U Salognu: A Sunny Place in Corsica

During our recent trip to Corsica, we chanced upon U Salognu -- "the sunny place," in Corsican -- as we do many of our happiest discoveries: by following a roadside sign.

"Traditional Corsican cuisine," the sign promised from a grassy shoulder off the road that leads from Cargese to Piana. We hadn't had lunch yet, the hour was creeping dangerously into mid-afternoon territory, and we pulled over hopefully.

It was an old sheep pen made of stone, like there are thousands of abandoned ones across the island, but this one had been restored and turned into a tiny restaurant: six tables inside, and maybe twice more on a terrace outside, overlooking a deep, untouched valley with a waterfall in the far distance.

On the door, another sign announced, "Our menu is composed of ingredients from local sheep breeders and our own farm." We looked at each other with mirror twinkles in our eyes.

Posted on 20 June 2013 | 2:50 am

Parents Who Cook: Camille Labro

Camille Labro with Cléo, 6, and Noé, 8.

Camille Labro is a French cook and food journalist who writes for M, the weekly magazine published by Le Monde. On her blog, Le Ventre libre ("the free belly"), she shares her gastronomic adventures and joys, and explores ways to eat better in an urban environment.

She is the mother of two children, and I am delighted to have her as a guest in my Parents Who Cook interview series. Read on for her many inspired tips! (Interview conducted in French and translated by myself.)

Can you tell us a few words about your children? Ages, names, temperaments?

Noé, 8, loves to read, eat, bike, and roller-skate. Cléo, 6, loves to read, eat, dance, and draw. They are both very sociable, adventurous with flavors as with experiences, full of existential questions, and very jealous of the gastronomic meals I eat without them: they devour the pictures while calling me every name in the book.

Did having children change the way you cook?

Not really, but it has given me structure, and has forced me to cook more regularly and to think of the nutritional qualities of the meals. I've set a rule for myself ever since they started eating more or less everything: I prepare balanced meals with a small first course (usually a raw vegetable), a dish (protein + carb + vegetable), and a simple dessert (yogurt or fruit).

Do you remember what it was like to cook with a newborn? Any tips or saving grace for new parents going through that phase?

When my children were very young and I was still breastfeeding them (I did for nine months each), I wasn't working very much, so I had time to cook. I would place the baby in the bouncy chair next to me and talk about what I was preparing. In general, he/she was very attentive and liked the movements, the noises, the smells (better than a mobile!). And if he/she was getting impatient, I would give him/her a stick of carrot to suck on or a crust of bread to gnaw on.

Otherwise, for parents who work, I think the main tip is to prepare lots of things in advance. Pick one day a week, Sunday for instance, to go to the greenmarket and cook lots of dishes that you'll freeze: stews, soups, gratins...

And there are other simple things you can do, like wrapping small steaks or fish fillets individually for freezing (you can transfer however many you need to the fridge in the morning and have them thawed by dinnertime), freezing pesto in ice cube trays (one ice cube per person for a dish of pasta), washing and drying all your fruits, vegetables, and greens in advance so they'll be ready to use. It takes some logistics to alleviate the workload for the rest of the week.

As for dinner parties, it's hard to pull them off when you're a young parent... But you can always invite your friend over to cook dinner! I've done that often when I was feeling overwhelmed: you like to cook ? Come eat at my place. I'll take care of the shopping and set the table; you'll cook while I take care of the baby. It can be done as a group, too, with other young parents, and you take turns playing the different roles. It's fun, convivial, and a good way to show solidarity!

Camille Labro photographed by her son in her kitchen.

Posted on 13 June 2013 | 2:00 am

Homemade Natural Deodorant (Travel-Friendly)

Interestingly enough, one of the most popular recipes I've ever posted on Chocolate & Zucchini is not for a cake or a salad, but for a personal hygiene product: it's an easy-as-pie formula for homemade natural deodorant made with coconut oil, baking soda, and starch.

I myself have been using it for two years, and I am so happy with it I sing its praises to whomever will listen: just a couple of weeks ago, I converted the sales assistant at the store where I splurged on this cute dress.

I have tinkered with the formula a bit since that initial post, and thought I would now share the latest version.

The first modification I made was to add a few drops of palmarosa essential oil. Its rose-like smell is quite lovely, and because it has anti-bacterial properties (among many others*), it reinforces the action of the deodorant on your body, and ensures that said deodorant remains uncontaminated. In France, it is easily available wherever essential oils are sold -- at organic food stores, for instance, or online.

The second upgrade comes courtesy of Didier, a resourceful and generous reader who explained at the bottom of the French version of the post that he had modified the formula to include a small portion of beeswax**, which made the deodorant more temperature-stable. Indeed, the basic formula is mostly composed of coconut oil, which is solid at low room temperature, but turns to butter then oil when the temperature increases.

This isn't much of a problem if you're staying home: you can either keep the deodorant in the fridge, or embrace the creaminess and apply it like a lotion. But when you travel, it can get messy. Last summer, we were on vacation in the Basque country during a heatwave, and my deodorant split, leaving me with a liquid layer of coconut oil at the top, and a starchy sludge at the bottom. I survived, but vowed to find a more travel-friendly formula.

