On Saturday night, we had the pleasure of meeting Derrick and his wife Melissa. They were in Paris for a few days on their way back from a wine-intensive trip to Germany, and I had invited them over for dinner. Derrick’s An Obsession with Food was the very first food blog I ever laid my eyes on back in 2002 — and wow, does anyone know where these last three years went? — and he was part of my inspiration to start C&Z. After years of emailing and commenting back and forth, I was particularly happy to finally meet him in person.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever read about the three-star dinner parties that Derrick and Melissa throw, but if you have you may understand the slight pressure one is under when one has put oneself in the situation to cook for them. But I quickly decided not to overthink it, shrugged away any looming sign of KPAS (Kitchen Performance Anxiety Syndrome), and simply followed my instincts, planning a menu just like I usually do for my friends.

I like to start casual dinner parties with an appetizer served at the bar facing our open kitchen. I like that moment when the guests arrive, we serve them a drink, they sit on the bar stools, and we can chat while I put the finishing touches to the meal. I will usually serve two or three different kinds of nibbles, and this often serves as the first course, so that when everyone sits down at the table, it is to enjoy the main course. I used to serve an appetizer and a first course, but I found that 1/ it was a lot of work, and 2/ it was difficult to determine the right quantities to serve, and this often left too little room for cheese and dessert afterwards.

These pancetta and capers crostini were one of the two “bar course” items I served on Saturday night. I wanted to make some kind of crostini (little toasts with a topping) because they are easy enough to assemble, they look pretty and they make a very satisfying finger food. Since they are eaten in just one bite, simplicity is key and it is best to stick to two or three ingredients at the most, so that all the flavors can express themselves.

I had been wanting to try pancetta (which could be shortcut-defined as “the Italian bacon”) after reading about its crispy properties on Pascale’s blog. I was certainly grateful for the tip: we loved the salty-nutty taste, and it was a great change from the charcuterie that’s most often used here. The capers pairing idea came from spotting an attractive bowl of salt-packed capers, large and moist with delicate tails, at the Italian deli (l’Epicerie Fuxia, rue des Martyrs). Crostini usually need a somewhat creamy component as well, so I added a thin layer of fresh cheese, stabilizing the pancetta on the bread (very important), rounding out the texture and making each bite taste fresh and delightful.

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Punitions is the name given to the delicious, blond, thin, crisp, unique, buttery cookies, made by the world-famous Poilâne bakery.

You can purchase them by the weight (200g for roughly 4 euros), but there is a basket of them on the counter for you to help yourself when you buy a quarter, a half, or a whole round of the legendary Pain Poilâne.

Warning: it is strongly advised to practice restraint and limit yourself to one, or at the most two — or maybe three if you pretend to share them with imaginary little children accompanying you, but whom the lady sitting behind the counter cannot see because, you know, she is sitting behind the counter.

When I was little, on Saturday mornings, my father would often take my sister and me to the comic book stores in the Quartier Latin (this is probably why Saturday mornings remain my favorite time of the week, so fresh and full of promises), and on the way home we would occasionally stop by the Poilâne bakery on boulevard de Grenelle (the second shop Lionel Poilâne opened after his first one rue du Cherche-Midi) and buy bread for lunch. We were too small (especially me) to reach the basket on the counter, but as we left the lady would always hand us one Punition each, that we would savor religiously, in tiny nibbles.

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[Pear Jam with Cacao Nibs]

Just recently, I had a sudden urge to make jam — it may have to do with my own dwindling supply of the homemade stuff, or the sudden realization that spring strawberries would not last forever (as opposed to strawberry fields). In any case, when I went to the market a couple of weeks ago, it was with the firm intention to purchase fruit and make jam.

The strawberries were still way too pricy (at 4€ for a half-pound basket, they would make some luxurious jam indeed) but the guy at the produce stall said he had a crate of very ripe Conférence pears — he used the expression poires blettes, which I’ve always found ugly and off-putting, but I knew what he meant — that could be used for jam. Insert happy inner voice here (“Oh wow! Pear jam! I have never made pear jam! Pear jam sounds really good!”), and I got two kilos for just a little over 3€.

As I set out to peel and core them, I was a little anxious to see just how ripe and/or bruised they were, but they turned out to be just fine — and in fact very sweet and juicy, as indicated by the amount I surreptitiously ate while prepping them.

To make the jam, I loosely followed the instructions Christine Ferber gives in her excellent Mes Confitures book. I didn’t have any of the apple jelly she calls for however, so my jam will probably not set very well — pears are naturally low in pectin — but I don’t mind: runny jam makes for a fabulous coulis or yogurt topping.

Since pears and chocolate are a notoriously happy couple, I decided to experiment with stirring some cacao nibs into the jam after it was cooked. Pear and pistachio sounded good too, so I made a few jars with shelled pistachios as well, and left a few jars plain, for simplicity’s sake. The cacao nibs and pistachios had a tendency to bob to the surface, but I am hoping that they will still infuse the jam with flavor and add textural variety.

No tasting notes as of yet — it is best to give the jars a few months in the cool and quiet darkness of my kitchen cabinets, before I open them and report back!

(The amount of pears that I had yielded eight jars of assorted shapes and sizes, so I scaled things down a bit in the recipe below.)

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[Back from the market]

Saturday mornings are always something of a dilemma for me, or actually a trilemma, which I thought wasn’t an actual word until I looked it up. I can either sleep in, go to the pool for a swim, or go to the Batignolles market — each of the three activities fulfilling an equally important need. It is the third option that won the competition last Saturday morning, and I set out in the glorious morning sun, with my faithful Trader Joe’s tote bag and my dreams of strawberries.

A couple of hours later I returned, a little out of breath from lugging my purchases up the stairs, but happy to unload them onto the counter, admire my bounty… and realize just how much stuff I had bought. I tend to get a little carried away at the market and often buy, um, a tad more than we really need, turning the next few days into a frantic eat-it-while-it’s-fresh vegetable bonanza. There are worse dietary compulsions I’m sure.

So without further ado, I give you…

– Two betteraves cuites au feu de bois — beetroots roasted over woodfire. I like to buy beetroot that way, it saves me the trouble of cooking it myself (I tried it once and still have nightmares about the never-ending bleeding), and the woodfire gives it a pleasant smoky flavor that you wouldn’t get through regular oven-roasting (unless yours is a woodfire oven, but I’m not so lucky).

– A bunch of young carrots. I asked to keep the stalks and leaves so I can add them to the vegetable stock I will make one day with the vegetable paring I stash away in the freezer (yeah, right).

– A bouquet of borage (bourrache in French), not having the faintest idea what to do with it but thinking it looked pretty in a weird, otherworldly way. The salesgirl suggested I sprinkle some of the flowers on a salad, or use it to make herbal tea. “Ah bah oui, c’est sudorifère la bourrache!“, interjected the somewhat scruffy guy who was waiting behind me. (“Yes, borage is a sudorific!”) Um. Thank you. Most helpful.

I haven’t yet done anything with my borage because well, neither the flowers nor the leaves taste like much of anything, and the stalks are stingy and unpleasant to the touch. I have put the bouquet in a small vase though, and I am quite content to just look at it.

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