Chufi

I will try to eat everything in my pantry and freezer before we move house in 2 months. After the move I will be cooking in a new kitchen, which excites and scares me at the same time. I will be exploring a new neighborhood, with new shops and new markets. I will continue to write about food, to learn about food, to be inspired by food. I will invite people to our new house and hope they will love coming there as much as they loved coming here. I will try more new foods, new techniques, new recipes. I will learn more about wine (this is a returning resolution.... ) I will spend more time cooking and less time in front of the tv! I will organize my reference books, notes and cookbooks. I'm hoping the move will sort of force me to do this I will continue to meet up with eGulleters in real life. Not a resolution, but a wish: I hope to eat out more, budget permitting.

mizducky - this is a good recipe, if I say so myself Dutch split pea soup Oh and the 'e' in snert is pronounced like the 'e' in when... I hope that still amused the 4-year-old in you! and I think we should start a new soupthread for 2008!

wow you had some good soup! this list is giving me some great ideas for flavor combos and ofcourse I'm especially thrilled to see this one one that's really speaking to me is apple rutabaga. Might give that a try later this week!

I made mole this weekend. It was, I think, the 5th time I made it and it was the best EVER. I used a combo of Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz's recipe from Latin American Cooking, and this recipe which has been mentioned before in this thread. 3 things I did this time which made the difference between good and fantastic mole: I fried everything in lard, not just the chiles. I took the time to fry and simmer everything for as long as the recipe(s) directed, instead of rushing these steps as I usually do. I don't have a blender so I puree everything in my foodprocessor. This leaves the final sauce just a little bit gritty. This time, I took the time to put the finished sauce through a mesh strainer one last time (It's what you really DON'T want to do after an afternoon of chopping and frying and pureeing and sieving ) and I think that made all the difference. The result is a much smoother and more elegant sauce. Really worth the trouble. Oh boy was it good. I'm so glad I still have some in the freezer!

I got that line from a documentary about her. She says it about planes and trains (she was really scared of missing them) but it's what I always say to my husband when I'm putting food on the table and he's still somewhere in the house doing stuff, so I figured it was foodrelated enough to have as an eGullet sigline oh and speaking of music: every single time I'm reading your blog I get this Dusty Springfield song ringing in my head: I said I wanna see the world/I wanna be a free girl/I gotta travel, I gotta travel I guess it's both because your blog makes me want to travel and have coffee and muffins in all those lovely places you're showing us, driving country roads and looking at the mountains, but also the sense of freedom that I get from your life. It looks bright, colorful, and warm. oh and that has to be one of the emptiest fridges in the history of eG foodblogs

Just as popular as the oliebollen are these appelbeignets - applefritters. You will often see them erroneously labelled as appelflappen, but those are puffpastries filled with apple (like apple turnovers). The applebeignet, traditional New Years Eve fare, is a fritter consisting of an appleslice, dipped into yeasted batter and deepfried. 250 grams flour pinch of salt 2 tablespoons vanillasugar 400 ml. milk 1 tablespoon butter half of a 7 gram sachet instant yeast apples: I used 4 huge ones. Choose a tart apple that will keep its shape when cooked. oil for deep frying flour for dusting cinnamonsugar for dusting Whisk flour, salt, yeast and vanillasugar together in a large bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the milk with the butter. When the butter has melted, let the milk cool to lukewarm. Pour the colled milk into the flour mixture and mix till you have a smooth batter. Cover the bowl and set aside to rise for about an hour, after which the batter should be puffy and almost doubled in volume. Core, peel and slice your apples. When ready to fry, heat the oil in a suitable pan (I used my cast iron wok today, which I like to use for deepfrying) to 180 C. Just before frying, lightly coat the appleslices with flour. Then, dip them into the batter, moving them around to make sure the whole surface of the appleslice is coated with batter. Drop the coated slices into the hot oil and fry, a couple at a time, until puffy and golden brown on one side. Turn them over and cook some more until golden brown all over. Lift from the oil and drain on paper towels. immediately after frying, while they are still hot, dust them with a thick layer of cinnamonsugar. These are delicious warm, but I also like them cold and I have to say they make a great breakfast treat for the Morning After. Thank you, everyone who has been making the recipes, giving me feedback, encouraging me and sharing your thoughts. All your kind words have meant a lot to me. I hope to put up some more recipes in 2008, but for now: a very happy New Year to all you wonderful eGulleters all around the world!

