Recipe of the month: Garbure

This is the February recipe two days early,

to leave time to write something for the Chandeleur, which is on Saturday.

It’s winter.  It’s cold.  Fresh produce is non-existent.  Except for root vegetables.
So how about a recipe perfect for all the above?
Although France is (regrettably) changing, and “global” is a word that can increasingly be applied to cooking (enormous sigh!), there is still a tendency here to cook with the seasons.  Which is where traditional, regional recipes have a role to play.

Mic du Midi

The southwest of France has a lot to offer.  The snowy summits of the Pyrenees are a wonder to behold, still untamed and often untameable. Through its passes marched Charlemagne to fight the Moors in Spain, passes still taken by Christian pilgrims and simple hikers traveling the road to Compostella.  Near the Atlantic, the Pyrenees become more calm as they enter Basque country and plunge into the sea south of Biarritz.  But “up-country” lie Béarn and Bigorre, renowned for ski resorts, thermal spas and, of course, Lourdes for the faithful.
February’s dish is typical of this mountainous region.  It’s one that would be familiar to native sons Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the Three Musketeers of Alexandre Dumas - all probably raised on garbure.  (The fourth musketeer D’Artagnan, as well as Cyrano de Bergerac, were both from neighboring Gascogne, where the dish was also known.)  Still today, in mid-September, the town of Oloron-Saint-Marie hosts the World’s Garbure Championship, because people from Béarn take their national soup very seriously.  This recipe is based on one by homeboy Chef Sébastien Sanjou, who comes from Tarbes, next door to Béarn.

Garbure isn’t a dish for sissies.  It’s a full-bodied soup, a meal in and of itself.  French comfort food.  It’s said that when the spoon stands straight up in the bowl, it’s perfect!  And like all respectable soups, it’s even better the second day, when you heat it back up.  But be sure to keep it in the refrigerator because cabbage is a powerful fermenting agent.
A word here about beans.  This recipe calls for haricots tarbais, which chef and fellow ex-pat David Lebovitz calls “the holy grail of beans”.  They’re white beans that cook fairly fast because they have a thinner skin than most.  That means navy beans would be best.  Great Northerns would also work, but will need a bit longer to cook.  If your water is hard, add a pinch of baking soda  to the cooking water.  And as with all dried beans, never add salt until after they’re pretty well cooked, because salt prevents the bean from softening so it can absorb water.
Confit de canard can be found in specialty shops.  If you don’t have that possibility, just use some cooked chicken thighs for the duck.  Other substitutions are olive oil for the duck fat, non-smoked pancetta for the ventrêche and spicy paprika for the piment d’espelette.
There you have it.  An easy soup to make, but you have to start a bit ahead, with down time between the stages.  But then soup stock is always better the next day.  So fire up the stockpot and travel in your mind to the wilds of Béarn.  And like Porthos, when you get down to the last bit of garbure in the bottom of your bowl, add a splash of red wine to make a chabrot (shah-bro) and drink to the health of the Musketeers.

• 11 oz dried navy beans
• 3 medium potatoes (preferably red potatoes)
• 3 medium carrots
• 3 small to medium turnips
• 3 medium onions
• 2 leeks, white and light green parts only
• 1 celery stalk
• ½ green cabbage, inner leaves
• 2 cloves
• 3 T duck fat (otherwise olive oil)
• 2 t coarse salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• 2 thick slices of garlic sausage (saucisson aîl), cubed
• 2 duck confit thighs (or cooked chicken)
• 4 thick-cut slices of pork belly (ventrêche), in small cubes
• 1 thick slice of cooked ham, cut into large cubes
• 3 slices thick-cut unsmoked bacon, minced
• 3 T Italian (flat-leaf) parsley
• 2 cloves garlic
• 4 thick slices country bread, toasted
• 4 slices sheep cheese
• piment d’espelette or hot paprika

