TasteFood

Before and After - avec enfants

Now in all fairness, there are probably a number of you who have read my post Before and After and thought: she was single and had no children, so she could afford to walk and eat all over Paris, both literally and figuratively. I understand, and I share these anecdotes with a great deal of nostalgia. However, this approach to cities is one that I follow even when traveling with our children to this day. Just ask them how they feel about walking in cities with their mother, and you may get an assortment of responses ranging from groans and feigned leg injures to deadpan comments such as, "Oh? Is there really a Metro in Paris, because we certainly wouldn't know." (I do exaggerate somewhat - during evening hours I am the first to jump in taxis or venture in the Metro. After all, as mentioned earlier, my most favorite past-time is eating in restaurants, and I will do whatever is necessary to arrive at said restaurant in a timely manner.)

My point is that I like to see everything. And my view is that when walking you see and learn so much more about a city. You can window shop, read menus posted outside of restaurants, admire building façades, and people-watch endlessly. Feeling tired? Just stop spontaneously for an espresso or jus pressé, and everyone can find something to nibble on from the menu carte. OK, so maybe there won't be shopping for those Robert Clergerie shoes, but I know our family-unit limits and have learned to respect them if there is any hope of enjoying the city. So, instead, we amuse ourselves looking at curios in the souvenir shops in Les Halles or at street performers at Le Centre Pompidou. After all, we are in Paris! And let's just be honest with ourselves: it is not - and never has been - humanly possible to digest the Louvre in one day. So why not just zip in and give Mona Lisa a good eye over with the kids in tow; after all there are a number of treasures and titillating Egyptian sarcophagi you pass in the maze you must walk to view her. With luck you might even get lost along the way and suddenly find yourselves glimpsing the Venus de Milo. The possibilities are endless! As for distances covered, it all becomes relative; a walk may not be across town, but if we can get from one end of le jardin des Tuileries to Ile Saint-Louis during the afternoon (with ice cream, feed the duck, look-at-barges-on-the-Seine stops along the way) then we are way ahead of the game. To me, living and traveling in Europe is about simple pleasures, and successfully navigating Paris with children is truly a very simple pleasure - and a huge victory.

Before and After

When I first moved to Paris to study cooking, let's just say I was somewhat rigid in terms of feeding myself. Here I was, twenty-something, educated, professional, and, at least in my opinion, worldly. Now this is my own small story, but I will dare say that I conformed to a rather structured, and perhaps American way of viewing diet and exercise: compulsive, rigorous, disciplined, and did I mention rigid? This translated to a philosophy that excluded butter, red meat, caffeine, little alcohol and included fresh fruit, veggies, fish and so on. It also included a regimen of daily exercise, even if it meant rising at 5 a.m. to squeeze a workout into an active, fully-booked life. A day without exercise was unthinkable; deviation from my super healthy diet bordered on cataclysmic.

So wouldn't it make perfect sense that I would apply to cooking school in Paris? Not only cooking school, but the revered, classical, traditional French cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu. Goodness knows what I was thinking. Perhaps it was a subconscious acknowledgement of the starkness of my present routine and the need to just live a little; the gap of an ocean and the excuse of a new culture to step away from life as I knew it. Or perhaps it was the lack of meat protein in my diet that impacted my reasoning skills. Whatever the case, off I went to cook and eat in the land of butter, cream, pastry, runny cheese and terrines, at a school that for over 100 years held the distinguished and elite position of teaching classical French cuisine et pâtisserie.

And guess what? Nothing untoward happened. In fact, lots of delicious, sensual, pleasurable, yummy, gooey, and rich experiences befell me. The foods I wistfully admired from the sidelines of my healthy regimen back in the U.S. became the daily staples of my new Parisian life. I had an encyclopedia of cheeses at my disposal, bakeries on every street corner displayed gorgeous oven-baked breads and flaky croissants, cafés dotted every neighborhood serving comforting French bistro fare. Open air markets peppered the city, and depending on the day I could alter my route to school to pass by stands displaying a rainbow of fresh seasonal produce, glistening fresh meats and a sea of fish. Cheeses, patés, and more breads were prominently displayed along with a kaleidescope of cut flowers readily available for the finishing touch to the table.