And this is most definitely it: since beeswax doesn't melt until 63°C (145°F), it keeps the deodorant nice and set even at a high room temperature (even if you vacation at Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley), and prevents it from splitting or leaking from the container, so you can use it whenever and wherever you like, all summer long.

What about you: do you make your own cosmetics? What's your favorite formula?

* I often use essential oils to cure various small ailments, and my go-to reference book is Danièle Festy's Ma Bible des huiles essentielles.

** The beeswax I used was special-ordered from the guy who sells honey at the Anvers greenmarket on Friday afternoons.

Posted on 6 June 2013 | 2:00 am

May Favorites

Photography by Gabriele Galimberti.

A few of my favorite finds and reads for May:

~ A French Tastespotting-like site devoted to vegetarian and vegan recipes.

~ I am intrigued by these Miso Almond Brownies.

~ A gorgeous sun-shaped spinach pie.

~ A photo essay by Gabriele Galimberti celebrating grandmothers and their signature dishes.

~ Roti prata being shaped and cooked at Namnam restaurant in Copenhagen.

~ DIY polka-dot tablecloth.

~ How cheap canned tuna is made (in French).

~ My Life in Sourdough, a mini-series about dating and cooking in NYC, directed by my friend Marie.

~ Other people's kitchens, photographed and edited by Erik Klein Wolterink.

Posted on 4 June 2013 | 2:00 am

Springtime Pot-au-feu Beef Stew

Our spring has been less than exemplary, with record low temperatures and downpours. And in a country that loves (loves!) to complain about the weather, the season has turned into a total moan fest.

I usually try to steer clear of such discussions -- is there anything less constructive than griping about something no one can control? -- and just nod non-noncommittally whenever bad-weather comments are made. But in this instance, even I have to admit that boy, this May has felt a lot like a November.

And so, in order to bridge the gap between the expected season and the actual one, I decided to make a springtime pot-au-feu. It would combine the comforts of this epitomic cold-weather beef stew with the vibrancy of the first sprightly vegetables that have bravely managed to sprout and grow despite the unseemly meteorologic conditions: pencil-thin new carrots, baby fennel bulbs, green peas, and waxy little potatoes.

For a really good pot-au-feu, you need to cook the meat for a goooood loooong time -- four hours is just about right -- and you need to make it the day before you intend to serve it: this allows the flavors to deepen, and gives you a chance to skim some of the fat from the broth, making the whole dish lighter and more refined.

The classic wintry pot-au-feu typically includes leeks, carrots, turnips, celeriac, and potatoes, and sometimes cabbage, which are added to the meat as it cooks until they become very very tender. In my version, since the vegetables I wanted to feature were quick to cook, I first stewed the meat with the odds and ends I keep in the freezer for stock-making purposes, such as leek greens and fennel tops, to produce a flavorful broth in which to cook the star vegetables at the last minute.

The lovely, lovely thing about pot-au-feu is that is it meant to be served in two installments: first the broth, with fresh herbs and good crusty bread, and then the meat and vegetables, with more of the broth, strong mustard, and perky little cornichons*.

Pot-au-feu is ordinarily a dish that I would cook for company, but this time I decided to make it just for us, with good meat I had purchased through the Ruche qui dit oui!. We got three splendid dinners out of it during a very busy week when it was a blessing to have our evening meals ready to reheat in minutes. (I will also note, if case you have a young child at home, that my one-year-old took to the dish like a duck to water; this currently holds his record for most food-related enthusiasm.)

* You can even wedge in a third attraction by cooking marrow bones (one section per guest) in the broth for 30 minutes, and serving them with toasted bread after the broth and before the meat, sprinkled with fleur de sel and black pepper. Marrow bones may also be roasted in the oven at 200°C (400°F) for 25 to 30 minutes.

Posted on 29 May 2013 | 2:30 am

Haut comme trois pommes

Illustration by MelinArt.

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week's expression is, "Haut comme trois pommes."

Literally translated as, "high as three apples," it is used to point out that someone -- often a child -- is small or very short. I've seen it translated to "knee-high to a grasshopper," although I've never heard that cute English expression myself.

Example: "Il était haut comme trois pommes et devait courir pour rattraper ses soeurs." (He was high as three apples and had to run to catch up with his sisters.)

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

Posted on 23 May 2013 | 3:00 am

Fresh Garlic, and What To Do With It

Unless you are one of those blessed people with an outdoor space and a vegetable garden and the opportunity to grow your own sprightly things, chances are you only ever see heads of garlic in dried form, their ivory cloves enclosed in a papery husk.

But I'm here to tell you that, as dried things usually go, those heads of garlic were once full of life and moisture, only freshly dug out from the ground in which they sprouted and grew.

In France, where we have a knack for naming things in a clever way, we call this ail frais (fresh garlic) or ail nouveau (new garlic), and it is a prized feature of springtime stalls, going for around 2€ a head (a little more if organic) in my neighborhood*.

This is not a particularly cheap price to pay for a single head of garlic (dried and therefore shelf-stable garlic is less costly for distributors to handle) but the flavor of fresh garlic cloves is subtle and vibrant, and a perfect match to the new crop of vegetables that typify the season -- think asparagus, green peas, and thumb-sized potatoes.