- The night before:  Cover the beans in cold water and let them soak in the refrigerator overnight.   When you’re ready to make the soup, drain the beans and rinse them.  Remove any skins or stones.
- Cutting up the vegetables is important because it affects how they cook down.  The carrots and the celery should be diced small (½" square) while the turnips, onion and potato can be bigger (1" cubes).  The leeks should be cut diagonally into 1" long pieces and the cabbage into 1" wide strips.
- Heat the duck fat (or olive oil) until it’s sizzling.  Add in the turnips, carrots, onion and celery and cook until they’re soft but not colored.  Add the potatoes and cabbage.  Sweat them for 5-6 minutes but don’t brown.  Add the leeks and cloves.  Stir.  Then add the beans and cook for another 5-6 minutes.  Cover with water, add 2 t coarse salt (the meats will be salted already) and some fresh-ground black pepper.  When it comes to a boil, lower the heat, cover and simmer for 3 hours.
- Let the soup cool until you’re ready to eat.  If the soup is meant for the next day, put it in the refrigerator overnight.
- When it’s time to eat, reheat the soup.
- When it’s hot, add the garlic, parsley and bacon into the soup.  Simmer for 5-7 minutes.  Then add in the rest of the meats and let it all simmer for 15 minutes.
- Pour the garbure into a festive soup tureen.  Toast the bread and top with sheep cheese while still warm.  Sprinkle piment d’espelette on the toasts and in the soup.

Serve piping hot, accompanied by a full-bodied red wine.  Why not a Madiran, which comes from the region?

Ossau Pass, south of Pau

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

View of my "estate" (everything beyond the white fence)

When I went to sleep last night, the snow was about halfway gone.  When I woke up this morning, it was bright outside the shutters and I thought “SUN!”, and smiled.
  Then I opened those shutters and...
SNOW EVERYWHERE!  And more still coming down, softly but inexorably.

I lived in Paris for 37 straight years and since I started doing the bi-continental thing I’ve even over-wintered here some years since then, so I’ve seen snow before in the City of Light.  But in all those years I could count on the fingers of one hand the times when it’s lasted on the ground more than a day.  Now I need a second hand.
And it’s scheduled to snow every night all week.  What a brilliant time for me to leave my boots back in the old U.S. of A.!

Last night I was supposed to take the train out to the suburbs for a dinner party with old friends.   Raclette on the menu, which is a perfect meal for an Alps-weather night.  But like Zermatt or Val d’Isère, Montmartre is not located on a plain.  Its slopes often have a gradient of 8%.  Maybe more.  Not to mention the cobblestones, which are probably the origin of the warning: “slippery when wet”.  It’s the formula for disaster:

Gradient + cobblestones + no boots = slip-and-fall (plaster cast + crutches)

         People don’t shovel the sidewalk in front of their buildings nowadays.  That’s because there aren’t any concierges to do the shoveling anymore.  The tiny studio apartments that used to go with the job are now rented out to university students.  (The one across my courtyard had a party last year with about 20 guests - Lord only knows how they even fit in that room - and woke everyone up at 2 a.m. singing - at the top of their lungs - the theme song from the “Captain Future” cartoon.  “Ca-pi-taine Flam tu n’es passsssss de no-tre ga-la-xieeeeeee...”)
But I digress.  No concierges?  No snow shoveled, no salt or sand scattered on the pavements.  And you can definitely not plow cobblestoned streets.  Plus, in my case, no boots (see above).  So I called off the Polar Expedition.  Which was wise, as it turned out, because I’d have had the Devil’s own time getting home up the hill!

  Today, outside the window my garden is cloaked in fluffy white snow-fur.  My cooking herbs are huddled in their pots.  The shrubs are bent under the weight of their mantle of snow.  The tree has protected some of the greenery, but one flowering vine I planted last summer isn’t made for these climes.  I should have read the tag before I put it in the ground because if it were in a container, I could bring it inside.  So far it looks fine, but in a week or so we’ll see what the arctic cold of these past few days and now the snow have wrought.

Years ago, when I lived across from the park at the bottom of the Sacré-Coeur steps, my son and his then-wife and his best friend snuck out and climbed over the fence and built a little snowman.  They came back all rosy-cheeked and proud of themselves, and admired it from our window until it finished melting a few days later.  I wish I had a photo of it.

Another year people came out with skis and sleds and turned the Butte Montmartre into a winter resort.  The park gates were always locked when it snowed, so the city couldn’t be sued in case of broken bones.  But the fence wasn’t really high enough and people climbed over it in spite of its spiked top.  The funicular that runs along the left side of the hill became the ski lift.  The only thing the Alps had on us was the height of the slope.
Today it ended up snowing until 5 pm.  Tomorrow I’m going outside and make a snowman on my patio.  After I buy some boots.  But for today, I’ll just sit here on the warm side of the window and enjoy my cup of tea.

