Hopie's Kitchen

Tomato Red-Lentil Soup with Coconut Milk

2012-01-22T13:13:00.012+01:00

Look at me! Finally a free moment for blogging!
Traveling over Christmas break and then hitting the ground running in January with a new show going up next week has turned me into a terrible delinquent blogger. I haven't been reading blogs or responding to comments or posting new recipes. All I can say is thank you for your forbearance and I look forward to doing some catching up.

Winter is in full swing in Paris and my rain boots are getting lots of wear. I swear, if I had known cute rain boots were the secret to avoiding seasonal depression here, I would have bought them years ago (I'm telling you, fellow Parisians, get cute rain boots)! Weather was similar over Christmas in the US, but there were long walks in nature to counter any doldrums. Back in the city, a heavy work schedule hasn't really left time for doldrums either, but on those days when even my rain boots or my new blue and pink wool cape can't perk up the grey weather, there's always food!!

I don't know about you, but after the excesses of Christmas with the family (I'm not going to even think about the quantity of wine and cheese ingested, but man was it good), I've been going for warm, light meals this past month. Soups like classic Potato-Leek and Hearty Quinoa Stew have been favorites on the table, but I also love trying new soups in winter and this one, based on this recipe from the wonderful Art, Food and Travel Chronicles is definitely a winner.

3 shallots, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
crushed red pepper flakes (to taste)

About 5 fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped
1/2 cup red lentils

1 Tbsp cumin

2 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1/4 cup coconut milk

salt, pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large pan. Add the shallots, garlic and red pepper flakes.

Saute it for a few minutes, until soft and then add the tomatoes. Let it simmer for 5-8 minutes.
Add the lentils, cumin and vegetable stock. Bring to boil and then let it simmer for about 45 minutes.

Putting aside maybe 1 cup of the soup, purée the remaining and then put back on the stove along with the cup of soup you put aside. Add the coconut milk and heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste and serve hot.

Thanksgiving and Fennel Parmesan Salad

2011-11-24T16:01:00.002+01:00

Thanksgiving, like many holidays, is a mixed bag of emotions. Every year my huge extended family gets together in New York to celebrate and marvel at how much the little ones have grown and how many new little ones are under foot and who the heck do they all belong to anyway?? As children, this was one of the best moments of the year. Ok, we were dressed to the nines, but when the parents were busy talking, my sisters and cousins and I slipped off those two-tight new dress shoes and ran up the back stairs in stocking feet to play. Or else, we snuck into the coat room, with all its long black coats and fancy fur coats, and slipped pieces of paper, candy or other found treasures into the pockets.

In France, there's no such holiday, no time off, and so I miss all the hullabaloo of a the big family get-together. Of course, there are upsides: I don't have to worry about what to wear, or be polite to people who's faces are vaguely familiar (they look like me?) but whose names I can't for the life of me remember, and no one asks me who my grandfather is and spends twenty minutes trying to figure out how we're related.

But I also really miss my family. Now that we've grown up and are all in different places, it's hard to get to see everyone and Thanksgiving is usually when everyone manages to come together. I miss hearing the latest cousin gossip, the smell of New York at this time of year, the Broadway shows, the lights as the holiday season starts, the shop windows, and the upper class Jewish ladies in pearls.

However, even with that nostalgia, I have to admit I'm pretty lucky because here in Paris I get to have Thanksgiving with the extremely talented Camille. The food is much better than it ever was in my childhood, and I get to cook some of it! There's definitely something very Thanksgiving-y about spending the day cooking up yummy things to eat in the evening in very good company!

Of course, the traditional turkey and mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pecan pie and all that will be on the table. But it's nice to have some vegetables and I'd been meaning to test this Fennel Parmesan Salad for quite some time. I never know what to do with fennel from my CSA, but after a taste-run of this recipe, I won't hesitate to make this absolutely delicious salad again. A perfect flavor combination! It comes from the wonderful blog 30 Minute Dinner Party, which you should definitely check out if you don't already read it!

2 bulbs fennel
100g (about 3/4 cup) fresh Parmesan, shaved into thin slices
2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
juice of 1 lime
sea salt
fresh ground pepper

Cut the leaves off the fennel and wash well. Peel off the leaves and slice thinly. (When you get down to the core, the leaves won't peel well but just slice the core into thin slices as well.) Put in a salad bowl with the Parmesan. In a small bowl mix together the olive oil, vinegar, lime, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour the sauce over the salad and serve!

Fall in Paris: a Study in Yellow and Brown (with Roast Chicken and Squash)

2011-11-15T10:38:00.012+01:00

At a party a couple weeks ago, our hosts, who had invited a group of people who didn't all know each other, made us play a getting-to-know-you game, which involved writing answers to questions like "If you were a planet (adjective, famous person, book, etc), which one would you be?" A person's answers were read out anonymously and everyone had to guess who it was. To the question "If you were a season, which one would you be?" I was the only person who answered "autumn". When the host read it out, he said "oooh, this person is depressed!" Wide of the mark. I'm not depressed. Where I come from, autumn is a season of abundance, of bright colors, of beautiful light and crisp air.

But having lived in Paris for five years now, I can see why the French find fall depressing. The days get short so quickly, and gray and rainy. Even on the few sunny days, the fall colors are somewhat limited: yellow and brown pretty much cover it. For the past couple of years, I've tried to take myself out of my apartment to enjoy what fall has to offer here.

Montmartre with its colorful climbing vines is actually one of the prettiest places around. Last year at the jardins de Luxembourg, my sister and I appreciated the yellow and brown there, followed by warming homemade Chai. This year, I headed down the the Canal St. Martin to see the yellows reflected in the water.

As the weather gets colder and the leaves (whatever their colors) fall off the trees for the winter, it's important to have warming food to come home to. This roast chicken with squash is simple to make and perfect for the season. You can make it with chicken breasts or thighs or a whole chicken. Whatever fits your tastes and budget. And to top it all off, it matches the colors of fall in Paris - which are not depressing at all if you only you look at them the right way.

(serves 4)
1 whole chicken (or 4 chicken breasts, or 4 chicken thighs)
1 squash (i used a potimarron, but butternut squash or pumpkin would work well too)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 Tbsp dried sage (or 2 Tbsps fresh)
large pinch of sea salt
punch of black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
2 Tbsp brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 375ºF/190ºC.

Mix together the olive oil with the sage, salt, pepper and cayenne. Rub this mixture into the chicken on all sides and place chicken in the center of a baking pan. Add the brown sugar to the remaining oil mixture.

Peel and cut the squash into cubes. (Ok, this is the evil part of the recipe. Squash is hard to cut and peel. I suggest cutting it in half, scooping out the seeds - you can save them and roast them - putting the squash half cut side down so it is stable and using a sharp knife to peel it, cutting down towards the cutting board so as not to slice your fingers. Then cut it into cubes.) Place the squash around the chicken in the baking pan and drizzle the rest of the olive oil mixture evenly on top of it.

Bake for about 1 hour (or until the chicken is cooked), mixing the squash once or twice to keep it coated with the juices. Serve hot and enjoy!

Berber Tea in the Atlas Mountains, Morocco

2011-10-30T12:38:00.000+01:00

Former palace and current Museum of Marrakesh

When Hurricane Irene hit the east coast of the US in August, the winds and rain kept my dad from being able to meet us at the family summer house and, as a result, I didn't get to see him at all during the (amazing summer road) trip. He stayed at work and we had to take our hurricane walks and drink our hurricane cocktails without him. A sad state of affairs. Still, it meant that he had unused vacation days and a daughter to visit and that translated into a very happy state of affairs: a trip to Morocco last week with him, my mom and D!

Shop in the souk in Marrakesh

We spent two overwhelming days in Marrakesh taking in the new and different cultural codes, marveling at the stunning traditional architecture, getting lost in the souk, and learning to bargain for our purchases. Then, we left the city and spent three peaceful days in the Atlas Mountains doing a lot of nothing to the sound of braying donkeys and the calls to prayer from a mosque in one of the nearby Berber villages. I won't go into all my impressions of Morocco, which are varied and complex (coming from a Western culture, I found it difficult to reconcile with the visible inequality of men and women, and the vestiges of colonialism), but there were also some absolutely wonderful moments. The mountains are stunning, the highest peaks already covered with snow, and the Moroccan people we met were very welcoming.

Early morning in the Atlas Mountains

Our favorite part was a hike we took with a Berber guide, Mohamed, who took us to the local saffron fields, herb gardens and then, kindly, invited us over to his house. What was supposed to be a simple three-hour tour, turned into a five-hour plunge into the village culture and a lesson on how to make Berber tea!

Mohamed explained that in the Berber culture they do not name their animals. These ones are called "Mohamed's cow" and "Mohamed's chickens" because they belong to him.

Unlike the traditional mint tea drunk all over Morocco, the Berber tea is filled with all kinds of fresh herbs, both a sign of hospitality and a medicinal drink, good for pretty much whatever ails you. I can't really give you the recipe (I don't think there's a fixed one, it seems to depend on what's on hand and personal taste), but here's what the tea ceremony was like:

Ingredients for Berber tea

Mohamed started by boiling the water on a small gas flame that he brought right into the room where we were sitting, and rinsing the teapot to heat it up. Then he added the tea (Mohamed called it "green tea", but the small dark beads didn't look like the Asian green tea we get here).

Mohamed rinsing the tea

He poured about a cup of water over the tea leaves, swished it around and poured the very light-colored liquid out into a glass. He repeated this process and the second time the liquid was dark and cloudy. He kept the first glass to pour back into the tea later and threw out the contents of the second glass.

The tea back on the flame to boil

Then he added seven different kinds of herbs to the teapot - wild mint, thyme, lemongrass, geranium, sage, verbena (which he added especially for my dad who said he loved it), and a hint of absinthe wormwood - and three or four huge clumps of sugar. He filled the teapot with boiling water and then put the teapot directly on the flame to bring it back to a boil.

Once it boiled, he served the tea, pouring the first three glasses back into the pot to make sure it was well-mixed, and then serving around in a circle starting to the right. He served the tea with Berber bread and homemade olive oil to dip it in, a wonderful taste of Berber hospitality!

A door in Mohamed's village - known for its blacksmiths

Birthday Bouchées

2011-10-11T14:20:00.005+02:00

Life is totally crazy right now, up early, to bed late and not a minute's rest in between most days. Even the weekend means running around. I long for a Sunday in pajamas with a good book in my hands or in front of some mind-numbing, silly television show.

This weekend was my birthday and a friend and I had a joint birthday party. One of the best things about it was that we both love to cook and got to make only food we really love to eat. We stuck to finger food that people would be able to eat easily standing up and chatting, like these fancy cheese balls, savory cakes like this cake au thon, made in little individual portions, sushi rolls, mini-sandwiches and lots of veggies and dip like my hummus and Camille's Bacon and Onion Dip. People brought drinks but we also tried out this recipe for White Tea Sangria from that amazing Elle's New England Kitchen.

All and all a good time was had by all, except possibly the cats who hid under the bed the whole time. But they made up for it by being extra cute and affectionate for the rest of the weekend.

Jamie Oliver and some Seriously Good Grilled Zucchini Salad

2011-10-02T09:00:00.001+02:00

I'm going to be honest and I say I was against Jamie Oliver at the start. It's like when the new girl shows up in school and she's popular and pretty and gets good grades AND plays sports, and on top of that she's nice and has an adorable British accent and everyone loves her. You just have to dislike her on principle. Until she wins you over with her perfect niceness too. Okay, this is not exactly like that. Jamie Oliver is not a girl. He's not new on the scene. And he didn't win me over with his niceness. But you get the idea.

For our wedding, one of the families I babysit for, gave us this book full of tantalizing recipes. Everything looked so good that at first it just served to aggravate my jealous dislike, so what changed my mind? Zucchini. Zucchini did it. Every fall, I scramble to find ways to use up zucchini, and while I've certainly found some good ones, like this Zucchini-Feta Tart or this Garam-Masala Salmon with Zucchini, anyone who can get me to actually ENJOY zucchini after the insane amounts of it my CSA foists on me in the fall, is definitely worth a second chance. Besides, I read my classics and I know that it's not good to hold on to prejudice forever. If Lizzy did, where would she and Mr. Darcy be? Not nearly as happy or as well-loved by generations of readers that's where. Not that I'm comparing Jamie Oliver to Mr. Darcy or anything. Oh dear, this is getting out of hand.

I guess what I'm saying is, this salad is delicious. Absolutely delicious. Worth it if you like zucchini. Worth it if you're totally sick of zucchini. Worth it if you want to be in vogue and also if you'd do anything to avoid such a fate. You can make this a bunch of different ways with different accompaniments. This is one version I made and loved.

3-4 zucchinis (depending on the size)
1/4-1/2 lemon
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small garlic clove
1 bunch mint
1 cup creamy goat cheese (I used Petit Billy)
sea salt, pepper

Slice the zucchini as thin as possible. Cook the slices on a hot grill or barbecue. (I don't have one so I do this in my oven on the boiler setting, but as a result they come out softer and less crunchy I think than Jamie intended. Still good though.) In the meantime, roughly chop the mint and set aside. Make up a sauce by squeezing the lemon to taste into the olive oil. Press the clove of garlic in a garlic press and add to sauce. When the zucchini starts to brown, serve onto plates. Put a dollop of goat cheese in the middle of each serving. Liberally, sprinkle with mint, and spoon the sauce over. Salt and pepper to taste and serve warm.

Blackcurrant Yogurt Dessert for La Rentrée

2011-09-25T16:44:00.010+02:00

I can't believe I've been this lax in my status as American blogging in Paris, but apparently, in my 4 years of blogging, I have not yet once posted about the cultural phenomenon that is la rentrée. For those of you who have never lived in France, the most similar thing we have in the US, is back-to-school time. However, that excitement is usual reserved for people who are still pursuing their studies, or have children who are. In France, pretty much the whole country goes on vacation in August and comes back again at the beginning of September. Even the people who stay, are resigned to the fact, that all usual activities (meetings, workshops, the theater season, even some church services, etc.) are suspended in the last month of summer. Some local businesses close (our boulangerie for example) until the new school year starts again in the fall.

