See this? Doesn’t it look just scrumpalicious, nested in its little takeout box? See how the sticky caramel coating has rubbed off a bit on the right side, where the little pudding’s shoulder was leaning, as I carried it home?

I had walked to Rose Bakery for lunch, armed with a magazine and a notebook, my personal treat when I’m home on a weekday. Usually, after I’m done with the yummy and copious lunch (an assortment of their salads, a main dish, a coffee and a cookie), I have to drag myself away from the dessert case and resist buying one of their tempting pastries, because, you know, lunch was indulgence enough.

But this? This just looked too good. And really, with a name like that, who could resist? Try saying it out loud and enjoy the syllables : sti-cky-tof-fee-pud-ding. Then fast, stickytoffeepuddingstickytoffeepuddingstickytoffeepudding. Can you think of a cooler thing to say? I can’t.

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And what are fruits déguisés you ask? Most people would tell you that they are a traditional Christmas confection, in which dried fruits (dates and prunes mostly) have their pit replaced with a piece of brightly colored pâte d’amande (almond paste).

To me however, fruits déguisés are much more than that : they are one of my earliest culinary joys. When I was five, my kindergarten teacher had us make some as a gift for our parents. For the record, that teacher’s name was Marguerite and I didn’t like her because she felt the need to comment on my thumb sucking, but I digress. I don’t remember making the fruits déguisés, but I remember going home and sharing them with my family, and most of all I remember how immensely proud I was when my mother asked me to show her and my sister how to make them.

We bought the supplies, and I glowingly explained how you slit the fruit open carefully, remove the pit, roll a little bit of marzipan between your palms, insert it in place of the pit, and close the fruit on it, leaving it slightly open to show the beautiful dash of color. I emphasized, as the teacher had, how important it is to handle the knife with caution, to make even-sized marzipan pits of alternate colors, and to retribute yourself with the occasional piece of marzipan, in whichever color you like best.

I decided to make fruits déguisés again very recently, and this time improvised on the basic recipe a little : I used figs in addition to prunes and dates, and stuffed them with almond paste, but also hazelnuts, almonds, chocolate squares and little chunks of almond cookie. I then packaged them up, throwing in a few candied kumquats, and gave them as pretty little gifts to my cooking class students.

Salade de Lentilles Pomme et Cumin

This past Saturday, our dear friends Laurence and Jean-Christophe threw a housewarming party (pendaison de crémaillère if you remember) in their cool new apartment, just off Bastille. Laurence had asked if we could bring a little something and I had gathered from reliable sources that Marie-Laure and Ludo were going to bring Ludo’s famous cheesecake. I felt that the sweet ground was thus amply covered and decided to make a salad.

I didn’t feel like going to the store to pick up ingredients, so I played a little game of peek-in-the-fridge-rummage-the-kitchen-cabinets-forage-the-drawers, which resulted in this lentil and apple salad, featuring a little tofu for protein and color contrast, and flavored with shallots, cumin and chopped parsley.

I also had a few sheets of brick dough leftover. Brick dough is a very thin wheat dough, somewhat similar to phyllo dough, which is used in North African cuisine. Brick dough tends to dry out pretty quickly once the package is open, so I had the idea of baking the ones I had left into pretty little toppings to decorate the salad.

I very much liked how this salad turned out, and I received very kind compliments from the guests at the crémaillère. And there is also a particular charm to serendipitous recipes, no?

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Food never tastes as good as when you are really hungry. And although the temptation is strong to just grab and scarf down the first thing that crosses your path (tasty or nasty, edible or otherwise), it’s a much better move to resist the urge, and pay attention : what does your stomach yearn for, what appeals to you the most, what would really fill that void, hit the spot?

If you do that, and if the demands of the grumbling monster inside can be reasonably met (I mean, sure, I want caviar too), this is when food tastes best.

When I found myself in that situation the other night, I opened the fridge, and spotted a bunch of leeks that needed to be used up (mmmm, leeks!), the opened package of ricotta (oooh, ricotta!) and a few eggs (yum, eggs!). I put a hand on my stomach and murmured : “Ricotta and Leek Frittata? How does that sound?”. A long, guttural growl of approbation echoed. I immediately got to work.

Sure enough, instant gratification it is not – but do you really see me running down the street to Le Mac Do? However, I have also found that once I let the monster know it shall be fed, once it sees I am indeed busying myself to do just that, it usually calms down and keeps quiet until the food is ready.

In passing, frittata means omelette in Italian (the stress is on the first syllable). I’m sure some of you can tell me more about the real way the Italians do it, but what is commonly called frittata outside of Italy is an oven-baked omelette : you usually start it in an oven-proof skillet, and then you flip it and put it in the warm oven to finish cooking. I skipped the skillet step, and I guess what I made could be considered a crustless quiche, but calling it a frittata is much more fun.

Besides, who could possibly resist the pleasure of saying…

“La frittata è fatta!” *

* An expression which means – I am told – “that’s torn it!”, “the damage is done”.

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