[Blue, White, and Red]

Today is the French national holiday, known in the English-speaking world as Bastille Day, but simply referred to as le 14 juillet in France.

I wish I could offer some sort of culinary tradition tied to this holiday, but as I explained in this past post, there is none: the celebrations revolve mainly around fireworks, military parades (I had to interrupt the typing of this post to watch the planes cross the sky above us, on their way to the Champs-Elysées), and dances. There may be grilled merguez vendors on the sidewalk here and there, but that’s about it.

That’s not to say, however, that one can’t have a blue, white, and red lunch to mark the occasion: something tomato (say, a salad of coeur de boeuf tomatoes), something dairy (such as a Bordier yogurt from Saint-Malo), and something blueberry (ideally, a blueberry tart).

Joyeux 14 juillet! How are you going to celebrate?

Although smoothies have been around for decades in North America, only in recent years have they grown popular in Europe, and in France in particular*.

We call them smoothies too, if you want to know, except we don’t pronounce the final “s,” even in the plural, and the “th” sound, ever a challenge for the French tongue to produce, varies in accuracy. Most people opt for a straightforward smoo-zee, unless they go for a smoo-tee or even, more rarely but much more amusingly, a smoo-fee.

(I’ll take this opportunity to note that in France, when an English word is used in a French sentence, even those who normally have fair pronunciation skills will say that word with a French accent — it sounds pompous otherwise.)

In any case, it is now frequent to see smoothies for sale, either bottled or freshly blended, at sandwich-and-salad shops in Paris, and a few have made it their specialty. They’re also available in the supermarket’s juice aisle, and a number of books have been written on the subject — always a good trend-o-meter.

Among these titles is a recipe book issued by Innocent, a British company that produces dairy-free, all-natural, no-sugar-added smoothies, and markets them with a “we’re real people” approach that has served them extremely well so far.

The French rights for this book were recently acquired by my French publisher, and because Matthew Gardan, the half-French, half-Aussie guy who handles the marketing for Innocent France, happens to be a reader of Chocolate & Zucchini, he asked if I’d contribute a recipe to the French edition.

I said I would, and this is the recipe I offered: a simple fig smoothie, thick and velvety, its rich flavors exalted by a splash of rose water.

The book came out last May, and my recipe appears on page 154, among fifty-four other recipes that range from classic (strawberry and banana; carrot, apple, and ginger) to unusual (avocado and pear; blackcurrant and litchi), illustrated by candid photography on matte paper, and introduced by the friendly banter that has become the signature voice of Innocent.

You’ll find my smoothie recipe below — and of course, if you have a killer combo of your own to share, I’m all ears!

* Lilo tells me she had excellent smoothies in Amsterdam ten years ago, including a memorable one involving raspberries, banana, and passion fruit, so it seems some European countries caught on earlier than others.

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When it comes to ice cream, I am hopelessly predictable.

As far as I’m concerned, if the ice cream parlor, glacier, or gelateria offers dark chocolate, pistachio, and/or yogurt, he might as well not have any other flavor: I am blind to them.

I always go through the motions of hesitation, though (I scratch my temple, chew my lower lip, and hum lightly — it’s easy to fake, really), for the benefit of my ice cream companions, and because I like to entertain the thought that perhaps, someday, I, too, will go for rum-raisin and watermelon, but frankly, I fool no one. Dark chocolate, pistachio, and yogurt are my ice cream trinity, and I never stray far from it.

Dark chocolate, pistachio, and yogurt are my ice cream trinity, and I never stray far from it.

When it comes to homemade ice cream, however, altruism and the basic rules of household harmony lead me to consider other people’s tastes in addition to my own. Consequently, apart from this empyreal dark chocolate sorbet, I have tried to refrain from indulging my utmost ice cream obsessions, lest I end up eating them single-handedly, which is usually the fate of the aforementioned chocolate sorbet, it must be said.

But then I bought a bag of good-looking pistachios, and believe me, it had gelato written all over it. I turned to my ice cream mentor for guidance, and although he hadn’t included a recipe for pistachio gelato in his book, he did offer one on his blog.

It is an eggless ice cream recipe in which the custard is thickened with cornstarch — this reminded me of my mother’s fail-safe recipe for crème anglaise — and it is so easy to put together that I will be using this basic method (also demonstrated by Mark Bittman in this video) again in the future, for ice creams that don’t need the rich mouthfeel provided by yolks.

David’s recipe called for Sicilian pistachio paste, and this of course I didn’t have. But as far as I could make out, this paste was simply a mix of pistachios and sugar, so I adapted the recipe to use raw pistachios and agave syrup instead, guestimating the amounts of each and hoping for the best.

I also added a gurgle of limoncello, an Italian lemon liqueur, to enhance the pistachio flavor and help keep the ice cream soft and scoopable.

I was absolutely enchanted by my pale green gelato, which I left chunky, as is my preference. And I am pleased to say I wasn’t the only one to cast a favorable vote: my parents, who had come to dinner, smacked their lips, and Maxence declared it the best pistachio ice cream he’d ever tasted, which has to mean something, even from someone who invariably opts for mango and coconut.

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Paris supermarkets stopped giving away plastic bags for free last year. The deal is this: you can either 1- bring your own shopping bag, 2- purchase a jumbo reusable plastic bag, or 3- purchase a flimsy plastic bag if you really insist.

Despite the corporate claim that they’re pretty (um, hello?), the jumbo reusable plastic bags they sell at my supermarket are ugly. But I admit they’re sturdy and very large, which makes them handy when you have a lot of stuff to buy, or a lot of stuff to lug around for other purposes, like take junk down to the basement.

For the rest of my food shopping, however, when I buy things from smaller shops (they still give away plastic bags), or for impromptu purchases when I’m out and about, I keep a reusable tote bag in my purse.

In fact, I have two. The first one is a brown tote bag with curly pink lettering that I bought at Monoprix a while ago: it comes with a little pouch in which to stow the folded bag when not in use. The second one is a blue flip & tumble bag, which was sent to me by its designers, recent graduates of a design program at Stanford University. This one you scrunch up into a ball and flip unto itself — not unlike a pair of socks.

Both serve me well, as they are lightweight, have a larger capacity than they appear, and are comfortable to carry. And call me smug, but it always gives me great satisfaction to stop sales attendants mid-gesture and say, “I won’t be needing a bag for this, thank you,” as my magic tote bag materializes where there formerly was none.

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