November 3, 2010
Quince Jelly
I haven't made much jam lately. I was very excited about the process when I was just learning about it some years ago, but I soon realized it was hardly a thrifty pursuit in my case: because I live in the city, I have no need to preserve a hypothetical glut from a garden or orchard, and the price of fresh organic fruit is such that I only buy what we'll consume in season.
I have occasionally helped my mother prepare batches of jam while on vac...
October 9, 2006
Spiced Chocolate Peanut Butter
Considering my love of good-for-you nut butters and my passion for the unabashedly trashy peanut butter cup, it was only a matter of time before I attempted to coalesce the two and make a peanut butter cup spread of some sort.
I thought I would simply use unsweetened cocoa powder to flavor an otherwise classic homemade peanut butter, but when I opened the tin in which I keep my cocoa powder, a hollow clonk is all that greeted me. "Who used the...
"Spiced Chocolate Peanut Butter" continues »
July 23, 2006
Beurre de Cajou
[Cashew Butter]
My jar of old-fashioned chunky peanut butter having mysteriously evaporated somewhere between the store where I bought it and the apartment where I thought I'd brought it back, I had to devise a strategy to assuage the feeling of disappointment and vexation, the kind that makes you bang your fist on the kitchen counter as you mutter a few well-selected swear words through clenched teeth, and try hard to remind yourself that thi...
May 1, 2006
When your sister gives you lemons
...make almond lemon curd.
I like it when I can count the degrees of separation between an ingredient and myself, especially when I only need the fingers of one hand to do so. In this case, there were just four degrees of separation between me and three large lemons: my sister Céline has a boyfriend I adore, named Christian. Christian has a father, who lives not far from Nice. And this father has a bountiful lemon tree, currently overloaded wi...
"When your sister gives you lemons" continues »
May 10, 2005
Confiture de Poire aux Eclats de Fève de Cacao
[Pear Jam with Cacao Nibs]
Just recently, I had a sudden urge to make jam -- it may have to do with my own dwindling supply of the homemade stuff, or the sudden realization that spring strawberries would not last forever (as opposed to strawberry fields). In any case, when I went to the market a couple of weeks ago, it was with the firm intention to purchase fruit and make jam.
The strawberries were still way too pricy (at 4€ for a half...
"Confiture de Poire aux Eclats de Fève de Cacao" continues »
December 16, 2004
The Jam Smuggler Strikes Again!
I know someone who flies into Paris with her bags full of June Taylor jams. She distributes them to a few lucky friends, fills her bags again with Christine Ferber jams, and flies back stealthily to San Francisco. Those in the know refer to her as The Jam Smuggler.
I had my first brush with her activities a couple of months ago, as she oh-so-kindly brought me a jar candied seville peel -- a wonderful combination of acidulated, sweet, bitter, c...
"The Jam Smuggler Strikes Again!" 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 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 »
July 22, 2004
Confiture d'Abricot aux Amandes
[Apricot and Almond Jam]
When I spend time at my parents' house in the Vosges, my mother and I start out by making a mental list (we haven't reached the point of actually writing down that list - yet) of what we're going to cook, bake and eat. One of the items I mentioned this time was jam : over the years, I've often seen my mother make jam, I've made jam on my own, we've talked about jam together, but we had never made jam together.
At the ...
"Confiture d'Abricot aux Amandes" continues »
July 9, 2004
Aprikose Berberitze Marmelade
Last Saturday, Maxence and I were invited to dinner by our German friends Christoph and Susanne. Christoph has been a faithful reader of Chocolate & Zucchini since the early days, we almost met at the Salon Saveurs last spring, and finally did meet at the first Paris Potluck about a month ago. He hosted the second one, but we couldn't be there (oh, just another glorious wedding in the South of France that we had to attend!), so he invited us ag...
"Aprikose Berberitze Marmelade" continues »
July 7, 2004
Les Abeilles
Les Abeilles is a tiny little store perched at the top of the Butte-aux-Cailles, in the 13th arrondissement, and incidently just a skip and a hop from my office (which has, in passing, been trying quite hard to keep me away from my regular blogging schedule, sending me this way and that, thus tragically depriving me of a decent Internet connection in the evening).
As the name implies to the French-friendly ear, Les Abeilles is a beekeeping sto...
May 11, 2004
Rhubarb Jam : What it Says about You
And here you thought, ingenuously, that a bunch of rhubarb was just a bunch of rhubarb.
But no. A bunch of rhubarb, or any other delightful but fleetingly seasonal fruit, is in fact a test that life puts before you. Think Cosmopolitan meets Jean de la Fontaine : are you a grasshopper or an ant?
The grasshopper will enjoy the rhubarb now, and make a compote, a cake, a crumble, a tart, a pie, a buckle, a grunt, a cobbler, or hey, maybe even a...
"Rhubarb Jam : What it Says about You" continues »
March 24, 2004
Confiture de Melon au Gingembre et Citron Vert
[Lime and Ginger Melon Jam]
The truly magical thing about making your own jam is that they tell you to store the jars in a cool and dark place for a few months, to let the flavors develop fully. Oh sure, it is something of a heartbreak at first - you would so like to keep it close to you and dip the occasional finger in - but you know to be reasonable, you've been told to act like a grownup, so you relinquish and stash them at the back of a ki...
"Confiture de Melon au Gingembre et Citron Vert" continues »
December 19, 2003
Confiture de Tomates Cerises à la Cannelle
[Cherry Tomato Cinnamon Jam]
My mother has been making jars and jars of delicious jam every summer as far back as I can remember, using fruit bought at the Sunday morning market (strawberry, apricot), hand-picked by my family (raspberry, blackberry, blueberry), or given out by friends with overflowing orchards (rhubarb, plums, cherry plums). She labels them and stores them in the cellar, where they patiently age for a year before being generou...
"Confiture de Tomates Cerises à la Cannelle" continues »