Southern Fried French

Living the Dream in Provence

Since moving to France I’ve mostly switched from editor to free-lance writer, but this week I put my editor’s hat back on to shoot the most beautiful house in Provence.  My favorite photography team arrived from the states and off we went to the Luberon with Ron, our newly appointed Chief Transportation Officer, at the wheel (basically along for the food and the wine). 

We arrived at Paul and Alix’s home in a chic and spiffy Vaucluse village, the perfectly renovated stone houses dripping with roses and offhand charm.  Their house sits right on a narrow village street, but go out the back door you’re in full French country mode (see photo above), in a magical terraced garden with eye-popping views of the valley on one side, and a castle that towers above the house on the other, just up the hill.

For two days we lived the Provençal fantasy with our elegant and attentive hosts.  Now I must tell you that magazine photoshoots are normally an intense, exhausting affair; we have a certain number of shots we must complete, and they must be absolutely perfect in every way, and we’re often under the gun to finish in time.  The light and weather need to cooperate, and we have to keep the homeowners---whose house we are invading, filling with equipment, and sometimes rearranging---happy and calm.  We’re on our feet all day, and maybe there’s time to grab a sandwich for lunch.

This time it was the homeowners who kept US calm.  Fabulous lunches were served at noon in the garden by these two great cooks, and in the afternoon a tray of cheeses, olives, and wine suddenly appeared.  We are not used to being so spoiled, but we quickly adjusted. (Note to my boss in Des Moines if she's reading this:  it's all lies, we slaved away, grabbed a peanut butter sandwich, and turned down the wine).  Photo, Alix with photographer Gordon Beall and his assistant Jack Beall. 

Paul is a warm and generous Spaniard and Alix is a witty, perky, pistol from New Orleans, chic and bejeweled and sassy.  We learned that Paul makes a mean Spanish tortilla, and he promised to make it for us the second day.  The key, he says, is to slice the potatoes very thin, a labor of love as he hand cuts them like his Spanish mama used to do, instead of taking the easy way out with a  Mandoline ; meanwhile Alix made what we all agreed was the best gazpacho we’ve ever had, with a surprise secret ingredient.

We took our leave of Alix and Paul with great regret, but we took  with us un petit souvenir:  those two treasured family recipes, to share.  Today, we’re featuring Paul’s tortilla, but you’ll have to tune in later for Alix’s gazpacho.  And when the magazine article comes out, I’ll be sure to let you know, and you can truly share our Provençal experience.

 

RECIPE:  Paul’s Spanish Tortilla

A tortilla in Spain is a cross between an omelette and a frittata, chock full of sautéed onions and potatoes.  Choose potatoes that have a thin skin for this recipe.  Serves 2 generously. 

• one large potato, peeled and very thinly sliced, as with a  Mandoline 
• 2 medium onions, white or yellow, sliced
• 4 large cloves of garlic, chopped
• 5 oz. olive oil
• 5 free range eggs, beaten (Paul used SMALL eggs, right from the nest. Try three if using large ones). 

Heat the oil in an omelette pan.  Add the onions and garlic and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add potatoes and cook until they're golden brown, turning every minute or so, about 20 minutes.  Turn heat to low and pour eggs in all at once.  Cook for about a minute until just set.  Put a plate over the top of the skillet and carefully flip tortilla onto the plate.  Slide it back into the pan to cook the other side for about two minutes more.  Slide the tortilla out onto a platter.  Tortilla can be served hot or at room temperature. Photo:  Paul shows off his tortilla.

In the COMMENTS:  Linda and Catherine have ideas on what to do with those brass chicken feet.  Mavis and Suzanne remember the mink collars--my aunt had one too!  Paula, love the toilet brush, that sums up the vide greniers pretty well!

FAVORITE READS, Foodie Alert:   There is a new biography out about Craig Claiborne, The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance, which I cant' wait to read.  To get a taste of Claiborne’s food-loving spirit: my friend Gordon told me about a NY Times story from 1975, in which Claiborne sets out to find the most expensive meal on the planet.  A fun read if you want to plan your fantasy meal, or you happen to have a few grand to drop on dinner. 

Our Reader's Blogs:  Check out fellow francophile Christine's musings at Pen at the Ready.

 

A Peek Into the 'Poubelle'

We be stylin': a matched set in trendy orange at the vide grenier this  past week

You could learn a lot about a person by peering into their poubelles (trash cans), their attics, their junk rooms, their garages.  Which is why I have an eternal fascination with the French marché des puces (flea markets) and vide greniers ('empy attic’ sales: think garage sales, on steroids).  As my friend Darlene says of the vide greniers, “It’s mostly junk, but it’s great because it’s French junk”.  

The French throw NOTHING away, they practically invented recycling.  So every cracked old dish, every small appliance that's broken and totally beyond repair, every sad doll missing her hair and maybe a limb or two, lands in the vide grenier.  And while the French are known for having great style, as you go deeper into the countryside that style becomes quirkier--and as different from American style as can be. I find many fun things to buy, but then...there are the other things.  Poking around at the markets is a real education about how the French live and the stuff they choose to live with.  

