Lyon Fleamarket Find - a Christofle Presse à Canard

I could not believe my eyes.

There is a magic fleamarket in the suburb of Lyon. Did I tell you I once found a set of 10 antique linen napkins with our initials monogrammed on them for €1.50 each from a box seller on the field? I was sure it was the find of a lifetime. But no.

Since today was a holiday, we made plans to get up as if it was a work day and hit the Puces de Canal nice and early. Even though it was raining and miserable, we stuck to our guns and swung up to St. Juste to pick up Francine and Lucas. Raining and miserable are really good days at fleamarkets, in my opinion. They did not come out in pyjamas, as Francine promised. I told her our bargaining power is doubled when we are wearing pyjamas but I guess she didn’t believe me. As we rolled through the 6th arrondissement, it was as if we were floating through a ghost town. Unfortunately, this morning was not a big market day, as I hoped it would be. There were a couple of box sellers out under the awnings and about half the indoor stalls were open. We had coffee and croissants before hitting the warehouse.


My jaw hit the ground when I stumbled over this Christofle duck press with its matching tray and accoutrements. Its original home was at the Casino in Charbonnières-les-Bains. The lady selling it says that she has been discussing a sale but it is far from closed. If I had the cash I would have snatched it up right there, just for a chance to use it once and pass it on. They want about 6,000 Euros for the set. I was drooling as I described the process of pressing the duck and making the sauce to Loic. I wasn’t carrying my camera with me but Francine had hers and let me take a photo. This is a once in a lifetime fleamarket find. I can pretty much confirm that I will never see such an item again at the fleamarket. Sigh.

We rummaged through the boxes outside and although I felt slightly sick to my stomach having just come down from the duck press adrenaline rush, I did find a few things that appealed to me. (note prices are after bargaining)

20 escargot forks, each fork slightly different, €2 for the lot.

A set of Fondue Bourguignonne spears, €1.

A spoon. Free.

Two knives, good for picnics. Free.

A Presse Croque Monsieur instead of a Presse à Canard, €3.

Every time we use the presse croque monsieur,
I will think of finding that beautiful presse à canard.

Puces du Canal
1 rue du Canal
69100 Villeurbanne

To inquire about the duck press
A. Bernard Brocante
Allée D, Stand 21
+33 (0)6.19.66.48.69

Cigaline Strawberries

The photo simply does not do this berry justice.

Lets start at the very bottom of the strawberry totem pole. I am not talking about the hard bred belly-ache berries meant to be bounced around on the back of a flatbed truck thousands of miles from a desert based hydroponic irrigated tent city where they have been coaxed from lonely ne’er-a-honey-bee-touched individual stems suspended above vats of chemical gels. I understand that these berries are indeed fake, they don’t taste real, they have that hairy 5 o’clock shadowed incredible hulk look to them and can crunch like Cortland apples when we attempt to bite them. We’ve all seen them, been mesmerized and horrified by the sheer plastic existence of their glorious buxom audaciousness. The strawberries one commonly finds available in the middle of February displayed next to cans of reddi whip, for instance. They look like Alice Cooper’s tongue. These are big and bad at the market, and have been, since, voila, February. They sprouted into importing warehouse-monger’s tables like a bad fungus at that time and now are bigger and redder than ever.

Then we have a pretty flowery kind of fungus that sprouts on old walls and makes us feel nostalgic, the proliferated profitable Provencal variety that is yes a certified variety, but which, while perhaps once indeed a very nice berry, have been watered down and bred together and sorted and sifted and had their seasons pushed to just about the limit of their existence. Those precious precocious fully market-maximized French ones, also most likely never having touched soil although their ancestors from the 70s were soil-touchers. They are presented alongside the rest with the hyped pretentious ceremony of the Boujolais Nouveau. I know you have seen them: Gariguette otherwise known as those supposedly coming from the Garrigue. Although sometimes you do come across a juicy tasty basket here and there, in the product we see here in the valley, the quality control is just too thin and the temptation just too great through the vast logistic channels that bring them from the nether-regions for us to be able to rely on them as real berries anymore. Maybe at the source, at one time, but not here, not now.

Then there are the real strawberries. The ones you have to look for and sometimes you don’t find. The ones that tickle your nose with a teasing promise of fidelity, forming questions in your mind - should I trust again this time, can I trust again? Will these berries deliver? The ones that are soft and won’t last but a couple of days from the day you get them. Will we pay for some hype or will I be transported back to that oblong room with the frumpy firm semi-double bed as only the Russians can imagine to be good for two people in St. Petersburg, where Loic left me to dwell alone with that little sack of forest berries that the lady had brought to the market in a cup and was doling out with a soup spoon? The ones that I tasted, reclined, twisted my torso just so, and fed to myself one after the other from that crinkly paper in the lace filtered twilight, lost in Russian fairytales? Will I ever experience that flavor, that moment, again?

