Southern Fried French

A French Baker's Secret Weapon

OK, a nickel to the person who can guess what tool this is. Hint: it’s from a French boulangerie.

It came from a vide grenier, or “empty attic” sale, which are a standing destination on Sunday mornings around here, for us and most everyone we know. Having previously furnished my house mostly with vide grenier finds, I’m now on the lookout for linens, fun café cups, toys for the grandkids, and the like.

My friend Ali is a champion vide grenier shopper. Her specialty: sniffing out the unusual bricabrac that is uniquely French. In fact it is the French tools of all kinds that are the most interesting, from grape harvesting and wine making tools to farm implements to kitchen utensils. The latter are especially intriquing. There are serving utensils for escargot or frog legs, all sorts of molds for patés and gâteaux, and strange looking whisks. I have a nice metal mold for French madelines, for example, which I’ve pressed into service to keep my earrings sorted.

Some of my French kitchen tool finds: a thingamabob for pressing on a conical strainer, a pounder of some sort, a meat tenderizer.

So Ali arrived chez nous with the mystery contraption, as a gift. But what could it be? Drum roll: it’s a boulanger's croissant cutter! Who knew? Certainly not me, the reluctant baker. (And when I said a weapon, in this title of this post, I meant it. This thing would be very effective at whacking someone over the head. If a bad guy ever sneaks into my kitchen, it's the first thing I'll reach for).

Ali was clearly overestimating my baking abilities. I’ve never even contemplated making a croissant. But it’s such a fascinating tool. What to do?

Ron had an inspired idea. Here one can buy wonderful ready-make pâte feuillité, which is like puff pastry in the states, but maybe a little thinner. You can use it like a pie crust or pizza crust, for a sweet or savory tart. It comes in a circle, rolled up and ready to go. “Let’s use that,” he said, “and roll it with the cutter. We’ll roll them into croissant shapes and put butter on them” (though butter is pretty redundant in this case). He even wanted to join me in this cooking adventure—a rare event.

We made them both sucré and salée: the sweet ones, with cinnamon and sugar, and the savory ones with chives and sea salt.  Needless to say, they were quite easy to cut out.  And a surprise: they were really delicious! I regret to say that we polished off the whole batch toute de suite, just the two of us.

Of course you can make these using just a knife, but should you come across a croissant cutter, at the lowliest vide grenier or the fanciest kitchen shop, you know what to do!

 

RECIPE: Ron's Pastry "Croissants", for Aperos or Dessert

Pre-heat oven to 400f (200c).  Cut puff pastry or pâte feuilleté into long skinny triangles. Brush lightly with melted butter. Roll them up, starting at the wide end. Brush again, lightly, with butter. Place on a sheet pan and bake for about 20 minutes, until lightly browned (watch them closely). 

For savory nibbles: right after cooking, brush again with melted butter. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and chopped chives. Of course you could add a bit of grated cheese, or chopped pistachios or...endless variations here.

For sweet nibbles: after baking, brush with melted butter and dip into a cinnamon sugar mixture. Before baking, you could add a filling if desired: sprinkle them with finely chopped nuts and/or raisins (or even chocolate?) then sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mixture or coarse sugar or brown sugar before rolling them up.

These are best devoured shortly after they are made, or at least the same day. Merci, Ali!

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In the COMMENTS:Anne (of the Musics and Markets blog), fun that you got to visit the home turf of your Scottish clan. Michaela recommends the annual Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, where creative freedom reins. I’ve got to read the Crystal Cave after Suzanne and Natalia’s suggestions. Judy you are too kind, and yes, has it really been that long? Barbara, happy to provoke such a fun memory. Jane, we didn’t try white pudding, but we did encounter a few of the famous midges. 

Favorite READS: I don't know how I've missed Love & Death in Burgundy: A French Village Mystery , since it takes place in my area. It's a fun and funny mystery--the narrator is an American living in a small Burgundy village, who is quite the social climber, trying to be accepted by the French and scratching her way up the (very short) social ladder, while immeshed in a local murder investigation. A pretty accurate picture of the local dramas in a small village!

 

Summer est arrivé. On y va!

