Southern Fried French

A Toolkit for a French Kitchen

PHOTO: Notice the drain holes on the side of this pretty crock I bought at a flea market.  I can wash, drain, and display fruits or veggies on my counter, all in one pot.

 
One of the nice things about immersing yourself in another culture is that you learn how other people do things, have been doing things forever, often better than your way!  And of course the French, who practically invented the foodie thing, have much to teach us.  

I got my first cooking tips shortly before I moved here, when I went with my step-daughter to a cooking class at the Cordon Bleu in Paris.  She took a full 6-week diploma program, and I dropped in for a week of 'Regional French Cooking'.  

The chef who was our instructor had one major tool that was almost always in his hand, whether he was doing prep work or just cleaning up.  Can you guess what it was?  I never would have.  It was….a bench scraper.   

Until then I couldn’t have told you what a Bench or Dough Scraper was.  It’s basically a flat piece of metal, with a wide, thin edge, a blade edge but not as sharp as a knife.  You can use it like a knife to cut or divide things, especially dough or pastry.  You can scoop up grated cheese or finely chopped veggies from your cutting board and put them in a bowl or pan with no mess or waste.  You can clean off a sticky countertop after making biscuits or a pie crust in a flash, no scrubbing required. I now wonder how I ever managed without one.

 

Then there are the wonderful conical sieves that are in every French kitchen, called chinois, that I’ve mentioned before.  I have a fine mesh  Chinois and a Strainer with small holes.  They’re good for any kind of straining (even lumpy gravy) or draining things, with their handy hook that fils over a bowl.  A Wooden Pestle is good to have too, for ‘pressing on solids’, as recipes often direct. ( photo at left, two chinois and a pestle).

Now, do you have a French Tart Pan with Removable Base? The French don’t do pies, but they excel at tarts, shallower and wider than pies.  With their removable bottom, you never have to struggle to get a piece out, as with a pie plate.  You just pop out the whole tart, perfect every time.  

What the French don't use:  Once I was in New Orleans and I stood watching a group of chefs hard at work at the stove in the kitchen of Commander’s Palace.  Like the Cordon Bleu chefs, they used one major tool: a pair of long handled Stainless Steel Locking Tongs.  With these they flipped steaks, stirred pots, removed veggies from pans, and in the rare moment they weren’t using them, they popped them in their back pocket.  I went home and bought a pair and they've been my kitchen weapon of choice ever since.   But they’re not particularly popular here.

Here are three other trusty little tools I like: a Zester, which makes beautiful little citrus zest for a dish or a garnish, without the bother of a grater; a Grapefruit Knife, curved with a rounded point and a blade on each side, which I mainly use to cut the rind from cantaloupes and to seed/cut watermelons; and a nifty little tool called a Corer, to core an apple or a pear.  

And now my Dear Readers and fellow cooks, please share your favorite tools, French or not, in the Comments section!

For more info about the tools, click on the blue links in the text.  

In the Comments this week:  First of all, zip right over to our 'Share A Recipe' section for Diane's  tasty Tomato Onion tart with Gruyere, which she had at an Alliance Française pique-nique in Scottsdale.  Merci Diane, we love recipes!  Kristin, I've answered your question about what husbands do all day in France in our FAQ section.  Meanwhile Carol and the folks at SilverMagpie.com are eyeing those Sexty Sundaes, and Caterina likes the eccentricities of the French--moi aussi! Thanks for all the great questions and comments.

Unless otherwise attributed, all POSTS, PHOTOS and RECIPES on this blog copyright ©2011 Lynn McBride.  All Rights Reserved. 

 

The Curious Case of the ‘Marché des Curieux’

 
As you know if you’ve visited the French countryside in the summer, the French are fond of a fête like nobody else.  Every village seems to stage their own.  There are fêtes for wine, of course, portes ouvertes where every vigneron in a village opens their caves for gala tastings.  But other fêtes have themes we would consider odd.  There are festivals for organ grinders and organ meats, snails and sunflowers, frog legs and fromage.  No subject is too small for consideration, no excuse too flimsy for a party.

So when we heard there was a Marché des Curieux (Market of Curiosities) in nearby Bissy-sur-Fley, off we went, hoping for the truly eccentric.  We were not disappointed.  

The festival had a unique air right away since it was held in the large courtyard of a château.  Apart from all wares unique and odd and interesting, there was a booth with a sign that said, loosely translated,  ‘Custom Hats While You Wait, Two euros’.  Now this was intriguing.  As it turned out, not only did you get un chapeau individually suited to your personality for a couple of bucks, but they were also 100% recycled. 

