in 1920).

Lesson learned? It may be painful, but you vote. Or else.

So, today, I graduate from pupil, to illustrious head mistress, telling you to VOTE VOTE VOTE your heart out for my Spiced Pumpkin and Bourbon Beignets with Vanilla Bean Sugar for Bon Appetit's holiday bakeoff. Like my heroic suffragette academic forebear, I can't do it alone. Plus, there are no cog wheels involved in this kind of voting. It's all gastronomic pleasure as you meander through pages of holiday desserts to die for.

Follow this link, register, and scroll through. My entry is in the "Miscellaneous" category. You can flip through by clicking "Vote on Next Batch," and then just click on my Spiced Pumpkin and Bourbon Beignets. It will turn green, and then, just cast your vote!

And truly, THANK YOU.

Anniversary

2009-12-02T12:44:00.002-05:00

The perfect anniversary bouquet: hanging flowers in Brussels's Grand Place

It's official! Mr. English and I have been together two very long but seemingly short years.

Having finally gotten me back in England, Mr. English knew the best way to keep me was to take me back out as quickly as possible. We've started a tradition where one plans the anniversary every other year: he has evens. So he told me to pack my bags: no details, no planning, no nothing. As the resident control freak in the relationship, I had to wonder. Was he trying to change me?

I decided to go with it, and I wheeled my little pink Longchamp weekender into St. Pancras station on Saturday morning. He had told me to meet him in Le Pain Quotidien. As I ordered "quotidian" side of Gruyere, I demanded, "Where are we going!" I had, after all, packed cashmere gloves and a bikini.

He motioned around him, at the wooden walls and clear glass wall. "This is your clue." I pondered for a moment, and as he handed the ticket across the table, I jumped up. "We're going to Belgium!?"

If you are European like Mr. English, you may feel quite blase about Belgium, as I later discovered did Mr. English. But to me, who had grown up quarantined from Europe by a giant ocean, Brussels had always been my culinary epicenter. I imagined quaint little carts--the kind that used to rattle with tin cans hanging from the roofs--vending crispy, salty little frites with mayonnaise. And mountains and mountains of mussels, soaked in beer, warming up my frost nose. I thought it might be where my stomach would go to heaven.

I came up with a little list in my head of all foods Brussels: Brussels sprouts, Belgian endive, and the Belgian waffle. It was this last one by which I least expected to be impressed. I dragged Mr. English into Dandoy, the famed waffle house, and ordered one. The man behind the counter, who reminded me of the clown that pops out of the box, asked if I wanted Bruxelles or Liege. I said I didn't know. He told me you could get the sweet Liege anywhere, but a Bruxelles waffle: only in Brussels!

It was crisp on the outside, and just airy-creamy within. Each little square on the grid was puddled in melting, collapsing icing sugar. There was a saltiness to the batter, and the sweetness you expected. And I turned to Mr. English, huffing out a puff of powdered sugar, and exclaimed,

"If I were from Belgium, I would sue America for slander. How dare we call what we eat Belgian waffles?" He, of course, told me I was being very American.

I am on a waffle hunger strike from now until the next time Mr. English takes me back to Brussels. And for all of our sakes, it had better be soon.

Starving

2009-11-29T12:18:00.004-05:00

I’m dedicating this post to one reader, Mark, because it was his question that inspired it.

He asked, after reading that I had returned to Oxford to do my MBA, what I planned to do with all this education. Back weeks ago, full of pluck and tenacity, I stood tall, peering with shaded eyes across my vast aspirations, sure that I, writer and eater and cook, could never bite off more than I could chew. My appetites, I admit—for food, for life, for success—are greater than the ocean that separates me from my home.

I must admit that I have overdone it before, snacking on frites past midnight, slathering my morning baguette in a winter-thick blanket of ivory butter. And then, I had to go on a diet—which I hated! And though I hope I’ve upheld the adage French women don’t get fat through responsible consumption, the diet I’ve never been able to keep is rationing ideals, dreams, hopes, goals. Perhaps it is a contagion that racks all first generation Americans. Both my theses are on the American Dream, so has it fascinated me ever since I first heard the two words consecutively uttered. I cannot live without work. I am too hungry.

So, here I am, in the den of the hungriest lions in the world: business school. I will write cookbooks, I told myself, and be the greatest literary and culinary entrepreneur of all time! Sophomoric was the word invented for just such idiocy. I suppose the benefit of an expensive education is hearing over and over again that you can do anything—which translates to you can do everything. Yet, so far am I from being a master of the universe that I am not even master of my own universe.

And so the education that I thought would catapult me to the highest heights of personal capability has me licking the dregs of the lowest lows. Every day I sit in the same seat, under the same fluorescent lights, as one professor after another equivocates about the Capital Asset Pricing Model. They pontificate about where supply meets demand, and I surreptitiously stretch my legs under my desk and ask myself whether I will ever find an equilibrium that satisfies my own market conditions. I have realized, for the first time, that there is only so much of myself I can supply, and so many, many forces demanding.

I have only a microwave during the week in my little room. And I have found myself, that hungry, hungry tiger, feeling caged. I always thought that caged animals would turn tame, but they won’t. They turn angry. Which is why with every hour I spend balancing accounts, I curse the fact that I’m not balancing the weights of butter, flour, and water in choux pastry. I realized that I haven’t done anything that I love—I haven’t cooked, I haven’t written, in weeks.

Every day, a little knot of us eat three meals under the same fluorescent lights of the business school. Sometimes I play a little game with myself: is that fennel, or just tarragon in the soup? My friend Jeff asks for an extracurricular education in spices that I am happy to provide, as the cafeteria staff leaves dangerous, whole spikes of anise and cinnamon in its “fragrant” rice. But never before has food comprised such a little portion of my life. And now I am not just hungry, I am starving. Hungry for success, yes, but also starving to do that which I love more than that which I felt I should love.

How could a plate so full appear, feel, be so very empty?

I am not a religious girl, but another part of expensive education is religious training, and one line has always stuck with me: "When I became a man, I put away childish things." I used to listen to all the voices that bombarded me telling me that following a dream, doing what you love, was childish. But that same passage reads, "love never fails," and I have found what I love, and love is an investment, one that my professors would agree produces an excellent rate of return. I turned 27 last week, and so now that I am a woman, I put away childish things, and I am putting myself on a diet. Less strategy and accounting--more cooking and writing. More love.

Spiced Pumpkin and Bourbon Beignets with Vanilla Bean Sugar and Spiked and Sparkling Norman Mulled Cider for Bon Appétit

2009-11-01T18:02:00.012-05:00

Today in London, all of a sudden, it was November. The wet leaves swirled in the wind, and I bit into my favorite Godiva pumpkin truffle that my parents had left for me on their last visit here. And as I walked up Kensington High Street, the Indian summer finally gave out, and it was cold.

I love November. Maybe it’s because my twenty-seventh birthday is lurking around a corner. And with that brings the inevitable promise of cake, which I do not take lightly. A birthday should never break its promises. But I think also that Halloween is the hors d’oeuvre in a great two-month banquet. And if you love food, you can’t help but wake up on November 1, bloated from Halloween candy, thrilled to start the feast.

I think there is something about the holidays in your twenties. You are old enough to be away—sometimes, as I am, very, very far away. Too far away to come home. In some ways, as young adults, we try to distance ourselves from the stodgy mud of our pasts, thinking exuberantly that we finally get to do it our way. And then, after one too many Thanksgivings spent eating pumpkin ravioli and turkey meatballs, you realize that childhood was really just yesterday, and you miss probably more than anyone the great laden tables popping with stuffings and birds and ciders.

My mother, for instance, used to greet me everything Thanksgiving break with a pumpkin pie. It is maybe my favorite food. For all the high-falutin’ claims that usually come to mind—like rose macarons and truffled mac and cheese and lobster—I remind myself every year around this time that pumpkin pie is what I wait all year long for. I would come home and there would be two pumpkin pies in the fridge: one large one for Thursday, and one slightly smaller one for Wednesday night. It was all mine, and I would sit, exhaling the frenzy of school, on the couch with a fork and a television. It was a match to the death; I always won, and the pumpkin pie was always devoured.

Now, here in London, where pumpkin pie is something of an oddity, cans of pumpkin are in limited supply. It feels like we Americans are on war rations. The cans are priced at 2.50 GBP, and great neon signs read: PUMPKIN! Get it while you still can. I bought eight cans.

When Bon Appétit asked me to create a holiday dessert, I knew it had to be pumpkin. Nothing else is quite so special. Peppermint, gingerbread. You can eat them whenever it suits your fancy. But pumpkin—you have to wait for it. It is precious as it is common. I love its Americana, its richness, its warmth. It is a call to the table, the period at the end of a very long and filling run-on sentence.

That is why I chose pumpkin. But why beignets? Firstly, because the holidays are about family. And though mine is currently across an ocean, my French relatives, including Maman, think pumpkin pie is useful only for hurling at people in old-fashioned sitcoms. Beignets are just what my family calls donuts. I chose them because like pie, they are “salt of the earth”—only sweeter. They are old fashioned and rustic, and yet elegant and urbane. Restaurants all over the world, like Stanton Social in New York and Wahaca in London, are selling out of their little gourmet donut desserts. It just goes to show you. You can make a chocolate truffle cake. But people just want to eat donuts.

These are made from a simple choux pastry, cut with dense pumpkin, spiced with gingerbread spices, and spiked with Bourbon. When they are puffed and golden and hot, I toss them around in vanilla bean sugar. I love that they do triple duty: on Thanksgiving, I add shredded apple for a harvest vibe. For Hanukkah, they’re fried, so job’s done. And at Christmas, the gingerbread spices and deep Bourbon predominate. Like the evergreens outside, these outlast the season. I serve them with a Spiced and Sparkling Norman Mulled Cider, made from sparkling apple cider from Normandy spiked with Calvados and simmered with cinnamon sticks and cloves. For an elegant dinner, fry these up just before serving, and place them in scalloped paper cones. For an informal feast, have your guest in the kitchen and dare them not to eat the beignets right from the fryer. Nothing is more rustic or refined, more simple or surprising, than these Spiced Pumpkin and Bourbon Beignets with Vanilla Bean Sugar.

I hope you’ll make them and share them this winter. Merry Christmas (and Hanukkah and Thanksgiving) to all, and to all a good bite. Bon app!

This recipe is an entry in the Bon Appétit Blog Envy Holiday Dessert Bake-Off. Click here to vote for me! Merci! (It is the last category: "Miscellaneous Desserts." Click on the "Vote on the Next Batch" button until you get to the sixth category.)