Although the girth of these fresh heads of garlic is comparable to that of dried, they are in fact immature -- if left to dry, they would shrink to a much smaller size -- and the cloves themselves are pretty small, so the trick to getting your garlic money's worth is to use the whole thing, à la nose-to-tail.

Here's what I do.

Posted on 15 May 2013 | 2:10 am

Roasted Mustard Mackerel with Fennel

Longtime readers may remember the post I wrote about sustainable seafood a few years ago. The issue is still very much at the forefront of my mind, I carry around the pocket seafood guide issued in French by the WWF (check this list for your local equivalent), and I generally eat little fish -- meaning both "not a lot of it" and "not very big ones".

I'm not perfect, and although my conscience tells me I should give it up, we still go out for sushi (we like Enishi in the 18th) once in a blue moon -- versus every week or two, as we used to in our oblivious days.

But when I buy fresh fish at the greenmarket, maybe once a month on average, it is usually one of two green-checkmark choices in the WWF guide*: either sardines, provided the poissonnier has filleted them, opening them up flat like tiny prayer books with tails, or mackerel.

The mackerel I buy whole, and take up the fish guy's offer to gut it for me. ("Gratté vidé ?" is the standard question you'll be asked in a similar situation; "Oui, s'il vous plaît !" you'll respond.). He also gives the option of keeping the heads on or having them cut off, Louis XVI-style, but to me a whole fish is a whole fish, and I've never been squeamish about my dinner looking me in the eye.

My go-to cooking method for mackerel is to roast it in the oven, which is the simplest and most foolproof way to cook whole fish.

Sometimes I'll merely place the fish in a dish with a drizzle of olive oil and a glug of white wine, but my preference for mackerel goes to rubbing it with strong mustard, which heightens its flavor, and roasting it on a bed of vegetables.

The trick is to pick vegetables that will be ready in about the same time as the mackerel, and an excellent choice for that is fennel, sliced into shavings with a mandoline: as it cooks in the fish juices, it becomes tender and moist but still retains a little bit of snap. Fennel is a winning pairing for any fish, but its subtle aniseed notes work particularly well to round out the mackerel's assertive flavor.

What's your favorite way to prepare and cook mackerel?

* Provided they come from the northeast Atlantic; sardines from the Mediterranean are in the "not recommended" category. There is, however, new concern about the stocks of mackerel due to a dispute over fishing quotas between the EU and Iceland. Conservationists are now leaning toward an "eat occasionally" recommendation.

Posted on 8 May 2013 | 3:00 am

April Favorites

Photography by Sarah Mather of Noisette Bakehouse

A few of my favorite finds and reads for April:

~ How to cook perfect Japanese rice.

~ About family-owned food businesses: Mark Russ Federman on his Russ & Daughters book.

~ Female chefs weigh in on what it's like to always get asked about being a woman.

~ Avert your eyes if foul language bothers you. Otherwise, enjoy.

~ MRIs of fruits and vegetables.

~ Taking hot cross buns to new heights.

~ How to create a style guide for your blog.

~ Haiku detection in the New York Times.

~ 100 rules of dinner.

~ Julie Lee's gorgeous food collages.

~ Making flatbread in Lebanon.

~ Foolproof poached eggs.

~ Scrollable baklava.

~ Thirteen things you can do in 2013.

~ Five years of hand-drawn sandwich bags.

~ Park Slope-style food coop comes to Paris.

Posted on 3 May 2013 | 2:00 am

Paris Restaurant Picks: Bones, Walaku, Jeanne B., Septime @ Wanderlust

Eel / Trout / Beet / Horseradish @ Bones

Dispatches from my favorite Paris restaurants for April.

BONES

My top pick this month! Bones is a bare-bones (ha!) bistro that operates half as a wine bar, with many natural wine choices by the glass and lots of sharable nibbles, and half as a gastronomic restaurant, showcasing Aussie chef James Henry's inspired cuisine.

The single tasting menu is composed of four courses for 40€ (add 8€ for the cheese course) with a bonus four amuse-bouche, making this an incredibly good deal.

I especially like that the butter, bread, and charcuterie are all homemade (and very good), which shows a rare commitment, and I fell in love with the Dutch ceramics that they use.

The service is bearded, sweet and attentive, the atmosphere vibrates with voices and music in an exhilarating way, and we had an excellent, excellent time.

Smoked mackerel

Grilled shrimp

Housemade black pig saucisson and cured duck magret

Black pig bouillon with foie gras

Housemade butter

Housemade bread

Eel / Trout / Beet / Horseradish

Salt cod / Asparagus / Egg

Pigeon / Salsify / Cherry from La Guinelle

Gariguette strawberries / Goat's milk yogurt

Bones, 43 rue Godefroy Cavaignac, 75011 Paris, M° Voltaire, 09 80 75 32 08.

Posted on 30 April 2013 | 7:00 pm

Parents Who Cook: Tamami Haga

Tamami Haga, photographed by Andy Andrews.

