Not Exactly French But Oh-So-Comforting

Some days are just rough.

I really have very little complain about. Some of my blogger friends have dealt with loss lately, and so far, I have not, not yet, not this year. So I feel guilty complaining.

But it was a stressful day. For one thing, I had to spend a considerable amount of time in a conference room with my bosses and my husband’s bosses, who are working on a joint project.

Then I taught my class. I have a lively group of 18 and 19 year olds, who want to know why they can’t write newspaper stories using obscenities. Well, they can of course; I am no fan of censorship. But why do they want to? They have yet to learn that using four-letter words only destroys their credibility and dilutes their message. I had to learn the same lessons, of course.

I love them, I truly do. But some days they exhaust me. (I think that's the fiendish plan.)

Tuesday, I was too tired to stop at the grocery store and too tired to cook. My husband was too tired to take me to dinner.

Luckily, there is macaroni and cheese. I know what you’re thinking: I probably used a package and did my usual tweaking.

Readers, I made it from scratch. Undeterred by last week’s chocolate truffle failure, I turned again to my friends at the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and borrowed one of their recipes. A couple of months ago, a lot of bloggers featured mac-cheese recipes so I knew there was a pool of good ideas out there, but I thought I'd give a MMB recipe another shot. I was not disappointed.

Easy Macaroni & Cheese

2 cups Gruyere, shredded
2 cups Gouda, shredded
2 cups Mozzarella, shredded
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup cream
1 pound macaroni
1 cup Parmesan, freshly grated
dash red pepper seasoning

Cook pasta according to directions until al dente. Add butter and cream. Sprinkle with Parmesan and brown slightly under the broiler. Sprinkle with red pepper seasoning.

Note: I cut the fat (slightly) by using Smart Balance, half and half, and low-fat Mozzarella and low-fat Cheddar in place of Gouda.

Yes, it’s an awful lot of cheese at one sitting — not something I recommend eating more often than 2-3 times a year.

As I made it, I got to thinking about ways I could "Frenchify" this plain-Jane dish. I thought of adding a touch of creamy Brie, maybe a dash of herbs de Provence, maybe a subtle white wine sauce. What do you think?

Blame it On Paris: A Funny Book that Makes You Care

I am a fool for any book that combines Paris and romance. I'll bet you are, too.

I haven't read them all, but I've come close. Some are silly but fun. Some are just plain bad.

"Blame it On Paris," a work of non-fiction by Laura Florand is good, funny and it makes you care about the people in its pages.

I'm picky about books. I insist on good writing. Since I write for a living, I will not tolerate weak prose or bad grammar and writers who use "entitled" when they mean "titled" or "flounder" when they mean "founder." Those two — and a few others — drive me insane.

Laura Florand can write.

She's funny, too, not self deprecating or anything, but blessed with a sense of irony. I like funny people. For one thing, they'll get my jokes. While reading "Blame it On Paris," I had the feeling the author would.

It didn't take me long to care about the characters. That is also essential for me. I recently read a book about romance in Paris that was little more than a lot of sex with a few paragraphs about Paris cafés and nightlife thrown in. Put me to sleep, which I guess is a good thing for a book that's on your nightstand.

Only that's not what I want. I want to look forward to the 20 minutes of reading I do before I fall asleep. It's my time to get comfortable and forget about the day.

"Blame it On Paris" made me look forward to those 20 minutes. Only — and I guess I should warn you about this — I did not want to put it down. I stayed up longer while reading it. More like 50 or 60 minutes.

Here's a very brief synopsis: Laura Florand is a smart and funny southern girl who meets a sensitive and sensible French man, Sébastien, in Paris. "Blame it on Paris" tells the story of their meeting and eventual marriage, which took four weddings, two on either side of the Atlantic. This love story is not without its obstacles, but it has a happy ending. And you get to know a lot of delightful people along the way. There is loss, too, along with all the love.

Why did I like Laura and Sébastien so much? I guess in part because I could identify with Laura. I may have a few years on her and I grew up in the north, but it appears that we both have catholic interests (in the universal sense) and Catholic upbringings (gotta be there for that).

Sébastien seemed wise, too, not just street smart but people smart, a bit like my husband. I found myself falling just a little bit, too. (Sorry, Laura!)

I've exchanged a few e-mails with Laura and it turns out she's every bit as likable as she is in her book. Visit her site, which includes a blog and see for yourself. (Did I mention you will never look at tossed salads in quite the same way after you read this book?)

On another Paris-related note: French Kitchen in American now has links on the the France Magazine Web site and on The French Journal blog. Please visit these sites if you haven't already.

The Lot Valley, France, April 25, 2005, 7:30 p.m.

Often after a big meal, my husband and I walk. We find ourselves doing this around the holidays, especially, and on the few winter nights that are considered warm by Wisconsin standards.

We don’t do it nearly as much as we should, of course.

What always strikes me about our walks is how quiet it is, especially this time of year when sound travels differently.

There is something very satisfying about silence after a meal. It’s as though eating is a ritual that requires silence to be properly digested, or appreciated.

Maybe it is.

In the tiny Quercy village we visited in France, we walked one evening. There was a smattering of rain for two days, but on the second it cleared up at suppertime. After our meal, we trekked down to the village to toss our kitchen refuse bag in the poubelle near the church.

Save for a motorbike cutting through the spring evening, the land was silent. Everything seemed to be at rest.

Somehow the quiet accentuated the oldness of the place, the old stone fences and the old stone houses, some with dovecotes, others with towers, all with terra cotta-tiled roofs.

The sun, a bit wan after the rain, infused the buildings and the countryside with a warm glow, like a benediction.

A late April night has a certain smell that accompanies the silence, a fertile, waiting smell. There was a chill, too, for even a balmy night is accompanied by a certain coldness that rises as the sun lowers.

This was the last such night, for the next day, the weather turned, and for the next week or so, France enjoyed temperatures in the 80s.

That place, that moment in time, was a gift, unmatched by the usual touristy things people do when they travel.

There is no better way to know a place than to be there and listen to its silence.

Patricia Wells' Fricasee of Chicken with White Wine, Capers and Olives

When I was a student at UW-Madison in the 1980s, everyone was talking about alumna Jane Brody, the New York Times writer who was making a name for herself writing cookbooks about healthy food.

I very much wanted to write about food, but was not sure how to start. I wrote my first “how-to” feature about baking bread, which at that time was one of the few things I knew how to do.

Somewhere along the line, I heard someone say, “Yes, Jane’s doing very well but there’s another grad over in Paris who is doing some interesting things with French cooking.”

That was Patricia Wells.

It took me a while to put two and two together — to connect the name Patricia Wells with the J-school alumna I'd heard about — but I have followed her career and cheered her many successes.

And I’ve made my share of Patricia’s recipes. I have never known one to fail.

Sunday we had Patricia’s Fricassee of Chicken with White Wine, Capers and Olives. It's from The Provence Cookbook, published in 2004. I did not have a whole chicken and did not feel like leaving the house to get one, so I used two chicken breasts and halved the recipe, which calls for tomatoes, onions, green olives and capers.

It's easy: Season the chicken and brown, then remove from the pan and soften the onions. You then add everything else and simmer over low heat for an hour. I served this with penne pasta flavored with butter, truffle breakings and a dash of grated Gruyere.

"Ah, the tastes!" my husband exclaimed after the first bite. "And the chicken is so tender."

I've said it before, you cannot go wrong following a Patricia Wells recipe.

Steak for Two with Mushrooom and Shallot Medley

Somewhere along the line I got the idea that the best and most elegant meals were really the most simple.

I had — and still have — several reasons for subscribing to this theory. In my mind less is more, and the less you actually do to food, the more you can taste its flavor. Drowning your chicken in too much sauce, I reasoned, was to mask its unique flavor. Who wants their chicken to taste like a raspberry? I like the marriage of two tastes, but I don't like the idea of creating a third flavor. Tastes, I thought, should be separate components that work well together.

I've modified my thinking a bit on this, but I still like chicken to taste like chicken.

Less is more when it comes to presentation, too, and I always thought simplicity was elegance.

Finally, the less work you do the easier it is to clean up. Usually.

I wanted to mark the 25th anniversary of my father's death by cooking the dish he was best known for: Steak. Although he became interested in French cooking toward the end of his life, he learned to cook on the steak house circuit. So I pride myself on being able to cook a good steak.

Steak for Two My Way

Two medium sized tenderloins
Two teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
Two teaspoons minced garlic
Two teaspoons dried herbes de Provençe
Dash pepper
Dash sea salt

I preheat the broiler of a countertop convection oven. I rub the steaks on both sides with oil and garlic and herbes and stick them under the broiler, turning frequently.

Before I even prepare the steaks, I clean about 16-20 mushrooms, usually whatever I can find locally, button mushrooms and small Portobellos and brown these in a heavy skillet. If I have shallots, I peel and halve about 6-8 and add those, browning just until the mushrooms and the shallots turn golden brown.

I serve the steak surrounded by mushrooms and shallots. I had some red peppers to use up, so these I tossed with olive oil and roasted. No potatoes with this one. But I usually start the meal with a simple green salad.

It was one of the best meals we've eaten lately, I think. My husband agreed. We paired it with a simple merlot and ended it with one small square of deep, dark chocolate.

Really, that's all you need.

Note: The other night when Blogger was down, I created a sort of adjunct blog at Wordpress, mainly so I could understand another blogging format, but also to create a place to express non-food related ideas. If anyone cares to read it, it's called French Kitchen in America II.

Cherry Tomatoes Provençal for A Winter Picnic at Home

When I was 7 or 8 years old there was a winter that dropped tons of snow on us and kept us homebound most weeks. There were frequent snow days and we were plagued by colds and flu.

