la fromagette

Les Fromagettes, Part III

2011-07-13T21:00:00.001+02:00

On a Wednesday night at sundown in Prospect Park, the Brooklyn contingent of Les Fromagettes commenced. An original fromagette (aka a dairy queen), a new-to-nyc one, and me.

We loaded our day bags with chevre and cava and found a spot beneath a tree, just kitty-corner to the Little League fields, to spread Lively Run's fresh chevre across crostini and enjoy the delicious Picolin on baguette. I brought one I don't recommend (Tickelmore - range of textures, 'not too goaty' she said - that should have been my clue) and Sara had one from Union Square Greenmarket that we didn't like too much - "is that spice oil on the top?" I asked, "no, it's mold" Sara replied, and we peered in curiously to see the bizarre spread of mold across the top.

A thunderstorm came down and in its wake, two rainbows, and soon after that, fireflies.

We're back in action - an agenda, a book - Cheese Primer - and regular meetings have begun. Les Fromagettes des Brooklyn!

Bajan Food

2011-07-13T16:28:00.005+02:00

A few weeks ago, when we abandoned plans for two weeks in Thailand due to the apartment purchase that gets closer and closer, we turned to Lonely Planet and flipped through to find a Caribbean island with the following: not too far, gorgeous beaches, no resort, good food, available flights and lodging. Descriptions of Indian and West African influence kept me coming back to Barbados, foods I'd never had like cou cou and cutters and snowy colored yams. Jet Blue had flights, we found a secluded guest house on a less populated side of the island, and packed our bags for five days of beaches, sun, and Bajan food.

Fish cutters were the first order of business when we arrived - these flying fish sandwiches with lettuce, cucumber, seasoned fish and Bajan hot sauce (picture a turmeric colored sauce with bits of red pepper showing through) are a staple. Our first cutter was at a casual shack of a beach bar that served only these, along with Banks beer or fresh coconut water. We enjoyed both along the breezy east coast and this one was our best on the trip. We had others - one at a plantation rum factory in a more tea-sandwich style, one in the airport - and while they were better than usual fast food or quick lunch choices, the first at Seaside Bar with its perfect ratio of salt bread to fish to hot sauce to cucumber, was best.

The hot sauce was served with everything from our plantains to start our dinner at Sea-U to the plate of fried flying fish with Creole breadfruit and okra (pictured above) to the fish cakes we had along the river in Bridgetown.

Not everything was hot sauce - there was a stone-heavy piece of bread pudding and a flaky coconut scone from Paris Bakery in B'town and sugar cakes. I prefer a bay leaf sugar cake, but the heady nutmeg one they made at Sea-U our last night as well as the coconut one I bought from a grandmother on a Saturday outside the major supermarket were the best. Coconut and banana bread started each breakfast, and better yet, at a mediocre tourist restaurant we had fabulous zucchini bread - toasty with cream on the side - to close a rainy, dark Sunday night dinner.

With the exception of a beach picnic of New Zealand cheddar on cream biscuits with a fresh mango and Pringles on the side, we ate Bajan the whole trip and loved every minute of it. Our last night at Sea-U we were treated to a Bajan Buffet - eddo soup (a variety of taro or dasheen) followed by seasoned fish, moonlit roasted sweet potatoes, squash simmered tender and plantains baked with cheese. There was also a discussion about the dolphin fish some people ate for dinner - I heard 'dolphin' and had images of The Cove. Only later, after a conversation reminiscent of French ones ("it's not an apple, but it's the shape of an apple and has a different taste" - quince):

Liam: Where do you get it?
Chef: right here at the fish market
Liam: Where do they get it?
Chef: they catch it
Liam: right here?
Chef: yes

did we determine it was a dolphin fish, aka mahi mahi.

We closed our trip with a sweaty trip to Andromeda Botanic Gardens with cool glasses of fresh squeezed juice at the Hibiscus Cafe before we crossed the gorgeous island again to head back to the airport with a full-on history of Bajan food tour with our cab driver, Ms. Thompson. Each beep beep and 'yiiiip' to her friends and colleagues along the road was a reminder that we were headed back to Brooklyn, a ginger sugar cake and coconut pastries in our bag for the plane ride.

Michelin in South Slope

2011-06-19T23:42:00.004+02:00

For months, I have been skeptical of the Michelin mentions in my neighborhood. To me, Thistle Hill Tavern is too inconsistent - a great sounding menu but bizarre seating norms ("it will be just about 5 minutes" when the restaurant is half-empty), food that sometimes is fabulous but difficult to eat (roasted seeds! yum! in a cast iron pot so hot I burn my fingers every time I stick them in the pot to get the seeds ...) and sometimes isn't delicious at all. We ate there several times, and then I gave up (even after finding out one of the owners was Fat Mike. Punk In Drublic tunes float through my mind ... but those almonds in that weird pasta dish just ruin it!). Now, they have a B rating. Still staying out of there.

Then there's Fonda - if Dona Tomas moved to Brooklyn, decreased in flavor profiles, and added lots of raw onions, you'd have Fonda. The cheese (without chorizo) and dipped in home made tortillas is good, but the mains all taste the same - veg, shrimp, Liam comparing to meat, we find they're pretty similar. Last visit I had to eat a bite of salty shrimp, then dip into refried beans for relief from the salt, then into the tasteless rice, then decide I should focus on texture, not flavor. Cafe de olla is a good way to end the meal, and desserts are ok, but last time I was there the cilantro in the fresh made guacamole was so musty my resentment for $10 guac increased. Also mentioned in Michelin.

I get it - some anonymous Michelin rater lives in my hood and skulks around eating at these places and nominates them at some meeting just to get them mentioned since there are less places around here mentioned, but really? Are there not standards any more for mentions? And now that there are ratings for cleanliness, are we not paying attention? I've lost a little faith in Michelin - but now we're moving up the Slope so I'll never run into this anonymous reviewer anyway ......

Cardamon to carry me to spring

2011-02-27T17:28:00.003+01:00

Cardamon Vanilla Pound Cake. Chaiwalla's chai tea. Cardamon gelato on ginger pear crisp.
More pulla.

Since the plan for making it through winter with fondue has been working so beautifully, I've decided on cardamon to get me through March. Longest month. Spring still too far away. Brief warm spells only slight distractions from freezing mornings. 5pm light is still nice, but it's not light out when I leave work. Kale and broccoli rabe and canned tuna have gotten us through, but we still long for spring greens.

Enter cardamon(m).

For the last three years I've made myself this pound cake for my birthday, toasting it as the week goes on and topping it every day with sweetened whipped cream. Milky cups of tea are still getting us through Saturdays without the heat on but I needed something spicy. Sweet. Fragrant. Hopeful. Cardamon.

Fighting Winter with Food Traditions

2011-02-20T15:23:00.003+01:00

At the Valentine's at Home Dinner Table last week, Liam and I talked through traditions we want to establish for our family. Liam wants us to integrate traditions that are from our childhood - for him, clamming, boating and hanging out at the beach in Newport. As we talked through summer traditions and travel dreams and plans, we eradicated our pot of fondue au cremant, our new favorite recipe. It's been part of making-it-through-winter plan, along with bringing back the traditions of other places we've lived - gallette des rois (pictured) for example (although this one was stale and returned to Almondine Bakery).

In addition to fondue au cremant, we have relied on grapefruit split in half after dinner for dessert, steel-cut-oats toasted with butter and spiced and finished with milk cooked on Sunday for the week, variations on pasta with tuna and tomatoes from Marcella's silky sauce to a chunkier canned version Jasmine sent our way with olives and chick peas, 2 California stem-on satsumas as an after-lunch snack and of course, loaves of pulla to keep it spicy and comforting when it's 21 outside and 7 with windchill.

Just heard the weather report - he said that we still have significant storm systems that come each year in March. I'm hoping for a snow-free birthday, longer days in just a few weeks and one more month of the woolliest suits until spring rears it's green head.

2011 Food Intentions

2011-01-16T19:16:00.003+01:00

2010 was the year to pare it down. Working on preparing food in advance to lend itself to dinner in less than 30 minutes and eating more whole grains for breakfast, all the while figuring out to do it all the first year of the school.

By the time the new school year started this summer, I'd figured out more dinners, caught up on the blog and dined at Blue Hill (another picture to the left). By the close of 2010, I'd eaten so many olive oil tortas I'd finally tired of them, dreamed of a few more food adventures, and continue to force myself to drink more water each day.

I also spent a lot of my energy in 2010 attempting to read 50 books (and by 1/1/11 I had!) and figuring out how to double the size of my school and staff with still just one of me. I met my goal of going to the gym more often and with the help of a trainer, am working out enough that I needed to eat more as well. We dined at many old favorites and new, and I did my best to chronicle this through yelp.

2011 - I'm going to keep reading, but put my focus back on writing and finish my YA novel.
When it comes to food, I still need to figure out a system for cooking more on Sundays (initial forays into freezing shells stuffed with mozzarella, ricotta and radicchio worked well), drink more water, and eat whole grains in the winter for breakfast. I also want to go to a new restaurant each month - right now I'm thinking about Franco-Korean pastries, new Italian places, French restaus in hotels with a focus on fish, and the elusive Korean taco.

As part of my writing goal, I also plan to blog more. Really. I do. Bonne Annee!

Pulla and Chai

2010-12-23T14:16:00.004+01:00

In our quest to keep winter away, to reduce the amount of times we yearn for the Lake Merritt farmer's market in January or the fact my sweaters were nearly all 3/4 length when we left California, we continue to seek ways to enjoy winter, embrace it, endure it.

In this vein, there's very little that an expensive version of a daily treat can't fix - chai from Chaiwalla (purchased at bklyn larder). At $19/bag I was skeptical for months, "can this tea truly be any better than the recipe I've been using for 15 years from Sundays at Moosewood?" It's different, and it's worth it. A tablespoon of tea and sugar (I rarely add sugar to my chai - only if it's in the recipe do I add enough of it) combined with a cup of hot water and a cup of milk - heat until boiled - and we have creamy cups of fragrant chai at our fingertips (and still less per cup than the 3.55 cups purchased anywhere from Cafe Grumpy to Starbucks).

Along with the chai, we've been spreading pieces of pulla thick with butter and crunchy with my barely ground cardamon pods and pairing them each weekend morning, afternoon, and after dinner. I've made this recipe twice, happier the first time than the second - I braided it less evenly, had to cook it longer, and it wasn't as moist when finished - throwing one loaf in the freezer for the few days it takes us to eat the first. It sits on my desk all day, the aroma tempting me, until I dig into it mid-morning with a cup of gen mai cha (already had my black tea for the morning and need to wrap my hands around something warm but not as caffeinated) before I head down to lunch duty.

The sheepskin sleepers, flannel sheets, flannel pjs, willingness to turn on the heat as soon as we get home and the jaunt to Hawaii have helped us weather our 3rd east coast winter since college, but these small treats actually help us look forward to starting a day that might involve digging out the car or darting black ice and puddles on our way out each day - and in the end, it's cheaper per experience than knocking out each pre-Oscar-film we want to see at the Angelika (or BAM).

A Cheese to take Winter Away

2010-12-23T14:05:00.003+01:00

The weekend before the coldest week thus far in Brooklyn, we went into Bklyn Larder, asking Liam as we made our way to the cheese counter, "what kind of cheese do you want?" and he replied, "a cheese to take away winter." We passed this on to the cheese guy, and because people at Larder are kind and fun and whimsical and love cheese, he gave us suggestions.

We started with a few that had been paired with Brandy recently - Wildspitz, a raw cow and goat that was funky and creamy and had the most delicious texture and weirdest aftertaste that we were immediately smitten. Following we tried Coolea, something about gouda style and Ireland and a rich orange glow that also ended up in our bag. Before we left, we made a quick swoop for some Gruyere, say, 14 oz of it, with visions of fondue in our heads.

On an evening with our electric heat on and darkness that fell at 4:50, Liam took the lead in heating the Austrian wine, shredding the gruyere (and emmental that we picked up later for texture), and stirring it all together to pair with the carrots and potatoes that I'd steamed earlier, along with local granny smith, a few cornichon and half of a baguette. Except for the part where we didn't get the Sterno and set up the pot and attempted to keep it from congealing in the pan pictured above, it was incredible - cheesy without being too boozy, creamy without being too stringy, covering the potatoes like the silkiest raclettes we had in France. It was delicious enough that I brought it to work the next day, sitting in a meeting with a spoon and knife fishing hunks of cheese out of the separated liquid and inspiring envy from my staff - just the way to take winter away.

Dinner(s) a la Provencal

2010-07-29T18:46:00.004+02:00

In the life I led before Principal-ing, we had people over for dinner monthly - thematic affairs based on that month's Cookbook Club selection or a new piece of kitchen equipment (housewarming fondue set!). I also spent a significant amount of time shopping, eating, selecting, tasting, and attending cheese club, dinner club and cookbook club. There was a lot of food, and a lot of community, and I maintained strong opinions about where to buy the best eggplant and the best feta a woman could buy for her Mediterranean feast.

As I pulled the tarte from the oven that we learned at La Pitchoune on Tuesday, and set out Madhur's crisp zucchini fritters, I remembered those days. The busy clanking of 30 minutes before guests and still need to heat the oil, dip the zucchini and give the soft yogurt cheese with feta one more stir.

I love this pace.

In fact, it's the same pace I love at 7:45 am when 100 students have trooped up 4 flights and are settling in for another day with some of the most fantastic teachers in this city, portfolios out, pencils sharpened, silently reading to themselves as they await the day's preparation for college.

I digress.

I miss dinner parties. Entertaining. Talking about markets and why we should have used a more commercial brie for the walnut salad and how did the basil infuse the sugar so well in the lemon basil sherbet. That's why this week was a shift - Cheyenne and Fernando over on Tuesday for dinner a la Provencal and a newly formed Principals book club where we promise not to talk about work and instead approach the same themes (family dysfunction, race relations, income levels, relationships) through recently published books.

Menu was in large part the same both nights - doubled up on the zucchini and sauce, made two tartes, and set aside fixings for two different salades. Last night I supplemented with kale leftover from Sunday's juice fast that became kale chips, sun gold tomatoes sat with soft pulls of mozzarella and the end of the basil turned into a July salad and the puff pastry that encased the brie Tuesday became cheese straws the next day. Four of us finished sherbet the first night, so it was a fruit bowl on Wednesday.

Without jinxing myself, can I say I'm back in the swing of things?

Best Eats: Mid-Summer

2010-07-20T23:04:00.003+02:00

With 3 weeks before I'm faced with a full staff of teachers and 6 until students, I figured it was time to capture the best eats I've had thus far this summer. Last week's Blue Hill dinner was, of course, fantastic, but there have been some other highlights as well.

Our return to Oakland was full of delicious bites - from eating Frog Hollow peaches and Recchuitti caramels on Becky and Chris' back porch to enjoying a glass of Sardinian white and a cheese plate at Adesso, good food and good friends. Jasmine and I had greatness at Commis, bar seating, with 6 courses of thoughtful dishes (beet soup with unripe pickled strawberries?), a return to the anchovy-amazingness of Dopo's house pie and her apricot dessert (along with Mat and Jennifer's cherry one) at our chilly 4th of July cook out.

By myself I've embarked on rediscovery, enjoying a grilled cheese with sun dried tomatoes, basil and caciocavello cheese at Ground Support, reading a Laurie Colwin book with a bag from Anthropologie tucked underneath the wide wood table. I've tried twice for Earl Grey at the Van Leewan ice cream truck and have come up with mint chocolate chip instead. After dropping an out of town friend off in Williamsburg, I parked illegally outside Saltie to get two chocolate nudges and a lavendar shortbread and we inhaled at the movies. Mornings find me sifting, whisking and enjoying Kama matcha with white toast and fresh butter.

Liam and I shared an old favorite, Fenton's Black and Tan (above) on the 4th and have delved into new and old favorites back in New York as well. One night it was banh mi, sweating upstairs at Num Pang, another, we slid into stylish seats at Balaboosta and dredged fried olives through labneh. This week, we re-visited the bigger and better Tanoreen and after gorging ourselves on our favorite mezze, ordered the "large" knafeh which is one of the best desserts I've had all summer. Shredded filo dough baked over two types of cheeses and comes to the table melting, crispy and just a hint of rosewater deliciousness. Dessert leftovers - the best kind!

My love affair with Pantaleo continues, and enjoyed it this week on a pole bean salad at Franny's, and hope to use it in salads for two gatherings here next week - which, looking at the forecast, will both involve salads -hopefully as good as the ones I had at Bebe's bday party in Pittsfield!

Vacation is over, summer hours continue, trying to soak in all of the heat and sun now so we can complain less come December, although today I think I just need to drink some water.

Blue Hill at Stone Barns

2010-07-16T18:23:00.005+02:00

Several weeks ago, Liam was looking at my bank statement and asked what I was going to do with my 37,000 points from my credit card. I thought he was kidding. I ended up with transfer into my checking account for $375. This gave me the idea to spend this free money on a dinner. A dinner that I could enjoy best in the summer. To celebrate the end of the school year. Perhaps on a farm away from the city. Blue Hill it is.

5pm dinners for 8 courses are fine with me and we arrived early to tour blazing hot pastures and steam ourselves in the gorgeous green house. We met with a counsel of turkeys and then spied on garlic drying and butterflies and bees pollinating. We were stopped in the tisane garden and briefly told its history (much skepticism on part of staff who found us, but he was kind nonetheless), and then tried to figure out what to do with ourselves 4:30-5. Cafe was closed, chilly gift store open (we bought some cards), and then at 5:01 we were one of the first to enter the dining room (one never knows how long it will take to get there from Brooklyn!)

A list of ingredients greeted us, as well as a kind waiter who guided our ignorance about wine and patiently listed the restrictions we may or may not have in order to let the kitchen know for our menu. Suspending narrative in the interest of detail, the courses were as follows:

"little bites" - vegetables from the garden speared on pins to grab and eat with a sesame spritzer (cured meat for Liam with flatbread the shape of Africa)
fried (tempura?) was beans and zucchini with batter and sesame seeds
salad of fresh greens and flowers with apricot kernel yogurt (see above)
an onion roasted for 17 hours on all kinds of charcoal (including those made of pig bone and corn cob) with several toppings: creme fraiche (ate it with a spoon!), olive tapenade, currants, and pesto'd vegetables.
"this morning's egg" coated in breadcrumbs, fried to a poached degree, and sitting on curried summer beans
braised arctic char on top of clam and corn chowder
fabulous ravioli filled with corn, pickled peppers and basil. Liam had eggplant with "pig parts" on top
Maine lobster with tomato confit and more greens from garden (Liam had Hudson Valley beef)
wineberries and elderflower sorbet and ... tapioca pearls...
grilled corn ice cream on top of cornbread with roasted peaches and blueberries
local strawberries and cherries
tisane of orange basil and anise hyssop (see below)

From the dining room to the terrace, we loved the setting and service. Some of the dishware was more for looks than practice (am I not cutting my fish correctly that my fork, knife, and side by side seating next to Liam doesn't allow me to cut without hitting his elbow or side of round dish?), when I would have been fine with less fancy, more functional. Service was lovely and attentive and very kind when we became full and couldn't finish our 5th course.

To celebrate a great first year of the school, a warm full summer with my husband and my not-so-secret dream of one day heading back to France to raise goats and make cheese on a farm - we had a fantastic dinner!

2010 goals, summer version

2010-07-12T17:37:00.005+02:00

In January, I sat down and wrote food goals for the year. Ambitious, and yet bizarrely practical, la fromagette goes to work (didn't need 30 min dinners in Paris).

Winter gave me time to hit three - I soaked chick peas and froze them, pulled out adzuki and formed them into bean croquettes, went back to "meat" for quick weeknight dinners of tacos, buffalo wings, and chik patties. I drank a lot of water, for a week, and when that trailed off I faithfully drank 16 oz of whole leaf darjeeling at 6:30 am to transition from home to school to the frozen doorway where we greet the students every morning. I boiled whole wheat grains and topped them with yogurt, cranberries and pears, and brought it to meetings where teachers swooned and accused me of spending too much time on breakfast when I saw it as a time saver that was keeping me healthy each morning. I kept up the treats - a bar of Mast Brothers chocolate (newest favorite has roasted hazelnuts), the roasted hazelnuts, endless boxes of olive oil tortas, and as spring came - peas, rhubarb compote, and radishes.

We went to Saltie once, and today dined for a second time at breakfast at Locanda Verde. Big goal of Summer 2010 - Blue Hill at Stone Barns (tiny replication of confirmation email above) dinner this week. We will leave the city early in order to stroll the gardens, the pastures, and the vegetables. My two weeks of vacation will come to a close, but my summer hours and goals will continue through August - almost like the hours of a normal person (8:30-5) - time for tea, toast and perhaps, even working out before work. If not, I'll be in the window at Cafe Grumpy with a SCRATCHbread scone and chai latte, either way - it was bound to be part of my goals for the year.

