bleudauvergne

I think she did.

Thanks! I was only on vacation. The French take them very seriously, you know. Bux, I have the feeling that they probably do. On the other hand, everyone has their taste in cheeses and every fromagerie has a certain few that they do very well and a few that never seem to be quite right. That's why we shop the fromageries, and that's why there are so many here. Maybe I never choose the right ones at Mère Richard.

Excellent notes, Andrew, I'm sorry I didn't respond right away - there were a few things that had me excited about your post and I was waiting until I had time to do it justice. I'll mention the cheeses first - since I took photos at one of the fromageries that supplies l'Auberge a while back. For the person with purse strings too tight to allow them to enjoy a feast a l'Auberge, who might have the opportunity to eat a quick meal in their room or have a kitchenette in their serviced apartment - The following photos are from the Fromagerie Cellerier, in Les Halles, as noted in your excellent notes. They really are one of my favorite places to get cheese (but not bleu!). Cathare de Chevre from the Carcassone region Alpine Goat and Sheeps Cheeses (Chevre et Brebis) Cellerier is also a traiteur, have good charcuterie, and do an whole range of excellent quenelles maison. La Mere Richard is also in Les Halles, but my experience with their cheeses is that something may have happened in their management, or with their equipement, because after an initial excellent experience, the two following times in the next 6 months I went to them, they sold me cheeses that were at their limit. I'm sure they give their best to l'Auberge, though, and they do enjoy an excellent local reputation.

Keith, if that's what you're after, go west. The image you describe is taking place in Bordeaux. Follow your mind's eye. That's wine and fois gras territory. We were there last Autumn, in November, to be precise. It was light sweater weather. Warm enough to spend days out in the countryside, crisp autumn nights perfect for the fireside. Highlights included a lot of wine tasting at the vinyards in and around St. Emillion. To get an idea of what you can expect there, take a gander in Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of Southwest France. In the book she writes about the local fare, the fois gras, the cassoulet, the history and the people. From it you can get a good idea of what can be expected in the restaurants there. November is glorious in Bordeaux.

Hi Mark, you've got plenty of time to do your research about where to eat in Lyon since you won't be here until Christmas. 10 days is a nice long stay. May I ask if you're planning to take long lunches as well as dinners, or are you just planning to be eating dinner out?

When is the best time of year to eat oysters?

Yup, I'd go with that too. I agree -

I've been trying to throw my lists away but it's so hard to do it. They are souveniers. Many of my lists just don't make sense. I just took a look around for an example. Right here - the list that spawned the tete de veau adventure. I can't throw it away.

I personally prefer to drink champagne from a coupe. I don't usually let it sit around long enough to lose its bubbles, and I feel it's more elegant to drink from the coupe - I never felt comfortable craning my neck while in the midst a conversation, and champagne and conversation go hand in hand.

