bleudauvergne

Discussion of the method is welcome here, Eden. I hope that others will participate as well.

We've been meaning to try this place which we've heard is really the best chocolatier in Lyon, Tourtiller. Sunday was Mother's Day in France, and since I have visitors with children visiting, it was the perfect opportunity to pick up a nice cake, diet be damned. Some snapshots from the patisserie side - A budding food photographer... The thing about this place is the chocolate...

I haven't seen it either but it seems interesting. How did it taste?

My sister is a vegetarian and when she comes to France we have absolutely no problem finding items on the menu that will accomodate her. Most cafes and brasseries have a series of salads that may or may not contain meat. Learn your meat words, and then you can maneuver through a menu. There is plenty of good shopping for vegerarian food items everywhere you look. I have two American children visiting me right now and I decided to take one of them to see Picard, the frozen food store. At Picard, I noticed that they are now labeling their vegetarian dishes with a special label. The concept of vegetarianism is mainstream in France. Have fun!

Hi Jake, Clockwise starting from the light yellow hard cheese at the top, Comte, then an aged Mimolette, which I was told is traditionally produced in Holland, but this one is produced in Normandy, we have some Brie de Meaux, a Picodon, some Gouda au Cumin, Roves de Garrigues, another chevre the name of which I forgot, and in the center the last piece of a Langres, which is a soft cows milk cheese from Bourgogne, made in the style of Epoisse (bathed in eau de vie by the producer). We have guests from the States this weekend so I won't be posting although I am discreetly doing my best to follow the plan. Yesterday I didn't add rice to my plate at dinner, where we served a roasted chicken with wild asparagus along with some fresh peas. Easy enough.

This is already my favorite food blog.

Mea culpa what did I do wrong. The chicken quenelles were dry and icky. I mean they tasted alright, like chicken and everything, just not like quenelles. I probably did not add enough cream. I stopped at 3/4 cup. They looked very pretty but did not resemble quenelles in the least intexture. The sauce was very good. I prepared a beurre rouge this time. And the cheese plate was rather nice this evening.

It does not discuss nut butters, although peanuts are recommended. This faux nutella has been on my list of things to try for some time, Eden. However, the other day I checked hazelnuts numbers of the pocketbook and a package of 300 grams was something like 9 euros. Even the Montignac product which contains hazelnuts and cocoa is extreemely expensive. I still haven't decided if I want to spring for the nuts yet. Please let me know how it comes out, if you do try it. Something to consider is what you're eating it with. With the nuts you'll want to save this spread until stage 2 when you can mix the nuts with whole grain bread. You could always spread it on fruit... Peanuts are another cheaper idea...

A bit off-topic, but related nonetheless -- I'm contemplating going on a specific type of diet called carb cycling which involves a regimen that approaches something like this: (a) day 1 -- high carbs, (b) day 2 -- low carbs, [c] day 3 -- no carbs (1 g protein per lb. of bodyweight, a gallon of water and five or six fish oil caps), (d) rinse and repeat. Do this until bodyfat levels reach 12%. Needless to say, this type of diet is not for everyone (indeed, it's probable that it's not for most people on eGullet! ), but it is an effective diet...at least for my purposes. Back to your scheduled program. Soba ← This was basically my regular diet before going on Montignac. There's another name for it, bingeandpurge diet. What's involved with the "rinsing" part? Never mind, I don't want to know. I've got the chicken so it's quenelles tonight.

Here's The Squid Soup Recipe. Thank you for the link to the class, Jack! I have done your consomme with an old bresse hen and it was simply wonderful. I'll follow your advice about everything being very cold. I also wonder if I could freeze a bowl instead of doing it over ice, because we don't have much room for ice and only two ice trays. I will indeed skip the straining step to begin with while at the same time carefully removing all bones. I will also poach mine in a pot by batch. Perhaps today I will begin with chicken quenelles. I don't know about helping weight loss, but I do know that the fish oils are generally good for the health. I don't eat fish all the time because we simply can't afford it. But we eat it when we can. I also try and get wild fish when I can. We love the taste of fish, that's what keeps us eating it!

This morning I had a bowl of yougert with some of a new Montignac product I picked up, quince spread. It was very very sweet. In fact I could say it was too sweet. The ingredients are quince, concentrated fruit juice, pectin, and lemon juice. It was also a little bit grainy. For lunch I enjoyed a big bowl of squid soup, the soup version of a stuffed squid dish I prepare from time to time, and a piece of Comte cheese.