Matcha Source!

2010-07-08T21:12:00.003+02:00

Some time in the cold of winter, I found a link to this matcha site on a tea blog Kristen sent me. Immediately, I sent away for a tiny tin, curious about how it would own up to those leftover, somehow, from Berkeley Bowl (or from a pricey, but still not as flavorful, tin from Mariage Freres that Liam picked up for me last summer in Paris).

Modern, green, nifty, "sift. whisk. enjoy," I ordered a bamboo whisk and whisked away. The vegetal, soft taste was the freshest I'd had, and as soon as this can was complete (refrigerated in between uses), I put out the cash to order the entire set (whisk with more bristles! a celadon stand for it! a bamboo spoon to truly get the 'two almond-size' scoops!).

Tea-making became a moment and that moment was one that I enjoyed last year, before I even had this whole school thing in front of me every day. 3 hours of a calm, caffeinated focus. I was down.

I ordered one for Kristen, stayed on the mailing list, and was delighted when I found out they opened a pop-up store in SoHo in June (now extended through July). I dragged Liam and a litany of questions about achieving the foam level I had only seen in pictures - how are you getting that foam? Is it my water? The temperature? My whisking? (answer: keep my water hot, decrease my water in half, and ensure I had a N/Z method of whisking, never a circle)

I am in love. With matcha.

I bought a tin of the kind for discerning drinkers along with the lovely white tea bowl (above) forced Liam to get an iced matcha, and hope to go back before they close.

My goals for the summer include reading 10 books, going to a farm dinner, finding a personal trainer at the Y to get into a routine I can keep up over the year, and spend each morning reading the paper, drinking tea and eating toast at my leisure - so far, it's been nearly all matcha.

Cooking Class at La Pitchoune

2010-04-05T20:50:00.003+02:00

In 2006, I was reading My Life in France as we left Liam's family in the south of France. His brother-in-law saw the book and mentioned that he and Liam's sister managed a property called La Pitchoune. I dropped the book. Then I explained that I was just reading about Julia's time there. We were on our way to the airport, so it seemed it would have to wait until a future trip.

March 2010. Liam gives me a birthday card that says, "lunch at La Pitchoune." I spend five dreadful minutes thinking he means some French restaurant that I've never been to. I rack my brain. He's smiling. He's saying, "think!" My French feels very, very far away. Finally, I realize - La Pitchoune!!!!!

Julia's former house sits up on a small road just 5 minutes from Liam's sister and her family. His sister and brother-in-law knew the place well - they've been helping to rent it for years - and suddenly we were on our way to cook there with the current owner, Kathie Alex, who, among other things, cooked with Simca. As we entered the kitchen, and I saw Paul's pegboard marked with the places for Julia's items, I looked at Liam and smiled.

We cooked a menu for someone like me who "really likes vegetables." Pictured is the tarte tatin aux legumes - named after the dessert since the dough is baked on top and then flipped to serve. We followed that with a salad with fried brie and finally individual pear tarts. There was an apero of verrine of egg, olive tapenade and tomatoes with a kir and a taste of Kathie's nicoise olives, but truly, the best part was hearing Kathie's stories of her own culinary career and where it meshed with Simca and Julia. We ate tarts on Julia's plates and wondered which pastry fork came from her and which from Kathie. We watched peppers roast in the modern oven and spied on pegboard outlines from long lost items.

As we ate the fabulous lunch with glasses of wine and talked about living in France (the electrician came today - I made the initial appointment a year ago! Why are Americans drinking so much water with lunch? What are the benefits of store-bought puff pastry?), I thanked Liam for my best birthday present ever.

And now he knows how to cook another meal too.

2010-02-26T23:35:00.002+01:00

As we patiently await the arrival of spring, we're pretending in small ways - sitting in the car in the sun to pretend it's warm, cooking with canned tomatoes to try and create summer, and of course - eating ice cream. We've been frequenting a pan-asian coffee shop of sorts in Ft. Greene for Vietnamese coffee (my absolute smoky sweet favorite) and a pot of chai, and this visit we ordered ice cream sandwiches - one espresso with chocolate chip and two ginger with ginger. Amazing. The crunch of chocolate chips with espresso and the cool spice of ginger sent me beyond snow, snow and more snow and a bit closer to the sweaty nights in our building in the summer where I give in and turn the AC on all night. Almost.

2010-01-10T19:19:00.003+01:00

Last year I set an ambitious list of food intentions. I bought Korean chiles, made Korean food a few times, and recently added the bulk of them to homemade chili powder. I never got to flavored cheeses, although I'm committed to cheese only from bklyn larder now. No cheese club, but I'm trying again. The breads never got baked, but they were replaced by piles of whole grains. There were parties before the school, and now that there's the school, there need to be more parties. A few food adventures - Atlantic Avenue, a foray into Flushing, Brighton Beach and Tanoreen. More to come. The 3-star restau was Per Se, and there was also Le Bernadin for my birthday, the latter with bizarre service and a gloriously impromptu singing of happy birthday by a server who had recently forgotten about our table. I have continued to cook dinner, although the time with which I can make it has decreased 50%. At least.

2010 Food Intentions
Drink 16 oz of water first thing each morning.

Dinners of high quality, in less than 30 minutes (freezing, prepping, cooking on the weekends to facilitate)

Whole grain breakfasts each week.

Blog 2-4x/month.

More food adventures - Japanese and Indian to start.

Dining out at an increasingly Italian list: dell'anima, Marea, Blue Hill, Mailano and more Williamsburg bites at Sel de Mer and Saltie.

Delicious treats that make me look forward to lunch (like olive oil tortas with anise pictured above)

Continue to run a school, cook dinner and enjoy food through June.

Bonne Annee!

Antigua

2009-12-30T15:25:00.004+01:00

The setting is much more compelling than the wanly lit pictures of food I took too early or too late. There was the mahi-mahi, grilled and accompanied with rice and peas when we first arrived at Siboney Beach Club and its restaurant, Coconut Grove. Rum punch immediately encouraged.

At Darkwood Beach we had home-made ginger beer with our fried fish sandwich (me) and curried goat (Liam). Digestive biscuits and water in between. Dinner at Coconut Grove one night was the local rock lobster (Liam) and channa (me) and the next - coconut shrimp, fried calamari, and pina coladas and more rum punch.

We went to Roti King for lunch by way of Trinidad (we had great dreams of the public market but it was pretty dead this holiday weekend) with veggie roti, doubles, banana bread, and more ginger beer (twice).

Dinner our last night at Papa Zouk - a rum bar with 200 flavors (we just had the P'tit Punch, marinated rum drink) - where they narrate the menu to you like a hip Williamsburg joint. Bouillabase, tapas plate (plantains, butterfish fried, some chicken and 3 dips), a whole snapper grilled with pepper vinegar.

Not enough bananas and never the famed black pineapple, but plenty of ginger drinks and fried fish. Not enough vegetables, but toast and tea on our porch each morning and with the sea rushing under our feet yesterday morning.

It already feels like forever-ago.

Favorite Foods of 2009

2009-12-24T16:43:00.005+01:00

Both breads to the left - a semolina/raisin/fennel (toasted with butter please) and The Loaf - parmesan on the bottom, fennel on top and something soft in between (like pan de mie but Brooklyn-i-fied).

Cheeses found at Brooklyn Larder - recent finds, Pierce Hill (raw sheep milk - delicious from the first soft bite to nutty aftertaste) and calcagno, a hard Sardinian sheep's milk that is the best thing since parmigiano-reggiano in my book.

Chocolates that I've chronicled all year - Askinosie white chocolate with cocoa nibs (the perfection of it realized on one of those 90 degree July days when it was so warm it melted in goaty, cacoa-y goodness on my tongue) and Mast Brothers - 72% with salt and pepper, or the new ones - a seasonal spiced pecan and/or the Stumptown Bar with coffee beans.

The toasted cheese with pickles on the side at beer table. And while I'm thinking of them - the pickled eggs with jalapeno powder, ricotta on bread with concord grapes and dehydrated tomato chips have been some of the best treats this year. Other neighborhood dinners at Franny's and that homemade blue cheesecake on the cheese plate at Applewood with garlic toasts.

Lobster Rolls. At the Flea. The budget-buster at Brooklyn Fish Camp.

Broccoli rabe for dinner, days of Irish oats for breakfast, three kinds of salted caramels, and yogurt with a favorite homemade granola recipe or good old muesli.

Weekly coffee Haagen-Dazs, often with fresh whipped cream and Ghiradelli 60% chocolate chips for most of the sweaty summer.

Vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting at Union Market (the mini-one).

Decaf cappuccinos at Cafe Grumpy while everyone else drinks this amazing fresh roasted coffee.

A cupboard of teas at home and work, predominantly gen mai cha, bancha, kukicha and sencha, but also a few new gyokuro, a first flush darjeeling, and a bottle of Fairway lavendar in my new "tea stick" from my in-laws.

Thinking ahead to 2010 - soups, beans pre-cooked and frozen, some sandwiches that Liam can make during the week (grilled provolone and rapini), and a winter of whole grains. More on that soon.

December

2009-12-23T23:19:00.004+01:00

December dinners have included Liam's famous omelet (best with chard and aged gouda) three times during the week, every version of broccoli (or broccoli rabe) with pasta, Annie's (twice), a huge pot of whole grain chili with feta and olive oil (1/2, then frozen, then the other 1/2), a bagel, toast, Chik Patties (a box), and yes, popcorn (cheese grated on top a la francais).

Standards for dinner diminishing by the December day.

I managed salted chocolate caramels, but after advising Sara on the to-do for them, somehow ended up with a candy thermometer at 255 when the chocolate hit the caramel, pulled them off the stove, and ended up caramel frosting.

5 1/4 hours later I had spoon cookies, but rather than recommended 1/2 strawberry and 1/2 cherry preservers (we always end up with jars for 6 mos after), I used four fruits (strawberry, cherry, currant, raspberry), which gave them an aftertaste of aged raspberry.

I treated myself to Gourmet Today (with sticker for Gourmet included) and a book about Japanese cuisine and paged frantically until I found a recipe for Earl Grey truffles. Even a colleague whose tastes admittedly run from Uncrustables to Hormell pepperoni to Eggos told me they were the best chocolate she ever had (they did taste better the next day).

There has been toast for breakfast and sometimes, for dinner. There have been many bags of Cheerios (even a box from my Secret Santa). Mast Brothers continue to make a weekly appearance in my snack bag and for some reason, boxes of soy milk have seemed the right thing drink. And there was the week of Russ & Daughter's whitefish salad on rye crisps on Monday and a tin of piri piri mackerel on Wednesday, leaving our office smelling like cat food.

Today, with just a brioche bumping in my belly for hours of spa indulgence and two cups of tea, I came home to a box in the foyer fantastically festive. My name was on it in red and green.

Cookies.

Good ones. Really good ones.

From Cookbook Club.

I'm not ashamed to admit I cried. Tears that might be more representative of the work it takes to open a new middle school serving low-income students and preparing them for college, but they were real, and they were falling on the cookie box. Ziploc bags. Notes. Comments. Old favorites (moon cookies, cream wafers) and new (alfajores in chocolate, caramel-nutty-amazing-ness).

I brewed a cup of kukicha, ate some cookies for dinner, and finished packing the bag for Antigua.

I miss time to make South Indian feasts and rural Greek pastas for dinner. I miss leftovers that leave colleagues envious as they queue behind me at the microwave. I miss thinking about what to do with turnips all day and braising them in butter that evening. I miss the time to bake a souffle and prepare apples with caramelized maple sauce on the side.

I miss Cookbook Club. Especially in December.

Around the block this fall (favorites)

2009-10-20T20:43:00.004+02:00

I knew it was bad when I turned on my personal computer and I hadn't run the virus thing since August 3 - which would also be the last time I'd listened to Good Food. Updated three months worth to listen to during the trip home and in the end, listened to just one.

Inspired by Fall Favorites, what I've been eating when I haven't been trying to get this whole school thing off the ground. We tried a new place in the neighborhood for breakfast (pictured), where the goat cheese and walnut frittate was pretty good and the cappuccinos decent as well. I've been spending a small fortune on each visit to Brooklyn Larder, especially on the quadra bufala cheese - buffalo milk from a talleggio-maker. Yum. Also picked up goat milk caramels with buckwheat (not "pretty," as they were described, but definitely interesting), fantastic fennel/parmesan cheese for Thanksgiving Day lunch (along with more cheese and meats for everyone else) and a semolina/fennel/raisin loaf that I toasted in its entirety within 12 hours.

Within a span of two weeks I ate the veggie dog at Bark no less than 6 times, most of the times accompanied by cheese fries. The buttery toasted bun, the mushroom topping, the pickled mayo, the hot dog that tastes like someone spent time making something delicious...it was worth it.

I've been cooking up whole grain foods to keep me going through the weeks thanks to 101 Cookbooks - whole grain chili, thai pumpkin soup, and caramelizing spicy popcorn to get me through the week.

Last weekend Sara and I went to New Amsterdam Market where we sampled our hearts out and walked out with a crispy crusted cranberry walnut loaf, a carton of white heirloom cranberries, cider jelly that's been made the same way for 100 years, a few hunks of cheese (tomme-style and cloth bound cheddar) and a belly full of sampled coffee, chocolate, and fat oysters.

We topped that off with lobster rolls to celebrate her birthday.

Ate my piece of leftover apple pie with cheddar today and just had a cup of matcha and extra sweet potatoes are roasting in the oven. Maybe that gingerbread from NYT. Maybe some cranberry muffins. Maybe back to Larder for more bread for toast.

Cafe Pedlar

2009-09-20T15:49:00.002+02:00

Saturday now means Saturday School, children arriving in their uniforms but with the Saturday addition of sneakers, some with tea in their hands, some still with sleep in their eyes even though we start more than two hours later than a regular school day.

Saturday meant brunch with another principal to compare notes, a plate of jalapeno cheese grits with eggs and tortillas and black tea to cut the chill of the suddenly-fall day. We went separate ways and I remembered a foodie email about Cafe Pedlar.

I looked at my phone. I searched on my map. I realized I was standing right next to it.

Because I had no camera on me, just a bag with a computer, calendar and another full of reading assessments, I took the picture from the foodie email. Olive oil cake soaked in such grassy sweetness. A decaf cappuccino with milk rendered so artistically on top I felt twice as badly adding a dollop of turbinado sugar.

I left with a pretzel roll placed across the reading tests. Highly recommended in aforementioned email I was curious - my choices were sesame or poppy (I chose the former) and the whole thing was so slender I wondered about paying 2.50.

I bit into it last night and loved the absence of salt that takes over your mouth with an actual pretzel, although I yearned for a touch of it with the sweet roll and sweet cream butter, I almost wished I ate it with the smoky roasted cappuccino. It was taking the place of a lazy Saturday dinner though, so I ate it up and just drank water instead.

So good I'm almost tempted to hop back on the F train today to try it again, lest my weekends become a bit too predictable.

Kajitsu

2009-09-13T17:41:00.003+02:00

Starting a school has meant much less cooking and blogging. Last week I managed to make corn soup with pimenton and cilantro with some roasted cauliflower (and failed popovers) on the side.

I haven't stopped reading food news though, and read about Kajitsu enough to know I wanted to eat eight courses of Shojin cuisine where I could enjoy each vegan course.

Before we left I said to Liam, "I think some courses will be amazing and a few will be just OK."

I should be a food writer.

The array of foods we had were new, and exciting, to me. Dumpling made of Japanese potato with fresh wasabi on the side. Hand-made (and cut) soba with a seven spice imported from Kyoto. Yuzu fresh in the salad (see picture above) along with kabocha mixed with cous cous, tomato aspic, and a south american fruit that was more seed than pulp. I adored the seitan-like chunks in broth that were more matzo ball than fried tofu, crispy with rice crackers and some other encrustment.

The spaghetti squash with late summer vegetables tasted like sweet and sour veggie stir fry at any Chinese restaurant - the best part being two slim, slightly spicy peppers tempura-d on the side.

The final dish of rice with ginger and house made pickles saved my savory tastes before we embarked into mochi and matcha so frothy I wish I could have had a demo.

Escaping to a mountain stream in Kyoto with a bowl of burdock root is at least a year away, so if I get the craving again in a different season, we might go back, but the service was also a tad too zen for us (we could only get 9pm reservation and this, post-second-week-of-school, still had me exhausted) - the first 3 courses took about 35 minutes to serve. The service sped up for the final five.

For now we'll have some soba and spices as a Wednesday night meal - I can handle that in 30 minutes or less.

Red Hook Lobster Pound Roll

2009-07-27T00:01:00.004+02:00

I've been seeking out this roll for several weeks now at the Flea. First time, the line was so horrendously long I began to doubt the sanity of everyone around us (and headed to our true favorite, Red Hook Pupusas). Second time, yesterday, the guy told me "we're 86'd on Connecticuts" as I searched the sign to see what he was referring to - I saw only - butter - mayo - 13.00. I asked for clarification. He said butter = Connecticut. They only had Maines (mayo). Again, I left for pupusas.

Today, we decided to meet Sara at the Brooklyn Bridge Flea and found ourselves the only ones in line at noon. The following conversation transpired:

me: I'll have two with butter.
RHLP: 2 connecticuts!
me: (handing over $30)
RHLP: 2 Maines!
me (to a motioning Liam): those aren't ours, I'm pretty sure he said butter = connecticut.
RHLP: 2 Uconns (Yukons?)
me: silent
RHLP: 2 Connecticuts!
me: taking the roll

Recovering from the confusing nomenclature, we inhaled them. Sara and I were on board, Liam realized maybe he doesn't like lobster as much as he thought. Despite the 8-dollars-more-than-a-pupusa-platter price, we were happy with the crunchy grilled bun and sweet, buttery taste - just glad we clarified the state.

What we ate in June ...

2009-07-05T18:19:00.002+02:00

Inside my bathroom mirror is a list of my goals for the year. Friends who've known me for a while will smile, this list is generally written in a flurry of gel pen and bucketed into categories around food and fun and all kinds of self-improvement. I even committed, in glittering blue, to blogging twice a month while starting the school.

I also set food intentions. Less chronicling, more eating, I must've thought. #2 and #1 are still to be determined, but we have been to Bay Ridge for Greek food, Brighton Beach for a Russo-phile's dream and Sunset Park for middle eastern. We've had a spring brunch featuring our new favorite: dutch baby.

I've stewed rhubarb, am jubilee-ing cherries as I type, and have eaten handfuls of peas each week.

I think if I could blog via the Blackberry, I could do more while I wait for elevated trains than re-read work emails too important to type with two fingers to or browse the happenings of people I haven't seen in years on Facebook.

Today we went to Egg. Sunday after a holiday we thought would be quiet, which it was, save the families around us with babies squealing like small birds. Liam ordered the CHB, I got the Eggs Rothko, and a biscuit, and we drew the story of our weekend on the table.

I just forgot to take a picture.

Chickpea Crepes with Ginger and Hot Chiles (Chilla)

2009-05-25T17:27:00.003+02:00

I always have chickpea flour (besan) in the cabinet - often for socca, sometimes for Indian dumplings, other times for breading okra before frying. When reading through Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grain Cooking, I found my new favorite for breakfast - chilla. According to Sahni, "chilla is a spicy delicacy, a delightful breakfast treat form the eastern regions of India"

She had me at spicy and breakfast.

I mixed these together and pulled out our warped crepe pan for lunch Saturday. According to Sahni, "to best enjoy chilla, serve them with a lot of hot steaming tea, Indian-style," so I put a pot on the stove for my favorite chair recipe while the crepes cooked.

I adore this cookbook and am only through the tiffin section, but still need some urad dal in order to make the other recipes I'm interested in. Several of you asked for the recipe when I told you about it, so here it is as it appears in Sahni's book:

Chickpea Crepes with Ginger and Hot Chiles (Chilla)

1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup water
1 T chopped ginger
2 hot green chiles, chopped
1/8 t. red pepper flakes
1 t coarse sea salt
2 T light sesame oil or light vegetable oil*
extra oil for frying

1. Mix the chickpea flour and water and make a smooth, lump-free batter using processor, blender, or wire whisk. add all the other ingredients except extra oil mix well.
2. To cook the crepes, heat a nonstick frying pan over medium heat until very hot. Then brush the pan lightly with 1/2 to 3/4 t. oil.
3. Pour about 1/4 c of batter into the pan. Tilt the pan to coat it evenly with the batter. Cook the crepe until the underside is browned (about 2 min) Turn and cook the other side for 30-45 seconds. Pour on 1/2 to 1 t. oil during cooking to give the crepe a fried taste and texture. Remove and serve immediately or keep warm, while you make more crepes with the remaining batter. For a crispier taste, use 2-21/2 t. oil per crepe.

*Sesame oil is the Indian kind - light - (Til, I think it's called) - not the darker one found in Asian aisle of stores.

num pang, banh mi. asia dog.