This has been a most wonderful blog. I don't think you've showed me a single plate of food that I did NOT want to eat and your photos are stunning! I also love all the pics of the menus, they really make me feel like we're right there with you. I've added your part of the US to my wishlist of places I want to go to...

For our 'sort of Christmas' dinner on the 26th, I made 2 recipes from the Splendid Table: lasagne with fresh and wild mushrooms (the mushrooms are a mixture of dried porcini, and fresh chestnut mushrooms, chanterelles, portabellas and oystermushrooms) The lasagne doesn't have a bechamel, but is topped with a mixture of cream, milk and cheese. It was incredibly delicious. Certosino, one of the 'keeping cakes'. I made this a couple of days before Christmas. I actually used Kaspers recipe combined with Nigella Lawsons from her How to be a Domestic Goddess, mainly because I think Lawson has a point when she says that "Italians appreciate a dry cake in a way that we don't". Her recipe has 2 grated apples added to the batter. Anyway this was a wonderful cake, spicy and rich and fruity. If I make it again next year, I think I would increase the amount of chocloate and slightly decrease the amount of spice.

My stepdaughter wanted to make dessert today and I gave her Dories book, she marked a number of recipes but finally decided on the Tenderest Shortcakes. She did an amazing job, they were delicious - just a little sweet, which was great with the sweet cream and the raspberry compote.

I made the white chocolate brownies today. They were destined to be a friend's birthday cake, so I sprinkled some chopped pistachios on top to make them look a bit more festive. They were very good, light and elegant. The combination of almonds, orangezest, fluffy meringue and tart raspberries is wonderful. I used frozen raspeberries and that worked just fine. You can't really tell there's white chocolate in there though. If I make them again, I think I'll decrease the amount of sugar and add some chopped white chocolate to the cake batter.

Pam, those look really good. I haven't made Dutch kroketten or bitterballen (the same ingredients but shaped into round balls) in a long time!! For reference here's the link to the recipe on the Dutch cooking thread: click I have a recipe somewhere (looking at my pile of food magazines, I think it would take me about half an hour to find it ) for white bean croquettes with chili anchovy mayo. I've always wanted to make them but never got around to it. Now shall I go and dig out that recipe....

That looks amazing and thanks to your evocative description, I'm going to try that soon! Aren't chestnuts the greatest thing? Bruce - thanks to a couple of generous eGulleters, I have a whole pile of different dried chiles. Thanks for reminding me I must make mole soon! That Huestaca chicken loos fantastic.

Thank you, all, for your kind words. And thank you Lucy for coming over and bringing me lovely foodie presents that I'm dying to try out at home, Beppo for the cat-love, and ofcourse Abra and her husband who have been such wonderful and generous hosts to me. I've learned a lot this week and it has been an inspiration in many ways. A challenge to speak and write nothing but English for a whole week (with the occasional French Merci and Au Revoir), an adventure to be in the kitchen with 2 wonderful cooks. Talking about food with someone who loves it and understands the way I do, has been a treat. See you all around!

Abra: "This needs more salt!" Chufi: "Uhm... it tastes okay to me! " Abra: "This picture needs straightening!" Chufi: "Uhm, I like my crooked angles..." Chufi: "Ugh, you're really eating tripe & pigs feet for breakfast? Abra: "Yeah, maybe I was Chinese in another life. I like gelatinous!" Chufi: "So you're plating this dinner, again? Could we serve it family style? Abra: "I always plate everything, so, uhm, no!" Abra: "Wasn't this fridge full of yoghurt, only 2 days ago?" Chufi: "I guess. I told you I like yoghurt!" Well... we do agree on one thing. Recycling is very important. We had dinner, too. The eternal soup was reincarnated yet again witn a garnish of fried garlic, walnuts, chestnuts and parsley. The cèpes Abra got this morning were rehydrated and incorporated into an omelet, together with some ham, garlic and parsley. We're just about ready for dessert: One more thing we agree on: Goodbye, Au Revoir, Tot Ziens! It's been a blast, thank you all for joining us!

