A Chalet Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, which is distinguished among my French friends and family as falling the week after the Beaujolais Nouveau arrives, means takeout for us. I know, how terrible! But it's not what it seems. Thanksgiving is not a national holiday here, so we hold off and invite people to come feast and celebrate a good old full style Thanksgiving two days later, on the weekend. That way those who have to travel to get to the party can come.

Many of you know already that I refurbished a wood burning fourneau that was in our little place in the Alps. This year, after having learned to cook in it, we have decided to do Thanksgiving in the mountains and cook everything by wood fire. The following day, I plan to stuff a Savoy cabbage in this way with the leftovers, a great way, being in the Savoie where this cabbage grows in just about every garden, to express how thankful we are for chalet and wood fired cooking.

We got a little video camera for sharing special moments in the baby's life with relatives at home, and I started a youtube account yesterday. With that, I leave you a video of the window at La Minaudiere, one of my favorite takeout places in Lyon. In addition to being grateful for the abundance we have found in this wonderful city, I'm giving thanks for you tonight, and hoping that those of you that celebrate Thanksgiving have a fabulous holiday.

My Boy and his Boudoirs

In the afternoon, one of my baby’s pleasures is a boudoir, which is a light, melt-in-your-mouth eggwhite-leavened sugar-dusted biscuit. This is after he’s had his petit suisse, a soft white cheese a little bit like Philly. Before you stamp your foot in indignation that I give my baby something dusted with sugar after all the agony of deciding how to feed him, I will let you know his pediatrician put it in his recommended diet! My boy is expending a whole lot of energy these days. He’s going full steam learning, moving, practicing, playing and thinking very hard about the world around him from the minute he wakes up until he drops from exhaustion again, on and off like a lightswitch, all day long. If he doesn't get a boudoir, he gets a crust of baguette. I think he likes them both equally.

I started making boudoirs at home out of curiosity. I wondered about them when the baby first started eating them. They are ubiquitous at the grocery stores here in France, and marketed not only for consumption by babies, but also for making that decidedly adult dessert called a charlotte, which is often lined with boudoirs soaked in various alcohols. The thing was, when I got down to it and began digging around for information, I noticed that these days nobody ever bothers to make their own boudoirs. Like other pastries, these are left to the professionals in this country. But you can find recipes in the older cookbooks sometimes under other names, depending on the region.

I checked out a couple of pretty picture cookbooks in the French style devoted to the charlotte from the library, thinking that at the very least these books would feature a a recipe or a little bit of lore about this famous cookie and found, much to my surprise, that they don't even bother to put the recipe for the boudoirs into either book. Tucked neither into the front nor the back, boudoirs were simply an ingredient, one that busy French cooks buy ready-made in plastic sachets at the store. I did find a few recipes in my old cookbooks and scaled them down to a manageable size. This means something I can handle without baking all day. I wanted to make sure I could get these done without feeling I was going into industrial production mode. If you have a big American oven, you might even be able to get these all baked in one batch.

The recipe for boudoirs aka biscuits à la cuillère is quite straightforward and simple. It requires no special equipment other than a plastic food storage bag or if you’re equipped, a pastry sack with a 1 cm circular nozzle to pipe the batter. Once they've cooled off, you can store them in a tin. If there are any left after a few days, they’ll hold up quite well to soaking in liqueurs and syrups for many kinds of charlottes.

Boudoirs (about 30 biscuits)

1/2 cup or 115 grams granulated sugar plus a few tablespoons for sprinkling
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of finely ground table salt
2/3 cup or 85 grams sifted flour, AP (or type 65 if you are in France)

*Note about the cream of tartar: It is optional. I have just found that the cookies hold their shape better if you do. I have done these cookies with and without it and the taste is the same. It's just a matter of preference.

*Note about the bowl size: I use the standard bowl that goes with my mixer for the egg whites, and I use a smaller bowl (the one I use to melt chocolate over a saucepan) for the egg yolks. The small bowl eventually takes the rest of the ingredients for the batter. The good thing about it is that the smaller bowl fits into a 12 inch square plastic bag, and it makes transfer of the batter into the bag quick, clean, and painless. Keep that in mind when organizing your tools to make these!

