A Bittersweet Holiday, a Fresh Start

Although it is the most bittersweet of holidays, New Year's remains my favorite.

My memory is long, and I recall a New Year's Eve when I was 3 or perhaps 4 years old. We were living with Grandma Annie and Memere in the old house in Frenchtown, and my father was at work. My mother and Aunt made chip dip with cream cheese and catsup, a taste I still adore, and another favorite that we now call "Chex Mix," but they called beer junk. Later, when there were more of us kids, the snacks grew more sophisticated and were - more often than not - store bought. After my mother was widowed, she began hosting small New Year's Eve gatherings for other women who were alone, and I looked forward to those when I was home from school or work for the holidays.

My husband and I alternate quiet dinners at home with dinners out, usually at a 100-year-old house that is now an inn, located in our 19th century neighborhood. It is a short drive along the river, and when we enter the art nouveaux interior, we are greeted by a warm hostess and a blazing fire. We'll see friends at the other tables, and it will be a gala but not rowdy affair.

There are resolutions to begin tomorrow, some of which will be broken by February. But I like the notion of a fresh start, and often my resolve is strong and I actually stick to my goals.

This year, I want to (1) visit other blogs more often, (2) eat more whole grains and vegetables, (3) drink more green tea, (4) prepare more Asian meals, (5) find ways to cut the fat from French classics, (6) organize my kitchen, and (7) organize my entire house.

I am looking forward to several months of cold weekends spent inside, long Saturdays in the kitchen, and cozy Saturday night dinners (and not just finger foods!)

What about you?

Italian Sausage Encrusted with Herbes de Provence: In a Sandwich with Roasted Peppers and Chevre

My husband and I often try to replicate the tastes we experience when traveling, but we have been without luck trying to find a local source for the saucisson we bought from Davoli on Rue Cler.

What we did stumble upon was an Italian saucisson encrusted with herbes de Provence, which we purchased for Christmas Eve snacking. It was spicy and herb-y and tasted like nothing I have tasted before. My husband made quick work of it, and bought a second roll of sausage.

When he suggested we try the sandwiches I cobbled together in Paris, I was game. Here's what we came up with:

one half baguette
about eight slices of saucisson, sliced a third inch thick or cubed
3-4 red, yellow or orange peppers
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, sliced
two tablespoons chevre (mine was flavored with tomato and basil)
one tablespoon aioli
one tablespoon mayonnaise
dash pepper
dash fleur de sel

Cut baguette into 4-inch pieces, and slice horizontally. Butter, if you wish, and set aside.

Pre-heat oven to 425. Stand the peppers upright, cut from top to bottom into strips. Drizzle with about two teaspoons olive oil and place on greased baking sheet, tops up. Roast for 10-20 minutes, until tops begin to turn black around the edges. Remove from oven and set aside, adding salt and pepper to taste. Cover to keep warm.

While peppers are roasting, peel and slice onion. Place in skillet with oil olive and sautée until soft and nearly translucent. Onion will be golden brown in color.

Slice or chop sausage. Blend aioli and mayonnaise.

Spread goat cheese on bread, add sausage, onions and peppers. Top with mayonnaise spread and the top piece of bread.

"Sloppy but good," was my husband's reaction. The bland chevre was a good foil for the spicy saucission.

Is it possible this sandwich tasted better at home? The aioli was among the items we brought back from Paris.

But I think it was the saucisson.

Warm Brussels Sprout and Shallot Salad with Pecans

Like most people I know, I look upon the end of the year as the beginning of a new one. The Christmas presents are barely opened when I begin making plans for all the projects I will finally get around to doing in the year ahead.

This year, the purchase of a new piece of furniture necessitated a bit of cleaning
and reorganizing - which meant I had to sit around paging through the 100 or so magazines piled in corners of the living and dining room. That was how I stumbled across a recipe for warm Brussels Sprout Salad, which inspired the following dish.

I buy Brussels sprouts each week; along with broccoli and red pepper they are staples in my crisper. Shallots are also something I almost always keep on hand.

Warm Brussels Sprout and Shallot Salad with Pecans

16-20 large Brussels sprouts
3-4 large shallots
tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
tablespoon unsalted butter
dash freshly ground pepper
dash fleur de sel

Wash and trim Brussels sprouts, removing outer leaves and base. Cut into thin slices. Drizzle with olive oil, toss, and place in a skillet or sauté pan. Brown slightly over medium heat until sprouts are just a bit limp. Remove from pan and set aside, covering to keep warm. Peel and slice shallots; using the same pan, brown shallots slightly in butter. Add pecans. Toss shallots and pecans with Brussels sprouts, adding a dash of fleur de sel and pepper.