Now this looks like it could be just any gate in France, but it's the gate to the secret vegetables! Amongst the olive trees are greenhouses with vegetables and herbs. A surprising amount of vegetables was up for sale, considering the fact that it's december and cold: There was a funny atmosphere of ladies all being very friendly to eachother, yet furtively looking around and at the vegetables, and only stopping to chat after they loaded up their baskets and bags with the biggest cauliflower, the juiciest carrots, the most vibrant broccoli. Here's our haul: In the small bowl are dried cèpes, that the vegetable lady gave to Abra and the other lady from the town who had come with us. I noticed that some of the other customers weren't getting any! Lunch: The eternal chickenbroth from the poule au pot, enriched with pureed squash, sprinkled with piment d'Espelette. And some leftover cheese... With our bellies full of warming soup, we're ready to go out into the sunny but cold day again. We'll be back with a final little surprise for you all...

Beppo understands my Dutch perfectly. So I guess he's just a very very smart cat! We're just about ready to go to the vegetable club. Doesn't that sound amazing, to have your own private vegetable club? We'll report back in a bit and then I'll be about ready for some final thoughts about France, bones, and offal.

Chufi: "What's that smell??" Abra: " Well, I don't know, it smells really fishy!" Chufi: "Is that a good thing?" Abra: "Let's wash them and then roast them in a very hot oven, we'll be okay." Chufi: "Are these done? Fergus Henderson says 15 minutes, right?" Abra: "Yeah, let's just spread it on toast." Abra & Chufi: "I guess this is not done yet. It's bloody and yucky." In unison: "Eeeeewwww!!!! Ugh! Beurk! Getver!! Gross!!" But, we take our bone marrow seriously. So we just scoop it out, smear it on toast, put it back in the oven, cover it up with parsley salad, and eat. And it was delicious. And it went perfectly with the Champagne. After that: oxtail ragout with chestnuts, ham and Toulouse sausage. It was rich and flavorfull and delicious. The recipe came from the book Goose Fat & Garlic by Jeanne Strang, and we served it with a Dutch stamppot of potatoes and raw Belgian endive. We took the meat off the bones before serving, but ofcourse, there are always people who will not be deprived of some atavistic bone gnawing. Now we're just about ready for a slice of something sweet. See you in a bit.

We had an excellent walk. It took us to a nearby town where we found a pottery shop with some really beautiful stuff: I bought one of those little gratin dishes and I can't wait to take it home and cook something in it! We also visited a very interesting bakery/mill, where they mill their own flour and bake their bread with spring water that they bring in from the Alps. This bread was baked with flour that was milled just this morning: Home for lunch: Now we'll be making some grocery lists and head to the supermarket, one I haven't been to yet, so that's another fun excursion for me. Abra is getting worried that I'm not having enough 'fun' on my vacation because we're basically just cooking and shopping and eating. But, doesn't this seem like any eGulleters dream vacation to you?

Re garbage handling: I notice that here you take your little bags of trash and dump them into some sort of communal bin. In the Netherlands that is becoming more common, but where I live in Amsterdam, we still do it the old fashioned way: trying to remember to take out the large garbage bag the night before the garbage truck comes by to pick it up! In NL, we do recycle glass and paper. There was an experiment with recycling the green compostable stuff (you had to present 2 different garbage bags on garbageday) but apparently that didn't work so now we're back to 1 garbage bag for everything except glass and paper. Ling, that potato dish was something that you would have loved! I have been thinking about the flavor of that ever since lunch yesterday. Chef Mariani said he only usues fresh cèpes, but if I were to try and make this at home, not having any fresh cèpes, I think I would make it with a combo of dried porcini and fresh chanterelles or other flavorful mushrooms. It's another cold but sunny morning in the South of France. We had breakfast (pics will follow in a minute) and we've planned the day. There will be a country walk, a visit to a nearby town, some shopping, some cooking, some eating, some drinking. Just about the perfect vacation day I think!

We finished a dinner of leftover chicken, shredded and swimming in that delicious broth. Some of Lucy's wonderful salad, a hunk of yesterdays bread with some époisses. A glass of the leftover wine. A little slice of the prune and quince tart. It was a very good dinner. Now we're sitting by the fireplace, trying not to fall asleep. We're not sure what tomorrow will bring. This blog won't be going for a whole week - (I must have a tiny bit of real vacation ) but we'll try and show you some interesting things before we say goodbye!

Hi Nancy! I'll let Abra get back to you on where she is, exactly. About epoisses: it's actually not that stinky. It's one of those cheeses that smells much stronger than it tastes. I would describe the taste as nutty, complex, with a little tang. And ofcrouse the texture is just gorgeous!