- Separate the eggs, yolks into the smaller bowl, whites into the bowl that comes with your mixer.
- Beat the 1/2 cup granulated sugar and egg yolks together until pale yellow and fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, mount the egg whites with the vanilla extract and 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar until stiff peaks form.
- Stir the salt into the flour.
- Incorporate the egg whites and sift in the flour and salt little by little into the egg yolks and sugar mixture, alternating flour and whites, ending with the whites. Make sure you fold it in gently and carefully and don’t stir it too much to avoid deflating the batter.
- When it it just incorporated, transfer it into the bag for forming the boudoirs.
- Cut off a corner of the bag to make a hole about a half inch wide or one cm. You can make a wider cut, but it will make flatter, wider, biscuits. I cut the hole about the width of my thumb nail for the thinner biscuits.
- On a parchment lined cookie sheet, form the boudoirs. Pipe the fluffy batter onto parchment in straight lines, 2-3 inches or 4-6 cm long, with about an inch or 2 cms between each one.
- Sprinkle sugar over the top, and lightly shake off the sugar from the parchment. The biscuits will stick to the paper, so you can pour the sugar off being careful.
- Bake at 300F or 145C for 18-20 minutes, until they are a toasty pale brown under their sugar coating.
- Remove them from the baking paper right after removing them from the oven.
- After cooling, store in a tin for up to a week. If you plan to use these biscuits for a charlotte, keep them in the tin for a few days. They hold together better when soaked in liqueurs that way.

121 French Market Menu Ideas for your Apples

Apples from our tree at the house in the country and my current favorite apple pie, recipe below.

In addition to the yield from our apple tree this year, neighbors came bearing baskets full of apples. Time to take out my country notes and get the creative juices flowing. Forthwith one hundred and twenty one ideas from French market menus, followed by my current favorite apple pie recipe. We've got guests coming this weekend. Lets roll up our sleeves and get to peeling apples!