That was the winter my father took a second job as a butcher at a newly-opened grocery store and I remember him trudging through the snow in his overcoat.

By February 1, we are already tired of winter. My father had a solution, though, to the winter doldrums. A lover of picnics, he proposed we hold one in the living room. A broad, sunny room that spanned the entire front of our Craftsman bungalow, it was a room we never ate in and rarely used. That itself was a treat — eating in the living room. On the floor, no less!

He came up with the idea on a Thursday night. The picnic was to take place on Saturday. All day Friday, as school dragged on, I was buoyed by the thought of the next day's fun.

Friday night, my father came home with a big bag of paper plates, ground beef, hotdogs and all the trimmings and a red-and-white checked tablecloth. By 1 p.m. Saturday, we were assembled on blankets around that tablecloth, enjoying hamburgers, baked beans, potato salad, potato chips and soda and all the pickles we could eat.

Today I cringe when I think of all the carbohydrates in that meal. But I like the idea of summer picnic fare in winter — infrequently, of course, for I still require hearty soups and stews to pull me through the long months of Wisconsin cold.

Today, my husband craved hotdogs. I wanted tuna salad on a chewy French roll. We had both, and I ran across this recipe in a cookbook appropriately titled "Perfect Picnics for All Seasons" by Gail Monaghan.

Cherry Tomatoes Provençal

1/4 cup homemade bread crumbs
1 large garlic clove, minced
1 tablespoon each fresh parsley and chives, minced
1 tablespoon fresh basil, minced
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
dash freshly grated black pepper
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
2-3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Turn broiler to high. Toss bread crumbs, garlic, herbs and seasoning in a small bowl. Place the tomatoes, cut sides up, in a shallow, oiled baking dish. Sprinkle crumb mixture evenly over the tomatoes and then drizzle with oliveoil. Broil on a shelf that is about 6 inches from the broiler for 1-2 minutes, just until thre crumbs turn golden brown.

I added a small amount of leftover herbed chevre to the crumb mix, just to use it up. But I think this recipe stands alone.

A note of thanks to all the wonderful bloggers who have linked to this site in the past several weeks by a mention or meme invitation. A special thanks to Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen for featuring my Honey Dijon Dressing and photo.

Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Don't: Black Diamonds and Buttery Chocolate-Mascarpone Truffles — er, Dip

Thanks to the luck of the draw, I am now the proud owner of a small but costly jar of truffle breakings.

Yes, indeed, I was one of the raffle winners in the highly successful Menu for Hope auction this year.

My prize was a $50 gift certificate from L’Epicerie, one of several secured by Gerald of Foodite.

I wasted no time placing an order for exotic items unheard of in small-town Wisconsin supermarkets. Among my purchases — I broke down and dipped into my own pocket to augment my order, a small extravagance to brighten these dreary days of January — is also a jar of truffle vinaigrette.

Oh, the pleasures of the palate to come! Vegetable dishes, salads, meats and more will be enhanced by these tiny little black diamond chips.

My truffles breakings arrived yesterday as I was standing patiently by the stove, stirring my chocolate and cream for candy truffles. (One of my co-workers is departing for new horizons today, and I want to give her a sweet sendoff.)

Besides, I had some mascarpone cheese to use up (ever the frugal one, that’s me).

Finally, it is Sugar High Friday, and even though I missed the deadline for a highly-prized link at David Lebovitz’s site, I wanted to join the fun.

These are easy to make. The recipe is — once again — from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.

Buttery Bittersweet Mascarpone Truffles From Wisconsin

4 ounces finest quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 ounces finest quality milk chocolate, chopped
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
4 ounces (1/2 cup) mascarpone, at room temperature
1 tablespoon liqueur
1 cup finely ground pecans or walnuts

Place all ingredients — except nuts — in a double boiler or a small bowl or pan set over a deeper sauce pan. Warm over medium heat, stirring frequently until the mixture is thoroughly melted and smooth.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, quickly roll into medium balls and place on wax paper. Coat in cocoa powder, finely ground nuts or sugar. Refrigerate: These are soft truffles and must remain chilled to retain their shape.

In theory, that is. In practice, I was not so lucky. I must have done something wrong — gotten some water in my mix or soemthing — because I ended up with sauce. Or dip. But since my theory is when life hands you dip, get chips, I found a way to rebound. When eaten with dipping pretzels, this truffle mix makes a dandy dip. And it's already got cheese in it.

Please Note: I take full responsibility for the failure. Milk Marketing Board recipes are highly reliable and I've never gone wrong with one. I think the arrival of my goodies in the middle of the truffle process distracted me.

Now here's the funny part of this whole truffle business: I never intended to bid on the gift certificates (but am I glad I did!). I thought I was bidding on David Lebovitz's chocolate tour of Paris. But in my haste, the second time I placed a bid, I bid on EU08, instead of UE08. Or vice versa, I could never figure out which. But it doesn't matter. I'm more than delighted with my prize, and plan to become a frequent L’Epicerie customer.

Country Blue Cheese-Pear Cake and a Woman of Quiet Dignity

I survey my refrigerator every day or so to see what’s left over, forgotten or likely to go to waste if I don’t use it soon.

Some would say it’s the old French frugality cropping up.

Grandma Annie did the same thing. I thought of her as I cobbled together a quick lunch today. And for some reason, I thought of Barb, perhaps because I sensed hers was a frugal existence.

It’s been years since I thought of her, the large, plain woman who lived two short blocks from Grandma Annie. I remember her as a quiet woman, either sad or wise, or perhaps both. She wore sensible dresses and sturdy shoes and was one of those people you see walking when others drive.

She was younger than my grandmother by 15 or 20 years, I think, but Annie seemed to watch out for her. If she baked cupcakes or cookies, she’d whip off her apron, grab her coat and say, “I’ll just take some down to Barb.” If Annie’s garden yielded more tomatoes than usual, she'd always give some to Barb.

Barb would do the same, less frequently. I do not recall Annie entering Barb’s house or Barb lingering in Annie’s sunny living room, but they kept in touch.

As I grew older, I understood that Barb’s handsome husband was a bit of a ne’er-do-well. He had a good job, I am told, but what he did with his money, I do not know. There were whispers, of course, there are always whispers; Annie was too polite to say. I knew better than to ask.

In my head I drew certain conclusions about Barb that I never voiced around my elders. I simply filed it all away.

Barb fascinated me. I knew she worked in the office of a big department store and she walked to work every morning and walked home every night surefooted in her big sturdy shoes. Not many of her generation worked outside the home, but Barb did so with quiet dignity that I admired even as a child.

She did what she had to do, and if she was troubled by it, she never said. She simply did.

I do not think my grandmother pitied her. Nor do I think Barb sought pity. But it was clear Annie respected Barb and thought of her when she had extras to give away.

Today, looking at the contents of my refrigerator, I was baffled until I stumbled upon on a site called Let’s Cook French, which featured the recipe from which this cake was adapted. It was an interesting experiment.

Blue Cheese and Pear Cake
1 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
½ cup oil
½ cup milk
2 tablespoons honey
dash salt
dash pepper
1 ¼ cups blue cheese, crumbled
½ cup walnuts, chopped
1 cup Gruyere cheese, grated
three pears, peeled and chopped

Preheat oven to 400. In large bowl, mix flour and baking powder. In smaller bowl, whisk eggs, oil, milk, salt and pepper. Pour into dry ingredients, and blend. Add the Gruyere and blend. Finally, add the pear, blue cheese and nuts.

The original recipe calls for the batter to be poured into a buttered and floured cake mold. I used a bundt pan.

Note: This is a most unusual cake. More savory than sweet, it strikes me as a brunch dish that could be served with a fruit salad or with a lettuce salad that includes fruit. It has a rustic, Old World taste, not unpleasant.

Garlic on my Fingers and the Smell of the Kitchen

“You’ll know the answer to this question,” an unmarried male coworker said to me recently. “How do you get the smell of onion or garlic off your hands?”

The question smacked — make that smelled — of sexism, but I answered as best I could: Lemon, baking soda, salt, tomato sauce, stainless steel, alcohol-based cleanser. I gave him a variety of options.

But later that day, after peeling and chopping garlic, I sniffed my fingers. Why would I want to eliminate a fragrance that smells good. To me, anyway.

Isn’t olfactory sensation all part of the process of preparing and eating food?

I say it is. And with rare exceptions — the smell of deep frying or the smell of lobster in an unvented kitchen in winter, for example — it is welcome, at least in my kitchen.

While I have purchased my share of odor-masking and odor-eliminating candles, soaps, rubs, cleansers and potpourris, I now prefer a kitchen to smell like a kitchen.

“You can always tell a Swedish kitchen,” Grandma Annie used to say. “The coffee pot is always on and it’s always fresh.”

I thought about it and it was true. Friends and neighbors, Anna and Lillian were Swedish women married to French men. Their kitchens were redolent of freshly-perked coffee — most welcome on cold, winter afternoons.

And they almost always had fresh-from-the-oven coffee cake or rolls, too. Their kitchens were scrupulously clean and tidy, but oh, they smelled so good.

Some people’s kitchens had a certain piquant, almost sausage-y smell. I grew to like those, too.

In Annie’s kitchen, the aromas of vanilla and almond predominated, perhaps because she baked so much. When I want to evoke Annie’s kitchen today, all I do is open a bottle of almond extract. It is a powerful agent of time travel for me.

My mother’s kitchen smelled of cardamom and apples when I was a child. When I use cardamom, I am three years old again and playing in my mother’s sunny yellow kitchen.

More often than not, my own kitchen is filled with the odor of onions — and yes, some times garlic.

While I realize the smell of garlic might offend some people, I no longer worry about it on my hands after I’ve made sausage rustica or ratatouille.

There are, the way I see it, far too many other things to fuss about these days.