For exercise I walked to school every day - literally across town - from the 18th to the 15th arrondissement.
I risked life and limb crossing streets and boulevards, skirting the occasional mob of striking postal workers, protesting students and subsequent swarms of police, allowing 20 minutes at the minimum to navigate across the sweeping Place de la Concorde as I would officially cross from the right to the left bank over the Seine. Each day I would change my walking route, either purposely or more often erroneously, discovering new streets, neighborhoods, shops and cafés. I had a short list of favorite cafés where I would stop for my morning tartine (avec beurre) and café au lait (avec caféine.) Outside of the school I learned which bakeries had the best sandwiches - simple, satisfying packages with thickly sliced Comté cheese or paper-thin tongues of jambon sechée, a little butter and mustard, and perhaps a cornichon for garnish on a crusty, airy baguette the length of a forearm. So satisfying and so uncomplicated. An afternoon pick-me-up between classes or along my walk home would include an espresso and perhaps a tarte au citron - a dollop of perfectly balanced sweet, tart and very lemony curd nestled in a palm-sized shell of pâte sucrée. If I could bear to make dinner after a day of cooking in class, I would improvise a light dish with some of the purchases from the market or head out to a bistro or restaurant on my un-ending list of new places to try. Simply put, my life in Paris revolved around eating, cooking, walking and eating more. I was very happy.

Border Crossings

As mentioned, Switzerland is a landlocked country bordering a handful of countries. From Geneva, you can be in France within 10 minutes, Italy in an hour, and from Basel and Zurich you are close to Germany, Leichtenstein, Austria. To an American this is just nifty. I mean, honestly, the most common border to an American is a state border, and crossing from California to Nevada or Massachusetts to New Hampshire is not nearly as thrilling as driving across a Swiss border to another country! When you cross a Swiss frontière, suddenly you enter another culture with another language, another way of making very good espressos, another set of road signs that you don't understand. Crossing a U.S. state border, you mostly find speed traps.

The first house I lived in was in a small village between Geneva and Lausanne. In this small hamlet, there was a marie, or town hall, a boulangerie(no self-respecting village would be without one) and a douane, or border guard. We lived one mile from the French border and could easily drive to and fro between Switzerland and France to our hearts' content. On Sundays we would shop the open air market in Divonne-les-Bains, purchasing fresh seasonal fruit and vegetables, roasted chicken, artisan cheese, paté and foie gras. We would then head to the local tearoom and recharge ourselves with a luscious croissant d'amandes and cappuccino before crossing back over the border to our home in Crassier.

When I first arrived, I loved casually inserting into a conversation with friends or family back in the U.S. that I had just shopped for groceries that morning in France, or that I would dine that evening in a French countryside auberge. My friend Kingsley arrived from the U.S. to visit me, and one of our first outings was to walk to France. Now, mind you, this was not the most scenic walk to do in the area, but, by golly, what a good story to talk about after. We nonchalantly waved bon jour to the Swiss border guards as we strolled past their guardhouse and casually glanced at the decidedly empty French border guardhouse (the guards were most likely fortifying themselves over a 2 hour lunch break) and then voilà! We were officially in another country! We trudged on to our destination, a simple café in a French village where we ordered Salade aux Crottins de Chavignol, a glass of wine and the French version of very good espresso. We then walked back over the border and still are, clearly, talking about it.

Tarte Tatin

In keeping with the rustic French theme, I include my favorite Tarte Tatin recipe, which makes a perfect dessert to accompany the beef bourguignon, potato gratin and mixed green salad in my previous post. Tarte Tatin is pure heaven for lovers of caramelized fruit. It is essentially an upside down tart with the fruit on the bottom, well caramelized, and pastry on top. Named for the Tatin sisters who had a restaurant in the French village of Lamotte-Beuvron at the turn of the 20th century, it is believed to have originally been a mistake, when the pastry was omitted in error from the bottom of the tart. In a perfect example of "going with the flow" in the kitchen, the crust was added as an afterthought, and so we have the Tarte Tatin. Thank goodness for this mistake!