Here was the drill.  Madame La Modiste (hatmaker) had boxes and boxes of castoff ‘stuff’:  old wallpaper, ribbon, dribs and drabs of fabric, paper, even a stuffed animal or two, all tossed gaily into boxes with no thought of organization. There was a long line for a hat, and while you waited you fished around in the boxes for the things that suited you, until you had accumulated a couple of handfuls.  When it was your turn, Madame somehow turned it all into an amazing, often startling, creation, quick as you could bat a veiled eye.  Her tool of choice:  a stapler. Below, photos of Madame at work, and hats to rival a royal wedding:  

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

Strolling around and  admiring Madame’s  creations turned out to be the highlight of the fête.  Now if you can come up with a better party idea to liven up a big event, well, I’ll eat my hat.

 

And to top off the summer menus, since la saison is in full swing here, I’m sticking with ice cream.  Sure, you could spend those precious summer hours cooking up some fancy dessert, but really, who doesn’t want to just eat ice cream all summer?  

 

RECIPE:  Sexty Summer Coupes Glaceés 

Why call them ‘sexty’?  Because our Dutch neighbor always pronounces the word ‘six’ as ‘sex’, which makes for some interesting conversations.  And because there are at least ‘sexty’ variations you could come up with for these  coupes glacées, layered  ice cream sundaes.

No need to make these ahead for company, you can put them together in a minute, especially if you grab a guest to help in the kitchen.

The basics:  some nice glasses.  A scoop of ice cream on the bottom.  Then a lady finger, smushed down a bit, or crumbled cookies.  A drizzle of liqueur over the cookie layer if you like, maybe a dab of  fresh fruit.  Another scoop of ice cream, the same or  a different flavor;  followed by a squirt of whipped cream (from a can will do nicely, we’re on summer vacation) and a drizzle of sauce. 

In the photo: Tiramisu parfaits, made with coffee ice cream, lady fingers drizzled with spirits (marsala, rum, or Kahlua), and that whipped cream is napped with a little chocolate sauce.  

Think of the possibilities!  A riff on strawberry shortcake.  Or a fruit sorbet with chopped pineapples or mangos, with a bit of rum spooned over crumbled coconut cookies in the middle.  The French have a raspberry fetish, so try these summer berries sandwiched between lemon sorbet or French vanilla ice cream and crushed shortbread cookies with some framboise liqueur, cassis, or limoncello.  There are at least sexty  ways to shine!

Now for sundaes you'll need a pretty glass.  For these I just used highball glasses, but I love the traditional Tulip Sundae Glasses glasses my youngest daughter gave me.  French cafés often use the fat, round  Dessert Bowls. Click on the links for info.

In the Comments:  Our guest post by Cynthia Bogart of The Daily Basics.com generated lots of comments.  Norma, Christine, Karen and Jessica share their own trips to France.  Kristin wants to know how husbands spend their days in France.  "What we do all day" is such a frequent question, I've decided to add it to the FAQ's section, so cruise over there for a little summary (lots of previous posts on this subject, too).  Now, Kristin, if you can tell ME how to get one of those caretaker jobs on the French Riviera...

Unless otherwise attributed, all POSTS, PHOTOS and RECIPES on this blog copyright ©2011 Lynn McBride.  All Rights Reserved. 

 

 

How to Travel in Provence

...The best family vacation you will ever take, by Cynthia Bogart of The Daily Basics.com

Today we are very pleased to welcome American Cynthia Bogart as our guest blogger.  Cynthia is editor of the fun blogazine The Daily Basics.com.  Subscribe and you'll get a daily, brief article that will keep you absolutely au courant on what's happening in beauty/books/food/environment/house/ garden/ entertaining.  We never miss it! 

  

PROVENCE!  Glamourous, rich, steeped in history.   And it is still #1 on the list of the best vacations my children (then 10, 12 and 14) will say they have ever had (Photo:  daughter Chessy at the B&B Domaine Saint Luc).

We were the odd parents who didn’t take our kids to Disneyland.  Ever.  We wanted the kids to see the world. Of course we were like every other young family then (eight years ago). Three children, a house, cars, schools, expenses.  A five star vacation was not in the budget. But a trip to England to stay with friends and then on to France was. That is if we traveled like the Europeans did. In B&B’s.  We did it on the cheap. 

The first stop we made was to visit friends in the south of England for a few days before embarking on a ferry to Dieppe, France, where we rented the largest family car we could find,  a psychedelic blue Renault car (spaceship) which screamed AMERICANS. 

Aiming south, we drove through Chartres and through the Loire Valley to our final destination, the B&B, Domaine Saint Luc.  Located in their own vineyard in Drôme Provençale just an inch north of Provence proper, it had been recommended to us by a friend who said the accommodations were clean, the food good and the wine fantastic.  What we found was charming beyond belief.  The 18^th century farmhouse had simple guest rooms with modern bathrooms (YES!), amazing food (we later found out the owner was in Town & Country magazine as the best B&B Chef in Provence) and their vineyard which produced a Côtes du Rhône Village and a Coteaux du Tricastin that delighted us every evening. (Photo: the boys on the Roman toilets at Vaison La Romaine).

