Quark deliciousness

Sitting on the couch doing my French devoirs while enjoying a snack of dense German bread with Belgian speculaaspasta and a cup of Dutch anijsmelk after a delicious four-day Thanksgiving long weekend. R and I stayed in the city, making several daytrips to escape the hustle and bustle and take in the mildest autumn weather I've ever experienced in the Northeast. With no particular plans, we ended up in:


- Hoboken, NJ for a view of the NYC skyline and the Empire State Building lit up in Thanksgiving colors. After watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, R and I walked downtown to catch a ferry over to Hoboken, a cute little city directly across the Hudson. It has an open waterfront area with public and green spaces, tall residential buildings, and the beautifully renovated Lakawanna train station which also has the NJ Path to WTC.

Two blocks away from Hoboken's waterfront is Washington Street, a cute residential/downtown area with brownstones and shops, including an authentic German bakery. The proprietors are a German/Armenian couple from Cologne who live right above their bakery and have clearly have found their calling. Breads, pretzels, pastries—they do it all with love. Though I'm not a fan of dense German bread (being a fan of lighter French bread), I love bread that is baked with care and love.

If you're in Hoboken, stop by for a chat with the friendly owners and order the puff pastry with raspberry and quark, a light and creamy cheese that reminds me of French fromage frais. The owner/baker says everything (except for the beverages) are imported from Germany. I'm not an expert on German pastries but I thoroughly enjoyed biting into the flaky exterior that yielded into a creamy raspberry center. Perfectly tart and creamy and not too sweet. This place is a true gem which I plan on revisiting soon.

- The upper Bronx where there's a long stretch of paved cycling paths. R says there's about 60 miles up there and we may return next spring for some long rides.

- Cold Spring, NY for a hike and a bit of fresh air. For the past few months I've been starving for a bit of nature, wide open space, and quiet. Cold Spring was definitely the answer....the train ride there via Metro-North Railroad was an easy 70 minutes from Grand Central Station. We sat on the left side and had nice views of the Hudson and the mountains surrounding it. It reminded me a little bit of the countryside in France, but the Hudson highlands are much smaller than the mountain ranges in Rhone-Alpes.

The hike was listed as strenuous because of a steep 10 minute climb at the beginning. The rest of the hike was nice with long views of the Hudson and the small towns dotting both sides of it.

Being in Cold Spring made me more nostalgic and homesick for France and our simple life there. Tomorrow will mark 6 months since my move back to the States. Not a day passes by that I don't think of the amazing year R and I spent together and everything I learned on our adventures. When I daydream, I often think fondly of our house, the mountains, and the people (and animals) I came to know and love in la campagne. I count the days until our visit in February when I can see them again!

On baking bread

Recently I started making bread again. With the cooler temperatures we've been experiencing in NY, it's bearable now to use the oven and what's better than a fresh baked bread you made yourself?

Although NYC may have great places to eat, it's not easy to find good French bread. You know, the kind that uses only water, salt, yeast and flour and has a thick crust that crackles when you bite into it.  Something with a bit of chewiness, and that just tastes damn good.

Cannelle Patisserie has some nice looking loaves, and I'm sure Epicerie Boulud, Bouchon, Sullivan Street Bakery have good breads too, but most places have appallingly bad bread that has too many additives. Not only is there lack of crunch, but the whole thing is pasty white and stays moist for way too long (i.e. there are preservatives, or it's high in fat which helps keep it "fresher" longer). Surprisingly I found a pretty ok baguette at Fairway Market on the Upper East Side. Fairway also has a pretty nice cheese selection just like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. Unfortunately the only NYC locations are in the UWS, UES, and Red Hook, Brooklyn. I'm hoping that a Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, or Fairway opens soon near Jackson Heights.

Though I haven't baked for Alice Waters like this woman who wrote about it in the Atlantic Monthly...I did find a quick and easy, No Knead recipe in Alice Waters' Book entitled "In the Green Kitchen: Techniques to Learn by Heart". The recipe (in the book and) below is adapted from Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery. I recently made a loaf using all purpose flour, and today I started one using 100% whole wheat flour. I can't wait to try it tomorrow, after a 14 hour rising period.

No Knead Bread
Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Swiss knoepfli in a herb butter sauce

Sorry I haven't posted any stories or photos of Paris yet. Since returning from Paris last Monday night, R and I have been quite busy, doing daytrips to Geneva then Lyon. And on top of that, we've had brilliant weather. Warm enough that I'm wearing skirts, shorts, and my Tevas everyday.

On Friday I spent many hours shaping the garden, planting seeds and transplanting some of the seedlings that had been germinating in the serre, including tomatoes, leeks, salad greens, courgettes, kales and kohlrabis. After a long day of gardening and on my knees, a good warm shower never felt better. As the sage, chives and thyme plants are growing strong, I decided to make something using fresh herbs. And what better then a big plate of Swiss knoepfli or spätzli which is sort of like German spätzle.

