NEW YEAR’S 2010 - BEGIN AGAIN THE ADIEUX
I always enjoy reading this story around New Years. I wrote it in Paris on the occasion of a Sunday dinner with family, and it always reminds me that the point of cooking is what Josephine Araldo used to share with her students, “Things taste best when they taste like what they are. Period.”
Several new class series begin at the Chef Studio the week of January 11th. There are day-time options permitting one to four days attendance that focus on French, Italian, American regional cooking , and pastry. In addition there are two evening sessions that meet 8 consecutive weeks on either Monday and Thursday evenings (plus one Saturday a month), or Wednesday and Friday evenings (plus one Saturday a month.) Further details are on the web site www.thechefstudio.com, or simply phone Robert Reynolds at 503 421 9257. If your New Year’s resolution involves an engagement with food, dream with us.
The morning is cold. You know Paris is far to the north because at 7:30 the day is just breaking.
A streak of pale blue sky is visible through thin grey clouds. The windows are clouded with moisture. I am in a room on the top floor of my favorite little hotel. It’s Sunday and there is no morning bustle. The aromas of good dark coffee work in synch with the rhythm of this slow moving morning. I quietly linger over breakfast savoring the plans for my day.
I think about music, and as I imagine the sound of a choir filling a splendid church, I remember Jacqueline saying she would be in town for the week-end. I phone and make arrangements to meet for lunch at her brother and sister-in-law’s. The day takes shape.
I set out to find something special to bring to lunch. I am reminded of a very good pastry shop along the way and make the detour. I arrive to discover a bustling cluster of customers. Working the tight space behind the counter are half a dozen young women wearing uniforms. In front of the counters charged with Sunday best pastries, a parade of Paris-dressed ladies examine and judge. The French are not the English; they’re not crazy about the orderliness of lines. If there is a way around them they will find it.
The impatience of Parisians is palpable. You come to understand a certain nervousness that seems pure and native. The person behind me in line pushes gently at my back. Parisians conduct themselves on foot the way they drive their cars, zipping ahead of you if they find 10 centimeters. Your loss. The woman who does that this morning causes me to miss my bus that arrived at the stop a minute before I did. The moral of the story adds up quickly if an entire day is measured in these little moments.
In line, trying to sort out how the system works, I also try to figure out what I want. The pastries are like ladies hats, marvels of elaboration, color, and form. I concentrate on finding the right size. One square tart made with pear quarters catches my eye. The fruit are nested in cream and baked golden. The well-caramelized tips of fruit are dark and tantalizing. When I inquire about the tart I learn the fruit is peach. I don’t expect peaches in December. I ask about pears. The woman presents a lovely, round tart which reveals traces of almond cream between nicely arranged fruit. It qualifies as beautiful enough to wear, and I tell her I will take it.
She hands me a ticket on which she has scribbled figures. With a nod of her head, she indicates the cashier at the back of the store. I must go to a second chaotic line and re-enter the fray to pay for the tart while she wraps it. The system is the same as for ordering except people in this line are also buying bread and there is only one cashier. Those who handle breads and pastries clearly do not handle money. While we wait, the man in front of me drops his ticket, and creates a pause in the line, a blip. The woman behind me slips ahead and takes his place at the counter. She reorganizes her purse, is given change, then takes her package and leaves. This was the moment where I lost the advantage with the 63 bus. Oh well, I have the tart. I will be late but Jacqueline is family, so I will be well received.
Sunday dinner at home in France is a fundamental part of the culinary landscape. The demands of modern life in Paris are not eased because they’re negotiated in French. On the contrary. The table merits rigorous effort because it implies family coming together, and the theater of familiar pleasure is still at the center of life. The well-rehearsed appreciation of it amounts to an art. Properly cooked food, beautifully staged, is a national pass time. You master efficiency when you make dinner happen. You’re organized, know where to find the best and how to prepare it. If much depends on dinner in France, it is because so much is expected of the surrounding rituals.
