I assisted Pierre in making Tchakchouka, a dish he remembers from his time in Algeria. It is a kind of ratatouille — but to me it is the better dish. The recipe appears in many Mediterranean traditions. I have found Algerian, Jewish, Tunisian,  Moroccan & Kabile recipes, all have pretty much the same ingredients with variations of meat or eggs — at times coming close to the famous huevos rancheros! We made two versions: one with eggs and another without, which we served with lamb chops.  You can eat tchakchouka hot, luke-warm or cold, as you prefer, or as the weather suggests. You will not regret the effort and can make big batches of this super delicious fragrant summer dish. Don’t wait, make yours now!

Tchakchouka

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, sliced thin
2-3 garlic cloves, minced
3 tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and diced
2-3 green & red peppers,  roasted, peeled & sliced
1 cup of water
Paprika, ground coriander seeds
Fresh coriander & parsley chopped
Salt & pepper, to taste
4 eggs (optional)

Recipe:

*Roast the peppers over your stove. When charred wrap them in newspaper. Wait until they cool off & then peel them, discard seeds, cut lengthwise into thin strips.

*Dip tomatoes in boiling water for one minute. Remove & cool, then peel, seed & dice.

* Heat the oil over a medium flame in a deep skillet. Stir in the paprika & ground coriander seeds and let cook slightly to color the oil, about 10-15 seconds.

* Add the onions, sauté until onions are translucent and wilted but not browned, about 4 minutes; add garlic, cook for another minute or so.

* Add tomatoes and bring to a rapid simmer. Add peppers, parsley & fresh coriander, water and salt and pepper. Reduce heat to low, and simmer, covered, for about 15-20 minutes. Add more water as needed.

* If you want to add eggs, form four small indentations in the simmering peppers to hold the eggs. Crack eggs, one by one, into a small bowl and slip each egg from the bowl into an indentation.

* Cover and simmer another 10 minutes or so until eggs are cooked through.
Voilà! & enjoy!

Today is Pierre’s Birthday and one of his presents is my rendition of a favorite French  oldie, “Le Temps des Cerises”. You can find more info about the song on Pierre’s blog but  voilà  for you P.J: Joyeux Anniversaire and many happy cherries!
Click the link below to listen to the song & now off to cook his b-day dinner, more soon on that.

Le Temps des Cerises

Saturday July 3rd 2010 was the 11th  annual Tsatsawassa Poetry BBQ. Once again Bernadette Mayer & Phil Good opened their house to soulful poetry & food. Master of ceremony Dave Brinks flew from Nola with coolers filled with what might be the last delicacies from Louisiana for a while. This year’s festival mood was  blackened by the Deep Water Horizon oil gushing.

A lot of the poetry spoke to the disaster and every morsel of Dave’s magnificent Jambalaya was taken as communion. Pierre Joris and I collaborated in making sangria and lamb burgers. A proud moment for us: our son Miles Joris-Peyrafitte gave his first public poetry reading, and so did his good friend Tommy Panitz. Miles also accompanied my reading.

With Alyssa and Katie we had great fun later in the night  making  an improvised dessert in the Round Pudgy Pie Iron —a.k.a as a Hobo Pie Iron—Alyssa had brought.  We made two batters. Katie’s batter was a mix of left over corn meal cake mix, flour & oil. Mine was 2 biscuits crumbled, milk, egg & banana. We poured melted butter in the iron, warmed it up and then  poured the batter. We propped the iron on a rock to make sure it would stay flat. The cakes need to be flipped after a few minutes depending where the pie irons are in the fire. We flambeed the banana ones with brandy, and served the corn cakes with honey and goat yogurt on top. Yummy!

You can view all the pictures on the website below. There is over 100 pictures so make sure you see all of them!

http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/tsatsawassa2010/pix/index.html

http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/tsatsawassa2010/pix/index2.html

http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/tsatsawassa2010/pix/index3.html

There will be more pix and notes on Dan Wilcox blog in the next few days.

