Abra

I do all of the above with the stems, plus I use them in place of bok choy in various dishes. Here in France the chard is really giant, with at least a foot of stems, so you have to use them in everything if you want the greens. They have a neutral flavor, so they adapt to a variety of cuisines.

Thanks, kerriar, that looks like a really pretty place to stay. I'm still looking, especially for a place that will be "open" and happening on Chistmas Day itself, so any additional ideas are very welcome.

Interesting - where in Provence would you suggest?

I'm sure there's non-food stuff to do, somewhere, but like you we do tend to focus on food when travelling. However, one does need the occasional break! The Hotel Suisse looks like more our style (and price) than an American hotel. We do like good bathrooms and comfortable beds, but other than that rusticity and local charm are high on our list. No hotel-room Whoppers, please. Or were you kidding about hair-dried burgers???

I just want to add one little detail - get your oven calibrated! It's not a substitute for all the techniques cited above, but you'll be amazed how much more accurate recipe times are when your oven has been professionally calibrated. It's fast, easy, cheap, and worthwhile. Like right now, since my oven is baking in Celsius, I'm not only facing the conversion but the observation that I need to set it up 20 degrees C to approximate recipe times. Since it's a rental oven I probably will just go with my seat-of-the pants adjustment, but normally I'd have that calibrating guy out here in a nano.

Thanks for all the great ideas, folks, and for the links. I made a lovely little salad for lunch with grated carrots (the sort that are maroon outside and orange inside), walnuts, parsley, a bit of carrot tops, lemon juice, and argan oil. Now there's a really good combination, although I'm not sure the carrot tops added much more than the idea of them being there. I still have lots more more, and as I have leek tops and parsley too I'll try something with that mélange tonight or tomorrow. Argan oil with carrots - try it!

I won't have an opportunity to be anywhere near Paris until several days after Thanksgiving, so I'm on the local economy here. I'm going to chat with the butcher tomorrow to see what they suggest.

Time to bump this up. I despair when I try to imagine getting the ingredients for a really traditional meal here, and anyway, it sounds more fun to me to do a fusion French/American sort of dinner. What's everybody planning? This being my first try at Thanksgiving here, I can use all the creative inspiration I can get. I'm really not up for an 80 Euro turkey, even if I could get one way down here. But some kind of paupiette de dinde, stuffed with a sage and bread farce, might be really nice, possibly in a Riesling sauce.

I bought some beautiful carrots from a little farm yesterday, and the women I went with were all talking about eating the greens. I'm in France, where odd vegetables don't seem to be a big thing, so I was surprised to hear them mentioning adding the greens to soups and salads. Does anyone have a really good recipe? I don't mean just a way to keep from wasting the fluffy greens, but something that's truly delicious in its own right.

Wow, Markk, I kind of feel like I don't even need to go, since it looks like you've already been everywhere and done it all for me! That's some amazingly detailed documentation. It's funny, because Alsace has been right near the top of my list. It seems like a place where festivity is in the air, even for visitors. I'm sure that there are a lot of places in France where the fun is all behind closed doors, so I'm looking for a week to remember in a place that's overflowing with celebration. Where do you like to stay there, and not to be a smart ass or anything, but what else is there to do besides eat?

If you could spend Christmas anywhere in France, where would you pick, and what would you eat there? It's getting to be time for us to make some plans, and I realize that I don't know enough about how the holiday is celebrated here.

In Avignon, don't miss A 2 Pas du Potager!

It's cassoulet season again, hurray! I made a really easy and fabulously delicious cassoulet last night, and described it in detail here. It took time, but the oven did all the work. It was inexpensive, and so easy that anyone could make it. Try it!

Having just returned from the Pays Basque, I have to say that I enjoyed the wines from their local Irouleguy appellation. It's gutsy, not too refined, and goes great with the local food that's slightly spicy. But I haven't been able to find it here - I wish I'd brought some home with me.

And then there are all the little patisserie-type items they make - are those part of the formula too? The ones at our Copaline place are super-professional, while the FdP stuff looks really homemade, lopsided, and homey.

I just came back from the Basque country of France where one cook told me that it's a principle to use the colors of the Basque flag (red, white, and green) in every dish if possible. It's a lot easier for countries whose flags aren't blue!

Thanks, that's what we were suspecting. In the case of FdP, their Pain Aveyronnais is the best bread I've found in the Gard, bar none. It's delicious, an overnight pain au levain with huge holes and a formidable crunchy crust. And the pain au chataignes is very good too, so I'm not dissing them, but I'd suspected it of being a franchise of some sort.

For some reason I can't quite figure this out. We have a Festival des Pains bakery right next door, so we go there a lot. It's not the best boulangerie in town, that one's a Copaline bakery, so we divide our time between them - breakfast from next door, later in the day from a few blocks away. But what does it all mean? I tried asking my FdP lady, but from her explanation I didn't get a clear picture. I went to the FdP website, and from there I get the idea that it's a cooperative or collective of mills all over France, and in addition to flour it provides recipes and instruction to the bakers that buy from it and sport the FdP "brand." But my local boulangere says they only get the flour delivered, not the dough (as I'd imagined) and that everything is made there. And indeed, I've been in other FdP bakeries in other villages and seen different products, and of differing quality. Can someone give me a rundown on how it all works?

FFB, it does look like most of us inquire about food preferences when inviting guests. At least in the US. Since I've been living in France I've never heard anyone either ask for special food, nor inquire whether special food is necessary. The strangest thing I've discovered recently here is that in the Basque part of France tomato skins and pepper skins are considered to be "indigestible" and so serving them to a Basque guest would definitely be rude.

It's Autoroute food, but for an excellent alternative to the roadside Aire cafeteria meals, try the Restaurant Le Rustique near the Tarbes Est exit. Ok, probably no one here will admit to needing a no-star autoroute meal, but I know you're out there. At Le Rustique the servers are hilarious, dressed all in black sort of track suits, and wearing, I kid you not, shiny silver shoes. They literally run about the restaurant, even sweating a bit, calling out orders, and can feed you reasonably well in under an hour. An 8 Euro plat du jour of veal with olives was deemed quite good by my dining companions, and my cepes omelette came with a nice little pumpkin flan as well as a garlic-roasted tomato and a mound of frites for 13 Euros. We saw other tables ordering paté, which was served as a giant platter for the diners to help themselves, the same platter being then offered to the next table to order it. Possibly unhygeinic, but definitely copious. I'm not recommending that you take a trip to Tarbes for the purpose of eating there, but it's a fun and good break from the road, with a huge amount of food at a very reasonable price.

Rats! I just called to reserve at La Commanderie for tomorrow and they're on annual holiday until November 8. Bummer.

But yes, I've been to Treehouse, where I had one of the worst pizzas of my life!

I'll make a list of the shellfish I see and post it. I'm not too interested in eating them raw, much more so in knowing how to cook them.

Ok, voice of slight dissent here. As a person who just last night had to grab food in the Gare de Lyon to be eaten on the train, as I also did a month ago, let me say that a French tuna sandwich and a flan is WAY better than anything I've ever seen in an American train station. I'm not disagreeing that it's much better to sit down to a proper meal, but when circumstances dictate, I'm really glad that French train station sandwiches are as good as they are. In fact, we recently found the same to be true at the Marseille airport as well.

I see so many interesting little shellfish here, and I'm not even really near the Med. I know oysters, mussels, and clams, of course, but what's all the other cool-looking stuff? Would you share your favorite shellfish and favorite ways to prepare them?