Passover Macaroons: A Coconut Tip

I know some of you will be preparing for Passover this weekend – if you are making the coconut macaroons from the last chapter of Lunch in Paris, here’s a tip from my Aunt Joyce. The recipe in the book uses very dry grated coconut (that’s what was available in France), which is very different from the already hydrated, pre-sweetened coconut you buy in the baking aisle in the US. Therefore, my Aunt Joyce uses MUCH less condensed milk in her recipe to hold the mix together.

If you are using very dry coconut: use 14 oz. sweetened condensed milk

If you are using something like Baker's flaked sweetened coconut, which is already hydrated: reduce the sweetened condensed milk to 2/3 cup

My favorite part of Passover in Teaneck was checking for the first crocuses on the lawn. That, and eating the crispy matzoh stuffing right out of the bird. Enjoy!

Lord of Burger

What’s a girl to do – if her father, a tyrannical 3 star chef, is suddenly assassinated, leaving millions in debt. Take over the restaurant, of course. Such is the premise of Lord of Burger – a new French comic book series. The art - and the slicing and dicing - owe a lot to Japanese Manga. I’m not much for superheros, but if she can make a chocolate soufflé rise to unnatural heights and skewer an uppity sommelier all in the same breath, that’s a whole different kettle of poisson. Some news from home:

Instead of doing our budget last night, G. and I spent the evening comparing Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal to “The Bandwagon” with Fred Astaire, the 1950s musical comedy that inspired MJ's choreography. Leave it to my French, tap dancing, cinema buff of a husband to know such a thing. This afternoon, G. found a version on Daily Motion (a sort of French Youtube), that puts the two together. Fred Astaire dancing to Michael Jackson – it works, I swear! The scene with Cyd Charisse in the night club (legs up to her eyebrows), is perfection. You can skip the first 3 minutes if you’re pressed for time. How’s that for some old fashioned pre-tax procrastination!

Augustin is trying desperately to crawl. He hasn’t yet figured out that the ass wiggle and the arm thing go together, so he does a lot of baby push-ups, then rolls over on the bear that plays a painfully slow version of “That’s Entertainment” (from one of G.'s tap class friends). He mews in frustration from time to time, and then puts his head down on the turquoise waves of his play mat. If he hasn’t got it by the time I go back to New York in early April, my mother will teach him - on all fours, if necessary. I can hear her now: “Come on, baby boy, you can do it. Get that tuches in the air!”

I’m really excited to be back in NY for a few weeks this spring! I’ve got a reading at Barnes & Noble Tribeca on April 7th, and will be joining Rachel Kramer Bussel for Nerd Sex Night (how cool is that – I’ve waited my whole life to put those two words together!) on April 15th. For those a bit outside the city, I’m doing a reading with Elm Street Books at the New Canaan Library in Connectinut on Monday, April 26th. In between, I’m heading up to NMH, my old high school in Western Mass to talk to some writing classes. I know the students will be my harshest critics yet!

Daylight savings time finally comes to Paris this weekend! Has spring sprung where you are?

Orange is the New Black...

A few years ago someone mentioned (Mr. Udeshi, it had to be you) that orange was the new black...

I don't wear orange, but I do cook orange. I love sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and of course, carrot cake (for me, a food group unto itself). This week, I was on an orange kick. I wanted to make pumpkin scones, an idea I've been mildly obsessed with since I got back from Australia, where they are a well known speciality. My Australian editor (who rocks, by the way) sent me a recipe - but my attempt was bland and flat, not nearly enough butter cut into the flour. So, after seeing some truly terrifying photos of myself from the reading at WHSmith (which also rocked, by the way, thanks to the 50 lovely Parisians who turned up with smiles and wonderful questions!) I decided I probably shouldn't be eating scones at the moment anyway, and moved on to more protein-based fare. At least Augustin got to taste some fresh pumpkin. My mother-in-law gave me a cookbook for Christmas, La Fabuleuse Cuisine de la Route des Epices (Fabulous Cuisine from the Spice Road). It has beautiful illustrations - and I've been looking for an excuse to cook from it (Note to self: have a dinner party with grapefruit safran creme brulee!). As G. is in Las Vegas on business (revisit his trauma here), I was looking to make a big pot of lentils that I could chip away at all week. I had some coral (read: orange) lentils in the house. And found this recipe - which calls for curcuma (also orange), which, like ginger, can be sweet or savory, depending on your mood.

I knew I had some laying around - another gift from my mother-in-law, but locating it in the deepest darkest depths of my spice cabinet took some doing.

The color here was a vast improvement over traditional lentil soup. I love puy lentil stew - purpley nibs, flecked with parsley and tomato, but once you puree it, the dark, almost blackish color starts to look like toxic sludge - run off from some nuclear power station off the Jersey Turnpike. The curcuma was sublte, woken up by a big squeeze of lemon and a dollop of plain yogurt - and some fresh coriander for color.

