bleudauvergne

The maple syrup available at the supermarkets in France is like Mrs. Butterworths in comparison to the Vermont, New York, or Canadian syrups you can bring in from the other side of the pond. I still stipulate it's not the same animal.

When do we get started making the pâtés? I need guidance! It's funny that you should mention that, I don't like the cornichons here in France (too sweet - they make some place in my jaw hurt!) and was a rather picky pickle picker in the States. I went to St. Petersburg (Russia) recently and found myself in pickle heaven. Everywhere. They were all exactly how I imagine the perfect pickle to be and I have yearned for them since, and the pickled chives, the pickled garlic, the pickled everything else. I could just eat pickle after pickle. I have a jar of polish dill pickles which I found at an imports shop that I pull out for my side of the table when we serve pâtés and terrines, they aren't exactly there, but closer.

Here's One thing to do with Chaource. I have had guests last two nights and tonight we are the guests somewhere else but I will post the soup receipe soon.

Owen! What a wonderful blog. It's bringing back memories. There used to be a baker, an Italian, I really doubt they still exist, on the west side, Burnet Avenue? called Columbus, I think. On weekend mornings we'd take a trip across town and go there and wait in line out the side door to get the dough. Does this place still exist? Have you been there? In the university area I understand Hungry Charlies is gone. It was the best place for wings mainly because we were able to get beer there to go with them. Varsity was second on the list...

Trillium! That looks just amazingly wonderful. A pâté de campagne maison. I want to have some of that. If that was in the window of the traiteur over here, I can assure you it would not last long. People would buy it up like hotcakes. Hey - what's that sauce? -Lucy

It's funny that this thread came up, since I had a sage plant on my window sill just waiting to be harvested. I pinched off the young tender leaves and made the recipe for the sage pesto last night, and served it over pasta to friends. It was very nice. I was talking to a co-worker this morning about things to do with sage, and she said that infusing sage in a white wine like Macon overnight makes a nice aperetif. She says just to put a bunch of fresh sage (or basil) leaves, in tact, into the wine and leave it overnight. I think I'll try that. edited to add another idea for sage, a succotash which I find goes excellently with poultry of any kind. 1/2 cup unsalted butter 1 onion 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 red bell peppers, cut into 1/4-inch dice 2 courgette, diced 1 cup cooked feves or lima beans (frozen or canned is ok) the kernels from 2 ears of corn Salt and black pepper 2 tablespoons fresh sage, coarsely chopped Melt butter. Add onion, cook until clear. Add garlic, bell peppers, courgette, feves, corn, salt and pepper to taste. Cook, uncovered, stirring, until the corn is tender, about 15 minutes. Add the sage just before serving.

Chaource Aperetif Tart Serves 4 as Hors d'oeuvre. This recipe was covered by Robuchon's cooking show and was presented by chef Fabrice Maillot. I have taken notes from the French and present it to you. It is a savory tart with a hint of sweet using cheese, fruit, nuts, and olive oil. Pretty and easy. 3 yellow pears 1 whole Chaource 200 g pate feuilletee or brisee whatever you have 30 g shelled and crushed hazelnuts 2 T honey 3 T olive oil Wash the pears but don't peel them. Cut in half from stem down, remove the core, and slice each half into 6 lengthwise slices. Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Heat 2T. olive oil in a skillet with 2 T. honey. Put the pear slices on top, reduce heat, and let cook over low heat for 3-4 minutes. Slice the Chaource into very thin slices. Roll the pate feuilletee out 3-4 mm thick. cut a 24 cm circle, and prick with a fork all over. Flip the circle of crust onto a flat oven proof pan. Arrange the pear slices in a wreath on the tart base, and lay the chaource all over the surface of the tart base. Sprinkle the crushed hazelnuts over all and drizzle the remaining 1 T. olive oil over the surface. Bake for 15 minutes. Keywords: Hors d'oeuvre, Fruit, Appetizer, Tart, Easy, Cheese ( RG942 )

Chaource Aperetif Tart Serves 4 as Hors d'oeuvre. This recipe was covered by Robuchon's cooking show and was presented by chef Fabrice Maillot. I have taken notes from the French and present it to you. It is a savory tart with a hint of sweet using cheese, fruit, nuts, and olive oil. Pretty and easy. 3 yellow pears 1 whole Chaource 200 g pate feuilletee or brisee whatever you have 30 g shelled and crushed hazelnuts 2 T honey 3 T olive oil Wash the pears but don't peel them. Cut in half from stem down, remove the core, and slice each half into 6 lengthwise slices. Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Heat 2T. olive oil in a skillet with 2 T. honey. Put the pear slices on top, reduce heat, and let cook over low heat for 3-4 minutes. Slice the Chaource into very thin slices. Roll the pate feuilletee out 3-4 mm thick. cut a 24 cm circle, and prick with a fork all over. Flip the circle of crust onto a flat oven proof pan. Arrange the pear slices in a wreath on the tart base, and lay the chaource all over the surface of the tart base. Sprinkle the crushed hazelnuts over all and drizzle the remaining 1 T. olive oil over the surface. Bake for 15 minutes. Keywords: Hors d'oeuvre, Fruit, Appetizer, Tart, Easy, Cheese ( RG942 )

How did they come up with the size of the bottles? Is 1.7 oz. a "jigger"?