2009-05-16T19:49:00.003+02:00

I gripe a lot about not liking vegetarian sandwiches with their days-old roasted eggplants and slimy zucchini slices and bread pink with red pepper. I thought I would never eat a sandwich again after years of this, until I got into the idea of finding banh mi.

Then I read two articles about the banh mi craze, and found some answers.

On a very hot recent Sunday, we went to Num Pang near Union Square to have the peppered catfish (pictured) and pork. My catfish choice was the best - spicy and peppery and sweet and concentrated and briny and all that cilantro.

We were hooked.

When our movie at the cinema across the street burnt out the following weekend, we grabbed the sandwiches and sat upstairs to enjoy as we spied on the goings on at the theater - have they fixed the film? Were those people in the movie with us? Do people still look angry? and we finished our sandwiches and corn covered in spice, chipotle mayo and coconut.

Today I found myself at Brooklyn Flea picking up a lost earring from a fabulous jeweler.
Liam and I split ways after the greenmarket so I was cruising the aisles alone and figured I'd snack before I took off. Red Hook pupusas weren't up yet, so I passed along until I saw asiadog. All kinds of hot dogs covered in all kinds of asian toppings. Brilliantly difficult to choose, so I went with the Vinh - a banh mi topping-ed veggie dog.

The Smart Dog (my personal favorite for veggie dogs - it doesn't have that liquid smokey flavor of Tofu Pups) was charred and then popped into a toasted bun with veggie 'pate,' pickled daikon and carrot, jalapenos, cilantro, and my own squirt of sri acha sauce. It burned deliciously. I can't believe no one has thought of this before?!

My faith in sandwiches (and veggie dogs) has returned.

Brazil, Part 3

2009-04-30T20:26:00.001+02:00

Brazilian foods I ate for the first time included acai with granola, banana and honey at a beach shack in Paraty at a table with sand under our feet. Manioc. Farofa. More manioc. Juices of apple and ginger with water weakening it. Lemon verbana and mint. Pineapple and mint. Breakfast foods like a roll that looks like a Parker House meets croissant and is soft as white bread and has something sweet in it like Filipino butter rolls I used to eat in LA. Guava jelly with cheese and toast. Moqueca with soft shell crab. Moqueca with white fish. Moqueca with shrimp. Moqueca with another white fish. Salmon in passion fruit sauce, crunchy, sour and sweet. Guacamole with a tiny searing hot pepper on top. Caiprihinas with incredible amounts of kiwi or pineapple or watermelon or passion fruit or all mixed together. Banana juice with wheat germ. Thick, sweet mango juice. Pao de Queijo. Pastillas de Queijo. Coconut cakes. Coconut soaking in sweet cane syrup. Coconut in cane syrup flattened into a cake. Guava candies. Banana candies covered in chocolate.

Brazil, Part 2

2009-04-30T19:53:00.004+02:00

Much of our meals out in Brazil included meat, in fact, nearly all did. I pushed the others to go to churrasco and what a BBQ it was. The others sat waiting for bloody chunks of seared meat to drip on their plates and I went straight to the salad bar of feta and Israeli cous cous, macaroni salad, sushi and French pastries (and lots and lots of veggies).

I filled my plate up and returned to see plantains, olives, butter and other spreads for our bread and more pao de queijo, flipping my coaster over to nao obrigado (and still got some jus on my plate).
Rio made me feel more of a vegetarian than France did, and the others around me were in love with the meat, saying it was the best they ever tasted.

I did like the plantains.

Brazil, Part 1

2009-04-29T17:30:00.004+02:00

We arrived in Sao Paolo early morning, traffic creeping around us everywhere as we snaked through slow-moving mid-day streets. We had decided to stay at Fasano, in the Jardins, thinking that the chicest part of SP would decrease our chance of being robbed.

Sao Paolo had several food adventures. We started with Arabia, where we noticed that Brazilians wear jeans and button downs, men patting each other on the back as we dug into labne, fatoosh, and several kinds of breads. A woman next to us ordered watermelon juice and we drank cold mint tea. Dessert was a platter that allowed us to order by baklava and halva before we closed the meal with Arabic coffee.

While we ate our dinner at Fasano, which was incredibly expensive and not that good, we were much happier with our quiet morning at the Mercado Municipal (pictured), where at a chain food stand we had our first pao de queijo and cafe com leites as people around us shopped for Good Friday dinners of kilos of salt cod and olives and fruits.

Before we left for Rio, we visited a cafe across the street from the other swankiest hotel in SP - Emiliano - and had baguettes with cheese, fried eggs, and our first sucos (juices) - Liam's was lemon verbena and mint and pineapple, mine was apple and ginger and cayenne with not nearly enough of the latter two before we grabbed our second pao de queijo for the day. At the airport.

33

2009-04-03T19:18:00.002+02:00

on the occasion of my 33rd birthday march 3, the best 33 eats of the past month.

birthday french toast adorned with the lemon to the left. mini-cupcakes from Union Market that are packaged differently every time and have frosting that is white outside and pink-tinged inside. homemade chai. kukicha in the afternoon. korean feast of tofu with garlic sauce, kimchi, soy-pickled jalapenos, and pa jun twice. hard-boiled eggs with anchovies or spicy pickles, spaghetti with meyer lemon, and marinated sardines at franny's. lassi for chana and paratha and lavendar masala chai.

salt cod hash at belcourt again. biscuits with ricotta and jam at belcourt, again. sunny eggs at little d with turkish cheese and beans and flatbread. le bernadin for the birthday with fluke laid out raw with gold leaf and rice krispies.

lemon butter cake. five pieces of white bread that the office manager's mother made. four cheese pies from trinidad bakery that she brought the next day. earl grey in the afternoon. medjool dates and blendheim apricots while i walk the streets of brownsville to spread the word about the school.

tortilla soup. refried red beans. 6.99 bag of tortilla chips. another baked egg.

all courses of our lunch at per se: cauliflower panna cotta with sweet and sour capers, salad with walnut beignets and stewed rhubarb, anglotti with goat cheese, homemade nougat and truffles and caramels, and the wine.

Belcourt Brunch

2009-03-02T01:46:00.004+01:00

We missed brunch in Paris, trying to re-create it with courses of yogurt and muesli, pancakes, and some purchased croissants. It ended up looking more like Swedish breakfast. Our first week together in Brooklyn this fall, it was straight to brunch a few blocks from here.

Bellinis with maple, omelettes with squash and fresh cheese, biscuits and grits with it all, we were gladly American again.

As the months have passed, we've rarely branched out - who wants to travel further than a few blocks on a weekend morning (especially one peppered with snow or wind)?

Then I read on Tasting Table about a brunch place that had "reasonable" prices and took reservations. Somewhere in between the "house made labneh" and "home made biscuits with fresh ricotta, raw honey and preserves" I decided we would brave the slow Sunday F train to get there.

Early birds were there long before Belcourt opened, but despite the trek and snow flurries it met our highest expectations. Those biscuits were a definite, as well as the labneh, and Liam ordered Croque Madame while I had the salt cod hash with poached eggs and harissa pictured above.

It was like Paris - tarnished mirrors and tin bathroom walls and tight seating and harissa sprinkled in, but also with the luscious biscuits and ricotta and brunch feel that we missed.

I know, I know - it's been 8 months for me, and a few less for Liam - but we still feel really grateful for brunch. Even when it's not in Brooklyn.

New Orleans

2009-02-16T21:48:00.000+01:00

One thing I miss about our Paris apartment was the light. And my camera. My pictures always came out great. Now I'm often using a phone, and they're not as clear or crisp or macro'd, but in the moment when I'm dipping beignets into au lait, something about it just feels necessary.

I had never been to New Orleans, yet I'd created this culinary wish - I just want beignets and coffee. Maya made it come true, walking us to Cafe du Monde, just a few blocks from our hotel, just an hour before our sessions were starting on Sunday.

I enjoyed the previous day's hotel breakfast. Smaller beignets, grits with cheese, hunks of potato, hotel eggs, Oprah's favorite tea. I chewed through each piece of fried dough at the hotel channeling other memories - soapapillas, carnival friend dough, zeppoles. It got me through.

Sunday morning was something else - a dirty table outside with tourists like us all around, and piles of powdered sugar between here and there. Our dough arrived swimming in the stuff and while I'm not usually a dipper, I plopped each one eagerly into my tiny cup of coffee.

3.00 each. 4.00 with tip. We left our cash on the table, bloated bellies ready for our day, and re-lived our other meals - I had had puppy drum for the first time (Lauren used to catch it in the summers so she knew what it was), a lot of praline, and a mediocre po'boy, but the beignets were truly the best.

Sushi Bowls

2009-02-02T21:36:00.003+01:00

Maybe it was Restaurant Week, but something had me yearning for simple, healthy food last week. I then opened the cookbook I'd been both shunning and lauding, Super Natural Cooking. I'd had partial success with her recipes, and while many looked good, I wasn't always inspired.

Then I made these sushi bowls.

The note about sauteing mushrooms in the sidebar, the frozen edamame lonely in the side pocket of the freezer, the avocado that tasted great but was clearly cold-burned (see the lines in the picture) ... all of these inspired me to whip up these bowls.

Yes, brown rice may cost 5.99 for a pound at a market, but it was worth it.

The citrus soy vinaigrette, the cream of the avocado with the crunch of sesame and vegetal note of nori - we ate through our bowls as though they were endless. And got up for more.

I don't often make one-pot meals, but this one is a winner. The chunky lentil soup too - cooked long and topped with parmesan and good olive oil, these helped us recover from excess.

Until we went out for Liam's birthday on Friday. Lobster poached in butter and I was a goner again.

The Early Bird Catches The Worm

2009-01-26T02:10:00.002+01:00

When I called Gramercy Tavern to say I knew they didn't accept reservations, so what could I expect for a weekend lunch, they told me to get in line.

I liked it.

"There's just one table for 6, so you if you get here, and someone else has it, you have to wait 1 1/2 to 2 hours until they're done. You can call and see if it's available. Sometimes people are lining up when we open..."

Those were the magic words that led me, my parents, and Liam to the door of Gramercy Taven at 11:00 for a drive-by, then in line at 11:35. While we waited for Liam's mom and her husband, another customer came up and tried the door right behind me.

"We're in line" my dad told him.

Which was good - because later, we realized he had a party of five.

And so, for the first of several times this weekend, the early bird got the fantastic lunch with the perfect round table in by the window for parents to meet and food to be enjoyed.

I was entranced with the arrangements - apples and pine cones on our table, grasses at the bar, paperwhites and amaryllis at the side table. And of course, the food. We sampled nearly half the menu between the six of us - merguez swimming in harissa and chick peas, shredded carrots with calamari, heirloom cauliflower salad.

Entrees were a hit from chicken to an open faced ham sandwich to my mushroom lasagna that was fired in the wood oven.

And the desserts - it's almost difficult to convey how tasty they were with just descriptions of ingredients: pear tartin with a smear of creme fraiche and hazelnuts, an egg-shaped selection of three ice creams, a luscious and fat apple pie, and for me one plate of cookies that included caramel dipped in dark chocolate with pepitas. If only I had room to try the martini with lavender or the Harrar coffee with orange, cardamon, and cinnamon.

We'll just have to go back.

We watched the line snake around the foyer, children peering through grasses and older men patting the hostess on the back. We heard about waits of 1 1/2 hours, pleas to move more quickly from bar to table, even a few glances at our table, but we had it. 25 minutes in the cold? Worth every minute.

And we can't wait to go back.

Tea Time

2009-01-16T17:58:00.006+01:00

I miss the days of the Bay Area Tea Tour.

Friends and I circulated among several of the top tea shops in the Bay Area and compared. Places that don't give you milk even if one were to ask for it? No thanks. Birds in cages above your seat and old men playing Go next to you? Of course.

In Paris, there was a place for tea and cakes in the afternoon - with a special after 4 o'clock for 9 euros (that rose to 10 soon after I discovered it).

Yesterday, with an doctor's appointment that went quickly, I found myself with an afternoon hour in the city. I needed a place to do work that was also the hip cafe that would make me feel like I-am-working-in-the-city.

A place I could share with friends or see something with a story worth telling or just have a good cup of tea, with milk if I wanted.

I found it - a small place with a chair pushed against a wall and in between coats and people. I put down my 3 bags, huge coat, 2 scarves and settled my eyes on them.

Bundt cakes.

They do it for me every time. As soon as I saw lemon and asked about chocolate orange, I figured it was my best bet. One mug of assam and a slice later, I was doing my work on a cold, cold day in the city... if only it were my neighborhood, I'd have my place.

Brooklyn Food Adventure: Middle Eastern Food on Atlantic Avenue

2009-01-05T19:42:00.002+01:00

In between Urban Outfitters and Trader Joe's, there's a street of Middle Eastern grocers, pastry shops, nut and candy stores and fantastic cafes. Sara did the research and we enjoyed a morning full of old favorites (the pastry with the stringy cheese in the middle on top of a sev-like sweet soaked in syrup that you microwave that I first had on my Other Side of Palestine tour) and new treats (Yemeni food pictured above).

The Yemen Cafe was worth our wait (we had great Turkish coffee and Arabic tea across the street first). Molten hot pots of beans and tomatoes simmering, the largest hunk of fresh baked bread (pictured above), a smear of babaghanoush and cup after cup of a dark black, sage and sweetened tea, yum.

Our adventure ended with pockets full of fresh pitas, pistachio halva, and some date cream with almonds. One shopkeeper told me to eat the halva with a banana (new to me), which I haven't gotten to try yet, but look forward to.

For now, the goods are on the table for some Turkish-like breakfast each day.

Next up: Arthur Avenue for Italian and Jackson Heights for Indian.

Sara may need to quit her day job and start leading tours!

Food Intentions for 2009

2009-01-02T16:32:00.001+01:00

My 2008 intentions served me well as I transitioned from Paris to Brooklyn. I walk into the local cheese shop and know my pyrenees brebis from ossau-iraty. I stuffed several fish and served them successfully to friends. I had lunch at L'arpege and can finally tell the difference between Assam and Darjeeling.

There is currently salsify rotting in my fridge, again. Oysters left my life when I left Le Baron Rouge. I don't think I will ever be a confiture person with my toast or a willing salade consumer in my own home.

The vinegar mother made it here, and she's growing like crazy.

Food Intentions for 2009:

10. Korean chiles. Know 'em and use 'em.
9. Inspired by a cheese plate at the MoMA from Murray's Italian section (see above), I am in the market for 'flavored cheeses' and aim to find my favorite cow's milk with truffle and goat's with green peppercorn. 2009 is about flavor.
8. Brooklyn Cheese Club (complete with Oakland and Paris members!)
7. Make flatbreads. Pita. Foccaccia. Pizza.
5. Dinner/brunch parties 1x/month
4. Jackson Heights for Indian, Bay Ridge for Greek, Midwood for Kosher and other local food adventures.
3. Eat at a Michelin 3 star in NYC.
2. Continue to blog each week.
1. Demonstrate that it's possible to be an effective principal of a college-prep charter school for under-resourced students in Brooklyn AND cook delicious dinner during the week.

Parsi Food: Part Two

2008-12-31T15:53:00.000+01:00

6" knob of ginger.
5 cinnamon sticks and a small cannister of cassia bark.
9 Thai bird chiles.
2 roasted sweet potatoes.
1 cup of moong dal.
3 cups of rice (first two came to me with bugs).
6 pieces of 'kitchen twine' made from cheesecloth with holes too big to make panir.
1 mushy banana.

These are just some of the ingredients that went into two days of Parsi cooking.

Above are several steps of Taro Rolls, with chard substituted for taro leaf. A paste of spices and chickpea flour and banana was pureed and then spread onto chard leaves. These were tied and steamed, and then cooled until firm enough to cut, at which point they were fried in an inch of oil and sprinkled with salt and a squirt of lime (and later, some of the Seared Ginger Raita). I served them with an Everyday Dal, Caramelized Rice (a bit burnt, but not in a yummy tadik type way), and a seafood dish with sweet potato instead of fish.

The only challenge? I haven't used those three spice mixtures yet.

Parsi Food: Part 1

2008-12-30T16:06:00.003+01:00

Do this four more times. Don't ask why. Just do it. It's magic.

By the time I got to this line in a panir recipe, I was in love with My Bombay Kitchen by Niloufer Ichcaporia King.

The panir never looked like a cloudy sky breaking up, leading me to believe I just don't know how to coax curds from milk. Nonetheless, I packaged up the cheese cloth, pressed it with a can of coconut milk, and enjoyed it spread across hot chapatis with turmeric/ginger pickle and yogurt cheese.

I spent yesterday grinding spices and ginger for two of the triumvirate of Parsi spices: Parsi garam masala and dhana jiru (a garam masala of 17 spices). I tied a scarf around my nose while I ground then pressed the toasted spices through a strainer (see the dhana jiru above).

I then processed 3 oz each of garlic and ginger to make a paste that was the beginning of wafer par ida (aka eggs on potato chips) - King assures me that Bombay is filled with potato-chips works (Liam wasn't convinced).

Consider it Parsi breakfast food for dinner. The chapatis with cheese and pickle to build our immune systems (and my yellow, yellow hands) and eggs steamed on top of potato chips fried with ghee, onion, chiles, and coriander.

Next time I'll heed the advice of King's acquaintance who tells her "next time, try it with a little bit of cream poured over the chips before the eggs go on."

Le Sel (and the Holidays)

2008-12-29T21:17:00.002+01:00

I was into the salt before Paris, but in Paris I truly fell in love with the thick, wet, gray fleur de sel from brittany. the salt man at the bastille market had tremendous patience for my terrible french and would give me free bags of 4-spiced salt and free caramels and i bought more salt than i ever had previously.

So I made fleur de sel toffee from Martha Stewart and the now-yearly salted chocolate caramels.

I tried world peace cookies again, and again, I failed.

The bits of chocolate alongside the sea salt are tasty, but crumby dough was not the vision that Dorie or Pierre had in mind when they came together to create this war-ender.

tea mix. I've packed away spoon cookies and wrapped up lemon bread and measured out baggies of chai. I've peeled and simmered applies for applesauce and fried up latkes to accompany.

I've gone through a 5lb bag of sugar and just over 2 lbs of butter.

Last Sunday it was 6 months since we were married and soon after, 6 months since I left Paris.

For every morning these days that I miss a slow cup of needle-thin green tea, I build relationships with another family grateful for the opportunity to have this school for their child. For every evening that I work too late to come home and roast sweet potatoes until they caramelize, I have a conversation with a child that moves them that much closer to meeting our behavioral expectations.

We have already seen more snow in a month than we've seen in 10 years. We have a favorite local restaurant for a weekly date and a market nearby (although I'm hesitant to reveal to you the price of butter). We are thrilled to be back in the US with some of our oldest, and newest friends. We are glad to to be blocks away from Prospect Park and to both have cell phones.

We continue to gorge on jalapenos and nachos and Annie's mac and cheese.

And on the shortest day of the year, when Susan Sandburg came onto weekend edition to talk about the longest day of 2008 at le fete de la music in Paris, we smiled knowing we made the right, toughest, decisions this year, and with a little more patience we know 2009 will be even better. My school will have a location, a name, a staff, a student body. Liam will have gigs and a new album.

We'll have had at least 6 months physically together since married.

(you might even say we've had a lot going on)

And if you were here, I'd invite you over for some sweets. Straight outta my Brooklyn kitchen with a salty detour in Paris.

Jamoncillo de Nuevas

2008-12-19T02:54:00.003+01:00

I am newly obsessed with jamoncillo de nuevas.

Two weeks ago in the depths of a Brooklyn chill, friends trooped across several boroughs to join us for huevos rancheros, spoon bread with various home made salsas and farm-made relishes, and beans and rice galore.

The inspiration for the Mexican theme was a recent issue of Saveur which featured sweets from Pueblo mainly focused on sweet potato, sugar, milk, some more sugar, and gorgeous crystallized fruits. In this sea of glowing pink hearts etched with Pueblo in white sugar and piles of tart-like sweet potato cookies there were flat expanses of jamoncillo. Milk fudge. With nuts and candied fruit.

I'm not one for candied fruit, so I stuck with just pecans and hoped for the best with the fudge. The milk and sugar took the full 35 minutes to caramelize and I doubted my candy thermometer most of the way until it began to smell like burning and I pulled it off before it hit 240 degrees.

5 minutes after waiting for the glossiness to subside, I stirred carefully with a wooden spoon and the hope that I had waited long enough to end up with fudge and not sauce.

I poured the searing liquid into the brownie pan and within minutes, I watched it harden. Shortly after, I picked out a corner and swooned - the canela was subtle enough to enhance the milk but not overpower with a cinnamon taste. The nuts were toasty and the fudge melted creamily.

