Girl et Galette

The religieuse is appropriately named: eating one is a bit like a religious experience. It has a pâte à choux base (the same light pastry dough that is used to make profiteroles and eclairs) and is filled with cream and then the whole thing is smothered in either chocolate or coffee icing. So essentially, it’s a profiterole, balanced on top of an even larger profiterole. What can be wrong about that? The answer is nothing, nothing at all. I’ve yet to try the coffee variety, I’ll add that to the massive list of pastries I mean to devour in the near future…

If you don’t know tartines, then you should. That sounds dirty, and sometimes it is – in the sense that when I eat tartines I often spill food on myself, but what else is new? A tartine is simply a toasted piece of bread (real bread, not the stuff that comes sliced in a plastic bag from the supermarket) with food piled on top, and it usually involves meat and/or cheese.  There is an adorable restaurant right up the street from my apartment called L’Epicerie, which means ” the green grocer’s”. Except this place doesn’t sell groceries: it sells really delicious tartines. It is half nostalgia shop/half restaurant; a place where people hang out, drink all afternoon and sun themselves on the terrace. It has become a bit of a home away from home for us expats: it is always open, even on Sunday and Monday and the staff are all young, friendly and fun.

The adorable L'Epicerie: just around the corner from my apartment. Cute, non?

So, where else would we go for my friend’s last night in town? Most of my friends here are fellow Anglophones who were also working as assistants this year. For some reason my contract is 2 months longer than all of theirs, so while they are all leaving right about now, I am here for the long haul. I plan on renewing my contract and have no intention whatsoever to return home to the states other than for a few weeks this summer to visit friends and family and attend a wedding (not my own, as many colleagues have assumed). I’ve burrowed into France like a little American tick. However, my friends’ Visas are all expiring, so unfortunately they must head back stateside and reassess: doigts croisés (finger crossed) that some of them will join me again next fall to do the assitantship once more!

Thus, last night found 6 of us sharing yet another meal and yet another bottle of wine. Unfortunately, I was too focused on enjoying my friends (and my food) to take photos of all the beautiful tartines we indulged in, but I did make some recently chez moi that I managed to document:

These particular tartines are apple and blue cheese. Tartines are so versatile and easy to make: just brush some bread in olive oil or melted butter, toast them under the broiler for 1 minute on each side, add the toppings and then broil some more!

Tartines love any marriage of cheese and fruit. I like to use brie, stilton, goat cheese, blue cheese…the list goes on. I couple the cheese with fruit in the form of either compote, jam or whole slices of apple, pear, fig etc….One of my favorites from L’Epicerie is Ambert cheese piled on top of prunes; it is so decadent and rich and sweet! Or, if you want something savory, try making a tuna salad and dolloping some of that on top of the bread and either serving it cold or broiled with cheese. Or smear some pesto on the bread and then top with sliced tomatoes and mozzarella. Really, a tartine is just an open-faced, toasted sandwich. So anything you can put in a sandwich, you can put on a tartine.

If you try a tartine chez vous, let me know what ideas you came up with. Bon appétit!

Me and my girls at L'Epicerie: from left Emma, Berit, Me, Georgia, Julia

*This post is dedicated to Emma, Berit, Julia and Georgia. L’Epicerie won’t be the same without you, come back to eat tartines with me soon! Je vous aime et vous me manquez déjà.

I love road trips. In between all of the family ski trips I took as a child, all of the trips back and forth between where I grew up in San Diego and where I went to school in San Francisco and all of the day trips that I’ve taken throughout California, it’s safe to say that I’ve experienced my fair share of road trips. Is there anything better than rolling down the window and gazing out at the changing landscape as it flashes by, singing along to a favorite song with best friends or a boy/girlfriend?

The idea for a Brittany road trip started when my parents began planning their trip to visit me this spring (they would have been leaving right about now to return to the US, but never made it to France in the first place because my mom unfortunately broke her leg skiing and had to have surgery!). There are so many beautiful places in Brittany that I’ve already visited that I wanted to share with them (such as Saint-Malo and Cancale), and so many new places that I have been yearning to see for as long as I can remember (such as Le Mont-Saint-Michel). So, I thought what better way to fit it all in than a road trip? The original idea was to head North from Rennes to Le Mont-Saint-Michel, situated at the border of Brittany and Normandy and then work our way down the Côte d’Émeraude (Emerald Coast) hitting Cancale, Saint-Malo and Dinard and then finally heading back inland to Rennes, stopping in Dinan on the way. It was an ambitious itinerary for 3 days, but totally doable as all of these places are so close to one another.