What does your kitchen smell like? What aromas bring you back to childhood or another time in your life?

The Intimacy of Apples, the Continuum of Life

Grandma Annie like nothing better than biting into a crisp apple or pear.

Unless of course, it was making a pear or apple dessert. With years of practice behind her, she did so effortlessly, by rote, but also with something that went beyond practiced routine. It was as though Annie and the apples and the paring knife and the sugar and the dough were one smooth-running machine.

I loved to watch her. She was deft. She was perfection. She was magic.

While Annie mixed and rolled the dough with nimble fingers, I would ask questions. Her childhood offered endless fascination for me. I knew the world was different then, although I was too young to grasp just how different and how much it had changed.

"Tell when about when you were a little girl," I would ask again and again.

And she would. Annie was wont to share more details when her hands were busy with cooking preparations.

I never tired of hearing the litany of her girlhood friends: Dena Bellmore, Lizzie Fournier, Agnes Grignon, Mabel Fortier. The lyrical, double syllable names of the girls of Frenchtown were music to my ears. I was in love with those names and fascinated with the fate of the young women who bore them.

Annie kept a packet of photos in the top drawer of her bureau: They showed group of eight girls, about age 18, in white dimity dresses leaning laughing on the neighbor's fence. They are fresh faced and smiling, their hair atop their heads, with only tendrils escaping in what looks to be the spring wind and sun.

In one photo the girls are clowning, some wear blackface, while others have donned their brothers' knickers, and still others hold musical instruments. Annie is always the straight-laced one, not disapproving but never posing in fun.

As Annie peeled apples, she spoke of their exploits, innocent even by the standards of my childhood.

When the pie was baking, Annie would look out the window, down Bellevue Street to a big gray house surrounded by trees.

"Some bad ladies lived there," she told me. "My mother told me I dasn't go near them."

It was years later that I learned the story of the two lumbermen who'd murdered a young man in a bar room brawl and were jailed for it. They were languishing in their cells, awaiting trial, when a lynch mob took a battering ram from a nearby livery stable and broke into the jail, grabbed the men, roughed them up and hanged them and dragged their broken bodies to that old gray house, known then as the "French whorehouse," and hanged them again, from a jackpine in the side yard.

It happened long before Annie's lifetime even began, but she'd heard the story. It had become part of her past.

I heard it again and again until it became part of my history, too. Annie's girlhood became my own, too, part of my makeup and my past.

Although Frenchtown has changed, Annie's house and the big gray house down the side street remain. There's an old jackpine tree down the street, and I wonder, I just wonder if that isn't a descendent of the other tree with its sad burden.

When I look at my life, I see it as part of a continuum, not a period that began on the day I was born and will end the day I die. It is part of something bigger and it is my job now to figure out the meaning of that part.

Cashew-Encrusted Chicken with Creamy Honey Sauce for Two

The last time I saw Paris, the Pantheon drew me like a magnet. We could see it from our street at night, magnificent and glowing.

I had to get up close. My husband and I promised ourselves that if the days were pleasant we would walk and visit neighborhoods and get to know the real Paris. If it rained, we’d go to museums and other inside touristic spots.

It was in the 80s while we were there. Every day. And so we walked. And walked.

On our second full day in Paris we stopped at the cash machine near Maubert-Mutualité and seeing the Pantheon only three blocks away, we made a dash for its grandeur.

We chose a street that was painfully uphill. This was on May Day, le Fete du Travail, a day of skimpy bus service. We’d been walking all day. The trek was tiring and it was 86 degrees.

That’s how we found Square Paul Langevin, named for the famous physicist, at the intersection of Rue Monge and Rue des Ecoles. That’s why we sat there for a blissful 30 minutes, feeding pigeons cashews from the bag in my purse and sipping water from our bottles.

The pigeons were bold and brazen and were very soon nearly eating from my hand. We both swore we'd shot a photo, but when we returned home it was gone. No matter. It was a lovely, leafy interlude.

I'll make sure I carry cashews next trip. Wonder if I can find these in Paris? Honey-Mustard and Onion cashews like the kind Walgreen’s Drug Store sells. I thought they'd be wonderful paired with chicken. My first effort was to chop cooked chicken, celery, green onions and dried apricots. I added cashews, drizzled the whole thing with may blended with an apricot dressing from a bottle and a dash of cumin. Not a bad salad but not stellar.

So I tried a different approach: Cashew-Encrusted Chicken with Creamy Honey Sauce for Two

2 chicken breasts, cut into medallions or strips
1 egg white
1 cup cashews, finely chopped

1/4 cup half-and-half
1/4 cup commercial salad dressing or mayonnaise
1/4 cup honey

Preheat oven to 350. Coat chicken pieces in egg white and then roll in cashews, covering thorougly, Arrange in shallow greased pan. Bake for about 45 minutes, turning over about midway through cooking.

In small bowl, blend half-and-half, mayo and honey with beater. Use as a dipping sauce for the chicken. I served it with chopped green onions to balance the sweetness.

Want to explore hidden Paris? Former chef and chocolatier Richard Nahem prefers Paris' hidden charms and he'll show them to you if you book one of his new tours. Learn more!

Sunday Night Dinners and the Marriage of Mascarpone and Bacon

My father thoroughly understood the link between food and learning. When I was in grade school, Sunday night dinners at our house often involved “lessons” to match the food served. Learning by eating, so to speak.

It was also a chance to teach us table manners.

French night could mean anything on the table, from beef stew to onion soup. Italian Night meant spaghetti or lasagna by candlelight (and a colorful Chianti bottle, of course).

The fare was not just ethnic: Titanic Night featured a salad with iceberg lettuce and some sort of coldwater fish.

Always inventive, my mother got into the spirit of things with appropriate centerpieces and the music. Sometimes, she even typed up little menus.

Trivia was a big thing with my father. He had an amazing mind for details and would always follow up with the phrase, “Fiction and Fact from Bob’s Almanac.” Sunday night dinners were always filled with trivia, often about the very food we were eating.

In my mail Friday was some interesting trivia about one of my favorite cheeses, Mascarpone, from the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, along with some inventive recipes.

Mascarpone, I read, was developed about 400 years ago in the Lombardy region of Italy. It was once a fall and winter cheese, but is now produced year round — and not only in Italy.

Wisconsin, it turns out, is a leader in Mascarpone production with two family companies, Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese, and BelGioioso Cheese, making award-winning Mascarpone distributed across the United States.

What I did not know is that Mascarpone is not merely a dessert cheese. Sunday night — which is almost always Italian Night at our house — I tried this recipe from the Milk Marketing Board:

Mascarpone Pasta Sauce with Bacon

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/3 cup onion, diced
6 slices thick cut peppered bacon, cut into 1-inch strips
2 cups tomato puree
1 cup water
salt and pepper
8 ounces Mascarpone cheese
1 tablespoon fresh basil leaves, julienned

Heat oil in heavy skilled. Add garlic and sauté until flavor is released, but do not brown.

Remove garlic. Add onion and cook over low heat until it turns golden.

Add bacon, increasing heat until bacon cooks but does not turn crisp.

Add tomato puree and water. Simmer until the sauce thickens — about 20 minutes or longer.

Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.

Add Mascarpone and basil; blend well. Sauce will be orange and opaque.

Note: The sauce will flavor a pound of pasta. I added some Italian sausage to please the palate of my meat-loving husband.

Remembrance of Tastes Past: Chocolate Madeleines

Some time ago, I bought a madeleine pan, reasoning that such accouterments were essential in a French kitchen.

Besides, I love shells of any shape or form, and have a small collection scattered in bowls and baskets throughout my house.

I had good intentions. But I never actually made madeleines. The pan languished in my pie safe for several years.

Sunday was the day. I had a few free hours and we were being blanketed by a gentle snow — just the kind of afternoon for baking something containing chocolate.

Chocolate Madeleines

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate, shredded
¾ stick unsalted butter, sliced
½ teaspoon instant coffee
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
½ cup flour
½ teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler, adding the coffee when thoroughly melted. Stir frequently.

Beat eggs and sugar with a hand-held mixer on medium high. Continue until mixture thickens. You will know it is thick when strands of liquid fall from the beater as you raise it from the bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix flour and salt. Gradually add the egg-sugar mixture. Blend thoughly.

Add the chocolate, blending carefully. Add the vanilla.

Now comes the messy part: Pouring the batter into the madeleine pan. I used a spoon. You might also try a measuring cup or pour the whole batter into a larger cup and then pour it into the shells. Each shell-shaped cavity should be only ¾ full.

Place the madeleine pan on a cookie sheet and bake until cookies are springy to the touch, 10-12 minutes.

This makes a very cake-like cookie, but one that is not terribly moist. Good for dipping in hot chocolate, I would say. The taste reminded me of the chocolate cookies my mother made on winter days when I was a kid.

Paris in the Midwest: Lunch at Madame's

I have just come from another lovely and lingering lunch at Madame’s.

A former Parisian, Madame is a woman of great elegance and wit. A war bride, she married into an offshoot of my husband’s family more than 60 years ago.

She is petite, but imposing, with white hair styled into a classic chignon. She has remained a Frenchwoman to the core, never becoming a U.S. citizen. She makes annual trips to France, which I understand she financed for a time by buying and selling antiques.

To step inside her house is to land instantly in France. Everywhere are ancestral photos, stern women in leg-of-mutton sleeves and handsome men in the elegant haberdashery of another time.

Here and there in silver and gold frames are sketches of Mont St. Michel or Montmartre, Quimper plates or crystal vases. There are mementoes from this trip or that, gifts from friends and family heirlooms.

If you are lucky enough to be invited to Madame’s, you will find that the food is always good and the table, in a sunny corner of her living room, is beautifully set with dishes and silverware from France. There is always a bouquet of fresh flowers.