The jamoncillo was a hit the next day. More so than the pepita brittle and polvorones (which were tougher than usual). As I think about my holiday baking, I'm tempted to bring these back for a second showing. Might go well with a box of salted chocolate caramels and spoon cookies.

Eating Out

2008-12-19T02:44:00.003+01:00

We ate out differently in Paris than we do here. We lived in a tourist trap of 18 euro bagels with lox and mediocre menus for 34 euros. We had falafel. Tea. Croissants. Hot Chocolate.

We've realized we eat differently in New York. Our friend left her menus in this apartment so we could get take out. Each week we determine how to best eat out - Wednesday luxury or weekend date? Then we find ourselves out of town and Wednesday takes us to Franny's for homemade celery soda and a white pizza that I will write about twice because we adore it that much.

Last week we attempted to branch out to another local eatery, Flatbush Farm, that we'd eaten at previously. Relaxing and romantic with frisee salad and Bonnie Prince Billy playing and out of nowhere good, a fat roach crawling on Liam's still-on-the-table napkin. Two days later, a friend goes there only to see two.

I don't like to write about unappetizing things, but when they chose not to comp us, I chose to tell everyone how disgusted I was. And then I was cranky, "this is what we get for eating out," I grumbled at Liam and pledged to return to Morningstar Farm Chik Patties and haricorts verts the next night with Cheerios the next day for breakfast.

Or just go back to Franny's (pizza above), which has never failed us.

If only we could get into ordering in, we'll have fully made the transition to being (or at least seeming to look like) New Yorkers.

What I've Been Cooking

2008-11-30T16:35:00.002+01:00

We're still getting used to me leaving at 6am and not returning until 7pm on a good night, and I'm not even an actual principal yet. To manage this new life together, busier than last winter in Paris, we have divided eating into parts: 2 meals a week that I cook, the one that Liam cooks, and a weekly date to Franny's to keep us inspired.

After days of apple pie with cheddar cheese for breakfast, we're back in Brooklyn and ready to

Recent favorites for me have been Lemony Chickpea Stirfry and the more wintery Kale and Mushrooms with Creamy Polenta.

I am planning my holiday baking with the nouveau classics: pepita brittle, chocolate caramels with fleur de sel, and spoon cookies stuffed into tiny boxes for co-workers and friends (these long hours bring us closer).

Next week we'll have a few friends over for a Mexican-themed brunch spanning the country with a chilaquiles verde, huevos rancheros, and some milk-fudge candies I just read about from Puebla.

Trying to keep it real this winter, or at least not as far from our previous lives as it feels.

Pumpkin Fondue

2008-11-05T02:26:00.003+01:00

After busy weeks of work, a new job, a new life and a funeral, it seemed time for some comfort food.

I read a description in Gourmet of Pumpkin Fondue and then tossed the magazine.

There I was at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market re-thinking the plan - which is how we ended up with two decorative pumpkins rather than a sugar (what I wanted) or a 7lb one (called for in the recipe).

I picked up gruyere and raclette (there's something about emmental I just don't like), a baguette and some cream. Like Riechl, I found myself wondering how all of these delicious ingredients would go together.

Liam asked, "why are we putting it in a pumpkin?"

They were so cute - even when one look at their yellow flesh confirmed my suspicion that these weren't the best eating pumpkins. I toasted the baguette and defrosted vegetable stock. I grated in some nutmeg and then the cheese in a pile bigger than the two pumpkins, and then I stuffed them.

They emerged from the oven burnished and oozing. While the flesh didn't allow me to scoop it out into a bowl of melting comfort, we dipped our bread pieces into the shell and scooped until we could scoop no more.

Who needs a Raclette when you have an American pumpkin?

Gourmet Ice Cream Truck

2008-09-14T15:04:00.003+02:00

My transition back to the US was eased by the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck. I mentioned, when I first got to New York, that there was a truck parked a few blocks from the dorm I stayed in this summer, and that if I were awake and about after 8:30 pm, I would stop by for a cup of this hormone-free, organic, ice cream (mint chip or ginger or espresso) with homemade hot fudge and fresh whipped cream. All eaten with a biodegradable spoon.

I obsessed about it to Liam. He'd ask about the leadership institute I was attending, and I'd tell him about trying ginger after being on a mint chip binge for a week. He'd ask about my jet lag and culture shock, and I'd wax poetic about pre-bedtime sundaes. He'd ask how I liked the dorm food post-30, and I'd reply with my own culinary dilemma: should I continue along with the combination that I favored, or should I branch out and try each flavor while the yellow truck was parked just 5 blocks from me?

When Liam was here at the end of July, we found ourselves in SoHo trying to use a Crate and Barrel wedding gift card, and it occur ed to me: the truck was parked here in the day! We scoped street corners and intersections and found it. The teenagers working were perhaps confused by my glee, but I was thrilled to share it with Liam - at this point, afraid I'd built it up too much.

He took his first organic spoonful and smiled.

September at the market ...

2008-09-11T17:26:00.004+02:00

This past weekend, I went to the market armed with a September list: Sungold cherry tomatoes for a pasta dish with fresh mozzarella, parsley to fry up for tacos with lemon, basil to add herbal essence to a lemon sherbet, and my weekly new-to-me-greens (this week? purslane).

The final item on my list was basil - for dessert.

I hadn't made any ice cream yet this summer and was interested in a lemon sherbet flavored with basil. I read her description of herbs best infusing liquids when cold, but wasn't quite convinced.

Then I had my first bite of sherbet.

There I was, holding the dasher in place since I'm missing the plastic ring that goes around the top and watching the ice cream freeze, bits of rind gathering around the bottom and I couldn't resist sticking my finger in to taste.

I often find myself adding Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips to most ice cream that even I make - but this one I didn't want to mar with anything else. I just wanted a bowl. And another. The only thing holding me back from finishing it after a dinner of parsley tacos and fried chickpeas or pasta with tomatoes, was trying to hold out until Liam gets here next week to share it.

Or, I can just head to the market this weekend and grab some more while it's still September.

Special thanks to Sara for sharing her great market photographs with me.

Grocery Store Maven Stumped

2008-09-02T02:22:00.003+02:00

I used to call myself a Grocery Store Maven.

In Oakland, I knew the prices of coconut milk at Berkeley Bowl and Trader Joe's and 99 Ranch and Piedmont Grocery. I had opinions on where to buy dried garbanzos and whole coriander (Vik's) and the cost effectiveness of having a Full Belly Farm CSA Box.

In Paris, I began again to memorize the cost of Bordier butter at Le Grande Epicerie vs. the fromagerie at Marche d'Aligre. I knew that Monoprix was not the place to get anything Asian and that it was worth a trip to the 13th to Tang Freres for 10 items for under 3 euros. I charted the costs of American ingredients and weighed that against my desire for chipotles ($9) molasses ($6) and cans of pumpkin ($5) at Thanksgiving and other ex-pat merchants.

I realize that since we left the country, food prices went up. I realize that New York City has the most expensive food around. I am appreciative to have a gourmet market a few blocks away and bodegas that carry Fage yogurt and that I don't have to carry my groceries if I want to order from Fresh Direct.

What I didn't anticipate complaining about at BBQs and the water cooler, was the sheer price of items. It's like I'm shopping each day at Thanksgiving or Le Grande Epicerie yet I'm in the country the items come from and each place I go to lacks 2 or 14 that I wish I could have (why doesn't Fresh Direct carry bags of Tazo Tea or buttermilk? Why doesn't the gourmet grocery have French lentils?)

The Grocery Store Maven is stumped.

I've inquired into CSA boxes (all full save East New York). I take the train into the city and trek the vegetables back. I have researched the Park Slope Food Co-op but here 10:1 negative stories and worry about how my hours will change when the school opens next year and the sheer disorganization of 12,000 members and yet everyone needs to work every 3 weeks?

So I ordered Fresh Direct to stock my pantry. Sans beans and tea. I paid 2.79 for DeCecco spaghetti at the store. I'm scheduling a trip to Astoria next weekend to go to the Indian market or to Midwood to check out the new Kosher one.

I'm determined to find an answer before I suck it up and pay twice as much for yogurt and milk and cereal and refried beans than is necessary.

Whole Foods is the cheapest option. (I'm not even kidding). I might have to switch careers and open a store.

Squash Runners

2008-08-17T02:03:00.003+02:00

I like to find things I've never cooked before.

Union Square's Greenmarket is full of them this summer. Bush basil. Cuban basil. Purslane. Chicory greens. Squash runners.

The woman at the stand did not know how to cook them. "It's a lot of work," she says, and hesitates. I ask if I can eat the leaves. She has no idea.

I google squash runners. I am the world's worst internet searcher, so I end up with people who run and play squash or who eat squash and then run. Then I figure out how to search the phrase and add 'cook.' Bam.

Sicilian. Leaves from a plant that produces a nearly flavorless squash. Cook up a soup with tomatoes and basil and sprinkle in some romano and it's like a tonic. Room-temperature, they say. Since I prefer piping hot hot things and chilly cold things, I go hot and toss in a handful of cheese. Yum.

Hard to eat through those curly-cues though.

Suddenly it's August at the market ...

2008-08-03T20:29:00.003+02:00

The last two months have been crazy for many reasons chronicled here, but nothing that can't be fixed by a trip to the Greenmarket. 45 minutes and 2 trains later, Liam and I arrive to play it cool on our last day together until he moves here permanently.

I give him the tour I've been giving other friends, full of obnoxious statements that begin 'in Paris they don't have ...' and ending in bags full of kale, chiogga beets, small dark purple eggplant, bush basil, New Jersey raspberries, and even some maple syrup.

We drink yogurt drinks and eat maple candy. Sample blackberries and raspberry preserves and breathe in the sage and Cuban basil and cilantro over the summer Saturday subway stench.

I spend a lot of money - nearly twice what I would spend in Oakland, or in Paris for that matter, but our bags smell great. When we check them at Guitar Center for Liam to buy new strings the girl exhales 'the cilantro is amazing!' and I take some kind of responsibility for picking this up myself and schlepping it back to Brooklyn.

Tonight I will cook the squash runner's with a Sicilian recipe and am still eating my old Zuni favorite of fettuccine with corn and butter - something I wasn't able to have since last summer.

Things are settling down, boxes have been and will be delivered, furniture assembled, and before I know it, Liam will return.

Until then, I'm happy to spend August at the market.

S'mac

2008-07-10T03:40:00.003+02:00

The avocados here are expensive. This was my epiphany yesterday, when after 9 hours of principal training my colleagues and I went to a pub next door to relax and do some work. 11.00. 15.00. These are guacamole prices.

It was nearly 8.00 at the taqueria Kristen and I went to on Saturday in East Harlem.

Avocados.

I miss you California.

My days are filled with dining hall grits and student center curly fries and dorm room hot-pot tea.

But the dining halls are closed on the weekends, allowing me, along with new Fromagette Lindsay, to head to S'Mac.

I was fresh off the French airplane and ready for some skillet-cooked mac and cheese. Lindsay wastrying out the Greek version of the classic.

The fact it was about 85F and muggy did not deter us.

We waited in line. Stole a seat. Sat under a dripping air conditioner and nursed our hip sodas. We debated topics ranging from the best place to buy cheap earrings, the best sites to online date, the best versions of mac and cheese.

She favors 4 cheese. I was thrilled to dig into the classic.

It was as bubbly as Amy's frozen fresh out of the microwave with an incredible crisp crust reminiscent of 'fresh bread crumb' but actually a gluten-free one that gave so much crunch you were amazed you couldn't actually see it. I lamented my nosh (small) order and drank more root beer.

The best news? Unlike the guacamole, it put me back just under 6.00. Not too bad for New York.

I think I will get used to this place.

Transitions

2008-06-29T15:12:00.003+02:00

Last Saturday, we got married at the mairie in Le Marais and celebrated in Jardin de Luxembourg with a box of Herme macarons, plenty of champagne, and some of Trotte's best cheeses lined up on a park chair.

This Saturday, I am walking home from the Subway to my NYU dorm room and there's an organic ice cream truck on the corner where I debate between mint chip with hot fudge and ginger and decide I'll just have to go back the next day too.

And so, here in New York where I arrived just 36 hours after my marriage to learn all I can about leading a new school, I have a belly full of a bagel a day (pumpernickel toasted with butter and cream cheese), a plethora of Whole Foods snacks that never cease to amaze those around me (black sesame with molasses! almond and coconut! what are those whole wheat honey pretzel sticks and why are they so good? where did you get a peach?!), and twice a day Weinstein Hall Dining Hall food - a vegan stir fry with fake chicken (the worst seitan I ever had, but I appreciated the effort), a veggie burger grilled and on a white bun with American cheese, a salad bar with black beans, and a cheese omelet in the morning.

One week of sticky New York summer and I see the streets in blocks of food. I suggest a team meet at Dean and Deluca. I walk by Moaz and dream about the hummus Lindsey and I had in Israel. I pass Crumb and hold out for Magnolia. I even smell the kebabs and hot dogs on the street and start to get a little hungry. At my new bank, Chase, where I have the best banker I have ever had who is certainly a new friend and also potentially a parent of a child who will come to my school in a few years, they have a stand outside with fresh fruit.

I do (heart) NY.

But I even miss Paris too. (And, it goes without saying, the new husband I had to leave for now)

Book Recommendation

2008-06-18T11:45:00.004+02:00

Jasmine introduced me to many a great food tip - the top two being cheese biscuits and Clotilde's blog. Long before I imagined I'd be in Paris for nine months, Jasmine and I would drool over chocolatier recommendations, bread and mie commentary, and absorption pasta recipes.

So it is with mixed emotions that Clotilde's book (pictured to the right) arrived as I prepare to depart. So many great places I had yet to visit, and so little time.

I started with the places that I'm always seeking out in Paris with little luck - 'ethnic restaurants.' In a city where Italian is listed as 'world cuisine', finding decent Indian or dim sum can be quite difficult. Yet, Clotilde recommended one of the best Indian places I have been to here - Muniyandi Vilas.

Liam and I ate there for less than 10 euros and my mini-plat of two vegetables, a moong dal, fresh hot paratha and chai was the most perfect meal I've had in Paris.

Total: 2.90.

Liam had the vegetarian thali and was similarly impressed as his tab crept up past 5 euros. Each dish is accompanied by amazingly dry and delicious coconut chutneys - my first visit had coriander and another more spicy. My second visit kept a similar spice and also included a caramelized onion dish.

We had less success at Tricotin, recommended for dim sum - but after many an analytic conversation with other Americans here, we think it's simply impossible to get the kind of dim sum you can get in the U.S. (and we've tried many a place in the 13th which is the quartier chinois and location of Liam's work).

More success was had with Japanese 6th - Azabu - a nearly perfect formule that Johanna and I enjoyed at the bar (the pickles! the radish! the sauce on our calamari! the tea AND glace included!) and at Cafe Panique in the 10th where Dana and I celebrated her birthday last week.

Liam and I had Saturday dinner at Urbane and were partially impressed - tempura sardines kept these fish on my mind for days contemplating ways to replicate at home sans fryer or panko. Liam's veal looked great perched on melon and his dessert of roasted rhubarb cheese cake was lovely. My vegetarian dish was later explained by the hostess as 'the least interesting' of the dishes. As much as I love an option, I would also prefer for the restaurant to maintain their level of dish integrity across the carte - even Momofuku Noodle Bar does that and they have a disclaimer that vegetarians shouldn't visit. But perhaps my expectations in this world are too high ...

Alas, I adore this book. I love that she recommends Le Loire dans le Theiere - a place that saved me this winter with their fresh made desserts and tea gouter after 3pm. I love that there are chocolate shops and confisseries and that because of this book I trekked out to the 17th to visit Le Petite Rose and gorge myself on the much photographed mendiant chocolat. I appreciate that there are sections on etiquette and customer service and the ways of the French.

I also can't resist saying that you can get it in Paris - I got mine at my most favorite petite English book shop down the street, The Red Wheelbarrow.

Marriage Countdown

2008-06-18T10:43:00.005+02:00

High predicted for Saturday: 21. Low: 16.

Number of minutes of wedding ceremony at the mairie: 15

Percentage of French spoken at the ceremony: 100

Percentage of French-speaking participants: 50%

Number of translators that we elected to refuse: 1

Number of bus line that will bring us from the mairie to Jardin de Luxembourg: 96

Number of incredibly large, all-city music festivals happening on this pagan day in every corner, metro station and place: 1

Anticipated number of friends, visiting relatives and neighbors, and relatives participating in the pique-nique: 21

Total cheeses being served: 5

Total Pierre Herme macarons in a box: 35

Total Michelin stars for the Wedding Night Dinner For Two restaurant: 1

L'Arrondisement of Wedding Night Hotel: 4eme

Time of sunset on Saturday, June 21: 9:58 pm

Number of days after the wedding that I depart for New York: 2

Number of days until I get to see my husband again: 29

Hours per day I will be in school leadership training: 9-12

Days per week I will be in training: 6

Days we will have to 'honeymoon' in New York together: 6

Years we'll have together: Forever!

(awwwwwwww......)

Strawberry Rhubard Mint Compote

2008-06-13T09:48:00.002+02:00

I tried, this week, to get more red rhubarb, but the farmer was intent on giving me green, in fact, he rolled his eyes at Liam twice: once when he asked for more rouge rhubarb, and once when he ordered les petites courgettes without specifying how petite (and what we got were more moyen than not).

I like this stand, even though this guy gives me a hard time about my French and then my lack thereof, my choice of potatoes and then second-guesses me, but he has a stand with piles of eggs and now rhubarb and herbs and the Swiss chard that a girl who moved here from California aches for.

A handful of eye rolls later, we were off with a bag full of greens and sticks, and I wondered what exactly I was going to do with it all.

We had a dinner of Swiss Chard pie from a Bittman recipe that I didn't really like (was it because I didn't add mayonnaise and hard cooked egg to the filling? Why was my 'biscuit-like' crush so like an uncooked then overcooked pancake?) and closed with the most brilliant idea I've had recently: compote.

I wanted a recipe for the rhubarb that paired it with its soul sister strawberry, but the berries that we had (it said fraise des bois and while they didn't look the part, I couldn't pass up the mis-labeling) were small and sour and soft. I thought about roasting it, like the rhubarb cheesecake Liam had at Urbane over the weekend, but that didn't seem sweet enough. Then I found this recipe.

Dipping my spoon into the still hot mixture, I was surprised at how easily the sweetness and sourness fit - like the pie filling you've always had but freshened with the mint - and soaked up by the almond cakes that Kate had baked to celebrate our last Cheese Club.

Yes, I'm ready to dive into piles of peas at the Union Square Greenmarket and go to Queens to the Indian groceries but this kind of serendipity of dinner made me happy to be right here.

Hot Mango Chutney

2008-06-02T10:42:00.002+02:00

In Paris there's a passage like Bangladesh - cardboard boxes weighed down with manioc and bitter melon beneath graying light and lunch specials. It was here that I first found knobs of turmeric huddling between splashes of coriander and white-striped aubergine.

We all have our alternate-life fantasies, our wish lists where we romanticize the lives of those who have less than us. When I was young, it was the horhound candies of Laura Ingalls Wilder or the soda crackers of this series of books of a handful of Jewish children on the Lower East Side at the turn of the century.

As an American in Paris trying her best to cook up the food she adores from the Bay Area, my fantasy is that of an Indian mom taken out of her homeland and trying to survive in a foreign place - popping mustard seeds in oil to fry up shitakes from the local market. A mother with piles of dough softening on the counter each night when her husband comes home - sometimes 1/2 atta other times, when that's run out, all-purpose flour, sometimes speckled with black pepper and oil added to resemble the flaky parathas she cooked at home.

It maintains, this alter-ego, as I prepare a dal with potatoes for a Friday night picnic on the tip of Ile St-Louis - dishes filled with warm lentils, topped with homemade tamarind chutney, yogurt and the most expensive hot mango chutney I'd ever seen. I didn't find it in the passages that I imagine are necessarily rank with an authenticity that I know nothing about, but rather in the chic aisles of Le Grande Epicerie (Au Bon Marche) - each jar wrapped in a plastic bag, stacked carefully above packets of Thai curry pastes and sheets of forest-colored nori in the Asie aisle.

There I was one day, trying to use up end-of-the-month cheques de restaurant, wondering if the price is high because of the trip from India or the ingredients (and hoping it's for the latter). Alas, we mothers of the diaspora, as I imagine us, in our world known only to white American women from fiction, we find 'home' wherever we can get it, claiming what might be ours, or not, as we make up our lives each day.

Yaourt Citron

2008-05-30T11:10:00.004+02:00

I spent a significant portion of 6th grade lunch devoted to lemon yogurt.

In my on-going quest to convince my parents that I wanted to be a vegetarian (it started in 3rd grade when Liza and I gave up bologna and hot dogs after my dad warned us of what was hiding inside), I won the battle that yogurt could constitute the main part of my lunch. As much as I had loved roast beef on marble rye with mustard, lemon yogurt was a relief. It was different. It was tangy and comforting as I transitioned into those lonely middle school years.