Tamami Haga is a Japanese Londoner and passionate baker who sells her handmade chocolates and pastries from a stall at Broadway Market in Hackney, East London. She also writes the lovely blog Coco & Me, which I've been following for years and years, and mixes her experiences as a stall-keepers with inspiring -- and precisely written -- recipes. I love her Luxury Brownies in particular. She is currently working on her own cookbook.

Tamami is the mother of two children, and I am very happy to have her as a guest for the Parents Who Cook interview series. Please welcome Tamami!

Can you tell us a few words about your children? Ages, names, temperaments?

My son Issei is nine and my daughter Sakura is four. Issei is a kind, sensitive kid who might tut if there's rubbish on the pavement and would pick it up, then put it in the bin nearby. He is also very clever.

Sakura is a very funny girl and loves to come up with her own lyrics to famous tunes. She is very skillful with her drawing. And being Japanese, she says "Aww, cu~te!" and "Kawaii~!" rather a lot.

Did having children change the way you cook?

Yes, it's totally changed! When I was single I couldn't care less about the "five veggies/fruits a day" stuff. I never bothered with eating breakfast for example. Imagine a twenty-something, going for a pint or three in a pub after work... that was me!

But now, it can't be "eat anything at anytime," obviously. I try all the time to notch up square meals for the family. But you know, I don't find it tiresome or a bore to cook anyway -- I keep it interesting for me by trying new ingredients, new skills and new recipes. Just last weekend, I cooked ox cheeks for the first time! I slow-cooked them for two hours and the result was meltingly soft.

The food might turn out wrong at times though, and the children may turn up their noses. But they critique it with me and will always tell me, "Well done mummy for trying." And with that, I think, "Well, at least I tried" and at least they see that I like a challenge. Hopefully that approach to challenging things and also to keep on trying will rub off on them.

Tamami's 4-year-old daughter, Sakura (with homemade bear cub doughtnut)

Posted on 24 April 2013 | 2:00 am

Fresh Ginger Cake

If pastry chef and baking expert extraordinaire David Lebovitz were to release a Greatest Hits collection, this Fresh Ginger Cake would no doubt make the cut. Come to think of it, he has and it did: the collection is a book called Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes, and it is a must-own for every baking enthusiast.

I have been friends with David for a good eight years, and I have known about this amazing ginger cake of his for about as long -- it is one of his most requested, most celebrated recipes -- but for some reason that's the time it took for me to actually try it myself.

What is it that drives us to make a certain recipe at a certain time? Has anyone ever studied that?

At any given moment, it feels like I have dozens of recipes floating in my brain with a "to try" tag on them -- recipes I've read about online, or in books and magazines, or ideas I've collected during restaurant meals or chef events. Some pop back out in a matter of days, last-in-first-out style, but others linger around for months and often years, bobbing in and out of my consciousness until the urge strikes, presumably when the right alignment of appetite, mood, and ingredient availability is reached.

Is that something you've experienced also? Do you let chance and spontaneity rule your cooking and baking projects, or do you have a system?

I'm wondering because, really: all I did was waste eight years of my life depriving myself of this wondrous cake.

It is called Fresh Ginger Cake, which certainly gives you a hint on the main flavor, but in truth it could be called Fresh Ginger and Molasses Cake, as half of the sweetening power is handed over to this tar-like and notoriously tricky ingredient, which can easily execute a coup d'état on your cake if you're heavy-handed, but helps build complex layers of flavor when used properly.

In fact, David calls for mild molasses, and because there aren't a million different types of molasses available in France -- you usually have a choice of, oh, about one -- I was worried mine was too strong. So I took an executive decision and used half molasses, half unrefined cane syrup from Louisiana, the same one I use for gâteau sirop.

And the resulting cake was nothing short of perfect: not too sweet (I did reduce the sugar a little bit) with a hefty ginger kick that warms the back of your throat, and a remarkably fluffy and moist texture. It's a cake that keeps well, too, so it's a good one to make for a household of two (I'm not counting the baby, who nibbles on three crumbs): for the next week, sliver after sliver, we kept marvelling at how moist it remained.

I served it to my mother-in-law, who had come to babysit Milan while we went to the movies for the first time in forever -- I haven't been so excited about going to the cinema since age twelve -- and although she needs no bait to come and watch her grandson, she was so enthusiastic about it I hope we can do this again -- the cake and the movie -- very soon.

PS: I have just updated my links section if you want to take a look! And for the French speakers among you, I have done the same with the links section on the French version of Chocolate & Zucchini.

PPS: We went to see The Place Beyond The Pines and L.O.V.E.D. it. Did you?

Posted on 17 April 2013 | 3:00 am

Draw Me A Fridge: Luisa Weiss

Luisa's sketch of her fridge.

For this new installment of our Draw Me A Fridge series (read about it here), Alexia spoke with Luisa Weiss.

Luisa Weiss blogs at The Wednesday Chef and is the author of the best-selling food memoir My Berlin Kitchen, which was published last September by Viking. She's half American, half Italian and was born in Berlin. She moved back to her birth city three years ago, after spending a decade in New York. She now lives in Berlin with her husband Max and their 10-month-old son Hugo.

