A Chicken In Every Granny Cart

Oh people, it’s the holidays!

Of the last seven nights, I’ve been invited to parties on five of them. I only attended four. Of this I am proud.

Usually by this week on the calendar I’m exhausted, sick and cranky, just in time for my parents to make their annual trek down to the city. They come to finish their Christmas shopping, eat and spend time with Isaac and I.

This year I’m only feeling like I might possibly be coming down with something. I consider this a minor victory.

On the one night I managed to spend at home this week, Isaac and I feasted on some very good, heartwarming and delicious leftovers; Celeriac Hash. With a piece of salmon and my crazy beet salad, this was dinner on Sunday night.

I know I said salmon is the one thing you will never see on this site. Well, I lied. I still don’t like it. At all. But, much like the walnuts, something’s happening to my palate. I’m craving things that for years I have forsworn. This is all to Isaac’s great delight. He loves fish. If it were up to him, this site would probably be called A Salmon In Every Granny Cart.

But it’s not, and so rather than talking anymore about the fish, let’s talk about the hash. The inspiration came from two huge celery roots that Isaac brought home from the greenmarket and a cool old cookbook I picked up months ago at the Strand from 1973 by Perla Meyers called The Seasonal Kitchen: A Return to Fresh Foods.

If the title doesn’t grab you, the book’s design might. The cover is an elegant orangey-red on which the title is embossed in perfect Helvetica and the end papers are the most brilliant shade of vivid royal purple. Inside, the recipes are presented in an elegant fashion, both as complete meals and courses with cool symbols on beautiful, thick beige pages in sepia ink. It’s the ultimate gift for every foodie/design dork on your list!

Ms. Meyers’ recipe, Celeriac a l’Italienne, sounds amazing, but heavy. Cream, butter, cheese. Who wouldn’t love that? But I wanted something lighter, I mean, my diet over the past week has been largely made up of those three food groups, uhm, I mean ingredients. My version is a delicious, easy, hearty, and yes seasonal, side dish or quick late night supper mixed with some leftover roasted beets and a crumbling of blue cheese.

But now, I’ve got to dash. I have work to do, decongestants to ingest, an endless shopping trek through freezing rain to plan and reservations to confirm. Happy weekend all!

Head below the jump for the recipe for Celeriac Hash.

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I was involved in a long conversation yesterday about clichés.

We were discussing lazy journalism and it’s reliance on hackneyed phrases, bad puns and, yes, tired clichés.

Food writing, at any level, is especially prone to these journalistic foibles. Writing about food is simply difficult to do with an original voice, eschewing all the literary turns that have come before. As food writers, I feel we must pick our poison. Me? I like bad puns. So for this post, I’m pulling out all the stops!

There’s something about The Fourth of July that simply screams out for clichés. Hot dogs! Strawberry shortcake! Jello salads! Beer coozies! Inflatable wading pools! The 1812 Overture (with real canons)! And of course… Fireworks! My favorite Independence Day cliché of all.

The thing is, there shouldn’t be anything cliché about the holiday. It’s a serious one. But, it’s been decreed by the government that we have fun, and so fun we shall have!

Me? I’m planning on going to the Greenmarket to score some sweet corn, maybe some buffalo steaks, a few sausages and definitely tomatoes. Oh, and berries. Lots of them. Whatever’s available. I don’t know how berry season’s been where you are, but here? It’s been ridiculous.

Every time I walk amongst the farmers’ stalls, I’m seduced into impulse purchasing something. Strawberries. Blueberries. Sour cherries. Black cherries. And now the raspberries and blackberries are on their way!

(And just so you know I’m not crazy, yes I do know that cherries are technically not berries but are actually fruit, but in my mind they all belong together in one happy, berry fruity universe).

The problem is, I buy them with the intention of snacking on them at work, but inevitably I’m too lazy to take them to the kitchen for a rinse, and too grossed out by the thought of washing them in the ladies room sink. So they come home with me where the linger in the fridge until I feel guilty and come up with a way to eat them all at once.

