I hope you’ve enjoyed a warm and cheerful holiday season, that you’ve shared laughter and good meals with the people you care about, and that you’re feeling full of energy and dreams for 2011.

May this fresh new year bring you joy, serenity, fulfillment, and really good skin. I look forward to another year of meeting you here on Chocolate & Zucchini.

Before we kiss 2010 goodbye altogether, I don’t want to miss my chance to reminisce on what it has brought me, thereby establishing my traditional “best of” list*.

Most memorable trip

The most salient memory I will keep from 2010 is, without a doubt, the trip I took to Japan with Maxence. I can even say it was the best trip of my life, and I wish I could bottle up the euphoria I felt for two weeks straight — and also wrap up in a magic doggie bag every single bite we ate, so I could savor them over and over again.

Most rewarding baking project

For the first time ever, I baked a galette des rois to celebrate the Epiphany, the traditional January holiday I wrote about here and again here. It was a success that far outweighed the (moderate) work involved, and I encourage you to try your hand at it too: the official date is this Thursday, but l’Epiphanie is customarily celebrated anytime in January.

Favorite breads

Ever since I found James MacGuire’s instructions for pain au levain in an issue of Art of Eating, it has become our weekly loaf of bread, and I now make it (almost) with my eyes closed.

I also baked a number of batches of these tomato burger buns. They accompanied us through a fabulous summer of near-weekly cheeseburgers — many of them vegetarian, since I discovered with glee that they sell portobello mushrooms at the greenmarket.

Favorite new cooking utensils

My new/old pressure cooker is definitely getting some mileage on my stove: I use it several times a week to cook legumes, grains, soups, and stock.

I have also acquired a used electric coffee grinder (a model very much like this one) that I have repurposed as a spice/seed grinder, to whizz things like flax seeds, cardamom and lemon zest.

And although it isn’t a cooking utensil exactly, we are delighted with the sparkling water fountain that my sister and brother-in-law gave us for Christmas, which allows us to turn still water to sparkling at the push of a button (“abracadabra!” optional).

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Gorgeous braided shallots photographed by Denna Jones.

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week’s expression is, “La course à l’échalote.”

Literally translated as, “the shallot race,” it is used in situations of futile competition, when people strive to outdo one another for vain reasons, in a political context or otherwise. It is somewhat comparable to (though less openly vulgar than) the English expression a pissing contest (pardon my French).

Example: “C’est un peu ridicule, cette course à l’échalote pour savoir qui sera le plus rapide à chroniquer le dernier resto branché.” “It’s a bit ridiculous, this shallot race to see who’ll be the quickest to review the latest hip restaurant.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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The black radish is bane of the Parisian locavore’s existence: during the winter, the raphanus sativus var. niger pops up regularly in AMAP* subscribers’ vegetable baskets, and it can be a challenge to put it to good use.

An ancient variety that dates back to antiquity, this mega-radish has a black, coarse skin and a white, almost translucent flesh that’s quite pungent in flavor. It is this characteristic sharpness that earned it the nickname of raifort des Parisiens — Parisians’ horseradish — and makes it generally too assertive to eat on its own.

The characteristic sharpness of the black radish has earned it the nickname of “Parisian horseradish” and makes it generally too assertive to eat on its own.

It is, however, a winter vegetable that rewards the eater with lots of nutritional perks — it is a good source of vitamin C, sulfur, fibers and B vitamins, and it is thought to promote digestive health, detoxify the liver, boost the immune system, and fight aging — so much so that its juice is sold in boxes of drinkable phials that you’re supposed to down before breakfast (isn’t that tempting).

Fortunately, there are ways to tame the sharpness of this superfood and reap its benefits at normal meal hours, and my favorite so far is to grate the flesh and add it raw to all kinds of salads.

Today’s salad is a particularly good final destination for the black radishes that make their way into my vegetable drawer: the sweetness of the potatoes tones down the pungency of the black radish, allowing it to simply illuminate the salad like a zesty condiment. A touch of smoked paprika for depth, a scatter of fresh herbs for clarity, and a good sprinkle of walnuts for crunch, and you’ve got yourself a very satisfying, sunny-winter-day salad.

Next up, I want to try pickling black radishes, tsukemono-style, using directions from Elizabeth Andoh’s beautiful book of vegetarian Japanese cuisine, Kansha — I’ll let you know how that works out.

And naturally, if you want to share your own favorites uses for the black radish, I’d be very interested to hear them!

* AMAP is the French equivalent to CSA.

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When I was little, when my sister and I felt desultory and bored, my mother would sometimes make us a batch of salt dough for modelling. We would sit at the small folding table in the kitchen and squeeze and roll and pinch to our hearts’ content. And although my sister’s creations were invariably more delicate and life-like than my own, I remember I once proudly produced a full range of miniature fruits and vegetables that tasted shockingly salty when you applied your tongue on them (it was irresistible).

In retrospect, I am quite impressed by my mother’s ability to whip up a perfectly pliable pâte à sel in what felt like minutes, then bake our figurines in the oven without them burning or cracking, at a time when there was, naturally, no Internet to turn to for guidance*. I don’t remember there being a book of “fun stuff to keep the kids out of your hair” lying around either, so I chalk it up to motherly magic.

In any case, the memory of these childhood episodes was awakened when I first tried my hand at homemade pasta sometime last year, using a newly acquired pasta roller accessory for my stand mixer.

Pasta dough is the most pleasant dough the cook is ever given to handle, silky smooth and wonderfully cooperative, and letting it glide through the cylinders of the pasta roller and onto the palm of your flattened hand, to be folded and fondled and cut into any number of pasta shapes truly feels like child’s play.

The pasta dough recipe I use is based on the formula Michael Ruhlman shares in his Ratio book, a title you should definitely add to your wish list if it’s not already standing on your kitchen bookshelf. He gives a ratio of 2 parts egg to 3 parts flour for his pasta dough, and I’ve used it with good success. I like to substitute fine semolina flour for part of the flour, to give the pasta a little more substance and chew, and I add some salt as well, for a more even seasoning in the finished dish.

Although you can play around with this recipe and add flavoring or colorings to the dough — squid ink makes for a fetching presentation — I concur with Michael Ruhlman when he writes that “unlike flavored breads, which we eat with little adornment, pasta is usually dressed somehow, so you should have a good reason for flavoring your pasta dough, rather than adding the flavor after you’ve cooked it.”

I mentioned above that I invested in a (second-hand) stand mixer accessory to support my pasta-making ambitions, but a hand-cranked one works well too, though most people find it necessary to have someone land a third hand, at least when they’re starting out. Either one of these tools would make a generous gift idea for the culinary-oriented on your list.

What you can do without, however, is a drying rack: I’ve learned from my friends at Hidden Kitchen that wooden clothes hangers do the trick just as nicely — just remember to wipe off the flour before you put your black suit pants back on them.

* I imagine in the near future such a statement will elicit disbelief in young children, who will ask, “Really? There was no Internet when you were growing up?” and I will feel a million years old.

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