What are your fridge/freezer/pantry staples?

Fridge: Dijon mustard, a wedge of Parmesan, ketchup, at least two jars of jam at any given time, maple syrup, yogurt (whole milk for my son, lowfat for me), brown sugar (to stay moist!), unsalted butter, a tube of tomato paste, eggs (dinner's always possible with eggs in the house), Sicilian colatura [a salted anchovy sauce] leftover from recipe testing my book, a jar of Better Than Bouillon stock base and a box of baking soda (for odor control).

Freezer: Ages ago, I read that you should keep spices in the freezer; ever since then, my freezer has been so cluttered with all those little pots and jars that it drives my husband crazy. There's also always a box of frozen whole-leaf spinach, a bag of frozen peas and several Parmesan rinds wrapped in tinfoil in there.

Pantry: Pasta, lots of different rice varieties (I'm obsessed with my rice cooker), grains, flours, baking ingredients, canned fish, dry beans, dried fruit, nuts, lots of bottles of vinegar, coconut milk, soy sauce and canned tomatoes.

Do you do the grocery shopping for your house yourself? How often? Do you usually buy from the farmers' market, shops?

I go grocery shopping almost every single day. I go to the farmer's market for fruit, vegetables and farm eggs once or twice a week, but the rest of the time, I head to the stores in my neighborhood. It gives me an excuse to go outside with Hugo and since we live on the 4th floor without an elevator, I can't do bulk shopping anyway. I get what I need that day and then I huff and puff my way up the stairs with the baby and the shopping bag. I go to Aldi for dried nuts and fruit, to the organic bakery for bread, and the Turkish grocer for fresh herbs and olives.

Posted on 12 April 2013 | 4:00 am

Roasted Savoy Cabbage

We seem to be having one of those stubborn springs that refuses to, well, spring. And after a particularly dreary winter with a record dearth of sunny days, the grower from whom I get most of my vegetables told me he's about a month and a half late with the spring crop.

So, despite what the calendar says -- and despite my hunger for fresh peas -- I am choosing to respect the realities of the current season, and to celebrate the tail end of the winter produce.

And the winter vegetable I've really rediscovered of late is the Savoy cabbage -- chou frisé in French.

I like cruciferous vegetables of all stripes and colors, but this one had always been my cabbage of least proficiency. I love it in my mother's stuffed cabbage, and in the farci poitevin I've revisited in The French Market Cookbook, but I lacked ideas beyond those.

But then kale happened: it was suddenly easier to find on Paris markets, so I played around with it a lot -- cue the mega-list of 50 things to do with kale -- and naturally that gave me ideas for its close, if less fashionable, cousin the Savoy cabbage.

As it turns out, the roasting method that gave the world kale chips has a transformative effect on Savoy cabbage, too. In just a few chops of the chef knife and fifteen minutes in a hot oven, the slightly daunting head becomes a heap of lightly browned, tender at the spine but crisp-edged ribbons that I can eat by the bowlful -- and happily have.

Add a touch of lemon juice, a scoop of steamed rice and a scatter of almonds, and I am content to wait for spring a little while longer. Just a little.

Posted on 10 April 2013 | 3:00 am

5-Ingredient Recipes

My go-to 5-ingredient recipe: sardine and tomato spaghetti.

Two weeks ago, I wrote about Jules Clancy's fantastic new book, 5 Ingredients, 10 Minutes, and offered to give away three copies as prizes in a 5-ingredient recipe contest.

You collectively submitted nearly 140 five-ingredient recipes, all of which sound fantastic and provide a fascinating glimpse into your personal tastes and appetites. It's been very difficult to pick just three -- why, oh why do I put myself in these situations? -- but I had to, so I elected Ms. C's pan-fried tofu with kale and noodles, Rakhi's mujaddara, and Pierre Pozi's sardine boulettes (submitted in the French version of the contest). Congratulations! You will soon be receiving your copy of 5 Ingredients, 10 Minutes.

And to thank you all for your invaluable contributions, I've collated your recipe formulas into a masterlist we can all dip into; recipe details can be found in the comment section of the original post. (If you read French, you'll find even more 5-ingredient suggestions in the French masterlist.)

Posted on 5 April 2013 | 2:00 am

March Favorites

A few of my favorite finds and reads for March:

~ Interested in community composting in Paris? The mairie can help.

~ French stamps with illustrated idioms (more French idioms).

~ The Washington Post's food editor comes out as a vegetarian.

~ The Scared is scared, a video made according to a six-year-old storyteller's specs (warning: this will make your day).

~ Paris restaurants cooking local ingredients can now get a special label.

~ I gave tips on French restaurants for the Weight Watchers website.

~ How writers can prepare for the rise in using mobile phones to read websites and blogs. (Note: Chocolate & Zucchini is available in a mobile-friendly version.)

~ This year's skiing season in Montmartre.

~ Economics professor finds a strong link between optimism and how many fruits and vegetables one consumes.

~ Sheep to help keep Paris lawns tidy.

~ The Helsinki bus station theory for creative careers.

~ Impressive: how Cassie Johnston preps food for the week.

What about you, any recent find you'd like to share ?

