We ate ... what? Provence edition (probably Part I of many)

I know there are many foods in the world that I (KT) haven't eaten, but generally, there's not much on an average menu I haven't encountered before. Now, picture sitting down to dinner in a French restaurant -- in France -- where there is no menu, and the waiter just tells you your options. In French. And you don't speak French.

Here's what we ended up with:

Aperitif (before-dinner drink): Pastis

The loose description of pastis is absinthe without the hallocenogenic component. If that didn't make sense, how's this: really strong booze that tastes like black licorice. Serve cold. It was alright -- I didn't dillute mine much like you're told to, because I figured if there was less of it, it would be gone sooner. I can see trying this again, but we both ended up with killer headaches that we're blaming on the pastis. Of course, it could have been any number of other things ...

Amuse Bouche (not really, but work with me here): Toasted baguette served with anchovies in oil

I've had anchovies plenty of times -- but usually on pizza or other typical preparations. The waiter brought us the plate of bread with a small dish of what looked like an oily tapenade. I tried it, confirmed to JT that it was a lovely oily, salty, tapenade of some sort. After another bite I slowed down to dissect its flavor and had a sudden recognition of what we were eating. I waited until the bread was gone to tell JT what it was. We agreed that many things taste pretty darn good pulverized and swimming in oil.

Appetizers: Raw scallops over a green salad, and foie gras

I ordered the foie gras. I've had it before -- in small doses, the memorable ones being at Palena in our old neighborhood, and stuffed inside quail at one of our legendary cooking club dinner parties. It's now that I realize that those were pate de foie gras. This was slab o' foie gras served with toast. Actually, that's not even true: It probably was mixed and pressed in a terrine, but I don't know enough about foie gras preparations to know exactly. I was disappointed with myself for not really liking it: To me, it just tasted like cold fat without much flavor. It was a little better once it warmed up a bit. JT thought it was alright, but nothing craveable. I'll have to study for next time.

JT ordered the scallop salad. Well, not exactly. As far as we could tell, there were three options: the foie gras, escargot (after the previous incident, I'm not eating them unless I know exactly how they're prepared), and what I heard as "carpaccio de St. Jacques." I translated that as "scallops" to JT, knowing full well they'd be raw but omitting that part in translating. (Ha. I say that as if I speak French. But they call scallops St. Jacques in England, too.)

It turned out to be a lovely lettuce salad with toasted pine nuts, olive oil and vinegar, and six beautiful, raw scallops. (I'm actually pretty sure they were tossed in a bit of citrus for a few seconds, but the definitely weren't sauteed or otherwise cooked.) JT tried a small bite of scallop and then shot me a somewhat frightened look. As I wasn't particularly enjoying my foie gras, we switched plates. The strange part was that they had this red pouch thing attached in a half-moon around the scallop. I have never seen this before. I tried a small bit, and it was very delicious. However, I then started freaking myself out that this was something you serve to show the scallops are fresh but don't eat. JT argued that they wouldn't have served it if I shouldn't eat it, but you don't eat crab lungs or other disgusting bits when you are served whole crab, do you?

We eventually asked what the red bit was, but mistranslated the response as "heart." (You'd think two science writers would think logically about this for two seconds and realize that there's no way a bivalve has a heart this big, or even a heart at all.) Turns out it was the scallop roe, or egg pouch, and is considered a great delicacy.

Entrees: Scallops again, and lamb

(I'm actually done with the new-food portion of the post, but might as well finish telling you about our dinner)

I ordered the St. Jacques Provencale -- more scallops (also served the the not-a-heart-but-roe-pouch-red-thing, which was decidedly better raw than it was cooked) cooked in a herby creme fraiche sauce, and JT had an incredibly succulent piece of lamb. Both were served with sliced potatoes and cabbage sauteed in what must have been a red wine reduction -- very sweet and delicious.

Dessert: Chocolate mousse, of course. And it was superb.

