Dave Hatfield

Felice - Lucy I know you are both far better cooks than I, but at the risk of seeming simple minded here's how I make my pie crust. (Note that this does not include the crusts required to make British dishes such as pork pies or steak & kidney or game pie. Those are a whole different ball game.) 1) put enough flour of any type, except self raising, into your food processor. Experience will tell you how much, but for just a top lid on a 9 inch pie then around a cup will do. 2) add a pinch of salt. 3) drop chunks of unsalted butter in while pulsing the mixer until the mixture starts to have the consistency of cornflour. Quantity is not important give or take on ounce or so. 4) Pour in iced water until the mix just starts to ball up. Take lid off stick a finger in & see if the mix hangs together. If so take it out . If not close back up & dribble a bit more water in. 5) When the consistency is right take mixture out of the processor & place it on cling film (in France you'll need two side by side sheets since the film is narrow) Now fold the film around the pastry ball & knead gently just to form it. 6) pu it into the fridge until needed, then knead, unwrap & roll our to the size you need. NOTE: If too dry at this stage dip your fingers in water & knead. Repeat until consistency is Ok. If too wet then add bit of flour, knead & repeat if needed. No big deal & the pastry works well for both sweet & savory dishes. International method. To my certain knowledge this works in France, the USA, Canada, Mexico, Spain, the Uk, Belgium, The Nederlands, Sweden, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. Can't vouch for anywhere else.

Don't know for sure, but think I've seen shorting in the dairy case at the larger markets. Unfortunately I can't remember the name. I'll look next time, but that will be too late. Actually, I normally just ignore the shorting & use all butter. I never could figure out why the combination and good old pate brisee seems to work. Hellmans doesn't taste like Helmans either. We bought some today. ('foreign' section at a HyperU) When we tried it, it just didn't taste like USA Hellmans. Think it was made in the UK so maybe they altered the taste to suit the British pallet. If I want good stuff I, like you, make it myself. I use creme entier which is always 35%. It whips well & does all the things heavy cream is supposed to do. If I'm using where there are no other strong flavors I'll just add a sachet of sucre vanille to kill the slight 'boiled' taste from the pasteurization. I find creme fraiche to be a bit too sour for some applications.

That is incredible! Don't see how anybody can top that. Or can they?

Prompted by the long running & still going "How many cookbooks do we have" thread I thought I'd ask how many links do we have & which are our favorites. I did do a seach & couldn't find anywhere where this had been asked before. I'll start off. I have 93 links to CR&F sites and the number grows weekly. This is with no repeats. (by repeat I mean, for instance, that I have well over a year's worth of Delia Smith's bi-monthly news letter stored, but it still counts as one.) My favorites are; Lucy's Kitchen Notebook, Fooding & Saveur (modesty forbids mentioning .....) How many do you have? Which are your favorites?

I've been following this thread with great interest & enjoying the posts. You can add 79 from us. Not too impressive a total, but it does include a complete set of the original Time/ Life series and Vincent Price's book. The thread has inspired (if that's the word) me to start a new thread on how many links to cooking & food sites stored on our computer(s)? I know I have more than a few. Forgive me if this has been done before, but I couldn't find any similar thread when I searched. Lets see how we do!

David These people have pretty good reputation. They make a number of foie gras products as well as other pates, terrines & conserves of various types. They're large enough to be used to shipping outside of France. Conserves d'Autrefois Ramond Fils (SA) rte départementale 926 82160 Caylus Phone: 05 63 67 06 14 Fax: 05 63 67 08 57 good luck Dave

Can't say what they do now, but I can tell a greusome, but true anecdote. Some years ago a friend of mine was returning from a business trip to Europe. As a great lover of fine cognac he had paid a bunch of money for four, one liter bottles of really good stuff beyond VSOP. At US customs they confiscated three out of the four bottles. He kicked up a fuss, offered to pay duty, begged ;all to no avail. He then remarked; "bet you guys are going to have a great party tonight" At that point the customs officer told him to come with him. They went into a back room where the customs guy proceeded to break the neck of each bottle on a nail over a sink, then pour the contents down the sink. With that he smiled & let my friend go on his way. My friend was nearly in tears as he collected his luggage. My other favorite customs story is about a US Embassy staffer stationed in Moscow in the bad old days. About once a month the embassy would send a junior person to Helsinki to the Stockman department store to load up on Western foods that were unavailable in Moscow & too fragile for the bag. On this trip the young staffer had amongst other things a dozen nice ripe avocados The Russian customs guy was very curious about the avocados having never seen one before. He decided that he had to confiscate them. As per instructions the embassy staffer made no fuss just let him take them. As she was leaving he asked; "by the way, how do you cook these?" Her reply; " well, first you boil them for two hours......"

