I spent a heavenly week near St Raphael and part of the pleasure was to discover very simple food presented in the most artistic way. So I am sending you these images to make you dream. Each dish is easy to create and you just need to find pretty plates to serve them and many friends to taste them.
A banana soup from Cabo Verde
A friend of mine decided to go and spend two months to write in Cape Verde, the former Portuguese archipelago of 10 islands in the Atlantic, just west of Senegal. It is an independent republic since 1975 and uses Portuguese as its national language. And he came back with a fabulous recipe for banana soup, something that can be made … Read More
La Bûche de Noël is a must for Christmas
The Christmas log (bûche de Noël) as we call our Christmas dessert in France is a rolled gênoise with either coffee, chocolate or red fruit filling. It dates back from the XIX th century but only became popular after WWII and was inspired by the Scandinavian rites of the end of the winter solstice (Dec 21). Before Medieval times, a … Read More
“Chou farci”, stuffed cabbage, by Timothée
While listening to Professor Philippe Godoy‘s conference on the Eglise de la Madeleine at the turn of the century, I ran into a group of young students who live nearby and one of them, Timothée, who attends ESCP, a high level business school in Paris, also apprentices as a chef. He learned to cook with his mother, Marie, who with … Read More
Gigot de 7 heures, 7 hour leg of lamb by Joseph
The weather was so dreary last week that I decided to flee to Brussels in my little car and spend the week end with the best chef I know who was kind enough to cook a gigot de 7 heures (a seven hour leg of lamb) one of the most comforting and delicious winter dish you can dream of. You … Read More
Veau aux asperges, an old recipe from Périgord
Jean Lavit, a curator and inspector of Historical Monuments is at present cooking in Saint Jean de Luz and he shared this recipe which dates back from his childhood at his grandmother’s, when the cook from Périgord created marvels. Veau aux asperges (veal with asparagus), is made of onion, carrot, celery and asparagus of course.
Poulet Molière by Joseph de Vilmorin
Joseph de Vilmorin is probably the best amateur cook I know and he practices his father’s recipes as well as his aunt, Mapie, who was one of the most famous food critic in the sixties in France. He sent us a recipe of Poulet Molière which I cooked yesterday and I found it delicious and easy to reproduce. It’s very … Read More
Scallops are in season!
I was having posh people for lunch and my fridge had some old endives wanting to be eaten. So I decided to cook scallops with endives (instead of leeks usually) and it was a success. The bitterness of the endives made the fish more interesting and there was rice also as a cushion to smoothen things up. So here is … Read More