But life intervenes, and plans change. By the time the road trip came around, it was a scaled-down version of  the original which now consisted of just me and my boyfriend, sans my parents and aunt as originally planned. Maybe I was burnt out from all of the research I did on all of the places we were to visit, or maybe it was the week and half of relaxing vacation I had already enjoyed by the time we left. Either way, by the time the road trip came around, I no longer felt like cramming all of those beautiful places in, but rather felt like taking it all as it came. So, Thursday morning saw us setting out, satellite navigation system in hand (thank God for that thing – in between my boyfriend’s poor sense of direction and my even poorer navigating skills, we would have ended up in Siberia) with only a vague inclination of what the next few days would hold.

The only concrete plan we had was to spend two nights in a small town in the Basse-Normandie region (Lower Normandy) as I had bought a Groupon coupon  for two nights in a hotel there. As we left the city and entered the countryside, I breathed a deep sigh of relief: though I wholeheartedly love Rennes, I get claustrophobic when I’ve been in a city for too long. As Brittany fell behind us and we entered Normandy, I began to notice small changes in the landscape: Normandy is flatter and the green cow-dotted pastures are even less interrupted by development than in Brittany.

Pictures really can’t capture the beauty of the countryside here. The green, brown and yellow fields are bordered by lines of trees and speckled with sheep, pigs, cows and stone barns that are crumbling into ruins. The landscape is interrupted occasionally by a small village, seemingly carved of stone, each one complete with its own boulangerie, boucherie and small church.

We stopped off in one of these small picturesque towns for a picnic lunch. My boyfriend seems to have a nose for natural water sources: he found us a beautiful little picnic spot situated beside a small river. As we sat underneath a willow tree on an ancient stone bench, enjoying fresh tuna salad sandwiches in the bright spring sunshine, I have to admit that life felt pretty perfect. Check this place out – I defy you to find a better picnic spot:

That was the theme of eating on our trip: picnic lunches. I packed some homemade tuna and quinoa salads, hummus, crudités, fruit and cheese and we would stop at a market everyday to buy bread and find ourselves a beautiful little nook to enjoy it in. The homemade stuff lasted us throughout the trip and saved us a lot of money on food.

After 2 hours of driving past pasture after pasture and the odd Chateau here and there, we arrived at Hôtel Les Camélias in a small Norman town called Bagnoles de l’Orne. It’s an adorable little hotel situated on the edge of an even more adorable little town. Bagnoles de l’Orne is reputed for the healing properties of its thermal water which are purportedly a source for the fountain of youth. The town was built up around the thermal spa, and as far as French towns go, it is very young and new. Most of the architecture is Belle Epoque from the early 19th century and therefore the town’s residential area feels very homogenous. The city center is built around a lake that is in the middle of a ravine which juts up dramatically into stone cliffs and dense forest. Despite the town’s obvious beauty, there is something a bit eerie about it that is hard to put your finer on. I think it was all a little too perfect: the city itself is extremely clean, the casino and some of the hotels look like something straight out of Disneyland and everything from the municipal buildings to the average house is seemingly perfectly maintained. But beautiful nonetheless.

The view from the car window as we approached Le Mont-Saint-Michel. The sea salt marshland pastures are grazed by sheep that are renowned for their salty meat.

Walking across the bay to the island. It's getting closer!

Almost to the base of the island - now we can see details!

After two days of biking and walking around every little inch of Bagnoles de l’Orne and the surrounding forest, we headed to the coast and the Mont-Saint-Michel. As it loomed out of the distance like a giant sand castle, I became incredibly excited. I’d long heard of the splendors of Le Mont-Saint-Michel and I’ve been wanting to go there for as long as I can remember. It’s an ancient abbey built upon a granite island in the middle of a bay that is located right on the border of Brittany and Normandy.

The tidal range is immense in this part of the world, and when the tide is low you can actually walk from the island to the coast on either side of the bay. But, this must be done with caution as the quicksands have claimed more than one unsuspecting tourist. Signs at the base of the island warn of the dangers of the bay and recommend that visitors hire a tour guide to bring them across the bay on foot. However, the tide wasn’t quite low enough when were there and we were more than content to just spend the day wandering around the island. We parked our car in the town and walked to the island. It took about 20 minutes and it was amazing to see the island growing bigger and bigger and becoming more and more detailed. Once we finally reached the mount, we climbed the narrow winding street that leads from the base of the island up to the abbey that is perched atop the giant granite rock. We huffed and puffed our way to the top and purchased tickets for the abbey museum. We opted to get the audio guide tour and both agreed afterwards that it was the highlight of the trip – we learned so much about the history of Le Mont-Saint-Michel. Halfway through our tour of the abbey we reached the terrace that faces west and were able to soak in the amazing views of the bay and coastline.