Spiced Pumpkin and Bourbon Beignets

makes about 45 beignets

Ingredients for the Beignets

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

2 tablespoons Bourbon

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

3 tablespoons light brown sugar

Pinch salt

6 tablespoons water

1 stick butter

1 cup flour

3 eggs

1/2 Golden Delicious apple, peeled and grated (only for gilding the lily; optional for Thanksgiving)

Vegetable oil for frying

Ingredients for the Vanilla Bean Sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 used vanilla pod

Procedure

Combine the pumpkin, Bourbon, spices, brown sugar, salt, water, and butter in a medium saucepot. Cover, and sit over medium high heat until the butter is just melted and the mixture is bubbling.
Take the pan off the heat, and dump in all the flour at once. Using a wooden spoon, stir forcefully and rapidly until all the flour is absorbed. Place the pan back on the heat over medium-low heat for 30-45 seconds, until the dough comes away from the sides of the pan. Decant the hot dough into a large bowl.
Stir the dough around to cool it off, and then add the eggs one at a time. Add one egg, and use the wooden spoon to stir it in. You could also use an electric hand mixer. Once the egg is absorbed, add the next, and then repeat for the third egg. The final pumpkin spice choux pastry should be smooth, thick, and sticky. The perfect way to gild the lily for Thanksgiving is to add 1/2 peeled and grated Golden Delicious apple to the pastry dough now, before frying. It adds autumnal sweetness and moisture that is irresistible.
Heat a deep pan half full of vegetable oil until it registers between 310 and 325 degrees on a candy thermometer. Drop in teaspoon-sized amounts of dough in batches, careful not to overcrowd the pan and effectively drop the temperature of the oil. Fry the beignets for 6 to 9 minutes. The trick is to allow them to fry until they crack. The fissure will expand. That is what creates the puff inside the beignet. When the fissure and the rest of the beignet are about the same color, six to nine minutes should have passed, and you’ll know the inside is cooked. Remove with a spider or slotted spoon to drain on paper towels. Toss with the vanilla sugar (recipe follows).

Vanilla Bean Sugar

Vanilla sugar is the perfect way to use up scraped vanilla pods that you’ve used in other recipes like crème brûlée. Save the pods in a baggie, and then decant the sugar into a bowl. Use your fingers, and get some of the sugar into the crack in the split vanilla bean; then scrub with the sugar as though you were scouring a pan with salt. You won’t believe how much vanilla is still left inside, and it is more than enough to make vanilla sugar for these beignets.

Spiked and Sparkling Norman Mulled Cider

serves 4

Ingredients

75 cl cidre buché (Norman or Breton hard apple cider)

2 tablespoons Calvados

1 cinnamon stick

2 cloves

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon sugar

Procedure

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan. Turn the heat on the stove to medium-low, and allow the mixture to heat through for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve warm.

Bon Appétit Blog Envy. VOTE!

French in a Flash: Bouillabaisse Pasta

2009-10-30T03:11:00.005-04:00

My Papiers Provence (see link to the right) posts were some of my most popular ever, and my trip to the South continues to inform almost everything I create. I started off my French in a Flash column with Chilean sea bass, seared, and nestled among rock shrimp and mussels in a bouillabaisse broth. But one bouillabaisse dish is hardly enough! I love the richesse of it: the seafood (I almost always do an all-shellfish bouillabaisse), the heady marigold saffron. And the essences of Provence: the fennel and wine and sometimes Pernod. It's a peasant dish gone for gold. So complicated, comprised of nothing but highs and lows--as Mr. English often claims I am! Maybe that's why I love bouillabaisse so much. A kindred spirit.

So for my column this week, I reinvented bouillabaisse yet again. This time, I simmer a broth of white wine, fish fumet, cherry tomatoes, fennel, shallots, garlic, and, of course, saffron. Then I add the shrimp, mussles, and poularde clams, and the finally the crabmeat which gives it that thick texture of bouillabaisse broth. Next, I toss it with wide ribbons of hearty papardelle that I've undercooked, and then allow to bubble away in the steaming bath of bouillbaisse. The pasty goes marigold colored as well, and it's just a really easy and creative way to reinvent the classic. And the sauce takes less time to make than the pasta, with hardly any work besides slicing a fennel and throwing some stuff in a pot. You could add a shot of Pernod, or some fennel fronds or parsley or chervil at the end. But this is the simple fix.

For the whole story and recipe from French in a Flash on Serious Eats, click here. Bon app!

French in a Flash: Summer Berry Rissoles

2009-10-18T00:00:00.001-04:00

If you like my Sorrel Shrimp Rissoles, then I know you'll like the original, my Summer Berry Rissoles. Rissoler means to brown, and the way we learned rissoles in culinary school was to stuff balls of puff pastry with sweet syrup-poached pear. Delicious, but once again, you had to spend a lot of time and effort on your little donut hole reward.

These are easy. Start with frozen puff pastry, and some beautiful berries, and then proceed as if making fresh ravioli. Fry them up, toss them with sugar, and you're done. The outside is like a crusty doughnut with a million layers, but soft, and sweet, as well, and the inside is like a starburst of sweettart berries that are just turning from fresh fruit to pie filling as they explode in your mouth.

If you never thought you'd ever eat fried puff pastry, don't mock it till you've tried it. These are your own homemade French Pop'ems. Bon app!

For the full story and recipe from my French in a Flash column at Serious Eats, click here.

French in a Flash: Sorrel Shrimp Rissoles with Artichoke Aïoli

2009-10-17T00:00:00.001-04:00

I know, I've been frying things a lot in my column lately. The squirrels who tumble around Central Park this time of year like fat ladies in fur coats inspire me to eat myself into winter. The good thing about these shrimp rissoles is that if you have tremendous willpower, you can eat just one. I dare you.

These are an unorthodox take on rissoles. I take jumbo shrimp, and coat them with one leaf of citrusy, grassy sorrel. Then I wrap them in sheets of filo dough coated in olive oil, and fry them, or rissoler them, until they are golden and crisp. I make an easy artichoke heart and garlic aioli to wipe them in. The result is a scattering of golden shards of crisp filo when you bite into the rissole, and then the tart tang of the sorrel, and this super-juicy just-cooked shrimp. Then, the pungent garlic and the chunky artichoke. It's so good all together. And the good thing is, it can be made almost entirely from the pantry: shrimp, artichoke hearts, and filo dough from the freezer, mayonnaise, garlic, and olive oil from the fridge and pantry. Make them, and squirrel them away before anyone else can get their bright eyes and bushy tail near them!

You can find the full story and recipe from my column French in a Flash on Serious Eats. Bon app!

French in a Flash: Lavender-Apricot Chicken Drumsticks

2009-10-16T00:00:00.002-04:00

I am not the most cut and dry person. I am verbose. I like excess. These are my faults, and I hang them on the laundry line for you to peruse at your leisure. So it seems ironic that someone so partial to inefficiency should claim that French food can be made quickly, and easily. But I believe it in my gut as truly and deeply as I believe my gut when it tells me I'm hungry. Sometimes, I believe it even before it tells me! So when I come up with something truly simple and easy but fabulous, well, I have a bit of a glow around me for a few days.

Last week's French in a Flash is just such a recipe. Cheap and cheerful chicken drumsticks, my favorite part anyway, are roasted to crisp, and then brushed like a Cezanne in apricot preserves and speckled with lavender blossoms. The glaze bubbles and crusts in a sweet-savory sticky sensation all over the chicken, and that lavender partners perfectly in a Provencal duet that is so unexpected and delicious, but requires almost no effort or expense. Sorry if my chest is more puffed out than the poor old chicken's, but I'm happy with this one! I hope you'll try it.

Lavender

For the full story and recipe on Serious Eats, click here!

Bon app!

The Godfather

2009-10-15T04:13:00.005-04:00

Oozing Mozzarella with Pesto

Whenever there is something new in my life, I suddenly lose my appetite. I’ve always fed myself well, and been suspicious of those frail girls who claim “Oh, I forgot to eat!” How can one forget to eat? Or not have time to eat? But at the end of the day, when there is a new boy in my life, or I move to a new place, or I start a new job—there I am, too nervous and busy and strung out to do the most simplest human task of hunting food down on a supermarket shelf, gathering it onto my plate, and, after all is said and done, eating it.

There’s no new boy, just dear old Mr. English. And no new place. It has, after all, has been standing for a thousand years. But an MBA, that terrifying blazing bull’s eye I’d always hope my arrow might somehow meander into, that was, and continues to be, bright, shining, and new. And according to tradition, I was accidentally starving.

Baby Arugula Salad with Balsamic

I have been lucky and have found myself three friends in an unlikely place. Carolina, an Argentine-American I can spot like a flare from across the room for her long, nymph-platinum hair and megawatt smile. Ola, a Nigerian-Londoner beauty, who shares my birthday. And Angie, a Roman firecracker, who seems like nothing would ever intimidate her, where I have never felt more intimidated in all my life.

Carolina, Ola, and I were standing around the front hall of the school, holding jelly beans. Also known as lunch in our new world. It was family done, and none of us had any family for miles and miles. Angie came trotting over with her parents. They were exactly as I expected Italians to be: he, graying and distinguished in a gray suit, and you just knew he slept in suits, woke in suits, played in suits, and worked in suits. And the she, elegant in all black, big hair worked in Roman curls, and lips stained and pouting. The little American inside me screamed: ITALIAN!

Before long, they were embracing us, and I was beginning to realize there wasn’t much difference between Brooklyn Italian and Roman Italian. Everyone was talking a mile a minute, and the next thing we new, we were invited to the family lunch.

Pasta with Black Truffles and Parmesan

We went to Jamie Oliver’s Italian restaurant cheap and cheerful corner restaurant, and before I knew what was happening, antipasti had been ordered for the table. Along with loaves of bread, hunks of focaccia and swords of bread sticks. Glugs of olive oil seemed to be spilling down from heaven. The waiter came and took our order, and Caro, Ola, and I all ordered some pasta. “Penne Arrabiata,” I requested, thinking that after something so dry as accounting, I’d need something hot and devilishly spicy. And my new godfather leaned over and whispered, “And what will you have after your pasta?”

Of course, I felt like an absolute ignoramus when I realized that to him, pasta was an appetizer, and I should have thought twice before ordering the wrong course. I think he seemed slightly alarmed at what he thought would turn out to be such an enormous order for a generally small person. “Oh, just the pasta for me, please,” I flushed. But then I bit my lip, and had to hold something in. I was homesick. I missed, pathetic as this sounds at my age, my Maman. And though this man, my new friend’s father, spoke with an urbane Italian accent and ordered his pasta as an appetizer, I recognized something in his voice—concern, care, generosity. As he asked us about boyfriends and classes, he declared, “Because your fathers are not here, I am your father! And they would want to know, so I want to know!”

I have never felt so welcome, or so revived. At the end of the meal, after the olive oil was wiped off the table and the macchiato foam had been licked off lips, the godfather turned to me and said in simple English, “I like you.” I grinned and said back, “I like you too. Thank you for lunch.”

Spaghetti Bolognese

But I was thankful for more than penne, and I hope he knew that. I think when I forget to eat, I also forget what eating is about: sitting at a table with people who can say at the end of the meal, “I like you.” And you can say, “I like you too.” When someone pays for your lunch, they are not buying you something you cannot buy yourself. Hopefully, even in these difficult years, pasta is not out of reach. He buys you pasta, but he gives you hospitality, and humanity, and in some very basic form, love. I hope that the busier I get, I will not let myself go hungry for any of those things again.

The Power of One

2009-10-02T03:35:00.010-04:00

Photograph from TalkingStars.co.uk

Two days ago, I did a most unusual thing: I started my MBA. I still don’t feel right saying it. Not because millions of people don’t do MBAs each year. They do; it’s quite usual, in fact. But me. A food writer. A cook. Well, that’s usual.

Over the summer, we were sent instructions on how to prepare our resumés. My usual resumé is a flurry of publications and recordings (perhaps flurry is an overcompensation, but it does creep over the one page limit) in a lovely font, using all sorts of little formatting tricks that I grin over like a satisfied Cheshire Cat who just swallowed the Dormouse. And yet, here was this form from the business school, tell me in no wavering manner that Times New Roman 10 point was my only option.

