Famous French Frugality, or Everything-But-the-Kitchen-Sink Chicken Salad

There are, in our lives, certain days that are magical and live on in our memories that way.

Such is the day, about 20 years ago, when a coworker and I made a three-hour trip to visit a client deep into Wisconsin Amish country. It was a bit of a rush, but that was tempered by the winding and curvy secondary road that took us past tidy Amish farm houses. We saw a sign reading "Amish Bake Sale" that pointed to a side road and looked at it longingly but did not have time to stop. It was fall, and I yearned to sample big buttery cinnamon rolls and perhaps something made with apples.

This gray October day lives on because it was filled with a kind of promise, the promise of another, more serene way of living. The road not taken is always more intriguing.

Since then, I've been to several Amish quilt auctions and sampled Amish baking. For a time there was a small Amish community up this way, but it lasted only a few years.

Now I am left with my chicken. Let me explain. I buy this Amish-raised whole or cut chicken that is organically raised and supposedly has no additives, hormones, antibiotics. That's what the label says; I hope it's true.

Anyway, since I've been buying it, we've had chicken every Sunday. Yesterday's chicken was baked with garlic and sun-dried tomatoes and thyme and rosemary. Tonight, we ate it in the form of a salad, with fresh tomatoes, Kalamata olives, cheese dotted with garlic and basil, roasted croutons and slivered almonds. Whatever I had on hand, went into that salad.

Last night, I used the carcase, the herbs, and most of the garlic to make a rich savory broth for future soups.

I am pleased, very pleased, that my modest investment in that chicken provides such culinary mileage.

It's the famous French frugality kicking in, but I like to think those thrifty Amish housewives can appreciate it, too.

Chicken Stuffed With Sun-Dried Tomatoes: Shopping in Your Own Pantry

The same so-called financial experts who tell you to shop with a list also tell you to shop your own pantry before heading out to the store.

If you are a list maker, too, this is not a bad idea because it keeps you from buying a duplicate of something you already have. My husband declines to do this, usually, with is why we have so many jars of mustard and pickles in our fridge.

For the past several months, we've been cooking a whole chicken every Sunday, eating chicken salads for Monday and Tuesday, and making a fabulous chicken stock for the freezer.

Surverying the cupboard and the refrigerator, I found a large sweet onion, plenty of garlic and a half bag of sun-dried tomatoes. I bought fresh rosemary and thyme at the store and we had a moist and tangy chicken with a layered taste that hinted of a sunny slope in the Vaucluse, perhaps.

The tomatoes, garlic and onions were stuffed inside the chicken; the herbs were placed under the skin and under the chicken. Then I rubbed the skin with a garlic-tomato bread spread and seasoned it with herbes de provence and pepper. Sel de fleuer from the Carmargue was added near the end of the roasting cycle.

We served it with roasted red and green peppers, a staple at our house, and Kalamata olives. We paired it with a Johannesburg Riesling left over from the lemon-baked salmon we had the night before.

In our eagerness to eat, I neglected to take photos, but both meals were excellent.

Do you shop your pantry first? If you did that right now, what would you find that could be stuffed into a chicken for a dish that was uniquely yours?

Shopping Lists at Home and Abroad

Do you shop with a list?

The financial experts say you must, and you must not deviate from it.

Phooey! Deviating from it is half the fun. I would not have truffle oil, sea salt with seaweed for fish or citrus-infused vinegar in my larder if I followed that advice.

I do have a mental food shopping list for Paris, however. Rice from the Camargue tops the list. This is the best rice I have ever tasted, bar none. I may have given up most carbs, but for this I will make an exception.

Grainy mustard, creamy yogurt, and those olive-flavored potato chips also top the list. Of course, I'll have to eat the yogurt while I am there. But I will eat a lot of it, I can promise you that.

Back home, the most frequent items on my shopping list are tomatoes, red peppers, onions, garlic, lemons and salad greens. Not a week goes by that I don't make three to four trips to the store for those items. Lately, asparagus and Brussels sprouts have been on the list, too.

What's on your list?

Win a Trip to Paris

There is April in Paris and there is May Day in Paris.

If you are lucky enough to be in Paris on May 1, you will find the entire city is perfumed with lilies of the valley from the flower vendors. Buy a sprig, just because you should. The very idea is charming.

