Lyonnais Producer: Black Pigs from the Bugey

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Here in Lyon on the St. Antoine Market on Sundays and at the Producer's Market on Place Carnot on Wednesday evenings, there is a pork producer who sells his version of a figatelli and various sausages ranging from a saucisse à cuire to exquisitely à point saucisson sec for slicing thin and enjoying with l'apéro.

In addition to charcuterie, they supply us with quality pork and lamb at reasonable prices. This meat is so much better than anything you can get from the butcher who sells meat from the wholesale markets, and the price is equivalent. The secret to their success is that these farmers raise their animals traditionally and make their living direct from their product, selling retail only. The quality really comes through.

On their farm, apart from traditionally raised pigs, they have Iberian type black pigs that they allow to roam free in herds. These pigs are nourished by feed but foraging behaviors that are natural to this breed's tradition are honored as well. They munch on wild acorns and chestnuts and roots of various kinds to fatten up for winter in the forest and pasture on the farm, and since they are constantly moving animals, their meat is a deep dark red color, certainly not "the other white meat". Availability of this special type of pork is limited, since they follow traditional cyclical breeding and slaughter practices. We won't see these succulent pork cuts again until late next fall. Sigh. Remind me to show you this meat stand when you come to visit.

Companionship and Capucine

Our fourth grade teacher, that would be when we were nine years old, instructed us each to stand up tell the class what we wanted to be when we grew up. I had absolutely no idea and was panicked at the thought that I would have to just choose something off the cuff like that when there was so little I knew about being a grownup. I was completely at a loss. My turn was coming up. I reached down within, the kind of reaching I used to do when I had to read sheet music to play the viola (which I wasn't very good at), and sought a word, a sign, anything from me to tell me what I was going to be. "A Botanist", I stated, surprising myself.

What was a botanist? I had absolutely no idea. "Very good, Lucy." I was off the hook. "A botanist is a scientist that studies plants." She moved on to the next person, and I pondered that thought. My mother always claimed to have a black thumb. Most plants died at our house, although there was a tangle of greens sprouting from dry prickly clumps of dead things in a perpetual state of thin survival on the second floor landing.

At recess, some different girls invited me to play with them, and one of them confided to me that she also wanted to be a botanist. She was new at the school, and I was happy to be her friend. In the years that followed, we ended up starting a secret picnic group together. This entailed getting permission from our parents to eat at each others' houses for lunch (for which you had to bring a note to school) and then taking off hand in hand into the woods near the watertower by the school, to eat a picnic we'd stashed there and look at plants. We felt so free and rebellious, sprawled on the blanket, sipping alternately from the jug of kool-aid and eating our bagged lunches, magnifying glasses tucked in our pockets.

The garden has still got me fascinated. Bed by bed, I put the plants in varying configurations. I don't like rows. Will this get me into trouble? I will plant groups of things. There is so much to learn. As always, when I am not there, I think about what I'm going to do when I get there. The seeds have all sprouted and it's interesting to see what baby this and baby that look like. The little rhubarb chard sprouts are bright fuchsia, the lettuce sprouts look like ethereal leaflets and the aromatics all look like little white worms squirming their way up into the light. The kohlrabi looked like a four leaf clover for awhile, then stretched out to more of an elongated shape. The beans, coriander and chervil were the last to make their appearance, each seed taking its own allotted time to open and for the shoots to push forth. The vegetable seeds, protected and warm in their little plugs in the city apartment window, have all taken much less time to sprout than the seeds we spread directly on the ground in the mountains last year.

I am focused on companionship. Garlic is something I should plant around the base of the apple tree, a good place too because it can also protect the picnic table from ants. Plants in useful places. I am putting an herb and salad clippings bed on top of a stacked flagstone platform in an awkward place for nibblers. I hope we'll get a chance to have at least a few fresh clipped salads. Herbs in the garden beds help the vegetables to grow and develop their best flavor. I plan to do some triangular beds and some kind of paddy like beds that will make use of a hill. That's where the cucurbits (my gourds and cucumbers) will hopefully cascade down from one platform to the next. There's a pretty flower called Capucine in French, Nasturtium in English, that when planted with my squash plants, will protect them from bugs that eat their stems. It doesn't hurt that the colorful red flowers and beautiful flat round eight segmented leaves are just my style. They'll also be a good addition to summer salads, a spicy cress. A pretty, lucky, spicy cress.