I compared my CV, my curriculum vitae, or, loosely translated, the story of my life, next to this model they’d provided, what I supposed to be the average life story of my soon-to-be classmates. Work experience at the top, please: Analyst, Goldman Sachs, Consultant, McKinsey. Soon, I began to realize that the font wasn’t the only way I was supposed to conform. Okay, I breathed deeply, trying to fill out this worksheet with things like Food Columnist. I began to prioritize the wrong things, placing Penguin Intern above my BBC recordings, simply because it was done in an office, and I thought they’d find it more legitimate. By the time I had finished “Education” and “Employment,” my camel’s back was nearly broken. But instead of throwing on a straw, they threw on a ton of bricks:

“Do NOT say you’re interested in cooking!” a little colored blurb on the instruction sheet shouted up at me. “Nobody cares. It will not get you a job.”

And that was the end of this camel. I crumpled up onto the floor, and I sobbed my whole life story, my whole CV, away. What would have been an acceptable activity, one that they claimed would have gotten me the job? Tennis. In my anger I thought finishing first in my class at Le Cordon Bleu would have been just as heavy a qualification as sitting down and watching Wimbledon. “I’m not going!” I called out to no one. Why would they admit a cook if “cooking” will never get me anywhere?!

My class and chefs at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris

But still I found myself, three days ago, lying in bed waiting to begin my first day at school. At twenty-six I felt no different than kindergarten six. I had bought new pencils (light blue and lovely), and couldn’t sleep, and wished I still had a little green uniform hung up in my closet instead of having to pick something in the morning. I stared at the ceiling in the darkness. When Mr. English called, I snapped down the phone at him and hung up before he’d finished talking. I crawled out of bed with black bags under my eyes and a chip on my shoulder. I sat through 10 hours of induction. And then, with a handful of new friends, I attended the Women in Business event, without much expectation, still not really knowing what I was doing with this latest addition to the Education section of my CV.

“Kerry,” one of my friends shook me out of my daze, “the keynote speaker is in food!”

I grabbed the paper from her hand, and I looked. Pinky Lilani OBE, a self-taught Indian home cook, who had changed the landscape of English cuisine with her books and her consulting at mega supermarkets. She got up, and as she spoke, she reminded me of something that I often forget. After all, success is success, whether it’s on the trading floor or the kitchen floor, and as much as I spurned and judged the names like Goldman Sachs and McKenzie, I too can feel like a rat in a race.

Photograph from SpiceMagic.com

But she reminded me of the most basic thing that I’ve always loved about food: it stops people. I remember racing down the High Street in Oxford once, and Pizza Hut started giving out free slices of pizza. Everyone simply stopped, stopped whatever it was they were doing, and started eating, and chatting, and above all else, they started smiling. When Pinky walked up to her podium, you could see she was just like her food: wholesome, but spicy. She had sass, and poise; an unassuming manner, but an Everest of accomplishments. For the first time since I’d really pondered this whole MBA affair, I felt inspired.

Soon, Pinky pulled out an enormous platter of her famous spicy Bombay potatoes, and all the strung out, exhausted girls in the room gasped. And Pinky made the brave announcement, “If any of you here at school ever need a home-cooked meal, you’re always welcome at my table.” And looking around the room, at women who had come from America and India, South Africa and Scandinavia, I realized that there are ways to feed people even without food. The color had come back in the room. And though none of us had yet tasted those Spicy Bombay Potatoes, we were all somehow much fuller.

And there, in that fluorescent-lit lecture theater, among all the power brokers, I sat looking at this lovely, happy, woman who had found her way to personal success and who had helped to change the world simply because she did what she loved, and because she didn’t take no for an answer. And even among the power-brokers, seeing how they fell weak at the knees at the sight of those Spicy Bombay Potatoes, I felt for the first time like maybe I too was a force to be reckoned with. And that maybe, after all was said and done, I held the most power after all.

Pommes frites, anyone?

Pinky's new book Coriander Makes the Difference will be released shortly...

French in a Flash: Tarragon Chicken and Carrot Muffins with Sweet Chevre Icing

2009-09-22T10:53:00.003-04:00

Good morning, Revolutionnaires! I have been behind in keeping you up to date on French in a Flash, so I want to tell you about the last two week's recipes on Serious Eats.

Tarragon Chicken is this unfortunate dish that we tried to throw together at the Cordon Bleu. I say tried, because it was the one dish that I don't think one of us finished. It sounds so simple: chicken stewed in a summer-sweet broth of tomatoes and tarragon. And yet, all I remember was being in the kitchen at 9:30 at night deboning both the chicken's thigh and my own thumb. As they say in France, "catastrophe!"

It was a shame, too, because it seemed like such a good idea--so rustic, and filling, but at the same time a bit exotic. We are so used to having our tomatoes with basil, but in France, tomatoes are all about tarragon, and there is that kind of fresh anise sweetness that counters the tomatoes so well. It seemed to me like the perfect summer stew, hearty and steaming, but still fresh as a daisy. So, I decided to never look at my Cordon Bleu recipe for the dish again, and make it my own way. I made it for my aunt and uncle, and along with a devoured mountain of baguette, it was a hit. Click here for the Tarragon Chicken recipe.

Last week's French in a Flash caused a bit of controversy. September always gets me thinking about back to school, especially since I myself am going back to school. And for me, back to school is all about breakfast and snacks, the two meals I never bother with in the summertime. I wanted these muffins to truly be "in a flash," so they start with boxed cinnamon muffin mix, which is then doctored up with golden raisins, grated carrot, and chopped walnuts. The icing is made from powdered sugar, cream cheese, and, the piece de resistance, goat cheese. It's like licking a finger scraped down the side of a red velvet cake--that cream cheese tang in the sweet frosting--but multiplied and deepened. I think these are a great way to make something which I still consider homemade in just minutes, but I understand some of my readers were fairly disappointed at my use of a boxed mix. I would be happy to hear your opinions, Revolutionnaires! Click here for the Carrot Muffins with Sweet Chevre Icing recipe.

Again, my apologies at having been so remiss. Tons of travel and a new computer have stymied my best intentions.

French Revolution on Flickr!

2009-09-06T23:17:00.006-04:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words--which is usually how many words it takes me to describe each dish in my Flickr pool! Browse photos of French Revolution food on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchrevolutionfood.

French in a Flash: "Summer" Lobster Sandwiches with Zucchini Frites and Heirloom Tomato Salad

2009-09-06T22:00:00.004-04:00

Lobster Salad Sandwiches, Made for Summer, Inspired by Spring

It's Labor Day! And I think this week's French in a Flash is the perfect Franco-American extravagance: lobster rolls inspired by the Parisian restaurant Spring, served with summer staples zucchini frites with basil fleur de sel and heirloom tomato salad.

For me, Labor Day is about picnics, and that means sandwiches. When I was at the Cordon Bleu this summer, I hardly ate a thing. I was on my feet nine or ten hours a day, in the kitchen six days a week. Just looking at the food filled me up, and I was never hungry. It's such a terrible shame, I thought, that I'm in Paris, and I'm not eating a thing.

Zucchini Frites, with Basil Fleur de Sel

We had one Saturday off, and my best friend looked me square in the eye. "Kerry," she said, "we're going out and we're eating." She'd heard of a place called Spring across town where every Saturday they served nothing but lobster sandwiches with goose fat fries.

The next noon found us sitting at a wooden table in the tiny storefront of Spring, delicately savoring every bite of our lobster sandwiches. The lobster was served in whole chunks, tossed in a light sauce of mayonnaise and fresh orange zest and juice, in a white-wheat baguette. Celery and chives sprinkled in a touch of verdant freshness. And on the side, crisp, hand cut potatoes fried in goose fat, sprinkled with salt and the confetti zests of lime and orange. It was the best sandwich I ever ate.

Heirloom Tomato Salad, with South of France Olive Oil and Fleur de Sel

So last week, when I saw Florida spiny lobster on sale for $9.99, I had the supermarket steam one up for me (a nice change after my bloody execution of thirty-odd crabs in cooking school), and I came home and tried to recreate the Spring sandwich for summer. I added my own take on it, but it's still si bon. And I like to serve it with the best zucchini and basil and tomatoes summer has on offer before its officially fall.

You work hard for your lobster; this Labor Day, take a day, like we did in Paris, to stop and enjoy it. For the full recipe and story from my column French in a Flash on Serious Eats, click here. Bon app!

"Eat me!"

French in a Flash: Drunken Angel Hair with Leeks and Cream

2009-08-24T09:01:00.005-04:00

I remember the first time I was drunk very clearly. Which is, from what I have seen of drunkenness ever since, quite a feat. I was three.

I was, of course, with the famille. My cousin Patricia was having a great big wedding, and we’d flown across the Atlantic just to be there. It was the first time I’d ever been to Europe, and we stayed the whole summer.

I remember many things from that summer. Buying strawberry ice cream off the corner, wearing a black and white millerais bathing suit that left a striped tan line, and discovering Coca-Cola in glass bottles for the first time. But the night that stands out most distinctly in my memory was the wedding night. The bride’s parents’ house was turned into a den of delirium and revelry, with white lights strung from every tree and every beam, and I was perkily sitting by Maman and Mémé and a slew of other distant relatives at a table. I had finished my dinner.

“Maman, what is that!?” I demanded loudly of the garnet colored liquid in her tall, elegant glass. She looked so fabulous in her navy silk and red lipstick, holding the ball of the glass, the stem dangling between her long fingers.

“It’s wine” she declared, as though I should have known it all the time.

“Can I have some?”

I don’t know if it’s the same in all French families, but in ours, wine was never denied. It was only rationed. “You can have just a finger!” She stuck her finger into the glass, and pulled it out again, dripping and dangling tantalizing ribbons of Merlot. I knew this was an occasion. An initiation. I could feel it. I wrapped my lips around her finger, and pulled off the wine. I swallowed.

“What do you think?”

I knew there was only one acceptable answer. “I love it!”

And because I could tell it was forbidden, as soon as Maman turned her head, I stuck my finger back in the glass, and had some more. Then I darted off into the party before she had noticed the difference.

Everything was fine, at first. I felt very grown up. But soon, too soon, I because very, very sleepy. I found a couch, and sat down alone. The white lights hanging from the beams started to sway and blur. The next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake, Maman and Mémé standing over me, concerned. “Kerry, are you alright?”

I was disoriented, and dreamy. The picked me up, and carried me off. I didn’t wake up again until the next afternoon. I was sleeping off my first hangover.

I graduated from fingers of wine to glasses of a splash of wine mixed with water, and that’s what I do with the pasta in this week’s French in a Flash on Serious Eats. I buy an inexpensive bottle of French white table wine, and I boil in the angel hair in it, with some water, to flavor the pasta. I then make a sauce of some of the white wine I’d set aside, sweet, soft, sautéd leeks, and cream. It’s so decadent, and really unexpected. Like a drunken Vichyssoise with pasta instead of potato. It makes the perfect side dish to a simple grilled fish. I suppose that if you’re young, or you’re pasta, being drunk isn’t the worst thing in the world after all.

For the Serious Eats post, and recipe, click here!

French in a Flash: Grilled Lamb Chops with Port Syrup, Garlic Confit, and Sauce Vierge "Persillade"

2009-08-18T09:00:00.009-04:00

This is a draft I wrote of this week's French in a Flash over on Serious Eats. But it's more of a personal blog post than a column, so I though I'd put it up here. I hope you enjoy....
Click HERE for the column on Serious Eats and the recipe!

City Slickers

When I was a little girl, I lived on a shady, old-fashioned, leaf-lined side street in the great city of New York.

