One Vegan, One Fromagette, 4 Cupcakes ....

Paris has many delights. None of them involve cupcakes. We can all list the many reasons that cupcakes trump eclairs and macarons and even a Paris Brest, but for me, the main attraction is the icing. And so, with four days in New York and endless opportunities, Emily and I tasted four different vanilla cupcakes.

Babycakes. I was intrigued by gluten-free, sugar-free, etc. cupcakes. Having spent weeks and months overthree years avoiding food allergens, I am all about a place where you can get your cupcake on without stomach pain. I'm generally glad that I'm not allergic to aforementioned goodies because although the texture of the vanilla cupcake was amazing for a vegan one, I was disappointed with the flavor. I think that the other flavors (lemon, carrot cake) would've been better, but when I asked for the best one, that's what she gave me (the service was not the best there). A for accessibility, C for flavor.

Crumb. Emily and I embarked on a Sunday of cupcake fervor that started at Crumb. We were initially drawn in by their warm, sweet, cup-cakey air but when we saw behind the glass mounds of candied cupcakes, we weren't so sure. (Service aside: the guy was so taken with Emily, he could barely take my order) We did not have any desire for Reese's or Oreo and were glad to stuff large puffs of vanilla cake and cream in our mouths. Until we both began to chew and felt that sickly tannin-y taste on the back of our teeth, like the cupcake was from Safeway, but cost 10x as much. We put the other half back in the bag and two blocks later we dropped it in the trash. C.

Buttercup. More optimistic a few blocks over, we were welcomed by friendly ladies and a more chill, small-town bakery vibe. Despite bowls of flourescent icing hanging out catching the breeze, it seemed like a nice place to be (we tried to sit, but there wasn't room). This vanilla beauty had blue icing, but tasted really great - nice fat crumb and that buttercream sweetness that keeps you from eating too much but also calls you back again and again. There was still a depth of flavor that Teacakes gets in their icing that was missing, so I gave it a B+. (Emily was happy to finish it .)

Magnolia. Hopes were as high as the line was long. I spilled a large bottle of Smartwater on the floor while I held our seats and then cleaned up an end of a table for us to spread out our cakes and 2008 goals only to relinquish it to a trio who discussed cancer tests. Emily returned with two beautiful cakes (pictured above) and two teas and yes, Magnolia was the best by far. The cake was vanilla-y and even though it's crumb was smaller, I preferred it as such (Emily preferred the larger crumb) and the frosting was as close to Teacakes as I have gotten: sweet, vanilla-tinged, and leaving you wanting more (although I actually couldn't finish it). Pink is from red and no it's not a natural color, but it appealed to my aesthetic more than blue. A-

Grilled Cheese and other NYC delights ...

My homesickness renders me more American than I had ever imagined and a cafe lunch of grilled cheese (cheddar) on rye with dill pickles and chips becomes homage to a life that I've missed. Ethiopian food exceeds my expectations with red lentils so spicy and distinct in their cinnamon flavor that Emily and I are in love with Zoma forever. An after dinner trip to a store called Organic Forever and my bag is filled with snacks of dried cranberry trail mix, small boxes of soy milk. fruit leathers, my dearly missed Barbara and her Shredded Spoonfuls, and Dr. Brommer's galore.

New York was a whirlwind of root beer and soy bacon cheeseburgers, of kukicha tea and endless cups of green carried down the street just because I could. Enormous Whole Foods and fingers trailing along the Dagoba bars for my two favorites knowing that these are nothing compared to what I can get in Paris, but buying Lavendar and Roseberry anyway. Tiny bagels with guar gum filled Philadelphia and a fat cinnamon-raisin one with a cup of Chai in a cafe that stinks of coffee beans and Sunday mornings and the Times in my hand and it could beat out a Sunday walking along the Seine.

And there was Mexican - huevos rancheros in the West Village at a tiny cafe that Sara seemed to pull out of pocket, enchiladas with mole and salsa verde after a basket of chips with salsa as orange as queso fundito if it were made of Velveeta and guacamole at our table. At Zabar's, I bypass refried beans to stick Vermont Cabot Cheddar and peanut butter in my bag.

I return with a larger suitcase after breaking the small one and filling my bags with more sweatshop filled clothing than I imagined from Old Navy and Urban Outfitters, no yoga mat, and piles of magazines. I have no idea how my job interview went, it was as rigorous as I could have imagined and tiring and led me to some of the best homemade mozzerella west of Italy, but I feel lucky to have gone and seen friends and embraced consumerism and follow election coverage in real time. I find out on Friday how it went.

New York here I come ....

List of things to get in New York:

• dried chiles for mole


• some jack/Asadero if I can sneak it in my bag


• chili pepper


• Trader Joe's snacks


• Dr. Brommer's soap free of all preservatives coating me in French cleanliness


• Tom's of Maine Peppermint Toothpaste


• generic Claritin, a fat bottle of Advil, and contact solution that doesn't cost $25


• yoga mat (not an 'exercise' mat 1" thick)


• clothes that were probably made in a sweatshop (children, I'm very, very sorry)


• upscale Mexican in the style of my most favorite Tacubaya (Berkeley)


• aged Vermont cheddar


• a cupcake


• a cup of tea with Emily, with Kristen, and with Sara


• a job?

NB: I am finally legal to visit France for a year! Last Friday we went to the prefecture to see if it were possible for me to travel to NY on my non-official carte de sejour and five minutes of a woman gossiping to Liam about how hard her job has gotten as a public servant since 1979 later and the laminated goodness which probably cost us, in total, close to $1000, was in my hands. Vive la France!

45 hours in Bucharest

Monica is the Romanian mother I never had. We arrived in Bucharest to a snack that was essentially what you see here - salade russe, roasted red peppers, smoky eggplant and onion, and a selection of cheeses - and that was just to hold us over until our dinner reservation.

Monica cooks the best food I've had in a long, long time. When I asked her, over a vegetable borscht (some kind of fermented base in there that makes it look like minestrone but taste like it could win a revolution against a communist regime...), what was Romanian and what wasn't, she looked at me a little crazy, kind of like - enjoy your food and stop asking questions, when meanwhile, I was scheming to figure out how I do research and make this stuff at home. I just don't have enough Balkanic Food knowledge to know exactly what to do to "put the fish eggs in a bowl, add some oil, and mix ..." (like aioli, but how many eggs?) or "put the mushrooms in a pot and boil.... mix cream and flour ... mix."

It's like saying French baguettes are just some flour, starter, water and let it rise before you bake it.

We went to the market there, and after scoping out piles of fresh horseradish next to pickled, and trios of hot peppers laid out on plywood across milk crates, we stepped into the cheese market: to my untrained eye it looked like 10 kinds of feta in a row sold by men in white coats wearing little felted black hats - but having tried these the day before I knew some where salty, others sweet, some stunk of barnyardy sheep goodness and others a crisp goat tang.

My most favorite was this dish that started with 7 kilos of fresh farm cheese (we went to another part of the city to pick it up from her friend) that Liam's dad whipped with some salt, and we then spread on toast. 120% fat cream cheese au naturel. Incredible.

While I work on Monica to open a restaurant (I thought Paris, New York or Oakland), I am on a search for how to do this at home. It might be dangerous - we eat enough here already!

Cookbooks Abroad

I paid to join the American Library in Paris this past fall, 60 euros with a 65 euro deposit, for 6 months because I wanted access to cookbooks. I miss my cookbook club. I love Madhur but needed more. My parents hadn't arrived from the US yet with Bittman's How To Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Yesterday, I picked up Joyce Goldstein's Taverna to join my cookbook club from afar, and for the second time, I saw that my cookbook was donated by Patrcia Wells. I then started down a curious path of neurosis - did Patricia Wells just donate all of her old cookbooks or did she hand pick these? The thing is, the Batali one that I picked up that was donated by her as well felt like at B-cookbook. No offense to these authors, but why are these the only cookbooks they have in the ALP and why are they all donated by Mdme Wells?

