Thanksgiving Post-Script...

Everybody just hang on a minute. I had a serious revision to my Thanksgiving menu this year, and I'm pretty sure you should know about it, ASAP. After beaucoup de recherche (lots of searching) we COULD NOT find cranberries in this country. Upon reflection, it probably has something to do with them being a.) not grown anywhere on this continent b.) not very popular, even in the places their grown. I was even so thorough as to send a friend to Marks & Sparks in the 15th arrondissement to survey their "American Food" section, which has the reputation for being the place to find what you can't find anywhere else. No dice! HOWEVER, John optimistically brought home a bag of frozen "griottes" which could easily be mistaken for cranberries when you're standing among the rows of freezer cases in your local Picard. * 

After asking google translate what he'd just bought, we debated using Martha Stewart's regular "Cranberry Chutney" recipe and just substituting for the cranberries, or looking for a recipe that actually called for Sour Cherries (aka griottes). While hunting around, I found this recipe, and after vacillating because I'd already grated the ginger and minced the shallot for Martha's recipe, I decided to roll up my sleeves and try something new. 

Holy s%#t guys! This chutney is OFF THE HOOK. 

I mixed and matched a little-- basically smashed Martha's recipe into this "Garlic Pig" and I've been eating it by the spoonful since it came off the stove. I know you wish I'd told you about this yesterday, but I was too busy cooking to blog. However, you could make it now and still enjoy it with your mountain of leftovers!!  : )

This is my revised version of the two recipes, combined: 

Incredible Garlicky Tart Cherry Chutney

16 oz frozen tart cherries
3/4 cup honey

1 rounded tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in about 1/4 cup of cold water

1 medium shallot, finely minced 

2 tablespoon of ginger – grated (a zester works great for this)

1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

4 tablespoons honey

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp salt (or to taste)

ground white pepper (to taste)

Put frozen cherries and honey in a heavy sauce pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Let the cherries cook and bubble, stirring occasionally, for about 15 – 20 minutes. While they cook, periodically take a fork to the cherries and mash them up to your desired consistency. Stir in the cornstarch slurry and cook a for a few minutes longer until slightly thickened. Remove from heat.

In another sauce pan, combine ginger, garlic, shallot, vinegar, honey and cayenne. Bring to a simmer, and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes or until there is roughly 1/4 cup of thick liquid left. 

Add in the cherry sauce, salt, and pepper. Mix and bring to a gentle simmer fro about 5 -10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed, adding a touch more honey, salt, or pepper if needed. Cool, store and refrigerate. Serve at room temperature.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Enjoy your holiday weekend! 

*Picard is a chain shop here in France, devoted entirely to frozen foods. Heaven if you're a fan of frozen raspberries. And of course, because this is France, the cases consist primarily to frozen scallops, beautiful terrines wrapped in puff pastry, and exotic fruits in frozen form. There is nary a chicken nugget or brick of burrito to be found, and literally only one kind of frozen pizza in there. I know because we bought it. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

A Very Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!                                                 From our Parisian home to yours, wherever you are! We wish you a warm holiday season and a wonderful day of eating and laughing with family and friends. We've got so much to cook and so much to eat, so I'm going to keep it short, and just send you all our love... 

And so the gorging begins...

Moderation is for wimps.

So, of course, John and I are planning a hulking great- AMERICA- sized Thanksgiving for ten unsuspecting folks here in Paris.

There are a couple of non-negotiable dishes at our Thanksgiving table, in particular, Martha Stewart's "Cornbread-Sage-And-Sausage Stuffing" and her "Brussels Sprouts with Vinegar-Glazed Red Onions".... The brussels sprouts shouldn't pose much difficulty, but the "cornbread" component of the stuffing has proven a bit more challenging. Usually we use store-bought, kinda-crap cornbread, on Martha's recommendation, but it is beyond difficult (frequently called IMPOSSIBLE) to find ready-made cornbread in Paris, let alone the junky kind Martha prefers. so we've been forced to make our own. This in itself was an endeavor-- tracking down cornmeal, buttermilk-- but the true disappointment is that when all is said and done, the homemade version is notably inferior to the corn-syrup-laden-junk-food we've used in Thanksgiving pasts...