One day at the Pompidou cafe, I was attempting to use one of Liam's cheques de restaurant to purchase cookies and tea when I spotted this yogurt.

Something about the glass container, the pieces of lemon rind, the salted butter short breads in between spoonfuls and sips of Earl Grey did it for me. It was my new favorite snack.

Devotion to Lemon Yogurt: Part II. Except it's citron yaourt not Dannon Lemon, and the setting is usually a Parisian apartment, not the left-side of the Herberg Middle School cafeteria.

It's this kind of snack that gets me through the waiting for the package. The snack that keeps me calm when Liam's birth certificate arrives from Rhode Island with an apostille attached while my mom drives across Massachusetts secure mine and then drops a small fortune to return it to me by Monday (in order for me to get it to the translator to have it back by the end of the week to give the paperwork to City Hall to wait 10 days for our intent to marry to be public and then, only then, can we set a date).

This kind of snack makes me glad to be here, almost makes me sad to leave.

Last night, as we stood in line to see Sex and The City: Le Film, an American behind us interrupted to ask if we were also in line for it, "the movie starts at 7pm and it's 6:55 and we're still in line!" I re-assured her that this was normal, "this is how they do it" I responded confidently as she wondered aloud when she'll get her popcorn.

It was not lost on me that with less than a month before I depart, on a day I'm fully appreciating small pleasures like yogurt, that I would find myself in a "this is how they do ..." conversation.

I'm not sure that I ever figured out how to make it through middle school, but I'm just figuring it out how to make through living abroad. At least that's what I tell myself.

Waiting

2008-05-27T13:43:00.004+02:00

For nearly 24 hours I have been in my apartment. No, I didn't poison myself again, and I don't have a cold, I'm just waiting for a package. I gave the person in the US my door code. He didn't include it. The package shows up yesterday with a delivery date of January 1, 1900. I call 4 numbers, 3 in the US to get 1 in France, and give the French operator my door code.

I wait all morning. I invite my writing group for homemade chai and halva rather than risk missing it while at a cafe. I make one girl sit here while I run out to the store to buy milk so that I'm not leaving my door code'd apartment unattended. When I return, a man rings and I let him in. Oil-covered hands with a blue jacket, he says he's here to look at my pipes. In the kitchen. I say, "Pardon, what? " "what?" and then in English, "I will call my landlord. Thank you" and shut the door.

I have friends who have told me this is a scam, but I have no idea if this is true, but he's not my package.

The girls leave at 12:30. I check the status. At 10:20 they tried to deliver it. No code.

I yell at an operator who doesn't speak English, and then at one who does. Do I have to continue to sit here all day I ask? He assures me it's now 'at a special level' which includes a request for re-delivery. 'But I gave you the door code yesterday!' I shout. He assures me this is the right level.

I call Liam to complain, and he's at the Office Depot to 'overnight' my $90 birth certificate to my mom so she can get in her Batmobile and whizz away to Boston in order to pay another $6 to get an Apostille. The signature that verifies the signature. Then she'll send it back to me.

How many times do I need to prove my birth? a new ex-pat asks the other night.

Now I'm asking, how many times do I need to prove the proof?

Liam tells me it will cost 100 euros to send it, and for reasons too boring to go into, this needs to go on the American credit card. While I'm waiting, I'll let you do the math.

Waiting. All day. And maybe tomorrow. Sometimes I can wait: stirring polenta straight for 45 minutes, roasting leeks and spring onions and carrots for stock, fresh ricotta dripping or whole wheat honey bread rising, the anticipation of opening a spring matcha chocolate from Aoki.

Yes, to answer our friends and families questions, we CAN wait to get married, but we want to do it now, and in Paris.

Of course, I have other things to do while I wait for this package for my new job: spreadsheets for moving budgets and packing up art supplies and rolling up maps into travel rolls and devising ways to cook 1/4 c lentils with 1/8 c azuki beans and figuring out a plan for my spice cabinet.

I guess it all depends on what we're waiting for.

Normalcy

2008-05-23T10:48:00.003+02:00

I made halva this week for the first time. Took three tree-length stalks of rhubarbe and stewed them in a sour dal served with peppered fry breads. We hosted friends for dinner and served up our favorite dishes from Greece: favas, spicy feta dip, a whole roasted fish with coriander, lentil salad, asparagus with mint. It was a mostly normal week for us.

Except that we've decided to get married. And move to New York. And so, one of these 'normal' days this week I found myself with two pieces of paper certifying to my celibitaire status from the US Embassy sitting in my purse while I sipped the above tea, a favorite mint one by a favorite market. The market near the apartment we lived in our first two weeks here.

I write this looking out my wide-open windows and the sound of construction down the street that has preceded us and will go on without us just the same. I write this with a new to-do list of papers to get together to get married here: birth certificates certified by Massachusetts and translated to French, our rental agreement, proof of our renter's insurance, Liam's livre de famille, all of this for our city hall to publish notice of our intent to marry in order for anyone who wants to to object.

Assuming no one does, they let us set a date.

We're hoping for just the two of us, some oui oui's and then an outrageously expensive French cake to celebrate along with some champagne before I head back to the US first - with my two suitcases of belongings - to a dorm room for the summer.

Romantic.

But I like this week of normalcy, of feeling like we finally do live here, of running down to the English-language book store to pick up a new Parisian eats book, hauling my winter coats to 5aSec to clean before I pack them, spilling chipotle all over the counter and then having the morning to clean it all up.

"This will be an intense transition back to normalcy!" a friend here writes, a friend who was joking last week that here in Paris we are all these shells of our American professional selves. I'm clicking boxes for people interested in teaching, but leaving here to be a Founding Principal at a new school for under resourced students in Brooklyn. She's a Physical Therapist but nannying for less then 20 euros a week. Everyone we know living a life of leisure, but yearning for the routine that our lives that we complained about in the US gave us.

It will be normal, in the next few weeks, to enjoy cups of tea and subsist on my still-lacking French. To pack up everything we have, again, and tote it on a plane and a taxi and a train. To decide that getting married and moving abroad, again, are just normal things for us in the span of a few weeks.

Normalcy.

"What's hard for Americans to realize in France ..."

2008-05-19T14:53:00.005+02:00

Liam and I whisked through the Marche Bastille yesterday, looking for spring produce for Sunday dinner. We found sticks of rhubarb a meter long, our weekly eggs fresh out of the nest and white asparagus for 7.50 euro a bunch (pictured) that I insisted we get, "this is the kind of thing you can only get in France!"

Adjusting to living here has come in bits and pieces. I spent most of the winter saddened at the loss of chiles and corn and cupcakes and much of the spring yearning for our CSA box and an end to the rain.

After my recent trip to New York, I returned a bit more calm, a bit more adjusted. I don't think it's just the prospect of moving back, or the comfort even that I have now with two job offers in my pocket, but also the idea that one thing I had to realize about living here is that it's temporary, so many times to say "we can only do this in France!"

So I was saddened today to be interrupted as my writing group and I sat drinking cremes in a cafe at the tip of ile St. Louis, giggling over life changes and exploring issues of genocide and questioning whether the protagonist of a yet-to-be-published-novel would ever catch his Moby Cat.

Three American girls sitting in a corner, appreciating our walk over the Seine to this place, acknowledging the beauty of a sunny May day where we can review each other's work and give feedback and determine the best place nearby to get a French lunch, when an American man approaches us.

We'd noticed them, other Americans. In fact, the cafe was full of us this morning, appreciating the tops of Notre Dame sneaking outside of our horizon while we sipped our boissons. We had even shared that we are sometimes embarrassed as we heard a woman next to us ordering more and more loudly in order to make her herbal tea order heard.

So when this man approached us with a good morning, a small bow, "it's a beautiful day" - there was a collective pause.

"I need to share something with you ladies. The thing that we Americans don't notice is how loud we talk," he began, "in France you will notice that Parisians are very quiet, it's just something you come to learn...... " He went on for a minute while my adrenaline and anger battled each other as I tried to think of something to say.

"Are we bothering you?" Andrea asked incredulously, since we were tables and tables away from any other patron.

"Oh no," he backtracked, "but in a place like this your American voices can really carry. Anyway, thank you for taking time to listen to me. Enjoy your day." Another bow.

"It's internalized anti-Americanism!" Emily said, wanting to shout all the ways she's confronted the American stereotypes in her two years here.

"It's historical," Andrea countered, sharing the theory of space.

"He's just insecure," I added, "he's trying to let us little ladies know how to be more parisienne!"

We were determined to continue to sip our cremes and set up a date for next week, hoping someone might stop by and offer us another reprimand, now that we'd written out our responses, our angers, our ability to articulate what is really hard for Americans to realize in France.

Le Diner Etrange

2008-05-18T19:09:00.003+02:00

Only in Paris, with a group of French people expected at a dinner themed Le Diner Etrange would the first thoughts of what to cook be peppered, excuse the pun, with the ingredients above.

Chili. Strange to French. Espresso Chili. Strange to the few Americans.
Chiles. A heavy hand with both the whole ones from Passage Brady and the flakes from Istanbul and homemade chili powder.
Spicy Hot Chocolate with the Mayan Chocolate from San Sebastian.
Donuts. Savory ones. Sprinkled in paprika. Sel de cannelle. Fleur de sel.

The strangest event of the day was the 80F temperature while I cooked kidney beans for hours and then melted chocolate into milk before steeping it with some cinnamon and more chile.

What am I doing? I emailed Dana , why am I cooking these spicy things as I sweat in my 5th floor apartment?

How can I make jello shots out of sheet gelatin? Dana replied, and thus the collaboration of 2 American girls feeding a table of French people strange food began.

I served up fat bowls of the chile, which after cooking all day had the creaminess of mole ("it's a savory dish with chocolate!" I'm later explaining, with the help of the lone Chilean, to a Frenchman. "Chocolat?" he clarifes. 5 times. Then asks for exactly what I mean by the fact that there is espresso in the chili.).

I watched as people picked, very politely, bean by bean, mixing in the creme fraiche as their last hope - "there's more creme!" I offer, but they all assure me they love this chili, before putting it down and blowing their noses.

We 2 American girls and mostly-American Liam have cleaned our bowls and are salivating over the others'.

Dana cooked up amazing broiled shark and a watermelon and feta salad and people picked at the Lemondrop Jello-shots.

I spent a long time re-heating hot chocolate spilled so many times in transit that I was relieved to see Dana pull out shot glasses to serve it with fruit and donuts that failed miserably. Gourgeres. Sans fromage et avec sel de canelle.

"These are quite wet in the middle," a Frenchman cautioned me, "they should be more dry."

I attempted to explain how I didn't know how to use Dana's oven, how the hot chocolate had spilled on the parchment in my bag, and then I dropped it, winking my eye to say .. ."etrange? eh?"

Favas and Other Santorini Specialities

2008-05-16T09:52:00.005+02:00

Greek favas are not the painstaking cloudy-sheathed green ones, nor their dried counterpart fatter than thumbnails. These favas are tiny, like moong dal if not actually moong dal: yellow and referred to by many Greeks as chickpeas.

I had been fooled by this faux ami week before in Brooklyn, ordering favas with cilnatro and imagining a pile of green filled with vitamins after a week of whole wheat crackers and camomile tea (all my belly could handle), and here I was again with a hummus-like dip in front of me.

And damn was it good.

We had favas at nearly every stop. Whipped up into a near-soapy mess at Captain Dmitri's and drenched in olive oil, above, at our fabulous hotel Ikies.

After a trip to the lighthouse and pictures on a crumbling-into-the-sea-quickly cliff, we stopped at a road side stand. The woman piled small plates high with capers, caper leaves, olives, and honey. She gave us tiny glasses of regional sweet wine and then a taste of the dry. She pointed out the gorgeous gems of canned produce - tomatoes, caper leaves, grapes, olives - all from the farm behind her, and I tried to explain in my slowest English that we just had carry-on bags. This was lost on her, but we left with a self-corked bottle that came straight from a blue barrel and a bag of favas still with the stones in them.

"You boil ..." she started, as Liam paid out the 6 euros for this bag, "4 of water, 1 of fava" she continues with the other necessary ingredients "2 of oil" (pointing at our shot glasses sticky with wine residue), "not garlic, you scrape" and we offer onion, which she agrees to ... "yes," she concludes, "yes, that's it."

Athens: Alatsi

2008-05-14T15:21:00.002+02:00

On Sunday, I sat in Blackbird Parlour watching the hipsters roll by in Williamsburg, reading the Sunday Times with Emily, when I came to 36 Hours in Athens. How bougie is my life that I could say, "hey, I'm going to be there on Thursday!" and so Liam and I found ourselves just a few days later (with lengthy travel back to Paris in between) walking into Alatsi.

I was ready to order whatever the most Rustic Crete cuisine there. Cheese Fries. Except - they're not cheese fries, but rather, potatoes with staka - described by the waiter as 'full of cholesterol' but research shows is either a 'cooked goat butter' or a roux with clarified butter. It was good - like the lightest heaviest cheese fries you could imagine.

We paired this with a salad that he warned had bitter greens but also had pomegranate, candied quince and aged balsamic. [Unfortunately, our bread/oil/olives never came ..]

For dinner Liam and I both had pasta, since we had just gorged on a mezze plate at a cafe overlooking Athens where we witnessed a tourist cut open a water bottle to put her remainders in only to be stopped by the waiters who offered her foil to no avail.

The pasta was fresh made - Liam's was boiled in 'lamb juice' and mine had mostly pine nuts. It was good, not as great as staka but I don't think we did the best ordering here.

We saved room for our first Greek dessert, if you don't count the vacuum-packed baklava on our Olympic Airlines flight: loukoumathes, the donut puffs fried and soaked in sesame and honey and then some semolina halva that was covered in rose petal ice cream and sprinkled with lavender blossoms and closed with a cup of Cretan herb tea.

Macaroni and Cheese Diaries

2008-05-07T21:56:00.003+02:00

I first ate Annie's at Liza's house, I'm sure of it. I didn't tell her this when we met for Thai food in Union Square with two purple boxes in my new tote for the return trip home, but when I made it today with French milk, French butter, French kitchen, I thought about my first time.

For three days in a row in New York City, I had macaroni and cheese. Tuesday I found myself between two interviews, waiting to meet Liza, so I took myself to Whole Foods and ate in the 'picnic area' a mediocre version made with my least favorite pasta, bowties. Wednesday I was there again, between more interviews, microwaving Amy's version in the picnic area along with a hefty dose of salad bar. Thursday, in Crown Heights all day for another interview, I imagined iceberg lettuce salads in my vegetarian future but alas, one of the interviewers was coming from Whole Foods and brought along a little 'cake' of mac and cheese that I microwaved straight away in its plastic container in the teacher's room, with a falafel salad on the side.

One night I ate just refried black beans with jack and blue corn chips, another night I was so exhausted it was a few ak-mak crackers and some tea before bed. There were no cupcakes, but in the days I found myself at WF, I also was able to go to the Greenmarket, where I proceeded to try nearly every version of apple cider donut and at a maple stand: syrup, cream and candies.

I'm sure the New Yorkers are tired of apples in May in between a few ramps and sappy slabs of cedar, but I was thrilled with it all - only saddened that I had nowhere to bring great bunches of apple blossoms, dogwood or cherry.

I did pick up a travel mug though, and after I filled it with a japanese green after my picnic, I sat against a chain link fence and soaked up the sun, trying to focus before another interview.

Report from the Cupboard

2008-04-28T09:19:00.002+02:00

It has been a crazy few weeks with a few more of craziness to follow. In London there was the jam (pictured to the right), which has yet to be opened, and the dulce de leche that found itself swirled into last week's brownies. There was a lot of candy from London: brown sugar fudge, Cadbury cream eggs, Cadbury mini-eggs, and some Turkish delight.

San Sebastian brought pimenton in everything: a confiture for cheese, a nougat with a spicy center, powdered in small tin cans taken for tchochkes, wrapped in plastic for the mole that never gets made.

Israel resulted in za'atar with too much citric acid and a chai tea in bags (there were some whole wheat honey pretzels, but they're long gone now).

This weekend we went to the Loire Valley for the first time with my parents and came back with wines and beer and remnants of sheep's cheese from a chateaux picnic and tilleul honey and walnut mustard for vinaigrettes.

Is there even room to bring things back from New York?

Sesame (in its many forms)

2008-04-22T10:40:00.004+02:00

Favorite sesame snacks in Israel include:

Sesame loop of bread with fluorescent za'atar for dipping all wrapped up in recycled newsprint. 5 NIS (about $2. Tourist price?)

Sesame roll with thicker dough, somewhere in between a kaiser and a bagel, slightly sweet like a simit.

Sesame-laden pita then covered in very tart za'atar and even when dropped on the souk floor it still tastes ok because the 5-second rule is legit. 2 NIS.

Halva halva halva. Mostly pistachio, but sometimes plain. Kosher. Non-kosher. Freshly made. 'Freshly made.' Sweating in a plastic bag when it's 96 in Tel Aviv or melting when it's over 100 in Tiberius, the way you can pull it into chunks and it melts in your mouth or sweetens your yogurt... yum.

Hummus

2008-04-22T09:52:00.003+02:00

When I was growing up I would beg my dad to open a can of chick peas so I could eat them straight out of the can. It was the perfect treat -no lettuce that could get in the way. Later, he taught me to make hummus and I thought perhaps all dreams of vegetarianism had come true. Soon after, years of vegetarianism gone bad resulted in an aversion to humus, but then I visited Israel.

Above is what was called 'the best Hummus in Israel': by our guide book, my cousin, the Israelis sitting across from us at the most crowded of lunch tables. Tucked inside the souk in Old Acre (Akko), we stood in line and spoke English with smiles simply repeating 'hummus' hoping we'd get it. Our waiter, who spoke English just fine, laughed at us and brought us what you see above: a plate of tahina thick with oil and chick peas, a plate of onion, pickle, hot pepper, olive and tomato and some hot pita. Always one to be in Rome, I followed the men across from me as they ate it with their forks - only to have them turn to me later and say 'no fork!' and mime how to wipe my bowl clean with pita.

If only I were a plate cleaner.

The hummus we had across Israel and the Palestinian Territories varied - most was thick and creamy and delicious. Some was thinner, with a few sad chick peas on top. Others, even the one on the flight home on El Al, were creamy with something quick thick and, well, cream-y. Some were too bitter and not fresh, but this one - this one was incredible.

Markets of Israel

2008-04-20T20:19:00.006+02:00

Markets in both Israel and Palestine were incredible. Piles of seasonal produce in a country that has incredible bounty - in fact, the vegetables I bought at Monoprix this week when I returned to Paris tanned and lazy, were all imported from Israel.

Above you can see in the main market in Jerusalem a typical sight of hot peppers and of course some radishes (masquerading as beets, I know) and even some corn that for some reason was ubiquitous across the country.

In Jerusalem, we visited as the entire city was picking up their food for Shabbat -rugelach, challah, whole heads of fresh spring garlic, raw almonds piled up next to glowing strawberries.

Jerusalem also has a souk that we frequented daily where I bought my first halva of the trip and tip-toed over fish juice on the Via Dolorosa.

In Tel Aviv the market was more commercial - lots of things manufactured in China but in between an old man selling 8 kinds of green beans: fava, haricort vert, peas, striped, and others I had never seen before.

Hebron had an intense market - dried herbs in piles and sacks, some even including mashed up cigarettes. On a restaurant-sized grill, a man fried up small pancakes that looked somewhere between a crepe and injera, that you wrap up with filling (we moved too quickly to try some). In Hebron we had tea brewed with sage and coffee with cardamon before heading back out among sesame-speckled bread products of all shapes and shades of yellow.

I have to say that while they had their share of year-round products, these places had a higher percentage of seasonal produce that I see around the corner at one of Paris' most famous markets. The piles of onions and garlic alone were enough to make you want to go home and put a sautee pan on the stove with some oil and just cook whatever was available - which is what many of the restaurants we went to did. More on that in a bit ...

San Sebastian

2008-04-07T10:28:00.003+02:00

The other day I was re-telling a story to Jasmine and Jill about my reluctance to enter Berkeley's Cheese Board for the first time - last year. I hadn't been there, didn't know the set up or how to ask for cheese, I was sure that everyone was the cheese expert I longed to be and would judge me as such.

I had a nervous belly before I went in for the first time. And the fifth.

Living in Paris now, I laugh at this story - my worst fear of someone laughing in my face has happened, a couple of times, and thankfully I don't always understand what they're saying! I would take the Cheese Board any day. But this asking, the language, the wanting to know what's best and eat what's freshest and drink the right thing - all very stressful again when we went to San Sebastian this weekend, except they smiled more at our Spanish than I get in an average day at my French.

