LindaK

Fifi, I am impressed by a lot more than your cooking skills here...a 600 lb tuna?? Sounds like 'jaws' to me.

Pim, I read your piece when you posted it on your blog (love it!) and all I can say is that the Isphahan sounded like an ice cream sandwich epiphany. Too bad I won't be in Paris until December.

Get me there, please. Personally, I don't know if there is such a thing as too much salt cod. On the other hand, I don't care much for sweets but what I've read of canneles sounds intriguing--I've yet to taste one. Thanks for letting us live vicariously!

hurray! never mind that I did a mail order only about a month ago. Try their double-strength vanilla extract. If I don't need the bean, it's the only extract I'll use..

Yes! I'm with you..though I've had culinary agendas during my visits, I've always managed to fit good meals in between the laissez-faire scheduling. Maybe because I can only afford the occasional trophy meal, I've learned the pleasures of the unpretentious, unplanned dinner. One of my favorite memories, for many reasons, was two years ago during a late September/early October trip that coincided with the baseball playoffs of my beloved Red Sox--I was pulling all-nighters watching games that started at 2 a.m. Paris time. It turned into a trip of leisurely lunches--I needed only a light dinner before the obligatory pre-game nap, but after stumbling home on the first metro, I found that lunch became my real meal of the day. Ordinarily I'd always saved my francs/euros for dinner, but I got in the habit of going for a late, bleary-eyed multicourse lunch at a nice local place. The waiters learned to ask about "le match de baseball" and to bring me un espress without even asking. It was hard to explain to friends back home that in three weeks I'd only done one museum...it wasn't what I'd planned when I went but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

Thank you for bringing this thread back, I just read it from the beginning. I haven't laughed this hard for a long time. I doubt I'll ever try smoking a butt but I'm glad y'all have.

Yes, yes, yes!! I cannot say enough about community gardens. I got lucky and the apartment I rented when I arrived in Boston was a block away from a community garden. After leaving my beloved backyard herb and kitchen garden behind in St. Louis, MO, it not only gave me a place to get my hands in the dirt--cheaper than therapy--but also to meet neighbors who have since become good friends. And this was before it had a souce of water--imagine hauling enough water for tomatoes and zucchini...Now, I own a condo with a backyard that's in deep shade. Hostas and more hostas, if you know what I mean. Luckily, I moved less than a mile away and still have a plot in the garden, now blessed with water, infinitely easier. Since until only two weeks ago we were still wearing wool around here, I've only just gotten the warm weather plants and seeds in. Our season around here is short. In addition to all the perennial herbs, the new plantings include: - pole beans, a very space efficient way of planning green beans; - several heirloom cherry tomatoes. for some reason, I'll pay a premium at my farmer's market for the big guys, but I resent paying for the cherries. - arugula, which grows quickly in small spaces, just keep replanting and you'll have the tastiest baby argula you can imagine; - a patch of basil--I scatter a packet each of genovese basil and opal (red) basil into a small area. Pinch what you need for dinner, but regularly harvest the genovese basil for batches of pesto. The red I like for garnish and for making my garden beautiful. - nasturtiums, an edible flower that is also lovely; Speaking of flowers, a few flowers are good to have around not only for being pretty but for helping to pollinate the tomatoes, beans, etc. This year I put in a small trellis of sweet peas, fragant and pretty.

We already have one lined up, and it's an international one to boot. Soba ← Very exciting. Speaking of international, that bibimbap looks incredible, even for someone like me who doesn't care much for beef. That crispy rice is key. Has there been a thread devoted to this for Korean neophites like me? You know you're doing something right when we're all salivating over your leftovers.

Tonight must not only be a welcome night off from cooking but also a night off from heavy eating. I have post-Thanksgiving syndrome just from looking at those gorgeous pictures. Bravo, both of you. You've already set the bar very high for the next intrepid tag team.

Geez, I'm so impressed. How do you have time for all these great posts and pictures and STILL be able to cook like this? And I covet your wine cellars, if the offerings you show here are any indication. Back to the subject of the mystery ingredient, the reason I keep pushing for a vegetarian offering is because I can't imagine eating this much red meat in a year, much less in a week. I see a chasm here...perhaps we should christen this the "all meat thread" and give Marlene and Sam a pass on the veggies, and save that theme for some future fearless eGulleters?

