Isabelle's Birthday Party

Sunday it was like a gun shot went off at the crack of dawn and we ran down to the market to get everything we needed for our contribution to the lunch at the chateau. It was a surprise party and we would be meeting at the town hall, after which the entire group would proceed on foot through the big gate at the edge of town. We'd quietly walk through the tunnel of trees to the chateau, and take Isabelle by surprise, where she'd be sitting by the fire in the study with her mother!

All kinds of antics took place while we were trying to get ready. We decided to take a bicycle, and went out of our way to the station where there were two available, but when Loïc got his, it turned out to not have a chain! This is a serious problem with the VELO-V, the public rental bikes that have been in place since the year 2005. The rule is that when a person is in a hurry, the only bike available is going to 1) have a defective seat or 2) have no chain. So I hurried down on the one working bike ahead to start gathering ingredients while he returned the bike and reported the problem. Loïc followed up behind at the market, gathering things into the basket as he came along behind me.

We did some herbed sausage puff pastry bites and some tarragon seasoned chicken turnovers, and made a nice big salad. The desserts were wonderful, a velvety white chocolate cake that I begged for the recipe from Seb's sister, and the two variations on the tiramisu that their cousin Perrine brought.

The photo above is of the desserts in her basket, in the kitchen ready to go into the fridge. She says that she just got a nice big recipe book with 60 recipes for (French) variations on the tiramisu. The whole variation on the tiramisu thing is very popular here in France. They were delicious, in any case. I particularly loved the pan holding the one with almonds on top. Everyone arrived with their contributions in woven baskets of various kinds. It was a beautiful thing to see.

Diligent Patience

The Vin de Noix you can prepare at home takes a few months and sometimes as long as a whole year to come into its own, but the payoff is much better than any of that watered down industrial stuff on the market. Stamped with its “seal of approval”, the factory-made corner cut version is eons behind in quality what you can produce by carefully choosing the right ingredients and doing things with quality in mind over quantity or profit. The key is being able to identify what will withstand the test of time, and doing your best to shoot for your end result, even if it won’t fall fully into place for a while. The beauty of this nut wine is that Mother Nature works it, step by step, day by day. Your only work is the often difficult task of choosing quality, then the practice of patience.

Location, Location, Location. After provenance, even if your hands-on work is minimal, the wait and see is very good practice in itself. Do what comes naturally. Set a place aside for your nut wine. Go ahead and actively leave it alone. Set yourself a schedule for other pressing, more important things and practice faith in the choices you have made. Don’t judge a nut wine too early in the process. Don't shake it or stir it. Give it what it needs. Keep it sheltered from the heat, give it a little bit of air but protect it from dust. Eventually, your diligent patience will pay off. In my opinion if you aspire to make great nut wine, and your efforts are rewarded with good cheer even a year later, it is enough motivation in itself to continue on.

Imagine my surprise when we received a family guest from Loïc’s father’s side. She took a look at the jars I had set on a tray that I had removed from the safe, ready to strain and bottle. She told me that Loïc’s father used to do a Vin de Noix, it was something that he did before he and Brigitte had married and before Brigitte brought her mother’s family recipe for Vin d’Orange. It surprised me that he never mentioned this, not once, over the years, when presented with our version. My first reflex was one of puzzled exasperation. Why anyone would fail to mention such a thing? The subject of Vin de Noix is a wonderful topic of discussion as far as we are concerned. But perhaps there is more to the story than meets the eye. Perhaps in his mind it represents something he does not want to remember or reminisce about. Something dark. Sometimes you can tell more about a person by what they don’t say. His lengthy soliloquies are often about much less meaningful subjects. Therein lies a mystery that is worth setting aside to contemplate. It is rich enough to write down to think about later.

This year, I threw some roasted cocoa beans into the mix. It turned out to be a good decision. After a few months with the nuts, their flavor infused into but did not overpower the brew, which was what I was hoping for. It was like adding vanilla, which adds a certain depth of flavor, but does not play a deciding role in the overall theme. I will continue to use the cocoa beans in years to come, at least for a part of the batch.