So what do the vide greniers reveal about the French?  I’ll let these photos speak for themselves. 

Small dead animals on proud display

A little something in red, most illuminating

Romance, beauty, femininity, detail

Brass chicken feet.  One can only ask---why?

Umm...you'll have to draw your own conclusions from this one

The French, toujours  proud and confident

In the COMMENTS:  The Almond croissants seem to be the drool-worthy winners from last week's pâtisserie post.  Suzanne has found something called bagelcroissants--only in America.  Christine, great trip ahead!

Our Reader's Blogs: Veronique at A French Girl in Seattle looks at French movies this week. And  Don't miss her previous post on the iconic Repetto ballet slippers, featuring Carla and BB. Katie at French Cravings tells all about her cooking class with Patricia Wells in Paris, we are simply vert with envy.

French Pâtisserie Lust

Good Morning!  Are you hungry?  Then come with me, we're going to hit a French boulangerie and maybe a pâtisserie or two. I can't pass one without stopping for a treat or a photo.  Then we'll settle in at a café to scarf down our haul with an expresso.  C'est le bonheur!

  

We'll start with a bagette.  Split it and slather it with butter and raspberry jam for a breakfast tartine.

Next up: a croissant perhaps?  Or--quelle surprise!  An American doughnut snuck in.

 

My personal favorite:  almond croissants.

 

Now on to a pâtisserie for dessert...

 

Plump meringues, pink praline or regular, and les bugnes to tempt you.

 

 

Fat little pigs.  That would be us at this point.

 

Favorite Reads: If you want to tour Provence and go beyond the worn path where tourists tread, get a copy of Provence: A Country Almanac, by Louisa Jones. The book is organized by the seasons, and she talks of country retreats, ancient music, wine festivals, beautiful chateaux, even local herbal remedies.  There are evocative photos and even a few local recipes tucked in.

 

In the COMMENTS: Linda's reminising about Lyon, Liza and Helen are both headed that way, and Mary James has another Lyon restaurant recommendation, at her blog Mary James en Provence.  Robert has an a French iphone app for us. Frank, bon voyage!

 

 

 

 

THE Hot Restaurant, in the Hottest Food Town

Lovely Lyon is about an hour down the road from us.  It’s tempting to describe Lyon as a smaller, more manageable and walkable Paris.  But if Paris is a romantic and flirty seductress, Lyon is a colorful character that you immediately want to get to know better.  The main part of the city is a peninsula, so rivers surround you, and one bank is a dramatic and steep hill, topped by the ornate wedding cake that is Notre-Dame-de-Fourviere.   The old buildings that line the banks of the Saône and the Rhône are a palette of fruity, glowing colors-- soft peaches, pinks, and golden hues.  And Lyon has a reputation that even Paris might envy:  it is the gastronomic capital of France.

Not long ago I wrote a travel article on Lyon for France Magazine, so of course I was forced to go on a culinary pilgrimage to seek out the best restaurants.  The way-hot restaurant du jour was a place with a quirky name,  L’Ourson qui Boit  (The Drinking Bear Cub).  The chef, Akira Nhishigaki, is Japanese and the cuisine is Asian-French fusion.  And the placed was booked for months---even this journalist couldn’t get a table.

So this time, returning for a bit of shopping,  we planned ahead and managed to get in for lunch.  L’Ourson qui Boit is an unassuming little place on a drab alley off one of the big, pretty places on the peninsula.  The decor is nice but simple, as is the Japanese way (loved the opaque, tobacco-hued acrylic armchairs, with seats out of pure white sumptuous leather: yin and yang). The service is cheerful and efficient.  The menu changes daily, with only two choices for each course. 

Want to test your restaurant French?  Here is what we ate.  A translation is at the end of the post (by the way, I've copied the menu exactly as they posted it.  So Readers, if you want another challenge---do you see mistakes in the French?):

--crème froid d'épinard au frommage ricotta avec saumon fumé et rillette du saumon

--suprême de pintade fumé, salade haricots vert au noix de cajou, vinagrette de mangue

--filet de cabillaud, purée de tomate au vinagre de framboise, crevettes ciselée, fleur de colza, courgettes et carottes concassés

--joue de porc confit, sauce de Gari (gingembre sucré salé) au Yuzu (cédrat), sauté de champignon et de chou frisés au lardons

-crème caramel au thé Earl Grey, soupe de fraises, glace chocolat blanc

The menu prices were quite astonishing:  14 euros for two courses, 17 for three.  About the cost of lunch at your average Lyon brasserie, and this was complex, exciting food of the first order.

Of course I was alert for something that could be replicated at home, and I think one could get very close with that fish dish.  What follows is my best guess!

 

RECIPE:  Le Poisson comme L’Ourson qui Boit, ou Presque ( The Fish from L’Ourson qui Boit, or nearly)

Have some cooked shrimp, peeled and sliced, on hand. Make a  simple, fresh tomato sauce (preferably using your best summer garden tomatoes).  Bake or poach a morceau of a firm white fish.  Meanwhile finely chop some carrots, sauté until nearly done then add finely chopped zuchinni and cook until both are done. Divide the tomato sauce among shallow bowls.  Give it a splash of rasberry vinegar and drizzle with good olive oil. Add the fish. Top with the vegetables, then the shrimp. Sprinkle it all with thinly sliced toasted almonds.  Now how could you go wrong with that! 