So what is the precocious variety I succumbed to last weekend here in Lyon? It’s only one more of those incredibly tender, wild, snatched from the edge of the forest-floor tasting berries that I raise my right hand and I hereby certify and swear on my gourmandise, are real. The Cigaline.

Good and real, and close if not as good as the Mara des Bois that I wrote about in their season last summer. We bought a half pound, not knowing how good they were, but having a suspicion that they might prove their mettle due to their shape and color and smell. Knowing the vendor as a producer, and not having seen this variety anywhere else, I was drawn to buy them – why the heck not?

Bref – I brought them out and unceremoniously put the basket on the table between us, with a passing thought about how many fruits I should be eating. A dutiful thought. Loic likes a bowl of water on the table in which he can rinse the berries. It’s a French thing. We picked them up by their green stems and bit them off at the base.

How extraordinary, I thought. They veer quite close, in fact. This afternoon I look at the plaster moulding and shadows of the flowers coming in from the walls, watching them move, thinking of how Cezanne painted his walls grey, and colors and contrast, and I think perhaps this berry has earned its mettle. Yes, better than the rest. Like strawberries should taste. Give me another. Give me more. And we continued like that until, voila, they were gone.

Postcard from Lyon

The Best Bordeaux I've had in a long while

When we went to grill some merguez at the chateau, Seb went rooting in the cave and brought out a bottle of the wine from his stock that they served at the wedding. I was swept away on a magic velvet carpet tasting this wine. I almost cried when they lamented only having 60 bottles of this lovely Bordeaux left. It was good at the wedding and amazing now. Maybe the company had something to do with it. Maybe the weather on that balmy spring day, the dappled sunlight under the arches along the arcade where we had lunch. Maybe it was the lawn chairs which we set up in a circle in a sunny spot near where the forest begins and where we all fell asleep, listening to the towering elms. Having the right cave has a whole lot to do with how a wine ages. I understand why some people invest so much in ensuring that the conditions for aging their wines are just right. Aude and Seb received various greats from historic millésimes from elder uncles on Seb's side as wedding gifts. I can only imagine what they have in store for the special occasions that they'll celebrate in the years to come.

Aillée, fresh garlic shoots

Aillée in Lyon, or aillette as it is sometimes called in other parts of France, is the sprouted young spring primeur version of the heads of garlic that we see preserved throughout the year. Coming out now in Lyon, it is edible from the green shoots to the bulb, and it has a wonderful flavor, milder and sweeter than mature older garlic. The man who grew this aillée likes his minced in fromage blanc with a touch of salt at the end of a meal. I like mine sliced thin in salads, sauteed with whatever's in the pan, and also replacing the leek in my old kitchen notebook favorite Petite Tarte aux Poireaux, extending its season from winter into spring. If you see this at the market, don't pass it up!

You CAN please everyone

To each his own

Here's how:

In advance, during late afternoon take 15 minutes to make a big batch of dough:

1 24g. cube of yeast
1 kilo or 2 pounds of flour
1 sugar cube
2 teaspoons sea salt
water as needed (between 1.5 and 2 cups)
4 teaspoons of olive oil

Run the tap water until it is as hot as it gets. Put the yeast and sugar cube in a breakfast bowl and add a cup of hot tap water. Let it dissolve, stir it, and let it be for about 5 minutes. It will foam and froth.

Put the flour in a bowl and add the sea salt. Mix it well and add the yeasty liquid. Give it a good kneading and add more water until it comes together. Add as much water as you can before it turns sticky. Adding a little too much water is better than not adding enough. It should be homogenous and very pliable. If it is too sticky you can sprinkle flour on it until the dough won't stick to your floured hands. Work it for 10 minutes. It will soften even more. Put a teaspoon of olive oil in the bowl where it will rise, turn it over twice, and set in a warm place to rise. It will really rise a lot.

Punch it down and work it every hour until the guests arrive, repeating the teaspoon of olive oil in the bowl.