The flavor of the wine has taken on its full natural nut flavor, with a hint of chocolate kicking in on the palate, like a lingering memory. It is pleasant to sip, even now. Very nice added to coffee. Months from now, when Mother Nature has done her work at mellowing the flavor, I think we’ll have a real winner on our hands. When Loic’s uncle’s family prepares their Genepi, they sweeten after the infusion. This summer, while the green nuts were steeping in their juice, I went to New York for a visit and came back with some real maple syrup. I added a tablespoon or two, just to give it that je ne sais quoi.

I found a Lumocolor permanent glasochrom 108 20-0. This is a permanent, non smear grease pencil that comes in different colors. I can write on my Vin de Noix bottles and it won’t smear off. A couple of experiments later, I had this year’s packaging.

The Mushrooms and the Pharmacist

While my camera is off for a spa treatment, which takes a week, and costs lots of money, I'll just talk a little bit. I won't get into the reasons why I have had to send it off for a soin, but it has something to do with food and my love of taking pictures in the kitchen.

I have mentioned before that the pharmacists here in this country are supposed to be trained to identify mushrooms. I was out gathering information about the communal ovens of mountain villages in the Bugey, and along the way just near Alain Chapel's place, we arrived to an intersection in two dirt roads. I was admiring the silhouette of a copse of oak trees and white cows dotted along the horizon of a field. It just looked magical. I asked Loic if he might stop the car and let me get out and take a longer look.

He pulled over, and I got out of the car and stumbled, a few yards into a field, upon what looked to be white things strewn across the ground. Taking a second look before stepping on them, having been trained in the city to watch my step, I realized that they looked like nice big field mushrooms, glowing white against the dark grass. I sort of broke one off, then another nice large white mushroom, with a kind of snap and fresh wonderful crisp feeling thump. Then I picked up another half dozen smaller ones. They looked absolutely scrumptious. Loic by that time was curious about what I had found. He saw them, and opened the trunk, looking for a basket.

Since we didn't have a basket, I just laid the mushrooms out carefully on the blanket, covered them with another cloth to keep them from rolling around, and we continued on our way. I made it to the towns I was looking for, through winding roads up into the mountains, and we fully inspected the ovens, took notes, and talked to the people there. Near sundown, we got onto a main artery heading back home.

I had nearly forgotten about the mushrooms when we got home, but at the last minute, got them out of the trunk. We were a little bit tired and certainly not going to eat the mushrooms before a good ID. I had the false information age impression that I could pull up some kind of identification database and quickly get them named before we went off to bed. After some fruitless searching with things getting mroe and more muddled, I realized it wasn't going to be that easy. There are a lot of factors to identifying mushrooms.

I decided to change gears and broke out my copy of Celebrating the Wild Mushroom, written by Sara Ann Friedman. I snuggled in under the covers, and by the bedside lamp, as Loic drifted off to sleep, I began to read about the love of mushroom hunting that has swept up many a gourmande in America.

I skipped to the chapter on identifying a few of the most common species, and read there:

The next section describes six of the most common toxic mushrooms and all of the deadly species found in North America. It lists their edible look-alikes and tells you how to distinguish them. You should always, of course, also check with your field guide if you are even the least bit suspicious.

I shuddered at the possibility. The mushrooms were safely tucked into a bowl in the refrigerator. Could they be deadly poisonous? Was there a possibility that somehow a mistake could be made? What a frightening prospect!

The other four deadly Amanitae - verna, virosa, bosporigera, and ocreata - are whiter, a bit taller, and more slender than a death cap. They are difficult to tell apart from one another and justly deserve their collective name: the destroying angel.

Ai yai yai. This was going to be an adventure indeed. I turned over in the bed, dragging the covers with me, and said to Loic, waking him up, that we'd better get the pharmacist involved if we planned to eat them. He was laying there with his eyes half open and glazed over. His mouth was opened slightly, and I didn't hear his breathing. His face seemed greenish in the light. I suddenly felt the urge to shake him! He smiled sleepily and said "you don't mean you're afraid to eat them?" I knew he was teasing me. I turned out the light.

The pharmacist knows me very well. She has my information on her computer and has seen me through every sniffle and sprain since we moved here. She has a staff of three. They are all pretty young but knowing the system here they have been preparing since grade school to be pharmacists. The young man on staff really gets into his job and loves being a part of the community. He likes to really get involved and explain things in great detail, and give all kinds of advice.

