April 24, 2009

[Edible Idiom] Mettre de l'huile sur le feu

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week's idiom is, "Mettre de l'huile sur le feu."

Literally translated as, "putting oil on the fire," it means making a difficult situation even worse, exacerbating a conflict, often purposefully. It is equivalent to the English expression, "adding fuel to the flames."

Note that it can also appear as, "Jeter de l'huile sur le feu" (throwing oil on the fire) or "Verser de l'huile sur le feu" (pouring oil on the fire), and that an older form puts the oil dans le feu (in the fire).

Example: "Il aurait pu porter plainte contre son voisin, mais il ne voulait pas mettre d'huile sur le feu." "He could have filed a complaint against his neighbor, but he didn't want to put oil on the fire."

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

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Permalink | Posted by clotilde in French Idioms

April 22, 2009

Help Plant Trees + Enter to Win A Reusable Shopping Bag

Today is the 39th edition of Earth Day, an international event created to celebrate that blue planet of ours, and raise awareness about environmental issues.

As I explained in this recent Q&A;, I have grown more and more environmentally conscious over the past few years: without being completely obsessed with the topic, I do my best to educate myself, make informed choices, and limit the impact of my actions on the environment. I hope this reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy comes through year-round in my writing, and I wasn't really planning anything specific to mark Earth Day on C&Z.;

But then Eva, the young co-founder of flip & tumble, the California company that makes the reusable shopping bags I use and love to use, contacted me about partnering to raise funds for Ripple Africa's reforestation campaign in Malawi, and I said yes.

Here's the deal: for every person who leaves a comment* at the bottom of this post, flip & tumble will fund the planting of a tree in one of the community nurseries that Ripple Africa is working to build, and I will match that donation with my own. So just go to the comment box, type "Plant trees for me!" (and whatever you want to add) and two trees will be planted.

In addition to this, Eva is offering to give away ten reusable shopping bags, and I've decided to turn it into a little contest. I'd like to invite you to submit your best green tip -- especially one that's food- or cooking-related -- through this form. I'll pick my ten favorites, and their submitters will receive a bag each in the mail. You can participate regardless of where in the world you live -- this is Earth day after all -- but be sure to enter your email address correctly so I can contact you if you win.

You have until the very last seconds of April 22 -- until midnight GMT-12, i.e. until 1pm Paris time on April 23 -- to leave your tree-planting comment below and to submit your best green tip for a chance to win a lovely and handy reusable shopping bag.

Update: The comments and contest are now closed, and the results will be announced next week.

Thank you for participating!

* To prevent abuse, only one comment per IP address will be accepted.

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Permalink | Posted by clotilde in Interlude - [nopic]

April 20, 2009

Swiss Chard Gratin with Vegan Bechamel

[Gratin de blettes]

I generally steer clear of ready-made preparations and other "helpers" sold at the grocery store: not out of snobism, but I love to cook, I devote time and thought to selecting good ingredients, and I welcome the opportunity to practice and experiment, so I am reluctant to give up the driver's seat and let some industrial product take over.

But my friend Estérelle recently told me that she keeps ready-made béchamel sauce in her pantry for impromptu gratins, and more specifically, she mentioned an organic vegan béchamel called Soja Gratin (soja = soy), manufactured by the French brand Bjorg.

I don't think I would ever have thought to buy anything of the sort, but Estérelle is one of the handful of people I would trust with my life in the kitchen, so I purchased some of this sauce, sold in tiny cartons in the organic aisle of the supermarket.

I gave it a try a couple of weeks ago in a gratin of Swiss chard -- my produce seller at the greenmarket has flamboyant bunches of it these days -- and was favorably impressed: despite the not-so-appetizing, cement gray color of the sauce when I poured it in, it baked to a creamy consistency, and its pronounced nutmeg flavor played along with the chard quite well.

But what this successful attempt really did was make me curious about a homemade vegan béchamel: the classic béchamel sauce is made with butter, flour, and milk, so why not just make it with oil, flour, and some sort of non-dairy milk?

The next weekend, armed with a fresh bunch of Swiss chard, I set out to make my first batch, using sunflower oil, wheat flour, and oat milk, with which I've been experimenting of late*. It worked flawlessly and took all of twelve minutes to make. I may buy more of that ready-made soy béchamel for convenience, to use when I don't have milk on hand, but when I can, I'll just as quickly make my own.

Note that, because I am not a vegan (my interest in non-dairy milks is just for the sake of variety), I add an egg to the gratin to make it richer, but you can hold the egg if you prefer -- the béchamel alone is enough to produce a lovely texture -- or you can substitute silken tofu. I also top my gratins with oat bran and a little Comté cheese because I like the flavor, but you can use nutritional yeast if you wish to (or must) avoid dairy ingredients altogether.

