When it comes to appetizers, I generally try to offer relatively light preparations, and often opt for vegetable-based dips* that can be scooped with raw zucchini sticks or dolloped onto cucumber rounds : if I’m serving something before dinner, when my guests are, all things considered, starving, the idea is to sate them temporarily, not until next week.

On the other hand, if I’m hosting an apéro dînatoire, a casual night of drinks and nibbles, possibly punctuated by a SingStar showdown, then it seems reasonable, and even desirable, to include a few really satisfying items. It is on such an occasion that I made these cheese thins, which could be thought of as the cheese course of the evening.

They’re a take on the cheese straws I saw on Deb’s Smitten Kitchen, which she herself had drawn from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook. Cheese straws sound fun to eat, unquestionably, and I hope someone makes them for me one day, but I am more of a slice-and-bake person myself, so that’s the technique I opted for, effortlessly producing half-moon crackers (I made a fat log then halved it) that garnered unveiled enthusiasm from the assembly.

Not that it surprised me much: these could be described as crisp rounds of cheese shortbread, buttery and cheesy, thin enough to crumble promptly on your tongue, and dangerously good. And because the slices aren’t all the same thickness (unless you’re a robot with a knife attachment), you get varying shades of golden, which is ideal because each degree of baking results in a slightly different flavor and texture.

Although I haven’t tried it yet, I am fairly sure the dough can be frozen, so that you could keep a log on hand and woo impromptu guests with your magic cheese cracker powers.

* Such as: the Radish Leaf Pesto, the Peacamole, the Roasted Eggplant and Goat’s Milk Yogurt Dip, the Muhammara, the Strawberry Basil Pesto, etc.

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I grew up in a household where le goûter is a cardinal ritual, and I can safely state that I’ve been eating an afternoon snack practically every day for the past thirty years.

It is so much a part of my food habits that I actually size my lunches to make sure I’ll feel a bit hungry around 5 or 6, and in need of something — say, a blueberry oat bran muffin — to tide me over until dinner. It is also a welcome alibi to look up from whatever it is I’m working on, make myself a cup of tea (or, these days, iced coffee), sit by the open window, and relax.

Oftentimes, it’ll just be a piece of fruit, and my go-to afternoon treat is an apple, chilled and sliced. But I buy my apples from an organic grower located in the Val de Loire, and that leaves me high and dry from June, when he sells the very last of his somewhat shrivelled but super sweet storage apples, until September, when he brings in the shiny, crisp new crop.

Cue these blueberry oat bran muffins, which, despite their good-for-you bran content, don’t taste like a punishment devised by some misguided flower-child baker.

(The one exception to this rule is a wonder of nature I’ve only discovered this summer, called pommes de moisson (“harvest apples”), picked from trees that bear fruit briefly in August. This coincides with the traditional harvesting season for wheat in France, hence the name. My mother first bought pale green ones for me at the Gerardmer greenmarket earlier this month, and a week later I found larger, bright red ones at the Batignolles farmers market. Ever heard of anything similar?)

So then, from time to time, and more so during the apple-less months, I have to have cake, or some sort of baked good, for such is the spirit of le goûter: something homemade and unfussy, not overly sweet, and not too much of a nutritional black hole.

Cue these blueberry oat bran muffins, which hit all four bases and, despite their good-for-you bran content, don’t taste like a punishment devised by some misguided flower-child baker. (But then I really like oat bran.)

I should note — and this is a curse inflicted upon all muffins, sorry Tim — that these taste best on the day they’re made, when the tops still bear their delicately crusty crown. But the flavor is still lovely on subsequent days, and if you wish to revive the memory of the fresh-from-the-oven texture, you can always pop the blueberry oat bran muffins upside down over the toaster (I have a little rack for just that purpose), or for a minute or two in the toaster oven.

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Photography by Bertrand.

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Ménager la chèvre et le chou.”

Translated as, “Accommodating* the goat and the cabbage,” it means trying to please both sides in a situation where the two parties are in fact irreconcilable. It is equivalent to the English expression, “running with the hare and hunting with the hounds,” but it is a lot more common.

It is often used when talking about politics and diplomacy, and in some cases it takes on a slightly negative connotation: it may be implied that the person who’s trying to keep everyone happy is in fact letting the situation drag on, when perhaps a resolute/courageous decision one way or the other would settle the matter more efficiently.

Example: “A force d’essayer de ménager la chèvre et le chou, le maire s’est mis tout le monde à dos.” “The mayor has been trying for so long to accommodate the goat and the cabbage that he’s turned everyone against him.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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I had lunch with my friends Pascale and Caroline a couple of weeks ago, and afterward we followed Caroline back to her apartment so she could share samples of a quirky ingredient she’d just laid her hands on: hazelnut flour.

I had initially thought she was referring to finely ground hazelnuts (hazelnut meal or poudre de noisettes), but no: this is made by grinding hazelnuts finely, yes, but also removing the oil they contain, until you’re left with a delicate powder, light brown in color and supernally fragrant.

I walked home with the package of hazelnut flour pulsing with possibilities in my purse, and halfway up the hill I had decided I would bake this rustic cherry and hazelnut loaf cake.

I walked home with the little package pulsing with possibilities in my purse, and halfway up the hill I had decided what I wanted to do with it: I bought sweet cherries at the produce stall around the corner, and baked this rustic cherry and hazelnut loaf cake. Nutty, moist, and dotted with soft morsels of cherry, it did not last for long on the kitchen counter.

I elaborated on the basic formula for sweet loaf cakes that Florence laid out on her blog: it incorporates a portion of sourdough starter into the batter, and it is one of those recipes that starter bread bakers yearn for, as we are always looking for ways to use up the extra starter that the keeping of a healthy colony produces. You do not need starter to make this cake, though; the two options are outlined in the recipe below.

The hazelnut “flour” I mentioned above is made by a French manufacturer of stone-ground nut oils that once had the idea to give a second life to the round cake of pressed nut meat that remains after the oil has been completely drawn out of it. This byproduct was formerly sold to serve as cattle feed or fish bait (!) but they realized it was perhaps a case of de la confiture pour les cochons (literally, “jam for pigs,” the French version of “pearls for swine”) the day one of their clients asked if he could buy it for his own cooking needs.

They are only selling this flour to professionals for now (my friend Caroline obtained it through a chef friend of hers), so I can’t give a source for it at this time, but if you ever stumble upon something similar, you have a recipe in which to use it. And if you’re unable to find it, regular ground hazelnuts will work just as nicely, as will chestnut flour if you have some lying around.

In passing, let me share a simple tip regarding the melting of butter for baking recipes: instead of zapping it in the microwave oven (I no longer have one), I place the required amount of butter in the baking pan I’m going to use (or in an ovenproof ramekin if it’s a pan with a removable bottom), and place it in the preheating oven. After two or three minutes (I set a timer so I don’t forget) the butter is almost completely melted, and will continue to melt from the residual heat. I set the pan or ramekin aside for the butter to cool slightly, then pour it into the batter as needed, and use a pastry brush to spread the remaining traces of butter around the bottom and sides of the pan to grease it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my time-and-energy-saving tip of the day.

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