Southern Fried French

Party Time, Late Summer Edition

We didn’t start our summer entertaining until August this year, and it seems we will still be working on it through September. Each year I like to share my summer plein air entertaining recipes, with a hidden agenda: I want to hear yours! My criteria for entertaining: it MUST be make-ahead, delicious, and preferably easy. So I’m a bit late this year, well really late, but here goes:

First the l'entrée (starter): My best summer party trick is: a split bowl of soups! This is a really pretty presentation, and it’s easy. Make gazpacho and cucumber soup in the blender--see below for the how to. 

 

For the main dish (le plat): I’ve been making a lot of composed salads, with steak or chicken sliced on a bed of lettuce with interesting vegetables, and with that I pass French Dressing #1 and maybe a béarnaise mayonnaise. But if you want to really wow, try this roulade of beef stuffed with herbed pesto, by David Tanis. The trick to getting this right is to cut the meat properly. My butcher didn’t understand until I showed him the detailed photos included in the article—then he understood right away and it was perfect (Photo, Karstan Moran, NYT).

Le plâteau de fromage (cheese platter): I serve the usual French plâteau of cheeses which is de rigeur here after a meal, but I added a bowl of pimento cheese (recipe here), to introduce it to the expats and the French.

Le dessert: I’m very lazy about dessert, because I figure in summer, what could I make that would be better than ice cream and fruit? I’ve been layering fresh peaches with ice cream and crushed amaretto cookies, plus a swirl of whipped cream on top and some toasted almonds.

Et maintenant, c’est a vous! Your turn to share your summer menus, and I hope you will. I’ve got a few more parties to give yet!

 

RECIPE: Duo of Summer Soups

 Here's the trick:  Put both gazpacho and cucumber soup  in small pitchers. Pour each into opposite sides of a soup bowl at the same time. Garnish with chives, and you’re done! It seems magic. I think it  works best if both soups have roughly the same viscosity, as these do (Thanks Joan, for the photo!).

For the gazpacho, I make Alix Rico's gazpacho, it's super. My very simple cucumber soup recipe is below. Sorry, I don't really measure--no need!

Peel a large cucumber and slit it longways into quarters. Slice off the seeds. Cut into smaller pieces. Put a few pieces in a blender with 1/2 cup of chicken broth (homemade is best!), the juice of a lemon, and a quarter of a smallish red, white, or vidalia onion, or whole scallions. Add a generous pinch of sea salt and ground pepper and a few large basil leaves (or dill, or parsley, or a combo). Blend until smooth. Add remaining cucumber, and more chicken broth as needed until it's the thickness you want.  Add a couple of tablespoons of creme fraiche or sour cream, if you like it creamy. Taste to correct seasoning. Of course you can keep going with more cukes and broth, if you have a crowd.

 

Here's another starter idea:  Keep it really simple  and colorful with a groaning platter of summer tomaotes and crudités.

 

In a final note, our hearts go out to our fellow Americans in Texas and Louisiana who are still caught up in Harvey's mess.  Been through Hurricane Hugo, we feel your pain, but this is much worse, and we wish you a speedy recovery.

 

In the COMMENTS: Check out the comments for more great country restaurants. Paula knows one in the Indre; Jane, we love L'Estaminet and Linda, as you know we now love L'Embellie as well!

 

Favorite READS: Thanks to several readers who told me about Louise Penny, I am now enjoying one of her books, in addition to the Bruno series. My friend Sandi recommends Suite Française, a poignant war novel set in France, with lovely writing.

 

 

Finding a Great French Country Restaurant: A Traveler's Guide

Looking for a good restaurant in your French travels? As usual, things are a little different in France. This is the land of the Destination Restaurant. Cities have lots of restaurants, but often very good and even important restaurants are located in the middle of nowhere, typically on the chef’s home turf. The French will think nothing of traveling great distances just to find a great meal. And a chef will think nothing of installing a restaurant where no mere mortal can find it. 

 We’ve gradually come to know the good restaurants in our coin (corner), but then, we live here! Even then, we had to sniff them out.

Case in point: there are not many good restaurants in Cluny, but three fun, tasty, good value restaurants where we love to dine that are in small villages nearby come to mind. Some are in villages without so much as a boulangerie. I can’t imagine that tourists, other than in-the-know French ones, ever find them (they are L'Auberge Larochette in Bourgvilain, L'Estaminet in Mazille, and Le Relais d'Ozenay in Ozenay).

So, if you’re traveling around the countryside, how do you find that secret treasure that you’ll be talking about forever? And I’m assuming here that you’re looking not for a famous 3 star Michelin experience, but something memorable and affordable.

