Christmas Dinner

Ellen and I joined French friends for Christmas dinner in L’Isle sur la Sorgue. Daniel had found the restaurant, made the reservations and invited us to join them. We loved the idea and jumped at the chance – one of the best decisions in years.

Daniel lives in Auch but chose to visit L’Isle sur la Sorgue for the holidays. It is a town about 50 km from here and a town that we know well having spent two weeks there several years ago. The town is an antique hunter’s paradise but as we discovered, it is also a gourmet’s paradise.

We ate at a restaurant called Le Vivier – a word which means fish tank/fish pond. The restaurant is located along side the Sorgue River, so the name may have something to do with the location. In any case, the setting was attractive, the service was impeccable and the food was fantastic.

The restaurant had put together a special lunch-time meal as its Repas de Noël (Christmas meal). The meal started with canapés and amuse-bouche (mouth pleasers) including a light mousse of cream and fish served with a piece of crisp bacon, oyster paté served on an oyster shell and a lobster roll.

The Entrée (first course) was “Maki de Saint Jacques, cressionnière à l’ail noir, emulsion au lard rance.” – I’ll never get the word-for-word translation for this item. Suffice it to say that it was a lovely, thinly-chopped scallop wrapped in basil (or spinach) topped with a watercress and garlic sauce. The sauce was a bright green and looked lovely served in a white bowl.

There were two plats (plates) for the main course. The first was: Turbot rôti, citron confit de Menton, gnocchis de potimarron et blinis. Roasted white fish (turbot) served with a crispy slice of preserved lemon (from Menton, Fr.), gnocchis made from pumpkin and little pancakes.

(Daniel chose a Jurançon sec for the above courses. Wonderful pairing. We had a burgundy – Auxey Duresses – to go with the second part of the main course. Another wonderful pairing!)

The second plat was: Dos de cerf aux poivres, velouté de topinambour à l’huile de noisette, copeaux de châtaigne et pomme de terre en transparance. Venison rubbed with coarsely ground pepper served on a sauce made from Jerusalem artichoke and hazelnut oil with pieces of roasted chestnuts; potatoes sliced so thinly that they looked transparent after cooking.

The cheese course was warm St. Marcellin cheese (creamy, soft cow’s milk cheese) with a slice of truffle in it. Saint Marcellin truffé, servi tiède.

Dessert was: Boule de Noël aux litchis & pommes (a Christmas ball that contained an apple/litchi ice cream). –and the Christmas ball was a sugar confection, i.e., edible!

Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noël

Et bon appétit!

Une soirée française

Saturday evening, we prepared and served a French dinner for six at our home. The dinner was the “prize” won by a couple at the Tri-County Office on Aging’s Meals on Wheels live auction last fall.

Ellen is very involved with Meals on Wheels (MOW). She delivers meals and she serves on the MOW fundraising board. For the past two years, we have offered a French dinner and a week at our apartment in Vaison la Romaine. Luckily for MOW, the items have been popular and we have been able to generate more funds for MOW. Since retiring, I have taken over most of the cooking and have learned a lot. The dinner was a chance to share what I have learned in the kitchen – both here and in France.

The couple that won the bid for the dinner knew what to expect. They had won the bid the previous year and had enjoyed the evening enough to make sure that they won the bid again.

We invited Steve and Re’Shane to come to an “apéro” to plan the menu. I had prepared a list of options for each course and had included several items directly from the menu at La Lyriste in Vaison la Romaine. (Chef Benoit had asked me to translate the menu into English.) They chose the menu including a dish for the main course that I had never prepared before. A quick “m’aidez” note to Benoit to get instructions on how to prepare the dish followed. Benoit wrote back and included detailed instructions and photos.

The menu*

Hors d’oeuvre: Gougère, Purée de pois chiches au cumin à tartiner, Clairette de Die

Gruyère cheese puffs, hummus on toasts, sparkling wine

Entrée: Soupe de tomate au basilique, croustillants de parmesan, chardonnay

Tomato-basil soup served with parmesan crisps, French unoaked chardonnay

The bowl that I served myself... (not attractive enough for the table)

Plat: Nage de gambas et cabillaud dans son jus de crustacé, ratatouille, riz brun, Vouvray

Jumbo shrimp and cod poached in shellfish stock, ratatouille and brown rice, Vouvray

Fromages: brie triple crème, morbier, chèvre (avec confiture de piment)Bordeaux rouge

Cheeses: triple cream brie, morbier and goat cheese (with hot jalapeno jelly) red Bordeaux

Dessert: Baravois aux fraises, vin doux

Strawberries served with Bavarian cream, fortified red sweet wine

Café et chocolat

*the vegetables for the soup and the ratatouille came from my garden!

After all of the dishes were served, Ellen and I joined the six diners and got to experience how much fun they were and how much fun they were having. They were six people who enjoyed good food, good wine and good camaraderie – and that menu of fun, food and camaraderie, served for a good cause, could be a winner every time!