I thought if I went to the Queen of Junk-food, the renowned Paula Dean, I could count on her for a recipe that would resemble the (admittedly delicious) cornbread I buy but once a year at the local ShopRite, but despite requiring epic amounts of butter and equally fatty buttermilk, the cornbread was under-salted and under-delicious. Luckily, good ol' Martha wants me to inundate my cornbread in pork sausage, eggs, sage, and happiness; so in the long term, it probably won't make too much of a difference. But, WTF Paula Dean?!? Consider me disappointed.

Worse-case-scenario: We'll just drown the whole thing in chutney and gravy. Boo-hoo.

Thanksgiving Cornucopia of An Entirely Different Order...

John, Jules, and I seized the day early Sunday morning, and jumped on the metro out to the Marché Aux Puces at the Porte De Vanves... If you're familiar with Paris, you're probably familiar with the Marché Aux Puces, but people usually hit the Marché Aux Puces de Clignancourt, which has a well-earned reputation for being beautiful, wonderfully curated, and incredibly expensive. 

Believe it or not, as a firm believer in sweat-equity/someone without a lot of funds, I far prefer to rustle up my own "wonderfully curated" if I can dodge the "incredibly expensive" bullet, and Porte De Vanves is just the place to do it.

This morning, we dug through rows and rows of "antiques" and "collectibles", as well as miles of junk and crud, but came away resoundingly victorious and extremely pleased with our purchases. They're not all obvious acquisitions, but then, I'm not an obvious gal, so it seems only fitting that I'd come back from our trip to France with my very own to-scale paper maché potbellied-pig.

I also picked up a f#$%-ing gigantic brasilian spider in a frame, a lovely impressionist-esque oil painting, and this terrific "Lady Killer" ad-vert that is seemingly advertising something, though what, I'm not clear.

Lastly, we found 5 delightfully sweet (yes. I said delightfully sweet. Get over it.) little antique ramekin bowls that actually match these beautiful set of antique measuring cups I bought at a different "brocante"* when John and I came to Paris on our honeymoon in 2009. The fact that I found matching ramekins kind of blew my mind, though if I was going to be honest, it also made me question how unique the pattern could possibly be if I'd found measuring cups and bowls in the same style... Either way, they're lovely, so I think I'll focus on that instead... : )

*Brocante = Antique market/junkfest

Autumn in the Jardin du Luxumbourg

Just a quick glimpse of an afternoon in Paris... We had a wonderfully full day, which I'll post about tomorrow, but in the meantime, enjoy these beautiful photos from the Jardin Du Luxumbourg...

What a day...

Did I already tell you about this?

While we patiently wait for our self-adhesive trompe-l'oeil wall paper to arrive, we're keeping ourselves busy by eating as much as humanly possible. While I was at the marché this morning, I picked up three gloriously small eggplants and nearly a bushel of over-priced, spectacularly delicious cherry tomatoes.

(Is something over-priced if it's incredibly expensive but quite possibly worth every penny? To be investigated...) 

It seemed only sensible that we'd make another attempt at Pasta Alla Norma, given the season and the available ingredients. While we were in Burgundy, I decided to resurrect my recipe for pasta alla norma (I've made this one other time, with decent but not resounding success; inspired by a pasta alla norma that one of my dearest *italian* friends made for me in Paris a few years ago. Hers was so vastly superior to mine that I decided to gracefully accept my mediocrity, and resolved never to make it again.) I was initially tempted by Mark Bittman's "Pasta Alla Norma, My Way" article, but the deal was sealed when I then received an email from "Tasting Table", another recipe site I follow and they were doing Pasta Alla Norma too! The stars had spoken-- it was time to give it another chance-- even if it would never hold a candle to Martina's version.

However, because I'm a difficult person, I decided to mix-and-match both recipes to include the elements I liked from both. The results were delicious, but I suspect that you could just do one or the other and you'd come away happy.