The thing I love most about my city is the inimitable ability one has to walk absolutely anywhere. This is not the old, "I used to walk two miles to school every day uphill in the snow" sob story in the arcane lore of parent-child relations (even though that's exactly what I did!), but I think I am old enough now to decry that my best friend and neighbor Polly and I used to hike to school in our kilts and knee socks in the blistering cold until the veins in our legs ran bluer than the ink that leaked through our schoolbags. But we wouldn’t have had it any other way because when you walk in New York City, you never know who or what you'll see next around the corner. And on the way to eight hours in a schoolhouse, a little adventure can be much welcome.

Unless, of course, you're me, and you're a creature of habit. Not knowing what was around most corners, I was comforted to know what was around one specific corner. At the end of my block, just at the avenue, I knew that if I turned the corner I would end up at the Love drugstore, a relic of 1980s New York pharmacies. And in the great crowd of people in which Polly and I always staged our grand adventures, it was nice to know that one face would light up in a smile whenever it saw us.

I Heart NY

I met Rita on my first day of my new school. Our school bus stop was just in front of the Love pharmacy on the corner, and I was waiting for Polly because she was the only girl I knew in what would be a sea of girls who all knew each other. I had never been on a school bus before, and, come to think of it, never would be again. I was shaking in my penny loafers—and was trying hard not to let anyone see me cry.

I went into the drug store to buy a pack of tissues. As I scrambled to collect enough coins to pay the bill, I heard her ask, "What’s your favorite flavor?"

I looked up bleary-eyed, and saw a tall, dark lady with crimson lipstick framing a perfect white smile that glowed against her complexion, and cheek bones high as a cat's. She was dressed in a flowing skirt that fell from her waist to just below her knees, and a high-necked silk blouse, secured with a silk scarf. She motioned to a box of Charms Sweet Pops, another 1980s relic of a lollipop that I still love and still insist on finding to give away every Halloween. I smiled shyly: "grape."

She plucked a purple pop from the box, and leaned across the counter with it. "For later," she said with a wink.

Our Town

Unexpectedly, I smiled. I tucked my sweet pop away in the bowels of my school bag and sighed, thinking of all the hours that would pass until I could reward myself for surviving my first day at a new school. I met Polly, and we took the bus, arriving at the old brick schoolhouse. All the other girls did know each other, and I didn't get any gummy bears for finishing my subtraction mad minute in time. But in the afternoon, the teacher did read from Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, and we had roast chicken for lunch, so the day wasn't a total loss. Back on the bus in the afternoon, I reached into my bag and fished around amongst pen caps and broken pencil shards until I unearthed my lollipop. I unwrapped it and smiled, sucking happily away as I stared out the window at the thronging streets.

“Where’d you get that?” demanded Polly.

"From Rita!"

From then on, every morning for years, our journey commenced with a visit to Rita. I would buy my lollipop, and Polly would buy some chewing gum, and then off we would set, armed against the world. And one time, when Polly was sick with strep throat and I had to journey alone, Rita insisted I take two lollipops—medicinally of course.

I often see out-of-towners who come to visit New York staring up at the great buildings, and turning around at the grand avenues. Perhaps, to them, it seems like the biggest city in the world. But it is, I swear, a very small town.

Grilled Lamb Lollipops with Port Syrup and “Persillade” Sauce Vierge

These are lamb lollipops, Frenched chops cut from the bone, which create perfect grilled finger food for these hot summer months. They are marinated with herbs and port and then grilled until they are pink inside, and crusty and charred on the outside. I sweeten them up with a drizzle of port syrup, and serve them with a persillade sauce vierge. Persillade is a French culinary expression that means that something is done with garlic and parsley—a common crust for lamb or filling for baked shellfish. In this version, I confit the garlic on the stove in olive oil, until it is soft and sweet. Then I use the garlic oil to create a sauce vierge, a slightly acidic raw sauce to which I add freshly chopped parsley. The flavors are complex and sophisticated, and though the recipe appears to have many components, it’s still French in a Flash. It’s even more of a flash if you plan ahead and put the lamb to marinate and the garlic to confit the night before while you’re in the kitchen having dinner. Then everything will be ready for the next day, and the recipe will take minutes!

Lamb chops or lollipops. Tastes may change, but I have always loved the sweet life.

For the recipe, click HERE!

Julie & Julia, and Me

2009-08-08T11:15:00.004-04:00

Last night I, along with every other foodie in America, went to see Julie & Julia. I loved the movie, but then, it was hard not to. I loved that look of satisfaction on Meryl Streep's face as she triumphantly grinned at the bird-beak of meringue that hung smugly from her balloon whisk. I loved the frenzy over Sole Meuniere. I loved the night cap of mignonette and oyster shooters. I loved it because I was salivating, and dying to be back in Paris. I loved it because they got it right, and because it celebrated what I love most in all the world: French food.

As I drove home, I got to feeling ashamed. Over several things. I've been so busy with cooking school, and writing my column, that I haven't spent the time I should have been spending on this blog, the blog that, like Julie in the movie, was started by my boyfriend and which started it all for me. So, readers, I apologize for that. But I was also ashamed because I, who preach the gospel of easy French food for American cooks, have never read or seen one recipe by the grande dame herself, Julia Child. I didn't know that my "bon app" signature is just slang for Julia's valedictory "bon appetit"! I didn't even realize the extent to which I should have known all of this.

I always write how here in America, we hold French food up as the gold (butter gold) standard. That even provincial French cooking achieves the effortless elegance of a svelte, scarved Parisian woman. It is a passion that consumes me, and which I happily consume. But I have never really been influenced by the woman who changed everything, I now realize, and who made what I do possible, relatable, and I hope, to someone out there, important or inspiring or just sweet fun.

In some ways, I think the lack of influence is a good thing. Julia and I do very different things. We both may have started at the Cordon Bleu, but, from what I understand, she perfected French traditional cooking, where as I interpret the food on which I was raised into what I hope is something a bit tongue-in-cheek and even more accessible, in a world which has changed, as far as I can tell, very dramatically in the last forty or so years. But now I am fascinated, charmed, and beguiled. I ordered the DVDs and Mastering the Art of French Cooking on Amazon last night, and I am salivating again just thinking about its arrival.

I'll let you know when they get here. Until then, bon app mes amis!

French in a Flash: Citrus Oreillettes

2009-08-08T11:02:00.004-04:00

In love, a man whispers sweet nothings into a girl's ear. In food, I like to fry up some sweet nothings to crackle into my man's mouth.

This week's French in a Flash over on Serious Eats is Citrus Oreillettes. Oreillettes are deep fried shards of pastry, snowballed in powdered sugar. They are light as air, but I still managed to eat my weight in them in Provence this past spring. For my easy, renovated version, I fry wonton skins for just seconds, and then toss them around in a brown paper bag filled with powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, and the colorful confetti zests of lemon, lime, and orange. I'd like to say that I've learnt restraint over the summer, but, I can't. The four of us finished the entire batch watching late night TV in bed. And so I fell asleep on a cloud of powdered sugar. Very sweet dreams.

Some of my column readers have commented that they want to try cinnamon or savory versions with cumin or paprika or chili. You could even try Parmesan or fresh vanilla. Let me know what you come up with...

For the full story and recipe, click here. Bon app!

French in a Flash: Rustic Roast Duck with New Potatoes, Sugar Snaps, and Spring Onions

2009-08-06T09:20:00.004-04:00

Last week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats is the dish I make for Mr. English when it's been a long day. It's so hearty and earthy, but you hardly have to lift a finger. Plus, duck makes it feel like a special occasion, which dinner always is with Mr. English. I crust the duck skin in salt and herbes de Provence, sear it to crisp it, and then perch it on a nest of soft-crisp new potatoes, roasted sweet sugar snaps, and garden-fresh green onions. The vegetables bathe in the melting fat of the duck, and the duck stays crisp and juicy and hot.

We curl up on the couch and pretend that we live in a French farmhouse with a roaring fire. C'est si bon.

For the recipe and full story, click here.

Moroccan Carrot Salad

2009-08-05T07:51:00.004-04:00

Kitchen Caravan recorded my first ever cooking shows, and now they've allowed me to contribute a recipe to their Moroccan collection this month. Meme has always made a traditional Moroccan carrot salad for big family dinners, where thick copper penny slices of carrot are boiled and then tossed with ground cumin, salt, and lemon juice. It's delicious. But, I wanted to give it a bit of a facelift. So, I created ribbons of carrot and just blanched them until still crisp, but not raw, and created a vinaigrette with whole cumin seeds and citrus and honey. Whole cilantro leaves finish it off. It's refreshing and light, but exotic. I hope you try it! Here's the link to the recipe.

French in a Flash: Eggplant Tian

2009-07-27T16:57:00.006-04:00

My father eats Eggplant Parmigiana every Sunday night. And who doesn't love a crispy Napoleon of crunchy, creamy fried eggplant, chunky-runny sauce, and gummy, salty Mozzarella cheese. It's impossible to resist.

It wasn't until I went to Italy and France when I was twenty-two that I realized there was another way to make our Sunday night favorite. My South-of-France Eggplant Tian for this week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats is Eggplant Parmigiana built from bricks of roasted eggplant, fresh, light sauce, summer thyme and basil, and a mix of Mozzarella, Gruyere, and Parmesan cheeses. Despite the cheese, the dish is lighter, more flavorful, and somehow more satisfying than the Little Italy original. Sometimes you have to look far and wide to find true love. As always, the full article and recipe are here. Bon app!

French in a Flash: Trout en Papillotte

2009-07-19T03:02:00.004-04:00

Trout en Papillotte

When I was growing up, Meme would sing me this lullaby about how the fish swim in the sea, and the birds fly through the air. But when I bought Rusty, my goldfish, in college, I learned that with the help of some planes, trains, and automobiles, fish can travel however they like.

For this week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats, I write about Rusty's bravery, and the late-learned lesson that just because you're a fish doesn't mean you have to just stay in the water. The recipe is trout en papillotte, a whole trout, stuffed with woody herbs and citrus and butter, and roasted in a packet made of parchment that, if you're hungry, is just as fun to tear open as a birthday present. Click here, as always, for the full story and recipe. Bon app!

Rusty, circa 2005

How Humpty Dumpty Lost His Head: Eggland's Best, and the French Revolution

2009-07-14T04:22:00.000-04:00

You may remember that recently I entered my little savory crustless quiches with fines herbes and chevre into the Eggland's Best blogger recipe contest.

The night of the dinner to announce the winner, I was sitting rather nervously munching down grapes, waiting for the big reveal. The French-speaking man at Eggland's Best began introducing the winning recipe.

"This recipe," he boomed across the room, "comes from 1789." He smiled towards me. I felt my heart sink. My recipe hadn't come from 1789. But a historical recipe; how fascinating!

Then I looked up. He was still looking at me, and his smile turned to confusion. He began to look like he was wondering whether or not I was crazy. Then, whether or not I was stupid. I kicked myself under the table. 1789! The French Revolution! I jumped up, shaking and embarrassed. Me and my little quiches had won!

Today is Bastille Day here in Paris. A cause for celebration, especially here on French Revolution. Eggland's Best has invited me to be this month's guest contributor. I write about the black and white toile wallpaper in my bathroom at maman's house, and about the little French peasant characters I have named that have stood, for better or worse, silent on the walls of my bathroom for nearly a decade. Marie-Louise, as I call her, has a basket of eggs in her hand, and is surrounded by a little knots of gabbling toile ducks and chickens, just outside her straw-roofed house that hiccups sweet smoke from the pipe chimney.