This rentrée has been particularly busy, coming with new contacts, new projects, new responsibilities, new work opportunities and also quite a deal of uncertainty as to how this is all going to pan out and/or fit into one schedule. And I find that when life seems to be rushing by in a whirlwind of activity, it's important to enjoy all the small things along the way. This month, for example, I very much enjoyed the gorgeous moonrises outside my window in evening, especially at the full moon. And the way the cats get all curled up and settled in for Sunday afternoons, showing brotherly love much better than most of our priests and pastors.

Luckily in food, something doesn't have to be complicated, or take a long time to prepare to be good. When we had friends over for dinner last night, D. whipped up this delicious dessert from one of Jamie Olivier's amazing cookbooks. For those still-warm or just-cool evenings, something light and delicious that remembers summer.

For 4 people

4 individual portions of yogurt (a nice thick plain yogurt, like Greek yogurt is best)
4 Tbsp blackcurrant jam
8 Tbsp blackcurrant liqueur (crème de cassis)
4 sprigs of mint

Put one yogurt in each serving cup or bowl (or if you buy it bulk, mostly fill each serving cup/bowl with yogurt). Spread one Tbsp of jam and pour 2 Tbsp of liqueur over each serving. Garnish with springs of mint and serve (or refrigerate to serve later).

Back in the City and Wild Mushroom Soup

2011-09-10T10:36:00.010+02:00

After the exciting travels of summer vacation, coming back to the city feels a little small (and very smelly). Still, there's another kind of excitement I've always felt when starting over again in the fall. It's the excitement of new notebooks, back-to-school clothes, rows of sharpened pencils and crisp new textbooks that haven't yet driven me crazy. And even though I'm not in school anymore, I always feel a sense of newness in the fall. The theater season starts again, bringing with it new projects, new plays to see, new workshops. People come back from summer vacation. The markets are filling up with fall foods.

Not mention fall brings both D's birthday and mine. Today is D's and since we'll be with friends tonight, I made a special birthday dinner last night to celebrate together. One drawback of being in a couple is that there are certain foods you almost never get to eat because your partner doesn't like them. For me, those foods include spinach, fresh ginger, and anything with wasabi; for D. it's mushrooms. I don't like mushrooms. I appreciate the flavor, but I can't stand the texture and don't have much experience cooking with them. But of course, for D's birthday, I knew mushrooms would be involved.

I looked at a couple different wild mushroom soup recipes to come up with this one. Most helpful was Jaime Oliver's The Real Mushroom Soup, and I give full credit to him for the lemon zest garnish that really makes this dish special.

(for 4 people)

2 Tbsp olive oil
about 600g (21oz) of mixed wild mushrooms (I put in girolles, oyster mushrooms, trompettes de la mort and then some regular cultivated mushrooms because buying wild mushrooms is expensive! You can mix whatever you like best.)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
3 shallots, peeled and chopped
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried sage (if you have fresh herbs, even better!)
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

heavy cream
1 lemon
sea salt
fresh ground pepper

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. When hot, pour in the mushrooms and stir for 1 or 2 minutes. Add garlic, shallots, thyme and sage. The mushrooms will start to give off liquid. Simmer, stirring until the liquid is mostly evaporated. At this point, you might want to reserve a couple tablespoons of the mushroom mix for garnish.

Add stock and season to taste. Bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes. Blend the soup in batches, or directly in the pot with a stick blender.

For the garnish: Mix together the zest of 1 lemon with the juice of 1/2 a lemon, a pinch of sea salt and a couple grinds of pepper. When you serve the soup, spoon a little bit of this mixture in the middle of each bowl, place some of the reserved wild mushrooms prettily on top (I'm still working on the "prettily" part, but I'm sure you'll do better) and pour on a tablespoon or so of heavy cream to taste. Enjoy!

America the Beautiful

2011-09-07T18:27:00.000+02:00

Now that I'm back in Paris, I'm trying to fully appreciate the scope of all the amazing things we saw on this trip and still overwhelmed! I never really related to patriotic songs before, but I have to say, despite its failings, I come from a very beautiful country. Our National Parks Pass was entitled America the Beautiful after the poem/song by Katherine Lee Bates. I really never thought I'd be quoting it, but turns out to be a not inaccurate resume of our trip (it's just missing a bit about geothermic areas - or perhaps a whole separate song about Yellowstone - so here's a pic of that to start us off).

Oh beautiful for spacious skies

For amber waves of grain

For purple mountains majesties

Above the fruited plains (what fruited plains? She either made this up, or I just spent too much time in Death Valley. Have you all seen fruited plains?)

America

America

God shed his grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea (here the Pacific)

To shining sea (and here the Atlantic)

Hope you enjoyed following the trip! Back to our regularly scheduled program as soon as the jetlag wears off and I start actually cooking again!

Rockport, Cape Ann, Massachusetts

2011-08-29T00:10:00.007+02:00

Back "home" with the family. The hurricane has done its worst in these parts (some flooding and impressive ocean fireworks mostly) but with the stay-at-home advisory and 50 mile an hour winds, nothing to do here but toast our safety with vodka cocktails (vodka, pomegranate or peach juice, and a squeeze of lemon) and watch old movies.

A nouveau dans la maison familiale. Pour nous, le plus gros de l'ouragan est passé (des inondations et des vagues sacrément impressionnantes), mais vu que le gouvernement veut qu'on reste chez nous et que le vent souffle encore très fort, il n'y a rien à faire à part trinquer à notre santé avec des cocktails et regarder des vieux films.

My Sister's House, Burlington, VT

2011-08-28T17:10:00.005+02:00

I have been posting only one picture per stop, but I did promise one of my niece, and my sister made such a delicious breakfast for us that can't help but share. Everything on this plate is grown or made in VT and some of it (the herbs, fresh cayenne in the potatoes) was grown by my sister.

Jusqu'ici je n'ai posté qu'une photo par endroit, mais je vous ai promis un portrait de ma nièce, et ma soeur nous a fait un petit-déjeuner tellement délicieux que cela méritait une photo aussi. Tous les ingrédients de ce repas viennent du Vermont et certains (les herbes et le piment dans les patates) viennent du jardin de ma soeur.

Downtown, Burlington, VT

2011-08-27T14:41:00.003+02:00

We're here visiting my sister and her family (pictures of my adorable niece if I can ever get her to stop running around long enough to take one), but that doesn't mean we can't act like tourists, eat Ben & Jerry's at dinner time and walk down to Lake Champlain to watch the sun come down.

Nous sommes ici surtout pour rendre visite à ma soeur et sa famille (je posterai une photo de mon adorable nièce si elle veut bien rester en place assez longtemps pour que j'en prenne une). Nous profitons quand même de notre statut de touristes en allant à Ben & Jerry's (qui a été créé ici) et en amenant nos glaces près du lac Champlain pour regarder le coucher de soleil.

Lakeview and River North, Chicago, Illinois

2011-08-25T02:41:00.004+02:00

August 23 - 7:30pm CST (Central Standard Time)

After a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even ones own relations.

My friend Claire knows me well because one of the first things she suggested doing when we arrived to visit her in Chicago was to go to the Wilde pub, an Irish pub where the walls and menus are decorated with Oscar Wilde quotes.

Après un bon dîner, on peut pardonner à n'importe qui, même à sa famille.

Ma copine Claire doit très bien me connaître car une des choses qu'elle avait planifié pour notre visite à Chicago était de nous amener au pub Wilde où les murs et les menus sont décorer de citations d'Oscar Wilde.

Yellowstone Lake and Lewis Lake, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming and Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

2011-08-22T07:05:00.008+02:00

August 21 - 1:30pm MST
Back through Yellowstone to get to Jackson Hole, so we had one more picnic here (pictures dedicated to Agrigirl - you should get out there!):

On devait retraverser Yellowstone pour aller à Jackson Hole, donc nous en avons profité pour faire un dernier pique-nique.

Me in Lewis Lake

Then we drove across Grand Teton National Park, which was absolutely gorgeous. Also a good argument for the theory that everything sounds better in French. I have to say Big Nipple National Park doesn't exactly have the same ring to it.

Puis, on a traversé Grand Teton National Park. Non, ce n'est pas une blague. Quand ces terres appartenaient aux Français, on devine ce qui manquaient aux explorateurs venus découvrir le Nouveau Monde...

Proud Cut Saloon, Cody, Wyoming

2011-08-22T06:52:00.006+02:00

August 20 - 2:30pm and 8pm

Well, slight change of plans (but then that's the way travel is often): we had intended to go on to Mt Rushmore and drive all the way to Chicago, but my back has decided that it absolutely will NOT sit in the car any longer. So instead of driving 8 hours to Devil's Tower, we drove 1 1/2 hours to Cody, WY (even that my back was not happy about) to find internet access and make some changes to the trip. New plan: drive to Jackson Hole, WY and fly to Chicago a couple days early and stay there a little longer.

Once in Cody, we decided to take advantage of the situation to eat the most delicious Wyoming beef burger in a real saloon and, since Cody is Buffalo Bill's city, we couldn't miss the rodeo!

Donc nos plans ont un peu changé (comme souvent quand on voyage) ; on devait conduire jusqu'au Mount Rushmore, puis Chicago (encore 4 jours de conduite), mais j'ai un mal de dos carabiné et je ne peux plus rester assise dans la voiture. Alors, au lieu de conduire 8 heures jusqu'à Devil's Tower, nous avons conduit jusqu'à la première ville après Yellowstone - Cody, WY - pour trouver un accès internet et réorganiser notre programme. Maintenant, nous faisons un dernier trajet en voiture jusqu'à Jackson Hole, WY et prendrons un avion pour Chicago.

Une fois à Cody, nous avons bien sûr profité de cette ville de cowboys pour manger un super hamburger (fait avec du boeuf des ranchs de Wyoming) dans un vrai saloon et pour aller voir un rodéo !

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

2011-08-21T07:08:00.005+02:00

August 17-19

Despite these signs on all the picnic tables all over the park, we did picnic in Yellowstone and often because the food sold in the park was terrible. I suppose I could have just made a big pot of spaghetti in this pool of BOILING water...

Malgré les panneaux d'alertes contres les ours sur toutes les tables du parc, nous avons beaucoup pique-niqué à Yellowstone, vu que les plats vendus dans le parc était très mauvais. J'aurais dû essayer de nous faire des spaghettis dans cette flaque d'eau en train de BOUILLIR...

Wheat Montana, Three Forks, Montana

2011-08-21T06:57:00.005+02:00

August 17 - 1:00pm MST (Mountain Standard Time)

Driving under majestic mountains and gorgeous sky, we stopped to eat delicious sandwiches at the Wheat Montana farm, where most of their products are made from ingredients grown right there and you can even grind your own wheat into flour and buy it fresh! That's it; I want a second home in Montana.

En traversant des paysages magnifiques sous un ciel majesteux, nous nous sommes arrêtées pour manger des super sandwichs dans le café de la grande ferme de Wheat Montana où tout le pain est fait avec leur blé : on peut même moudre sa farine soi-même avant de l'acheter ! C'est decidé je veux une deuxième maison dans le Montana.

Lake Coeur d'Alene, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and A Grocery Store, Spokane, Washington

2011-08-21T06:45:00.005+02:00

August 16 - 1:30pm

We had lunch in a natural foods store before a drive around beautiful lake Coeur d'Alene. Idaho: so much more than just potatoes.

Nous avons mangé dans un natural foods store dans l'état de Washington avant d'aller admirer le lac Coeur d'Alene en Idaho. Merci à vous, amis français, de nous avoir revendu cette terre pour un bout de pain !

Tilth's Restaurant, Seattle, Washington

2011-08-17T18:05:00.007+02:00

We ate amazingly well in Seattle in general. It's one of the few places where we stayed in a Bed & Breakfast and Korby's breakfasts at the Sleeping Bulldog are definitely worth mentioning, as is the Pike Place Market. However, August 14 was D. and my very first wedding anniversary! So we had the 8 course tasting menu at Tilth's, with wine pairing. Of course I took pictures to share with you all!

Nous avons vraiment bien mangé à Seattle. C'est un des endroits où on est resté dans un Bed & Breakfast et les petits déjeuners de Korby au Sleeping Bulldog sont vraiment à mentionner, ainsi que le marché de Pike Place, mais quand même le 14 août, c'était notre premier anniversaire de mariage et on a fait un menu dégustation à tomber par terre. Pour vous faire baver (attention à ton ordi Damia !)...

August 14 - 7:30pm PST

Amuse-bouche

Chilled Cucumber Soup dill yogurt, poppy seed tuile, cured salmon

Local Watermelon Carpaccio feta, french melon, mint

Carnaroli Risotto

young carrot, escarole, pine nut

Sockeye Salmon a la Plancha fava bean, nasturtium, heirloom tomato

St. Jude’s Albacore Tuna artichoke mousse, dry cured olive, grilled leek

After that, it was too dark to take pictures, but the rest was just as delicious. / Après il faisait trop sombre pour prendre des photos, mais le reste était aussi délicieux.

Grilled Dakota Beef Hanger Steak anson mills corn cake, chow chow, collard greens

Black Sheep Creamery Brebis
lemon gel, almond, sea salt cracker

White Corn Crème Brulée

candied bacon, fried hominy

Thank you chef Maria Hines and all the hands that made such an amazing meal!

Nuestra Cocina Restaurant, Portland, Oregon

2011-08-17T17:57:00.004+02:00

August 13 - 7pm PST

We only spent one night in Portland, but since we spent it eating some of the best Mexican food ever and buying way to many books in one of the best bookstores ever, I'd have to say it was my favorite city so far!

Nous n'avons passé qu'une seule nuit à Portland, mais entre la nourriture mexicaine à tomber par terre et une des plus grandes librairies indépendantes du monde, c'était quand même ma ville préférée jusqu'ici !

Red Door Cafe, Newport, Oregon

2011-08-14T03:24:00.005+02:00

August 13 - 1pm
After an unpleasant night in a flee-ridden motel (I'll spare you the pictures), today we drove the up the extremely picturesque Oregon Coast and stopped for a very nice lunch and berry mango smoothie along the way.

Après une nuit pas très sympathique dans un hôtel infesté de puces (je vous épargne les photos), aujourd'hui nous avons longé la très pittoresque côte de l'Oregon en s'arrêtant pour un déjeuner bien satisfaisant sur la route.

