Hello strangers.

I know. I was so good at feeding you tasty posts and then I fell completely off the wagon. Life got complicated and then got very busy. The good news is that I am now in Paris, France for a few months and will be happy to report on all things food related.

We are still quite jetlagged and instead of spending my evenings blogging, I am trying to get small children to sleep when they are WIDE awake!

We are living in a lovely flat in the 8th arrondissement which is convenient to my husband's office, the kids favorite parc, and the city's oldest bio market (organic). Most people who visit Paris have the unfortunate luck to be staying in a hotel. For the past two years, my husband and I have been coming to Paris for long stretches of time and therefore have been renting apartments. However, I now realize that there are many apartments for rent here for very short-term lets. Even if you are here for a few days you can find yourself a pad with a few rooms including a kitchen. I had a recent absurd conversation with another parent at my daughter's school regarding where to stay in Paris. She and her husband were traveling to Israel and were going to stay in Paris for a few days on either end. She asked me for a recommendation of a place to stay and I then launched into how great it was to stay in apartments and proceeded to give her a list of short-term let agencies. She stopped me mid-sentence and informed me that not only would she never stay in an apartment but that she only stays in 5-star hotels. I tried to convince her of the virtues of having your own kitchen while traveling but she was fixated on room-service. I let her know we should never vacation together.

I love apartments because a) I don't want to have to get dressed to go get coffee in the mornings on vacation b) I generally travel with a knife kit and frankly what's the point if you have no kitchen and c) I like to have an excuse to go to food markets. Now that we are on our third Parisian apartment I will tell you that I hate hotels even more. I love being able to play with food and shopping in foreign markets is such a treat.

So even if you've never been to Paris I bet you have a good idea that fresh food markets abound here and you can't help but stumble over markets selling produce that is bursting with flavor. (see photo above of tonight's quick grab at the market located about 20 steps from my apartment) I of course had all those notions before I came to live here last summer but what I didn't know was that there is a clever little market called Picard here in Paris which only sells frozen food. The insanity of your local Monoprix with loud music, bustling families, and crowded aisles is completely contradicted by the serenity of a Picard. The store is quiet, the people shopping there are quiet and if you've come in with children, you find yourself shushing them because the place is so calm. Most everything is housed in chest type freezers and at the front of the store there are always a few cases of "la sèlection du mois". Those are the unique items they have discounted that month. The products sold here are surprisingly good. Last year we got hooked on mini-ice cream cones. The nice thing about Picard is that they are everywhere and ours happens to be on the corner facing the market street I use to do most of my shopping so when I come home with bags full of fresh produce I can easily stop in to see if they have anything good on special at Picard.

This month we are rewarded with New Zeland rack of lamb on special so I decided to try it and it was fabulous. I seared it and then added a rosemary garlic rub before roasting. Along with some leftover risotto, heirloom tomatoes, a plate of cheese, baguette, and a salad with french vinaigrette - what could be better?? Since they come frozen, I am going to grab a few more racks for my freezer for the special ends this weekend.

I am surprised a store like this has not popped up in the US. 

Dinner.....

I was aiming for a more rare piece of meat but I am still adjusting to a new kitchen with far less equipment than I am used to. I am going to have to get pretty good at the finger-press test to determine how well done a piece of meat is. I think learning to use one's senses rather than a thermometer is a good thing.

A pot worth stirring...

Please share this wealth...

and tune in tonight to Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. If you missed the preview segment that aired last Sunday, click the link in my left side bar to find it online. Having volunteered a few times during lunch at my children's school, I am pretty upset about what is put in front of our kids and called a meal. It is crap. So we pack our lunches at home. But Jamie has a point about the need to TEACH our kids ABOUT FOOD. Not just serve them something decent to eat, but to educate them on why they should eat some things and not others. This family has always had a food revolution going on here. We always eat fresh not processed. We cook at home. We try new things.

I could get preachy about

• Hiding nutrients in other foods because you think just getting the food item into your kid is the important thing. I am talking about the way some parents think they are cleverly getting broccoli into their kids by baking it into a brownie. News flash: they're never going to like broccoli and they really should like broccoli. It's fantastic even with out sugar on it.
• The role condiments play in getting children to eat food.
• Letting your kids treat mom like a short order cook.

But I won't. I am sure you can imagine what I'd say. 

Time to eat!

If you love to eat, and since you're here reading this I imagine you do, dining at fine restaurants is such a treat. Eating something prepared by another person is not only a satisfying pleasure but also an inspiring experience for those of us who like to concoct things in our own kitchens. For me eating out is a watch and learn kind of thing. I love to examine how dishes are plated, how ingredients are paired, and how flavors work together. However, eating out at regular intervals can get expensive. I collect names of restaurants like I collect names of good books. When one is recommended to me, it goes on the list, which for books, sits on my bedside table and for restaurants ends up in a note on my iPhone.

