Beets, Bears, Battlestar Gallactica

As we approach the middle of the semester, as sprint courses end and the first round of professors leave, the inevitable happens. I inherit a cornucopia of spices, grains, teas, coffee - the left over non-perishables that find their new home in my tiny little kitchen.

It's always a little bit like Christmas day, seeing the bounty that ends up outside my front door. It's almost like getting a little window into peoples' lives. Some would tell you to rummage through the garbage if you really wanted to get a small picture their of day to day living, but I tell you to check out the groceries.

This time around I found myself with yet another container of pine nuts. While I realize that for some this is an essential cooking standard, I always seem to forget I have them in my pantry. Thus, they remain unused with the unavoidable fate of being passed on to next year's tenant.

Until this weekend.

With my new supply of pine nuts and the hankering to do some serious cooking, I set about researching recipes. My criteria? I wanted to make something a little European (when in Rome, er Differdange, right?), without breaking the bank on groceries, or better yet, using up stuff I already had.

You can't get more European than this beet, leek and goat cheese tart, so I cracked open a beer and set about roasting les petites betteraves and toasting les pignons.

Continuing with the theme of tarts, for dessert I made little pine nut tartelettes (almost like a French version of pecan pie). The best part? Their petite size made them perfect for tossing in the freezer for a rainy day.

I still have quite the stash of pine nuts in my pantry, but if anything, this little cooking endeavor prompted me to think a little outside the box. Bon appetit!

Peanut Butter and Jelly

It's funny the things you miss when you're so far away from home. I'm not talking about friends, family or your two fluffy cats (that's a given) but those unexpected things.

There's a whole category of missed things that go into the 'culture shock' column. Things like unlimited tap water at restaurants, establishments that stay open past 6:00pm or on Sundays, coffee in large paper cups. These things you learn to live without. You realize that tap water in Europe is actually kind of gross, Sundays can be really relaxing without the excuse to run errands, and all you really need is one small cup of strong European espresso instead of a vente of watered down coffee.

And then there's the category of things you miss that just linger in the back of your mind. You wake up one morning and think  'Today? Today I just want Taco Bell' (strange, but true). You don't constantly yearn for these memories of home, but every once in a while Europe has nothing to offer you if it can't give you your cheap Mexican food fix.

This is exactly my relationship with peanut butter and jelly. When I was in elementary school, I ate this sandwich every. day. It's ingrained in my nostalgic memory as a comfort food, something that reminds me of home when I'm especially homesick.

 (from here)

But let me tell you, this crazy concept of peanut butter? on bread? with jelly??? doesn't exist here in Europe. During my last week of teaching in France, I decided to introduce my students to the wonderful world of pb&j. This, I said, is more American than McDonalds and cowboys combined.

They looked at me like I was insane.

And then I told them what they would be eating. They looked at me like I should be committed. I had every reaction - some, in love (c'est trop bonne!), some, disgusted, and the majority, intrigued.

I've weened myself off of this good ol' American standard. Gone are the days of eating a peanut butter sandwich everyday. More recently I average about one every six months. But the other day, I had that moment. That moment when all I wanted was creamy peanut butter, mushy bread, and strawberry jam,  smushed together. And I realized that maybe, in the land of artisanal cheeses and gastronomique delicacies, sometimes all you need is a taste of home.

Thanksgiving a la turque

I'm back from Istanbul, the land of kebap, minarets, bazaars, and cats. Oh, and tiny cups of  strong, thick, grainy espresso, better known as Turkish coffee.

It was love at first sight (and smell and sound, really). Mark my words, I'm going back.

Bosa

In, what felt like, the wee hours of Monday morning, my partner in crime left Sardinia to re-join the real world, and I was left to conquer the island on my own. Next stop? Bosa, a small village north of Cagliari.

The train ride was magical, weaving through groves of olive orchards and pastures filled with sheep and cows. And in so many ways the journey was just as important as the destination, taking in these images and moments.

And so, I arrived in Bosa, the colorful town on a hillside, overlooked by an ancient castle.

 Beautiful Bosa

 Yellow mums, the traditional flower to place on graves on All Saints' Day

 The Castello

Now, I should mention that here in Bosa, I found my latest culinary adventure. It made cow tongue and ostrich seem like small potatoes.  You see here on this little island, a local delicacy is cazu marzu. Directly translated this means 'rotten cheese' but in reality it means cheese with maggots. Live maggots.

Ask any Sardinian and they'll tell you, with a twinkle in their eye, that this is forbidden (technically it is illegal in Sardinia), after which they'll point you in the right direction to find this local treasure.

And then I was in a market in Bosa, with a jar of maggoty cheese and bread.

