UPDATE: I have now found a great recipe for IKEA-style havreflarn!

And today, it is with a plea for help that I come to you, a call to your infinite wisdom and collective knowledge.

Last time I did something of the kind, you proved to me that you were as generous with your advice and insight as I had hoped, and although I have yet to make another attempt at poaching an egg – I never seem to feel like it until the eggs I have can’t, in all honesty, be considered at their peak of freshness anymore – your precious tips will accompany me on my next foray, and you will be the first to hear about its relative or absolute success.

The matter at hand today is no less important than last time, for it involves chocolate: I am looking for a recipe to reproduce those Swedish Double Chocolate Crisps, made of two thin crispy buttery rolled oats cookies, sandwiched together by a layer of dark chocolate.

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L’Etoile d’Or is a little candy store in the rue Fontaine, sprung right out of a fairy tale.

It is but a ten-minute walk from where I live, so I find it charmingly ironic that I owe its discovery to my Bay Area blog-friend, Derrick, who mentioned it to me in a recent email : he and his wife Melissa have taken several trips to Paris, and food lovers that they are, they have excellent finds to share.

And so it is that just a few days ago, following Derrick’s advice, I set off towards the Moulin Rouge to hunt for this little boutique, in the maze of narrow streets lined with cabarets and bars which have seen better days – days when they were all risqué and glamorous and shady, days come and gone, leaving them touchingly derelict. The very picture of a woman, way past her prime, with a tight leather top and too much makeup.

But I find L’Etoile d’Or easily in the midst of this, surrounded as it seems to be by a golden glow, showering down on me beneath the awning. The pleasant impression is confirmed when I push the door open to the ring of a bell, and step inside the store, all glass cases and mirrors and golden shelves and candy, candy everywhere, as far as the eye can see. I find myself alone inside, a little intimidated, a little Goldilocks.

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[Broccoli Mimolette Soup]

This soup has to be the best broccoli soup I’ve ever had – and without a doubt the best one I’ve ever made. The really cool thing about it, besides being really really good, is that it is infused with flavor from two ingredients that usually get thrown out without batting an eyelash : the rind from a firm and sharp cheese, and the stems from a bunch of fresh herbs.

From now on I vow to always throw these in the freezer for later use : the flavor of cheese is very concentrated in the rind, and the stems of herbs are no less fragrant than the leaves, but they usually get discarded because they don’t look too nice as a garnish.

Having read in a few places about the use of these poor disaffectioned ingredients in soups (and you know how I feel about poor disaffectioned ingredients), I had frozen the stems from a bunch of parsley a little while ago, as well as the rind of a large hunk of mimolette extra-vieille. Mimolette is a bright orange cheese from the North of France, called “extra-old” when aged for a long time until brittle and very sharp. In its young and unaged version, mimolette has a more mellow flavor but is also excellent : it’s a favorite among French kids, its cheerful color playing a big part I’m sure. Some say it was also Charles de Gaulle‘s preferred choice of cheese (and I mean the President, not the airport).

Note that any other type of herb would work in place of the parsley, and you can use another type of cheese too (or even several), as long as it’s a firm cheese (fromage à pâte ferme), with a strong and sharp flavor – parmesan would be a great substitution, for instance.

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Brittany is a fantasy land of crêpes. My family and I would spend a week of vacation there every year, often in Carnac. We would eat crêpes every single night, to the sparkly-eyed delight of my sister and myself. Over time we built an entire itinerary of favorite crêperies to visit.

In Brittany, savory crêpes are made with buckwheat flour and are called “galettes de sarrasin” (or “crêpes de sarrasin”), whereas sweet crêpes are made with wheat flour and are referred to as “crêpes de froment”.

Traditional buckwheat galettes are made with just buckwheat flour, salt, and water, and they are cooked them on a billig, a wide, round cooking surface made of cast iron, completely flat with no rim. But 100% buckwheat crêpes are next to impossible to cook in a regular skillet on the stovetop (believe me, I’ve tried) so the recipe I’m sharing today is one that’s adapted for the home kitchen.

You can include whatever fillings tickle your fancy, but the most traditional (and, in my opinion, best) combo is la complète, garnished with a fried egg, cooked ham and grated cheese (usually gruyère or comté). At crêperies I like to order a complète with fresh tomatoes (in summer) or cooked mushrooms (the rest of the year).

If you’re hosting a crêpe party, it’s fun to prepare different kinds of fillings — cheese, ham, grated cheese, goat cheese, cooked leeks, cooked mushrooms, fresh tomatoes, smoked fish — and let each guest compose his or her own galette.

For dessert, a buckwheat and chocolate crêpe is a treat you won’t soon forget.

And of course, serve them all with bowls of hard apple cider or buttermilk (lait ribot), as they do in Brittany!

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