Road Food: When in Da U.P., Hey, Eat a Pasty

I love business travel. I enjoy checking into a hotel room, unpacking my things, which always include a good book, bubble bath and the other acouterments of pampering, and a local newspaper.

My husband says he enjoys it, too.

“There are no demands on your time,” he says. “At home, you feel as if you should be doing something constructive.”

Once I am checked into a hotel room, I am usually not interested in leaving. I relax almost immediately and want to get further acclimated to my temporary environment. But I do leave, mainly to search for a local deli. I seldom eat alone in restaurants, and I do not like take-out food.

In Marquette, Mich., there are some very nice locally owned sandwich shops and delis. But the other night, strapped for time and weary from a long drive, I opted for a local supermarket, expecting to find the usual selection of rotisserie chicken, cole slaw, potato salad and baked beans.

Instead - being in Yooper country - I found pasties, those meat-and-potato stuffed pastry pockets that Cornish workers took into the iron mines with them. They are a staple here, where the mines have long dominated the local economy.

My husband, having Cornish genes, loves them. I find them a bit too carb laden. But after more than three hours of driving on an empty stomach, a pasty looked pretty darned good.

(By the way, that’s a soft A, not a long one. Paa-stee, not pay-stee. The two uses are not interchangeable, either.)

I bought a pasty, adding some cheese and nuts, and enjoying an apple (courtesy of a friend at the Italian market back home) for dessert.

As pasties go, it was not the best or the worst I’ve eaten. Doesn’t really matter. I was ravenous, and it was hearty and satisfying.

What I was really tasting here was a night of freedom. I missed my husband, but had a long phone conversation with my sister-in-law, a warm bubble bath and a good book to sooteh my road weariness.

When you travel, what do you do? Eat out? Splurge? Choose takeout? I’m curious. My new job will involve more travel, and I may just broaden my horizons at mealtime, too.

I'll be on the road again Monday.

On the Road Again, Going North

By the time you read this, I'll be headed north to a conference. Or the end of the earth.

At any rate, except for the pine forests, my drive won't look much different from the one above, heading west just south of the Lot River. It was a lovely sunny day, with temperatures around 80 degrees that day in 2005.

I'll have hills and outcroppings of rock but no vineyards. At one point, I will round a curve and look out on a vast expance of water. It is a lovely trip in the fall, and even though it is a business trip, there will be an element of vacation there.

See you on the weekend.

Pork Tenderloin with Apples, Cider and Calvados

We awoke Sunday to the sound of gunshots, coming from either across the river or the swampy area to the west of our neighborhood. It is ruffed grouse and wild turkey season, and there are some of the former and plenty of the latter around wooded areas here, in and out of the city.

The day was warm and sunny, but when the chill set in at dusk I closed the doors against it. I could smell the smoke from my neighbor’s wood fire and hear honking from the Canada geese down by the river.

These are good nights to hunker down at home with a seasonal meal and a hearty wine.

Tonight, we continued the apple theme, preparing Pork with Apples, Cider and Calvados, a recipe adapted from Epicurious.

1 pound pork tenderloin

5 tablespoons butter
4 Golden Delicious apples, cored
1 teaspoon brown sugar

2 large shallots, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon fresh thyme
¼ cup Calvados
1 cup half-and-half
¼ cup apple cider

Slice pork into ½ inch thick slices. Place between wax paper and flatten with a mallet. Wrap or cover and refrigerate.

Melt twp tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add apples and sugar. Brown apples lightly, for about 5-6 minutes. Remove from skillet, and set aside.

Melt two more teaspoons of butter over high heat. Add the pork. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté until cooked gthrough and lightly browned, about 2 minutes per side. Set aside, keeping the pork warm.

Melt one teaspoon butter in the same skillet. Brown shallots, adding the fresh thyme. Add Calvados and boil until reduced to glaze. Blend in half-and-half and cider and boil until entire mixture thickens. Season with salt and pepper.

Reheat apples and pork. Serve with sauce.

To round out the meal, I roasted red potatoes and Brussels sprouts in olive oil and salt and pepper. I paired the meal with a simple but robust red table wine. For dessert, there were pumpkin bars.

When I make this again, I will experiment with other tart apples, red ones this time to give the dish some color. I will likely add more shallots, too.

A Dinner Out and a Surprisingly Good Squash Dish

There is a gracious bed-and-breakfast inn not far from our house that has an airy dining room tucked away on its first floor. It was closed for a time, but reopened recently. We were there to celebrate its soft opening.