It might have been the thrill of tasting something forbidden (and possibly really disgusting) but trust me when I say it was awesome.

Quince

 

Behind the Chateau, on the property grounds, is an orchard. I first discovered the grove of apple, plum and pear trees when I was student, exploring this little world that enveloped the students.

The property isn’t expansive by any means, but it’s just big enough, with just enough foliage, that you can lose yourself, if only for a moment. Each small discovery is like a little treasure – finding apple and pear trees, noticing walnuts hidden in the grass, bushes filled with tiny jewel like blackberries, and there, in the vines crawling up the Chateau walls, grapes. And best of all, the quince tree that stands in the front courtyard.

My introduction to quince fruit was more akin to mis-communication than appreciation. You see, we thought that the quince fruit wasn’t really quince, but pears. Disgusting, fuzzy pears, actually. It wasn’t until after a disappointing mouthful of the raw fruit that we found out its true identity. And that it is absolutely necessary to cook  those suckers before eating them.

This Fall, I decided to conquer the quince, waiting until it was ripe (and fuzz free), and poaching them in a sugary, cinnamon, vanilla syrup.

 {from here}

I learned in my extensive quince research (read: googling ‘quince recipes’) that quince was the ‘apple’ that Paris gave Helen of Troy, and I completely understand why. While horrible to eat raw, the smell of a quince fruit is intoxicatingly fragrant. I’ve kept a few on my window ledge in my kitchen.

And man oh man, sweet smell of the fruit coupled with the fresh fall air just makes my heart sing.

un repas francais

 (A French meal from May 2009, photo compliments of Mr. Pete Haddow)

It's hard to believe that a month ago I was in the middle of 72 hours of travel madness. I heading back to Luxembourg after visiting La Rochelle, packing up all my gear and heading to Brussels the next morning for my flight back to the United States.

Life in Cleveland is lovely, as always. It's a transition, going from Europe to the U.S., from living on your own to occupying your high school bedroom at your parents house, but after a few days, I always seem to find myself in the gentle rhythm of small town America. I swear, this town grips me and pulls me in like no other.

But this doesn't mean I don't find myself day dreaming about Luxembourg and my little European life. I guess it is my constant struggle - quietly yearning for one place whenever I'm in the other - but I'm content to fight this battle. It just makes me realize how lucky I am.

When I miss Luxembourg and France, I cook. I fell in love with Europe through food, the way they share meals, and the reverence that is given to each aspect of the experience. From the wine, to the bread, to each course, dinner is always a carefully planned out ritual.

Last week I conquered the markets of Cleveland, determined to find creme fraiche and lamb shoulder (mission successful!) for a French meal. We drank kir royal and red wine. We ate chicories with anchovy dressing, soft boiled eggs, roasted lamb shoulder, ratatouille, and charlotte au chocolat. And we sat at the table, talking, laughing, and savoring the time with each other.

It was the marriage of my two lives - a French meal in Cleveland.

The Belle Vie in Kaz

Remember that one time I went to Kazakhstan? It still seems so unreal that I actually went - that I actually found myself wandering the streets of this crazy central Asian country. And in this relatively unknown place (think about it, when did people in the US even know Kazakhstan existed before Borat?) I found myself thinking how intriguing this ancient culture was.

I tried (read: gagged on) kumis, or fermented mare's milk. My question was, who has the nasty job of actually getting the milk from the mare?

I learned about the incredible Kazakh hospitality from these lovely ladies, Marissa's host-sisters.

I breathed deep the spicy fragrance of a central Asian market.

I was schooled in the latest sparkly scrunchi/hair-clip trends of Kazakhstan.

 We found out that palm Sunday in this part of the world is actually pussy willow Sunday.

We ventured into the mountains with this Kazakh taxi-driver-mineral-water-tester (and his orange shoes!)

 And, very best of all, I got to spend time with this lovely lady!

My camera actually died on day two of this little excursion. The other (picture-less) adventure included dusty, crowded bus rides to neighboring villages, bargaining with a Kazakh taxi-driver (in Russian...alone...), and the glorious banya, or Russian steam room (babushka scolding included).

..so, so, SO very blessed.....

Oh, La Fromage...

These days I'm finding myself with another culinary problem. No, this isn't the same kind of 'I have enough corn-meal to feed this small country of Luxembourg' problem, but one involving food none-the-less.

My fridge wreaks. At first I thought it was spoiled milk, or maybe that questionable yogurt in the back. But even after a thorough cleaning, throwing away anything I thought could possibly be expired, it still smelled like something had died.

The culprit?

 Fromage. Cheese. Queso. Käse. 