The Growing Season

The ground up there was ready to turn this weekend. I say this like I know what I’m doing. There are some things you simply cannot assimilate from books. I delve into a garden book and there’s so much jargon I can’t last very long before my eyes glaze over. So many questions, so many terms to set aside in my mind if I plan to slog on through and get to the meat of the subject. This rides on that, that depends on something else, another factor to consider is this, and that all depends on where you are in relation to the sun, stars and moon. I'm feeling like it is going to take forever to do anything more than scratch the surface.  Time in the garden changes this idea.  I just have to get started and do it and learn. We learned some things from our neighbor last year, mainly that if you put plants in the ground, they might produce very nice tasting vegetables and fruit. And that if you give said fruit to your neighbors, it is good. It is a beginning.

Such luxury to sit and plot out how the garden will grow. I learned last year that things don’t sprout and bloom faster if you stare at them, so while my seeds are tucked and sprinkled appropriately into little starter plugs, I am free to dream a little bit. Like most of my projects, the story begins with my ultimate fantasy. I spend pleasurable hours working on drawings and imagining scenarios, working out my little garden wonderland down to the very last butterfly and chirping cricket, stories unwinding about what could happen as a matter of course if we planted things this way or that way, if we got the correct nutrients, companion plants balanced just so, etc. What I love about this part is the empty page of it, the infinite possibilities.

My dream was cut down to size this past weekend, with cold hard budgetary restraints, lack of physical resources, and lack of stock in the gardening shops. But seeds came from all directions. I took them last summer from things I loved and tucked them dried into envelopes along the way. It seems everyone in the town has seeds for this and that.  Mme Martinet sends cuttings from a bush I admired last spring, delivered by her son.  We have tons of these stone tiles we can use for paths and borders. From this we have plenty to do.

We are in this together. I hope Mother Nature shows us clemency. I feel that our garden is taking on more meaning with each wedge of earth I loosen, and each clod of roots that he shakes out, one step behind me, back and forth, as we remove last year’s field of flowers, remembering. The baby sleeps in the warmth of the pine paneled room at the top of the house while we work. We are preparing the land for the growing season.

Cooking with Verjus, I

Growing up, I had neighbors with a grape arbor in their back yard, and I tasted the grapes at every conceivable stage of their development, from the time they were just little green suggestions to the point where they were pendulous bulbs of heady delicious juice swaying in the August breeze. I remember the fresh tart flavor of the green grapes just as well as when they were ripe, with equal delight, which was why, the first time I tasted verjus, I was transported barefoot to one of those dew drenched summer mornings when Clare and I wandered back through the gate to take an early taste from the vines.

When considering your seasonings, you might consider adding a bottle of verjus to your cooking rack. In just about every wine producing region in the world, vineyards are now producing their versions of it. Verjus is the juice of green grapes that are harvested and pressed before they are fully ripe. It has a nice tart flavor and can be used like vinegar or lemon juice in sauces and reductions, to add an element of clarity to your soups, in salad dressings or even stirred into a glass of iced water for a refreshing pick me up. Verjus was historically an important element in the production of mustard in Burgundy, so if you are cooking with mustard, you also might consider verjus to add a certain depth of flavor. It is not as acidic as vinegar or lemon juice, and tastes just like what it is, a mid-July grape.

If you haven't cooked with verjus before, the first thing to do is acquaint yourself with the flavor. Open the bottle and familiarize yourself with it before even thinking about recipes. Put a spoonful in a glass of plain water and enjoy its tonic, astringent qualities while you think of uses for it. Note the way it feels going down, and any memories it might invoke. Anyone who as a child foraged berries and fruits knows this flavor.

Historically, verjus was common in France up until in the 19th century, the phylloxera epidemic killed off the variety of grape that was used to produce it. Recently, a mustard producer in Beaune concerned with the authentic production of the historic sauces and condiments of Burgundy has re-introduced a variety of grape similar to the original for the purpose of producing verjus, and have returned the product to the market in this region. You can find it at the grocery store here in Lyon.

For the expats or visitors looking for verjus in the shops: In Lyon, I have found verjus at the LeaderPrice on the presque’ile in the 2nd arrondissment, But like brown sugar or certain kinds of flour, it’s a kind of hit or miss thing. They run out of stock from time to time. You might go one day and find that any particular store no longer stocks it, which is why I always grab a bottle of verjus whenever I see it.