And why am I, owner of just two cookbooks here, complaining?

I'm not. Just wondering if she's going to clear her shelves off again before I leave Paris?

For some reason, they always give me hot peppers for free.

Empowered by the opportunity to choose my own onions

at a prior stand, I walked over and pinched a haricorts vert to see if it was fresh. When the vendor turned around and saw me, I quickly pulled my hand back. He laughed and encouraged me to touch, in fact, picked up a bean and held it out to me to squeeze. Before this story sounds too dirty, here's the rest, in French, translated here for your reading pleasure:

"You can touch!"

"It's good. It's OK. 500 grams please."

"500 grams. Of course."

"3 Tomatoes?"

"3 tomatoes? Sure - you can go choose them yourself over there."

"Yeah"

I return with 3 tomatoes and 3 slim, lime green hot peppers to roast for Turkish dinner I'm making tomorrow night.

"you have your tomatoes! and these peppers? They are spicy! "

"It's good"

""Ah, for you? They are a gift!""

(and in English) "Do you speak English?"

(Eng) "yes"

(Eng) " of course you do!"

"Thank you"

"1.80"

"It's good. Thank you."

(Eng) "thank you!"

C'est pas grave

That's how it is with the Army too - the European army? We talk first. The American army - just - pow!

It was at this point in the conversation where I began to wonder exactly if this man was a doctor. I was at the place that you go to when you need to have your lungs x-rayed to get your carte de sejour, the place you go to when you have everything: 275 euros in small fiscal stamps that you lick and adhere to a xeroxed paper, a US passport, Version II of a paper carte de sejour, and now, soon, x-ray of my lungs the size of an artist's canvas.

As I'm floundering for words that I don't know in French: breast, breast lump, lumpectomy, self-exam, needle aspiration, benign, two things are happening simultaneously - the doctor is getting incredibly animated and I'm slowly sinking into my seat remembering too late that another friend said to just answer straight up yes/no to these questions.

This doctor, or so I hoped, then began his theories for me.

The French? They would never take out a breast lump of an 18 year old. The Americans? Ready to cut and charge money.

The French? They would go in through ... (small circular motion here, over, you know ... my American prudishness is taking over but if you, dear reader, were in front of me, this would be a very entertaining part of the re-telling). The Americans? They leave a scar!

The French? Ready to talk on a battlefield. The Americans? Pow.

His ability to create a metaphor for each country's approach to war based on my story of a breast lumpectomy was slightly amazing.

I leave this lecturer ready to pick up my laminated carte de sejour, the item that will let me know I'm legit, only to stand there, talking to a guy 10 years younger than me wearing a soccer jersey that looks like he accidentally bleached over his heart while cleaning his socks. Only to listen to this guy tell me, in four more French sentences than I can understand, c'est pas grave ... and then something about the fabrication. It's not ready. Come back in two weeks. Or three. Well, just two. C'est pas grave (=not a big deal)

So here I am, thinking, c'est TRES grave! and hoping that next week they let me in and out of the US when I fly to NY and then leave to find at the fromager this teeny tiny chevre covered in rose and I thought, c'est pas grave, I'm here. I'm eating cheese. It will be fabricated. Until it is, it's a darn good story in person. I swear.

Comfort Food: another installment

Do my friends in the US think I walk around all day bopping from Louvre to Eiffel Tower to a hidden chocolatier and thus think I don't have time to talk/read email/receive postcards? Do our new friends here think it's weird that they said 8:30pm and we rolled in at 900 in what I originally intended an attempt to be cool but soon resulted in a late arrival? Will the sun ever rise in Paris before 11am? Is it always gray in Paris 93% of the day? Did the guy at the market take me in for another beating or did he really think that the browned, mushy, mealy, squishy apples were for eating?

I listened to This American Life's "Americans in Paris" show for the first time since I've been here, and couldn't help but relate (= cry, I'll admit it) at the part where Ira Glass is amazed that David Sedaris' day is determined by going places where he feels more or less humiliated.

Saying c'est moi at H&M when you've had to leave some items with the attendant, pointing at an envelope at the stationary store and stumbling through an ummm... oui oui when really you want to say oh, I just need an envelope for the big card, thanks, not the post cards, asking vous-acceptez les cheques de restaurant? at the Pompidou Cafe and then having the guy answer in English, all of this adds up to empathy Ira, empathy - maybe you should move here for a few months?

And so, when the neuroses take up more space in your brain than the part that's curious about the books of Paris or Courbet's history or Germany: The Dark Years, and you find yourself talking back to NPR hosts, it's time for some comfort food. Lately, as I sit in my apartment worrying more than a junior high student on the first day of school, doing my part time job and scheduling an afternoon of events that doesn't have me ping-ponging between feeling shitty and shittier, I bake myself up an egg.

Fresh, French farm egg. Covered in 'bloom.' Creme underneath, egg on top, parmigiano-reggiano to top it off, baked for 12 minutes (thank you, dear Bittman). Butter up some fresh baguette and scoop it up and remember this is probably the kind of thing your friends back home are jealous of to begin with.

DIY Spice Mixtures

I've been reading about bloggers make tea infusions and listening to cookbook authors chat about their quick chutneys so I found myself coming home from Velan weighed down with everything from amchoor to cinnamon to sumac and wondering what to do with it all and how I could be expanding the choices of my small-fridge French life.

Both of the cookbooks on my shelf offered lots of ideas. The amchoor in particular I picked up after reading Bittman rave about it one chaat masala addition after another. So that's what I made first (pictured far left) - a mixture that he assures me will do its duty on everything from paneer to pita to rice. Then, as I added to my list of spices to pick up when I'm in NY next month, I thought it best to make something from a different part of the world and whipped up a batch of heavy-on-the-chipotle chili powder. Both Bittman and Jaffrey extol the complexities of Za'atar, the Turkish mix of sumac, sesame and thyme that I think was on each of the puffed breads we had in Istanbul, so when I fill up my sesame stash, I will make this too.

I am limited here without my trusty spice grinder or mortar/pestle, but I do have the item you can see on the far right - a Turkish spice grinder. I admired one when we were at the Spice Market but left the idea alone since I felt so overwhelmed. Then, with 13 Turkish Lira burning holes in our pockets, we went to the Grand Bazaar of Ataturk Istanbul Airport and lo and behold, for 13 YTL, a gleaming spice grinder.

I didn't have hopes for an airport purchase, and I didn't quite understand how it exactly worked (I was waiting for the whole coriander for the chaat masala to come out of the bottom like a pepper grinder, but this device only has one place to put it in and take it out), but it seems to be holding up just fine - not in a fine grinding sort of way, but in a great look-what-I-bought-on-vacation-that's-useful-way.

Now I just need to make some paneer, or pita, or just bake up a potato and transform it, this is the promise Bittman has made to us (vegetarians). I'll report.

Galette des Rois

I have been the king, nay, queen, three times in just as many days.

How can you not love a cake that is traditionally buttery, filled with frangipaine, and hiding the feve (literally bean, here, a charm that's in the cake), and comes with a paper crown classier than any BK biddy dare wear?

And for three days, I have gotten the feve, meaning, I get to parade around in the crown and fell a general sense of superiority.

I'm going to start a feve collection. Tres francais a friend says. Even though the Epiphany, the 12th Night has come and gone, I can eat this galette through the end of the month. Wish me almonds, and tell me to write down all my goals for 2008 while the future looks so golden.