That's great Eden. It's fat free, correct? When you are eating out, you can't always control the hidden sugars. There are a few things to consider though. Most industrially made sausage and bacon, in fact most processed meats (sandwich meat like ham, chicken loaf, etc.) are cured with sugars. Keep on the lookout for words ending with "ose", sucrose, glucose, dextrose, etc. Malt is also a bad one. Go to the store and read the ingredient labels on the processed meats. It's scary! Your best bet is to try and steer clear of the breakfast meats. A 3 egg omlette with cheese and onions is an example of something you can order out, or steak and eggs. Be careful! Another thing to avoid in restaurants is salad dressing. Sugary gook. Ask for oil and vinegar. If you adore bacon, sausage, etc. and want to have it at home, do some legwork and find a source that contains no sugar. It's not going to be easy because sugar is a widely used industrial preservative. You could also make your own.

Many French think Cinnamon tastes like medicine.

Squid Soup I was looking up recipes for stuffed squid a while back and noticed that the further east you go in Europe, the more lovely little things like cinnamon, and cloves are found in these recipes. I finally settled on a house recipe that is stuffed with veal, is braised in dry white wine, and which the braising broth contains bay leaves, bits of whole cinnamon stick, peppercorns, whole cloves, and juniper berries. The result is just wonderful, a comforting, uplifting dish that always gets gobbled up every time I serve it. This is a soup incorporating the same things, which I make as a quick fix for the lovely flavors from time to time when I don't have time to stuff the squid. 200 g minced veal meat 200 g small squid bodies, innards removed and cleaned 1 eggplant 1 green pepper 1 zuchinni 1/2 celery root 1/2 medium onion 1 tomato 1 tsp salt 3 bay leaves several small chips off a cinnamon stick 10 black peppercorns 6 juniper berries 3 cloves 1/2 c dry white vermouth Roughly dice the vegetables. Add the minced meat and squid. If the squid bodies are rather large you can cut them up. Put the cinnamon stick, cloves, juniper berries, and peppercorns into a sack, linen bundle, or tea ball and add to the pot. Put the whole bay leaves in. Add the vermouth. Add water just to cover (the eggplant will float). Add the salt. Bring to a boil, and then lower the heat. Keep at a low simmer for one hour. Serve in warmed flat soup bowls at the table. ( RG1276 )

Squid Soup I was looking up recipes for stuffed squid a while back and noticed that the further east you go in Europe, the more lovely little things like cinnamon, and cloves are found in these recipes. I finally settled on a house recipe that is stuffed with veal, is braised in dry white wine, and which the braising broth contains bay leaves, bits of whole cinnamon stick, peppercorns, whole cloves, and juniper berries. The result is just wonderful, a comforting, uplifting dish that always gets gobbled up every time I serve it. This is a soup incorporating the same things, which I make as a quick fix for the lovely flavors from time to time when I don't have time to stuff the squid. 200 g minced veal meat 200 g small squid bodies, innards removed and cleaned 1 eggplant 1 green pepper 1 zuchinni 1/2 celery root 1/2 medium onion 1 tomato 1 tsp salt 3 bay leaves several small chips off a cinnamon stick 10 black peppercorns 6 juniper berries 3 cloves 1/2 c dry white vermouth Roughly dice the vegetables. Add the minced meat and squid. If the squid bodies are rather large you can cut them up. Put the cinnamon stick, cloves, juniper berries, and peppercorns into a sack, linen bundle, or tea ball and add to the pot. Put the whole bay leaves in. Add the vermouth. Add water just to cover (the eggplant will float). Add the salt. Bring to a boil, and then lower the heat. Keep at a low simmer for one hour. Serve in warmed flat soup bowls at the table. ( RG1276 )

Oui, oui, raw fish for the quenelles. The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should not have blitzed them in the machine... When you make them, do you blitz the meat in the machine? About the flourless quenelles, a little research has been in order. Paul Bocuse instructs that quenelles fall into two categories, quenelles ordinaires, and quenelles fines or mousselines. The quenelles mousselines are made with a stiff creme fraiche (this is where the first quenelles may have gone wrong, since the recipe called for creme liquide). Bocuse includes this valuable note which I translate: 'Furthermore, I would like to put an emphasis on the incertitude of the proportions. The solidification of your forcemeat depends on the albumin level of the meat used. Since the ablumin level varies by fish; their size, their age, or their species, the addition of egg whites have the goal of solidifying the cream incorporated and to correct the composition of the meat. A certain amount of trial and error is inevitable to achieve the culminating point of success.' Well well well. With this little discovery in mind, I will make another attempt at the quenelles mousselines. I am pretty sure that the wild sea bass was a good choice of fish, and that it was the creme liquid that led me astray. It's funny, but when preparing George B's recipe, I had a funny feeling that I chose to ignore. When reading the recipe, I noted that it seemed strange to be giving a weight measurement to the liquid cream, and pondered for a split second that there may have been an error when transcribing the recipe, where he wrote creme fraiche, and it was transcribed as creme liquide, since 'creme fraiche' can mean both. Yesterday I was sewing and realized immediately that something was very wrong, because my bobbin thread was going haywire. I tried everything, adjusting the tension, then rethreading everything, then changing threads, re-winding a bobbin, etc. I finally realized that I hadn't changed my needle from the one I was using for the heavy fabric. In fact, the problem I was having may have been any combination of those factors, wrong thread, two different threads, bungled bobbin wind, wrong needle, etc. Once I'd worked through all of those things, I was able to get going and quickly finish the project. In the process of that 10 minutes of trouble-shooting, although I didn't particularly learn anything new, I did learn a valuable lesson about trusting that success is not magic or luck. Mindfully working step by step through everything that could be contributing to the problem, patiently keeping my sights on correcting things, will inevitably bring a successful solution. This is also true of cooking.