Avenue of the Giants, Humbolt State Park, California

2011-08-13T17:49:00.005+02:00

August 12 - 3pm

Another lovely picnic in a clearing between the acres and acres of gorgeous redwood forest that line the Avenue of Giants.

Un autre pique-nique délicieux, au milieu des kilomètres et kilomètres de forêt de pins rouges que nous avons longés sur l'Avenue of Giants.

Brewery Gulch Inn, Mendocino, California

2011-08-12T06:40:00.006+02:00

August 11 - 6:30pm

After the 116 degrees of Death Valley, the 56 degrees of misty coastal Mendocino were a bit of a shock to the system, but also a relief. As were this absolutely delicious light meal provided by the B&B's chef and their selection of local wines.

Après les 46 degrès de la vallée de la Mort, sur la côte brumeuse du Pacifique à Mendocino où il fait 13, on a peu un froid, mais cela fait du bien. Le bon petit repas offert par le Bed and Breakfast fait beaucoup de bien aussi, ainsi que leur selection de vins locaux.

D. wanted me to post a picture of their delicious Meyer Lemon and Key Lime Pie, but by the time I got the camera out, it had mysteriously disappeared...

On vous aurait bien pris une photo de leur superbe tarte au citron et citron vert, mais le temps de sortir l'appareil photo, tout avait mystérieusement disparu...

Mirror Lake Trail, Yosemite National Park, California

2011-08-12T06:27:00.006+02:00

August 10 - 1:00pm

Simple picnic. Gorgeous view. Feeling extremely loved by the universe on this trip.

Pique-nique simple. Vue magnifique. Je me sens très aimée par l'univers sur ce voyage.

Stovepipe Wells Village, Death Valley, California

2011-08-12T06:23:00.006+02:00

August 9 - 5:30am

Terrible food in Death Valley (yes the fries were as limp and tasteless as they look) but one hundred percent worth it for this view, and the most profound silence I've ever heard in my life.

On mange vraiment très mal dans la vallée de la Mort (ici des frites molles et sans goût) mais cela vaut largement la peine pour découvrir ce payasage et entendre le silence le plus profond que j'ai jamais connu.

Off Route 160, Pahrump, Nevada

2011-08-12T06:01:00.008+02:00

August 8 - 1:30pm

Picnic lunch in our car between Las Vegas and Death Valley, avoiding the sweltering heat, as well as what might pass for food in Pahrump.

Pique-nique dans la voiture entre Las Vegas et la vallée de la Mort, pour eviter d'être dehors dans la chaleur insupportable et pour éviter de manger dans un "restaurant" à Pahrump.

My Sister's House, Delmonico's, and The Strip, Las Vegas, Nevada

2011-08-08T20:53:00.000+02:00

Mostly came to Las Vegas to see this goober (my nephew) and his mom, but I did eat the most amazing chips I've ever had at Delmonico's so I had to share. They're made with parmesan and truffle oil, super light and crispy. Everything there was amazing.

Je suis venue à Vegas surtout pour voir ce beau jeune homme (mon neveu) et sa maman, mais j'ai aussi mangé les meilleur chips du monde à Delmonico's (parmesan et huile de truffe, légères et croquantes). Tout ce qu'on a mangé dans ce restaurant était délicieux.

And despite the 101 degree weather (at night mind you), we still stayed to watch the Bellagio fountains twice in a row because they were so cool.

Et puis, malgré les 38 degrés (la nuit, bien sûr), nous sommes restées dehors regarder les fontaines du Bellagio deux fois de suite, tellement c'était beau !

Mr D'z Route 66 Diner, Kingman, Arizona

2011-08-06T21:34:00.004+02:00

August 5 - 1:30pm

Back on the road. Lunch stop on Route 66. On our way to Vegas!

On continue la traversée de l'Arizona. Déjeuner incontournable sur la Route 66. En route pour Vegas !

Grand Canyon, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

2011-08-06T21:27:00.004+02:00

August 5 - 5:40am

Breakfast at the Grand Canyon at sunrise. 'Nuff said.

Petit déjeuner au Grand Canyon en regardant le lever du soleil. Tout est dit.

Coldstone Creamery, Flagstaff, Arizona

2011-08-06T03:51:00.004+02:00

August 5 - 3:00 pm

On the road again after a last sunrise walk in Sedona.

De nouveau sur la route après un dernier lever de soleil à Sedona.

Cathedral Hideaway, Sedona, Arizona

2011-08-03T18:19:00.003+02:00

3 August - 8:00am PST

(Dedicate to our fellow foodie, Damia)

Poached duck eggs, fresh fruit and homemade ice cream after a long early morning walk looking at this view :

Des oeufs de canard pochés, fruits frais et glace maison après une longue promenade aux aurores par ici :

Balboa Park, San Diego, California

2011-08-02T16:35:00.002+02:00

31 July - 6:30pm PST (Pacific Standard Time)

First stop on our road trip: San Diego, to visit my Great Aunt Bernice. In this photo: amazing beef short ribs before Shakespeare in the park.

Notre premier arrêt : San Diego pour voir ma grand-tante Bernice. Sur la photo : des travers de boeuf que j'ai mangé avant d'aller voir du Shakespeare en plein air.

Heathrow International Airport, London, England

2011-07-31T18:58:00.002+02:00

July 30 - 11:30 am GT (Greenwich Time)

First day of our trip. Who says you can't have decent food while traveling? At least if you have a 3 hour layover in London before your 12 hour flight (without inflight entertainment because it was broken) you can!

Premier jour de notre grand périple. Qui dit que l'on ne peut pas bien manger en voyage ? En tout cas avec une correspondance à Londres avant un trajet de 12 heures (sans film ou musique car le système est en panne), c'est possible !

The Search for Perfect Gazpacho / A la recherche d'un gaspacho parfait

2011-07-29T11:44:00.001+02:00

Nothing is perfect. People always say that, and then they go ahead and demand perfection anyway. What's up with that? I say you do your best with the tools you've got and if that's not good enough then you need to review your expectations.

La perfection n'existe pas. C'est quelque chose que l'on entend souvent, mais cela n'empêche pas nos amis, nos employeurs, nos fans et nos critiques d'attendre la perfection. Moi je dis, on fait de notre mieux avec les outils à notre disposition et, si cela n'est pas assez, il faut peut-être modifier ses attentes.

Usually cooking is a stress reliever for me, but even in the kitchen, I have to watch out for the perfectionism monster. It's the reason I haven't ever posted a recipe for classic gazpacho. I did post a recipe for green gazpacho a while ago, which is really quite yummy (a bit like guacamole in a soup), but I never dared post a recipe for red gazpacho, thinking, well, it's not perfect. I'm sure someone has a better one. Well, that may be, but I've had a serious overflow of organic tomatoes in my CSA and I've been making this recipe every couple of days for the past week and you know what? It's delicious! Do any of you have recipes you hold off posting because they're not "good enough"?

D'habitude cuisiner est une activité qui me détend, mais même dans la cuisine, il faut que je fasse attention au monstre du perfectionisme. C'est à cause de lui que je n'ai jamais posté ma recette de gaspacho rouge. J'ai partagé ma recette de gaspacho vert (un peu comme un gaucamole version soupe), mais je n'osais pas poster une gaspacho classique en me disant qu'il y avait forcément quelqu'un avec une meilleure recette que moi. C'est sûrement vrai, mais avec l'explosion de tomates dans mon panier bio la semaine dernière, j'ai fait trois fois cette recette et je dois avouer que c'est quand même délicieux. Et vous ? Avez-vous des recettes que vous n'osez pas poster en vous disant qu'elles ne sont pas parfaites ?

Demain, je pars cinq semaines faire la traversée des Etats-Unis en voiture. Je ne vais probablement pas beaucoup cuisiner, mais suivez quand même et vous verrez ce que je mange en route et où !

Tomorrow, I'm off for five weeks of roadtripping it in the US! I probably won't be cooking much, but keep following because I plan to share with you all what I eat and where during my travels!

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Red Gazpacho / Gaspacho Rouge
(Serves 4)

600g tomatoes (about 6) / 600g de tomates (environ 6)
1 cucumber (or 2 small cucumbers)/1 concombre (ou 2 petits concombres)
1 yellow pepper / 1 poivron jaune
1 small white onion / 1 petit oignon blanc
1 clove garlic / 1 gousse d'ail
2 slices bread / 2 tranches de pain de mie

4 Tbsp olive oil / 4 c à s d'huile d'olive
3 Tbsp Xeres vinegar / 3 c à s de vinaigre de Xérès

salt / sel
pepper / poivre
dash of Tabasco / quelques gouttes de sauce Tabasco

Wash the tomatoes, cut into quarters and seed. Peel and seed the cucumber and yellow pepper and cut into large pieces (you just need them to fit into the blender). Peel the onion and garlic and cut into quarters. Put tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, onion and garlic into a blender or cuisinart and mix.

Add the slice of bread cut into pieces. Let soak in a few minutes. Pour in the oil and vinegar and blend until smooth. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour. Salt, pepper and add Tabasco (or not) to taste. Serve chilled.

Laver les tomates, couper en quartiers en épépiner. Peler et épépiner le concombre et poivron et couper en dès. Peler l'oignon et l'ail et couper les en quartiers. Mettre tomates, concombre, poivron, oignon et ail dans un mixeur et mélanger.

Ajouter le pain émietté et laisser imbiber quelques minutes. Verser l'huile et le vinaigre et mixer. Couvrir et garder au frais au moins 1 heure. Saler, poivrer et ajouter quelques gouttes de Tabasco (ou pas) à votre goût. Servir frais.

L'été dans l'Indre / Summer in the Center of France

2011-07-19T18:27:00.000+02:00

J'écris très peu souvent en français dans mon blog ces jours-ci, et pourtant je vis ma vie en français 95% du temps. Mon blog est un moment de repos où, du coup, je me permets de m'exprimer dans ma langue maternelle, mais aussi, la plupart des bloggeurs qui me suivent parlent anglais (même quand ils ne sont pas anglophones).

I rarely write in French in my blog these days, and yet, I live and speak and think in French 95% of the time! I think because I like my blog to be a moment of relaxation where I can speak my native language (I can post much fast that way and with more nuances) and also because most of my readers speak English (even when it's not their native language).

Cela dit, je deviens aussi de plus en plus intégrée à la vie en France et le fait de m'éloigner de Paris tous les étés pour me poser en plein milieu de la France fait partie de cette sensation. Paris est international plutôt que français - tout comme New York est international plutôt qu'américain, mais l'Indre, c'est tout à fait différent et j'ai la chance de le découvrir, non pas en tant que touriste, mais en tant qu'artiste : déjà en 2009 et 2010 et puis cette année en avril (quand les chats ont pris mon blog en hôtage) j'ai fait un atelier d'écriture dans le village de Bonneuil (population de 106 habitants).

That said, I am becoming more and more integrated into life in France and leaving the capital every summer and spending a couple weeks in the the middle of nowhere France (in a department called l'Indre, which even most French people can't place on a map) definitely contributes to that. Paris is international rather than French - just as New York is more international than American - but l'Indre is a whole different experience, one I've been lucky enough to discover, not as a tourist, but as an artist, first in the summer of 2009 and 2010, and then this year in April when I helped run a theater writing workshop in the small town of Bonneuil, population 106. (The cats had my blog hostage during my absence.)

Cette fois-ci, les deux semaines ont été bien remplies par le montage d'un nouveau spectacle de farces médiévales, avec des extraits joués à Chaillac, St-Gilles, Le Châtre-l'Anglin, Parnac, Dunet, Bonneuil, et puis le spectacle complet deux fois à St-Benoit-du-Sault où nous étions logés. Malheureusement, à cause de la météo, nous n'avons pas pu jouer sur la très jolie place de l'église, mais le public a suivi quand même.

This time, the two weeks were extremely busy. We created a new show, adding 4 medieval farces to our repertory and put up extracts in a bunch of small towns in the area (Chaillac, St Gilles, Le Châtre l'Anglin, Parnac, Dunet, Bonneuil), culminating our efforts with two performances of the four farces in their entirety in St Benoit du Sault where we were in residence. Unfortunately due to the rain, we couldn't perform outdoors in front of the church, but the audience came anyway and even graced us with a standing ovation!

Et la nourriture dans tout cela ? Pour une fois, il n'y a pas de lien, si ce n'est que j'ai rencontré des bloggeurs à Bonneuil, dont l'auteure du très beau blog Le jardin de mon calendrier. Son chaudron magique me tente déjà avec des recettes comme l'hypocras - très approprié pour les farces médiévales !

What about food, you say? Not much to say in that department, except that I met the lovely author of the blog Le jardin de mon calendrier in Bonneuil and I'm all excited to try some of her recipes in the near future, including her recipe for hypocras a medieval spiced wine would go perfectly well with the theme of the past two weeks!

Playing House and Herb and Chocolate Cheese Balls

2011-06-24T12:03:00.000+02:00

As children pretty much everyone plays house - or some version of it. In France, kids call it "playing Daddy and Mommy" (jouer au papa et à la maman), but it's the same idea: re-creating the domestic environment and trying out new roles or old roles with new names and new personalities. The funny thing is, as we get older, we may stop playing pretend but we still try on new roles and discard old ones as we go through different phases of life: student/adventurer/apprentice/first apartment/first serious relationship/mom/dad/mentor/etc. The list goes on and is different for each of us.

Still, I think our childhood fantasies come along with us. The excitement of little things, of shiny objects, of new toys. For me, that comes out in the kitchen. I was fluttering like a 5-year-old when I unwrapped my new fancy milk and sugar bowls and these romantic cognac glasses bought with the last of our wedding money (which went quite a bit further than it was supposed to because there was a sale when we went to first pick our gifts up and we got them all for a lot less than we thought, so we had money let over to spoil ourselves with both useful and pretty things).

And speaking of childhood delights, in my last post, I made Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham from this recipe book: Des recettes régressives pour gourmets notstalgiques (Regressive Recipes for Nostalgic Gourmets) and I've continued to experiment, with a culminating trial last week when we invited a friend over for an all-chocolate dinner! It started because I knew I wanted to make a chicken mole inspired recipe from the book and D. wanted to make a white chocolate mousse. It was clear that the theme was chocolate, but now how could I incorporate it into the appetizer?

I'd been wanting to try these herbed cheese ball appetizers and I thought, "why not try them with chocolate!" It was a resounding success.

