When life gives you lemons… make almond lemon curd.

I like it when I can count the degrees of separation between an ingredient and myself, especially when I only need the fingers of one hand to do so. In this case, there were just four degrees of separation between me and three large lemons: my sister Céline has a boyfriend I adore, named Christian. Christian has a father, who lives not far from Nice. And this father has a bountiful lemon tree, currently overloaded with beautiful, smooth-skinned fruit, pale yellow like the baby clothes you buy when you don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl. So when Céline went to spend a few days in Nice recently, she came back to Paris with half a dozen jumbo lemons, which my mother and I shared gleefully.

These lemons, being organic and all, had lemon curd written all over them (if you looked at the rind very very carefully with a magnifier, close to the stem, it said lemon curd in super fine print).

My first attempt at lemon curd, many moons ago, did not quite qualify as a success. I don’t remember where I had gotten the recipe from, if I had followed it with enough care, or if it was just a case of beginner’s crap luck, but as I was standing over the pan, dutifully stirring the mixture, it became painfully apparent just why they called it a curd. It curdled all right.

Because I was young and too proud to admit defeat, I insisted on eating it anyway, spreading my morning toast with curdled curd, which tasted fine if you managed to ignore the tiny lumps of viscid egg white staring up at you with fierce little eyes. Thankfully, I had made a miniature batch with just one lemon, so it was soon done away with, and I could get on with my life.

Years later I tried my hand at lemon curd again, this time with a bit of research, and it appeared that my first attempt had been somewhat misguided: I had cooked the curd directly in a saucepan, when it is really best to do so over gentle heat, in a bowl set on a pan of simmering water. The result was infinitely more convincing, and this is the method I used again yesterday with my sunny lemons.

Wanting to try something a little different, I made an almond lemon curd this time, using one less egg than I normally would, and adding lightly toasted ground almonds to the thickened mixture. This adds a lovely textural twist, giving the lemon curd just a touch more presence on your toast, and the subtle, nutty, and toasty almond flavor is a great partner to the tartness of the lemon (lemon and almond are such good flavor friends that they have four letters in common, although this doesn’t work in French at all).

Aside from spreading lemon curd on toasts of baguette in the morning, or on English muffins, crumpets, and scones (a regional affinity thing), I like to spread it in the middle of a horizontally split yogurt cake, make sandwich cookies, or fill twee little tarts. I should probably note here that I am one of those people who drink lemon juice straight from the juicer, without water or sugar, so it is safe to say I like a tart lemon curd — if you prefer a milder one, use a bit less lemon juice, or a bit more sugar.

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[Nettle Soup]

How often do you get to cook with a hostile ingredient? Sure, you could hurt yourself with pretty much anything — drop a head of celeriac on your toes, rub your eyes after chopping chili peppers, stab yourself with a carrot — but nettle leaves are actively belligerent. Stinging you is their life calling, it is what they were meant to do, and you can hardly blame them. Wolves will be wolves, nettles will be nettles.

And so it is with extreme caution that I handled the bunch I got from the market on Saturday morning. The lady who sold it to me said that holding your breath lessened the effect, but I find breathing to be a pleasurable activity and I am reluctant to give it up, so I opted for the pink rubber glove strategy instead. I did follow her advice of storing the bunch in a glass of water in the fridge door, but I covered it with a brown paper bag on which I wrote “Attention: Orties!”, in case an innocent victim opened the refrigerator before I had time to use the nettles.

Since this was my first time cooking, or even tasting, anything nettle, I decided to make a very simple soup, figuring it was the best way to discover the flavors, unadorned and unmasked. As the soup gently brewed, I was very surprised by the smells wafting up from the pot: I was expecting spinach, but it was seaweed I smelled, like a Brittany beach at low tide. (Not all that puzzling perhaps, since stinging nettle is a weed too, albeit an earthy one.)

We had this deep green, velvety soup for lunch, and the marine impression was confirmed: if you closed your eyes you could imagine yourself sipping on a soupe de poisson — fishy in a pleasant way, and mildly iodized. We liked it very much, and reflected that it would do well with a bit of rouille stirred in: rouille* is a sauce of garlic and chili peppers mashed with olive oil and crustless bread (or simply a garlic and chili pepper mayonnaise), traditionally served with fish soups and bouillabaisse in Provence.

