Happy New Year!

The end of 2008 turned out to be a much busier time than I anticipated. I am hoping that 2009 will be a bit more relaxing and will offer me more opportunities for puttering around in my French-American kitchen.

Meanwhile, I leave you with best wishes for a safe New Year's Eve and a good start to the new year. Finally, enjoy the photo above, taken somewhere in or near the Marais last October. One golden day in Paris is worth two any place else.

Seasons Greetings and Merry Christmas

May you and your family and loved ones enjoy the loveliest of holidays. I appreciate your visits and comments here, and resolve to post more often and to visit your site more often in the year ahead.

A Norman Winter: An Apple-y Drink for Dark Days of December

It began snowing at 9 p.m. last night and did not let up until late morning today. My husband moved the cars, took the snowblower out of the horse barn and began lugging it up and down the hill to create a path around the house, while clearing the driveway and the sidewalk. He took the blower, new last winter, down the street, too, helping our neighbors as they have often helped us.

He needed a stiff drink when he came inside, or so I reasoned. I've been itching since October to create something made from the bottle of Calvados we bought in Paris in 2007 and the cider we always keep on hand during the last three months of the year.

I have some Norman blood, and have always had a weakness for cider, apples and anything related. I was happy to find both pear and apple cider available in the Lot during the two weeks we were there recently (was it three months ago already?) and managed to imbibe a bottle each, along with the legendary dark wine of the area.

When my husband came in from the cold, stomping the snow off his boots, I handed him a newly-concocted drink I call a Norman Winter.

Here's my recipe for a Norman Winter:

5 ounces Calvados or apple brandy
1/2 cup apple cider
generous splash lemon-lime soda or non-alcoholic sparkling cider
splash of lime juice
five ice cubes

Pour all the ingredients over ice. Garnish with an apple slice or slip a few slices into the drink. Marashino cherries would be a nice contrast, but I had none.

"I don't normally like Calvados," said my husband, "but this is pretty good."

I have a feeling this is a drink I will keep tweaking a bit. But I sure swallowed it fast.

Down-Home Baked Beans with Ground Beef

My job requires me to attend many evening events involving food, but perhaps none were as special as the dinner I attended two nights ago.

The hot new chef in town prepared us a wonderful Italian-influenced meal, topped off by a rich slice of chocolate citrus cake.

It was fun, because Chef B, as I will call him, was at my table a few months back when we tasted the work of another chef at a menu sampling. That chef, Chef S, also cooked Italian. It's interesting to compare approaches to cooking and meals and then dish about the food. Every chef I've encountered has his own style. While I prefer some more than others, I know that it's just a matter of taste.

I don't think I ever met a food style I did not enjoy, from whatever is in vogue at the moment to old church-supper favorites. That is why I am no longer the size 5 I was at age 18.

Ah, back to the dinner. Driving along the river at twilight to a sprawling country home fronted by a stand of birch trees is a warming experience. Clever and animated conversation, a roaring fire, wine to warm the palate and a good meal - such riches.

I drove through Frenchtown at sunset the other day, toward the western sky and its layers of lavender, salmon and pink. Grandma Annie's house, now the domain of the Ostineau-Smithson family, was ablaze with lights. My heart lurched and then leaped with pleasure. A family is there, once again. We believe the old house has its origins in 1863, the year the lot was parceled out to someone named Deroucher. Now it is sturdily standing in its third century. The kitchen, always the heart of the house, is filled with spacious cabinets and a frieze of grapevines. It is warm and welcoming. How Grandma Annie would love it!

Annie's second daughter Jane, left at age 20, eloping with a theater usher in those headlong days before World War II. Like her mother, grandmother, aunts and sisters, Jane was an excellent cook and baker who favored simple down-to-earth fare. In later years, she came home to the old house, a widow now. About 18 years ago she died there in the same bed and room our Mémere died in. (I dream of that room often. It is now a sunny, two-story stairwell.)

On cold winter nights, Jane often made a dish with baked beans, ground beef, onions, ketchup, mustard and a dash of brown sugar. I do not know the exact measurements, but I tried the casserole recently, and enjoy it reheated for several nights during a brutal cold snap.

I used:

2 cans of baked beans with onions
1/2 pound ground beef, browned
1 small onion, chopped
1 tablespoon mustard
1/3 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon brown sugar

I combined all the ingredients and baked in a preheated, 30-degree oven for about 45 minutes. It's best served with coleslaw and cornbread, but I had only bread sticks on hand that week.

I like these homey dishes when the weather turns brutal, as it has here in Wisconsin.

What's your favorite down-home dish?

Hot Chocolate on a Cold Night

We were supposed to get The Big One today, the blizzard that would halt life as we know it up here on the tundra.

Yeah, right.

It wasn't all that bad, but it was cold and I have been snuggling under a blanket most of the night, save for the moment or two I spent making hot chocolate, which did its best to warm me.