The lambent sun playing with the early green leaves captivated me, too. The photo was taken on Rue St. Antoine in the Marais.

I got an e-mail the other day, asking me to help promote the movie "Ratatouille." I'd seen the trailer a few weeks back at the theater and thought it was kind of cute: A rat named Remy seeking to become a chef in Paris. More power to him, I say, but it sounds like a lot of work.

You know how I feel about eating ratatouille. I've certainly talked about it enough. I was not sure how I felt about shilling for Disney.Pixar, however. Then I went back and re-read the e-mail and saw the contest.

Disney.Pixar is giving away a trip to Paris as it promotes "Ratatouille." I thought you might be interested in giving that a shot.

I know I will. How can you get enough of Paris?

You might also be interested in what Katie at Thyme for Cooking has to say on the whole subject, or any other subject. Maybe it's because we share a Wisconsin-influenced sense of humor, but Katie really cracks me up.

Less than three weeks now...

Leftover Tuesday: A Taste of Autumn on a Cool Spring Night

For all my talk about the rhythm of the seasons, sometimes I like to do things out of sync.

Besides, I have that refrigerator to clean out. I found two Jazz apples in the crisper. They showed no signs of deterioration. And, I had this recipe that was beckoning, inspired by one in Saveur Magazine. The orginal calls for star anise and pistachios, neither of which I had on hand.

Baked Apples with Calvados

two baking apples (Northern Spy, Golden Delicious or Rome Beauty)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup chopped walnuts
juice and zest from orange or lemon
2 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup Calvados or apple brandy
8 whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon anise seed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cinnamon sticks

Preheat oven to 400. Peel and core the apples. Stuff the centers with walnuts and butter. Place in buttered baking pan and set aside.

Blend the other ingredients in a small bowl and pour over the apples. Bake for about 45 minutes or until apples are soft (but not mushy). Baste periodically while apples are baking. Serve warm, spooning the thickened juice from the bottom of the baking dish over the apples.

I wanted cheese with mine. My husband preferred ice cream, but we had none.

The apples reminded us of deep autumn. The spices were perfect in concert with the brandy, giving the apples a complex, almost mysterious taste. This one's a keeper.

It is also my entry in the Leftover Tuesday event hosted by Mary at Ceres & Bacchus.

Cleaning out the Fridge: Breaded Shrimp with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Garlic and Black Olives

Cleaning out the refrigerator and freezer the other day, I found a package of frozen, breaded shrimp my husband sneaked in the house a few weeks ago.

"Are you going to eat these before we go on vacation?" I asked.

"They have to be deep fried, and you won't let me do that," he responded.

Looking closely at the package I saw (A) the price, and (B) that they could be pan fried. I may never be a world-class cook, but if there is a way to salvage something and not waste it, I'll find it.

Whenever there is a hint of summer in the air, I want two things: Seafood and spicy food. So Friday night seemed like a good time to experiment with both.

What I came up with was Breaded Shrimp with Sun-dried Tomatoes, Garlic and Black Olives.

1 package frozen breaded shrimp
2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes
1/2 cup sliced black olives
1-2 teaspoons dried basil
Dash lemon juice
Dash sel de fleur
Dash freshly ground pepper

Pan fry the shrimp according to package directions and set aside, covered. Brown garlic, then add sun-dried tomatoes and black olives. Sauté for 5-8 minutes, adding shrimp for the last two minutes. Season with lemon juice, salt and pepper.

Like most of my self-concocted meals, this one is a work in progress. It would be ideal, we both agreed, to make this with fresh, unbreaded shrimp. But we got rid of the frozen shrimp, used up a jar of sun-dried tomatoes and rescued a lemon from the crisper. So, mission accomplished.

Wine: I would pair this with something light and fruity, maybe with green apple undertones.

The Romance and Ritual of the Farm Market

I can hardly wait for farm market season.

Because my community consists of a cluster of small cities, I have several markets from which to choose. My favorite is a Saturday market located in a shady park in an L-shaped historic district. In the shadow of hulking buildings from the 19th century with lovely brickwork and soaring turrets, I can find local fruits and vegetables and craft items. This one starts in mid-May.

