A Week in Provence

Back from a windy and wonderful week in Provence with my parents. We stayed with our friends Angela and Rod at La Belle Cour – their lovely bed and breakfast in the village of Cereste. Augustin camped out in a dresser drawer…which he seemed to enjoy. I’m still waiting for the American mommy police to arrest me for not buying a baby travel bed.

Angela served lunch outside on Friday – (“Provence has 320 days of sunshine a year”, announced Rod when we first met). There was local ham, curled into neat ribbons, and a wonderful salad of lamb’s lettuce, julienned beets, tender dried dates, pine nuts (or was it walnuts) and crisp slices of apple, all dressed in a tart lemon/olive oil vinaigrette. It’s just the kind of simple but inspired combination that I want to keep in mind for future sunny autumn afternoons. The finale was a local goat cheese from Banon – wrapped in the dried leaves of a chestnut tree.

Saturday morning we went to the outdoor food market in Apt – it takes over the entire town, basically my idea of shopping nirvana. My mother and I parked the boys at a cafe. Now there are officially three generations of bored gentlemen waiting to carry our shopping bags.

Among the olives, boar sausages, and enormous tomes of cheese, I found a stand where you could taste the jams and chutneys…a tiny plastic spoon in every jar. I walked away with a jar of compote de fenouil (fennel chutney) and some melon preserves.

Saturday evening we celebrated birthdays, arrivals and just general well being at La Manade, an intimate restaurant in Apt with only 8 tables. Their menu is limited (in a good way) and grounded in seasonal products. It is mushroom hunting time in the region – so I had the silky mixed mushroom soup to start, topped with a dollop of foie gras whipped cream (file that under terribly good idea). My main course was a local daube made with taureau (native black bull) and topped with candied orange peel. Below is a photo G’s dessert – a sable cookie topped with chocolate ganache topped with pistachio custard (oh, how I love all things pistachio). And below that, the wall of glasses (mean, mean man) that he constructed to block my incoming arm. G. knows that being married to me involves a curious second spoon in anything he orders. He is normally very good-natured about ceding half his dinner - but every once and while he gets surly and defends his territory. I admit, it’s a slippery slope. As soon as Augustin learns to use a fork, there’s a very good chance G. will be eating sloppy thirds, instead of sloppy seconds.

Though he is not quite ready for a fork, Augustin did start smiling this past week. It’s like watching the lights go on on top of the Empire State Building. It changes everything. He doesn’t just need me, he likes me. Of course he also smiles at Lili the musical chicken, who has orange polka dot legs and a rattle inside her left foot. I think I could take Lili in a bar fight, but for now I’m hanging back. In the immortal words of John Wayne: never come between a man and his musical chicken.Tuesday night was my night to cook, and Angela liked the idea of my rabbit with Pastis (from a post in July). Of course, I was late getting started (cocktail hour run long…) – by the time I entered the kitchen I found Angela over the computer, Rod over the pot, my mother over a wine glass and Paul over his iphone, recording the whole thing.

I’ve never watched anyone try to follow one of my recipes before. Especially since I seem to have forgotten half the ingredients. I bought zucchini instead of fennel, and fresh peas were no longer in season. The spirit of improvisation took over. Rod added an extra slug of Pastis to the browning veggies (very good, I’ll be adding that to the original), and Angela (God save the Queen), had a bag of peas in the freezer (added a few minutes before the end, they work just fine). Looking to compensate for the forgotten fennel – I threw some fennel seeds into the pot for good measure.

On fine china and linen, we sat down to our meal. Dear reader, it’s official. Good friends can save any recipe.

Little Bunny Foo Foo (with Pastis)

Don't be alarmed. I'm making rabbit for dinner.

For those of us raised on supermarket meat sold under saran wrap, I know the idea of eating a rabbit is the equivalent of carving up your Cabbage Patch doll. But once I got past the initial shock of the whole skinned carcasses in the window of my local butcher, I found rabbit creeping into my Paris kitchen on a regular basis. It has a subtle foresty taste and nice meaty texture - so much more enlivening than chicken.

Since we are the only people in Paris not on vacation this month - I decided I would bring a bit of vacation to dinner. I would cook the rabbit with Pastis - the most summer-ish of French aperitifs.

Pastis has a lovely licorice kick, so it seemed only natural, when choosing veggies, to pair it with fennel and the sweetest, narrowest carrots I could find.

While the rabbit was on the stove, I was cutting the tags off of baby clothes, so I can start packing for the hospital. I'm beginning to notice a disturbing trend. When I laid the French items on top of the American ones my mother sent over, I found that the American clothes were about 2 inches wider- not longer, but wider - than their French counterparts. There's a book in here somewhere: French babies don't get fat.

The baby clothes discrepancy points to many others I've noticed during my pregnancy - particularly with regard to weight. The French books I've been given, including the official government handbook, recommend a weight gain of 1 kilo per month - that's 20-22 pounds. Meanwhile, the American books I've read, as well as the Web MD emails I'm receiving in my inbox every week, seem to think that 35 pounds is absolutely normal. Who is right? What is necessary?

I always said I wanted to be pregnant "like a French woman". It's phenomenal, You can't see anything from the back, and up front, they all look like they have a basketball tucked under their shirt. They wear tight little sweaters and low rise jeans that show off their bellies, and polished ballerina flats below their decidedly unswollen ankles.

Now, I'm hardly a French pixie. I come from hearty Russian peasant stock - i.e. what my grandma would politely call "buzooms" and hips designed to give birth in a field, digging potatoes. Yet, so far, I seem to be doing it the French way. Frankly, I can't imagine gaining any more. As it is, I'm running my hands over my stomach everyday, looking for the eject button. I'm carrying around the equivalent of a Butterball Turkey over here.

There is nothing inherently virtuous about French cuisine. To finish off the rabbit, I added a cup full of fresh peas, but I also added 1/4 cup of heavy cream. And while I'm sure there's no 'ideal weight' for a pregnant lady, I'm more and more convinced that my Parisian eating habits help keep things calmly (and deliciously) in line. I can't take any credit. If I was home in NY right now, I'm pretty sure I'd be eating Pillsbury vanilla frosting out of the can.

This is nurture, not nature, at work.

Rabbit with Pastis, Fennel and Fresh Peas

1 rabbit, with liver, cut into 8 pieces
2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil
Coarse sea salt

2 carrots, coarsely chopped
1 half bulb fennel, coarsely chopped

4-6 shallots, whole or, if large, halved
2 tablespoons Anisette or Pastis

1 cup dry white wine
4 small carrots, halved or quartered lenghtwise

1 additional bulb fennel, cut into large chunks

1/4 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon cornstarch

1 cup fresh peas

1 handful of chervil, chopped

In your largest frying pan or Dutch oven, heat 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil. Brown the rabbit well on all sides; sprinkle generously with coarse sea salt. Remove the rabbit to a plate. Add the additional tablespoon of butter and oil, saute the chopped carrots, fennel and shallots until softened and slightly golden - 5-6 minutes.

Add the rabbit back to the pan, deglaze with Pastis, let sizzle for a minute. Add white wine. Tuck the carrots and fennel in between the rabbit. Bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover and cook for 40-45 minutes, turning once at the 20 minute mark.

Remove the rabbit to a plate, cover with aluminum foil. Add cornstarch to the sauce - stir to dissolve fully. Add cream and bring to a boil; reduce the sauce for 5 minutes. Add the rabbit, peas and chevril to the pan; heat through.

Serve with wild rice.

Serves 4.