September 29, 2004
Happy Birthday Chocolate & Zucchini!
"- Bonjour madame la boulangère! I would like to buy a cake for my blog.
- What a lucky blog! Is this a special occasion?
- Why yes, it is my blog's first birthday!
- My my my, how time flies! I remember your blog from when it was just a wee little baby blog, with just a handful of posts -- and now it's one year-old already?
- Yes, I am very proud, and I think it would very much like to celebrate with a cake. Something small something chocolate...
"Happy Birthday Chocolate & Zucchini!" continues »
September 27, 2004
Les Petites Horreurs de Cécile
Cécile's Little Horrors. What a fantastic movie or book title this would make.
So far though, it is merely a sign in the window of a cheese store in Bergerac (Périgord), where we bought our tray of Cabécous. Handwritten on a thin circle of wood taken from the bottom of a cheese box, it is here to introduce a selection of extra extra dry -- and I do mean extra extra dry -- goat cheese ("séchons de chèvre") of various origins.
A little freak s...
"Les Petites Horreurs de Cécile" continues »
September 24, 2004
Petites Tomates au Pecorino
[Plum Tomatoes with Pecorino]
The last tasty plum tomatoes of the season, a piece of pecorino cheese your parents brought back from their Florence getaway (oh how well they know you), five minutes of preparation, and here's a pretty and tasty little appetizer to bring to your neighbor-friends' place when invited for the apéro (pre-dinner drink).
Watch as people wonder how to approach the tomato quarters, venture two tentative fingers, pick on...
"Petites Tomates au Pecorino" continues »
September 22, 2004
Confiture de Noix du Périgord
The great thing about bringing food souvenirs back from your vacation -- besides choosing them, buying them, fitting them somewhere in your already overbulging suitcase, hoping and praying and crossing your fingers that they don't break/shatter/squish/smoosh/leak -- is that it prolongs the magic indefinitely as you savor your goodies, little by little, over the next days, weeks and months.
I have a definite weakness for all things sweet and sp...
"Confiture de Noix du Périgord" continues »
September 21, 2004
Chocolate & Zucchini Meets Chez Pim (and Vice-Versa)
Pim and I had been talking about meeting for a while : it was just a matter of patiently waiting for the opportunity to arise, since her job has her fly into Paris regularly. It finally did, and we had dinner yesterday at Flora, a restaurant operated by the young lady chef Flora Mikula, and about which I had read good things.
We had a fabulous time together, talking animatedly about myriads of things, blogs and food and restaurants and wine an...
"Chocolate & Zucchini Meets Chez Pim (and Vice-Versa)" continues »
September 20, 2004
Our Smelly Travelling Companions
Try spending eight hours in a car on a sunny day, with a tray of twenty cabécous in the backseat. It's an interesting exercise in willpower and determination to bring home the magic. Not the most orthodox way to age fresh cheese for consumption at their optimal stage of ripeness, but it certainly works!
Ah, what one woudn't do, for the love of cabécous!...
"Our Smelly Travelling Companions" continues »
September 15, 2004
Cabécou
Maxence and I have left the Vosges, and after a diagonal drive all across the Great Kingdom of France, we now find ourselves in the Périgord, the Land of Aplenty. We will spend a few days here, enjoying the breathtaking sights, walking around medieval villages, and eating as many Cabécous as we can lay our hands on.
Cabécou is this little jewel of a goat cheese, a thin little wheel of cheese perfection, ideally sized for a single serving (ha!)...
September 12, 2004
Lunch at Bürestubel
Oh what a wonderful feast of a lunch we had yesterday!
Maxence, our friend Baptiste and I drove to Strasbourg for the day, and decided to have lunch at Bürestubel, a small Alsacian inn recommended by the GaultMillau guidebook. It is located in Pfulgriesheim, a village just outside of Strasbourg, in a beautifully renovated farm building. The weather was magnificent and we sat at a table in the cool shade of the semi-covered little courtyard.
W...
"Lunch at Bürestubel" continues »
September 10, 2004
Blueberry Coffee Cake
[Coffee cake à la myrtille]
At La Pommeraie, the fruit farm where we picked a large amount of blueberries earlier this week, they gave out little leaflets about the different kinds of fruit they grow, giving out instructions on how to keep them, and a few, wonderfully straightforward recipes -- tarts and compotes, clafoutis and jams. This is how I learned that in fact, you should let blueberries sit for a couple of days somewhere cool for them...
"Blueberry Coffee Cake" continues »
September 9, 2004
Pick-Your-Own Happiness
One of the things I love about driving around the countryside with Maxence is that we share the same enthusiasm for anything that's hand-painted on a wooden sign and planted onto the side of the road. Admittedly, it is the signs advertising edibles and drinkables that receive the most attention, but we also like to think that we could very well stop and visit that tree-root museum or drop by that special mattress sale.
Following such roadside ...
"Pick-Your-Own Happiness" continues »
September 7, 2004
Chez Christine Ferber
Maxence and I are spending a few blissful and brightly sunny days, hidden out in my parents' vacation house in the Vosges mountains. Today, we took a happy little daytrip to Alsace, the region just on the other side of the mountain, famous for its wines, its storks, and little houses with pointy roofs and exposed beams.
Amongst other fabulous things, what we did today was go on a pilgrimage to Niedermorschwihr, the Alsacian village where Chris...
"Chez Christine Ferber" continues »
September 6, 2004
Le Quartier Chinois
Saturday was the first day of my vacation, and Maxence and I decided to take a little trip to Asia : all it took was a twenty-minute motorcycle ride to the Parisian Chinatown where I had, for reasons I cannot fathom, never been before.
We sat down at a Vietnamese restaurant for a bo-bun (a delicious salads of noodles and beef with lemongrass, soy sprouts, mint and ground peanuts), then did a little shopping at Tang Frères, a gigantic Asian gro...
"Le Quartier Chinois" continues »
September 4, 2004
Zucchini Polenta Tart
I have a particular soft spot for polenta and anything cornmeal.
Unfortunately, they are not at all common in France : I have occasionally seen polenta served at restaurants (and I will reliably dart onto any dish that mentions it as a component, especially if it claims to be croustillante), but it is rather hard to find in French food stores. You need to go to organic stores -- where you will find instant organic polenta, passable but not st...
"Zucchini Polenta Tart" continues »
September 1, 2004
2000 Merlot from the Las Niñas Winery, Chili
I am very proud to be participating in the very first World Wide Wine Blogging Wednesday, imagined, organized and brought to us by Lenn. The theme for this first edition is "inexpensive new world merlot that is not from the US". I am proud to be participating, but boy, that was close : I'll admit that I almost didn't take part.
Why? Well, out of intimidation, of all things.
Although I love wine and am eager and itchy and willing to learn a...
"2000 Merlot from the Las Niñas Winery, Chili" continues »