Posted on 2 April 2013 | 4:00 am

2013 Omnivore Festival: Inspiration Notes

The 2013 edition of the Omnivore Food Festival (officially called Omnivore World Tour now that it's a traveling festival) was held at Paris's Palais de la Mutualité last week. I spent two days out of time in a dark auditorium, watching chefs cook on stage and jotting down notes in a handwriting that looks considerably more pulled together, I've only recently found out, if I use felt-tip rather than ball-point pens.

Every year a few common themes or ingredients emerge, and this time we saw a lot of oysters, cabbages, onions, and vegetables cooked to the point of being charred.

Aside from the excitement of climbing into a chef's brain, seeing him (overwhelmingly more than her, regrettably) do his thing, and listening to him talk about his craft, what I love about those sessions is being inspired by details, pairings, or techniques that I can take away and perhaps rig into my own cooking sometime.

Looking through my notes a few days later, I thought I would wring out a list of these ideas to share with you, in the hope that they may inspire you, too.

From Guillaume Foucault, formerly at L'Artémise in Uzès, soon to open Pertica in Vendôme, in the Perche region:

- A pork belly, cooked for 30 minutes in the skillet, then soaked for 1 1/2 hours at warm room temperature in nuoc mam infused with star anise, cinnamon, and clove (pictured below).

- Talauma, a Vietnamese spice that you grate (a bit like nutmeg), pairs well with game meats.

- Fresh, uncooked green beans layered with coarse salt and meadowsweet flowers in a barrel and left to rest for a while. He then cuts the beans in small slices and uses them as a condiment or seasoning, especially with fresh cheese.

Posted on 27 March 2013 | 5:00 am

5 Ingredients 10 Minutes: A Giveaway!

{See below about winning Jules Clancy's newly released book.}

I've been a follower and an admirer of Jules Clancy's Stonesoup for years. Not only does she provide inspiring minimalist recipes and gorgeous, bathed-in-Australian-light pictures, but she also strives to innovate on the classic food blog format and keeps coming up with great projects and ideas, such as her virtual cookery school, her e-cookbooks (such as 30 Dinners in 30 Days or The Tired and Hungry Cook's Companion*), or the handy list of variations (hotter! greener! carnivore! dairy-free!) that follows every recipe.

What sets her blog apart from the vast majority of others is that it is genuinely reader-oriented: you can tell she spends time wondering what issues the home cook struggles with, then sets out to devise clever and practical solutions to address them.

Chief among these issues is the lack of time: a lack of time to shop and a lack of time to cook no doubt stand in the way of people eating a home-cooked dinner every weeknight.

And this is where Jules Clancy's fantastic new cookbook comes in: what if you had a plentiful collection of healthful recipes that required just five ingredients and ten minutes to make? Surely then you could gather enough of those five-ingredient sets during the weekend, and find the energy to spend ten minutes at the stove at the end of your long day?

Posted on 20 March 2013 | 5:50 am

Parents Who Cook: Michael Ruhlman

James and Michael, photographed by Donna Turner Ruhlman.

Parents Who Cook is a Q&A series in which I ask my guests about how their cooking has changed after kids entered the picture, and pick their brains on their best strategies to cook with little ones underfoot.

Michael Ruhlman is an American writer who specializes in understanding the professional chef's craft, and making that expertise accessible to the home cook.

He has published twelve books, including the best-selling French Laundry Cookbook and the game-changing Ratio, which reveals the cooking formulas that govern basic preparations so you can free yourself from recipes. His latest book is Ruhlman's Twenty, about the twenty founding concepts and techniques of cuisine. He also writes an excellent blog at ruhlman.com.

Michael lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife, photographer Donna Turner Ruhlman, and their two teenaged children. I am delighted to have him share his thought-provoking views on cooking with and for children.

Can you tell us a few words about your children? Ages, names, temperaments?

Addison is 17 years old, her brother James is 13. She's a handful, but beautiful and smart, fiercely independent, wants nothing more than to be out of the house and with her uncommonly sweet friends. James is a boy boy, loves gaming, having fun, and practical jokes. A sweetheart, delightful in conversation, very mature and empathetic.

Did having children change the way you cook?

No, not really. I was just learning to cook professionally, so I had all these extra cooking muscles to rely on. But I always cooked real food. I tried to cook real puréed food for them when they were little, but mostly what they'd prefer was the jarred stuff. Then they moved on to scrambled eggs and cheese, then all white food.

As they grew and their tastes and dislikes changed, I occasionally made three different meals simultaneously to please everyone. Because I could. Addison's favorite meal is beef stir-fry, but James doesn't like it, so I cut a chunk of flank steak to sauté, and slice the rest for stir-fry. I stir-fry bok choy or broccoli, but Addison avoids it and James will only eat it raw. That kind of thing. It makes for a lot of dishes to clean.

Do you remember what it was like to cook with a newborn? Any tips or saving grace for new parents going through that phase?

In the newborn years, try to schedule meal times for when they're asleep or routinely occupied. If they'll sit in a bouncy chair while you eat, so much the better. Donna often ate while she breastfed. Many many meals were interrupted, or concluded early.

