Sushi Class

Sushi

On rue Garreau in Montmartre — right off the place Emile Goudeau, which I like very much because it has trees, benches, and a Fontaine Wallace — was the tiny workshop of a violin maker. Earlier this summer, I walked past it and did a double-take: the dusty window had been cleaned, and the instruments had been replaced by a miscellany of Japanese trinkets — origami animals, garland lights, purses to keep your change, and tinkling thingies to hang to your cell phone.

I walked in, browsed the displays, and my eyes fell on a flyer that advertised the shop’s sushi classes. The attendant inside was busy paper-folding a horse or a squirrel or a tortoise — it was too early to tell. He told me that he was just filling in for the owner and couldn’t say when the next class would be, but that he would take my contact information. A few days later I received a call from a Japanese woman, who explained that she didn’t give classes during the summer because of the heat, but that I could sign up for September.

And this is how Maxence and I attended a sushi-making class last Saturday. Our teacher was Tomoko, owner of the shop and, incidentally, wife of the violin maker whose workshop it used to be. Teacher and students climbed up to an appartment five flights of stairs above the shop, took off our shoes, admired the view, and sat down at the table.

Since this was a lunchtime class, Tomoko first prepared donburi for us (a category of Japanese dishes in which ingredients are served over a bowl of hot rice), so hypoglycemia would not hinder our ability to listen and learn. Her bols de sashimi spécial consisted in Japanese rice, topped with torn nori and bite-size pieces of raw tuna and salmon, tossed together in a dressing of wasabi, soy sauce, and ground sesame. This was a splendid lunch and I will no doubt try to reproduce it. She also served us chilled mugicha (barley tea), which I’d never tried before and very much enjoyed.

Tomoko stressed that what she was about to teach us were the basics of family-style sushi — it takes Japanese chefs years to master the noble art of sushi-making, and a two-hour class wasn’t going to cut it, obviously. She had trimmed and sliced two kinds of raw fish for the class, ahi tuna and salmon, in long sticks for maki (rolled sushi) and in rectangular pieces for nigiri (oval lumps of rice topped with fish). This was my first time making any kind of sushi so I had everything to learn, but it turned out to be surprisingly easy when you have someone by your side to show you the moves.

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In Remembrance

Five years ago today, I boarded a flight from Paris to San Jose. I was returning to my apartment in California after spending some time with my family and friends in France.

Little did we passengers know what horrifying events were taking place as we were flying over the Atlantic. Mid-flight, we were told that there had been terrorist threats against the US — a gross understatement, presumably to avoid panic attacks –, that all American airports were closing down, and that our plane was diverted to Calgary, Canada.

Stranded in Calgary for a few days, feeling cold and lonely with my heart in my throat, I had plenty of time to watch in disbelief as the same images appeared on television, again and again. Plenty of time to reflect on what had happened, but not nearly enough to make sense of it. Even five years haven’t been enough, really.

I won’t add to the chorus of political analysis of this gruesome day and its world-changing consequences, but I did want to say that I am right there in the ranks of those who remember.

Pistachio Pound Cake

Cinq-Cinquièmes à la Pistache

Le quatre-quarts (“four fourths”) can be described as the French pound cake. It has earned its name because the batter is made with the same weight of eggs, butter, sugar, and flour, thus amounting to a fourth of the cake each: you weigh the eggs first, and measure the rest of the ingredients accordingly. There’s baking powder, too, which throws the proportions off by a feather, but thou shalt resist the temptation to nit-pick.

It is a fluffy-crumbed, buttery cake that takes kindly to the company of a cup of tea: late afternoon is the traditional time to serve it, but it won’t be out of place for breakfast — my mornings were consistently fueled by quatre-quart breton for a few of my teenage years — or dessert, to accessorize a chilled strawberry soup or perhaps a chocolate cream.

