[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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[The KitchenAid]

I have given in to the demon of temptation, and I can tell you this: it is poppy red, it weighs twenty-two pounds, and it comes with a dough hook, a flat beater, a wire whisk, and a stainless steel bowl (which conveniently doubles up as a kitchen mirror).

After so many years of lusting and wishing and yearning, resisting the urge because a stand mixer is not exactly cheap and counter space is a scarce commodity, I finally caved in and ordered one from a French online store. Just three days later, my shiny new friend showed up on my doorstep in its styrofoam jewel box, and I’ve been admiring it with the eyes of love ever since.

As one might guess, my recent brush with brioches is not entirely unrelated to this lavish purchase, and was certainly instrumental in getting Maxence’s blessing — he owns half of said counter space after all, so we make that kind of life-altering decision together. I chose red because everybody knows red cars drive faster, and my kitchen looks beside herself (yes, my kitchen is a she) with pleasure from this new accessory.

So, what have I used it for so far? Well, after carefully considering what recipe would be the most suitable for its inauguration, I decided on a simple pâte brisée to make the tartlets I was testing for a magazine article. The simplest ceremonies are often the most elegant, no?

Now I wish I could take it on the train with me to my parents’ mountain house for Easter so we could make hot cross buns with it, but that sounds like a stupid and back-breaking thing to do, so perhaps I won’t.

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If you would like to know how and where such stand mixers are grown and harvested, you can read all about it in David and the KitchenAid Factory — perhaps Tim B. would like to buy the motion picture rights for that?

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