Japan and Arts Expo

This weekend my town is putting on its annual arts exposition, and I'm going to be part of it. The past few days I've been working on a Keynote slideshow, highlighting some of my photography of food, landscapes, and portraits. I've selected the photos, the music, and have the transitions all done, and have spent an entire day trying to get an exported QuickTime version of the slideshow to play on an ancient circa 2002 Windows laptop. It has been frustrating times, but I think R and I've finally got it playing now. R stepped in after I declared I was ready to throw the dinosaur out the window, which I may well do after this expo. Just in case the old thing chokes during QuickTime playback, I have a PDF backup that visitors can manually click through.

In addition to showing my photography, I'll be busy baking a ton of cookies to sell, with all proceeds to benefit the victims of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. My friend S has said that Western media has chosen to report on the nuclear reactors, but there are hundreds of thousands of people who have lost everything and they need all the help you can give. I see this on the Dutch and French news every night, and I have many great Japanese friends, so I'm doing my own small part to help.

Please donate at Global Giving or at your local chapter of the Red Cross. Thank you.

 

Tarte aux coings, pommes et poires

I love this simple apple tart...it's the American pie's lighter French cousin. The crust is a layer of thin puff pastry, pâte brisée, then a thin layer of quince jam, followed by a layer of very thin slices of apples and a pear. I used about half a stick of butter or 4.5 tablespoons to make the tart.

It's a delicious treat, very light and not too sweet. I often have this with tea, or just straight out of the oven. Usually I make this tart with different varieties of apples, but today I had some Williams pears, so I added one for a hint of pear deliciousness. A tart worth making from scratch.

Cupcake times...and dumplings too

I had a m-o-n-S-T-E-R craving for cupcakes the other day...and nary a Flour or South End Buttery in sight! My favorite is SEB's carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting, after a certain Katie's delicious carrot cake. Mmmm. I prefer any cupcake at Flour and SEB over the highly hyped, but rather disappointing ones I've tried during my cupcake R&D period in NYC - Billy's Bakery, Magnolia, Two Little Red Hens, Crumbs all came up short. Either too dry and/or too sweet. I had a yummy one once at Blue Dog Bakery, and then another pretty good one on 7th Ave and 20th..I think. If Chikalicious or Kyotofu had cupcakes, I bet they would taste awesome. If you're ever in NYC, you absolutely have to try the black sesame tofu dessert at Kyotofu. Any dessert at Chickalicious will make you swoon.

It's so funny, but since moving abroad to the land of food, I've been obsessed with...American and Asian foods. And I'm not alone!

Red Cross and new discoveries

Second day in a row of sun! With temps in the mid 60s (felt like 70), I was in a good mood despite a horrible night's rest. R and I camped out on the sectional couch again. The window frames and windows we had stained and lacquered in the master bedroom upstairs were still not dry yet.

Busy busy day. R and I volunteered at the local chapter of Croix Rouge Francais (Red Cross). We met the branch President Janine a few weeks ago through Helene, sister of one of our neighbors. Today R and I helped stock the branch's epicerie, a little grocery store where clients can buy groceries at a huge discount.

The food had just been delivered by other volunteers from Bourg-en-Bresse where the Red Cross' food bank is located. Janine and the delivery guys had already unloaded items for the refrigerated and freezer sections. There were hundreds of boxes of milk, zucchini, turnips, celeraic, croissants, cheese, quiche, yogurt!! So what was left? We helped her stock the shelves (and I say so myself, we left that epicerie looking awesome!) I unpacked "Holland Style" rice and potatoes, chocolate dessert while R stocked the shelves with canned peas, green beans, sauerkraut, carrots, baby food, etc, etc. Due to the large Muslim clientele, he had to organize the items so as to separate items containing pork from other items. Then Janine and I unpacked huge sacks of carrots and potatoes and repackaged them into 1kg bags of each while another older sweet man repackaged bananas into 1kg bags. It was fun...and I felt good and useful, even if for 2 hours. Tomorrow, we've been invited to help out at Resto du Coeur (restaurant of the heart).

Most things are priced/valued at 1 or 2 Euros. But that isn't the price that the client pays. E.g., if something is priced at 1Euro, the client pays 10%, or .10 Euro cents. Depending on family size and circumstances, a family of 2 may be able to purchase up to 50 Euro of food, but in the end they will only pay 5 Euros. There were some French clients, but most were spoke little French (and were Muslim). I felt for them..as I too am a foreigner and it's hard learning a new language as an adult.