If you are like me, with a long list of restaurants you are eager to try, rev up those engines, it's time to knock a few off that list. Boston's 2010 Winter Restaurant Week is coming up soon and this year there are over 216 participating restaurants to please the palate. Area restaurants will be offering fabulous meals at fixed discounted prices for the weeks of March 14 - 19 and March 21- 26. Two course lunches will be $15.10, three course lunches will be $20.10 and three course dinners will be $33.10 per person.

The website will provide you several different ways to search for restaurants participating in Boston's 2010 Winter Restaurant week and there will also be some links to OpenTable for restaurants using that site for reservations. You can even find information about discounted parking during Restaurant Week!

Happy eating!

Food Photography with Penny de los Santos

How lucky am I to have been able to take a food photography workshop taught by the talented Penny De Los Santos. Her photos have been published in National Geographic, Newsweek, Time and Saveur Magazines just to name a few. One of her photographs graces the cover of the March 2010 issue of Saveur.

Last April I gave up a seat on a flight in return for an extra night in Miami, firsts class tickets home the next day and a voucher for another flight within a year. I thought I wasn't going to have the chance to use the voucher before it expired this spring until I saw that Aran of Canelle et Vanille had made arrangements for Penny's workshop to come to a culinary school in West Palm Beach! There was no way I could pass this up and frankly, escaping New England's winter for a few days in Florida was a perfect side dish to the whole plan.

Penny's class was worth every bit of this little adventure of mine - which included not eating a single proper meal yesterday as I connected my way down from Logan Airport. And you all know how I feel about not eating...and in particular, eating crap.

The four-hour workshop was well organized, informative, instructive yet informal. Penny shared wonderful insight, gave gentle constructive criticism, and allowed for plenty of questions and discussion. She mixed lecture with hands-on picture making sessions and really allowed us to take what we had just learned and try to apply it to a real-world situation. You really can't get more out of four-hours.



For me, what I leave with is a new approach to my picture making, a more intentional focus, and a desire to make as many pictures as I can. I can't wait to get back into the kitchen!



 

Baked French Toast

While I love cooking up a tasty brunch for my family, I also like to sit and enjoy a hot meal too. So many of my family's favorite breakfast items are of the a la minute style that keeps me chained to the stove while every else is enjoying a hot plate of food. When I found an overnight baked french toast recipe years ago, I knew it would become a staple for our brunches big and small.

I make it every Christmas morning using Italian Panatone bread which is like a Challah bread but is studded with dried fruit and is a bit sweeter. Other times of the year I use a round french boule but you can experiment and try whatever you like.

The premise of the dish to to take a bread that will soak up an egg mixture overnight and then when baked it turns into a crispy french toast. You can toss in nearly anything you like. I add rum to my liquid for extra flavor and I often toss in fruit as I put the baking dish in the oven. Once it is done, a sprinkling of confectioners sugar and a strawberry or two completes the plate. This year, I decided to make a maple flavored buttercream and put a dollop on each piece to melt into the french toast for a buttery maple flavor. The fruit I tossed in were matchstick nectarines. I know, I know. What the heck am I doing buying nectarines at this time of year considering where I live. I was desperate. They looked good. My body is craving summer fruit. Anyway, they are pretty hard and I don't have much hope they will ripen-up so I cut them into match-stick pieces to roast along with the toast.

Materials:

13 x 9 baking dish

Ingredients:

Bread of your choice (not pre-sliced)
6 eggs
1 cup of milk (not low-fat)
3 tbs sugar
3 tbs maple syrup
splash of vanilla
pinch of salt
confectioners sugar

Optional:

glug of good rum
nuts or fruits for garnish

Instructions:

1. Butter your baking dish well.
2. Mix all (not the bread or confectioners sugar) the ingredients to make the egg mixture. Add the rum to this if you will be using it.
3. Once well mixed, pour some onto the bottom of your baking dish- just enough to have a shallow layer of egg at the bottom.
4. Cut bread into 3/4" slices and line your baking dish by settling the pices into the egg mixture you just poured onto the bottom of the pan.
5. Pour the remaining egg mixture on top of the bread. 
6. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 400°. Take dish out of fridge to bring to room temperature. Drain off any excess liquid at bottom of pan before putting in oven. The toast should take about 20 minutes in the oven. You can flip the toast pieces half way through if you like.

Making Candy with Kids

Sometimes the best holiday treats are so simple. I love cooking with my kids, but often there isn't much time or the recipe I am working on is complicated. I didn't invite the kids to stand at the stove with me as I cooked sugar down into a syrup and then added cream and butter resulting in a somewhat dangerous boiling mess.

Making lollipops, especially when the BFF is over, is always a huge hit. Here is a foolproof way to make something pretty and wow your kids in less than 30 minutes.

Ingredients:

Original Jolly Rancher Candies
Lollypop Sticks
Small Clear Candy bags

Preheat oven to 200°
Line cookie sheet with foil as flat and wrinkle free as possible.
Lay candies out in a pattern you like.
Place in oven gently and melt.
Keep watching until the candy is fully melted and connects.
Remove from oven and immediately roll a stick into the soft candy.
Watch your kids smile!