Cooking Ten Year Old Girls -- and Other search phrases

Some of you may remember how much I like looking at the search engine queries that have led visitors to Chocolate & Zucchini. January has come and gone, leaving another batch of intriguing/funny/puzzling/cute phrases in its wake.

This month’s top five :
cooking ten-year-old girls (or did you mean "for"?)
what the fuck macaroon
free pics of girls covered in chocolate sauce
juicing vegetables to taste like chocolate (do let me know if you find out how to do this!)
what is the french dish called coucou (I am stumped)

An amazing number of people had "bisou" questions :
french signing off phrases gros bisous
plein de bisous meaning
french love bisous
bisous definition english

And I'm very curious about these...
euphoria salt
exploding cream soup
coca cola pancakes
duck chocolate gene

A final assortment of funny/cute queries :
pictures of chocolate blobs
food and desserts for enchanting night
female happiness
left handed snail tongs
i want to bake a special cake and accessorize it
pictures of reese’s peanut butter cups in the 1920’s
covent garden soup death (now this has me worrying...)

And The Sprouts Sprouted!

I harvested my first sprouts yesterday night, I'm so proud!

The pink radish was particularly vigorous, having grown hundreds of cute little green stems, and developped symmetrical roots, with tiny lashes, on the other side of the sprouter rack. Those guys had even started to suffocate the mixed seed sprouts on the bottom rack -- I'll have to remember that, and grow them on either side of an empty safety rack next time!

I immediately conducted a taste test, and a very satisfactory one at that : both crops are nicely crunchy and peppery (the pink radish particularly, as expected). I threw a fistful of both types into the spelt and tofu salad I had for lunch today, and I love the look of these little creatures, I love the bite and tang they add, I love the fact that they're at their nutritious peak, chock-full of vitamins and nutrients, and I love the fact that I grew them myself, on my very own kitchen counter!

Where Else to Find Me

To my great pleasure, I have been asked to contribute to another website, called Bonjour Paris. Bonjour Paris is a gateway for people who love France in general and Paris in particular, where you can find great articles on the culture and language and food of France, on the Parisian way of life, as well as great ressources to plan your trip, what to see and where to stay.

The Bonjour Paris team is great to work with, and I will happily write a bi-monthly column there, called "A Parisian Home Chef". My latest article is about the goodies you can get in Paris for Valentine's Day this year...

Truffes de Chèvre Frais

[Fresh Goat Cheese Truffles]

On Saturday night, we threw a little dinner party at home. A "little" dinner party for eight dear friends : Joseph (originally from Nashville but living in France, whom I met two years ago at an IT recruiting show -- we were struck by a sense of recognition, being equally bored to tears) and his wife Séverine, our almost neighbors Olivier and Anne, whom we had met at Joseph and Séverine's wedding last May, as well as Ulrich and Carine, whom we had met at Olivier and Anne's housewarming party, Ulrich being the friend who works with Pierre Hermé. Pictured here from left to right are Maxence, Carine, Ulrich, Séverine, Joseph, Olivier and Anne (Thanks for lightening up the pic, John! :).

We had the most lovely evening, and it actually wasn't as much work as it may sound : Maxence took care of the main course, and one of our friends (I'll let you guess who that was and wait patiently for the post about it) had kindly offered to bring the dessert.

This felt very unusual, since I'm usually more than happy to take on the whole caboodle, but I'll admit it's really nice that way too, once in a while! So my mission that night was to take care of the pre-dinner nibbles and the first course, and this is what I made to eat with the apéritif : mini balls of fresh goat cheese, rolled in various coatings.

As always in this kind of recipe, the limit is the sky on what coatings to use : rummage through your pantry, check your vegetable drawer or your herb garden, browse through your spice rack, and come up with your own personal selection of nuts, spices, chopped herbs, dried herbs and various seasonings. I used paprika, breadcrumbs and garlic powder, bicolor toasted sesame seeds, and herbes de Provence.

Anything more or less dry and more or less powdered will work. Just keep in mind that it should have enough flavor to shine through the goat cheese and compliment it, but not so much flavor that a full coating of it will choke your guests (unless of course this is your intention). For instance, if you want to use cumin or ginger or red pepper flakes, which is an excellent idea, do mix these with something milder, like dry breadcrumbs or a chopped herb or crumbled plain crackers.

Make sure the marbles are equal in size , choose coatings of different colors, and you will create the prettiest plate of amuse-bouches.

Truffes de Chèvre Frais

- 150 g fresh goat cheese
+ An assortment of coatings : depending on how powdered (paprika) or chunky (chopped nuts) the coating is, you will need anywhere from 1 tsp to 2 Tbsp of it to coat 10 truffles. Start small if in doubt.
- chopped fresh chives/basil/tarragon/mint/cilantro/dill...
- paprika
- herbes de Provence or other dried herbs
- toasted sesame seeds (black and white)
- dry bread crumbs and garlic powder/onion flakes/red pepper flakes/cumin/ground ginger...
- finely crumbled crackers or oatcakes
- chopped walnuts/hazelnuts/pecans/pinenuts...
- chopped slivered almonds
- <insert-your-own-brilliant-idea-here>

(Makes about 60 truffles.)

Prepare two large plates : one that will be used as the serving dish, the other to hold the truffles while they're being made. Prepare your coatings (chop/toast/pour) and reserve them in shallow ramequins or small plates.

The cheese is easier to work with when cold, so my advice is to work in three batches : cut out a third of the cheese, and reserve the remaining two thirds in the refrigerator.

Take a small spoonful of goat cheese, about the size of a hazelnut, and shape it into a marble by rolling it between the palms of your hands. Place it on the preparation plate. Repeat with the rest of the first batch of goat cheese. This should yield about twenty truffles. Wash and dry your hands, as they will be sticky with goat cheese.

Roll each truffle in the coating of your choice, making sure it is covered all around, and place it on the serving plate. You can group the truffles with the same coating together, or mingle them for a nice mosaic effect.

Repeat with the reserved goat cheese, in two batches. Cover the plate of truffles loosely with plastic wrap, and store in the refrigerator until ready to eat.

Serve along with toothpicks, either in a (preferably cute) mini-jar on the side, or planted in each truffle. You could even make little skewers, planting the toothpick in a truffle then in a cherry tomato, a slice of carrot or cucumber, a piece of diced ham, a small piece of bread...

Salade Figue et Poire à la Bresaola

[Fig and Pear Salad with Bresaola]

While planning the menu for our Saturday night dinner party, I realized I hardly ever serve salad as a first course. I'll often use salad to accompany the star item, like a tartlet or a bruschetta or a mousse or a slice of terrine or what-have-you, but it is rarely a salad in its own right. I'm sorry.

I guess this is because salads don't sound like they'll be much fun to prepare : they're pretty easy, it's just a lot of ingredient preparation before the final tossing-together. But this time, I reflected that they can be nicely colorful and light, a fresh and satisfying opener served with good bread. And the added value is really in the pairing ideas, so I decided to explore that route, and composed this fig and pear salad with bresaola.

The idea came from a sandwich I recently ate at Cojean, a trendy healthy fast-food place that serves deliciously fresh products. It's one of my absolute faves for a quick lunch, and I have written a review for Bonjour Paris (Note : it is in the premium content area of the site, for which you need a subscription, but I encourage you to consider getting one : it will open the door to a wealth of interesting and witty articles -- and there is a money-back guarantee if you don't like it).