We were on vacation, in a big Buick rental car headed down route 81 between Ithaca and Binghamton on the way down to catch our flight back to France when I listened to her reading a poem after the announcement that she'd passed away. I cried. It wasn't because I felt sad, really. In fact, the reason was immensely complex. We were listening to public radio, for one, which had been sort of a background noise at our house when I was growing up, and I was home, the first real visit since coming to France. A lot of things have happened since that time, and we were home visiting, so many other watershed moments were occurring; it was just the thing that made me open up and cry. When I was 21, my mother gave me her copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol I which had been given to her. I remember cooking from it from time to time in the years that followed, mostly when I was feeling ambitious. It wasn't until I met my husband that I really began to take French cooking seriously, to try and please him at first. By the time we'd been through our first year, I had done quenelles and bœuf bourguignon, a few of those dishes that someone might consider stereotypically French. When we moved to France two weeks after our wedding, we had things shipped, and we would not see any of our belongings until 4 months later. The two books I packed in my suitcase were Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol I and Mastering the Art of French Cooking Vol II, the second of which I had picked up at a used bookstore in L.A. I threw them into the suitcase on a whim. I don't remember any real reason behind the choice to pack only those two particular cookbooks (and a copy of wine spectator - the one that covers Francis Ford Coppola's vineyard) as my only reading material for the next several months, nor did I have any idea what the future held; I just followed the urge. From what I remember we were expecting to receive our things rather quickly and only later discovered how long it was going to take. I spoke no French, and we were really struggling to get by, financially. The move and our decision to ship everything had cleaned us out completely. We lived in an empty apartment except for some cutlery, the gas stove, frigo, and the bed for several months. At first we had to get by on about 50 francs a week for food. At the time (and wow it wasn't that long ago), I was going at the end of the market and cruising the stalls in order to get whatever they were selling off cheap to get rid of, and even then I was ruthlessly driving the hard bargains to get food on the table. I was called "DUR DUR DUR" more times that I could count. Of course these were local products and as we went through the seasons, only those plentiful and cheap. As the weeks rolled through autumn, it was always something different. I would bring whatever it was home, look it up in the book wherin it miraculously appeared, and cook it according to her method. I know it sounds pathetic, but on most days, this was my only activity. A lot of things out in the city took a whole lot of energy to understand as I mutely manoeuvred without guidance and in a haze of being completely overwhelmed in a place that was beautiful and hard, and the days were full of exhausting battles to negotiate a sense of self worth in the midst of it all. It was the first time in my adult life I wasn't working, which made things rather surreal as I groped for meaning. During those hard months I shamelessly clung to these two tattered volumes and my time in the kitchen with them as a life line; a thread from a feeling of helpless solitude during the day into the evenings of warmth and fulfilment, seeing the pleasure on my husband's face when he came home, sensing his respect and appreciation for what was coming to the table as I listened to his stories and told him mine. Pretty soon once his pay checks were rolling in and things got a little easier, we'd find something at the market and say "what would Julia do with this?" Although my husband had many cookbooks in French, her recipes always trumped the others, something we both always agreed on. I didn't think much about the wonderful fact that everything I got at the market was miraculously featured in her book in one way or another. I understand that now it's because she didn't just write a cookbook, but a real applicable reference to French cooking that applies not only to technique but also to the foods that are the mainstay in this country through the seasons. The technique is instinct now. I have gone on to read Juila's words between the lines of many French recipes, lessons that came during that time. What she has taught me has enriched my understanding and improved everything coming from my kitchen. Living so far away, it's easy to preserve all kinds of mythical qualities about home deep inside of us. We think things will never change. One day we go home after having been away for a long time and we realize that reality has continued despite our clinging to and reliving the memories of people and places time and again. We realize that these people and places do change, and the fairy creatures that were our string to savior are sometimes really only mere mortals. It's a hard lesson. I guess that's why I cried. Loic understood, and pulled the car over, and told me so.

Dear All - thank you for the birthday wishes. We had lobster! We are on vacation in a very internet challenged part of the world and can't upload photos now, but we're taking plenty of them. I have to get back out in the sun before it hides behind a cloud again... Kind regards and thank you for the thoughts! We'll be back around mid-August. Lucy

The chimichurri sauce sure does look good.

