DORIE GREENSPAN

Chez Roellinger: Seafood and the Sea

This was the view from our bedroom in Chateau Richeux, Jane and Olivier Roellinger's inn just outside Cancale, a village on the Bay of Mont Saint Michel. 

I can't remember the last time I went someplace and felt so at home so immediately.  The Chateau, a large stone house dating from the 1920s, with a curl-up-and-get-comfy sitting room, dining rooms looking out onto the sea and gardens filled with fruit trees, has the feel of a house in which children once left their muddy boots at the door and ran up and down the stairs giggling.

When we ran up the stairs, we found apples from the garden on our desk

and a tin of Olivier Roellinger's salted-butter sables (shortbread cookies) on our bed

I had wanted to come to Cancale and eat at Roellinger's for several years, but it never worked out - I always called to reserve just a little too late.  Then Mr. Roellinger earned his third Michelin star and it became even more difficult to nab a reservation ... but I got lucky this year. 

The night we arrived in Cancale, we ate at Le Coquillage, Roellinger's seafood bistro in the Chateau Richeux.  (His Michelin-starred restaurant is in the Maison de Bricourt in Cancale proper.) Sitting by the fire and having a glass of champagne and a few nibbles, like this foie gras over spiced fig jam (the red flower was plucked from the pineapple sage plants in the garden)

we decided on a meal that would give us the chance to taste just about all the seafood the team had in the kitchen that night.  It was called the Menu Grignotage, or snacking menu, and it turned out to be a great choice for us.

Chef Roellinger later told me that the inspiration for this meal was the classic plateau fruits de mer, the large round platters that are piled high with shellfish and are both the specialty and mainstay of seafood restaurants all over France.  In fact, his Menu Grignotage included a plateau, two actually, but the plateaux, or trays, were rectangular and they carried a surprising mix of fish, seafood and vegetables. 

The first plateau held the appetizers and included (in the order in which it was suggested we taste everything)

• Warm Jerusalem artichoke soup with parsley puree
• Warm curried vegetable samosas (The Kid liked these so much that the waiter brought him extras)
• Cancale oysters
• Bouquet (sweet shrimp)
• Bigornaux (like baby whelks), which we pulled out of their shells with pins
• Snapper tartar
• Scallops marinated in soy, sesame, lemon and ginger (a favorite)
• Smoked mackerel and lime
• Potato and lightly smoked cod salad tossed in a mustard vinaigrette (a great combination)

Then came the "main course" tray with

• Calamari with a tomato chutney/jam
• Crabs and clams, almost "casino"
• Scallop brochettes
• Brill (like a turbot) over bulgur with a tarragon mousseline sauce
• Sea bass cooked on a hot stone and seasoned with herbs, flowers and oils, a quiet tour-de-force and the kind of dish you remember forever

Then there was the dessert cart, wheeled around by a pastry cook who looked as though he wasn't old enough to be up so late, but whose eyes sparkled when he talked about the millefeuille.  As much as I would have loved the millefeuille or the tarte Tatin or the cream-filled savarin, I just couldn't.  Michael, Joshua and I shared some profiteroles (the chocolate sauce was wonderful) and tip-toed up the stairs. 

I hated to miss the Tatin, but it was funny that, in being a grown-up and saying no, I had the memory of being a child.  When I was little, I never wanted to go to bed.  There was always one more thing I wanted to do and I was always begging for more time, but my mother's answer was unfailingly the same:  "Tomorrow is another day."  And so, taking one last look at the moonlit bay, I thought "Tomorrow is another day ... and tomorrow I'll be having dinner chez Roellinger again."  It made it so much easier to give up the tart.

A New Pain Poilane: This One's Peppery

All good bread can sustain and comfort us, but for so many reasons, Poilane bread can make us dream.  There is something romantic about the bread, the way it is made (it is shaped by hand and baked in woodburning stone ovens), the way it looks (dark, rough, imperfect but elegant), the way it feels in our hands (substantial and reassuring) and the story behind it (the story of Lionel Poilane, who didn't want to become a baker like his father, but who did and who, in the process, became a world-famous champion of wholesome, authentic artisanal bread). 

Today, Maison Poilane is headed by Lionel Poilane's daughter, Appollonia

 

who, along with Michelin-three-star chef, Olivier Roellinger, known for his extraordinary talent with spices, created a new bread, Pain Poivre, a loaf that's a little rustic, a little refined and shot through with just enough of Chef Roellinger's special pepper mix to make it the perfect accompaniment to fish, eggs, grilled vegetables and anything that would be happy to have a pinch of pick-me-up. 

