The Search for Perfect Gazpacho / A la recherche d'un gaspacho parfait

Nothing is perfect. People always say that, and then they go ahead and demand perfection anyway. What's up with that? I say you do your best with the tools you've got and if that's not good enough then you need to review your expectations.

La perfection n'existe pas. C'est quelque chose que l'on entend souvent, mais cela n'empêche pas nos amis, nos employeurs, nos fans et nos critiques d'attendre la perfection. Moi je dis, on fait de notre mieux avec les outils à notre disposition et, si cela n'est pas assez, il faut peut-être modifier ses attentes.


Usually cooking is a stress reliever for me, but even in the kitchen, I have to watch out for the perfectionism monster. It's the reason I haven't ever posted a recipe for classic gazpacho. I did post a recipe for green gazpacho a while ago, which is really quite yummy (a bit like guacamole in a soup), but I never dared post a recipe for red gazpacho, thinking, well, it's not perfect. I'm sure someone has a better one. Well, that may be, but I've had a serious overflow of organic tomatoes in my CSA and I've been making this recipe every couple of days for the past week and you know what? It's delicious! Do any of you have recipes you hold off posting because they're not "good enough"?

D'habitude cuisiner est une activité qui me détend, mais même dans la cuisine, il faut que je fasse attention au monstre du perfectionisme. C'est à cause de lui que je n'ai jamais posté ma recette de gaspacho rouge. J'ai partagé ma recette de gaspacho vert (un peu comme un gaucamole version soupe), mais je n'osais pas poster une gaspacho classique en me disant qu'il y avait forcément quelqu'un avec une meilleure recette que moi. C'est sûrement vrai, mais avec l'explosion de tomates dans mon panier bio la semaine dernière, j'ai fait trois fois cette recette et je dois avouer que c'est quand même délicieux. Et vous ? Avez-vous des recettes que vous n'osez pas poster en vous disant qu'elles ne sont pas parfaites ?

Demain, je pars cinq semaines faire la traversée des Etats-Unis en voiture. Je ne vais probablement pas beaucoup cuisiner, mais suivez quand même et vous verrez ce que je mange en route et où !

Tomorrow, I'm off for five weeks of roadtripping it in the US! I probably won't be cooking much, but keep following because I plan to share with you all what I eat and where during my travels!


View Larger Map

Red Gazpacho / Gaspacho Rouge
(Serves 4)

600g tomatoes (about 6) / 600g de tomates (environ 6)
1 cucumber (or 2 small cucumbers)/1 concombre (ou 2 petits concombres)
1 yellow pepper / 1 poivron jaune
1 small white onion / 1 petit oignon blanc
1 clove garlic / 1 gousse d'ail
2 slices bread / 2 tranches de pain de mie

4 Tbsp olive oil / 4 c à s d'huile d'olive
3 Tbsp Xeres vinegar / 3 c à s de vinaigre de Xérès

salt / sel
pepper / poivre
dash of Tabasco / quelques gouttes de sauce Tabasco


Wash the tomatoes, cut into quarters and seed. Peel and seed the cucumber and yellow pepper and cut into large pieces (you just need them to fit into the blender). Peel the onion and garlic and cut into quarters. Put tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, onion and garlic into a blender or cuisinart and mix.

Add the slice of bread cut into pieces. Let soak in a few minutes. Pour in the oil and vinegar and blend until smooth. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour. Salt, pepper and add Tabasco (or not) to taste. Serve chilled.

Laver les tomates, couper en quartiers en épépiner. Peler et épépiner le concombre et poivron et couper en dès. Peler l'oignon et l'ail et couper les en quartiers. Mettre tomates, concombre, poivron, oignon et ail dans un mixeur et mélanger.

Ajouter le pain émietté et laisser imbiber quelques minutes. Verser l'huile et le vinaigre et mixer. Couvrir et garder au frais au moins 1 heure. Saler, poivrer et ajouter quelques gouttes de Tabasco (ou pas) à votre goût. Servir frais.