Istanbul Food Tour: Snacks

Settling back into life in Paris, cakes to celebrate the Epiphany and the first day of winter sales in France all around, and I am still thinking about the snacks in Turkey.*

My Top 5 Turkish Snacks

5. Salep: If atole dropped the corn, procreated with cream of wheat, dabbled in a bit of horchata, and blended itself into silky latte smoothness, it would be salep. Named after the orchid root used to flavor it (the name is because it resembles fox testicles, check here if you want to know more), it's hot milk sweetened and mixed with this root powder and covered in cinnamon. If you're crossing the Gallatta Bridge and it's near-freezing out and wet, wet snow is covering your nearly impractical hat, it's the perfect thing to slurp on as you walk up the hill to Istikal Caddesi.

4. Simit: Like a bagel ring, but softer, and covered in sesame seeds that are toasty and yummy even if you hate sesame bagels. Sweetened with grape syrup. Sold in carts and on heads (why didn't I take a picture?) I like mine for breakfast with salty goat cheese and some halvah. And cay. (Thanks to Janet for sending me this picture!)

3. Cay: I have a certain reverence for tea-based cultures, and a certain disdain for those that aren't. While my ancestors quickly dumped the goods in the harbor, Turkish people have been drinking this stuff for centuries. I don't usually take sugar in my tea, but I did here. The cups can seduce you immediately and the stuff is so ubiquitous that you could leave Turkey a tea-drinker even if you didn't care for it upon arrival.

2. Lokum: Who didn't wonder about Turkish Delight after reading about it in the Narnia books? Who didn't immediately despise it after tasting it once, wrapped in aluminum, on the 1/8 of a shelf of British imports at their gourmet grocery? Who wouldn't then fall head-over-pistachios-in-love-with-it at Istanbul's spice bazaar?

1. Halvah: I have never liked halvah, even after reading a fascinating story once in the NY Times about eating it for Passover and there being, I don't know, I want to say one producer in all of NYC, or maybe even the US, but come on - halvah has never kept anyone from yearning for a chocolate bar.

Then I had the halvah at our breakfast buffet.

Like all things in this world, one goes to a country of origin and realizes "hey, there is more than one type of halvah!" The one pictured below to the right is probably at fault for the weight I gained in Istanbul - it crunched like a Butterfinger, called out to the smoky sesame-memory of all halvah that came before it, and ended with a blissfully light crunch of sweet and pistachio. The chocolate one didn't do it for me (on the left), but the other one? 8 pieces at Sunday's breakfast, and an actual sinking of disappointment the day before when there was none left. I might have to make a Parisian quest for it.

*It's a law here that they can only have sales twice a year when the government says - it's to make sure that small businesses don't get pushed out of business but mostly it looks like last year's stuff on racks and people bustling about like the Friday after Thanksgiving in the U.S. Since I still don't have my luggage, I bought myself another pair of boots today since 2/4 pairs of pants and my only boots are sitting in a luggage pile somewhere between here and Ataturk International Airport.

Istanbul Food Tour: Asitane

My piddly pipe dreams were realized at Asitane lunch: was it the request to borrow a pen (it was Liam who asked!)? The pictures of each course I tried to sneak? The way we ordered what were certainly the best dishes to order ...? I don't know what it was, and don't start to tell me it was for everyone - a girl can dream - but when the waiter brought me a comment card AND a little gift of orange jam, I thought yes indeed he thinks I'm a real food writer! Liam encouraged me to sign the comment card la fromagette, but I chose to play it coy and write, with as much professionalism as I could feign, "I look forward to sharing the details of our great meal with others."

I had thought that Ciya would be our best meal, but when we entered into this Ottoman restaurant with recipes over 500 years old (described in Lonely Planet as "Ottoman dishes devised for the 16th-century royal circumcision feast"), I knew this was going to be the best yet. I committed to ordering only dishes with an asterisk, indicating actual historical recipes (I don't know where the others came from, but they weren't Kool-Aid, so who knows). First off, a white bean spread with cinnamon slathered onto sesasme-spiced-warm-dinner rolls, sublimely creamy, light, fragrant and sweet. Accompanying this, I ordered root spinach with olive oil that was cooked to falling apart, slightly vinegared, some soft carrots in there and finished with olive oil. Liam ordered a warm Circassian cheese with mushrooms that tasted like smoked Gouda with the texture of feta and was too strong for me.

We both went old-school with our mains - Liam's lamb diced, melted in earthenware with dates, figs and apricots ("sweet main course OK?" the waiter confirmed after Liam went to this after his first choice wasn't available). I had Restiyye "homemade vermicelli with cheese, parsley and walnuts." Mine won - although together it was like a Sultan's variation on Swedish meatballs with egg noodles - like a pared-down kugel, sweet, light home-made egg noodles with cheese with the salt of feta and umami of Parmesan on top, with, of course, parsley and walnuts (and some chili - how we've missed thee!).

Although we were too full to finish our mains, I could not pass up Ottoman dessert. I asked the waiter to recommend between Quince Delight ("quince in syrup") and "pumpkin and fig delight with clotted cream" and he suggested the latter. Like our dessert plate from Ciya, they both seemed preserved in syrup (oh the research to do) - the pumpkin much softer ("more pumpkin-y" remarked Liam) than last night's and the fig ... like a Fig Newton (damn us Americans with our lack of any other fig reference) of the sweetest softest case, the texture going to liquid gold when you might expect grit, topped off with pure butter cream - another dessert to pass up an eclair for (see picture below)

NB: Due to my desire to return home with the orange jam, we checked the baggage. As it stands, I have yet to see the baggage due to a snowstorm in the Czech Republic, a variety of long lines, and general slowness at Air France. I'm not sure now that it was worth it. I'll report.

Istanbul Food Tour: Ciya

The New York Times warned us to bring a Turkish friend since there's no English menu, so we memorized a few names and double-checked that the Ciya at number 43 was the correct address.

Lots got lost in translation.

Is it better to re-tell how we saw it? To quote? Or, rather, to imagine what the staff there was thinking when we forged our ways in the uncharted silver urns of Anatolian cuisine?

All of the above.

"Self-service" they informed us several times, so up we went to the dishes of warm starters. We eyed a greens dish, one with browned onions, the other with red pepper. Pointed at both. Both? he questioned with a quizzical eye turned toward us and another toward the server. Waiter pointed, seemed to confirm both, said something about pilaf and after we agreed to yogurt sauce, I grabbed the dishes. Eyes raise, again. This time to the woman across the way. Grabbing the damn dishes, carrying themselves... she seemed to sigh. Frowns all around. Back to our seats.

Two plates of dark greens and all we can do is moan that this is like Chez Panisse in Istanbul visiting an ancient cousin. Onions caramelized to sweetness and browned for depth, greens "cooked to perfection" (is there a better way to describe when greens are cooked well?) The yogurt sauce the first I've tasted this good since the days of Zia's Cafe in San Diego (known prior to 9/11 as Zia's Afghan Cafe).

As I'm pondering the benefits of well-cooked greens, Liam is braving the self-service cold salads. Suddenly, an English-speaking staff member appears. Dolmas, meatballs, some dips on his plate when he returns (plate delivered by staff). I'm not sure if I can explain this in English without the name of the dish or lacking the knowledge of Paula Wolfert, but one was an eggplant so snowy white and smoky that it shimmered like the snow atop the minarets. The other I can only say was nut, kind of spicy, and so good you didn't want to ruin it with bread. Dolmas were thin cigarettes of rice and sweet, not chewy like the ones I usually have - in this country they have displays of "vine leaves" with the variety of a fromagerie.

