I am a murderer, I am a savior. I am the assassin, I am the redeemer. While one hand slices, the other one soothes.
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3 January 2015 - Lyon, France
After catching a whiff of lamb surrounded by two dozen garlic cloves, slow-roasting in its own juices, in the oven (the most recent class-favorite from my studies in culinary school at L’Institut Paul Bocuse,) I lovingly cradled the mug of fresh coffee and sat myself down by the second-story kitchen window overlooking the atelier of “The Artist-Who-is-Truly-Googleable!”
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Whether you are celebrating today religiously or secularly, Easter is just as important to the French as it is to Americans; large family gatherings, a beautiful meal and egg hunts for all my friends! And chocolate, lots and lots of chocolate!!
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On a rainy day in February, with sights set on Shire Farms (an easy 45-minute drive in my 2007 Honda Pilot) I embarked on the last stop of my “buy local, eat local” journey. As the scenery turned from shopping centers to small farms, I thought about the preceding weeks – well, months and years, I suppose – that had brought me so eagerly to the Tate family’s farm.
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On the eve of a deadline, I found myself sorting through various sources on La Saint-Valentin and the saint’s disputed origin while attempting to refine (no pun intended) the long history of chocolate into a few short paragraphs (after all, Valentine’s Day + France + love + chocolate + fail-proof ganache recipe = albeit obvious, the perfect February blog post.) Halfway through my rough draft, I received the news: Paul Bocuse - the “Pope of Gastronomy,” Meilleur Ouvrier de France, 3-starred Michelin chef dead. Personally, writing an article about an over commercialized (in the states; not France) holiday of whose origins are, if nothing else, bizarre to go along with a recipe for “the perfect ganache” seemed untimely and trite.
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I am going to begin at the very end – The Cheese Course. As we passed the cheese tray around the dimly lit dining room table seated full of strangers-turned-new friends, we silently (and correctly – afterall, we had just been taught how to accurately and politely slice and serve ourselves from a proper French cheese platter) cut our fair portion of each of the crumbly, luscious, dense, colorful & custardy choices while we concentrated on Lucy, our instructor/trained-pastry-chef/history-buff/masterful-story-teller as she began The Tale of the Cheese That Was Almost Lost.
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France was my ultimate foodie paradise. I enrolled into a 210-hour intensive “Cuisine & Culture” course at L’Institut Paul Bocuse where I learned traditional techniques, practiced important recipes, tried new flavors, listened attentively to history lessons, lost myself in stories and grew an even deeper appreciation for France, its food and its culture.Deborah Cater said, “You have to taste a culture to understand it.” So, in the spirit of Ms. Cater and throughout my culinary experiences, workshops, blog posts & instagram, let’s take a stroll through traditions and time, tastes and flavors, vivid colors and fond memories.
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"I propose you ... how you Americans call it - Bar-B-Que at my house next Saturday, oui?" So, on a sunny evening in June, at 7:30 pm, my husband and 2 culinary school friends of mine arrived at a quaint, two-story house just outside of St. Etienne, about a 45-minute drive outside of Lyon. Happy and excited, but not quite prepared for the culinary adventure that lay before us ...
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“The eggs don’t taste like eggs and the mayonnaise doesn’t taste ANYTHING like ANYTHING! And don’t even get me started on the produce. HOW am I supposed to know what is in season? Did you know I bought a bunch of berries, thinking, ‘it’s summer!’ only to find out that they were flown all the way from South America and tasted precisely tasteless!?! This is both criminal and unacceptable! I am taking the children and we are getting on the next flight back to France!”
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Whether lactose-intolerant, following a paleo diet or looking for a flavorsome fat with a high smoke point, clarified butter and ghee may be the right choices for you. Free of common allergens, clarified butter and ghee are basically the oil, called butter fat, that is left behind when you heat butter and remove the milk proteins, casein and whey. (Butter is roughly 82% fat, 16% water and 2% protein. Evaporate the water, skim off the protein et voila, “butter oil”.)
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