We went throught the pleasantries. "How is your back Madame Vanel?" I thanked him and told him it was doing much better.

"Tell me, I understand you can identify mushrooms, is this correct?" I asked, watching for any hesitation in his gaze or any sway from meeting my own. I was taking no chances. His face froze for that slight instant, that little fraction of a second, before relaxing again into a smile. I think I was his first mushroom customer. "But of course, Madame Vanel. Why don't you bring them in and I'll take a look at them." I said I'd be right back with my pickings, so he could identify them.

My place is just around the corner, and I rushed up the stairs and put the booty into a paper sack and returned to the pharmacy. He was nowhere to be found. I took a look at the shampoos and herbal teas, thinking he'd be out in a moment. He came out and I held up my bag. He glanced in my direction but then looked as if he didn't see me. He took a beeline for his colleague who was discussing some kind of pill schedule with an elderly lady who was seated at the other end of the pharmacy and at once looked deeply involved and interested in the conversation. The lady was basking in the joy of having two pharmacists at her beck and call.

The head pharmacist came out and she warmly greeted me. "It has been awhile, Madame Vanel", she said. "What brings you in today?" The young man was off the hook. "I have these mushrooms here, we found them in a field while out in the country yesterday".

"Ah, it is the season," she beamed. "We used to get a lot of people asking but these days it is rather rare," she said. Lets see what you've got. I brought out the largest one. "Ah." She silently turned it over in her hand and stroked the little skirt around the stem. Just as quickly as that she said, "Madame Vanel, these mushrooms do look like magnificent specimens. But what has me nervous is this little skirt here. I would say non." She pursed her lips and went back into the bag and pulled out the smaller ones.

"Non?" I repeated, meekly. Death angels. They were death angels.

"Non." She repeated again. I waited for her to continue, to say what kind they were, or to say something else. Non was the last word.

A slight wave of relief came over me and I smiled and thanked her. I did not even entertain the idea of eating them at that point. On the way home I chucked them in a garbage can. I did open the bag and let them tumble out, and watch them cascade in a beautiful heap down into the bin, remembering the beautiful excursion the day before, feeling a bit dizzy.

"Do you believe her?" said Loic, when I recounted the tale of my visit to the pharmacy. I just looked at him, since his question did not deserve an answer. "What did you do with them?" I lied to see the expression on his face. "Well, I didn't think they should go to waste, so I made an omelette for the widow who lives upstairs. I'm pretty sure the pharmacist was wrong, Loic. She seemed fine when she left." I tried to keep a straight face, but he wasn't fooled for an instant.

I just hope that a freegan didn't go fishing around in the garbage bin near the P'tit Casino at La Martiniere.

Do Your Chestnuts Justice

Along the route to school at the top of Circle road, it was considered supremely auspicious to come across a chestnut on the path. The reason for this was that although there was a tree, the neighborhood's squirrel population made it pretty unlikely for a kid to find one of these outide of their prickly shell, a mysterious nugget that looked like a shiny river smoothed stone. As a child I had no idea that they were edible, we just considered them good luck. I carried one in my pocket for months when I was in the second grade.

Here in Lyonnais region, the chestnuts are at market, and we see that the producers are again this year offering their sweet chestnut spread to tartine onto morning toast or to use in any number of home desserts. The glacier Nardonne, on the Saone quai, does a chestnut themed sundae that includes, in a silver chalice, the nuts in a special house prepared ice cream, the paste, candied nuts, thick hot fudge and chantilly. It is enough to put even a gourmande into a chestnut coma, and should be followed by a strong cup of coffee if you've got anything planned later in the day.

On the rue de Brest, the traiteur La Minaudière, owned by Cellerier at Les Halles, slow roasts them in sugar until they are glowing transparent candied gems that they stack in pyramids in the shop window, and remove one by one at the customer's request with silver tongs. They wrap some in golden paper. These go for a pretty penny, and the market supports it since these particular candied chestnuts from this particular traiteur are etched in stone as a must for hundreds of Lyonnais families at the Christmas holidays. If you go down the narrow side street beside the traiteur, you can peer through arched stone windows into their kitchens while they work.