That bowl of blueberries and strawberries? That’s not ice cream on top of them. That’s goat’s milk ricotta with a little fresh cracked black pepper and a light glaze of aged balsamic vinegar. That’s how sweet the berries are this year. They need no extra sugar and actually benefit from a bit of acid to draw out their lusciousness.

And that big fluffy pancake looking thing? Oh, that. That’s just my first attempt ever at making a clafouti!

I was cruising around Tastespotting on Sunday morning when this sour cherry clafouti caught my eye. The ingredients list had too much stuff in it (flax seed & soy milk do not belong in dessert) so I turned to my old pal Roy Andries de Groot. I figured if anyone would have a simple recipe for a seasonal French pastry it would be him. And I was right.

It couldn’t have been easier to knock together, and reminded me an awful lot of the Dutch Babies that my mom used to serve us for dinner when I was a kid. Soft and luscious, not too sweet with the surprising bits of candied ginger scattered about, the clafouti was both the perfect finish to an all-American meal of clams and biscuits and the perfect breakfast to bring into work.

And so I say unto you. Go forth and enjoy your Fourth! May your hot dogs be plump, your beers frosty and your fireworks spectacular. Oh, and don’t forget the berries. They’re berry delicious!

Head below the jump for the recipe for the recipe for Berry Cherry Clafouti.

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I’ve only been to Mexico once. I consider this a tragedy.

My year-of-cultzy-waitressing was done at a Mexican boite with a very good (and patient) chef. For some reason he put up with me, the waitress with the heart of a chef, and even encouraged my endless questions. Why that chile? What’s a huachinango? Where can I buy huitlacoche? Why is crema so delicious? How do you make chilaquilles?

When I re-joined the 9-to-5 world, I was singularly obsessed with trying to recreate the level of authenticity Chef brought to his meals. I could no longer afford to eat his cooking and most of the cheap Mexican joints I knew of were pretty unauthentic. I was on my own.

With a notebook chock full of the chef’s wisdom and a few old cookbooks I had found at the Strand I began my quest. Turns out, Mexican cuisine isn’t all that hard of a nut to crack. Just like our classic European cuisines, if your ingredients are ripe, fresh and delicious, dinner’s going to turn out alright about 99% of the time.

My Mexican food mania has waned a bit over the years (I blame Persia and Poland) but I still love a meal of mole verde and black beans probably more than any lowlander East Coaster probably has a right to.

And so it was a lovely coincidence that the Boy and I had near simultaneous guacamole cravings last week. I also wanted to cook up those Anasazi beans we’d carted back with us from Colorado, so all we needed was a main course.  We settled on Huachinango Veracruzano, aka Snapper in the style of Vera Cruz.

If you’ve never tasted this Mexican classic I implore you to run out tonight to your best neighborhood Mexican joint and try it. It’s snapper cooked in a Mexican version of the greatest sauce ever, Puttanesca. Capers flirt with chilies. Tomatoes mingle with limes. Olives cavort with cloves.

If someone sold jars of this stuff, I’d probably find myself standing at the fridge in the middle of the night eating it with a spoon. It’s that good.

An intensive search through all my Mexican cookbooks led me to one recipe I deemed authentic enough for our needs. It comes from a very strange source, a book called The Mexican Stove: What To Put On It And In It by Richard Condon. Wait, Richard Condon… That name rings a bell… Didn’t he write, wait, The Manchurian Candidate? Oh yes, he did. And Prizzi’s Honor, and apparently, a Mexican cookbook. A very good one in fact!

The intro is very heavy handed, full of longing for the ’60s and anti-governmental propaganda, but if you can get past all the dystopic claptrap and millenialisit mumbo jumbo, this is a very solid cookbook, Bianca Jagger’s favorite Aztec pork pie included.

If you make this, be sure to make some rice or have tortillas on hand to soak up the tart, salty sauce. If you can’t find snapper, you can substitute just about any other firm-fleshed white fish. Tilapia would be ideal.