The abbey itself - well worth the steep climb.

It’s hard to take in all the abundant beauty of this place, and even harder to imagine that it was built over a thousand years ago. The abbey itself has been transformed time and time again, from a place to worship God and help the poor, into a prison and then a fortress and a place to entertain European royalty and now it is one of the most heavily visited tourist destinations in the world – can you imagine all of the people who have set foot there?  From the monks and the prisoners, to the kings and now the tourists (many of them famous artists and musicians such as Claude Debussy) and now me! To say that the experience exceeded my very lofty expectations would be a gross understatement. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in all of my travels.

But, I’m rambling on and on about one experience, and there were other beautiful places that we saw apart from the Mont-Saint-Michel.  After spending half a day there we drove to Cancale, a place I’ve talked about before (the home of the famous seafood tower). We found a campsite in a small town called Saint-Coulomb that’s situated right in the middle of Cancale and Saint-Malo (not a bad place to be!).  If anyone is in the area and needs a cheap place to spend the night, I highly recommend this camping spot. Right after we settled in we cooked up a glorious meal on the barbecue and then set out to explore the area around the campsite. We happened to be ten minutes from one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen a lot) and smack in the middle of a nature reserve that boasted forest, marshland, pastures and sprawling seascapes. Unfortunately I left my camera behind during our hike, but I plan on returning soon and will definitely document it this time.

The Emerald Coast isn’t named after the beautiful green and blue hues of the water,  but rather the green pastures and foliage that sprawl right up to the Atlantic coastline. This is what makes it such a beautiful place: it is pastoral like the rest of Brittany but has crescent white sand beaches and cliffs that jut abruptly into the swelling waves. While I have visited both Cancale and Saint-Malo before, driving along the coastline was a different experience all together, and I absolutely fell in love with it.

After a night sleeping in the van under less than ideal weather conditions, we were both a little worst for the wear the next morning. The rain persisted all throughout the night and into the morning, so instead of exploring Cancale and Saint-Malo we headed inland to Dinan, an adorable little city that is divided by the Rance river. The ramparts and castle protect the old heart of the city, and  the incredibly picturesque street La rue du Jerzual leads down to the old port. I’ve already been going on too much, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

We got home last night, tired but very, very content. I was tempted to spend the day lazing around, reliving the memories of all of the beautiful places I’ve seen the last few days. But alas, I had errands to do as well as some overdue apartment cleaning and preparing for my return to work tomorrow. Here I was thinking the vacances would go on forever…

…do as the Rennais do. I’ve had a sudden panic recently that I’m not taking full advantage of my life here. I should be enjoying all that the city has to offer, I should be immersing myself in the French language more deeply and thoroughly! I should be traveling more! I should be sampling more of the local cuisine (okay, maybe I have that one covered…). In general, I’ve been trying get out of the winter rut and be more active.

It’s easy to be motivated these days to make these changes – the weather has been absolutely gorgeous here the last few weeks (punctuated by only the odd grey and cold day).  All I’ve wanted to do is laze around in a park, soaking up the sun that has been absent from my life for far too long. There are so many beautiful parks in Rennes (I swear they spend half of their budget manicuring the many flower beds sprinkled throughout the cities parks and gardens , and the gardeners here are a very serious folk who resemble police officers more than landscapers). Not wanting to discriminate, I’ve been to three different parks in the last week, all with a different character and crowd.

First there is the Parc des Gayeulles which is located a bit outside city center by one of the universities. It is a gigantic park complete with vast green meadows, lakes and pond, meandering paths, a swimming pool, and fields full of cows, goats, pigs and chickens. It’s the perfect place to meet a friend for a stroll. It provides constant entertainment in the form of hungry goats perusing lines of onlookers for food, random Scottish men bagpiping and small French children abusing the exercise equipment that lines the running paths.

Then there is the Parc de Maurepas, not far from Gayeulles. This park is smaller and more family-oriented with playgrounds and a skate park. This is probably my favorite park, and it’s usually much less crowded than the other parks. Nothing too exciting happens here, though there is a large bull sculpture that is fun to climb up on.