"Do you have dessert?" Liam asks our original server, who nods, and then proceeds to the back of the restaurant to repeat to the English-speaking staff the word "dessert." We are guided to the street-facing window where trays of iridescent fruits await us - except they are not all fruits and I'm not even sure how these sweets are made (I have a list of research days long about Turkish food that is not easily done with a few Google hits on 'Turkish sweets'). "pumpkin" he says pointing at huge orange hunks that look jellied, "tomato" at another, drier, mauve slab. "No olive," I say, pointing at the large black forms in front of me. "Walnut" sighs the woman behind me, and so, I pointed to one of most (pictured below).

How quickly I am smitten. It doesn't take much to lure me with pumpkin, but this was slivered and shivered in your mouth with a crackle of sweetness. The walnut was by far our favorite, black like it came from an olive can and sliced at the top as though it hid pimentos, but when you cut into it it had the star shape of walnut skin and layers of meat inside with the faint taste of wine or sherry and slathered in a butter cream that erased all of my neurotic, self-conscious memories of nods meaning no and questions equaling statements and a general throwing-up-of-hands of understood self-service dining norms on both ends.

While we ate, surrounded by write-ups in Food and Wine, Saveur, New York Times (these are just the ones in English that I recognized), I wondered how others fared here, and curiously, why this wasn't in any guidebook. It was despairingly hard to find - a "quick boat-ride to Asia" sounds romantic and easy enough, but we walked around for nearly an hour with no map and a simple wish, asking a taxi driver, simit vendor, and tchochke kiosk before we got directions to led us to the market street that led us there. These desserts though, almost enough to make a gal forget buche de noel and macarons.

Top 10 Food Intentions for 2008

10. Cook salsify.

9. Know my French cheeses, from the standards (like a properly ripened Brie and Camembert) to the only-in-France (raw milk please!) to cheeses I could never find in the U.S and return saying, "ahhh, if only I could get that ____ like we had in Paris....."

8. Know my oysters, not just #5s. And my scallops, mussels and other things that scare me just slightly enough to interest me at the fish market.

7. Back to the Basics: without the support of Bittman or Waters, be able to choose the vegetables and cook perfectly because I know waxy from starchy potatoes off the top of my head as well as I know when paratha dough is ready or remember when to braise or roast a turnip in the same way I can tell when the asafetida has been in the pan long enough.

6. Stuffed fish: purchase whole, bone, stuff, bake, eat. (Ask Liam's mom again for the recipe for dorade)

5. Nurse my vinegar mother.

4. Teach myself to enjoy salade at home - homemade vinagraite with my homemade vinegar, washing and drying the greens well, eating all the ones that look gorgeous at the market and buying so little that I wish I had more, not 500 grams and a frown from the older woman helping me and ignorant pride walking me home with so much salad I can't even get rid of it at a 20 person Christmas party.

3. Eat more confiture with my toast.

2. Take advantage of my close proximity to the beautifully colonial Mariage Freres and educate myself on the differences betweens Ceylan, Darjeeling, Assam and the others whose names I don't even know yet.

1. Have lunch at L'Arpege

Bonne Annee!

{Istanbul updates next week}

Best Eats of 2007

No, I didn't have the cajones to take pictures at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon or La Gazzetta, but in reflecting on the best eats of the last year, I am surely waxing poetic about the treats I miss in the Bay, and so I start with Teacakes, the best cupcakes that have existed on this wide earth since the beginning of time. I've inquired about the ingredients in the vanilla/vanilla, even hinted at food allergies to see if they'd give it up, but I guess they're setting the record straight in saying it really is just the best vanilla, butter, milk and the seemingly gargantuan proportions of each that make those pictured to the left one of the few sweets that could take a girl's mind off of Pierre Hermes macarons.



2007 was a good year - lots of Cheese Club and Dinner Club gatherings (What I'll Miss When I Move Abroad still sits in my mind as one of the year's best potlucks with bagels/cream cheese/lox, macaroni and cheese, cheesy grits, spicy corn sautee, and peanut butter cookies with chocolate chunks), and of course Cookbook Club where we conquered everyone from Patricia Wells (I haven't yet had madeleines that are as good as the ones I made from her cookbook with Robuchon) to Penelope Casas (honey-fried tuna is a must) to Madhur Jaffrey.



I could recount in great detail the dinners from Dopo this past year - a highlight being the truffle dinner they had early last year where I think we ate something that also involved lobster and every single appetizer that they've ever laid before me - is it wrong to say "I'll have another?" We had some fabulous meals upstairs at Chez Panisse - one being this raw hamachi and ginger starter that I had that words fail me on since I cannot describe the texture of the hamachi in any way except to say you cannot imagine it unless you have it. Add to that the 'fish and chips' we had there on my birthday last year and those might be some of my best fish meals of the year - except, of course, the brief weekend in New York where I had the most incredible tuna with shiso and blood orange so incredible that I laughed at eating at a place that says straight up, "we do not serve vegetarian items" momofuku noodle bar .



A good nine months was clearly eclipsed by the move abroad, and here my daily bests are from boulangeries, and I have chronicled all that in much detail. Our meal at Hidden Kitchen, was, of course, one of the best of the year for many reasons - good company, great pozole, cider amuse bouche, who could ask for more? With my parents in town at the beginning of the month, we definitely had a string of fantastic starters like roasted beet salad (I'm ignoring the chicken bones tossed inside) at Mon Vieil Ami and then two egg dishes to end all egg dishes: what was called, I think, just l'oeuf at Robuchon (picture: martini glass, cream, egg, all whipped into a fine yumminess, foamy... you know, I have absolutely no memory of what was in it, but it was amazing) and another egg at La Gazzetta, this one poached in a bouillon of what is translated as chocolate bread, and served with buttery bread crumbs and greens. Re-telling on blog? Not so good. Actual taste? Incredible. There were great entrees - my mackerel at La Gazzetta was one of the best I've ever had, and fantastic desserts too - the savory kind that I like: clementines three ways at Mon Vieil Ami (one way with, yes, Pop Rocks atop sorbet - they had me when it first went pop), a cinnamon tart to end the reign of any other tart at Robuchon, mozzarella meringue at Gazzetta, and my mom made the best choices: souffles at two meals, one pistachio, the other vanilla with spiced pears and sorbet au lait.

Tonight we're headed out for our first Moroccan since we've been here, and I just invested a small fortune in brown sugar and molasses to make some New Year's gingerbread, but I do have a craving for all things unavailable right now, including poori at Vik's , camote and frijoles con todo from Tacubaya and even Fenton's caramel sauce. I suppose though, that if we grab a half dozen oysters at La Baron Rouge tomorrow while at the market and drink a glass of muscat with them, I just might start to forget that there could be anything else great to eat in this world. Happy almost new year.

Baker's Lament

Perfectionism is not something I'm known for, but I do like to do a pretty good job. More specifically, when I make food, I want people to say it's the best darn _____ they ever had. Not perfection, just high expectations. Last night I had such a struggle that I'm ready to air my dirty pans.

Situation: Christmas Party.

Idea: Make Dorrie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies. Chocolate and salt and sable sounded perfect.

Problems = my World Peace Cookies were, I tempted to trot out the triteness, Armaggedon. Bombings. Nothing full of Noel cheer. They were sandy to the point of straight up sand. Beautifully dark and deceivingly messy cocoa infused sand that left streaks on my white countersinkfloorfridge. I pushed clumps together to save the dough, and my pending reputation at the party. There was a brief period of hope when they spread out on the slices of parchment I had laid out (running low on the goods this week) and looked like those double-chocolate cookies that have white chocolate chunks from CostCo, but when they came out, fat chunks of chocolate sandwiched between (couldn't resist) were no good. Like eating a melted Hershey's Special Dark at the beach in between crumbled up oreos left at the bottom mixed with sand.

