The other day I wandered into a local lunchtime place and was served the most delectable quiche I’d tasted in a long time. Both light and rich, it veritably hummed with the flavors of spring — in the form of green asparagus and oyster mushrooms. The place was the Rose Bakery. I wrote to them to ask for the recipe, but they didn’t reply. Never mind. I made it anyway.
Quiche aux asperges et pleurotes / Asparagus quiche with oyster mushrooms
Usually I use milk in a quiche filling, often with a sprinkling of grated cheese, but those flavors were absent in the original. To replicate its melt-in-the-mouth richness, I used just cream and eggs, with a little salt and black pepper. The result? Tasty!
The Rose Bakery, which is run by a British-French couple and has been around for more than a decade, won plaudits when it first opened in Paris. It is similar in style to Moosewood, the flagship American gourmet vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, New York, where I worked as a substitute chef in the 1970s. The foodie site Paris By Mouth has since dropped Rose from its list of its 350 favorite restaurants in Paris. No reason was given, but rudeness would be top of my list.
No restaurant can be expected to share a recipe, although many do so willingly. I was once politely refused a recipe at Merci, the very cool three-café restaurant across the street from me on Boulevard Beaumarchais. But I do believe that a request should at least receive the courtesy of a reply. And speaking of rudeness, my friend Nicole and I had not originally set out for Rose when we met for lunch that day. We first stopped in at Rachel’s, another trendy Anglo-style place in the neighborhood, but left when they refused to seat us at a proper table, instead insisting that we lunch at a tiny square wedged in beside the door that lacked enough space for two plates…
All of this is happening in a neighborhood of Paris that was totally lacking in chic until a few years ago. The trend started with the arrival of some art galleries and Merci — which also has a huge clothing and furniture emporium. Now the boulevard is lined with expensive clothes stores (Sandro, Kitsune, Melinda Gloss) and bobo (bourgeois bohemian) restos (Grazie, Fisch, Blend). The high note came last spring when the gourmet deli Maison Plisson opened its hallowed doors directly across the street from my apartment. On nice days, ladies who usually lunch in Left Bank neighborhoods come slumming over here to sit at Plisson’s outdoor tables.
Only a few blocks away, other Parisians are currently spending their nights protesting at the Place de la République in the movement known as Nuit Debout, the French version of Occupy. Hundreds were at the square last night when President François Hollande went on TV for a so-called dialogue with citizens about the accomplishments (or not) of his term in office. A giant outdoor screen was set up on which the protesters watched the two-hour spectacle of Hollande being hammered over everything from excessive taxation of small businesses to recruitment of terrorists at Islamist schools to the state hand-outs being given to hundreds of migrants in the depressed Calais region who are waiting, mainly in vain, to make their way to Britain. Things turned violent when youths enraged by the broadcast set out to march on the Elysée — the French presidential palace — and began smashing store windows, cars and bus shelters en route, prompting intervention by the CRS riot police.
What does all this have to do with quiche aux asperges? Just as asparagus is a rite of spring, so is protest in the streets of Paris. This spring promises to be particularly hot given the political climate change enveloping France. People are angry across the spectrum. Standards of living have declined significantly for many — not the clients of Plisson, of course, but working people living on 38 euros a day, the current minimum wage, or on even less among the ranks of the un- or under-employed. The Nuit Debout movement lacks the revolutionary humor of the May ’68 student-worker protests (‘It is forbidden to forbid’, ‘Beneath the cobblestones, the beach’). Its spirit is just plain tense at a time when tensions are already high following the terrorist attacks of last year and the anti-Europe, close-the-borders feelings they have elicited.
Living within a stone’s throw of the current protest’s nerve center, I find that retreating into the kitchen is a way of remaining zen. Make a quiche, open a bottle of wine, and hope that the embattled leadership of this country will find a way to meet the present challenge.
Happy cooking.