* * * * *

At 2:12 the snowboarder rounds the curve at the corner of my street, and at 2:50 he heads downhill from the square where my local bakery stands (see Pat-a-Cake, Sept 14, 2012).  This was shot in December of 2010, but it’s basically the same thing this time around.

(DISCLAIMER:  Neither the ski photo nor the video are mine; the rest is.)

The tribulations of transatlantic travel

One of the old Concorde SST planes, impaled at Roissy CDG Airport

“Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I saw

Was the sun through yellow curtains, and a rainbow on the wall.”

You may remember the lyrics to that Joni Mitchell song.  Well, I just took the overnight trans-Atlantic flight to Paris, and I can tell you that any similarity between what I lived through and this song would be... well, not just grossly exaggerated but frankly and totally wrong.  My version would go like this:

“Woke up, it was a Roissy morning, and the first thing that I saw

Was fog and then the ground just 10 feet below.”

Not a brilliant start.  The flight itself had been ordinary, except for some turbulence - during the meal, of course - which got so bad they interrupted the dinner service.  I even had to stop watching the movie because we were bouncing around so much I started to feel seasick.  Or maybe that was because my stomach had been on empty for hours.

Anyway, we were descending through the clouds, and when you could finally see through them a bit, there was the ground!  Ceiling: 10 feet, max.  I’m sure the pilot could see nothing, which is always a scarey thought.
We landed on time at 11:10.  Things went smoothly for a while.  We were actually allowed to dock at the terminal instead of having to climb down that long stairway onto the tarmac and be bussed, bouncily, to the terminal, as has been the case for a few years now. (They’ve finally completed repairs to Terminal E, part of which caved in shortly after opening, killing one poor passenger.)  There was an amazingly minimal line at customs, and my suitcase appeared about 10 minutes after I got to baggage claim.  It was barely 11:30.
Then everything went to hell.

I know Terminal E like the back of my hand and proceeded unfailingly to the taxi stand.  There were some of those scabs who try to offer their “taxi” services inside, and I told them “no thanks” without even breaking step.  Often they're Russians with meter-less cars, trying to rip you off.
“There aren’t any cabs,” one of them yelled after me.
I kept walking.
But they were right.  One airport attendant stood at the stand, explaining to a handful of arrivals that there was a taxi strike.  Why?  Basically because of the scabs, who don’t have to take the same driving tests as licensed taxi drivers and don’t have to pay the fees either.  Or wait 2-3 hours in line to load passengers at the bustling airport.  So I decided to take the airport shuttle bus into town.  (In fact, I would have been better off taking the RER subway in, but hindsight is always 20/20.)
Walking back through the halls, there were the same “taxi” drivers milling about.  One of them must have recognized me from a few minutes earlier.  He smiled sneeringly at me.
I asked how much, out of sheer curiosity.
“200 euros,” came the answer (that’s about $265) -  for what’s usually a 50-60 euro trip, with tip.
“No thanks,” I said.
”She couldn’t afford it,” said another, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Yes, I can.  But it’s about the principle!” I shouted over my shoulder.  (Smart ass!)