Peeling chestnuts is a tiresome activity for me, ranking up there with pitting cherries or olives. This is a task I endure every year at Thanksgiving. I always prepare a chestnut and bacon dish. The idea comes from the first time I tasted a savory pork spiked chesnut puree, in China, of all places. I introduced this idea to the Thanksgiving table our first year in France, given their easy availability, and my special memories. Now, when I bring out my lists and sit down with Loic to plan the meal, he always insists on that dish. It has become a steadfast tradition and I don't think we'll ever cross it out.

Everyone has their tips and tricks for getting these nuts out of their shells. Some score and boil them, some roast them first, etc. Chestnuts are known to explode when heated in the microwave. Be careful too with your knife, it has to be ultra sharp when you peel chestnuts. The duller the knife, the more you risk injuring yourself. I remarked to one man who grows the nuts that I still had not found an easy way around this task. He brought out a pocket knife, and lickety split, peeled one of his in front of me. If it were only that easy for me! I dread the task every year but the fruit from my labor is always worth the struggle. I investigated the idea of purchasing shelled chestnuts at one time but found that industrial methods of removing the skins involve soaking in toxic acids. Needless to say I choose to do it by hand these days.

How are the French using chestnuts in savory cuisine? In Provence, specifically in the Var, you might run across farinettes (little crepes) with chestnuts, eggs, and a sauce Choron, a tomato seasoned bearnaise sauce. In the Lyonnais region, you can find chestnuts in pumpkin soup with aged Beaufort, chestnuts and bacon, or tender glazed Cantal pork ribs, served with split pea purée sauce and chestnuts. In the Aquitaine, in the southwest, you might find veal sweetbread escalopes served with brasied endives and chestnuts. In Cahors, one restauranteur starts dinner with an appetizer called the "Crème Esau" with lentils, chestnuts and truffle seasoned whipped cream. In Cannes, they're eating chestnuts with Mediterranean sea bass. In the Lorraine, slow braised chestnuts are paired with wild boar. Katie has prepared a nice dish with butternut squash with the nuts she found. The possibilities are endless.

Torta di Spinaci Like an Italian Grandmother

My nieces Amy and Alison have Italian grandmothers. I do not. I say grandmothers because their grandmother has a sister. She looks almost exactly like her, and is a sister at the hip. Each a gorgeous sister filling in and rounding out one other, they have made a natural progession in their lives together. It has manifested in one fabulous personality we call Sadie & Ethel. We never see them apart. My sister married when I was quite young, so they were fixtures in my life throughout my childhood. When they entered our lives in the year 1976, they dressed alike, wore identical long black Farrah type hair styles, used the same makeup, spoke certain phrases in unison, traveled often to New York City, and represented the ultimate in class and style in Syracuse New York. They were in the clothing business. They now live in connecting condos in Florida, and I don't know what they are cooking these days. But in their days in Syracuse, they had a joint repertoire of some of the most delectable dishes and desserts I was to experience in my youth. I adore them. They are the only Italian grandmothers I know. They never prepared any kind of torta, from my recollection. But while preparing this with what magically appeared in my hands yesterday, with the greens I had on hand, and some pastry crust from the night before, I thought it might be nice to name this after the Italian grandmothers of the world.

Torto Spinaci Like an Italian Grandmother
Serves 6 as an appetizer of 4 as a main dish
you can have this on the table from start to finish in 40 minutes

For this recipe, if you cannot find this lovely cured pork belly called ventresca, go ahead and use streaky bacon, or if you do have an Italian imports shop in your neighborhood, get some pancetta and use that.

1 batch of basic savory crust, here's a recipe or use your own
3 ounces, about 100 grams, or 6 thin slices of of ventresca, pancetta, or bacon
1 shallot
1 pound or 500 grams of spinach
1 large bunch of garden arugula
2 tablespoons of white wine (see note)
salt and pepper
2 fresh eggs
3 fresh sage leaves

Very important note on the wine: Don't use it if you don't have a glass of white wine in your hand while you are cooking. It is as simple as that. I splashed a couple of tablespoons into the pot while I was cooking but would not have done so if I didn't have the wine in my hand. Please follow suit and don't go out of your way to find wine, pour wine, or open a bottle to prepare this recipe.