Today, the menu was foie gras tartlets for amuse bouche, followed by a savory onion soup and a plum pudding. Last year, there was galette des rois.

Often the food is influenced by the cuisine of Brittany where Madame spent her summers as a girl of some wealth and privilege.

That the food is good is a given. It is the conversation that stimulates.

Madame is well-read and well versed in international affairs. Her living room is a salon for progressive thought and conversation. More often than not the conversation here is books, politics and travel.

The food, of course, fuels the conversation. There is always a choice of coffee or tea, which of courses leads to more talk, lively talk and polite disagreements.

That is how it should be at the table.

Madame’s is a true French kitchen. And a French table.

And I always leave her house humming the Marseillaise.

Memere's Bon Bons: A Notion of What French Means

Some time, somehow in the years after Mémére's death this lovely tin came into my posession.

I do not know its provenance. I believe it once held bonbons, and quite probably came from Paris for one of her grandsons was living there when I was a child and he was generous and frequent with his gifts.

How Mémére loved pretty gifts from Paris!

Once the candy was gone, she used the tin to store hairpins. At night I would watch her seated at her dressing table, combing waste-length white hair. In the morning, she would pin it up again. I marveled at this routine.

The tin has been mine since I was in high school. I have kept it with me always, storing photographs in it and admiring its pattern. It smelled of talc and lavender and that tinny odor these containers acquire over time.

Mémére’s room smelled of lavender. Outside her window, there were lilac bushes and on breezy days in May, they, too, would perfume the tidy little blue-and-white room.

The pattern on Mémére's tin said "French" to me. In the flowered design were the colors she wore: Black, and violet and periwinkle, often with a touch of yellow. Together with hundreds of old photographs of women in dark dresses with lace colors and men with dark eyebrows and moustaches, the pattern in the tin formed my idea of what was French and what was not.

Of course, times have changed. Québec and France have changed. But I still treasure this little tin and the images and memories it continues to evoke.

Today, I stuck my nose into the tin. There was the faintest scent of lavender.

I have learned to accept and appreciate these things.

Oh, Canada! Fruit Butters En Route from Wisconsin

A box of six different American Spoon fruit butters and two regional surprises is on its way to Michael V., a Canadian who bid on my prize in December’s Menu for Hope Auction and won.

Literally within an hour or so of the prize announcement Monday night, Michael and I were in contact.

A few minutes later, raffle prize manager Brett of In Praise of Sardines, responded to my e-mail and gave me the confirmation I needed.

It was a seamless and professional transaction. My thanks to both Brett and Michael.

The only thing that required time was wrapping the jars with that bubbly stuff so they would not break en route to Michael’s.

Courtesy and civility go a long way with me. I have added Brett's blog and a few other new ones to the links at left. Enjoy!

Random Thoughts and Good Pairings

A few random thoughts on this food blog stuff:

• People aren’t bored reading about other people. That heartens me.

• I have mixed feelings about memes. But recently Andrea of Under a Blue Moon tagged me. She feels the same way I do, but she was game, too. In this tag, the blogger reveals five things readers do no know about him or her. Here goes: (1) The first two songs I learned to sing were "Frere Jacques" and "Alouette." (2) I do have a frere named Jacques, but we call him Jamie. (3) I wish I'd been a chocolatier instead of a writer. (4) I worked for a famous academic in college; he was a specialist in languages and told me that many of my French and Belgian ancestors' names meant "short person." (5) My Irish ancestors' names originated in Normandy. I figure this makes me French on the Irish side, too.

By the way, if you have not already, visit Andrea's blog because it's so well done. Andrea knows how to create beauty. Her blog reminds me of the late and much lamented Victoria Magazine.

• Don’t be a snob about recipes from the back of packages, vendor Web sites and trade associations. A lot of them are wonderful. This is why Grandma Annie saved so many recipes from packages. Recently we had Roasted Chicken with Olives and Provençal Herbes as I work my way through the McCormick Spice 2007 flavor forecast recipe file. (See photo at right.) I had some reservations about the marriage of honey, tangerine and Kalamata olives, but it was great. The taste made me think of a colorful Mediterranean café with a view of the sea and a limited menu. Sometimes you can taste a place in a dish, and this was one of those dishes.

• Four months from today, French Kitchen in America relocates to Paris for two weeks. We've got a long list of places to visit, but welcome your suggestions. Cafés, boulangeries, patisseries — if you liked them, we might, too. All ideas are welcome.

All operations move to a tiny kitchen near Rue Cler in the 7th arrondissement. We will be cooking with a microwave and a burner but no oven. But it's a great improvement over the junior suite we had last visit, which had only a small refrigerator. Our money-saving strategy then was to stock up on fruit, nuts, cheese, yogurt and chocolate and eat only one meal a day in a restaurant. We were able to eat on less than 50 euros a day, most days.

Sacrebleu! A Terrine that Befits the King of Cheeses and a Blue Kitchen

Like many people, when my father swore in French when he was only pretending to be angry.

“Sacrébleu,” sometimes shortened to "sacré," was a favorite. There were others that when translated should not be mentioned on a family blog.

There is some debate as to exactly what “sacrébleu” really means. Of course, literally translated, it means “sacred blue.” I've heard the phrase was once an oath, “By God,” and thus was originally “Sacré Dieu." But the word “bleu” was substituted to make the phrase less blasphemous.

Baloney. I think it has to do with cheese. Blue cheese. That stuff is so good it ought to be canonized. It is my favorite, or one of my many cheese favorites. I took an online quiz, "What Type of Cheese Are You?" and found that I am, of course, blue cheese. Was there ever any doubt? Mais, non.

Blue cheese is cow or goat cheese that has been allowed to get moldy, hence the streaks of blue or sometimes green. There are many varieties of blue cheese. Few are available this far north. Rosenborg’s Danish Blue is usually the best I can find locally. It is an acquired taste, and here in Cheddarland, I know many people who have not acquired it.

I had a rather copious amount of blue left over from New Years. Blue cheese grows more pungent with time: It is best eaten fresh (and at room temperature). So had I to find a way to use it.

Blue Cheese Terrine with Spiced Walnuts

1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 cups walnuts
4 tablespoons sugar
12 ounces blue cheese, crumbled
2 1/2 ounces soft fresh goat cheese
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup chopped green onions
2 tablespoons brandy
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1 tablespoon chopped chives

Blend salt, cumin, cardamom and pepper in a medium bowl. Sauté walnuts in oil in a heavy skillet. Add sugar and continue sautéing until sugar turns light brown. Pour nuts and sugar into the seasoning bowl and set aside to cool. Toss so each nut is coated.

Chop chives and parsley. Blend in a small bowl and set aside.

Meanwhile, allow cheese and butter to reach room temperature. Beat with an electric beater, if necessary, warming slightly in the microwave to making beating easier. When mixture is relatively smooth, mix in chopped onions and brandy.

Grease an 8.5 x 2.5 inch bread pan and line it with plastic wrap. Layer cheese mixture, followed by nuts and then spices. Repeat, until you have used up your ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Unmold onto platter, carefully peeling away the plastic wrap. Use a spatula to gently pry the plastic wrap away from the pan. Garnish brown sugar. Serve with pear slices, red grapes or dried apricots.

The recipe is adapted from the September 1996 issue of Bon Appétit and originated by Monique Barbeau of Fullers at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel & Towers. I found it on Epicurious.

This terrine turned out to be more time consuming than I like an appetizer to be. I swear I'll never to to make it again on a work night. I'm not sure I'll ever make it again, period, unless I've got a houseful of people who like blue cheese as much as I do.

A Blog to Visit: I find it hard resist a blog with the tagline "Good Food. Great Stories. I Swear" so I'm a regular over at Terry B's meticulous blog, Blue Kitchen. It's attractive, well-designed and professional in its approach. The recipes look good and the photos are dazzling — among the best I've seen in a food blog. Being a writer, I always notice the writing first and Terry's is top notch. Read why he chose the name Blue Kitchen. Read the list of music he listens to. You will be charmed.

Today, Terry features guest blogger Patricia Scarpin of Technicolor Kitchen and a recipe for Brazilian Rice and Beans.

What music do you listen to while you cook? At my house, it's most likely to be a blend of Ella Fitzgerald, Van Morrison and Boz Scaggs interspersed with light jazz and Big Band. Oh, and a version of "I Love Paris" that sounds like it's done by a Klezmer band and any cover of The Marseillaise.

A Tasty Tuesday Treat: Potage de Choufleur Avec Citron/Cauliflower Soup with Lime

When I was four years old I refused to eat white food.

I drank milk if I could not see it, which meant I had a covered cup with a cartoon character's face on top. The straw was inserted in its mouth.

Mashed potatoes? Forget it. Only if I could not see them. Bread had to be toasted golden brown and slathered with peanut butter or cinnamon so no trace of white could be seen. I am not certain if my parents resorted to blindfolding me for meals, but they may well have done that.

Today I eat white foods in moderation. I've learned, like everyone else, that brightly colored foods are higher in nutrients. So I find it hard to give much credence to Saveur Magazine's recent declaration that white foods are in. Poppycock, I say. White foods always have sauces or something else on top of them.

You can imagine how delighted I was to discover that colored cauliflower has finally made it northern Wisconin. Of course, I had to buy some. What a great way to get kids to eat, I thought.

The first thing I made was a purple-and-green cauliflower salad with carrots and red peppers. I topped it with my Honey Dijon Dressing (see Jan. 13 post) and sprinkled a few bacon bits and some chopped cashews on top. Pretty good for a slapdash sort of thing.

Then I went upmarket, stumbling across this Lime-y Cauliflower Soup on Epicurious.