What I write about in this guest post is how the egg can be so many things, an ultimate Proteus of French cuisine. "My first recipe for Eggland’s Best, Mini Crustless Quiches with Fines Herbes and Chèvre, comes straight from Marie-Louise’s pot-bellied stove: rustic, hearty, wholesome, like sunshine. The second, Garden Strawberries with Champagne Sabayon, comes from the Manor House up the hill: refined, delicate, elegant, like moonlight." I hope you will try the Strawberries with Champagne Sabayon recipe, not only because it's delicious, but also because it is the perfect illustration of the tenets I set about when I started this blog: that French food can be elegant and luscious and honest, but so simple to make. And after all the hours I've been spending in a French cooking school, learning the ancien regime, I could use a friendly reminder of the culinary revolution today as well.

And there is no better way to celebrate Bastille Day than with champagne, nor France in the summertime than with strawberries.

Le 14 Juillet!

2009-07-14T04:11:00.005-04:00

Happy Bastille Day, Révolutionnaires!

French in a Flash: Sliced Steak with Chunky Two-Olive Tapenade

2009-07-10T02:03:00.004-04:00

A wedding registry is always brimming with items to equip a kitchen like a well-stocked fortress. A cherry-pitter, just in case cherry pits happen. (Full disclosure: I have one!) But with my friend Lauren, who is getting married tomorrow, I wanted to give her something to do with all those knives and food processors. So, I made her a recipe: Sliced Steak with Chunky Two-Olive Tapenade.

This week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats gives a glimpse into our lives at Princeton, and the eating clubs that sat us down to dinner together. I think this food might be a bit better though... As always, click here for the whole story!

Bon app!

Paris Post: Berthillon's Raspberry Rose

2009-07-05T04:31:00.006-04:00

Berthillon is Paris's most famous ice cream shop. And that's saying something, because every day when I walk by the various ice cream shops throughout the city, the lines snake out onto the sidewalks, and around the street corners. But Berthillon is by far the most reputable, and the most revered.

It is located on the quaint little island Ile St. Louis in the middle of the Seine. It is a shop rimmed by boutique florists, tiny shops of precious treasures, and gourmand specialists. Berthillon's flavors are always an exquisite homage to French tastes: Fraises des Bois, Salted Butter Caramel, and my favorite, Raspberry-Rose.

I went a few days ago, and ordered by usually Raspberry-Rose Sorbet. But now they have a new addition! Fresh raspberry creme Chantilly. Of course, I had to ice the cake. It was stupendous. You must try it the next time you're in Paris. But my secret for when I'm back home? I buy a carton of Haagen-Dazs raspberry sorbet, and let is soften just a bit on the counter. Then, I stir in some rosewater or rose extract, and stick it back in the freezer. Ile St. Louis on the island of Manhattan!

French in a Flash: Pistoued Lamb Brochettes with Bay and Seared Olives

2009-07-02T18:51:00.004-04:00

I learn more about life in cooking school in Paris than I do about cooking. But then, life is a lot like cooking, isn't it? You toss a bunch of different things together, close your eyes, and hope it all comes out alright. This week's French in a Flash is for Serious Eats is all about the little lessons on love and on life that I have garnered from the French chefs here in Paris, which they disguise as advice on how to poach an egg, or how to roast a chicken.

The recipe is Pistoued Lamb Brochettes with Bay Leaves and Seared Olives. They are fit for the summer grill; tender lamb is robed in a fresh summer pistou of mint and basil, skewered onto kebabs, and left to cook in the smoke of charring fresh bay leaves. It's unexpected, but just right. As always, click here for the full story and recipe. Bon app!

Paris Post: La Cave de l'Os a Moelle

2009-06-28T03:48:00.004-04:00

Right now, I feel like Sabrina--I have moved to Paris to go to cooking school. I have even taken to wearing little black pants like Audrey Hepburn.

I won't be here for long, but after spending my first week in Paris in bed with a cold, I now, finally, feel like the luckiest girl in the world. As I write this, from my little apartment (with no kitchen), huge glass book-cover windows thrown open, the Sunday morning church chimes are echoing in. This is Paris. While I'm here, as when I was in Provence, I would love to share with you some of my eating adventures. Pictures may be harder to come by, but I'll try where I can.

Last night we went to a restaurant called La Cave de l'Os a Moelle, in the fifteenth. It sits down an unassuming street, just across from the aptly named l'Os a Moelle restaurant (which means bone marrow). This is its cave, or wine cellar.

We were seated at what seemed like an up-turned giant rope spool, with stools all around, in this fabulously urban-meats-rustic kind of auberge. On the table were greeting grated salads of beets, of carrots, of celeriac. Then there was green peppercorn and liver pate, blood sausage pate, rillettes. Huge rustic breads sawed into chunks. Crudites, including the requisite long red and white radishes, with homemade mayonnaise. All of this, as with everything in the restaurant, is a volonte--or, as we know it in the States, all you can eat.

Photograph from selectionrestaurant.com

One of my fellow cooking students knows her wines, and we go for a Cotes de Valcluse, followed by my absolute favorite Cahors Malbec, which is cheap even in New York, so you can imagine what it costs in Paris, and why Fitzgerald and Hemingway usually moaned over a bottle of it to each other at La Closerie de Lilas in the Twenties. Chin chin, tout le monde!

At this point, we are absolutely brimming. Ironically, being in cooking school leaves you a bit malnourished, as I haven't had time to do anything other than run around a kitchen in six days. Eating has been my last priority. My stomach is shaking its head at me, wagging a finger, and moaning--you've put me through the wash, and I've shrunk. There's nothing you can do; don't force it.

Photograph from Qype.fr

At the back of the restaurant, there is an honest-to-goodness black iron urn, with a waving white sea of the smoothest cream of cauliflower soup which I lap up with my spoon the way my dog laps up his water. Then, back to the back stove. Every night, the restaurant decides on its main dish; you won't know what it is until you get there. Last night, it was falling-apart pork in a wine sauce and fresh egg noodles. So, we tuck into that. The pork is sliced thin, but still stewy and collapsing--the sauce a mixture between reduced wine and demi-glace. The noodles have bits of oven roasted tomatoes and strands of spring onions coursing through them. Hot from the stove, they seemed to emerged jumbled from the little straw cottage on my mismatched navy and white toile plate.

Three courses and three bottles of wine in, I began to collapse like my pork. But now the cheese arrives: crottins of chevre and ash-covered tommes. The first sinks and pools when you cut it; the second crumbles and powders. I have to. If I have a stomach rupture later in the evening, I'll just deal like it then. Scott turns to me and says, "You could get hit by one of those Parisian taxis on your way out. Better not skip the cheese!" He is very insightful.

Lastly, I wobble, laden by so much excess that I can barely lift myself off my stool, to the dessert bar. I've actually already snuck in an extra course of chocolate pot de creme (they also had vanilla) before the cheese, and the affable waiter laughs at me, "You're cheating again!"

And I mutter back, "You're trying to kill me!"

"Maybe so, maybe so," he grins mischievously.

I take ile flottante--frothed, soft, and airy egg whites in a pool of custard. I leave the pain d'epices and the orange quatre quarts and take only a slice of chocolate loaf. I crumble it between my lips. The next thing I knew, I was in a taxi, and then in my bed.

The lesson? French cuisine is not always dainty, and not always fine. But last night, I ate like a king--albeit one of those Henries of five hundred years ago who gave into gout and alcoholism. But for one night, it was nice to feel more like Louis XIV than Audrey Hepburn. But luckily, when the bill came, I only handed over 30 Euros for the whole four hours we were there. I needn't be either a king, nor a movie star. I guess in the end, with my new friends and my old French comfort food, I was just being myself.

La Cave de l'Os a Moelle

181 Rue de Lourmel

75015 Paris

Lourmel (M8)

+33 01 45 57 28 28

French in a Flash: Spaghetti with Pistachio Pistou, Fava Beans, and Mint

2009-06-26T05:18:00.003-04:00

I was vegetarian for almost my entire childhood, and this week's French in a Flash for Serious Eats explains how it came to pass that I ate almost nothing but vegetables and pasta for a decade. But it was not without its travails, and in my version of the ugly duckling, Spaghetti with Pistachio Pistou, Fava Beans, and Mint was just the thing to help me find my wings. As always, the complete story and recipe are available here. Bon app!

French in a Flash: Chilled Asparagus Mélange with Fines Herbes Aïoli

2009-06-18T18:25:00.004-04:00

Mr. English says I make vegetables sexy; that I turn them from limp, lifeless little beings to foods that are exciting, and excited. So, it's no surprise that in this week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats, I am offering a menage a trois of asparagus.

When I was fifteen, I spent the summer in France, with a family that thought my vegetarianism was as foreign as my language and my politics. But when I learned what the French could do with vegetables, and when the French saw how this little American girl could appreciate them, we struck an Entente Cordiale. This salad began with my introduction to the succulent and sweet white asparagus, which I marry with pencil and green or purple stalks, coupled with an aioli sauce flavored with fines herbes (tarragon, chives, parsley, chervil).

Aioli was a sauce of which I'd always heard, but of which I never knew the origins. When I was in Provence (see the Papiers Provence here to follow my trip), I learned finally that the fresh garlic mayonnaise is actually a traditional Provencal sauce, and is often served in a dish also known as aioli, in which fish, vegetables, potatoes, and egg are served boiled and accompanied by the pungent, creamy dip.

This dish is far more simple, but I think more lovely and more delicate. Served chilled with a wedge of lime, this is the perfect spring-summer salad.

The Secret Ingredient: Crème Fraîche

2009-06-16T17:05:00.004-04:00

It's time once again for my monthly column The Secret Ingredient over at Serious Eats. And I think this month in particular will be of particular interest to you, Revolutionnaires: Creme Fraiche.

Creme fraiche is vastly underutilized in the States, and it's a shame. Sour cream is close, but it's really, really, well, sour. Creme fraiche is more understated, with a delicate tang accentuated by its voluptuous texture. It is resilient, and stands up to heat to make instant gratins, macaroni and cheeses, and cream sauces. It can wear sweet or savory with equal effortlessness and elegance.

This month, I relate my misadventure of how I learned the many meanings of the word fresh, and throw together some simple spring-summer dishes: Perfect Creamy Spring Peas with Mint, The World's Easiest Mac and (Four) Cheese with Zucchini and Thyme, and Creme Fraiche Sorbet with Berries. A perfectly fresh and fraiche menu...

Bon App!

French in a Flash: Chaussons aux Pommes with Cinnamon Crème Fraîche

2009-06-11T19:26:00.004-04:00

Did you know that in the late 1980s French version of The Little Mermaid, Ariel didn't wear her seashell bikini top? Maman used the film to increase my French fluency, but I was so prudish and scarred that I didn't speak another mot in French for ages.

In this week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats, I discuss the nuances in French food language that create the ambiance around the dish. Chaussons aux Pommes are simply Apple Turnovers, but in French, they translate to Apple Slippers, a term as warming and evocative as the gooey apple-pie filling that oozes out from the crumbling, buttery puff pastry at every bitten opportunity. Served with cool cinnamon creme fraiche, this dish is all about mouth appeal: in language, and in taste. As always, click here for the full story and recipe.