French porcelain shows off food perfectly. Jacqueline’s sister in law is Maman today, and she is well practiced at putting together a meal. The table is napped with impeccable linen. Wine glasses sparkle, and silver is neatly arranged. Everything feels good to the touch. The stage is set when she arrives from the kitchen with a large platter of roasted chicken. Its aroma hangs in the air, mingles between the words, causing everyone to shift subtly and to be more attentive. Surrounding the chicken is a garnish of small onions cooked with tomatoes to a compote. The vegetables are ready to melt, a sign that they will have good deep flavor. A pretty Chinese bowl, white on the outside, turquoise inside, and domed high with rice cooked in broth, also arrives. Its perfume seems to suggest a secret liaison with the senses as it passes nose to nose from hand to hand. Expectation fills the air. The ritual of the table is designed to navigate salad, main course, cheese and dessert and to engage us easily for two hours. We settle in.
The conversation is animated from the moment we are seated. Issues are formulated, offered, and discussed. Arguments, like houses of cards, solidify the foundations of thought. Expressing an opinion goes hand in hand with defending it. Political issues don’t require correctness; characters may be assassinated. Emotions, rehearsed to Olympian proportions, are a French sport from which I have diplomatic immunity as part of the American family.
At this table no one misses a trick. The slightest gesture, whose glass is filled out of order, who is sarcastic, or coquette (cute), who cuts the nose off the Brie, is subject to comment. Home behavior demonstrates a tension like the line at the bakery, and because being French requires rigor, the thread of life is kept taut.
Discipline, pleasure, appreciation and courtesy are woven into their nature. Someone once asked me why the French peel tomatoes. I answered that peeling tomatoes is the response of a people whose entire outlook on life is based on courtesies, such as opening doors for others. Peeling tomatoes fits into that context. Seeds add nothing to most dishes, and they are not easily digested. The skin of the tomato is cellulose, like a vegetal plastic, and difficult to digest. The cook has the elegance to remove it for you. The French take the high ground where the pursuit of fine things, like beauty, remains a basic French truth. Ideas about cooking and eating are fused into the Art of Eating; and the social behavior that surrounds dining is referred to as the Art of Well Being.
One evening I served a tart to Jacqueline and my French family. Everyone took the first taste and rolled their eyes. Jacqueline asked if I made the tart dough 60-40, meaning did I use a formula calling for a ratio of 60 percent flour to 40 percent butter. She was cuing me that she knew the subject. She was also flattering me by drawing attention to the tart. You don’t elicit “This is killer” at French tables. “Not bad,” is already a high compliment. To be engaged in a technical discussion is flattering. I answered that I made it weight for weight, meaning that there was as much butter as flour. My friend smiled, and whispered an exquisite compliment only loud enough for me to hear: “Assassin,” she said then delicately took another taste from her fork.
Criticism and commentary shape the desire for good food. I once asked Simone, the best friend of my friend Michel’s Mother-in-law, if she would come talk to one of my classes. Simone is 80-ish, and was a pharmacist all her working life. She loves food, and brings to it the precision of the pharmacist/scientist. She is intellectually curious and she can be counted on in a good discussion. She asks me what she could possibly do in a class. What would she have to offer? I ask her to prepare a simple cake, her own Clafouti, which I have eaten with pleasure over the years I’ve known her. She created a minor scandal among her friends when she spontaneously accepted my request, because as Michel said, “Usually she’s never available to do anything less than two weeks in advance.”
Simone agrees on the condition that she bring everything she needs; her own knife for cutting apples; her own cutting board, bowl, and wooden spoon for stirring; and finally her own cake pan appropriate for the proportions of the recipe. When the day arrives, the students are enchanted that this little old lady will teach them. She plays the role of Every French Grandmother passing along trucs, those culinary tricks that make the distinction between food that is good and food that is excellent.