 

 Summer's here, and we're off on adventures! My big trip this year: off to moody, mysterious Scotland with les femmes for 10 days. With a name like McBride, how could I not make a pilgrimage to Scotland? And to keep things  interesting, I went with Nicole (our châtelaine); Belinda from Pittsburgh, who speaks some French and lived in the château for a few months while her husband was on a French assignment; and Henriette, Nicole's delightful cousin from southwest France who speaks not a word of English, and had never met Belinda.

We turned out to be a most compatible group, with Henriette and Belinda coping just fine, by using some French, some creative sign language, and the dozen or so English words we taught Henriette. Nicole, who had traveled there before, was our excellent tour guide and I was (gulp) the wrong-side-of-the-road driver.

Edinburgh, our starting point, was an amazingly beautiful modern city, with castles and the old town lining a long ridge that towered over the city (Photo at top). We were amazed at the nature close by: right in town there was a sort of wild plateau, covered in yellow gorse and mossy lime green lichens (photo below). We climbed up the rocky path, marveling at the panoramic views it revealed. Then at the bottom--an ice cream truck! Now that's nature at its most civilized.

From there we drove to the rugged and barren west coast, to a windswept village by the sea that was right out of a mystery novel (literally! see "Favorite Reads" below). The main draw here: Inverewe gardens, vast woodland gardens by the loch (lakes are everywhere  in Scotland). The rhododendrums were peaking, and we were in heaven. 

At Loch Ness, this lock leads right into the famous monster's lair

 We loved the town of Pitlochry, sort of your Scottish dream village. Inverness has the best in-town river walk I've seen, with small beaches and white water and fly fisherman. We finished up in the tony town of St. Andrews, where Kate and William met, with it's castle and cathedral ruins on the windy North sea. And speaking of royals, it was a treat to tour the 412 foot long Royal Britannia, the queen's yacht which is now decommissioned. We also saw the famous furry and horned Highland cattle, introduced to us by our new friend Colin. The Scots, by the way, are sociable and chatty, with a fine sense of humor that is probably essential to surviving the rubbish weather and often forbidding landscapes.

Nicole fends off a hungry Highland cow

 Nicole always claims to have a direct line to the weather gods, and she did not disappoint. One Scot we met congratulated us for arriving during "the three days of Scottish summer." Summer in Scotland being about 60F in the sun, but with an icy wind in the shade. But with one day of rain in 10 days, we were happy to share in what one taxi driver told us was the best weather they'd had in years. Merci, Nicole. For my part, I was glad to deliver the rental car and my precious cargo, all intact, back to the airport!

 

More highlights:

The lovely Blair castle, in Perthshire

 

The wild and windy north sea, at St. Andrews

 

Of course we saw plenty of kilts in Scotland

 

No this is not the living room of an elegant Scottish home, but the salon of the royal yacht Britannia

 

 And about that Scottish sense of humor, here are a few examples:

Spotted on Cowgate Lane

 

This kitchen apron also comes in a male version

A perky garden guy

 

 

In the Comments: I learned a lot from your comments this week, merci! Like Susan’s trick of putting the leftovers on a pizza, with creative results; Jonathon throws his (homegrown!) veggies into brown rice, and Francine uses quiches. I love your mom’s quote, Francine.

Rachel has a whole blog on the subject, check it out at And Then Make Soup (she’s making refrigerator pickles this week)

 

Suzanne: poaching salmon in beet juice, now that’s different!

 

Jane and Francine correctly point out that if you don’t peel your veggies, go “bio”, the French word for organic. I want to try Suzanne’s roasted potato salad, and Vicky’s roasted onions. Mindy, I think I like your food recycling program best of all.

 

Favorite READS: Here's a retro read for you: Mary Stewart's Stormy Petrel. I picked it up because it's a romantic mystery that takes place on Scotland's rugged west coast, on one of the very spots we visited. If you don't know the British writer Mary Stewart, she's a master of description, evoking a sense of place--great for armchair travel.

And if you want to do a little armchair fantasizing about the dazzling life in a really fancy château, check out Jane Webster's  new book, Château Life, a lifestyle cookbook recommended by our reader Doris. It will make a nice addition to your coffee table, and your daydreams!