Graduation, birthdays, family visits, drawings, preparation for up-coming shows kept me away from the computer, but here is the schedule for the next few weeks. We hope to see you at these very exiting shows:

Sunday June 27th
Metropolitan Museum
1:00PM
“Picasso, Pablo Ruiz: Spanish Poet Who Dabbled in Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture””

A conference by Pierre Joris, co-editor and translator of Pablo Picasso’s poetry: Burial Of The Count Of Orgaz & Other Poems
I will be the reader for  the French & Spanish versions of Picasso’s texts.

TRIALOGUES @  The Vision Festival XV
Tuesday June 29th
9:15PM In the Downstairs Theater

Mike Bisio/Nicole Peyrafitte/Pierre Joris

Thursday July 1st
5:00pm -midnight (our time TBA)
at the Brooklyn Bridge Park
Pierre Joris & I will be among the many poets & performers of:
I Do Not Doubt I Am Limitless: Walt Whitman’s Brooklyn

I don’t eat much pasta but before a gig I like to have an early dinner that will give enough energy to be able to sing three hours later and pasta & lox is perfect for me.
So on Monday before going to our gig at The Local 269 with Pierre Joris & Michael Bisio — snippet of concert here— I made us a salmon, scallion & fusili express dish. My friend Dawn Clements —who is opening another drawing extraordinaire at The Boiler today— had given me a delicious piece of lox from the Acme Smoked Fish store in Brooklyn. It took me 14 minutes to make the dish including cooking the pasta:
Cook  pasta al dente.
Cut pieces of lox.
In a pan bring one cup of heavy cream to  a boil and add scallions cut at a bias  for one minute.
Combine it all.
Add a little salt, a lot of fresh ground pepper & shavings of Parmesan cheese….
Voilà c’est tout!

Beside the drawing concert series there is another series in constant progress and below are 2 pieces  Also in serious progress the Augustus Saint Gaudens script with  new discoveries on Bernard Saint Gaudens his father, and a dead line coming up very soon for the script.

MARCH—collage/drawing from N.P.  Calendar Series

Yeap! We are in March and I saw some crocuses “piercing” the ground on 71st street yesterday. It cheered me up. The general mood has been down with all the international and national events, catastrophes, health care mess… Even my hometown, Luchon, was seriously affected by a storm coming from the Southwest with winds at 200km/h. It killed one man, pulled out thousands of ancient trees, lifting roofs, and closing bars for one day! No one remembers seeing or hearing about such an event in a place that is so naturally sheltered from the wind. Who says there is no global warming? The same idiots who feel threatened by universal health care? The same idiots who worship a god that knows neither nature nor health. We need D.A Bennett  The Truth Seeker all over again, I just read that book and it is amazing how the problem of religion in politics has remained the same for two century ago and is far from being solved.

Anyhow, life must go on and I have been busy. The “d’Artagnan 25th Anniversary Art Show” at The World Bar is still on. Works by French painter Michel Calvet and 3 large collage/paintings of mine are on display.  The World Bar serves delicious cocktails and their $8 happy hour special is totally worth it. I had a “peace cocktail” concocted by the excellent (1/2 french) mixologist Jonathan, all fresh juices and premium liquors — a real treat! We will have another event there soon as the opening was affected by the storm. So don’t feel bad if you couldn’t make it; D’Artagan has agreed to provide us with more patés and saucisson for another event, so stay tune!

Below you will find my detailed calendar of events for March, four events still coming up, it is all exciting especially the Umami festival one, which is leading me into fascinating research about yeast and beer in Mesopotamian time. As a result of all this action the fridge as been consistently empty and home made Miso soup (see recipe here)and rice has become a staple.

I cook two cups of brown rice twice a week and eat it in different forms. The breakfast version is becoming a house favorite and even Pierre who is not a brown rice aficionado really likes this one:

-Warm up some rice milk in a bottom of sauce pan. Add 1/2 cup of cooked rice per person, one small apple cut into small pieces, 1/2 banana, raisins, cranberries, goji berries, maple syrup. Just warm it up. Before serving add chopped roasted almonds, pistachios, walnuts. That’s a tasty healthy breakfast!