- Prepare your pastry dough in the manner you pefer or according to this recipe. Set it to rest.
- Rinse and dry your greens, both the spinach and arugula.
- Take three thin slices of whatever pork belly you have, and remove the strip of skin off one side, leaving the strip in once piece. Slice the three slices of belly perpendicular to the grain and make little matchsticks with them.
- mince the shallot
- heat a pan to hot, put the ventresca in, with the strips of skin, and lower the heat to medium low. Render the fat from the ventresca slowly, for about 5 minutes.
- remove the strips of skin, and add the minced shallot, and sweat it for about 3 more minutes.
- roll the spinach and the arugula into cigars and cut across them, making thin strips.
- raise the heat again to high.
- add the spinach and arugula all at once, and toss it with the shallot and the ventresca. Splash a little bit of wine from your glass into the pan and let it steam up into the greens. Add a little bit of salt as needed and a generous gind of black pepper. Keep tossing them and pushing them around until everything wilts considerably. Evaporate the liquid. Remove from heat.
- beat the two eggs, and reserve 1 tablespoon of the beaten egg for the end.
- divide the dough into 2/3 for the bottom, and 1/3 for the top.
- roll out the 2/3 sized part of the dough and line a small but deep baking dish.
- pile the spinach and arugula into it, don't worry if it mounds up above the top, spread it evenly in the dish, it should fill it completely.
- pour the eggs (except that one Tblsp. you have reserved) over the spinach, and tap it on the counter to make sure it flows down into the spinach and arugula.
- spread the remaining slices of ventresca over the top of the spinach.
- Roll out the 1/3 sized piece into a circle to cover and meet the edges of the tourte, so you can pinch it closed here and there.
- with a little knife, carve three holes in roughly the shape of sage leaves, and pop a leaf into each one. Place the dough you have removed wherever you think it will look nice on the top of the crust.
- brush the top with egg yolk.
- Cover lightly with foil, and bake at 190C / 375F for about 30-40 minutes, removing the foil after 15 minutes.
You can serve it hot or cold, it is very good either way. If you are a vegetarian, you can omit the meat.

The Italian Connection

At lunch last week, I was craving Italian, so I went to Roberto's place. He works alone in a little open kitchen near the St. Vincent fresco, where he prepares food from his motherland.

He shakes the other neighborhood chefs' hands on the street, takes his breaks on the square in front of the fresco, and people go to his place to enjoy his Italian market menu at lunch and dinner. I hit the tail end of his lunch service that day, so he sat down with me to talk. He told me a little bit about what it's like to serve foreign food in France. The thing that kills him is what many of these pizza joints are presenting as Italian food. "They're giving Italy a bad name", he said in his quiet way, looking a bit worried. "The creamy sauces, and the things they're passing off as Carbonara..."

I assured him that this is done the world over. My observation is that every culture seems to have its own take on the rest of the world's cuisine. If someone adjusts a recipe to cater to the tastes of the host country, a descending spiral leading to the destruction of an imported culinary identity takes place. Then there's the supply chain. Local substitutions added to recipes that were once authentic dilute the formula even more. People like Roberto are rare. His food gets its reputation because it is real and honest market cuisine, done according to his training.

I asked him about Italian imports. There are a few bijou boutiques, you know, that place in the Croix Rousse where you can get a nice Italian fennel sausage. Then there's that place at Les Halles, the one that specializes in ravioli. A boutique near Cordeliers has a nice selection of vinegars. There's the shop that just opened five months ago down on rue de Charité across from Cap' Epices, a little Casino called Cas'Italie, that looks like a popular chain of grocery shops called Casino, but actually is stocked completely with popular grocery products direct from Italy.

Roberto seemed amused at my obsession with finding authentic Italy in Lyon. I told him that the place I grew up has an established Italian community. Its simple. The American version of Italian is different from the French version. In short, when I am craving that authentic fennel sausage from the Italians here in Lyon, it's because I'm really looking for a little bit of home. It is rather strange and convoluted, isn't it?

Yesterday at the end of the day, I went to a quiet cafe to write some notes. The cafe is actually not far from Roberto's place. When I was coming out, I saw him standing at his door, and waved. He motioned for me to come over. When I stepped inside, he was already in the kitchen.