Closer to home, there's another market that operates on Tuesdays and Fridays. Although it is located in the parking lot of a newer park and is a bit more established, although less scenic. The farmers who sell their produce here are fiercely independent! When the city wanted to change the market to Saturdays, they declined. It took them a few seasons to get accustomed to the new park, too. For years, the market was located along the river and when the city asked the farmers to move, they protested vehemently.

Sadly, I heard from one of my vendor friends that some of the farmers will not return this year. One died at the end of the season and several others have deemed it not profitable to participate. You can hardly blame them. The local markets are not as well attended as they might be in larger cities. The notion of eating low on the food chain is not widespread up here yet.

When I lived in Madison, the very popular Dane County Farmers Market was only four blocks away on the Capital Concourse. I'd go early for the freshest produce, carry my string bags home, and then go back mid-morning for more. I managed to live on about $25 a week those days.

Good value for fresh is certainly part of the draw of farm markets. But beyond that, there is a romance to buying directly from the grower and buying it in the time-honored tradition of an outdoor market.

I like the ritual of it. I like coming home laden with bags and bags of fresh green beans, radishes, carrots, tomatoes and peppers. I like the element of surprise, too, like the times last year when I found pears, plums and currants in addition to the ever-present apples. (I had to laugh when I saw a table of brassieres for sale at the market under the elevated Metro tracks at L'Hopital Pitie Salpetriere in the 13th in Paris. Totally unexpected!)

I like unpacking my purchases, cleaning them and storing them, one at a time. There is a rhythm to this process as there is a rhythm to the seasons. It is these rhythms that provide us with ballast in our lives.

Do you have a favorite farm market? What's your best farm market find to date? I love bringing home cilantro and garlic as they scent my car with the most delicious of combinations.

Cheddar and Sun-dried Tomato Muffins

Sometimes you cannot get a recipe out of your head. It was that way with these muffins. I kept thinking about them, then obsessing about them, and the longer I refrained from making them, the more they - uh - ate away at me.

But then I am a fool for anything made with sun-dried tomato and basil. And I like beer bread, although it's not something I eat often.

Still I had to make this one. It's from the National Beer Wholesalers Association.

Cheddar and Sun-dried Tomato Muffins, Made with Ale and Basil

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons dried basil leaves
2 eggs
1 ¼ cups pale ale beer
1 ½ cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
6 tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes in oil, diced
3 tablespoons reserved oil from jar of sun-dried tomatoes

Preheat oven to 375 F. Coat a 12-muffin tin or two 6-muffin tins with baking spray.

Blend flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and basil leaves. Set aside. In a second bowl, combine eggs, ale, cheese, tomatoes and oil. Fold this into dry mixture.

Fill muffin cups about 2/3 full. Bake for 22 minutes.

Hmmm. Not bad. A little dry. But I'd either try paper muffin cups or use butter and flour to coat my muffin tins because I could not remove these from the pan without breaking them.

I'd also use a sharp cheddar next time and increase the amount of basil.

This recipe has potential.

High Hopes for Provencal Olive Oil Bread and What Looks Like it Might be Bread Pudding

I tend to romanticize the work I do in the kitchen. As I am making a chocolate dessert (all too rare these days) or concocting a new fruit crisp, I imagine myself a virtuoso.

“Mimi, this is fabulous!” my friends and family will exclaim. “You should have your own bakery.”

I smirk and smile and say something inane and usually that is what brings me down to earth.

I am no virtuoso. I’ve probably had as many disasters as real successes:
The bran muffins I once made that turned to stone. The vegetable broth than inexplicably turned black.

More recently there was an onion tarte from a fancy-schmancy cookbook. Yuck.

When the December issue of Saveur magazine arrived, I immediately turned to a recipe for Provençal bread made with olive oil. The round loaf in the photo was golden and smooth.

Mine was golden and rough. The dough never became as elastic as it should, although I thought I followed kneading directions.

It was enough to make me turn to the no-knead bread it seemed every big-league blogger was making, with various levels of success, I might add.

Everyone has culinary disasters, right?

Obviously I had another such disaster at some point, because I have no idea what the following photo represents. It was in my photo library, so I know it’s mine.

Bread pudding? Apple cake? What the heck? Where was my mind? Where has it been since?

Surely you’ve had similar kitchen disasters. Care to share?