Airport buses all come in close to the taxi stand, and Platform B is the bus to Opéra.  It’s the only one - to my knowledge - that is run by the bus company and not by the airport, which might explain the difference in price - only 10 euros compared to 17 - and frequency.  It’s also handiest for my destination.  There was no one there, so I figured I must have just missed the last bus but that there would be another fairly soon.
Wrong!
The next bus put in its appearance an hour and a half later.  At least I was at the front of the line - and so inside the bus shelter - because the fog turned to rain.  Gradually people crowded in until we were sardined under the canopy and the briskness of 7°C (45°F), welcome after the below-freezing cold of Michigan and the stuffiness of the plane, became a chill rising from wet feet all the way up my backbone.
After about half an hour watching airport buses come and go to other destinations, not to mention the colorful Disneyland buses that were plentiful, another impediment to the advance on Paris developed.  To add to the merriment, buses have to come down a ramp and make a 90° turn to reach the platforms.   But some idiot had parked his van near the bottom of the ramp, halfway blocking the turn.  Result:  the buses couldn't get by.  Inexorably, the access ramp clogged up with them, horns started honking, but no tow truck was sent out and no police ticketed the vehicle, so I guess the driver was justified to exercise his Right to Commit Creative Parking.  All this went on for an additional half an hour, and we could see several Opéra buses go by at the departure level above our heads, but they knew they couldn’t reach the platform below so they must have just headed back to Paris.  By the time the van drove off, freeing the flow of bus arrivals - none of them mine - I’d been in the line for an hour.
After an additional half-hour, now chilled to the bone by the humidity, a bus did appear and we all trudged on, except for a handful of late arrivals who were left mournfully behind.  All the seats were taken and the aisle was full of people standing, or sitting on their suitcases.  At 1:30 off we went, Paris-bound.  I thought my troubles were over.  30 minutes and I’d be at Opéra, where I could walk to the nearby Métro and be on my final lap.
“Erreur,” as the French would say.
The taxi strike was not just at the airport.  I found that out when the driver got off the expressway.  After inching along from traffic jam to traffic jam, and now blocked at a red light, he stood up and shouted out.  “For those of you who speak French, which means almost no one...” he announced, and went on to explain that the irate drivers were holding an Opération Escargot, a snail crawl on highways all over the country, and especially in and around the capital.  The expressway was completely blocked.  Instead of a 30-minute trip in from the airport, it took an hour and a half to reach our destination, during which time I nodded off several times and the young couple next to me missed their 3:00 train to Cherbourg.
At least the rain had almost stopped during the bus ride.  I trudged through the mist to the Métro, bumping my suitcase down the steps, and fished out an old ticket left from the last trip, a trick I learned a long time ago.  There was an escalator down to the subway platform and the train came within 2 minutes, as posted, and it was a straight shot to my stop.  Small mercies.

Abbesses station on a sunnier day

“Please, Lord,” I prayed in my head.  “Let the elevators be running.  At least one of them!”  And one was.  (The Abbesses stop is the deepest in all of Paris, 280 steps that I once had to carry my suitcase up until a young man rescued me in mid-ascension and carried it the rest of the way.)  When the elevator reaches the top, there are still about 30 steps left to street-level, but I made it with help from some ladies I’d convinced to wait for the elevator by telling them how many stairs lie ahead.  It was only fair.

The final slog,
again, on a sunnier day

It was still almost raining, but I decided to pull the suitcase up the final steep slope of Montmartre and brave the 10 steps to the cobblestoned square at the corner of my street.  “I can do this,” I kept telling myself, but the lack of sleep over the past two or three days had taken its toll.
And then every good deed I have ever done over my entire lifetime paid off.  The little local hill-climbing Montmartrobus passed by, heading for the bus stop just ahead.  I managed to break into a trot somehow, but it started to pull out as I drew even.  I banged on the side of the bus, and the driver stopped.  It seemed a moral victory somehow, the hand of a Great and Magnanimous Supreme Being who said, “this poor soul has had enough”.  And I had.  The mini-bus wound its way back and forth, up and down the narrow streets of my neighborhood until it reached the stop at the Correct Altitude for my building and I got off, tossing a heartfelt “Merci bien!” over my shoulder to the driver.
Down the passage, around the corner, suitcase bouncing over cobblestones desperately in need of a repaving.  Now remember the new door code.  Then drag my tired self through three doors and across the courtyard, through my sticking-in-the-humidity gate and I’m home.
And it only took me 4½ hours.  7½ hours to zip across the Atlantic, 4½ hours to slog in from the airport.  A new record, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

The gate to my apartment
minus the hibiscus in this season, and minus the sun

http://tv.ibtimes.com/taxi-strike-causes-chaos-paris-8274

Recipe of the month: Quiche lorraine

New Year’s Eve has come and gone, with its deluge of oysters and smoked salmon and foie gras, all washed down with lots of vintage wine and finishing with pâtisseries, chocolats and champagne. At least in France.
     But after all the expense of Christmas and New Year, the pocketbook needs a rest. And the waistline needs a rest as well. So here’s an inexpensive dish that is still filling, and perfect for a cold winter’s day: quiche lorraine.

Who was this Lorraine? Well, it’s not a Who but a What. Lorraine is one of the 27 regions of France, and located in the east. When Charlemagne died, he divided up his realm between his three grandsons. (He outlived his sons.)  One of them, Lothair, got this part, and it became known as the medieval German kingdom of Lothringen. As of 1766, it became part of France under King Louis XV and the name was changed to Lorraine, although the northern part remained largely German-speaking. And French it remained until France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War and Lorraine was annexed by Germany, along with Alsace. It remained part of Germany for almost half a century until the Treaty of Versailles ended World War I and it was returned. Then throughout all six years of World War II, Germany took both regions back yet again as an integral part of the Vaterland, and French language and culture became grounds for distrust, persecution, and even death.