For 24 balls

240g (about 8.5oz) cream cheese (The recipe calls for Kiri and that's what I used. In the US cream cheese would be perfect.)
24 raisins

Whatever toppings you want; I used:

chives
sesame seeds
curry powder
paprika
cumin
unsweetened cocoa

Form 24 balls of cheese around the 24 raisins. Roll in the toppings of your choice and serve!
Our favorite toppings were (in order) chives, cocoa, sesame, cumin. The curry powder and paprika were both a bit overpowering, but if you like strong/spicy tastes then you could give them a try. Next time I'd try more fresh herbs and sweet spices (ie coriander or garam masala).

Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham

2011-06-10T11:00:00.001+02:00

Early in the week I was going through one of those sick-of-the-world crisis, you know, where you see the bad side of everything and the good hardly seems to balance it out, much less triumph. The weight of thousands of years of oppression seemed to be dragging me down and the black cloud of deep-rooted prejudice was obscuring my usual optimism. In the depths of the social justice doldrums, a sudden ray of light burst through and that ray of light said, "I want to make cookies!" All right, all right, it's no Book of Revelations but still... I tried to reason it away - I'm on a diet! - but it was a very insistent insight. "Fine, fine," I grumbled, "cookies."

And in midst of vigorously creaming together the butter and the sugar - the old-fashioned way, no machines - to the rhythm some of favorite cooking music, the black clouds started to slink away. By the time the smell of cookies was wafting through the apartment, I was full-out dancing in the living room and the world seemed brighter. I may not be able to eradicate prejudice or stupidity but, dammit, I can make cookies and that's gotta count for something.

Sometimes it's important to get back to basics: the recipes you've known all your life, the ones your mother made, the ones you discovered when you first started cooking, the ones that are too easy for "real chefs", or made with silly ingredients, the ones that make you feel good, that have too much butter and more than one kind of sugar, because maybe those are the recipes that change the world - or at least YOUR world - and that's about all you can hope to change anyway.

Long philosophical digressions aside, let's get to the recipe. It comes from a book the mom of one of the girls I babysit for gave to me called De recettes régressives pour gourmets notstalgiques (Regressive Recipes for Nostalgic Gourmets) - the only picture I found was of a later edition (above) but that's the idea. It revisits exactly the kind of foods I'm talking about - the fun foods you ate as a kid - and playfully adapts them for adult taste buds. I've already tried a couple of the recipes and have marked a bunch more. They're simple and sophisticated, like these Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham.

for 4 people

1kg (2.2 lbs) potatoes
20 leaves basil (optional)
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
8 slices Parma ham (or Bayonne, or other similar)
6-8 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Peel potatoes and cut into chunks. Cook in salted boiling water for 15-20 minutes, until soft. Drain water, put potatoes back in the pot with the olive oil and mash (with a potato masher or fork). Mince all but 4 basil leaves (if using) and add to the puree along with the Parmesan cheese. Reheat the puree on low heat mixing in the ingredients.

Lay two slices of ham on each plate, ladle the puree on top and fold up the sides of the ham. Garnish with the left-over basil leaves and Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Falafel Lettuce Wraps

2011-05-28T09:00:00.001+02:00

When I write in my blog these days I feel like the kid who hasn't done his homework but always has a "really good excuse!" Um, my dog ate it. Um, the assignment fell in the lake. Um, I DID do it but then my little sister tore it up. Um, I was abducted by aliens and I just got back.

But, I do have good excuses, plenty of them. I've been onstage all this month in two different shows and preparing the residency in the center of France for this summer. Also I'm trying to lose some weight, which often means making dishes that are yummy but not particularly inventive or blog-worthy.

That said, I still can't resist a good recipe and my sister (Future Master Baker), who this year has been one of the head cooks in her co-op and learning all sorts of new vegetarian and vegan recipes, keeps sending me emails to make my mouth water. Recently she sent me this recipe for tahini oat cookies, which sound delicious except that I can't find any of the ingredients required in France. So... I had to go for her falafel recipe instead. Because fried falafel are not exactly diet-friendly, I made them into lettuce wraps to make myself feel good about them - and hey, it works! You can even add a little feta cheese (low fat or not) in the wraps for moisture and taste.

You may have to juggle a bit with the ingredients to see what proportions keep the falafel from falling apart, but this is the basic idea.

1 can chickpeas (15.5 oz)
1 medium onion
1 cup parsley
cumin
turmeric
salt & pepper
5 Tbsp. flour
cooking oil

Mash chickpeas (I use a potato masher, but you can probably do it with a fork, you'd just have to be more patient than I am). Chop the onion and parsley finely and add them to the chickpeas. Stir in spices and flour. Pour about half an inch of oil into a saucepan and put it on the stove to heat. Form chickpea mixture into patties. When the oil begins to dimple on the surface, drop the patties in. Turn them regularly until thoroughly brown.

Serve in lettuce wraps, or pita, with hummus, feta, tomatoes, whatever you like!

Le Temps Suspendu

2011-04-17T14:00:00.002+02:00

"D’où avait pu me venir cette puissante joie? Je sentais qu’elle était liée au goût du thé et du gâteau, mais qu’elle le dépassait infiniment...." -Marcel Proust

C'est bien d'être pragmatique, je pense que je le suis souvent, surtout en comparaison avec mes amis français qui adorent le débat et la théorie au point parfois d'oublier d'agir. Mais la vie sans une bonne dose de poésie de temps en temps ne vaudrait pas vraiment la peine.

I like to consider myself a pragmatic person, culturally an American quality, and especially in comparison with the French, who adore debate and theory so much that they sometimes forget to actually do something. Of course compared to Americans I'm not sure I could be considered pragmatic. I did major in French and Creative Writing after all, and I think, life without a good dose of poetry from time to time would be no life at all!

Un des bons endroits pour se plonger dans la poésie quotidienne (à part dans les pages de Proust, mais vous savez déjà mon avis sur ce sujet) est le magasin de thés Bonthés et Accessoires, 157 rue Marcadet dans le 18e, que nous avons déjà visité ensemble et dont le thé a servi pour plusieurs recettes comme mon chai fait maison. C'était lors d'une de mes visites là-bas, en parcourant la grande liste des thés, que je suis tombée sur "Le Temps Suspendu". J'avoue qu'à ce moment mon côté pragmatique s'est envolé plus vite qu'un oiseau, et j'ai dit, "je ne sais pas ce que c'est, mais j'achète 100g de celui-ci pour le nom."

There are lots of great places to get that dose of poetry in Paris (besides in the pages of Proust - but we all know how I feel about that). One of my favorites is the tea shop Bonthés et Accessoires, 157 rue Marcadet in the 18th arrondissement, which I've visited with you before, and whose tea I've used in quite a few recipes, including my homemade chai. On one of my visits there, as I was browsing the list of teas, I stumbled upon one called "Le Temps Suspendu" (literally "Time Suspended" and a reference to Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu of which the final volume is called Le Temps retrouvé -- what? I did warn you you'd be reading along). I have to admit that my American pragmatism disappeared faster that you could say "Jiminy Cricket" (does anyone actually say that?), and I immediately bought it for the beautiful name.

J'ai eu raison d'écouter la voix de ma poète intérieure. C'est le thé parfait pour un dimanche après-midi, pour accompagné quelques pages de Proust (disons deux ou trois phrases), ou autre chose (non, je ne suis complètement obsédée). Ce thé rooibos (naturellement sans théine) est parfumé de noix de coco et de framboise avec des accents de vanille, des feuilles de mûrier et des pétales de bleuets. Délicieux !

And I was quite right to listen to my inner poet. It's the perfect tea for a Sunday afternoon to accompany a couple pages of Proust (you know, a sentence or two), or some other book or activity (see, I'm not completely obsessed). It's a redbush tea (caffeine free) with coconut, raspberry, vanilla, mulberry leaf and cornflower petals. Delicious!

Donc pour revenir à mon côté pragmatique : si je vous en parle, ce n'est pas juste pour vous rendre jaloux, c'est parce que Bonthés et Accessoires vient d'ouvrir un superbe site de vente en ligne ou on peut voir toute leur séléction de thés avec leurs descriptions, photos, conseils de consommation ainsi que leur confitures maison, théières, chocolats, etc !

So back to my pragmatic side: I'm not telling you all this so you can drool over it theory. Bonthés et Accessoires just recently opened an online store where you can browse their large selection of teas - complete with descriptions, photos and brewing instructions - their beautiful teapots, homemade jams, chocolates, etc. Happy shopping!

(And no, I'm not in any way affiliated, nor do I receive free merchandise from them - although that would be cool!)

Interlude by Edgar and Marcel

2011-04-10T18:05:00.002+02:00

Hopie is once again on tour in the center of France.
What's so great about La Creuse anymeow? Are there any cute cats to pet?
Marcel, shush, I'm writing this blog.
I'm just saying.
Anyway, we've grown up since our first post and we've matured too. We no longer play with coconuts. See:

We lie around and bask in the sun and...
Edgar everyone can tell you're not really asleep in that picture. Does anyone want to pet me? I'm very soft.
Ahem, and we haven't eaten a single one of Hopie's tulips:

I would have, but we're not allowed outside.
Marcel, shush, or I'm going to bite your ear!
If you bit my ear, I'll step on your head, you...
Oops, gotta run, dear readers!
Does anyone have any tuna? Meeeeeeeeeeow!

Invite A Blogger to Your Table - Poor Man's Soup

2011-04-04T15:00:00.001+02:00

I know I've said it before, but community is one of my favorite things about having a cooking blog and events like Val's Invite a Blogger to Your Table are what it's all about. The idea is to invite another blogger, someone you've been following for years, or someone you don't know (yet!) to make a recipe with you (virtually or in person) and both blog about it on the same day. The rules are simple:

1) Choose a dish to prepare and invite one blogger to create that dish with you. You can source your recipe from a cookbook, magazine, blog or any other source. Your dish can be sweet or savory; easy or complicated.
2) Decide upon a date that you can both mutually post your recipe within a 4 week time frame.
3) Link back to More Than Burnt Toast somewhere in your post.
4) Please feel free to use the Avatar/Badge above "Invite a Blogger to Your Table".
5) Once you have made your dish with your blogging friend or friends and posted it, you can choose to STOP or CONTINUE on and invite another blogger to your table to make something DIFFERENT on a mutually agreeable date within the next 4 week time frame.
6) If you would like to, please e-mail Val at bloggerstable(AT)gmail(DOT)com for no other reason than to let her know you have participated. She would love to see what you have accomplished.
7) Cut and paste these instructions into your post and contact a friend. Let magic happen and let's get cooking!!!

When Giz from Equal Opportunity Kitchen invited me to make this old country recipe with her - one that her mom recently gave her (thanks Baba!) - I was delighted. There's something so seductive about simple recipes. There seems to be a higher degree of magic involved. When you look at some recipe lists with their exotic spices and fresh herbs and the like, you think "well of course that's going to be good!" But the bare culinary truth is that sometimes with 5 ingredients or less you can make the magic happen.

I also like the idea of a country recipe that's actually perfect for the season. Back in the days before fruits and vegetables were available year round in supermarkets, I think by the end of the winter, the only vegetables left in places like here were those that had survived in root cellars, like potatoes. It's not like potatoes never go bad, but if you keep them cool dry, it takes a very long time! Hence the ubiquitous potato (and other root vegetables) in my winter CSA. I used up the last few that were starting to sprout in this recipe and now I'm looking forward to spring veggies, like the spinach I got last week!

So if you're looking to use up the last potatoes, or combat the spring sniffles, I highly recommend this recipe!

Burnt Soup or Poor Man's Soup

1 medium onion, diced
2 tbsp oil (I used olive)
2 tbsp all-purpose flour
5-6 cups water, boiled
4-5 medium potatoes diced
salt and pepper to taste

1. Fry onion in oil until it's brown but not burned
2. Add flour and make a roux
3. Add water, stir to incorporate the flour and add the potatoes
4. Cook over medium heat until potatoes get soft
5. Add salt and pepper to taste

I executed this recipe exactly as written (you other foodies will recognize the self-control that takes) because I wanted to taste it the way it's written. This simple soup is surprisingly delicious. In the end, I added 2 large garlic cloves, minced and half a bunch of parsley, chopped, for the flavor and the immune system booster. I cooked it another 10 minutes with those ingredients and served with whole grain brain.

Even D. who "doesn't like soup", said "mmmm, your potatoes with sauce are delicious!"
Now head on over and check out Giz's version!

Squash-Leek Soup with Coconut Milk and How to Survive Spring

2011-03-25T10:15:00.001+01:00

Some people call the season that starts on March 20th Spring, but I prefer to call it "be prepared for anything." We are now in the transition space, the exciting first warm days space, the back to cold snaps space, the first few flowers space and the everybody gets a cold space.

How is it that we blog all winter long (and thank goodness we do) about how to survive the cold and the dreariness, but nobody blogs about how to survive the coming of spring?

I would suggest that the way to do so it is two-fold:

1. Go outside and enjoy the flowers - or early bird songs, or first snow melts, or the visibly longer days. Get some sun on your face. Take some pictures. Sit in the park and watch the kids play (can you believe people pay me to do that? I love it.). Look for the little changes every day.

And...

2. Have some good soup on hand. The nights are still cold. April showers are on their way, and if you come down with a cold (as I did this week), you'll be happy to have some homemade soup waiting to be heated up and make you feel better.

Happy spring everybody!!

1 Tbsp ghee (or butter)
1 onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp curry powder
1 small piece of fresh ginger, minced
1 pinch cayenne
1 winter squash
chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup coconut milk

Melt the ghee in a large pot on low heat and add the onions and leeks. Leave to caramelize slowly. In the meantime, peel the squash and chop into cubes. Turn up the stove to medium heat and add the garlic and spices. Cook 1 or 2 minutes, stirring. Add the squash and enough broth to just cover it. Add 1/2 cup of coconut milk. Bring to boil, cover and simmer until the squash is tender (about 20 minutes). Add the rest of the coconut milk and puree the soup (in batches in a mixer, or with an immersion blender). Serve hot.