And finally, there is the Jardin du Thabor, which is right around the corner from my apartment. It is so stunningly beautiful and chock-full of different trees and flowers that it is hard for your eyes to absorb it all. It boasts not only designer flower beds, manicured bushes and koi fish ponds, but also a couple of giant California sequoia trees and even a giant bird house full of so many different brightly-feathered friends.

And what else are the me and the Rennais doing these days besides lounging around parks like lizards that need the sun’s heat to make it through a cold night? Well, they’re always cooking. Despite the heat, this past week has seen me spending a lot of time in my kitchen. Keeping with the theme of immersing myself further into the French culture and doing as the Rennais do, I’ve been focusing on cooking classical French dishes. This week I’ve made three quintessential classics: quiche, gratin and onion soup. Voici, the recipes for all three, two of which I haphazardly invented, and somehow they actually turned out quite decently!

Leek and Smoked Salmon Quiche                                                                      Quiche aux Poireaux et Saumon Fumé

2 leeks, white part only, sliced (I save the green parts to make homemade veggie stock)
120 ml (1/2 cup) cider (can substitute white wine, or water, if you’re feeling boring and un-Breton)
2 tablespoons butter
Salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 eggs
350 ml (1 1/2 cup) whole milk
An 8-inch partially cooked pastry shell on a baking sheet
2 tablespoons parsley or fresh thyme, chopped
4 tranches smoked salmon, sliced into 3 inch strips (if you can’t find wild, then try to buy organic farm raised)
35 g (1/4 cup) grated Swiss cheese (I actually used a combination of swiss and parmesan cheeses – you can really use any cheese you have on hand, as long as it’s not made by Kraft!)

Preheat oven to 375° F (190°C).

Boil the leeks over moderately high heat in a heavy-bottomed, covered saucepan with 1/2 cup cider, two tablespoons butter and about a teaspoon of salt until the liquid has almost evaporated. Lower heat and stew gently for 20 to 30 minutes until leeks are very tender. Put them aside in a bowl to let cool.

Beat the eggs, cream or milk and seasoning in a large mixing bowl to blend. Gradually stir in the leeks and parsley. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour half of the mixture into the pastry shell. Lay the salmon strips evenly across the egg mixture and then cover with the remaining egg mixture. Spread on the cheese.

Bake in upper third of pre-heated oven for 25 to 30 minutes until puffed and browned.

I served the quiche with dry white wine and a simple salad of greens tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette. For dessert, my lovely friend brought market-fresh strawberries (it’s almost summer!) and chocolate. All in all, it was a pretty perfect (and very French) meal.

Rice and Tuna Gratin                                                                                              Gratin de Riz au Thon

250 grams (1 ½ cups) brown rice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
60 ml (¼ cup) cider (can substitute white wine)
220 grams (2 cups) leafy greens, julienned (I used radish and turnip greens)
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can olive-oil packed tuna
100 grams (¾ cup) parmesan, grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 375° F (190° C)

Bring a pot of 3 cups of salted water to a boil. Add brown rice and turn down to a simmer. Cook rice until it is al dente.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Add onions and sauté until translucent, about 10 minutes. Add cider and continue cooking until liquid has almost evaporated. Add greens and garlic, and sauté for about 5 more minutes, or until greens are wilted.

In a large bowl, mix together the rice and the sautéed green mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Spread the rice mixture over the bottom of a large gratin dish and top with the tuna (including its olive oil) followed by the grated cheese.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until the top is brown and bubbly.

I served the gratin with the rest of the dry white wine from the night before and a simple salad of  greens and radish with a citrus vinaigrette.

We brought the leftovers to the park for a picnic the next day and it was delicious served cold with a salad of tomatoes and avocados tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette. I can’t imagine a meal that feels more like summer (besides maybe fish tacos and Mexican beer, but that’ just torturous for me to think about as a Southern Californian living in France! I’m trying to appreciate what I have here, and not waste too much time daydreaming about Mexican food…)

Onion Soup                                                                                                             Soupe à l’Oignon

Adapted from the Smitten Kitchen who adapted it from Mastering the Art of French Cooking

*For the record, I would’ve followed the recipe to a tee (for once), but I was missing some of the ingredients, including the individual oven-proof crocks for which there is no room in my tiny kitchen, as much as I covet them!

