Chocolate and Candied Ginger Tartlets

Chocolate and Candied Ginger Tartlet

Joyeuse St-Valentin!

Head over to NPR’s website for a special Valentine’s Day commentary and the Chocolate and Candied Ginger Tartlet recipe I created for the occasion!

NPR (National Public Radio) is a nonprofit producer and distributor of radio shows that serves over 750 independant radio stations in the US. In particular, their shows are broadcast on KQED, which was my radio of choice while cruising the Silicon Valley freeways — ah, “Fresh Air” and “All Things Considered”!

NPR also offers web-only content to their online visitors, and this is where I gladly step in. The article and recipe will be back announced on today’s “All Things Considered” V-Day special…

And for my dear metric-minded readers, here is a converted ingredients’ list:

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The Music I Cook By

iPod Mini

All right, all right! Obviously, resistance is futile: I have been tappedtwice! — in the Music in My Kitchen game that’s been going around our little world of food blogs. I usually try to keep things more or less focused on the edible around here, but since my kitchen is a “cuisine à l’américaine” that opens onto the living-room where the hi-fi gear is, musical ambiance is an important aspect of my cooking life. So here goes.

What is the total amount of music files on your computer?

I have very few files directly on my iBook: most of my music lives on the mp3 server that Maxence has set up, from which our stereo reads via a cool wi-fi device. Um, wait: is this getting too geeky for the general public?

The CD you last bought?

Nolita, Keren Ann‘s latest album. The next one I will buy (I know you didn’t ask, but whose blog is this?) is likely to be Coralie Clément’s new album Bye Bye Beauté: it comes out on Monday and I’m going to her concert on Thursday night, so I’m going to have to act fast!

What was the last song you listened to before reading this message?

Over breakfast this morning, I had a sudden craving for Arte, a song by the Spanish group Nosoträsh (on the album Popemas). We discovered Nosoträsh a few summers ago, as our friends Nathalie and Damon were visiting from San Francisco. Nathalie, who works in the music industry and therefore has very sharp tastes, knew about this group and about the mini-concert they were giving that night on a péniche called Le Batofar, a bar/disco barge on the Seine. So we all went, and we spent the evening drinking mojitos and listening to the Spanish girls sing. A soft, slightly melancholy (although of course I speak no Spanish and have no idea what the lyrics say), beautiful song.

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Grape Marc Aged Tomme

Tomme Affinée au Marc de Raisin

However uncanny the resemblance is, this is not a slice of blueberry streusel cheesecake. This is a Tomme Affinée au Marc de Raisin, sometimes referred to as “Who-the-hell-put-grime-on-my Cheese”.

Tomme de Savoie is a cow’s milk cheese à pâte pressée non cuite (pressed, unheated cheese *), and this one has been aged under a thick blanket of grape marc, the residue that’s left after pressing the fruit to make wine.

Tomme is not normally a very strong cheese — it is mostly fruity and mellow with a very slight sharpness — but this treatment deepens its flavor greatly, lending it a very pleasant earthiness. (Oh, and you don’t eat the layer of grape marc: you give it a taste for the sake of personal enlightenment, but soon conclude that it tastes like, well, grime.)

[* For a wealth of information on French cheese and in particular a most helpful description of the different categories (pâte molle, persillée, pressée ; croûte fleurie, lavée, naturelle), I recommend this website, made by a cheese enthusiast from Denmark (in English, French or Danish, whichever you understand best!).]

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Lady Apple and the Tramp

La Pomme et le Clochard

This apple you see here is one of my very favorite varieties. Oh sure, it doesn’t look like much from the outside: round with slightly flattened top and bottom, its yellow uneven skin is matte with brownish freckles. Quite far from the glossy prom queens of the apple family — Gala, Granny Smith or Golden.

But slice it (I have personally been using the exact same technique since time immemorial — cutting the apple in quarters, then coring all quarters before slicing each in three moon crescents) and you will discover a white almost fluorescent flesh, glistening with moisture, juicy and sweet.

This apple bears the interesting name of Pomme Clochard (tramp apple — “tramp” being used here in the sense of vagrant or bum). Its full botanical name is Pomme Reinette Clochard, which is even more interesting: reinette is a variety of apples, but it also means literally “little queen”. So: little queen or tramp?

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Bergamot Oranges

Bergamotes

[Bergamot Oranges]

I bought these two from a basket at the Batignolles market the other day, intrigued as I was by their label and shape (notice the cute nipples).

Alternative citruses have been getting more and more attention these past few years, with yuzus, combavas, kumquats and cedrats coming out of the shadows, infusing dishes with unusual flavors, and perking up restaurant menus (“Um, what is yuzu again?”, the rookie diner asks).

The Bergamot Orange (simply called la bergamote in French, whereas “bergamot” in English is a herb from the mint family) is mostly grown in Italy and is believed to be a natural cross between lime and sour orange. Needless to say, this heritage makes it quite the sour little guy, but its distinctive and complex flavor more than makes up for it.

Its rind is very rich in essential oils, used in perfumes and cosmetics, and its zest and juice are used in pastries and confections: in particular, the square bergamot candy is a famed specialty from the French city of Nancy. And of course, bergamot is the dominant flavor in Earl Grey tea, as I suddenly remembered just after juicing one, trying to make out what the smell on my fingers reminded me of.

I used some of the juice in a pleurotte mushroom salad (recipe on its way), to which it gave a delicious aromatic twist. The rest I squeezed and served to my friend’s daughter Maïa, with whom I share an uncanny taste for pure lemon juice to make the tongue recoil and who, being quite the little taste adventurer, asked for seconds of this novel and exciting version.

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