Venir? Aller? Chez nous?

David and I returned to Paris on the 28th of March after being back in the States for 9 days. We had planned this trip when we made arrangements to come for the year as it seemed (rightfully so!) easier to pack and make plans with a shorter end date. We also planned this trip around the Easter holidays (but stayed in Paris Palm Sunday so I did not cook for 30 people!).

I am nursing blisters on my hands from raking the yard and flower beds. At one point, I was putting some ghostly potato sculptures into my compost bin, and I felt like living in Paris was a dream. And then I got back to cleaning up the shed and barn because the roofers were coming to replace the roofs (please do not ask the logic of this --my sons will tell you that I always vacuumed before having our house cleaned.) Our house sitter, Peter, is taking wonderful care of our house, cats, and reef tanks --and we are thankful, as this is no small task (even if the carpenter had finished the on-going 5 month project in our laundry room).

But, we are back --and we are glad to be back. And we feel like we came back home. Which presents an interesting question --did we go home or come home? Saturday was a lovely spring day, and Paris again offered its unique palette of experiences that make being here simply wonderful.
We visited our marche at Place du Marche-Saint-Honore, and our shopkeepers were happy to see us. (I am sitting in front a vase of the most fragrant hyacinths, and they have perfumed the entire apartment!) We broke our fast from baguettes first thing Sunday morning and celebrated being here with a couple of croissants (and that wonderful beurre doux --as if croissants need butter!-- but it is hard to resist!)





The churches in Paris, and there are many, do host concerts and other cultural events. (I had mentioned earlier that we attended an enjoyable concert at the Madeleine.) The neighborhood church, with a nave a mere 32 feet shorter than Notre Dame, is St.Roch (I grew up in the parish of St. Rocco, the Italian name of the same saint who is always accompanied by a dog. My dad grew up in this same Italian parish; perhaps this can explain to my mom why he loved dogs so much --note the "s" -- like 5 at one time! -- or why his sister picks up strays!). They had an exhibit in the Calvary Chapel which is behind the main altar, "100 Lampes de Nicolas Cesbron"--these "lampes" are turned wooden vessels that are pierced in patterns and mounted on simple floor stands of varying heights. Coarse sand was spread over the floor, and these 100 "lampes" were installed so that you could walk among them. I was excited when I saw the poster for the exhibit as I had seen several of these displayed in the gallery which put on the exhibit, Galerie Antonine Catzeflis on Rue St-Roch, a few weeks ago. As the chapel has a high ceiling, the lighting was felt celestial.

Since we had not walked towards the area of the Eiffel Tower and it was a beautiful day, we started walking along the Seine towards Ponte d'Alma on the right bank. While walking, we encountered a three-ring circus. Every city has its con artists and local scams, and the one that is running through Paris this spring is the golden ring. It is simple (although I am not sure what the logic of it is). As you are walking (and "you" is one or two, and not more), the person walking towards you almost reaches you, bends down and "picks up" a "golden ring" from the ground. It is offered to you as if you had lost it, and since it is not yours, the person offers to give it to you. It has a "14k" stamped inside. This is the point where I am lost --if you take it, does the "finder" expect a finder's fee? Is there some other expected transaction that allows them access to something of yours? What does it say about you as a person, taking something that does not belong to you? (I had my first "ring" experience along Rue Rivoli when a young woman approached me, and for a second, I thought it was legitimate that she found someone's ring --until she tried to give it to me!)
On Saturday, this happened to us THREE times within 15 minutes on the same stretch of Avenue de New York. (If it was Avenue de Las Vegas, I could see the connection!)
By the third time, I waved the guy on in disgust before he even reached the ground --his response? "ooh-la-la". Indeed. I did not think fast enough --I should have taken the ring, given a look to David, thrown it in the Seine, and then told the guy, "merci!" Without making ethnic comments, I would guess that these "artists" are probably related to the people we met while waiting to get our exams for our carte de sejour.

We did arrive at Eiffel Tower with all of our money and possessions intact! And we were still laughing! But I was also a bit annoyed --did we look like people who would be so easily taken-- or dishonest? But then, what do those people look like? US! (as in, we elected Le President Bush)!