One nice use of verjus from my kitchen notebook is to prepare a shallot sauce a little bit like a beurre blanc, but using a combination of verjus and stock.

A Simple Shallot Butter Sauce au Verjus

In my kitchen notebook, this sauce finishes a lovely 3 flavor combination with smoked bacon and fish. Both the classic monkfish wrapped in smoked poitrine or something more sustainable like cod and crispy speck for example make a nice combination with it. Then again, if you've braised chicken for example and you would like a tangy buttery sauce to go with it, you can use the de-greased cooking juices from that too. Made with your house stock, this also goes very well with sausage - like a simmered Diot de Savoie.

3 medium sized shallots, peeled and finely minced
5 tablespoons verjus
10 tablespoons poultry stock or cooking juice from your dish
5 tablespoons good butter

Melt 1/2 tablespoon of the butter in a saucepan. When it begins to sizzle, add the minced shallots and reduce the heat. Keep the shallots moving in the pan with a spatula, slowly sweating them without browning. After about 2 minutes, add the verjus, raise the heat enough for it to boil gently and reduce the liquid down to half, which should not take long. Add the stock or cooking juice, and let it cook down until the liquid is again reduced by half. Incorporate the remaining butter, little by little, whisking it into an emulsion. At this stage you can also use the hand blender to whip it into a smooth sauce or leave the shallots to add texture to your presentation. Season the sauce to taste with salt and drizzle it onto your fish or meat.

Mugs and Apples

It must have been years ago because we were still living in the 3rd arrondissement in a wonderful top floor duplex in a neighborhood that I didn't appreciate.  I wanted to be plop down in the middle of things.  As it was we were pretty close, and to get to the Rhone riverside I only had to go down to the street, turn right, and walk about a quarter of a block.  I decided one morning, feeling inspired, to take my coffee down to the riverside, sit on a bench, and watch the city wake up.

Everything began well enough.  I got downstairs with my mug in hand, full of hot steaming coffee, and proceeded to the street.  There, a woman was walking by, and she slowed at the sight of me.  She pursed her lips and made a sidestep to distance herself as if I was infected with something.  She gave me a good hard look from head to toe before quickening her pace and passing by.  Same or similar incidents occurred, a man who kept his eyes on me as if to keep me at a distance, a woman who pulled her dog away.  I was beginning to feel terribly self conscious.  I raised the mug to my mouth for a sip of coffee while waiting for a light and it seemed even the cars driving by slowed down so the people could stare.  Quel horreur, look at that woman raising a mug to her mouth! A mug!  On the street!  I proceeded toward the avenue that ran along the river. I was ready to cross, when I just changed my mind.  I realized that if I tried to cross the road with a coffee mug in my hands and people driving fast caught a sight of it, we might have a spectacular car flipping accident.  Tail between my legs, I returned to my apartment, a bit harried, and had my coffee looking out the tiny window of  in my little kitchen.

I thought about that day the first time we saw the apple tree in fruit.  The notaire's office had proposed a ridiculously early appointment time for us to go and finalize the purchase of the house in the mountains.  That morning we had to leave while it was still dark out to drive up into the Alps to make this early appointment.  I had pushed things to the last minute, trying to get every moment of sleep I could, and had been rushed to get dressed before we left.  I didn't have time for coffee, even though there was a fresh pot on the stove.  I decided to take it with me.  I brought the mug with me in the car, and took great pleasure in sipping it while we were in the traffic. Ahhh.  Coffee.  I couldn't help but glance from side to side to see if the people in cars around us were surprised.  They weren't. It is only when you are a pedestrian that mug holding is inappropriate.

Once out of the notaire's office with keys in hand, we flew up to the mountains.  We'd bought that house not even knowing what kinds of trees there were, so imagine the joy when we saw that the old tree near the house was positively loaded with crisp tart cooking apples.  We were very involved with getting things operational during those first weekends before winter closed in, getting the stove refurbished, the kitchen painted, the pine floors sanded and refinished, so there was barely any time to think much about cooking the apples when we were up there.  There would be the next year. A couple of crisps and that was it.