The bread was introduced Tuesday night to chefs and restaurateurs - for now, the bread is only being made to be served in restaurants - in one of the city's most romantic settings, the Palais Royale.  And, just to add more drama to the equisite backdrop, the Palais' arcades were lit by candelabras crafted from bread.

The serving tables were set up in front of the garden gates

and, along with Champagne, guests nibbled Pain Poivre with soft boiled eggs (the egg holders were rounds of bread that had been baked with egg-sized holes in the center, and the bread was cut into fingers, toasted and spread with butter); mackerel rillettes (a recipe from Jane Roellinger); club sandwiches with Culatello jam, arugula, avocado, grilled eggplant, Parmesan and olive oil; goat cheese; and, because no party would be a party without dessert, chocolate ganache spread over still-warm slices of toast.

Each guest left with some bread

and, I'm sure, some ideas of what they were going to do with it the next day.  I had bread and chocolate in my mind, but the following morning, I had bread and Jean-Yves Bordier's butter in my tummy - and so did Michael and The Kid.  I'd meant to save a slice, but ...

Baking with Dorie: Homey, Creamy Chocolate Cake

This week's Baking with Dorie recipe on Serious Eats is for a very homey, dense, dark, creamy chocolate cake.  The recipe was given to me by Robert Linxe, the founder of La Maison du Chocolat, which just celebrated its 30 th anniversary with a huge party at the new Cafe Pleyel (about which, more soon).

Cancale: Oysters and Racing Tides

This sculpture of women hauling baskets of oysters sits in the center of Cancale, a town on the rugged coast of Brittany, where oysters are everything.

Here, the bivalves are simply called Cancale Oysters - that's their name; there are no varietals.  They come in two shapes: flat and humpbacked; and they come from one place: the oyster beds built in the Bay of Mont Saint Michel

When the tide goes out, the oystermen drive their trucks between the beds to harvest the bivalves, the way vignerons go through their rows of grapevines.  And, when the tide comes in, so do the workers - the Bay's tides are among the fastest in the world and no one who knows the sea would be foolish enough not to respect them. 

As the tide turns, the trucks, piled high with sacks of oysters, bump and rumble their way along the main street.  By the time the water is almost in, only a truck or two remains on the "farm" and, for sure, it stays close to the seawall.

I guess it goes without saying that the oysters we ate just a few yards from the beds were among the freshest imaginable.  But they were also some of the best I've ever had.  Their flavor was clean and pure, their texture full and smooth and they could have defined brininess. 

If all Cancale had was oysters, it would deserve its status as a Site of Remarkable Taste

But Cancale is home to Olivier Roellinger as well, about whom I have much to tell - I just don't have time now.   

Licorice Lovers Click Here

Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune wrote a terrific story about licorice in yesterday's paper.  Called Black Magic -- how perfect -- it not only gives a bunch of information on licorice history and its current uses, which are many, it also gives a good source for licorice root, extracts, powders and sticks, as well as another source for licorice candies from everywhere imaginable.  Oh, and you, my licorice loving and loathing readers, are also mentioned. 

Farmers in Paris: Beans and Apples and Ham and Cheese and Wine, Wine and More Wine

It seems as though there's always a salon or a trade show going on somewhere in Paris and, not only do lots of them have to do with food, so many of them are open to le grand public, meaning us ordinary mortals.  This weekend, Paris hosted the fabulous and always packed Salon du Chocolat (see Paris Breakfasts for a great tour of the event) and the smaller, less well-known and far less crowded Salon Paris Fermier, where farmers from all over France come to show and sell their products - in bulk to restaurants and stores, of course, but also to hungry and appreciative visitors, who might want just a sack of apples, a leg of lamb or a couple of slices of ham to bring home for an afternoon snack. 

Having been to the Chocolate Show (which will travel to New York November 9 to 11), yesterday, Michael, my husband, and I, took the road less traveled and ended up spending hours talking about crop rotation and tasting everything from semi-dried prunes to oysters.

While most of the stands at the show - it almost seemed like a country fair - were fairly utilitarian,  the huge display of cheeses from Marayn de Bartassac, a cheesemaker from Gascony, was arrestingly beautiful.  That's just a tiny corner of the stand in the picture above.  It might be hard to tell what you're looking at - the colors and textures suggest mushrooms and chestnuts rather than cheese - even when you get close up, it's not so easy to recognize the various cheeses: so many of them have been aged for one or two years and have become so hard and so brown that they don't look like any cheese you know.  And lots of them don't taste like cheeses you know either, since they've been finished with ingredients like massala, a mixture of, among other spices, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom (who ever would have thunk?), cognac, wild herbs or piquant peppers.  Here's another of the cheeses - long, lovingly tied packets of cow's milk cheese that is both dry and creamy:

