Where has summer gone?

I’ve got to admit, weather wise, it’s been a crappy summer.  Everyone thinks Southern France is all sun, but the truth is it is not.  Half the summers I’ve been here have been overcast and cool, but this year has been the worst.  This month, I don’t think we’ve yet reached 70 degrees.  And, very oddly, it’s raining – a lot.  About every three days to be exact.  In one sense, it’s good because we get a break from watering the garden, but in the other sense, well, it’s raining all the time.  I can’t even dry my sheets outside, and I’ve never seen it so green.  This weather explains the bumper crop of potatoes and onions we’re having, but it is doing absolutely nothing for the 10 different varieties of tomatoes we’re growing.  I’m beginning to think I’m going to need a bunch of recipes for green tomatoes.  Not to mention, I’m getting nostalgic when I hear news that the United States is having a heat wave.  I just about cried when imagines of open water hydrants on the streets of Chicago passed before me on the TV.  “Look at those children,” I thought to myself.  “Those lucky ducks are wearing shorts and they’re sweating!”  My daily garb is a polar fleece and jeans.  I’m beginning to doubt in the existence of the sun.  The sad news is we can’t get away from this weather.  Unlike past years, it’s not localized.  All of France is well below normal summer temperatures, and we are quite often the hot spot when we read over the daily weather forecast, which isn’t saying much.  My summer is slipping away without ever really arriving.  I love the changing of the seasons, but I want to welcome autumn’s breezes after a hot summer.  It makes the cool nights that much more special and not just another balmy day in a sequence of many.  I want each season to be marked by what makes it unique.  I want to sweat – not a sweater – in summer and look longingly at a swimming pool before diving in.  I want the things that fill my mind and keep me warm when November’s cold winds blow and I hunker down under the quilt.  I want summer back in all its glorious sweltering heat so that I can remember what it feels like to be a child again running out the back door to endless days of summer.

America’s Test Kitchen 3rd “Dish It Your Way” Blogger Challenge: Salmon

This is America’s Test Kitchen 3^rd “Dish It Your Way” Blogger Challenge.  The “Dish It Your Way” asks blogger to recreate an American classic dish throughout the summer, share the recipe, and tell a story.  This week: Salmon!

After days of rain, I was thrilled to find the sun shining through the kitchen window.  “At last”, I thought to myself, “a good day.” 

I finish my coffee and happily trot to the mailbox; bonus day: the July/August edition of Cook’s Illustrated has just arrived.  I open it and scan down the list of new recipes.  Then, my eyes jump out of their sockets: “Salmon Cakes”.

“What?”

 I quickly flip to the page. 

“No”, I scream.

Suddenly, the blue skies cloud over and a chilly wind begins to blow.

“What’s the matter?”  Christophe asks when I get back to the house.

“My recipe for the salmon challenge!  They published it!  Cook’s Illustrated stole my recipe!”

“The one you made for our wedding?”  He asks with a chuckle.  “Now what are you going to do?”  He prods me with a smile.

And with that, my Ace in the hole was gone…

After I calm down, I look over the recipe more carefully.  I’m a Midwesterner for Pete’s sake, how was I to know fish cakes were such a New England mainstay?  I thought I was being cleaver modifying a crab cake recipe.  Christophe loves my salmon cakes, and I even made them for our wedding.



Look at the time stamp on the photo - 2007! 
That's four year before Cook's Illustrated published their salmon cake recipe!



Yes, that was my story.  Salmon cakes and a French country wedding….

Being a bicultural couple, we had our choice where to get married, in the United States or France - we decided on France. The road to our village of 15 inhabitants is a nine mile climb up a single lane mountain road next to plummeting caverns tumbling down into nothing below.  No caterer was going to come to us, so in a true country wedding fashion, we decided to make the food ourselves.  The main dish was easily decided, we would grill a few lambs from a family farm; however, the first course was not as easily found.  After numerous tests and many failures, I thought about making salmon cakes.  They took some work, but had the delicate presentation we were looking for.  I made close to one hundred of them days before the wedding.  Night after night, Christophe would come home from work with another salmon in his hand and I would launch into a project of deboning and seasoning the salmon before creating the delicate cakes.  When served, they had the desired effect because everyone devoured them and raved about the originality of the course.

Obviously, I exaggerated when I stated Cook’s Illustrated stole my recipe.  There are some differences, but, being that my winning recipe was published by them, there is no way I could enter their cooking competition by simply retyping their recipe.  So, here is my plan B, my quick weeknight dinner, my not so ace in the hole, but a darn good standby.

Savory Poached Salmon

Ingredients:

4, 8 ounce salmon fillets

2 lemons

1 medium onion

Freshly chopped parsley

Sauce:

½ cup butter

3 Tablespoons soy sauce

2 Tablespoons tomato concentrate

1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 Tablespoon mustard

1 crushed garlic clove

Combine, butter, soy sauce, tomato concentrate, Worcestershire sauce, mustard, and garlic in a small saucepan. Simmer gently to bring all ingredients together.  Avoid boiling the liquid.

