When I was a child, my family spent a week in Brittany every year during the spring break. The place where we went most often was Carnac, on the South coast of Brittany, a little town famous for its stunning prehistoric menhir alignments. It was always quite a gamble on the weather, as that time of year has equal chances of being brightly sunny, or grimly overcast and even thunderous. But I would be hard-pressed to choose the kind of weather I preferred : of course I loved riding my bike in the sun until I had sunburns on the backs of my hands, and building sandcastles that we fought to protect against the rising tide ; but I also have great memories of watching storms from the safety of the seaside, in awe of the strength with which the waves came crashing onto the pier. Getting dressed from head to toe in waterproof gear, walking on the beach against the fierce wind, flying kites, and coming home, the four of us red-cheeked, drippy-nosed, hardly seeing a thing through our soaked and salty glasses.

Of course, I also have many fond food memories of those vacations. In Carnac we knew every crêperie, every bakery and which one had the best kouign aman, a caramelized flaked pastry involving rather indecent amounts of butter, every ice-cream parlor and which one had the best waffle cones and flavors.

But my personal favorite, the treat I looked forward to the most, was Les Niniches : a hard candy in the shape of a long, thin cylinder, in a colored wrapping, with a little stick to hold it.

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Courgettes farcies

We buy most of our fruits and vegetables at our favorite little fruit stand on rue des Abbesses, where the staff is friendly, greets us with big smiles, gets stuff for us from the back, and is always happy to discuss what’s the best seasonal choice and how to prepare it.

So last week, when I saw that they sold little ball-shaped zucchini, I instantly decided to get a few, because anything round and small and cute gets my enthusiastic vote. And of course, what can you do with little round zucchini, if not stuff them with goodies?

I had made similar Quinoa-Stuffed Zucchini a few months ago, filling the shells with quinoa, ricotta and pinenuts, and had enjoyed the process as much as the result. I decided to do something different this time, a non-vegetarian version that would use ground beef instead, which is the traditional way to make French stuffed zucchini.

This was delicious, and very easy to make. The zucchini look so pretty, and the meat and onion filling is a simple but glorious complement. Maxence enjoyed it particularly, and said that this was the best thing I had done in a while. (He’s not quite the soup fan I have become, so I’m afraid he’s been feeling a little deprived.)

Finally, my advice is this: make sure you have leftovers, as this tastes even better the next day.

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[A Week-End in Burgundy]

June this year was The Month Of Weddings for us : we were invited to three of them, three week-ends in a row, three differents couples (we checked).

The first of them, two weeks ago, was held in the bride’s beautiful family house in Bourgogne, South-East of Paris. This was the perfect occasion for us to take a mini-tour around this region, famous for its gastronomy and wines.

We rented a car to get to the wedding, and stopped for lunch in Chablis. We went for regional specialties of course : Oeufs en meurette (poached eggs in a red wine sauce), Escargots à la Bourguignonne (Bourgogne snails with garlic herb butter), and Truite rose, sauce beurre blanc au Chablis (Pink trout with Chablis butter sauce).

The wedding was celebrated that afternoon at the majestic abbey of Pontigny, and all the guests then headed to the house for the reception. Dinner was served in the large, stone-walled barn, which our friends had entirely renovated and decorated for the occasion : an extremely pleasant setting for the dinner and party, which went very well, all happy conversations, humorous and moving speeches, and a few tears of joy.

The dinner, for which my sister Céline had designed the pretty menus, was catered for by a local company and proved particularly delicious : fillets of red mullet, served cold on a carpaccio of spring vegetables, then roasted duck breast with a little pyramid of mashed celery root and a little bundle of green beans. Cheese was served buffet-style, and the selection offered mostly local cheeses, including a Soumaintrain, a delicious cow milk cheese I had never heard of, and an authentic raw-milk Epoisses, an incredibly hard to find rarity, produced in two farms only. Dessert was a plow-shaped tiered cake, an impressive construction of caramel-coated cream-filled puffs, sugar flowers and nougatine.

The next day, we took a little road-trip further down into the heart of Bourgogne. We stopped in Beaune for lunch and enjoyed a Boeuf Bourguignon (a beef stew in a red wine sauce) — not that we were that hungry, to be honest, but can you really drive through Bourgogne without eating Boeuf Bourguignon? I think not.

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Soupe de fenouil à l’écorce d’orange

Introducing: the latest brainchild of my soup kick. I was on the bus home from work a few days ago (you know, line 67, my food thought lab?), thinking about the soup I would make for dinner. I had half a mind to make some kind of carrot soup, and was toying with the idea of adding candied orange peel to make it more interesting. I had just picked up the latest copy of the French cooking magazine Saveurs and was idly leafing through it, stomach grumbling (inevitable reaction when looking at food pics at 7:30pm), when I spotted the section on fennel.

My love of fennel is somewhat paradoxical. I normally hate anything aniseed and I dislike the smell of raw fennel, but once it’s thoroughly cooked and tender, it takes on a sweet and caramelized flavor I adore. So I just avoid breathing through my nose as I chop, and wait for the heat to work its magic.

Which is why, upon looking at this article, I thought : “Fennel soup! Now, that would be great with orange peel!”. And so, after a quick stop at my local market, I got home and whipped this up.

I was very happy with the result : it is infused with subtle flavors, and the cooked and pureed fennel gives it a lovely texture. The leftovers were even better the next day. You can also soft-boil an egg, peel it and break it open in the bowl of soup, for a lovely blend of tastes and a complete meal.

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