A Fridge Full of Christmas

You know it’s Christmas in Paris when the refrigerator looks like this: the fruit drawer is full of cheese, the cheese drawer is full of foie gras, the four bottles of water on the door have been replaced with champagne and the lettuce (wrapped loosely in a dishtowel) is wedged in over two broad, beady-eyed live crabs (nicknamed Gerard and Gaston). G. forgot they were in there. When he opened the door they started rustling - he thought it was a poltergeist.


It’s not even Christmas Eve and I feel like we’ve been eating forever. My new strategy is to skip one meal a day – so I can actually be hungry for the next one. So far, so good. I had a fine appetite for lunch today with friends: duck terrine with pistachios, rare calf’s liver in sherry vinegar and light as a feather baba au rhum with freshly whipped chantilly (I love when they leave the bottle of rhum on the table).


It’s been glacial and snowy in Paris these past few days. We even had a dusting on the geraniums. This, of course, makes staying in the house cooking – and eating – that much more appealing. Last night, G.’s grandma came to meet her first great-grandson. I made pot au feu, which is essentially boiled beef (I use beef cheeks and veal shank) and vegetables garnished with mini pickles, mustard and parsley – with the beef bouillon served on the side. It’s perfect warm tummy food. Finished with a few bottles of red wine and a Mont d’Or Vacherin cheese so creamy it needed to be scooped with a spoon, one could consider never leaving the house again.



This morning G. went to the post office to pick up the next round of cheese – an entire Saint Nectaire (the size of a generous chocolate truffle cheesecake) and two etch-a-sketch size chunks of Cantal – a gift from his great aunt, which has been waiting at the post office for 3 days. As if postal workers don’t have enough to deal with over Christmas – someone behind the counter was stuck sitting next to our odoriferous package.

Since G.’s family is from Brittany, on the Channel coast, Christmas dinner chez nous is usually fish, and fruits de mer (shellfish). My mother-in-law is very particular about her oysters. Only those from the seaside town of Cancale will do. They are hard to find in Paris, so ixnay on the oysters. The still-squirming langoustines were 79 Euros a kilo, which seemed excessive, even for Christmas. That’s how I ended up with Gerard and Gaston. I will boil them alive tomorrow, and let them hang out on the windowsill until fully cooled. My neighbors across the way hang socks. I hang crab.

Pot au Feu

3 large beef cheeks (about 4 pounds of meat) – you can use a mix of meats – traditionally different cuts of beef – sometimes I add a large veal shank (it’s nice to have something with a bone)
Sea salt
1 onion
5 cloves
20 whole peppercorns (black or mixed)
A small bundle of fresh thyme
A bundle of parsley (on the stem)
2 bay leaves
8 carrots (what my mom calls “dirty carrots” – they’ve been harvested and buried in sand – so they are mature and extra sweet)
8 golden turnips
1 large bulb fennel
12 small potatoes, peeled
3 leeks, trimmed and cut into 4-5 inch lengths

To garnish: mini cornichon pickles, chopped flat leaf parsley, dijon mustard, coarse sea salt

Place the meat in your largest stockpot and cover with cold water, add some salt, the onion pricked with the 5 cloves, and the rest of the spices. Bring to a boil, skim the foamy fat, and simmer, covered, for 3-4 hours. Beef cheeks have a lot of gelatin that needs to dissolve – so as long as you cook them at a slow simmer, there’s not much risk of drying out.

Add the veggies, and cook until tender but not falling apart. If you don’t have a seriously large pot, you’ll have to do this in stages, for example – add the turnips, fennel and carrots, wait until they are cooked through, then fish them out. Add the potatoes and cook through. The leeks take the least amount of time. If you do the vegetables in stages, you can add everything back to the pot to heat up just before serving. You might want to season the bouillon with more salt as you go along – up to you.

Serve the meat and veggies on a platter. Pass the pickles, parsley, mustard and additional coarse sea salt. Serve the steaming bouillon in bowls on the side.

Serves 6-8