In a large skillet, place ¼ inch of water.   Cut the ends off the lemons, and place ½ of a lemon a side for later use.   With the remaining 1 and ½ lemons, and cut eight thick slices.  Place the slices in the water and place one fillet onto of two lemon slices.  Each fillet should hover slightly over the water.  This allows for the fish to be poached without becoming water logged and losing flavor.

Next, cut the onion and the remaining ½ lemon into thin slices.  Brush each fillet with the sauce, then layer with onions and lemon.  Brush again with sauce.  Place on high heat until the water comes to a simmer, then cover, and reduce heat to low.  Cook between 10 -15 minutes (the thickest part of the fish should reach 125 degrees).  The sides of the fish should be opaque, but the center slightly translucent.  Remove from heat and plate fillet with onions and lemons.  Serve with additional sauce and garnish with fresh parsley.

And, yes, while I did not take their recipe as whole, I did adapt the cooking method from their “Flavorful Poached Salmon” (May/June 2008).  It was much easier to get the temperature just right rather than cooking in the oven like I had done in the past.

Here’s hoping Cook’s Illustrated doesn’t have a wiretap to my brain, if so, my Roquefort flavored mac n’cheese is finished and my macaroon inspired cupcakes are a gonner for their future competitions.

Monday’s Leftovers: Sunday Brunch

Monday’s Leftovers is a periodical series that recaps the moments of Sunday lunches in France.  They reflect upon the time gathered together, the memoires, and the emotions of the day.  While brunches are popular in the US, they are something new to France, so I was eager to share the experience with family and friends.

Summer has been unseasonable cool, so our plans for a Sunday Brunch in the garden worried me.  The morning started overcast, but quickly cleared and brought blue skies with a cool wind.  Christophe set the table with a tablecloth from our wedding and flowers from the garden, and proclaimed it to be champêtre, or having picturesque country charm – and it did.  Mixed vegetable strada, chilled pork roast, salmon galettes with dill sauce, homemade bread, and jams made from black and red currant from the garden, along with wild blackberry jam rounded out the menu.  But, pancakes, not crepes, were the biggest winner of the day.   Next time I’m stateside, I promised myself, I will pick up a bottle of real Vermont maple syrup. 

The meal was a time to say goodbye to visiting friends and a time to welcome family for a week.  It was filled with a mixed feeling of joy of welcoming guests around our table, but also some bitterness in knowing our friends’ goodbyes would be year-long.  It will take another July until we see them again and catch up on the daily activities that fill the days.

Coffee was drank lackadaisically throughout the afternoon, just like it should be, and only interrupted by a random tour of the vegetable garden to see the origins of some of the products on the table.  I smiled as I watched family re-serve themselves again moving from sweet foods, to savory, and back to sweet again.

Then, the cool winds of the afternoon kicked back up, so the table was cleared of what little remained, sweaters where gathered, and goodbyes were said.

Success.

The French Omelet

A French omelet is a light, savory, and delicate dish.  Simply little more than eggs, butter, and a tiny bit of filling, it is ultimately pristine with its unblemished golden yellow color.

An omelet made in France is often scrambled eggs made with any leftovers in the refrigerator, from rice to spaghetti to meat and vegetables.   It is the complete opposite of what took Julia Child 11 pages to explain about omelet making in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Therefore, when Christophe announced “an omelet” for dinner, I was quite surprised to find parts of my roast chicken and rice from last night’s dinner floating in the scrambled eggs.  He explained, “A family style omelet is a way of using leftovers without serving the same thing twice.  They are quite popular and I ate them all the time growing up.  It’s a way of cleaning out the fridge.”  Great, but I was disappointed not to get the creamy rolled eggs everyone raves about.

In all honesty, this is a clever use of what’s at hand, but, I was hesitant when Christophe plopped the plate down in front of me.  When I was growing up, my leftovers were served to me as they were made, and with eight around the dinner table, this sometimes meant bartering for the leftover meatloaf instead of the tuna casserole.  That is how I knew leftover, and that is how I liked it – at long as I didn’t get the tuna casserole. 

Truth be told, Christophe’s omelet was quite tasty, but one day, I wouldn’t mind being served an omelet à la Julia Child, just to say, “Yes, I have eaten a French omelet and not just an omelet made in France."  After all, no other country I know has elevated the gastronomic bar so high that a masterpiece dinner can be created from a single, humble egg.

The Tour de France

My husband loves the Tour de France.  It’s his summer ritual to sit down and get lost in it for its three week run.  He talks about the cyclists, what they specialize in, and why he does or does not like them.  It dominates his topics of discussion for the month of July and even creeps into August.  I have to be honest, I’ve tried, but I don’t get it.  I know it’s a hard sport, and one needs to be a true athlete to bike up and down mountains for days un-end in scorching heat, but it’s just not for me.