"I have something for you", he said, turning around with something in his hands. He placed things one by one on the counter. "Here we have a cheese I made myself. It is called Marzolino, a goat cheese. A strong cheese. We make it in the month of March, when the goats have been grazing on strong winter herbs. And here, a sausage I also made, with peppers like Espelette but not Espelette, orange zest and fennel seeds. You will see. You mustn't cook that. And some Ventresca. You can use this in cooking but also you can eat this just like this. This is from my home." He smiled and quickly bundled these things into a sack and put the bundle into my hands. "This is for you."

I thanked him profusely and scurried off in the direction of my own kitchen. I barely heard what my neighbors were saying. They were standing out in front of the building, looking at the facade, talking about EDF (the electric company). There was the question of an extra 4 meters of wire and who was going to pay for it. Their brows were furrowed. I had this bundle of neighborly good will in my hand, and it was like a good luck charm. I bustled through, surrounded by my beaming aura, and went directly upstairs.

He said I mustn't cook the little sausages. I sliced off the end and popped it into my mouth. A feeling of warmth filled my heart. I poured a glass of wine and prepared a torta, with some greens I found at the market a big bunch of garden grown arugula, and some of his Ventresca.

His gifts to me.

Spiced Pêche de Vigne Streusel Cake with Toffee Glaze

My approach to baking is a bit strange. It is difficult for me to ever start with a recipe to execute and shop for it. I just don't have that kind of vision. I begin with something that catches my eye at the market or in the dry goods shop, and then sit in a modified lotus position and ask the ingredient what it wants to be, hiding the knife behind my back. Having a basket full of little pêche de vignes direct from a vinyard keeper in a bowl on the buffet to remind me that I had to do something with them, they began to nag. 'cake! cake!' they chanted, each time I passed.

I was sorely tempted for a moment, while I flipped through my favorite fruit dessert book, to poach them in wine. But they were already blood red inside. The whole color gradation thing would be lost.

I hit a recipe on page 184 that used plums, and by twisted logic (the real peche de vigne is no larger than a plum), I had pretty much made up my mind. Spiced Plum Streusel Cake with Toffee Glaze. Sound's good, huh? Would it be alright as a Spiced Pêche de Vigne Streusel Cake with Toffee Glaze? I had no problem with peaches and almonds. Why not? But what is a streusel? What does a streusel look like? Is it going to look pretty? I had guests coming!

I did a little google image search. Stodgy boring options slapped me across the face, and it stung. Hmm, maybe I won't do a streusel. I even searched the name with the German word for cake, hoping for inspiration from this dessert's motherland. The flat, boring, grey looking shadows in brownie pans hovered in the shadows like evil hobgoblins, frightening me.


But then I thought of David. Everything coming out of his kitchen is elegant. He didn't spend 12 years in the kitchen of Alice Waters to serve boring plain desserts. One really must trust. I scanned the recipe again. Cardamom. I thought to myself, if I have cardamom, this cake was meant to be. I had the pods, and this in itself told me that all was right with the streusel. The gods had given me a green light. I opened the pods and took out the insides. I crushed the cardamom in my mortar and pestle, not having the ground spice.

Out of expat technical instinct, I used the flute in my pan, because since it was a recipe for American kitchens, I had a concern about French flour. French flour, even the common type 155, is ground with a different method and sometimes American cake recipes won't work correctly here in this country. I have found that French cake recipes translate beautifully to American flour, but American recipes sometimes get lost in translation coming the other way to France. Using the flute made it so that the cake would cook all the way through.

Well, this streusel, using the little plum sized peche de vigne, was indeed elegant. Elegant in just the style I adore, simplicity, with the perfect spices, and the almond and fruit are a winning combination after all. Isn't it wonderful how something so simple can be so perfect? The sliced almonds in just the right ratio. The toffee syrup was as easy as one two three.


I thank the pastry chef for this elegant and simple recipe, which was noted in my kitchen notebook just as soon as the guests had kissed us and each other and dissapeared with smiles on their faces into the night.

Breaking up the Crust

This photo was taken at night but I wanted to

give you an idea of what it looked like when it was done.