1/2 teaspoon cumin seed
1 onion, finely chopped
2 1/2 cups cauliflower, chopped
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup water
1/4 cup half and half
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice

Roast the cumin seed in a small dry skillet over medium heat until it is fragrant. Once it has been roasted, place it in a mortar and pestle or in a wax paper bag and crush it until in becomes a coarse powder. Note: I could not find cumin seed, so I roasted cumin powder.

Cook the onion in butter in a small but sturdy saucepan until the onion is softened. Add cauliflower, broth and water and simmer until cauliflower is tender. Next, puree small batches of the mixture in a blender, until the contents of the pan are liquid and creamy. Add the half and half and lime juice. (At this point, I added just a dash of fleur de sel.) Sprinkle on cumin.

Note: This is a delicate soup well suited to a cold — finally — winter day in Wisconsin when thoughts of spring are inevitable. It would pair well with an equally delicate white table wine and a light meal of chicken and rice.

Cumin has citrus-y undertones — I do not think I knew that before. It is a good mate for lime.

My Frugal French Side: Red Peppers with Red Pepper Fettuccine

I’m not sure if it’s the French frugality gene or just the fact that I stash everything away for travel, but I don’t waste a penny these days.

As a result, more often than not what we eat is dictated by what is on sale at the grocery store. Recently, it has been red peppers. That’s fine with me, as they are usually rather pricey.

In fixing Sunday supper, I surveyed the contents of the refrigerator and found three red peppers, a handful of mushrooms and some leftovers diced tomatoes, the better part of a 14.5-ounce can.

This is what I came up with and it was a huge hit with my husband.

Roasted Red Peppers with Red Pepper Fettuccine

3 medium red peppers
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium yellow onion
1 garlic clove, minced
1 can diced tomatoes
1 pound sweet Italian sausage
1 ¼ cups fire-roasted tomato sauce
1 large bay leaf
1 cup sliced mushrooms

Preheat oven to 425. Cut the peppers from top to bottom, following the lines of the pepper. Trim the pieces into strips, cutting away any excess membrane. Drizzle with olive oil and roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, checking frequently to ensure each piece is thoroughly roasted. The peppers will have black spots when you remove them from the oven. Set aside to cool.

You will have some small pieces of pepper left over. Don’t toss them out. Carefully trim them from the tops and bottoms of the pepper and chop them. Chop the onion, too, and sauté both pepper and onion until the onion turns yellow. Set aside.

Brown the Italian sausage in olive oil in a heavy and deep skillet, using a wooden spatula to break it apart. Add the garlic, then about five minutes later, add the diced tomatoes, followed by the onion and diced pepper and the bay leaf. Do not add the larger pieces of roasted pepper at this time.

Simmer for about 10 minutes before adding the prepared pasta sauce.

In a separate pan, brown the mushrooms in olive oil. Add these to the simmering sauce. Allow the sauce to cook on low for another 10-15 minutes before adding the roasted peppers. Remove the bay leaves.

Serve over red-pepper fettuccine. Grate mozzarella or Parmesan cheese on top, or toss on some cheese crumbles. I added a spicy blend of dried red-pepper flakes and garlic at just before serving.

“Sweet with a bite,” was my husband’s reaction. And it cost pennies.

Lemony Green Tea Muffins for Sunday Tea: Easy to Make But Complex on the Palate

Sharing a street address with the ancient house of Isaac Laffémas is The Tea Caddy.

The tearoom has been there since 1928, the year lovely Square Viviani was developed. The Tea Caddy was opened by an English woman who, according to the tearoom Web site, “turned it into a little corner of England.”

Surely by now it is part and parcel of Paris.

The day we visited the area in 2005, I was so intent on taking a photo of my husband in the park, that I overlooked The Tea Caddy. It wasn’t until I read a novel with a pivotal scene in the tearoom that a respondent chord rang out in my brain. The novel was forgettable, but the tearoom was not. It was still there, buried in my subconscious. I am sure we will visit the area again in May.

I thought of that tearoom as I baked Lemony Green-Tea Muffins this gray Sunday afternoon.

1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar or fructose
1 tablespoon loose green tea, ground with mortar and pestle
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup lemon yogurt
1 egg white
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon fresh lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350. Place 12 muffin cups in muffin tin.

Blend flour, sugar, tea, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Whisk together yogurt, egg white, oil, lemon zest and lemon juice in another bowl. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. When batter is blended, spoon into muffin cups. Bake 15-25 minutes, checking frequently. When muffins become firm and begin to brown, brush with butter. Allow to bake one more minute then remove from oven.

These muffins smelled heavenly when I took them from the oven. It’s a light aroma, sweet and herby.

The taste is layered, something I have not experienced in a muffin. First you taste the lemon, but there is a distinct aftertaste of tea. At first I thought I’d use lemon curd on these, but after sampling them, I chose unsalted butter so the taste would come through. This is a very complex little muffin.

Note: To ramp up the lemon taste, I used Celestial Seasoning’s Lemon Zinger Green Tea. But you could use any kind of green tea.

To read a delightful post on Paris tearooms, visit Carol at Paris Breakfasts.

The Mystery of the Blue Door Near the Pretty Park in Paris

"So where is this door in Paris anyway?" asked a reader in an e-mail. "You never did tell us."

Back on Dec. 10, I featured a little quiz involving the photo at right. "A Sun-Dappeled Door in Paris," I called it. I said I would send a gift (the gift was a package of wild rice) to the first person who could identify the location of the door which was near a charming Paris park. Well, Paris is dotted with charming parks, so that wan't much of a clue.

Here's the story behind the door: It is located at 14 Rue St. Julien le Pauvre, just across the street from Square Viviani on the Left Bank within the shadow of Notre Dame Cathedral. As you are walking down the street toward Notre Dame, the door is on your left. It stands out for its beauty and its carving of a reclining woman holding the scales of justice.

According to Leonard Pitt's "Walks Through Paris," the door leads to a house once owned by Isaac Laffémas (1584-1687), chief of police under Cardinal Richelieu, who perhaps better known as "The Cardinal's Hangman." Laffémas' house dates back to the 14th century. Its cellars were used to house prisoners in 1783 when other prison cells were full.

What has this got to to with food, you ask? Not much, except Square Viviani was very green the spring day we took photographs there, and the green of spring brings to mind many culinary options, one of which will be posted later today. There is a tea shop near St. Julien le Pauvre, so you can bet the recipe will involve tea.

Park Viviani was created in 1928, on the site of former annexes of Hotel Dieu. To see the street as it looked like before the park was built, watch "The Temptress," a 1926 melodrama starring Greta Garbo.

The Mustard Gene and a Simple Honey-Dijon Dressing for a Tossed Green Salad

I learned in France that my Welsh-Cornish-Irish husband is really French.

For one thing, he drives like a Frenchman. Hairpin turns, treacherous mountain roads, busy roundabouts, clogged city streets — pft! No problem! Vroom! Vroom! He's in his element.

And he's got the Mustard Gene. We both do, but I come by it naturally.

We like all kinds of mustard. French mustard. French’s mustard. American mustard with obscure "gourmet" labels.

Grainy mustard. Mustard with nuts, courtesy of a blogger friend who somehow divined our fetish.

Honey Dijon. Grey Poupon (pardon me!). Mustard with horseradish. Mustard with cranberries. Hot mustard. Mild mustard. Brown mustard. Yellow mustard. Cognac mustard.

Oh, and mustard jars. I once bought a huge brown crock, not shown above (there was no room), because I liked the jar and the cute French guy named Louis who was selling it (grist for another post). It took me two years to eat it all; there was, quite literally, enough mustard there to slather on three month's worth of bread for the entire French Foreign Legion.

There are very few savory dishes a dab of mustard does not enhance. An herby mustard sauce is great on vegetables. And you cannot make deviled eggs without mustard. It adds a "tangy zip" no mere salad dressing can compete with.

I knew my husband liked mustard long ago. He was always buying it, just like I was. It was when I saw him behind the wheel in France that I put two and two together and came up with French.

The other day Terry B. from Blue Kitchen asked about dressing. Below is one of my favorites, given to me by a chef-friend who father was also a chef and of my own father's generation.

The chef who makes it did not give me the exact quantities, so I’ve kind of had to figure them out on my own. You may have to experiment, too. I often add a bit more of this and a bit more of that. Or sometimes I just mix it up and pray it works.

Honey Mustard Dressing for Tossed Salad

1/2-cup buttermilk
1/3-cup mayonnaise or tangy spread
1 heaping tablespoon honey-Dijon with seeds
2 teaspoons minced onion

Toss it in the blender, whisk it or use a beater.

This recipe should make enough for at least two salads. I usually make it fresh because it is so easy.

It is best showcased on a simple green salad with tomatoes, black olives, red onion and cucumber.

Note If you like mustard, too, you may also like the the world-famous Mustard Museum is located in Mount Horeb, Wis.

Internet sources for good mustard abound.

Bittersweet Memories, Recipes and Braised Chicken with Mustard Seed and Fennel

The summer after Grandma Annie died, I assigned myself the bittersweet task of sifting through her recipes.

They were mostly in the old back kitchen, filling a deep cheese box and several other vessels (including the casserole dish pictured above) to the brim. The recipes were clipped from the backs of rice boxes and soup cans, from the pages of McCall's and Woman's Day and Family Circle magazines. They were written on scraps of paper in Annie's scrawl and they were torn from the pages of spiral notebooks.

Annie's prodigious taste for sweets was evident, for many of the recipes were for layer cakes and cookies or bars and coffee cakes. I smiled when I saw certain types of recipes over and over again.

Lemon cakes, orange cakes, sugar cookies and apple strudel; date bars, brownies, cutout cookies and cinnamon rolls — these were the things Annie loved. She made them regularly, not just for special occasions like birthdays and funerals and the days she worked at the polls at the neighborhood schoolhouse a block away.