Twelve students stumble over each other to be helpful. Simone is on one side of the work table. Everything she needs to make the cake is before her. “Would you like to help?” she asks. They all nod with excitement and twelve of them set out to peel the four apples Simone needs. She explains everything she knows about this cake. She butters her pan and starts to line up rows of apple slices. She completes three rows, doesn’t like the way the pattern looks, so removes the apples and starts again. This is why I brought her, because she has a specific and clear idea of how the dish is put together. If you dare to be good, her behavior seems to say, then every part of what you do matters, even how you arrange the apples.
Once the cake is done, Simone joins us for a lunch the students prepared. She is a good and interesting conversationalist. Since she is with English speaking people she speaks, in French, of things English. She discusses Shakespeare’s plays, quoting from them liberally. Fortunately one of the students was also an actor, holds up his end of the conversation, discusses matters further, and gives her intelligent responses. She calls him Falstaff. Like any of us, he would have eaten from her hand had she offered a morsel.
Simone’s apple cake is served and eaten. Everyone is so taken by the fact that Simone is here that no one comments on what she has done. No one would dare offer a criticism, but any praise would be general, if glowing. Since there is no critique, however, Simone steps in and says: “If my friend Jany were here, she would say that the cake needed ….” and filled in the criticism. It occurred to me at this moment that she has never found herself in a group where there wasn’t at least one French person. She is used to critique, and opinion; and in the absence of any she invents a way of making critique possible. On the way home she discussed her experience. “I have no way of knowing whether the Americans liked what I did or not. They say (They being the French) that the Americans don’t like criticism. But perhaps that is part of their charm.” The gesture of quoting her friend, saying “If Jany were here,” speaks worlds to me of how the French make use of critique to keep themselves focused on excellence. Perfection requires practice. Effort, a reflection of beauty, is within everyone’s reach.
At the Sunday table in Paris, the pear dessert arrives on a pretty platter. It has what the French would callgueule, what Humphrey Bogart might have called kisser. It has real appeal. Everyone is attentive, ready to receive. Much is made of the tart as it is sliced and served. It merited attention because of its excellence. Afterwards coffee is served in the living room and the change of scene provides the denouement. The conversation shifts to what each of us will do with the remainder of the afternoon. I am headed to the theater. Jacqueline opts for a gallery opening.
In a routine that always takes a long time, Good byes are eventually attempted. The French
don’t like saying good bye. At the same time they make much of it. There is hand holding, and warm, direct looks. Many things are being said at once: you will remember to say or do something; to tell so and so something; or you will not forget something. Much goes on in these good byes. Since they don’t like the “Good bye” part, “Later” is more comforting than “Tomorrow,” or “The next time I see you.” Hands are still held. Kisses re-offered. It makes me want to head for the nearest telephone once I am out the door and to call them back, to nullify all this business of separation, or to anticipate starting it all over again.
SUNDAY ROAST CHICKEN CHEZ MAMAN
3-4 pound roasting chicken
2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter
grated rind of half a lemon
1 tablespoon freshly chopped tarragon
Sea salt, freshly ground pepper
When the French roast a chicken they start with an excellent bird. Even in a French supermarket, you often have a choice of 6-8 different types from which to choose: Poulet de Landes, de Bresse, de Gers, Fermier, or chicken with black feet. They all differ in taste, due partly to what they eat. Poultry is not generally raised on a universal diet of feed making them taste the same from one corner of the country to the other. The choices are visible and not just based on brand marketing. Some have yellow fat visible under the skin. It indicates they ate corn and grain. Or, if they are free-range, the yellow fat might mean they ate flowers, something you’d expect to find in a chicken ranging about freely. The French hate uniformity when it produces mediocre food. They want excellence to be uniform; they demand it and are willing to pay for it. The Poulet de Bresse has the honor of an AOC, the same quality control as France’s best wines. An AOC rating guarantees strict regulations were applied. There are winners and runners up in the refrigerator cases of the supermarkets, but you have the impression that if products fail, they generally fail high. So when you want to roast a bird, start by thinking of a good bird.