Fricassée de Poulet a l'Ail et l'Ail Confit

I've made chicken so many different ways, I really should rename this blog.

How does "French Chicken in America" sound?

Today, after a productive day of raking up last fall's detritus (five big bags!), I paged through my growing collection of Patricia Wells' cookbooks to find a chicken recipe for which all the ingredients were at hand. Luckily, I found one in "The Provence Cookbook."

Fricassee of Chicken with Garlic and Sweet Garlic Confit

1 fresh chicken, cut into 8 pieces
sea salt
freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
20 cloves garlic, peeled and halved
1 1/2 cups white wine (Viognier is recommended)
sweet garlic confit

Make the confit first. Peel cloves from four heads of garlic (not as bad as it sounds!). Cook the garlic in a saucepan covered with two cups of milk. Bring to a simmer and drain. Return garlic to saucepan and cover with two more cups of milk. Cook over medium heat until garlic is soft. Drain and refrigerate. You can make this ahead of time.

Now for the fricassee: Season the chicken on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy skillet. Brown the chicken, about five minutes on each side. If you use eight pieces, you can do this in batches. I used four breasts, so I was able to do it all at once. When chicken is turning golden, remove and set aside.

Add the garlic cloves to the fat. Reduce heat and add the chicken. Cover and cook for at least 20 minutes, turning the chicken with tongs for even browning and cooking. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it from the pan, cover with foil and set aside.

Drain skillet of fat, keeping the garlic cloves in the skillet. Add the wine and the garlic confit. This will deglaze the pan. Cook, uncovered, making a purée from the garlic and wine. Pour the purée over your chicken and serve.

I served it with roasted peppers and the rest of the Viognier, some very heady wine.

We liked it. I think I'll add some olives next time. For all the garlic (I reek of it now) used, I thought it could use a bit more bite.

But really, this is classic chicken. It tasted the way chicken ought to taste. Tomorrow I'll make a chicken salad with hard-boiled eggs and olives.

The wine We used Pepperwood Grove Viognier, which tastes of melon and peach with an unusual vanilla-custard finish. My husband tasted pear, I tasted lemon.

Grain de Folie: A Touch of Festive Madness in the Midi Pyrenees

What's perfume doing in a cooking blog?" my husband asked.

"My blog isn't just about food," I replied. "It's about tasting life."

In my kitchen, the main activity may be food preparation, but the conversation is eclectic.

You can read all the travel books you want and visit all the travel sites, but nothing prepares you for the feeling you get when you arrive. Your senses drink in the breeze, and the smell and the essence of a place.

Maybe it is all fresh and new or maybe it strikes a respondent chord in your memory.

Two years ago, a travel book told me to expect a sense of holiday in the Midi Pyrenees. I felt it as soon as we got off the train from Paris at the gare in Cahors.

How do I define it? I’ve already talked about the distinct sense of moving southward as our train zipped its way deep into La France Profonde.

This was something else, a feeling of excitement, yet a slower pace. That we were deep in the heart of wine country helped. The degustation signs had something to do with it. So did the warmer temperatures.

But there was even a sense of festiveness to the two rainy nights we spent indoors. I could look out the side windows of the villa and see the lights of the chateau at Mercues in the distance.

It reminded me of the late night along the South Carolina coast when we looked out into the darkness and saw a boat with lights ablaze anchored about a mile off shore.

“It’s a party boat,” said my husband peering out into the darkness.

That’s how I felt on vacation in the Midi Pyrenees: On a party boat.

From time to time we’d step ashore to sample the treasures of the coast.

The coast, of course, was the old city Cahors and its downtown, running along both sides of the plane-tree-lined Boulevard Gambetta and along crooked little side streets.

We visited gift shops, a book store, clothing boutiques, a flower shop, a wine store and even a shop that sold all manner of shoe laces and polishes. I saw a pair of santons in a store window but forgot to go back for them.

At 75 Rue Joffre was a tiny boutique selling frothy scarves and very contemporary art jewelry. I bought gifts for family members and one green-blue knit scarf for myself. I was tempted, oh so tempted, to buy more.

I’m sorry I did not. The shop is no more, and according to my research has been replaced by a bookstore.

Now I love books. So does my husband. We could start a library.

But. This tiny little shop was called Grain de Folie. Seeds of madness, a touch of madness.

