Tartiflette de Savoie

eat. We’re in the Lorraine region of France this week, at the home of Agnes and Roby Kusza. They are the parents of Judith, who spent three weeks with us in Santa Cruz on a sort of cultural exchange for lycée (high school) students a few years back.

Wednesday was Robin’s birthday, so Judith offered to cook a special dinner for her. That afternoon, however, Agnes had invited some people over for coffee and dessert. So at three-thirty we sat down to a feast of gâteaux, galettes et bonbons (cakes, cookies and candies).

r-l, Judith, Agnes, J’s boyfriend Mathieu,
M’s brother Pierre, and his mom Michelle

A couple of hours later, we were still sitting around the table, the conversation and food continuing to flow without any sign of ceasing. I saw two of the guests check their watches, and someone asked what time it was. “Six o’clock,” was the answer. “Oh, well. That’s not so late, then,” the first said. No one made any move to leave.

I could tell Judith was beginning to worry about the grand feast she had promised to make for Robin that night. Finally at about six-thirty she politely asked the guests—all family of either hers or her boyfriend—if they would like to stay for dinner.

“Bah... oui, pourquoi non?” came the answers from one and all. So now we were ten for dinner. It was almost seven, and Judith had not even started to cook. But you’d never guess she was the least bit stressée. As her guests stood milling around the kitchen getting in her way—we had now moved on to beer and bourbon (Robin and I had bought a bottle of the latter, which none of the guests had ever sampled before)—Judith got a huge pot of potatoes boiling for the gratin she had told Robin she’d prepare.

A few minutes later Judith’s grandmother Rosemarie came into the kitchen, took a look at the steaming pot, clucked her disapproval, and—after a few words of protest from Judith—took over the operation. “You need to cut up the potatoes before you cook them,” Rosemarie instructed Judith. “Otherwise it takes too long.”

“Bon. Donc, je ferai la viande.” (Fine. I’ll do the meat, then.) Judith ceded control to her Oma (“Grandma” in the Moselle dialect of French/German), from whom she had after all learned the recipe.

Judith and Rosemarie at work

While the potatoes were simmering, I asked Rosemarie about the recipe. “We call it a gratin in our family,” she told me, “but it’s really a tartiflette, from the Savoie region of France. For a gratin, you’d really need to add some sauce Béchamel (white sauce).”

Once the potatoes had been sliced, and then blanched until about half-cooked, Rosemarie drained them and got them frying in olive oil in two huge sauté pans. (Note that they were what we’d probably call Yukon Gold or some such smallish yellow potato. They have a rich, creamy flavor and texture—much better than the average tater you tend to get chez nous.)

Next she cut up a large chunk of lardon (French-style bacon) into pieces, and added it to the pans.


Diced onions were then added to the mix,


and it was all sautéed until it started to brown.


While Rosemarie was tending to the potatoes, Judith spread a hefty amount of crème fraîche on the bottom of two glass baking pans,


and then topped it with a grated semi-hard cheese (it’s traditional, however, to use Reblochon, a softer cheese from the Savoie).


A layer of the potato/lardon/onion mixture is spread on top of the cream and cheese,


and this is topped with another layer of cheese,


and then more crème fraîche.


Next, another layer of taters,


and then yet more cheese and a little more cream. What’s not to love about this dish?


Here are the casseroles ready to bake. Rosemarie popped them into a hot oven (I’d guess it was about 400°F).


While we waited for the tartiflette to bake, Judith prepared the meat (which will be the subject of a later blog post). Meanwhile, we stood around the table and nibbled on olives, marinated feta cheese and stuffed hot red peppers, and sipped German beer.


After about three quarters of an hour, the tartiflette was crispy and brown.


We sat down to eat, and managed to consume almost all of both huge casseroles.

the woman at center-left is Judith’s Aunt Mariepaul

No surprise there; how could a combination of potatoes, cream, cheese, and bacon not be delicious?

Le Marché d’Aligre

eat. It’s a no-brainer that being in Paris, I must write something about its food, non? We have, bien sûr, been eating in a variety of restaurants while here, but I thought instead of giving a review of some place most of you would probably never visit, I’d write instead about a fabulous marché (market) that we went to yesterday. (I admit that the fact that my photos of restaurant food are generally pretty lousy—the restos all had very dim lighting—was also an important factor in this decision.)

vendors along the rue d’Aligre

One of the great pleasures of staying at a private home rather than a hotel in Paris is being able to cook—and shop for your meals at one of the myriad outdoor markets that spring up on different days of the week in locations all over the city. We’ve been spending the week at a house we stayed at some years ago as a part of a home-exchange. Robin and I became friends with the family we traded with, and when they heard we would be in Paris this summer, they invited us to stay at their place while they were in Berlin.

