20 juillet 2007
Back in Paris
With a broken tooth to fix and a painful arthritic knee (yes I know). The tooth was broken in a Lebanese restaurant, on a tiny piece of bone left in a kefta. You will understand that I leave out the address. During the repair works, the blog goes on.
This is a corner of square Saint-Médard which I had not explored yet. In the background, the beautiful antique facade of charcuterie Facchetti, from the long-gone days when rue Mouffetard was a truly popular market street.
Info: there are hazelnuts growing in square Saint-Médard.
There are also blue bear cubs in gare Saint-Lazare. Trapped and flattened into the ground between a layer of tar and the thin transparent coating, they would like to call for help, but they cannot. Especially since they were caught with their mouth full.
It can be said now, the thing has happened. This caterer's truck is the proof: verrines have just become uncool. And molecular gastronomy (see the test tube) is now absolutely passé. Two in one blow.
And faits divers are showing more and more creativity.
14 juillet 2007
The cattle of the Sun
You will now come to the Thrinacian island, and here you will see many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep belonging to the sun-god.
He has seven herds of cattle and seven flocks of sheep, with fifty head in each flock. They do not breed, nor do they become fewer in number, and they are tended by the goddesses Phaethusa and Lampetie, who are children of the sun-god Hyperion by Neaera. Their mother when she had borne them and had done suckling them sent them to the Thrinacian island, which was a long way off, to live there and look after their father's flocks and herds.
If you leave these flocks unharmed, and think of nothing but getting home, you may yet after much hardship reach Ithaca; but if you harm them, then I forewarn you of the destruction both of your ship and of your comrades; and even though you may yourself escape, you will return late, in bad plight, after losing all your men.
We reached the noble island of the sun-god, where were the godly cattle and sheep belonging to the sun Hyperion. While still at sea in my ship I could hear the cattle lowing as they came home to the yards, and the sheep bleating.
Now the cattle, so fair and godly, were feeding not far from the ship; the men, therefore, drove in the best of them, and they all stood round them saying their prayers.
(These photographs were not exactly taken on the Thrinacean island; but in the Auvergne Highlands, on the wide grazing lands of the Plomb du Cantal, and on the plateau d'Aubrac. Quotations from Homer are taken from the Odyssey, book XII.)
11 juillet 2007
A truffade in Pierrefort
Before I can post a proper report of Les Européennes du Goût, which took place in Aurillac (Cantal) last weekend, I had to solve a few technological problems. We left Aurillac shortly after my last cooking demo, around 5 PM, and off we went, to Pierrefort in the rain. B. had proposed to take the scenic route, but the Plomb du Cantal remained stubbornly wrapped in clouds. We did see a lot of yellow gentian in the fields and noticed it was calf season. Somewhere along the way, Salers cows made way for the Aubrac cows. The rain was moderate when we arrived in Pierrefort. We settled down, B. lit a fire in the fireplace, gathered food for tonight's dinner, and then a gigantic thunderstorm fell on the village. A thick curtain of rain and even some slate. I worried about the cows, who had seen worse.
This door knocker in Saint-Flour bears no relationship with the current story whatsoever, but isn't it beautiful? (And so does the door it rests on.)
That night, we had two blackouts. The first one happened before it was quite dark, so B. could fix dinner without difficulty. The second one forced him to get the candlesticks, hence the utter romanticism of our dinner — sausages, lentils. Not just sausages and lentils: real Auvergne sausages (thick-ground, tasty) and local brown Planèze lentils, small, firm and delicately flavored. Next morning, all telephone lines were down and so was the Internet. Slowly, the situation went back to normal but the Net connection wasn't restored before Tuesday morning. Add to this my painstaking attempts to connect my Airport to B.'s local network: two long phone calls to Orange, many restarts and a password of seventy-two-thousand diacritic characters (or so it seemed to me) to enter a dozen times, it took no less for me to be online again by midday.
So you will understand that we need to regain some energy. Which is precisely what we did for lunch, with a truffade from B.'s expert Auvergnat hands.
While some fresh herbs, shallots and vinaigrette await the salad greens, B. cuts a large chunk of the local tomme, which is the early version of cantal cheese — one-day old curds, mandatory for the preparation of aligot and other local delicacies.
Yeah, this is the greengrocer's bill stuck under the salad bowl. Well this is called food styling. Agreed?
This is what the tomme is supposed to look like before it is thrown into the frying pan.
And this is what it looks like when it is. B. has pan-fried some thinly sliced potatoes with a bit of diced fat bacon — good local fat bacon, aged, slightly rancid, full of flavor — and proceeds to get one side of regularly, nicely browned and crispy potatoes. When these, later, are found inside the truffade, they are much appreciated.
He stirs with a spatula, then he leaves the pan on low heat for a few minutes so that the cheese forms a crust. This crust holds the potatoes and gives the truffade its shape, that of a loosely folded omelet.
Serve a few strips of tender Auvergne ham with this...
You must have a salad with truffade: freshness, crispness and acidity should balance the dish's richness, already enhanced by the slight sourness of the tomme. This is Auvergnat art at its most delicious.
And this is when I stopped taking pictures.