Last time I had lunch there, in addition to my delicious spelt and green bean salad with hazelnuts, I enjoyed a mini-sandwich of fresh fig, pear, bresaola, and Fourme d’Ambert, on a loaf of whole-wheat walnut bread. Bresaola is an Italian specialty of dried beef, lean and moist, cut in paper-thin slices ; Fourme d'Ambert is a blue cheese from Auvergne. It was excellent, and the idea stuck in my mind, to be transformed into this salad. I substituted mozzarella for the Fourme d'Ambert though, because I thought blue cheese was a little too sharp for the ensemble.

This salad turned out pretty and tasty, and I loved the way the different elements came together : sweetness from the fig and pear, saltiness from the bresaola strips, mellow and tender mozzarella, crunchy slightly bitter walnuts, and tangily dressed greens.

We served it with fresh baguette, or more precisely the beautiful fresh heart-shaped baguettes the Boulangépicier makes for Valentine's Day this year!

Salade Figue et Poire à la Bresaola

- 1 ripe and juicy pear
- 3 ripe figs
- 150 g mozzarella di bufala (incomparably tastier - but pricier - than the cow's milk one)
- 4 slices of bresaola
- 2 Tbsp chopped nuts
- 4 large handfuls (about 100 g) mixed spring greens

For the dressing :
- 1Tbsp walnut oil
- 1Tbsp olive oil
- 1Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- herbes de Provence
- salt, pepper

(Serves 4.)

Prepare the dressing by whisking together all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.

Wash and dry the greens. Cut the figs in quarters. Slice the mozarella, and cut some of the slices to get twelve roughly equal pieces. Cut the bresaola slices in rectangular strips. You can prepare these elements ahead, and store them for a few hours, covered, in the refrigerator.

Cut the pear in quarters, core and peel them. Slice each quarter in four slices. (This has to be done at the last minute to prevent the pear flesh from getting brown. You could cut the pear ahead too and splash the slices with lemon juice, but I didn't want lemon juice in this salad.)

Plating. Set out the four serving plates on the counter. On each plate, deposit a handful of greens. Set three pieces of mozzarella on top. Arrange a fourth of the bresaola strips and pear slices on top, in a star formation. Balance three fig quarters on top, and sprinkle with a few chopped nuts.

Use a small spoon to drizzle dressing all around the plate and on the salad.

Serve with fresh baguette or walnut bread.

Cojean
4 rue de Sèze
75009 Paris
M° Madeleine
01 40 06 08 80

boulangépicier
73 bd de Courcelles
75008 Paris
M° Courcelles
01 46 22 20 20
boulangepicier.com

Which Came First Donburi

And this is the delicious main course that Maxence concocted for our dinner party this past Saturday! The recipe is from the same "Cooking Class Japanese" cookbook as his last cooking stint. I have taken the liberty to rename the dish though. Well, yeah, if I don't cook, I have to at least do something!

In the book, the recipe is called "Chicken and Egg on Rice", but the original witty Japanese name is "Oyakodon", meaning "Mother and Child Donburi". In case you're not familiar with the term, "Donburi" means "bowl", and in a typical case of metonymy, it is also the name of any dish served atop a bowl of cooked rice. This mother and child thing sounded somewhat morally disturbing, so I took matters into my own hands and decided, with no disrepect whatsoever for this traditional dish, to call it the Which Came First Donburi. Just because it amuses me. So there.

If anything (other than his talent of course), Maxence's take on cooking a main course for eight proved this : we have two very different approaches to menu planning. Where I spend a whole week consulting, researching, thinking, leafing, jotting, striking, imagining and just generally obsessing, here's what Maxence does : picks up the recipe book at 4pm on D-Day, two whole minutes before we are to go to the Japanese supermarket. Flicks through the recipes. Finds one that's appealing. And... stops right there. Writes down what he needs. Closes the book. Gets up. Says "ok, let's go!".

I am Jack's flabbergasted befuddlement.

And I must say, his style yields excellent results. We found everything we needed at the Japanese supermarket - a great store but pretty crowded on a Saturday afternoon - including a beautiful set of large shiny black bowls. Maxence prepared all of the ingredients ahead, and started the actual cooking after we were done with the first course.

We all enjoyed this very much : the eggs, still a little runny, have a creamy texture that complements the strips of chicken very well ; the shiitake pieces are their chewy and tasty selves ; the chives are very aromatic ; and all these elements, together with the excellent California rice, make for a very satisfying dish. With the added bonus automatically awarded to anything served in a bowl and eaten with chopsticks.

Which Came First Donburi

- 4 dried shiitake mushrooms
- 1/4 tsp instant dashi, diluted in 1/2 C cold water (dashi is a Japanese soup stock, that includes bonito flakes and kelp. It can be found powdered in Asian food stores. Substitute chicken stock if you can't find any.)
- 1/4 C soy sauce
- 2 Tbsp mirin (rice wine)
- 1 tsp sugar
- 150 g chicken breast
- 1 small leek
- 6 eggs
- 600 g California medium grain rice
- 2 Tbsp finely chopped fresh chives

(Serves 4.)

Place the mushrooms in a small heatproof bowl, and cover with boiling water. Find out that your bowl is indeed more or less heatproof, but that it isn't exactly waterproof, because of the large crack running all around it. Realize that boiling water is leaking on the kitchen counter, swear once or twice, replace the goddamn bowl and wipe the counter with a towel. Let stand about 20 minutes or until just tender, while you chop and prepare the rest of the ingredients. Drain, discard the stems and halve the caps.

Slice the leek finely, set aside. Slice the chicken finely, set aside. In a medium bowl, break the eggs and beat lightly with a fork. The recipe can be prepared ahead up to this point. Reserve all the ingredients, covered (the meat separated from the leek), in the refrigerator.

Cook the rice according to package instructions. Maxence rinsed it several times and cooked it in our rice cooker, and this gives the best results : moist and tender rice, kept warm until ready to serve.

In a large skillet or wok, bring the dashi, soy sauce, mirin and sugar to a boil. Add the chicken, leek and mushrooms. Cook, covered, for about 5 minutes, or until the chicken is tender. Pour the eggs over the chicken mixture, and cook, covered, over low heat, about 2 minutes or until the egg is just set.

Bring water to a boil in your kettle, and pour a little boiling water in each serving bowl to heat them up. Throw out the water, divide the rice among the bowls, top with the chicken mixture, and sprinkle with chives.

Pierre Hermé's Aztec Entremets

As many of you guessed, the dessert for our dinner party last Saturday was ever so kindly contributed by pâtisserie expert and enthusiast Ulrich, he-who-works-with-Pierre-Hermé. You see, Pierre Hermé is a perfectionist and it really shows in the simple beauty of his creations. Extreme and skillful care is taken in the preparation, but once in a while of course, something goes wrong. In that case the product cannot possibly be sold as is, and whoever in the staff is interested (and the quickest, I guess) can have it.