With an afternoon spent doing other things, I turned the oven down to 300 and just let the thing bake, uncovered, for another 3 hours. Every hour I brought it out and pushed the crusty top layer into the juice. When I was getting ready to take it out to the table, with 5 people waiting, I took a taste and almost fell over backwards. The crust, which behaved itself and stayed just on top, was delcious and chewy and tasted like duck cracklings, and had a balance and a tang that went perfectly with the beans. There was plenty of juice left in the part underneath, and I spooned each person a part of the crust, some beans and meat, and then made another pass to add some juices. The couenne had dissolved and had mingled with the beans and meat. It was heavenly. Luckily we had five people there, otherwise we would have all eaten more of our share and felt guilty. We served a St. Emillion 2005 with it and followed it with a salad, local cheeses, and then dessert with a 2006 Bourgogne Aligote. It was really a very nice dinner.

One thing that really made a difference was that I used that mushroom stock. The mushroom stock began as duck stock, was reduced quite a bit, then went through the transformation with the wild mushrooms, reducing it a bit further. It was quite a concntrated stock to begin with. It gave a wonderful flavor to the beans. I will use the couenne again for this type of dish.

A First Pass - Bean Ragout

This has only had one first pass in the oven, and will spend

a few more hours there before Marie-Annick arrives.

In France, there are some regional dishes that possess a certain inviolable sanctity, and with some time here, you begin to realize which ones they are. Cassoulet is one of those dishes. You can tell by the way people argue about it. In practice, while the whole world gets away with plays on words and ideas when they prepare a Parmentier, sometimes omitting the potato altogether, or a Tatin, using everything from endives to foie gras and still calling it a Tatin, or a mille-feuille, where anything stacked is fair game, people don't mess with the Cassoulet. They may be inspired by it, but then they change the name.

I went back to read Paula Wolfert's wonderful story of how she came to uncover the many nuances of this dish the Cassoulet, on a delicious treasure hunt through Southwest France. She is driven on an oddysey through the region that has her talking to chefs and home cooks, tasting all along the way. In her book The Cooking of Southwest France, as a preface to a few different recipes, she animatedly recounts the vehement opinions and taboos, still reminding us that the ones who insisted so strongly can also change their minds over time if effectively convinced. This, in my opinion, is the beauty in France's resilience in their quest for the truth on many matters, and what makes arguing so fun here. Paula's way of getting to the crux of the matter at best and the elements that she reveals from that search is hands down one of my favorite stories, and I can read it again and again. I was happy to see that there is a recipe using fresh beans in Paula's book, and like I often do, I read it carefully, keeping in mind the mention of duck gizzards in her story, something I had just picked up from my volailler. The great thing about Paula's recipes is that I can visualize each step. The recipe for André Daguin's fava bean Cassoulet is fresh in my mind.

Kate and I have just got off the phone. She grew her own beans, of course. She told me about how this is a dish that began as one of those where the women of the town would bring it from home to the baker's oven and leave it to cook there. She surmized that the crust itself, that thing that is broken however many times during the process of cooking, is actually the process ot taking the back of a spoon and pushing the beans at the top back down into the liquid to ensure that they stay moist.

Since Loic's aunt is coming, I want to make good use of these beans, and gesture in the direction of a Cassoulet. I won't even pretend to come close, my friends. With Paula and her beautiful story and recipe as inspiration and Kate's reassuring voice over the line as a guide, last night I put my beans in to bake, and have pulled them out again, having been convinced by Kate that I must bake it much longer, to build up the crust, it just tastes so much better that way.

First Pass Bean Ragout - I won't even pretend this is a cassoulet
to be served to Loic’s Aunt Marie-Annick tonight, and to Christen the Cassole from Kate.

About 2 cups (shelled) (Kate said with the Fresh beans about 2/3 up the side of the Cassole is good)
One onion
Two shallots
1 clove of garlic
1 Tbs. Duck fat
1 pound of confit duck gizzards
One Lyonnais saucisse de couenne (which contains mostly ground pork skin, a little bit like the Gascon loafs they call gratons)
A bay leaf
A branch of celery, diced
Parsley
Thyme
About 3 ounces of fresh pork belly
3 cups of any stock you have on hand. (I am using my excellent mushroom stock from the other day)