Lyon and Le Sathonay

2011-03-21T09:30:00.000+01:00

Anne, me and a parapluie overlooking Lyon

I know, I know, I wrote about my 3-year blogoversary and then promptly disappeared for over a month. Not cool. The thing is, I've been focusing my creative talents pretty intensely on my acting career right now, a necessary and fun development. I thought about closing my blog all together, but I realized that when I have time for it, I still enjoy exchanging with my blogging friends and having a place for my recipes and thoughts about food (of which I still have many). So, I decided I just wouldn't worry about how often I posted, and I hope you all will forgive me for my intermittent presence!

The Saône

This weekend, D. and I went on a mini-getaway to Lyon to visit our friend Anne and explore the second largest city in France. Lyon is unique in that, not one, but two major rivers run through it: the Saône and the Rhone, and it is surrounded by two hills: "the hill that works," traditionally were the blue-collar workers lived and "the hill that prays," where traditionally the priests lived and where there are still quite a few churches.

And the Rhone (never get on a river's bad side by playing favorites)

Before we left, everyone told us that there's lots of good food in Lyon and I have to say that in general we found this to be true, especially on Saturday night when Anne brought us to one of her favorite little restaurants called Le Sathonay.

The traditional restaurants in Lyon are called "bouchon lyonnais," of which this was one, and true to typical lyonnais cuisine there were plenty on animal guts on the menu...er, I mean...[insert classier term that means the same thing here]. Of course if you like that sort of thing, I'm sure this would be a great place for it because everything we tried there was delicious. Also the staff was nice and attentive without being overbearing - just the right kind of service.

I started with the cervellé de canut and ham, which sounds like the brain of an unidentified animal, but is actually a kind of creamy cheese with herbs and garlic. It was absolutely delicious but you have to get everyone at the table to eat some (don't worry, I did) because you'll have major garlic breath afterward!

Then I had the special of the day, which was pork filet mignon cooked with spiced and potatos au gratin. The meat was very tender and moist and the spice-blend delicious. I wasn't hungry for dessert, but I had to try the creme brulée with rum anyway, and I'm very glad I did. I forgot until about half-way through to take a picture. We topped the whole thing off with some very decent lyonnais red wine and some digestifs at the end before heading back up the "hill that prays" for a quite night's sleep.

One of the strangest things about the trip was that it made me realize that somewhere in the last four years, I have become a true Parisian. I kept thinking "this is nice, but it's not Paris" and when we got back off the train at the Gare de Lyon (in Paris - I know it's confusing), I immediately thought "ah, home." Paris feels like home. It smells like home. Even the annoying people in the metro and big city noises that float in through the windows, all make me think "home." I feel like I belong to this city and this city belongs to me. I never thought that would happen. But there you go.

Typical Lyon blues

(thanks to D. for some of these photos!)

Blogoversary 3 Years Old: Oh The Places You'll Go

2011-02-01T09:00:00.003+01:00

On February 1st, 2008, without a clue where it would take me or even what the word "blogosphere" might mean, I launched Hopie's Kitchen. Basically the idea was to be able to find my recipes in one place and to vent my frustration about the metric system. So far, these have been minor effects compared to the joy of meeting other bloggers, sharing cooking experiences and seeing my recipes-to-try folder grow exponentially. Recently, I have been less present than in the beginning - as I have focused more on my career and (yay!) actually made friends in the city that was at the time new and scary - and I've left off posting in French for now (props to Rosa who still manages a bilingual blog!), but I still enjoy blogging just as much, if not more. These days, I care more about quality and less about quantity. I share the stories I want to share and don't worry about getting every recipe out there.

In my last post, I tried to come to terms with being surrounded by the gray Parisian winter. And I thought, in the spirit of chasing the winter blues, I'd honor my blogoversary with some pictures of the fun adventures we've had together (virtually, of course) and the things we've eaten on them, since Feb 2008.

One of the first places we went, and the place we've been the most often on this blog is Rockport, my family's vacation spot:

We've eaten lots of good food here, including Scallops with Roasted Peppers and Green Beans and this Green Gazpacho:

We went to visit friends in Greenwich (where it also appears to be quite gray, so Paris is in good company!):

And had Cottage Pie (or Hachi Parmentier, as the French would say):

We went to Lady Mendl's Tea Room in New York:

And had Marbury Rose tea in honor of my godfather:

We spent a week discovering Gaudi, and tapas, and markets and bakeries in Barcelona:

and ate all sorts of amazing food. Iberian ham was a highlight:

We followed my love of Proust to Illiers-Combray:

Which inspired us to make these caramel treats that were certainly not Proust's mothers (or aunt's) madeleines!

I worked with a theater troupe doing farce in St. Benoit du Sault:

And was extremely happy to come back to home-cooking, like this Garam Masala Salmon with Zucchini:

We went to Belize (I even took you all on my honeymoon - now that's blogging devotion ;-)):

And we made Garlic Shrimp with Marie Sharp's Hot Sauce:

And most recently, we went to Porto Portugal:

and tasted some pretty amazing port:

Here's to a 4th year, full of shared culinary adventures! It's been wonderful having you along for the ride!

Winter at the Sacre Coeur and Endive, Blue Cheese, Pomegranate Salad

2011-01-27T15:40:00.001+01:00

Everyone I know in Paris is tired right now, the have-to-drag-oneself-out-of-bed-in-the-morning kind of tired. Usually this is a February attitude, but it seems to have come a bit early this year. I blame this sort of lagging gloom on the lack of sunlight. A few bright rays on our faces would do all of us a world of good. It's no coincidence that my doctor gives everyone a prescription for vitamin D in the winter, no matter what you go see her for.

But besides vitamin D, what to do for the gray-sky doldrums? The best cure I know for dreariness is to go on a search for beauty. (Tea over at Tea and Cookies puts this into practice regularly in her series Stalking Wonder.) So, I decided if it was going to be gray all winter, then I had better start looking for the beauty in gray skies.

As Dorothy Gale from Kansas says, "if I ever go looking for my heart's desire, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with." So my camera and I set out to find beauty in our own backyard (so to speak - I don't have a back yard, so I'm counting Montmartre).

The Sacre Coeur is probably my favorite monument in Paris. I go by it pretty much every day, and every day it seems different. I swear it changes with the weather. When it's sunny and the sky is blue, it seems to shine out white and proud. These days, it's as sober as the sky, imposing, dark and full of secrets.

I came up the back way and strolled in the park behind the church, which in the summer is full of old people sitting in the shade of the wisteria, young people tanning on the grass, and children playing in the fountain. Today it was deserted. There's something very restful about an empty park, and its sleeping trees. I even found a tiny bit of winter color.

When I was done soaking that in, I followed the sound of a horse drawn carriage to the front of the Sacre Coeur. Really, I'm not kidding. I thought I was hearing things, and when I caught up with it and found it was being driven by a man dressed in bear suit, I thought I was seeing things. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture. The front of the Sacre Coeur is always overrun with tourists, no matter what the season and it was a bit of a shock after the emptiness of the back streets, but there is an amazing view of Paris. Gray, winter-y Paris.

Of course, the other way to combat the winter doldrums is to eat colorful food. You can even pretend its summer and have festive salads, which is what I did when I got home. This endive-pomegranate-blue cheese salad was just perfect for a mood-lifter. I think pomegranate seeds are just perfect for winter salads, not only for their red color and bursting sweet taste, but also because you can pretend you're Persephone thanks to whose love of pomegranate seeds (according to the ancient Greeks), we got into all this winter trouble in the first place!

Ingredients (approx per person):

1 large or 2 small endives
2 Tbsp pomegranate seeds
1 Tbsp blue cheese
2 strips of bacon, fried until crispy (you can leave this out if you're vegetarian, but if you're not, it adds a nice smoky flavor that I highly recommend)
your favorite vinaigrette

Mix it all together in the proportions you like best and enjoy while contemplating the beauty of gray!

Pancake Accessories for Christmas

2011-01-16T16:58:00.000+01:00

My sister the master baker and I had a conversation when she came to visit about kitchen stores. We both agreed that they are full of one-use gadgets that we would never buy, but that we secretly think about and covet once we leave the store. Our example was the one-egg frying pan. You can easily cook one egg in any frying pan, something you are sure to say when you are ridiculing the item in the store. But then in the morning when you are cooking your one egg and it's spreading all over and you're trying to pull it back together with a spatula, you think "if only I had a one-egg frying pan..." Has anyone else had that experience? Are there one-use items you secretly covet?

Being a thoughtful person with a very good memory and a sense of humor, my sister went to a cooking store for my Christmas presents and bought me three one-use items I would never allow myself to buy, including a one-egg frying pan. The other two were a pancake pen and Star Wars pancake molds. Who needs those?? No one. And yet...

The Star Wars molds are pretty much what you'd expect. They allow you to put pancake Yodas and Darth Vadors and Storm Troopers on your plate, smother them with maple syrup and chow down. Unfortunately they don't actually make the best pancakes. You have to spread the batter very evenly to work and so you miss out on that dense and mushy fat center that poured pancakes often have. Um, but did I mention you get to eat Yoda?!

The pancake pen, on the other hand, is going to change my life (or at least the way I make pancakes). It's large enough to fit an entire batch of batter. You just pour the batter in and squirt out however much batter you want, in whatever form you want into the heated pan. Plus, it stores the batter extremely easily. You can just stick the bottle in the door of the refrigerator and pull it out any time you want a pancake. (No, they're not paying me to say this. I just loved it!)

I should mention that I also received a beautiful mortar and pestle from my parents that is not a silly gift at all and will also change my life in the kitchen. I can wait to make Indian food with fresh-ground spices! Did you all get anything fun for the kitchen these holidays?

Happy New Year from Edgar and Marcel

2011-01-01T21:55:00.002+01:00

Cat mastermind Edgar here.
And Marcel!
Yes, and Marcel. We've been busy tearing the apartment apart while D. and Hopie are on vacation. See, we wanted to do a holiday post, but Hopie thought she was being smart when she took her computer home with her for vacation so we couldn't get at it. Of course, she forgot she'd be too tired and jet-lagged when she got home to pay close attention to us. And besides we're cats. The rules don't apply to us.
Show them Edgar!
Right. For example, Hopie and D. have a rule 'don't go on the table'. Here's what I think of that rule:

At Christmas time they have even more rules like 'don't play with the silly Christmas bush'...

Right, and 'don't eat the hors-d'oeuvres or drink port':

But of course the best part of our mastermind plot is that we are so cute.
Very cute, and pettable. Did I mention I'm pettable?
So even though you couldn't say we were good this year, we still got this awesome toy for Christmas that looks like a bird:

Oooh, ooh, I want to play. I hope Hopie wakes up soon.
Let's go walk on her head.
Yeah and open the curtains. I know how to do that now. It's great!

So this year, don't forget to play.
Be curious about new things. Take risks. Plot some mischief.
Chase your dreams tirelessly.
And pet your cat (or someone else's).
Or me. You can come pet me!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Weekend Cat Blogging is being hosted by Scrappycat, Smudge, Patchouli and Coco over at Sidewalk Shoes! They say Happy New Year too!

My blogging family: Engineer and an Oven

2010-12-19T15:30:00.001+01:00

The holidays are all about family and having been a food blogger for almost three years now, I feel part of a lovely family here in the blogosphere. Sometimes I've met the people in real life, sometimes not, but meeting new people and the sense of community are some of the best things about blogging, in my opinion. One blogger who does quite a bit to make this happen is Kristen from Dine and Dish. Her program adopt-a-blogger (which is now running all the time -- so go check it out!) has introduced me to lots of wonderful people. After being adopted by Psychgrad and Giz at Equal Opportunity Kitchen, I went on to become a big adult blog and adopt in my turn Nic from Lemon and Cheese and Julie from A Little Bit of Everything, all wonderful experiences.

Caroline's Quick Mix Spritz Cookies

And now... I'd like to introduce the newest adopted member of my blogging family: Caroline from Engineer and an Oven. Caroline is a civil engineer who lives in Chicago where she cooks up a storm (just take a list at her Christmas cookie list. It's seriously impressive) and she tells good stories to boot. Do you have any camera advice? A kickass recipe for Osso Bucco? Some family stories you'd like to share? Feel free to comment with your insight and encouragements for Caroline!

Note: this interview was a lot longer, but I had to cut it down so I could fit in some pictures and you could read it in one sitting. I hope Caroline will forgive me! For more of her stories, read her blog!

Do any of your parents or grandparents cook or did someone particular inspire you?

It is difficult for me to talk about my relationship between food and me without divulging my entire life story. Just like a specific song can take you back to the first time you heard it, certain foods trigger very specific memories of my childhood and my family.

The Ultimate Cheddar Bay Biscuits

Growing up on the East Coast, one of the biggest treats of the summer was getting a bushel of Maryland Blue Crabs, some pre-made dinner rolls and boiling up some sweet corn. We would sit down at a newspaper-lined table for hours picking crabs, talking, and just enjoying the luxury of being able to relax and enjoy the company around the table.

I think family is what transforms ‘food’ into a ‘meal.’ I started cooking because as I got older and moved away from home, it was a way to make my own family feel closer, and make where I was living at the time feel more like home. Now that I’m married and have a home of my own, I am looking forward to starting new food traditions, as well as maintaining some of the ones I so fondly remember as a child.

What do you like about blogging?

I like being able to catalog my progress and share some of my creati ons (like my Hokie Cut-out cookies [see below]). I love when I get comments on my blog (or in person) that someone has tried a recipe I’ve posted and enjoyed it. The idea that someone stepped slightly out of their comfort zone or tried something new just because they saw it and thought it sounded appetizing is one of the greatest feelings. I’m still new to the game, but the community is so warm and welcoming; how can you not enjoy being a part of that?

Hokie Cut-Out Cookies (aka where Caroline uses her mad engineering skills for baking)

What do you find challenging about blogging?

As an engineer, my math skills are used much more than my English skills and it is sometimes difficult for me to articulate posts in an interesting, non-rambling way. I constantly push myself to try new things. It pains me to write about kitchen disasters or dishes that just don’t live up to the hype – but I want to be realistic. Not every dish can be a masterpiece. Being a true engineer/math nerd, I love the quote from Thomas Edison - “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” And believe me, with my chicken pot pie, I’m well on my way.

The other challenging part is the photography. I rarely can get a shot of anything I make in natural light, so I have to rely on the flash of my little P&S camera. I am looking into getting a DSLR camera in the not-too-distant future, so hopefully that will help, but any advice is greatly appreciated!

Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

What is your favorite kind of food and/or favorite restaurant?

Well, I may be slightly biased, but I adore Thai food. I love how spicy, sweet, sour and salty flavors are artfully balanced in their curry sauces. As for a favorite restaurant,I’m really into a place called Roy’s - a hawaiian-asian fusion restaurant. It is a chain, but not in your typical Chili’s, Applebee’s or T.G.I. Friday’s kind of way. Many of the entrees there change depending on what the head cook has available to him/her at the time. I admire when people can make an amazing meal out of things that they have in front of them.

Roasted Butternut Squash Seeds

A favorite person/group to cook for?

Cooking for my husband is always a highlight, for sure, because he is always appreciative of the effort I put into a meal, whether it is something special for a date night, or something easier for our “pasta Tuesday” or just typical work night dinner. I also love cooking for a crowd, because I can try new recipes, and make lots of food. I have always found it easier for me to make a ton of food, especially if I’m going to end up with a dirty kitchen anyway. Might as well make the cleanup worth it, right?

Wild Mushroom Tartlettes

What’s the strangest food you’ve ever eaten?

Thanks to my mom, who was a huge advocate of the phrase “how do you know you don’t like it if you won’t try it!?,” I will try pretty much anything once. When we were in Thailand, that meant eating things like fish stomach, pig intestine, jellyfish, shark fin and durian fruit. If you don’t know what durian is, at its best, the smell and flavor is like sweet custard; at its worst, it’s like sucking on a dirty, sweaty gym sock.

What’s one dish that you’ve never cooked that you want to try?

I would love to try making Osso Bucco. I have seen many recipes for it, but I want to find the one that I could make that would taste like I had channeled someone’s Italian grandmother.

Quilt Cookies

Do you have any passions besides cooking?

Besides cooking, I love eating, of course, but I also really enjoy sewing and being crafty in general. On some of my earlier blog posts, I showcased a series of quilted sugar cookies that I made, and that was truly a combination of two passions. I do some embroidery, some knitting, sewing and quilting. I also really enjoy movies and music. I am that person that if I have good song or CD blasting on the stereo, I will be dancing and singing in the kitchen while baking or cooking. That’s a fun afternoon in my book!

Pot-au-feu or how I can't speak English anymore

2010-12-13T12:17:00.001+01:00

(A warning to my vegetarian friends: very meaty photos to follow!)

The longer I live in France, the more trouble I'm going to have writing this blog in English. See, I moved to France right after college, which is when you really start to learn how to do things on your own. Cooking, of course, but also keeping the house clean (instead of just straitening up your room), choosing paint colors, furniture, fixing things that break (or calling the repairman), paying bills, filing pay slips, doing your taxes, etc. All that stuff I learned to do in French and some of it has specific vocabulary that I don't know in English. For example: where do you bring things that are too big for the trash? Is there a word for them? Here they're called les encombrants and you can call the city hall of your arrondissment in Paris, and schedule a pick-up in front of your building on a specific day.

What does that have to do with cooking? Well, yesterday I was complaining to the mom of one of the girls I babysit for that I had a fridge drawer full of root vegetables that was getting out of control: carrots, leeks, turnips, parsnips, potatoes, cabbage (okay, not a root vegetable, but you get the point). She said, "all you need is some meat and you have a pot-au-feu." I'm lucky because this is one of those recipes that everybody's French mother makes and thanks to babysitting, I now have two French mothers who teach me those kinds of things.

Anyway, she told me how much meat to buy and what kind and she suggested buying an os à la moelle to put in. I'd never bought any such thing (I'm a wuss at the butcher's), and so I can't tell you the name in English. All I can say is that it's bone with the marrow in it and the marrow gets all soft and flavorful when cooked in a pot-au-feu.

The French are extremely good at winter food and pot-au-feu is no exception. It's warming, hearty and uses more seasonal vegetables than you would know what to do with otherwise. Traditionally the broth is served as a first course, sometimes with noodles. Then the meat and vegetables are served in a large platter. If you don't want to separate them, you can also serve it in bowls as a sort of French beef stew (don't let any French people know I said to though). Or you can reserve the broth for another soup. Or all of the above. Pot-au-feu is also very tasty as leftovers since the more the flavors sit together the better it is. Go ahead and make more than you'll eat in one meal. If you get sick of it for leftovers, you can always make it into cottage pie.

1.5kg of beef (don't get me started on beef cuts. I don't have any of the vocab for that, but it can be a fattier or tougher cut because you're going to slow cook it for a very long time!)
2 onions
2 cloves

3 carrots
3 leeks
2 turnips
2 parsnips (If you want to get technical I actually used parsley root, but they taste like parsnips to me. You can pretty much use whatever winter vegetables you have)
3 cloves garlic
1 bouquet garni (parsley, thyme and bay leaf)

1 os à la moelle
1 head of Chinese cabbage

500g of potatoes

P.S. It is very hard to get a decent photo of a finished pot-au-feu since, if you've done it right, everything's all mushy and falling apart. Despite what it looks like, it's delicious!

Rinse the beef in cold water and put in a large pot with the onions (peeled and halved) and cloves. Cover with water and bring to a boil. Simmer on low heat for 1-2 hours, regularly skimming off impurities that rise to the top.

In the meantime, peel the garlic cloves and peel (or wash) and roughly chop the carrots, leeks, turnips, parsnips. Add to the meat with the bouquet garni. If not covered with liquid, add more water, bring to boil and then simmer 2 hours. Add the os à la moelle, and the cabbage and simmer 1 hour more. Boil the potatoes separately and stir them in once you're done cooking the pot-au-feu. Strain the meat and vegetables from the broth (if desired) and serve hot.

Traditionally served with sea salt, mustard and cornichons.

Port Wine in Porto, Portugal

2010-12-05T16:52:00.000+01:00

Last weekend, after stuffing ourselves with Thanksgiving leftovers, D. and I went on a mini holiday to Porto, Portugal to visit our friends who were moving there (or rather, had just moved there and now are moving somewhere else, maybe Australia, but that's a long story that has nothing to do with our weekend). We were amazingly lucky because while it's been freezing and snowy in Paris, it was clear and in the 50sºF in Porto. We ate breakfast both days outside in the sun looking over the ocean - an amazing luxury at this time of year. I even stuck my feet in the water and waved to Rockport!

Porto is a beautiful city, full of gorgeous old buildings...that nobody lives in. The Portuguese people prefer to live in the comfortable modern buildings that are constantly going up outside the city. We were very surprised, since the opposite is true in Paris: everyone wants to live in the old buildings in the center, and the poor people live in the suburbs with their modern apartment towers.

But of course what Porto is best know for is Port Wine. You can be sure we didn't miss out on that. On Saturday our friends took us out to the Port vineyards, which are actually about an hour north of Porto in the beautiful hilly region along the Durro River. The grapes are grown on terraces because of the landscape and, as a result, all the fruit is hand picked. They explained to us that Port is a sweet wine because the fermentation process (which turns the sugar from the grapes into alcohol) is stopped very quickly, and so to give it the strong alcohol content it's known for, they add brandy to it!

Once that's done, they send it to Porto (or rather the town right across the river from Porto, but who's counting), to be matured in oak barrels of different sizes and for different amounts of time depending on the kind of Port. In case you're interested...

Ruby Port: (made from red grapes) is matured for the least amount of time in very large barrels that are waxed on the inside so almost no air gets in. As a result, it's a very fruity wine.

Tawny Port: (also made from red grapes) is matured in small oak barrels for a longer time and has a much more woody taste. It also gets more oxygen, which makes it clearer (I think that's why...)

White Port: (made from white grapes) uses both if understood rightly and can be either "sweet" or "dry".

(Apparently, there's also Pink Port, which is something new and I don't quite understand how it's made but it taste like cotton candy.)

Also, almost all port is mixed wine. Unless there's a year on your bottle (and 90% of the time there isn't), the port is a mixture of wine from different years to get exactly the right taste. When you get "10-year-old" port or "20-year-old" port, that's actually an average, rather than an indication of what year is comes from. Isn't that crazy? (Ok, maybe that's just more than you ever wanted to know about Port :-))

Anyway, after a weekend of soaking up the sun and seeing beautiful vineyard landscapes and visiting the Port cellars and drinking lots of Port, I'm actually okay with the fact that it's snowing in Paris. In fact, I'm enjoying it.

November in Paris and Thanksgiving Cheer

2010-11-29T14:30:00.001+01:00

Big happy plate of Thanksgiving leftovers.

I have long thought that France had more federal holidays than the US. It seems the French are always having days off, especially in the spring. In May it feels like every week there's a bank holiday. (Actually, this is not just an impression, there are French federal holidays on May 1, May 8, and this year May 13 and May 24.) However, contrary to what I thought, France only has one more holiday per year than the US. The major difference is that half the French holidays are Catholic ones (and you can bring that up next time one of your French friends mentions the proliferation of the phrase "God bless America" and how secular France is). In case you're curious (I know I was), the bank holidays in France are:

New Year's Day, Easter Monday, Labor Day (not the same day as the US, but the same idea), V Day (aka "the allies beat the Nazis day"), Ascension Thursday, Pentecost, Bastille Day, Assumption Day (yes, the day the Virgin Mary rose into heaven), All Saints Day, Armistice, and Christmas

For you non-Americans, US National holidays are:

New Year's, Martin Luther King Day, President's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day (aka July 4), Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans' Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The epitome of Paris in November.

Besides the religious quality of French national holidays, the other main difference is the time of year. France has the most holidays in the spring, which is nice because it's starting to warm up and everyone wants to play hooky anyway and lie around in the sun. The US has the most holidays in the fall and winter, which is even nicer, perhaps, because it's a time of year when it gets dark early and everything is black and white and gray, and everyone needs a little cheer.

That is what I love about Thanksgiving. Less pressure than Christmas because there are no presents to buy, Thanksgiving is just about sharing a good meal with family and/or friends. When the sky is low and drab as it has been for weeks here in Paris, that is exactly what I need! This year, we had Thanksgiving with Nick and Camille and a friend of theirs. It was a no stress, low key event (we all had to work thurs. and fri.) but like all meals with foodies, it was very yummy!

A ray of sun, quick, take a picture!

I made a version of this blue cheese potatoes au gratin that included the celeriac I got in my CSA and a chocolate pecan pie (basically my original recipe, but with less corn syrup and chopped chocolate added). We combined our CSA spinach into creamed spinach. Camille made her signature wild mushroom bread pudding, sweet potato/yam purée and delicious gravy, and Nick made turkey roast. We topped it all off with some good wine for a perfect November-blues-beating evening!

Homemade Chai for Autumn

2010-11-12T14:09:00.001+01:00

Two weeks ago my youngest sister came to visit me during her fall break from college and we cooked up a storm. She's always been an amazing baker, but now she's gotten more and more into cooking and is even one of the head cooks at her co-op (proud sister moment).

It's funny when siblings grow up. Like one minute they're stealing your toys, monopolizing your mom and pulling your hair and the next they're awesome people who you'd actually be friends with even if you didn't have to see them every Christmas.

You know, the kind of people you could walk through the Jardins de Luxembourg with in late autumn chatting about life, living abroad, college, pigeons, whatever and then go warm up with a cup of chai. Most especially my sister in the kind of person you can spend hours in a bookstore with. And that's often what we did. Our bookstore highlights:

1) In Shakespeare & Co, hearing a woman ask the salesperson to recommend her "something like The Little Prince or Moby Dick." (I was terribly curious and asked the salesperson later what he gave her. Answer: Of Mice and Men.)

2) Chatting in a second hand English book store with the owner, older than Methuselah, who had never heard of the Twilight series (hey, good for her) and whose recommendation to a woman who wanted "a romance with adventure, you know, an escapist book" was Gone With the Wind.

So next time you sit down with a good book like The Little Prince or Moby Dick (although personally I would not call that a good book) or Gone With the Wind, or something to your taste, make up some homemade chai to go with it. It's much better than store bought and making it has quickly become a relaxing afternoon ritual at my house. Sometimes I even serve it in the wedding china, which my three crazy and wonderful sisters gave to me and D.

Chai Masala

3 cups water
5 pods of cardamom
1 stick cinnamon
4 cloves
1 small piece of star anis
5 black peppercorns
1 sliver of fresh ginger, peeled
4 tsp tea (I use Margaret'Hope darjeeling from Bonthés et Accessoires)
1 cup whole milk
sweetener to taste (about 2 Tbsp sugar, for example)

Put the spices in a pot and mash a little to bruise them (crack the cardamom pods, etc). Add 3 cups of cold water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and let simmer 15 minutes. Add the tea and the milk and stir another 5mn on medium heat. Add the sweetener and stir until dissolved.

Strain and serve.

It's Okay Not to be Perfect Grape Syrup

2010-10-31T10:24:00.000+01:00

This morning, I did something I'd never done before: I left my apartment in my college sweatshirt (complete with holes I cut in the bottom of the sleeves for my thumbs to make half-mittens - winters are COLD where I went to school) and walked out onto the streets of Paris in it. Okay, so I went to the ATM machine and put my sister in a taxi for the airport, but still. This in a country where people put on their makeup to go to the boulangerie (the distance equivalent of going to the end of the driveway to get the paper in America). I thought "what was I so worried about before? That people would think I was American? I AM American." See, I've been so worried about fitting in for the past few years that I sometimes forget that it's okay to be me. Not perfect, not French, not a morning a person, and all that jazz.

So, in my new-found free to be me-ness, I'm going to admit that this grape syrup wasn't supposed to be grape syrup at all. It was supposed to be grape jelly. After getting grapes in my CSA, I was inspired by Camille's idea on Seasonal Market Menus 10/13. I looked up some jelly recipes and, frankly, it didn't look that hard. I've never made grape jelly before, but there's a first time for everything. (Maybe there still will be a first time for grape jelly, who knows.)

Here's what I did. I washed almost 3 lbs of grapes and boiled them in a pot until they were soft (about 15 minutes). I didn't have a jelly bag, or cheesecloth, so I let the grape pulp strain through a coffee filter for a few hours until the liquid had collected. I measure out the juice (I had 2 1/2 cups), put it in a pot and brought it to a boil. I slowly stirred in 2 1/2 cups white sugar and stirred constantly without letting it boil until the syrup had thickened (again about 15 minutes, maybe a bit less). Then I poured it into clean jars and set aside to cool.

