Southern Fried French

The Hunt for the Perfect Espresso

I'm sure that for this nouvelle année you have made many a noble resolution. Here is a small one to make: no more bad coffee.

Ron and I both fell in love with espresso  when we first started visiting Europe, early in our marriage. So we went in search of the perfect espresso machine. We bought a cheap model, didn't work. So we upgraded to a fancy expensive model. We found it all very messy and time consuming, packing and tamping the coffee for every cup, and the frother was hard to manage, and we finally gave up and took it back. We tried another one, same result. We were still longing for the perfect cup.

Then we moved to France. Right away I hit Darty (the French equivalent of Best Buy) to look for a machine. The charming young sales guy told me there was only one real choice. He had bought this machine and no other would do. He regaled me with his lavish description of the ultimate cup of espresso. The machine was called Nespresso. Against my better judgment—-espresso from a capsule?--I brought it home. It was worth a try.

Merci, monsieur, because we are now fanatics. Yes, the capsules are expensive, and probably bad for the environment. (They're easy to recycle, though--you mail them in for free). Yes, it’s too much money to pay for a tiny cup of coffee you make at home, though nothing near the price of  Starbucks. But here’s the deal: the coffee is absolutely fabulous, every time. No muss, no fuss, no cleanup.

And so we are addicts. We’ve even been known to take the machine on vacation with us. (Photo below: a painting by Patricia Glee, of beautiful coffee pots from a different era).

You may wonder if we are on the Nespresso payroll. The answer, sadly, is no, but we should be. Almost every friend who has visited our house over the years has gone home and bought one. Nicole, our châtelaine, was one of the first to try ours, and she now has two machines in the kitchen and one in her guest room. Nespresso now has a perfect little plug-in frothing machine that is equally wonderful, so I can easily do  cappuccinos now.

If you ever pass a Nespresso shop, you MUST go in, because they are masters at clever marketing. They are the Apple store of coffee. They understand all too well that they're selling an indulgent little luxury, and they milk it (pun intended) for all it's worth. Prepare to be dazzled and seduced, as we clearly have been.

But here is a bad thing: capsules in the states cost almost twice what they do in France. Such a rip-off! So if you are a fan, and if you travel to France, do as we do when we come back to the states, and bring an extra suitcase along to pack with capsules (tip—Ron fills his shoes with them!). And fuss at Nespresso about the price difference, because they deserve it.

 Here's hoping your new year is a delicious one, full of happiness, peace and good health!

 

RECIPES: Fluffing Up Your Espressos

--Though it's hard to improve on a good espresso, here are a few tricks:

--Often in Europe they are served with a little slice of lemon zest.

--I put just a dab of sugar in mine and I like to use brown sugar, which has a more caramel-y taste.

--The ultimate way to serve an espresso: as a Café Gourmand, one of my favorite French restaurant desserts.  See my post on that here.

--I've said it before: espresso's are helpful for weight loss! First of all, they are creamy and filling, so if you're still a bit hungry, they will help take the edge off. Also, since every lunch and dinner in France is followed by an espresso, it becomes a sort of signal: I'm done here! No more courses, the meal is truly over. And if you're trying to cut back on desserts, a cappuccino is a nice alternative, especially since lowfat milk foams better than any other.

--If you're not dieting, here's a recipe (from the Nespresso folks) that really IS dessert:

Barista Caramel Honey Latte

Add a tablespoon of caramel sauce to a coffee mug. Use a double-espersso capsule, steaming it directly in the cup with the sauce, and stir. Froth or heat some lowfat milk and add a dollop of honey. Pour the milk into the coffee and stir.

 

In the COMMENTS: Merci for all the nice Christmas greetings! Tom, we look forward to hearing about your move-to-France adventure. In the comments last time, Natalia mentioned a delicious sweet potato recipe which readers then asked for. She kindly sent it by email. It's as easy as the cookies! Here is her recipe for Mascarpone Maple Sweet Potatoes: Preheat oven to 400. Bake 2 sweet potatoes, pricked with a fork, on a baking pan lined with parchment paper, 45 minutes or until done. Let them cool a bit. Meanwhile let 4 oz. of mascarpone (more if you like) come to room temperature. With a spoon stir the marscapone till creamy; add in 2 to 4 tablespoons of maple syrup, to taste, and stir to combine. Slit open potatoes (like you do a baked potato); spoon in mascarpone mixture. Partake and enjoy. Merci, Natalia! 