You do need to go to the Eiffel Tower to appreciate its magnificence. The design of the base of structure and the lace-like --dentelle-- effect of the steel make the experience of walking around the surrounding park, the Champs-de-Mars, one of walking in a huge sculpture garden. The tower has had lights installed in the structure, and on the hour in the evening the tower "sparkles"! There was an art installation at the other end of the Champs-de-Mars, directly in front of the Ecole Militaire (I am certain it was placed purposefully!), that used the word for peace in 32 languages as its message. The words were etched into glass panels so that you could view the landscape --and all of the people enjoying the park-- with the word for peace super-imposed upon it. Worth more than a golden ring.

ps. in the "labels for this post" are the descriptions of the pictures --unfortunately in the order this program has decided to post them -- I will work on this!

La Cuisine Francaise

Is Molto Mario (Mario Batali to those of who are not native New Yorkers or aficionados of celebrity cuisiniers) the Catherine de Medici of the New World? (we are getting to the ducks after this provocative transgression!) In the press here, Le President Sarkozy, who has an approval rating similar to Le President George Bush, created a little European stir when he suggested that French cuisine be declared part of the world's cultural heritage and given UNESCO designation. He declared that the French "have the best gastronomy in the world." The Italians were not impressed.

This little exchange has a long history --the Italians claim that when Catherine de Medici came to France to marry Henri II in 1533 she was homesick and brought cooks and food with her from Florence-- as well as the city of Florence as a dowry. Her father was Lorenzo de Medici. She was only 14, and yet she is responsible for haricots verts? (good thing she was not from the US; where would French cuisine have gone if based on the taste of an American teenager?) The presence of green beans and other exotic foods like broccoli and truffles in France is attributed to her chefs....but since Henri II was running around with Diane de Potiers, perhaps it was fitting revenge--every restaurant and brasserie serves haricot verts--and who even remembers Henri II? Of course, Catherine in her later years was her father's daughter -- she is held responsible for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of the Huegenots --the French Protestants-- here in Paris 3 days after her daughter Marguerite married Henry of Navarre (a Huguenot who decided Catholicism was a good choice over death or life imprisonment). I read about this massacre when visiting the 15th century church of St. Germain L'Auxerrois next to the Louvre, but I did not appreciate that there was a food connection...but this is France!

This finally leads me back to les canards and the confit du canard. "Confit" is a method of preservation, and for preserving meat it requires salting and then cooking it in its own fat (grasse, you will recall, but the actual noun is "la graisse" --which of course is a feminine noun....). Preserving food in oil/fat and salt certainly pre-dates Catherine, but the idea of sealing the food in jars was developed in France by Nicolas Appert for Napoleon, who wanted unspoiled food for his troops, and the idea of the heating to kill any living organisms in the food (and thus prevent things like botulism) was another French idea, by Louis Pasteur. The prepared duck is packed into large preserving jars and processed as you would process tomatoes or fruit preserves (which are called confitures in French). The foie gras is also processed similarly, but does not go through the salting and pre-cooking process. The jars are sealed in a water bath process of stacking the jars in a large (in this case small trash can sized) pot and covering the jars with water. The whole pot is heated to boiling until the liquid inside the jars is boiling; the cooling creates a seal. (David, I am certain that you could describe the actual transformation process in precise scientific details, but it's really more than we need to know--but readers, please feel free to let him know if you want the scientific explanation!) This is the end of confit process -- and the easiest!

Getting to the point of having something that FITS in these rather large jars is the real job. Remember, we had over 18 kilos (that's 40 lbs for those of you who have no idea of the units of measure most of the world uses --a kilo is about 2.2 lbs!) of ducks --and only 4 ducks!
As I had mentioned earlier, the livers are not sold in situ, but at a separate sale. The ducks are mostly whole, with nearly all of their necessary organs in place. Essentially, you need to open the duck so that you can get your hands inside and then begin removing things... but saving all of the fat in the inside. For those of you who were ER fans --it is much cleaner and there is no blood or George Clooney. Once you have removed things (and if you want the details, email me!) you must remove the carcass from the body. I was actually good at this with my very sharp knife --I had watched repeated episodes of Julia Child when she made "Chicken Melon"-- she de-boned a whole chicken and stuffed it! And I did it without the ever-present glass of wine that Julia Child had on every show! Once the carcass is removed you can open the duck body out flat and cut the legs --les cuisses, the breasts-- les magrets , etc. into pieces (of course there are still some things that you need to remove and discard). You then trim the skin with its underlying fat so that it is not larger than the piece of meat. These pieces are covered with coarse salt for 24 hours before cooking. The salt is removed before cooking.

