The fashionable team over at Design*Sponge came by to make a video with me here in Paris...
I hit the market with Anne Ditmeyer of Prêt à Voyager, who is part of the Design*Sponge creative team, to do a little shopping.
(Plus we got a little lesson of how far a seller will go not to sell something to you.)
I'd not heard of Eggplant Caviar (caviar d'aubergine), until I moved to France. I'm not sure why that was—perhaps in the states it's called something different when I was served it? Could it be labeling laws, so I wouldn't confuse eggplant seeds for fish eggs? Or did I just have my head in the sand for too many years and only saw the light when I moved away?
Whenever I had eggplants lying around, I always made baba ganoush or moutabal. But eggplant caviar is even easier to make and less-rich: it's a smoky tasting eggplant purée with a squirt of fresh lemon, some garlic, and a bit of heat from a sprinkle of bright-red chili powder.
If I had to name one food that I couldn't live without, chocolate would be right up there. Salted butter is on that short list, too. Seeded bagels, California dried apricots, black and white cookies, osetra caviar (if money, and sustainability, were no object), lobster rolls, French fries, and really good fried chicken would also be on that list. Not as fancy as some of those things, but just as good, another thing that I can never seem to get enough of is crunchy cornmeal.
And the good thing is that I live next to Italy, so whenever I pop over and visit my neighbors, I always bring back not only good coffee by the kilo, but as much polenta as I can jam into my suitcase as well.
A few years ago I was shamed into only using stone-ground cornmeal, but the locals seem to have taken to instant polenta, which I was told wasn't bad by a well-respected chef. That's what is widely available here, but I just couldn't bring myself to agree when I tried it for myself.
After my recent lament about the state of bistros in Paris, where I noted that the wine bars in Paris often had the best food, when my friend Rochelle who owns Chefwear was in town this week, I wanted to go somewhere casual, where we'd be assured of good, honest food.
So we agreed to meet at Le Garde Robe, one of my favorite wine bars in Paris, which serves mostly natural wines. Another plus are the charcuterie and cheeses they serve by the plate (€12 for a platter of each, or you can get one mixed), which make a great accompaniment to the wines. Each wooden board arrives in front of you resplendent, and is a great way to sample some of the top-quality meats and fromages from France, and beyond.
Another thing about Le Garde Robe is that the fun spills into the street. I've spent a few late evenings perched on a stool outside with friends, laughing and drinking until way past my bedtime. And the staff often becomes 'creative' when using parked cars and trucks to help them out. (Can you imagine the driver's reaction in America if they came out and saw a board leaning against their car?)
There were various responses on my Strawberry ice cream recipe, requesting a retraction of the moniker ice "cream" since it didn't have cream in it. And a respected food writer pointed out that pumpkin was obligatory in Soupe au Pistou. I, too, know that folks will sometimes call something hot 'chocolate' even though it was made with cocoa powder instead of chocolate. And have been served fried onion rings that were actually broken circles, not neat, closed rounds of onions. And don't get me started on thinly sliced fruit being called carpaccio.
So I have seen the error of my ways, and you'll be happy to know that I slavishly followed the recipe for classic Salade Niçoise, as espoused by Jacques Médecin in his book Cuisine Niçoise. (Not this one.) Which everyone in Provence agrees gets the last word on cuisine from their region.
For example, once can not put grilled or seared tuna on the salad and call it a salade Niçoise. Canned tuna or anchovies are acceptable, but not both. And he cautions ""...never, never, I beg you, include boiled potato or any other boiled vegetable in your salade niçoise."
Always on the lookout for classic French bistros, a friend and I recently stopped at Au Petit Riche. I'd eaten there before and found the food decent, but I remember the company a little better than the food. I was dazzled by the stunning interior and the conversation, which should have been a tip off since I rarely forget anything I eat that's good.
Many Americans have become more astute about dining and want to know where the ingredients are from, how they are handled, what part of the animal they're getting. It's part of the farmer's market movement, as well as a number of folks striving to eat locally or at least show some concern for where and how their foodstuffs are raised.
And there's also the do-it-yourself movement, where everything from upstart ice cream shops are opening, and of course the bean-to-bar movement, where every step of the process is carefully tended to. In general, the French don't ask those questions because France has always been a deeply agricultural country, with close ties to their terroir. When dining with friends from the states in Paris, I know they'd be disappointed to find frozen green beans with their steak, or boiled white rice heaped on a salade Niçoise. So I am always careful to steer them away from some of the classic bistros on their lists, ones they may have eaten at a decade ago, or that a friend recommended.
Many people who embark on professional cooking careers, or just interested in having an experience in an French kitchen, are interested in coming to France to do an internship, called a stage.
I posted on Twitter, to find out how people got their stages in France. Here are some of their responses:
I always seem to have the supreme misfortune to draw the letter W when playing Scrabble in French, as there's barely one-quarter of a page in the French dictionary devoted to words that begin with that letter. People use "Wu" for Chinese money; although I allow them, it's not in the French dictionary so I'm not sure that's in the official rules. In spite of their high-value, I always am irked when I pull that dreaded W tile.
But I'm not a Scrabble expert, plus the fact the French have all those gazillion verb tenses, which is another reason that I never win. And my request to play in English is still pending.
When I lived in the states, I used to wonder why all the people who lived in New York City would go out of their way to proclaim that they could never live anywhere else, that New York City was the best city in the world. That they could only live in Manhattan, etc..etc.. Then they'd spent three months of the year, during the summer, bailing on the city they claim to love.
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