Of course there is always the Michelin Guide, but another way is to do a search of the famous chefs of France, who very often have moderately priced brasseries or bistros in their hood. A couple of examples, in our neighborhood: Georges Blanc has his famous starry restaurant gourmand in the rural village of Vonnas in the Bresse. But right across the street is his Ancienne Auberge: affordable, delicious, and charming. He also has a brasserie in nearby Macon, Le Saint Laurent and also Le Château Igé in the small town of Igé in the Maconnais. Another is Chef Michel Troisgros, whose pricey restaurant is in Roanne. But in a rural spot in the Brionnais is the amazing La Colline de Columbier.

Of course you can pour over travel sites, but my favorite tact is to look to bloggers for local knowledge. Ex-pats bloggers are everywhere (French blogs too, if you speak the langauge), and you'll get real insider info.  Try adding “blog” or “blogger” to your Google search for a particular region, and the local blogs will pop right up. 

As we've discussed before, if you're looking for very cheap but good food, cherchez les camionettes. Every French workman owns a little white truck, and if you see a cluster of them in a parking lot, you've found the spot.

Another way to find restaurants: the local tourisme. Chat them up about what you’re looking for, and with luck you’ll be directed to a great spot. We were in Annecy once, and we asked at the tourisme for a fun restaurant but something quieter, out of town and away from tourists. We ended up having one of our most memorable French lunches (in fact, we're going back next week!).

Or you can use Ron’s method. When we’re in a small town, he seeks out the classiest, most stylish, best looking woman around, then walks right up and asks her for a recommentation. I think it's a ruse, but I have to admit it seems to work well. I think he’s starting to behave way too much like a true Frenchman! 

Photos below: with friends Pete and Dee, our find near Annecy, Auberge du Lac in Veyrier-du-lac is toes in the water with a backdrop of mountains. Next, we scored a Provencal jewel when our friends Alix and Paul took us to Bistrot Le 5 in Ménerbes. In the Pouilly-Fuissé wine area, you must try La Courtille, with its great terrace (no photo of this one). If you're in the Beaujolais, check out Auberge du Paradis (this one has a Michelin star actually, it's a bit pricey) In St. Amour, as Ron and friend Chris are doing in the last photo, or the lovely Chez la Rose in nearby Julianas, or La Tour d'Orée in Oingt. Well, I could go on and on...but I've bet you've got some to share too!  

 

 

 

In the COMMENTS:  Thank you all so much for the beautiful comments about Pierre, which were comforting to read for us, as they were for Nicole. By email, Natalia sent a lovely piece by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which you've heard before but it's a lovely thought for the occasion: "To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

 

 

 

Adieu, Notre Châtelain

Of all the blog posts I’ve written, this is the most difficult. Loyal readers of this blog know about Nicole and Pierre, châtelains of the château where we first lived in France (you can read about our first meeting here). Quite a few of my readers have even come to the château for a visit. We think of Nicole and Pierre as our French family, and in a sense, "Ecole Nicole", the French conversation group they host, is at the heart of our expat community here. Our Pierre, kind friend to us all, passed away after a long illness, on July 18.

In Nicole and Pierre’s garden, the day of the funeral, our friends sat in the shade of the big cherry tree and spoke fondly about Pierre. He was a man of multiple facets: a nature lover who collected rocks and fossils, and a gardener; he knew his plants, and birds; he was a wonderful wood worker, a collector of old tools. He was a teacher, a painter. He was invariably kind. He was in many ways defined by the magnificent family château that he and Nicole spent much of their lives lovingly restoring.

I can’t count the number of times I went to Pierre with some problem that involved a city girl trying to figure out the countryside. What dastardly bug was this, eating my plants? What is that furry animal I saw zipping through my garden? Why did I dig up the fossil of a sea shell in my garden, when we are hours from the sea? Always I got a thoughtful, often carefully researched, answer. And When Pierre and Nicole came to visit us in Charleston, it was the woodland gardens and the alligators and the seashells on remote beaches that drew them, more than the buzzing city.

For me, Pierre’s most endearing quality was his wit. Normally a quiet, gentle, and distinguished gentilhomme, at the most unexpected moments he would turn into a Wild Child. He could go from thoughtfully sucking on his pipe to a brilliant comedy routine in nothing flat.

His sense of humor was unique, physical, and difficult to define. But at his wake, I tried to tell the story with a montage of photos, of Pierre and friends. I’m sharing them here, and I think you will get the picture. Chère Pierre, beloved by all who knew him,vous nous manquez. Adieu, notre châtelain.

FAVORITE READS: To lighten up the sadness, here's a book Pierre would have loved: Bruno, Chief of Police: A Novel of the French Countryside. How did it take me so long to discover the  best-selling Bruno series? They are written by an English expat in the Perigord, Martin Walker, who lives in a rural village and writes about the local culture, Peter Mayle-style. Except these books (there are 10 in the series) are a genre I believe is called "cozy mysteries". They are humorous, and Walker captures the rhythm and the quirkiness of life in the French countryside.  This article about the author, and real life in his village, will give you a good preview.