The fish guy at Fairway talked me into trying Nile Perch. I wish he hadn’t. It was delicious, yes, but weighed too heavily on my conscience.

Richard Condon probably would find my uneasiness amusing and enlightened. He feared that Americans would be eating exclusively canned food by this time, and there I was, stressed because my fish wasn’t sustainable. Ah, how our fears have changed!

Head below the jump for the recipes for Huachinango Veracruzano and Smoky Anasazi Beans.

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I’ve conquered my fear of couscous.

I thought you’d all be excited to hear that.

And who was holding my hand throughout the entire harrowing affair?

Well, Claudia Roden, of course.

She has quickly risen to the highest level of my pantheon of cooking gods. She’s joined Nigel and Bert and Roy and Madhur at the apex of my culinary esteem.

First she helped me conquer my fear of rice. Then she introduced me to a new way to pickle cauliflower. Now couscous? The decision to deify her was a snap.

So why should any grown woman have a fear of couscous? I blame the ’80s.

My mother has been a lifelong subscriber to Aramco World. For those unfamiliar, it’s a free magazine published by the Saudi oil consortium to further understanding of the Arab world and the Muslim religion. I was never interested in it as a child unless they had a feature on Arabian horses. I was obsessed with them, and I mean, who wouldn’t be. They’re gorgeous. They look so fragile and yet they’re some of the most sturdy equines in the world. They’re intelligent, loving and did I mention beautiful?

But I digress…

The magazine is also a wonderful resource for people interested in the Arabic kitchen (oh and look, Claudia Roden wrote for them). I figure this is how my mother was first introduced to couscous. I have this vision of her scouring the shelves of the local co-op and the Grand Onion for years and years hoping to spot couscous, until one glorious day in the ’80s when it finally appears. And, not only has it appeared, but it’s instant! Cooks up in 5 minutes! Comes pre-flavored! Serve alongside your favorite chicken recipe!

Oh, Near East foods… Thank you for introducing the world to couscous. But curse you for making that couscous so unlike the real stuff. You’re cheating people out of one of the greatest culinary experiences ever!

It was only recently, during a lunch at La Maison du Couscous, that I discovered what a culinary hoodwink has been pulled on the children of America. Couscous is not supposed to be soggy. It’s not supposed to be flavorless. It’s not supposed to be gummy. It’s not supposed to be hard and crunchy. It’s not supposed to be lumpy.

It’s supposed to be airy, ethereal, toothsome, silky and so light that if you inhale wrong it can easily go straight up your nose. In short, it is supposed to be exactly everything instant couscous is not.

Of course, cooking couscous the proper way is not nearly as simple as emptying a bag, adding one cup of water and one tablespoon of butter to a pot and allowing to simmer for 5 minutes. Yes, it takes an hour, but dear god, it’s so easy and downright enjoyable to make it fills me with sadness that this method has fallen out of favor.

Here’s what you do:

• Take a large colander (big holes are okay) and place it in a pot that it will fit snugly in. Take the colander out and put a shallow layer of water into the pot. It must not touch the bottom of the colander. Place the colander back in, place on the stove and bring to a simmer.
• Pour as much couscous as you want into a bowl. Sprinkle it lightly with cold water. It will cause little lumps, that’s okay. Use your hands to rub the lumps out and to distribute the water evenly amongst the couscous. I found this to be a great pleasure. It was so tactile and earthy. And it made my fingers feel really cool!
• Once the water is simmering, gently pour the couscous into the colander. There will be some collateral damage, you will lose a few, but it’ll be alright. Do not cover. Allow the couscous to steam, uncovered, for 30 minutes.
• Using a pot holder remove the colander from the pot and pour the couscous back into the bowl. Some will most likely be stuck to the bottom and really sticky, scoop them out too. Lightly sprinkle the couscous with cold water again and season with salt. Rub the grains again to distribute the moisture, break up lumps and make the grains airy. Return to the colander and allow to steam, uncovered, an additional 30 minutes.
• When the time’s up, return the couscous to the bowl and rub a nubbin of butter into the grains and toss them about to make them airy. Serve and enjoy!