Well, unfortunately there was no trip to the market. After showers and numerous cups of cofee, and talking some more around the dining room table, it was time to go to the trainstation. We dropped Lucy off (and I hope she caught her train because it was close! and then Abra and her husband took me for a surprise lunch at a favorite restaurant of theirs in Avignon: A 2 pas du Potager (2 steps from the vegetable garden). Abra wrote a lovely post about this place on her own blog here. There were truffles on the menu and so all three of us had the same starter and main course, blanketed with truffle But fortunately there were sweetbreads to keep the offal theme of this blog going (I think I'm almost getting used to my daily dose of offal ) Yes, there was lots of wine yesterday, but lunch at a place like this really isn't complete without wine, so we each had just one glass of Château Pas du Cerf Cuvée Marlise. We then started with an amuse of cauliflower puree, flavored with truffle: After that truffle risotto: Unbelievably rich and creamy and comforting and soothing and delicious. Oh, you wanna close-up? Now this alone would have made me very happy but there was more.. Sweetbreads braised with thyme and garlic, topped with a scallop and truffles. This was served with the most fantastic mashed potatoes. Although Chef Mariani who came to the table and explained each and every dish to us, said that the purée was mashed with a fork. It consisted of potatoes, olive oil, and fresh cèpes which had been cooked in cream and then pureed. Again, just a plate of that alone would have been wonderfull! But the combination with the sweetbreads (which were cooked to perfection, and I have to say that sweetbreads are not my favorite meat) and scallops was just wonderful. And there was more...first we were treated to a little pre-dessert, which was so good I ate it all before I remembered to take a picture: a creamy chestnut purée topped with crunchy chocolate: Abra had a clafoutis made with apples, no flour (just almond powder) and flambéed with Calvados, her husband had a tarte fine aux pommes served with a green apple sorbet which was topped with a mandarin spuma, and I had 3 macarons (pistachio, moka and vanilla) served with a salt caramel icecream and a poppyflower-apricot-Perrier cocktail: Abra here: As always, A 2 Pas is a pleasure and a treat. If you're ever in Avignon, be sure to go there. We were so stuffed after all the dining we've been doing that we took an evening walk to see the holiday lights then came home to raid the fridge. Not that we're hungry or anything, it's just that the fridge is full of such great food and wine and, well, someone has to eat and drink them!

We're almost ready to drop Lucy off at the trainstation, but before that we'll visit the local market so maybe there will be some French market pics to look forward to!

That was Abra. I was so taken with this I had it in my mind's eye all day, which is saying alot considering all the magnificent food photos posted. Is the sky so blue, or is that glass, or an illusion? Also regarding the pig trotter/tripe/ham dish and the poule au pot, I think even if I did not care for the tripe I would be in heaven sipping both broths. I can almost feel that gelatin on my lips. Thank you! ← heidih, the sky was blue. It's been sunny days and blue skies here all week! And yes, the broths of both dishes were fantastic. Sticky lips-fantastic! Yetty, it's so wonderfull to see you here. You and everybody else who has been reading along and posting: thank you. Anyone who has ever done a blog knows this: the blog exists for the pleasure of its writer, but it would be pretty pointless if noone was reading it. The responses are so nice to wake up to and make me feel a bit sentimental, especially in the slightly hung-over, not quite enough sleep-state I'm in right now ... I love this place and the things it has taught me and the people it has brought me. So, thank you!

We had tripe. We had chicken. We had cheese. We had prune & quince tart. Doesn't sound like very much, does it? But maybe if I tell you we had also about 5 bottles of wine between the 3 of us, and if I tell you both the tripe/pigsfeet and chickenbroths were so rich that they started to gel on the plate the moment I layed down my fork and knife, and if I tell you the cheese was so delicious I had second and third helpings of some of them, and that I even had 2 slivers of the tart, you'll begin to understand that now that's it's 12:30, I'm really getting the feeling that a soft and comfortable bed is all I need. But first, the final report. Époisses racheld, you wanna dive in? Prune and quince tart: According to the recipe, this was supposed to be a pie with a pastry lid on top. But we decided to revert to the original recipe mentioned in the book and use puff pastry (which we bought). When we came home we realized we would not have enough pastry to make a double crust, so the tart turned into a croustade, and delicious it was! I'm passing the baton to Abra for the final post of the night. Welterusten and see you tomorrow!