November 2008 archives

The European Union just overturned regulations that will allow fruits and vegetables that aren’t technically picture-perfect, to be sold alongside their more attractive counterparts. But the laws are still place until next July. I had no idea there was such a directive in effect, and I’ve been innocently part of a conspiracy, participating in, and abetting, illegal behavior.

According to EU directives, things like carrots must be “..not forked, free from secondary roots.” Since I found that out, I’ve been much more careful about what I bring home. When I picked these out at the market, my carrots didn’t seems to have any of those kinds of hideous deformations (imagine that…forked roots!…ick!), but when I unpacked my haul, I noticed that the specimen above found its way into my market basket. Accidentally, of course.

Continue Reading Outlaw Carrots…

Because I have nothing else to do with my days, I decided it was time to upgrade the pepper in my peppermills. I think I’m coming late to that game, since I’ve read so many things urging…begging me…to use fancy, expensive pepper. But I tend to buy a bag of black pepper from a local Arab spice shop, which seemed good enough.

Or so I thought.

A few weeks ago, I found myself back in Goumanyat, and they had at least a dozen black and colored peppers to sniff.

Continue Reading Milk Chocolate and Black Pepper Ice Cream Recipe…

This weekend, I’m going to my first-ever French wedding. I don’t know if the Bridezilla phenomenon has taken root in Paris, but my friend insisted, nicely, that her gâteau de marriage be one flavor in particular: carrot.

I’ve written about a carrot cake before, but she wanted a nice and tall one – with lots of billowy cream cheese frosting, bien sûr!

Normally when couples in France tie le nœud, a croquembouche serves as the wedding cake, which is a towering cone of sticky cream puffs filled with Bavarian or pastry cream, then drizzled with wispy caramel strands, tying whole damn thing together.

Continue Reading An American Wedding Cake…in Paris?…

Wait just a minute. It’s been about a week since I got back from Torino, and I told you about all the stuff I managed to jam in my craw at the Salone del Gusto, but I also spent a fair amount of time visiting some of the chocolate shops and caffès in this great city. Man cannot live by cured pork products and sheep’s-milk cheese alone, can he?

He must eat ice cream, and on occasion, drink.

The day of my arrival, I didn’t wait a minute. Moments after I tossed my suitcase in my hotel room, I made a beeline for Caffè San Carlo (Piazza San Carlo 156) for a couple of scoops of gelato, which I remembered so fondly from a previous visit. They didn’t remember me, even though I thought I’d made quite the impression that last time, when I stood over the giant gelato machine and tried to climb in.

Or maybe they were trying to forget?

Continue Reading Back to Torino…

There’s a misconception that the French don’t eat junk food. While it’s true that the drugstore shelves around here are lined with, of all things—drugs, there are some foods around that don’t quite fall into the high-fallutin’ AOC category elsewhere.

It’s become commonplace to see teenagers swilling la Coca from plastic liter jugs on the sidewalks and it’s not unusual to see a Parisian toting a bag from McDo. In the candy department, the dubious tagada, artificially-flavored strawberry marshmallow domes, I’ve unfortunately had served to me melted on top of a crème brûlée in lieu of a crackly layer of caramel (which was not an improvement, believe me…) and in more upscale desserts in trendy restaurants. Both I found rather icky.

But there is one junk food that I do share their affection for: les oursons guimauve.

Continue Reading Oursons Guimauve…

In a country where one of the tenets is égalite, there are, believe it or not, some people who are more “equal” than others. It’s one of the less-discussed French paradoxes. No, I’m not talking about the motor scooter drivers who ride roughshod through Paris, bombarding pedestrians on the sidewalks or breaking through traffic, cutting off buses, bicyclists, and generally wreaking havoc in their noisy, smoke-spewing wake.

It’s les bureaucrats.

The other day I had to go to the bank. And in France, before you go to the bank, if you need to do anything other than make a withdrawal or deposit, you need to make an rendez-vous. Each client is assigned a bancaire who is in charge of your affairs. You can’t just go to any bancaire; you have to go to yours.

So it’s important that they like you.

Continue Reading Wielding Her Tampon…

Before I went away for recent my trip to New York City, as a gesture of extraordinary kindness to the person who I swapped apartments with, I cleaned out some of the scary things in my fridge. Nevertheless, she managed to find the African peanut butter, but curiously missed the luscious jar of salted butter caramel from Henri Le Roux in Brittany. What’s up with that? I guess that means there’s another apartment swap in my future.

Coming back, the fridge was still spotless, but after a few days, I realized there was too much empty space in there, so now it’s back to being crammed full. Part of the reason is that I came across these gorgeous mixed carrots at the marche d’Aligre. It’s hard to find vegetables like this around here, and if you do, for the price you pay, you may as well stay at a fancy hotel in New York instead and not worry about how clean your refrigerator is for incoming guests.

At the market here in Paris that day, the vendor has baskets bursting with all sorts of organic produce, all for €2.8 per kilo, for whatever you chose. I filled up my basket and handed it over, and when I got the tab, I realized that perhaps I should’ve exercised a bit more restraint.

Continue Reading A Recipe for Easy Pickled Carrots…