And this is how Ulrich was able to bring a large Aztec cake (more precisely, Pierre Hermé's cakes are called "entremets"). I will describe the Aztec cake for you, but before I do so, I feel I have to warn you to please take any action you deem appropriate to protect your keyboard from accidental saliva spillage. Ready? Here we go. The Aztec cake starts with a bottom layer of muesli biscuit, crunchy and tender at the same time, with teeny tiny bits of dried fruits and nuts. Then come several intermixed layers of flourless chocolate cake, dense and moist ; orange compote with balsamic vinegar, zesty and aromatic ; and chocolate mousse with specks of fleur de sel, mellow and soft with the subtle shadow of salt. These layers are topped by a final thin layer of macaron-like almond meringue. All of this is wrapped in a shawl of glossy frosting, of a deep dark chocolate color, luscious and velvety. The final touch of beauty on this cake is a disk of caramel, delicate and thin, brushed with a smooth and shiny sugar coating, the color of copper with specks of gold, deposited on four small dice of ganache, and seemingly floating just a few millimeters above the cake, like a nimbus.

I have explained how fragile that disk of caramel is, and it should be considered a mighty good thing, as this was the flaw which led that Aztec cake to our table : the disk had gotten perforated in a couple of places, and some of the copper and gold coating had spilled out onto the chocolate frosting. Needless to say, this did not alter the taste of the cake in any way. I cautiously cut the cake in eight slices (and generous ones at that, the 6 to 8 size really serves eight people), shattering the caramel disk in the process. I'm thinking maybe I was to remove the disk before slicing, as this made the top of the cake look sort of messy, all colliding caramel shards and collapsed spikes, but in a graphically interesting way that we copiously photographed.

As for the eating, well, as the description may have hinted, it was quite an experience. Pierre Hermé really has a way with flavors and textures, it's humbling and exhilarating at the same time. I think I will make it a point to get a taste of his creations more often.

For research purposes, of course.

Le Campanier, a Lucky Bag of Produce

Campanier is a porte-manteau pun on "campagne" (countryside), and "panier" (basket). It is also the name of a cool service in which you get a weekly basket of seasonal organic produce. The little Pousse-Pousse boutique at which I recently bought my sprouting gear happens to be a pickup point, and we decided to go for the four-week test subscription.

I went to pick up the first assortment this past Tuesday, and the vegetable basket contained :
- a head of red batavia lettuce,
- a bunch of parsley,
- a small head of cauliflower,
- two avocados,
- two panais (parsnips).

I was really happy to get parsnips : they belong to what is sometimes referred to as "les légumes oubliés" (forgotten vegetables), those vegetables we used to eat a lot in the past, but which have been more or less abandonned : panais, rutabagas, salsifis, pâtissons, crosnes... I have read that most of these were what people had to live on during the second world war, so they were promptly pushed aside after the war, because of the bad memories they brought back. Nowadays these vegetables aren't very widely cultivated and can seldom be found at produce stands. Of course, I find the idea of forgetting a vegetable heart-breaking and cruel and terrible and saddening, it makes me want to save the vegetable and bring it back home and give it love and affection and decorate a little room for it with a little bed it can sleep in. Ahem. Anyway, I was glad to welcome those parsnips into my vegetable drawer.

The small avocados were nice too, because I really love avocados, but have had frustrating experiences with them recently : they would mold before they ripened, or stay hard as rocks forever, long past the time when I planned on using them for some recipe. But these seem to be ripening quite nicely, so I have quickly started a new batch of sprouts to make California sandwiches like I used to love, back in the days.

As for the fruits, my basket contained :
- 8 bananas
- 10 small Gala apples
- 10 mandarins

It was great to have mandarins, because real ones have a very interesting taste, sweet and tart, but are difficult to find : clementines are more widely available. Apparently, this is because they haven't found a way to make seedless mandarins, so people won't eat them. Sheesh. Gala apples happen to be my favorite kind, I love small apples, and these are nice and juicy. Maxence isn't as much of a fruit fan, but bananas he likes, so that was nice too.

I think I'm going to enjoy this Campanier thing a lot. I love the idea of the "pochette surprise" (lucky bag), where you don't know what you're going to get, I like that it stretches the imagination with produce you wouldn't necessarily think of, and that the basket comes with a letter that tells you about the produce, who grew it and where, and gives you storage advice and recipe ideas. As we happen to like (almost) everything, I think this will work for us. The only problem I see is that you have to go pick it up on Tuesdays nights, which can be a little constraining if we have other plans, but we'll see how this works out.

The Poached Egg : Anatomy of a Disaster

I always tell you about the creations I'm happy with, so I thought I would share a bit of incompetency for a change. I cannot, for the life of me, poach an egg.

I have read that you should use super fresh eggs, and I have read that week-old eggs worked better. I have read that you should add vinegar to the water, and I have read that no vinegar was necessary. I have read that the water should be salted, and I have read that salt would ruin it. I have read the water should be barely simmering, and I have read you should bring it to a rolling boil. I have read you should just dump the egg into the water, and I have read that you should gently pour it out from a small cup.

I have tried any and all combinations of these factors, but all my efforts have gotten me were sorry-looking eggs, the white completely separated from the yolk in gorgon-like filaments, reeking of vinegar and/or oversalted, and just generally unappetizing and inedible.

Far far from the perfect, plump, oval, soft egg pillows I was trying to create.

Any advice?

Yogurt Scones

Last Sunday, we had the pleasure to have friends of ours, Romain and Carine, over for brunch. Maxence went out in the morning to the charcuterie, fromagerie and boulangerie. He came back with an armload of ready-to-eat goodies, bone-in ham and duck terrine and delicious eggs in aspic and cheese and freshly baked bread, which we served with a simple salad with toasted pumpkin seeds.

And for the sweet part of the brunch (there just has to be a sweet part to a brunch, no?), I baked scones. I used my absolute favorite recipe, which is simple and quick, and calls for ingredients I always have on hand.

These scones are delicious plain, but you can add whichever flavoring you like, spices or dried fruits or nuts or citrus zest. This time I decided to mix dried blueberries and lemon zest in half of my batch, to very good results. The lemon zest came from a little jar of very fragrant roasted and toasted lemon zest, bought a little while ago at Lafayette Gourmet, which I conveniently keep in the fridge for all my lemon zest needs.

Once everyone had nicely indulged in the savory, I put the scones back in the oven for a few minutes to reheat, and served them with butter and a selection of jams, carefully chosen among the rather unreasonable collection of sweet spreads that live in a dedicated drawer of our kitchen, to my delight and Maxence's despair.

Yogurt Scones

- 215 g flour
- 30 g sugar
- 30 g butter, room temperature
- 1 tsp baking powder (one bag)
- 125 ml plain yogurt
- 2 Tbsp milk
- a small handful of chopped nuts and/or dried fruits and/or a tsp of citrus zest... (optional)

(Yields 8 scones.)

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, sugar and baking powder. Add in the diced butter and blend it all together with a fork, until no visible lump of butter remains. Add the yogurt and milk, and keep working with the fork to mix it all together until the dough forms a ball. Try not to overmix the dough, otherwise the scones won't raise as much. Fold in the nuts or dried fruits or zest if using any.

Shape the dough into a circle about an inch thick, and cut into eight wedges (alternatively, divide the dough into eight balls). Place the wedges a few centimeters apart on the cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, until the scones have risen and turned lightly golden.

Serve warm, with an assortment of spreads : clotted cream, butter, jams, honey, nut butters... and a cup of tea.

Pain Complet aux Olives

Le Pétrin Médiéval is a little bakery close to our place. The name means "the medieval kneading-trough", which doesn't sound half as nice, I'm afraid. They happen to be the bread suppliers for Rose Bakery, where you can enjoy their excellent "pain intégral" with your salad.