When we finally made it to the coop a few days ago we got the making for a chicken soup. I had been craving it since Dawn Clements (now showing an amazing piece at the Whitney Biennial click here) served me the most delicious one at her studio in early February.  That recipe is also very easy:  throw it all in the pot and let it happen while the smell of the broth takes over the house. This is what I threw in the pot of cold water:
-1 organic chicken (with feet!)
-3 celery ribs
-3 carrots peeled and cut
-2 “fanned” leeks
-1 onion with 3 cloves planted in it
- 1 spice/herb bag with: fresh parsley, thyme, laurel leave, 1 cardamon pod, 6 blk pepper corn.
- Sea salt.
Then you can either delicately lift some of the meat and eat it separately or debone  the whole thing and return it in the pot. You will have to add some salt and pepper to taste and you can of course add some pasta or rice or potatoes. I just had a bowl and this is ever so restauring and satisfying.

Now the schedule and if I don’t see you there, please stay in touch!

Sunday March 7th
Sunday Best Reading Series
4PM $7
The Lounge, Hudson View Gardens
Pinehurst Avenue and 183rd Street
183rd & Pinehurst Avenue
New York City

Friday March 12th
UMAMI Festival
Featuring Sarah Klein, Murray’s Cheese, Tom Cat Bakery, Ithaca Beer Company
& NP w/ Rosie Hertlein ( violin)
6:30PM
click here for reservations
Astor Center for Food and Wine
399 Lafayette (at 4th Street)

Sunday March 21
NP & Pierre Joris, Nick Flynn, Major Jackson, Douglas Unger
6PM
Poets for Peace at Erika’s
85-101 N. 3rd St # 508
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(between wythe and berry
and it is the bedford stop on the L train)

Monday March 29th
NP w/ Pierre Joris & Michael Bisio (bass)
THE LOCAL 269
269 E Houston Street NYC

Ongoing until Agust 2010
D’Artagnan 25th Anniversary Art Show
Michel Calvet / Nicole Peyrafitte / Jean-Pierre Rives
The World Bar /The Trump Tower
845 United Nation Plaza
New York NY 10017

]]> http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2010/03/06/march/feed/ 0 http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/11/23/en-route/ http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/11/23/en-route/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:55:11 +0000 Nicole Peyrafitte http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/?p=2687

Fear Factor Nov. 3, 2004 painting by N.P
(part of the Angoulème performance)

I really miss writing the blog regularly but a couple of deadlines have kept me totally busy. One of them is the preparation of the performance with Pierre Joris & Miles Joris-Peyrafitte that will happen this coming Thursday in Angoulême (France). No Thanksgiving for us! We are off tomorrow and below is the info about the show in case you are around this area. This is my first trip to the Poitou-Charente region and I am looking forward to discover their food specialties and have some of the delicious Pineau des Charentes — a mix of wine and cognac. It will be my pleasure to report if I have any time to do so. But right after, I am off to the Pyrenees for more work on Augustus Saint Gaudens.  I am leaving you with a few posts from last year, and please do dig into the archives and the categories.

Cabbage: a Winner for the Winter! (I)

A Winner for the Winter (II) : Cabbage Roll

Preview Recording & Thanksgiving

Angoulême Performance

Thursday November 25th 2:30Pm
L’art, L’éducation et le politique
Colloque International, Angoulême
Salle Nemo

Description of the show:

A multimedia performance of texts, videos, music, paintings commenting the “years of lead” (2000-2008) in the USA  and examining the relation beetween art, politic & education.  Pierre Joris, Nicole Peyrafitte & Miles Joris-Peyrafitte propose individual and communal attempts at resisting & criticizing the “Pax Americana.”