If you buy a bird at the market hall in France often they haven’t been eviscerated, the stomach not yet opened up. They are sold this way because when the flesh is exposed to the air, airborne bacteria can get to it. Keeping the bird closed slows spoilage. No one needs to convince you a bird is fresh, free range, or organic when you open a bird and discover undigested flowers in its stomach. The bird vendor opens the bird when you buy it, then cleans everything. He trims the excess, ties the bird for roasting, and singes any remnants of feathers. As the package is wrapped and passed to you, often you are given instructions, 25 minutes a pound in a slow oven (325oF), and 18 minutes a pound in a hot one (400oF). If the vendor has a personal preference there will be no choice, but more likely a discussion of roasting that could qualify for Scientific American.. When you come back the next time you will be asked how it went. I had to report once that a roast left 5 minutes too long in the oven turned out dry. You learn to believe your butcher.
People in France tend to buy local. One time I cooked a particularly good roasted chicken for my friend Philippe. He liked it and asked where I got it. I didn’t answer directly, instead I asked him about Poulet de Bresse, the highest rated chicken. He almost dropped his fork. “This isn’t a Poulet de Bresse, is it?” he asked. I reassured him that I had purchased it from Madame at the market hall. “Why,” I asked? “A Poulet de Bresse should be eaten in Bresse” was his reply. In a demonstration of pure local thinking, he went on: “If you go to the market and there is only cabbage, then you eat cabbage.”
I prepare the bird for roasting by slipping a piece of butter under the skin of the breast. I prepare a butter flavored with finely grated lemon rind and tarragon. I also truss bird so that it doesn’t cook inside and out too quickly. As the bird roasts the butter under the breast helps self-lubricate. To get the outside skin to brown nicely, I baste it using the butter in the bottom of the roasting pan. The bird has visual appeal and is very flavorful.
The butcher says to roast the bird in either a hot or medium oven. Try both ways and determine which results you prefer. I seldom put stuffing in a bird. When I want stuffing, I put it in a separate baking dish and cook it with the bird. To avoid create a perfect environment for developing bacteria, stuff the bird close to roasting time. I like the method of roasting a bird a third of the time on each side, and the final third breast up. Once we figure out what works, we get fussy about what we like best, so practice and remember.
ROASTING CHICKEN: Temperature and Times
AT 400o ROAST 18 minutes per pound
AT 325o ROAST 25 minutes per pound
When the bird is done, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest before you cut into it. Resting re-distributes the moisture inside, and that means the meat stays moist. Remove the legs and cut each at the joint to separate drumstick and thigh. Remove the breast from the bone, and cut it in two as well. Arrange everything on a serving platter. Collect all the juices and degrease carefully with a spoon to eliminate the fat. Or use a measuring cup which has a spout at the bottom that allows the juices to be separated. There won’t be much juice, but it is very flavorful and worth having. Spoon it by the tablespoon over the meat. Give a pot of coarse salt and a pepper mill the place of honor normally given to the sauce boat.
ONIONS WITH TOMATOES
Serves 6
Select small onions that are the size of a franc (at the market in France), or a quarter, but not bigger than half a dollar. They should be firm and vibrant, holding themselves with pride. The paper shouldn’t be too dried out, and they shouldn’t have green shoots sprouting from the center. An onion is the foundation of so many things, it should always be solid, worthy.
18-24 small whole onions
2 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, chopped
1/4 cup golden raisins
1-1/2 cups home made chicken stock
Pinch of sugar
Pinch of salt
Drop the onions whole into boiling water for 1 or 2 minutes until the outside papery skin starts to soften. Remove them to a colander, and let them cool enough to handle. This step makes the process of removing their skins easier. First, trim the root end by shaving the roots away with a sharp knife. Score the bottom of each onion with an ‘x’ 1/4 inch deep, to allow heat penetration when the onions braise. The onion tends to hold its shape. Peel the outside of the onion to remove the paper. Toss the whole onions into a pot, and brown them hot and fast in a skillet to give them a boost of caramelized.
