David Lebovitz's Blog, page 7

Le pommeau de douche

After what seemed like a year, and a rather long one at that, my bathroom and shower have finally been fixed. What seemed like ages ago, I came home from lunch with a friend one day and heard a bubbling, brook-like sound coming from my bedroom. When I walked in, a steady cascade of water was rippling out of the wall and about a centimeter (1/2-inch) of water covered the floor, as well as the floor of my bedroom, courtesy of a broken pipe in the building.

People in Paris are no strangers to fuites d’eau (water leaks) and this wasn’t my first. And unfortunately, it probably won’t be my last. A combination of ancient plumbing, rising rivers, old buildings, disagreements between neighbors, and property managers, who Capital, a French Consumer Reports-style magazine described as having regular “bad buzz” and défiance institutionnalisé (widespread suspicion), keeps Paris awash with water woes.

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Quiche Lorraine

Quiche got a peculiar rap back in the 1980s when eating it was described as something that was not masculine. I’m not sure where that came from, but in France, everybody eats quiche.

As the French debate how to address gender pronouns, in a language where crème, baguette, and salade are feminine and pâté, vin, and quinoa are masculine (although quinoa is a plante céréalière, which is feminine), for no reason other than to make the language more challenging for the rest of us to learn (whether tique, the word for tick, was masculine or feminine has been hotly debated), quiche is enjoyed by tous (or everyone, which is masculine) in France, without any blowback.

Got that?

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Savon de Marseille

There’s a lot to like about savon de Marseille, the French soap made in Provence. Its history dates back nearly 600 years and in 1688 an edict came into effect under Louis XIV that standardized what savon de Marseille was; a soap with no artificial additives, no colorants, no perfumes or fragrances, no animal fats, and must contain at least 72% olive oil, which accounts for its natural green color. It took me almost two decades to move to the “72% percent side,” but now that I’m there, I’m not going back.

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Chocolate Hazelnut Tart

I’m back on the wagon of tackling the recipes in the bulging files of recipes that I’ve been collecting and hanging on to for the past thirty years. Many pre-date the internet and were from food magazines (made of paper) that I subscribed to. A surprising number of the savory recipes have the words “adobo” or “chipotle,” and “pork” in the title, so if I ever want to write a book of well-seasoned pork recipes, I’ve got plenty of inspiration.

This one is from Gourmet magazine way back in 2004, a few years before they ceased publishing. I knew people in the test kitchen at Gourmet and they thoroughly tested their recipes, so you know they’re going to work. Gourmet was “modernized” under its last editor, Ruth Reichl, but the test kitchen remained a constant; she knew the value of a solid recipe and good testers. She also knew the appeal of a great photo and Romulo Yanes, who recently passed away, created many of the great images that Gourmet was known for.

Many questioned why Condé Nast killed Gourmet but not Bon Appétit, but the subscription numbers were more favorable for the latter, which didn’t end well, and is now undergoing another revamp. I, for one, am happy that there hasn’t been that much turnover here at the blog, but I should probably shake things up here at some point, too.

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Caramel Almond Pie

After my summer break, I came back to the blog and found out that it still thought it was on vacation…and wasn’t accepting any photos at this time. I was proud of myself for finally tackling a recipe that I’ve had on my radar for a while and spent a day baking it, taking pictures, and writing up the post. The recipe was quite a doozy, but with a name like Smoky Caramel Almond Pie, how could I not make it? It was a bit of a project but I persevered (in the name of smoky caramel and almonds…) but when I came to upload the photos, my blog wasn’t having any of it and said non.

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Tapisserie

Years ago, at a flea market in Paris I pickup up some old metal letters from a bakery in France that spelled out PATISSERIE. Being a baker, of course I was thrilled (although still despondent that someone else snatched up the matching BOULANGERIE letters…) and proudly displayed them on the shelf of my apartment. Since my apartment at the time was so small, shelf space was at a super-premium. Yet I was happy to give a lot of it up to have those letters reminding me of my métier.