The house itself is about 100 years old, and its interior is a tasteful and welcoming blend of Victorian, Art Nouveau and Contemporary. Because of the owner's eclectic approach, it is a place for surprises. At night, there is always a fire blazing away in the parlor fireplace, and candles here and there that add to the glow.

The menu is equally welcoming. Last week we sampled roasted shrimp and a corn-and-cilantro salsa for an appetizer, then enjoyed filet mignon with blue cheese topping, paper-thin slices of potatoes layered with Asiago cheese and a side vegetable: payypan squash sautéed in olive oil.

The latter dish was simple enough to be a foil for the other highly-flavored foods. It was a palate cleanser, a bridge between the blue cheese and the Asiago. Yet it tasted of the garden, an earthy taste that balanced the rest of the meal. We washed it all down with a buttery pinot noir and left feeling sated, enjoying the smell of wood smoke on the night wind and watching lights from across the river dance on the water.

Before we left, we complimented the chef on the meal. The squash, he told us, was simple to prepare.

"Just slice it in half, brown it in olive oil, and add salt and pepper," he said.

Pattypan squash is something I never think of buying. I will seek some out at the next farm market. The photo above was taken at last year's market.

A Place, Not a Station, on a Sunday

We took the No. 63 bus for Gare de Lyon on a gray Sunday that threatened rain.

What better day to visit a train station that connects Paris to the sun-drenched south of France?

A few years earlier, the south was palpable as we boarded a train for Cahors at Gare d’Austerlitz just across the Seine. With each stop along the five-and-one-half-hour route, the warmth and sunshine and perfumes of the Midi grew stronger: Orleans…Vierzon...Chateauroux…Limoges…Brive.

But on this particular overcast day, we were not boarding a train, simply taking photographs, hoping to capture the grandeur of a legendary departure point that MFK Fisher described as “not a station but a place.”

Perhaps the excitement of boarding a train for a vacation is the key. Because to me the Gare de Lyon felt flat. The much-less-elegant Austerlitz, on the other hand, promised sun and vineyards and the Pyrenees and a breeze from Spain.

It is, to be sure, far more dramatic than Austerlitz, with the famous restaurant, Le Train Bleu, overlooking the departure platforms. Its exterior is more commanding, its interior is more elegant.

Here is where Le Mistral opened its doors to disgorge passengers from the Cote d’Azur and take on others who sought the refuge from the city along the fabled southern coast: Scott and Zelda, and the Murrays, Sara and Gerald, their ex-pat friends, escaping crowded Paris.

I yearned to board a train myself – next time! Next time! This time we had to be satisfied with photographs.

We did not eat at the Train Bleu, promising ourselves a return visit. We did not make it back, but since we plan to book hotel rooms near the gare on our next visit, we will have another chance to dine in the restaurant’s luxury and excess.

With Paris there must always be a next time.

Chicken with Cider and Calvados for an Early Fall Sunday

I have always loved magazines. When I was a child, Grandma Annie's women's magazines helped shape my view of the world and the way I thought life might be when I was older. Even then, I was drawn to the writings of Gladys Tabor and Faith Baldwin and was always intrigued and comforted with the way they wove small details like a neighbor sharing a basket of black walnuts with life's little lessons.

In college, I devoured young women's magazines, and somewhere along the way clipped an extensive article about Normandy. The accompanying photos of lace curtained windows, baskets of apples and bottles of Calvados formed my ideas of what a French kitchen should be, and I saved them for years.

I also saved a handful of recipes from the same feature article. Tonight, for the first time, I made a chicken recipe I've saved for more than 20 years. This is the first time I've prepared it.

It seemed the pefect time for apples and chicken: A sunny but coolish Sunday with heavy overtones of autumn all around, from the honking of geese overhead to the red-tinged leaves on the many maples in our neighborhood.

The bottle of Calvados, something I cannot find locally, was purchased at a FranPrix on Avenue de la Bourdonnais in Paris, about six blocks east of the Eiffel Tower.

Chicken with Cider

1 3-to-4-pound chicken, cut up
1/2 cup flour
2 tablespoons butter (I used Irish butter)
1 tablespoon cooking oil
two dashes fleur de sel
dash freshly ground pepper
1/4 cup Calvados
1 3/4 cup apple cider
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon parsley

Coat chicken with flour and brown in large skiller containing oil and butter. Place skin side down, and turn as needed to brown both sides. Season with salt and pepper. Pour in Calvados and ignite, using a long match. Allow the liquid to burn until the flame extinguishes itself. Add cider and herbs. Bring to a simmer. Cover and allow to simmer over low heat for about 45 minutes. Check breasts with a meat thermometer, remove if hot enough. Legs and wings will need to cook longer. Remove the chicken from the skillet, add a bit of flour to the remaining sauce and use a whisk. Pour over the chicken.