The house is in the Butte-aux-Cailles, a neighborhood in the 13th arrondissment that’s a bit like its own tiny village, with lots of restaurants, cafés, and shops just down the street from the house. I haven’t cooked this week as much as I would have liked—too many restaurant nights and a head cold were the main culprits—but I was able to do some shopping at our local marché nevertheless.

We chose the marché d’Aligre to visit yesterday on the recommendation of my sister Laura, and were glad we did. This bustling marché in the 12th arrondissment, south-east of the Place de la Bastille, consists of a permanent covered market, as well as numerous stalls set up along the street outside.

Inside the covered part of the market—no doubt because of the need for refrigeration—are all the boucheries (butchers),


as well as the poissonneries (fish-mongers):


There are also fromageries (cheese-sellers) inside, and a few vegetable stands as well:


But it was the outside part of the marché that was really full of action, shoppers swarming the narrow rue d’Aligre lined on both sides with fruit and vegetable stands. There were vendors selling those amazingly pungent and sweet melons you can only get in France,


boxes of gorgeous heirloom vegetables,



North African sellers hawking tasty dates, nuts, and exotic fruits,


and old men ambling along, taking in the sights and sounds of the lively marché.


I wasn’t cooking last night, but we bought some cheese, dates, figs, plums, an avocado, a meat pie, and a crusty baguette for a lavish picnic later on at the Luxembourg Gardens.

After finishing our shopping, we checked out the brocante, a sort of mini-antique fair, in the Place d’Aligre, next to the food marché. Pawing through some boxes piled with junk, I found a few things one guy was selling that I was mildly interested in buying—an old whisk and a wooden clothes hanger with the name of a Paris hotel on in. When I asked how much he wanted for the whisk he said one and a half Euros. I countered with “How about one Euro?”

He glared at me and said, “If you’re going to try to bargain with me, I’ll make it two Euros.”

“Con,” I muttered, and dropped the whisk and hanger and walked on. No way was I going to give him any business.

So now you know; there are some Parisians who are jerks.

Bicycles of Oxford

ride. My family lived in Oxford during the academic year 1972-73, and I have memories of the locals riding bicycles around town: stately professor-types pedaling slowly down Longwall Street on clunky black Raleighs, and students dashing madly up St. Aldate’s in a frantic rush to class.

a postcard for sale in Oxford

But I don’t remember the town being so jam-packed with bikes as it is now:


Perhaps it wasn’t. They’ve now closed down a lot of the city centre to cars, and this may well have increased the bike traffic. You see bicycles parked everywhere downtown: outside the medieval buildings;


in front of the row-houses;


even along the railings surrounding the graveyards.


Some property-owners encourage the locking of bikes, with metal rings affixed to the stone buildings for such use:

although it looks like an ancient hitching-post,

there’s an imprint of a bicycle stamped in the metal

But mostly—at least based on the signs posted all over the place—it appears that the colleges and businesses are not too keen on becoming bicycle parking lots:





The English being a civilized lot, folks generally observe the signs’ requests. But then again, university-students are the same the world over, so one can’t expect complete compliance:

New Music, New Friends

sing. Though most residents of Santa Cruz likely don’t even know of its existence, the annual appearance of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music in our community is something truly special. For two weeks every August, we are treated to an orgy of open rehearsals run by acclaimed music director Marin Alsop (director also of the Baltimore Symphony), conductors’ workshops, round-table discussions with world-renowned composers, and concerts featuring premiers of works of new music.

the 2010 Festival orchestra during rehearsal

As I mentioned in my last post, Robin and I are hosting a flute-player from the festival orchestra this year—Betsy Hudson Traba, from Sarasota, Florida—and she is a delight. We’ve so enjoyed chatting with her about her experiences as a professional musician (she’s also the principal flutist with the Sarasota Orchestra), learning about her family and about Florida, getting to know her fellow-musicians, and yes, hearing inside juicy gossip about the Cabrillo festival.

the festival woodwind section:
you can see Besty on flute, and Bharat (mentioned
in my previous post) on clarinet, at the far right

Another advantage to hosting an orchestra member is that you get to hear her rehearse in your own home. Last Saturday afternoon, as I was lying in bed semi-delirious from my night of food-poisoning and the exhaustion and dehydration that accompanies such a malady, I was treated to two hours of Besty practicing her parts in preparation the first day of rehearsals. Soaring lines, fluttery trills, speed-of-light runs, bizarre atonal passages—all this floated around me as I lay there staring at the ceiling, half-dozing, half-dreaming. It was like some surreal movie with a trippy soundtrack.

Here’s a short video I took during one of the open rehearsals, in which you can heard our new friend Bharat Chandra playing a bit of peppy clarinet, after which Betsy and her fellow flute-players chime in (the piece is “Drowned Out” by Mark-Anthony Turnage, who looks a lot like a chubby Elvis Costello):

[Note: I removed the video at the request of the Festival (though I must say they had nothing to worry about--it was the crappiest quality video ever made).]