L'été dans l'Indre / Summer in the Center of France

J'écris très peu souvent en français dans mon blog ces jours-ci, et pourtant je vis ma vie en français 95% du temps. Mon blog est un moment de repos où, du coup, je me permets de m'exprimer dans ma langue maternelle, mais aussi, la plupart des bloggeurs qui me suivent parlent anglais (même quand ils ne sont pas anglophones).

I rarely write in French in my blog these days, and yet, I live and speak and think in French 95% of the time! I think because I like my blog to be a moment of relaxation where I can speak my native language (I can post much fast that way and with more nuances) and also because most of my readers speak English (even when it's not their native language).


Cela dit, je deviens aussi de plus en plus intégrée à la vie en France et le fait de m'éloigner de Paris tous les étés pour me poser en plein milieu de la France fait partie de cette sensation. Paris est international plutôt que français - tout comme New York est international plutôt qu'américain, mais l'Indre, c'est tout à fait différent et j'ai la chance de le découvrir, non pas en tant que touriste, mais en tant qu'artiste : déjà en 2009 et 2010 et puis cette année en avril (quand les chats ont pris mon blog en hôtage) j'ai fait un atelier d'écriture dans le village de Bonneuil (population de 106 habitants).

That said, I am becoming more and more integrated into life in France and leaving the capital every summer and spending a couple weeks in the the middle of nowhere France (in a department called l'Indre, which even most French people can't place on a map) definitely contributes to that. Paris is international rather than French - just as New York is more international than American - but l'Indre is a whole different experience, one I've been lucky enough to discover, not as a tourist, but as an artist, first in the summer of 2009 and 2010, and then this year in April when I helped run a theater writing workshop in the small town of Bonneuil, population 106. (The cats had my blog hostage during my absence.)



Cette fois-ci, les deux semaines ont été bien remplies par le montage d'un nouveau spectacle de farces médiévales, avec des extraits joués à Chaillac, St-Gilles, Le Châtre-l'Anglin, Parnac, Dunet, Bonneuil, et puis le spectacle complet deux fois à St-Benoit-du-Sault où nous étions logés. Malheureusement, à cause de la météo, nous n'avons pas pu jouer sur la très jolie place de l'église, mais le public a suivi quand même.


This time, the two weeks were extremely busy. We created a new show, adding 4 medieval farces to our repertory and put up extracts in a bunch of small towns in the area (Chaillac, St Gilles, Le Châtre l'Anglin, Parnac, Dunet, Bonneuil), culminating our efforts with two performances of the four farces in their entirety in St Benoit du Sault where we were in residence. Unfortunately due to the rain, we couldn't perform outdoors in front of the church, but the audience came anyway and even graced us with a standing ovation!



Et la nourriture dans tout cela ? Pour une fois, il n'y a pas de lien, si ce n'est que j'ai rencontré des bloggeurs à Bonneuil, dont l'auteure du très beau blog Le jardin de mon calendrier. Son chaudron magique me tente déjà avec des recettes comme l'hypocras - très approprié pour les farces médiévales !


What about food, you say? Not much to say in that department, except that I met the lovely author of the blog Le jardin de mon calendrier in Bonneuil and I'm all excited to try some of her recipes in the near future, including her recipe for hypocras a medieval spiced wine would go perfectly well with the theme of the past two weeks!

Playing House and Herb and Chocolate Cheese Balls

As children pretty much everyone plays house - or some version of it. In France, kids call it "playing Daddy and Mommy" (jouer au papa et à la maman), but it's the same idea: re-creating the domestic environment and trying out new roles or old roles with new names and new personalities. The funny thing is, as we get older, we may stop playing pretend but we still try on new roles and discard old ones as we go through different phases of life: student/adventurer/apprentice/first apartment/first serious relationship/mom/dad/mentor/etc. The list goes on and is different for each of us.