The saving grace? It's over before you know it. Days are long, years go by in a snap.

Be sure to plan at least one quiet meal with your spouse each week where you can linger at the table, even if it's lunch.

Posted on 13 March 2013 | 5:00 am

Instant Banana Sorbet (No Ice Cream Machine Needed)

I've written about Braden Perkins before as the co-creator of the Paris supper club Hidden Kitchen. He and his partner Laura Adrian closed HK a year and a half ago, and moved on to open an official restaurant they named Verjus.

Braden and I have now been friends for six years, and this has put me in the enviable position of tasting his food and cooking at his side on quite a few occasions. I never fail to be impressed by the zing and sense of fun that radiate from his dishes, and although they are too involved for me to try at home -- multiple preparations come together into a single plate, in typical chef fashion -- I always leave his table with inspiring takeaway ideas to jot down in my notebook.

A few weeks ago, Maxence and I were invited along with eight other friends to inaugurate Verjus' new chef's table, located on the top floor of the restaurant, in a cosy room that's lined with the couple's cookbook collection, and offers a bay-window view onto the incredible exterior staircases of the Théâtre du Palais-Royal across the street.

Braden served a tasting menu featuring some of the new dishes he had just finished developing, and my favorite was a slow-cooked egg served with soft polenta, frisée, and salsify, topped with pumpernickel crumbs and a touch of homemade kimchi.

And for dessert, Braden's pastry chef Cassie Choi, a Korean-American from LA, offered her take on American classics in three desserts: she reinterpreted the pecan pie, the lemon meringue tart, and the banana split, the latter taking the form of a frozen chocolate mousse with chocolate sauce, marinated cherries, and banana sorbet.

The banana sorbet was especially good, and when Braden and Cassie came up for a chat after the meal, they explained excitedly how it was made, following a tip Cassie had read about on The Kitchn: you freeze very (very) ripe bananas, and then whiz them in the food processor. It makes a lot of noise and at first it just turns into a gritty sludge, but if you persist -- as with so many things in life -- it all comes together and becomes this smooth, richly creamy banana sorbet that can be served right away.

I made a note of it, and as soon as we had an overripe banana in the fruit bowl, I let it ripen even further -- Braden warned me that it needed to be black-skin ripe for best flavor -- and tried the technique myself. I was a little worried because my food processor is not heavy-duty by any means, but it worked as advertised, and with just one banana we were able to make two small scoops to enjoy after dinner, with a liberal sprinkle of dark chocolate shavings.

Verjus, 52 rue de Richelieu (restaurant) or 47 rue de Montpensier (wine bar), 75002 Paris, +33 (0)1 42 97 54 40 (see map).

Posted on 8 March 2013 | 3:20 am

Draw Me A Fridge: Alexandre Cammas

Photography by Dustin Aksland.

For this new installment of our Draw Me A Fridge series (read about it here), Alexia spoke with Alexandre Cammas. (Interview conducted in French and translated by us.)

Food writer Alexandre Cammas is the creator of Le Fooding, a guide that helps you find the latest restaurants to get a great meal anywhere in France, and also organizes events in France and beyond. The Fooding 2013 guide can be ordered on the website.

What are your fridge staples?

Yogurts, eggs, compotes, cheeses, cured meats from Italy, Spain and Aveyron*, and plenty of leftovers for an impromptu meal.

In the freezer, I store good bread (in case I run out of fresh) and frozen pizzas from Enzo Pizza, a dodgy-looking pizzeria in my neighborhood that sells excellent homemade frozen pizzas. (I got the tip from Bertrand, the chef of bistro Les Papilles.) I also keep frozen homemade tomato sauce for an easy pasta dinner, ice cubes and olives for a summer Ricard, and bottles of San Pellegrino throughout the year.

Do you handle the grocery shopping yourself? How often and where do you go?

I go shopping on the weekend in my neighborhood with my family, mostly around rue Daguerre**. I buy meat from Hugo Desnoyer every now and then (it's expensive!) and bread from the former Moisan bakery. There is also a fine cheese shop, an Italian deli (the lasagna is especially tasty) and a good fishmonger on the same street.

What is the most surprising thing in, or about your fridge?

The terrible mess that's in there! You're likely to find things gone bad in teeny-tiny shrink-wrapped containers that have been forgotten in the back. Also surprising: how bad it smells when there's a slice of Appenzeller cheese in there. Even under a glass dome, the smell just grabs you!

Posted on 5 March 2013 | 6:00 am

February Favorites

"Baguette table" by Studio Rygalik, photography by Nick Albert.

A few of my favorite finds and reads for February:

~ Can you eat well and vegetarian? asks Lucile Escourrou in Le Figaro Madame (in French).

~ Pulled sugar? No, frost flowers!

~ The Dijon library has a digitized collection of 9000+ menus dating back to 1810.

~ How to ask for help (and get an answer).

~ An example of the weekly menus served at my son's daycare center.

~ An inspiring chocolate shavings/ricotta/honey/maldon salt pizza in this story.

~ Lovely little lies.

~ A sourdough hotel in Stockholm.

~ Horse beef lasagna, a recipe (in French).

~ No more wasted stale bread with this baguette table.