Slip Slidin' Away

Summer is sliding by quickly.

This past weekend, we joined Ellen’s siblings and cousins for a reunion at Carol’s and Bernie’s lakeside house in VA. It was fun to see relatives/friends and to enjoy stories and videos from times past. Carol had prepared a variety of foods to which we added our potluck items. Great company and wonderful food made it a perfect event. (It was nice that the weather cooperated as well.) On the way to VA, we visited Ellen’s brother and his wife in PA and then Ellen’s nephew and his wife at their house in NC. By the time we got back to MI we had put more than 1800 miles on the car in six days.

Several weeks ago, we visited Marge and Charley in St: Joseph, MI. Marge surprised me with an invitation to cook rabbit with her for my surprise birthday dinner. This was not the usual 2+ pound rabbit one finds in the freezer case at the grocery store. It was a fresh rabbit and weighed over five pounds! Marge had found an interesting recipe in a Patricia Wells cookbook (Patricia Wells At Home in Provence) calling for preserved lemons. We used three of the five pounds of rabbit and had a wonderful dinner – though we were both nervous at how salty the preserved lemons were… (The flavors worked out okay. Marge and I decided to reduce the liquid portion of the lemons to reduce the saltiness.) I brought home the remaining two pounds with which I plan to make Terrine de Lapin.

Ellen’s sister Tish has been staying with us for most of July as part of her annual stateside vacation. This year when she leaves, she will be going to teach in Nairobi (and we are all relieved that she did not choose to extend her teaching contract in Cairo). Tish said that one of the things that she missed while in Cairo was live music. I could echo her comment in referring to Vaison la Romaine though we know that there are a lot of music venues in Vaison in the spring and summer (when we are not there!). We went to hear “The Delta Rhythm Kings” and “Frog and the Beeftones” and enjoyed live music at the “Taste of Downtown Lansing” gathering. We also went to see a friend’s grandson in a lead role in a local production of “Next to Normal”. Local performers, world class talents.

We watched the Tour de France on television and got to see the amazing riders climb Mt. Ventoux and then depart from Vaison la Romaine on the stage that took them to Gap and the Alps. Ma belle soeur (Sister-in-law) found a charmingly funny video about the Tour de France visit to Vaison. Go to: www.vaison-ventoux-tourisme.com and click on “Les Romanus”.

BTW, today I picked and enjoyed the first tomato from my garden. Fresh vine-ripened tomatoes are among the greatest pleasures of summer, especially when I can walk into my own back yard to pick them.

What we miss

I just saw a friend’s post in which she referenced “35 Things You Appreciate About America After Living in Europe.” It was written by Lucy Hebb and first posted at www.buzzfeed.com. I found the list interesting and more than exhaustive (exhausting?) I wondered if the author had to limit herself to 35 things or if she had to stretch to reach 35. I am sure that the author found all of the items to be legitimate but several times I had to ask myself why she included X or Y but, hey, it is her list.

As counterpoint to that list, I offer an update to my 2009 list of what I miss when not in Europe (France). My list contains only 25 items. Feel free to add to my list if there are other things you see that I missed.

1. The friendliness of shop owners “Bonjour, monsieur” greeting as I walk into almost any store (followed by: “Au revoir, monsieur. Bonne journée” as I leave a store – even if I didn’t buy anything.)
2. Very good wine for under $10.
3. Specialty stores – butcher shops, fish shops, vegetable shops, bakeries.
4. Open air markets/market days
5. Sitting in cafés nursing an espresso (for hours, if you want) and none of the wait staff push you to leave
6. Cheese selection – more than 200 varieties
7. Fresh rabbit – and other selections of protein such as pheasant, quail, guinea hen
8. Walking (everyday) to purchase food items for dinner
9. Bread (baguette) for $1.00
10. A fresh baguette everyday
11. Minimalist (environmentally friendly) approach to packaging
12. Diesel fuel which costs less than gasoline
13. Inexpensive espresso
14. Cars with clean-operating diesel engines
15. Cars with manual transmissions
16. Fast, on-time trains
17. Roman ruins
18. Fields of poppies
19. Slow food
20. Small portions (of food entrées in restaurants)
21. Dry rosé
22. One dollar (euro) coins
23. Well-maintained roads and streets
24. Families walking together on Sunday afternoons
25. Mussels from Brittany (moules de Bouchot)

Escargots revisited

Last year (April 29, 2012) I wrote about snails (escargots) when we went to a snail farm called Les escargots de l'enclave – snails from the Enclave (owned by the Pope back in the 1300s).  Little did I know that our neighbor has a snail ranch right in her back yard!  She has “free-range” snails; no corrals or fences, just snails à la nature.

Our dear visiting friend Dan made this discovery when he was helping our neighbor Jane do some yard work. As soon as he realized that there were a lot of snails, he thought about menus and suggested that we could have snails as an appetizer for his big homemade meal before heading home.