Made 2 discoveries today:
1. Found Farine de ble - type 65 at Leader Price (a discount grocery store..think small Costco)! David Lebowitz (Chez Panisse's patisserie chef who now resides in Paris) says this is as close as you can get to All Purpose Flour. I hope to make chocolate chunk cookies tomorrow..and I hope to have a better result than the last batch I made using Type 45 flour.

2. As it was a gorgeous warm day, I drove up Le Plateau du Retord for a hike and maybe to find some mushrooms. We had a great view of the valley basin..but the cold windy weather up there chased us away. Seeking warmer pastures, we descended to Billiat and found a nice country road with absolutely gorgeous views of the Juras, the Vuache, the Parmelan mountain, and a crystal clear view of the Alps and the Mont Blanc. But the best part? After a bit of walking, while I was busy looking for mushrooms, we happened upon a field of white looking root vegetable resembling a carrot. It smelled like a radish, so I took a small bite and it tasted like a daikon, but as I've never seen a daikon with its greens on, I wasn't 100% sure. I picked a young one and HUGE one - I just Googled it now and it's confirmed. They are daikons! I knew you could eat the roots (my mom uses it a lot in Chinese and Vietnamese cooking), but I learned today you can also eat the greens. What shall I do with the daikons? I fancy some daikon radish cakes.

A photo of the daikon "cake" I made using above recipe and served with spicy hoisin sauce. So yum.

Orange glory

Happy birthday to my sweetheart R! We've had a great day so far—I went on a field trip with my new Japanese friend and her baby. Then R and I sat outside in the garden, having a nice leisurely BBQ, followed by birthday fruit tart. Fresh nectarines, strawberries, and kiwis—all atop a layer of French pastry cream speckled with vanilla beans and an almond flour/cornmeal pastry crust.

I got the kind of candles that relight after you've blown them to test his lung capacity—which is still pretty good for my R. Now listening to more of his CD collection—Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday song, Milli Vanilli, Pet Shop Boys, Summer of 1969, and now Der Kommisar in German. Tonight R and I will be celebrating his birthday dinner at the bistro in our village, a place we've been looking forward to trying.


Last night R and I got into the World Cup spirit by dressing in orange. R made his entrance raising the Dutch flag in support of the Netherlands who were playing Cameroon. The hosts had festooned their house in the color of the Dutch royal house—orange balloons, orange caps, funny orange hats (which I'm wearing in the picture below), huge orange sunglasses, orange flower leis, etc. One of the guests even had a giant block of cheese on his head which faintly reminded me of the cheesehead hats that the Packers fans don. Upon asking my guess was confirmed—the guy got it from Wisconsin.

After the hosts realized Swiss networks weren't showing the game, R saved the day by hooking a laptop up to a site that had live streaming of the game. The game was good but I watched from the kitchen, near the table set with aromatic juicy barbecue chicken, satay sticks, tabbouleh salad. The beer, of course, was Heineken.

On another note, my Japanese friend was pretty excited that Japan beat Denmark, 3-1. And she reminded me Le Tour is coming! It's passing by our town on July 11th. I'm getting my yellow jersey out so watch out for me on le tv.

Supernatural brownies and listening to music loudly

One of the benefits of living in a house on a hill in the countryside is that you can turn your music way up. R and I are doing just that right now. R's going through huge collection of music and at this moment Dark Side of the Moon is playing.

I made a simple marinara sauce with farfalle with oregano that I picked from the garden.

I'm having fun dancing while baking David Lebovitz's supernatural brownies. He's the former pastry chef at Chez Panisse who has is now living and baking in Paris. I mostly use his recipes because they are tried and tested with ingredients from France. I loved his "The Sweet Life in Paris" and became a convert after making his recipe for chocolate peanut butter chocolate ice cream.

I chose the most plain dark chocolate I could find. There was a huge choice of chocolate with chestnuts, hazelnuts, curry, mint, etc. I haven't been able to find dark packed brown sugar (or light brown sugar for that matter), so I used something called sucre brut moulu. Crossing my fingers the brownies come out well.

It's R's birthday on Friday. I've found a recipe for a French fruit tart but I will make it with almond flour since I have some in my pantry.

The quest for vinegar, baking powder, and baking soda

Yesterday was my sister's birthday—happy birthday sis! It's the first of many birthdays I won't be there in person to celebrate. Missing my family and feeling a bit homesick this week. So I kept busy in my own way when in a foreign country. Though France is actually not that foreign. Within a 10 minute drive, I can shop at five major supermarkets: Carrefour, Intermarche, ED, LIDL, and Leader Price. If I'm willing to drive 20 minutes further, I can find many more shops. A few of these big chains try to be a one stop shop. Not only do they sell fresh and frozen foods, there's a fromagerie, boucherie, boulangerie inside the store. They further try to cater to the average shopper's every day needs for clothing, electronics, sports gear (even bait), dishes, pots and pans, yarn and thread. The one stop kind of shop may be good for these chains and customers but they are not great for the small independent stores.