This was quite a flavor encounter, and it makes me wish I had a garden that I could neglect, so stinging nettles would thrive in the back. Since I don’t, I had to buy mine, but if you want to pick your own, here’s what I’ve read: you should avoid nettles that grow too close to a road, you should pick the tops of young plants only (older ones are tough and bitter, poor things), and you should rinse them well. Oh, and they’re very good for you, too, full of vitamins and minerals and stuff.

* Literally: “rust”, because of the color.

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If you have a book to write, I recommend hiding out for a few days in the comfort of a mountain house, preferably in a region where spring is a bit tardy, so the weather will make it easy for you to stay in and type. For fresh air, throw in a few healthy walks to spot the first daffodils (the mist will also make your hair nice and wavy) and a few morning visits to the market. For distraction, a daytrip to Munster and Colmar, and lots of reading.

For nourishment and in no particular order, some nice knepfle (an Alsacian pasta made with fresh eggs, a bit larger than spätzle), an excellent choucroute, a tarte flambée (a thin disk of bread dough topped with cream, onions, and smoked lardoons, baked in a wood-fire oven), smoked pork meat and roïgabrageldi (a dish of potatoes slowly cooked with onions and smoked lard, called töffel in the Vosgian dialect), some Munster cheese infused with elderberry flowers, and an outstanding sheep’s milk Barikaas, a mountain cheese most commonly made with cow’s milk. (All of this in moderation of course, and with a salad on the side so you’ll get your daily intake of greens.)

A bit of baking is also quite welcome, especially if it is Easter and you feel like making hot cross buns. This year, my mother and I decided to try the recipe that Pascale had featured on her blog, adapted from a Delia Smith book. We made them by hand (I had wisely left the race car at home) but with just ten minutes of kneading, it is hardly strenuous.

I was much more confident this time than the last, and I am now quite convinced that yeast is sensitive to that: the buns rose and baked beautifully, and they were a delightful treat for tea, spread with a bit of butter, my mother’s wild raspberry jam, or some mountain honey. The only thing we didn’t love were the crosses on top of each bun: they were simply made of flour and water, and of course this baked into something bland and crispy, which didn’t add much aside from decoration. The buns would merit something softer and sweeter, perhaps strips of a more supple dough or a thick frosting (all suggestions are very welcome).

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I am not very good at falling asleep. Once I manage to drift off I sleep soundly till morning — which is a blessing, no doubt — but it can take a while before I achieve that state of blissful nothingness. However much I try to relax before bedtime, my mind is reluctant to let go of the day’s activities, and seems to take the head-hits-pillow event as a signal to start whirring up again, and brainstorm on whichever problem needs solving, whichever writing needs editing, or whichever recipe needs tweaking.

I do wish I could doze off faster than that, but I have actually found that some of my best ideas spark up as I lie there in the dark, trying to concentrate on green meadows (sans brook, or I need to get up again) or relaxing my toes one by one. For this reason I always have a notebook and a pen on my nightstand to jot down any inspired thought — the fear to have it vanish come morning might keep me awake. Of course, I can’t very well switch on the light to write (that wouldn’t be very civil to the other inhabitant of the bed), so that notebook is covered with particularly squiggly blind writing.

A few nights ago, the matter at hand in this pre-sleep session was, “What should I do with the scraps of pâte brisée I have left?” I’d only made four tartlets, so I had about a third of one ball leftover (the other ball of dough being tightly wrapped and biding its time in the freezer), and there was no way I was tossing it. I usually make little palmiers (elephant’s ears) in such situations, but I was wondering if the dough could be combined with the leftover ganache that was resting one floor up in the refrigerator (yes, my fridge is a shelter for all kinds of stray edibles). After a few minutes or a few hours I have no idea — it’s difficult to keep a sense of time in pitch dark — these mini sandwich cookies took shape. I fell asleep before writing them down, but they were still under my pillow when I woke up.

And so the next day, in need of procrastination a break from my work schedule, I walked into the kitchen and brought them to life. I think they would have benefited from an eggwash and a sprinkle of sugar, but they were very good nonetheless — 100% recycled, and very cute too, dancing cheek to cheek on my plate.

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