     In spite of this tug-of-war, Lorraine has strong French ties. The capital, Nancy, is the home of Art Nouveau, a genre abundantly found in the city’s architecture. The croix lorraine - Cross of Lorraine, with its double bars - became the emblem of the Free French Forces during World War II. And France’s modern-day hero General Charles de Gaulle, who led those Forces, is buried in Lorraine, in Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises.

So much for Lorraine? But what about that other word? Quiche comes from the German kuchen, which means "cake". Quiches were mentioned as far back as 1550, when they were served to the royal court in Nancy, the capital of Lorraine. They were cooked in cast iron skillets and had a slightly different look. The recipe as we know it today dates back only to the 19^th century, but it’s been very popular throughout the country ever since... and even abroad.
     So there you have it: quiche lorraine (pronounced "keesh low-ren"). Try it; you’ll like it. And don’t be afraid to experiment. There are many variations of this recipe but this is the original, aka traditional, one. A true cook from Lorraine will use all cream in making a quiche; only the faint-of-heart substitute half milk. Some people lay sliced Emmenthal or Gruyère cheese on the pastry shell before adding the bacon, but that would make it a quiche vosgienne, from the Vosges mountain region farther south. Others add thinly-sliced sautéed onions, but that would make it a quiche alsacienne, the other French region Germany and France squabbled over. You can do as you please, unless you’re a purist. That’s the beauty of the quiche lorraine.

• 8" pastry shell
• 3-4 oz lean medium-thick bacon (6-8 slices), diced
• 3 eggs + 1 yolk
• 2 c heavy cream (or half-and-half)
• ½ tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp white pepper
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg

- Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
- While you’re preparing the filling, line the bottom of the shell with aluminum foil and pour in a layer of dry beans. This will keep it from puckering. Bake in the middle of the oven at 400°F (200°C) for 8-9 minutes, then remove the beans and foil, prick the bottom and bake for an additional 2-3 minutes.
- In the meantime, brown the diced bacon lightly. When it’s brown and the pastry shell is cooked, sprinkle the bacon evenly into the bottom of the shell.
- Beat the eggs, the cream and the seasonings together until they’re well blended. Pour into the pre-cooked pastry over the bacon. Don’t fill it more than 3/4, to allow for puffing.
- Set in the upper third of the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until it has puffed up and browned. A knife should come out clean when inserted into the center of the quiche, but the custard should still move a bit.

Serves 4-6.

Accompany with a salad, some French baguette and a cold white wine, with fruit for dessert.  (It’s also good cold, which makes it a delicious, low-fuss leftover.)

P.S. If you need a bigger quiche to serve 6-8, use a 10" shell and increase the ingredients by ½.

P.P.S. You can precook the shell ahead of time and refrigerate the filling. Half an hour ahead of time, put it all together.

P.P.P.S. For party needs, you can make these as tartlets (probably 6). Keep an eye on the cooking time, as they may cook faster, given their small size.

Christmas à la française

Well, it’s the final week-end before Christmas, and people on both sides of the Atlantic are running around in little circles, trying to find last-minute gifts for their loved ones.  That much is the same in France and in the United States.

     But there are some differences.

Regarding children, the person French kids will be looking for on Christmas Eve is not so much Santa Claus - a deformation of the Dutch Sinterklaas - as it is the French version of England’s Father Christmas: quite literally, Le Père Noël. He comes on December 25^th, whereas Sinterklaas comes on St. Nicholas’s holy day, December 5^th. So Le Père Noël is more in line with "We Three Kings of Orient" - Les Rois Mages (Magi) - and the gifts they brought to Baby Jesus... although that would be Epiphany on January 6^th. Are you still with me?
     Like American children, French children also pass the year in review, worrying if overall they’ve been naughty or nice, in hopes that Le Père Noël will visit and leave them toys. But in preparation, they don’t hang up stockings by the chimney, with or without care. They either have traditional wooden sabots (clogs) or more modern slippers, into which they stuff hay for Santa’s rennes (reindeer). Although that custom is tending to disappear in favor of the odd apple, given the shortage of hay in Paris and other French cities. But that would be the traditional picture: sabots.  And once the hay was eaten, Le Père Noël would put your toys in your sabot, which pretty much precludes large presents, doesn’t it?
     Santa comes down the chimney in France as he does in America. Most French homes do have a chimney, except for very new apartments. Both my old working-class apartment and now my artist’s studio in Montmartre were built around 1870 and they had chimneys; of course that was the only form of heating back then. In between the two, the apartment in the 19è arrondissement was built in the 1970s - when central heating had become the rule of thumb - and so had no chimney. Each apartment had a balcony though, and I presume children were told Le Père Noël came in that way.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the run up to Christmas centers on shops and stores which try to woo people through their doors to buy as much as their arms will carry. In the time-honored tradition of American stores, Parisian stores go to great lengths to make their windows eye-catching. Shops in each neighborhood band together to string lights up back and forth across the streets, and the counters of each shop are decked out in tiny lights and snowflakes and yards of fake white snow fabric.