Papiers Provence: 7 Juin CASSIS

2009-06-09T04:26:00.012-04:00

There was one thing I had to do, that I had been meaning to do, before I left the South of France. In last week's French in a Flash, I wrote that maman was born in Marseille. The reputation of great women spreads the world over, and they become known for their beauty, subtlety, mystery, and magnetism. One such Marseillaise is maman; another is La Bouillabaisse. So it is no coincidence that this past Sunday, the day I ate La Bouillabaisse, was Mother's Day in France.

Bouillabaisse is a fish stew indigenous to Marseille. There, when served traditionally, the many kinds of fish and the potatoes are served separately from the broth, which is for all intents and purposes Soupe de Poisson, flavored with saffron and espelette, fennel and garlic, bay and tomatoes. Alongside comes the traditional rouille, an aioli stained and scented with saffron and espelette, and a pile of little crisp baguette toasts.

We saved the best for last. We had heard from all the locals that Chez Gilbert was the best seafood restaurant in Cassis, and it sat perched under its red and gold canopy right on the harbor, amidst the sailboats that swayed on the waves to the beat of the guitarist humming "Moon River" on a bench by the docks. The four of us filed in, and I commanded a rose wine from the nearby winehouse town of Bandol. There were many toasts, some of which we shared with the bouillabaisse-stained table to our right.

I told the waitor, "Sir, I want your bouillabaisse!" Then I asked him if I might have a green salad to start. He smiled paternally, and denied me. "Mademoiselle," he corrected. "When you have bouillabaisse, you have nothing else."

I do not believe I have ever pined in anticipation more for a single plate of food. I have made versions of bouillabaisse before: a version of only shellfish with chip-sliced potatoes and clams, mussels, shrimps, scallops, calamari, and lobster, and a Seared Chilean Sea Bass in Bouillabaisse Broth with Rock Shimp and Mussels. But I had never had the real thing, only twenty minutes outside of Marseille.

First the waitor brought the platter of the fish that had been poached whole in the broth: there were six types, but monkfish is the only one I can confirm for sure. He then took them away to "prepare" them. They re-emerged, skins, heads, and (mostly) bones removed, accompanied by potatoes poached and stained in the same broth, like white linen in some dark tea. Then, hot from a steaming silver urn, the paternal waiter ladled the broth into my bowl, and after depositing a ramekin of rouille and baguette toasts beside me on the only-white-for-a-minute tablecloth, left me to my pleasure, only to return once with a hot refill of broth.

To my shock and dismay, no one else ordered the Bouillabaisse. They all laughed and said, "We know we can have some of yours. You'll never finish it." "Ha!" I scoffed. That's what they think. I got through one fish, two fish, three fish, and maybe bluefish. But I couldn't keep up. The broth is thick from chunks of fallen filet, and the bouillon of bones. The baguette with rouille was so pungently fragrant that I couldn't bring myself to take a bite without it. It was so complex, and yet, so delightfully simple--what must have once been a humble, frugal dish, around which only celebrations could take place.

And as for the rest of the meal? Well, you'll get a glimpse of that too. But why talk of shoes and ships and ceiling wax, when you can have the sea, boiling hot, on the bay of Cassis?

After all, when you have bouillabaisse, you have nothing else.

La Bouillabaisse

The Six Fishes, Fileted, and Poached in the Bouillabaisse Stock

The "Soupe de Poisson" Stock

The Bouillabaisse: the white fish, the potatoes, the stock, and a baguette croute with rouille

Rouille, on Baguette

Me, in heaven

A Rose from Bandol

Les Amuses Bouches

Chez Gilbert was kind of enough to send over some petites choses to taste before and after dinner, and, besides the Bouillabaisse, they were my favorite parts of the meal.

Shelled, Chilled Mussel Salad over Tapenade

Mussels and Tapenade Spread on Baguette Toasts

Fresh Pineapple in its Juice with Coconut Creme Chantilly and Mini Financiers

The Rest of the Meal

Heart-Stamped Dried Fig Breads

Brochettes of Scallops and Foie Gras with Tropical Fruit Compote

Shrimp and Fava Risotto

Bavette Steak Echalotte with an Eggplant Stew-Stuffed Zucchini

Grilled Lobster with Chilled Herb Rice and a Zucchini-Pistou Puree-Stuffed Zucchini

Frozen Orange Souffle with Berries

Salted Sable Breton with Pistachio Cream and Raspberries

A la France! A Bientot!

Papiers Provence: 5-6 Juin CASSIS, LES BAUX, AVIGNON

2009-06-08T01:33:00.020-04:00

This Saturday, the four of us decides to step back a millennium in medieval times. The night before, Mr. English and I went out to dinner alone at a little place in Cassis I had been wanting to try called Le Chaudron, or the cauldron. I had noticed that in most of these beachfront towns, the worst restaurants had the overflowing terraces by the sea, and the ones with the good food were tucked away charmingly and quietly on little cobblestone streets. Le Chaudron was one of the latter. It wasn't the best food I ever had, but I loved the local accents of seafood, and the ambiance, and the dark chocolate mousse which was so thick it had to be ripped from spoon like Nutella straight from the jar.

The next day, the four of us travelled inland and back in time. We began in the fortress town of Les Baux, perched above olive groves and among ruins. Looking up at it from below (you can't drive up, you have to walk), you can hardly tell where cliffside rock ends and ruined castle begins. The pedestrian only streets, though touristic, echo with the clatter of bygone hoofbeats, and every angle of the tiny town offers spectacular views over the patchwork countryside below, and the vine-laced ruins of one of the Middle Age's most formidable strongholds. It was one of my favorite places on this trip. We sat on a terrace in a restaurant that I was so excited by, that I forgot to even look at the name. There, we nested like birds, jutting out over a stoney cliff, and ate the best salads we'd ever seen, drench in the olive oil pressed from the groves below. While touristic in the summer, it was barely brimming when we were there, and the shops along the tiny streets offered some fabulous culinary insight: Camargue sea salt, the pastes of Provence, as I call them, flower jams, and, of course, the many shades of liquid gold olive oil. I could have stayed there forever, frozen in time.

Next we headed to St. Remy, but then left right away after taking one turn around its "typical" streets, and continued on to Avignon. If Les Baux is a medieval town, then Avignon is a medieval city. I had never been there before, but somewhere between the ancient turreted walls and the Petit Bateau shops, I fell in love. And yes, I danced sur le pont d'Avignon, and then ate a spectacular meal at a restaurant called Le Moutardier, on the site of the old mustard factory to the ancient popes of Avignon.

Cassis

Le Chaudron

Roasted Red Pepper with Anchoiade, a traditional anchovy-olive oil sauce

Salmon Tartare with Fresh Tomatoes

Steak Frites

Bavette of Beef with Shallots and Frites and Mushroom Flan

Dark Chocolate Mousse with a Pirouette

Grand Marnier Creperie

Each freshly made crepe was drizzled with sugar and doused with Grand Marnier. Highly alcoholic.

Les Baux

Remains from the Time of the Lords of Baux, the militant eagles who nested in the heights of Provence

The Les Baux Olive Oils, from the groves at the base of the mountain

Poppy Jam. They also had violet, rose, and lavender varieties.

Rouille, served with Soupe de Poisson and Bouillabaisse, is a mayonnaise
flavored with garlic, saffron, and red pepper

Aioli is a garlic mayonnaise made fresh from egg yolks and oil. It is commonly served here with fish.

Black Olive Tapenade is the most common. But you can also get Green Olive Tapenade, Pistounade (a combination of green tapenade and pistou), Anchoiade, an entirely anchovy version, or Olivade, which is the olive spread without the capers and anchovies required to make tapenade.

The iconic garlic graters of Provence. An American woman saw me eyeing one in a shop and said she bought one three years ago, and still hasn't successful removed all the garlic from her first fatal garlic swipe. So I didn't buy one, but they are still a kitsch way to imagine starting pistou chez moi.

The view from our perched cliff-top restaurant terrace

I ordered the Salade du Chef (a far cry from American Chef's Salad) and it came with an old family favorite! Salade Cuite, or cooked salad, which is what we call it en famille, but really it is simply roasted peppers sauted at the end in olive oil and garlic.

Salade du Chef: Mixed Greens, Cucumbers, Onions, Tomatoes, Olives. Baguette Toasts with Tapenade and Salade Cuite. And Goat Cheese Toast with Herbes de Provence. An Olive Oil and Garlic Vinaigrette.

The Goat Cheese Toasts were drenched in the gorgeous Les Baux Olive Oil. Such a treat.

Salade Nicoise: Mixed Greens, Cucumbers, Onions, Tomatoes, Olives.
Tuna, Haricot Verts, Hard-Boiled Egg, Potatoes, Anchovies. Olive Oil an Garlic Dressing.

I never drink soda, but I am a fool for sparkling waters and seltzers. At last, in France, I can have my Perrier in a can!

Avignon

The Medieval Palais des Papes

Le Moutardier

A French Guacamole with Poppy Seeds

Chicken Pastilla

Chick Pea Veloute with Beet Reduction and Rosemary Cream

Lobster and Scallops with Orange-Vanilla Butter and a Bouquet of Vegetables

Roast Veal Medallion with Artichoke Lasagna and Lemon Pistou

Sesame-Crusted Bass with Tarragon Emulsion and a Zucchini and Mint Crumble

Strawberry Charlotte

Pot de Creme and a Mini Housemade Madeleine

Sur Le Pont d'Avignon...

On y Danse Tous en Rond.

Et puis on fait comme cela!

Papiers Provence: 2-4 Juin JUAN-LES-PINS, CAP D'ANTIBES, CANNES, ST. TROPEZ

2009-06-04T19:12:00.012-04:00

Some people go to the French Riveria for fun. I went for a pilgrammage. If you have been reading this blog for a while, you'll know that I recently finished my Master's in English at Oxford, and that my dissertation was written on F. Scott Fitzgerald. Over the years, I think I have read everything written by him, everything written by everyone who knew him, and everything written about him. And I still adore him the same way as I did when I finished reading The Great Gatsby for junior year English when I was seventeen nine years ago.

Being here in Provence, I couldn't bear to be so near to Cap d'Antibes and Juan-Les-Pins, where he and Zelda lived while he was writing Tender Is the Night, and where friends Sara and Gerald Murphy had their estate, without going to see it. I was planning for going on a little drive-by photo trip to their villa, but on further investigation, I discovered that it had been made into a hotel knowns as Belles Rives. Mr. English and I passed the day there while my mom and Alain went to Biot to see the glass blowers. Along the two-day sojourn, we traveled to some of the most famous places on the Riviera: Cannes, St. Tropez, Grasse. But we all agreed at the end, that Cap d'Antibes had something special, and we all loved it best.

Cap d'Antibes

LE COQLICOT

We discovered a little bistro called Le COQlicot off the beach that was swarmed with locals, though the other bistros around stayed empty. We knew this was the place. I had a simple mixed salad and some perfect French French fries. Mom and Alain had Provencal salads, an interpretation of the Caprese. And Mr. English had sticks of beef with bernaise, salad, and fries. We felt very proud of being so local, what with the three-hour lunch service, and the calf testicles on the menu.

