The Road to Chez Bateau

The countdown widget on my home page surprised me yesterday when it noted I have only 90 days left BF. Before France.

It was only the day before that I was whining about not being in Paris for spring.

Instead we will be at Chez Bateau for the start of autumn. That fires my imagination: Will the woods and fields smell like a heady mix of grape and woodsmoke? What bird calls will we hear in the morning? Will the owl know we are back and mark it with his own distinctive evensong?

We will wait to find out.

We will see the changes, no doubt, as our train trundles out of Austerlitz through the green Loire and down into the heart of France, stopping at the names we've come to love for the meaning they now hold: Chateau Rouge, Vierzon, Limoges, Brive. Finally, the little gare at Cahors with the amiable Gaston there to meet us.

Then the winding road up to Chez Bateau with its hairpin twists and turns and finally the small village on the hill with the tiny church and the iron cross and vineyards everywhere you look.

Yes, it will be good and welcoming and our own for two weeks. It will be worth the wait and much fun to anticipate.

A Quick Chicken Paella

For the better part of the past week, I have had the privilege of attending professional development classes at UW-Madison, my old stomping grounds.

By coincidence, both the classes and my hotel were in the neighborhood where I rented my first studio apartment.

Who says you can’t go home again? That first experience so many years ago was one of discovery, much of it culinary. I saw my first Hare Krishnas (they stood across the street from my apartment daily for a few weeks); tasted my first pita pocket stuffed with falafel (I had to stand outside the cart on the library mall until I heard someone pronounce it before I had the guts to order it); and downed my first bottle of retsina (I’m sure I felt awful the next day).

There I made hummus and peanut butter soup in my tiny kitchen, and tried my hand with a spicy black-bean appetizer that was remarkably good. I no longer have the recipe.

My most recent trip (I get to Madison about once a year, but stay in a different downtown neighborhood) was one of rediscovery. My old neighborhood, once a ghetto of three-story clapboard flats is now dominated by tall apartment buildings, some with cafés or takeout joints on the ground floor. The broad and flat streets I once walked to class are now canyons of new buildings. The dive at the end of the street is gone; so is the little mall on the corner.

No matter: The years melt away when I visit Madison, and the trips my husband and I have made, usually over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, have created new memories, a bit more upmarket than those of the past.

As usual, food played a major role in this trip. Among my favorite new culinary memories will be my first taste of fudge-bottom pie, a UW classic that I had not tried as a student, and a strawberry gelatin dessert with a crushed pretzel crust that was every bit as tasty as my Minnesota classmates promised it would be.

For old time’s sake, I had falafel and couscous, foods I rarely prepare at home, although I should because I love them.

One balmy night, my friend Marie-Dominique and I shared an escargot appetizer at Le Chardonnay, a Mediterranean restaurant on West Johnson Street that transports you, oh, perhaps to Marseilles or some other sunny port. Sami, the charismatic Tunisian owner, has created a magical place here, where Francophiles gather and speak the language of their heart, as we did as we joined some of them for an after-dinner Limoncello or two. (OK, so my French is flawed.)

I slept remarkably well that night. Sami offers a build-your-own paella night, and for a modest price you can gorge on the paella of your dreams.

One dish and I was left with a hankering for more. So using leftovers from some vegetable wraps my husband made for the weekend and some frozen chicken breasts, I created my own quick version of chicken paella to carry me through the first days of the new week.

3 chicken breasts, skinned, trimmed, cubed
¼ cup Italian, red pepper, or tomato dressing for marinade
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 package Near East rice pilaf mix
2 peppers, one red and one green, diced
1/3 cup fresh or frozen peas
3 green onions, chopped
½ cup diced tomatoes, drained
pinch of saffron threads
1 clove garlic, minced
fresh parsley
fleur de sel

Cut chicken breasts and marinate in seasoned dressing for two hours. Then, brown in skillet, along with peppers and garlic. Prepare rice according to directions while chicken is browning.

Once rice is finished, add to skillet, along with peas and chopped green onions. Use a mortar and pestle or your fingers to reduce the saffron threads to powder; add to the skillet.

Add the tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes. Add parsley and season with salt as needed.

The total cooking time is about 45 minutes to an hour. The paella tastes better the next day.

The East End: Seagulls, Fish Houses and Sugar Sandwiches

There is always a week in spring when you can breathe deeply and inhale a rich infusion of lilac and flowering crab. That week has passed – all too quickly, I might add. But there are still late- flowering lilacs that form tall hedges along the alleys, softening the lines of garages and utility sheds.

In the old East End, these ancient lilacs stood in contrast to weathered fish houses, in the backyards of nearly every home in a neighborhood known for its commercial fishing fleet and rough-and-tumble existence.

Diagonally across the city from Frenchtown, the East End is surrounded by bay on two sides and river on another. East Enders, all of whom had colorful nicknames like Sockeye and Twisty, were known as River Rats in the fancier parts of town.

Like Frenchtown, the East End had its own culture (and its own share of French Canadians living side-by-side with Swedes and Poles). The houses were higher as a precaution against flooding, and there were often boats in the yard, and fishnets drying in the sun. Here there were wheeling gulls and the pungent smell of wood smoke from the fish houses. The East End was a place apart. I loved it and still do.

The old fishing village was separate from the city, which annexed it until the 1880s. But it never lost its identity, and it never quite lost its stigma as a second-class community either.

But it is far from that.

The East End is, in fact, the most colorful part of town, where the residents are even more down-to-earth and unpretentious than the rest of us. It also has its share of watering holes and great places to find a real Wisconsin fish fry in the little strip of commercial buildings that line East Mason Street.

The East End has the distinct advantage of a largely unspoiled waterfront. Sure, there is a park and pavilion and beach, but mostly there are several miles of tall grasses along a shore where mallards and egrets nest. And there are always gulls.

When I was a small child, Grandma Annie and her best friend, Anna, would visit some elderly relative of Anna’s, who fed me white sugar on buttered white bread (now I cringe at the thought of it!). She was a kindly old woman, with long white hair worn in a bun and a wraith-like appearance. I cannot drive through the East End without summoning up that sweet bland flavor on my palate.

I am off for an out-of-town conference in another city where I have lived, and where my culinary memories run to falafel and curry dishes.

See you in a week.