The Emotional Pull of St. Paulin Cheese, and Oh, the Creaminess!

Preparing for Christmas always brings to mind Grandma Annie.

Not that I need a holiday to think about my warm and wonderful maternal grandmother.

But, oh, how Annie loved preparing for Christmas! She baked and baked and stashed her cookies in tins stacked inside the big red cupboard in the back kitchen, the room separate from the main kitchen by a long hallway. Classic Christmas cookies, rolled and cut from orange-infused dough and baked and iced with pastel frosting; thumbprints rich with raspberry and apricot jam; and sand tarts, sugar cookies filled with dates.

Annie loved shopping, too, and would have certainly enjoyed the ease of the Internet.

The year I was first on my own, Annie gave me a cheese basket and a cookbook.

Port de Salut was one of the cheeses in that sampler basket. I have loved its creaminess since then, and I equate it with the comfort of Annie, her kitchen and her cooking.

In Paris, one of my first purchases was a hunk of St. Paulin cheese, a sort of sibling to Port de Salut. I bought it in part because of its promised creaminess, but also because St. Paulin, P.Q., was the birthplace of Annie’s mother, Josephine, known in previous posts as Mémere.

St. Paulin, originally made by Trappist monks, was the first cheese made with pasteurized milk, about 80 years ago. It is tender, sweet, and tangy and well suited for soups and macaroni and cheese. Its rind is soft and edible.

I will be cooking with it in a day or two - they say a winter storm is on the way. I'm going to be prepared for it.

Reader's Request: A Gift From the Sea

Note: I've noticed an increase in questions from readers recently, just as I did last year at this time. Must be the cold weather or the holidays - everybody is cooking! In order to make French Kitchen in America a bit more reader friendly, I'm beginning a randomly occurring feature that will answer reader questions. Sometimes, as below, some Real Food Expert has already answered the questions, so I'll also post a link.

How do you use fleur de sel?

High-blood pressure runs in my family so I use salt sparingly. A container of Morton's, for example, lasts for years and is usually put to work as gargle when I have a bad sore throat.

On the other hand, I love sea salt, harvested by evaporating sea water until only the salt remains. I use these coarse grains judiciously: A jar lasts forever. (I am still using a container of salt from the Camargue, a gift from Lucy a year or so ago.) It is vastly superior to regular old table salt in every way.

Fleur de sel is a type of sea salt that is hand harvested from the surface cyrstals on a salt evaporation pond. It tastes of the sea.

About four years ago, my local grocery store began stocking fleur de sel. Recently the store added a complete line of sea salts from around the world that come in a variety of colors from salmon to charcoal to white and in an equal array of textures.

One of the best essays on fleur de sel comes from David Lebovitz, perhaps best known for his chocolate and ice cream expertise and his hilarious take on life in Paris. Read it here.

I use sea salt or fleur de sel whenever table salt is called for in a recipe, but I tend to use less. The experts tell you not to use it before cooking, but I have and have not tasted any unwelcome results. But then, as I said earlier, I never use very much.

I also add it to roasted vegetables, scrambled eggs and omelets, and use it as a rub for meats, especially steaks.

You can buy fleur de sel mixed with herbes de Provence. I always use this to remove water from eggplant before making ratatouille.

The salt in the photo below is blended with basil and Parmesan cheese, which gives it an earthy, almost medicinal, flavor. I also have a bottle of fleur de sel that is blended with sea weed; I use a small amount of this when I bake salmon.

For me, it only takes a few grains. Each one is a gift for the taste buds.

Soups to Keep You Warm as Winter Approaches

One of these days, I’m going to make soup again.

I come home every night with the best of intentions. On my table are a stack of soup recipes, some torn from the pages of my favorite food magazines, others gleaned from fellow bloggers. But most days I am too fatigued – or home too late – to even glance at them.

I fill up on rotisserie chicken and salad and then collapse on the sofa, a sodden lump with a laptop.

But I’ve noticed some tasty soups in a few other blogs you may want to check out.

One I want to try soon is Kalyn’s healthy and hearty Lentil Soup with Ground Beef and Brown Rice.

I love mushrooms and mushrooms together, so Kristen’s Zippy Chicken Mushroom Soup naturally tempts me.

Whenever we have a turkey, I always make soup from the carcass, so I was especially taken by the story that accompanies Julie’s Turkey Soup over at Noshtalgia. I like to use every scrap that comes from my kitchen as I feel very guilty wasting anything.

