When I recovered my kitchen after seven weeks (seven! weeks!) of renovation chaos — and this was just to redo the bathroom, mind you — the very first thing I made was a yogurt cake, to fortify us through our next mission: the meticulous cleaning of, well, the entire contents of our apartment, which we had ill-protected from the dust storm. (Never again will we underestimate plaster and tile.)

And as soon as our home regained a sense of cleanliness and harmony, I was able to pick up my cooking life where I’d left it seven weeks (seven! weeks!) earlier, and — oh, the bliss — return to the Batignolles farmers’ market. “Where have you been all summer?” my produce vendor asked, as I went on a bit of a vegetable shopping spree.

I rode home on a cloud, unloaded my baskets into my squeaky-clean vegetable drawers (I’d also scoured the fridge while I was at it), and started to plot ways to use my loot. Of particular concern to me were the fist-sized eggplants I had fallen for, so shiny you could use them as pocket mirrors (handy when the contractor has yet to afix the mirror above the bathroom sink).

You see, I am hopeless with eggplant. The only way eggplants and I get along is when I reaffirm my authority by roasting the living daylight out of them. I usually go on to make my neighbor Stephan’s eggplant caviar, the recipe for which is featured in my first book, but I was in the mood to try something a little different this time.

Coincidentally, I had just received a review copy of Janna Gur’s Book of New Israeli Food, an enticing book that’s as much about the food as it is about the people and daily life of Israel. And on page 28, the author quotes an Arab adage that made me laugh: “If your future bride can’t prepare eggplant fifty different ways — don’t marry her,” it says.

Janna Gur goes on to give about a dozen, which is a lot more than most cooks have in their repertoire, I daresay, yet still leaves them to do a bit more research if they are to be ready when an Arab prince comes to whisk them away.

Among Gur’s suggestions are eight mini-recipes for dips and salads that involve just a few ingredients, and because I had goat’s milk yogurt in the fridge, the one that tempted me most was the Roasted Eggplant with Yogurt. It went something like this, “add 2 cups yogurt to the flesh of 2 roasted eggplants; add crushed garlic, salt, black pepper, and, optionally, chopped mint and coriander leaves.”

I ended up preparing mine a bit differently — see recipe below — and was delighted with the use of yogurt, which gives the dip a rich, creamy texture, yet keeps it light and tangy. Eggplants are scheduled to stick around for just a little while longer before fall begins in earnest, and this is a fine way to bid them farewell.

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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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