A fragile name, an ephemeral name. But exactly what you need on vacation.

Spending 80 euros for a filigree stole laced with silvery threads would have been sheer madness for me. Still, I wish I’d done it.

Months later, I stumbled upon a French perfume of the same name. This time I succumbed. Even though it is unrelated to this tiny, festive shop, when I wear it I feel as though I am on holiday.

I had a taste of something in that tiny shop, something beyond the edible: A possibility perhaps, a sense that it’s OK to go mad once in a while.

It might just save your sanity.

Something to Think About

Katie from Thyme for Cooking kindly named me a Thinking Blogger. I am both humbled and flattered.

Here's my problem: I must name five more thinking bloggers. And frankly, every blog listed to the left of these words deserves that designation. If they didn't, they wouldn't be there. I like blogs you can sink your teeth into.

Yes, some may seem a bit more erudite than others. But I have been impressed with the range of talent and skills out there. So narrowing it down to five is tough. All bloggers seem to be thinkers. But OK, I will rise to the challenge.

I set some rules for myself.

(1) I am choosing only from my list.

(2) I am not choosing anyone already named by Katie.

(3) I am limiting my choices to food blogs.

Here goes:

Ceres & Bacchus

Frugal Cuisine

Daily Bread Journal

Dine and Dish

Tummy Treasure

I chose these blogs for my short list because the bloggers have a thoughtful approach to feeding their families or themselves. They are creative, which requires thought.

I get the feeling that they put thought into their posts and they seem to have fun doing it.

Now that I've done this, I feel bad because I had to leave people out.

So, if your blog is listed to the left, I hereby dub you a Thinking Blogger.

Cabbage with Pork Chops and a Recipe for Cole Slaw

My family was never big on cooked cabbage, except perhaps when my father wanted corned beef and cabbage.

I discovered how good it could be while I was in college. What's college for if not to discover new ideas, tastes and directions?

Recently we needed a quick supper and I found one in Ships of The Great Lakes Cookbook, the subject of a recent Cookbook Spotlight hosted by The Sour Dough and Weekend Cookbook Challenge.

Braised Pork Chops with Cabbage

2 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 thick pork chops
1 medium onion, sliced
1 medium head cabbage, cut into 1/2-inch slices
1 cup tomato juice
2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Heat oil in heavy skillet. Brown pork chops over medium heat, about 4 minutes each side. Add onion and cabbage. Mix remaining ingredients in small bowl and add to pan. Cover and cook for about 35 minutes.

The pork chops were tender. The cabbage was tasty, and even better the next day and the day after that. I will make this again, and serve it with green beans and cinnamon applesauce.

Cabbage is rapidly becoming a favorite vegetable in my kitchen. Every two weeks, sometimes every week, I make two small batches of cole slaw.

My Mother's Cole Slaw

2 cups grated cabbage
3/4 cup grated carrot
1/3 cup grated green pepper
2 teaspoons minced onion
3/4 cups mayonnaise
dash freshly ground pepper
dash sel de fleur
dash paprika for color

I've tasted some great apple slaws recently, but this one remains my standard. Even when dad's a chef, there's nothing like mom's food!

An Easter Basket

Among the old things I cherish is my father's childhood Easter basket, above.

I usually keep it filled with small terra cotta pots, but at Easter I use it for chocolate eggs. We're foregoing the chocolate this year (oh, the pain of it all), but I wanted to share the basket with you today.

We are not religious in any traditional way at our house, but I like to think we are deeply spiritual.

It is important to us to respect and honor other people's differences, whatever they might be.

Really, that's all I wanted to say. I hope those sentiments are one of the threads that run through this blog.

On the subject of my father, I have enjoyed making recipes from the "Ships of the Great lakes Cookbook," provided to me for review by Creative Characters Publishing. Although the recipes were not from any of the ships he sailed on, I felt his spirit guide me as I chopped and sliced and baked and braised. I will feature another recipe in a day or so.

For links to other bloggers who participated in the cookbook review, please visit The Sour Dough and Weekend Cookbook Challenge.

Apricot-Pistachio Crisp: A Dessert in Progress

Saturday has always been pizza night in my family and it’s a tradition my husband and I have continued.