Le Pétrin Médiéval sells an array of rustic breads and no-frills pastries, which all look very promising, and I bought a small loaf of their olive whole wheat bread the other day. It looked so nice and tasted so delicious, I thought I'd share. I intend to try the walnut version of this next time...

On another note, I went to pick up my second Campanier order yesterday. The vegetable basket contained a lettuce, a head of broccoli, a celery root, two little bulbs of garlic, and a string bag of Charlottes, those small thin-skinned and sweet-fleshed potatoes. In the fruit basket were nine blood oranges, two huge pomelos, and seven cute little pears.

Maybe it's just me, but few things can compete with the joy of having produce drawers bursting at the seams!

Le Pétrin Médiéval
31 rue Henri Monnier
75009 Paris
01 44 53 05 02

The Essential California Sandwich

Back when we lived in the Silicon Valley, whenever I ordered a sandwich, I would invariably and happily go for the California sandwich. Not only did it sound most appropriate given the location, but avocado is among my best friends, and sprouts are a fantastic addition, adding the perfect peppery crunch to its comforting and sweet tenderness.

I have had many different types of California sandwiches, with different types of bread and cheese, some vegetarian and some with turkey or even bacon, some with tomatoes and some with roasted red pepper, some without greens and some with spinach leaves.

But to me, the essence of the California sandwich lies in the combination of avocado and sprouts, hugged by excellent good-for-you bread and a mellow kind of cheese.

So when I got avocados in my Campanier order the other day, I quickly started a batch of sprouts. When the avocados were ripe and the sprouts had grown, I bought mozzarella and multigrain bread, for a delighful trip down memory lane, flying on the wings of this simple and scrumptious sandwich.

The Essential California Sandwich

- 2 slices of multigrain bread
- 30 g (1 oz) buffalo mozzarella
- half of a small avocado
- a handful of mixed sprouts
- salt, pepper, piment d'Espelette (or red pepper flakes)

(Serves one. Selfish, I know.)

Slice the avocado and the mozzarella thinly. Arrange the mozzarella one of the bread slices, avocado on the other. Sprinkle both with salt, pepper and piment d'Espelette.

Arrange the sprouts on top of the avocado, and close the sandwich by carefully flipping the mozzarella-lined bread slice over the sprouts.

Press with your hand so everything adheres together. It's best to give the flavors a little time to meld, so wrap the sandwich in pastic wrap and store in the fridge for a few hours if you can. Take out of the fridge about 30 minutes before eating, to bring back to room temperature.

Plat du Jour

Chocolate & Zucchini now has a Plat du Jour generator! Click away, and get hundreds of thousands of dish suggestions in the pure C&Z; spirit...

The idea for this came to me in the middle of the night, which is sort of worrying, but anyway. Hope you have as much fun with this as I do!

Note : I wrote this in English, the ever so modular language, because you wouldn't believe the nightmare of randomly combining and conjugating adjectives and nouns in French! No, you wouldn't. Really.

Ceci n'est pas un Macaron

This is Pierre Hermé's Marron et Thé Vert Matcha macaron.

This is a delicate confection of chestnut almond meringue and fresh chestnut cream and voluptuous green tea cream.

This is a true delight, to the eye and to the palate.

This is my Valentine's Day gift to you.

Joyeuse St-Valentin!

Shallot Parsley Dip

Our first Campanier order included a small head of cauliflower. I felt like eating it raw, and came up with this easy-breazy dip to accompany it. I wanted to eat a quick snack before joining Maxence at the movies, and this took me all of five minutes to whip up. This fresh and tasty dip can be eaten with veggies, or spread on toasted bread.

Be warned though, that as you sit down to watch the movie, your boyfriend may look at you suspiciously in the semi-darkness and ask : "Did you, um... eat onions?".

Nope. Shallots.

But thanks all the same.

Shallot Parsley Dip

- 1 C fromage blanc (or plain yogurt)
- one shallot
- 5 or 6 sprigs of parsley
- 1 tsp pumpkin oil (or other interesting oil, or olive oil)
- 1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper
- a dash of piment d'Espelette (or red pepper flakes)

Peel and chop the shallot finely. Rince the parsley and dry it with a paper towel. Pluck off the leaves (you won't be needing the stems, but do reserve them to flavor a soup or a stew), and chop them.

Pour the fromage blanc in a bowl, add the chopped shallot and parsley, the oil and vinegar, and a little salt, pepper and piment. Stir with a spoon until well combined.

If you can, it is nice to prepare it a few hours ahead, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and reserve in the fridge. This will allow the flavors to develop better. It is also mighty convenient.

Serve as a dip for vegetables or crackers, or use as a sandwich spread.

Chicken Udon with Cabbage and Parsnip

The other night, we had two friends over for a casual dinner : Marion, a friend of mine from university, and Marwane, whom Maxence has known since junior high. Being on a Japanese food kick induced by Maxence's recent successful forays, I decided to make some kind of udon dish topped with stuff. That seemed reasonably doable (I mean, how ambitious does that sound?) with the various ingredients we happened to have on hand.

In particular, I used one of these little packets of rice seasoning mix that they sell in Japanese grocery stores. They come in different flavors, but they all basically contain some kind of meat and vegetable extract, teeny shrimps for some, salt, sugar, sesame oil, onions and various spices. In fact the only actual difference the naked eye can see is in the color of the package and the Pokemon character depicted on it. The idea is to add them to cooked rice, and beat an egg in for a quick yummy meal. We bought tens of these back in California and they had gotten somewhat lost in oblivion in the back of our bulging kitchen cabinets. I recently unearthed them and have found them to be very convenient, instantly giving an interesting Japanese flavor to anything you add them to.

At first, I had reservations about just throwing together what was in the fridge and labelling it Japanese, especially the parsnip and the parsley which sounded to me all but traditional Japanese fare. But after a little research, it appears that our friends from the Empire of the Rising Sun do use parsnips (for tempura in particular) and parsley (lthough theirs seems to be flat-leaf when mine was curly). So all is right in the world, and the result was a very flavorful and satisfying dish, with a lot of different tastes and textures, that we all liked very much.

Chicken Udon with Cabbage and Parsnip

- two chicken fillets
- 200 g udon noodles
- one parsnip
- 8 leaves of cabbage
- a little knob of ginger, about half the size of my thumb (that helps, doesn't it?)
- a packet of Japanese seasoning mix for rice
- sesame oil
- sushi vinegar
- soy sauce
- a few twigs of fresh parsley
- sesame seeds

(Serves four.)

Peel and dice the parsnip. Heat up some sesame oil in a large skillet, and put the parsnips in to cook over medium heat, covered, for about 15 minutes or until tender.

Meanwhile, rince the parsley, pluck the leaves and chop them. Set aside until the end, to use as a garnish. Cut the chicken in thin slices. Peel and chop the ginger. Cut the cabbage leaves in one-inch squares.

When the parsnip is tender, add the chicken, ginger, and cabbage. Sprinkle the contents of the seasoning packet, pour in a splash of sushi vinegar, a splash of soy sauce, and stir. Cook over medium-high heat for ten to fifteen minutes, stirring frequently, until the chicken is thoroughly cooked.

While the chicken mixture cooks, bring some salted water to a boil in a large saucepan, throw in the udon noodles and cook according to package instructions (mine took 8 minutes).