Last week, I was forced to stay inside during a torrential downpour, and with nothing else to do, I found myself next to Christophe in front of the television.  I watched, and listened, and my enthusiasm for the sport did not change; however, I figured out it is something more than simply a sport.  It is a cultural event.  It is a tour of France, that is, there is an almost always picture perfect scenery on the TV screen from one part of the country or another.  Within the course of an hour, the countryside changed for rich pastoral lands to rocky, dry, climbing hills, and this was not an isolated moment – the countryside constantly changed.  Chateaus are passed every few minutes along with a quick history lesson on its origins. Historical commentators explain how those who built the chateaus lived and changed the land.  Looking at it from this perspective, it was actually quite engaging.  It gives insight to why certain products, like wine, are so varied.  Each micro-region produces a distinctive product, even though they are within miles of each other.  Even though I still might not get excited about the cyclists, I get a whole new appreciation of the French culture and countryside.  And, while I love football, I don’t think the Super Bowl has ever done that. 

Monday’s Leftovers: Veal Scallops

In France, Sunday lunches are sacred.  They are a time for family and friends to gather together, put the work week on hold, and come back to the table to the things that inspire.  We participate in this ritual which allows us to spend time together and reflect upon our good fortune.  Growing up, my family also had our Sunday brunches, so coming back to this tradition is a welcomed addition to my weekend.  Monday’s Leftovers is a periodical series that recaps those moments, the lunches, and the memories that are left long after the dishes are done. 

The morning did not bring the sun as we had hoped.  From the bedroom window I could see the clouds hanging low, covering the mountain crests in front of me.  I growl, and slowly roll out of bed.  We groggily make our way to the kitchen and discuss our day’s plan over a bowl of coffee.  I want to attack the vegetable garden; the weeds are getting to be too much.

After breakfast, I go outside.  The clouds are slowly coming down on the mountain crest, enveloping the vegetation.  I make my way to the garden.  It’s been an unseasonable wet and cool summer, and the weeds have profited well from the weather.  Within the last two weeks, they have gained ground against the cucumbers, eggplants, and pumpkins, which are slowly getting choked.

I bend down and start to pull the weeds out around the cucumbers.  I find some of the plants have blossomed and small cucumbers have formed. As I advance, I avoid stepping on the creeping pumpkin vines and am surprised by their progress despite the lack of sun.  Bucket after bucket of weeds are removed, and eventually the vegetable garden looks presentable again.  My mood has changed, regardless of the looming clouds.  I’m satisfied with my work and I once again see the promise the garden holds.  This gives me more of a moral boost than my morning coffee did.

Christophe has been in the kitchen.  Sunday lunches are his time to cook, to be creative, and to experiment.  He later tells, me, he’s been dancing to Colette Magny and Hôtel Costes which seems to have lifted his spirits despite the dismal weather.  Around noon, he makes his way to the garden.

“I need some chives,” he says.  “The garden looks great.  Are you ready for an aperitif?”

“Yeah,” I reply brushing my hands together to shake lose the remaining dirt.

We set ourselves up under the apple and hazelnut trees in the garden.  The cool weather has us in sweatshirts, but it doesn’t last long.  A few drops are starting to fall, and even after our determined perseverance, we are driven inside because it is starting to rain -  yet again.

I open the door to the house, enter the kitchen, and am welcomed by a magnificent perfume.

            “What did you make?”  I ask looking around.

            “I was actually torn between a BBQ and something a little more elaborate,” he says.  “Happily, I didn’t choose the BBQ.”   We look outside; the rain is falling to the rhythm of a steady beating drum.

            “We’ll have a salad of mâche and a chilled salmon cake with dill.”  He begins.  “Followed by veal scallops in a shallot and girolles sauce mounted with mustard, served with potato galettes, and grilled zucchini.”  He smiles. “Not bad since I had no idea what I was going to make when I fished the veal out of the freezer this morning.”

I smile back.  “Yep, not bad at all.”

The History of the Potato in France

There is a collective memory that almost all the French share – eating in the school cafeteria.  Unlike in the US, kids either eat there or go home for lunch, there is no brown bagging.  And, when the French start talking about nostalgic foods from their childhood, one dish always comes up: Hachis Parmentier.  It’s the French version of a Shepherd’s Pie and named for Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, the man credited for bringing the potato to the French dinner table.

Centuries ago, the potato was thought to be inedible; it was only used for hog feed.  In fact, before Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was taken prisoner by Prussia during France’s Seven Year War (1756- 1763) the French parliament prohibited growing potatoes because they were thought to cause leprosy.  During this imprisonment he ate potatoes and noted no ill side effects.  He used this experience as the foundation for a proposal as using the potato as a source of nourishment for dysenteric patients.  Due to this study, the Paris Faculty of Medicine declared the potato suitable for human consumption in 1772.

Antoine-Augustin Parmentier had a hard time convincing everyone that potatoes were edible, so he went to great lengths to convince the population otherwise.  For example, he hosted elaborate dinners which prominently featured potato dishes, gave the King and Queen bouquets of potato blossoms, and armed his potato patch with guards to suggest valuable goods, but told the guards to allow civilians to “steal” the goods.  That’s cleaver.

Hachis Parmentier: some like it, some love it, but now every young French adult has some story to tell thanks to Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. I mean, who can go wrong with meat covered in mashed potatoes?  I might just make some tonight.