If you try this recipe and get grape jelly from it, tell me how you did it! Also if you've successfully made grape jelly, I want to hear about it.

For now, I'm perfectly happy being me with my fresh grape syrup, which I've been eating on pancakes, over ice cream, in fruit salad... any way I can!

Harissa Carrot Salad with Feta

2010-10-22T12:29:00.000+02:00

In my recent post about Mary Sharp's hot sauce, I was complaining that France does not have any decent hot sauce. French cuisine, while wonderful in many respects, is severely lacking in the spicy department. The French are so resistant to spice that they don't have names for most kinds of hot pepper. In fact, if you ask someone at the market what kind of hot pepper they are selling, they will most likely respond by telling you the color of the pepper (Camille will back me up on this).

A couple do have names: there's the piment d'Espelette, but it comes from the Basque country, which - if you ask the Basque - is hardly part of France, and the pili-pili pepper, a South American pepper, which the French only know about because it's often used in African cooking. That pepper is better known to us as the kind they use in Tabasco sauce. Pili-pili is actually the African name for it, which the French have taken, just as we've taken jalepeño, habanero and many others from our neighbors to the south.

This brings us to the one kind of hot sauce you can easily find in France: harissa. Harissa is a North African chili paste that's common in Algeria and Tunisia (places where lots of French immigrants come from). It's made with different hot peppers and spices depending on the region. When I saw this this Carrot Salad with Harissa Feta and Mint over at Smitten Kitchen I knew it was perfect for the bundles and bundles of carrots that are already starting to grace our CSA and probably won't let up all winter. Don't get me wrong, I like carrots, but even if you're not crazy about them and/or sick of them, this recipe will get you excited about them again!

If you can't find harissa where you are, try using your favorite hot sauce in this recipe.

Harissa Carrot Salad with Feta

5 large carrots (about 1 1/3 lbs or 600g)
5 Tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp harissa (or to taste)
1 Tbsp sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp fresh mint, chopped
2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup of feta (about 100g)

Peel and grate the carrots and put in a large bowl.

In a small frying pan, heat 4 Tbsp olive oil and cook the garlic, cumin, harissa and sugar about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Pour over the carrots with the remaining Tbsp olive oil and mix well. Add the herbs and stir. Leave to infuse for at least an hour and stir in the feta before eating.

Enjoy!

Another Trip and Autumn

2010-10-12T17:20:00.018+02:00

Well I've been traveling again. This really is no good for my blog! I don't manage to travel and blog at the same time. I can't imagine what people do who have blogs about traveling. They are far more talented than I. Two of my very good friends from college got married last Friday and I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but heading back to the US so soon did quite a number on me, so while I get back to Paris time and back into the rhythm here, I will just share a few fun photos from out trip.

Despite summer drought leading to muted colors, absolutely nothing beats autumn maple trees

Edward Cullen, this means you!

Took D. apple picking for the first time

Someone in Western, MA is tired of leaf peepers!

But nobody is tired of golden leaves in the afternoon light.

(Thanks to D. for some of the photos)

Blancs de poulet au roquefort et légumes rôtis

2010-09-17T17:24:00.001+02:00

In English here.
Quand tu te maries, les gens veulent te donner des cadeaux. Parfois ils te donnent des trucs que tu voulais. Parfois ils te donnent des trucs que tu aurais voulu si tu y avais pensé. Parfois ils te donnent des trucs que tu ne voulais pas du tout. Et parfois ils te donnent... du Roquefort.

Eh oui, une des collègues de D. nous connaît très bien car, pour notre mariage, nous avons reçu un assortiment de Roquefort avec les assiettes à fromages qui vont avec (merci Martine) ! Alors ça, c'est une bonne idée de cadeaux. Nous avons tout de suite acheté du pain pour les goûter. Le Roquefort classique était délicieux comme d'habitude, sauf qu'il était encore mieux car il venait directement des caves. Notre préféré, avec du pain, était le Roquefort Caves Baragnaudes, plus fort que le classique, très goûteux et encore crémeux.

Le Roquefort Caves des Templiers avec ses grandes taches bleu était presque trop fort à manger tout seul. Donc, j'ai décidé d'en mettre dans des blancs de poulet et de les rôtir avec des légumes du panier bio - et là, c'était parfait !

Pour 2 personnes

2 blancs de poulet
2 c.s. de champignons mixtes
2 c.s. de Roquefort (Cave des Templiers ou autre)
2 c.c. de persil frais, émincé

2 courgettes
3 petites tomates
2 gousses d'ail
1/2 c.c. de thym
1/2 c.c. de romarin
1 c.c. de cumin moulu
sel, poivre

Préchauffer le four à 190ºC.

Inciser au couteau les blancs de poulet du milieu, décoller les 2 parties pour obtenir une large pièce. Au milieu, mettre 1 c.s. de champignon, 1 c.s. de Roquefort et 1 c.c. de persil par blanc de poulet. Fermer et tenir avec de la ficelle de cuisine ou des cure-dents pour que la farce reste bien à l'intérieur pendant la cuisson. Placer au centre d'un plat.

Peler et couper en 4 les gousses d'ail. Couper en dès les courgettes et tomates. Mélanger courgettes, tomates et ail avec le thym, romarin et cumin. Mettre dans le plat autour du poulet. Saler et poivrer.

Mettre au four et cuire environ 40 minutes, en remuant de temps en temps, jusqu'à ce que les légumes soient bien tendres et le poulet cuit.

Roquefort-Stuffed Chicken with Roasted Vegetables

2010-09-17T17:23:00.002+02:00

En français ici.
The thing about weddings is that people want to give you presents. Sometimes they give you presents you've asked for. Sometimes they give you presents you would have asked for if you had thought of it. Sometimes they give you presents you never would have asked for in a million years. And sometimes...they give you Roquefort.

One of D's work colleagues gave us an assortment of Roquefort cheeses direct from the caves in the town of Roquefort and cheese plates to go with them (thank you Martine)! Now that's my kind of present. We immediately got some good bread and set out to taste them. The first one we tasted was the Roquefort from the Cave des Templiers. This turned out to be the wrong order because it was the most astringent of the three: very strong and more crumbly than creamy. The traditional Roquefort was predictably classic: creamy with just a nice amount of tang and delicious. But our very favorite for straight eating was the Caves Baragnaudes, stronger and more pungent than the classic, but still creamy. Mmmm.

Because the Roquefort Cave des Templiers (with its impressive mold spots) was a bit astringent for straight eating on bread, it stood to reason that it would be perfect for cooking. I gave it a try in chicken with mushrooms, accompanied by roasted vegetables from the CSA and it was just amazing.

For 2 people

2 chicken breasts
2 Tbsp mixed mushrooms
2 Tbsp Roquefort
2 tsp fresh parsley

2 zucchinis
3 small tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp rosemary
1 tsp cumin
salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 375ºF/190ºC.

Pound the chicken breasts until they are a 1/2 inch thick. Place 1 tbsp mushrooms, 1 tbsp Roquefort and 1 tsp fresh parsley in each chicken breast and roll closed. Secure with kitchen string or toothpicks so the filling doesn't fall out. Place in the center of a baking pan.

Peel and quarter the garlic cloves. Chop the zucchinis and tomatoes into cubes. Toss zucchinis, tomatoes and garlic in a bowl with the olive oil, thyme, rosemary and cumin. Add to baking pan around the chicken, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste and put in the oven.

Cook about 40 minutes, until the vegetables are tender and the chicken is cooked through, stirring from time to time and spooning the juices from the veggies onto the chicken. Serve hot and enjoy!

Mary Sharp's de Belize et crevettes à l'ail piquantes

2010-09-10T08:54:00.001+02:00

In English here.
Le retour au français ! Je ne vais peut-être pas pouvoir mettre tous mes postes dans les deux langues cette année, mais je ferais de mon mieux. S'il y a des postes en anglais et que vous voulez des traductions ou des conversions, n'hésitez pas à me demander !

Depuis la dernière fois que vous m'avez lu (en français), je me suis mariée et j'ai passé ma lune de miel au Belize, un tout petit pays en Amerique Centrale, juste en dessous du Mexique et à côté du Guatemala. Une destination connue des touristes américains car c'est le seul pays dans la region où la langue officielle est l'anglais. Certains Français sont gênés de ne pas connaître le Belize quand j'en parle, mais pour vous mettre tout de suite à l'aise, quand nous avons dit que nous venions de Paris nous avons eu des réactions comme :

Et il fait comment en Espagne à cette époque de l'année ?

J'ai toujours voulu aller à Venise, c'est pas loin, n'est-ce pas ?

Ah oui... (regard un peu confus)

Bien sûr, dans un nouvel endroit il faut tester toutes les spécialités locales comme la sauce piquante Mary Sharp's qu'on trouvait partout dans le pays. Il y a quatre niveaux d'épices en commençant par mild (peu piquant) et finissant par beware (attention !) et il y a même une sauce piquant au pamplemousse !

J'en ai ramené à Paris pour faire des plats inspirés du Belize, comme ces crevettes à l'ail piquantes. J'avoue que le féta est plutôt Méditerrannéen, mais je suis pour le mélange des cultures ! Les mesures pour ce plat sont pour une personne car je l'ai fait quand j'étais seule à la maison pour le déjeuner. Eh oui, je cuisine de bons plats pour moi-même. Comme nous le rappelle Oscar Wilde dans Un Mari ideal : "S'aimer soi-même est le début d'une histoire d'amour qui durera toute une vie".

Ingrédients par personne

150g de crevettes
1 c.s. d'huile d'olive
4-5 bulbes de cébette, coupés en 4
2 tiges de celeri, coupés en dès
2 gousses d'ail, hachées
une bonne poignée de persil haché
1 c.c. de paprika
quelques gouttes de sauce piquante (au pamplemousse si vous en trouvez !)
2 c.s. de féta

Chauffer l'huile dans une poêle. Mettre à cuire les bulbes de cébette 3-5 minutes. Ajouter celeri, ail, et persil et cuire encore 2-3 minutes. Ajouter crévettes, paprika et sauce piquante et cuire à feux doux jusqu'à ce que les crevettes soit cuites (7 à 10 minutes). Eteindre le feu et saupoudrer de féta. Melanger et servir chaud.

Belize Ingredients: Marie Sharp's Hot Sauce and Garlic Shrimp

2010-09-10T08:53:00.001+02:00

En français ici.
Belize is country in Central America, just below Mexico and next to Guatemala. Some of you probably know that already, although it's not a very common destination for Europeans. Many of the French people I've told about our honeymoon are embarrassed not to know where it is (some guess Africa!), but I put them to ease by telling them some of the reactions we got from Belizeans when we said we were from Paris:

Oh nice, what's the weather in Spain like this time of year?

Oh, I've always wanted to go to Venice. That's near there, right?

Ah...(vague looks of uncertainty)

Of course, one of the best things about being on vacation is checking out the local specialties and we made sure to do plenty of that in Belize. One wonderful discovery was the ubiquitous Belize-made hot sauce: Mary Sharp's. This habanero sauce comes in heat levels from mild to beware and it even comes in a grapefruit flavor, which is pretty exciting. I'd never had citrus hot-sauce before! Of course I had to bring some home to spice up life after the honeymoon. Paris, despite all its good qualities, is severely lacking in hot sauce.

I plan to make many delicious dishes like this hot Belizean take on garlic shrimp. There is definitely a lot of sea-food in Belize, although the addition of feta makes this a bit more Mediterranean than Central American. The measures are per person because I made this for myself when I was alone at home for lunch. Yes, I do cook nice food for myself. I think one should. As Oscar Wilde reminds us in An Ideal Husband: "To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

Ingredients per person

150g shrimp
1 Tbsp olive oil
4-5 green onions (the bulb at the end of a scallion) or 1 small yellow onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 tsp paprika
hot sauce to taste (grapefruit hot sauce if you can get it!)
2 Tbsp feta

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan. Add the onion and cook 3-5 minutes. Add the celery, garlic and parsley and cook another 2-3 minutes. Add the shrimp, paprika and hot sauce and simmer until the shrimp is warm and cooked through 7-10 minutes. Turn off heat and crumble in the feta. Stir and serve warm.

Allspice is a Spice and Nectarine-Plum Pie

2010-09-01T09:42:00.001+02:00

In order to keep one's sanity when getting married, it is entirely necessary to put away your camera and (lesson I learned a bit too late) get someone else to answer your phone for you. As a result, I don't have any photos of the rehearsal dinner - though I can say I made a kick-ass pasta salad with my friend Tony - nor of the food at the wedding - though I was VERY pleased with the caterer, who was a real foodie and made a delicious buffet, most of which I couldn't eat because I was too emotional. Luckily someone DID get photos of the delicious cupcakes and you can hear all about them here (thanks Camille!): The Great Cupcake Extravaganza.

On our honeymoon in Belize, I likewise told myself I wasn’t going to be taking culinary photos or thinking about my blog. But, of course, I didn’t stop thinking about FOOD (heaven forefend)! As we were traipsing through subtropical rain forest in the mountains, our guide crushed a leaf and handed it to me. “What do you think?” he said. “Um, smells like cloves,” I said. “Smells like allspice,” said someone else. And here I learned something important: Allspice is a spice!

I know that SOUNDS like stating the obviously, but I seriously thought it was a combination of spices, like the French version quatres épices (a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and ginger). But no, it’s a plant! You probably all knew that already, but just pretend you think it’s cool because I’m excited. The spice we buy in the US is made from the berries (sort of like peppercorns). The leaves apparently lose their fragrance when dried. So you have to live in a place where it grows to use them.

Also on our honeymoon, D. bought me a beautiful hardwood rolling pin. I argued that a rolling pin was not a very practical souvenir, being long and heavy, hard to fit in a suitcase and probably not legal as a carry on. BUT D. was having visions of pies and I’m already learning to say “yes dear”.

Now that I'm back in Paris, I have to remember to always make time to do my wifely duties. Now, now get your minds out of the gutter. I mean making pies. Like this seasonal pie with allspice. Look for the recipe here: Nectarine - Greengage Pie with a Gingerbread Crust. Next time, for a real Central American twist, I think I'll simmer the fruit in One Barrel Rum first. Seriously, best rum in the world. When we finish the bottle, I might cry. More about that and other Belizean ingredients soon...