La graisse (sounds better than saying what it is --fat!) is rendered, which is cooked until it is a liquid. And I am talking about a large quantity of fat --I would guess we had 1.5 gallons or more. This fat is used to cook the duck pieces --not fry, but more of a poaching, and then the cooked pieces are put in the jars and the jars are filled with the remaining fat and closed. At that point they are processed for sealing. The foie gras is just packed into jars with a splash of Armagnac --after all, we are in the Southwest of France!-- and processed. They have enough gras (the masculine form of grasse as le foie is a masculine noun!) to be processed without adding fat.

We brought home these very heavy jars on the TGV --with successful packaging by Philippe, and we have the makings of a good cassoulet or confit du canard with potatoes cooked in some of the fat, which is delicious! And we have foie gras to share with our friends. The confit du canard itself is certainly not fancy, fussy cuisine. It has, however, the essence of "le terroir", the soil/region/terrain that is what ties French cuisine to France itself. Le terroir is what makes every cheese, wine, meat, and other product of the land so specialized, regionalized, and recognized. Confit du canard is a specialty of the Southwest of France, so we went to the Southwest of France to get ducks raised in that region to make the confit.

And Mario?....I have recently finished reading HEAT, by Bill Buford (a writer with no professional culinary experience), an account of working in the kitchen at Mario Batali's restaurant, Babbo, and a biographical glimpse into Mario's views on food and his journey to bring the best of Italian cooking to New York. Mario is of the school of thought that Italians are responsible for French cuisine-the Catherine de Medici story. Buford follows and expands Mario's journey to various places in Italy --mostly Tuscany-- to learn the best of Italian cuisine where it tied to the land and traditions --"le terroir" of Italy. Near the end of the book, Buford describes an interview that he had with Frank Bruni, restaurant critic for the NY Times who had been the NYT bureau chief in Rome. Bruni had given Babbo a rave review, but his opinion is that the food at Babbo is too complicated to be Italian food, which he describes as simple. "Italy is a starting point." So, like Catherine de Medici, Mario Batali has created a new cuisine from the food of Italy --the food which has "le terrior". Bill Buford closes the book "Heat" --wanting to go to France to follow the transformation to La Cuisine Francaise!
PS. Sarkozy married Italian supermodel, Carla Bruni, at the end of February--so will she be the next Catherine?

Les canards and other things that fly

First, I must apologize to all of you who are vegetarians or who find it objectionable that the French feed their ducks the way some Americans feed themselves (I was horrified to learn today that some baseball parks now offer all you can eat seats! All you can eat of what? Does that stuff even qualify to be labeled food? Are they increasing the size of the seats?). Thankfully, we cannot get enough seats into Fenway for the demand--although they did just add new seating in the Coke sign area, I hope there are no all you can drink Coke seats! Hopefully, Boston will never have to rely on offering all you can eat nachos covered with something called cheese that was invented in a chemical plant along the Jersey Turnpike! Go Sox!
Back to the ducks.....and the famous foie gras and confit du canard. Our trip from Lyon with Jacqueline and Philippe had a purpose and being that this is France, it had a food related purpose. Our destination was Toulouse where we would make preserved duck-confit du canard and preserved foie gras with instruction and demonstration by their friend Virginie. The southwest of France is famous for their ducks. And these are healthy and large ducks.....
In order to make the confit, we had to get the ducks. We drove to the town of Gimont on Wednesday morning to arrive there by 9:30am so we would be there when the ducks went on sale. Please be assured that these are not live ducks, but poultry like you buy at a butcher, but with more parts still attached. This sale happens on Wednesday and Sunday mornings only. Promptly at 9:30, the man guarding the door blew his whistle and this crowd of about 30 people rushed in to buy the ducks laid out on tables for purchase. It is important to know that you rarely buy a duck with its liver --le foie-- as the livers are the most valuable part of the duck and thus sold separately --at 10:30 with the whistle again!
Virginie led us all in to the table of a producer who had the type of duck she wanted. We purchased the 4 that he had. We left with our 18 plus kilos of duck and waited for the sale of the livers. At 10:30 we joined that happy throng in a rush to buy the livers and snagged 4 good ones --we let Virginie make the choices-- they all looked like big gobs of modeling clay to me. Let me reassure you, this is an incredibly clean and antiseptic process --no blood, no smells, no gory details. Actually it is like that 6th grade science project, dissecting a chicken leg (you know the one that made you never eat recognizable pieces of chicken again).