- Take a tablespoon of the duck from from your gizzards confit, and heat it in a pan.
- Remove the remaining fat in your way (what I do is remove what I can and reserve that in my duck fat jar for another use, and then I run them under warm water to remove the rest of the fat, then let them dry in the colander). Return to a cool place to wait for the next step.
- Sauté the onion, shallots, and garlic in the duck fat until transparent.
- Add the fresh pork belly, and sauté for another 5 minutes.
- Add the mushroom fumet, the beans, the celery and the bouquet, and simmer for 30 minutes, adding water if necessary.
- Heat the oven to 300/160.
- Remove the skin form the couenne and spread the contents of the sausage onto the bottom of your cassole.
- Arrange the gizzards over the couenne.
- Remove the bouquet from the beans and transfer the beans and pork belly to the cassole over the gizzards with a skimmer or slotted spoon, saving the liqueur.
- Pour the liqueur from the beans over the gizzards and beans to cover.
- Cover the cassole with foil and bake, for one hour, ensuring that there is enough liquid to cover the beans from time to time.
- Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate over night.
- The next day, return it to the oven for several hours, pusing the hardened beans at the top down into the juice with a spoon. Top off the juice if it reduces too much.

The Beans I Found

Alas the beans I found are not all white, like those we imagine to be in a cassoulet. Some of my beans are marbled with purple or creamy cocoa colored streaks. Such are the pickings on a Wednesday near noon in Lyon. After a morning of writing I suddenly bolted from the house and ran down to the market with a mission. Pascal, the man who supplies us with the best cherries and dried nuts, had a two handfuls of beans for me. Will my little cassoulet for two be good with two kinds of beans?

I have prepared a Cassoulet about a half dozen times. It became a pre-Christmas tradition at our house, because every year we go down south and Brigitte, my mother-in-law, has reign in the kitchen. I don’t get a chance to cook at all for Christmas.

I needed to make a tradition of my own, to take place here at home before we go down for the oysters and capon. I quickly became a devotee to Paula Wolfert’s recipe for Cassoulet in the style of Toulouse, and prepared it in a stock pot, a recipe I follow carefully every year. You can find me, combing Les Halles for just the right things to go into it, two weeks before Christmas, every year. It takes the better part of a week to prepare when you include going all of the places to get everything.

Kate is encouraging me to find fresh beans, and it's a wonderful opportunity to learn.

When Aude and Sebastien were students preparing for their teacher’s examinations and were just beginning their journey together, they came kind of on a date together to our house to have the cassoulet with us before they separated for the holidays. Sebastien appreciated it immensely. I still remember his having his mouth full and letting out a low moan that expressed everything and nothing at once, something that endeared me to him immediately. He certainly knows how to compliment a woman’s cooking. They shared a dream of one day moving out into France profond and giving something back to the people there, as teachers. Seb was born and raised in the Auvergne, and his mother has a sheep and horse farm. He came to Lyon beginning in high school, staying with his grandmother in town.

We go to Sebastien’s mother’s farm to visit from time to time, staying in the guest house, with the startling trumpet of peacocks to wake us in the morning. We watch the birthing of lambs, and stare into goats alien eyes, tromp through the trails to visit the horses while they are out, and watch the goings on in the stable. This year, Aude and Seb finally made the move out to the country. Aude is expecting her second child, with the first nearly two, and they wanted to get settled out there before the oldest begins school.

Since they are not nearby anymore, we won’t be having them for Cassoulet this year. Perhaps I could do one and take it out to them. Nearby is such a relative term. For me, being an American, three hours by car is really quite easy and I envision visiting often. But for the French, who tend to stay put, it seems an eternity, and they can’t imagine such a long trip, maybe doing something like that once a year. Alas, grandparents that live near the beach trump Lyonnais aunties and uncles.

Cassoulet being a winter thing for us, I have always used dried beans. Now that I am preparing it with Kate, I am following her advice and got fresh ones today, still in their husks, the plump shiny beans that will humbly christen my little cassole. I suppose I have about a pound of fresh beans here.

Kate, are these beans ok?

The Cassole

Last winter, I took the train down south. They do sausage very well down there. Just before I left, Kate put a little cassole in my hands. It is an itty bitty version of the heirloom vessel she writes about on her blog today. Today I noticed that she has begun, with the knowledge she has gathered over the years, to address the singular elements of the cassoulet, one by one. She begins with the cassole. I respond by bringing the one she gave me out from the cupboard, preparing to follow her lead.