my own efforts

weekends, i've taken up cooking for myself, as it makes me happy, and a lot cheaper than eating at comparable restaurants. some of my efforts from recent weeks:

linguini with fresh mozzarella, basil, garlic, tomato, olive oil, and aeoli sauce (like an italian mayonnaise with lots of garlic). simple, but delicious—and pretty too. freshness makes it work.

i've found that linguini is the ideal pasta, because its elliptical cross section maintains a nice al dente texture in the middle, without any sogginess on the outside. this brand had a nice flour finish on the outside, which helps it hold sauces nicely.




my first ever efforts at chicken korma. i bought sauce, which turned out to be too mild, so i added a few cayenne peppers, which put things right. chicken, carrots, tomatoes, and shallots with lentils and chick peas over rice and served with yogurt. for a first attempt, it wasn't bad, though i cooked the chicken a little long, so it was a little dry, and my dry lentils produced a little bit of a paste when cooked that messed up the texture a bit. not bad, but i might leave them out next time.



my favorite, of which i don't have a picture, is pépé, a little bead-like pasta (imagine 1/4 inch spaghetti chopped into little cylinders), with Chevroux, a commercial goat cheese, a little butter, and pepper. it's deliciously irresistible.

most recently, i made clear rice noodles in chicken bouillon broth, plus a simple teriyaki sauce i made with sugar dissolved in soy sauce with a few spices. it was very simple (all the stores were closed, so i couldn't get any vegetables or meat), but very good. kind of like a less chemically composited and generally better ramen.

i also discovered that it is incredibly easy to make a great white sauce to turn into fettuccini al fredo with french milk, which has a lot more fat than american milk. unfortunately no hard italian cheese (or really any cookable cheese) was available when i did that, so i ended up with a kind of mildly sad and very garlicky white sauce on my pasta, which was still palatable.

the one food i cannot find a quality instance of in France is bagels (sad). if anyone has a good recipe, let me know, and maybe i'll try it.

Fauchon and Hédiard

my, i haven't put anything up here for a while. which is sad, because there is no dearth of substance. i'll see what i can do to put things right.

a few pictures...first, a babas au rhum from Fauchon. it is gorgeous (note the two little pipette/eyedropper thingys full of rum), but sadly lacking in quality of taste, which was covered by an artificial bubblegum flavor–absolutely terrible. too bad; as it looked so good. because of that, i haven't been back to Fauchon since–everything there looks beautiful (gilded éclairs), but i now doubt the quality. even their bags (see the background) are very classy.

my apologies that this photo is sideways despite my best efforts. if you know an html tag to rotate it, leave it in the comments, and i'll fix it.

across place de la madeleine is Hédiard, which started as a tea and coffee importer, and went on to become a full-on luxury épicerie. it's a wonderful store to wander around. the staff are very nice, as is the atmosphere. they sell nice coffee, tea, chocolate, wine, spirits, jams, honeys, biscuits (tea, not buttermilk), spices, and produce. of course there's other places that specialize in such things, but Hédiard provides a nice aggregation of things guaranteed to be good. i have yet to be let down by their products. it's a happy place.


for easter they had all sorts of huge chocolate roosters all over that were quite impressive. (the french don't have the easter bunny; instead they have the church bells that ring for the first time in a while on easter morning, and throw eggs in the process, supposedly. thus, lots of chickens and roosters, and fish, as a symbol of christianity, all in chocolate, of course.) here they are on a table usually covered with sacks of different varieties of coffee–note the roaster on the right.

i have lots more pictures and stories and little notes and thoughts from my little cahier for recording such things, some of them quite interesting. i shall try to get them up here soon.

gastronomenae

Today was an exceptional day for food. I had one class, then went to a number of the best gastronomic locations in Paris (and therefore the world), but no restaurants.

First, I went to Verlet to get some coffee (I've already gone through my last bag, which, to be fair, is smaller than its usual American counterpart. That said, this is the most caffeine addicted I've ever been.). I got their Columbian, I believe, and then stopped for an espresso (Panamanian). It was very good, but incredibly citrusy. Not even very coffee-y any more. A little odd, but good.

A short metro ride later, I was at Pierre Hermé, a singularly extraordinary pastry and chocolate shop in the 6ème arrondissement (Paris is divided into 20 arrondissements arranged in a spiral; I live in the 7ème.) There, I bought a 2000 Feuille, a layered pastry; and four small macarons (like two cookies of baked egg white, with a filling in between) in incredibly inventive flavors: passionfruit and milk chocolate, hazelnut and white truffle, olive oil and vanilla, and salt caramel for me. I ate the passionfruit one on the way home; it was truly magnificent.