Toulouse is an interesting place that must have been Spanish in an earlier life. However, it is the home of the pride of the EU --and France. It is the home of Airbus. Driving back with our four dead ducks and the livers of four other dead ducks, we got to see pieces of the Airbus 380 which were in transit to Toulouse for assembly. These pieces, the nose, the tail section and the wings are loaded on trucks labeled "Convoi Exceptionnel" and are driven at night to Airbus. They must close the roads to take them. They were parked in a fenced off area along the road that was built to accommodate these shipments. And there was a place to stop so you could get out and see the pieces--and many people did! You can get an idea of how big they are as they need to close the road to move them. My favorite sign on one of the trucks read:
"The seat-transport jig may only be operated by persons that were properly instructed and are familiar with the documentation especially the operating instruction." Considering what these sections must cost, I would hope that no cowboy would decide to move them!
We did take a ride to the Airbus facility and did manage to see a 380 on the tarmac. One large airplane! As you might imagine, this installation has been a huge economic boost to Toulouse and the surrounding area and the ability of the French government to get the assembly plant for Airbus is a source of great pride in the area --and for that matter all of France.
We returned to Toulouse and set up our own assembly plant to make our jars of confit and foie gras. Before we get started, let me answer the obvious question. Neither David nor I love foie gras. However, we prefer foie gras to the offerings at all baseball parks or other arenas of haute sports cuisine. We are in France and foie gras is cuisine exceptionnelle and we want to treat our guests well. Please do not be shy, we are happy to share our bounty with you! We are happy to eat the baguettes!
There is a French pun on the sign for the ducks --"Le dimanche matin, faites la grasse matinee a Gimont" the translation is "Sunday mornings, sleep-in at Gimont." "Grasse" is the adjective (in the feminine form, gras is the masculine form) for fat --which the ducks are, and they sell them on Sunday mornings--so get the fat (ducks) on Sunday mornings at Gimont!

Les lentilles and les Coquilles St. Jacques

We left Lyon Tuesday morning, the 25th of February to drive to Toulouse where we would be staying with friends of Jacqueline and Philippe and undertaking the big project of making confit du canard and foie gras--from scratch...well these ducks don't scratch like chickens, they have been FED.
Our first stop was the medieval village of Le Puy-en-Velay. Remember the lentil soup? Le Puy is the home of the famous green lentils eaten in France. The city is built at the top of basalt peaks--there are three significant sites--the Chapelle St. Michel d'Aguilhe, the statue of Notre Dame which overlooks the town and the valley, and the magnificent Cathedrale de Notre Dame built in the 11th and 12th centuries.
The cathedral is famous for its black madonna. These madonnas, carved out of walnut or cedar, have darkened over the years, and are notable in this region of the Auverne in the Massif Central. The one in this cathedral is a copy made after the Revolution, which destroyed the original.
And the Coquilles St. Jacques have a role in this cathedral as well --this cathedral was the one of the four starting places for the pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the tomb of St. James --St. Jacques en francaise-- the cathedral dates back to 813, with the "current" cathedral having been started in 1075. When the pilgrims completed their search for redemption, they returned with a scallop shell--a coquille St. Jacques and thus, scallops are Coquilles St. Jacques to this day!
Compostela in Spain is located near the coast of Galicia, and scallops are native to this area. There are legends of scallops covering the body of St. James when it washed ashore and other stories, and perhaps the shells had the practical purpose of being used for eating or drinking. Of course, the coast of Spain was the end of the world before 1492......I wonder what the Spaniards thought when they found scallops in the new world! Perhaps they too earned a plenary indulgence (which for those of you not familiar with the pre-payment of redemption, grants access to Heaven as all of your earthly digressions have been paid for by acts or gifts). Might have been re-affirming to those with Columbus!
I do not know if Philippe planned our dinner on the eve of this journey as a preview of our trip --or it was divine intervention-- I do light a lot of candles!
Le Puy is also famous for its lace--la dentelle. We stopped in shop and the young woman there showed us how the bobbin lace is made --it is a family tradition to this day. There is a resurgence in these handcrafts and there is even a school there for lacemaking.
Leaving this medieval city, we made our own pilgrimage to see one of the recent marvels of French construction and engineering, the Viaduc de Millau. This bridge which opened in December 2004 is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world --and it is taller than the Eiffel Tower! It is only 125 feet shorter than the Empire State building.....it is a magnificent cable stayed road bridge that is over two miles long over the valley of the Tarn --it has the longest cable stayed road deck in the world. Interestingly enough, the Zakim Bridge in Boston is the widest cable stayed bridge in the world. The bridge has its own tourist stops on both sides of the valley--they have models, and information and a great film of the construction. In Boston, there's no place to even look at the bridge! C'est la France!