And so, I went on a trusted journey from Egrement Elementary School Cookbook (published in Pittsfield, MA, c. 1985) to Lemon Bars. Done (I thought). Extra lemon rind in the curd and the shortbread crust looked toasty and I had made these just a few weeks ago for Dinner Club and so how stunned was I to take them out and find a yellow mush of beautifully colored bar (the yolks here!). Liam tasted one, and challenged to be truthful said, "I think they're mushy." I asked, "if you were at a party would you have a second one even though you might find them mushy?" He couldn't answer in the affirmative, but attempted to defend himself saying he's used to the high quality of my usual bars. I don't these people that well, I added, so I'm not bringing something that's not the best of what I have to offer.

On the way out the door, I tried another WPC, only to find that the skinniest ones, at room temperature, betrayed their true goodness: sandy and toasted cocoa, melting dark chunks, sparks of salt.

There were only four that looked like this on the cookie pan.

We went to the party with a 4-piece chocolate box from a new boulangerie/patisserie across the street, praying they were decent, and walked in to see that someone brought the equivalent of a pound box of fantastic, small chocolatier, seasonally themed chocolates that I promptly ate three of, encouraging the host to hide our piddly box in the corner.

Strangely enough, today in the chill of our December Parisian studio, the shortbread thickened up a bit and the rest of the WPC dough awaits a slighter squishing together for Tuesday - they might just be OK afterall.

Cheese-Tasting Tour

With all the Cheese Clubs, Cookbook Clubs, patisserie tastings, and buche de noel comparisons, I thought it was time to learn some more about French cheese. Given the generosity of Books for Cooks East Bay, I had a gift certificate to Come to Paris which has a listing of some food-related tours. I will admit, I was Skeptical, unsure of what 'my money' would get me, and I had been many times already to the Marche D'Aligre, but I do want to know more about cheese, so I chose one devoted to cheese tasting, and quickly realized how wrong I was.

Now, I'll spout my compliments on the website so that Claude gets her due, but she was awesome. First of all, the other two people on the tour were her parents, in for town from Ottawa for the holidays, and they were such fun! Then, despite the fact that the owner of the cheese shop wasn't there (he picks up cheese on Wednesdays), and the new person who helped us wasn't as gushing as I take it Jerome usually is, Claude walked us through a reminder of the seven types of cheese and we tasted a few to compare: Comte 15 mos and one much older (maybe 24?), the one that's washed in walnut liqueur from the place that begins with an E (why didn't I take notes?), a nice pressed goat and another cow made in an Abbey, similar to Reblochon. The fromager told us the most popular cheeses sold (Reblochon, Camembert, Comte, Roquefert) and we walked out with a few more stories under our belt {tip: to sound like a connoisseur when ordering cheese in a restaurant, and you see Livarot, ask for le colonel, in reference to the four stripes of leaf on its side}.

We then went on to Le Baron Rouge, a wine bar I had heard much about but never gone to where the wine comes out of barrels straight into an unmarked, be-starred green glass bottle with many bio options. Off to the organic boulangerie for a crusty baguette and back to Claude's fabulous loft to make a three course cheese lunch. I was in I'm-so-glad-I-don't-really-work-and-can-do-this heaven.

We started with a fresh goat cheese mixed with herbs from Claude's balcony and layered with a quick sun-dried tomato mixture that went into the broiler and came out melting. In the meantime, we were prepping the components of blue cheese souffles with red pepper compote - slicing the red peppers, separating the eggs, buttering the ramekins. I will admit publicly - I have on my list of things to accomplish before 2008 (yup, there's a rouge list on the bathroom mirror) to make a souffle - and here I was doing this twice-baked easy recipe. Before we even dug into these melted creations, we sampled some banon (wrapped in chestnut leaves) and a gorgeously triple-cremed saint felicien. (I was partial to the latter, still trying to fight the fact that I prefer less strong cheese, although I fully appreciate both).

To finish, Claude had prepared some coeurs a la creme with raspberry confiture that were so good I had to put my spoon down half-way through to not beat everyone to the cleanest plate. I have always wanted to make these as well - so off I will go this week to buy the porcelain needed to do so.

And yet, I'm saving the best for last - next to our egg cups filled with goat cheese and sun dried tomato paste, we had a beautiful salad dressed in Claude's own vinaigrette, and when I say 'own vinaigrette' I am saying her own vinegar. I knew it was fairly easy to start your own 'mother', but I just had never done it, so how thrilled am I to be staring at my own hefty half jam jar filled with a piece of the thing! Off I'll go this week to find the exact stoneware container one needs to let it breathe and grow, but I was so excited to walk home through the Viaduct des Arts with the mother in my purse! I love her already.

Buche de Noel

When I was younger, Betsey always had a Buche de Noel at Christmas Dinner. I never liked it that much, but what I adored were the meringue mushrooms on top - sealed with dark chocolate and speckled with cocoa, they were by far my favorite. I have tried several times to make them, but I can never get them as crisp and toasty, as sweet and cut with the savory chocolate, the way that she can.

I have noticed in the past week that as the full-size ones come out for Christmas, some of the boulangeries have these buchettes as well. How could I resist? Une buchette praline yesterday at our favorite bakery and breakfast was all it took for me to cut into it. Not only am I a buttercream slut (sorry, but there's just no other word to describe my absolute submission to the stuff), but buche de noel is filled with sponge cake, which, as long as it isn't dry, is always delicious with the heavy frosting. Finally, the log is gilded, dare I say, with the meringue mushroom, and, in yesterday's case, a plastic ax (which Liam quickly fell for). Two fresh eggs scrambled and a hunk of baguette laden with butter later, and I ate my four bites of shared log more quickly than Liam could ask, "what is buttercream made from again?"

The reason I write about this love is not just because I have decided I must sample all buchettes in the 75004, but also because we then went to dinner at a friend's house (one of our French friends, yes, we do have them!) starving last night, still recovering from our little log. We ate a 1/4 pound of olives each, a few cherry tomatoes, and then a first course of salmon toasts, mache wilted salad with mushrooms and bread. They indulged in foie gras for the season and later Bulgarian beef four ways while I happily ate gnocchi and those risotto balls that they fry in Sicily with cheese inside. Our friend was not be outdone by contemporary times, and we had entire French meal which meant four cheeses for dessert (one man warned me "roquefort is very strong!" read: ye american gal): saint marcellin, saint felicien, and brie as well. Finally, after my brain was tired of all-French-all-the-time and several glasses of wine, a collective laugh squeaks out of our full bellies when our host says he has dessert also: a buche de noel!

From Le Notre, our host had picked up the most striking of buches I've seen to date: fire-engine red leaves along its sides, a candied leaf to cradle 6 raspberries, three macaron adorning the top with ornamental thread to hang on your tree if they made it that long and the inside: the lightest sponge cake with raspberries, lemon butter cream, and the fantastically poisonous and luscious red leaves around it. I was actually a little sad that Liam and I split a piece.

And so dear friends, despite the fact that I am mostly a grinch about Christmas and end of year festivities, I will happily sample the buches and buchettes in my neighborhood in the next few weeks and just hope the sun stays out so I can walk it all off into 2008.

Merci (another market anecdote)

When we first got to Paris, I thought, at the very least, that saying bonjour and merci, au revoir! each day, on each and every human interaction, would have me saying them much more like a native than I could ever get with deux betteraves or une bouteille de l'eau. At the very least, I thought, I know how to be polite.

A few weeks without going to the market though, and things can go down hill quickly for me.

Today I walked past a stand I hadn't been to yet - the potatoes, carrots, sandy spinach, heaps of mache and wrinkled butternut squash sent the message that these people most likely were the producers, and that they were producing what was in season (unlike the Bay Area, you will find multiple tropical fruit stands here). Having had some notorious run-ins with middle men who most likely pick up their produce at the Rungis and bring it to sell, I was determined today to buy from producers.