And we had a nice long visit with Rene Lartigue, who grows and dries haricots-mais, or corn beans, in the Bearn

The beans, which are very much like the more famous dried beans from Tarbes (see what David Lebovitz does with the Tarbais beans), look a little like cannelini beans, but what makes them special is the way they're grown and the fact that they're planted, harvested and shucked by hand.  Normally, I wouldn't know a thing about cultivating beans, but having toured Blue Hill at Stone Barns with Dan Barber, I had just enough knowledge to ask a question that animated M. Lartigue so much that he pulled out a photo album and spent the next 20 minutes explaining the fine points of planting haricots-mais.  It was fascinating.  When I was at the Stone Barns farm, Dan told me that they were experimenting with a type of planting called three sisters, in which you plant corn and then beans, which use the corn as a pole, and then plant squash around the corn and beans.  I thought Dan told me that the system came from Native Americans.  Well, Farmer Lartigue, plants two of the three sisters, corn and beans, and plants them in exactly the same way - first the corn is planted at a depth of 5 centimeters, then the beans are planted at a depth of 3 centimeters, and the beans get to climb up the corn-pole.  According to M. Lartigue, this is the method Christopher Columbus brought back from his travels in South America.  The fact that I, a city-dwelling American knew anything about this just about knocked the socks off this French farmer.  Merci, Dan.

Of course I bought beans.  And I also bought some wonderful Provencal olive oil to go over them

After all this tasting we were hungrier than ever, so we picked up what seems to be the snack of choice at salons like this.  Not fried dough, not hot dogs (although there were such good saucissons everywhere), not hamburgers (although there were butchers with gorgeous beef), not French fries - although there was aligote, the mixture of potatoes and cheese that gets stirred with so much elbow grease that it can be stretched for miles

No, the snack of choice is a foie gras sandwich, and the drink of choice, a glass of Sauternes.  I don't think this combo will be adopted anytime soon at country fairs around the States, but I'm sure glad it's easily getable here.

Baking with Dorie: Cookies for Julia

My current recipe on Serious Eats is for terrific Mocha Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They're the sweets that pastry chef Rick Katz made for us to snack on when we were shooting Baking with Julia at Julia Child's house in Cambridge.  The cookies are made with a pound of chocolate and they're worth every ounce of the precious stuff.  I think you'll love these.

All Things Considered Considers Tarte Tatin

A year ago, when Baking From My Home to Yours was published, Michele Norris, host of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, invited me to the NPR studios in Washington, DC to talk about baking.  It turned out that Michele, who is a very talented cook, wanted to become a better baker for the best reason possible:  She wanted to be able to give her children the same kinds of sweet, wonderful memories that she has of her mother in the kitchen.  And with that we began our journey, which has taken us through holiday treats and Valentine brownies to rugelach and cobblers and now, this Tarte Tatin.

Last week, just before coming to Paris, I flew to Washington and spent the most marvelous day in Michele's kitchen - a room made for buddy baking - peeling apples, caramelizing butter and sugar and crafting a big, luscious Tarte Tatin with flaky, buttery pie dough, the perfect Gallic-American mix.

I was delighted that Michele had chosen the Tarte Tatin for our next lesson, not just because it's one of my favorites, ideal for apple season and fabulously delicious, but because it's one of those recipes that you think is way too hard to make at home and that turns out to be something you can master quickly and make your own. 

You can get the recipe and listen to us on the NPR/All Things Considered website, just click here.

La Ferrandaise: Rare Beef and Rarer Ice Cream

Last night, having just gotten to Paris and surviving the transit strike and the news that the money we'd wired to our bank hadn't arrived, we went to meet a friend for dinner at La Ferrandaise, a bistro named for a cow (see Bossie above) and decorated with nothing but pictures of cows (see Bossie above).  The first time I went to La Ferrandaise, located just across from the Luxembourg Gardens, I thought both the name and the bovine decor were a little odd; now, won over by the food, I find them endearing.

Ferrandaise cows were abundant in the Auvergne at the turn of the last century, went almost extinct and have been carefully brought back over the past 30 years.  As the restaurant's menu says, "La Ferrandaise is rare in France, unique in Paris," since the only place you can get it is at this eponymous bistro.

You'd think that a restaurant named for a cow would be the equivalent of an American steakhouse or would certainly offer a menu bullish on beef, but you'd be wrong: usually only a maximum of three dishes on the fixed-price menu (32 euros for three courses) are ever beef, actually mik-fed veal.  Not surprisingly, I always order one of them. 