A dish that can bring down the house — literally — is steak au poivre, the classic French bistro offering of tender beef crusted with cracked black pepper and topped with a cognac-cream sauce. When I embarked on this recipe, my kitchen nearly went up in flames — twice! The skillet I used to pan sear the steak caught fire when I started the sauce, with bright yellow flames shooting two feet into the air. Oh là là…
One recent Sunday during a visit to England, I was lucky enough to be invited to lunch in the picturesque town of Sevenoaks, in Kent south of London. My friends served me a spectacular meal, beginning with a salad of ruby-streaked blood oranges piled on thinly sliced finocchio and red onion, and scattered with Kalamata olives and watercress. Blood oranges would still be in season when I got home to France. I had to have the recipe.
Can you imagine that tiramisu, the ubiquitous feather-light confection, did not exist half a century ago? It certainly was nowhere to be found in Paris when I arrived in the 1970s, having only just been invented (apparently), although its origins are in dispute. What cannot be contested is that this wonderful dessert of sweetened cheese layered with ladyfingers dipped in coffee is not only a crowd pleaser, but easy and fun to prepare.
Sea scallops, Brittany style — dusted with flour, tenderly sauteed in butter and drizzled with a creamy sauce — make a fine winter’s dish. But what does this recipe have to do with the Way of Saint James, the historic pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain? Quite a lot, as it turns out, for the saint known as ‘Santiago’ in Spanish is ‘Saint Jacques’ in French, and along the route he gave his name to the humble scallop.
And why Brittany style? That’s a question I failed to answer, although my best guess is that scallops and butter are popular in the region. Brittany, of course, is surrounded by sea, and shellfish may be found there in abundance. The potato also has an important history in Brittany, where it came into wide use during a famine in the mid-18th century. In this recipe, the scallops may be paired with sliced potatoes, as shown in the photo above, or with potatoes boiled in their jackets. Another nice touch is to serve them in their shells.
It is always a comfort, on a cold, damp Paris day, to walk into a bistro at lunchtime and encounter a plate of céléri rémoulade, the classic French starter of grated celeriac bathed in a tangy mustard mayonnaise. This earthy salad is one of the dishes I longed for when far from France for long periods on journalistic assignments. You won’t find it in Moscow or Manila, nor for that matter in many of the trendy new cafés sprouting up in Paris. But what it may lack in chic it makes up for in flavor. A good reason to make it at home.
Celeriac remoulade can be served on its own as a starter, set on a bed of tender leaves or garnished with fresh herbs. But here in France it is most commonly seen as part of the mixed veggie starter known as 
And speaking of eggs, while preparing this week’s post I took time to revisit another of my favorite classic French starters — 
The French colonial empire once stretched across the globe, with the happy result — once independence was restored to the colonized — that the cuisine of many cultures is now available in France. Poulet yassa, or chicken marinated in a sauce of onions, lemon juice and mustard, is one such happy dish. Originally from the Casamance region of southern Senegal, it is now highly popular throughout former French West Africa, and also in Paris.
Back to Paris… Cold weather has finally set in, prompting me to revisit some of the winter dishes already posted here, with new photos. The first, 
The second is a 
When winter comes to France, it’s time for raclette. This immensely popular dish of potatoes smothered in melted cheese, accompanied by cured meat and pickles, has come down from the Alps to become a favorite nationwide. It evokes memories of ski slopes, where of a snowy evening you could gather with friends to enjoy a restaurant meal of raclette, with a half-wheel of cheese brought to your table and melted under an electric grill.
On the eve of the end-of-year holidays, here is a recipe that is renowned in France for its excess-fighting qualities. Ah oui, mes amis — once the festivities are over, it’s time to take action to counteract the effects of all the wonderful holiday dishes, sweets and drinks we may have indulged in. Rustic cabbage soup is the antidote. In fact, it is an open secret among French women and men who want to start the new year in their best form.
Walnuts and roquefort marry well, as they say. The combination turns up often in salads and as an after-dinner treat, perhaps with some pear slices alongside. In this savory cake, traditionally served in France at cocktail hour, the sharpness of the roquefort is offset every so slightly by the sweetness of the walnuts and the mild flavor of olive oil. It makes a festive offering for guests as we enter both the holiday season and the darkest days of the year.