I got lucky and stumbled across this recipe just when I needed it. I made Neil's variation, which was pretty straightforward and foolproof (I'm not terribly accomplished in the cake department). I cooked mine in a large bundt pan, since what I wanted was something I could slice and top with fruit sorbets. Turned out to be perfect for the purpose--easily served 16 apres BBQ diners (with some left over for b'fast). And because the cake isn't terrbly sweet, the sorbets were a great accompaniment. I loved it with the lemon, others preferred raspberry, and the die-hards went for the chocolate sorbet. thanks!

Today's Boston Globe has an article on the local fried clam scene in light of the red tide outbreak. Just as I was gearing up for a road trip to Ipswich and Essex to sample the offerings...it seems unlikely to improve any time soon.

Though I realize it means changing my vote on the mystery basket ingredients, I don't see the point of pushing for seafood if it isn't readily available AND no one in Marlene's house will eat it. Sort of defeats the purpose. Perhaps the next tag team throwdown can have a seafood focus. So, I still think a vegetarian meal has good possibilities. Perhaps featuring homemade pasta? edited for clarity.

Before they were FTV celebs, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken published a recipe in their cookbook City Cuisine for an Avocado-Goat Cheese spread/dip. Basically the two thinned with some lemon juice, evoo, and a few dashes of tabasco. I haven't made it for quite some time but remember it being quite tasty.

This thread is hilarious and exciting. I love a throwdown, esp. among friends. I vote w/ johnnyd and others who suggest fish of some sort as the mystery ingredient. I see lots of meat but no fish in the line-up. Or would a vegetarian meal be heretical? Or too much of a challenge?

This comment is interesting and probably fundamental to this discussion--chefzadi also said as much. As a foreigner, I think you must be right. Paris and la cuisine bourgoise are what most of us first experience, either from standard French cookbooks or our first visit to France (likely Paris). It is only when one spends time there and travels (or at least reads a lot) that one recognizes that the quiche lorraine and the boeuf bourguignon recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Arts are more than just "French" cooking. If it's any consolation, the same kind of reductionism is probably true for other cuisines--Italian and Chinese come to mind.

This is a great idea. My first few trips to Paris years ago were all about the cheese pilgrimage. Another favorite is to seek out good market streets or the roving open air markets (marches volants, I think they're called). The selection of foods in one small place can be amazing--not only what you'd expect in the way of vegetables and breads but small cheese producers, arrays of olives and spices, specialty meats, flowers, etc. Depending on the neighborhood there is often an array of ethnic food products as well. The atmosphere is always fun, very busy and bustling, and gives you a chance to experience local life in a small way--and it often takes me to neighborhoods that are outside the usual tourist loop. I don't know that I'd make this my only mission on a visit, but marketing Paris-style is always one on my great pleasures during a visit and something I always miss after I come home.

Don't worry, it wasn't your recipe, it was one that I pulled off the French recipe site Marmiton.org. But even if it had been, it was clearly my screw-up--after all your recipe's worked well for you and others. The proportions were similar, though, to half of your recipe. And the technique was the same. Thinking back on it, I'm afraid my butter probably wasn't super soft enough and that consequently I had to work the dough too hard to incorporate it. That would explain the toughness. I'm struck by how the Kamman recipe Kit gives reverses the incorporation process--flour into a creamed butter, sugar and egg mixture, rather than vice versa. And sifted flour too. Both would help guard against the kind of mistake I think I must have made. I'm going to try this aproach for Attempt #2, but only because I'm dying to taste this--I won't be happy until I've done both well. Live and learn. I had to laugh when I dumped my cake into the trash--it was so heavy that it hit the bottom of the bin with a loud thud. I can't remember the last time I turned out something that bad. Thanks for your advice and sympathy!