I've already adapted this recipe to make an excellent leek gratin using young, pencil-thin leeks, and I am confident that my mother's cauliflower gratin will take just as well to this oat milk béchamel.

* As tweeted, I used oat milk to replace the milk and water in my basic crêpe recipe, to delicious results.

"Swiss Chard Gratin with Vegan Bechamel" continues »

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Permalink | Posted by clotilde in Recipe Inside! - Vegetables

April 17, 2009

[Edible Idiom] Tomber dans les pommes

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week's idiom is, "Tomber dans les pommes."

Literally translated as, "falling in the apples," it is a colloquial expression that means passing out, fainting, losing consciousness.

Example: "Le métro était tellement bondé que la fille à côté de moi est tombée dans les pommes." "The metro was so crowded that the girl next to me fell in the apples."

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

"[Edible Idiom] Tomber dans les pommes" continues »

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Permalink | Posted by clotilde in French Idioms

April 14, 2009

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've always enjoyed the food sections of American newspapers, these pull-out pages that appear in the regular edition on a given day of the week (usually Wednesday) to cover local food and drink news, with recipes. Not all of them have the same standards or budget, and I am told the good ones are an endangered species, but between the Seattle Times, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, the Oregonian, the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times*, the hungry reader has more than enough to last him through the week.

The French newspaper scene has a completely different structure, but still, I wish major publications such as Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, or Les Echos devoted more ink to a subject that is, after all, a source of national pride. Aside from restaurant reviews, a column here and there, and all too brief discussions on trendy foods, they seem to leave the topic for cooking or women's magazines to cover. I sense a slight sexist slant (there's an alliteration for you), but perhaps that's just me.

I am all the more grateful for the online content made available by American newspapers, and for the commissioning of such articles as David Leite's story on the consummate chocolate chip cookie, published in the New York Times last summer: the creator of Leite's Culinaria gathered advice from chocolate chip cookie experts in order to offer a recipe for the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

I don't really believe in the perfect anything -- perfection is in the eye of the beholder -- but I was very interested in David's findings, especially the idea that the dough should rest for 36 hours before baking, and I promptly filed the recipe in my virtual "to try" folder.

But then, as perhaps you remember, I was kitchen-less last summer and oven-deprived for a good six months after that (hell, I tell you), so the chocolate chip cookie recipe went unbaked and near forgotten, until Pim rekindled the flame with her recent post.

The next morning found me mixing the ingredients for the dough, adapting the recipe to my needs and taste: I halved the recipe, simplified it by using just one type of sugar and one type of flour, and decreased the amount of sugar a bit. The dough was a snap to make; all in all, it took little more than fifteen minutes.

I baked the first batch the next day, after a 29-hour wait (but who's counting) and made the cookies almost three times smaller than instructed: despite what the article states on the influence of size on texture, I could not bring myself to form balls of cookie dough that weighed in at 3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) and would bake to be six inches (~15 cm) wide. It's just not the scale of baked goods I grew up with, and I'm not programmed to enjoy such jumbo cookies.

As a consequence -- or perhaps it was David Leite punishing me for my insubordination -- my first batch was overbaked: I had thought to decrease the baking time, but I let the cookies rest for a further 10 minutes on the hot baking sheet, as the recipe suggests. This is likely necessary for large cookies to finish baking, but my cookies were too small to withstand that treatment, and they turned out crunchy. Tasty, but crunchy throughout; the worst possible outcome for a chocolate chip cookie.

The next batches on subsequent days were infinitely better, once I'd fine-tuned the baking time and procedure, and the resulting chocolate chip cookies were without a doubt the best I've ever baked: a great balance of flavors, and a lovely crispness at the edges that morphed gradually into the fudge-like chewiness of the center.

Like Molly, I like chocolate chip cookies best once they've cooled, and although it may sound impossibly trying to some, I will go so far as to say that these taste even better the day after they're baked.

* Some of these online editions require a registration. Feel free to add a recommendation for your favorite food section if it's not listed here!

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Permalink | Posted by clotilde in Cookies & Small Cakes - Recipe Inside!

April 10, 2009

[Edible Idiom] En faire tout un flan

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Browse the list of idioms featured so far.

This week's idiom is, "En faire (tout) un flan."

Literally translated as, "making a (whole) flan out of it," it is a colloquial expression that means making a big deal out of something insignificant, blowing something out of proportion.

It is comparable to the English expressions, "making a mountain out of a molehill," "making a song and dance about something," and two edible idioms, "a storm/tempest in a teacup/teapot," and "making a meal out of something."

Example: "Si le plan de table ne lui va pas, il faut le changer, sinon il va en faire tout un flan." "If the seating plan doesn't suit him, we have to change it, otherwise he'll make a whole flan out of it."

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

"[Edible Idiom] En faire tout un flan" continues »

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Permalink | Posted by clotilde in French Idioms

Previously on Chocolate & Zucchini