Don't worry if the noodles are ready before the chicken or vice-versa. If the noodles are ready first, drain them and set aside in the saucepan with the lid on. If the chicken is ready first, just leave it covered over low heat.

Serve the drained noodles in four bowls (preferably preheated with a little boiling water), top with the chicken mixture, and sprinkle parsley and sesame seeds on top. Serve with soy sauce on the side for each guest to adjust the seasoning. Eat with chopsticks of course.

Crumble Poire et Marron Confit

This is the very quick and yummy dessert I served our friends the other night, just before we got back to our scheduled program of activities - video games for Maxence and Marwane, and some serious chatting for Marion and myself.

This is in fact a cheater's crumble, in which the fruit is cooked beforehand (in my case a large amount of delicious passe-crassane pears that had gotten nice and ripe all at the same time), and the crumble is a handful of your favorite granola cereal (I am an enthusiastic cereal buyer, and we have about 12 different kinds, among which 5 are granolas, and um... one is for Maxence).

The idea of adding marrons confits (a.k.a. marrons glacés or glazed chestnuts) to the pears was inspired by the delicious crumble they currently serve at l'Avant-Goût, to which I went back on a couple of happy occasions recently.

Unrelated yet joyous note : a very Happy Birthday to Nassim and Alex!

Crumble Poire et Marron Confit

- 6 ripe juicy pears
- 4 marrons confits (glazed chestnuts)
- 3/4 C granola cereal

(Serves 4.)

Pear compote. Peel, core and cut the pears into medium chunks. Put them in a saucepan, and cook over medium heat, covered, for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring gently every once in a while. They are done when they are translucent, but you don't want them to melt completely, some chunks should remain. Most pears are sweet enough that you don't need to add sugar to them, but if you feel like yours aren't very sweet, add a teaspoon or two of sugar at the beginning of the cooking.

The pear compote can be prepared ahead, and kept in an airtight container in the fridge for a couple of days.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). In each of four shallow ramequins, spoon a fourth of the pear compote. Add one chopped marron glacé, and top with a fourth of the granola. Put the ramequins into the oven for about 10 minutes, or until warm. Serve as is, or top with a small scoop of vanilla ice-cream or crème fraîche.

Gâteau Fondant au Chocolat et Noisettes Caramélisées

[Chocolate Cake with Caramelized Hazelnuts]

Last Sunday afternoon, my sister Céline and I organized a "Goûter de Cousins" at my place. We invited those of our cousins who live in Paris, which amounts to about a dozen. Most of them we only see once a year at family holiday parties - some a little more, some way less - and we thought it would be nice to start a little tradition of same-generation gathering.

The added bonus of this very friendly goûter party was, of course, that I had the perfect excuse for some serious baking : you have to feed all those guys, right?

One of the things I made was this luscious chocolate cake. I was trying to reproduce the Petit Gâteau Chocolat Noisette I had tasted and enjoyed so much back in December. Derrick had made his own attempt, had emailed me about it, and we had discussed what the best approach was.

I followed his advice and used his favorite brownie recipe from Cook's Illustrated (if there's one guy out there who knows what he's talking about, it's definitely Derrick, so I felt pretty confident about it). The only modifications I made were to use just one kind of chocolate instead of two, and to add a little amount of ground hazelnuts to the batter. Then I toasted and caramelized some hazelnuts, sprinkled them on top of the brownie before baking, and added some confectioner's sugar after the cake had baked and cooled.

The result is very close to what I was looking for, and absolutely delicious. The cake has a rich chocolate taste with an excellent texture, dense and chewey - but not excessively so, and the topping of caramelized hazelnuts is perfect.

I think the main difference was that the Petit Gâteau, being Petit and individual, included slightly more cakey edges : mine was a big cake cut into squares, which necessarily changes the texture somewhat.

I'll also have to remember that making caramelized hazelnuts is extremely easy, and they would make for a great food gift, golden and crunchy and tasty and sweet, packaged up in a pretty crystal bag.

Gâteau Fondant au Chocolat et Noisettes Caramélisées

- 200 g (7 oz) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate
- 115 g (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 3 Tbsp cocoa powder
- 3 large eggs
- 275 g (1 1/4 cups) sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 140 g (1 cup) all-purpose flour
- 2 Tbsp confectioner's sugar

For the topping :
- 1 C whole hazelnuts
- 70 g (1/3 C) sugar

Put the hazelnuts in the bowl of the food processor, and pulse just a couple of times to chop them roughly. Separate the chunks of hazelnuts from the hazelnut powder this has also created, and reserve the hazelnut powder in a small bowl. Toast the hazelnut chunks in a small dry skillet over high heat, set aside.

In the same small preferably non-stick skillet, pour the amount of sugar indicated for the topping and just a little splash of water. Let this melt over medium-high heat until you get a lightly golden syrup. Add the toasted hazelnut chunks and toss to coat. Pour the caramelized hazelnuts to cool in a single layer on a sheet of parchment paper or a silicon baking mat. Once cooled, separate the hazelnuts that may have stuck together.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F). Line the inside of a 24 cm (8-inch) square baking pan with two long pieces of foil crosswise. Spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray, or lightly brush with oil.

Break the chocolate and dice the butter in a medium heatproof bowl. Put the bowl over a saucepan of almost-simmering water, stirring from time to time, until the chocolate and butter are thoroughly melted. Whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.

In the bowl of a food processor, mix the eggs, the sugar, the vanilla, and the salt in a few short pulses. Add in the chocolate mixture, pulse a couple more times. Add in the flour, the hazelnut powder you previously set aside, and mix until just combined.

Pour the batter into the pan and smooth it out with a spatula. Sprinkle the caramelized hazelnuts evenly over the surface. Put into the oven to bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until slightly puffed and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with a small amount of sticky crumbs clinging to it.

Turn out on a rack to cool for about 2 hours, before removing the cake from the pan. Sieve confectioner's sugar all over the surface. Cut into 1-inch squares and serve.

As with all dark chocolate cakes, it tastes better the next day. And if you're not eating the cake immediately, don't cut it : wrap in plastic or foil and refrigerate up to 5 days.

Gâteau à l'Orange et au Gingembre

[Flourless Orange and Ginger Cake]

This is another cake I baked for our Goûter de Cousins last Sunday. I tasted my first flourless orange cake about a year ago at Rose Bakery, and absolutely loved it. I had tried to reproduce it then, and had made an Orange and Poppyseed version, adapting a recipe found on the web. It was really good - the orange and poppyseed pairing was great - but the texture wasn't quite what I was looking for.

This time, I was very happy to use a recipe from Trish Deseine's book "Mes petits plats préférés", a brilliant and friendly and appealing collection of her favorite easy and slow-cooking dishes. The recipe is called "Gâteau de clémentines pochées" (Poached Clementine Cake) and is actually pretty similar to the one I used a year ago, with just a little more almonds and a little more sugar.

As you know, following a recipe without throwing in my two cents just isn't as much fun, so I decided to make an orange and ginger version of this cake, adding fresh ginger and candied ginger to the batter. The oranges I used were three of the small blood oranges from my last Campanier basket.

This cake was a real hit and I received lots of compliments about it. Incredibly moist and flavorful, with the wonderful taste of orange, the subtle kick of ginger and a delicious sugar crust, it also looks beautiful. I will definitely make this again while the orange season lasts...