Salade Provencale, with Mozzarella, Tomatoes, Basil, Olives, and Garlic Toasts

Salade Mixte, with lettuce, onions, peppers, and olives

Frites, perfect and twice-fried

Aigolettes de Boeuf with Sauce Bernaise, Frites, Salade

LE JARDIN

The proprietor of our little hotel recommended that we try this plein air restaurant called Le Jardin, or the garden. We sat out back and ordered yet another fish-based prix fixe menu. Just when I expected to be bored, I realized that Picasso had retired from painting and gone to work in this kitchen. The food is what would be called tame avant-garde. The Greek salad was deconstructed, and the yogurt-cucumber sauce was piped through a whipped cream canister, as was the savory whipped cream on my wine-glass gazpacho. We all ordered Truite Escabeche, or trout with a raw marinated vegetable salad. It was gorgeous--reeking of smoke, jeweled with sabayon, and crowned with, seriously, a tomato skin cracklin'. It was by far the most inveterate but imaginative dish I have had since I arrived, and was also coincidentally the most delicious. We all wanted to eat it all over again, and I will be doing some testing to resurrect it chez nous. Lastly, we all had the trio of creme brulees: chocolate, vanilla, and mint, which not only had different flavors and colors, but curiously and invitingly different textures. This restaurant is not to miss, reasonable, local, and imaginative, in the old city amidst small stone streets--charming and modern all at once.

Deconstructed Greek Salad

Gazpacho with Whipped Cream

Trout Escabeche, with fennel, peppers, onions, snow peas,
and tomatoes, with sabayon and a tomato cracklin'

Trio of Creme Brulee: Chocolate, Vanilla, Mint

HOTEL LA JABOTTE

We stayed at a little hotel just off the beach in Cap d'Antibes, and they offered a copious continental breakfast and a nightly new cocktail for cocktail hour. Breakfast was set for all the guests in the terraced courtyard, and we had a full basket of croissants, walnut wheat loaf, and baguette to spread with the housemade fig preserves, Nutella, butter, and BonBel cheese. My favorite were the madeleines baked in mini-muffin tins and fairydusted with colorful sparkling sugar. We also received interested French flavors of Dannon yogurt (Granny Smith, Sour Cherry, Apricot, Strawberry), freshly squeezed orange juice, French press coffee, and ripe melon. What a way to start any day.

At cocktail time, I ordered the drink du jour: Champagne Violette, champagne with violet liquor and a crucified blackberry and white-sugar rim. It came with a little tray of darling bites: a mushroom cap stuffed with caviar of peppers, salted long radished, and dried fruits. Perfect, and a pleasure, to sip under the lazy afternoon trees.

Breakfast

Mini-Muffin-Shaped Madeleines with Colored Sparkling Sugar

The Breakfast Bread Basket: Croissants, Baguette, Walnut Wheat Loaf

Housemade Fig Preserves

Cocktail Hour

Dried Fruits, a Pepper Caviar-Stuffed Mushrooms, and Sea Salted Radishes

Champagne Violette: Champagne, with Violet Liqueur, and a Blackberry

Juan-Les-Pins

Here, I spent the afternoon at Scott and Zelda's house, now the hotel Belles Rives. Though Scott's picture hung in the foyer, I was more taken by the sheer beauty of the location, rather than the history that I thought would overwhelm me. The water is warmer here, and shallow, and it has something like mica that sparkles in it like diamonds. Water skiing was invented here, and under the globe-lit sit Belles Rives still lurks a collection of top-end ski equipement. The sky and the sea stretched out all around the jutting jetee to the mountains in the distance. The house was draped in violet bourganvilla, and the honeycomb stones that built the villa patched into the palmed landscape with grandeur and insouciance. At few places have I ever been so happy, perhaps thanks to the cocktail I ordered there: La Piscine, champagne on the rocks. When in Juan-Les-Pins...

BELLES RIVES

La Piscine: Champagne on the Rocks

Cannes

I had been to Cannes eleven years ago, and like I found Aix, it seems changed, overrun. But of course, still stately as ever. We passed through for lunch and found a little pizza place in Le Suquet. I highlight it here not because it was the greatest pizza of all time, but because they did fantastic cheeseless pizzas, a local interpretation of the Italian version so common to us, but far better for the Riviera heat.

LA PIAZZA

Fettuccine with Roquefort and Walnuts

Fettuccine Forestier

Pizza Siciliani

Pizza Authentica

St. Tropez

We drove through St. Tropez at evening, and I found it charming. We found a high-end dealer of all fabric Provencal, and my mom bought a lovely blue and yellow medieval rooster pattern tableclotch to replace her blue and yellow olive version from a decade ago. Mr. English and I sat in Place de Lices watching the games of Petanque, and plotting our strategy to decimate each other at the game on our return to England. For dinner we went to La Table du Marche for yet another fish-based prix fixe. Everything was gorgeous and strangely large, but I have to tell you the dessert was an abomination. The fresh chilled tomato soup had that light sweetness to it that I've only ever seen executed in France. The frisees in the Paysanne salad were elephantine. And the mustard herb butter on the cod was perfect. But my favorite bit? The macaroni gratin that I substituted for my potatoes: gruyere, gruyere, gruyere. It was decadent, but oh so good.

LA TABLE DU MARCHE

Chilled Fresh Tomato Soup with Tapenade Toasts

Salade Paysanne: Frisee, Endive, Poached Egg, Lardons

Cabillaud (Cod) with Herb Butter and Potatoes Autrement (Smashed with Tomatoes and Olives)

Macaroni Gratin

Tarte Tatin

French in a Flash: Whole Wheat Pissaladière Pizza with Tapenade, Pine Nuts, and Goat Cheese

2009-06-04T18:33:00.003-04:00

As we are in Provence, I thought this week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats should be reflective of the times. I have had some mediocre Nicoise pissaladiere over the last few days, but as far as street foods go, it is such a brilliant, local concoction, and I love it so much even at its lowliest form, that I wanted to try my hand at renovating it. Pissaladiere is a rectangular tart from the south of France, with a "sauce" of sweet sauted onions, laced with anchovy filets and studded with black olives. My version begins with a bought whole wheat pizza dough. I top it with the requisite onions, then decorate it with toasted, buttery pine nuts, melting pockets of fresh goat cheese, black olive studs, tapenade quenelles, anchovy filets, caper berries, and stems of fresh thyme. It can be eaten hot or cold, and is fragrant, satisfying, and beautiful. As always, the whole story and recipe can be found here. Bon app!

Papiers Provence: 1 Juin CASSIS

2009-06-01T17:12:00.009-04:00

Le Petit Dejeuner, Chez Nous

Breakfast at our house is always the same, whether it is in America, England, or here in France. It is always simply baguette, croissants, and sweet cream butter and good raspberry jam.

Baguettes, Ficelles, Croissants, Confiture, Beurre

La Ferme Blanche, Vineyard

Cassis has a handful of hundreds-year-old vineyards. Today we went to La Ferme Blanche, or the white farm, and tasted their whites and roses. The white was floral; the rose was fruity. We left with a bottle of white Excellence, which tastes of the smokey wood barrel in which it is aged. While at the vineyard, we also pulled berries of the nearby Platane trees, and picked apricots. It was idyllic in a Bacchanalian sort of way.

The Vineyard

The Grapes

Wine Vines, Close Up

Aging Barrel

Apricot Tree

Apricots

Berries on the Platane Tree

Wines On Offer

A Glass of Excellence, which we took home for dinner

Dejeuner in Town

Before we took a boat ride throught the Calanques, we stopped at a boulangerie for lunch, where I picked up something I often reinvent at home, but have actually never had in its original version: Pan Bagnat. Pan Bagnat is Provencal for bathing bread, a tuna sandwich soaked in vinaigrette, and basically Salade Nicoise on a roll. There are different versions--the was simple, with olives and lettuce, tomatoes and tuna. For my dolled up version, click here.

Pan Bagnat

Les Calanques

The shores around Cassis are carved into Calanques, enormous and individualistic fjords that offer idyllic respite from the busy ports and beaches. We took a boat tour for an hour through five of them, and while no food was involved (other than sea air working up an appetite), they were stunning. Here's a glimpse of sparkling waters and jagged cliffs.

Le Diner, Chez Nous

After our heavy daube last night, I wanted to cook at home, but try new things in the style of all the Provencal dishes I've been observing around me. I served green olives brined with Provencal herbs, a carrot salad with spicy Dijon, a red pistou tagliatelle with the ubiquitous zucchini, head-on prawns with masses of garlic and lemon, and for dessert, a simple arrangement of ripe pears, Grenoble walnuts, and Petit Ecolier chocolate biscuits. Et voila. Moi, Provencal.

Green Olives, with Provencal Herbs

Carrot Salad with Dijon Mustard

Shell-On Prawns with a Head of Garlic and Sliced Lemons

Tagliatelle with Red Pistou and Zucchini

For Dessert: Sliced Ripe Pears, Smashed Grenoble Walnuts, and Petit Ecolier Cookies

Papiers Provence: 30-31 Mai AIGUES-MORTES, LA CAMARGUE, CASSIS

2009-05-31T12:53:00.005-04:00

On the Road Again

And we were back on the autoroute encore. This time not headed deep into lavender-country Provence, but into La Camargue. But what did we find? The elusive bloomed purple lavender. And where else, but on the side of the highway...

We picked a few stems and scattered them around the car.

Purple Bloomed Lavender

Me, along the blooming highway

Picnic en Voiture

We drove through Arles, but missed everything about the market but its seedy flea side. On our way to Aigues-Mortes, we stopped at the Intermarche, starving. All we needed was some cheese, some fruit, some bread, and some pastries. I sat in the back and passed around sandwiches of Brillat-Savarin and Tomme Noire des Pyrenees. When I was fifteen, I went to Brest in Bretagne, and stayed with a French family and went to school to become fluent in French. Everyday, the mother of the house set out a wedge of Tomme Noire des Pyrenees, a semi-hard cheese wrapped in an iconic black wax, that looks hard in the cold refrigerator shelf, but immediately starts to soften. You have to eat it at room temperature--it is so hard to find and so expensive in America, that I usually gorge a bit when I'm here. But you have to try it--so mild but so expressive and distinctive, with a paradoxical creamy solidity. I adore it.

What I've also noticed about French supermarkets are the pears. I love pears, but every time I buy one, I have to leave it for four days to soften on the counter. And then, the morning I know it will be ripe, I wake up, eyes bright with anticipation, only to find that at some secluded moment in the night, it turned black. The disappointment! But here! They are all ripe on the shelves--perfect, sweet, juicy. I was in the back seat covered in sticky pear juice, as if I had been to Goblin's Market.

Tomme Noire des Pyrenees, Brillat-Savarin, Baguette

Not too sweet raspberry donuts

Mmm...confiture!

Giant Chocolate Croissants

Aigues-Mortes

We wanted to go to Aigues-Mortes to see the salt harvest, but what we found was a stately medieval fortress. Throughout Oxford, you can see the old city walls, proudly crumbling after a thousand years, pocketed away between the walls of the homes of more recent centuries. The most incredible thing about Aigues-Mortes is that the city has still not expanded without the fortress walls, as if maurauders might still come pillaging across the salt marshes at any moment. We thought it looked like an armory from outside, but Alain told us that inside was a whole city. We walked up to the gates, and lo and behold, crooked streets, burgeoning cafes, dogs trotting hither and thither. Tourist shops sold everything from garlic graters to plastic Templar swords. And down the main avenue, a reigning statue of good King Louis of the crusades, known to us now as Saint Louis.