Using the Vineyard as our base we took day trips all over the South of France.  From the Roman amphitheater in Orange to Aix-en-Provence to Saint-Tropez, we traveled and ate our way through the region.  Our innkeeper would tell us what town had an open market that day and that was where we would point our spaceship. We would buy our lunch throughout the markets. Cheeses, breads, patés, sausages and tapenades were topped off by Orangina for the kids and a half bottle of wine for my husband and me. The meals would be no more than $20 including the $2 bottle of wine.  Of course when we found pizza in one town my children wolfed it down, professing it to be the best they ever had.  A very thin almost crisp crust was the base for a local semi hard cheese topped by a thick mound of thinly roasted vegetables.  It was a feast.  

Some recommendations:

Best Restaurant: in Suze la Rousse  - Le Garlaban

Best Inn: Domaine St Luc

Best Town visited: Grignan 

Best Wine - ALL 

A fabulous trip, with the exception of:

1) when we lost our daughter, Chessy, in a village that was cut into the side of a hill, topped by a castle and not too dissimilar from Hogwarts 

2) when our 10 year old hit a car with a rock with his newly acquired slingshot 

3) when we had to leave ...

We are still aching to return to that part of the world where the people are wonderful, the food is amazing and the life is sweet.   

P.S. My kids have still not been to Disneyworld and really don’t care.  

 

RECIPE:  Pizza Provençal

 

Leave it to the French to make a healthy pizza.   Photo courtesy Deviantart.com.

Toppings: 

• Grilled vegetables
• roasted red peppers
• olives
• artichokes
• mushrooms
• onions
• pesto 

choose your cheese- mozzarella as a base, sprinkle another hard grated cheese of your choice

Pizza Crust: 

• ½ pint of warm water
• ½ oz yeast
• 1 tsp of honey
• 12 oz of strong white flour
• 1 egg
• salt

Process

-Melt the yeast in ½ pint of water with the honey stirred in until it becomes frothy

-Mix the beaten egg into the flour, add salt and stir in the yeast mixture.  Add enough water to form a firm dough

-Knead for at least 10 minutes on a floured table and leave it in a lightly greased bowl, covered with a towel, to rise, preferably over night.

-When you are ready to make the pizza, punch the dough down and roll out to the desired sizes and try and make it fairly thin.

Add the toppings adding the pesto on last. If you omit the pesto, drizzle a good olive oil on top.

 

Merci, Cynthia!  And Dear Readers, If you're like me and don't have time to read many magazines these days,The Daily Basics.com is the perfect answer.  Here's how to connect:

thedailybasics.com  

thedailybasics--Twitter

thedailybasics--facebook

 

In the Comments this week:  Speaking of Provence, Anne and Kirk have found a great breakfast place in Aix. Caterina has a lovely story to tell (and the perfect quote, from Downton Abbey). Lots of readers--Carol, Barbara, Julie, Page--have thoughts on a French breakfast.  Mille mercis for all the comments!

Favorite Reads:  You're bound to know the Peter Mayle series, A Year in Provence and Toujours Provence. But did you know A Year in Provence (DVD) was also a British mini series?  The film of his novel, A Good Year is a favorite too (even Ron, who will reject any movie without a car chase, liked it). And he has two other books you'll want to read, if you're a fan: French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew and Provence A-Z: A Francophile's Essential Handbook.  Both have bite-sized chapters perfect for a bedside read, or for sharing.  Ron and I packed these two in the car, to read aloud on long roadtrips. 

'Le Week-end' in the French Countryside

Photo: Relaxing at le week-end with friends, in a nearby town

Our  fellow (retired) expat friend Monty called his daughter in California one day to tell her they would be on vacation, and she said, “How can you tell?” 

Funny, but it’s a good question in a way.  When you’re (mostly) retired and living the good life in France, how do you structure your days so it feels like, well, Life, instead of a big lump of time?

It’s interesting to me that for most every retired person I know here, life still has a ‘week-end’, even though it may not fall on the traditional days.  Our weeks are structured like this:  Saturday happens to be market day (and café sitting, and lunch...).  On Sunday, toute le monde goes to the vide greniers, the village garage sales, to hunt for bargains--not just for fun, by the way, you can find most anything, and really save some money.  Wednesday is  ‘École  Nicole’, our French conversation class at the château.  The days in between are left for whatever retirement projects one has chosen to follow, which is often bricolage (handyman stuff), as everyone seems to be doing up an old French farmhouse.  For me the pursuits are writing, gardening, travel, and volunteer work.

This schedule does not allow for one important week-end element in our family and maybe yours, a day or a morning my friend Sandi calls “Sacred Sunday”.  She’s referring to that one decadent morning of the week when you allow yourself to lollygag about in bed with the Sunday paper, followed by a decadent breakfast, then maybe off to a late morning church service.