Wow. I'm a relatively skilled home cook so I rarely suffer Catastrophic Culinary Failure (CCF). I'm not talking about disappointing results or not meeting expectations. I'm talking about producing something completely inedible. Well, my effort to produce this cake was perhaps a long overdue CCF experience. I have a large, buttery hockey puck sitting on my kitchen counter at the moment. Dense, tough, yet somehow still moist, almost soggy on the bottom. Quite a spectacular CCF experience, actually, considering the short list of ingredients and seemingly simple instructions. I generally don't advertise my failures quite so publicly, but this was pretty humbling. And I did promise to report back! On the bright side, I have a bowl of delicious pastry cream in the fridge that never did make it into the middle of that cake.

I'm afraid we'll both have to wait until December, the low fares were for off-season. I figure I can do my Christmas shopping between meals. But hopefully other travelers will report back on this thread between now and then. My last trip was over a year ago, when I spent three weeks in a sublet in the 10th close to the Canal St. Martin, so I remember Le Sporting, I stopped there several times on some of my meandering walks between home and the Parc de la Villette. Fun to hear that others found it too!

Kit, that sounds fabulous. There's nothing like butter, eggs, and pastry cream.

As the person who first mentioned Parisian Home Cooking by Michael Roberts on the other thread, maybe I should clarify here what I should have done there. The premise of that cookbook is not to describe "authentic" Parisian cooking, whatever that might be. It is a collection of recipes experienced by the author while he lived in Paris--recipes that his French friends cooked for him in their homes, or that were suggested to him by his greengrocer, fishmonger, and other vendors from the local marchés. The recipes are often accompanied by a story or picture of his friends in their (often very tiny!) kitchens. It's a nice cookbook but nothing extraordinary. Whether the recipes reflect the typical range of Parisian home cooking, I don't know. But that they come from all over France reflects the point many are making here about how people bring their local recipes with them, wherever their origins may be.

I will definitely bake one or two this weekend, but in the interest of posting something more helpful in the meantime, I did a bit of homework, et voilà... First of all, in the Gâteau Breton recipe from Roberts’ Parisian Home Cooking, among the expected ingredients was another that surprised me: yeast. So this morning, it occurred to me to consult my one general purpose French cookbook, La Cuisine de Madame Saint-Ange (it’s much like the Joy of Cooking for French cuisine) and what I found was a Gâteau du Nord, which was basically the same recipe, including the yeast—but no nuts. According to the notes for the recipe, its origins are from the Artois (and that it’s currently en vogue in parisienne pâtisseries!). Then, I did a quick search for Gâteau Breton on Marmiton.org, a French recipe web site I keep bookmarked for emergencies like this. If you do the same, you should find 8 recipes, all more or less the same basic butter cake recipe. Two use yeast, the other do not. None have nuts. The variations are mostly around the butter/egg/egg yolk ratios as well as additional flavoring agents—mostly rum, cointreau, citrus zest. So, my conclusions, based only on reading: the real variation is in the yeast/no yeast version. Additional flavoring agents are optional, nuts seem dubious if originality is what you care about. The Roberts’ recipe has all the variations—nuts, rum, lemon zest—which makes sense if his is based on a fancy parisienne pâtisserie version.

I'm embarrassed to say that I have not yet tried this recipe. Rather I remembered reading it when this thread started and mentioned it beause I thought others might have some experience with it. If I were to post something right now, it would be the cookbook recipe verbatim. From reading the eGullet policy (thanks for the link, very helpful), it sounds as if this would not be allowed. Understandable. Assuming that I can't, I CAN promise to try it over this weekend and report back. If I'm reading the policy too strictly, someone with more experience should tell me, I'm happy to provide the recipe.

My personal favorite, if it's in season and my budget allows, is fresh swordfish. Just a bit of salt and pepper, lightly oiled to prevent sticking. And though it sounds crazy on the bbq, a small pat of butter just before taking if off the grill. nothing is better. A close second is a whole trout, when grilled whole it stays very moist. My favorite method: lightly brushed inside and out with evoo. inside: salt and pepper, one minced clove of garlic per trout and one or two fresh sage leaves en chiffonade. When I want to be over the top, I saute a slice or two of pancetta per trout, sliced, and use that for stuffing as well. Always a big hit at a dinner party.