The next evening I had a chicken to roast, so I continued with the orange theme, inspired by another recipe from the same cookbook. I rubbed some olive oil on the skin - then sprinkled with sea salt and a good dose of curcuma. The recipe suggested turnips tossed with vanilla and powdered sugar. This is why I read cookbooks in bed: I would never have come up with that thought on my own - but a marvelous idea none the less. Halfway through roasting, I sqeeuzed on some fresh orange juice to keep everything sizzling.

Normally, I'm not one to wax poetic about the comforts of a home-roasted chicken (I ususally buy mine from the Saturday market chicken man, fresh from the spit), but this particular combination was a chef d'ouvre: the meat was moist, with a crispy skin infused with curcuma - a charred, woody smell, like carving your intials into the bark of a tree.But it was the pan juices that were truly worthwhile, the sauce sticky with orange and just a chirp of vanilla from the turnips. Next time, I'm going to use the warm sauce - mixed with a bit of sherry vinegar - to dress a green salad.

Paris has cured me of my taste for leftovers - but roast chicken is an exception. I pulled the remaining meat off the bone that very evening, and for lunch the next day, I improvised a Coronation Chicken. I have some jarring memories of this from dodgy English sandwich shops (there's always a skin on top when it sits out too long, ugh), but the principal is sound. I avoid chicken salad with mayo - just a personal peeve, but with plain yogurt instead of Helman's, the sweetness of golden raisins, the crunch of walnuts, and the zing of fresh coriander - this was chicken salad fit for a queen. Ta.

Coral Lentil Soup with Curcuma

1 large clove garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
olive oil
1 large ripe tomato, chopped (or 3/4 of a can of crushed tomatos, with juice)
1 generous tablespoon curcuma
2 cups coral lentils
6 1/2 cups water
2 chicken or vegatable bullion cubes
1 cup plain yogurt
1 large lemon
Fresh coriander, to garnish

In a medium saucepan, add a glug of olive oil. Saute the garlic and shallots until transparent. Add tomato, simmer for 3 minutes. Add curcuma, stir. Add lentils, stir.

Add water, and bullion cubes (which you've dissolved in a bit of boiling water). Cook until lentils are tender (10-20 minutes). Using a hand blender, blend until smooth. Stir in the yogurt until throughly blended and creamy. Squeeze in juice of the whole lemon (the acid makes a real difference - keep squeezing!). Add a pinch or two of curcuma to finish.

Serve piping hot with a dollop of plain yogurt and chopped fresh corianger.

Serves 6

Roast Chicken with Curcuma and Vanilla Turnips

1 small chicken, preferably organic

Olive oil

Coarse sea salt

Curcuma
6 medium turnips (golden, if you can find them), cut into bite size pieces
1 teaspoon vanilla

A dash of powdered sugar
2 oranges (preferably the variety you would use for juicing)

Heat the oven to 450 degrees Farenheit.

Rub your chicken all over with olive oil. Sprinkle with sea salt and a generous dusting of curcuma. Place in a medium roasting pan.

Toss the turnips with the vanilla and sugar, add to the bottom of the pan.

Roast for 20 minutes, then squeeze on the juice of the two oranges, stuffing one of the squeezed out orange halves inside the bird. Shake the pan to toss the turnips a b

Bake for 25 minutes more or until chicken is done.

Serve with pan juices.

Serves 2-3 (I like small chickens)

Madras Chicken Salad, Fit for a Queen

Leftover roast chicken, chopped

Plain yogurt

Sea salt

Madras curry powder

Walnuts, crushed in your hand

Golden raisins

Fresh coriander

In a medium bowl, place plain yogurt, curry powder and a good pinch of salt. Stir to combine - add as much or as little curry as you like, depending on your taste.

Add roasted chicken, stir to combine. Top with walnuts, raisins and coriander, stir lightly to combine. Serve with a green salad.

Good Girls Go to Heaven, Bad Girls Go to Paris

My French husband is at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas this week for a trade show. Which means he had the surreal experience of flying 13 hours and getting stuck in secondary passport control only to arrive in a hotel room with a view of the (fake) Eiffel Tower and a bellboy that said "Bone-joor", with a heavy Tennessee accent.

Curiouser and curiouser was his trip to the men's room for a shoeshine. He called me in a panic (sometimes America freaks him out). Something about the soundtrack playing in the mens' bathroom. Then he sent me the following email:

Heard in Paris Las Vegas men’s bathroom while getting a shoeshine:

Paris Las Vegas’s Unit 17 advanced French lessons

- Eng: Good Girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Paris
- Fr: Les filles bien vont au Paradis, les autres vont à Paris

- Eng : Your mother must have been a baker because you have a nice pair of brioches.
- Fr : Votre mère a due être boulangère parce que vous avez une belle paire de brioches.