 

Favorite READS, special Cat edition: It seems I went on a cat bender when I gave Christmas gifts this year. I gifted copies of The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World, to my feline inclined friends. I loved this book, and even if you're not a cat lover, you're going to enjoy this funny and well-researched book by a science journalist, on how cats cleverly domesticated themselves. I'm also looking forward to reading Call of the Cats: What I Learned about Life and Love from a Feral Colony. This one is about a guy who bought a house that came with a passel of feral cats, and how they transformed him. For your stressed out friends, try  Lazy-Ass Cats: A Coloring Book for Adults. Meanwhile, I've fallen in love with our reader Suzanne Dunaway's sassy French cat Loulou, who has her own blog, Living with Loulou.

 

 

50 Shades of Gray, or How to Dress Like a Parisian

Sorry, this post is not a titillating one about S&M  (or whatever the book is about---I'm probably the only living human  who hasn't read it).  This is indeed about shades of the non-colors of gray and black, a long-time obsession for the French.

Two things we noticed right away when we moved here.  First of all, every person in Paris, and in fact most of France, dresses tout en noir  in winter.  Boots, coats, hats, jeans: black des pieds à la tête, from head to toe.  In summer they abandon black for the current fun colors that fill the runways and stores, but in winter they go into full mourning gear.  I remember well what my French teacher said when I was in French immersion school, 11 years ago.  “Parisians all wear black because they think they are so hip, trés cool.  But they are all sheep!” he sniffed, with disdain (he was not a Parisian, obviously).  Photo above: Paris in the early spring, a shaded transition from black to colors.

One is forever reading about the pessimistic streak in the French character. Perhaps they go into mourning each year over the arrival of winter, which is long and gray in most of France. And the French have chosen the color of the winter skies as their perennial favorite color:  gray.  This is the second thing we noticed right away.  Nearly every car on the road is some shade of gray.  Gray and rose are also the preferred home decor colors.  

You may have perceived that gray and black are my least favorite colors, and I avoid both. But we’ve owned 2 Renault sedans in France, both gray.  The reason:  we like to buy year-old cars instead of new ones, and we’ve never been able to find one any other color.    Photos:  even les scooters are gray. Below, a black dog is the perfect  Paris accessory.

And now, gray is the new neutral in the States in the home decorating world, one can’t miss it in the magazines.  It’s hip and European, I suppose.  Moi, I prefer walls that are sunny, happy colors. (Memo to US design magazines:  please stop describing battleship gray wall colors as ‘warm steel gray’ or ‘warm graphite gray'.  Gray is a cool color until it nearly crosses the line to greige, by the addition of warmer colors). 

OK I’m trying to think positively of beautiful things that are gray.  Driftwood. Doves. Stones. Since gray is now the ‘it’ color on both sides of the pond, I’d better get used to it!

 

In the COMMENTS:  And the wining book cover is: Monsieur Flower Pot!  MERCI, I was wowed by the flood of comments and emails.  Monsieur won in a landslide, for my upcoming book. Thanks so much for all the feed back. Though some folks saw the plant as a weed popping out of his head, and one person called him a coffee cup!  Monsieur, it seems,  has many interpretations, just like some of those pesky words in foreign languages.  By the way:  Natalia, I'll be happy to get you a signed copy someday, if the book comes out in print.  I'm starting out with just the ebook version.  

Favorite Reads:  Speaking of books, you are invited over to The Daily Basics to read my interview with my step-daughter Kelly about her new book, Sailing to Jessica.  And one of our readers, Californian Christine Webb-Curtis, has written, with a friend, the Cape Cod Crime Mystery series.  There are two books so far: The The Diva's Demise, followed by their new book, Rehearsals for Retribution.  Check out her blog at Pen at the Ready.  Because it's never to early to get those great beach reads at the ready!