That’s it. That’s all the work that goes into making a perfect bowl of couscous. I served mine with harissa marinated lamb, a vaguely Middle Eastern stew and a classic cucumber and yogurt salad.

Claudia says that traditionally the grains are steamed over a stew that’s been cooking for hours. I’m sure it adds flavor but might be a bit awkward if you, like me, do not have a couscouserie lurking about in your cabinets.

And so, yet again, culinary superhero Claudia Roden has righted another egregious culinary wrong. First rice, now couscous.

What culinary fear will she help me conquer next? Might it be okra? Dates? Tahini? Stay tuned to find out!

Head below the jump for the recipe for Vaguely Middle Eastern Stew.

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Does anyone know if there’s an etymological root shared by porcini mushrooms and the word porcine?

If not, there should be, because they make a handy stand-in for bacon.

On an impromptu trip into the City this weekend, I picked up the winter issue of Diner Journal, a Williamsburg food mag with writing from one of my favorite bloggers, the ever irreverent and potty mouthed Grocery Guy. It’s a really cool little slice of literary food writing, with winter recipes from two Billyburg institutions, Diner and Marlow & Sons.

I browsed through it on the train home, drooling over all the meaty goodness. Brisket cooked in Chimay. Pork braised in milk. Lamb shanks cooked in white wine. Sigh. Can Meat-Free March be over already?

The weird, ball bearing snow we got on Friday night makes it hard to believe winter’s almost over, but there are signs. Croci and daffodils are muscling their ways out of the frozen earth, the robins have returned.

The spring vegetables have not, so larder cooking remains the name of the game.

One of the few meat-free recipes in the Journal is for spätzle. There’s also one for Lentils cooked in red wine I have my eye on. I’m beginning to sense a theme here… These folk really like cooking with booze.

Their spätzle recipe differs a bit from the one I concocted from the memories of my aunt’s Easter-time dumplings in the ratio of egg to milk, so I decided to stick with the one I know. I made the dough a little thicker, like a stiff pancake batter, and used two spoons, as if I was making quenelles, to get the batter to drip into the boiling water. And then, in place of the bacon, I used some reconstituted porcini mushrooms that they sell for scandalously cheap at Polbridge.

But man and woman cannot live on spätzle alone (although you could try, it would probably be a pretty good life too, until the scurvy kicked in of course).

The boy suggested making a vegetarian version of chocroute. I blanched. I paled. I gasped. I scoffed. I felt a little dizzy. Chocroute is one of the meatiest of meaty meat dishes. I felt Frenchmen and women all over the globe turning over in their graves at the very idea of taking the sausages and smoked meats and bacon out of the dish.

But then we got home.

I headed for The Czechoslovak Cookbook first. I hoped to find a cabbage or sauerkraut recipe, but alas, nothing piqued my interest. I then turned to Polish Cookery, and boy oh boy, here we hit the jackpot (and I bet you were beginning to wonder where the pickles fit in).

Like many good old ethnic cookbooks, this one offers up a “mother” recipe which is followed by “chick” recipes, or variations on a theme if you prefer. To wit; Vegetable recipe 30, Sauerkraut in Wine (Kapusta Kiszona na Winie) is followed by Sauerkraut with Dried Mushrooms (no. 31 Kapusta Kiszona z Grzybami) and Sauerkraut with Pickles (no. 32 Kapusta Kiszona z Ogorkami) which is where I stopped in wonder and glee. Sauerkraut? Pickles? Can we get a hells yeah? I thought so.

The original recipe (no. 30) obviously calls for cooking the kraut in wine, while the pickle variation calls for cooking in stock, but I’m a lot like the Diner Journal folks. I enjoy cooking my food in wine. So, I did, but to get that hearty savoriness one would get from stock, I threw in the porcini soaking liquid. Genius, right? I love it when everything ties up neatly in a pretty culinary package.