Field rabbit sausage served with apples
Shortbread in the style of Brittany with sautéed apples and caramel cream
Poultry liver and apple terrine
An apple pastilla seasoned with Armagnac
Duck foie gras with tart cider vinegar apple chutney
A ginger-seasoned apple turnover served with shaved manzana verde ice and honey jelly
Pont-l’évêque cheese presented with yellow apples and pepper seasoned cider caramel
The apple croustillant with Calvados
Apple tart served with pain d’épice (a spice bread specialty from the north) flavored ice cream
Deep dish apple tourte served warm
Apple bettelman (a traditional Alsacian bread pudding)
French grandmother-style apple caramel cake
Pan seared foie gras with an apple and sweet potato chutney
The apple croustade, a Gascon tart made with many layers of thin pastry
Honey roasted duckling with apples in the style of Brittany
A scallop salad seasoned with apples and Guillevic cider
Flat oysters and roasted green apples served in a fish broth
A composed dessert of frozen green apple parfait, lemon jelly, Manzana apple liqueur over shaved ice, featuring a slice of caramelized apple
Apple pastis (see croustade above!)
Caramelized apples paired with creamed chestnuts and served in a chocolate shell
A simple thin caramelized apple tart
The caramelized apple douillon (a specialty of the Normandy region- stuffed fruit enveloped in pastry), served with a Calvados sauce
A vanilla seasoned apple mille-feuille
The duck foie gras terrine with a spoon of lightly spiced apple chutney
Tatin style roasted apples (or a crustless tarte Tatin, if you will)
A deep dish apple, prune, and Armagnac pie
Thin apple tart with cinnamon ice cream and caramel sauce
Duck breast served with roasted apples
Pigeon in a dried porchini crust with garlic and green apple seasoned pan drippings
The hazelnut and caramelized apple financier with green apple sorbet
A hot apple and ginger tart
An apple prune crumble with Armagnac and pain d'épice ice cream
Caramelized apple charlotte
Foie gras in puff pastry with apples
A flambéed apple tart
An apple and pear tarte Tatin
Shortbread cookies in the style of Brittany presented with a layer of butter simmered apples
An apple and pear crisp
Blood sausage with apples
A roasted slice of avocado served with green apple & whisper of wasabi ice cream
Apple marguerite (pudding baked in a decorative mould) topped with cinnamon seasoned puff pastry
Baked apples presented in a pyramid with calvados sauce
Apple nougat glacé
Pain d’épice tartined with a foie gras and green apple chutney topping
Apple fondant with Cavados caramel sauce
Apple and berry crumble
Lobster seasoned with sherry and cocoa, served with an apple raisin "afterthought"
Simple warm brioche with caramelized apples
Rice pudding with an apple and pear marmalade
A apple cake served flambéed
A salad garnished with slices of warm veal sausage, golden apples and a Gascony mustard sauce
A foie gras terrine with apples and cinnamon
Scallops with celery juice and green apples
Almond croquant with Tatin-style baked apples
Slow cooked apple with pralines and farm milk ice cream
The thin hot apple tart with caramel curd
Pommeau seasoned foie gras, served with an apple compote
Blood sausage and apple Tatin, served with crique, an Ardeche style grated potato cake
Pan seared foie gras, seasoned with Granny Smith apples and hibiscus
Apple stuffed brioche perdu with maple syrup
The apple and blood sausage in puff pastry with a chive speckled beurre blanc sauce
Gâteau lyonnais with apples and pralines
Calvados flambeed apple chaud-froid
The green apple spring rolls
Apple meringue pie
An apple verrine presented with berries
An apple strudel served with cinnamon ice cream
Duck breast with apples and pine honey
A sweet tarte flambée (Alsacian specialty) with thick cream, apples, and Calvados
Apple and pear mille-feuille with salted butter caramel
An apricot and caramelized apple tart with light almond cream
Thin bacon wrapped langoustines on a bed of grated green apples
An apple duo served with with honeyed drizzled foie gras
Buckwheat blinis served with warm apples
Tarte fine aux pommes
Apple and Mascarpone kouign-amann bathed in Calvados
Thick wedges of toasted pain d’épice served with pots of apple and orange marmalade
Foie gras in puff pastry with Granny Smith apples
Golden apple tart topped with caramel cream, sprinkled with fleur de sel de Guerlande
A mille-feuille layered with pan tossed apples, drizzled with salted butter caramel sauce
A carpaccio of fresh chevre sprinkled with walnuts and grated apples
Cider simmered pollock presented with pan softened apples
Roasted apple rum-raisin brioche
Apple streussel
Warm apple and raisin spring rolls served with caramel ice cream
Wild sea bass fricasee with cider and acidulated apples
Apple tiramisu with Calvados and pain d’épice
Kouign-amann wedge on a bed of caramelized apples
Coconut and apple mille-feuille with saffronned sauce
An apple and orange tarte
Apple caramel mousse
Duck breast with apples and honey
Foie gras terrine with apple jelly
Millassou, a cake specialty of the Landes region cooked old style with rum and roasted apples
A pear and apple clafoutis
Reinette apple shortbread
Lambic caramelized apples served with a cider sabayon
Crispy duck breast served with thyme seasoned caramelized apples
Haddock pastilla with apples, figs, and saffron jus
Warm oysters with lettuce sauce, and foie gras in apple jelly and peppered oil
Hot apple soufflé with Calvados
Calvados flambeed apple crepes
An apple and Camembert charlotte topped with a glaze of glistening cider jelly
John Dory with thin sliced chorizo, swiss chard, and apple jus
Strips of duck breast drizzled with reduced sour apple sauce and served with puréed sweet potatoes
Apple marinated salmon
Seared duck foie gras "exalted" by saffron seasoned sautéed apples
Sweet take on a baeckeoffe (alsacian specialty) using apples, pears, and raisins
Suckling pig with adiculated apple compote
Pan simmered quince and apples with salted butter caramel
Sesame and coriander seasoned caramelized apple served with a mini crème brûlée
Catfish fillet cooked in cider
Baked apples with raisins
A tarte Tatin served with coriander seasoned caramel sauce
An apple and almond tart
Caramelized waffles dressed with a ladle of slow cooked apples then topped with a Mascarpone ice cream
Apple pastilla with crème pâtissière
Saint-Romain blood sausage presented with its butter rich apple compote

Now. Did that give you some ideas?