Also among the recipes were casseroles and soups and stews and sandwiches. There were fancy finger foods and chip dips and even her recipes for "beer junk," better known today as Chex mix. Jello salads, too, and yeast breads — recipes by the hundreds, many dating back to the 1930s.

Some were written in French, others in English. Many I am sure she never made. But they appealed to her, perhaps to her notion of a proper Sunday dinner or a tea for the ladies or a child's birthday party.

There were recipe books, too, the kind that grocery stores sometimes give away or the ones you could send away for, as long as you provided a box top or two. Annie had tons of those, and all over her house were little scraps of addresses she'd get from some TV program advertising a cookbook.

Annie could never resist a new recipe or cookbook. Fanny Farmer was one of her bibles. You can tell a lot about a person from their cookbooks. Look for the heavily-stained and dog-eared pages and you will know their tastes. Look for margin notes and recipes scribbled on back pages. Recipes are an important part of cultural and family history.

Recipes hold promise for us. When we see a something appealing in a magazine or on the back of a box of noodles or on someone else's blog, we see a dream, too — a sense of how meals ought to be served, how snacks ought to be eaten.

We see ourselves in a different way. Maybe we see ourselves as we wish we could be. Those of us who are hamburger may wish to be Chateaubriand. Or vice versa.

We imagine preparing a certain dish at a certain time. Perhaps we imagine apricot-stuffed French toast on a sunny Saturday or chocolate-mocha brownies on a blustery afternoon. When I think of sun slanting through a kitchen window in the late afternoon, I often think of butterscotch bars. Whether this is some sort of culinary memory that sticks to my brain or the result of a Joni Mitchell song, I cannot say.

When I stuffed a package of rice from the Camargue into my suitcase as we left France two years ago, I saw myself preparing it on a sunny day, a day that reminded me how the feel and look of France changes as the SNCF train whizzes southward.

A few days ago, when I started thinking about taste pairings, my imagination was fired up. I saw myself making certain dishes at certain times and I created a set of expectations for the mouth feel of new taste pairings.

Last night, I made another recipe from McCormick Spices' flavor forecast, this time pairing mustard seed with fennel.

Braised Chicken with Mustard Seed and Fennel

1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
1 tablespoon fennel seed
eight chicken thighs (I used breasts)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns, crushed
1 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, undrained
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 tablespoon parsley flakes

Toast the mustard and fennel seeds in a skillet for about two minutes. The fragrance will be exquisite. Remove them from the pan after about two minutes or crush with a mortar and pestle.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper and brown in in olive oil until golden an all sides. Remove it from the pan. Brown the chopped onion in the pan, then add the tomatoes, wine, parsley and crushed seeds. Return the chicken to the pan and bring the mixture to a boil. Cover the pan and cook over low heat for 14 minutes, stirring frequently. Uncover and simmer for another 15 minutes.

I served this with garlicky, oven-roasted potato wedges and olives. We liked it, but preferred Wednesday night's pistachio-ginger chicken. The tomatoes seemed to overwhelm the fennel and mustard seed. Perhaps next time — a bit more seed and a bit less tomato. I didn't have enough chicken so I cut the recipe in half — perhaps my "eyeballing" of some of the ingredients was not a good idea.

Like old recipes and cookbooks?

To read more about old cookbooks, see Terri's extensive and fascinating post at Island Writer. She's a writer so books hold more than words and stories for her.

The Colors of Spring in the Southwest of France and Ginger-Pistachio Encrusted Chicken

It is false spring in Wisconsin. I refer, not to an unexpected January thaw, but to the fact that we have had relatively balmy days since mid-December. No bone-chilling, tooth-rattling cold — yet.

My daylilies are confused and beginning to pop up, not a positive sign for their future health. The birds in my garden are spring birds, singing tunes I seldom hear before April 1.

This is not good. One way or another, we will pay for it. What is the release of spring without the hardship of winter behind it?

And so — and I run the risk of sounding a bit dotty when I say this — little flashes of past springs are sprouting up unannounced in my conscious mind. A split second mental glimpse of the sky on an April day, the feeling of a gray March morning, and the colors of the spring we stayed for all too short a time on the edge of the Dordogne and the Lot, green and lush in some parts and dry and rocky in others.

The photo above offers a sampling of the colors of that season. The pale purple of the lilacs (hidden here), the rich burgundy of the flowering crab and the soft greens of the mosses and lichens provided the perfect frame for the periwinkle shutters and terra cotta roof of our friend’s lovely home.

I thought of those colors when I prepared a chicken dish from McCormick Spices annual flavor forecast, which I talked about a few days ago. This dish pairs crystallized ginger with salted pistachios in a crunchy covering. A splash of honey-tangerine sauce adds a finishing touch.


Ginger-Pistachio Encrusted Chicken with Tangerine Sauce

3/4 cup shelled salted pistachio nuts
1/4 cup crystallized ginger
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 egg white, lightly beaten
1/3 cup tangerine or orange juice
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce

Preheat oven to 350°F. Place pistachio nuts and ginger in a hand chopper or processor. Chop until thorough blended and place in a low shallow dish or plate

Dip chicken in egg whites and roll in pistachio-ginger mixture. Coat evenly. Place in shallow, foil-lined or greased oven dish. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

While the chicken is cooking, blend orange juice, honey and soy sauce. The recipes recommends pouring the sauce before serving. I thought it was a bit thin, so I poured in on the chicken about 5 minute or so before I removed it from the oven. The heat will thicken the sauce.

“Oh my,” said my husband. “This is good. Sweetness with bite.”

Plain Vichy carrots, cooked with just sugar and water, were the perfect side dish. For dessert: Baked pear, flavored with brown sugar and cinnamon, topped with roasted walnuts, and finished with a dollop of mascarpone cheese sweetened with orange honey.

It was, we agreed, the perfect mid-winter meal, with just a hint of spring.

Adventures in the Spice Trade and More

Sometimes something so simple delights you so much you begin to wonder why your needs are so complicated.

Determined to try more exotic flavor pairings, I shopped for spices on the way home from work. Who knew that a simple errand could be so much fun?

I found crytallized ginger in the produce department of the biggest grocery store in town. I was lured by the packaging, I will admit. A less attractive container would have saved me 50 cents. But presentation is everything, and I liked being able to see those little bites of ginger.

The other two purchases were totally unnecessary. I was lured by the promise of time saved. I imagined tossing, say a couple of London Broils under the broiler after a busy day. The charm and convenience of grinding pre-mixed garlic and sea salt on them was irresistible.

I imagined grinding the chipotle chili into a dip, adding bite to creaminess. Or fixing some Tex-Mex chicken dish to chase away a chill on a Saturday night.

Besides, it was liberating to dash into the grocery store unfettered by a clumsy cart, and buy only three items, carrying them to the checkout counter in one gloved hand.

I get the same feeling when I pop outside the door to clip chives or cilantro in the summertime. Or when I make a quick and unexpected stop at the farm market on a frenetic fall Friday.

Food is more than recipes. It's more than eating. It's the experience of it. The first kernel of an idea for tonight's meal. The excitement you feel on your way to a new restaurant or bakery. The serendipitous delight when you run across a jar of clotted cream at a little country gift shop you thought would carry only tzotchke.

Somehow I figured this out early. I can recall when the feeling hit me: An August night when I was about 8 or 9 and staying, as I always did that time of summer, for a week at Grandma Annie's house. After supper, she and I walked to a brown house with a broad porch two blocks away. Annie carried an empty basket and when we arrived at the house, a woman sitting on the porch filled the basket with green beans, tomatoes and garlic from her garden. The two women talked for a while of this and that before Annie and I returned to her house.

I do not recall anything else about that night. I just know that I was charmed by the notion of carrying the gift of produce in a basket. Somehow I knew that this simple act was endangered, at least where I come from. And I knew that carrying produce in a woven basket had more cachet than toting it home a paper bag.

One rainy Saturday my husband and I made an unanticipated stop at a meat market we wanted to try. We bought steaks and later, windows closed to the gathering night, prepared French pepper steak and roasted vegetables in our little kitchen. Everything about it, the rain beating on the roof, the wind beginning to pick up and later the threat of losing power made for a cozy evening at home. And somehow, all these things enhanced the flavor of the steaks and the experience of eating them.

There is so much more to food. I'm really looking forward to exploring it more in 2007.

Winter Red Salad With Blue Cheese — The Perfect Foil for Fowl

I suppose I should borrow a page from some fellow bloggers and post my food-related goals for 2007, but the truth is, I haven't got them all together yet.

Cooking more with lean meat and less with beef is certainly one of them. When I say that, I mean chicken, mostly. Chicken is like a blank piece of canvas. The masterpiece you create, edible or otherwise, depends on what flavors and colors you use. Besides, from Coq Au Vin to Chicken Normandy, French recipes for chicken abound.

But this is not a post about chicken. It is about my red salad, a fine foil for many chicken recipes — or for those turkey leftovers languishing in your freezer.

It is simple, too. I really cannot subscribe to the theory that all food featured here must involve arduous preparations, ingredients I had to travel out of town to find, and presentation that requires me to stack, bundle and perhaps tie neatly with a chive or edible celery strand.

Flavor — flavor combinations — is my goal. This salad is sweet and tart and earthy. And colorful: The pomegranate arils, which provide such sweet bursts of flavor, look like little rubys tucked away amidst the lettuce.

This salad is also a perfect light dish for this time of year, a pleasant way to put the gastronomic excesses of the holidays far behind you.

Red Salad with Blue Cheese

Red lettuce
Red onions
Pomegranate arils (or dried cranberries)
Roasted pecans
Blue cheese
Raspberry or cranberry viniagrette

Tear up the lettuce. Slice the onions. Grab a handful of cranberries or pomegranate arils. Roast pecans in the oven. Toss it all together. Add some blue cheese crumbles. Drizzle on the dressing.