~ 37 people who are worse at cooking than you.

~ A new delivery service that gets cakes and chocolates from some of the best Paris artisans to your door.

~ Lost in the sea of food boxes, wine boxes, and everything-under-the-sun boxes? Toutes les box posts descriptions and reviews (in French).

~ Microscopic pictures of food by photographer Caren Alpert.

What about you, any recent find you'd like to share ?

Posted on 1 March 2013 | 8:45 pm

Bean-to-Bar Chocolate in Paris

Mendiant chocolate bar with candied pistachios (Le Chocolat Alain Ducasse).

When I get into the details of the chocolate craft with people who may not have given it much thought before, one thing that always disillusions them is this: the overwhelming majority of chocolate artisans don't actually make their own chocolate.

Indeed, making chocolate from scratch is an elaborate process that involves a whole set of specialized machines that roast, crush, sort, grind, blend, and conch, turning the fermented and dried cacao beans into what we think of as chocolate.

When you think about it, it is therefore unrealistic -- and wouldn't make either economical or environmental sense -- for every single chocolatier to acquire those machines, the workshop to install them, and the know-how to operate them, and then to source his own beans and process his own chocolate.

This is why a few companies -- big ones like Barry Callebaut, smaller ones like Valrhona or La Chocolaterie de l'Opéra -- have devoted themselves to this first part of the process. They're usually refered to as couverturiers: they provide couverture chocolate of varying flavor profiles, origins, cacao content, and format to chocolate artisans, who in turn melt it and use it to create their bonbons de chocolat (chocolate bites garnished with ganache or other fillings), chocolate bars, and miscellaneous chocolate confections.

I've always sensed that this wasn't something chocolatiers rushed to clarify. When you discuss this aspect of their work, some get hazy on the details, not wanting to reveal which couverturiers they work with (although they're proud to tell you where their hazelnuts and citrus come from), or get defensive, saying, "Well, you don't expect the baker to mill his own flour, do you?"

"Découverte" chocolate box (Le Chocolat Alain Ducasse).

Posted on 27 February 2013 | 6:00 am

A Mobile-Friendly C&Z (cnz.to)

I am pleased to announce that I have (finally! in 2013!) created a mobile-friendly version of Chocolate & Zucchini.

This new version is optimized for small screens: it makes it comfortable to read new posts on the go using your smart phone, and allows easy access to recipes when you're at the store or in the kitchen, searching for them by keyword, or browsing through them by dish type or ingredient.

(To clarify, this isn't an app to download, it's a specially formatted version of the website that you can simply access with the web browser of your smart phone.)

To make your life even easier, I've set up a new, shorter web address: simply type cnz.to in your browser (mobile or otherwise) and you'll be taken straight to Chocolate & Zucchini.

You'll find a few more screenshots of the mobile-friendly C&Z below. If you have any suggestion for improvements or encounter any difficulty using it, please get in touch!

Posted on 21 February 2013 | 8:30 pm

Winter Vegetable Curry

Do you want to hear one of the least publicized benefits of working from home? You get sick less often.

Not only can you choose to stay in when it's cold and drizzly and icky outside (pyjamas optional), but you also spend less time in crowded public transportation, shake fewer hands and kiss fewer cheeks (in French office environments, it is common to kiss your close colleagues hello when you come in in the morning), and touch fewer shared coffee pots and bathroom door handles.

Or at least that has been my experience for the past seven winters, ever since I quit my office job and started writing full time.

But this year was different: my son Milan goes to daycare, and there he is naturally in contact with other adorable little people -- including an Abel he gets along with famously -- and the bazillion germs and viruses they all bring to share with one another, and take home at night.

It's all part of the process, and I was copiously warned about it, but we went through a rough patch in November, when Milan was sick for the first time of his life, I had the nastiest cold I'd ever, ever had, and neither of us seemed to be getting better. At all. For weeks. It looked like it was going to be a long winter.

And then one night my dear friend Florence, who was kindly checking in on us, suggested a vegetable curry might be just the thing.

Just the thought of it cheered me up. I dragged myself up from the couch, looked up a recipe that would require neither grocery shopping nor lengthy preparation, and got to work.

The recipe I used was this one by Beena Paradin, a French-Indian cook, food writer*, and co-founder of the online shop Beendhi. She presents the recipe as a riff on a traditional stew from Kerala, the region in the Southwest of India where she was born, and explains she's adapted it to speed up the process, and accommodate the kind of ingredients one finds in France.

It was profoundly comforting, full of warm flavors, the vegetables soft and fuzzy in their spiced coconut milk sauce. It made me feel considerably better.

The stew has since become a fixture of my weeknight dinner rotation, and it has turned out to be a most rewarding method of using up mismatched vegetables that may be losing patience in the fridge drawer.

And whether it's the winter vegetable curry, the preventive homeopathic treatment we now take religiously, or just our lucky star, I'm happy to report we've all been doing fine since that dreadful fall episode.

What's your edible remedy for bad colds and other grisly viruses?

* In particular, she has written the superb cookbook Inde intime et gourmande with her mother, Padmavathi Paradin.

Posted on 20 February 2013 | 6:00 am