20 minutes I waited in line, learning that the colanders were, in fact, full of mache and that petitmarron are no longer in season, just butternut and this other enormous squash whose name I don't know. There were two kind young women and a kind older man but clearly, the man was in charge and clearly, I thought, the women would be the ones to get (kindness from food purveyors is not necessarily related to gender, but I was hoping for the best here). For 20 minutes, I practiced ordering cent gram epinard and un petite courge de butternut. I practiced acting French (aloof? carnivorous? not worried about raw meat touching vegetables?) when the man in front of me ordered a duck that was pulled out of a cooler, and then a small plastic bag that barely covered the base of the basket was laid in to measure the weight, and then the knife that cuts tops off of leeks seems to also do a fine job with the head of the duck (the woman said some last words to the head before putting it in a plastic bag of garbage). Plastic bag out, duck stuffed in, plastic container ready for turnips or carrots or slices of squash.

I get the man, of course, so when I order 100 grams of spinach he is skeptical and does not allow this, after clarifying how many I am feeding, he laughs, and comes back with closer to a pound. My demi-kilo pomme de terre are next and I hear him ask blanc or rouge so I say blanc, twice, and he's asking me something else and the man next to me says in English, "how are you cooking them?" so I say, "baking" and the woman two away says cuisson, which, as French would have it, also can mean to cook which then extends the questioning to 'cooking how?" (laughing, of course, because who doesn't cook their potatoes) so I say in English, "roast" and the man next to me translates, rotir and I am left with a worried smile and the memory of my recipe for lentils with potatoes and curry where, if I'm remembering correctly, I might even boil the potatoes. Rouge! the man laughs, and goes to weigh me out the red potatoes. He returns to ask what else, I am able to say des oeufs, and he asks how many, and I reply six and he turns to the man to laugh that now I speak French.

[Side note on the eggs: I have written previously about my love for fresh eggs, and since the week where we thought we were getting fresh eggs (they were in a big ol' basket! the basket had hay!) and came home with a 1/2 dozen eggs that had a double-yolk in each one, we have felt a sense of deception from certain dairy stands at the market. That and impending cancer. Thus, I've been scoping out another stand where the eggs actually are fresh. I don't know if you can see in the picture above, but these eggs had hay, not hay for show, but real live hay that just came from the hen's nest (or at least that's what I tell myself).]

No, I didn't bring a container for the eggs - I am asserting this while my translator friend helps me out as well - so as the man fills up the six eggs into a recycled container I am practicing my final order of une petite courge de butternut, which is why I'm surprised when he doesn't understand me. (For the record, I practically have my hand on the dark woven basket full of the squash as I'm saying this). He then gets me, laughs, and says, butternut? At which point I laugh that it's a word en anglais and pull out my change to count out the .63 centimes that I owe in addition to nine euros. (incroyable! he exclaims when I hand exact change, although, there is confusion about the 20.63 that I've handed him and I try to explain I gave him a 20 and he starts handing me back a 20).

And so I walk away, my cheeks bright red from not only the 0C temp but also him asking me in English where I'm from, and I say my obligatory merci and feel confident that the 'r' sound that started out at the tip of my tongue just a few months ago has finally made its way from the sweet tip to the umami back.

Ode to Pain Au Chocolat

You pain au chocolat! I remember

when I first saw you behind the aging

teal facade of Au Levain du Marais at

28 Beaumarchais. I was skeptical, I'll admit it.

I had food snobbery all over my face and a

privileged of sigh of oh, I guess you'll do for the movies

as I began a homesick trip of Landmark Cinema

popcorn with real butter and Izzy soda and even

ice cream, but here, a country serious about its movie-

going experience, a place serious about its pastries

as well, I figured you couldn't be too bad. Pain au chocolat,

how you proved me wrong! I left you into my pocket,

hoping that you would not betray this first trip to French cinema.

You startled me during first bite to as I heard your

roar of endless buttery crust and the catch of the

sweet baton inside. I had to wait then for Bowie

to blast on the scene, for vinyl turning underneath the needle

so I could crunch again into your middle, hearing

the acute silence around me, remembering

my Uncle Bob eyeing me at a Broadway show

when I opened a small foil of chocolate after the

show started. After, I waited, licked my fingertips and

fished you out of the folds of my scarf,

letting each piece of dough melt on my tongue,

wanting to lean over and tell Liam, this,

this is the best chocolate croissant I've ever had

waiting for the film to be over, or even,

for the next morning, to go back

for another.

*after Raymond Carver's Soda Crackers

Things I Never Knew Until I Moved to France*

I never knew about a Raclette, which Liam's sister introduced us to last weekend- not just a cheese, but an entire dinner of fun (above)! Underneath that plate that's cooking our endives and tomates and pommes de terre and courgettes there are little slices of cheese just melting away into a gooey delicious mess that YOU choose to drizzle onto your aforementioned cooked veggies (or meat) when they're ready. Fondue for germa-phobes. And delicious.

I never knew that you could get tablets for the washing machine come in small squares even when your machine doesn't call for tablets, or that the water here is so hard that white shirts become gray like in a detergent commercial before-hand and the toilet needs to get scrubbed every week and let's not even talk about what's probably happening to my tea drinking teeth ....

I never knew that patisseries are lined along the walls with confitures and compotes and often chocolates and other sweets as well, or that if you walk outside and decide your croissant is so delectable that you'd like to eat it while you walk that you will be scorned by passersby.

I never really imagined that my small kitchen would welcome small pans, small pots, small bags of lentils and pasta and that you CAN get popcorn here, it's just suggested on the back that you grate emmental or gruyere over it while it's hot.

I also can't really get straight the idea that ordering du the (some tea) = a tea, or that if I say une the (a tea) it doesn't work because really it's un the (masculine, not feminine) and really, I never knew that I would constantly get stuck ordering deux the (two teas) which mostly is the mistake when someone else is around to accept the other glass.

I knew my butter and yogurt sections of my grocery would be huge, but I never knew that it would be difficult to find natural, with acidophilus, large tubs of yogurt rather than tiny, delectable, environmentally dangerous ones.

I never knew how much I absolutely adored caramel de beurre sale whether it's in a jar from the market or in a crepe from a new crepe place that came highly recommended with chantilly on top or in an eclair at Aoki or macaron at Pierre Herme, it's most definitely my new favorite.

*alternately, things I may have known but didn't truly understand until I moved to France

Des Creoles

Part I: Last October, on our first full day in Valbonne (outside of Nice) visiting Liam's family, we walked this gorgeous, forested walk from their house into the village of Valbonne. We went straightaway to the boulangerie, looking for our first real croissant of the trip. We walked in, looked right down into the case and saw this pastry to the left, in a line of 6 - la negresse. I stopped full on in my tracks, pulled Liam close to me, and pointed wildly.

The next day, we returned with a camera. There was only one left.

Liam did the sleuthing, I began a tirade of revolution within the bakery - how I would start to work there, change them from the inside out, take whatever made this pastry so delicious and turn it into something a little less upsetting, like, say, a potato? We waxed poetic in our theories about what was behind this, we quizzed his family for historical context, but mostly, I was horrified.


Part II: We returned to this patisserie this past Saturday to say hello to our friend held at the mercy of the institutional racism of the patisserie. No camera (out to get butter and cream for the pumpkin pie I was about to make). We step in, look down to the right, and were shocked - there she was, no, not la negresse, but her thinly veiled cousin - Black Beauty. Written in English, same old colonial pastry with her chocolate breasts on her knees, but now Black Beauty didn't have the blackface of white icing or the hair, she was just enrobed in ebony chocolate, you know, like a black beauty.