There are many, many fine recipes for soup all over the blogworld. I have a few favorites from my own repertoire.

The best one, in my opinion, was the Cheesy-Onion Soup I made in Paris from cheese rinds and scraps of onions.

The soup I make most often is Stuffed Pepper Soup.

I’ve got a new soup idea I am itching to try. With any luck, Sunday will be the day.

A Traditional Tourtiere

A year ago I was already making tourtiere.

You can make this traditional French Canadian meat pie any time of year, of course, but most of us prepare it for the winter holidays. No Christmas is complete without it, preferably washed down with some Champagne, an incongruous pairing of heavy and rustic with light and sophisticated.

But it works. Perhaps the bubbly is a foil for the hearty meat pie. Why question something that feels so right?

Meat pie, made mostly with pork, is equally tasty paired with merlot or cabernet sauvignon, in my book. I like to pair it with a salad, preferably one with a hint of fruit or tomato.

But I am rambling on here. The real star is the meat pie.

Some recipes call for potatoes, something my aunts, grandmother and great-grandmother never used. I skip them, too, in part top honor the memory of those wonderful women, in part because of the carbs.

Here is my family's take on tourtiere:

Three pounds ground meat: I like a combination of fresh ground pork and ground chuck
One large onion, minced
Dash nutmeg
Dash allspice
Dash freshly-ground pepper
Dash sea salt
1-2 eggs

Prepare your crust. You can use your favorite recipe. My father used to make his with lard, so I have never included it here.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Brown the meat and onion in a large skillet. Season with pepper and spices. Set aside; you can make this ahead and keep it refrigerated.

Pat your bottom crust into a greased pie plate. Before adding the meat, blend in an egg or two, depending upon the size of your pie. The eggs keep the pie from crumbling. I also add the salt at the last minute.

Bake for about 45 minutes, until the top is lightly browned. I used an egg wash on the crust.

You may serve tourtiére warm or cold. You can even freeze it.

Here is another version of tourtiere.

Sweet and Salty Roasted-Nut Bars on a Sunday Night

In the old days, when we lived in the house on Main Street, kitty corner from O’Neill’s little store with the bell over the door and three doors away from the busy dairy, Sunday night was craft night, especially at Christmas time.

We did not call it craft night then, and it was not planned; it usually occurred organically when my mother was driven to make something she wanted but did not have or could not find. Candles, wreaths, tree decorations, stockings, you name it, she made it, starting Thanksgiving weekend. When I was old enough to be useful, I helped.

Why Sunday? I suppose it was because our big dinner was at noon and supper was catch- as-catch-can, or simply fresh bread or blueberry muffins my father made. Or maybe because weekends were busy, and Sunday nights were quiet as we got ready to slip back into our weekday routine.

We’d gather all the supplies and do our work around the kitchen table after supper. It was a small kitchen – this was a 1915-era house – and by the time we were finished at 10 p.m. and tired (or not finished and cranky), the room was a mess. I am quite certain I left cleanup to my mother, selfish as I was at that time.

This Sunday night, the last hours of a glorious four-day weekend, my dining room table was piled high with greenery and ornaments and a glue gun for I am making a centerpiece. Next week it will be auctioned off with about 30 others to raise money for a good cause. I hope someone buys it.

On the kitchen counter, a pan of sweetness was cooling.

Yes! I made my version (photo above) of the gooey sweet and salty nut bar we sampled last spring from a bakery in Paris. It's a blend of nuts and caramel perched upon a dense, crumbly crust. Here’s my version, inspired by a recipe at Epicurious:

Sweet and Salty Nut Bars

Crust
1 1/3 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
¼ teaspoon fleur de sel
1 and ½ sticks cold butter, in pieced
2 eggs

Nut Topping
3 cups mixed nuts (cashews, pecans, almonds
1 cup peanuts
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespooon melted butter

Caramel
2/3 cups honey
dash fleur de sel
6 tablespoons
2 tablespoons half and half

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Blend flour, baking powder, sugars and salt. Cut in butter and blend with a pastry tool or fork until meal-like in consistency. Blend in eggs. Place dough on floured board and divide into four parts, kneading each piece only once.

Grease and line an 8 by 13-inch glass baking pan with foil, making sure several inches remain above the edge of the pan. Grease the foil and press the dough into the pan, spreading evenly. Line only the bottom of the pan, not the sides.

Bake for 16-20 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool.