Lucy's Favorite Apple Pie (pictured above)

About a pound of fresh tart cooking apples
1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar
1 level teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the crust:
8 tablespoons (100 g) butter
1 3/4 cup (200 g)organic whole wheat flour
1/2 cup (100 g) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (50 g) brown sugar
1/2 - 1 teaspoon fleur de sel or sea salt (to your taste)
1 petit suisse or 2 tablespoons cream cheese
2 tablespoons virgin walnut oil

-Peel, core and cut your tart cooking apples into chunks.
-Take a generous handful of the chunks of apple and toss them in a saucepan with about a 1/4 cup of water.  Set them over medium heat to soften.
-Combine the rest of the apple chunks with 50 grams white, 50 grams brown sugar and the cinnamon in a bowl and set aside.
-Once the apples cooking in water have softened (about 5 minutes), give them a blitz with a blender to turn them into a puree.
- In a separate mixing bowl, Combine the butter and flour with your fingers in a large bowl until it resembles breadcrumbs.
-Add the sugars, and work them in.
-Finally work in the cheese and the walnut oil and press it together into a dough.
-Remove approximately 1/4 of the dough, form it into a ball, flatten it, and place it in the refrigerator.
-Press the rest of the dough with your fingers rather thickly in an even layer into the bottom of an ungreased pie tin.  Don't press it too high along the sides, just a flat layer at the bottom,a little thicker around the edges.  Pre-bake the shell at 400F/200C for 10-15 minutes, or until the dough begins to turn a golden brown. 
-Slather the bottom of the pre-baked shell with the apple puree.
-Top with the apple sugar cinnamon mix, mounding it up in a nice thick layer.
-Remove the chilling dough from the refrigerator, and roll out a circle shape about 2 inches smaller than the pie shell.  No need to get too fastidious about the shape.  Turn the thin layer of raw dough onto the center of the mound of apples.  When you bake it, it will kind of melt into the apples before hardening into a cookie crust on top.
- Cover the pie with foil, and bake in the hot oven for about 40 minutes, until the apples get nice and soft.
- Remove the foil and return it to the oven to brown and crispen on top.

The Hunt

It has gotten to be somewhat of a passion. Creeping slowly through the forest, calling softly to one another, "Look!"   "That one!"  Then I rush up and take a picture.  Some people like bird watching, some identify wild herbs, species of ferns, animal tracks and trailings, rock formations, moss species, fishes in the streams or flowers. While it all fascinates me, we've both been curiously drawn to the wild mushrooms of Autumn.

In our way and at our pace, we've been learning about them little by little. I think the best part of hunting for mushrooms is tuning your vision to find them. It takes a lot of concentration. Look right under your feet and at the same time, learn to get a feel for the conditions that different mushrooms thrive in.  You might walk along saying to yourself, "oh how pretty, the first fallen oak leaves of autumn" but when you're out looking for mushrooms, you'll see those leaves on the ground and look up to locate the tree, then go find what might be growing in fairy rings at the bottom.



Water rushes around moss covered rocks.  Birds and chattering little creatures make up a kind of murmuring melody against the water sounds. But this is still punctuated by the pop and sharp echo of rifles firing in the distance, it being hunting season.  The sound pulls us back, pushes back the temptation to believe that we are in a wonderland all to ourselves. We stick to the loggers trails and don't venture too far into communal forests, especially if we haven't checked at the Mairie to see if a group has registered to hunt that day. It is not a free for all, you know. Hunting is highly regulated here. All the same, this is the time of year when early in the morning groups of men with serious looks on their faces can be seen along the roads near the small villages holding rifles, their silhouettes stirring up images from long past, echoes of another time. I expect game hunting must be great fun. But I've never seen a smiling hunter along the road. Perhaps this comes from what they've learned about handling rifles.



We could not help ourselves and we picked a bunch of mushrooms based on a hunch that they might be good to eat.  Alas, the guide book we have warns of one mortally poisonous mushroom that mimics another perfectly delectable one that's good to eat, so what's regular amateur to do?  In the end we didn't eat them.  There were plenty of other foraged things to eat, like the chestnuts and walnuts that right now are falling from the sky. Who knows, maybe the mushrooms were edible, but you know, since we now have certain responsibilities, we don't dare. I would not say that is a complete change from the past, just an extra little nod, of thanks even, a chance to expand our souls for an instant and remind ourselves just how lucky we are.

Recipe:  Chanterelles on Toast

1 handful of Chanterelles
2 tsp to 2 tablespoons butter, depending on the size of your handful
3 sprigs of flat leafed Parsley
1 small shallot
fleur de sel or salt to taste

Chanterelles, a wild mushroom that is found in October, are plentiful in some forests. If you can't find any, definitely do not pass these up at the market when they are fresh and clean.  Inspect them carefully. Pass over any with dark patches indicating they are saturated with water, mushrooms that are smeared with mud, or have excessive dirt and grime. Seek out the mushrooms that are in tact over fragments and pieces, which are more difficult to clean.