I served this with a warm bacon dressing. A cranberry vinaigrette would be nice, too, or a mustard-y oil and vinegar blend.

This was the first course of our Christmas dinner, and it was a hit. We followed it with a big juicy ham rubbed with cinnamon and ground cloves and glazed with a cinnamon-y honey-and-apple-jelly blend and a side dishes of roasted root vegetables and candied sweet potatoes.

Merry Christmas To All

I cannot think of a better photo to share with you today than this one shot at a bakery in the Marais six months ago. Eye candy? Yes! Too bad we rarely associate strawberry desserts with Christmas here in Wisconsin.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eves to Remember

Here in Wisconsin, we are hunkered down once again for a quiet Christmas Eve at home. Tomorrow there will be some travel here and there, but for tonight, we are home.

For the past 18 years, our Christmas Eves have been quiet affairs. During my growing up years, our rituals on this night changed and shifted and morphed. When Mémere was living but approaching 90, the activities focused on the family home where she lived with Grandma Annie and Aunt Patsy, two widows and a spinster. But we all converged on the house on Christmas Eve for wine and tourtiere and other seasonal treats and libations.

After Mémere died, the action shifted to my parents' house. On Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day, that was where friends and relatives met to watch us play with our dolls, dump trucks, toy theaters and board games. As we grew older, Christmas Eves became quieter affairs; I always sang with my choir at an agonisingly protracted midnight mass.

But in the 1980s, in the decade or so following Grandma Annie's death, we began once again, meeting at the old house in Frenchtown on Christmas Eve. At first, the gatherings were quiet affairs, often just a few of us seating round the kitchen table, with cheese and sausage and the highballs Annie loved, listening to tinny Christmas music from a radio. As we children acquired spouses and as other friends and relatives were widowed, the events became larger and grander, with dozens of different desserts and cookies as well as cheeses and sausages and dips and spreads and chips and breads.

The year my husband and I married - 1989 - was the largest such event, with nearly 20 people in and out, all bearing gifts and bottles. It was the last, too, because the following year began a series of deaths that decimated our family ranks.

Today, we are a spread-out family, with members in Illinois, California and Texas as well as Michigan and Wisconsin. Our lives are busy, and some years, not everyone makes it back to the Midwest. I live here, just a few miles from the old house; so does my sister.

Every Christmas Eve, I drive past Grandma Annie's house. In my heart I salute it, for those many years of Christmas Eves and wonderful memories of the old kitchen. As I said in an earlier post, I am so happy that Denise, its new mistress, is an ardent cook and baker. The light hand on her shoulder is merely my lovely Grandma Annie showing her approval.

Cherish the ones you love tonight.

I will.

About the photo: That was the view from my kitchen door about 4:15 p.m. last night. It is just that color now as I post this.

New Christmas Traditions

Each Christmas brings with it some lovely moments. For us - my husband and me - those moments usually involve impromptu shopping trips, lunches, snacks or other celebratory events we indulge in because (1) 'tis the season, and (2) we have time off from work.

On Friday we celebrated with a long lunch at a local inn, an old mansion perched above the river. Our table overlooked not the water but a back garden and carriage house. It has been gray and foggy here the past few days and that is typical for our part of Wisconsin when the weather is not cold. So to me, such days are part and parcel of Christmas and they lend an aura of mystery to the older neighborhood we call home.

Anyway, the mushroom ravioli was wonderful. There were gingerbread and chocolate torte for dessert.

Today, we attended a book signing at an independent bookstore in a nearby city. A friend has written a meticulously researched book of essays on a moment in local history and we wanted to cheer him on. So did quite a few others, and we were happy to see that. The wine flowed and the finger foods were lovely. Later it was good to come out of the fog and settle in for the duration of Saturday.

These simple events will become part of my bank of holiday memories.

Tonight, I'll make a pitcher of what has become our favorite seasonal libation, thanks to Christine of Christine Cooks. We'll light candles, turn on the tree lights and enjoy the simplicity of an early winter night at home.

Bittersweet

I'm down with a cold just now, and not inclined to do anything in the kitchen that involves more than a can opener and some low-sodium chicken noodle soup.