     Most spectacular are the two side-by-side department stores on the Boulevard Haussmann - the famous Galeries Lafayette and Le Printemps - which are a thing of wonder. The décors are planned a year in advance and prepared in workshops sworn to secrecy; then the windows are dressed by early December.

     As at least some of their window displays are aimed specifically at children, much animation is involved and a maximum number of toys available on the store’s shelves are put into action to entice parents to open their wallets. In fact, raised platforms are constructed along these window fronts so that Little Ones - les petits - can have greater visibility, their noses pressed right up against the windows. I remember taking my children to see them for many years, buying them a little paper cone filled with hot roasted chestnuts to keep their hands warm, bought from a street vendor with an ancient-looking charcoal contraption on wheels set up right there on the sidewalk. He knew a captive audience when he saw one!

The religion of the majority of French citizens remains Roman Catholicism, although most Catholics are lapsed, at best, and generally of the feminine persuasion. (It's said that a Catholic man will go to church four times in his life: for his baptism, his communion, his wedding and his funeral... but with many skipping a church wedding, even that number has dwindled.

     Yet Christmas is one of the days of the year when even non-church-goers sometimes grace the church with their presence. Unlike the U.S., where the Christmas service tends to be on the morning of the 25^th, French Catholics hold their Christmas service on the eve... especially in the south of the country. There is much singing of traditional carols and sometimes re-enactments, complete with real shepherds (in the countryside, obviously) and real sheep.

     For a real thrill, go to Notre-Dame for its midnight mass. The cathedral is aglow with lots and lots of candles, the organ will set your chest beating and the choir is joyous. But wear warm socks; the stone floor is cold and the chill will migrate right up your legs until you’ll be shivering in style.

In France, the big Christmas meal is eaten after mass, and the table is fairly groaning with goodies. Which is a good thing because everyone is cold and ravenous by then.

     In preparation for the big meal, food shops are rife with the Holy Trinity: foie gras, huîtres (oysters) and champagne, all ending in the traditional bûche de Noël (Yule log) for dessert.  Oranges are also a traditional fruit to offer, an expensive rarity in the old, pre-refrigerated shipping days, and even up through World War II. Now more exotic tangerines and mandarins also grace the stalls on the sidewalk in front of the green grocer’s, and they add a splash of color to the otherwise grey Paris winter light. (The capital of France lies at the same latitude as Labrador, in spite of its notably warmer weather - it rarely snows - and so daylight makes only a fleeting appearance from 8:30 to 4:30... provided cloud cover doesn’t whittle that down even further.)

     But it’s hard to dampen the spirits of a Frenchman bent upon celebrating, and every café-bar does good business at Christmastime. And now that cafés have outdoor heaters, you can sit on the terrace and people-watch even in the long nights of winter!

So next time you’re looking for something to do at Christmas, think outside the box and head to the City of Light, a name never more true than at Noël.

Merry Christmas, everyone! 

Joyeux Noël à tous!

My one and only attempt at a bûche de Noël,
complete with confectioner's sugar snow

Speaking in Tongues - No. 1

Being bilingual is interesting. And one of the most interesting sides of it, to me, is the sociological facette.
     Words evoke images. And those images change from one language to another. When you grow up with one language and then learn another, you get layers of images.  (If you grow up being bilingual, it may be different. I’ll have to ask my children. I had to learn French the hard way: at school.)
     But back to the layers of bilingualism.