They are best cleaned with a paring knife and a brush, (a stiff watercolor brush works well for me) carefully removing stray dirt from the gills along the bottom with the brush and paring off the base and any hopelessly muddy spots at the top. You can dampen a paper towel and wipe the tops as well if needed. Soaking or rinsing these mushrooms in water is not a good idea since the chanterelle is spongy, unlike the black trumpet, which can be cleaned by a series of rinses.  Trying to clean chanterelles with water furthermore turns whatever soil might be on them to mud that gets trapped in the gills.  Try your best to avoid using water when washing your chanterelles.

Once your mushrooms are clean, pull them apart into uniform sized strips, and sautee them until golden in hot butter that has been graced with a sprinkling of fresh minced shallots. Add the parsley during the last few seconds in the pan, and transfer them directly to toast. Enjoy while hot! You might try these with a little glass of muscatel, good music, and some friends to get your evening started.

The Quiet Man on Saint Antoine

 

When you stroll the market in the city, look for bunches of crisp tender greens attached to the Autumn roots for sale.  They are the mark of the freshest produce.  There's one man along the riverside who places things thoughtfully down on his table, as if he wants to stay in harmony with that which nature has given him. Amongst the burgeoning splendor of crops on the move at this market, this zen kind of presentation can hit you quite squarely. He does not impose strict order on his table, nor does he make his activity seem like a daily grind of repetitive stacking and selling. He does not shout, pile things up or line up splendorous rows of the same thing over and over. He does not shine his goods with colored lights or erect red umbrellas to cast a rosy glow on everything. He lets the natural beauty of what comes from his garden speak like quiet poetry on an Autumn morning. A bunch of this, a group of that, a flourish, a swirl. Some wild things, some which he's planted in rows. Fifty-fifty him and nature. No matter what the pace we choose to profit from this labor, or how we present the fruit, it will continue to grow. I find that heartening.

It's Home Cooking, Baby!

Ian got so lucky to be born in the winter, because Autumn is just the best season ever for a person to taste food for the first time. People ask me when the perfect time of the year is to come to Lyon to visit, and hands down I always say Autumn. The vegetables we get at the end of summer are still out in their glory and even better, then come the big pumpkin-like squash varieties sold in thick wedges. Wild and cultivated herbs are burgeoning from the stands in huge bouquets, the onions are still fresh and green, there are leeks of every shape and size, peas, beans of all kinds, shell beans, green beans, butter beans and fresh little green peas that are such a pleasure to break out of their little shells. Fruits of all hues are laid out in their pretty little flats - Mirabelle, apricot, reine claude, quetsch, along with all manner of berries. The stone fruits are great for compote, and of course apples of every variety sold straight from the orchard along with their juice in bottles. We see things gearing up in the spirit of the season's game at the poultry vendor. An expanded variety of fowl becomes available to mimic the hunting season even if a great deal of what we get here in the city is raised on nearby farms. Yes, it is the perfect time for introducing Baby Ian to the concept of flavor. There's only one first time, and the stars aligned and shined down upon us just so to make this first eating season the best it can be.

I admit that although a baby-led schedule is the thing these days, I must have my daily rituals. The faster I've been able to guide his schedule into something predictable and regular, the better. What we've gotten in the habit of doing is getting up bright and early, heading to the market together. When we arrive home, he's had a ton of new experiences. Every week brings something new to look at, feel the texture of, listen to, or smell. Every day his depth of vision changes, one day he's staring at the jagged symmetrical patchwork of pastel coated cityscape shapes and forms, the next he's fixed on a stack of fruit or trying to make eye contact with the people talking along the rows of the market stands. In any case, He's always ready to happily snuggle into his little sleep sack and go straight to bed to dream of what he's just seen once we've climbed the marble stairs with our market pickings, and it's then that I get a little work done.

Ian eats something different for lunch every day. At first I was flopping back and forth about going ahead and just buying the little jars. It really wasn't what was in them, but what they were empty. I could hoard them and clean them and paint the caps, stack them and use them for everything from stray buttons to paprika, nail their tops onto boards and keep tacks and buttons and little pebbles from the sea organized neatly in rows that hang suspended this way and that. I could use them for my own house compote, jellies and jams. Make dollhouse guppy aquariums. I stacked these little jars up in beautiful symmetrical pyramids in my mind, built a little castle of sparkling glass baby food jars.