Do you have a favorite trick for enhancing a cup of cocoa? I'd love to hear it.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like. . . Winter (Or Why My Appetite Has Increased)

As you might imagine, northern Wisconsin is cold and white just now, and it seems I am constantly hungry for soups and stews and roasted vegetables and savory meats.

The wind comes whipping off the bay and the river, causing the new fallen snow to whip around in little eddies and vortexes. It was bitter cold when I went shopping yesterday in a neighboring town. I joined a group of carolers, many of whom were friends, at a local bookstore. It's been years since I have sung those songs (except in the shower and around the kitchen) and while my voice is still strong, I seem to hit a lot of sour notes. Oh well. It was fun anyway.

I have done only the basics to prepare my own backyard for winter. There are still signs of summer and fall, covered now with snow.

The change of seasons is the one constant in our lives right now.

Chicken Soup with Cider-Glazed Vegetables

Now when I return home from work at dusk, my neighborhood smells of woodsmoke. This scenario never fails to invoke Grandma Annie, who kept a "burn barrel" in her backyard, as did many of her neighbors in those pre-recycling days. I never got too close to the barrels, but I am imaging they were filled with old newspapers and egg cartons and other materials that we recycle today.

The burn barrels may have been dangerous and harmful to our air quality, but they filled the neighborhood with a pungent aroma that I liked as a child. Today wood-burning stoves and fireplaces fill my neighborhood with the same pleasant, smoky aroma that never fails to bring me back 40 years or so.

Back then, when Grandma Annie had to step out to her neighborhood store before suppertime, she would return with that aroma clinging to her coat and hair, until the smells of the evening meal began to permeate the house in Frenchtown. A particular night when Annie donned her black coat and slipped across the way to the Sobieski's store has stayed with me all these years.

She went there to buy chicken, as I recall. Annie always used matches to rid the chicken of any remained fuzz that clung to its pinky skin. Soon the odor of sulfur filled the kitchen. It was quickly replaced by the aroma of roasting chicken.

When I roast a chicken, I am usually thinking ahead to the soup I will make from the chicken carcass. I knew Tuesday that my Wednesday night meal would be a soup of roasted vegetables.

And so it was. Wednesday night, Into the stock pot went the carcass, along with remaining shallots, garlic and thyme and about five cups of water.

While the stock was simmering, I cleaned and trimmed one large potato, four medium carrots, one parsnip and three shallots. I coated these in olive oil and roasted theme in a pre-heated, 425-degree oven until they began to turn golden.

I removed them from the oven and transferred them to a large saucepan containing melted butter and about two cups of apple cider. I brought the pan to a mild boil, and then lowered the heat until the apple cider was reduced and absorbed by the vegetables.

Then I added the broth, straining it first. Next came chicken, salt, pepper and chopped thyme. I added some freshly roasted garlic - about four cloves - to balance the sweet taste. This I allowed to simmer for about 15 minutes.

Some buttered rolls, a hunk of Gouda and a mild white table wine were all I needed to complete the meal.

My soup was savory, sweet and herby.

A Seasonal Feast: Roasted Chicken with Pears, Shallots, and Thyme

We woke to a thin dusting of snow yesterday, enough to make the roads slippery and require a quick shoveling.

Later in the yard of the brick Georgian across the parking lot from my office, I saw a huge flock of starlings, gleaning odd bits of food from the snow-covered yard and roosting in the trees, chattering away. I love their chatter on late autumn afternoons as it signals a turn of season.

There are other signs, too, many from the bird world, like the whistling swans I saw along the shore last week, and the skeins of Canada geese that continue to crisscross our leaden skies. The berries on our bushes have begun to turn red and the grasses along the bay and river are brown, a warm contrast to the cool grays of the sky and water.

It's really lovely out there. But cold.

At night we cook comforting meals. I roatsed my own bird tonight, and the aroma was wonderful. I found the recipe in the current issue of Body + Soul magazine: Chicken with Pears, Shallots and Thyme.

Since I followed it to the letter, and it's not posted on the magazine's Web site yet, I will simply tell you that it is a chicken stuffed with five sprigs of thyme, one lemon, three cloves of garlic and then roasted with three Anjou pears and eight shallots in a very hot oven. The aroma is heavenly while it is cooking, very seasonal. I love an autumn or winter meal roasting late into the night, filling the house with its aromas, wrapping around us with the promises of tastes to come.

My husband and I put read-and-green place mats on our dining table and enjoyed this dish by itself: Chicken in its glorious juices, along with tender shallots and almost-creamy pears. The roasting removes that metallic taste pears often have, and replaces it with a mellow sweetness.

With this dish, no sides are needed. But a green salad would have been a nice first course.

I saved every leftover morsel, and tomorrow I will make soup or stew. I should think something with root vegetables would be in order.

I can't wait...

Ok, here's the basic recipe: Rub a whole chicken with coarse sea salt and pepper, and stuff with three peeled garlic gloves, a quartered lemon and five sprigs of thyme. Roast at 450-475 for 15 minutes, then surround with 8 halved shallots and three quartered and cored pears. Add a few more thyme sprigs. Roast for another 40 minutes or so.