Our last stop before Toulouse was Roquefort-sur-Soulzon --home of the famous Roquefort cheese and the caves where it develops its blue mold. One of the guide books describes it as having one main street (it's a rather old stone main street, however) and one main product. I can attest that this is true --we could not even find a cafe or bar to get a much needed cafe-- we had to resort to a machine in the Society Roquefort building while we were waiting to visit the caves! It is an interesting process--these particular penicillin spores are mixed into the sheeps' milk, the curds are molded into "cakes" about 10"-12" in diameter. After some time, they are de-molded and then a device with 48 long needles pierces each cheese to allow the air from the openings in the caves --the openings are called fleurines-- to help with the fermentaion process. The cheeses are arranged on slatted oak shelves to allow air circulation and are turned to ripen. This process takes 14-25 days and once completed, the cheeses are wrapped in tinfoil by hand and stored in cold rooms for several months. The milk for the roquefort is only collected from December to July. It has been around for a long time --Pliny the Elder mentioned it in his Natural History in 76 A.D. The story is that a shepard left his milk in cave after a rendez-vous with a young lady, and when he found it months later (perhaps another rendez-vous??) it had been transformed into this blue grained cheese --under the exterior mold! We of course tasted samples! And it was good!

Next stop, Toulouse!

Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite

Last Monday, the 25th of February, we met our friends Jacqueline and Philippe in Lyon to accompany them on their vacation to the area around Toulouse. They invited us along to visit their friends and to make duck confit and foie gras--in the beginning there was a whole duck! We had a reservation for the TGV at 4pm.

But before we left as we had to go to the Agence Nationale de l'Accueil des Estrangers et des Migrations (ANAEM) for our physicals as part of obtaining our carte de sejour and medical insurance. Our appointment was at 1 pm. Their office is located near the Bastille, which is near Gare de Lyon where we would get the TGV to go to Lyon that afternoon.

When we arrived, there was a "gathering" of about 25 people who appeared to be from another century (we guessed Albanian, but have since been advised that they are probably Romanian as the border has been opened). If you have seen the Gypsies who have been in European cities for many years, you can get an image. They were trying to get into the offices, but did not have the necessary papers for entry. They were men and women of various ages passing cigarettes back and forth and some carrying their belongings in shopping caddies--and David and I with our suitcases! It must have been an interesting sight to see us in the midst of this rather boisterous crowd. I so wanted to take a picture, but prudence intervened.

When we got in, David just had his exam, but I got to be part of Sarkozy's new introduction to France program for immigrants. We had not heard about this! They had a movie about France and its principals of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite. I had to sign a "Contrat d'accueil et d'integration"--in which I promised to learn French, attend a day long program on French civics, and attend any required interviews to monitor my progress and France promises me the same rights as French citizens except voting privileges. I passed my French test and 'Session d'information sur la vie en France"...so I am looking forward to this civics class! Another interesting fact--my Massachusetts driver's license is valid for me to use --not every state's license is. Once I get my carte de sejour, I can renew it. David, however, le professeur, did not have to do any of these things! No contract, no French civics, no language test (they have free instruction in French if you need it)---I guess that if Ecole des Mines hires you, you must have the French principals of Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite. And, I am Judith Procaccini in all of my French paperwork.

We did make our train...although it was close. The young woman calling the names for the medical appointments did not call my name until I was the only person left--she told me she did not see anyone who was a "Parks"--I think she was looking for someone who was Asian! She was so apologetic that she personally made the rounds with me and got me out in an hour!

We arrived in Lyon--at the right train station (I missed it the last time!) and Philippe had prepared a wonderful meal of a pureed soup of lentils de Puy and coquilles St. Jacques...a hint of what we would see during the week!