Still, I think our childhood fantasies come along with us. The excitement of little things, of shiny objects, of new toys. For me, that comes out in the kitchen. I was fluttering like a 5-year-old when I unwrapped my new fancy milk and sugar bowls and these romantic cognac glasses bought with the last of our wedding money (which went quite a bit further than it was supposed to because there was a sale when we went to first pick our gifts up and we got them all for a lot less than we thought, so we had money let over to spoil ourselves with both useful and pretty things).


And speaking of childhood delights, in my last post, I made Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham from this recipe book: Des recettes régressives pour gourmets notstalgiques (Regressive Recipes for Nostalgic Gourmets) and I've continued to experiment, with a culminating trial last week when we invited a friend over for an all-chocolate dinner! It started because I knew I wanted to make a chicken mole inspired recipe from the book and D. wanted to make a white chocolate mousse. It was clear that the theme was chocolate, but now how could I incorporate it into the appetizer?



I'd been wanting to try these herbed cheese ball appetizers and I thought, "why not try them with chocolate!" It was a resounding success.

For 24 balls

240g (about 8.5oz) cream cheese (The recipe calls for Kiri and that's what I used. In the US cream cheese would be perfect.)
24 raisins

Whatever toppings you want; I used:

chives
sesame seeds
curry powder
paprika
cumin
unsweetened cocoa

Form 24 balls of cheese around the 24 raisins. Roll in the toppings of your choice and serve!
Our favorite toppings were (in order) chives, cocoa, sesame, cumin. The curry powder and paprika were both a bit overpowering, but if you like strong/spicy tastes then you could give them a try. Next time I'd try more fresh herbs and sweet spices (ie coriander or garam masala).

Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham

Early in the week I was going through one of those sick-of-the-world crisis, you know, where you see the bad side of everything and the good hardly seems to balance it out, much less triumph. The weight of thousands of years of oppression seemed to be dragging me down and the black cloud of deep-rooted prejudice was obscuring my usual optimism. In the depths of the social justice doldrums, a sudden ray of light burst through and that ray of light said, "I want to make cookies!" All right, all right, it's no Book of Revelations but still... I tried to reason it away - I'm on a diet! - but it was a very insistent insight. "Fine, fine," I grumbled, "cookies."

And in midst of vigorously creaming together the butter and the sugar - the old-fashioned way, no machines - to the rhythm some of favorite cooking music, the black clouds started to slink away. By the time the smell of cookies was wafting through the apartment, I was full-out dancing in the living room and the world seemed brighter. I may not be able to eradicate prejudice or stupidity but, dammit, I can make cookies and that's gotta count for something.


Sometimes it's important to get back to basics: the recipes you've known all your life, the ones your mother made, the ones you discovered when you first started cooking, the ones that are too easy for "real chefs", or made with silly ingredients, the ones that make you feel good, that have too much butter and more than one kind of sugar, because maybe those are the recipes that change the world - or at least YOUR world - and that's about all you can hope to change anyway.

Long philosophical digressions aside, let's get to the recipe. It comes from a book the mom of one of the girls I babysit for gave to me called De recettes régressives pour gourmets notstalgiques (Regressive Recipes for Nostalgic Gourmets) - the only picture I found was of a later edition (above) but that's the idea. It revisits exactly the kind of foods I'm talking about - the fun foods you ate as a kid - and playfully adapts them for adult taste buds. I've already tried a couple of the recipes and have marked a bunch more. They're simple and sophisticated, like these Olive Oil and Parmesan Mashed Potatoes with Parma Ham.

for 4 people

1kg (2.2 lbs) potatoes
20 leaves basil (optional)
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
8 slices Parma ham (or Bayonne, or other similar)
6-8 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt

Peel potatoes and cut into chunks. Cook in salted boiling water for 15-20 minutes, until soft. Drain water, put potatoes back in the pot with the olive oil and mash (with a potato masher or fork). Mince all but 4 basil leaves (if using) and add to the puree along with the Parmesan cheese. Reheat the puree on low heat mixing in the ingredients.

Lay two slices of ham on each plate, ladle the puree on top and fold up the sides of the ham. Garnish with the left-over basil leaves and Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately and enjoy!