Summer Vacation

2010-08-07T19:33:00.005+02:00

Well, I was hoping to fit in one more entry but I’ve been much too busy. So here we are. In grand French tradition, I’m putting my blog on pause until the end of the summer.

D. and I are getting married on August 14^th, then we'll be off on our honeymoon.

More about food, festive and otherwise, when I return in September. Have a wonderful month of August!

St Benoit du Sault and Garam Masala Salmon with Zucchini

2010-07-20T16:35:00.001+02:00

I got home Sunday night from La Creuse where I performed in 10 shows in 7 different villages in 15 days and, after sleeping 14-hours straight (I don't think I got more than five hours sleep maximum per night since I left), found that my blog had been taken over by the cats! Those crazy furry creatures!

I may have been eating badly - yuck school cafeteria food - but it was in all other aspects a wonderful experience. I acted in a French Medieval farce entitled Frère Guillebert, directed another entitled Naudet ou le Gentilhomme, and "coreographed" (and I use the term very lightly) the cabaret portion of a dinner theater evening. When we took the farces to a number of small villages (the smallest had 90 inhabitants), we did excerpts, teasers for the final show which took place in front of the church in St Benoit du Sault.

Despite the hot weather (worse when you're wearing at least three layers of skirts), it was a beautiful place to be. The town is gorgeous and it's close to a lake where, despite working 20-hour days most of the time, we managed to get some swimming in, in between memorizing lines the first couple of days.

The only interesting culinary moment was the afternoon where the entire troupe prepared the food for the dinner theater. I made fruit salad for 55 people - enough peaches and apples and kiwis and bananas to take a bath in - and hard boiled, iced and shelled at least that many eggs. The only frustrating thing was that we didn't get to eat anything we'd made!

Yesterday, I was thrilled to finally be able to cook for myself again and for lunch, I let thaw a salmon steak I had in the freezer, cooked some zucchini in olive oil and fresh thyme. I rubbed the salmon with garam masala, pushed the zucchini to the sides of the pan to let it slowly caramelize there and cooked the salmon. Then I served both with a simple tomato salad (no industrial dressing- yes!). It felt like the best meal in the whole world - until dinner when D. made my world a better place by making roast chicken and potatoes. It doesn't get any better than that.

And Now a Word From the Cats...

2010-07-11T09:00:00.001+02:00

Hello there foodie readers. Hopie is away dressing up in funny clothes and talking strangely somewhere that's not here. But we like food too!
Yes, we do, especially cat food.
Yes, I especially like food. Marcel, I'm telling this story, be quiet.
Edgar, these people can't pet us. Why are we talking to them?
Because, blog is Hopie's favorite TOY and I want to play! Anyway, there are all too many photos of human dinner already on this site and they would like to see some photos of something much prettier.
And softer too! Perfect for petting.
Right.

Here we are doing some research for our big blogpost.
Don't we look pettable?

And here's Edgar strategizing how to get the computer open. He's probably too busy to be pet. I'm not! I'm not!

See?

I am the mastermind behind this blog post. And I want tuna.

Here we are resting and cleaning ourselves. We are very clean cats. Especially if someone gives us tuna.

Or pets us.
Hopie told us she would come back so she'll probably want to tell you about more human food. You don't have to tell her we played with her toy. She doesn't usually like that. You could tell her how well-behaved we are.
And how adorable.
We're off to take a nap. All this playing is tiring!

Summer Salads and Two Week Workshop

2010-07-02T14:30:00.000+02:00

For the next couple of weeks I will be in the beautiful village of St. Benoit du Sault in the center of France with no internet. I went on this workshop last year (you may remember me complaining about the food), but this year is going to be even more interesting because the director received financing from the region and we will be touring in a number of small villages doing medieval farce.

So while I'm busy singing, acting and directing (I feel a bit over my head on that one, but the director insists it will be alright), here are some summer salads to help keep you cool!

Feta and Caramelized Onion Pasta Salad

Gotta start with pasta salad. It's classic but oh-so-delicious. Perfect for anytime of year really, but one of the stars of summer barbecues and picnics. And of course anything with caramelized onions is on my list of favorites!

Curry Potato Salad

What picnic would be complete without a potato salad? Here, it is definitely picnic weather (dinner picnics mind you - too hot midday)!

Red and White Quinoa Salad with Fresh Basil

Add fresh herbs to pretty much anything in the summer and you're good. This salad is a nice change, lighter than pasta, but a bit more hearty than lettuce-based salads.

Cucumber Salad with Feta and Pine Nuts

This is one of the most cooling salads I know. Perfect for those days when you feel just too hot to eat anything. Also, fancy enough to serve to guests if you're looking for a light appetizer.

Mediterranean Lentil Salad

Last, but not least, you can serve this salad warm or cold so it's perfect for all seasons, but with fresh tomato and cucumber, it's definitely delicious in the summer.

I could go on and on about salads but I think this post is long enough and I need to go sit in front of a fan somewhere instead of in front of a hot computer! How about you guys? What are your favorite summer salads?

Modern Alchemy and Radish Leaf Pesto

2010-06-22T09:00:00.000+02:00

For centuries alchemists tried to turn base metals into gold and discover the elixir of life, a preoccupation that ebbed perhaps with modern science, but still features often in modern fiction. It seems to me that it's not just the end result that's important, but the fact of starting with nothing, or something that isn't worth anything. Actually, this may be what seduces people about magic in general, making something wonderful out of something useless (a ball dress out of a rag, a sparkling coach and four out of a pumpkin and mice). It's something children are quite good at - "let's say the slide is a castle and under it is the dungeon!" - and something postmodern artists try very hard to recapture.

But, of course, the easiest way to perform this sort of transformation magic, is cooking. The whole point of putting together ingredients is to come up with something better than the sum of its parts. Often the ingredients are magic in themselves: fresh fruit and veggies in season, choice cuts of meat, dark chocolates, fragrant wines and oils. But not always...

The idea for making radish leaf pesto came from a comment Camille left on my post about Delicate Radish Leaf Soup. Already, I was excited to have found a use for a part of the radish I had been previously throwing way, but I have to say I felt like a true alchemist after making this radish pesto. Here were these prickly, unappetizing green leafy things turning into something divine that could be used in a hundred different ways (see photos for a couple of the ones I tried). Pure culinary magic!

Do any of you have recipes like that? Ones that start with an unassuming ingredient, or one that you don't very much like, and end up amazing? I'm pretty sure every foodie has a bit of alchemist in there somewhere.

Radish Leaf Pesto

2 cups radish leaves, washed and tightly packed
1/2 cup walnuts (or your nut of choice)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (or the hard cheese of your choice)
1/2 cup olive oil
pepper to taste

Put the radish leaves, nuts, garlic and cheese in a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Add the olive oil in a thin stream while pulsing until you reach the desired consistency. (Some people like it more or less thick. It also depends what you plan to do with it!) Add pepper to taste. (I don't add salt because the cheese is salty, but taste it and see what you think.) Adjust balance as desired.

Serve with pretty much anything you like: on pasta, on fish, in salads. You name it, pesto probably makes it better.

Cherry Almond Muffins

2010-06-15T09:00:00.001+02:00

Last week, there was a large bag of fresh peas in the panier bio. Fresh peas are delicious but rather time consuming and so they sat there, in the fridge, waiting... Then one afternoon, the mom of one of the kids I babysit for called to say that she'd kept her child home for the day and she didn't need me. At first I thought "oh good, I can catch up on the million things I have to do" but these days I spend all my time running around already. So, I decided to spend the afternoon shelling peas instead. Let me tell you, it was one of the best afternoons that week.

I find there's something meditative in those sorts of cooking tasks:

Snap one end
Pull down the fiber
Open the pod
Run thumb down the middle
Listen to the peas fall into the bowl
Throw pod on the pod-pile
Repeat

My mind just goes blank, or else muses slowly over its thoughts, stopping only shortly on one thing or another. I imagine myself in a time when life was slower, when you couldn't buy everything easily frozen, peeled, cubed in the supermarket, where cooking was what you spent a large part of your day doing (unless you could hire a cook and then she spent her day doing it). I'm not saying I'd want to go back to that. I'm very grateful for a number of time-saving conveniences in the kitchen. Still, there's something satisfying about doing things by hand or from scratch from time to time. It's like taking the scenic route. Sure, it's not the fastest way from A to B, but it does get you there and you're liable to see some beautiful views along the way.

What about muffins?? Yes, I'm getting there (I'm taking the scenic route, see?). Shelling peas reminded me how restful cooking can be and, as a result, I got up early on Saturday morning to make muffins. Well, to be honest, I got up early because the cats wouldn't stop meowing, scratching the door, and then, when I let them in, biting my toes.

I decided to let D. sleep in and keep the cats company while pitting cherries from the panier bio. The cherries we got were not the best for eating (some were too ripe, some not ripe enough), but I thought they'd be perfect for cooking. Don't worry, you can also make this recipe with canned or frozen cherries. But if you need a break from this quick-turn-around-fast-fast world, I recommend pitting fresh cherries by hand and letting the juice run down to your elbows to stain the placemats.

wet ingredients:
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
1/2 tsp almond extract

dry ingredients:
3/4 cup white flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (you can use all white or all wheat, but I like a combination)
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup cherries, pitted and halved

1/4 cup sliced almonds
1 Tbsp brown sugar

Preheat the oven to 400F. Grease muffin tin or put in liners. In a large bowl, beat the egg and add the milk, oil and almond extract. Stir well. In a separate bowl mix together the dry ingredients. Add to wet ingredients and mix batter. Don't overmix! Gently fold in the cherries. In a small bowl, combine the sliced almonds and brown sugar and mix.

Fill each muffin cup to about 2/3 full and sprinkle each muffin with the almond/brown sugar mixture. Bake at 400ºF for 20 min or until the muffins are plump and golden brown on top.

Suspicious Translations

2010-06-10T14:26:00.006+02:00

One of the joys of living in another country is seeing how people translate their language into yours. In Paris, approximate English is something of a local sport. Something great is "top"; someone who goes on and on about themselves "raconte sa life"; when a French person says his "planning" is full, he means his schedule, and if you are pretending to be offended by something you might say "I am shocking!" (I've tried pointing that this has the opposite of the desired meaning but no one seems to care.)

Of course there are these sorts of abuses of the French language in English too. "A la mode" certainly doesn't mean with ice cream, au naturel has nothing to do with being naked, an entrée is an appetizer, and a début (as in first performance) in French is actually called a première.

My favorite though is the ways menus and signs are translated, like this gem I found near metro Rome in the 17th arrondisment. Oh good, alcool (a cool dude named Al?) and stranger wine. I usually buy the kind of wine I share with friends, of course, but you never know when you might need some to give to a stranger. Problem solved!

Mixed Season Salad

2010-05-28T11:05:00.000+02:00

The weather is finally getting warmer (even if yesterday I did get drenched to the bone in a thunderstorm after waiting two hours just to pick up my renewed visa), and that means summer food. The only problem is that my CSA doesn't seem to be coorperating. Sure, we have been getting strawberries (mmm, with a little sugar and homemade whipped cream with grand-marnier...), but we've also been getting potatoes, carrots, turnips, radishes and other winter-y roots.

Still, there are more or less winter-y ways to eat root vegetables and I've been doing my best to fade out soups and bring in the salads! The added advantage to salads is that they make a good quick lunch in between babysitting, rehearsing, acting, running the Memory Motel blog (the trailer for the show is up now and there are no actual words, so all you non-French speakers have no excuse not to watch it!), and a host of other things that keep me from having any social life at the moment.

This salad can be modified depending on what you have in the fridge. Feel free to experiment and let me know how it goes!

Look at all that sun coming in my window!

(For one person)

1 potato
a small handful of frozen peas
a small handful of radishes, sliced
1 tomato, diced
a pinch of fresh parsley
2 slices of bacon (optional), cooked to a crisp and crumbled
a few black olives
your favorite vinaigrette

Fill a small saucepan with water; add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Peel and dice the potato and add to the boiling water. Boil 10 minutes. Add the peas and boil 5 more minutes. Drain the water and let cool while you prepare the rest.

Mix together the radishes, tomato, parsley, bacon and olives. Add the potatoes and peas and drizzle with vinaigrette. Mix together and eat!

Delicate Radish Leaf Soup

2010-05-18T14:40:00.000+02:00

Je m'excuse d'avance auprès de mes lecteurs français : pour l'instant je n'ai pas le temps de traduire mes entrées en français. J'ai décidé de continuer à poster mais uniquement en anglais. J'espère reprendre le format bilingue à la rentrée (au plus tard). D'ici là, vous pouvez en profiter pour pratiquer votre anglais ! Et vous pouvez bien sûr continuer à poster des commentaires ou des questions en français.

My mom and sister tell a funny story about trying to order a dish with snow peas in a Chinese restaurant. The waitress kept saying "peas leaves, peas leaves" and they finally decided that must be how she called them. It turns out she brought them a dish of actual sautéd peas leaves, not at all what they expected. They tried to send it back, but she kept insisting they would like it. So they gave it a try, to the apparent delight of their taste buds!

I had a bit of the same sceptical reaction when a friend of mine excitedly gave me his recipe for radish leaf soup. Really? Radish leaves? Those tiny, prickly, unappetizing things? He insisted I should try it and put the recipe on my blog. It certainly makes me the conservationist in me happy not to throw out the leaves of the organic radishes I've been getting weeks in a row in my CSA, so I gave it a try.

Well it turns out that radish leaves have a very nice, rather delicate flavor and make a perfect spring soup for an appetizer or light meal. I think this would be particularly nice with some garlic bread or homemade croutons. Hmmm...

2 Tbsp olive oil
1 onion, diced
leaves from 1 bunch of radishes
1 pinch cumin
1 pinch sage
4 cups vegetable/chicken stock
3 potatoes, peeled and cubed
salt and pepper to taste

Heat the olive oil in a medium-sized saucepan. Cook the onion a few minutes until translucent. Wash the radish leaves and add to the pot. Cook 2-3 minutes until leaves are wilted. Add the cumin and sage and stir. Add the stock. Bring to a boil and add the potatoes. Simmer about 15 minutes until the potatoes are tender. Blend with an immersion blender or in a mixer. Serve hot.