With all these shops around, I'm surprised how difficult it has been to find what I think are common ingredients.

Plain white vinegar. There's a whole shelf devoted to vinegar: vinaigre du vin, balsamic vinegar, cider vinegar, flavored vinegars with herbs de provence, shallots. But no basic white vinegar. I scoured the oil and vinegar shelves at three different grocery stores before I found it at my local Carrefour. It's called Vinaigre Cristal avec alcohol. At .35€ it seemed very cheap, but I'm hoping it turns out to be what I'm looking for. I'm making Vietnamese green mango salad today and I need the vinegar to make nuoc mam which is the fish sauce that I'll be marinating the mango in.

Baking powder and baking soda. At most supermarkets in the U.S., there's an aisle which holds all your baking needs from baking powder, baking soda, baking chocolates, chocolate chips, Dutch processed cocoa powder to dry yeast, flour, sugar, powdered sugar, and spices. At Carrefour, most of the same items can be found (I learned that through many visits and asking people) but they're spread across different aisles. The sugar is in the sugar aisle while chocolate is in the chocolate aisle. Flour and yeast are in a third aisle. I can't yet find powdered sugar or chocolate chips. And baking powder and baking soda? I've been looking for the little cans of baking powder the past week or so to no avail. Due to my lack of French, I still haven't asked the employees at the supermarket. But thanks to this blog of a fellow American baker who is now living in France, I realized I had seen baking powder in a different form at the supermarkets. Instead of a little metal can, baking powder or levure chimique/levure anglaise are in individual packets. So excited! In her blog, I also found out the French keep the baking soda in the spices aisle. So now I'm fairly confident that I can find almost everything I need. I just have to figure out what it's called, what the packaging looks like, and which aisle to find it in.

Fresh herbs used in Asian cooking such as mint, Thai basil, cilantro (which is called coriander here and in the U.K.). I've planted coriander seeds, which is a perennial so I hope to have coriander for a long time coming.

An Asian market nearby. I do that thing now where I make contact with Asians to say hello (thee are so few of us here) or to ask them about the nearest Asian market. I stopped an Asian man the other day at Migros and asked him if he knew of any good Asian markets nearby. He was only visiting so his Swiss friend told me she had heard rumors that there is one in Ferney-Voltaire, France. I'll try to find that one next though it is as far away as Geneva but maybe it has a bigger selection of food. My wish list, to start—Kasugai gummies, vermicelli, large bottles of soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar, rice paper, packages of Mama noodles, packages of chewy squid, roast pork buns, sushi rice, sushi ingredients.

Yesterday R and I spent the greater part of the day searching for French language options for me. We visited and spoke to people at 5 different locations: l'hotel de ville, la Maison Savoie, a social services center, le lycee (high school) which has an adult education center (think BCAE, CCAE), and another center for local immigrants. All fingers pointed to GRETA, a continuing education service which used to offer French language classes, but no longer does at this time. Apparently there is another organization in town that offers classes, but the administrator at GRETA had no idea about the new organization. Today R will telephone our department's prefecture to inquire about local French classes.

After our searches turned up empty R thought we could try visiting American Liz and her husband who live in the same village as we do. Even though she's lived in France for over 30 years, she's still known as "the American Liz" just as R is known as "the Dutch R". And what about me? Will I be given the moniker "the Chinese-American K"?

American Liz is at the gym but her French husband is home gardening and is quite helpful. He says he'll put me in touch with locals interested in language exchange, my English conversation for their French. In addition he would ask his wife about the baking powder (this was before R found me the blog above). And lastly, he pointed us to the house where a Japanese woman lives.

We thanked the schoolteacher and made our way down to the house...the same house that we had passed earlier with a cute kid outside on his scooter. We introduced ourselves to the husband and the kid, asked about his wife and where she shopped for Asian foods. He went inside to get her but she was busy bathing their littlest one. The French home is sacred. So unless you are explicitly invited inside, or have a very close relationship (like we do with our neighbors P and D), you don't automatically go inside. We waited outside for a bit and then he came out and offered me a box of arborio rice from Italy. He frequently travels to Italy and picks up arborio rice which is a good substitute for sushi rice. We chatted briefly about life and work until his wife came out with a very adorable 8 month old baby. The couple and their children were incredibly nice. They moved to town about 7 years ago from Annecy where the wife M had learned to speak French. Annecy has a university and many foreign students so there's actually a good language school there. M and her husband C invited us to stop by anytime (as did American Liz's husband) and we plan to!