The chicken was moist and tender. The sauce had enough apple flavor to hold my interest. But I think I will add onions and shallots to the skillet next time. The flavor was way too subtle.

I served this with green beans amandine and a white merlot that tasted of tart berries. It would be good with herbed potatoes or a medley of root vegetables.

Finger Foods: A New Tradition for Saturday Nights

Saturday night has always been a night for traditions. When I was a child, it was a bath followed by popcorn and a movie or story read by one or the other of my parents.

Later on it was hunkering down with a good book, a tradition that continued through my college years. In those days, more often than not, my reading ritual was accompanied by Dick Bartley's Solid Gold Saturday Night. There were, of course, the Saturday nights I prepared a meal for a male friend, someone who'd take me to movies when I was between boyfriends, which seemed to be all the time in those days.

These days, Saturday nights are usually cocooning at home nights. We've amassed a pretty good sized collection of DVDs. My husband, a cinematography major, is into film noir at the moment. I am into any movie that takes place in Europe.

And we are into finger foods. Amuse bouche. Appetizers. Hors d'ouevres.

Instead of a full-fledged supper, that is. This is something that was not so long ago relegated to Christmas or New Year's Eve. Now we do it all the time.

More often than not, this casual meal includes deviled eggs, raw vegetables and dip, and something with cheese, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes and olives. The Italian Market where we do most of our shopping has a great antipasto bar, and I will often concoct something based on whatever the bar is featuring that day.

Tonight, I made roasted red pepper and goat cheese toasts, very simple but tasty. Slice a baguette, spread it with goat cheese (I add some cream cheese to make it spreadable) and top it with red pepper you have roasted yourself, or spooned from a jar. Bake at 375 degrees for 5 minutes and then top it with a fresh basil leaf.

Another favorite is goat cheese with sun-dried tomatoes, bundled into puff pastry sheets or - gasp - croissant or biscuit dough. I've made my own dough, but in these days of 12-hour work days, that is not often possible.

On finger food nights, I try to go heavy on the protein, low on the carbs. Tonight was an exception, because I had this goat cheese to use up, and it's much better when paired with bread or crackers.

Now to find just the right DVD to watch . . .

The Village After the Rain: Anticipating La France Profonde

We've gone and done it. We've made the first step towards our next trip to France.

This time, we will return to our little village in the Lot Valley, from which we can explore St. Cirq LaPopie, Figeac, Cahors and perhaps Toulouse.

Will the owl in the tree outside the front window still be there? Will the wild pigs come up from the vineyard to frighten us at night? Will the friendly dog from down the road pay a visit to our front door? Will the lights of Mercués still shine across the valley? Will the pizza oven at Douelle be warm and welcoming?

I hope so.

Now we have a year to wait. The countdown will begin.

It was cold and rainy here today, but around 6 p.m. the clouds broke open and the sun came through at last. So it was on a spring day more than two years ago in our little hilltop village.

There's soup for supper and a lightness in my heart.

Sausage Stuffed Red Peppers as Summer Slips Into Fall

Brr. It is downright chilly here tonight. Out come the winter pajamas!

At any given time, you will likely find red peppers, sweet Italian sausage and a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in my larder. Onions, garlic and cheese are givens, as important as milk and coffee. So when I found inspiration in The Magazine of La Cucina Italiana, I did not have to venture out for provisions.

The magazine features yellow bell peppers stuffed with ground beef and cheese. I used red peppers, sausage and olives. The recipe below is an adaptation.

Sweet Italian Sausage-Stuffed Red Peppers

One large onion, peeled and chopped
Three cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 1/2 pounds sweet Italian sausage
2 teaspoons herbes de Provence
1/3 cup sun-dried tomatoes from a jar, chopped
1/2 cup green and/or black olives, pitted and chopped
1/2 cup spaghetti sauce
4-6 red bell peppers
1/4 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon each rosemary and thyme, chopped

Sauté onion and garlic in olive oil; set aside. In same skillet, brown sausage, using a wooden spatula to cut into small pieces. Add herbes and, sun-dried tomatoes, olives and spaghetti sauce and allow to simmer about 20 minutes over low heat.

Using a sharp knife, carefully cut the tops and stem off the peppers. Set peppers on their sides and cut away roughly 1/4 of the pepper and removbe seeds and membrane. Place peppers in a greased baking pan. Set aside.