Thank you ever so much for this class!! It has truly inspired me. Edited to say that I will be coming back to it often. Bravo for the great work.

I recently had some Tom Ka Gai at a Thai restaurant and it came to me with large twiggy sharp shards of lemongrass throughout. Yikes. It was the first time I had experienced that. I'd like to know if it's common practice in Thailand to leave the lemongrass in the soup to serve and if the practice of removing the lemongrass before serving is a western convention. Thanks.

I'd love to smell the bacon "flavored" one. But I pity the fool who'd pay over ten bucks for one smokey ham-scented votive. Looks like you have to buy the set anyway. Think I'll get a shot glass, some kite string and a pound of Oscar Meyer's thick cut and make my own.

I'm pretty sure the French would consider it dangerous.

My expertise is in French cheeses only, so I'm sure you'll have other recommendations as well. I can give you a recipe for a lovely creamy soup using the Chaource (cow). Get that & I'll put the recipe in the gullet tonight. Let's see, if I were making a cheese plate... Epoisse... St. Nectaire (cow) is not to be missed. It's a cheese from the Auvergne region. These cows sup on the herbs growing on volcano rock. It comes through on the taste. Very distinctive. Just amazing. Morbier (lait cru means raw milk) is a substantial, stong & subtle, interesting cheese. They stripe a layer of ash though the middle in the making, you'll see the black stripe. I have that on my plate now. In the chevres, The crottin chavignol is a compact, dense, tangy little chevre, better with age. I adore that cheese and feature it regularly on my cheese plate. It would travel well too. The Selles sur Cher has a great flavor, and visual impact as it is covered in ash. It's one of my favorite chevres. The flavor gets better and better with age. Buy the Bleu D'Auvergne only if they don't wrap it in plastic wrap in the case. If they've got it wrapped in plastic, you're better off waiting to come to France for that one. Roquefort travels well, if you don't choose the Bleu d'Auvergne. Papillon is my favorite of the roquefort cheeses. In the Brebis, the Fleur de Maquis is a really nice corsican cheese. It's sometimes called the Brin d'Amour. It's encased in a coating of herbs and often has little dried red peppers on the top. All of the cheeses I've listed above have strong personalities. They would compliment each other well on a plate. I would taste them in the following order: Chaource Crottin Selles s. Cher Morbier Fleur de Maquis St. Nectaire one of the Bleus Epoisse I would not feature more than one blue if you're limited to the number of cheeses you can have. Here's my first post About blue cheese. One thing you could do is get all blues and taste and compare between them, they have such a great selection there. Of course I can't expect you'd limit yourself to the French cheeses with all of those great ones listed there. But I give a few hints about what to choose among the French in the list. Looking foward to hearing back about what you finally choose! -Lucy

Hi Jennyuptown - I'd toss it in the freezer. Herb bouquets are easy to make and great to use when working with stocks, soups and stews of all kinds. They are bundled together to keep them from getting skimmed off while broth making or the twigs getting all over the place in a stew. The bundle is removed at the end of cooking. They really infuse wonderful flavors. You can do them fresh or make up a bunch and let the whole bouquets dry out and use them dry. Instead of trying them up, you can use a big tea ball to hold them in. I make up different bouquets depending on what I'm cooking. I wonder if you could also make up herb bouqets, spray em with pam, and toss them in the freezer ?? It's worth an experiement! Bouquet garni: Parsley, thyme, bay leaves - it's the generic bouquet which I use in most everything. I embellish the bouquet garni with sage when I am cooking pork, and when I make turkey broth. Add Rosemary and mint sprigs to the bouquet - to go with with lamb. Basil (note basil doesn't dry well in my experience) to just about everything, including chicken, for a special flavor. Basil is just amazing tossed fresh with pasta, olive oil, pine nuts, and tomatoes, with parmesean grated over. I like to add dill to my fish stock and sometimes bundle this around a carrot when I'm making fish stock. Tarragon can have a very distinctive flavor so I use it sparingly and most often with chicken. When thyme is young and tender, I use it and the flowers fresh in salads. Basil is leaves are also very good in salads.

My favorite way to eat them: Tried braising them and they were too sweet.

Gabrielle, I remember the fear. It's nothing, things will be fine. Be prepared to kiss everyone on the cheeks (just making cheek contact rather than a full on smooch on the cheek is the way to do it) when arriving and when leaving. Prepare your child to do this. Follow their lead as to what side to start on and how many kisses (many from towns near Paris kiss three times). Since these are relatives of a friend of yours, and not your own relatives, they may just shake your hand. Follow what they do. As for table manners, somethign I did at the beginning was to simply follow the actions of the hostess and everything was just fine. Remember that if you are uncomfortable with the French way of holding a fork, they understand you are a foreigner and will not hold it against you if you do it your way. Two things to remember are : although you have been taught to put your hands in your lap at the table, the French keep their hands on top of the table (watch and follow), and although you have been taught to put your bread on the edge of your plate or on a seperate plate, the French put their bread on the table. Have a wonderful trip, your itinerary does sound just wonderful. Your children will simply love it. It will be a wonderful adventure.