     Every language expresses those images in its adages, its proverbs, its catch phrases that we all hear and incorporate painlessly growing up, but which foreigners have to learn in a more formal manner. All of them reveal something about a country’s national identity. For instance, a proverb about snow would have no meaning to someone in the Sahara. Sea references might not be evident in landlocked countries.

     Yet many translate fairly well. Some are even identical in two different languages - in my case English and then French. (I’ll have to look into Spanish, which I’m also reputed to speak.) Such as "the walls have ears" (les murs ont des oreilles). But not always. There are often tiny differences. Here are a few examples.

Let’s start with another proverb about overhearing things, this time referring to children. "Petits chaudrons, grandes oreilles" translates to "little cauldron, big ears". But the English equivalent is "little pitchers have big ears." Same idea, parallel structure. The only difference is that in French the subject isn’t pitchers but those big pots, often copper, that are used in cooking... and also in the Astérix comic books, where Panoramix the Druid uses one to mix his magic potion.

     And as long as we’re talking about cooking, how about "manger comme un ogre"? I suppose as France produced one of the world-famous authors of fairy tales (especially Sleeping Beauty), it’s only normal that a Big Eater would be an ogre instead of just a mere horse ("eat like a horse").

Ussé castle, with Sleeping Beauty's tower on the right
Author Charles Perrault stayed here in 1697

Keeping that ogre in food would cost an arm and a leg, except that in France that becomes the skin off your behind: "coûter la peau des fesses".

     And if the ogre washed it all down with some of the renowned French wine, he wouldn’t become "drunk as a skunk" but rather drunk as a pig: "saoûl comme un cochon". (Come to think of it, I’ve never smelled a skunk in France, so maybe that explains it. When the French hit the New World and got their first whiff, suddenly the pig just didn’t seem so bad.)

     While we’re on pigs, if you bought something sight unseen in France, you wouldn’t be buying one in a poke, but rather a cat in a "poche", which is a pocket but signifies something wrapped up and slipped in the pocket where it can’t be seen. (Wonder if that’s where that word "poke" came from?) In either case, don’t buy one: "il ne faut pas acheter chat en poche".
      But whatever you’re thinking about buying, plan wisely. Don’t go selling the bearskin before you kill the bear - vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué. The English version is far less dangerous: Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.
     If you want to go to Heaven and leave all your worries behind, you have to be "sage comme une image", whereas in English the idea of being "wise", meaning "good", becomes the banal "pretty as a picture". Maybe the "image" isn’t a religious picture in English.
     But while you’re still on Earth, not all things will come to you automatically, not food, nor drink, nor pretty pictures, Sometimes you just have to hope and wait. And sometimes even that doesn’t help. Your wishes will come true "when pigs can fly" in America. The French have a similar equivalent - it won’t happen until cows sprout wings ("quand les vaches arount des ailes") - and another less parallel one: when chickens grow teeth ("quand les poules auront des dents"). I’ll leave you to figure out which of the three is most likely to happen.

     And while we’re talking about hopes, let’s finish - at least for today - in Paris. After all, it’s the capital. "Avec des "si" on mettrait Paris en bouteille." That translates as "With an "if [only]" you could put Paris inside a bottle." But what it means is "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." The English proverb is a far cry from the French, but they mean the same thing, translate the same idea.

     So as you can see, the human mind works in similar ways on either side of the Atlantic. Or even the English Channel.



P.S. As it’s almost Christmas, let me add a few things.
- First of all, French children don’t hang stockings by the chimney, with or without care; they use sabots, wooden clogs that they fill with hay for Santa’s reindeer. And yes, that is a bit dated now. But so are stockings.
- There are the four Christmas ages of Man:

"Il y a quatre âges dans la vie de l'homme:  celui où il croit au Père Noël; celui où il ne croit plus au Père Noël; celui où il est le Père Noël; celui où il ressemble au Père Noël."

(The age when he believes in Santa, the age when he no longer believes in Santa, the age when he plays Santa and the age when he looks like Santa.)

- How about a quote from French author Pierre Jakez Hélias, who is a native of Brittany, the nose of France pointing out into the Atlantic, a land filled with legends dating back to times when the only warmth in a home came from the fireplace. A fresh fire was lit after Midnight mass and letting it go out was bad luck.

"Quand on laisse mourir le feu de Noël, il n'y a plus qu'un moyen de le rallumer. c'est d'aller chercher le feu des étoiles." 

(If you let the Christmas fire die,

the only way to light it again is to go seek the fire of the stars.)