And how was it all? Delicious! The spätzle had much more body than my original batch and were so garlicky and tasty with the silky, earthy mushrooms mixed in. One would think the kraut would be very sour and sharp, what with pickles and wine along for the ride, but it just isn’t so. The browned onions and mushroomy goodness impart a depth to the liquid that seems almost meaty and gets soaked up by the spätzle doubling their deliciousness.

This is hearty woodsman fare.

But if you ever do actually feed this to a lumberjack I’d suggest throwing in some smoked pork loin (actually, I’d suggest this preparation for anyone not having a Meat-Free March)!

Head below the jump for recipes for Sauerkraut With Pickles & Porcini Spätzle.

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Gifts come in many guises.

They come in little blue boxes. Wrapped in the Sunday funnies. Hidden behind backs. In crates marked “fragiiile.” In baskets. With ribbons tied around fuzzy necks.

And sometimes, out of the blue.

Some of my favorite gifts are ones I’ve given myself (selfish-only-child that I am), like my new favorite book, purchased a few weekends ago at the Strand.

There are many Middle Eastern groceries in Bay Ridge, chock to the ceilings with amazing looking things in packages marked in curvy Arabic script that I don’t know how to use. On a recent book buying expedition, I spotted A Book Of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden. I grabbed it without even looking inside. I figured it would have at least something to teach me. I was right.

This book is a gift in every sense of the word. Full of anecdotes, knowledge and delectable recipes, I’ve barely been able to put it down since I picked it up Saturday morning after declaring to The Boy, “I think I want to make a lentil dish tonight.” If anyone knows the author, please thank her for me.

One of the other gifts to come into our busy, hectic lives since moving, is a place around the corner called The Family Store. It’s a Middle Eastern/Mediterranean deli of sorts. There’s olive oils and beans, dry cured olives, cheeses, rices, dried fruits, nuts.

But the real gem is the long case at the back of the store full of prepared foods. You never know what they’re going to have. One night it will be Chesapeake Bay-style crab cakes nuzzling up against rack of lamb. Curried cauliflower next to a warm salad of radicchio. But our go-to for a quick snack is a pilav made of bulgur wheat, reshteh and chickpeas tossed in olive oil with a hint of garlic. Outstanding warm, just as tasty cold.

I’m enamoured with these tiny noodles, the reshteh. They’re basically just broken up angel hair pasta, similar to what Spaniards use in fideuá or Mexicans in fideos. When I spotted a lentil recipe using the reshteh, I knew I had to make it. But, then, on second thought, what good are lentils with no starch?

It was time to confront my rice fears. I settled on making the lentils minus noodles, and rice plus noodles.

I know I say this from time to time, but I’m going to gush… This was one of the best meals I’ve ever made in my entire life. Hands down. The lentils were luxurious, simple, bold and seductive. The rice fragrant, clean, alluring and decadent.

I’m over the moon that I now own 10 pounds of, what I was assured to be, the very best (World’s Best & Longest!) Basmati rice you can buy for $8 (and get a free handbag to boot). I know this is the winter of discovering the obvious, but oh, Basmati! I love you! I love your aroma and your fluffiness, your adaptability, but mostly your aroma. I want to eat you for dinner every night.

They may not look like much, the sunny yellow lentils (no turmeric added!) and the bland white rice, but don’t let that fool you. This is hearty, soul-satisfying winter fare. If you need to serve more than two people, double the lentils. If you need to serve less than four people, or do not want leftovers halve the amounts in the rice recipe.

But why you wouldn’t want leftovers I have no idea. They heat up well on the stove, and would probably do just fine in the microwave.

Now, close your eyes, I have a present for you. It’s just a little thing, a gift to make a cold day feel warmer.

Tada! Yes, it’s just two recipes, but they’re really, really good ones.