Around the block is Poilâne, one of the best bakeries in Paris, where they make large country loaves. I got a quarter loaf and a little apple pastry. I love boulangeries because they offer such great products, but for ridiculously low prices. Mmm. Poilâne is very small, like all of them, but produces some magnificent breads.

My last stop was a little ways down Rue de Sèvres: Quatrehomme, a fromagerie (cheese shop) which packs several hundred cheeses into its small store. I bought a nice semi-soft goat cheese covered with chives to go with my bread. Goat cheese is much more prevalent here than in the US; I'd guess between a third and a half of cheese here is goat cheese. A different flavor, but one that grows on you quickly.

I haven't eaten most of these things yet; more pictures and critiques are sure to follow.

sanwiches, crêpes, and such

the french déjeuner (lunch) is an odd institution, not particularly in what it is, but in what it is not. the french are delightfully obsessed with food. it is fairly difficult but not impossible) to find bad food in Paris.

for instance, the french have taken the initially german and then principally american* dish, the sandwich (said sondweesh, one more frenchification) perfected it a bit, and generally made it very french. the french sandwich consists of half a good crusty baguette, sliced halfway through lengthwise, a bit like a sub (its closest american counterpart). from there, the staples are some variety of meat (usually ham, but more like cappacolla ham than american ham), cheese (a good french soft cheese, with rind, usually), and crutités (tomato and lettuce), and perhaps some sort of mayonnaise or sauce.

these are sold everywhere at lunchtime (but not after about 2:00, annoyingly–don't be late to lunch). what is so remarkable is the lack of diversity in french sandwiches. the classic sandwich au jambon is exactly the same, at all seven or so sandwicheries (actually a word) within a block of my school, and throughout the city. there is a little diversity; sometimes you can find sandwiches on a different type of bread, for example (pita, for a sandwich suédois; a heavy wheat sometimes, too), or half-cooked baguettes which are then turned into paninis. i have seen a few variations on this theme. a sandwich americain for example, is a baguette with a hamburger patty cut in half height-wise, tomato, lettuce, and some sort of thousand island/big mac-ish sauce. it is not particularly wonderful. i also saw a sandwich bresilien one time, with roast beef and banana, i believe, though i didn't try it, regretfully.

aside from that, parisian sandwiches are incredibly invariable, and are very universal. it is quite strange coming from a place where every restaurant tries to differentiate its sandwiches (or food in general) somehow. even fast-food restaurants do this (with bacon!/blue cheese!/a buttered bun!/etc!), but nicer restaurants also tout their arugula, sprouts, fresh mozzarella, etc. in france, this does not happen, and i have no idea why. perhaps it is part of the french mentality. perhaps it's also due to the fact that both my school and my apartment are in two of the most expensive and white areas of paris.

the french mentality is a strange thing, though; they are incredibly disorganized (though somehow everything functions, defying comprehension a bit), but love rules, particularly in naming and defining things. the academie française, which is the official governmental body that determines what is and is not a part of the french language, is the paragon of this. it is also very history dependent. the french like to talk a lot about their equality and liberty, while in fact their culture still is very dependent on social status in everyday interactions. i think they're a bit confused about their politics; they all adore louis xiv, are a little hushed but positive about the french revolution, kind of like napoleon i and iii (but not i's architect hausmann, who busted through paris to make its broad avenues), adore the trente glorieuses (the thirty years after WW2 when france became very socialist and built itself up under du Gaulle and Mitterand), and now complain that their economy is not going anywhere, while still not comprehending the idea of a crossdisciplinary program of a sort which would likely help them in a globalizing world. in other words, french politics is almost as messed up as american ones.

other news: i had a fantastic crêpe today with crême chantilly, which is basically very high quality real whipped cream. positively orgasmic. much better than my last crêpe, with citron (some sort of lemon jam, which is horrible). i've also had one with a french hot dog (very different, very good) and cheese inside, one with smoked salmon and greens, and one with ham, maybe potatoes (i forget), and sauce bêchamel. the french eat a lot of crêpes.

i also had rabbit for the first time, which was not bad; kind of like chicken, to be a little cliché.

also: i detest french keyboards. there's a reason few french people can type very fast.

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* i believe. i am by no means a food historian.