Salade Niçoise Authentique
Salade Niçoise, how we all love this blend of potatoes, green beans, lettuce, tomatoes, anchovies, tuna and…WAIT !!! STOP!!! Do not EVER tell any self-respecting Niçoise that you like your Salade Niçoise with potatoes, green beans, lettuce, or tuna and anchovies at the same time. This will make you an outcast and possibly consider you a […]
Techniques and Vikings – Just another Week at On Rue Tatin
Bonjour from the warmest French October since 1878, so say the meteorologists. it’s lovely waking up to blue skies every day, watching as the leaves turn slowly from green to all colors, to ride a bicycle wearing shirt sleeves. It’s also ominous, like Ground Hog Day, simply because it’s abnormal. At the market a grower lamented […]
Grilled Eggplant Salad
This recipe for Eggplant Salad (which I serve as an appetizer) comes from one of my favorite books, HONEY FROM A WEED, by Patience Gray (Harper and Row, 1986). The book is a love story on every level, not least about the simplicity of growing and foraging ingredients in various parts of Italy, Catalonia, The […]
Grilling Their Way Through FRENCH GRILL
The other day I received an email from Betsy Regnell, whom I met when she and her friend Eileen Doherty came to a class at On Rue Tatin, some many years ago. Here is what it said: “Susan, Eileen and I are working through FRENCH GRILL. We did the grilled bread with smashed tomatoes, the […]
Gazpacho, French (Grill) Style
Summer is always a strange and wonderful season in France. As the French populace goes on vacation, so too does the content on most radio stations, the issues that preoccupy the airwaves (see Benalla and its repercussions), and magazines that focus on children’s games and summer romance. The French know how to relax, turn off […]
Cap Ferret and the Grill
I just had my spring sojourn at Cap Ferret, a narrow, sandy peninsula across the bay from Arcachon, on the southwest coast of France. Cap Ferret is the height of relaxed chic, the Cote d’Azur in blue jeans. I discovered it by accident, because a friend of mine has a family home there, […]
Late Season Makes for Happy Meals
Everyone here – everyone being most of the growers I buy from – says we’re three weeks behind the normal season. This means that instead of jumping feet-first into the strawberries, those gorgeous harbingers of spring are trickling in. And in Normandy, where the soil is still cold, they are a pleasure yet to come. […]
Aioli – Garlic Mayonnaise
Aioli is a staple for me. I fell in love with it when I was researching FRENCH FARMHOUSE COOKBOOK and I was in Provence, aioli’s natural home. It’s a signature “sauce” or dish – the sauce is the garlicky mayonnaise; the dish is the season’s best vegetables to enjoy with the sauce. For a special […]
Salt Cod Goes Uptown
Salt cod. It’s not your every day ingredient, I know. But you can find it in most fish markets, often in neat little wood boxes labeled “Salt Cod – Skinless and Boneless fillets”.* The History of Salt Cod Cod has a fascinating, lucrative history. Much of it has to do with its salted version. Cod […]
Summer Tomato Tart
What is the difference between a tourte, a torte and a tart? When it comes to summer tomatoes, there is a difference. A Tourte is usually double crusted, quite high and savory. Here in Normandy we are luxuriating in the hottest summer since 1940. For us, this means that summer produce like eggplant and zucchini, […]