Overall, it was a lovely experience, even with the new foods. I should also mention that we were the only people in the restaurant -- which had a total of five tables. It was more charming than you can imagine -- five old tables, set with a mishmash of plates and silverware, with candles at each table and a fireplace in the corner. There aren't many dining options in rural France on a Sunday night, but all you need is one, and I'm glad we found this one.

Restaurant: L'Oustaou, 68 RN 7, Le Muy, France.

I ate ... what? Brussels edition

The Brussels Christmas market was still hopping after Christmas. There was the usual street food -- sausages, cotton candy, etc. But Brussels kicks it up a notch. A big paper cone of french fries ("frites") with any one of 12 toppings, foot-long lengths of boudin sausage, crepes, and of course waffles. We kept seeing signs for "6 huitres". Six huitres were rather expensive (10 euro), and they turned out to be oysters, served with a small glass of champagne. High class street food, that.

We found chocolate nirvana at one stand at which we ordered a crepe (JT) and waffle (KT) with chocolate. We've learned to keep on walking when the Nutella jar or Hershey's syrup bottle is in plain view. (Nothing wrong with either of those, they just make a rather pedestrian crepe.) If you see Actual Chocolate melted in a pot, stop and order it, in whatever form you choose. You won't be disappointed.

(That stall was representing an Actual Shop, so I thought I would add it to my must-do list for Brussels. I just read the card. The shop is in Hardelot, France, a wee town I'm not likely to ever go to, unless it's on a wine run from the ferry that goes to Calais. But for the record, the shop is Vanille Fraise at 32 Avenue de la Concorde. Dang, that chocolate was good, though, and we do love French wine, hmmm ...)

Anyway, the street food that most amused me was the escargot. Those big pots are full of snails, out of their shell, in a broth. Twelve for 4 euro. By the last day I decided to be brave and give it a try. First, I lived. Second, I ate all of them. I'm not sure I truly enjoyed them -- still a little too chewy for my taste. But the winner was the broth -- nice and hot, rich, and heavily seasoned with (I think) white pepper. Very warm on a very cold day. This was my second attempt at snails; the first wasn't very successful. I'm willing to give them one more chance, though, as long as they're cooked in large amounts of butter.

Here's a close-up, for your viewing pleasure:

Probably better for me than that waffle smothered in chocolate, but I'll give you one guess as to which one tasted better.

Thanksgiving, UK-style

Thanksgiving has always been a big holiday in my family, in large part because we lived in Detroit. My dad and friends always had tickets to the annual Lions football game that started at 12:30pm and those who went to the game would rush home to find the house smelling of roast turkey and all the trimmings. This year, for the first time in memory, none of my family was together for turkey day--KT and are here of course and my oldest brother stayed in New York. But my other brother and his family, my sister, and my mom, who had all planned to gather with my sister-in-law's family, were for various reasons unable to pull it off much to their and my dismay.

When I learned that would happen on Thursday, I was even happier we had decided to host a mini-Thanksgiving dinner. After inviting over 3 American friends, including my intern--all twentysomethings and away from home--we bought a small turkey and then hoped it would fit in the oven. It did--barely. KT brined it for many hours like she did last year and then blasted it with high heat briefly (setting off the smoke alarm briefly!) before letting it roast normally. The pumpkin pie above was part of the adventure. Earlier in the week we had gone hunting for Libby's pumpkin in can--only one grocery store chain in the UK carries it we learned on the internet, but that store was near us fortunately. No frozen pie crusts anywhere but KT made do beautifully, as you can see. Thanks to the magic of cable TV, I was even able to watch the first half of the Lions game before dinner (I taped the rest)--with KT heckling me as she is a Packers fan and Favre was killing the Lions. Oh well, I still had an appetite and we all enjoyed a great meal--turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, carrots, and 3 desserts! And leftovers!!