I was saddened to see that this past fall, the tree barely produced any fruits at all.  She didn't even bloom last spring except for a little spray of blossoms on a branch within reach that turned to fruit.  We cherished every single fruit she gave us.  Coffee mug in hand, I decided to have a little pow wow with the tree.  I went out and opened my mind to her spirit.  Here, she said, I'll give you these this year, this is my offering.  But please understand that I am cold and tired and there's this mistletoe that's been a bit taxing.  I arranged quickly for a man from the forestry service come and do what he had to in order to remove the mistletoe this winter while she was asleep.  Maybe next year she'll be feeling back to her old self. 

In any case, our neighbor who has a little orchard of 9 trees of different varieties, picked and picked all season long, and still didn't get all the apples from his trees.  His compost pile had a pyramid of rotting apples  that turned brown, then white, then collapsed into the heap. He gave us free reign and also this winter he began dropping off boxes of apples he'd stored in his cellar.  That was what we found on our kitchen doorstep a couple of weekends ago and those were the apples that went into Friday's chutney.

I am sitting inside on this late winter morning with my coffee, thinking of that and the fruit bowl.  I better do something with the rest of these apples.  I think I will dry some for sprinkling into oatmeal, and make some spicy apple cake.

Chutney aux Fruits Secs et aux Épices

Chutney chutney chutney. Sometimes I just think people like the way this word rolls off the tongue here, you see it so often in the restaurants. I can tell you one thing, the French are NOT chutney purists, which is good news for me because I won't turn away anything that heightens the flavor of my meal the way that many French-styled chutneys do, even if many DO contain raisins. (Apparently raisins are some cardinal abomination never to be ever used in chutney, a rule set by the Anonymous Chutney Authority that oversees chutney's Wikipedia entry.) This Christine Ferber recipe, from her Leçons de confitures, puts raisins to excellent use. The result is simply sublime. It came together in a snap this morning and I plan to serve this tantalizing sauce at my table with my mixed pepper and spice marinated magret de canard.

Chutney aux Fruits Secs et aux Épices (dried fruit and spice chutney)

Note: About measures, I translated these measures from weight to volume based on the recipe which was given in gram weights. That means you can do this recipe if you don't have a kitchen scale.

6 dried figs (100 g.)

12 dried apricots (100 g.)

12 prunes with the pits (100 g. yield)

3 small fresh tart cooking apples (300 g. yield)

2 medium white onions (200 gram yield)

2 cups white wine vinegar (50cl)

1 tsp coarse sea salt (3 g.)

1/2 cup brown sugar (50 g.)

1/3 cup honey (preferably alpine but any forest and flower honey will do) (50 g.)

3 tablespoons candied ginger (50 g.)

50 g. Smyrna raisins (yellow raisins)

1/3 cup pine nuts (50 g.)

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne (1 point de couteau)

1 1/2 tsp épice à pain d’épices (3 g.)

- Slice the figs, apricots and prunes into fine strips (about 2mm).

- Peel, core, and finely dice the apples.

- Peel and mince the onions.

- Roughly chop your raisins and set them aside.

- Put the figs, apricot, prunes, apples, onions, vinegar and salt in a thick bottomed stainless steel soup pot.

- folding carefully with a spatula, bring the mixture to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes, until the fruits are tender.

- Incorporate the sugar, honey, candied ginger and raisins.

- Continue at a low simmer for about 25 minutes, folding and running the spatula along the bottom of the pan, careful not to let it caramelize or burn. The liquid will evaporate and the chutney will thicken.

- Add the cayenne, the épice à pain d’épice, and the pine nuts and simmer for 10 minutes more.

- Remove from heat, fill your pots, and put a lid on them. Cool to room temperature and refrigerate.

Enjoy this chutney with potted or slow braised meats, potatoes cooked with goose or duck fat, game or poultry. (I guess that covers about everything). This batch makes enough for a jar to keep in your fridge for a couple of weeks, plus a jar to give to the good neighbor who left a box of apples at your doorstep.

Épice à pain d’épices

Whenever I get organic oranges, I always remove the zest and keep it to dry. You never know when it might come in handy, in a cup of tea, grated and sprinkled in fruit salad, in a cake, mulled with wine. With winter wrapping up, a new found interest in my spice drawers along with a Christine Ferber compendium from the library on my knee, I have been thinking chutney. It's a good thing I saved those orange peels. There's a quick way to dry them, if you're thinking chutney too and don't have any dried orange zest on hand. Just pare the zest off a well scrubbed orange and place it on a cookie sheet in your oven at the coolest temp setting for an hour or so.