I make this for holiday potlucks and its always a hit. The blue cheese can be optional. You can add butter and brown sugar to your pecans for roasting.

Note: Want to peel a pomegranate? Here's how.

New Links and Naked Carrots

I've recently added some new links to the left of this post and I wanted to explain them.

Some are what I call "big-league" blogs. They've been online for a while and they draw huge followings. Some were recently nominated for Best of Blog Awards and very rightly so. They are good. The writing is top notch and outside-the-proverbial box. The photographs are delectable. The combine forms and colors and light and shadow in such delightful ways. Where does all this talent come from?

Some of the bloggers appear to be nice people to boot. Some support the whole notion of blogging about food in so many ways. Others encourage new bloggers. Some have become people I can turn to for support and answers to questions I am usually embarrassed to ask.

Some are fairly new, like this blog. Others are really new.

Some are strictly food blogs. Perhaps they might be called recipe blogs.

Others talk about non-food matters, like home and family.

Some are French or Parisian blogs, and I visit them to get information or to bring my upcoming trip a little closer.

Anyway, there is no real rhyme or reason to why these blogs are linked here, except that in some cases I liked the blogs and the bloggers and I want to be as supportive as a number of you were to me last summer when I was trying to figure this whole thing out. I still am. You still are. Thank you.

And the photo? Well, it has nothing to do with links except that it struck me as "food porn."

By the way, special thanks to the kind spirit behind Food Porn Watch.

Unconventional Pairings: Tasty New Mates for Mustard, Maple and More Flavors

Grandma Annie always had a filled candy jar, especially this time of year, when Christmas leftovers were plentiful. More often than not, her jar was packed with little red-and-white striped pillows stuffed with peppermint creme.

What I very soon discovered was that more goodies were tucked away behind the centerpiece on her dining room buffet: Salted peanuts.

At about age 6, I tried the two together — mint and nut — and a lifelong craving for salt and sugar combinations was born.

I still cannot resist an unusual combination. It need not be sweet and salty. Mustard is one of my favorites: When honey-mustard flavors became widely available in everything from pretzels to potato chips, I was ecstatic.

A recipe that features unconventional pairings is irresistible to me. Fortunately, they are all over the blogosphere.

In January, when McCormick Spices sends out its annual flavor forecast to food writers I am always intrigued.

This year the top 10 pairings are, according to McCormick:

• Clove and green apple
• Thyme and tangerine
• Tellicherry black pepper and berry
• Sea salt and smoked lavender
• Lavendar and honey
• Crystallized ginger and salted pistachio
• Cumin and apricot
• Toasted mustard and fennel seeds
• Wasabi and Maple
• Carmelized garlic and Riesling vinegar

Lavender and honey, of course, are old friends.

Clove and green apple I can imagine: A burst of fresh tempered by a bite. I dipped a dried apricot into cumin and was instantly transported to a Middle East bazaar.



Thyme and tangerine: A heady night in the Mediterranean. Mustard seed and fennel? Provence, sunny and sweet. Sea salt and smoked tea: Imagine this rubbed into a steak, grilled to perfection.


You can try these and the others in recipes offered by McCormick. (No, I am not paid by McCormick. But I do get a a lot of interesting food mail at my day job. The annual flavor forecast is my favorite.)

What's your favorite taste combination? Be bold — and unconventional. (I like apple jelly on soda crackers, another throwback to childhood.)

Old Kitchen Stuff is Hot, Says Saveur Magazine (They Know These Things)

Finally. I'm in. Rather, my kitchen is.

According to the most recent issue of Saveur Magazine, used kitchen utensils are hot right now. They made Saveur's Top 100 list for 2007. People like to use the same spoons or bowls Mom or Grandma used, say the foodies at Saveur.

I knew that. Chances are, so did you. We like the cracks and the scratches and the mars and the imperfections. We can relate to them.

I have always wanted old stuff in my kitchen. Since I was a teenager, I've collected odds and ends from my grandmothers' kitchens. Grandma Annie's mixing bowls. Grandma Laura's big bread bowl. Old flour sifters and egg beaters. I went through a stage when I loved all that old red-and-green handled stuff. More recently, I've collected old crocks. They serve a purpose in my kitchen as cache pots for nuts or garlic or tea bags.

I think we find comfort and continuity in old things. Maybe a bit of luck, too. If I were making Laura's famous raisin-graham bread or Annie's Lady Baltimore cake, you can bet I'd do it in those old vessels. Just in case.

Besides, old things give a kitchen character. Believe me, my kitchen has plenty of character. Clutter, too.

What's old in your kitchen?

Red Pepper-Sausage Pizza and a Visit to Douelle Along the Meandering Lot River

It was a misty Sunday, our first weekend in the Quercy, and we had been told we could find fabulous, wood-oven-baked pizza in Douelle, a town tucked away in the hills along the meandering Lot River.

That was the day we could not make a correct turn to save our lives.

The road to Douelle climbs and is very narrow. The turns were hairpin and with each one it seemed the road kept ascending, higher, higher. My husband drove the BMW and drove it expertly. But my heart was in my stomach and my stomach was roiling. I was certain we would meet our demise on that stretch of French backroad. I was also certain we were lost.

But we weren't: My husband made sure of it. We took photos at every intersection so we could record our path — the digital equivalent of a trail of crumbs.

We arrived in Douelle around noon so of course — this being the country, not Paris — the place was deserted. It was beginning to rain.

My husband managed to negotiate the car through a maze of the narrow streets. We found the pizza place, but it was wall-to-wall people (that was where everyone was, it seemed) and we were too hungry to wait.

We drove around in the drizzle, shot some photos from inside the car, and eventually found our way to Cahors in a circuitous fashion, making every wrong turn we could, driving along some fearsome black cliffs along the way to Mercués and eventually finding an open supermarket where we stocked up on the makings for our own pizza. We drove back to our little village, making more wrong turns, but getting there with a huge sigh of relief. It was the only cool night of our visit and we were happy to shutter the windows against the fog and spring rain, and settle down in the warm yellow kitchen for pizza and glasses of the famous black wine of Cahors.

I have tried to recreate the Red-Pepper-and-Sausage Pizza we made:

The Crust
Your favorite, homemade or otherwise, prepared according to directions or habit

The Topping
4 small-to-medium red peppers
1 pound of Italian sausage
1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1/2 cup tomato paste
2-3 tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
12-15 black olives, thinly sliced
1 cup grated Italian cheese (I used a blend of mozzarella and Parmesan)
Salt, pepper and whatever herbs you prefer

A bottle of extra-virgin olive oil (No you won't use the whole bottle, but I never measure.)

Cut the peppers from top to bottom, following the contours of the body, discarding seeds and membrane, and trim them into strips. Arrange in a single layer on a cookied sheet. Drizzle with oil and broil for 10-15 minutes, turning several times. The peppers will turn brown in spots. Drain and set aside.

In a skillet, brown the sausage in garlic and oil, breaking into small pieces with a wooden spatula or spoon. Once the sausage is throughly browned, remove from the skillet and set aside. Brown onion slices in the leftover oil.

Drizzle a bit of olive oil on pizza crust. Spread with tomato paste, then layer tomatoes, sausage, peppers, olives, onions and cheese. Season with fresh herbs (best) or herbes de Provençe or Tuscan Seasoning. Bake directly on the oven shelf for about 10 minutes at 400.

About that pizza crust: I cobbled one together that night in the Quercy, but at home I sometimes buy them prepared or from a mix. Time is often an issue for me, even on weekends. In my penurious student days I even made them from Bisquick. Frankly, they're not bad that way, not when your alternative is ramen noodles.

But really, a from-scratch crust is the best and does justice to the mix of toppings. Ditto for herbs. I use what I have on hand, often rosemary and thyme.

Of course, somehow it all tasted better made in a real French kitchen. This pizza — our "un-Douelle pizza" — was about making do and making do delightfully.

The Long-Ago Sounds of Sunday

For two relatively short periods — once when I was a baby and again a few years later when money was tight — my parents lived with Grandma Annie and Memére in the old cedar-shingled house at the corner of Bellevue and Dunlap in the heart of Frenchtown.

We slept in the flat upstairs when I was a newborn but later moved to the rear wing of the long, narrow house.

I still dream of those back rooms. Along with the old kitchen, which I described in a previous post, there was a large bedroom and a much smaller one.

The room I slept in was close to the kitchen. Usually the smell of eggs or bacon frying woke me in the mornings.

Sometimes on rainy days, Annie would make pancakes or waffles with a fruity syrup. I will always associate the sweet tart aroma of associate blueberry syrup with the sound of rain beating relentlessly on windowpanes.

But it is Sunday mornings I recall the most clearly. Annie and her mother rose early for mass, and the sounds of their voices — arguing, as mothers and daughters do — woke me and kept me from falling back asleep.

Alone together, they spoke only French. I don’t recall their conversations. Perhaps Memére had misplaced her gloves. Maybe Annie was missing a hat pin.

I waited for them to leave, for the front door to slam so I could burrow back down under the covers for more sleep.

When they returned home, Annie would start breakfast. The sounds changed, coffee percolating, eggs breaking, juice pouring, toast popping.

When breakfast was finished, she would begin preparations for Sunday dinner. Pans rattled as she removed them from cupboards, the refrigerator door opened and closed.

Over dinner, there was much conversation, and everyone lingered long over dessert.

Sometimes in the afternoon, relatives from “up north” would visit and the living room would be noisy with the swooping cadences of French Canada.

Other times, the afternoons would be long and somnolent, with the only sounds — save for the turning of newspaper pages — coming from the mid-afternoon mail plane.

