Sometimes, when I have a minute, I sit back and think about the world of food, how vast it is, and how many rivers, hills, and valleys still remain uncharted to me. I don’t find the idea overwhelming, far from it. I find it encouraging, I find it promising, I find it comforting: as long as I can read books and move around a kitchen, my life will see no shortage of inspiring ideas, happy discoveries, and exciting projects.

Just this week, I received two emails from readers offering their recipes and knowledge, should I want to explore the cuisines of their home countries (Argentinian and Turkish, no less), and a review copy of the most inspiring book I’ve seen in a while, Moro East, in which practically every page now wears a sticky tag on its lapel.

Muhammara is best made with pomegranate molasses: the sweet and acidic syrup bridges the sweetness of the peppers and the bitter edge of the walnuts.

Another example is this muhammara. I don’t remember how the concept fell into my lap — did I read about it on a website? in a book? — but this Middle-Eastern spread, made from roasted bell peppers and walnuts, appealed to me instantly. It was novel to me, I had never tasted it anywhere, but my mind’s taste buds could barely contain their enthusiasm.

Part of the attraction was the fact that muhammara is best made with pomegranate molasses, a popular ingredient in Lebanese and other Mediterranean cuisines that has become rather trendy of late*. Here, this sweet and acidic syrup is called for to bridge the sweetness of the peppers and the bitter edge of the walnuts.

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I normally host a big birthday bash every year, or at least that’s what I’ve done the past four summers, inviting friends, old and new, to celebrate the fact that it is late July and the weather is nice and Paris is empty and I’m a year wiser.

But this time, no.

I was a little bummed to break from this young tradition, for I really do enjoy these parties, but the past few months have been a whirlwind, I feel I haven’t had a moment to stop and smell the strawberries, and I am in dire need of a vacation, so the last thing I wanted to do was pile another big project onto my plate. Just the thought of it made me want to go and hide under heaps of shoes in the back of our walk-in closet, which, you may be interested to learn, the French call le dressing.

But it wouldn’t be quite right to bid the previous year adieu without some sort of gathering, so I decided I would still cook dinner for the small circle of my closest friends, sticking mostly to tried-and-true, make-ahead recipes.

You marinate chicken thighs with green olives and prunes, and simply bake the whole thing until it is nicely glazed and browned with crusty bits on the outside, but still moist and tender at heart.

The evening opened on glasses of fine sangria, made with a mix I’d recently been given as a present — it consists in flavored sugar and dried fruits that you marinate in red wine overnight, and I merely added frozen melon balls in lieu of ice cubes. With that we nibbled on slices of saucisson from Savoie, and little toasts spread with either my sardine and harissa mousse or my neighbor Stephan’s eggplant caviar, which I expressly request from him each year.

We then moved on to a buffet-like spread that included my red quinoa salad, made this time with mixed roasted vegetables (tomatoes, red bell peppers, zucchini, and onions) and toasted pistachios; Stephan’s green salad with shrimp and honey vinaigrette; my attempt at a savory cheesecake, which needs more work before I can decently share a recipe; and caramelized chicken thighs.

The latter is a dish that Pascale made for me eons ago (okay, two years). I’d kept the recipe in my files under the name Le Poulet d’Alisa, as Pascale had rechristened it in honor of the mutual friend who had given it to her in the first place. It originated in fact as the Silver Palate‘s Chicken Marbella, but you can trust three successive cooks to make it shift a bit from the original.

The recipe has you marinate chicken thighs with green olives and prunes until the next day, when you simply bake the whole thing, basting the meat often, until it is nicely glazed and browned with crusty bits on the outside, but still moist and tender at heart.

Easier than pie and highly flavorful with its sweet and briny Mediterranean accents, the dish went down very well with our guests. I just wish I hadn’t completely forgotten the final sprinkling of cilantro and toasted almonds. Oh well, that just went into the leftovers salad for lunch the next day.

And for dessert, I had baked one of my favorite cakes in the whole cake world, the blueberry coffee cake, to which I’d added a layer of pecans — toasted, roughly chopped, and tossed with a little maple syrup. We had it with my friend Marie-Laure’s fruit salad, another item without which my birthday wouldn’t quite be my birthday.

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Let me start this post by declaring my love for the Northern European high-speed train network: Northern European high-speed train network, I love you.

Really, can anyone think of anything more enthusing than the fact that London‘s Borough Market, Amsterdam‘s rijsttafels, and Strasbourg‘s flammekueche are just a couple of hours away from Paris, and that the trip to get there does not involve taking off your belt, your shoes, and the filling in your left molar, nor tossing out your only bottle of contact lens cleanser? I can’t either.

And to further illustrate that point, Maxence and I have just spent a sunny weekend in Brussels, a city of true gourmands where every other street name has something to do with food — Rue des Bouchers, Rue aux Choux, Rue du Persil… Here are a few highlights.

Moules-frites at La Bonne Humeur

{Unfortunately La Bonne Humeur is closed for good.}

Of course, we had to kick things off with mussels and fries, and we had the good fortune of stumbling upon these posts by Laurent Goffin. He was writing about a modest bistro straight out of the seventies, complete with formica tables and wood-paneled walls, and his review essentially boiled down to: “La Bonne Humeur = best moules-frites in Brussels.” This was all I needed to know.

We headed there on our first night, fresh off the train, and because the restaurant is a little way out of the city center, the walk allowed us to work up a hefty appetite. La Bonne Humeur was easy to spot from afar — see the swarms of eager diners waiting on the sidewalk? that’s where it is — and we got in line with the others.

Our meal was every bit worth the wait, and if I had to wait again I would — twice longer, even. Our moules marinières (i.e. cooked in a broth of onion, celery, and butter; pictured above) appeared in their cast-iron pots, steamingly flavorful and jumbo plump, with a side of pale blond fries, not too crisp but not too soft, which we dipped with abandon in the homemade mayo.

The mussels we were served came from the Zeeland region in Holland, where they are harvested at the bottom of the sea, as opposed to the French moules de bouchot, which are farmed on ropes that spiral around wooden poles — kind of like pole dancing for molluscs.

{Unfortunately La Bonne Humeur is closed for good.}

La Bonne Humeur (literally, “The Good Mood”) / map it!
Chaussée de Louvain, 244 – 1000 Bruxelles
+32 (0)2 230 71 69

We got another fix of moules-frites the next day, this time from a brasserie on the Sablon named Le Grain de Sable: the frites weren’t quite as memorable, but the moules au vin blanc (same as marinières, but with the addition of white wine) were delectable, and the sunshine falling on our table was the perfect condiment.

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Let me tell you this: girls aren’t what they used to be. Present them with a spiffy British actor who knows how to bake an apple crumble, and they will smile, shake the actor’s hand (twice), and walk away with a good story, yes, but their heart unstirred.

Allow them to spend half a day with a famous pastry chef, however, and you will get a rather eloquent embodiment of glee.

This opportunity was brought to me on a dessert plate by my friend Louisa: she was in Paris with a television crew to film an episode for the upcoming season of Diary of a Foodie, and she asked if I’d be willing to appear in the segment on Sadaharu Aoki.

At this point, I feel compelled to state that I am vehemently opposed to the use of the term foodie, a word that makes me cringe so deeply my fingers refuse to type this combination of letters and I have to copy-paste it. But I love Louisa, I had met part of the crew last summer, and hanging out with them in Aoki’s lab while he showed us stuff sounded like a fine use of my time, so I said yes.

And indeed, a terrific afternoon it was: my role was simply to be curious, ask the chef about his work, his pastries, and his creative process, and translate our exchanges from French to English for the camera.

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