Reduce heat in oven to about 200. Place nuts in large bowl. Melt one tablespoon butter and add it to the nuts, coating each nut. Add sugar and cinnamon and blend to ensure each nut is coated. Roast for about 45 minutes at low temperature. Set nuts aside. Return oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Blend honey, brown sugar and salt in saucepan over medium heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Add butter and half and hald and bring to a boil. Remove from burner and add nuts, coating each nut.

Press nut mixture into crust. Bake for about 20 minutes until caramel mix begins to bubble. Cool. Place another sheet of foil over the bars and press down. Refrigerate.

Sweet and salty, of course, with a hint of spice. Very satisfying.

Spicy Pumpkin Pots de Creme

This time of year when the skies darken early and temperatures suddenly plummet, it is a relief to come in from the cold at dusk.

But driving home from work in a warm car is not the same as walking home in the late autumn chill after a day of school.

In those days, the warmth would hit me like a surprise, even though I knew it waiting was on the other side of the back door. The Arts and Crafts bungalow of my childhood did not have a mudroom, so I entered the cheery kitchen from a back porch, flung my books down and lunged for whatever was on the table.

If my father was at home, it would be gingerbread or maple fudge. My mother preferred making chocolate or peanut butter cookies. No one ventured into more exotic sweets in those days. No pistachio-cranberry tea cakes or dark chocolate fudge with sea salt topping or lemon-lime muffins in tiny tins.

Truthfully, it did not matter what the after-school treat was, for it made the kitchen smell so good and provided a sugar high before supper, which was never as early as it was at my friends’ houses. Graham crackers with peanut butter were as welcome as from-scratch treats.

It was bloody cold here today. I had no intention of leaving the house in the afternoon as the weak sun sunk lower in the sky, having finally braved the crowds in the morning, much to my regret. Instead, I stayed inside and puttered, and by suppertime, my kitchen smelled of Spicy Pumpkin Pots de Crème, adapted from a recipe on the Website of the newly resurrected Victoria magazine.

This was the dessert I meant to make on Thanksgiving. My first taste of it – or something very much like it – was at a local restaurant six or eight weeks ago. I left vowing to try to replicate it.

Spicy Pumpkin Pots de Crème

1 ½ cups whole milk
2/3 cup pumpkin puree
¼ cup sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon allspice
one tablespoon grated chocolate
pinch fleur de sel grains

10 egg yolks

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees.

Using a whisk, blend milk, pumpkin, sugars, vanilla, chocolate, salt and spices in a medium sauce pan over medium heat. Remove from heat just as mixture begins to boil. Set aside.

Separate eggs, and whisk yolks, forcing through a strainer and then adding to the saucepan gradually. When thoroughly blended, pour into six small pots de crème. Set pots de crème into a larger baking dish and add water. Water should reach about halfway up the sides of the pots.

Bake for 40 minutes, until firm. Chill before serving. I grabbed a chocolate morsel and grated it for topping.

I added the grated chocolate to the pumpkin mixture for the same reason I always add a bit of instant coffee to hot chocolate: To provide richness. There are few dishes that are not enhanced by a bit of chocolate.

These pots de creme would make a lovely winter holiday dessert, but they are far too sweet and rich for frequent consumption.

An Essential Tool for a Kitchen Dominatrix

I bought a new whip in Paris.

Really, it's a ball whisk, a relatively new tool which features weighted, vibrating balls on stainless steel rods. This arrangement promises to provide good results with less effort. (I certainly support the notion of less effort.) So far, it has lived up to its promises. Restraint is key: Don't overdo it with this utensil.

It was during our pilgrimage to E. Dehillerin, that dusty commercial cathedral to the art of the kitchen, that I found my new weapon. Actually, it was Kim, the charming salesman who led me to it, after he found me a copper bowl for egg whites.

The ball whisk is excellent for whipping little clumps of flour into submission in any pan or bowl. The balls allow you to reach the insides of pans, the dark little places where the bottoms and sides meet, a feat that is difficult to perform with a wire whisk. To read more, click here.

(As Kim pointed out, the ball whisk can also be used as a scalp massage tool. It feels pretty good.)

When I packed our suitcases, I carefully wrapped the whisk in its original paper and attached the receipt from Dehillerin. Just in case someone rifling through my luggage thought it was a sex toy. You never know about these things.

The whisk got its first real workout when I made Bearnaise sauce for my Chateaubriand on Thanksgiving. It performed admirably.

You don't have to go to Paris to buy one, although I recommend it. You can buy a ball whisk from many online sources.

