HisOnlyness: Wanderlust

My immune system got a booster today in the form of the H1N1 vaccine.  It felt okay I guess.  Some very good family friends brought it for me from America on ice.  Kind of a hassle but now I am safe which makes everyone happy.  I spent the rest of the day with them, exploring Le Marais.

We took a short Rick Steves walking tour of the area and visited some pretty interesting stores and museums.   Read more »

You have to love days off in the middle of the week – in France it was WWI veteran remembrance day or something.  For Sarcozy, it meant parading through Paris in various motorcades and giving a speech at the Arc de Triomphe.  For my cousin, it meant we could play F the dealer the night before and go to a boat party on the Seine and then wake up late and pretend to be tourists (who am I kidding, he was the only one pretending).   And for my first day in Paris, how lucky.  So, my cousin, who normally works nine to six as some kind of consultant intern and I slept in and then went out to find the perfect post-party night (yes, hangover) food.

Our desires were met by La Courniche, a family style couscous restaurant near Park Marceau where we were greeted with Korean BBQ style appetizers like potatoes, tuna fish, nuts, pickled carrots, and other assorted cold salads.   Read more »

You know when you’ve never been hunting, you kind of have this sweet conception of hunting where you’re with a few ex-marines and your faces are painted so all you can see is the whites of each others’ eyes and you have a big-ass gun and you’re all slithering around on the ground or crouching behind trees or in ditches stalking like a rhinoceros or a saber toothed tiger?  And you’re wearing those sweet Aussie hats like the one Bob Peck wears in Jurassic park when he’s stalking that one dino but it turns out that the dino’s partner is actually stalking him and he says, “clever girl” and then gets eaten?  (I also want to mention here how much I love and respect Miguel Sandoval and White Hertford – they will live in my heart forever, not that they’re dead or anything, maybe just to the cinematic world).

So, let’s just say I didn’t get to say “clever girl.”

A lot of other obscenities came out of me while I was tunneling my way through thick brush, blackberry brambles and trees in an attempt to sweep through the forests and scare out any bore that might be hanging out.  I also learned a new French word, alé, which sounds like alay and can be said in lots of different ways including the long, sad, alaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaahhhh.  You say it this way when you realize that you’re actually being consumed by blackberry tentacles and that you might have to be rescued by one of the 80 year old French men who’s easily making his way through this crap, with his 80 year old dog (in dog years) who’s scampering around your feet just teasing you.  ALEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Pictures after the jump!
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Yup.  It happened. Although it was hard to separate the smells of cow dung and fine French cheese, it went down.  The place is called Ferme de la Charbonniere and basically it is floating above a barn where all the cows that the cheese comes from live.  It was so good too.  My cousins and I shared the fondu and a bunch of sliced meets and of course had more cheese for desert.

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Yup, thats right, frogs legs. All you can eat. Served with fries and salad. I had three portions, mounds you might call them.

We all went to a club after where the dj played a mix of 80s pop/rock, 90s metal, old French music and Dr. Dre. This led me to the conclusion that I could DJ in France or probably any part of Europe. Hmmm. DJing by night, cooking by day. A year is beginnig to take form.

The name of the place doesnt even matter. Go anywhere in the region and this is what youll get. Stan and I went for lunch on his 1 hour and 45 minute lunch break to a little eighborhood spot and ordered the daily special. Surrounded by other people on their hour and 45 minute lunch breaks drinking wine and beer, we ordered beers as well.

Continuing my adventure into the unknown abyss that is French cuisine, I tried an appetizer of snout. Beef snout. I think. It was yummy, served with onions and pickles allost like a mild relish, and a very light vinagrette and possibly some mayonaise even though I got yelled at for saying so. For desert I had to sample the creme brûlée, which of course was exactly what I needed. This was all followed by a nap while my cousin finished the workday and began celebrating the weekend — even with their almost 2 hour lunch breaks, weekends are just as important to French people.

After 10 years my cousin Stan still looks exactly thr same except for his smile which might have gotten bigger. He picked me up at the Geneve airport in Switzerland and we drove back across the border into France. He had just been celebrating the completion of his first year of work with his boss and was very excited about it (and the expensive wine they drank).

A quick tour if Annecy — mostly the result of a wrong turn and a detour — ended with a bottle of champagne to celebrate our reunion. He calls me Mr. Id as a result of my character name in GTA2 that I used to slaughter him with. We had some firece battles back in the day.

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Well it felt like it anyways.  Someone told us about this place that kind of looks like someone’s house or basement but people are always eating there.  We found it.  It’s right at the bottom of some steps in Trastevere and can be found here (this link will be coming as soon as i find where it is).  There are four tables, a stove and unlimited Beatles tunes.

We sat down and the food started coming.  We found out later the meal is pretty much fixed except for pasta and main.  It started with a puree of squash, fagiolini (beans), and bruschetta. And wine – all you can drink.  Next we chose pasta: I had the carbonara (bacon, creme and eggs).  For secondi I had a chicken dish that had been simmering in a pot behind us.  It was very tender and was cooked in some kind of vinaigrette concoction.  Yummy.  Dolci consisted of chocolates and cookies followed by limoncello and grappa.  I’m not sure I would go back here but it is definitely a fun experience and its all you can drink and it only costs 25 Euro per person.  Worth a look at least.