When I was a child, my mother made her pizzas from scratch, using leftovers for toppings. Meatloaf, sloppy joe mix and even wieners were used and we kids loved it. It was pizza!

We invited my mother for pizza on Saturday. It was a busy day with errands, laundry, housework and my 30-minute stint reading Easter stories to a group of children at the local mall.

Yes, we used store-bought pizzas and enhanced them with additional tomatoes, peppers, olives and sausage. I made a Caesar salad and we cracked open a bottle of shiraz.

It was a simple meal, to be sure, but that does not matter. What matters was that we all sat down together and enjoyed each other’s company.

I’m not here to write about pizzas. I’m talking dessert today.

My mother has a sweet tooth. When she is a guest at my house, my practice is to make a low-carb dessert and send most of it home with her.

I surveyed by cupboards and came up with this makeshift dessert, which I consider a work in progress. It was pretty good, but it needs more.

Apricot-Pistachio Crisp

2 cups dried apricots, chopped
1 tablespoon white flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon fructose or Splenda
1 15-ounce can apricots in light syrup
1/3 cup sugar-free apricot spread
½ cup syrup from canned apricots
1 cup pistachios, chopped
1 cup chopped salted mixed nuts, chopped
3 tablespoons oat or whole-wheat flour
1 tablespoon fructose
3 tablespoons Smart Balance

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat chopped apricots in flour, cinnamon and fructose (see photo above). Set aside. Drain, reserving liquid. Chop or even puree canned apricots. Pour into bowl of dried apricots and toss.

Empty this mix into greased bar pan. Blend apricot spread with 1/cup apricot syrup and spread over dried-canned apricot mix. My thought was that this would help bind apricots.

Mix chopped nuts, flour and fructose. Cut in Smart Balance or butter and blend with nut mix. Spread atop apricots. Bake for 30 minutes or until topping turns golden.

The Verdict? Not bad. It was even better the next day. But it needs something else: More cinnamon and perhaps a dash of ground cloves, perhaps. The topping should have included oatmeal, to make it lighter. And I think next time I will up the amount of pistachios and reduce the other nuts (I used pecans, walnuts and cashews).

Your suggestions are welcome. This is very much a work in progress.

Kitchens, Flea Markets and Second Hand Stores

Any day when I get a catalog from a kitchen supply house is a good day. I love poring over the glittering pages and imagining just how much easier life would be if I had a mandoline or maybe a special brush for cleaning mushrooms.

I imagine the same is true for you. Way back when I was paying back student loans and had no disposable income, those catalogs fired my imagination. The year I graduated from college, I found a banneton in one of those catalogs. I had no money for it, but I wanted it. I craved it. I thought it was exactly what a French kitchen needed.

(Well, I have one now. I've yet to use it. Soon. When they discover a no-carb way to make bread.)

I've got something else now, something I wouldn't trade for all the fancy and shining gadgets in all the catalogs in the world: An appreciation for used kitchen stuff.

You like it, too, judging from all the responses when I've talked about this topic in the past.

A few years back, I discovered flea markets. They are an excellent way to declutter, make spare change or raise money for charity. For the past several years, I've joined a small group of friends and coworkers on the local flea market circuit. It's a long day, usually from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., but it's worth it. The half dozen or so flea markets I've done have yielded about $600. And my house is a lot less cluttered.

In June, I join colleagues at the university to raise money for cancer research. That's a fun day, too, and I'm looking forward to having more time to spend on that project this year.

Along the way, I've gotten my hands on some lovely bargains, including a Delft candlestick and some lovely one-of-a-kind bowls and mugs from Empty Bowls dinners. It's the kitchen stuff that usually attracts me.

These odds and ends, when added to the dishes and glassware from Grandma Annie, Memere, Grandma Laura and my late mother-in-law, have made for a far more interesting kitchen repertoire than in the days when I bought most of my stuff at a sleek Danish modern shop in Madison.

What is your favorite flea market find? I'll bet City Farmer will have some great stories to share.

By the way, I must apologize for my absence from your kitchens lately. We just had an election here in Wisconsin. That means long days, outrageous behavior from elected officials and their supporters and all manner of chicanery.

And you wonder why journalists are so jaded. . .

Turkeys and Curried Turkey Salad with Dried Apricots and Cashews

The marauding bands of wild turkeys are at it again.