Duh! Never could spell or type. Still it works in English. Thanks.

Drat! Don't live in Paris so can't take advantage of the tastings. We live near Parisot (82160). Our closest Hyper markets are in Montauban which has most of the big chains. I'm going to study the flyer lists tonight & go down to try my luck tomorrow. Sounds, however, that I need to do more advance planning to get the real bargins. There's always next year.

There are many many good producers in the area. Hard to say who is best. So, here's a link to the French Yellow pages.yellow pages You MUST go to the English version (click on the Union Jack); for some reason their search engine doesn't like the 'fois gras' in the French version. It comes up with lots of church categories. I searched for: fois gras, then by region & finally by department. In my case I searched in Midi-Pyreenes, then Averyron and came up with 18 producers. I'm sure that other SW departments will produce good results. I see that several producers advertise that they ship all of France, so they probably ship to Italy as well. Good luck! PS: those of us who live in the Rouergue are just naturally anti-Dordogne, but I'm sure you can find some kind of fois gras there as well.

In addition to all of the above I think that cauliflower leaves might work. They also have the virture of being easily found.

Every year at this time the big French Hypermarket chains all have wine fairs. See details in the French forum here. Would appreciate any advice from the real wine experts on this forum. All help appreciated. Free glass of wine at my house if you care to drop by to all those who chime in. Thanks Yank

All of the big Hypermarkets chains in France are currently having their fall wine fairs. Hundreds of wines at 'bargin' prices. Lots of flyers in the mail and guides in the papers & some magazines. Here are just a couple of links: strategy wine fairs My question is are they selling any of your favorite wines at good prices? Have you spotted any real bargins? (that you're willing to share that is.) I'm also going to post this in the wine forum in the hope that some of the experts there will give some tips even though if they're not in France they probably can't take advantage of the fairs.

Here's the country bumpkin's list. Guess I should have left the town names off as many Parisians did, but no use confusing everyone. Might have been fun though to see just how confusing it would have been. Bistro: Le Mamet, Septfonds Brasserie: Les Columnes, Villefranche de Rouergue Patisserie: Our local village guy, can never remember his name, but great stuff. Cheese Shop: M. Chernocal's wagon at Caussade market Market: Caussade followed by Limogne Boulangerie: Madeline Viguie's in Villefranche (her Mom & Dad still keep the shop open in our village.) Wine Bar: Well, cafe in Memer ONE star Michelin restaurant: Le Vieux Pont in Belcastel Favorite book on food in France: Goose Fat & Garlic by Jeanne Strang PS: Forgot to say that I just added to my fall reading list. Thanks everybody!

Never too old for cooking! I'm 69 & enjoy cooking more than ever (we did our latest kitchen renovation, our 4th when I was 67). Having the time to do it helps as does an appreciative lot of eaters; like Linda & our friends. Looking forward to the pictures.

Great! I think you make a good point and I think that no matter how much we like the various kitchens that have been shown a little healthy criticism will get everyone going a bit. Mi casa, su casa may be true, but my kitchen, your kitchen isn't. We're all different when it comes to something as important as a kitchen. The more ideas the better I say. I for one would love to see it! When I started this thread I put in the 'remodeling' to attract attention & to encourage participation. I would love to see a collection of kitchens of any age, the more kitchens, the more great ideas we all share. Have at it The sooner the better.