Last night, there was calves liver with amazing mashed potatoes (I know because that's what my husband had and I kept reaching over to swipe them), blanquette de veau (which the man at the neighboring table had and which caused him to sigh loudly and repeatedly) and perfectly roasted veal with shallot-jus and a more than credible risotto (which is what I had and which, I'm afraid, I, too, may have sighed over too often and too audibly).

You might also think that in a restaurant where the dishes are firmly rooted in tradition, the desserts would run to the beloved but expected, and this time you'd be almost right.  Like the savory dishes, the desserts are variations on the classics.  Just as you'd hope there would be, there was a tart Tatin, but it was made with quince and apples, and there was a moelleux chocolat, a plain chocolate cake, but it was cut into slender bars and served with gentian ice cream.  (Never having had the herb gentian in anything but a digestive, I wasn't sure what to expect and now, having had it, I can't describe it.  It was milder than I'd anticipated and, just when I thought I might have caught the elusive flavor, the little scoop was finished.)  And there was a wine-poached pear, but its playmate was unusual: licorice ice cream - the component that clenched my decision!

I think the ice cream was made by melting Zan, teensy hard licorice candies that are bought in thin, scored plaques.  The flavor of the ice cream was strong - licorice doesn't ever really fade into the background -  but it managed to be a good team player paired with the pear and a couple of speculoos (spice) cookies.  Of course, I want to try making this at home - and I will.

It was great to discover a new flavor combination just a few hours after hitting town.  I'm taking it as a sign that there'll be lots more surprises in the coming weeks.  I'll keep you posted.

Cedric Bechade's Auberge Basque: An Oasis in the French Basque Country

I don't know where the time has gone.  Tomorrow I leave for three weeks in France and I haven't even unpacked from my last trip and certainly haven't gotten around to telling you all that happened over the summer.  I know I'll never catch up, but there was a place in the French Basque Country that was so wonderful that I've got to tell you just a little about it before I take off.

It's called the Auberge Basque, but it might as well be called dreamland.

I think there must be lots of ways to tell how passionate chef-owner Cedric Bechade is about food, but the easiest is to (bypass the gorgeous terrace and) walk up to the desk of the Auberge Basque, which is both a stylish inn and an extraordinary restaurant.  Stand at the hotel desk, look through the huge window and what you see is the kitchen!

And what a kitchen!  Open and completely state-of-the-art, it is as calm as a library.  Bechade and his very small brigade move through the space with the grace and quiet of dancers, looking out occasionally at the nearby tables and beyond them, through the glass wall that separates this almost zen-like retreat from the lush mountains, to the sunset.  It's a spectacular setting that is at once warm and welcoming and spare and simple.

Bechade, a ten-year veteran of Alain Ducasse's restaurant in the Plaza Athenee in Paris, is just 30 years old.  But, judging from the oasis he has created, accomplished beyond his years.

I'm not sure what the traditionalists in the tiny town of Saint-Pee-sur-Nivelle make of Bechade's newly renovated 17th century farmhouse, and I can't imagine what they think of his modernist takes on the region's classics, but what he is doing is groundbreaking and exquisite and I think it would be judged stellar in any part of the world.  That the auberge is in La France Profonde, and that the food is based on a cuisine known for its rusticity, makes it even more exceptional.

All of Bechade's ingredients are local and many of his dishes are riffs on Basque classics.  I can't do justice to this dish in picture or words, but what you're looking at is a play on piperade, a pepper and egg stew.

In Bechade's dish, all of the flavors of the piperade are present, but you find them in different forms: the whole green pepper is filled with a gelee made from piperade juice and the dish's egg is divided - the yolk is in the pepper and the white is whipped into a meringue.

Similarly, the corn crepe that wraps around foie gras is a play on the traditional corn pancake of the region, but Bechade's is delicate, where the original is hearty enough to satisfy lumberjacks.

I was glad we came to the Auberge after we had eaten several authentically Basque meals because we could pick out the region's star ingredients and heirloom recipes and marvel at their translations.  But then, I would have been glad to have Bechade's food at any time and anywhere - context made the dinner richer, but no more memorable.

After chatting with the chef and visiting some of the auberge's rooms (each time we saw a room, I'd say, "This is the one I want to stay in, " until I realized that I just plain loved them all; they're all elegant but curl-up cozy), I asked him how much courage it took to leave Paris and the Ducasse Group and set out on his own in the countryside.

"Of course, I was nervous," he said, "but I talked to lots of chefs, including many who were older and long established, and they all said the same thing: If you want to start your own business, do it now, before you turn 30; after 30, your path is more set and less easy to change."

Bechade took their advice and he - and every visitor to the Auberge Basque - is happier for it.

As the French would say, this is a chef to follow.  I think you'll be hearing a lot about him. 

(For more information about Auberge Basque and for reservations, click here.)