When I went to the Salon Saveurs recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with a few Chocolate & Zucchini readers. A few hours of wandering up and down the aisles brought us closer, and as we all sat down, exhausted but exhilarated, the idea of creating a little supper club was brought up. The idea was to throw a dinner party where everyone would bring a dish, à la potluck. Isabelle and Ethan offered to host the first edition, which took place ten days ago.

We had a wonderful evening in Isabelle and Ethan’s cosy appartment in the 12th arrondissement, everyone engaged in lively — and often food-related — conversation, and I was delighted to see my salon companions again, and to meet new friends.

The whole team from the Salon Saveurs was in attendance : Isabelle and Ethan, Alisa, Amy (who came with her boyfriend Nicolas), Pascale (accompanied by her husband David), myself and Maxence. Meg from Too Many Chefs was there too, and we had the pleasure of meeting Christoph, whose comments you may have read on C&Z, and his wife Suzanne. Three foodie friends of Ethan and Isabelle rounded up the count to fifteen, Jonathan, Malory and Peter. Eight from America, four from France, two from Germany and one from Great Britain — quite the cosmopolitan bunch!

Needless to say, we ate like kings :

– Isabelle made a Zucchini Carpaccio (I had never had anything like this and loved it) and a Spring Vegetable Risotto,

– Meg contributed her tasty Chickpea and Leek Soup, the recipe for which is posted on her blog,

– Amy brought a fantastic Pea and Roasted-Garlic Crostini with Olives and Pecorino Cheese,

– Great minds think alike : Christoph and I both brought terrines from the latest issue of the French magazine Saveurs : he made the Sundried Tomato and Fish Terrine, while I made the Fresh Cheese and Vegetable Terrine, the recipe for which I will post soon,

– Jonathan and Malory brought a colorful Instantaneous Carrot Salad and a lovely Asparagus Tart,

– Alisa made a scrumptious and goodie-filled endive salad,

– And we ended all this on a delightful sweet note thanks to Pascale‘s Hazelnut Financiers (recipe on her blog) and Pistachio Tuiles, as well as Isabelle’s perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies (made from the famous Nieman-Marcus recipe).

[Herbed Frogs’ Legs]

A lot of the things the French are notorious for eating, like frogs’ legs or snails, kidneys or horse meat, aren’t really that common in everyday food. In the case of frogs’ legs, I personally tasted them for the first time just a year ago, in a three-star restaurant no less, during a week-end getaway in the Perigord.

And then a few weeks ago, while shopping at my Picard store, I noticed that they carried frozen frogs’ legs. Always one for bringing interesting food back into my kitchen, I bought a bag (500 g for 5.76 €) and more or less forgot about it, keeping it for a special occasion. Our recent mission to empty the freezer is certainly special occasion enough, so this past Saturday we decided to treat ourselves to herbed frogs’ legs for lunch.

I had clipped a recipe in a recent issue of the French magazine Saveurs, I went on to search the web for alternate recipes, and ended up with this version : a simple, traditional preparation which uses few ingredients, so as not to mute the frogs’ legs’ shy voice.

The frogs’ legs come in pairs, which should be handled with care so as not to be separated. I spent a little while just gazing at my army of frogs’ pants, marvelling at the smallness and precision of their shape : they are snipped at the base of their spines, and you can see the tiny thighs and calves, the bones and tendons.

We dipped the frogs’ legs in flour to help them develop a golden crust, cooked them in the skillet, and served them sprinkled with chopped parsley and garlic. The flesh on frogs’ legs is often said to “taste like chicken” (the ubiquitous expression), but it struck me as being in fact closer to some white fish, like cod, both in texture and taste. The flavor is very delicate, so it’s important to choose an accompaniment that doesn’t overpower it.

The only realistic, enjoyable way to eat these is with your fingers, gnawing at the teeny weeny little bones, which you pile up into a mininiature mass grave. This is definitely not first-date food, unless you think sticky fingers and garlic breath will bring you closer, which may very well be the case.

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I’ve always been a great fan of tart and acidic things. I also love the French word for this special combination of tastes, “acidulé“, which perfectly conveys the idea of something colorful and tingly and refreshing. As a child, my favorite candy were the ones that gave your tastebuds shock therapy — I remember with particular fondness those little flying saucers made of pastel wafer paper, filled with a pink powder that tickled and fizzed and made your tongue pucker and curl with delight.

Now that I’m a big girl who can read ingredients lists (E128, anyone?), I don’t really eat candy anymore, and I just turn to more natural sources to get my “acidulé” fix. Rhubarb season is, of course, a very happy time for me, and it sees me consuming this wonderful, humble, versatile fruit in all shapes and forms, while it lasts.

Much to my glee, the latest Campanier basket included a kilo of rhubarb. I decided to go for simplicity, and made compote, in the oven, pairing the rhubarb with some raspberries I had in the freezer.

The compote took on the most lovely shocking pink color, and was as soft and tart and sweet as I had hoped. A cup of this, with a butter cookie to dip in? I can’t think of anything else I’d rather eat.

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You know how sometimes, you’ll be reading a cookbook or a cooking magazine, and a recipe will call for a specific piece of equipment? And all of a sudden you just have to have that thing, right that minute? Even though this is the first recipe you’ve ever laid eyes on that mentioned it? Because you can just feel, deep inside of you, that it will make your life better?

Well, this is exactly the story of my mini paper cups.

In no way can I be held responsible, of course. The culprit, in this instance, was Pierre Hermé, by way of his cookbook Mes Desserts Préférés. Among all the gorgeous tempting if-I-had-three-days-to-devote-to-it-I’d-definitely-make-this recipes, he offers a simple recipe for Moelleux aux Amandes. These are bite-size almond cakes, on which he encourages you to plop anything you fancy, a pinenut or a piece of pineapple for instance, and he instructs you to bake them in caissettes en papier. “Mini paper cups?”, thought I, “But I don’t have mini paper cups! I can’t go on living like this!”

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