Cook the onions in a pot with a tight fitting lid. Pour stock to cover them, and add the ripe tomatoes and the raisins. Bring the liquid to a boil, then turn it to a simmer, adding a pinch of sugar and of salt. Put the lid firmly in place and let the onions cook slowly until they are tender, about 30 minutes. They should hold their shape and most of the liquid should be absorbed, or have evaporated. Taste and correct with a bit of salt if necessary.
NOTE: USING SALT TO DEVELOP FLAVOR.
In a French recipe the final instruction often calls for correcting the seasoning. You will notice that some salt went into the dish at the beginning. This gesture reveals the French approach to building flavor. In order to >correct’ at the end, the implication is that you seasoned as you went along.
A dish is usually prepared in stages. When the oil is hot, add the onions. You decide to stop cooking the onions at some point and go on. Why? What’s happening? Two assumptions are made. One is that a sufficient breakdown of fiber occurred to continue to the next stage. There is also an assumption that as fiber breaks down, flavor develops because the onion doesn’t taste as it did when you started. Season at these stages to build the dish from the peaks of flavor.
Start by heating the oil. If the oil is hot it seals the flavor into the onion. If the oil is cold when the onion is put in, the onion swims in tepid fat, leaches liquid and flavor, and probably takes on some of the fat, and gets greasy. Wait for the heat to get to temperature, then add the onion. Assume it has a flavor value of zero when it’s raw. Caramelized, it may have a value of 40. It will only be at one hundred when it’s fully cooked. If I increase its flavor, and then just go on to the next step without reinforcing it, the flavor drops. A pinch of salt added when flavor is at its peak allows me to build high flavor value as I go through the stages of preparation.
The food flavor isn’t worn out by climbing, falling, only to climb again. In my mind I see the movement of a perfect arc, step one cooks to a value of 40, step two to a value of 70, step three to a value of 100. Dance is a continuous movement, graceful and light and beautiful. Creating a dish from beginning to end happens similarly.
BUTTERED RICE
Serves 6
The heart of cooking is making simple things well. Italian cooking is considered the height of world cuisine.Polenta, the national dish of half of Italy consists of corn meal, salt and water elevated to the heights. Josephine Araldo, my mentor, used to say: “Home cooking is always the best.” A bowl of Maman’s perfectly prepared and delicately perfumed rice can be the simplest of pleasures. Our Sunday chicken is prepared without sauce. The dish of onions and tomatoes is the vegetable, garnish, and sauce all in one. If the rice needs to marry with something for moisture, its flavors will blend agreeably with the onions cooked with tomatoes.
2 cups Basmati rice
1-1/2 cups water
1 cup chicken stock
1 teaspoon sea salt
1-2 tablespoons butter (optional)
Rinse the Basmati rice a couple of times in cold water. Then let it sit in cold water for a few minutes or so. This rinsing and soaking rids rice of some of its starches and makes the final taste clearer and lighter. When ready, put the rice in a pan with the broth and water, and bring it to a boil. Add salt, stir to mix. Cover the pot with a tight fitting lid so the steam doesn’t escape. Turn the heat down and let the rice cook for 25 minutes. Toss in a pat of butter and fluff the rice with a fork. Remove the rice to a beautiful bowl and serve it at the table.
SALAD
Delicate lettuce leaves suspended inside a bowl like so much tissue paper is a lovely sight. The translucence of lettuce conveys cool and cleansing. The salad bowl sits on the table, or on a side board, waiting its turn. You register it while you eat, and find yourself filled with anticipation as the main course finishes. Salad has its place, its role. All we ask of it is to cleanse the palate. At the end of the main course we are not looking for bulk. If we wanted the salad to have a different importance in the menu, it should come first. A salad heavy with vinegar, or combined with other tastes at the end of the meal, leaves too many lingering tastes as you head for dessert.
The person in charge, Maman, knows that she has a special dessert. That dessert is being served at all is special in itself. Everyone wants to be enchanted by the pastry maker’s art. If the tastes of other foods linger they detract from the pleasure. For this reason, no big salad, no big vinaigrette.