After today I’ve decided I’m moving to a small farm in Italy and cooking and eating all day long for the rest of my life.  I was very lucky to be invited to come along and I would say it was a once in a lifetime experience but I’m not going to let that be the case….

We arrived early and went for a tour with Giovanni, the farmer.  He showed us various plants and the bugs that eat them and explained why each bug likes each plant.  Then he went on to state his theory of the creation of the universe.  I think.  He was talking really quickly and my Italian isn’t exactly perfect yet but I think I understood most of what he was saying.  The part of the farm that we saw isn’t huge but supplies most of the food to the American Academy.  There are a lot of different kinds of leafy green lettuces and vegetables growing including cardoons and fennel (okay not sooo leafy).  We stomped around and tried the bits of leaves he handed us to taste.  Afterwards he’d say things like, this thins your blood or this is medicinal.  Blind faith.  We followed him back up the hill to the road and over to his villa.

The villa is under construction but the view from the large terrace was amazing and there was a small cooking shack with an open fire and a pizza oven ready for us to use.  We set to work.  I helped prep the meat, which consisted of tearing open the packages and sprinkling with olive oil and salt, and then spent a good amount of time eating and drinking.

The meal started with fennel salad, fresh sausage and little blocks of cheese (some kind of parmesan I think).  The pasta with some kind of meat was next and so good, followed by an endless stream of delicious pizzas.  Toppings included anchovies, tomato, mozzarella, parmesan, caramelized onions, lots of olive oil, spices and the potatoes I prepared yesterday.  All the pizzas were amazing and the dough was so easy to work with (compared to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods dough).  I made a potato, onion and mozzarella pizza with a sprinkling of rosemary.  The meat was cooked over the open fire and sliced and we ate it with our hands along with the pizza.

We had to take a stroll around the grounds after dinner to prepare for desert.  A huge cake, special for Halloween and a huge apple tart awaited our return along with espresso.

A little later we said our goodbyes, crammed into the van and headed home, singing songs inspired mostly by two of the more musical kitchen interns.  I would do this every weekend…. so if you know anyone looking for a farm hand, email me.

It was everything I could have wanted.  I only wish I could have spent more time in the kitchen doing anything — even just watching everything go down.  On Saturdays people are allowed to help in the kitchen.  At 7 AM.  I think I made it by 8…. I had a long night with my cousin the night before.  They started me on chestnuts: score them through the skin, blanch them, peel them.  Sounds easy but it’s not.  I’m surprised I didn’t slice my thumb off to be honest.  I have a newfound respect of the guys selling them on the street — theirs are peeled perfectly.  Get them in there.  Anyways, I did that for about an hour (which resulted in about 14 sad looking peeled chestnuts) until Miss Talbott pulled me over to her station where she wanted me to bread cardoons that she was drenching in eggs.  One hand for wet, one for dry.  Not thrilling but much better than chestnuts and I got to ask Mona some of my burning cooking questions, all of which have been erased from my memory by the excitement of the day.  And they say Saturday lunch is the most laid back meal to prepare.

Next I began peeling potatoes to be sliced for pizza.  In between I took a break and learned to fry the cardoons.  I did it in a big pot of oil at around 180 degrees C.  I felt very important….  I’m pretty sure Mona gave me that job because it is close to impossible to screw up: make sure the temperature stays around 180, fry the cardoons in batches, take them out when they look done, sprinkle them with parmesan, plop them on a plate.  I had a lot of fun doing it.

Back at the potatoes, one of the young chefs, Nick, taught me how to properly bake them to be used as a pizza topping.  In the past I would just slice them in the Cuisinart, spread them out on a pan in a thick layer, cover them in olive oil and sprinkle them with salt and pepper and bake them until they were soft.  Nick’s way was much more precise and produced a much higher quality result.  Here’s what you do: peel the potatoes and soak them in water.  Slice them at a constant thickness using a mandolin.  Cover two trays with parchment paper, sprinkle one with olive oil and salt and place the potato slices in a single layer on top.  Sprinkle them with more olive oil and salt and a handful of water from where the potatoes are soaking.  Place a piece of parchment on top and then another pan on top of that.  Bake until the potatoes feel soft and taste… good, about 8 or 10 minutes.  I burned my tongue so badly doing this, imitating Nick as he tossed a potato slice in his mouth directly from the pan.  I did six batches of these and then we got to eat!

Lunch was sooooo good.  There was a Panade, which consists of very thinly sliced toasted bread, white wine caramelized onions, and a few cheeses, stacked in three layers.  I watched another one of the chefs, Brian, sliced the bread using a meat slicer and then layer everything together.  Amazing — I’m going to have try this one at home.  There was also a pasta with lentil dish that was really yummy, a delicious roasted fennel and lemon dish served with olives, the fried cardoons and salad.  And wine.

My favorite part of cooking in the kitchen was seeing how little timing things matters or is even mentioned – it’s all look, taste, smell, temp and feel; I need to get better at interpreting and understand all those things.  So much fun with so many talented young chefs!