When I lent my apartment to some visiting friends, I noticed the P and the T had been reversed, and it spelled TAPISSERIE. I got a kick out of it and thought that was very clever. When a new bakery in Paris called Tapisserie from the team of a noted restaurant, I figured it wasn’t a place to purchase a tapestry, but a clever – and original – place to get terrific desserts.

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Folderol Ice Cream Shop (and Wine Bar)

It used to be that if you wanted ice cream in Paris, you went to Berthillon. While there were other notable places on my list (circa 2007), if you wanted a scoop of ice cream after dark in other parts of the cities, you were out of luck. Like bakeries, ice cream options tend to be few and far between in the evening, and there were not a lot of glaceries open after dark. So if you wanted to go for a post-supper stroll for a few boules de glace, it was often pas possible.

Fortunately, that’s changed in recent years as several pastry chefs opened upscale ice cream shops in the Marais (and elsewhere), and younger talents, like Henri at Glazed and Bachir from Lebanon, have also jumped into the mix. Even better, Folderol has arrived, an ice cream shop & wine bar from the husband and wife team that brought us Le Rigmarole restaurant. This goes to show that good things come to those (like me) who wait…even if it takes fourteen years.

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Blacker Berry Galette

My Netflix queue has gotten out of control and is entirely too long. And to make matters worse, I keep adding to it. Being out of the U.S. for so long, I missed watching binge-worthy, must-watch classics like The Wire and Breaking Bad when they came out, and I’d love to sit down on the sofa for another few months and watch them now that they are streaming, as well as rewatch all five seasons of Six Feet Under, which was one of the best shows that’s even been on television. How they managed to make a show about death so human is beyond me, with a finale that’s lauded as the best ending for a television series ever. Which also made me wonder how they could have left the end of The Sopranos, another incredible show, land with such a thud?

The pandemic and confinements were certainly good for whittling down those “Watch Lists” but one show that jumped to the top of the queue was High on the Hog. It’s an eye-opening, unnerving, and emotionally difficult look at the role that African-Americans, who were brought to America as slaves, had in shaping American cooking. The subtitle of the show is “How African-American Cuisine Transformed America” which sounds like a big bill to fill, but the four-episode show traces how that happened.

And lest anyone doubt the rich contribution African-Americans have made to our cooking, author and Cook’s Country editor Toni Tipton-Martin pointed out in the program that Black Americans have been used by food brands for decades in America to denote quality, by brands like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben, which gave host Stephen Satterfield pause as well, flipping the narrative about those culinary characters (or caricatures) that many of us grew up with.

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Panisse recipe

Way back in 2008, probably before some of you were born, I posted a recipe for Panisses, chickpea flour fritters. They weren’t so well known outside of the south of France, and even in Paris, people don’t really know what they are. So it was fun introducing these Mediterranean specialties to a wider audience, even if some readers were scratching their heads as to how to get the main ingredient; chickpea flour.Nowadays, with gluten-free baking more popular, chickpea flour is easy to get and a recent trip to Marseille, where they’re sold at seaside stands (like the one above), prompted me to make them at home again, and update the recipe with additional tips I picked up.

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Marche des Producteurs de Pays

This week France rather quietly announced that visitors from the U.S. and Canada were allowed to come to the country without any restrictions. Things are still moving in the direction of getting back to normal, and while last year is still sort of a haze to me, I believe the markets in Paris remained open the entire time, operating under different conditions. Outdoor markets are extremely important in France and, of course, pre-dated les supermarchés which are now everywhere and have more agreeable hours – some are now even open on Sundays, which was controversial when it happened. But the outdoor markets take place six days a week in Paris, and in a country where holidays and vacations, and Sundays, are sacred, they remain open no matter what, even on Christmas, Easter, and New Year’s Day.

The outdoor markets are an integral part of French life and while in Paris there are over 100 marchés alimentaires (food markets), many of the stands are run by négotiants, or middle-men and women, who get their fruits, vegetables, meats, poultry, and fish from Rungis, the wholesale market outside of the city. There are many small farms in France but many stay, and sell, only in their regions due to their size. So I’m always happy when I see signs posted about an upcoming Marché des Producteurs de Pays, where you can buy things directly from the growers and producers, who bring their foods to the city.

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