- And one last Christmas reference, just for the fun of it. It always makes me laugh because it mocks all those two-line bits of folk wisdom you’ll find in the farmer’s almanach:

Froid en novembre, Noël en décembre.

If it’s cold in November, Christmas will come in December.

 

So Merry Christmas to you all. I hope Santa finds your clog.

Recipe of the Month: Coq au vin

Christmas is a festive time. And you don’t always have to eat turkey, especially if you just had it at Thanksgiving. There are other poultry dishes that are equally delicious. For instance, the humble chicken - and even the stewing kind that you have to cook a long time - can become a delicious feast.

     Once upon a time, I was enamored of a French aeronautics engineering student. And he was making "come away with me to the Casbah" noises. His particular Casbah was in the mountainous département of Corrèze in the center of France. He was homesick. And I knew how to "cook French". So he asked his mother for her recipe for coq au vin, cock in wine sauce (and please, no sniggering). Actually, the recipe came from a restaurant his family went to often. The chef gave it to her, but asked that I be sworn to secrecy, promising never to divulge the recipe.
     As that was almost half a century ago and the chef probably doesn’t have the restaurant any more (or may even have shuffled off her mortal coil), I feel free to print it here. But if you ever go to Corrèze, please don’t tell anyone where you got it.
     Most coq au vin recipes I’ve seen, including Julia Child’s, list fresh sautéed mushrooms, braised pearl onions and diced thick-cut browned bacon among the ingredients. You can do that if you like, cooking them separately from the chicken and adding them in at the end, when you’re ready to serve it up. But I’m giving the recipe as the restaurant owner passed it on to me.

(P.S. I did go away with him to the Casbah, or rather sail one month later on a different crossing of the oceanliner Le France, but he’d already reconverted his life to French ways and no longer had a yen for Things American. After a suitable mourning period, I got on with my life. I hope he got on with his. At least I got a great recipe out of it.)

 

• one stewing chicken (or alternatively, a roaster), cut up into pieces
• 2 T butter
• 1 T peanut oil
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 3 T flour
• 1 bottle (75 cl) of good red wine, preferably full-bodied
• 75 cl of brown stock, preferably veal
• salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1 large sprig of fresh thyme (or 1/4 t dried)
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cloves
• 3-4 garlic cloves, crushed
• ½ c of port wine
• 1/4 cup of blood (or cornstarch as needed to thicken)
• 1 T crème fraîche (or sour cream) (optional)
• 1 slice of foie gras (optional)

- In a Dutch oven or other heavy pot, melt the butter with the oil added in to keep the butter from turning dark. Salt and pepper the chicken pieces and then sauté them until they’re golden brown on all sides. Set them aside on a platter.

- In the same butter-and-oil, add the carrots and onions. Cook until the onions are golden, then add the flour, stir and cook for 5 minutes. Pour in the wine and the brown stock. Bring to a boil as you whisk. Add the nutmeg, as well as more salt and pepper, to taste.

- Put the chicken pieces back in the pot, along with the thyme, bay leaf, cloves and garlic. Add in the port. Simmer 40-60 min, or until the chicken is tender. Cooking time will vary with the age of the chicken.

- Remove the chicken and keep it warm in the serving bowl. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, pressing the vegetables to extract all their juices. Put the sauce back on the burner and add the blood (or cornstarch), whisking energetically. (If you’re using cornstarch, first dilute 1 T in 2 T warm water to avoid lumps.) Bring the sauce back to a boil.

- Remove from the burner and whisk in the crème fraîche. Then add the foie gras cut into small pieces and whisk until totally dissolved.

- Pour the sauce over the chicken, decorate with parsley and serve immediately.

Serve with something (s)mashed/pureed: potatoes, chesnuts, celeryroot, carrots, any/all of the above. Accompany with a young, full-bodied burgundy, beaujolais or côtes du rhône.

N.B. I know there’s some discussion about foie gras, so if you’re violently opposed to it, you can leave it out. But it does add another rich layer of taste to this dish.

And obviously, unless you live out in the country near a pig or cattle farm, you won’t be getting fresh pig’s or calf’s blood. Even in Paris, that might be a problem. As blood doesn’t come packaged industrially, just leave it out. What it does is to thicken the sauce. So you can either reduce the sauce or add just a bit of cornstarch. It needs to end up thick enough to coat the back of a spoon lightly.