The Aigues-Mortes Citadel

The Chocolate Olives

The Praline Pit

Provencal Garlic Graters

Good King Louis

La Camargue

We Americans think we have a culture! Did you know that cowboys orginated from the gardiens of La Camargue, and that Levi Strauss invented jeans in Nimes? As in cloth de Nimes, which became denim? This is certainly a departure as far as what I've seen of France. In fact, it reminded me a good deal of the pampas in Argentina--tall, wind-worn grasses, sparkling waters, and horses. In fact, bull fighting is as popular here as it is in Spain. The planes were dotted with black bulls and the iconic Camargue white horses. We took a boat ride through a wildlife reserve, where the flamingos normally stand guard, but not today. And we saw some real French cowboys in blue deNimes wrang some black bulls on their white horses.

A sparkling camargue waterway

Black Bulls in the Background

White Horses in the Background

The Windy Camargue

The Camargue, and the ancient watch tower for Aigues-Mortes

The White Horeses of Les Gardiens

Les Gardiens at work

Les Salins de Midi

I always use La Baleine sea salt. My mom always bought it; so I buy it now. I had no idea where it came from. But right outside the walls of Aigues-Mortes is where they harvest this salt, from the pink waters of the marshes. Yes, the speeches there were informative, but I think the photographs tell more--of the colors, the size, the spectacle that is the salt harvest. It was a windy day, and some of it flew into my mouth. I loved it!

The Entrance to the La Baleine Museum

A Lake of Salt and Pink Water

Pink Waters, and a Mountain of Salt

A Slope of Salt

A Sea of Salt

Pink Waters

The Fortress of Aigues-Mortes on the shores of salt

A Giant Salt Crystal

Fleur de Sel Caramel

Sacks of Salt

Me, Le Saunier!

Dinner at Place St. Louis

In the heart of Aigues-Mortes in a square of touristy cafes that serve the local bulls up for dinner surrounding the presiding statue of Saint Louis. I was a bit bulled out and shared some iconic Soupe de Poisson with my mom, and then had Sole Meuniere, with a medly of vibrant vegetables, and a vegetable flan. To top it all of, some sorbet a la framboise. Alain had white asaparagus, and then Brandade, which is a kind of white fish puree, blanketed in roasted peppers, followed by Tarte Tatin with caramel and cream. It was light, lively, and lovely. The restaurant is Le Minos, if you're ever there.

White Asparagus Salad

Brandade with Roasted Peppers

Tarte Tatin

A Terrine of Soupe de Poisson

The traditional garnishes for Soupe de Poisson: baguette toasts, shredded cheese, and rouille

How I prepare my soupe de poisson, but everyone has his own way

Sole Meuniere, with lemon brown butter

A medley of vegetables with vegetable flan

Raspberry Sorbet

Le Clos des Aromes

Driving to beach yesterday in Cassis, I spotted a cute little courtyard with tables and hanging lanterns. The restaurant, Le Clos des Aromes, proved just as enchanting as a nighttime restaurant. Each table had a lovely bouquet of white flowers. Mr. English and I both had the menu, starting with Rasclasse, a local fish, marinated like ceviche in lemon juice. Then the Daube a l'Ancien, an old fashioned wine and beef stew. And then Lemon Sorbet with Limoncello, which I was so excited about that I only realized I'd forgotten to photograph it after I had finished eating it. Oops!

Freesia, Roses, and Lilies

Rasclasse Ceviche

La Daube a l'Ancien

Greedily eating dessert...

Papiers Provence: 29 Mai CASSIS

2009-05-30T02:43:00.003-04:00

Margherita Pizza

Today, it was the seaside. I am torn here, whether to pursue cuisine night and day or actually do what I'm supposed to do and relax on vacation. When one of my aunts came to meet us at Cassis from Marseille for the day, the decision was made for me. We had a happy beach lunch, which may seem unremarkable, but I thought it was worth note. The pizzas in the South of France have always remained in my mind as the very best--thin, with sweet tomatoes, and olives. Sometimes just whole black olives, and sometimes with tapenade smeared all over the top like I had the other day in Aix.

Penne with Ratatouille

And then there is one without cheese called l'anchois: tomatoes and anchovies and olive oil. Most people don't realize, but pizza dough is as much in French cuisine as in Italian, and fougasse, breads usually shaped like wheat or braided with flavors like olives or herbs, is nearly the same as Italian focaccia. It is a symbiotic border-straddling strategy, as I know the Northern Italian add creme fraiche to a lot of their pastas. But as for pastas, yesterday Alain ordered Penne with Ratatouille instead of our pizzas. It was just such an obvious marriage, and a delicious one--like a chunky vegetable tomatoe sauce with the herbs and flavors of Provence. Whenever I make ratatouille, somehow I come out with a ton of it, and I eat it cold on bread for days. Now, I'm just going to freeze some, and toss it with pasta whenever I need it. Brilliant!

Papiers Provence: 28 Mai AIX-EN-PROVENCE, LOURMARIN

2009-05-29T02:58:00.015-04:00

Yesterday was one of those days that you plan to do what God did in six, with no rest on the seventh. Since I'm only human, all I managed was about a third of it. I wanted to go on the lavender trail. I told myself that no matter what the guidebook says, lavender must bloom somewhere in May. And we figured we'd throw in Aix-en-Provence on the way up and back for good measure.

Turns out, lavender really does bloom in July. And as for Aix, which my mother first took me too when I was fifteen, eleven years ago, and has remained in my mind as a sleepy Provence city, my ideal, it has changed. In fact it has boomed. But while it's wobbly streets are teeming, it has a unique ability to marry Old World Provencal markets brimming with barrels of olives and the Princesse Tam Tam high end lingerie shop on the same square. It's probably more me now than it ever has been.

Citron Presse for Breakfast

We arrived in Aix around ten o'clock. And for breakfast, there's nothing like an enamel-endangering French citron presse. You get a tall glass about half full with fresh lemon juice, tart enough to strip the paint off your house, a carafe of water, and some sugar. Mix and mingle as you wish, and voila, your perfect citron presse.

Citron Presse

Aix Market's the Spot

What I remember most about Aix from eleven years ago were these traditional Provencal textile shops that sell those gorgeous olive-and-floral table cloths in impossible bright pastels, and the markets that had barrels of every-flavor olive in the Mediterranean. Just in front of city hall, I found what I remembered; a true Provencal market where all the vendors talk with an accent that must to the French be like talking to Scarlett O'Hara. My favorite finds were bulot, tiny sealife escargot, gorgeous olives bathed in Provencal pistou, the requisite bouquets of sunshine zucchini flowers, and proof that even though Provence is not swathed in lavender, it is still swathed in purple: purple garlic, purple asparagus, and purple artichokes. We also bought sacks of dried lavender, herbes de Provence, and fines herbes, and came across dried rouille, the spice mix that bring to life rouille itself, that condiment of aioli and peppers and saffron served with bouillabaisse.

Black and Green Olives with Pistou

Green Olives with Pistou

Dry Rouille, which contained dried peppers and coriander, among other things

Bulots, Escargots of the Sea

Purple Garlic

Purple Asparagus

Purple Artichokes

An Edible Bouquet of Zucchini Flowers

Calissons and Macarons at the Aix Market

The guidebook listed an arsenal of bakeries in which to try the famed Calisson d'Aix, a cookie created centuries ago by a king who wanted to win the heart and trust of his young wife. These cookies, suggestively shaped like petals, are made from almonds and flavored with melons and oranges, although I bought some flavored with lavender. Rumor has it she eventually capitulated.

We also found and bought some macarons the likes of which I've never seen. In Paris, the macarons of Laduree and Pierre Herme are bright like easter eggs, and filled with cremes and confitures and ganaches. Here, they were unpretentiously undied, and unfilled. Rustic, rural, and some of the best macarons I have ever tasted. Bravo. I bought both from Calissoun.

Piles of Unpretentious Provence Macarons

I bought the almond flavor, since macarons are made from almonds.

The unfilled interior of a rustic macaron.

Lavender Calissons

Calissons d'Aix, in Traditional, Fig, and Lavender Varieties

The View from the Top (of the Mountain)

We planned to drive to Sault, where great purple paths of lavender blossom every July. Halfway there, we realized we never had the time, but the journey, it seems, was the destination in itself. Far up in the mountains of Provence, the view was spectacular, and reminiscent of the plates my mother had when I was a child: rural French farmers, smiling as they tended perfect rows of lavender. Provence, the legend.

Some views from out the car window...

La Ferme Gerbaud in Lourmarin

I read about a farm in Lourmarin, just about half an hour from Aix. Here, they grow herbes de Provence, naturally, without irrigation or pesticides. The owner gave us a personal tour of the property, and share old Provencal knowledge. The most important thing to remember about Provencal cuisine, the cuisine that gives us ratatouille and pissaladiere and pistou, she says, is that nothing was done originally for flavor, but rather for health. How does she mean? Savory is often added to soupe au pistou because the soup contains beans, and savory reduces flatulence. It also apparently is sexually stimulating. Rosemary was used in roasting meats because its antiseptic properties were a safeguard against stomach upset. Sage was used with pork because it natually kills worms, which have a tendency to inhabit pork. And the Provencal bouquet garni, which contains rosemary, thyme, and bay, actually is like old-fashioned Pepto Bismol. Thyme stimulates the stomach; rosemary the gallbladder; bay the intestines.

Most importantly and most interestingly, she told me that traditionally the people of Provence never ate Lavender. Now it is trendy to include it in herbes de Provence, but the true Provencal people abhor that idea as untraditional. Lavender was used and farmed solely for its essential oil, which was used in soaps and laundry and other such uses. But I stuck to my guns; lavender is delicious. And she even admitted to selling lavender navettes in the store.

Monsieur le Goat, Guardian of the Herbes de Provence

Rocky Soil, as they have in Provence, is required for these moisture-hating plants. The less moisture, the more essential oil they produce, and the more fragrant and flavorful they become.
Marguerites, which are natural insect repellent

Lavandin, a lavender hybrid, and what we generally know today when we cook with lavender

Rosemary

Sage

Thyme

Savory

Wild Almond grows in the region. Sauce Mistral is like an almond pistou.

Fields of Lavender, getting ready to bloom

Dinner at Le Passage in Aix

For dinner, we drove back to Aix, to a restaurant called Le Passage, so called because of its adorable table-lined entrance walkway. While it wasn't the greatest meal of my life, I was impressed by the imaginative reincarnation of Provencal ingredients. I ordered the Menu Cezanne. And here are some modern renditions of old Provence:

A Napoleon of Eggplant, Tomato Sauce, and Chevre

A Tarte Fine in the style of Pissaladiere

Daube Provencal, a traditional beef stew cooking until soft in light wine

White Chocolate and Olive Oil Mousse, with Green Fennel Cookies

French in a Flash: Tisane Shortbread Cookies with Lemon Verbena

2009-05-28T17:44:00.003-04:00

I don't really like my nose--it's a bit big. It is a Saretsky landmark, that's for sure. But when I was growing up, all I wanted was one of those sweet little ski jumps that all my classmates had. I have a feeling it was all my fault. Call me Pinocchio.

When I was little, I told one little lie--the only lie I can remember telling to date. I was eating my favorite Chessmen cookies, and I told my dad that I had only had one, when I actually had three. Actually, come to think of it, this is probably the first my dad has heard of this!

I love cookies--they are one of the few things I would lie for. In this week's French in a Flash on Serious Eats, I get inspired but all the buttery cookies I'm devouring here in Provence. I flavor crumbly, salty-sweet shortbread with South-of-France tisane staples lemon and lemon verbena. The result is unusual, clean, comforting, and irresistible. Definitely worth a bigger nose. As always, click here for the full story and recipe!