Every spring, they venture into town, harassing motorists and delighting — or scaring — kids. And then people call me.

Am I the turkey patrol or something?

Apparently I am. A few years ago my town was plagued by wild turkeys. OK, by five turkeys. But people were scared. Very scared. And they called me.

Finally, around April Fool’s Day, I wrote a story about them. The turkeys, I mean. It took all of 20 minutes to write and it was done with tongue in cheek. Oh, it was factual, but it was also funny.

Then the wire service picked it up. A version of it ran on the front page of nearly every major newspaper in the country. “A Current Affair” called. Someone claims they saw the story on “Countdown With Keith Olbermann.”

(Thankfully, it did not run under my byline or I would be known as Turkey Woman.)

My little town acquired a reputation for fearing turkeys. And it was all my fault.

The turkeys are back. And the calls are coming in again.

I like turkeys. Every once in a while, I find one in my yard.

Recently, I found a bag of white turkey meat in my freezer, a left over from Christmas. I surveyed my pantry, which is never as full as Lydia’s, and came up with this cold salad.

Curried Turkey Salad With Cashews and Apricots

2 cups turkey, cut into chunks
3/4 cup celery, chopped
½ cup dried apricots, chopped
½ cup sweet onion, chopped
½ cup cashews or almonds
2 teaspoons curry
½ teaspoon cinnamon
dash cumin
dash sea salt

1 cup light mayonnaise
1/3 cup sugar-free apricot jam

Toss the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Blend the mayonnaise and the jam and drizzle over the salad.

Not bad for one of my slapdash meals. I like a hint of curry; you may want to add more for a bit more bite.

It was good the next day, too. I ate it for breakfast.

Planning and Dressing for Paris

On Saturday afternoon, my husband and I hauled out five years of back issues of Paris Notes, bus and metro maps, and a pack of color-coded file cards.

While a pot of beef stew simmered away on the stove, we made lists of the museums, shops and quartiers we want to visit or revisit.

Ever the engineer, my husband even created a database. We have divided our trip into days, and each one will be spent in a different area. We have prioritized what we want to do, labeling each activity “yes” or “maybe, if time.”

We hope this will avoid wear and tear on our feet. Mine have not yet recovered from May 1, 2005, when bus service was limited because of the holiday.

We also hope it will help us be better organized than last time but still provide some spontaneity.

What struck us as we planned is that while 14 days are better than five days, we will still have to pack a lot into a short time.

(That means another trip in the offing.)

In exploring Paris, we eschew the stereotypical and seek instead the unexpected.

Frankly, the stereotypical is rather rare in Paris, at least in my experience. Yes, there are still fashionable women, and old ladies with small dogs and beautiful children and dashing men.

But if you go to France expecting to see a preponderance of men in striped shirts and berets clutching baguettes you may be disappointed.

Which brings me to the subject of clothing. My theory is dress well — fashionably but not necessarily trendy, if you can — and wear subdued colors. For me, that generally means blacks, grays, tans, navies and creams.

As I said, that is my theory. You may have your own.

Despite a plethora ofadvice from travel books and Web sites, you still see people in athletic shoes, logo T-shirts and jogging outfits in Paris.

I saw a woman near Place Maubert wearing a salmon-colored jogging suit with a scarf and gold jewelry.

I nudged my husband.

“American,” I whispered.

As we drew closer, it was clear she and her companions, who were waiting for a taxi of some sort, were from my own Wisconsin.

The next day, while wandering around Ile St. Louis, we saw a tall woman in a short, flared skirt, off-the-shoulder striped T-shirt and a beret. She spoke French with what my husband swore was a Seven Sisters accent.

It was the beret that got me. It was 86 degrees that day.

No one was wearing a beret. No one we saw, and we logged about 10 miles on foot, zigging and zagging through six arrondissements.

Perhaps the woman wanted to be mistaken for French. Perhaps she was subscribing to the theory of “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

(Make that Paris.)

Well, who can argue with that?

I can.

My point here — and yes, I have one — is that dressing like a caricature is, in my opinion, an insult to the people you are visiting.

I believe we can travel and dress respectfully without assuming a role, without becoming what we are not.

I would hope that if we do this, we would look not like stereotypes of chic French people or badly dressed foreigners, and look instead like citizens of the world.