bleudauvergne

It is time for a tour of the cave.

Do you do custom jewelry? My specialty is designing and producing one-of-a-kind pieces! We have much discussing to do.

Fred - Bacon does wonderfully. If you have a choice between regular old ham and bacon, use bacon.

Well, Fistfullaroux, you have come at just the right time. The rabbit is now brown. I have added the head (there's no need to brown that, since it's main purpose is to stew and let it's juices out) Then added the cream & mustard, sort of deglazed the pan with the juices, and now have it covered and simmering. edited - cooking for one - means I can talk to you!

Hi Jayhay - I googled it. Actually I was really curious about this difference between Isle Flotant and Oeufs a la Neige, which I always thought was two names for the same thing. Then at the table today at lunch they say there's a difference. I register mild suprise at this, and that's Florence's cue to go through the whole dang recipe for Isle Flotant down to the bain marie, which she explained to me like I didn't know what a bain marie was. I just let her ramble. But Boy was adamant that she liked those oeufs a la neige better! I have had oeufs a la neige done at home by friends and isle flotant cafeteria style. So I can say I like oeufs a la neige better too. Time to turn da wabbit.

Hmm the olives sound just amazing. Do you know what kind of olives they were? How were they presented in the dish? Whole? btw, on the process of browning the rabbit, browning the meat is the one step where shortcuts must not be taken. Heat up your fat, and then lower the heat. The way you would lower the heat to make crispy bacon. Because burning the surface of the rabbit is not browning the meat. This takes time. Don't hover. Come back from time to time and turn it. It won't take very long. A slow browned rabbit is much better than a burned rabbit.

Naughty naguere, you left much meat on the bones! edit. HATHOR mentioned olives. May I ask what your technique is, Hathor?

Do you do custom jewelry?

This recipe is excrutiatingly simple. In fact, Brigitte Durandeau Vanel does not even put mushrooms in hers. Her recipe is as follows: Mince 2 shallots. Sweat in fat. Brown rabbit pieces. Add 2 T. (mustard with the grains in it) to 1/2 a cup of creme fraiche. Simmer 1 hour. Don't forget salt and pepper. I have some mushrooms so I am going to cook seperately and add them at the end. Then when it goes into the fridge, I can put them together for a ltitle intermingling but not simmering together for an hour. Note - I have noticed that I am out of mustard a l'ancienne and all I have is Dijon. I have done this recipe with dijon plain and I love it that way. So that's the way it's going to be tonight. I think the grains would add a little visual effect. edit - you must include the head because that's what gives the delicious peppery taste.

Hathor! Thank you!

I was going to do the same thing I've been doing for the last few days with the whole thing and then after it's cut. In fact I specifically asked the butcher not to prepare this one so I could take pics. But I got the rabbit out on the meat board, and saw it's little wild eye, and I could not bring myself to take a photo of the whole rabbit and then cut it up for some reason. I have just cut up the rabbit in privacy. I will post photos of the process of making Lapin a la moutarde a l'ancienne, my mother in law's recipe from this point on. Now you may be wondering why I would cook a whole rabbit for just one person. I plan to eat only a small piece of the saddle. But leftover rabbit is almost better than the product cooked that day. And a rabbit sandwich with fresh ground pepper, lettuce, and mayo maison is a fine thing to enjoy on a weekend for supper. For those of you with high hopes, I include the head in this dish. So look carefully and you will see it. For those who get the willies, unfocus your eyes and scroll down quickly.

I have been to the market. It took a long time because first the bus was in a freak traffic jam, and then they found a suspicious package on the metro. I am only going to share a few photos with you, because I have less that 25 photos left in my image gullet! There are a lot of artisan cheese producers here. Their cheeses are not AOC anything, but still are in general very good. Depends on the season. They come and go here. The girl I bought some incredible blue sheeps cheese from last time I was here is not here this week. This lady also does St. Antoine on Sundays. She has always got a couple of ducks and geese. She also normally has a selection of specialty eggs at St. Antoine. The price today for the poulets de bresse was €8.60. This is the same price in general for poulet fermier at my butcher. They are both very good product. I'll try and get a photo of these same type chickens at Les Halles. I know this guy because I always buy a chicken here when I come. He weighed one bird for me, told me the price, and then said it was too small, so he gave me a bigger bird for the price of the smaller one. But this bird is going into the fridge to be stored and thought about for at least one day. Tonight I have to cook a rabbit I picked up a couple of days ago from the butcher. A Lapin de Forez. Warning. If you wike wittle wabbits be wery wery carefuw frum now on in this blog.

In 5 minutes I will go down to the bus stop and instead of going straight home I will transfer to the metro and go to the farmers market held on Wednesday evenings near the Perrache train station. This market is very small and features just a few vendors. What makes this market special is that only the direct sale from the producers is allowed. They do not attract the crowds that St. Antoine attracts because the market does not feature a wide enough variety of products. The products there can be rather costly and obscure, with the exception of a few things. At les Halles, Poulets de Bresse can run upwards of 27 Euros a kilo. There are few reliable sources of these particular chickens, but at this market, there is one certified Poulet de Bresse farmer who offers these birds at a much lower price than can be found elsewhere in Lyon. Thus I am on a mission for a poulet de Bresse.