]]> http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/11/23/en-route/feed/ 2 http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/10/14/2559/ http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/10/14/2559/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:35:45 +0000 Nicole Peyrafitte http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/?p=2559

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 — click here for details. It was a very firm,  bright, shiny and freshly picked purple cabbage.  I must say I was a little surprised to find it in the CSA box so early in the season.  When we returned mid-August, the cabbage was holding great, no obvious signs of aging. It was not wrapped, or in the crisper, but just decorating the middle shelf of the fridge. I still was not ready to eat it; summer veggies were still plentiful and I assimilate cabbage more with a fall/winter food. I became so used to see it in the fridge that I almost forgot to eat it.  But a few nights ago I pulled it out of the near empty fridge to accompany Pierre’s Bay Ridge version of a Luxembourgish dish: the Gromperen plaâ. Only the first layer of the cabbage leaves where a little limp, the rest was still crisp. Before I tell you a little more about the Gromperen  plaâ this is how I made the cabbage salad:
1/2  red/purple cabbage head sliced thinly
1 diced onion
1 diced apple
1 diced celery rib
Chopped walnuts and/or almonds

Moisten all the ingredients with olive oil. Drizzle with vinegar — it can be: apple cider, or rice or light wine vinegar. Add a dash of sesame oil —very little, the goal is to use it to outline the ingredients  not to really taste it (do you  know what I mean?). Then add  fresh  chopped Italian parsley, salt & pepper to taste.

Pierre was supposed to give me the detailed recipe of the Gromperen plaâ but as you can check on his blog he is not home very much these days. In Luxembourgish Gromper means potato & plaâ means dish —plat in French. This is the first dish Pierre’s sister Michou makes when we visit. All the ingredients go into a terrine or a lasagna type dish. As I indicated I don’t have an exact recipe but I think I am right to say that Pierre never really follows one either. This is the kind of dish that is adjustable to what you have and how you feel. I personally encourage this kind of cooking and would like to have the guts to write such a cook book! Now here are the indications for you to make your own potato dish:

Butter  the bottom of the pan.
Line with one layer of sliced parboiled potatoes.
Sprinkle with  diced sautéed onions.
Cut slices of Mettwurscht —the “national” sausage of Luxembourg.
In Bay Ridge we don’t have Mettwurscht so Pierre decided to make the Gromperen plaâ with the Turkish sausage sujuk— a beef sausage usually spiced with cumin, sumac, garlic, paprika and other red pepper —we always get it at Aunt Halime’s Halal Meat Market on 3rd avenue and Ovington in Bay Ridge.
Repeat layers until there is no more room in the dish.
Then fill the dish with seasoned heavy cream—with salt, pepper and a touch of freshly grated nutmeg—  until the top of the pan is barely covered.
Top with a generous layer of shredded cheese – can be Swiss , Emmental , Gruyère or even cheddar! 
The result was superb; I had forgotten to take a picture of the dish before we started digging into it and next thing we knew is that the three diners around the table cleaned it up in a flash! The combination of the textures and tastes were perfect. Thanks Pierre and this menu is a keeper! The only disappointment Pierre had is that he thought he was going to have some left over for lunch. Sorry!

]]> http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/10/14/2559/feed/ 1 http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/09/06/sax-soup-poetry-voice/ http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/2009/09/06/sax-soup-poetry-voice/#comments Mon, 07 Sep 2009 03:11:22 +0000 Nicole Peyrafitte http://nicolepeyrafitte.com/blog/?p=2304

THE DVD IS  OUT!
On November 7, 2007, Joe Girardullo, Pierre Joris & myself had molto fun presenting Sax, Soup, Poetry & Voice a multimedia performance at the The Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy N.Y. The original description of the show was:

A Harvest Celebration with multimedia artist Nicole Peyrafitte, saxophonist Joe Giardullo & poet Pierre Joris. The trio will celebrate, harvest, and gather together non linear momentum through their music, poetry, voice, visuals and yes, a soup! Nicole, who recently moved to Brooklyn, will cook an “Inner-State” soup that will be shared with the audience.

The quality of this recording is stunning. They made us look and sound really good! & you ou can almost taste the “Inner State Soup!”

This DVD series is not a commercial venture and The Sanctuary for Independent Media is eager to have it distributed widely. For that reason we offer it through Ta’wil Productions store for a modest $5 to cover shipping and handling. Spread the word & the DVD!