As a hosting family, Robin and I were given comp tickets to Friday’s opening-night performance of the Festival, which featured the West-coast premier of a concerto by Jennifer Higdon, “On a Wire,” written for and performed by the sextet eighth blackbird.

The piece opened with all six members of eighth blackbird crowded around the piano, their hands inserted into the open cavity as if they were a group of surgeons about to perform a delicate procedure. Marin lifted her baton, and I watched, fascinated, as the sextet started to bow the piano strings with what looked like pieces of ribbon run underneath them. The sound was other-worldly. Soon the percussionist began to tap out rhythms on the piano strings with a pair of felt-covered mallets. The orchestra joined in, and the hall was filled with strange, ethereal music.

After a few minutes, the sextet left their places at the piano and picked up their own instruments: viola, cello, flute, clarinet, and marimba. They were phenomenal players, and the concerto was wonderful—at once playful and achingly beautiful.

Marin Alsop conducts at the rehearsal of the other Higdon piece
being performed this year, the Percussion Concerto

Also on the program that night was Michael Hersch’s Symphony No. 3. Robin and I left at the intermission, however, choosing to forgo this piece after hearing Betsy’s description of it from rehearsal: loud and unrelentingly depressing. She later confirmed that we made the right decision to leave on the high note of the eighth blackbird performance. (For an amusing review of the concert, click here.)

We’ll be missing the second week of the Cabrillo Festival, as Robin and I are winging our way to Europe tonight—she for a month, I for seven weeks. We’ll start off with a few days in Oxford, and then head across the Channel to France for a couple weeks before returning to England.

Yes, you can be sure I will keep you posted about our adventures via blog posts! Cherrio and bientôt!

A Mexican Salad for Visiting Virtuosos

eat. It’s been longer than usual between my posts, for which I apologize. This delay is due, at least in part, to my having succumbed to food poisoning last weekend, which illness put me out of commission for pretty much everything but lying in bed—and then later on the couch channel-surfing—for the better part of three days. I initially thought it was my handling of a raw chicken, but when Robin took ill several days later—and when I also heard of two other friends in town with the same symptoms—I started thinking there might in fact be some sort of bug going around.

I normally wouldn’t be much concerned, but you see, we are hosting a flute player with the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music—Betsy from Sarasota, Florida—for two weeks. Her first concert is tomorrow night and I really don’t want her to get sick. Especially on my watch. So the day before yesterday—after Robin started feeling nauseous—I decided immediate action was necessary, and promptly washed down all the surfaces in the kitchen with a strong anti-bacterial agent. So far so good.

Yesterday Robin and I hosted a luncheon at our house for Becky and two of her friends from the orchestra, principal clarinetist Bharat and violinist Ann. It was a sunny day, and we had some ripe avocados from our tree, so I decided to make a festive Mexican-inspired salad which we could enjoy out on the patio.

the salad plated up

I started with the dressing, so it could “steep” for a while before the meal. Dried spices are more flavorful and pungent if you cook them first, so I dumped about a tablespoon each of ground cumin and chili powder into a hot cast-iron skillet (no oil),


and toasted them on medium-high for a couple minutes until they became highly aromatic:


I scraped the spices into about four tablespoons of commercial mayonnaise, and squeezed half a lime into the mixture:


After tasting the dressing, I decided it needed some sugar (about a teaspoon) and more cumin (about two teaspoons):


That was better. I finished it off with a drizzle of olive oil,


and then thinned it to the proper consistency with a tiny bit of water. Into the fridge it went until lunch time (I thinned it with a little more water right before service, and poured it into a small pitcher so guests could help themselves to dressing at the table).

For my salad I had settled on romaine lettuce, avos, tomatoes, sweet corn, green onions, artichoke hearts, black beans, and grated sharp cheddar cheese:


To prep the corn, I shucked the ears and sliced the kernels off the cobs:


Next I flash-fried the corn on high, with a little oil and as seasonings, cumin, chili, garlic powder, and S&P. You don’t want to cook corn more than a couple of minutes, but it’s nice if you can get it to brown a little. Along with the corn I fried the green onions, which I had chopped into inch-long pieces:


Now for the assembly. Slice the romaine lettuce thinly and make a bed of it on the bottom of a large platter:


Next arrange slices of tomato, avocado, and artichoke hearts (marinated or not) around the edge:


In the middle, heap the corn and the black beans (I used the canned variety):


Finally, garnish the platter with grated cheese, and slices of lime if you like:


We sat in the sun, sipped ice-cold beer, and noshed on chips and salsa along with the salad, as we gossiped about the orchestra, chatted about new movies we’d seen, discussed politics, and had a grand ol’ time.

l-r: Robin, Bharat, Ann and Betsy

Aaaah! It’s so much better not being sick!