This could even be party fare. Dig your best wall tapestry from college out of storage to use as a tablecloth, light candles, toast some naan, burn incense, eat with your hands and if you must, sit on the floor while drinking mint tea, and serve the rice and lentils with harissa-marinated lamb, pickled cauliflower and maybe a tomato and onion salad.

Happy Tuesday. I hope you like my gift.

It better fit.

I can’t return it.

Head below the jump for the recipes for Lavish Lentils and Roz Bil Shaghira.

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La Bonne Cuisine de Madame E. Saint-Ange probably shouldn’t qualify for an heirloom·modern as it was published in 2005, but, since it is a translation of a book originally published in 1927 and I’m my own editor, I give myself a bye on this one.

This book came out at about the same time as The Silver Spoon two Christmases ago and I bought them both for myself with my pitiful year-end bonus because, well, no one else did. While in spirit the two books are similar, translations of tomes that in their respective countries; France and Italy, are as essential to any home cook as The Joy Of Cooking is here in America. But, that’s pretty much where the similarities end.

The Silver Spoon is concise and clearly written, full of pretty pictures and easy to asses ingredient lists. And La Bonne Cuisine? Yeah, not so much. With every nit-picky direction and convoluted, circuitous explanation, it becomes abundantly clear to me why some male French chefs are less than enthusiastic about having women in the kitchen… They fear they’ll all be like The Madame. She’s a bossy, know-it-all, pain in the arse perfectionist that makes Gordon Ramsey look like a trained goldfish.

And this is the woman I turned to for my contribution to a joint-effort New Year’s Eve feast.

In fact, it’s because of her bossiness and perfectionism that there’s no pictures of the most splendid, gorgeous and unapologetically perfect sauce I’ve ever made; Sauce Périgueux, aka Brown Sauce with Essence of Pork and Black Truffle.

Sounds a lot better in The Madame’s native tongue, non?

I had to transport the two halves of the sauce in Tupperware on the subway to Brooklyn and then assemble the sauce there, and to be honest, by the time it was done and we were ready to sit down to our roasted loin of venison accompanied by savory mushroom bread pudding and an intensely wonderful salad of greens, spicy candied pecans and pungent bleu cheese, I was too happy, hungry, and, well, drunk to give a rat’s ass about taking a picture!

So, you might be saying to yourself, Ann, why on earth would I ever buy this book and take this woman’s abuse? Because she’s right, she’ll make you look like a culinary star and where else are you going to find a recipe for Brain Beignets?

Head below the jump for heirloom·modern: The Madame’s Sauce Périgueux.

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Hmmm… It seems I should re-name heirloom·modern. Maybe, Heirloom Tomato Modern? Of the now five entries in this occasional editorial feature, three are for tomato soup. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps in the past tomato soups were more flexible, more interesting, more varied. Or, maybe I just really like tomato soup!

heirloom·modern: Eldress Hall’s 1907 Shaker Tomato Bisque

What was the occasion that called for yet another tomato soup? I had just pulled “the best thing ever to come out of my kitchen” from the oven, and while it was cooling I realised I needed a simple foil for this “best thing.”

I didn’t feel like running to the market, my brain felt wibbly from hunger and exertion, I wanted something quick and easy. I poked my head in the fridge. Aha! A carton of Pomis! I poked my nose in The Best Of Shaker Cooking. Aha! A simple tomato bisque! (The Shakers are so reliable for simple, quick recipes). Et voila! Dinner was decided.

There are three recipes for tomato soup in this amazing book, but this one from Frances Hall intrigued me with its inclusion of baking soda.

Although she is not noted as being a member of the faithful at Hancock Village, this reference leads me to believe that Frances Hall was actually the last eldress of this beautiful village that is now a working museum (and definitely worth a visit if you’re in the area, A. because it didn’t bore me as a 7th grader on a field trip and B. There’s an amazing restaurant there).

