Abra

I recently made the Catalan-style cassoulet, made with lamb and a ton of garlic, from the Cooking of SouthWest France. It's a great recipe, light in comparison to many cassoulets, and very savory. Give it a try if you're looking for a cassoulet that makes the transition into spring weather.

I had the unexpected opportunity to eat at the Relais Bernard Loiseau a couple of nights ago, where we had an astonishing reception. Due to a total brain fart on the part of my dining companion, a French woman who made the reservations for us although I had invited her to dinner, this was our story. Although we were near Saulieu and had reserved there, she'd accidentally looked at the online menu for the Loiseau restaurant in Beaune where there's a degustation menu for 98 Euros. It's a very easy mistake to make, since their site is not very clear. Thus we arrived in Saulieu expecting the 98 Euro experience, only to find that the degustation menus started at 145 and went to 180. We thought about just getting one dish each, but a steak was 92 Euros. Crap. I really hadn't intended to invite her to such an expensive meal. In a very American way, totally shocking my French companion, I explained the situation to the maitre d', emphasizing how embarrassing it was for me to have mistakenly invited someone out only to find that the price was way beyond my expectations, and I asked him if the chef would be willing to create some menu, any menu, for the 98 Euros I'd planned to spend. Shocking my companion practically out of her socks, he agreed that since they did have a 98 Euro lunch menu, they would try to do something "simple" for us. My companion, to make up for the mess, offered the aperitif, which was their house apero based on cremant de Bourgogne and an assortment of amuses that included their justly famous fritter of pied de cochon. We had this by the fire before being seated in the dining room. Then, with impeccable service a procession of plates appeared before us. The restaurant is dark and so I have only a few pictures that are pretty terrible. Scallops with a turmeric sauce that made me want to lick the plate. That beautiful little basket was carrot slices and spinach leaves, and tasted as good as it looks. Pigeon with spring vegetables and magret slices, and an incredible toast of foie gras and foie de volaille. A sorbet and galette dish of pure chocolate in a sauce of bitter orange confit. They emphasized that the chocolate was made without dairy products, and it was incredible. They also brought us an extensive cheese cart, with a great assortment of local cheeses including a perfectly aged Epoisses, excellent breads with several butters and sea salt, a plate of 5 different mignardises, and what I imagine is their signature chocolate assortment after the coffee. A glass each of white and red for each of us, both very nice. Not the least hint ever that we were a charity case. And the bill, as promised, 98 Euros each. While I don't recommend repeating our embarrassing error, my hat is 100% off to Chef Bertron and his classy staff for saving our evening so graciously. The food was wonderful, and the welcome was everything you'd hope to find in a restaurant of that caliber.

I recently bought fresh truffles here in France, where the price was 1000 Euros a kilo, which is something like $800 a pound. That was straight from the producer, so I imagine that by the time they got to the US they'd be at least double, if not triple that cost. They looked like this, nice and plump, but even so they were a bit dry. This was reported to be a bad year for truffles, with a drier than normal summer, so if your truffles came from France some dryness by the time they made it to you wouldn't be at all surprising.

How about chicken livers with polenta? You can do the polenta in the oven à la CSWF, and there are lots of ways to make chicken livers a super-gourmet treat in about 15 minutes. Or your cheese Dutch crêpes? Or a pile of crêpes made the night before with several roll-your-own fillings. Or you could make a strata, a savory bread pudding with vegetables, seafood or ham. That benefits from soaking overnight and going into the oven when you get home. Or Himmel und Erde with lots of bacon. If you still have that maple syrup you could make a maple pudding with glazed nuts - that can be the night before and just sit in the fridge. Or you could make a clafouti instead of a crumble. Put it in the oven when you sit down to dinner and it'll be warm and fragrant when you're ready for it.

Viva, I've made delicious pork rillettes from pork confit, I think the recipe is in the Ruhlman Charcuterie book. I didn't bring the book to France with me, but there's a huge Charcuterie thread and I'm sure someone on that thread who's currently cooking from the book would give you the recipe.

I did a little fish photo shoot yesterday that might give you some display case ideas.

Am I the only one that worries about eating brains? Or are non-cow brains considered to be ok these days?

The only truly authentic feijoada I've had was one made in the US with all the pork products hand-carried from Brazil. Probably smuggled in luggage, now that I think of it. Since I'm now in France where interesting pork treatments are readily available, I'd love to give it a try over here. Le Peche, will you describe the pork parts in more detail for us?