And if we don't say it enough by email or phone, we both dearly miss our friends and family and we are very thankful for all of you.
--JT

The Chef in action

Trip Report: Barcelona, Part 2: Food

(Trip dates: Sept. 21-Oct. 1, and the food porn is here in the food photo album)


In general, the food in Barcelona rocked. Perhaps it might not have been as striking had I just come from the U.S., or, more specifically, D.C., where an embarrassing sum of our disposable income was spent on eating in nice restaurants, and where the legendary meals of our cooking club had just gotten into full swing. Instead, the trip came after 7 months in England, long enough for me to say that everything they say about British food is true. More on that another time, though.


Anyway, Barcelona. Barcelona is in a region called Catalunya, which borders France. Food in this region has its own unique identity, with heavy influence from Spain, France, and Italy. Spain's climate gives it a long growing season, and in late September, the produce was amazing. Its position on the sea means seafood dominates. And, of course, you have the delightful Spanish wine to wash down all that great food.


Restaurants


One of the first restaurants we ate at was Les Quinze Nits, in Placa Reial. They open at 8:30 p.m. and don't take reservations, so a line starts to form before 8. My coworker who lives in Barcelona had suggested the place, so the three of us met her there at 8:15 or so to join the queue. What was most striking was how inexpensive it was. We got the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu -- 11 euros (about US$15).


For a starter I had gazpacho that was absolutely incredible. We'd later get a glimpse at why -- the local produce is phenomenal. Easy to make great food with great ingredients. For a main, AW and I split a paella:



Very rich, very delicious. Other mains on the table: lamb shank and seared tuna. Dessert gave me my first exposure to crema Catalana, a creme brulee-like custardy dessert, only less sweet and less heavy. Here's a recipe on the Spain tourism site; the translation is a little silly, but use your imagination.

The night of the boring reception, we went back to our neighborhood and ate at CheeseMe in the El Borne neighborhood. Yes, unfortunate name. Cheesy, even. But how can you not love a restaurant where every dish includes cheese? We started with a sampler of 10 Spanish cheeses:

The blue (Cabrales, I believe) was probably our favorite. Sadly, we really had no clue what the rest were.

AW had heard about a must-do restaurant that turned out to be about 50 feet from our apartment. It's called Cafe de L'Academia. As soon as you book your flight to Barcelona, your next call should be to book a table at this restaurant. The food was phenomenal and a really good deal for what we ate. We were able to walk in and get a table at a Friday lunch with only a short wait because we really wanted to sit outside. (Inside, we could have been seated immediately.) (Also, sitting outside this restaurant was the scene of the Eyebrow Man Incident.) Pictured are our main courses, and there is a photo of our appetizers in the photo album and dessert is below. I'm not sure we ate anything that was particularly unusual, but everything was so perfectly executed. My main dish is the one at the bottom of the picture: Pounded beef steak with a goat cheese cream drizzle served with pear sauce. Mmm. My appetizer was a rice dish tossed in chili oil, which gave it just that little extra something. They're only open Monday through Friday -- have to appreciate a restaurant willing to forego a Saturday night's income.

Tapas

Rule: Always eat tapas next to a church. [I could explain that, but I think I'll just leave that open to your own interpretation.]

We had some great tapas, and gee, it sure would be nice if I could remember some of them. Thankfully, I have at least a few pictures to remind me. Here are our tapas from a place called Ciutat Comtal on Rambla Catalunya: clams, ham and cheese croquettes (ubiquitous in Barcelona -- and sooo good), shrimp, fried anchovies, pimientos de Padron (the green peppers), and, on the side plate, tortilla (a potato fritatta, basically) and some pan amb tomaquet, grilled bread with tomato and garlic.


One of our tapas-next-to-a-church outings was to a local chain called Taller de Tapas. I can't remember a thing that we ate there, but that's mostly because of my crappy memory, and also possibly because we were eating at a poorly lit table and so didn't really see much of what we were eating. Thanks to someone on Flikr who took pictures of her food when she ate there, I do remember eating the chorizo sausage cooked in hard cider. Mmm. Anyway, it's a good, reliable meal, so if you come across one of these in Barcelona, give it a try.