To read a real Parisian's take on E. Dehillerin, click here.

My Paris Notebook: Shopping in the Village St. Paul

Each year on the day after Thanksgiving, I congratulate myself on the wisdom of avoiding the hordes of shoppers who throng to the mall, the stand-alone stores, and our charming little downtown. I support shopping locally, I always have, but I am not a masochist. Most years, I've worked on this day, and when I did not work, it was because we were traveling.

This year I am home. In the kitchen. Making sense of leftovers and attending to residual cleaning chores.

In my mind, I am, of course, shopping in Paris. Given any place in that lovely, layered city to schlep from store to store, I am pretty certain it would be the Village St. Paul. Tucked away behind the hulking Baroque church of St. Paul-St. Louis and just west of Rue St. Paul, this labyrinth of small and quiet shops is seldom crowded.

To reach the warren of shops you must enter through small, inviting alleys. Inside are courtyards lined with antique stores, tiny artisan ateliers and gift shops. Nothing shoddy here, no little Eiffel Tower key chains. At one shop owned by a Scandinavian, I purchased a small ceramic bowl for a friend's birthday.

It was quiet the Saturday we visited and quiet again the weekday when we returned. Many of the shops were closed,perhaps because it was only mid-spring or perhaps because they had not flourished here.

Something about the Village St. Paul reminds me of the little country shopping centers of Wisconsin's Door County, nearly abandoned in the off-season but bustling during high tourist season.

But according to the book, Quiet Corners of Paris, St. Paul Village is routinely quiet. How sad, because it is a lovely little place, an oasis just steps from teeming Rue St. Antoine.

There are many other quiet spots in Paris and many places to shop. The Village St. Paul is both.

It is worth a visit, near some wonderful bakeries and cafés and very close to one of my favorite bookstores, The Red Wheelbarrow. My husband and I were quite taken with the place and I think on our next visit, we will spend more time there, perhaps grabbing a ubiquitous sandwiche jambon from a nearby bakery and finding a secluded place to share it. But that is a full 300 days in the future (yes, the next countdown has now begun).

Where are you today? In the kitchen or in a store?

Cheesy, creamy, comforting and . . . covert

There is something perverse but satisfying about sharing a food fetish of sorts on the most solemn of food-oriented holidays.

KatieZ at Thyme for Cooking put me up to it.

A few days ago, Katie issued an invitation to bloggers to share their secrets, come out of the culinary closet with a skeleton, so to speak. Dubbing her challenge "Skeletons in the Pantry," Katie asked us to be brave and admit that our respective diets do not necessarily include only top quality, locally-grown, organic produce and antibiotic- and hormone-free meats. Or, if we have no perverse eating habits, come clean about kitchen disasters.

Having already shared my predilection for the occasional baked item made from biscuit mix, I jumped on the bandwagon as quickly as I could. It did not hurt that my friend Christine of Christine Cooks has already shared a fascinating and funny store about her bout with a big turkey. (I've run across plenty of big turkeys in my lifetime but have never tried to stuff one in the oven. Thanks for the idea, Christine.)

I have bravely revealed my culinary calamities, like the time I added baking soda instead of cornstarch to beef stew. But I have never told you about my jones for Rice-A-Roni's Creamy Four-Cheese flavor rice and vermicelli blend.

Yup, I can eat it by the box. And I do, especially when my stomach is roiling, or I've had a bad day, or I'm upset by something some big turkey did. Creamy Four Cheese rice fills my jittery stomach, warms me, satisfies me and is probably the reason I will never allow anyone to see my hips. I think this little box is great and I have not been paid by Rice-A-Roni to say so.

It is - or it was - "the San Francisco treat."

There are actually a few steps involved in preparation. Open the box. Brown the rice and vermicelli in olive oil or butter (I do use Smart Balance) and then add water. Allow it to come to a boil, and then simmer. Add the cheese powder. Mix. Eat.

The only thing more convenient is a pop-in-the-microwave product I found at the LeClerc outside of Cahors a few years back. It was tomato-flavored. Because I also enjoy French convenience food I ate several packages of it. You can buy these things in the states now, but I've never seen a tomato-flavored packet locally.

I've already disclosed my reliance on convenience food from time to time. I suspect most everyone does this, they just don't admit it.

So my challenge, especially to some of the Big Name Bloggers, is: Come clean. Fess up. All will be forgiven.

Giving Thanks

As the year winds to a close and the most festive of seasons begins, most of us reflect in some way on the blessings of the past year.