My husband was my fiance at the time. I was staying in his little studio bachelor pad, which was not equipped with more than a toaster oven and one burner. We had recently become engaged, and he decided to invite one of his best friends, who was in the foreign service, and his fiance over to have dinner with us. I did not know Paris and I spoke no French. I volunteered casually to make the meal. The effort started at dawn two days before the meal and ended 1/2 hour before the guests arrived, and I made cajun grilled red snapper and crab with hollandais sauce, having to source even the basic ingredients to make the spice mix, of which I did not know the French names. It was a long haul. I had to buy a pan. I was all over the city, got special ice cream, salad, cheese, wine the works. They enjoyed the meal, we talked an laughed until 2 in the morning, and they vowed to have us back the next week. The next week, we arrived and she had made a yellow meal. It began with quiche. Nothing spectacular, a whole lot of salt, Fine, ok, I thought. With that, she served tabouli done French style, a cold and rather sticky sweet couscous concoction. I ooohed and ahhed over everything. She then said: Who wants more tabouli? I dutifully volunteered with a smile. She came out with a plastic box from the grocery store deli, and plopped a gob of the stuff on my plate. Oh thank you, this is delicious, I responded.

Lunch, School Cafeteria: Beets, Steak cooked "Saignant" (we have them to order), Spinach, Water, Isle Flotant. Here is a recipe for Isle Flotant. I would like to make Oeufs a la Neige some time soon, which is almost the same thing. edited to say I have not tried the recipe above but would love to hear if anyone does or has another recipe for it. Table conversation included : best way to cook spinach, Fresh versus canned or frozen spinach, isle flotant versus oeufs a la neige, how to decorate the roof of a dollhouse, etc. Thoughts: Wow that lady eats a lot of fruit, wondering where he's from, did I hear Japan? I should invite Florence to dinner, It's so nice out I have to get out and walk. I could not finish all of the steak nor the spinach, they always give too much!

I have to agree with Balex. The freezing technique is good for Octopus, my fishmonger recommends it as well.

Hi Fred, thank you for the advice. Can you or anyone point me in the direction of a good authority on Morrocan spices? Maybe Indian too? BTW, I have received the message that my order for Monica's books has been shipped. They will go to my mother's home and await my arrival there this summer. Thanks.

A sauce, like a condiment. Of course. Would you mind asking your mother for the exact proportions? It would be worthwhile to have them.

It is a beautiful gorgeous sunny day, the clouds and rain have passed through. Luckily my foul mood has gone with them, and my mind and heart are clear. Loïc packed his overnight bag this morning, he is going to Copenhagen to give a speech. I will be cooking for one this evening. As I left the house today, and walked out into the streets, where the sun was shining on the building facades everywhere and making them glow like lace, thoughts of the chocolate strawberries were with me. Last night was the first time I had used crème fraiche to thicken the chocolate, and the texture was silky, creamy, and rich, like the filling of a truffle. Since it was my first time, it was rather messy. But next time I will pipe it in to the fruit. An added thought might be to dip the filled berries into white chocolate, to give them a coating, and to use other berries. I feel also that this would be the ideal filling for a chocolate lover’s birthday cake. Aude’s birthday (Loïc’s sister) is coming up next week and as usual, we will give the family party at our house. I will be making the cake. She loves strawberries and chocolate. It is decided. I went to visit with a colleague this morning and she was delighted to show me what she has growing outside of her office window. A patch of wild strawberries, des fraises des bois. They are flowering now, and soon the fruits can be harvested. She has instructed the groundskeepers not to touch them. This also reminds me of the trip I took to St. Petersburg a couple of summers ago, where I saw a woman who had gathered wild strawberries and was selling them outside of their equivalent to Les Halles. She and the berries were very beautiful. I will add a photo of that to this post when I get home. I regretfully say that the woman was not documented. How could I have been so naive? She is most predominantly in my mind. It is what I remember the most, and also reclined in the room of our b&b in the afternoon feeding myself one by one these marvelous berries and thinking of the forest, the history, the magnificence of these fraises des bois.

Thank you, and good morning. It is a brand new day! This mug is from the one time I went to McDonalds with my Husband, in the year 2001. We went because there was a big sign that said "cadeau" in huge letters which you were to receive along with your drive through meal. We were in one of those weekend home improvement excursions, searching for something, and things had not been going well. So there was something attractive in the idea of this cadeau that drew us into the drive through.

If I may respectfully ask you my dear friends - If you had what was on the cutting board tonight, how would you have cooked it to make it more palatable? The grain is dried wheat grains.. You can assume that I have light stock all of the herbs and spices that you have. Thank you for your kind input. -Lucy

You're so right. My husband saw my complaint and says I exaggerate. It's more like 30% we pay rather than 50% before taxes to social security. He's right. oK, oKAY, it's like 25%.

Dessert. 100g. chocolate noir (70%) 1T creme fraiche. When you melt the chocolate, it's liquid. Then you add the creme fraiche and it thickens. I heared some people talking about this on the radio for something to fill egg shells with for easter. You can't taste the creme fraiche. (dinner looked like lunch - ugh.)

It fills a certain need. Failed experiment no. 497-321a. (and Pan, the ginger tastes disGUSting in the savory dish. Don't try it at home, folks. ) edited to say thanks for the suggestion anyway.

leftover lamb, in case you were wondering.