I actually noticed this problem a few months ago when I first arrived to Luxembourg. I looked at my beautiful normal-sized fridge (as opposed to the cold shoe-box that could hold about three items), ran to the grocery store and took full advantage of the beautiful cheese you can find here in Europe. 

One of my favorite things to do in France was to go to the Fromagier, an expert of cheeses, at the market and walk away with something new and different. I remember one spring morning in La Rochelle, looking at the nice cheese-man, and telling him 'I want something stinky, green, and really really old.' 

It was so good, so flavorful, and set me down the path of stinky cheese adoration. 

Which makes for a very smelly refrigerator. 

Apparently this is a very common problem in France (oh, la belle vie) - wonderful cheese, terrible, unstoppable smell. The Dean says that there are products in the French market specifically targeted to solving this problem - sturdy plastic boxes, special plastic bags, the whole gamut. And of course, there are lovely home remedies, the most popular being to keep a piece of coal in the refrigerator.

I'm not sure where I can find coal, or even these fancy contraptions, but I do know one thing - I won't stop buying chevre anytime soon. This love runs deeps.

up to my knees in bay leaves...

I have found myself in a bit of a predicament.

Let me explain.

At the end of the last semester, a few professors were moving out of the Chateau, back to the real world of Oxford, Ohio. They cleaned out their apartments, their closets, their kitchens....and I became the halfway house for discarded spices, half full boxes of oats, extra pasta - you get the idea.

To give you an idea, I have three nearly full packets of bay leaves, three bottles of curry spice, and a ridiculous amount of corn flour and millet, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

At first I was completely overwhelmed - what in the world will I ever do with this much extra food. I didn't even know what millet was! And then I figured, why not have fun with it?

So, the goal for the next couple of weeks is to use only what I have in my pantry (and I have plenty) to make meals. No (or very little) grocery shopping, and a lot of creativity. You see, a lot of the things that ended up in my pantry were things that I usually didn't eat, not because I'm picky, but maybe because they've never been in my normal diet.

Last night I made this curried millet for dinner (minus the corn) and I'm thinking these peppers might be super tasty in the near future.

And because I also inherited some frozen bananas (strange, but true) and happen to have some maple syrup laying around, these cookies will definitely be happening...

This corn flour, however, is leaving me uninspired. I love corn bread, but at this rate, I'll be eating corn bread every night until I leave for the summer in May.

This is my cry for help: if you have any delicious, tasty, outside-of-the-box recipes for corn flour, please toss them my way?

Luxembourgish Feast

On Thursday night, I joined a group of our students (and our Dean) at a cooking class. Held at a  former professor's house, the evening was all about eating in Luxembourg - the structure of the meal, cooking using only ingredients from the country, and discussing why Luxembourgers eat the way they do.

It was like a Luxembourgish Thanksgiving feast (I told the husband that I was going to end up rolling down the street)

So, what do they eat in Luxembourg? 50 years ago, only things that could be grown or found in Luxembourg. Now they can import pretty much anything, but for this particular evening, we cooked a Luxembourgish feast at its purest.

We began with the aperitif - a Luxembourgish cremant (the equivalent to Champagne, made near the Mosel), pastry wrapped pate, bread (made in the Ardens) with cheese, and a very interesting meat 'jelly.'


First course: Gekrauselt Zalot or Frisee Salad

1 head of frisee lettuce
1 clove of garlic, 1 shallot
4 slices smoked speck
bread cubes fried in butter

Vinaigrette:
1 tablespoon mustard
salt, pepper
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Worcestershire sauce
cream
*notice there's no oil? Oils used to be very rare (no olive or walnut trees), but cows were not - so they used what they had!

The salad was served with Grompere Kichelcher or Potatoe Fritters
1 kg potatoes
3 onions
2 shallots
4 eggs
parsley, salt, peper
3 tablespoons flour
oil for frying

Shred the potatoes, using a grater, into a cloth. Press out all the excess moisture from the shredded potatoes. Mix in chopped parsley, shallots and onions. Add the beaten eggs, flour and salt and pepper to taste. Form flat cakes out of the potato mixture and fry them into the hot oil until golden brown on both sides.

The main course was Paschteit or Vol-au-vent

1 dressed chicken
coarse salt
100g fresh mushrooms
peppercorns, cloves and bay leaves
4 vol-au-vent or puff pastry circles with a lid

Place the chicken together with the vegetables, bay leaves, cloves and peppercorns in cold water and cook for 2 hours. Prepare a roux (a combination of butter and flour cooked together) for the sauce. Add some of the chicken stock to thicken the sauce. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Cube the chicken and sweat the mushrooms in a tablespoon of butter. Put everything together in the sauce, adding lemon juice to taste, before filling the vol-au-vent.