Mark says this on the subject...  
Tasting Table says this on the subject...

And then what I did was this, which is an amalgamation of the two... 

Pasta alla Norma, my way! 

30 cherry tomatoes, depending on size, cut in half 

Olive oil

Salt 

Thyme sprigs, if you have them

1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil

4 cloves garlic, very thinly sliced

3 small-ish eggplants, cut into ½-inch cubes (about 3 cups)

1 lb. short-cut pasta, (such as caserecci or campanelle)

2-3 ounces ricotta salata  

20 anise-y basil leaves, torn

Heat the oven to 275 degrees. Put the tomatoes in one layer in an overproof pan and drizzle them liberally in oil, then salt and sprinkle with thyme sprigs, if using. Roast for about an hour, then stir and roast for another half-hour or so. When tomatoes are shriveled, add garlic, turn down heat to 225 degrees and roast for at least another hour. They should not cook completely dry; if they get too cooked, turn the heat down or pull them out. You can remove the garlic if you want... 

Sizzle the eggplant in about 1/4 inch of oil over medium heat. The oil should bubble steadily. Place the cubed eggplant into the pan, and cook as needed until nicely browned. Drain on paper towels...

Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to boil for the pasta. Add the eggplant to the tomatoes and stir. If the sauce is too thick, thin it with a bit of the pasta water. Toss the cooked pasta into the sauce, and cook together and warm a serving bowl. At the bottom of the bowl put half the sauce and half the ricotta salata. Add the pasta and the remaining sauce, cheese and basil and toss.

Ooooooooo. Thanksgiving is on the horizon.

And don't think that just because we're in France means that we aren't going to gorge ourselves on turkey and side dishes...

The New York Times has already started featuring recipes that are making my mouth water. I guess we can spend the next two weeks deciding what to make and what to save for next year when we've got more mouths to feed back in the states, but right off the bat, these look pretty good...

Caramelized Onion & Fennel Risotto

Thanksgiving Panzanella

... More to come on this subject, but I've already started planning a geeky table-decoration made out of found objects in our Parisian apartment. This is going to turn Martha Stewart on her head.... 

FYI. If you're fancier than us...

Big developments in the world of wallpaper...

According to the New York Times: 

"Until recently, humid spaces like showers and kitchen backsplashes were hostile to wallpaper. But a new waterproofing system from Wall & Deco, an Italian company, allows you to paper almost any part of your home. With the Wet System, patterns are printed on 37-inch-wide fiberglass rolls and supplied along with a primer, adhesive and protective finish. Once installed, the material is resistant to dampness, yellowing, abrasion and harsh cleaning products. Wet System can be applied to most surfaces, including plasterboard, PVC and ceramic tiles. It is available in any of Wall & Deco’s hundreds of customizable designs, including, from left, Hanami and Hanamachi, for $250 a square yard. Information: 305-865-8577 or imoderni.com."

Sadly, the wallpaper budget I'm working with is about 1/100 of this pricing, so this isn't in the cards for my upcoming trompe l'oeil room-divider, but it's good to know for future projects with a slightly higher profile. : )

Pulling the trigger...

I finally took the plunge, and have committed to a wall paper for my homemade trompe-l'oeil room divider. Now I just have to wait on the french postal service to get it to me, and we're in business. Based on my success rate with them so far, I'll hopefully have it sometime before this time next year...

After much vacillation, I decided upon this "bibliothèque" wallpaper, for a couple of compelling reasons:

1.) It was reasonably cheap.
2.) I could customize the size to fit my pieces of plywood.
3.) It is a self-adhesive paper, so I wasn't going to have to fuss around with the mess of adhesive glue, getting the paper to stay in place, dry-time, etc...
4.) Let's be serious. Mostly it was reasonably cheap.

Now we wait. Cross your fingers for me, and hopefully we'll have a craft project on our hands in no time.

What to do when you accidentally buy a kilo of arugula...

... which is basically a full-sized trash bag of arugula, so I'm not sure exactly how that happens...