I have had many, including a wonderful run up to my weeks in Paris, a memorable trip with my husband, safe travel, good health, a new and challenging job and a bit of stimulating business travel that has allowed me to connect with old friends and new ideas.

What has touched me the most is you.

Yes, you, the people who read this blog and make comments even when I am missing in action, which has been most of the time for the past six months. I started the year with great enthusiasm, then ran out of steam and later time.

Many times I thought I ought to throw in the (kitchen) towel, but then someone out there would post kind words and I would soldier on.

It is difficult sometimes, because we eat rather simply at my house. My husband and I are back living in the community in which we grew up, where food is plain and hearty and sometimes not all that good for you. When we moved back here it was difficult to find a restaurant that was not either a typical steakhouse, or a fried- or fast-food joint. Thankfully, we now have several options for more current - and healthier - menu items.

Back in my own kitchen, I have always favored simple, provincial dishes. Not the noodle-and-soup casseroles that are standard church-supper fare here in the Upper Midwest, but beef burgundy, beef daube, chicken soup and ratatouille. These are often slow cooking dishes, and I have not have much time or energy for them lately, even though the weather has finally turned chilly.

I have not had time for much. This weekend is a rare exception.

And I admit that I am a relative naif in the food world. I live in a small town, and I am not especially sophisticated. I thought Pierre Hermé made scarves, for gosh sakes, until Richard Nahem from I Prefer Paris set me straight while walking through the Marais. I suppose this should not stop me from having a food blog (I do have three years of food writing under my belt), but it does cause a few doubts from time to time.

Still, you are kind and you continue to visit. I am so touched by that and so thankful.

Wishing you a Thanksgiving full of love,

Mimi

Creme Brulée? Profiteroles? Pumpkin Cake Roll? Cheesecake? Fruitcake? Stay Tuned. . .

We’re staying home again this year, just the two of us. My side of the family is driving deep into the Wisconsin countryside for a dinner “with all the trimmings” at a well-known restaurant. We’ve opted out so that I can spend some time in the kitchen.

(You may be asking why I do not invite the family for dinner. The truth is, my house is a disaster. It may be time to hire a cleaning service. But I’d need two weeks of prep time just to let them in the door.)

Besides I want to spend the day without a timetable. Who knows when we’ll eat?

I’ll make one of our traditional favorites, and then putter around with some sort of dessert.

There is something very appealing to me about the prospect of measuring and stirring and blending in my warm little kitchen, with the setting sun pouring in from the lone western window, or with the northern sky over the horse barn darkening to a deep gray.

(I like the idea of something sweet and booze-laced this time of year. I blame it all on my days in advertising, when it was my job to create the copy for a small bakery owned by a San Francisco woman who made cheesecake. Pumpkin and brandy. Pecan and bourbon. Chocolate and cognac. I was woozy by the time I finished the first paragraph.)

This year, I’ve been inspired by a new chef in town, and while he has not shared his special recipe with me, I’m daring and foolish enough to try to replicate it, with a little help from the Internet. Maybe.

I’m tempted to try David Lebovitz’ chocolate cherry fruitcake,
or maybe a classic crème brulée, which my husband dearly loves and which he ordered last May on our first night in Paris. Or, profiteroles (from the same café) or a classic pumpkin pie. Or, pumpkin roll, as I did one year.

Whatever it turns out to be, I won’t even attempt it until after dinner.

What’s on your dessert menu?

Winter-Fruit-and-Walnut Crisp

Each kitchen has its own unique aroma. When I was young, my mother's tiny yellow kitchen in the apartment she and my father rented near the harbor was redolent with the spicy scents of ginger and cinnamon.

It was that kitchen that came to my mind as I sampled the first bite of my walnut crisp filled with winter fruit drenched in Calvados.

The taste was rich and sweet and layered, which is what I intended. It reminded me of the inside of my mother's spice drawer, or a photograph in a shelter magazine showing a kitchen filled with pine boughs and pewter.

It is entirely my invention, in that I did not seek inspiration anywhere but my own cupboard, intent on using up what I had on hand. There is nothing extraordinary about it - except the taste!

Winter-Fruit-and-Walnut Crisp

1/2 cup dates, chopped
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 cup dried cranberries
4-5 apples, chopped
1-2 small red pears chopped
two tablespoons Calvados
one teaspoon vanilla
three tablespoons fructose
dash or two cinnamon

3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup whole wheat or graham flour
1/2 stick or more cold butter
three tablespoons Splenda/Brown Sugar mix

Place chopped fruit in bowl and toss. Drizzle with Calvados. Add vanilla, fructose and cinnamon and toss again. Place in greased 8-by-8-inch baking pan.