First he had to collect the snails – sort of a snail round-up. He created a corral/stockyard (a large clay pot turned upside down) and then put the snails on a regimen of basil and other herbs, spinach, leaves, grass and water.

For the next few days, the snails ate and drank their fill. They seemed to love the basil and spinach. Dan tried to exercise them by taking them for a walk but after three days of walking they had only gone 30 meters.

When we decided the date for our dinner aux escargots, Dan changed their diet. In fact, put them on a water only diet so that they could clear their systems. Jane’s gardener came one afternoon and saw the snails and heard about Dan’s menu plans and affirmed that Dan was going through the right steps. (Dan had read a number of articles on preparing snails so he knew what he was doing.) Step 1: jeûner (fast, abstain from eating) for three days. The snails had only water during this period. Step 2: cleaning/de-sliming the snails with water and salt. After that, it was clean again, cook and serve. Dan chose to serve them in a butter-based persillade (garlic, shallots and parsley).

The dish was excellent. The presentation was attractive, the texture of the snails was perfect and the flavors were wonderful (what’s not to like when the ingredients include garlic and butter and parsley).

I am no expert but I think that free-range snails that Dan made actually tasted better than those raised at the snail farms….

Faire le Pont

May is filled with national and religious holidays in France. The month started with “Fête du Travail” (Labor Day) on May 1, followed by a national holiday on May 8, Ascension on May 9 and the Monday after Pentecost (May 20).

Last week, for instance, Wednesday was "Fête de la Victoire 1945"  followed immediately this year by Ascension Day. With back-to-back holidays in one week, the French have a tradition of adding to official holidays by what they call “Faire le pont” – or bridging over the remaining work day (Friday) and creating a three vacation-day week. Many of the shops and businesses were closed or on reduced hours. (Restaurants and tourist shops were open and filled with customers.)

We went to visit the lovely hill towns of Roussillon and Gordes on Wednesday only to discover that we were joining throngs of tourists – French and foreign – who were there to enjoy the long vacation week. On the way back to Vaison la Romaine, we passed roadways lined with parked cars as people were picnicking along the banks of rivers and streams. We also passed lines of bicyclists who were making their ways through the hills and mountains heading?? Everyone was on vacation!

Vaison la Romaine is a destination for many tourists and it was amazing to see how the village has come alive with people from all over walking through town, looking in shop windows (lèche-vitrines – literally: licking the shop windows), buying chocolate and gelato or sitting in the cafés enjoying a glass of wine or an espresso as they watched people go by. Vaison is a very different village from the cold, rainy days of February and March when people were outside only to complete their shopping needs and get out of the bad weather.

The population of Vaison la Romaine doubles in the summer and with the three-day holiday created by “faire le pont”, we got a little hint of how this town will look in July and August.

Olives

A French friend gave me a bag of black olives – raw olives. Raw olives are VERY bitter and thus inedible. They must be cured before one can enjoy eating them.

This is the second time I have had raw olives. The first time was several years ago when American friends were visiting. They had gone to the little Saturday market and saw and decided to buy olives from one of the vendors. They said that the vendor was trying to tell them something about the olives but they didn’t understand her and so just smiled and held up a finger to indicate that they wanted one kilo. They brought them back to the apartment to share with us because the olives were black and beautiful and looking very tasty. The first bite proved that they were not. They were raw and bitter. We ended up not eating their market purchase.

Have you ever wondered about how someone got the idea that these apparently inedible fruits could be cured and thus made edible? And, after trying different ways of curing the olives, got someone to try them – the ancient equivalent of a “Mikey likes it”person? What about all of the missteps – trying apparently edible gatherings only to discover that they were toxic? I imagine that “Mikey” could have been pretty reticent having seen the negative effects on his counterparts who tasted things toxic or poisonous…

As I searched the internet for methods for curing olives, I learned that the Greeks have been curing olives for centuries. A long time ago, they put the olives in cloth sacks and hung them from the boat wales so that the olives were splashed over and over again with salty sea water. Who thought of that?

Our good friends in Vaison have an olive tree and last year they harvested the olives, cured them and served them at apéros. Their olives were very tasty, so I asked their advice. They explained that the first thing to do is to make the olives less bitter. This is accomplished by soaking the olives in salt water and changing the water every day or so until the liquid was clear. This step took a couple of weeks. I tasted the olives every couple of days to see how bitter they still were and when I could eat the whole olive, I decided I could begin seasoning them.

One can also cure olives with lye but I chose the salt water method because I didn’t have lye and I didn’t like the idea of using a caustic chemical. Lye also works best with green olives (or so I read).

I used a solution of red wine vinegar and olive oil (white wine vinegar for green olives) to which I added herbs de Provence, garlic and chilies. I am not satisfied with the flavor yet so I plan to add more herbs and spices and let them marinate until I have achieved a flavor that I am willing to share with friends – when I hope they taste half as good as the ones done by our friends.

It has been fun learning a new skill (I use the word “skill” VERY loosely.)