Gâteau à l'Orange et au Gingembre

- 3 small oranges or 2 large oranges (preferably organic)
- 6 eggs
- 250 g sugar
- 250 g almond powder (a.k.a. powdered almonds or almond meal)
- a thumb-sized knob of fresh ginger
- 1/4 C candied ginger
- half a packet (1 tsp) of baking powder

For the frosting :
- the zest and juice of a lemon
- 60 g thick sugar crystals, the type used as a topping for chouquettes or brioches. Substitute old-fashioned lumps of sugar (like sucre Candi or La Perruche) or ordinary lumps of sugar, crushed.

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Grease a 24 cm (8-inch) springform cake pan.

Clean and scrub the oranges well. Put them in a medium saucepan, and cover with water. Put the saucepan over medium heat, and simmer for two hours, adding a little hot water when the level gets too low (note : you may, like me, find the smell of whole oranges boiling very unpleasant, but it has nothing to do with the smell or taste of the finished product). Drain, and let cool. Cut in quarters and puree in the food processor.

Peel and chop the fresh ginger. Cut the candied ginger in small dice. In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs with a fork. Whisk in the orange puree, the sugar, the almonds, the baking powder, the fresh ginger, until well blended. Fold in the bits of candied ginger.

Pour the batter in the cake pan, and bake for about an hour, until puffy and golden. Let cool for a few minutes on a rack, while you prepare the frosting. Run a knife around the cake to loosen it, and remove the sides of the pan.

Put the sugar crystals in a small bowl with the lemon juice and zest. Spoon this mixture evenly onto the top of the cake. Let cool completely before serving. It can be made a day ahead, wrapped in plastic and stored in the refrigerator.

Crumble Pommes Dattes

[Apple and Date Crumble]

And this is the third (and final) item I baked for last Sunday's Goûter de Cousins, thinking it would be nice to make an apple crumble in addition to the two cakes.

The idea was to serve something a little lighter and fruit-based for those of us who may have a small appetite, or may want to go the healthier route, or may be on a diet, or may dislike both chocolate and orange. As it turned out, nobody fit in either of these categories (or hid it well) but the crumble, to which I decided to add dates for a little twist to keep myself interested, was a very nice addition to the menu nonetheless. It was enthusiastically wolfed down.

As it happens, my darling sister Céline assisted me in the making of this. She has just moved into her new apartment, a luminous and spacious affair just a ten-minute walk from my apartment <overjoyous whoop>, and this is the first time she has her own "real" kitchen. What I mean by "real" is, in which you actually have room to take more than one step at a time, which boasts more than three square-inches of counter space, has an actual oven, and more than one and a half cooking ranges - one of them being half covered by the unavoidable clutter. So she has a great kitchen now, but what she doesn't have (yet) is... baking tools! cooking paraphernalia! kitchen toys! ten years' worth of gift ideas!

She still wanted to take part in the preparation though, and she offered to come and help : so while she efficiently peeled the apples I whizzed the topping, and we chatted while the crumble baked...

Crumble Pommes Dattes

- 8 apples of assorted varieties
- 24 dried dates
- a cup of hot tea
- 100 g oatmeal
- 100 g brown sugar
- 100 g salted butter, diced
- 100 g flour (you can use half whole-wheat, half all-purpose for an interesting taste)
- a splash of milk

(Serves 6.)

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Grease a baking dish with a little butter (unless it's nonstick).

Put the dates in a bowl, and pour hot tea on them. Let stand for at least 20 minutes for them to plump up a bit.

Peel and core the apples, cut them in slices. Arrange the slices in the dish. Pour a few spoonfuls of the date-infused tea on the apples (the liquid helps them cook). Drain the dates, remove the seeds, dice the flesh, and arrange evenly on the apples.

In the food processor, whizz together the oatmeal, the sugar, the butter and the flour until it resembles coarse salt. Add a small splash of milk and pulse a few more times. Sprinkle the topping on top of the fruit. You can choose to use all of the topping for a very crumbly crumble, or you can use only a portion (I used about three quarters) and reserve the remaining topping in an airtight container in the fridge for a later use.

Put in the oven to bake for an hour, until the apples are tender and the topping is golden. Serve with crème anglaise or crème fraîche or a scoop of ice-cream.

Galette Essenienne

I bought this at Pousse-Pousse, the little boutique where I buy my sprouting seeds and where I collect my weekly Campanier baskets. It is a sort of thin flatbread, made with sprouted seeds that have been ground and dehydrated. There are different flavors, depending on the seeds that have been used, and I chose the leek one (well, of course). The galettes (or rather randomly broken pieces of it) are packaged up in little trays wrapped in plastic.

It's called Essenian because recent research seems to indicate that two millenia ago, the members of the Essenian brotherhood (to which some claim Jesus may have belonged) followed a diet very similar to today's "live food" eating guidelines, in which you mainly eat raw food, sprouted seeds, and food cooked at an extremely low temperature to preserve the nutrients and vitamins. And those guys made the same kind of sprouted seeds galette, which they let dry under the blazing Palestinian sun. Fascinating.

The texture is crunchy, but not as much as a cracker, more like bread crust, and the taste is very unusual and intriguing : there is the overall flavor of leek sprouts, it's a bit salty with a peppery kick, a little earthy like whole wheat products, with a subtle afterhint of bitterness.

The taste was so peculiar I couldn't exactly determine whether I liked it or not, but it was very interesting, and in trying to make up my mind I ate a fair amount of it - for the sake of gastronomical research, brows furrowed and a quizzical look on my face - so I guess it must be kind of good.

In any case I'm always thrilled to lay my hands on things I've never tasted before, and this is the type of appetizer that you can serve your guests (well, those with adventurous tastes) and be sure an interesting conversation ensues!

Wallpapers Galore!

I am pleased to announce the grand opening of a wallpaper gallery from the Chocolate & Zucchini picture collection! Browse around the aisles, choose your favorite pic, decorate your desktop, and make you coworkers drool with envy!

If there is any picture you like that I haven't included yet, please let me know and I will add its high-res version to the gallery!

You will also notice that I have added a Paypal donation button to the right of this page : if you enjoy this site and would like to support it, your contribution is greatly appreciated!

On another note, I now understand why they tell you to label the stuff you throw in the freezer : it's to avoid bringing a nice serving of frozen lentil chestnut soup for lunch at work, only to find once thawed, that it is really just a large amount of caramelized shallots...

Galettes de Sarrasin

Tomorrow is Mardi-Gras, the last day before Lent begins. The Mardi-Gras tradition in France, amongst other things, is to gorge on crepes, supposedly to use up the eggs and butter that you won't be allowed to eat until Easter. I am not religious and so I don't observe Lent (I scared you for a minute here, didn't I?), but I will gladly take any opportunity to eat crepes! And last Friday, when my friends Marie-Laure and Laurence came over for dinner, I decided to make us crepes, using farine de sarrasin (buckwheat flour) like they do in Brittany, a region in the West of France.

Brittany is a fantasy land of wonderful crepes. We would spend a week of vacation there every year (often in Carnac) with my parents when I was younger. We would eat crepes every single night, to the sparkly-eyed delight of my sister and myself, and over time we had built quite a little itinerary of favorite crêperies to visit. In Brittany, savory crepes are made with buckwheat flour and are called "galettes", whereas sweet crepes are made with wheat flour and are called "crêpes".