And dessert? Delicious, delicious apple crumble. 

Unfortunately, I don't have an exact recipe, but it was the most basic of crumbles. Apples baked down until they were like a really chunky apple sauce, topped with a flour, sugar, butter crumble topping.

Simple, tasty, and the perfect end to an amazing meal.

Crepes, crepes, more crepes...

I heard about Chandeleur around Christmas time. We had invited the Dean to our final Sunday brunch of the first semester (something  that the tenants of the Chateau have made an unofficial habit of). He, being french, suggested on making crepes. And then proceeded to school us on proper thin-pancake production...

It was then that he mentioned Chandeleur, a holiday on February 2, when the French traditionally eat a meal of crepes. A holiday about crepes?? Why hadn't I heard about this before? The idea is to celebrate the presentation of Jesus to the temple, but in this century, it means...crepes.

And crepes we ate. Traditional, buckwheat, egg-less, egg-less with beer, topped with chevre, swiss cheese, sausages, jams, sugar and of course, nutella.

So many crepes were made, and the kitchen became so smokey that one of the guests had to escape for a brief moment to get some fresh air - we weren't going to mess around. This was a holiday about crepes, and crepes we would have. Lots and lots of crepes.

The Dean, while we were eating, smiled and started telling us his own story of Chandeleur. His mother, very pregnant (with him) and very much in labor (though the nuns at the hospital had told her she was mistaken) was in such pain on the day of the Chandeleur that she couldn't stand still. Every time she flipped a crepe, she would give a little jump, hopping around the kitchen as the crepes flew.

Legend has it that if you can successfully flip a crepe using only one hand and holding a coin in the other, you will have wealth for the remainder of the year.

How did it work out for me? Well, let's just say I had been practicing. Cha-ching!

Huitres Sauvage

Well, I'm in love. And even more so than before.

This past week has involved more delicious experience with La Rochelle huitres, wonderful oysters from the sea.

I returned from California last Tuesday and by Wednesday I found myself on the beach, in my water-proof wellies, wading into the low tide. Buckets in hand, we went mucking (I'm sure there's a more technical term for that?) for oysters. After seeing people doing this all year long, some of the La Rochelle kids decided to give it a whirl while I was out of town, and then let me tag-along last week. The process is easy: make sure you're wearing appropriate foot-gear, that the tide is low, and that the oyster is still living when you put it in the bucket (read: the shell is completely shut). If they're already dead, you can end up pretty sick.



And afternoon of shucking followed the mucking, the result being some delicious fried oyster sandwiches. Truth be told, I much prefer oysters raw - and I think the majority of the rochelais would agree (to the chagrin of some assistants)- and loved standing ankle deep in the low tide, slurping an oyster straight from the sea.

Today I went to an oyster 'farm' near Ile Oleron with some Swedish students who are in Rochefort on an exchange. While there is a major different between more controlled, 'cultivated' oysters, nothing really beats the thrill of collecting the les huitres sauvage.

"Soupe de Poisson! Legumes frais!"

Without fail, whenever I find myself strolling La Rochelle's porte vieux - parking my bike, grabbing café, meeting friends at the Grosse Horlodge (roughly translated: big clock) - I will hear the strained yelling of petite french propriatess. Daily this woman stands outside her restaurant, rain or shine, snow or sleet, trying to persuade the passerbys that her bistro serves the best fish soup, mussels, etc. Think Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, singing with her hands outstretched and her voice soaring... only instead of haunting melodies, think hoarse cries.


I was thinking about this the other day, about how odd this all seemed - I have never thought of the French as the kind of people drawn to self-publicizing. In fact, when it comes to cafés and restaurants, I still feel like I'm trying to crack the 'hours of business' code. How is it that in a city with literally hundreds of tiny cafés, more than half can afford to stay closed for the majority of the week? Or how on Saturday nights the local brasserie will be locked up by 8:30? Or how I keep my fingers crossed that the small marché will still be open at 3:30 on a Thursday afternoon?

For the most part, its a bit laissez-faire; you don't see small business owners sweating over costumers, watching hopefully from the window for prospective patrons to come in for a glass of wine. Its a cultural thing. The United States was intially founded on that idea of the small business owner standing outside, beckoning the persecuted, the weary, etc. But France has no "bring us your tired, your weary"plaque at its front door- instead its "France is wonderful, of course. We don't really need to advertise. Its really no question that you would like to live, visit, or spend money here."

