Collectages

Wow! Since I returned from Chicago I have not had a chance to post to the blog. It has been insanely busy: There is the ongoing work on Augustus Saint Gaudens with the documentary script writing advancing slowly but steadily.  I am trying  to clarify some aspects of his father’s life —Bernard Saint-Gaudens— in their [...]

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André Daguin, chef/owner of the Hôtel de France in Auch (Gers) until 1997, tells how he gave a new life to the tasty magret de canard — and made it famous in the process: “The magret was served only as “confit” in soups, cassoulets and everyone would find it dry. The only way to avoid [...]

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Among all the family recipes Les Pannequets Saint-Louis is truly a unique one, et je pèse mes mots — that is: and I weigh my words — yes: unique, a word I almost never use. My great grandfather Louis, Gabriel, Marcel, Marie, Peyrafitte (1858-1929) created this amazing recipe that we still make for very special [...]

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August 21st 2009 / Lunch Time Culinary Institute of America The American Bounty Room I am back in the Mid-Hudson Valley to accompany Miles for the last three days of the Muttnik shoot. I cannot resist returning to the C.I.A. This time I’ll have lunch at one of the “big” restaurants, preferably at the “Escoffier” [...]

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“No, I’m not coming to eat endangered animal meat,” says Miles. He is talking about the leg of izard, a.k.a:  Rupicapra pyrenaica or Pyrenean chamois I cooked on a string before an open fire a few days before our departure from Bourg d’Oueil. Too bad & more for us! It is a very special occasion [...]

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The party is over in the Pyrenees, we will return home tomorrow. I will post a few more things about my trip, but with much regrets it will be from New York State. Miles and I have to return early as Miles is being called to finish Muttnik. Today we had our last concert in [...]

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While in the Pyrenees, Miles Joris-Peyrafitte (my younger son) and I have two gigs at the mountain resort of Peyragudes. Our first one was last Thursday and the next one is this coming  Thursday (08/13/09). Peyragudes is located at the top of the Peyresourde pass (If you follow the Tour de France bike race you [...]

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Faire chabro is an ancient custom that is still very much in practice in the Southwest of France. It consists in adding about 1/3 of a glass of red wine to your soup plate once you have eaten two thirds of your broth. The proportions are very subjective to your taste, however you need to [...]

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Where I am from in the French Pyrenees, and especially in the Comminges Region, when  people need to get together for an annual or a perennial event they throw a mongetade party.  In Occitan language mongetes means beans, so a mongetade will always involve a bean dish and an unlimited number of people. There is [...]

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I am in Albany packing our house for our definitive move to Brooklyn. As I was packing my archives I found a batch of old menus from my family hotel that my mother had sent me a few years back. Coincidentally there was one for April 20th 1954. On the left my mother wrote a [...]

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