And what of the baking soda? As near as I can figure it added a delicate lightness to this soup which would be very, very necessary if you followed the original recipe which calls for 1 quart of milk (most likely whole and with cream back then) and 1/2 cup of heavy cream! I did not follow those measurements and, after tasting the soup sans dairy and realising it tasted just like Campbell’s, embarked on some very necessary modernising.

I cut down on the dairy, added some garlic and tossed in some slightly spicy, seductively smoky Spanish pimenton de la vera. The pepper added such a lovely, almost bacon-y flavor. Utterly delicious!

And what is “the best thing ever to come out of my kitchen?” You’ll just have to stay tuned til tomorrow (or snoop around on my flickr page, should be pretty obvious from there).

Head below the jump for my adaptation of Eldress Hall’s Tomato Bisque.

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I wrote about Roy Andries de Groot in an heirloom·modern piece a few months ago. I found him by accident back then, having stumbled upon his wonderful book Feasts For All Seasons. Among the amazing things I learned about Mr. de Groot include that he had been made mostly blind in the Blitz, that he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head and that he wrote a book that some feel was one of the most influential food books of the last century, Recipes From The Auberge Of The Flowering Hearth.

A few weeks later, as seems to happen to me, I was scouring about in one of the little used bookstores that dot Manhattan, and et voila there she was, Mr. de Groot’s masterpiece, first edition, with a dust jacket and at a reasonable price. Thank you East Village Books!

Velouté de Tomates à la Provençal

(Adapted from Recipes From The Auberge Of The Flowering Hearth by Roy Andries de Groot)

Mr. de Groot had a thing for Green Chartreuse. He served it to all his guests and yet knew nothing about it. After years of deflecting questions he finally decided to look into the who, where and why of his favorite tipple. He learned that the liqueur is made by hermits high in the mountains of France, that they had been ejected from the country by the army, not once, but a few times, and that he needed to go there. It was on this trip to visit Les Peres Charteaux that Mr. de Groot stayed at the Auberge (or Inn) of the Flowering Hearth for the first time.

After many trips and many stays at the Auberge, Mr. de Groot finally decided to put his feelings on the place and the valley in which it sits down on paper. He agonized over this decision, “If the Auberge of the Flowering Hearth were to be invaded by thousands of tourists, almost everything that I write about it would cease to be true.” Whether or not the valley was ultimately overrun by yelping, yapping tourists he doesn’t say, but he does admit that changes were happening already, that the modern world was beginning to push in on the idealized rural existence within which the Auberge floated.

When the ladies who own and run the Auberge of the Flowering Hearth, Mademoiselle Vivette Artaud and Mademoiselle Ray Girard, set their table with the animals and birds of their valley and its surrounding mountains, with the fish caught by their friends in the nearby lakes, with the cheeses carefully made and the fruits and vegetables laboriously grown by their farmer neighbors, with the wild mushrooms they pick themselves in the woods, with the wines from the nearby mountain vineyards, they are fulfilling the unity of the way of life–a unity which seems to me to be of the deepest value but which the world seems to be rejecting.

Can you see how this guy influenced Alice Waters?

This time of year in the Northeast is possibly the most wonderful time for produce, hands down. Summer still has a hold on the produce, but autumn is beginning to make her presence known. There’s still tomatoes, even if they’re a little ugly, but there’s also apples and Brussels sprouts. It’s a vertiginous time at the Greenmarket, full of dizzying color and unbelievable bounty.

Mr. de Groot not only returned to New York with wonderful memories and a humdinger of a book, he also returned with a memento, “some of Mademoiselle Ray’s extraordinary recipes. I recorded them in her kitchen as she prepared each in the form of a lesson.” Some of the recipes are very French, complicated, using ingredients that are not readily available here in the States (chamois anyone?), but most exemplify that other side of French cooking, so easy, so basic and so good.