Carrot Top, thank you for sharing your tips! I think point 6 depends on who you're writing recipes for, and what kind of recipes you're writing. If your recipes are going to be recieved by people who don't want unwanted details, and want a compilation of ratios and quick guidelines on putting a dish together, yes, of course, keep things simple. On the other hand, if someone has a specialty in a certain kind of regional cooking, and want to write a cookbook about it, they should really go into as much detail as possible. Enthusiasts who buy these kinds of books are looking for details. Example: I am a French cooking freak and I have a lot of French cookbooks. I have my standard bouquins with ingredients and summaries, which are extensive and thorough, and I use them all the time. However, my main purchases in the past 6 years, I'd say, are the detailed ones - the ones that go into local technique, customs, history, direct anecdotes, etc. the more, the better the cookbook. I can of course read a recipe and know the basic techniques involved for the various dishes, but now when I buy a cookbook, I want to learn and be entertained, too. My favorite books are the ones that go into detail and mention their tricks and ways of tackling certain tasks. Recently I've been doing research into what the French chefs are publishing - Different chefs have a whole lot of different techniques for doing the same things, I have come to discover, and I've been learning valuable new ways of getting things done by reading a chefs tips on certain techniques or getting certain effects. As for writing down my own recipes, I agree with the points above and would like to add that a kitchen scale makes things much easier to document than going through the steps of measuring volumes. This is a great thread and a needed thread. Thanks!

Marlena, there's a place in the 11eme, near Place Republique, called Restaurant Astier. They have a traditional menu with lots of selection, about €26. They have an excellent cheese plate and good wine list. The cheese platter is enormous and full of selection. Restaurant Astier 44 r Jean Pierre Timbaud 75011 PARIS 01 43 57 16 35 01 43 38 25 56 They're closed on weekends, and a reservation is recommended, you can call one or two days ahead and still get a table. I'm not sure if they close down for a summer holiday, better to call and check. Lucy

I'm going to have to live vicariously through your walnut wine experience this year, Rien. Damn I can't believe I MISSED THE WALNUTS -

That would be a really nice recipe to have, agbaber.

Hathor, I would doubt that's it, I don't think so. That peeling thing was kind of instinctive as I was getting to know the animal the first time I made it, it was kind of satisfying to peel it, as I cut up the animal I saw it shrink back and then I just started pulling it off, and that's what I do every time now, I start by peeling it. But I'm not sure that peeling off the outer skin is really necessary, nor is it logical to do when you have bigger animals? I'm thinking this "blubbery layer" in this big tentacle under the suckers that Kevin had was possibly due to specific conditions to the animal or to the cooking process. But what?

That's wierd. Once a long long time ago, I drank a lot of tequila with a friend, and we suddenly went into mission mode and climbed the up back fire escape of a frat house where some guy she liked lived.

Well, I've been asking and pestering, but the green walnuts have not shown up at the market. Why not? I ask and people look at me like I have some kind of problem. Twice they're laughing and saying not the season. Arg! I wanted to make vin de noix this year! I think it might be worth a trip down to Grenoble to a farm. The summers ticking away!

Hi Kevin, I have no idea about a fatty layer... Hmmm. I cooked up some octopus without cork and it came out very tender. They were little ones. I followed my fishmonger's intructions and froze it first, however. Here's a link to my recipe with pics. Has anyone else experienced what Kevin did when cooking larger tenticles?