The rhythm of my life has changed considerably over the years. But the sound of two women arguing in French, the clatter of pans in the kitchen and the drone of a single-engine plane on a summer afternoon can instantly transport me to that other time.

And the smells, too, but that is another post.

Kindess: The Essential Ingredient

Every once in a while you run across someone who restores your faith in humanity.

Chef James Haller is one of those people.

A few years back, I read his book, “Vie de France,” which chronicles a month he and a group of friends spent in the Loire Valley. Haller did the cooking, of course, and it struck me that he prepared food by instinct. No surprise, he’d been cooking professionally for a couple of decades, and is founder of the Blue Strawbery in Portsmouth, N.H.

He sounded like a good person. A nice person. Someone I’d want for a friend. He's won kudos for his inventive appraoch to cooking, too, and I borrowed from his approach and his book as I prepared food during a vacation in the Lot Valley two years ago.

Haller has also written a book called, “What to Eat When You Don’t Feel Like Eating,” which targets a neglected eating constituency: People with life threatening or even terminal illnesses.

So when a friend and co-worker was diagnosed with cancer, I thought of James Haller. I e-mailed him and we arranged a telephone interview.

Turns out he’d written another book, this one aimed at men with prostate cancer. It’s called “Simply Wonderful Food.”

It also turns out that he’s every bit as nice as he sounds in print. He's been volunteering his services to the hospice movement, cooking for sick people for years.

For seriously ill people, Haller recommends comforting foods that are packed with Vitamins A and C. Leafy greens and just about anything orange.

He pays attention to color, texture, taste and nutritional value. He often adds mint to counteract the metallic taste chemotherapy patients experience.

Haller suggests prostate cancer patients eat foods that are easy to digest. Treatment wreaks havoc with the digestive system, he notes.

We can prepare all the time-consuming fancy food we want, French or otherwise, but, as they say, it might not amount to a hill of beans if we forget the most important ingredient: Kindness.

It seems to me that James Haller figured that out long ago.

Random Thoughts and Cognac

A few random thoughts on food blogging:

• Good photography makes the blog. But it's cosmetic.

• The best writing in the world is wasted if paragraphs are long. One of the first things you learn in the publications business is to keep your copy readable.

• The snobbery toward Rachel Ray is real. I just read a somewhat shrill diatribe that dissed Rachel for using cake mix and Bisquick. Hello? Don’t we all use that once in a while? This is what real people with busy lives do — use convenience foods. (By the way, the variety of convenience foods in French supermarkets is staggering.)

Some very good restaurants use convenience foods. The food industry sells them.

• I’ve met some really nice people here, people who encouraged me when I did not know what I was doing. They still do. And I’ve met more nice people recently. But, oh my goodness, do some food bloggers get riled when “best of” awards are involved.

It's hard for me to take such things things too seriously. In my advertising days I got an Addy for copy written for a brochure that looked like a recruitment tool for pederasts. I wrote what I knew the client (the agency owner) wanted — not what I thought was good — and it won. And I’ve seen terrible, barely intelligible writing get state and regional newspaper awards — again and again.

• There are many, many fine blogs that are worth visiting again and again — and they'll never get an award. Some may not reflect our own personal values but they are still very, very good. The talent out there truly amazes and humbles me. Please, go out there and post a nice comment on a new blog today. Encourage somebody.

• There is also, it appears, a fair amount of snobbery. How silly it is.

Ok, having said that, time to snuggle down with some cognac. I think I deserve it.

Soup to Ward off a Winter Cold

I didn't make chicken soup at all. Instead I made a very tomato-y soup with a dash of orange rind and lots of thyme. It was inspired by a similar recipe at Epicurious, adapted to my taste buds and to the ingredients I had on hand.

Tomato Soup to Remind You of Sunny Provence

4 cups chicken, turkey or vegetable stock
1 can Italian-style diced tomatoes
1 large celery rib, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 strips of fresh orange zest, minced
2 teaspoons fresh thyme
dash red pepper flakes
one bay leaf
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons tomato paste
additional water as needed
1 tablespoon parsley
dash or two herbes de Provence to taste

Options: Rice, chicken, a dash of fennel seeds. The original recipe calls for saffron, but I had none.

Cook onions, celery, garlic, orange zest and pepper flakes in olive oil for about five minutes in a stock pot. Add soup stock, tomatoes, tomato paste and bay leaf. Bring to a low boil, then simmer uncovered. Taste frequently and add water as needed. You may need to add some sugar at this point. After about a 40 minutes, remove bay leaf and add parsley and herbes de Provence.

I also tossed in some leftover cherry tomatoes, chopping them to a paste first.

This soup tastes as though it would cure a cold. Really.

Many Different Forms and Flavors

Happy New Year! I woke up the day after feeling lousy.

No, I did not consume mass quantities of any mood-altering liquids the day before: My through was dry and scratchy and I had chills, the usual onset of a cold. Lucky for me, the old adage is “Feed a cold, starve a fever,” not the other way around.

What precisely should you feed a cold? Chicken soup is the standard antidote. I prefer my chicken soup with a bit more bite than the standard stuff. It takes longer to make, too.

While I am trying to summon up the energy to get out the stock pot, I thought I'd do some market research.

The idea had a somewhat circuitous birth, as most ideas do. I was visiting Lydia's balsamic vinegar post at The Perfect Pantry
and commenting on the almost form and shape of oil and vinegar bottles. (Luckily, my town has a large Italian market that carries a variety of such things.) I am often lured by shape or label and I've got to admit, it is difficult to discard of some of them for they are works of art. Consequently, I have a few empty bottles around.

I began to think about the still-more impressive variety of food blogs and bloggers out there, catering to a variety of tastes and interests and in an incredible array of styles and approaches.

What do you like in a food blog? What don't you like? What would you like to see more of?

Please feel free to comment below or e-mail me. I'm curious and would really like to hear from you.

The Back Kitchen: Beanpots and Apples and Herbs

Setting my cranberry upside-down cake on the cupboard in the “back room” to cool the other day, I was reminded of Grandma Annie’s back room.

It had been a kitchen once, in one of the mid-19th century structure’s many incarnations. But when I was a child, it was used mostly for storage.

When I was a child, it contained a massive red cupboard, filled with kitchen items Annie used only once or twice a year. Old bean crocks sat cheek by jowl with glass jars of beans or rice. An old tin colander, ancient wooden spoons, a bowl of cookie cutters and other kitchen miscellany filled the shelves.

The back room also held an enamel-topped table piled with boxes of canning jars and bins of apples or baskets of potatoes.

Annie used this room as a second pantry, a sort of keeping room. She dried herbs in that room, something that intrigued me when I was a child, and because it was unheated in winter and cool in summer, she also set baked good there when they needed to cool.

The room was connected to the kitchen by a hallway, and the hallway ran along the side of the house. It was part of the house, and yet not part of the house.

The room led directly to Annie’s vast backyard. In summer, she’d open the back door and the hall door and the cross-ventilation kept her old house cool in the hottest July days.

Usually by August, the old treadle sewing machine Annie kept in the room would be pressed into service, as she altered our clothing for the school year or sewed aprons and tablecloths from brightly-colored cotton.

My own back room serves a similar purpose. Here is a collection of mismatched cupboards and bins and shelves that hold gardening supplies, bird feed, canned goods and cookbooks.

It was once part of the kitchen, but the people who “remodeled” our 1896-home in the 1970s, split the room into two.

I spend more time in my backroom than Annie did in hers. It’s a cozy place, with a patterned rug and a comfortable chair. In summer, when the crickets sing, it is my favorite room in the house.

Champagne Chicken for New Year’s Day

We ended 2006 with a steady drizzle and began 2007 with a wan sun and no snow.

I am not complaining.

New Year’s Day is a time to begin lighter eating, not actually dieting perhaps, but certainly eating less fat and smaller portions.

We had Champagne Chicken from Susan Herrmann Loomis’ “Cooking on Rue Tatin,” which fills the bill nicely.

(I had no truffles, unfortunately, so I used mushrooms.)

I won’t repeat the recipe here; I encourage you to buy the book..

But I will tell you that the chicken was tender and juicy. I should have browned it a bit longer, but it was still good. You coat it in flour, salt and pepper twice and then brown it in olive oil and butter in a large skillet. You could make it this way and use just about any sauce with it. This particular recipe calls for a sauce made of Champagne and shallots and flavored with bay leaf.

I may have been a bit heavy handed with the Champagne.

But it was good, and we will certainly try it again, perhaps with truffles next time.

Ringing in 2007: Cranberry Upside Down Cake with An Old-Fashioned Taste

I’ve made it a New Year’s resolution to explore at least one new blog a week. I fell behind on this during the fall, and only recently began to catch up.

It is such fun to explore different approaches, different eating habits and different philosophies. Different is the operative word here. I have never understood why there is so little tolerance for differences in this world.

Back to the topic at hand: Exploring other blogs. One I stumbled upon a few weeks ago was Kitchenography, out of Baltimore, a city where my husband once lived (and still loves). The day I visited, the site's owner, Julie, who also loves Baltimore, had made a cranberry upside-down cake, which she found in a book called "The Best American Recipes of 2001-2002."

I couldn't get that cake out of my head, the jewel tones of the cranberries, the hint of tart and sweet and rich layers of flavor. I wanted to make it for Christmas. I got too busy. Perhaps for our anniversary? Forget it, still occupied. So finally, I made it for our New Year's Eve feed.

The verdict: It has an old-fashioned taste. It's something you might find in a magazine like "Early American Life." It paired well with the bubbly. And it's perfect for the holidays: The cake is rich and moist, the cranberries are tart and the cinnamon imparts a mysterious, spicy taste. I should mention that I used fructose, brown sugar Splenda and low-fat sour cream.

So thank you, Julie, for introducing me to this delight. I look forward to reading more on Kitchenography in 2007.