Please view video sample here

This DVD is part of a prestigious series (see below), however at this point we are only able to offer our DVD.
Our deepest thanks to the producers, crew & volunteers of the Sanctuary.

A Message from The Sanctuary of Independent Media:

Free Jazz from the Sanctuary Launched!
A 13-part series of jazz performance videos featuring some of the world’s most talented improvisers, recorded live in concert at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, is now available online–just click the links below! Each show is (or soon will be) available on DVD; details are available under each band entry.

The Free Jazz from the Sanctuary series will soon be available for non-commercial broadcast distribution.
Contact us for more information!

The Thirteenth Assembly
(Taylor Ho Bynum, Tomas Fujiwara, Mary Halvorson, Jessica Pavone)
Ethnic Heritage Ensemble
(Kahil El’Zabar, Ernest Dawkins, Corey Wilkes)
Fay Victor Ensemble
(Ken Filiano, Anders Nilsson, Michael TA Thompson, Fay Victor)
From Between Trio
(Michel Doneda, Tatsuya Nakatani, Jack Wright)
Michael Vlatkovich Quartet
(Christopher Garcia, Jonathan Golove, David Mott, Michael Vlatkovich)
Sax Soup Poetry and Voice
(Joe Giardullo, Pierre Joris, Nicole Peyrafitte)
Trio Tarana
(Sam Bardfeld, Ravish Momin, Brian Prunka)
The Ras Ensemble
(Clif Jackson, Dave Miller, Ras Moshe, Tor Yochai Snyder)
William Hooker
Empty Cage Quartet
(Ivan Johnson, Paul Kikuchi, Jason Mears, Kris Tiner)
Weasel Walter Trio
(Peter Evans, Mary Halvorson, Weasel Walter)
Splatto Festival Chorus
(Dave Barrett, Michael Bisio, Ed Mann, Todd Reynolds)
Amiri Baraka and Rob Brown

Free Jazz from the Sanctuary is a co-production of NY Media Alliance and the Arts Department at Rensselaer, made possible in part with support from the NYS Council on the Arts and the NYS Music Fund, established by the NYS Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisers.

Photographs of the show: Sax, Soup, Poetry & Voice  by Jon Flanders (11/07/07)

After a long trip we arrived in my hometown, Luchon, in the Central Pyrenées.  There is very little time to process pictures and notes gathered daily. Since we got here, it has been an uninterrupted stream of aperitifs, meals, digestifs with family and friends.
For now I will report on our transit day in Paris on 14 July, Bastille Day. We landed from our transcontinental flight midday and directly headed to Gare d’Austerlitz to drop off our luggage until our night train to Luchon. It sounded convenient and pleasant to have lunch at the nearby Jardin des Plantes and then spend time in the gardens and menageries. As Bastille Day is also Pierre’s birthday, we were really looking forward to a nice meal on the outside terrace of the newly renovated restaurant “ La Baleine.” The sun, the bread & very decent house wine kept us content, though the meal was mediocre, overpriced and the service lousy.
The garden was originally planted in 1626 as a medicinal herb garden. Back then it was known as the Jardin du Roi (Louis XIII). In 1640 it opened to the public. In 1792 the Royal Menagerie was moved to the gardens from Versailles. Among a wide variety of animals we had a great time watching the super entertaining orangutans, the 250 lb 120 years old Aldabra Giant tortoise (Geochelone gigantea) and I was particularly delighted spending time with the White Nape Cranes. Last fall I wrote a piece called crane/grue that is on my cd Whisk! Don’t Churn! Below you will find the recording as the sound track of the video I shot Monday.

So voilà for now! My son Miles and I are off tomorrow for a short trip to Aix-en-Provence for a mother and son adventure, while Pierre Joris will be in Lodève at the Poetry Festival “Les Voix de la Mediterranée.” We will join him towards the end of the week for a shared performance, and then back to the Pyrenées — and for now, as we say here, Adishatz!