Since we’re off early on Sundays to the flea markets, and since church isn’t an option (our village church has two services a year), we’ve decided to designate a week-day morning  as Sacred Sunday.  Which brings us to the point of this story:  breakfast!  One of the great pleasures of le week-end anywhere is a leisurely, old-fashioned breakfast.

For us this means a French omelette, bacon for my resident carnivore, fresh fruit, a double expresso and maybe a Mimosa, and some sort of wonderful bread, like homemade biscuits or scones.  But it’s got to be easy on the cook, too.  So for that I offer up a favorite treat for breakfast or brunch, Cinnamon Rolls Toute de Suite.

Since these are simply a variation on southern biscuits, you can stir these up in a french minute.  There’s no yeast or rising time, no kneading.

By the way, these are perfect to serve to company as well.  Make them ahead of time, bake them, and throw them in the freezer.  When it’s show-time, thaw them and re-heat on a cookie sheet at 300 (150C), glaze them, and you’re done.  Betcha can’t eat just two!

 

RECIPE:  Orange Cinnamon Rolls Toute de Suite 

Makes a dozen rolls

Preheat oven to 400 (200  C)

• 1 recipe Southern Biscuits (see blog of 12/10/2010)
• ½ cup dark brown sugar
• Cinnamon
• Raisins and/or chopped nuts (optional)
• confectioner's sugar
• zest and juice of one orange

Sprinkle a few drops of water on your counter and put down some plastic wrap, then flour it lightly. Pat the dough into a rectangle, then gently roll it out into a larger rectangle.  It should be about 1/2" thick.  With your fingers crumble the brown sugar evenly over the dough then pat it in gently.  Sprinkle with raisins or nuts if you like.  Sprinkle it all liberally with cinnamon.   Roll it up, using the plastic wrap to pull it up as you go.  

Cut into slices with a sharp knife and gently place on cookie sheet.  At this point they will have collapsed into long skinny slices.  Not to worry, when they’re  in place you can easily smush them around into a circle, and pat them down gently a bit. Bake for 12 -18 minutes, until light golden brown. 

Make a glaze by stirring the zest and a little orange juice into confectioner’s sugar.  Or for a vanilla glaze, use milk instead, with a touch  of vanilla extract.  

In the comments this week, and a few from last week: I agree, Caterina, it's a "poor life without pets." Fern says "you can never have too many cat pictures", and here is one more, a cat-in-the-box, sent from gibilly.  More cat reads from readers: Kathy recommends the Lilian Jackson Braun cat sleuth series (such as The Cat Who Wasn't There, and many others) centered around clever cats; and Lavendar suggests a French book called Les Chats de hasard, which I can't wait to get. And welcome to fellow Furman alums, Joyce, Jane, and Lillie.

More Favorite Reads, for le week-end:  I've just read a fabulous excerpt from La Seduction: How the French Play the Game of Life . Author Elaine Sciolino was the Paris bureau chief for the New York Times.  Her new book (out next week) is about the central role seduction plays in French daily life, very timely given the DSK affair.  You'll be hearing more buzz on this book.

Unless otherwise attributed, all POSTS, PHOTOS and RECIPES on this blog copyright ©2010 Lynn McBride.  All Rights Reserved. 

 

From Chât-eau to Chat

We're off in Italy this week, gathering recipes (well, and eating gelato).  So instead of the usual post, today I'll share a collection of cat photos I've taken from all over France.  I can't pass a cat without capturing it.

Blank Canvas

 

 What did you say the plat du jour was?

 

Faux Feline

 

Ne me touchez pas

 

Bureaucratic Cat

 

 
Splat Cat

Ron's Corner, by Lynn:  OK, so I'm one of those fanatical cat people.  My having a cat is in our marital contract, but if I get a second one, Ron says it will evoke the New Wife Rule.  He says when he dies he wants an autopsy to see if he's died from furballs, with all the cat hair he's involuntarily ingested.

Favorite Reads:   If you know Henry Beard's books, you know he's both a cat lover and a Francophile too. In French Cats Don't Get Fat: The Secrets of La Cuisine Feline the author and  turns out a good parody of Mireille Guiliano's best-seller, with the usual charming illustrations. Learn a bit of French too with Beard's French for Cats: All the French Your Cat Will Ever Need. A cute gift for feline fans. But by far my favorite funny cat book is Bad Cat: 244 Not-So-Pretty Kitties and Cats Gone Bad. Somebody with a twisted sense of humor has rounded up the craziest cat photos ever.  Even the cat- averse will be amused.

 

Unless otherwise attributed, all POSTS, PHOTOS and RECIPES on this blog copyright ©2011 Lynn McBride.  All Rights Reserved.