Collectages

A râgout express is a contradiction in term. A stew should cook as long as possible. This being said let’s move on! The term râgout covers a lot of territory. A good definition would be “a  well-seasoned meat or fish stew usually with vegetables.” The word ragoût comes from old French ra-gouster “to revive the [...]

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Mussels contain high doses of Omega-3, a fish oil compound that nutritionist say is helpful in reducing cholesterol. Farming mussels is believed to have been invented in France in 1235 by an Irishman named Patrick Walton. The story goes that Patrick Walton left Ireland to escape the police. His boat wrecked on the coast of [...]

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When we took off for France in mid-July I left a purple cabbage (red cabbage is actually never “red”) in the fridge. I was pretty confident it would keep until our return. It was a beautiful purple cabbage from our CSA share and I actually wrote a post and took pictures about that particular share [...]

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As a seasonal occurrence let’s taste another distinguished native American food: the tomatillo, miltomate or husk-tomato.  Pierre had bought the 2 lbs of them I had ordered last week  —a good thing that they keep well— and today I finally got to make a salsa verde.  This green-husked fruit is a close relative to the [...]

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When Miles (my younger son) came into the kitchen and asked quite intrigued: “What is that smell?” I pointed to the Papalo bunch sitting next to the sink. Papalo is a native South American plant, also known as Papaloquite or porophyllum ruderale or macrocephalum. Its name comes from papalotl, —butterfly in Nahuatl and interesting (to [...]

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All I wanted to do was post a quick recipe for Labor Day: A raw mushroom salad marinated with pink & green peppercorns. Little did I know! I took the photo a week ago, the ‘shrooms are long gone but I am still marinating in pepper! First, I confirmed that green pepper is the unripe [...]

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The other evening we fell into an aperitif trapère! We stopped at our favorite local bar-restaurant “Le Faisant Doré” to meet my brother Jean-Louis to have an apéritif (before dinner drink) before making our way back up to the montains with our good friends Peter Cockelberg and his wife Delphine Grave for dinner. The one [...]

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Encore des sardines! First came the sardine tartine blog, were I mentioned that King Henri IV loved sardines and introduced them to the court; then came the sardine paté at the 5c café performance; and on  Friday our friend Claire arrived from Brittany with a boxed set of a 6 cans Saint-Georges sardines “La Reserve” [...]

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It takes 3 people to make a good salad: A miser to pour the vinegar A wise woman to add the spices/condiments A genius to dispense the oil At my family hotel salad was never served as a main course, rarely as a first course, occasionally as an appetizer. The “traditional” salad course came after [...]

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More eggs, more rice & more good fast food today. I had very little time to cook but was craving comfy food after being Momyger for the weekend. When Miles (my younger son), gets to work as an actor I become half mom, half manager, that’s what a Momyger is! I am learning a lot [...]

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