One year anniversaire

One year ago today I arrived in France. My year has been so beautiful and memorable because of everyone in my life—my R, my family, my friends here in Europe as well as the ones back home.

I've laughed, loved, traveled, learned to drive a manual, mushroom hunted, hiked, eaten great food, absorbed history and culture, gardened, cooked, read, written, and generally loved all of it.

March, April and May have been incredibly full—the beautiful weather has continued and my garden is flourishing. I've been so busy the past few weeks, with a project I've been working on as well as with the garden and some travels.

Busy, but not too busy for cooking or for eating, mind you.

Last week I made an entire pot of braised lentils from Le Puy. I thought I had made way too much, but I need not have worried. My friends and I ate almost the entire pot of lentils with our barbecue.

Using some fine cornmeal I had in the pantry, I made baked polenta from scratch. It was much easier than I had expected though I did have to spend some time stirring it quite well and them breaking up the chunks that had somehow formed despite my constant stirring. Today I panfried thin squares of the polenta, laying whole sage leaves on each side, so you end up with slightly crispy sage in each bite. There was still cornmeal leftover after the polenta which I used for a savory cornbread. For a bit of kick I crumbled up some bleu d'Auvergne. And for a bit of color, I cut some of the young green shoots from the scallions in the herb container on my balcony. All in all it turned out light, fluffly with a bit of savory in it—it suited my salty side, but R's sweet side thought my sweet version of cornbread was better. To each his own :)

Way back in February I bought two bags of soybeans with the intention of making tofu from scratch. I also bought a tofu mix in a box...the box contained two bags of powdered soybean (which you add to boiled water and then stir like mad to break up any chunks that may form) and two bags of coagulant (which you have to add after you remove the tofu from the stove to firm it up). I have to say that it looked looked like tofu and moved like tofu—but it tasted off. I'm not sure what I did exactly in what seemed to be a simple process, but I will try again.

The other night I felt like making something with my various jars of Indian spices. I decided on this Red Kidney Beans Curry because I had all the ingredients at hand and it sounded exactly like what I was looking for. The dish came out very well, but instead of 2 large tomatoes I chopped up 5 or 6 plum tomatoes. I omitted the red chili powder because it came out very savory and spicy on its own.

Because R requested red bean ice cream the other day, I decided to make some Tsubushi-An, a chunky version of red bean paste using some Japanese Azuki beans. I used a very simple recipe, and it came out delicious. Perhaps the paste will find its way into steamed buns for red bean buns, or maybe into red bean ice cream as R hopes.

And for my sweet tooth, as well as to thank all my neighbors and friends for all their help and warm welcome since I arrived a year ago, a lot of cookies!