Part III: My French teacher informs the student who describes what I'm wearing that my earrings, which he describes as round and I would have called hoops have a particular name in France: des Creoles ... because of, well, their history (as she explained it)

______________________________________________________
I am not one to say that America's own history with race is anything but terrifying, but there's something about race in France that is new to me after 30 years in the US. Something that quickly goes from "hmmm, creoles you say?" to a vision of the map of colonial Africa memorized in AP European history. Race in France is like Oakland, yes, where every police car I see has a black face in the back of it, but also where French grandmothers have the sculptured African faces on their shelves and rich folks spend $500 not just on purses, but also on recycled bottle-cap tables that in Marais boutiques. Helping African people make a living or simply just gobbling up a colonial consumerism? And then today, multiple emails from friends asking me if I'm affected by the riots here.

It's enough to make me alternately reminisce for slow days spent writing about post-colonial thought and the African diaspora and yearn for days when I'll be back to doing something about it - 8 years working to close the achievement gap for students of color in this country and now I'm here fuming over pastries and earrings.

In college, I was reprimanded in Japanese class for asking why the character for 'weak' is also in the character for 'woman,' but I have always been a rebel-rouser, even when it comes to pastries.

I am Grateful for ....

I am grateful for BK Algerian pastries that fill up the box quickly and the woman won't even tell you which ones are best, she just says, "they're all good" and they are (especially the dreamy lemon one you can see with the silvered sugar balls on top and the gooey ones that you think will be too honey-ish and never are). I am grateful for buttery crisp pan au chocolat from the Au Levain du Marais (28 Beaumarchais location). I am completely grateful for Thanksgiving Day 2007 which leaves 6 macarons in front of me from Pierre Herme: truffe blance & noisette, huile d'olive & vanille, rose, plentitude (chocolat and caramel), infinitement vanille, and caramel a la fleur de sel.

I am thankful that I can walk across the Seine with the evening sun setting, albeit at 5pm, and reflecting into buildings and Notre Dame. I am thankful that I can speak enough French to secure 6 macarons or a Tazo Chai at Starbucks or even a new set of plates for our first dinner party at the vaissellerie. I am thankful to continue on to level A2.2 at Alliance Francaise, and for hearing stories of a woman from Columbia who met her husband online and rendezvous-ed in Cuba and another who never knew her father until he got the internet and found her in 1999, when the first thing he searched for was her.

I am grateful for the stories of people new to me, for having the time for a long cup of lao-zhu green tea or Harmutty black in the morning and the leisure to write for an hour after that. I am grateful that the New Yorker delivers to Paris and that Ploughshares does too. Even more so, I am grateful to the American Library in Paris for having a bevy of cookbooks familiar and new to me (despite the 125 euros I had to shell out to join and deposit).

For the years I spent living in a country where transit and postal workers don't strike, I am grateful. For my dear pen pal Emily who keeps writing me despite the fact I am not receiving mail, I am grateful. For packages coming from California with tea and yarn and more tea, I am grateful in advance.

I am thankful for new friends who have Thanksgiving dinners that include making construction paper turkeys and other new friends who will extend Thanksgiving to December. I am thankful to have the time to soak beans overnight and leave Persian rice to develop the tadiq with only two of us to fight over the coriander-specked golden pieces. I am thankful to have friends in Sicily and Guatemala who do online writing groups with me, for pen-palships of postcards and Skype calls from Brazil, and good old emails that go on endlessly about pastries and bureaucracy. I'm grateful too to be writing this while listening to new songs on an old guitar and sweet lyrics about love and loss and proper dreams from the handsomest man I know behind me.

Home(sick)cooked Biscuits

I miss buttermilk and Cabot cheddar, big tins of baking powder and confectioner's sugar at any market. I miss chipotles canned in adobo and monterey jack and queso fresco and asadera and tortilla chips dipped in canned refried black beans. I miss tubs of Strauss Family Farm Organic Whole Milk yogurt, cheap steel-cut oats, and organic maple syrup from VT that is shipped to us in CA through our CSA, which reminds me that I also miss Full Belly Farm, bunches of deep dark greens, and several squashes lined up on my windowsill.

I miss putting books on hold at the Piedmont Library, black and tans at Fenton's, and every time we talk about eating out I moan for Dopo. I miss singing in my car, bringing gen-mai cha to work in a stainless steel cup and running into Jennifer on the street.

I don't miss driving, or paying for my car, or shelling out cash for gas. I don't miss waking up to an alarm. I don't miss a cell phone that I'm constantly checking for messages that aren't always there.

But I do miss friends calling to say hello or inviting me to dinner or being able to call friends who know all the great things about me so it's ok for me to be sad in front of them too. I also miss warm Novembers, cleaner air, and tea houses where pu-erh can cost $5 and it seems expensive and there aren't waves of smoke over my journal or book. I miss writing group with Sara and Cara, Cheese Club with Jasmine, Sara, Mat and Jennifer, and Book Club with many of my favorite Oakland ladies. I miss, nearly every night when I'm cooking dinner, Cookbook Club - between that and my CSA box I was never at a loss for what to cook. I miss lunches with Amy or Martha, walks with Rebecca, and having Jennifer live next door. I miss spicy soy Chai at Gaylord's, patatas bravas at Cesar, and have I mentioned that I miss the pasta at Dopo?

I miss my bed, counter space, a deep stainless steel sink, and a shower where I don't have to hold it above me to wash my hair. I miss having a closet and my Danskos and having more than one sweatshirt. I even miss the bags of clothes I hadn't worn in a year and gave away, and then I miss the more generous attitude I had in September.

Polenta Persistence

I have never stirred polenta for 45 minutes straight. The closest I got was when Liam and I stayed in Mar Vista and I had nothing else to do, but for some reason (maybe the temperature that's down to -3 C today) I decided to heed Madhur's advice and just stirstirstir. With The Gathering (Booker Prize winner and first Paris Book Club pick) in one hand, and an olive wood wok stirrer in the other, I set forth to stir for 45 minutes straight and yes, it was worth it. I returned after knitting group to Liam saying, 'that polenta was magical' - not usually can someone else who doesn't cook, like someone else who doesn't knit, appreciate the time and effort put forth!

And so, another victory for Jessica and Madhur (and Marcella, with the lick-off-the-spoon Tomato Sauce with Butter and Onion on top), as I plod through another day trying to figure out what one does when one is not doing anything. Crazy, I know, but there is something about the safety and routine of a job that makes you desire the freedom and whimsy of not working, until you're not working and you're back yearning for the structure of a job again. Or, until you want to do things like get a library card at the American library or go to a show and you can't because of 'le greve' and it's so cold outside that walking doesn't sound so enticing after a long day of, well, walking.

Why did I think I needed to go to a gym here?

I do think I need to move on to cooking other things - it might be a trio of dinners to cook for (American food for French friends, faux Thanksgiving, faux Thanksgiving in Nice) or just me and Madhur, but my moral highground of cooking beans each day or polenta stirred for 45 minutes or even those quick French lentils is starting to get a little old - like I'm making do with what I have when really what I have is Paris and who here eats lentils, polenta and Baked Beans with Nigerian Seasonings? I do want to help Liam who's feeling a little confused about his job - they won't give him access to the machines until he's been there for 3 mos, but without access to machines it's hard to demonstrate that he has what it takes to get access while someone who is a 3 month contractor gets access right away, and after he put Microsoft Office on his computer his boss said, 'so soon?' .... and so the French way goes.

les fromagettes part deux

This blog started when Sara, Jasmine and I first started Les Fromagettes, our first Cheese Club. Little did I know last winter that I would be writing now from Paris, going from Berkeley's Cheeseboard to Trotte Fromagerie on Rue du Saint-Antoine. And little did I know I would find two more ladies as interested in learning about cheese as I am here - I mean really, it's hard to sample all the great cheeses of France by yourself. And so, we met here in my tiny room to sample the cheeses of Ile-de-France (Johanna's fantastic idea - that we spiral out from the region which we find ourselves in), enjoy some wine, and talk brie vs. coloummier vs. well, mostly Brie. Kate's Brillant-Savarin was the clear winner - creamy (triple creme?) and buttery and almost like cream cheese, but the kind you'd make a cheese cake out of. Or just continue to slather on bread the next day.