But I will share this with you. Over the weekend I learned that the woman who now calls Grandma Annie's kitchen her own is baking up a storm this season.

How Annie would love this.

December Rituals and a Very Good Punch Recipe

Having worked late last night, I managed to sneak home while it was still light out today so I could tramp through the snow to the west side of the house where the Japanese Barberry and American Bittersweet grow rampant, along with a mystery vine that threatens to take over the entire southwest portion of the yard. I shot the photo above and some others that may appear in a later post.

It was mighty cold, but the sun was setting and it was lovely anyway. This morning while dressing for work, I heard and then saw a large male cardinal in the cedar tree, just a yard or so from where I stood. Magnificent.
Since red is my signature color, I consider this a sign of good luck. Unfortunately, I have no photograph.

Speaking of red, if you need a great recipe for a non-alcoholic punch this year, try the one below. I did not get a photo of the punch, either, but I will tell you that it drew rave reviews and second and third helpings.

Ruby Red Christmas Punch

1 two-liter bottle ginger ale
1 48-ounce bottle cranberry juice cocktail
1 12-ounce pre-made canned lemonade
1/2 cup orange juice
thin slices of orange, lemon and lime to float on top

Chill the ingredients and blend in punch bowl. I make ice in a round gelatin mold, studding it with maraschino cherries.

I don't have all the ingredients just now, but I am contemplating cobbling together some sort of pink drink tonight with what I do have. 'Tis the season.

Two things that are becoming holiday rituals for food bloggers:

The Menu For Hope project, which raises money to feed the hungry, and the Food Blog Awards, which recognize excellence in food blogging.

Of the former, I will say this: There are so many cool items to be raffled off, I am having a hard time figuring out how to spend my money.

Of the latter, I was surprised but pleased to see that at least one of the blogs that made the short list was eclectic (not strictly food) and that several of my favorites are getting the attention they deserve. Feeding the soul is as important as feeding the body, by my way of thinking, and I like to see deserving people get recognition.

Thanks to Abby for her faith in me.

Potage au Chou-fleur

The streets north of Rue St. Antoine bustle with life, at least this has been my observation. They are narrow, and on a rainy day shifting to single file or stepping into the street so other people can pass can be vexing. It is tempting to nip into empty little corners and gardens, as we did on our last day in Paris, when the rain matched our moods. Across from Square George Cain, a lovely little park tucked behind Musee Carnavalet, is the Swedish Cafe, part of the Swedish Cultural Center on Rue Payenne.

At mid afternoon, the little cafe was deserted and this captivated me, and fired my imagination. I saw the buggy and imagined a young Swedish mother, the wife of a minor diplomat perhaps, visiting with her child. The daily special, said the menu board, was cauliflower soup and I longed for a cup, and a rest in this little sanctuary. But we had shopping and packing to do, and thus a bus to catch. I shot a hasty photo.
Now six months later, it is not raining or snowing, but instead is one of those December days that is washed in gray-blue light, like a watercolor, and it is cold and I am inside with my own bowl of cauliflower soup, this one made with St. Paulin cheese.

Rustic Cauliflower Soup

1 medium cauliflower, chopped
3 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 cup St. Paulin cheese, in chunks
dash freshly ground pepper
pinch fleur de sel

I made chicken stock yesterday, using the carcass of a rotisserie chicken, some onion skins and peels, some thyme, and one garlic clove.

Using a large sauce pan or smaller stock pot, cook the cauliflower in 1 cup of the chicken stock until tender. Allow it to cool, drain and then reserve the liquid. Run it through a blender to get a slight puree.

In another saucepan, soften the onion in butter. Add the cauliflower puree, then add flour and milk. Allow the mix to boil and thicken. Then, turning the heat down, add the cheese until the cheese melts. Taste before adding salt and pepper.

Cauliflower soup does not need much embellishment to satisfy and provide a sense of comfort. I often add a dash of fresh thyme, or even a tiny pinch of orange rind.

This was fine as it was, with just a few small garlic croutons floating on top.

The Charms of December

Every December has its charms and magic, and each year I wonder what the current season will bring.

When I was a child, I waited for the house on Terrace Avenue to turn on its holiday lights. In those days, massive (read vulgar) outdoor light displays were rare (people might place electric candles in the window or outline their doors) and when the people in that house turned on their lights the first week of December, I knew the season was underway.

As I grew older there were other enchantments to be experienced, like the clip-clop of horses' hooves in downtown Madison, the harmonies of carolers on State Street, the different versions of Pachelbel’s Canon that seemed to play in every small shop there.