In France salad dressing is often made at home in the bowl in which it’s served. The cleaned and dried leaves are added to the bowl, but not tossed in dressing until just before serving. They retain maximum flavor and crispness. It’s considered inhospitable (rude) in some parts of France to serve lettuce in pieces big enough to cut. They should always be bite sized.
GREEN SALAD
Serves 4
1 Head lettuce - Butter, Batavia, Romaine
Vinaigrette
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
generous pinch of salt
1 teaspoon Dijon style mustard
1/4 cup excellent Olive oil
fresh ground pepper to taste
Clean the salad and dry it well.
Add the lemon juice, salt, and mustard to the salad bowl. Whisk with a fork until the mixture emulsifies and looks creamy then slowly whisk in the oil. Set the lettuce loosely in the bowl and bring it to the table. When ready to serve, toss to dress the leaves with sauce. Give a grinding of pepper and pass at once.
CHEESE PLATTER
The French love affair with cheese is acted out at the end of a meal. Love doesn’t need to explain itself, but cheese has a practical side. Unpasteurized, it contains bacteria friendly to the digestive process because the bacteria works on the food you have just eaten. This results in feeling lighter at the end of the meal. The French do not automatically eat cheese with bread because it makes things heavier. Bread cleans the palate between cheeses so you appreciate the nuances each cheese offers by itself.
Roquefort cheese is the exception however. There are endless arguments about serving it or not with butter. One camp posits that Roquefort, being sheep’s milk, lacks cream. Butter replaces the cream and completes the cheese. I’m one of those people. I like a morsel of bread, a touch of butter, and a nugget of Roquefort. As with Champagne, it gives me the clear impression that, like Dorothy, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” This taste could only be France.
Cheeses are organized by families - soft paste, crust, cooked paste, goat, blue, and usually eaten from mild to strong - goat cheeses first, and the blues last. Select a couple of cheeses and eat them in moderation. Fruit in season is a perfect accompaniment to cheese. A chef friend says he likes cheese because “They help you finish the last of the red wine.” More often than not the menu stops here. This is dessert. Once a week, usually Sunday, a big deal is made of a sweet.
CRISP APPLE TART
Serves 6-8
1 recipe pastry crust
1-1/2 cups all purpose, unbleached white flour
pinch of salt
8 tablespoons cold butter in tablespoon sized pieces
4-5 tablespoons cold water
2 tablespoons butter
3 flavorful apples, cut in 1/4 inch slices
Fuji, Jonagold, Golden
1/4 cup excellent quality apricot jam
For the pastry: Put the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse to mix. Toss in the pieces of butter and pulse again about a dozen times until the butter is broken into pea sized pieces. Turn the machine on and add the water, a tablespoon at a time, pausing 30 seconds or so between additions. The dough will come together in a ball and start to roll around the inside of the bowl. Don’t take too long, as the continued working of the dough by the machine can heat the dough and toughen it. The whole process should take 2 minutes.
Remove the dough, flatten it, wrap it and refrigerate it for 30 minutes.
Roll the dough out into a perfect 9-inch circle. Set it on a buttered cookie sheet. Prick it with the tines of a fork all over the surface. Set the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 425oF. When ready to bake, set a second cookie sheet on top of the dough, and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. When the dough is dry, then remove the top cookie sheet and bake it another 3to 4 minutes until it starts to turn golden, It is still slightly underdone, but dry. Remove the dough from the oven; let it cool down.
Prepare the apples. Heat the butter in a skillet, add the sliced apples, and cook them hot and fast for 2 minutes, or until they start to soften. Remove them from the heat, let them cool enough to handle. Carefully arrange a single layer of the apples onto the pre-baked crust. Start at the center and work your way to the edge overlapping the apples tightly while fanning them out.. Melt the apricot jam and brush it onto the surface of the apples. Put the tart back into the 425oF oven and bake it another 10-12 minutes until the crust appears crisp, and the apples appear cooked.
Serve the tart garnished with ice cream if desired.
Subscribe to RSS Feed