Once particularly delicious looking recipe for chutney calls for the ingredient épice à pain d’épices. There are so many varieties and recipes all over France, it would be impossible to give a definitive formula for the mix of spices that make French spice bread. It really differs by the household. But since I have re-done the spice rack and am prepared to start with my own mixes à measure for my recipes instead of buying mystery jars with formulas meant to maximize commercial return to someone else, I want to hone down the possibilities on a house version.

Why all the hullabaloo about pain d’épices? Although certain regional specialty pain d’épices appear around the Christmas holiday in France, this type of spice bread isn't typecast to that role the way you'd think it would be. It is quite at home in this country all year round as an element in everyday French cafe and restaurant meals. For example, imagine ordering these dishes I've gathered from various French restaurant menus:

Pain d’épices encrusted Atlantic sea bass with pan tossed chanterelle mushrooms

A vegetable selection served with pain d’épices breaded foie gras

Duck breast with sliced pain d’épices

Pain d’épices breaded lamb napped with a flavorful reduction sauce

Pain d’épices breaded halibut fillet

Oven crisped pain d’épices breaded rabbit served with a slowly caramelized sour glazed carrot dish

Scallops seasoned with pain d’épices spices

Foie gras escalope with flavors of pain d’épices

Pain d’épices breaded veal kidneys

Veal glazed with a pain d’épices and sesame sauce

A pain d’épices tartine topped with foie gras and green apple chutney

Roasted Mediterranean fish with a pain d’épices seasoned glaze

Foie gras served two ways, one in a Cognac based marinade, the other poached and served with pain épices

A fanned duck breast with pain d’épices seasoned sauce

The rack of lamb in a pain d'épices crust

The foie gras terrine with toasted pain d’épices and tender roasted fruits

or

Duck foie gras and mango compressed terrine served with wedges of pain d’épices.

Enough to get you licking your chops yet?

For dessert:

A pain d’épices seasoned ile flottante in almond milk custard

Pain d’épices flan with goat cheese and pears

Apple tart served with pain d’épices ice cream

Frozen pain d’épices parfait

Armagnac seasoned apple prune crumble with pain d'épices ice cream

Frozen pain d’épices, orange marmelade and Macvin soufflé

Pear tarte Tatin with pain d’épices ice cream

A pressed Tatin style apple and pain d’épices terrine served with cinnamon ice cream

Pain d’épices crème brûlée served with a fresh fruit salad

A chicorée parfait with Djion-style pain d’epices layered meringue cream dessert

Anjou pears, poached then caramelized with a pain d’épices glaze

Alsatian-style Pinot Noir plum flan paired with a pain d’épices ice cream

Pain d’épices tiramisu with salted-butter caramel ice cream

A charlotte made with pain d’épices

The apple and orange confit tart served with pain d'épices

The mix of spices for pain d’épices can have a lot of uses outside of making the spice bread itself. For her chutney aux fruits secs, Christine Ferber gives us a quick formula for the coffee grinder from spices on your rack:

Épice à pain d’épices

1 part (gram weight) each:

cinnamon

cardamom

star anise

clove

black pepper

dried (organic) lemon zest (optional)

dried (organic) orange zest.

Remove the seeds from the cardamom pods. Place the spices and dried orange zest in your grinder and give them a whirl, or crush with a mortar and pestle.  Use in your chutney aux fruits secs or pain d’épices.

Culling

In the winter, I find myself in a state of retreat, like a tree, in an inert state of waiting. Watching. The sun ekes through the windows at the most pitiful angle. I push my writing desk right up against the window to try and absorb whatever light is going to be doled out. Inspiration trickles in droplets one by one. Inertia wanes. Daily business unfurls at its slow French city pace across my square. It is tempting to passively watch. In past years, I have always done what it takes to shake things up, to keep things from freezing over, but it's true. Winter has always been hard for me.

This is my first winter with the baby. While I still won't say everything changed, something very big has shifted. A lot of time goes into animating, teaching, comforting and reassuring my little boy. I am blowing on coals. New coals. Hot coals. I am constantly moving to stay one step ahead. I must explain to him what we plan to do. The spontaneity that I used to rely on to shake things up during the winter has been transformed into my breath on these hot coals.

This week in the kitchen cure, I am thinking about optimization, which translates to freedom. I'll take it wherever I can get it. I am culling equipment from the kitchen, and most of all, moving things around. I have a couple of shelves full of things I rarely use, so I am moving these things out and creating new space for the things I should have close by.

