Paris Resto and Culinary

Blog Notes and Links

My guest post for Andi's French Friday series on her blog, Misadventures With Andi, was posted the other day: Beyond Paris: My South of France.
A huge merci to Andi for including me in the series!

If you are a cheese lover or a francophile and have the photos to prove it, then please come and join one or more of the Flickr groups that I administer.
French Cheese
La Fête du Fromage
French Markets
French Windows
Colors of the Languedoc - of which I am the only member! How sad is that?
Minervois

I still sometimes get questions about how many French cheeses I've tasted for La Fête du Fromage. I've put a link to the entire list - all 177 and counting - under the "Pages" category.

Our house is still available if you're looking for a place in the south of France, and I've added another house for sale to the sidebar. Sadly our friends are moving away and need to sell their charming home with a garden and terrace in Saint-Thibéry, located about 15 minutes from the beaches near Cap d'Agde.

If you've ever asked yourself (or someone already living in France - you wouldn't believe how many emails I get on this subject) the question, Should I Move to France?, then David Lebovitz's post might help you come up with a definitive answer.

Brunch at Fig in Santa Monica

Had received an email from daughter Celine, who lives in Amsterdam, telling me she had prepared a sumptuous brunch with hash browns, pancakes, and more! So when I walked into FIG, in Santa Monica, to meet friends fro brunch, I knew exactly what I was going to order!

The restaurant, which has excellent reviews in the LA press and travel forums, is in the Miramar Hotel (the exact address is 101 Wilshire) and it is worth a visit for any meal you may want to have!

The setting is casual, and there are big sliding doors that open over the hotel swimming pool, adding a light note to the atmosphere.

The breakfast menu is tempting with a choice of set breakfast, bakery items, and more. We went straight to the "specialities" section. My friends ordered Hash browns, and "Pain perdu", and I ordered .. well, you know, pancakes.

When the hash browns arrived I almost regretted my choice! Small potatoes with theirs skins, mushrooms, tomatoes, diced chorizo, all sauteed, and two poached eggs on top! Oh, my, breakfast, lunch, and dinner all at once!

My pancakes came with a coulis of fruit, sliced almonds, and maple syrup. They were perfect, a little bit moist and golden on both sides. There were four of them and I could not finish them!

Pain Perdu means "lost bread" in French, and was made using old dry bread, and passing it in a beaten egg. The American version is called "French Toast" and I have seen it made with white sliced bread. Pain perdu has been revisited, and is now made with a slice of brioche, which was the option taken by Fig. The presentation was beautiful, with red and blue berries and maple syrup on the side.

As you can see, the three of us were very very happy!

Traditional Pain perdu recipe
Ingredients
Bread left overs cut in thick 1/2 inch slices
2 cups of whole milk
1 vanilla bean cut in two alongside
1/2 cup sugar + 1 tsp
2 eggs, beaten
2 Tbsp unsalted butter
Steps
Boil the milk with the sugar and the vanilla bean. Set aside until it is cool.
Add the dry bread and let soak 4 or 5 minutes, remove and drain.
Heat the butter in a pan.
Beat the eggs with 1 tsp of sugar
One by one, put the soften bread slices in the beaten egg and place carefully in the pan with the butter. Leave until golden, then turn and let cook on the other side.
Traditionally pain perdu was served plain or with powdered sugar.

Photo du Jour - The Vineyards

The afternoon light in the vineyards.
Taken just outside our village.

Sunday Reading

Never learned to appreciate Oreos, but these just might cure me of that.

You may have already read about the Deep Fried Poached Egg in Gourmet magazine. Since I am totally out of the loop living way out here in the country, you can imagine my delight when I read this.
Drool!

Beautiful. Inspirational. Enchanting.

I admit that I was kind of freaking out when it looked like the ganache wasn't going to set up. The cake needed to be decorated before we left for party and I only had an hour left.
Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. It set up just fine and this will now (and probably forever) be the only chocolate ganache frosting recipe I will ever use. It is perfection.

Love their beekeeping tales. Actually, I'm enjoying reading all about their adventures.

Wishing I was as talented as she is.

Martine's Birthday (4)

What an incredible treat! A Château Haut Bergey 1989! That's how we savored our salad and cheese platter.
The salad was a simple "sucrine" with a vinaigrette made with red wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, plus sea salt and fresh ground pepper. We tossed it 15 times, as it should be done!

Knowing that I was going to have to pair food with very good Bordeaux wines, I had been to my favorite cheese shop la Fromagerie d'Auteuil and had told Monsieur Fouchereau:

- What cheese would you recommend for a very good bottle of Bordeaux?

He advised mild, fruity, cow milk cheeses. We settled for: a Livarot , from Normandy, a young Comte (fruity) from the Jura, a St Nectaire from Auvergne, and a Camembert from Normandy. All made with unpasteurized milk - of course. I invite all cheese lovers to visit the websites of these marvellous French cheeses.

I presented them in a platter I bought in Indonesia: a large green banana leave made of light wood. One knife is for the soft cheeses, the other one for the hard ones (like the comte). Quite daring for the traditional French!