 

MENU TRANSLATION:

--creamed spinich with ricotta cheese, smoked salmon, and salmon rillettes (salmon puréed into a spread or mousse)

--Smoked guinea hen, thin green beans with peanuts, mango vinegarette

--filet of cod, tomato purée with raspberry vinegar, sliced shrimp, rape flowers, finely diced zuchinni and carrots

pork cheek confit (preserved or marninated in fat), Gari sauce (sweet and salty ginger) with Yuzu (citrus), sautéed mushrooms, kale with chopped bacon

--Earl Grey tea crème caramel , fresh strawberry soup, white chocolate ice cream

 PHOTO: Chamber of Commerce building in Lyon

 

In the COMMENTS:  Everyone seemed to love Lin's guest post last week about her life in Valbonne, and some of you have traveled there.  She even got invited to aperos at Lee and Maureen's house! 

 If you'd like to read my article on Lyon from France Magazine, you can find it here.

The Best Little Bookshop in France--straight from Texas

Today, a guest post!  While visiting my favorite Mediterranean town of Valbonne last month, I stopped in a darling English bookstore.  It turned out the owner, Amercian Lin Wolff, is one of our readers. Lin's own story was so interesting that I asked her to share it with us.  

Not a week goes by that I don’t think of my high school French teacher’s warning, “You’ll never know when you might need to speak French,” to her bored class of young Texans struggling to get their lazy tongues wrapped around the simplest of French vocabulary – Oui! (Wah!) Non! (Nowh!) Je m’appele (Gee mapple… ) Most of us struggled and lost the battle. I lasted one semester. And now I find myself having lived in France for over 10 years, still struggling with my “toddler” French and terrible accent. But every day is a joy, every day is a learning experience, and almost every day reinforces my faith in humanity, particularly the French kind.  Watercolor of her shop by Lin's dad, artist Hunter George.

I own a little English bookshop in the south of France, half an hour from Nice, 10 minutes from Grasse, and with a constant view of the Mediterranean.How did a little girl from Houston end up here? It all started with leaving Texas for Los Angeles as fast as I could and falling into jobs for National Geographic and Disney, then meeting my future husband, Marc, while we were both on location in Tahiti. Marc has managed to turn his flying experience in Vietnam into a successful career of flying for films – you’ve probably seen his work in everything from the Star Wars films to the latest James Bond, SKYFALL, and if you’re watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics this summer, you’ll catch his involvement in that, too.

I traded L.A. for Marc’s flat in London and then the Cornish countryside . We started our family there and lived happily for 13 years, until the rainy winter of 2000 when I began to dream of living somewhere warmer, drier, sunnier and a colour other than gray. So, we joined old friends here in France the following summer and after the move Marc and I each took intensive month-long French immersion courses in nearby Villefranche. His already good French became excellent, while my non-existent French became toddler French.

Having discovered an adorable English bookshop in nearby Valbonne, I tended to hang out there among beloved books, chatting to owner Jill, and other ‘refugees’ taking a break from the intensity of mangling French. When I finally worked up the courage to ask if she ever needed the occasional help, Jill put me on her list of ‘fantasy booksellers.’ I’d never worked in retail, didn’t know how to work a cash register or a credit card machine, got the shakes when counting out customers’ change, but she kept me on anyway.

And after 5 years, Jill decided she wanted to sell up but not having much luck finding a buyer. We’d just bought a little lake house in northern Vermont, where I was planning to spend some quality time enjoying a very different sort of life from my French one, especially as the kids were going on to university and I could finally have my very own timetable. However, I just couldn’t imagine life in my corner of France without this bookshop, so I said yes to it (quickly, before I could change my mind) and have embarked on a very different sort of adventure ever since – accounting, taxes, employee benefits ad nauseum, all in French! It’s never dull, my French is improving, slowly, and my admiration for the French continues, unabated.   Photo below:  the main square in Valbonne.

As for advice regarding the learning of the language, I’d say LEAVE YOUR EGO BEHIND! Don’t worry about how you sound – just try! Nothing pleases the French more than someone who is really trying to learn their language. And persist! Don’t let responses to you in English deter you from continuing to try in French. Keep at it! My husband is the world’s best at stubbornly sticking to his French during an otherwise-English conversation. It helps him – he always learns something new. And I always show my pleasure in being taught better vocabulary by helpful strangers. It’s a connection – and often a shared laugh.

 

Favorite Reads:  Felicitations to our reader, author Karen Chase: her book Bonjour 40: A Paris Travel Log (40 years. 40 days. 40 seconds.) has won three eLit Awards. A silver medal for best travel essay non-fiction book, silver for best book trailer, and a gold medal for best author website. The eLit Awards is an international awards program, focusing on e-books only, and open to all e-publishers. To celebrate, she's putting the book on sale with Amazon, B&N and iTunes for 99¢ for the month of May. Especially since it's the one-year anniversary of her 40th birthday trip to Paris that inspired the book.