But this woman. At first I would roll my eyes, avoid eye-contact and hope she wouldn't single me out. 5 months later, I still have no intention of eating at her restaurant, but she makes me smile. She has such faith in her little bistro, such determination to win customers that sometimes, it makes me feel like home.

Tasting All the Fruits of the Sea

I think one of my favorite things about living in La Rochelle is the food. Before I returned to France after the Christmas break in Ohio, I read Julia Child’s “My Life in France,” a memoire that chronicles her discovery of France, her discovery of its food, which eventually resulted in her discovery of the love of cooking and an iconic career in the culinary world. Upon my return to La Rochelle, I was ready to dive into the gastronomy of my new residence.

Because La Rochelle is a port-town on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, fruits de mer (literally translated: fruit of the sea) or seafood reigns as king in the ultimate culinary experience. My first fruit de mer experience was in October after I first arrived and involved the not-so-scary, first-baby-steps dish of moules-frites, or mussels and fries. Usually steamed and small, its easy to avoid dwelling on the slight rubbery texture in order to appreciate their light freshness. Juxtaposed with the crispy fries, its really quite wonderful. The mussels can be prepared in an infinate amount of ways –I’ve counted a total of nine at one small bistro!

For the more adventuresome, La Rochelle boasts to have the best huitres, or oysters, in the world. Now, the verdict is out on how amazing these huitres really are. To be completely honest, I’ve yet to try them (although, hopefully this weekend I’ll remedy that!), but I’ve heard stories that run the full gamat, from horror to elation. My friend Lee had his first (and last) huitres in the Fall. What makes them tricky is that because they are so fresh and naturally delicious, huitres are eaten raw, straigh from the shell, with only a little lemon juice. Lee insists that the little guy winced at the lemon juice. And while he also declared that it tasted like salt-water, I’m convinced that there’s a reason why this city has based a huge portion of their tourist industry on the illustrious ‘huitre.’

The daily market, in addition to its beautiful display of fresh produce and flowers, has stand after stand of fish, oysters, and shrimp. Its actually when I see these stands in particular that I become inspired to learn how to become a culinary master in the French tradition, and who knows, maybe one day I’ll become brave enough to buy a bucket of huitres on my own (although I have heard stories of people nearly slicing off their fingers trying to pry open the shell). For now? I’ve budgeted my modest salary so I can enjoy the cooking skills of the professionals, which has resulted in the latest of my culinary adventures: sting ray! And its delicious ☺

Never a concern at the Bay High cafeteria...

My life is finding its routine here in Rochefort. Now that I’ve begun to teach, there is a regular schedule of class preperation, mental preperation, teaching, repeat. I have a healthy fear of my students – french teenagers seem to radiate the essence of ‘french chic,’ dressed in blacks and greys, skinny jeans, peppered with various facial piercings and of course, cigarette in hand. My english friend Rose has already commented on how I’m overly enthusiastic about everything – how very ‘american’ – and I’m sure that, for better or worse, my french pupils have picked up on this as well. But, if it keeps them intrigued, lovely. I wasn’t prepared to care so much about what my students thought of me, and I wonder if this is a normal reaction for new teachers.

I have also been able to pick up on the natural trends of the cafeteria, and can more or less stragetically plan when I want to chance it and eat my lunch at the school. It turns out, Wednesdays are a bit precarious. In the french school system, there are no classes on Wednesday afternoons. While this means that sometimes there will also be classes on Saturday mornings, this is not the case at the lycee Merleau Ponty. Around lunch time on Wednesdays, the place clears out, it is usual the language assistants and one or two more teachers in the cafeteria. The past Wednesday, as usual, Claire and I made our way to the cafeteria, which was more or less deserted. I grabed the various dishes off the rack, and when it came time choose the entrée, I grabbed a plate with mashed potatoes and meat under a creamy red sauce – I’m not a picky eater and I don’t mind a culinary adventure, so this didn’t worry me. We sit, I grab my utensils, poised to cut into this ambigious meal when Claire looks at me and says “oh? You decided to get the tongue?” I freeze. I look down, and no longer am I looking at shapeless meat, but two tongues, porous and thin, just like my own wagging themselves at me. Let the record show that I tried it, but never again. That memory of those tongues, sitting there, is burned into my brain and it still makes my stomach queasy. Jean-Luc, the P.E. teacher told me that he has a similar memory only it was a long time ago when he was a little boy in the school cafeteria. They slapped down a tray of eight or nine tongues, wiggling at petit Jean-Luc, creating the same impression that they did for me. In fact, it seems most teachers have some horror story concerning cow tongue. Turns out, my other option that day was liver, so I’m not sure that I even got the worse entrée…

p.s. I voted today ☺



Photo: taking a break from writing at the Corderie Royale!