Tarte Tatin
Serves 10-12

Sour Cream Pastry
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut in pieces
6 tablespoons sour cream

Apple Filling
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup plus 2 tblsp. sugar
5 lbs. Granny Smith apples, peeled, quartered and cored
1 egg, beaten to blend, for glaze

Blend flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl of a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.
Add butter and beat at medium-low speed until butter is size of peas, about 3 minutes.
Add sour cream and beat until moist clumps form, about 1 minute. Gather dough into ball, flatten and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate at least 2 hours. (Can be made one day ahead. Keep refrigerated.) Let soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out.

Spread butter over bottom of large oven-proof skillet with sloping sides. Reserve 2 tablespoons of sugar. Sprinkle remaining sugar over butter. Place skillet over medium-low heat and cook until butter melts, sugar begins to dissolve and mixture starts to bubble, about 3 minutes.
Remove from heat. Arrange apples on their sides around edge of skillet, placing tightly together. Place reamining apples in a circle in center of skillet, core side facing up. Sprinkle with the remaining sugar.
Set skillet over medium-high heat. Boil until a thick amber coloured syrup forms, repositioning skillet to ensure even cooking, about 30 minutes. Remove skillet from heat.
Note: Do not allow syrup to darken on stove; it will continue to darken while baking.

Meanwhile, as apple mixture is cooking on stove, preheat oven to 425 F.
Roll out pastry on floured surface or parchment paper to a round shape to fit size of skillet. Place over apple mixture once removed from stove. Cut 4 slits in top of pastry. Press down around apples at edge of skillet; brush pastry with some of the egg glaze.

Bake tart until pastry is deep golden brown, about 30-40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool one minute. Cut around edge of skillet to loosen pastry. Place large platter over skillet. Using oven mitts, hold skillet and platter together tightly together and invert tart onto platter. Cool 30 minutes.

Cut in wedges and serve with dollop of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Notes:
Pastry dough may be frozen up to one month in freezer before rolling. Allow to defrost in refrigerator overnight.
Once tart has been inverted onto a platter, and if a more caramelized effect is desired, place the platter (ovenproof) under oven grill to allow further browning.
Apples may be substituted with another fruit such as pear or fresh apricot.
Tarte Tatin is traditionally served slightly warm or at room temperature.

Bon Appétit

For the past 18 years I have lived in 5 countries. In 1990 I moved to Paris to study cooking with the intention of lingering on after my cooking program finished and finding a job. Originally I planned to work as an interior designer. After all, that was my profession in Boston before I moved, and while I loved cooking, I approached it more as a hobby and a ticket to Europe. I figured that once I got myself to Paris, learned the ropes of La Cuisine Française, magically learned French (I studied Spanish in school), endeared myself to the all-embracing French population and became a local, well, then, I might just get a design job with Euro-Disney, which was in the process of being constructed on the outskirts of Paris. I would nimbly straddle the French-American culture, drinking café au lait and eating baguettes (I was on a tight budget, after all) while involving myself in the construction and decor of the Magic Kingdom and home of Mickey Mouse. Sounded like a plan.

As all best laid plans go, before I even boarded the jumbo to take me to Paris, I met a Dane in Boston who was in town on business from Geneva, Switzerland. What does this have to do with anything, you may ask. Well, everything. We hit it off, we liked each other. I thought he was cute, and apparently he felt the same about me. So, when I did fly over to Paris to cook, that was not the only thing that began cooking. Geneva and Paris are a 3 hour TGV train ride apart, and for the next 6 months we spent nearly every weekend together either in Paris or Geneva. So, upon my graduation from La Cuisine Base de Française in Paris, I decided that Euro-Disney would have to be built without me, packed my bags and took another TGV ride to Geneva - this time with the plan to stay.