One evening, with colleague LR in tow (the one who stole the sign), we wandered down to Bubo, a tapas-and-pastries place in El Born. Part of the fun was trying to communicate: Our waiter Tony didn't speak a word of English. So, it was down to my translation skills. Ha. It turned out to be pretty easy, as the special menu of the evening was six tapas of the chef's choosing, plus a cocktail, snacks, and dessert. So, with all food decisions out of our hands, we were brought plate after delightful plate of tapas, none of which I think we would have chosen organically but all of which were quite good. (Would you like to know what they were? Yeah, well, join the club. I do remember that the snacks were olives, and some sort of salty nuts served with a toffee sauce because salty + sweet = yum.) R did take a picture of our desserts: Nice, huh?

La Boqueria

Lest you think we spent all our time in restaurants, we did eat five dinners at the apartment. Sure, one of those nights we ate nothing but baguettes fresh out of the oven from the corner bakery, cheese, and olives. But man, don't knock it until you try it. Most of our dinners at home featured food from La Boqueria, Barcelona's amazing food market. I only have one picture inside the market because I got irritated at the number of tourists inside taking pictures. I, on the other hand, was there to live like a local, darnit. But man, it was beautiful. To get a flavor of it, do a Google Image search on "la boqueria barcelona," and you'll see what I mean.


The main staples of our at-home meals were bread, tomatoes, cheese, olives, and occasionally some serrano ham or baby chorizo sausages. The bread tended to be baguettes, although our best loaf came from a woman selling dense whole wheat loaves out of a basket on the side of an alley during the festival. We never saw her again. Oh, man, that was some bread.

The tomatoes were quite clearly in season, tasted amazing, and were very cheap. One day I bought three huge tomatoes from a woman off the side of La Boqueria. "Veintiocho centavos," she says. My brain simply couldn't process that. I handed her 78 cents. "No no no," she says, and hands me back 50 cents. So, these beautiful tomatoes cost a whopping 28 cents. And they tasted like sunshine.

The cheese ranged from goat cheese we bought from a mysterious cheese market that seemed to appear purely for our benefit, to the local Spanish specialty, manchego cheese. (Also some delicious fresh cow's milk cheese that I can't remember -- borrata? Borgato? Something like that. If you find it, GET IT, and eat with fresh tomatoes. Mmmm.)

The olives were amazing, too. We got some that were in a marinade that was on the edge of too spicy but were so good we ate them anyway. And the ham? Oh, the ham. The meat vendors in La Boqueria had the whole ham -- the bone-in, knee-to-hip (do pigs have hips?) ham -- hanging from the rafters. You tell him how much you want and he slices it right off the ham. Now, some of this was 175 euros per kilogram. We're talking serious ham here. We settled for a nice 75 euro/kg one, and got 5 euros' worth. SO good.

And finally, we actually ate a meal in La Boqueria. It was at the very popular lunch counter of El Quim. It's apparently a mother, father, and son operation, and they must all get along famously because they deftly and quickly move around each other in maybe a 9-foot by 5-foot space -- cooking, doing dishes, and serving customers. Basically they walk around La Boqueria to do their shopping, fry things up, and serve them for lunch. Doesn't get any fresher than that.

This was our first introduction to pimientos de Padron, small green peppers that grow only in Spain. They get sauteed in olive oil until the skin is a bit charred, and are served warm and heavily salted. The heat in the peppers apparently varies widely, but the ones we had were nothing but delicious.

Our main meal here ... well, this is going to be a hard sell for some of you. Namely anyone related to me or JT. But here goes: chipirones, or baby squid, sauteed in garlic and some chilli pepper, and served over a fried egg. Oh, so good.

Our dessert from Cafe d' Academia. And dessert means el fin.