Set into bowls to eventually put on the table:

Buffalo Mozzarella, sliced thin
Scarmorza, or any smoked cheese you can find
Fresh white farm cheese which has been seasoned with minced aillee (fresh young garlic shoots) and sea salt
Mountain cheese like Comte
Olives, green and black
Thin sliced breast of Bresse chicken (sliced with the grain)
Good Chorizo sliced thin
Sliced ham of various kinds
Local sausage
Fresh thyme flowers
Fresh and also dried oregano (last weeks which has been hung) for those who prefer it
Fresh and also dried sage
Vegetables:


Steamed asparagus
Onions, sliced thin
Shallot
Bell Pepper
Mushrooms in season
Wilted spinach (briefly sauteed)
Tomato Sauce
Zataar mixed with oil
Your secret stock of excellent olive oil
Red pepper flakes
Salt
Pepper

Support your local artisans at apero

At the table:

Begin with a generous salad of ultra fresh market vegetables. Roquette, julienned Oseille (sorrel), spinach, mixed greens, white radishes, mushrooms, carrots, onions, peppers, fresh spring veggies, and house vinaigrette, on the side.

Bring out the dough and give it one last kneading, at the table. Set out the toppings. Cut the dough with a knife into 8 pieces. It will be soft and easy to roll. Quickly and efficiently roll out the dough thin to make individual pizzas at the table, pass them around on baking parchment, let them choose, discuss, and pass the toppings. Cook as many pizzas as will fit in the oven at the time, in a medium-hot oven, warm enough to cook the crust and melt the toppings without browning them too much.

Everyone will state that their pizza is perfect. Isn't that amazing?

Serve with copious amounts of excellent 2005 Saumur Champigny. Monitor the glasses carefully and fill them as needed. Keep fresh spring water available to the non-drinkers.

Aude's Birthday Cake

The problem on the morning of the 28th of April was how to really party up Aude’s birthday without too much planning or expenditures, since I had done nothing and the cupboards were nearly bare. I had the in-laws coming up from the midi and Grenoble, all expecting to eat well, and Aude’s cake to bake. Every year, Aude gets a cake from me, and every year it is something different.

I inherited the Mama cake gene, which means that all cakes coming from me will be audacious in planning, original, involve no frosting from a can, and they will be successful approximately 12% of the time. For genetic reasons, I am not a very adventurous dessert person. It is out of self preservation. I woefully consider desserts to be the last frontier, and more often I serve some stodgy boring thing at dessert time. One exception is that everyone has gotten used to my throwing myself into baking a cake in the “American style” when they come to our house to celebrate someone’s birthday.


I will be the first to admit I came to bake birthday cakes for semi-selfish reasons. When I turned 16 years old, my friends got together and threw me a surprise party. It was the one and only surprise party ever thrown for me in my whole life up to now. They even baked a cake, with my name on it. I was permanently marked by the experience. I foster an indelible memory of joy and appreciation for the beauty of their collective project on that day. I will simply never forget it. Knowing that a cake for a friend can have such a profound effect personally keeps me baking them. I know how good they feel. I just can't help myself.

On Saturday morning, I was in bed with coffee and clipboard like many weekend mornings. I like to sit in the early glow of the morning while things are still and quiet and just get some images down about how I want things to go, especially when I have people coming in from out of town. My mind scanned the landscape of recent birthday cakes. A bumpy mountainous landscape, indeed.

One year was the classic buttercream meltdown, another the famous crazy bitter ganache just barely palatable, the lumpy like dumpling crème patissière, the solid layer of chocolate in the center that couldn’t be cut through and smashed the bottom layer, the fallen this and the lopsided that. One classic was the rock solid caramel casing hindering us from entering Loic’s cake. Oh and don’t forget the hot tangerine colored volcano which contained, once we sawed through it, rubbery dry angelfood that collapsed on contact with the knife like a feather pillow. Poor birthday souls, getting pitiful cakes. But people still love ‘em. It’s the thought that counts.

One of these days, the cakes will come together in my kitchen as the glorious harmonious sum of all of their parts. One day. The time of cake disasters too shall pass, or is that a fantasy?


This year I wanted something elegant for Aude, she deserves it after the tangerine volcano. Speaking of fantasies, Swiss Meringue Buttercream from Martha Stewart would be my new icing conquest this year, and instead of chocolate as I envisioned during my coffee hour, I went all the way with a try at Wedgewood blue.

Noted, that Martha Stewart icing is really a good one, it worked by some miracle even though I didn’t heat the meringue to 160 degrees F for fear of reproducing another plaster disaster.


Just as soon as I remembered to let the cake cool completely, the icing worked even better! The crumb coat was truly effective. Check. Noted in kitchen notebook. I put the cake in the fridge to rest and cool off before I would add my third and final coat. I was off doing something else and the good fairy came in to do a sweep of the disaster in progress called the kitchen and eliminated the remaining slightly Wedgewood blue tinted Swiss Meringue Buttercream which was to be my third and perfect coat. Drat! Oh well, good enough.



My mind was working on on two tracks – inside and outside for the cake. They didn’t match very well. One of these days they'll match, maybe. I think that the hot tangerine pink after all was following tradition. -ahem.