No Basque attempted, but we did manage to order the olives above while we sat over-looking the clear blue bay and drinking txakoli, a local drink that Liam just pointed to in a magazine that I had. I don't know if it was the sun, but something about it became a little less stressful - although then I looked around and everyone else was drinking something red that looked like sangria but came in a bottle and I was overwhelmed with the options.

Our favorite finds on our trip were the pinxtos of olive/anchovy/hot pepper on a stick, some fried cheese that looked like a plantain and some ham cut from a leg above us that Liam enjoyed in a bocadillo.

On the drive from San Sebastian to Bordeaux, we stopped at a boulangerie to get a gateau basque creme which rounded out our train ride picnic of basque cheeses, piment confiture, a bread shaped like a cinnamon roll but oiled with olive, and a nougat filled with spicy pepper as well.

We bought these on the French side though, slightly side-stepping the language worries, but I let Liam do that.

Perfect Snack for Writing a Novel

2008-04-02T21:08:00.001+02:00

As some of you know, I'm working on a novel in poetry for young adults. It's a coming of age tale of a 16 year old Nora Smith: 1/2 Jewish, 1/2 Catholic, trying to define her own identity in the year following the death of her best friend. She is taking a Black Studies course at her high school and falls for an African-American boy. Through the course of the novel, we learn more about Nora, her family, her grief and her growth.

She may even end up in Paris.

While there's not much food in the novel (Nora does prefer a Chai Latte to a cappuccino), there's a great deal of food fueling the author on her end.

A recent favorite any-time-of-day-while-writing snack includes brown sugar sea salt cookies from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian with a cup of homemade chai (all novels are based on some kinds of facts, yes?)

These cookies are incredible - the butteriness is shown off by the addition of semolina flour (sandy, but in a way that renders this writer speechless for a better synonym) and the fleur de sel on top makes you lick your lips and grab another. I've tried them several times in several different thicknesses - I don't have an electric mixer here, so my dough has ranged from crumbly to creamy (and subsequently frozen for cutting because I've melted the butter too much).

The recent batch pictured here started as a creamy dough and then baked very thin and crispy.

A handful with a cup of tea can fuel an author for a pre-lunch revision session, a tea-time hour of drafting two new poems for Part II or an after dinner re-read.

I cannot recommend How to Cook Everything Vegetarian enough, even for meat-eaters (indeed, you are Bittman's audience here), but until you buy it, here's the recipe:

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup dark packed brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 C. semolina flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 t. salt
about 1 t. coarse sea-salt for sprinkling

1. Use an elect. mixer on low speed to mix the butter and sugar together just until combined, 30 seconds or so. Still on low speed, beat in the egg yolk, then the flours and salt, until the mixture barely holds together; this will take a few minutes.
2. Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface and shape it into a round, triangular, or rectangular log about 1 inch in diameter; wrap it in plastic wrap and refrig. or freeze until firm, about 30 minutes (or freeze the log for up to 3 mos well wrapped).
3. Preheat the oven to 325F. Unwrap the dough and slice it 1/4" thick, put the slices on an ungreased baking sheet, sprinkle each with a little sea salt, and bake right away until the cookies are firm but now browning, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, let them cool in the pan for a minute or two and then transfer the cookies to a rack to cool. Stir in an airtight container for up to 2 days (I've kept them a few more and they've still been good)

Makes 3 or 4 dozen.

Butter Tasting

2008-04-01T08:30:00.000+02:00

It was a Fromagette reunion this month, with Sara here a few weeks ago and Jasmine this past week with Jill. To celebrate, we set out to sample the dairy product loved by both fromagettes and the future maman: les beurres des France.

"What would you say if you saw someone in the store with 6 kinds of butter?" I asked Jill as we watched people eying us.

"There aren't 6 kinds of butter at the American grocery store - unless we're talking butter substitutes?!" and we laughed as four kinds of doux and three brands of demi-sel passed by.

Using recommendations gleaned from Regal, a Parisian eGullet Butter Tasting and the generally agreed upon belief that Bordier reigned, we put all out on the table. Sweet to salty, we spread bits ranging from near white to a saffron yellow on baguette and paused.

Perhaps it was because I mistakenly I picked up the beurre tendre version but the Elle & Vivre recommended by Regal was a waxy loser. For Jasmine, the salted Bordier was Queen. Jill and I preferred the AOC Monoprix Gourmand brand.

Conditions weren't ideal - the Bordier was cut just an hour before by wire at the fromagerie while the others were still a bit firm from the grocery store shelf.

We kept out the demi-sel Bordier and Monoprix's Gourmand, added some bio bread (one loaf of nut, another of complet, a 1/2 roasted chicken for the ladies, some petit pois to get some green in and three cheese old and new to the fromagettes: chevre Reblochon, an aged comte, and a cone of soft tarragon and garlic (?) covered in paprika and pepper (Basque? Corsican?) and had une grande pique-nique!

Return of the Cheddar

2008-03-31T18:23:00.001+02:00

Upon arriving in London last weekend, we went straight to Kensington High Street to visit the most beautiful Whole Foods I've ever seen.

Only living in Paris would render the airy, chalk-board sights of this store so gorgeous to me. I picked up some rose petal masala, a make your own muesli, chocolate with lavender, fennel toothpaste and a pound of flax seed (linseed as they call it there).

As we walked to the till, we passed a display of hot chili crackers - on the side it said, serve with aged cheddar so I grabbed the first one I saw and headed upstairs to eat a tostada with beans, cilantro, 'soured cream,' and fresh jalapenos.

We brought the cheddar to our dear hosts who added the Keen's Cheddar they had purchased - half of an incredible cheese plate that we ate this all weekend. The Keen's Cheddar is complex and strong and on those chili crackers? Perfection.

Saturday we went to the Borough Market. I filled my basked with danson jam and burnt sugar raw sugar caramel fudge and some dulce de leche from Spain and as we left, I eyed a cheese sandwich stand. Above you see the grilled cheese, greasy and wrapped, cut with some salad of onions and cucumbers and something else, that I ate on the way out.

If only they'd had macaroni and cheese at Whole Foods, it would've been the perfect cheese weekend.

Bienvenue Printemps

2008-03-22T12:34:00.002+01:00

We Pisces know that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb but surely in Paris there could be a better way to welcome spring than with hail and near-snow?

A dinner party. Some French friends, some American, and food that brings hope of sunny days.

What I miss is the glory of flipping through food magazines and newspaper sections for inspiration. What do I do instead? Click on Epicurious links which I don't enjoy as much, but which led me to some fantastic recipes.

We started with what's pictured here: Goat Cheese Crostini with Blood Orange Black Pepper Marmalade - the tart sweet spiciness of the marmalade was the perfect way to wake us up to the potential of spring, albeit with wintry citrus. The recipe was written by Amelia Saltsman, whose recipes I am always moved by when she's interviewed on the Good Food Market Report (she wrote a cookbook about this market).

Also inspired by Good Food, was Russ Parson's suggestion for making a Spring Potato Chowder - new potatoes (12 euros a kilo!), green garlic (the best I could do was green onions), and topped with a bit of vinegar, olive oil and pecorino - one guest said, "I know this might not be a compliment to you, but it tastes like bacon!"

To work on my goal of roasting whole fish, I succeeded in ordering a 4kilo bar de ligne (line-caught sea bass) for a recipe for Roasted Fish with Coriander and Vinegar Sauce. Liam and I worked together to stuff it with roasted almonds, lemon slices and coriander and then laid it out on a bed of bay leaves and set to roast for the good part of an hour. Topped with the vinegar sauce, it was pretty remarkable - tangy without being too, well, vinegar-y, and with all this great roasted crunch from the stuffing.

Bienvenue Printemps! I shouted with the dessert, welcoming spring with strawberries. whipped cream and boulangerie-made meringues - an idea that I got from the New York Times - so, perhaps, I'm still doing my 'flipping through the pages' anyway...

Bebe Food

2008-03-20T20:27:00.003+01:00

Last weekend Liam's family visited. It was a fun-filled three days of parks, drizzle, visits to Notre Dame complete with the "Who is God?" question, more drizzle, a tea party, and some nachos.

At one of our between-the-park-and-a-nap stops, we sat outside at Marche des Enfants Rouges, one of my favorite markets in the 3rd, to eat our lunch. Liam took off to get cous cous for everyone while I held it down with a middle eastern plate and 2 young ladies aged 5 and 3 eating dolma and hummus off of my fork.

Liam's sister pulled out the food for her youngest, a 9-month old that I lovingly refer to as Sweet Potato, and what was he having? Cous cous!

Later, a 5 year old and I played a game in the grocery store called, "If I were a baby, I would eat ..." which I created on the spot solely to memorize the fantastic array of foods for the bebe at the store.

The game went like this ...

If I were a baby, I would eat ....
duck and peas for lunch
ratatouille for dinner
creme caramel for dessert
more duck for lunch the next day ... and so on.

Canard avec petit pois for lunch? Who could say no?

Dejeuner

2008-03-18T10:58:00.000+01:00

Last week, Sara visited us, and we were able to show off our now-nearly-honed Tour Guide skills. Early morning walks to Ile St Louis for a cafe creme with a view of Notre Dame, pictures on various ponts, and petit sacs of macarons at Pierre Herme to be consumed at Luxemborg Gardens. Following the sunny walk and garden tour, we decided to avoid a touristy haunt and thus, we ended up lunching at Bread and Roses - a British place that I had passed many times on my way to French class in the fall, but had heard wasn't that good. It proved us quite wrong.

I had the "Ploughman's Lunch" that you can see above. A fat old slice of cheddar with a beautifully soft piece of Irish soda bread and some water crackers. A little bit of 'pickle' it was called in French, but was more like chutney and some salade on the side. I decided that despite my aversion to cold lunches, this was the perfect dejeuner for me.

Lunch has been a weird experience for me now that I spend most of my time at home in the day.

I went through a short-lived "I can cook lunch every day!" phase. What followed was the "Bittman was right, baking an egg is the way to go!" ramekin phase. Finally, there's been the "Alice Waters says you don't even need to cook to eat well a perfect loaf of bread can be a great lunch!" phase.

Today, I had a pain aux cereales from the fabulous Veronique Mauclerc with some 48 month aged Gouda and a few lucques olives with some hot peppers. Yummy, but I will admit publicly - sometimes I think it would be nice to have Annie's mac and cheese and a Smart Dog for a "I was a child in 1982 who ate Kraft mac and cheese and hot dogs but now I'm grown and eat organic/vegetarian lunch."

That is a favorite dejeuner phase too.

Why I Should Stick to Buying Cheese

2008-03-13T14:57:00.002+01:00

Setting: 5aSec, Rue Rivoli (dry cleaner's)
Time: 2:30pm
Major Players: A 'French-speaking' Fromagette and a kind cashier

[conversation translated into English for your reading pleasure]

C: Bonjour Madame!
F: Bonjour Madame!
C: Would you like to take a free card today to have a discount?
F: No thank you!
C: No, it's free, you just take a card for a discount.
F: No thank you Madame, it's good!
C: laughs
F: smiles 'knowingly' believing that she has not been scammed into some kind of 'membership card' to pay for a discount. C continues to laugh.
C: ringing up purchase. 8.60 please!
F: looking over at the cards and seeing that they're actually a free discount now that she has time to translate: March 1- 15 - Game Days! Free Discount up to 40%!. Hands cashier money.
C: I guess you had the correct change! another giggle
F: feeling stupid but not having enough French to say 'oops, can I grab one now?'. Yes!
C: They will be ready tomorrow!
F: I am in agreement! Thank you! Good bye!
C: smiling. perplexed? Good bye!

Grocery Store Maven Goes to Monoprix

2008-03-07T15:11:00.003+01:00

Monoprix is like Trader Joe's meets Safeway. It has a small 'ethnic aisles' like the Shaw's of my college days, including one for Italian food. In another, you'll find coconut milk, tortillas, and peanut butter on the same two shelves.

For Chinese New Year, a seasonal aisle was chock-full of Vietnamese rice paper rolls and nori and nothing discernably 'Chinese.'

Monoprix, being a French grocery, has an extraordinary yogurt aisle, butter collection and four grades of cheese: regular packaged, a gourmet package, a just-cut-from-across-the-way fromager package, and a fromager. These are in four different locations in the store.

Like Trader Joe's, Monoprix doesn't seem to have the same inventory each week. They also seem to add new sections frequently - this past week I saw an all-bio (organic) vegetable section with some of the saddest plastic-encased vegetables I've seen. The same refrigeration weirdness that has tofu underneath zucchini at Safeway has cranberries by prepared salads and a fancy citron yogurt that I like hidden next to pre-made sandwiches here in Paris.

This week I explored an aisle I'd never paid much attention to. I imagine it's the Cocktail Aisle (or apero for aperitif). I turned from picking up honey for my Cream of Wheat and saw the display small packages with yummy treats that seemed perfect for a PMS week. My favorites: cheese puffs in a small package so they don't get stale and Pringles-like paprika chips.

We don't have any plans with friends for an apero over here any time soon, but I figured it'd be good to be ready - and by ready, I mean to have sampled them before I put them out there for guests.

L'Arpege

2008-03-04T14:49:00.005+01:00

With all apologies to Monsieur Passard, L'Arpege is decorated like a dentist's office (credit to his website for this photo). Warm and not too stuffy, but unlike the lovely squash you see here, we saw paintings and Mr. Passard's book translated into Japanese.

We sat at the table you see here and I'm regretful that I did not bring my camera - the dining room included a teenager wearing jeans, several large 35mm cameras and a couple that couldn't get enough of the sommelier (another picture taken) - and I was worried about what we wore and what we carried!

But I digress from the meal.

Liam and I both had the menu. Pas de viande! the waitress informed us, but she had just explained that one of the first courses included a foam of lardon, so perhaps this was 'without meat' the French way?

There was foam on everything, and this made me happy.

I fell first for a foamy oeuf flavored with sherry vinegar and maple syrup and tasted as amazing as it sounds terrible. A dish that followed that seemed to be buttery foam on potatoes was like the essence of dauphin - but this may be the fume of a good hunk of ham.

A slice of celeriac was covered in crispy chestnuts and black truffle - Liam did not like it - I thought it was a bit too salty. A final plate of roasted root vegetables - everything from slices of rutabaga to salsify to several colors of carrots all covered in, yes, saffron foam. There was an earlier beet dish which was one of the least sweet beets I have ever had.

Our main course was by far the best - a slice of abalone covered in another white foam, accompanied by onions caramelized in vanilla bean and an onion gratin that came to the table a few seconds later. I was nearly full at this point, but wiped every bit of foam off of that plate.

And while I was surely smitten with Liam for bringing me here for my 32nd birthday, I made a several-glasses-of-wine-later suggestion that if I am ever to leave him, it might be for the incredible wheel of salers that arrived on an oak bench with a 4 year aged comte, served only in L'Arpege (no where else in the city), and, I quote (this was in English so I know what I'm saying here) "raised as you would raise a child."

Needless to say, it was some of the best cheese I have ever had.

Dessert: a honeyed souffle with a 'heart of chocolate' was so light and deliciously honeyed without being too sweet and a plate of petits fours that ranged from fun (celeriac and beet macarons!) to classic (chocolate puff pastry).

Despite rain that started off the morning, there was sun streaming into our faces while we ate - some of the best ambiance you can hope for during a late-winter Paris lunch.

The Serendipity of Turmeric (and other rhizome tea tales)

2008-03-01T15:15:00.004+01:00

It was a week of culinary serendipity.

One day I'm reading Madhur Jaffrey's top 100 of Saveur piece on fresh turmeric, a few days later I'm at Paris' Passage Brady in front of a bin of the stuff.

One day I'm reading a blog about making ice cream with condensed milk and cursing the universe that I can't find it here. Several days later, Veronica tells me that she adds it to horchata and I need to scope out the part of the grocery store I'm not as familiar with - the unrefrigerated milk section.

And so, one serendipitous week and a few days later, I am the queen of rhizome teas.
After taking Katie and Veronica on a spice run to make homemade chai, I remembered Ginger Tea and with the canned milks find, fled home for a quick blended brew. It's deep with ginger and smoky with black tea and that earthy undertone of sweetened condensed milk and one of the best teas I know.

Today, I returned to my less familiar rhizome and peeled a knob to make sure it was the orange yellow finger-stainer that I thought it was. A faint Dr. Weil-said-that-Okinawans-live-to-be-100-because-they-drink-it-daily memory and several Internet searches later, I boiled it with a few cups of water and one cardamon pod. One cup later, I'm a fan.

2008 Food Intentions: Update

2008-02-26T14:35:00.002+01:00

In my effort to keep my 2008 Food Intentions alive, I've decided to post updates. To date, I have

roasted an entire fish (dourade), quite easily, stuffed with some fennel and lemon and the moral support of Liam (I am still a semi-recovering vegetarian who eats fish)
added salade to our dinner with my homemade vinegar to no avail (we still eat it to eat it and not because we enjoy it).
after a trip to Patrick Roger, I have inserted confiture into my day with little success, but might try this week with scones and pair those scones with a Chinese black after having a great one in Honfleur called gui hong.

Finally, you can see above a cheese course that I put together last week. Inspired by the ginger spread that Emily sent me back with me to Paris, I paired it with a pear and our new favorite: a 48 month-aged Gouda. Then, slightly inspired by reading an article in Saveur about how to pair ports, I got the idea of the sweetness of the gouda/ginger and the pear to pair with the bleu d'auvergne.

The pairings have made me happy for 3 days. Maybe 5.

Now, onto knowing more about my teas and picking up some salsify.

Honfleur Humor

2008-02-25T09:24:00.005+01:00

I smiled at La Tarterie, as the husband of the chef in this tiny, butter-warmed restaurant said, oh, you speak English? You have a nice accent. I then said merci, and looked back out the sunny window over the harbor. As we awaited our homemade crepes, I saw on Liam's face that something was wrong.

L: You just told him you were British
LF: What? No, I said I speak English.
L: He said, are you British? Anglaise like British, not like anglais English
LF: Oh, whatever.
L: He said, you have a bit of an accent.
LF: Hmm. I thought he said I have a nice accent.
L: silence
LF: silence

and then the best crepes we ever had came. And so, even in Honfleur, which is like Saulsalito on a Sunday, lovely and peaceful and teeming with out-of-towners, I am unable to understand French. Even when the people are nicer.

Our weekend started with a scheduling glitch that had us in Le Havre for three hours before the bus to Honfleur. Le Havre is like the downtown of the city of my birth before renovation and if it were filled with only elderly women and young men of various backgrounds. There was a small market where an old man let his poorly rolled cigarette drop ash onto salsify and where women of all levels of crankiness lined up for scallops shucked on the spot. We admired the grime, returned to the train/bus station, and enjoyed a creme et croissant for 3.55 each and appreciated being out of the expensive city.

But when the bus arrived in cloudy Honfleur, we were happy to be greeted by a galichot ('not a pancake, not a blini'). Mine oozed with semi-salted Normandy butter and Liam's with anchovies, tomato and onion. I think this is where my French-confidence grew in Honfleur - out of a menu that translated chevre bouchette as "twig goat cheese."

The best translation though was one that took both of us to determine. After the lunch pictured above (I recommend the moules de creme), we stopped at a souvenir shop. I was cruising the boat-themed postcards while Liam focused on one that pictured a mussel on the half-shell, full on, and a french fry to the side. What it said, we discovered together (humor can stupefy even the Frenchest of Frenchmen): In Normandy, where there's a mussel. .. there's a fry. This was French that I could understand.

Un Piquito Note on Chipotle

2008-02-21T11:22:00.004+01:00

The list of things that I didn't used to like include, in no particular order, olives, anchovies, roasted red peppers, chocolate desserts over other desserts, savory breakfasts, and chipotles.

Time and again, Jasmine and I would have a conversation that would go like this:

Me: Mac and cheese is my favorite food, except for the two times I've food poisoned myself with it.

Jasmine: It's one of my favorites too! What do you think is the best recipe?

Me: My favorite is Martha Stewart's Macaroni and Cheese 101. Cheddar. Gruyere or Pecorino, and chunky bread crumb topping.

Jasmine: My favorite has chipotle in it.

Me: No offense, but ew. I hate chipotle.

Five months in Paris and a 5 euro can of chipotles later, I will admit that I'm hooked. It may be the Black Bean Chili I've made several times for American-yearning friends that has it's smoky goodness all in it, or it may be that Bittman taught me to mix up some yogurt with chipotle powder and lemon juice and call it a bean croquette dipping sauce, or it may be that like a small child, I finally just tasted it enough to appreciate it, but I'm hooked.

Two shout outs: to Jennifer for sending me a package a la americaine that included some powdered chipotle and to Tina who took a list of the things I missed here and included in her package, as you see above, two cans of chipotle. I have enough for a whole other year in Paris. Merci.

One Vegan, One Fromagette, 4 Cupcakes ....