I'd been wondering whether these were sheep or goat heads, but comparing your two pictures I think they must be sheep. Excellent skinning job you did, and especially, er, brave, since you seem to have been doing it right on the dining table. The fur is a bit much for me, though. After roasting, do they need no sauce whatsoever?

The Chateau du Mont Dol, looks really nice. I had a look at the Roellinger site and jeepers, it's expensive! My poor benighted husband doesn't like shellfish, so I think it would probably be wasted on him, although I'd do it for a splurge myself. Would Chateau du Mont Dol seem like a good place to spend about 3 days while exploring all around that part of Bretagne? If anyone has other small, homey, typical places to recommend, I think that's more likel;y to be our style for this trip.

I'll be happy to send the recipe to anyone who PM's me, but it's two typed pages so I won't post it here. You've got to have Seville oranges, though, regular oranges won't work for this recipe.

I've been making what I think is the best Seville orange marmalade I've ever tasted. It's not like anything else I've had before, very caramelized and intense.

We're planning a 10 day driving tour of Bretagne in April, so I'd really appreciate any updates/additions to the excellent information already in this thread.

What I want to know is: is it all an import of American hype, or is there an actual French Valentine's tradition?

Duck breast should be very rare when you take it off the fire. I only cook it about 4 minutes on the meat side after turning, nix the oven part. Let it rest for 10 minutes to finish cooking, then slice thinly on the bias to get tender slices. I'm using French duck, but I've used the Whole Foods breasts too, and they aren't a whole lot different.

In the end I used the buckwheat galette recipe from Anna Thomas that Chufi linked to above, and slkinsey's recipe for the sweet crepes, and did a whole bunch of fillings, the details and pictures of which are to be found right here. Crepes are just about the best thing ever when it comes to versatility and making people happy for mere pennies, or centimes in my case.

Pancakes, pancakes, noon and night, wasn't that a lovely sight. This might be my new favorite holiday.

I've got a good part of tomorrow's feast made. I did the sarrasin galettes, adding no wheat, and managed to get a dozen decent ones. They do take a little more care that a regular crêpe. There will be some with smoked salmon and crème fraîche, some with a creamy curry of petit pois, and the main thing, ham and Gruyère, The batter for my dessert crêpes is resting, and there will be a variety of good things to put in, an apple Calva compote, toasted pecans, Basque pastry cream, lemons with sugar and lemon cream, and probably some sort of chocolate. What am I missing?

May I just add another bon appetit bit? Here in the south it's very common for people to say bon appetit if they see you around a mealtime. Get some bread at the boulangerie around noon and the person behind the counter will tell you bon appetit onyour way out the door. Walk down the street with the bread on your way home and if you meet anyone you know they'll say bon appetit. Even a phone call around lunch time may end with a bon appetit before the au revoir. I think it's charming, myself. And now that the header of this thread has been rather bizarrely changed, I have to say that it is never proper to say bon appetit in bathrooms!

Although there will be only 3 of us, I want to make several different kinds. Because I have a bit of truffle and a couple of truffled egg in the fridge, one sort might be a crepe filled with brouillade à la truffe - but should that be in a sarrasin or wheat crepe? One will probably be a pastry cream flavored with the Basque aromatic spices, since our guest is half Basquaise, half Béarnaise. But what else?

This Saturday, Feb. 1, is the day for making and eating crepes galore. I bumped up the crepe thread here but I'd love to know what crepes folks over here are planning to make. I'm thinking of a 5-6 course crepe birthday lunch for a friend, so some savory and some sweet, some with sarrasin (I know someone will remind me that these are properly called galettes) and some not. What are your favorites?

I'm bumping this up because, now that I'm living in France, it's come to my attention that Saturday Feb. 1 is La Fête de la Chandeleur, a day when everyone in France is supposed to eat lots of crepes! And since I didn't bring my crepe pan with me, I'll have to get accustomed to the nonstick one here in the house. I'm having a birthday guest, and want to make about 5 different kinds. So if you have some favorites that haven't been mentioned here, pipe up! And in any case, Saturday's the day when you have total permission to make those crepes you've been thinking about trying.

One thing you might try is looking for recipes on the websites of some of the wineries doing the style of cabs you'll be drinking. For example, the Mondavi site has a recipe for pine nut and basil-crusted salmon that they suggest goes with cab sauv.

It's just a bit larger-grained than normal granulated sugar, whereas here there's also "sucre en poudre" which is not our powdered sugar but more like that superfine baker's sugar. To my knowledge there's no exact equivalent in the US, at least at the retail level, but it's not meant to be really crunchy, more just sparkly.

Those both look very good, as does the one you linked to, Lisa, thanks! Anyone else have a different take on truffles?