This velouté is a perfect example of the latter style of recipe. It highlights all the bounty of the season in such a complex interplay of smoky, sweet, surprisingly creamy and delightfully sour. The recipe comes from a chapter featuring the other Mademoiselle, Mme. Vivette who was in charge of the Auberge’s wine cellar. The chapter is wonderfully titled “A Proud Wine Cellar on a Low Budget,” a task seemingly made easier if you live in France, 75 miles from Burgundy, but there are tips that not only apply to buying wine, but also produce.

Her first lesson, then, is to get to know as many as possible of one’s local suppliers. It is almost ridiculous–except when buying a standard bottle of gin– to expect to get all one’s wines from the nearest liquor store on the next corner. Each shop after all, is a reflection of the personal opinions of its owner or manager. Each, in his way, has a special slant on buying wine.

The problem is the same with food. If you are even half a gourmet, you will shop around for your fancy foods. You will buy your olives from the Greek grocer. You will prefer the long French loaf of one baker over another. You will buy your veal from one butcher, your pork from another. It is just as important to shop around for your wine.

And the wine he suggested serving with this soup? “White Bordeaux, 1964, Château Laville Haut Brion, Talence, Graves.” I don’t know anything about this wine, but, I have a feeling, that even if I could find a bottle of it, I certainly couldn’t afford it!

Not only did I substitute a different wine (a 2003 pinot noir from Burgundy) I also substituted a sweet German Riesling for his suggested Sauternes, green and yellow tomatoes for red and Brussels sprouts for cabbage. As Mr. de Groot said:

This is no ordinary soup. It is touched with the aromas of smoky bacon and fried salt pork, enriched with the oils of leeks and onions, the fruitiness of soft white wine, with everything finally enveloped, in the true Provençal style, in an all-pervading mash of garlic. At the end, it is converted into a richly creamy velouté in a unique way–by being thickened with a whipped purée of rice.

This really is a unique, soul-satisfying end of summer treat. I hope you try it, and if you ever see a copy of Recipes From The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth grab it.

Head below the jump for my adaptaion of Mr. de Groot’s and Mme. Ray’s Velouté de Tomates à la Provençal.

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After making Cold Almond soup, we had a lot of almonds left over. Most people see them as the perfect snack food. I am not one of those people (whereas the boy most certainly is). In fact, I don’t like nuts all that much at all.

I’ll eat the odd filbert. (Excuse me, hazelnut. But isn’t it just so much more fun to say filbert?) I’ll eat peanuts, but never peanut butter. (Yes, I know peanuts are legumes). Every now and then, I’ll nibble on a flavored pistachio, but never, ever will I eat brazil nuts, or walnuts, or ugh, cashews. Seriously, I just don’t like nuts.

But these nuts, yes, these I like. In fact, I’ve come to crave them. They’re silky and salty and cold, the perfect snack after a long, hot walk around the city.

The recipe comes from Bert Greene’s Kitchen Bouquets, the same place I got the idea for making Basil scented bevandas. This is one helluva cookbook. Bert, who is my new cooking companion (sorry Nigel) says, “These almonds are most salubrious to the palate even with the frostiest martini a host can provide.” Amen!

Mr. Greene borrowed this recipe from The Art of Turkish Cooking by Neset Eren and so now I’m borrowing it from him and giving it to you as my third installment of heirloom·modern. Bert says, “Although I amended Ms. Eren’s original dictum with a grain or two of salt, the dish is otherwise traditionally Ottoman.” In Turkey, these nuts were served on ice with no additional garnish. Bert, it seems, liked a dusting of fine salt on these, I’m assuming, to help whet the appetite for a second martini. Amen!

It seemed only right to adapt Mr. Greene’s recipe a bit, since he adapted Ms. Eren’s. Since I’m not serving these all at once at a fancy cocktail party on a bed of ice, I have deleted his step of soaking the nuts in unsalted water for one day before serving. Instead they remain happily in my fridge in a nice salty brine which I change every couple of days. They keep getting plumper and plumper and just ever so slightly more salty. But they are constantly delicious! I hope you try them and enjoy them as much as we are.

Head below the jump for the recipe for Bert Greene’s delectable Snow Almonds.
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