Moving into my own home brought its own pleasures: the smell of woodsmoke at night, the comings and goings as we shopped for Christmas gifts. One year a Northern cardinal serenaded me as I prepared snacks for Christmas Eve. Another Christmas morning I looked out to see a flock of Cedar waxwings in the crabapple tree. Still another time I caught a glimpse of a white cloud of trumpeter swans undulating across the sky.

Then there was the year of the fox. My little hill is always criss-crossed with the tracks of rabbit, squirrel and the occasional deer or stray dog. But three years ago, a different set of tracks appeared. Then two days before Christmas, I looked out to see a fox cross the yard. There were other sightings, too, and I wondered if I would encounter the creature as I trudged up the hill from the horse barn some night.

I do not know what creature made the tracks under the cedar trees. The snow was deep that day and the footprints were not easily distinguishable.

Each season is different with its own moments of beauty. I have not yet found this year’s moment.

But I did find some beautiful photos from Bea at La Tartine Gourmand. With nearly every post, Bea delights her readers, but this time she has outdone herself.

Decline of French Culture? Mais, non!

I am sorely tempted to post my views on the decline of culture, period, here, but I would certainly make a lot of enemies so I'll pass on that. Suffice it to say that there have been debates about cultural declines for centuries, and the pendulum will surely swing in the other direction again.

Looking for evidence that culture does not die? When you are in Paris, be sure to visit The Cluny Museum for a glimpse of medieval life and material culture. We enjoyed our visit on a rainy Sunday. It was only overshadowed by our long walk home along the Seine in the rain. But Paris in the rain is still Paris.

If I were lucky enough to be home on a rainy or snowy day, I would fire up the oven and bake. After reading David Lebovitz's post on madeleines this morning, I've got a hankering for those, and I just might try them again. My last effort was commendable.

I deserve a night in the kitchen. A car window smashed to smithereens, a sewer that backed up, a strained neck muscle and numerous other minor issues have made this a very stressful week. Mass transit and a small apartment (instead of a rambling Victorian house on a hill) are looking very good to me right now.

My Paris Notebook: Through Eugene Atget's Lens

On a sunny morning in May we set out to discover the Paris of Eugene Atget (1857-1927) at the old Biblotheque Nationale, just behind the Palais Royale.

Atget, a seaman and actor turned photographer, is known for his Paris street scenes, of tradesmen and merchants, of tipped pushcarts and bulging barrels, of haberdashers and fishmongers. Atget took more than 10,000 photos of Paris life, not for art but for income.

He left behind a legacy for today's Paris lovers, who yearn to see their city as it once was.

Old Paris leaps from these photographs of everyday life. Look at one - any one - long enough and you can feel and smell and hear the color and the cacophony of street life. Gaze into one of his misty photos old overgrown parks and you can feel the damp on your face and hear the cries of birds of prey. You can sense the bosky aroma of untended woods. You are there.

I'd heard about the exhibit, but it was not until we saw a photo of one of our favorite little Left Bank corners (just outside the ancient church of St. Julien le Pauvre) at Musée d'Orsay that we decided to go to the show. I thought my husband, a trained photographer and filmmaker, would enjoy it, and he did.

The photo at the top is one of Atget's, looking west Rue des Ursins on Ile de la Cité to the north of Notre Dame. One of my photos of the same area is just above: I am looking east.

I consider it an honor to walk - even for a short time - in Atget's footsteps with my camera.

First Snowfall, Menu for Hope and Food Blog Awards

It's Saturday, it's snowing and we're at home with a bulging larder and a full wine rack.

Normally that would delight me, but we've got a charity event to attend later. It will be fun to dress up and see my husband in his tux. It will not be fun to slog through the snow.

If that's not your cup of tea, here's a chance to support a worthwhile charity and have fun too, without even leaving your computer.

It's time for Menu for Hope, the food-blog world's online fundraiser that supports the UN World Food Program.

Read more from Pim and Kalyn.

I urge you to participate in any way you can. Last year, I donated a prize and bought lots of chances, winning a gift certificate for luxury food items.

This year, I plan to buy still more chances. But it's not just about winning something, it's about being a part of something bigger and helping others. It's a chance for food bloggers around the world to work together.

It's also time for the Well-Fed Network's Food Blog Awards. Read more and nominate your favorite blogger here.

Welcome to December.