2008-02-14T13:38:00.004+01:00

Paris has many delights. None of them involve cupcakes. We can all list the many reasons that cupcakes trump eclairs and macarons and even a Paris Brest, but for me, the main attraction is the icing. And so, with four days in New York and endless opportunities, Emily and I tasted four different vanilla cupcakes.

Babycakes. I was intrigued by gluten-free, sugar-free, etc. cupcakes. Having spent weeks and months overthree years avoiding food allergens, I am all about a place where you can get your cupcake on without stomach pain. I'm generally glad that I'm not allergic to aforementioned goodies because although the texture of the vanilla cupcake was amazing for a vegan one, I was disappointed with the flavor. I think that the other flavors (lemon, carrot cake) would've been better, but when I asked for the best one, that's what she gave me (the service was not the best there). A for accessibility, C for flavor.

Crumb. Emily and I embarked on a Sunday of cupcake fervor that started at Crumb. We were initially drawn in by their warm, sweet, cup-cakey air but when we saw behind the glass mounds of candied cupcakes, we weren't so sure. (Service aside: the guy was so taken with Emily, he could barely take my order) We did not have any desire for Reese's or Oreo and were glad to stuff large puffs of vanilla cake and cream in our mouths. Until we both began to chew and felt that sickly tannin-y taste on the back of our teeth, like the cupcake was from Safeway, but cost 10x as much. We put the other half back in the bag and two blocks later we dropped it in the trash. C.

Buttercup. More optimistic a few blocks over, we were welcomed by friendly ladies and a more chill, small-town bakery vibe. Despite bowls of flourescent icing hanging out catching the breeze, it seemed like a nice place to be (we tried to sit, but there wasn't room). This vanilla beauty had blue icing, but tasted really great - nice fat crumb and that buttercream sweetness that keeps you from eating too much but also calls you back again and again. There was still a depth of flavor that Teacakes gets in their icing that was missing, so I gave it a B+. (Emily was happy to finish it .)

Magnolia. Hopes were as high as the line was long. I spilled a large bottle of Smartwater on the floor while I held our seats and then cleaned up an end of a table for us to spread out our cakes and 2008 goals only to relinquish it to a trio who discussed cancer tests. Emily returned with two beautiful cakes (pictured above) and two teas and yes, Magnolia was the best by far. The cake was vanilla-y and even though it's crumb was smaller, I preferred it as such (Emily preferred the larger crumb) and the frosting was as close to Teacakes as I have gotten: sweet, vanilla-tinged, and leaving you wanting more (although I actually couldn't finish it). Pink is from red and no it's not a natural color, but it appealed to my aesthetic more than blue. A-

Grilled Cheese and other NYC delights ...

2008-02-13T11:21:00.002+01:00

My homesickness renders me more American than I had ever imagined and a cafe lunch of grilled cheese (cheddar) on rye with dill pickles and chips becomes homage to a life that I've missed. Ethiopian food exceeds my expectations with red lentils so spicy and distinct in their cinnamon flavor that Emily and I are in love with Zoma forever. An after dinner trip to a store called Organic Forever and my bag is filled with snacks of dried cranberry trail mix, small boxes of soy milk. fruit leathers, my dearly missed Barbara and her Shredded Spoonfuls, and Dr. Brommer's galore.

New York was a whirlwind of root beer and soy bacon cheeseburgers, of kukicha tea and endless cups of green carried down the street just because I could. Enormous Whole Foods and fingers trailing along the Dagoba bars for my two favorites knowing that these are nothing compared to what I can get in Paris, but buying Lavendar and Roseberry anyway. Tiny bagels with guar gum filled Philadelphia and a fat cinnamon-raisin one with a cup of Chai in a cafe that stinks of coffee beans and Sunday mornings and the Times in my hand and it could beat out a Sunday walking along the Seine.

And there was Mexican - huevos rancheros in the West Village at a tiny cafe that Sara seemed to pull out of pocket, enchiladas with mole and salsa verde after a basket of chips with salsa as orange as queso fundito if it were made of Velveeta and guacamole at our table. At Zabar's, I bypass refried beans to stick Vermont Cabot Cheddar and peanut butter in my bag.

I return with a larger suitcase after breaking the small one and filling my bags with more sweatshop filled clothing than I imagined from Old Navy and Urban Outfitters, no yoga mat, and piles of magazines. I have no idea how my job interview went, it was as rigorous as I could have imagined and tiring and led me to some of the best homemade mozzerella west of Italy, but I feel lucky to have gone and seen friends and embraced consumerism and follow election coverage in real time. I find out on Friday how it went.

New York here I come ....

2008-02-06T07:31:00.000+01:00

List of things to get in New York:

dried chiles for mole

some jack/Asadero if I can sneak it in my bag

chili pepper

Trader Joe's snacks

Dr. Brommer's soap free of all preservatives coating me in French cleanliness

Tom's of Maine Peppermint Toothpaste

generic Claritin, a fat bottle of Advil, and contact solution that doesn't cost $25

yoga mat (not an 'exercise' mat 1" thick)

clothes that were probably made in a sweatshop (children, I'm very, very sorry)

upscale Mexican in the style of my most favorite Tacubaya (Berkeley)

aged Vermont cheddar

a cupcake

a cup of tea with Emily, with Kristen, and with Sara

a job?

NB: I am finally legal to visit France for a year! Last Friday we went to the prefecture to see if it were possible for me to travel to NY on my non-official carte de sejour and five minutes of a woman gossiping to Liam about how hard her job has gotten as a public servant since 1979 later and the laminated goodness which probably cost us, in total, close to $1000, was in my hands. Vive la France!

45 hours in Bucharest

2008-02-04T09:47:00.000+01:00

Monica is the Romanian mother I never had. We arrived in Bucharest to a snack that was essentially what you see here - salade russe, roasted red peppers, smoky eggplant and onion, and a selection of cheeses - and that was just to hold us over until our dinner reservation.

Monica cooks the best food I've had in a long, long time. When I asked her, over a vegetable borscht (some kind of fermented base in there that makes it look like minestrone but taste like it could win a revolution against a communist regime...), what was Romanian and what wasn't, she looked at me a little crazy, kind of like - enjoy your food and stop asking questions, when meanwhile, I was scheming to figure out how I do research and make this stuff at home. I just don't have enough Balkanic Food knowledge to know exactly what to do to "put the fish eggs in a bowl, add some oil, and mix ..." (like aioli, but how many eggs?) or "put the mushrooms in a pot and boil.... mix cream and flour ... mix."

It's like saying French baguettes are just some flour, starter, water and let it rise before you bake it.

We went to the market there, and after scoping out piles of fresh horseradish next to pickled, and trios of hot peppers laid out on plywood across milk crates, we stepped into the cheese market: to my untrained eye it looked like 10 kinds of feta in a row sold by men in white coats wearing little felted black hats - but having tried these the day before I knew some where salty, others sweet, some stunk of barnyardy sheep goodness and others a crisp goat tang.

My most favorite was this dish that started with 7 kilos of fresh farm cheese (we went to another part of the city to pick it up from her friend) that Liam's dad whipped with some salt, and we then spread on toast. 120% fat cream cheese au naturel. Incredible.

While I work on Monica to open a restaurant (I thought Paris, New York or Oakland), I am on a search for how to do this at home. It might be dangerous - we eat enough here already!

Cookbooks Abroad

2008-01-30T13:06:00.000+01:00

I paid to join the American Library in Paris this past fall, 60 euros with a 65 euro deposit, for 6 months because I wanted access to cookbooks. I miss my cookbook club. I love Madhur but needed more. My parents hadn't arrived from the US yet with Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Yesterday, I picked up Joyce Goldstein's Taverna to join my cookbook club from afar, and for the second time, I saw that my cookbook was donated by Patrcia Wells. I then started down a curious path of neurosis - did Patricia Wells just donate all of her old cookbooks or did she hand pick these? The thing is, the Batali one that I picked up that was donated by her as well felt like at B-cookbook. No offense to these authors, but why are these the only cookbooks they have in the ALP and why are they all donated by Mdme Wells?

And why am I, owner of just two cookbooks here, complaining?

I'm not. Just wondering if she's going to clear her shelves off again before I leave Paris?

For some reason, they always give me hot peppers for free.

2008-01-25T12:35:00.000+01:00

Empowered by the opportunity to choose my own onions

at a prior stand, I walked over and pinched a haricorts vert to see if it was fresh. When the vendor turned around and saw me, I quickly pulled my hand back. He laughed and encouraged me to touch, in fact, picked up a bean and held it out to me to squeeze. Before this story sounds too dirty, here's the rest, in French, translated here for your reading pleasure:

"You can touch!"

"It's good. It's OK. 500 grams please."

"500 grams. Of course."

"3 Tomatoes?"

"3 tomatoes? Sure - you can go choose them yourself over there."

"Yeah"

I return with 3 tomatoes and 3 slim, lime green hot peppers to roast for Turkish dinner I'm making tomorrow night.

"you have your tomatoes! and these peppers? They are spicy! "

"It's good"

""Ah, for you? They are a gift!""

(and in English) "Do you speak English?"

(Eng) "yes"

(Eng) " of course you do!"

"Thank you"

"1.80"

"It's good. Thank you."

(Eng) "thank you!"

C'est pas grave

2008-01-24T15:27:00.000+01:00

That's how it is with the Army too - the European army? We talk first. The American army - just - pow!

It was at this point in the conversation where I began to wonder exactly if this man was a doctor. I was at the place that you go to when you need to have your lungs x-rayed to get your carte de sejour, the place you go to when you have everything: 275 euros in small fiscal stamps that you lick and adhere to a xeroxed paper, a US passport, Version II of a paper carte de sejour, and now, soon, x-ray of my lungs the size of an artist's canvas.

As I'm floundering for words that I don't know in French: breast, breast lump, lumpectomy, self-exam, needle aspiration, benign, two things are happening simultaneously - the doctor is getting incredibly animated and I'm slowly sinking into my seat remembering too late that another friend said to just answer straight up yes/no to these questions.

This doctor, or so I hoped, then began his theories for me.

The French? They would never take out a breast lump of an 18 year old. The Americans? Ready to cut and charge money.

The French? They would go in through ... (small circular motion here, over, you know ... my American prudishness is taking over but if you, dear reader, were in front of me, this would be a very entertaining part of the re-telling). The Americans? They leave a scar!

The French? Ready to talk on a battlefield. The Americans? Pow.

His ability to create a metaphor for each country's approach to war based on my story of a breast lumpectomy was slightly amazing.

I leave this lecturer ready to pick up my laminated carte de sejour, the item that will let me know I'm legit, only to stand there, talking to a guy 10 years younger than me wearing a soccer jersey that looks like he accidentally bleached over his heart while cleaning his socks. Only to listen to this guy tell me, in four more French sentences than I can understand, c'est pas grave ... and then something about the fabrication. It's not ready. Come back in two weeks. Or three. Well, just two. C'est pas grave (=not a big deal)

So here I am, thinking, c'est TRES grave! and hoping that next week they let me in and out of the US when I fly to NY and then leave to find at the fromager this teeny tiny chevre covered in rose and I thought, c'est pas grave, I'm here. I'm eating cheese. It will be fabricated. Until it is, it's a darn good story in person. I swear.

Comfort Food: another installment

2008-01-22T11:36:00.000+01:00

Do my friends in the US think I walk around all day bopping from Louvre to Eiffel Tower to a hidden chocolatier and thus think I don't have time to talk/read email/receive postcards? Do our new friends here think it's weird that they said 8:30pm and we rolled in at 900 in what I originally intended an attempt to be cool but soon resulted in a late arrival? Will the sun ever rise in Paris before 11am? Is it always gray in Paris 93% of the day? Did the guy at the market take me in for another beating or did he really think that the browned, mushy, mealy, squishy apples were for eating?

I listened to This American Life's "Americans in Paris" show for the first time since I've been here, and couldn't help but relate (= cry, I'll admit it) at the part where Ira Glass is amazed that David Sedaris' day is determined by going places where he feels more or less humiliated.

Saying c'est moi at H&M when you've had to leave some items with the attendant, pointing at an envelope at the stationary store and stumbling through an ummm... oui oui when really you want to say oh, I just need an envelope for the big card, thanks, not the post cards, asking vous-acceptez les cheques de restaurant? at the Pompidou Cafe and then having the guy answer in English, all of this adds up to empathy Ira, empathy - maybe you should move here for a few months?

And so, when the neuroses take up more space in your brain than the part that's curious about the books of Paris or Courbet's history or Germany: The Dark Years, and you find yourself talking back to NPR hosts, it's time for some comfort food. Lately, as I sit in my apartment worrying more than a junior high student on the first day of school, doing my part time job and scheduling an afternoon of events that doesn't have me ping-ponging between feeling shitty and shittier, I bake myself up an egg.

Fresh, French farm egg. Covered in 'bloom.' Creme underneath, egg on top, parmigiano-reggiano to top it off, baked for 12 minutes (thank you, dear Bittman). Butter up some fresh baguette and scoop it up and remember this is probably the kind of thing your friends back home are jealous of to begin with.

DIY Spice Mixtures

2008-01-17T15:12:00.001+01:00

I've been reading about bloggers make tea infusions and listening to cookbook authors chat about their quick chutneys so I found myself coming home from Velan weighed down with everything from amchoor to cinnamon to sumac and wondering what to do with it all and how I could be expanding the choices of my small-fridge French life.

Both of the cookbooks on my shelf offered lots of ideas. The amchoor in particular I picked up after reading Bittman rave about it one chaat masala addition after another. So that's what I made first (pictured far left) - a mixture that he assures me will do its duty on everything from paneer to pita to rice. Then, as I added to my list of spices to pick up when I'm in NY next month, I thought it best to make something from a different part of the world and whipped up a batch of heavy-on-the-chipotle chili powder. Both Bittman and Jaffrey extol the complexities of Za'atar, the Turkish mix of sumac, sesame and thyme that I think was on each of the puffed breads we had in Istanbul, so when I fill up my sesame stash, I will make this too.

I am limited here without my trusty spice grinder or mortar/pestle, but I do have the item you can see on the far right - a Turkish spice grinder. I admired one when we were at the Spice Market but left the idea alone since I felt so overwhelmed. Then, with 13 Turkish Lira burning holes in our pockets, we went to the Grand Bazaar of Ataturk Istanbul Airport and lo and behold, for 13 YTL, a gleaming spice grinder.

I didn't have hopes for an airport purchase, and I didn't quite understand how it exactly worked (I was waiting for the whole coriander for the chaat masala to come out of the bottom like a pepper grinder, but this device only has one place to put it in and take it out), but it seems to be holding up just fine - not in a fine grinding sort of way, but in a great look-what-I-bought-on-vacation-that's-useful-way.

Now I just need to make some paneer, or pita, or just bake up a potato and transform it, this is the promise Bittman has made to us (vegetarians). I'll report.

Galette des Rois

2008-01-14T11:55:00.000+01:00

I have been the king, nay, queen, three times in just as many days.

How can you not love a cake that is traditionally buttery, filled with frangipaine, and hiding the feve (literally bean, here, a charm that's in the cake), and comes with a paper crown classier than any BK biddy dare wear?

And for three days, I have gotten the feve, meaning, I get to parade around in the crown and fell a general sense of superiority.

I'm going to start a feve collection. Tres francais a friend says. Even though the Epiphany, the 12th Night has come and gone, I can eat this galette through the end of the month. Wish me almonds, and tell me to write down all my goals for 2008 while the future looks so golden.

Istanbul Food Tour: Snacks

2008-01-09T15:32:00.000+01:00

Settling back into life in Paris, cakes to celebrate the Epiphany and the first day of winter sales in France all around, and I am still thinking about the snacks in Turkey.*

My Top 5 Turkish Snacks

5. Salep: If atole dropped the corn, procreated with cream of wheat, dabbled in a bit of horchata, and blended itself into silky latte smoothness, it would be salep. Named after the orchid root used to flavor it (the name is because it resembles fox testicles, check here if you want to know more), it's hot milk sweetened and mixed with this root powder and covered in cinnamon. If you're crossing the Gallatta Bridge and it's near-freezing out and wet, wet snow is covering your nearly impractical hat, it's the perfect thing to slurp on as you walk up the hill to Istikal Caddesi.

4. Simit: Like a bagel ring, but softer, and covered in sesame seeds that are toasty and yummy even if you hate sesame bagels. Sweetened with grape syrup. Sold in carts and on heads (why didn't I take a picture?) I like mine for breakfast with salty goat cheese and some halvah. And cay. (Thanks to Janet for sending me this picture!)

3. Cay: I have a certain reverence for tea-based cultures, and a certain disdain for those that aren't. While my ancestors quickly dumped the goods in the harbor, Turkish people have been drinking this stuff for centuries. I don't usually take sugar in my tea, but I did here. The cups can seduce you immediately and the stuff is so ubiquitous that you could leave Turkey a tea-drinker even if you didn't care for it upon arrival.

2. Lokum: Who didn't wonder about Turkish Delight after reading about it in the Narnia books? Who didn't immediately despise it after tasting it once, wrapped in aluminum, on the 1/8 of a shelf of British imports at their gourmet grocery? Who wouldn't then fall head-over-pistachios-in-love-with-it at Istanbul's spice bazaar?

1. Halvah: I have never liked halvah, even after reading a fascinating story once in the NY Times about eating it for Passover and there being, I don't know, I want to say one producer in all of NYC, or maybe even the US, but come on - halvah has never kept anyone from yearning for a chocolate bar.

Then I had the halvah at our breakfast buffet.

Like all things in this world, one goes to a country of origin and realizes "hey, there is more than one type of halvah!" The one pictured below to the right is probably at fault for the weight I gained in Istanbul - it crunched like a Butterfinger, called out to the smoky sesame-memory of all halvah that came before it, and ended with a blissfully light crunch of sweet and pistachio. The chocolate one didn't do it for me (on the left), but the other one? 8 pieces at Sunday's breakfast, and an actual sinking of disappointment the day before when there was none left. I might have to make a Parisian quest for it.

*It's a law here that they can only have sales twice a year when the government says - it's to make sure that small businesses don't get pushed out of business but mostly it looks like last year's stuff on racks and people bustling about like the Friday after Thanksgiving in the U.S. Since I still don't have my luggage, I bought myself another pair of boots today since 2/4 pairs of pants and my only boots are sitting in a luggage pile somewhere between here and Ataturk International Airport.

Istanbul Food Tour: Asitane

2008-01-04T14:06:00.000+01:00

My piddly pipe dreams were realized at Asitane lunch: was it the request to borrow a pen (it was Liam who asked!)? The pictures of each course I tried to sneak? The way we ordered what were certainly the best dishes to order ...? I don't know what it was, and don't start to tell me it was for everyone - a girl can dream - but when the waiter brought me a comment card AND a little gift of orange jam, I thought yes indeed he thinks I'm a real food writer! Liam encouraged me to sign the comment card la fromagette, but I chose to play it coy and write, with as much professionalism as I could feign, "I look forward to sharing the details of our great meal with others."

I had thought that Ciya would be our best meal, but when we entered into this Ottoman restaurant with recipes over 500 years old (described in Lonely Planet as "Ottoman dishes devised for the 16th-century royal circumcision feast"), I knew this was going to be the best yet. I committed to ordering only dishes with an asterisk, indicating actual historical recipes (I don't know where the others came from, but they weren't Kool-Aid, so who knows). First off, a white bean spread with cinnamon slathered onto sesasme-spiced-warm-dinner rolls, sublimely creamy, light, fragrant and sweet. Accompanying this, I ordered root spinach with olive oil that was cooked to falling apart, slightly vinegared, some soft carrots in there and finished with olive oil. Liam ordered a warm Circassian cheese with mushrooms that tasted like smoked Gouda with the texture of feta and was too strong for me.

We both went old-school with our mains - Liam's lamb diced, melted in earthenware with dates, figs and apricots ("sweet main course OK?" the waiter confirmed after Liam went to this after his first choice wasn't available). I had Restiyye "homemade vermicelli with cheese, parsley and walnuts." Mine won - although together it was like a Sultan's variation on Swedish meatballs with egg noodles - like a pared-down kugel, sweet, light home-made egg noodles with cheese with the salt of feta and umami of Parmesan on top, with, of course, parsley and walnuts (and some chili - how we've missed thee!).

Although we were too full to finish our mains, I could not pass up Ottoman dessert. I asked the waiter to recommend between Quince Delight ("quince in syrup") and "pumpkin and fig delight with clotted cream" and he suggested the latter. Like our dessert plate from Ciya, they both seemed preserved in syrup (oh the research to do) - the pumpkin much softer ("more pumpkin-y" remarked Liam) than last night's and the fig ... like a Fig Newton (damn us Americans with our lack of any other fig reference) of the sweetest softest case, the texture going to liquid gold when you might expect grit, topped off with pure butter cream - another dessert to pass up an eclair for (see picture below)

NB: Due to my desire to return home with the orange jam, we checked the baggage. As it stands, I have yet to see the baggage due to a snowstorm in the Czech Republic, a variety of long lines, and general slowness at Air France. I'm not sure now that it was worth it. I'll report.