I have a nice very special recipe to share, for a cold salad topping or to serve as an elegant appetizer, even when you don't have guests! Octopus is very cheap from the fishmonger, and I think that people have already discussed why on these boards, it's pretty tough in comparison to calamari, which is easily twice the price from my fishmonger. I love to prepare it though, and you don't need too much effort to make it come out tender and delicious, just time. My fishmonger advises that I freeze the fresh octopus I buy from him, to make it more tender. He says that they used to beat it on the docks in Marseille but they don't do that anymore, and freezing it does the same thing. So I took the three small octopuses I had frozen out and let them thaw in the fridge overnight. Last night, when I got home from work and had other things going, I prepared this dish, which is inspired by a french recipe for octopus "a la grecque", although I don't use the same spices nor do I think it is like they serve it in Greece! I washed them well under cold running water, and was ready to start. 300 - 400 g. octopus 1 lemon 1 t. sea salt 2 T. olive oil one onion 2 cloves 2 t. sichuan peppercorns 2 t. coriander seeds 1/2 cup dry rose (or white) wine 1 lime salt and pepper to taste (Note above the ingredients are exactly as I prepared the dish this time, and I think I'm going to continue to prepare it this way, but that doesn't mean that you have to. Feel free to experiement and substitute, I do!) Peel the skin off the octopus, and empty out the center cavities, and sharp ribs on the inner walls of the pouch. Cut them into pieces and let them soak for 30 minutes in cold water. After they've soaked, boil them for 5 minutes in salted water with the juice of one lemon added. While that's going, prepare your bouquet ball. The original recipe from Chef Jacques Le Divellic, calls for 2 T. coriander seeds. But I felt that the strong flavor of all that coriander overpowered the delicate flavors and it lost important nuance. I've been experimenting, and have wanted for some time to try sichuan pepper corns. So this time, I put 2 cloves, 2 t. sechuan pepper corns, and 2t. coriander seeds in the ball. Sweat one finely minced onion. When the octopus has boiled for 5 minutes, scoop it out of the water and add to the onion, and let that sautee for a couple of minutes. Add the ball to the sauteeing octopus and onions, the juice of one lime, and add about 1/2 cup dry rose wine, I've used a cote du provence. Add another cup of water, and bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover and let simmer for one hour. At the end of an hour, take it off the heat, and let it cool to room temperature. Transfer to a container with the bouquet ball and refrigerate overnight. Voila, a cool, tender, delicious mouth watering treat waiting for us when we came home from a long hot tiring day. Note on the flavors infused by the mix: The long infused sichuan peppercorns give a distinct floral taste to the dish, a nice suprise. The flavor of the cloves were not perceptible. The peppercorns and the coriander seeds balanced well, and I felt the overall flavor was more balanced and subtle (and more fresh and floral) than with only coriander seeds. The perfect thing to accompany this, if I were not dieting, would have been a crystal glass of ice cold lillet. Another idea is to get two or three pots going and have different spice mixes in each pot, like one pot with black peppercorns, one with sechuan, and one with coriander, or mustard. Mix them together just before serving, and then each bite would be a suprise of a different taste... Bon appetit!

Criollo Bakery Sighting article page 3

Our "summer sandwiches" are open faced Cheddar and tomato put under the broiler until bubbling and topped with lots of black pepper.

Thank you Steve, it's funny you should mention Rove from the Garrigues, I recently discovered it and had it on my cheese plate one month ago. The one I bought was fresh, young and delicate, and oh so flavorful - one of the only very fresh chevres that I had ever had that had that special something. Ever since that day I have been raving to my husband that we need to get a big bag of wild herb seeds from Provence and start growing a field of these herbs. Thank you for clarifying that the breed of goat is an important factor in the superlative qualities of this cheese. One other question about summer vs winter chevre, why will it be more tangy in the fall / winter? Is it because they produce less milk at that time? Thanks again for answering all of our cheese questions - you are really an inspiration and what you have pioneered and accomplished and continue to accomplish improves the lives of so many people.

Wangfujing is a nice place to be, Pan, centrally located. It's historically a marketplace, and they've recently done a lot of development in the area. You'll be between Tian Tan, The Temple of Heaven (where I used to walk a lot and one of my favorite parks in Beijing - I lived in Fang Zhuang just on the south side of the inner canal south of Tian Tan) and the Ancient south gate of the Emperor's palace, located in Wangfujing itself. To the north of the "gate" is Tiananmen Square. You'll be right in the middle of everything, very nice. I have fond memories of exploring dirty little hutongs in Wangfujing and small alleyways within which are located many little shops and places to find bargains. From what I can see in some of the recent pictures, they may have razed the area and rebuilt - because a few years agon it was not the modern shopping area it's being showcased as now. Oh well. I've been thinking that you'll want to visit the Lao She teahouse. It's a place where you can get classic chinese tea snacks and see a Chinese opera performance. I liked it very much. Lao She Teahouse Address: Qianmen Xi Dajie, Bldg 3, 3rd Floor Phone: 63036830, 63046334 I'll post more as I think of it.