I'd love to add some variety to my breakfasts. Before I began to follow the method, I used to just have coffee and skip breakfast altogether. However, for nearly a year now I have been having breakfast (I have been following the plan on and off, but the breakfast habit has stuck). Today I whipped up some clementines in yougert. On the days you do have eggs, you might consider adding some good cheese. I often have cheese for or with my breakfast. Actually the earlier in the day you have your lipids, the better. I have gotten into a bad habit of cooking lipid based dinners and should try to find more novel ways to eat my grains at supper. Now that summer is coming up, salads will be playing a more predominant role. Eden, how has your first week been? How are you feeling, energywise? What ideas have you come up with for breakfast? Yesterday I was cleaning like a madwoman (guests coming) and realized that my energy level has gone way up since I've been back on the plan. If anything it's a good way to keep from feeling sluggish.

Great topic, Ed. Hey what's that you're drinking with it? What's the best wine to go with the saucisson, and what's the best thing to take for apero to compliment saucisson sec?

I've never met a cheese I didn't love. Until I tried Fromage Fort. It's all of the crusts and old cheeses thrown into a pot with some eau de vie, and left to ferment for three months or so.

Kids can be funny that way. Touregsand forgot to mention something very important. Oreos. French (at least the adults) simply don't get them. Also today we had a guest for lunch and I chuckled as they grimacingly contemplated the idea of Fluff. We were talking about a shop in the neighborhood that has just opened, the first in Lyon, which carries a bunch of American childhood nostalgic products like Fluff, Oreos, various candies, cinnamon flavored things, etc. I laughed inside as my husband described also the peanut butter and jelly thing to our guest, and they both broke out into the French equivalent of "Eeeew." (that is "Aaugh", kind of like Ah, but with short gutteral stop at the end, and generally repeated several times between two people until one has the last say.)

I can live vicariously though you this week. I am going to stick to my regime. Oh dear, Linda, please tell me it was not my recipe that gave you the hockey puck.

Maybe you have to go away to realize that in Paris there is a way of doing some things that can differ from the rest of France... I just spoke to my father-in-law, who said that he's going to put more thought into it, but the first thing he thinks of are some particular ways the meat is cut there, he says that a tourenado is not the same cut in Paris as it is in other parts of France. He also says that for the most part the typical cuisine in Paris when he was a young man there was generally butter based cuisine, coming from the northern areas as opposed to cuisine based on goose fat or olive oil. He says also that in the area surrounding Les Halles there was a certain style of cooking in the restaurants that could be defined as Parisian. Anyway he wants to think more about it and provide me with some details from his memory, he is going to send me an e-mail and I will translate it. As Eden mentioned upthread, I believe that the person writing the cookbook had the intention to illustrate what people are finding at the markets and what they cooking at home in Paris. Thus the name Parisian Home Cooking. Not necessarily a geographical or historical treatise, but rather one in which he tries to capture the feel of the experience of cooking at home with his Parisian friends. Here is a link to a description of the book. But if we can define what is not Parisian, most certainly we can put some thought into what is Parisian?

It's really nice to hear what you're eating, Eden. I was thinking this morning that something also that might be nice in the mornings is a fruit shake. Easy and fast.

I'm bound and determined to make the above recipe work. I want flourless quenelles. (and I want that sauce with them!) What I'm going to try next is to whip the whites before adding them. and use less cream. I'll also use some creme fraiche epaisse instead of creme liquide.

Sometimes I'm too fixed on an idea to give it up. I can be stubborn that way. I decided at that point to incorporate flour into the mix and try to come out with something resembling a quenelle so at least Loic could eat them. I think it was a stupid thing to do, looking back, because apparently they were delicious and I couldn't even taste them. I stubbornly poached them, and although they threatened to disentigrate, they stuck together, but were not very pretty. I made the sauce. Now the sauce was a completely different story. It's very simple. Take your shallots, wine, and vinegar, and reduce them till there's just a couple of tablespoons left. Then over low heat, incorporate a whopping half pound of butter into the reduction, and the curry powder (just a couple of pinches). The 'quenelles' were pretty ugly so I smothered them with sauce and tried to hide them. I served this to Loic and watched carefully. Hey Mikey! He likes it! But they still weren't real quenelles. Guess what I had for dinner: One thing to note: The failed quenelles prepared above acted mysteriously as a high powered aphrodisiaque. Cook's discretion is advised.