Do you have any equipment on your counter that just takes up real estate? I have very little counter space. In fact, when you count that which is taken up by the grinder, the mixer, and the kettle, I don't have any at all. I have become adept at using cork mats as anchors for cutting boards along the edge of things. When I am cooking things that involve more mise en place than simple slicing and chopping on little boards along the way, my kitchen moves out to one of the two work tables outside the kitchen.

Now that the sun is finally beginning to fill the house again, It's time to put the pastry table back by the window, and move my writing desk to a quiet place in the house. This is a very good time for my kitchen cure. I need to optimize my kitchen, to do away with unnecessary steps. Time is more precious now than ever.

Foraging: Thoughts on a Monday

This talk about the people on the market who sell their foraged wild herbs got me thinking this weekend. It was cold up there and the ground is still frozen solid. I spent some cozy time indoors with a piece of tracing paper over a map of the land, dreaming about what we might try to accomplish this year in the garden. Last year we simply cleared the field by hand and spread mixed wild flower seed, and it was very nice. We also randomly planted some vegetables around here and there, and we were rewarded with some very nice zucchini, potatoes and beans.

While I am thinking about dried herbs and seeds and the ones I loved the most as I replenish my spice drawer, I realize that it's the wild ones that get me so excited at the market here in the city. One very useful task this summer will be to learn to see more wild herbs and edible plants all around us on country walks and out in the field outside the kitchen door. I often catch sight of old women out on steady and slow early morning walks in the hills when it is warm out, carrying small baskets. This I suppose is the bucolic image that causes the tourists to come and clear everything from sides of the well worn hiking trails. But in the little homey places away from the stations, the farmland and grazing paths, where we can walk all day barely seeing anybody, it can't hurt to cut a sprig here or there.

Foraging anything takes a bit of method in thoughtfulness. For example, when out picking herbs, have the sense enough to use a field knife and cut them, leaving the base in tact. Leave the roots, and cut only what you need. There's no need to rip any plant whole from the ground, effectively exterminating it. Give it a chance to grow back. Last year I did transplant some wild strawberries that spread and grew from their little sheltered spot under the cherry tree. But I was careful about it, and did it with respect for the path I was walking on. Mindful of my intention to nurture this plant as a special project, I took the whole plant from a place where thousands more were growing.

Paprika

At first, I just bought packets of whatever was cheapest, but then discovered especially as the years went by that quality really has begun to vary a great deal with paprika. In my project to replenish my spice cabinet, one goal is to find the best quality paprika I can on my budget, a few different heat levels. With my budget that means I won't be able to go to Hungary, to a place like Szeged, where in the autumn they harvest the highly valued peppers that became famous the world over for making the best paprika in the world. The peppers are strung to dry and a whole spectrum of paprika strengths are produced, ranging from very mild to hot hot hot. One of these days I'll go there. It's on my list of things to do. In the meantime, I can dream. Most of the Hungarian tourist sites have articles on paprika, complete with photos of the famous peppers strung to dry. Wouldn't it be lovely to go there with a guide at harvest time?

My source in Lyon this time is Cap Epices, near Ampere Victor Hugo in Lyon's 2eme arrondissement. I like that I can buy very small amounts, and I like that they have a steady stream of clients plus they do the markets on weekends - that makes it so that their inventory is always on the move. I like that I can get small amounts of 9 different spices plus a little can of pickled green peppercorns and it costs me less than €10.

Cap Epices
39 rue Charité
69002 LYON
04.78.39.34.49

The Spice Rack

Some people collect spices as souvenirs of their travels, with exotic specimens indexed and stored in pristine condition like inventories from archeological digs. Others deck out their kitchens like pharmacological laboratories, with powders, plants, and roots displayed in glass jars.  Some tuck theirs into a special box and dig through when they need them. Some people like mixes and rubs, and fix up a big batch every now and then. Many fabulous cooks I know keep a special coffee grinder reserved for spices. Every cook's spice collection reflects their favorite kind of cooking. Food enthusiasts can compile enormous collections that can go stale if they're not careful. How's your spice rack doing, by the way?

Spices don't last forever. They should be purchased in reasonable amounts and replenished often. In taking my kitchen cure, I am replacing old with fresh.  Since we're not millionaires, I have to approach this with reason and a dose of parsimony. But that does not stop me from feeling great about the possibilities for my spice rack at the moment.