I finally made it to the store and began to investigate the pots of baby food, thinking that here in France, where so much attention is paid to fresh and unadulterated in what we eat, picking out baby food would be easy. I went down the aisle, trying to imagine the home-style French recipes touted on the labeling, "ideas from mothers" and the likes. Oh how lovely. Pot au Feu, Couscous, Simmered Rabbit, Blanquette de Veau, Classic Auvergnat Potato and Leek Puree, etc. I picked up the lovely little glass jars and turned them around, to read these ancestral recipes.

Slap, slap! Whoa! Jar after jar of delectably named pastel colored purees in their cute little glass pots down the aisle kept jabbing me with lists of cheap fillers, and the mysterious E# additives. Why have 7 ingredients when the label says "Haricots Verts"? Oh I know, logistics, distribution, storage, shelf time and whatnot. The need for a jar of baby food to sit unrefrigerated in a crate under varying environmental conditions for 2 or 3 years at a time.

Conversation with self:

"Lucy, for goodness' sake, people are raising perfectly healthy babies on these pots of baby food. You have work to do. Trust these reputable companies, they have done extensive research, they are the ultimate authority on what is truly good for your baby. And you get to collect the cute glass jars with lids."

"Yea, like I trusted Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines as the ultimate authorities on cake baking until the day I discovered butter sugar eggs and flour?"

I was failing to make the leap of faith with these foods despite the promise of baby food jars, and even the organic ones that tout no additives, no freaky ultra-refined starches and sugars, nothing - but a whole lot of money. Blame it on my knowing just how hard it is to steam a green bean.

The decision was made to just go ahead and instill some habits - I mean that's really all it takes, to cook for him like any other normal human being. A little research was all it took. At the beginning I felt a little beaten down by the sensational stories of danger. The risk of acute allergies, intolerances and hazards of all kinds lurked in the shadows. Feeling a bit overwhelmed I let myself feel a resistance to what I thought might turn into a dreaded chore. It's one thing to cook for the love of it, but another to be slave to a baby who believe me, will scream bloody murder if lunch is five minutes late. To have to cook things a certain way, in certain quantities, with certain ingredients, ho hum. My last bit of resistance was kind of a devil sitting on my shoulder giving his last ditch effort, coming out of that knee jerk "if the government hasn't banned it then it can't be that bad". But every time I went back to the grocery store aisle, I found myself reading one label after another and firmly putting them back on the shelf with a bad gut feeling. How can I feed this to my baby when we have such great fresh food available to us, especially at this time of year? It basically would be the equivalent of me subsisting on canned food throughout the harvest. Sure, I should probably carefully pick a few of those expensive pots of prepared food and tuck them in the car, in the cupboard, and in the pantry at the country house to use in case of a snafu. For example not being able to get Bernadette going (our wood stove in the country house) or a traffic jam, or some otherwise unplanned event that prevents me from cooking lunch in advance. But for the most part, it's home cooking, baby!

It was a big relief when Ian's doctor, obviously having been bombarded with questions from mothers like me, handed me a full style sort-of-personalized home cooking regime for him -- instructions on how to get him started. While the detailed rundown did not contain recipes, it did list the doctor's knowledgeable guidelines. He is an advocate of home cooked purees (whew), adding various fats, meats in age specific quantities, and sometimes fresh potato as a neutral textural liaison. He included a list of fruits and meats to avoid in his first 6 months of eating, and a nice little section on oils, the ones I should be adding for my baby's brain growth, some raw, some able to be cooked. It was a great help for me, a metaphorical springboard from which I could feel confident as I began to create.

Don't get me wrong. Baby food is as simple as simple can get. The formulas and ratios are all straightforward and pretty much common sense. It isn't salted or seasoned because baby can't metabolize salt and spices are for later. Keeping things simple, controlling texture and temperature, and easing new flavors in is the key. My doctor stressed variety and respect for the baby's taste and appetite to launch him into good French habits. Instead of the old adage that any new food should be fed to baby for 5 days straight, the doctor simply said no more than one new vegetable or meat a day. Ian has never had the same combination twice, except for a few things that he simply adores and it would be cruel to deprive him of, for example turkey and butter beans.

I have taken a great interest in the printed literature on offer here in France on the topic. That, with our having been on the grand tour to meet the whole family both in the States and in France has taken up all of my time these past few weeks, I hope my regular readers will forgive me. Things promise to settle down and get more productive promptly.  Now that we're back into the rhythm of the rentree,  I am finding nooks and crannies of time to concentrate.