Nevertheless, there we were, with a truly astonishing amount of "roquette" on our hands. I decided to make the best of it (after first eating a dozen handfuls straight from the bag) and opted to make gallons of arugula pesto before the arugula went mushy and brown in the bottom of the fridge.

After brief investigation, I found this recipe, which in true "Christina Salway" fashion, I altered to accommodate the ingredients I had in the apartment. Because I was damned if I was going to go buy more food just to deal with the ludicrous amount of arugula we now own.

Nutty Arugula Pesto with Penne and Parmesan

*So right off the bat, I tripled this recipe. Let me be clear. We have SOOOOOO MUCCCCHHHH arugula. I could make this recipe three more times and still invite you all over for salad. 

Serves 6 to 8

1 1/2 cups arugula
3/4 cup chopped fresh basil
3/4 cup toasted walnuts *And then, of course, I only had hazelnuts. So in went the hazelnuts. 
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, quartered
1 lemon, zested and juiced (about about 2 tablespoons juice) *Yeah. I confess. I only had bottled lemon juice. So I put in 3 T. and skipped the zest. I'm a kitchen nightmare. 
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to salt pasta water
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan, plus extra to serve
Freshly ground black pepper, to season
1 pound penne pasta *Lastly, I splurged and used some cool strozzapretti-esque noodles that I'd bought earlier in the week. I kind of don't understand why anyone buys penne when there are so many weird shaped noodles out there. 

In the bowl of a food processor, blend arugula, basil, toasted walnuts hazelnuts, olive oil, garlic, lemon zest and juice, salt and a few grinds of pepper until well combined and smooth. Feel free to add extra olive oil if the pesto feels too thick or chunky.

Place a large pot of salted water over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Add pasta  and to cook to al dente. Drain and place back in pot.  Fold in pesto. Serve hot in your favorite bowls with a generous sprinkling of Parmesan over the top of each bowl. 

So easy. So quick. Now I just have to figure out what to do with 2-gallons of pesto. 

Pretty much doing a bunch of other stuff...

Yep. I sheepishly admit-- I've been distracted doing other less productive things and haven't really hunkered down to tackle any new crafty projects yet. Slacking. That's a fact. I'm slacking off-- eating lots of lunches, visiting lots of playgrounds, and exploring new corners of Paris I've never visited before. Periodically we talk about doing something cultural, like visiting the crazy new Frank Gehry/ Louis Vuitton Exhibition space, or checking in on the Impressionist paintings at l'Orangerie, but so far... we've mostly eaten a lot of lunches and visited a lot of playgrounds. (The best laid plans...)

In my defense, I have started taking french lessons again, so at least I'm doing something constructive (aka. ego-destroying) two mornings a week. : (

That said, I've got something in the works!! I've got grand plans to build an awesome trompe-l'oeil room divider to make our apartment a little more visitor friendly, as we've got more guests slated for the upcoming months, and we're thinking a little privacy might go a long way.

My plan is simple. Take a couple of panels of plywood. Connect them with a few hinges. Cover them in awesome trompe-l'oeil wall paper. Call it a day! Of course, my first step is to obsessively research trompe-l'oeil wallpaper to decide which one I want to use... Obviously I can devote weeks to this, but I'm trying to reign it in a little... particularly since I'm also operating on a pretty tight budget... (My thinking is that if I spend as much $$ on the screen as I could have on a hotel room for my visitors, I've really defeated the purpose....)

I'll keep you posted on my progress. I've narrowed down my wallpaper options to just a few, so now I've just got to pull the trigger! I promise I'll get to work on this pronto, so you've got something to read about...

Words of Wisdom.

Just read this quote in the New York Times and it actually made me laugh out loud. It's taken from an article about the baseball player/pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, which I was reading for reasons I can't possibly explain... Thought I'd share, so you can all have a good laugh too. 

“Here’s the secret to living in a log house: You got to love the color brown,” Kevin said. “But you can hang a picture anywhere.”

Wise words. 
Have a super weekend folks!