We normally connect on overseas flights on the TGV from Lyon to Paris. This is a good thing to know, since when we travel to and from the States, we normally carry lots of suicases. Thanks.

I made the chocolate cheesecake brownies with pralines. They were almost too much! Everyone who tasted them praised the individual parts but we all agreed that they would be better each in their own individual spotlight. Thus I posted the very easy Dark Chocolate Brownie Recipe in the gullet. Once I come up with a satisfying crust for the cheesecake part, I will post that as well. As for the pralines, a recipe will also be up shortly. Thanks for the help with the flour!

Dark Chocolate Brownies Serves 8 as Dessert. This is the brownie part of a recipe I made for Chcolate Cheesecake brownies. In my opinion, the cheesecake and the brownies were both wonderful but they ended up competing with each other. The brownie part was really wonderful, and should be enjoyed without competition. This is the brownie part. For chocolate, I used 2/3 nestle dessert chocolate, which is 57% cocoa, an American equivalent would be your average bittersweet. The other 1/3 I used was a Lindt Excellence Noirissime 99%, and an equivalent would be the closest you can get to pure unsweetened chocolate as you can. The sugar I used was granulated pure cane sugar, not the beet derivative stuff. This recipe does not need vanilla. 65 g fresh butter 200 g dark chocolate 80 g all purpose or French type 55 flour 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 3 large eggs 215 g granulated sugar Heat the oven to 175c or 350f. Grease a rectangular (about 8"x12" or 20x30cms) baking pan. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside. Beat the eggs and sugar until very thick, fluffy, and lemon yellow. This could take awhile. Carefully melt chocolate and butter on medium power in the microwave or the best way you know how. Fold the chocolate/butter mixture into the egg/sugar mixture, and then sift and fold in the above mentioned flour mixture. Pour into pan and bake 20-30 minutes, until the top is crusty and it is set. Keywords: Dessert, Brownies/Bars ( RG931 )

Dark Chocolate Brownies Serves 8 as Dessert. This is the brownie part of a recipe I made for Chcolate Cheesecake brownies. In my opinion, the cheesecake and the brownies were both wonderful but they ended up competing with each other. The brownie part was really wonderful, and should be enjoyed without competition. This is the brownie part. For chocolate, I used 2/3 nestle dessert chocolate, which is 57% cocoa, an American equivalent would be your average bittersweet. The other 1/3 I used was a Lindt Excellence Noirissime 99%, and an equivalent would be the closest you can get to pure unsweetened chocolate as you can. The sugar I used was granulated pure cane sugar, not the beet derivative stuff. This recipe does not need vanilla. 65 g fresh butter 200 g dark chocolate 80 g all purpose or French type 55 flour 3/4 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 3 large eggs 215 g granulated sugar Heat the oven to 175c or 350f. Grease a rectangular (about 8"x12" or 20x30cms) baking pan. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt, and set aside. Beat the eggs and sugar until very thick, fluffy, and lemon yellow. This could take awhile. Carefully melt chocolate and butter on medium power in the microwave or the best way you know how. Fold the chocolate/butter mixture into the egg/sugar mixture, and then sift and fold in the above mentioned flour mixture. Pour into pan and bake 20-30 minutes, until the top is crusty and it is set. Keywords: Dessert, Brownies/Bars ( RG931 )

I think you'd be alright giving them a dunk before baking. But I'd try a test version first, since it's just in theory that I'm thinking it will work.

I would appreciate one of these:

MMMMM! Savory crepes. In Brittany they are sometimes called galettes. We love the ones made with buckwheat flour, which is called farine de sarrasin or ble noir in French. This "flour" contains no gluten. When we were following the Montignac plan, it was a perfect stage II food. The Galettes we know contain buckwheat flour, water, and sea salt only. There are all kinds of different kinds of crepes though, and they vary by locality all across Brittany. Many French people have their galette with the local butter of Britanny, or a little bit of grated cheese. A simple egg or a few shavings of andouille sausage, which is also local to Brittany and is a sausage of rolled pork intestines. Andouille is not to be confused with Lyonnais andouilette, which is a sausage made of ground instestines and other things, nor should it be confused with the spicy smoked pork sausage we can see in the southern US, which does not even remotely resemble French andouille (They are all good, though!) If you go to Brittany, don't ignore the crepes, they are simply wonderful there. We have a couple of creperies here in Lyon that we frequent from time to time. My favorite kind of galette has a grated emmanthal, an egg, a couple of slices of Andouille, and a liberal sprinkling of pepper. Mmm, delish. Pass the cider!

The cheeses were quite large and flat, about 1-2 cms' high, and I would say were about 12 cm's in diameter each. Chevre comes in many forms. I have just called them and they say it is a "Cathare de Chevre" from the Carcassone region. edited to add a Link to Fromages.com's description of this cheese in French and a llink to the same description in English.