Ian contemplates the merits of maman sticking a camera in his face when he's busy eating.

Plaice et ses petits pois (one serving, multiply as desired)

My fishmonger says that plaice is a great first fish for baby, along with sole and halibut, because the fillet doesn't have any bones. One small fillet of plaice (125 grams) will make 5-6 meals for your baby. Once you've got it home, cut it into 20-25 gram portions, wrap each piece in parchment, and store it in the freezer. That way, whenever you want to serve fish, you have it available.

Sunflower or Colza oil (trace amount)

20 grams plaice, halibut or sole fillet

40 grams ratte, fingerling, or new potatoes

120 grams fresh peas, shelled (about 300 grams shell on)

1/3 cup or 60ml of low mineral spring water or filtered water
1 level teaspoon fresh fruity olive oil

*  About oils in baby's food:  Young babies need them for brain growth, and choosing a variety of oils is a good thing.  My doctor recommends incorporating oils one at a time, but alternating them constantly:  butter, duck fat, olive oil, sunflower, colza, walnut, sesame.  He says to avoid peanut, palm and coconut oils.  Olive, Walnut, and Sesame oils should be added after cooking because of their low smoke point.

* About potatoes:  Reccomended by the doctor as a liaison for consistency, I arrived at my measurements for potatoes in accordance with my baby's body and tastes. I try to use only just enough to give my puree a satisfying mouth feel, and barely ever exceed 40 grams in a recipe. I have tried the various varieties and find that a waxy more flavorful potato appeals to my baby more than the powdery varieties. Your baby might have a different idea, however! Follow his tastes and watch his diaper for signs that your baby could cut down on potato, you'll know it right away.

* About cooking water for baby: We had our tap water tested before Ian came home, and found that since we live in a building built in the 1800s, indeed the water is not safe for baby to drink (trace amounts of lead from water that's been sitting in the pipes, we didn't want to take any chances!) Ian's pediatrician recommends spring water that has low mineral content for the baby's bottles since young babies don't metabolize minerals well, so we cook with it too.  From what I understand, filtering the water is just fine too.

Shell your peas and weigh them. You will be surprised at how many peas you'll shell to get 120 grams. Peel the potato and cut off as much as you'll need, using the scale to measure. Bring out your little portioned fish fillet. Heat saucepan over medium heat, and spread a thin layer of colza or sunflower oil over the bottom of the pan (you may choose cooking spray for this).  Sprinkle the potatoes around it. Keeping the heat at medium, let the meat and potatoes sizzle until just browned on the bottom, then add the water. Stir the liquid around, scraping up any bits along the way. Add the freshly shelled peas, add the cooking liquid, toss to coat, and turn up the heat until the water at the bottom boils fast. Immediately reduce the heat to low, tightly cover, and let the peas smother in the steaming cooking juices until both peas and potato are good and soft, about 12 minutes. Make sure the vegetables are fully cooked to soft, because this makes a better mouth feel and easier digestibility for baby. Put the mixture in your blender or grinder, add the olive oil, and puree to smooth. Let cool to warm, attach the bib around your baby's neck, and serve it up!

Ian's Favorite Etouffe of Turkey and Haricots Beurre

1 teaspoon duck fat

20 grams raw turkey breast

30 grams ratte, fingerling or new potatoes

120 grams fresh haricots beurre or wax beans

1/3 cup or 60ml of low mineral spring water or filtered water

Wash, peel and dice the potatoes, and dice the turkey. Wash and remove the rough ends from the haricots beurre, and then slice them into 1/2" lengths. Melt the duck fat over medium heat in a 1 quart sauce pan with lid, and spread the turkey and potatoes over the bottom. Keeping the heat at medium, let the meat and potatoes sizzle until just browned, then add the water. Stir the liquid around, scraping up any bits along the way. Add the beans, toss to coat with the cooking liquid, and turn up the heat until the water at the bottom boils fast. Immediately reduce the heat to low, tightly cover, and let the beans smother in the steaming cooking juices until both beans and potato are soft, about 12 minutes. Make sure the vegetables are fully cooked to soft, because this makes a better mouth feel and easier digestibility for baby. Puree to smooth in your blender or grinder, let cool to warm, and serve!