And so it is that I can share with you my recipe for galettes de sarrasin, just in time for Mardi-Gras! You can use whatever filling suits your fancy, but the most traditional galette is probably the "complète", filled with an egg ("mirroir", sunny-side-up, or "brouillé", scrambled) ham and cheese (usually gruyère or comté). But you can also use veggies, goat cheese, tuna, bacon... This past Friday, I made a batch of galettes filled with egg (mirroir), ham and cheese, and another of caramelized leeks and shallots with goat cheese.

The only downside of making galettes is that they're in fact a little more work than I had foreseen, as I had to juggle two skillets, the fillings, and the keeping warm of the galettes that were ready. But we all enjoyed them very much, the taste of buckwheat flour is really special, nice and nutty ; the dough was just the way we like it, soft in the middle and a little crunchy on the edges ; and the fillings were excellent.

Galettes de Sarrasin

For the dough :
- 200 g buckwheat flour
- 50 g all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 50 cl milk
- 50 cl water

For the galettes :
- salted butter
- the fillings of your choice

(Makes 12 medium galettes.)

Step 1 : Prepare the dough.

If you have a food processor , break the eggs in the bowl of the food processor. Add the flours, and mix until well blended. Add as much of the milk as your food processor allows and mix again. Transfer to a large mixing bowl, and add the remaining milk and the water. Whisk until thoroughly blended.

If you don't have a food processor, put the flour in a large mixing bowl and dig a little well in the center. Break the eggs in the well, and whisk them progressively into the flour in a circular motion. Pour the milk in slowly, whisking all the while. Add the water, still whisking.

In both cases, cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap, and store in the fridge for at least two hours, overnight is best.

Step 2 : Make the galettes.

Take the bowl of dough out of the fridge and prepare all the fillings beforehand. Whisk the galette dough again, as some of the flour will have settled at the bottom of the bowl.

If you're making several galettes in a row, preheat the oven to 180°C (360°F). This is where you'll keep the galettes warm while you make the others.

Heat up a large non-stick skillet over high heat. When it is very hot, put in a sliver of salted butter. When it is melted, but before it browns, use a paper towel to (cautiously) spread the butter evenly on the surface of the skillet. Pour a ladleful of dough in the skillet, and swoop the skillet around so that the dough spreads out in a nice even circle. Let cook on medium-high heat for a few minutes, peeking underneath with a spatula from time to time to check on the cooking.

Flip the galette when it's nicely golden underneath, cautiously or brazenly depending on your self-assurance. Put the fillings of your choice in the center of the galette. If using an egg, break it cautiously and gently maintain the yolk in the center with the eggshell or your spatula until the white has set enough to hold it in place. When the other side of the galette is nice and golden too, fold it as best you can : the traditional way is to fold the four sides in and make a square galette, but when there's a lot of filling and the galette isn't very big that's a little difficult, so just fold two sides in.

Put the galette in a large baking dish or on a cookie sheet and into the oven to keep warm while you make the others. Serve with a green salad and liberal amounts of Cidre Brut, an alcoholic apple cider from Brittany.

Soupe Broccoli Mimolette

[Broccoli Mimolette Soup]

This soup has to be the best broccoli soup I've ever had - and without a doubt the best one I've ever made. The really cool thing about it, besides being really really good, is that it is infused with flavor from two ingredients that usually get thrown out without batting an eyelash : the rind from a firm and sharp cheese, and the stems from a bunch of fresh herbs.

From now on I vow to always throw these in the freezer for later use : the flavor of cheese is very concentrated in the rind, and the stems of herbs are no less fragrant than the leaves, but they usually get discarded because they don't look too nice as a garnish.

Having read in a few places about the use of these poor disaffectioned ingredients in soups (and you know how I feel about poor disaffectioned ingredients), I had frozen the stems from a bunch of parsley a little while ago, as well as the rind of a large hunk of mimolette extra-vieille. Mimolette is a bright orange cheese from the North of France, called "extra-old" when aged for a long time until brittle and very sharp. In its young and unaged version, mimolette has a more mellow flavor but is also excellent : it's a favorite among French kids, its cheerful color playing a big part I'm sure. Some say it was also Charles de Gaulle's preferred choice of cheese (and I mean the President, not the airport).

Note that any other type of herb would work in place of the parsley, and you can use another type of cheese too (or even several), as long as it's a firm cheese (fromage à pâte ferme), with a strong and sharp flavor - parmesan would be a great substitution, for instance.

Soupe Broccoli Mimolette

- one onion
- one shallot
- one clove of garlic
- two heads of broccoli
- one cube of bouillon
- 50 g of rind from a hunk of mimolette extra-vieille (substitute the rind from a hunk of parmesan or another firm and sharp cheese)
- a bunch of parsley stems
- a Tbsp of crème fraîche
- olive oil
- salt, pepper
- [optional] piment d'Espelette (substitute red pepper flakes)

(Serves 4.)

Peel and chop the onion, the shallot and the garlic clove. Heat up a little olive oil in a large saucepan and cook the onion, shallot and garlic over medium heat until softened.

Wash and chop the broccoli. Add it into the saucepan, along with the cheese rind, the cube of bouillon and the parsley stems. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and piment d'Espelette. Add about three to four cups of water, to cover about halfway up the broccoli. (If you're not sure, it is better to add less water now, and adjust when the soup is ready, than the other way around...)

Bring to a small boil and let the soup simmer on medium-low heat for about 20 minutes, until the broccoli is softened.

Remove the cheese rind and the parsley stems from the soup, and use a blender or a fork to puree the soup to the desired chunkiness. Adjust the seasoning, stir in the crème fraîche and serve.

Is My Blog Burning? The Tartine Edition

Feeling very bad about not finding the time to make soup for the first Is My Blog Burning? event, I told Alberto that I would be more than happy to host the second edition, to be held on Sunday March 7th, 2004.

For those of you not yet familiar with the concept, IMBB? is a distributed food blogging event, brought to us by Alberto : a date and a theme are set, each participating blogger cooks something following that theme, and posts about his creation on that particular day.

For the second edition, the theme I would like to propose is "Tartine". A tartine is a popular Parisian dish, in which different ingredients are arranged and served on a slice of bread - a sort of open-faced sandwich if you will - usually on a bed of greens. Like the soup theme, this should leave the door wide open for you to express your culinary creativity!

And you can refer to the post I wrote a little while ago about The Wonderful World of Tartines for more tartine info and ideas, and a sample recipe.

The basic rules follow:

- Any and all bloggers are welcome to take part, whether they regularly blog about food or not.

- The theme is "Tartine" : prepare and lay different ingredients on a slice of bread - possibly in a nice assortment of colors and shapes - and you'll be spot on!

- The IMBB? day for this edition is Sunday March 7th, 2004.

- The food doesn't have to be made on IMBB? day, but your entry should be posted on that day.

- Share the recipe for what you made, and try to include a picture too if at all possible, we would all love to see what your tartine looks like!

- Once your entry is posted, please email me with a link to it : I will include it in a post that lists all of the participants.

Any question, comment, or suggestion is more than welcome!

... still here? sorry, but don't you have a tartine recipe to come up with? :)

L'Etoile d'Or

L'Etoile d'Or is a little candy store in the rue Fontaine, sprung right out of a fairy tale.