The first task is to take out my kitchen notebook and list the spices in my favorite recipes. Repeat appearances will make the list, and if I am planning a dish anytime in the future, I'll mark whatever I need as well.

Second, browse through the cookbooks for the international cooking I love most. I think the best thing, in building my spice rack up again, will be the opportunity to make a list of new recipes to try and take on some that I realistically would like to add to my cooking repertoire.

Third, rely on my friends. My friend Francine, for instance, comes from the West Indies and has a stash of freshly dried mace, collected from the nutmeg tree of her aunt, and cinnamon local to her home. I will give her a call and hit her up for some of that!

There are also some spices that I have to wait to collect. For example, the anise seed. There is a producer down at the Wednesday night market that harvests wild anise and during a certain window of the year, you can get branches of it laden with the seed. I bought some last year and it was heavenly. The taste was so much better than what you could buy in a shop. So I am going to wait for that.

Some spices just have to come from far away places, but many herbs can be grown. I am not very big on store bought dried herbs, and don't keep them much because I don't think the ones that have been ground to a powder, stored, shipped and traded by the metric ton taste as good as the ones you can get fresh from the market or garden and dry or freeze yourself.

Which brings me to another project altogether: An herb drying rack - one made specifically for that, which can put an end to my having to fight my way through a tangle of twigs and brambles to get to a spoon to stir my soup with.

The Kitchen Cure

A couple of years ago, my husband and I received a trip to a spa as an anniversary gift. This is not the kind of place where you lie a reclining chair and get a gentle massage, a pedicure and a facial. We arrived at this place at 7 o'clock in the morning and became inmates. They locked up our things. We each talked to a medical doctor. After we received a personalized schedule of treatments, we were nudged into the labyrinth. The inmates, stripped of our belongings, were shuffling around in matching slippers and white bathrobes. No one spoke. It was Fellini-esque. The experience was jarring and liberating at the same time, since we were subjected to being pummeled with streaming jets of water at fire-hose velocity, dipped in vats of bubbling clay, massaged with compounds, stretched with weird machines, closed up in rooms of various degrees of heat and coldness, scraped, kneaded, and otherwise indelicately handled. Loic and I were separated at arrival and raised our eyebrows at each other in passing down the halls throughout the day. We were then left to silently bake together in a cloistered courtyard, exhausted, draped over reclining chairs overlooking the Mediterranean sea, drinking cups of healing water that were refilled by nurses. It was all we could do to make our hands touch each other across the great divide between our wooden recliners while we watched the sun set. We left that place completely drained of all energy but in the weeks to come, wow! The difference was amazing.

Fast forward to today. Since we bought the country place a bit over a year ago, our apartment in Lyon has entered a sort of Feng Shui limbo. Especially the kitchen. We didn't put much thought into how to establish the new kitchen in the mountains, nor did we give furnishing it a line in the household budget. Instead, we shuffled and shuttled things from one place to another in boxes and bags for awhile, then hit the brocantes and doubled certain small things like corkscrews, knife sharpeners and silverware. But since this wasn't thought out or planned in any way, things settled the way they fell. Add to that the arrival of our son, Ian, last spring, adding baby accoutrements and products that never found their places and a vast cut in spare time even to consider the issue, and we've got ourselves a nice big mess. I've been trailing along behind in the wake of all of this. I haven't had the courage to even address the general dysfunction, I just feel more and more like I need a helping hand. This was why, when I came across the 2010 Kitchen Cure at Apartment Therapy, I took the plunge.

They told me I had to dispose of my lovely olives.

Our kitchen is extremely small, and I like it that way. For years, it was a very efficient one. But now it feels like an abandoned rats nest, for all the things I've stolen from it to nourish the kitchen in the mountains. All the bits and scraps of useless junk that remain tucked into every corner have lost their meaning. In addition to problems with clogged energy, I really am going to have to replenish the spirit of my kitchen. I want it to be a place that nourishes my creativity again.

The first assignment at the Kitchen Cure is to tackle the refrigerator and the pantry, removing everything that's expired, inedible, or no longer useful. One shelf at a time, we purge things that no longer belong there, and brush the dust off of that which we will keep. We have a week to do this. This is a task that just takes time. In my house, the kitchen and pantry have begun to spill out into our living space. This first step will make space and find places for the many things that seem to never have had a place to begin with. It will give me a chance also to replenish the essentials.