I brought at Fougerus that was ok - I'm realizing that ammonia-y turns me off and while I think Mr. Jenkins would say it means it's a little too old/wrapped incorrectly, Johanna also couldn't taste what I was tasting, so maybe I'm just blessed/cursed with some kind of smell factor that others don't have? I also asked for 'explorateur' to which the fromager said he didn't know what that was, but that there's a good family of cheeses (of producers or of type of cheese, my poor French cannot distinguish) similar - so I went home with a neuf chatel (am I even spelling that correctly?) which was almost cheddar-y in its yellow sheen and taste, but ultimately a bit strong for me (nothing like the fake cream cheese by the same name in the US). Johanna brought us bries that she was disappointed by from Au Bon Marche (her reliable fromagerie was closed), and we decided yes it was the store that sent us these bland sticks of brie. (Alas, they left me with the cheese and they did taste great last night on top of roasted apple, fennel and sweet potato right at the end, covering everything in its stanky brie goodness)

Next month we move on to Loire Valley - this city is wonderful for a great many things, but making cheeses isn't exactly one of them.

Pumpkin Cookies

Pumpkins are for Cinderella, not for eating Liam's French grandmother replied last fall when he held out a plate of roasted petit marron for her to taste. I had gone to my first French market in Provence and fell deeply, madly in love with the orange-until-it-bursts color of this squash and had roasted it simply for dinner. Well, for American dinner.

I have always loved pumpkins and fall and sweets that come with both. In 1997, I found this recipe - and that fall, the Pumpkinwiches were born.

I have changed them a bit over the years - in the picture you can see two of the new version with an old school 'wich in the background - but not as much as I have changed them in Paris. It pains me slightly, since in a world of new things new people new friends I want everything as good as it is as home, for people to say, 'ah ha! you are the woman who brought the pumpkin cookies!' to a potluck or Thanksgiving party. But here, without Libby's packed pumpkin or her organic cousin, I figured, it can't be that hard, I'll just get the ol' Cinderella fave.

Twice now, I've tried. This last time with more success thanks to a new friend's suggestion to roast with lemon rind, honey and cinnamon (I added some ginger too), and a bit more judiciousness with the 'puree-ing.' I have warring Bittman voices in my head: "good chefs only need 10 appliances/tools" and "you'll never regret having a food mill" as I mash up roasted squash with a fork in my one bowl. They are getting there, a bit more tasty, although the pepitas I found here are from China and I worry will choke someone with their Bay leaf edges. The fresh squash gives them a 'health food' flavor that I'm not that into, but perhaps brings them back to their roots from Veggie Life magazine.

In a few weeks, we're off to Nice to make Liam's family a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Well, a 'traditional' one. I thought about making these and an apple pie, and also some vibrant sides (we vegetarians go into our own carb coma after T-day sometimes) of ginger flecked green beans and lime flavored yams and beets braised in pomegranate and orange. We even had a can of cranberry sauce (I know, but there just aren't cranberries around these parts) in our belongings from Sicily, but that too was confiscated, so I'll see what I can do with dried, which they do have here.

Yesterday, I was about to bring them to my French class when I had this sudden fear of rejection, of my multi-national class frowning or refusing or even grimacing with an unfamiliar groan when the orange cookies passed by on a plate I don't even have - like I should just come in with Starbucks and shrug and say je suis tres americaine. And then I felt terrible, sending Liam to work on his first week with all sorts of non-French foods like black bean chili and cheese biscuits and lentils with rice and onions and imagined him in his cafeteria today happily peeling back the plastic wrap on his gooey trio l'orange only to have his French colleagues snickering that the new guy not only has trouble with his French but his wife makes him some bizarre food as well.

And so, while I fancy myself an immigrant mother in a Jhumpa Lahiri story, I will stand by the cookies this week trying to make them a bit more like home. And for now, for those of you who've been asking for it again, here is the recipe:

1 Cup sugar
1 Cup canned pumpkin (or, see above)
1 lg egg
2 T vegetable oil
2 Cups unbleached white flour
1 t. ginger
1/2 t each: nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, powder, soda
1/3 Cup pumpkin seed kernels (pepitas), toasted

Filling aka Frosting
1 1/2 Cups powdered sugar (or more)
2 T canned pumpkin (or, see above)
2 T soft butter
1 t vanilla

1. preheat oven to 350 and lightly grease a baking sheet. Combine pumpkin and sugar, then stir in egg and oil, mix well.
2. in another bowl, sift together dry ingredients. Add to pumpkin mixture and blend thoroughly. Stir in pumpkin seeds.
3. Drop dough by small scoops or rounded t. onto sheet, about 2" apart. With a dampened finger, swirl each mound into a wider flatter disk (necessary if doing sandwich cookies, not as much if you're going to frost the top). Bake 8 min. until edges begin to brown. Put on a rack to cool.
4. While cookies cool, combine powdered sugar, pumpkin, butter and vanilla. Whip to spreadable consistency. Sandwich cookies together or frost tops.

Le Poste regarding La Poste (and Sicily to boot. Pun intended)

I get nervous going to La Poste. It's not just the requisite long line or bureaucracy, it's the anticipation of the moment that language will fail me and I will be rendered mute. And so, with my heart beating yesterday I went to pick up the package I received two notices for while we were in Sicily.

'Ayiyi' he groans as he confirms my identity on my passport, 'americaine!'

I try to smile and think of things to say like, yes, I am American and I live here, hahaha laughing together, yes?

And then, before I can do more than the weakest smile of the non-French...

"bouche!" he exhales as he gets up to retrieve my package.

Bouche? What's the matter with my mouth? I start worrying. Americans have big mouths? I have bad breath? But why didn't he use an article - what I'm always getting chided for in class? La bouche? And wouldn't he say, "La bouche d'americaine?" and then as I hear his footsteps returning it hits me, he said "Bush!!!!"

This then sets off stage two of panic - does he think I like Bush? Will he sabotage my package because it came from Bushland? All I can think to say is Je n'aime pas Bush (I don't like Bush) but this sounds like a shrill delayed response. And so, we vaguely understand each other that I need to return to get it later and I leave laughing.

Unsolicited political commentary, sarcasm, language barriers, we had none of these things in Sicily over the weekend. We spent our time eating a traditional Sicilian breakfast: granita (above) with brioche, a traditional Sicilian dinner: eggplant pizza with the creamiest eggplant ever to sit on top of wood fired crust, and a traditional agritourismo: a buffet of vegetables, more pizza, and tiramisu to the tunes of Sting and Clapton. Here we had these onions that were the best onions I've ever tasted - little pearl onions caramelized and vinegarized and sweet succulent little treats (I suggested Rebekah pick up a Marcella book to cook when in Rome style and found a recipe that I hope is the same so I can replicate those lovelies!)

We also made a trip to the market where a jumble of English/Italian/French/Spanish still got us what we needed - and cheap! One euro could get you four heads of fennel or four bunches of spinach or add.50 and get two heads of cauliflower or over 1 kg of clementines.

We left Sicily wishing for more warm weather, the chance to see Mt. Etna erupt, more time with Rebekah and Mike, more trips to the navy base grocery store for Grape Nuts and organic deodorant, another granita, another canoli, a few more gnocchi for ma bouche.