It is but a ten-minute walk from where I live, so I find it charmingly ironic that I owe its discovery to my Bay Area blog-friend, Derrick, who mentioned it to me in a recent email : he and his wife Melissa have taken several trips to Paris, and food lovers that they are, they have excellent finds to share.

And so it is that just a few days ago, following Derrick's advice, I set off towards the Moulin Rouge to hunt for this little boutique, in the maze of narrow streets lined with cabarets and bars which have seen better days - days when they were all risqué and glamorous and shady, days come and gone, leaving them touchingly derelict. The very picture of a woman, way past her prime, with a tight leather top and too much makeup.

But I find L'Etoile d'Or easily in the midst of this, surrounded as it seems to be by a golden glow, showering down on me beneath the awning. The pleasant impression is confirmed when I push the door open to the ring of a bell, and step inside the store, all glass cases and mirrors and golden shelves and candy, candy everywhere, as far as the eye can see. I find myself alone inside, a little intimidated, a little Goldilocks.

But then I hear the deep voice of the owner, and I turn to discover, coming out from behind the counter, a fifty year-old schoolgirl. Complete with the long pleated kilt skirt, the v-neck sweater, the white shirt with a round collar and a little tie, and two long, blonde braids.

And the schoolgirl tells me kindly that I should take as much time as I wish to look around, that I should absolutely not feel pressured to buy anything, and that if I have any question at all she is right there, ready to help. And then she proceeds to count the bars of different varieties of chocolate lined neatly on a table, taking more out of a cabinet, evening out the piles, and talking animatedly to herself all the while.

Blinking with disbelief, I slowly walk around, taking it all in. The chocolate bars and bites, the calissons, the bonbons, the almonds, the pralines, the nougatine, specialties from all around the Great Kingdom of France, the jams, the tea, the biscuits, and the Hall of Fame, with news articles from around the world, all featuring the schoolgirl, at various ages, forever standing at her counter with a smile of pride.

And then I talk to her and she says "tu" immediately and starts telling me, in a random order, about her Japanese customers ; about Sharffen-Berger himself who came and informed her she was a San Francisco celebrity ; about how she's the only one in France to sell Bernachon chocolate apart from Bernachon himself ; how she has dressed the exact same way forever and doesn't see a reason to change ; how she can make me an assortment of the tiniest chocolate bites so I have more to taste for the same weight ; how funny it is that an American has told me about her ; how I can come back whenever I want ; and how the pistachio and the caramel chocolates are her favorite because they are "très veloutés", with the accompanying gesture.

Wanting to buy the whole store, but refraining from doing so to leave some for next time, I settle for a small box of the various nut confections that she sells : pralines and dragées and chocolate-covered coffee beans and walnuts and almonds and hazelnuts.

"C'est pour toi?", she asks, and it is indeed for myself, but she says she will gift-wrap it for me anyhow, because she uses the original papier d'Epinal, on which old-fashioned jokes and puzzles are printed. But then she says she will just give me the sheet of paper because she doesn't want to cut and fold it, it's so beautiful.

As I get ready to leave, she explains that I'm more than welcome, some other time, to buy just one small caramel : she will weigh it carefully for me, and I will get the same warm smile. Every time.

I thank her, tell her that this is a precious thing, and leave the fairy tale, with a smile on my face and a whistle on my lips.

L'Etoile d'Or
Denise Acabo
30 rue Fontaine
75009 Paris
01 48 74 59 55
M° Pigalle or Blanche

The Double Chocolate Crisps Quest

And today, it is with a plea for help that I come to you, a call to your infinite wisdom and collective knowledge.

Last time I did something of the kind, you proved to me that you were as generous with your advice and insight as I had hoped, and although I have yet to make another attempt at poaching an egg - because I never seem to feel like it until the eggs I have can't in all honesty be considered at a peak of freshness anymore - all of your precious tips will accompany me on my next foray, and you will be the first to know of its relative or absolute success.

The matter at hand today is no less important and primordial than last time, because it involves chocolate : I am looking for a recipe to reproduce those delicious Swedish Double Chocolate Crisps, made of two thin crispy buttery rolled oats cookies, sandwiched together by a layer of dark chocolate.

I have found a store-bought version at the IKEA Swedish food store, made by a Swedish brand named Gille. I have also had them freshly made at Nils, a Swedish sandwich place in the rue Montorgueil. I love both, but what I would love even more is to have a recipe to make these myself. I have searched the web to no avail : lots of references to the Gille cookies without a recipe, and lots of recipes for Swedish cookies, none of which looked quite like they were The One.

So if you are of Swedish descent and your grandmother wore her grey-blonde hair up in braided loops and she used to make these for the holidays when you were little and you loved to stand beside her and watch, absent-mindedly fondling the hem of her apron, waiting for a lick of the dough ; if you have a recipe for these crisps or if you otherwise have any information, tip or trail that would help me locate the missing cookie recipe, my gratitude shall shine down upon you for the seven generations to come.

And I shall name my first batch of these cookies after you.

Archive Spotlight

In the five months since the birth of Chocolate & Zucchini, I have written approximately one hundred and fifty entries, among which roughly half are recipes. Not all of you have read all of them of course, and even I sometimes forget what I have written about, so I thought it would be nice to have a way to make use of these archives.

On the left navigation bar, a new section called "Archive Spotlight" now randomly selects a post from the Chocolate & Zucchini archives, dusts it off and displays it for your reading pleasure...

Chips de Radis Noir

[Black Radish Chips]

This week's Campanier selection included three black radishes, oblong and rather large. Black radish is another one of those forgotten vegetables, so I was quite happy for the chance to experiment with it.

Last time I had bought a black radish, I had used it raw in a yogurt-dressed salad, and had been rather unimpressed. I now realise, by comparison, that it wasn't at a peak of freshness then : it was much limper than the crisp and vigorous Campanier ones. But still, I wanted to try them in their cooked form this time. One of them I cut up in matchsticks and added to an Asian stir-fry, to very good results. And I decided to bake the two remaining ones : baking is my favorite cooking method for root vegetables, it brings out their sweetness in a delightful way.

These oven-baked black radish chips turned out really tasty : their natural pungency is toned down by the baking, yet the edge remains, and they proved quite addictive.

In slicing them up, I also discovered how beautiful this vegetable is, with the white on white sunray pattern on each slice. Afterwards, I thought it would have been even nicer to leave half of the peel on, in stripes, so that each of the slices would have dashes on the rim.

Chips de Radis Noir

- 2 large black radishes
- olive oil
- balsamic vinegar
- salt, pepper
- piment d'espelette (optional, substitute red pepper flakes)

(Serves 4.)

Preheat the oven to 220°C (430°F). Grease a baking dish (unless it is non-stick).

Wash and scrub the radishes. Peel them with a vegetable peeler, leaving half of the peel in stripes if desired. Slice the radishes thinly - very thin slices will be more chip-like, slightly thicker slices will be moister - and put the slices in the baking dish.

Pour a little olive oil, a little vinegar, sprinkle salt, pepper and piment d'espelette. Toss with a wooden spoon to coat. Pour and sprinkle more if necessary, until all the slices look comfortably dressed - but not drenched.

Put in the oven to bake for about 40 minutes, until the chips are golden and their edges start to crisp up. Serve warm, as an appetizer or a side.