Ok, my absolutely last post on this thread since it seems to be getting a bit heavy which was not my intent. I really wanted to get some counter reaction to some of the 'fringe' posts that seem to dominate quite a few threads. I used some very deliberate exaggeration to make some points & provoke a reaction. Seems that that type of argument is neither understood nor appreciated. So be it. Jarancon is about 40 miles from the Atlantic ocean. I'd call that fairly local. You miss the point. Brandade is a method of preparing salt cod that is very widely used in French peasant cooking. Doing it with lobster meat is where the originality comes in. Putting the result into a qunelle shape is merely the window dressing. What's in a name? Whipping up mushrooms into a light mousse & calling it a 'cappuccino' is not exactly rocket science. Again, the originality is in thinking it up & exectuting it. Yes, I'm very sure the mushrooms were local. By the way Jurancon is not in the mountains; its just at the edge of the foothills of the Pyrenees. Agreed. I am not a fan of sous vide ( or vide tete when I'm being nasty.) WHEN IT IS CARRIED TO EXTREEMS!! In this case I'm not even sure that it was cooked that way, but think it is likely that it was. So much for the meal. My point was & is that you don't have to resort to exotic ingredients combined into strange combinations to produce cutting edge cusine. AND that the best cooking consists of imaginative uses of readily available ingredients prepared well. When I (& other serious cooks of my acquantence) go to a restaurant such as Chez Ruffet we go home with ideas that we can try in our own kitchens. We'll probably never achieve the level of these world class restaurants, but we can at least try. Whereas, and this prompted my rant, I think I see too much attention paid to the, as someone else called it "the fringe" and not enought to good solid, imaginative food that we can cook and that we can all get ideas from. Enough! Finally, if you were to take a look at all of my posts and the new topics I have raised you might find that they are overwhelmingly positive and seek to move the discussion(s) along in ways that benifits the forums as a whole. That's it. End of thread as far as I'm concerned.

Think your kitchen is going to be fabulous! A request. Could you join our thread here when you finish? I think your kitchen would be a great addition. Also, I applaud your choice of granite work tops. We have them & they're both beautiful & practical. An anecdote for you. Years ago we redid our kitchen in California. Like you we had a big range so had a powerfull hood installed. It worked great. Only problem was that if we didn't open a window somewhere in between ;it would suck the smoke from the fireplace at the other end of the house! Good luch with the rest of your project.

Gfron1 Who's jealous now? Those pictures are wonderfull! The cheese looks divine. Think I'd even play bridge (which I dislike) to get a taste.

Have a look at this for an example of what can be done with simple local ingredients.

We just got back from our Pyreneeain adventure. Had a good time despite various setbacks. Definitly ate some good food. Ok, first of two posts as the Hotel Chilo & Chez Ruffet are sort of two different things. Here's our take on Chilo. A nice hotel & very good value for money. The hotel is a bit 'old fashioned', but none the worse for that. Our room was huge. Big king sized bed (not too many of those in French hotels) sofa, arm chairs & a separate room with two single beds all nicely decorated in blue & white. Our friends rooms were also very nicely done if not so large. Ask for room #8. We had opted for demi-pension, 32 Euros. Good French breakfasts with home cooked mini-croissants & chocolatines plus all the usual stuff. Grandma's plum cake was a special treat. Dinner was both good & interesting. Bearing in mind the demi-pension we didn't get a choice. The entree was melon with ham. Boring we thought, a good old standby. Wrong! M. Chilo has rethought the dish. We got a thin millefieulle pastry shell with paper thin slices of ripe melon arranged to look like a rose over a bed of very finely minced local ham with shallots & a bit of creme fresch. Beautiful to look at & delicious. Civet de Lotte was the plat. Another interesting combination as I'd never had civet with fish before. It worked. This was accompanied by nicely sauteed baby new potatoes. The portions were generous. Dessert was a kind of strawberry log full of thick creme fresch with almond & a reduced puree of more strawberry. A nice meal at an amazing price. We had a local Juracon sec which was outstanding followed by a modest Bordeaux. Looking around at the other tables we could see other interesting dishes being served from the carte or the a la carte menus. Looked as if there was lots of things worth trying. All in all a very nice place. We'll return. The village is pretty & its a good jumping off point for exploring the Pyrenees. Next post will be the two star Chez Ruffet.

Many thanks for the praise. I'm just happy that we have friends who have good taste & like to cook and were gracious enough to let me photograph their kitchens. I'm looking forward to SWISS_CHEF's remodel. It looks like a real challenge from the preview. Additionally FFB, who is currently blogging, is promising to share her remodel. PLUS; we have several promises on this thread. Looking forward to an interesting fall. We're off to the mountains for a few days, but will get to my promised 5th kitchen upon our return.

Think you're first instinct was correct. Go with the chardonnay. But, heed the advice & avoid the oak. Try a chablis or a mersault.

Tell it like it is! To friends & restauranteurs; "if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."

Maybe we should. I'm guilty too, but there are many many ways, tricks & nuances to roasting a chichen. I bet most of us have our tricks or quirks to doing the mundane dishes. Besides my mundane may well be your revelation. Try it & let us know. If, however, it turns out to be delicious I insist that it be known as Dave Hatfield's curried duck