Istanbul Food Tour: Ciya

2008-01-03T13:12:00.000+01:00

The New York Times warned us to bring a Turkish friend since there's no English menu, so we memorized a few names and double-checked that the Ciya at number 43 was the correct address.

Lots got lost in translation.

Is it better to re-tell how we saw it? To quote? Or, rather, to imagine what the staff there was thinking when we forged our ways in the uncharted silver urns of Anatolian cuisine?

All of the above.

"Self-service" they informed us several times, so up we went to the dishes of warm starters. We eyed a greens dish, one with browned onions, the other with red pepper. Pointed at both. Both? he questioned with a quizzical eye turned toward us and another toward the server. Waiter pointed, seemed to confirm both, said something about pilaf and after we agreed to yogurt sauce, I grabbed the dishes. Eyes raise, again. This time to the woman across the way. Grabbing the damn dishes, carrying themselves... she seemed to sigh. Frowns all around. Back to our seats.

Two plates of dark greens and all we can do is moan that this is like Chez Panisse in Istanbul visiting an ancient cousin. Onions caramelized to sweetness and browned for depth, greens "cooked to perfection" (is there a better way to describe when greens are cooked well?) The yogurt sauce the first I've tasted this good since the days of Zia's Cafe in San Diego (known prior to 9/11 as Zia's Afghan Cafe).

As I'm pondering the benefits of well-cooked greens, Liam is braving the self-service cold salads. Suddenly, an English-speaking staff member appears. Dolmas, meatballs, some dips on his plate when he returns (plate delivered by staff). I'm not sure if I can explain this in English without the name of the dish or lacking the knowledge of Paula Wolfert, but one was an eggplant so snowy white and smoky that it shimmered like the snow atop the minarets. The other I can only say was nut, kind of spicy, and so good you didn't want to ruin it with bread. Dolmas were thin cigarettes of rice and sweet, not chewy like the ones I usually have - in this country they have displays of "vine leaves" with the variety of a fromagerie.

"Do you have dessert?" Liam asks our original server, who nods, and then proceeds to the back of the restaurant to repeat to the English-speaking staff the word "dessert." We are guided to the street-facing window where trays of iridescent fruits await us - except they are not all fruits and I'm not even sure how these sweets are made (I have a list of research days long about Turkish food that is not easily done with a few Google hits on 'Turkish sweets'). "pumpkin" he says pointing at huge orange hunks that look jellied, "tomato" at another, drier, mauve slab. "No olive," I say, pointing at the large black forms in front of me. "Walnut" sighs the woman behind me, and so, I pointed to one of most (pictured below).

How quickly I am smitten. It doesn't take much to lure me with pumpkin, but this was slivered and shivered in your mouth with a crackle of sweetness. The walnut was by far our favorite, black like it came from an olive can and sliced at the top as though it hid pimentos, but when you cut into it it had the star shape of walnut skin and layers of meat inside with the faint taste of wine or sherry and slathered in a butter cream that erased all of my neurotic, self-conscious memories of nods meaning no and questions equaling statements and a general throwing-up-of-hands of understood self-service dining norms on both ends.

While we ate, surrounded by write-ups in Food and Wine, Saveur, New York Times (these are just the ones in English that I recognized), I wondered how others fared here, and curiously, why this wasn't in any guidebook. It was despairingly hard to find - a "quick boat-ride to Asia" sounds romantic and easy enough, but we walked around for nearly an hour with no map and a simple wish, asking a taxi driver, simit vendor, and tchochke kiosk before we got directions to led us to the market street that led us there. These desserts though, almost enough to make a gal forget buche de noel and macarons.

Top 10 Food Intentions for 2008

2007-12-28T12:26:00.000+01:00

10. Cook salsify.

9. Know my French cheeses, from the standards (like a properly ripened Brie and Camembert) to the only-in-France (raw milk please!) to cheeses I could never find in the U.S and return saying, "ahhh, if only I could get that ____ like we had in Paris....."

8. Know my oysters, not just #5s. And my scallops, mussels and other things that scare me just slightly enough to interest me at the fish market.

7. Back to the Basics: without the support of Bittman or Waters, be able to choose the vegetables and cook perfectly because I know waxy from starchy potatoes off the top of my head as well as I know when paratha dough is ready or remember when to braise or roast a turnip in the same way I can tell when the asafetida has been in the pan long enough.

6. Stuffed fish: purchase whole, bone, stuff, bake, eat. (Ask Liam's mom again for the recipe for dorade)

5. Nurse my vinegar mother.

4. Teach myself to enjoy salade at home - homemade vinagraite with my homemade vinegar, washing and drying the greens well, eating all the ones that look gorgeous at the market and buying so little that I wish I had more, not 500 grams and a frown from the older woman helping me and ignorant pride walking me home with so much salad I can't even get rid of it at a 20 person Christmas party.

3. Eat more confiture with my toast.

2. Take advantage of my close proximity to the beautifully colonial Mariage Freres and educate myself on the differences betweens Ceylan, Darjeeling, Assam and the others whose names I don't even know yet.

1. Have lunch at L'Arpege

Bonne Annee!

{Istanbul updates next week}

Best Eats of 2007

2007-12-26T12:42:00.001+01:00

No, I didn't have the cajones to take pictures at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon or La Gazzetta, but in reflecting on the best eats of the last year, I am surely waxing poetic about the treats I miss in the Bay, and so I start with Teacakes, the best cupcakes that have existed on this wide earth since the beginning of time. I've inquired about the ingredients in the vanilla/vanilla, even hinted at food allergies to see if they'd give it up, but I guess they're setting the record straight in saying it really is just the best vanilla, butter, milk and the seemingly gargantuan proportions of each that make those pictured to the left one of the few sweets that could take a girl's mind off of Pierre Hermes macarons.

2007 was a good year - lots of Cheese Club and Dinner Club gatherings (What I'll Miss When I Move Abroad still sits in my mind as one of the year's best potlucks with bagels/cream cheese/lox, macaroni and cheese, cheesy grits, spicy corn sautee, and peanut butter cookies with chocolate chunks), and of course Cookbook Club where we conquered everyone from Patricia Wells (I haven't yet had madeleines that are as good as the ones I made from her cookbook with Robuchon) to Penelope Casas (honey-fried tuna is a must) to Madhur Jaffrey.

I could recount in great detail the dinners from Dopo this past year - a highlight being the truffle dinner they had early last year where I think we ate something that also involved lobster and every single appetizer that they've ever laid before me - is it wrong to say "I'll have another?" We had some fabulous meals upstairs at Chez Panisse - one being this raw hamachi and ginger starter that I had that words fail me on since I cannot describe the texture of the hamachi in any way except to say you cannot imagine it unless you have it. Add to that the 'fish and chips' we had there on my birthday last year and those might be some of my best fish meals of the year - except, of course, the brief weekend in New York where I had the most incredible tuna with shiso and blood orange so incredible that I laughed at eating at a place that says straight up, "we do not serve vegetarian items" momofuku noodle bar .

A good nine months was clearly eclipsed by the move abroad, and here my daily bests are from boulangeries, and I have chronicled all that in much detail. Our meal at Hidden Kitchen, was, of course, one of the best of the year for many reasons - good company, great pozole, cider amuse bouche, who could ask for more? With my parents in town at the beginning of the month, we definitely had a string of fantastic starters like roasted beet salad (I'm ignoring the chicken bones tossed inside) at Mon Vieil Ami and then two egg dishes to end all egg dishes: what was called, I think, just l'oeuf at Robuchon (picture: martini glass, cream, egg, all whipped into a fine yumminess, foamy... you know, I have absolutely no memory of what was in it, but it was amazing) and another egg at La Gazzetta, this one poached in a bouillon of what is translated as chocolate bread, and served with buttery bread crumbs and greens. Re-telling on blog? Not so good. Actual taste? Incredible. There were great entrees - my mackerel at La Gazzetta was one of the best I've ever had, and fantastic desserts too - the savory kind that I like: clementines three ways at Mon Vieil Ami (one way with, yes, Pop Rocks atop sorbet - they had me when it first went pop), a cinnamon tart to end the reign of any other tart at Robuchon, mozzarella meringue at Gazzetta, and my mom made the best choices: souffles at two meals, one pistachio, the other vanilla with spiced pears and sorbet au lait.

Tonight we're headed out for our first Moroccan since we've been here, and I just invested a small fortune in brown sugar and molasses to make some New Year's gingerbread, but I do have a craving for all things unavailable right now, including poori at Vik's , camote and frijoles con todo from Tacubaya and even Fenton's caramel sauce. I suppose though, that if we grab a half dozen oysters at La Baron Rouge tomorrow while at the market and drink a glass of muscat with them, I just might start to forget that there could be anything else great to eat in this world. Happy almost new year.

Baker's Lament

2007-12-23T17:34:00.000+01:00

Perfectionism is not something I'm known for, but I do like to do a pretty good job. More specifically, when I make food, I want people to say it's the best darn _____ they ever had. Not perfection, just high expectations. Last night I had such a struggle that I'm ready to air my dirty pans.

Situation: Christmas Party.

Idea: Make Dorrie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies. Chocolate and salt and sable sounded perfect.

Problems = my World Peace Cookies were, I tempted to trot out the triteness, Armaggedon. Bombings. Nothing full of Noel cheer. They were sandy to the point of straight up sand. Beautifully dark and deceivingly messy cocoa infused sand that left streaks on my white countersinkfloorfridge. I pushed clumps together to save the dough, and my pending reputation at the party. There was a brief period of hope when they spread out on the slices of parchment I had laid out (running low on the goods this week) and looked like those double-chocolate cookies that have white chocolate chunks from CostCo, but when they came out, fat chunks of chocolate sandwiched between (couldn't resist) were no good. Like eating a melted Hershey's Special Dark at the beach in between crumbled up oreos left at the bottom mixed with sand.

And so, I went on a trusted journey from Egrement Elementary School Cookbook (published in Pittsfield, MA, c. 1985) to Lemon Bars. Done (I thought). Extra lemon rind in the curd and the shortbread crust looked toasty and I had made these just a few weeks ago for Dinner Club and so how stunned was I to take them out and find a yellow mush of beautifully colored bar (the yolks here!). Liam tasted one, and challenged to be truthful said, "I think they're mushy." I asked, "if you were at a party would you have a second one even though you might find them mushy?" He couldn't answer in the affirmative, but attempted to defend himself saying he's used to the high quality of my usual bars. I don't these people that well, I added, so I'm not bringing something that's not the best of what I have to offer.

On the way out the door, I tried another WPC, only to find that the skinniest ones, at room temperature, betrayed their true goodness: sandy and toasted cocoa, melting dark chunks, sparks of salt.

There were only four that looked like this on the cookie pan.

We went to the party with a 4-piece chocolate box from a new boulangerie/patisserie across the street, praying they were decent, and walked in to see that someone brought the equivalent of a pound box of fantastic, small chocolatier, seasonally themed chocolates that I promptly ate three of, encouraging the host to hide our piddly box in the corner.

Strangely enough, today in the chill of our December Parisian studio, the shortbread thickened up a bit and the rest of the WPC dough awaits a slighter squishing together for Tuesday - they might just be OK afterall.

Cheese-Tasting Tour

2007-12-19T14:55:00.000+01:00

With all the Cheese Clubs, Cookbook Clubs, patisserie tastings, and buche de noel comparisons, I thought it was time to learn some more about French cheese. Given the generosity of Books for Cooks East Bay, I had a gift certificate to Come to Paris which has a listing of some food-related tours. I will admit, I was Skeptical, unsure of what 'my money' would get me, and I had been many times already to the Marche D'Aligre, but I do want to know more about cheese, so I chose one devoted to cheese tasting, and quickly realized how wrong I was.

Now, I'll spout my compliments on the website so that Claude gets her due, but she was awesome. First of all, the other two people on the tour were her parents, in for town from Ottawa for the holidays, and they were such fun! Then, despite the fact that the owner of the cheese shop wasn't there (he picks up cheese on Wednesdays), and the new person who helped us wasn't as gushing as I take it Jerome usually is, Claude walked us through a reminder of the seven types of cheese and we tasted a few to compare: Comte 15 mos and one much older (maybe 24?), the one that's washed in walnut liqueur from the place that begins with an E (why didn't I take notes?), a nice pressed goat and another cow made in an Abbey, similar to Reblochon. The fromager told us the most popular cheeses sold (Reblochon, Camembert, Comte, Roquefert) and we walked out with a few more stories under our belt {tip: to sound like a connoisseur when ordering cheese in a restaurant, and you see Livarot, ask for le colonel, in reference to the four stripes of leaf on its side}.

We then went on to Le Baron Rouge, a wine bar I had heard much about but never gone to where the wine comes out of barrels straight into an unmarked, be-starred green glass bottle with many bio options. Off to the organic boulangerie for a crusty baguette and back to Claude's fabulous loft to make a three course cheese lunch. I was in I'm-so-glad-I-don't-really-work-and-can-do-this heaven.

We started with a fresh goat cheese mixed with herbs from Claude's balcony and layered with a quick sun-dried tomato mixture that went into the broiler and came out melting. In the meantime, we were prepping the components of blue cheese souffles with red pepper compote - slicing the red peppers, separating the eggs, buttering the ramekins. I will admit publicly - I have on my list of things to accomplish before 2008 (yup, there's a rouge list on the bathroom mirror) to make a souffle - and here I was doing this twice-baked easy recipe. Before we even dug into these melted creations, we sampled some banon (wrapped in chestnut leaves) and a gorgeously triple-cremed saint felicien. (I was partial to the latter, still trying to fight the fact that I prefer less strong cheese, although I fully appreciate both).

To finish, Claude had prepared some coeurs a la creme with raspberry confiture that were so good I had to put my spoon down half-way through to not beat everyone to the cleanest plate. I have always wanted to make these as well - so off I will go this week to buy the porcelain needed to do so.

And yet, I'm saving the best for last - next to our egg cups filled with goat cheese and sun dried tomato paste, we had a beautiful salad dressed in Claude's own vinaigrette, and when I say 'own vinaigrette' I am saying her own vinegar. I knew it was fairly easy to start your own 'mother', but I just had never done it, so how thrilled am I to be staring at my own hefty half jam jar filled with a piece of the thing! Off I'll go this week to find the exact stoneware container one needs to let it breathe and grow, but I was so excited to walk home through the Viaduct des Arts with the mother in my purse! I love her already.

Buche de Noel

2007-12-17T12:16:00.000+01:00

When I was younger, Betsey always had a Buche de Noel at Christmas Dinner. I never liked it that much, but what I adored were the meringue mushrooms on top - sealed with dark chocolate and speckled with cocoa, they were by far my favorite. I have tried several times to make them, but I can never get them as crisp and toasty, as sweet and cut with the savory chocolate, the way that she can.

I have noticed in the past week that as the full-size ones come out for Christmas, some of the boulangeries have these buchettes as well. How could I resist? Une buchette praline yesterday at our favorite bakery and breakfast was all it took for me to cut into it. Not only am I a buttercream slut (sorry, but there's just no other word to describe my absolute submission to the stuff), but buche de noel is filled with sponge cake, which, as long as it isn't dry, is always delicious with the heavy frosting. Finally, the log is gilded, dare I say, with the meringue mushroom, and, in yesterday's case, a plastic ax (which Liam quickly fell for). Two fresh eggs scrambled and a hunk of baguette laden with butter later, and I ate my four bites of shared log more quickly than Liam could ask, "what is buttercream made from again?"

The reason I write about this love is not just because I have decided I must sample all buchettes in the 75004, but also because we then went to dinner at a friend's house (one of our French friends, yes, we do have them!) starving last night, still recovering from our little log. We ate a 1/4 pound of olives each, a few cherry tomatoes, and then a first course of salmon toasts, mache wilted salad with mushrooms and bread. They indulged in foie gras for the season and later Bulgarian beef four ways while I happily ate gnocchi and those risotto balls that they fry in Sicily with cheese inside. Our friend was not be outdone by contemporary times, and we had entire French meal which meant four cheeses for dessert (one man warned me "roquefort is very strong!" read: ye american gal): saint marcellin, saint felicien, and brie as well. Finally, after my brain was tired of all-French-all-the-time and several glasses of wine, a collective laugh squeaks out of our full bellies when our host says he has dessert also: a buche de noel!

From Le Notre, our host had picked up the most striking of buches I've seen to date: fire-engine red leaves along its sides, a candied leaf to cradle 6 raspberries, three macaron adorning the top with ornamental thread to hang on your tree if they made it that long and the inside: the lightest sponge cake with raspberries, lemon butter cream, and the fantastically poisonous and luscious red leaves around it. I was actually a little sad that Liam and I split a piece.

And so dear friends, despite the fact that I am mostly a grinch about Christmas and end of year festivities, I will happily sample the buches and buchettes in my neighborhood in the next few weeks and just hope the sun stays out so I can walk it all off into 2008.

Merci (another market anecdote)

2007-12-16T12:27:00.000+01:00

When we first got to Paris, I thought, at the very least, that saying bonjour and merci, au revoir! each day, on each and every human interaction, would have me saying them much more like a native than I could ever get with deux betteraves or une bouteille de l'eau. At the very least, I thought, I know how to be polite.

A few weeks without going to the market though, and things can go down hill quickly for me.

Today I walked past a stand I hadn't been to yet - the potatoes, carrots, sandy spinach, heaps of mache and wrinkled butternut squash sent the message that these people most likely were the producers, and that they were producing what was in season (unlike the Bay Area, you will find multiple tropical fruit stands here). Having had some notorious run-ins with middle men who most likely pick up their produce at the Rungis and bring it to sell, I was determined today to buy from producers.

20 minutes I waited in line, learning that the colanders were, in fact, full of mache and that petitmarron are no longer in season, just butternut and this other enormous squash whose name I don't know. There were two kind young women and a kind older man but clearly, the man was in charge and clearly, I thought, the women would be the ones to get (kindness from food purveyors is not necessarily related to gender, but I was hoping for the best here). For 20 minutes, I practiced ordering cent gram epinard and un petite courge de butternut. I practiced acting French (aloof? carnivorous? not worried about raw meat touching vegetables?) when the man in front of me ordered a duck that was pulled out of a cooler, and then a small plastic bag that barely covered the base of the basket was laid in to measure the weight, and then the knife that cuts tops off of leeks seems to also do a fine job with the head of the duck (the woman said some last words to the head before putting it in a plastic bag of garbage). Plastic bag out, duck stuffed in, plastic container ready for turnips or carrots or slices of squash.

I get the man, of course, so when I order 100 grams of spinach he is skeptical and does not allow this, after clarifying how many I am feeding, he laughs, and comes back with closer to a pound. My demi-kilo pomme de terre are next and I hear him ask blanc or rouge so I say blanc, twice, and he's asking me something else and the man next to me says in English, "how are you cooking them?" so I say, "baking" and the woman two away says cuisson, which, as French would have it, also can mean to cook which then extends the questioning to 'cooking how?" (laughing, of course, because who doesn't cook their potatoes) so I say in English, "roast" and the man next to me translates, rotir and I am left with a worried smile and the memory of my recipe for lentils with potatoes and curry where, if I'm remembering correctly, I might even boil the potatoes. Rouge! the man laughs, and goes to weigh me out the red potatoes. He returns to ask what else, I am able to say des oeufs, and he asks how many, and I reply six and he turns to the man to laugh that now I speak French.

[Side note on the eggs: I have written previously about my love for fresh eggs, and since the week where we thought we were getting fresh eggs (they were in a big ol' basket! the basket had hay!) and came home with a 1/2 dozen eggs that had a double-yolk in each one, we have felt a sense of deception from certain dairy stands at the market. That and impending cancer. Thus, I've been scoping out another stand where the eggs actually are fresh. I don't know if you can see in the picture above, but these eggs had hay, not hay for show, but real live hay that just came from the hen's nest (or at least that's what I tell myself).]

No, I didn't bring a container for the eggs - I am asserting this while my translator friend helps me out as well - so as the man fills up the six eggs into a recycled container I am practicing my final order of une petite courge de butternut, which is why I'm surprised when he doesn't understand me. (For the record, I practically have my hand on the dark woven basket full of the squash as I'm saying this). He then gets me, laughs, and says, butternut? At which point I laugh that it's a word en anglais and pull out my change to count out the .63 centimes that I owe in addition to nine euros. (incroyable! he exclaims when I hand exact change, although, there is confusion about the 20.63 that I've handed him and I try to explain I gave him a 20 and he starts handing me back a 20).

And so I walk away, my cheeks bright red from not only the 0C temp but also him asking me in English where I'm from, and I say my obligatory merci and feel confident that the 'r' sound that started out at the tip of my tongue just a few months ago has finally made its way from the sweet tip to the umami back.