In a second bowl, mix chopped walnuts, flour and brown sugar mix. Cut in butter and blend until mixture resembles coarse meal. Pour topping over fruit.

Bake in preheated 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes, until topping turns deep golden brown. Cool for 20 minutes before serving.

Even my husband liked it.

A Craving for Crab Rangoon

Asian food has played a huge role in my relationship with my husband.

Our first date was at a long-gone, downtown Madison restaurant with a decidedly urban feel to it. I am certain I ordered cashew shrimp and it was the best I’ve ever tasted.

During our courtship (do they still call it that?), we explored Asian restaurants all over Madison, and later Green Bay.

We had an early afternoon wedding in our hometown and were on the road by 5 p.m. on a snowy and blowy winter day. That night, we ate our wedding dinner at the neighborhood Chinese restaurant, which soon became a regular Friday night stop for us. (There was something about that humble little dinner that meant more to me than a huge wedding feast.)

Late yesterday afternoon, my tastebuds demanded crab Rangoon. It started about 3 p.m. and I could not get those tangy and crispy little bundles out of my head.

We were too tired to go out in search of Chinese food, so I tried one of the local supermarkets, dragging myself and my cart up this aisle and that in search of a pre-made crab Rangoon.

Yes, pre-made. Only I could not find any. So I bought wonton wrappers and crab meat and cream cheese.

And I went home and made crab Rangoon myself. I baked them, rather than frying them, and they were not half bad.

It’s easy. Mix about 1/3 cup of drained and chopped crab meat with about 8 ounces of cream cheese, a dollop of mayo, some chopped green onion or even minced onion and set aside.

Lightly coat 18 wonton wrappers with peanut oil. Drop about a half-tablespoon of filling in each wrapper. Bring diagonal ends together, and give them a little twist. Place them on a greased baking sheet and pop them into a pre-heated 350-degree oven for about 20 minutes, or until they turn golden brown.

They are a bit crunchier than fried Rangoon but perfect when served with a stir fry.

Surely you've had a craving that would have gone unsatisfied, had you not found a substitute or made it yourself.

What was it? How did you satisfy it?

Rotisserie Chicken for Sunday Supper (The Egg and Later the Chicken)

Lately we've been eating only two real meals on Sundays. We have omelets at a little harborside café, and find that this meal satisfies us (and certainly provides our quota of eggs for the week) until suppertime.

At that point, one of us makes a run to the Italian market or the other supermarket in town for rotisserie chicken. Sometimes it is accompanied by cole slaw, other times by oven-roasted vegetables.

Until recently, I cooked my own chicken. But time is scarce these days. The chicken we find at local supermarkets is wonderful, and I can see why my mother has loved it all these years.

We found rotisserie chicken all over Paris and were sorely tempted by some we saw on Rue Cler. But my husband purchased what seemed like tons of sausage, and regrettably, we passed it up. Next time. (My next-time list is getting quite lengthy.)

We did buy a bag of rotisserie chicken potato chips, which were OK, but not nearly as delightful as olive potato chips. We wondered if olive was a southern preference.

What is your favorite deli meal?

Drop in and Decorate...or Go it Alone?

I have many memories of baking Christmas cookies, but my favorites are from the first two Christmases of my married life, when I made cookies for a cookie exchange in our apartment's tiny tan-and-white kitchen.

It was late on a Sunday night, a festive Sunday night, and I was making pink and green macaroons, not to be confused with the macarons above, shot last May at a LeNoitre bakery near the Bastille in Paris.

I ran out of something, and made a quick trip to a larger supermarket in the shadow of Green Bay's Lambeau Field (which, having just moved to "Titletown" from Madison, I insisted on calling Camp Rambeau). As usual, I poked around the store, looking for other ways to enhance my holiday. In the floral department, I found a carved wooden Santa figure that somehow enchanted me. I still have it, and I will make certain I take a photo before this holiday season ends.

Baking cookies has always been a solitary activity for me. I cherish my time alone, so I like it that way. I have never had the advantage of a large kitchen, so it works out best that way.

Besides, I am a bit eccentric.

There is a lot more to be said for working with others when baking for the holidays. Ask Lydia from The Perfect Pantry. Read about her Drop in and Decorate efforts here.