The basic quatre-quarts is an easygoing fellow that can be adapted and tweaked to your heart’s content. A bit of lemon juice in the batter and a brush of lemon glaze on top is a classic, and quite pleasing, variation, but I decided to make a pistachio version this time, having recently enjoyed a similar bakery-bought cake. I took the equal proportion idea a step further, adding the same weight of pistachios as that of the other ingredients, and this is why I named it a cinq-cinquièmes.

Pistachio Pound Cake

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Osso Buco

Complaining about the weather is a national sport in France, but as is true of most sports — except perhaps for swimming — I am not very good at it. I have generally adopted the maxim, “Don’t worry about the things you can’t control,” and while I will do the chit-chat thing with taxi drivers and random people seeking shelter under the same awning as me (before I suddenly remember that all my windows are open and have to run back home under sheets of rain), I don’t really mind that August has been so lousy in the weather department. I figure this puts us first on the list for a really beautiful Indian summer, and it also opens the door to nice summer stews, which one can prepare in one’s recently acquired yet very old cast-iron pot.

Osso buco has entered the traditional French repertoire a long, long time ago, and this is my take on the French take on this dish.

Osso buco is an Italian stew of braised veal shank, onions, and tomatoes, spiked with garlic and lemon zest, and it is the dish I decided to make to show the unseasonal temperatures I held them no grudges. The name means, literally, “pierced bone”, as the sauce gets its rich flavor from the veal bones and the tender marrow that’s hiding inside.

I had had this dish before but had never made it myself, so I turned to a few of my cooking references to see what they had to say — the handbook we used at my cooking class, L’Art Culinaire Moderne, and Escoffier’s Guide culinaire (published in English as The Complete Guide to the Art of Modern Cookery). I took in their advice with a respectfully bowed head, and did things my way.

As you will no doubt have noticed, the above-mentioned references are French, not Italian (The Silver Spoon cookbook is on my wish list), but osso buco has entered the traditional French repertoire a long, long time ago, and this is my take on the French take on this dish. I am aware that your Italian grandmother’s recipe may be marginally or even dramatically different; I hope she will forgive me and invite me into her kitchen to show me how it’s really done. Talk to her about it.

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Barcelona Favorites

Barcelona Favorites

Our dinner at El Bulli last week was bookended by a few days in Barcelona. This was our first time in the city, and we had a splendid time strolling around, admiring the architecture, dodging pickpockets, and wondering where to eat next.

Our diet over those few days was mostly composed of tapas and pintxos, eaten at casual restaurants. If you are unfamiliar with pintxos (pin-tchos), they are the little morsels of food, plopped on a slice of bread and secured with a toothpick, that you find lined up on the counter at tapas bars. It is originally a Basque concept, but it has spread across other parts of Spain in recent years: you ask for a plate (usually one per party), help yourself to some pintxos, wash them down with a drink, and pay at the end, based on the number of toothpicks you have left on your plate. It is a system based on trust — I wonder how many people walk away with half a dozen toothpicks in the back pocket of their jeans — but it seems to work. As for tapas, they are usually ordered from a menu (or, if there is no menu, with much gesturing and mangling of Catalan and Castillan words), and they are served on small plates that you share with your dining companions. Raçiones are similar to tapas, only they come in larger portions.

One thing you should know if you ever want to visit Barcelona is that you should avoid August if you can: the city is teeming with tourists then (80% of them French), most Barcelonians have understandably fled, and some of the dining destinations that locals favor are closed. Of course, in our case, this time of year wasn’t a personal choice, since the El Bulli reservation was the pivot of our trip; I certainly don’t mean to spit in the proverbial soup, I just thought I would pass on this little piece of advice.

One other thing I strongly recommend is to check the detail of your bill, always: in all restaurants but one, we were charged for more than what we had ordered and eaten. Perhaps this only happens to foreigners, and perhaps this is their way of making up for the disappearing toothpicks, but it was a bit annoying. They never made any difficulty in correcting the mistakes however, so there was no harm done, and we simply got used to the custom.

Without further ado, let me recommend the places we enjoyed the most:

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