- Eng: Apart from being sexy, what else do you do for a living?
- Fr: A part être sexy, vous faîtes quoi dans la vie ?

- Eng : Oh la la, are these real ?
- Fr : Oh là là, est-ce qu’ils sont vrai ?

- Eng : Do you want me to buy you a drink or do you just want the money of the drink?
- Fr : Est-ce que vous voulez que je vous offre un verre ou bien est-ce que vous voulez juste l’argent ?

- Eng : If my husband calls, I am not here. If the pool boy calls, I am here
- Fr : Si mon mari appelle, je ne suis pas là. Si le maître nageur appelle, je suis là.

- Eng : If I told you you had a great body, would you hold it against me?
- Fr : Si je vous dis que vous avez un joli corps, est-ce que vous le serriez contre moi?

Please note that in French, this last one is NOT a pun.

Apparently, this useful info is playing on a continous loop. My poor husband. Eng: Gotta love Vegas. Fr: Vive Las Vegas!

PS - yesterday's pumpkin scones were a complete disaster, more successful was the orange lentil soup with curcuma, to be posted momentarily...

A Walk in the Manure

Question: Where can you find a herd of Salers cows, face cream made from donkey's milk and an exquisite bottle of 1989 Armagnac.

Answer: The annual Paris Salon d'Agriculture.

After six weeks in the States and Australia, I was more than ready to take my yearly leap into la France profonde. G. came home from work early to babysit, so I could sneak out for a few hours to pet the cows and replenish the pantry. I always make this outing with my friend A., who has a special relationship with the cows - she went to the annual Festival de Transhumance last year in deepest darkest Aubrac, which had her birthing cows and participating in beribboned cow parades. If you'd like to go this May, details above.

Walking around with A, I get the feeling that all of France is a village. We stopped at a honey stand, and found that the man had his hives right next to her cows in Aubrac - practicualy down to the very field. We've made friends year to year. I arrived too late to chat with the ancient sausage man with a dirty mind and decaying teeth. Last year, he swore he was retiring, but no - there he was, ready to sell A. her smoked jésu de Morteau (yes, the Jesus of pork products) and invite her out back (once again), to see his "Roman sausage". My only truly urgent errand was a bottle of 1989 Armagnac from Daniel Dubos. (I even cheated a bit last year and tasted a sip with Augustin in my stomach. Why shouldn't he get started on the good stuff?). That and some donkey cream. Allow me to explain: Asinus is a company that makes cosmetics based on "lait d'anesse", which I must admit, has a nicer ring to it than "donkey milk". Their principal marketing tool is Cleopatra - apparently, the famous beauty bathed in it every day. Their body cream is fantastic, and you'll be happy to know that it smells like candied orange peel and not like, well...donkey.On the way to the animal pavillon, we passed through the "Outre Mer" section, where products come in from all the French Islands. We stopped for coconut sorbet, mixed by hand, and a caught up on some gossip.

People and cows (and a great deal of manure) share the aisles. There is often a traffic jam in front of the milking stations. Although the milking is done on the premises, tighter and tighter regulations means they are no longer allowed to sell the raw milk from the Salon cows. (when I went for the first time, 3 years ago, it was still available).

They kicked us out at 7pm - but we got the feeling the party was just getting started. The owners sleep in the halls with the animals, and as we walked out the door, bottles for an aperitif were appearing from under tables and bales of hay.

Back to the kitchen next week. G. is going away on business (which means it's time to fill the freezer) and my Australian editor just sent me a recipe for pumpkin scones (having a bit of a time locating the pumkin puree).

Quick Reminder! Reading at WHSmith in Paris - 1 week from today!

Calling all Parisians! I'm doing a reading/signing at WHSmith in Paris - one week from today! Please join us: Thursday, March 11th, 7pm. RSVP to books@whsmith.fr with "Elizabeth Bard Event RSVP" as the subject. See you there! E x

A Comparative Visual

Back in Paris after a month in the US. My brain, and my stomach - are completely jetlagged. I thought I'd give you the comparative visual.

Exhibit A. My parent's fridge in the US - stocked to brusting with every salad dressing known to man, three containers of cream cheese, but little actual food. (If there was one aisle that I could banish from the supermarket forever - it would be the salad dressing. Out, out, damn Fat Free Blue Cheese. Ranch, be gone!Exhibit B. My fridge in France - cleaned by G. and awaiting my arrival and a trip to the Saturday market. G basically lives off pasta, onion and lardons (slab bacon) when I'm not around. One red bell pepper and two carrots could last him three weeks. I'm dreaming the bouquet of fresh herbs (flat leaf parsley, dill, mint and coriander) that usually lives in a mug of water on the door...

I'm doing a reading at WHSmith in Paris next Thursday, March 11th at 7pm. My desk is a catastrophe. I know there's a game plan under here somewhere, darned if I can locate it just at the moment...