Add cheese to sausage mixture. Add beaten egg to serve as a binder. Finally, add rosemary and thyme. Spoon sausage mixture into peppers and bake at in a preheated 350-degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and top with Parmesan or other cheese (I used a mild cheddar infused with basil and tomato).

Allow peppers to cool 5-10 minutes before serving. This mildy herby and very sweet dish would be perfect paired with a rosé table wine, perhaps something from Provence.

It’s All About Me

Well, no it isn’t, at least not all the time.

But I was tagged by Paul of Cookies Etc., for a meme in which I must take each letter of my name and reveal something for that letter. In my case, this could be a bit monotonous.

M is for Madison I spent a good part of my adult life in Madison, Wis., where I went to college and worked until a week or so before I got married. That was in the 1980s, when Madison was moving from a city where traces of the 1950s and 60s were still visible to a growing metropolitan area with sprawl and big box stores. I watched the city become transformed, and was not always pleased with what I saw.

I is for Imagination I was blessed with two imaginative parents who honeymooned for three weeks in New England. (My mother assures me that while she recalls staying at an inn where George Washington allegedly slept, I was conceived at home in Michigan.) My mother is a stylish woman who once painted and dabbled in other creative endeavors. My father was a history buff and book lover. Lucky me!

M is for Mystery I enjoy a good book of any kind, and I always have 1-3 in progress at any given time. But nothing relaxes me like a mystery, especially one that has some layers and is not too silly (as some of the so-called cozy mysteries can be). I have a few in my own life, a handful experiences I am unable explain. There us much we cannot understand in this world.

I is for Immigrant I majored in journalism and history at the UW, and was especially interested in immigration history. I may have noted in the past that I heard French spoken at home and knew I was French before I knew what it was to be American. I have always grown up with a sense of that, even though all my ancestors left Europe between 1690 and 1890.

Now I get to tag four people, one for each letter. I am going to pick on fellow midwesterners. Here goes:

City Farmer

Farm Girl Cyn

Tummy Treasure

A Fridge Full of Food

Participate if you like! And choose one more person for every letter in your name.

The Park a Month From Now

It's now been five full days since I've cooked a real meal.

I am itching to go to it.

The problem is, I am exhausted. Most people I know found this week a bit confusing. We could not tell Monday from Tuesday. Some of us thought it was Thursday on Wednesday. And we all waited for Friday.

Three-day weekends, welcome as they may be, tend to throw you off balance.

I found I had to pack five days into four. I ate out a lot, doing business over the lunch hour: Sub sandwiches, turkey wraps, vegetable sautés. One night we ate out, another night we had take out from a local deli. Tonight, it's frozen pizza.

So I have no new food photos to share. I do, however, have some park photos. The photo above was taken on Oct. 9, 2004. My husband and I had given a few hours of our time to a local historic restoration project and we were bone-weary but energized. There were a group of children playing in the park, and I caught their photo.

The lower photo was taken a year later, on a weekend when I was at loose ends. My husband was down in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia on an extended business trip, and I was bored. I felt so rudderless without him. Fortunately, photography and cooking saved me!

That was an unusual autumn. Color came slowly, and the leaves stayed on the trees well into November. On the other hand, we have had falls when the color was poor, or the leaves fell early, thanks to wind and rain.

There have been falls that seemed like winters, and others that were warm and even sultry.

Let's see what this one brings.

The Park and the Chip in the Newel Post

There is a park across from our house, and on the usually sunny and balmy Labor Day weekend it is always filled with the shouts of kids or families playing Frisbee or touch football. It is a pleasant sound that floats through my open kitchen door while I am puttering around.

I like that sound. So often, especially as children age, Labor Day weekend is the last chance for family time of any duration until the trio of winter holidays that begins with Thanksgiving.

A few years ago, I began photographing the park at different times of the year, usually from my back step, but often from the park itself.

The park was once part of a college campus, and much of the neighborhood grew up around it. My gable-and-wing Victorian with its Queen Anne influence was a single-family home that - for a short time a half century ago - served as a boarding house for coeds. I imagine that the chip in the newel post came from years of footlockers dragged down the front stairs. Fortunately, it is on the inside and is not visible, except when we descend the stairs.

The imperfection of our home is something we treasure, because to be perfect would be so bland and boring to us. The chip is also a reminder that our house has a history, as do its owners, and has been a silent witness to changing times. As I wrote here once before, I can often imagine the sound of clip-clopping horses bringing dairy wagons down the street a century ago, or the words of Churchill or Roosevelt coming from an old floor-model radio in the living room while Model Ts and their younger siblings putt-putted around the corner.

Today there are new sounds, and as I cook or clean, I welcome their presence from my kitchen door.

Life is lovely.