1 1/2 pounds (680 grams or 24 ounces or about 5 cups) thinly sliced yellow onions
3 tablespoons (42 grams or 1 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter
1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil
1 teaspoon (5 grams) table salt, plus additional to taste
1/2 cup cider
3 tablespoons (24 grams or 7/8 ounce) all-purpose flour
2 quarts (8 cups or 1.9 liters) beef or other brown stock*
Freshly ground black pepper

To finish

1 to 2 cups (to taste) grated Swiss (I used Emmenthal) or a mixture of Swiss and Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
12 to 16 1-inch thick rounds French bread

Melt the butter and oil together in the bottom of a 4- to 5-quart saucepan or Dutch oven (or sauce pan if, like me, you don’t have a Dutch oven) over moderately low heat. Add the onions, toss to coat them in oil and cover the pot. Reduce the heat to real low and let them slowly steep for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, uncover the pot, raise the heat slightly and stir in the salt and cider. Cook onions, stirring frequently, for 30 to 40 minutes until they have turned an even, deep golden brown. Don’t skimp on this step, it gives the soup loads of flavor, not to mention that the smell of caramelized onions is so maddeningly delicious that it should be bottled!

After the onions are fully caramelized, sprinkle them with flour and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes. Add the stock, a little at a time, stirring between additions. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and simmer partially covered for 30 to 40 more minutes, skimming if needed.

Set aside until needed, meanwhile get the toasty goodness going: Preheat broiler. Arrange the bread on a baking sheet. Brush each piece with olive oil on both sides.  Put the bread under broiler until it is browned and crispy. Take the bread out and top it with the grated cheese. Place the bread back under the broiler until the top of the cheese is brown and bubbly and irresistable.

Place two or three of the croutons in each bowl, and top with a sprinkling of fresh herbs (I used dill as that’s what is growing in my windowsill at the moment).

Now you’re done – serve immediately and enjoy!

Moules à la marinière with sweet potato fries

Ah, seafood. If you read my post about the seafood tower in Cancale, then you know I’m a bit obsessed. And there is no where better to be in the world than Brittany if you’re a fan of shellfish or fruits de mer as the French say (which translates as “fruits of the sea” – such a poetic language!).

I met my friends at the open-air market, as per our usual Saturday tradition. For the first time in far too long we were all in one place, all healthy, and all available to have one of our treasured “girl time” diner parties together. We decided to cook moules-frites (mussels and fries), one of all of our favorite classical French dishes.  Can you believe that to buy mussels for 5 people, and we are talking healthy portions here, it only cost 7 euro!? And you can’t find mussels fresher or tastier than these either. Oh France, whatever will I eat if I ever have to leave you!?

We stuck to the basics and used Julia Child’s simple Moules à la marinière recipe and accompanied it with sweet potato fries. The mussels were succulent and tender, and the sauce was so unctuous and addictive that we all gorged on bread trying to sop up all of the leftover sauce on our plates.  The sweet potato fries were delicious as well. We simply tossed the wedges with olive oil, cumin, cinnamon and coarse sea salt and pepper, and popped them in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes. A testament to their tastiness: we all know that in England potato is a whole food group of its own, and the Brits love their fries (or chips as they call them – and potato chips are called crisps: confusing, I know).  My British boyfriend, who had never tried sweet potato before actually said “All chips should be made of sweet potatoes!”.  So, all in all a very successful meal – and so simple and easy and hassle free. Try it at home for a taste of Brittany and France.

Coming up soon, the tale of an International dinner cooked by my class of 24 students. We’re going to a nearby town this week (yes, for a whole week – I’m tired just thinking about it) for an intensive English/dance retreat, during which we will cook a 3 course meal that the students have planned themselves. Only in France do you learn grammar through the art of dance! Wish me luck…

It’s spring! Well, for this week at least. The weather in Brittany is famous for it’s inconsistency. Having moved from San Francisco to Brittany, I seem doomed to live in regions where the weather can’t make up it’s mind and the seasons zig zag back and forth in unpredictable and unfathomable ways. Yesterday felt like summer, but tomorrow may very well be a rainy and blistery dip back into winter. But, as of this week, it feels like the start of a beautiful spring, and I plan to profiter du soleil as much as I can!

A sunny day in Parc Thabor

I’m especially enjoying the sun because I’ve been cooped up inside as of late: I’ve been fighting off a virus for, oh, only about a month now. I am usually quite energetic and active, but over a month ago I started feeling exhausted and congested, like I was fighting something off, but wasn’t quite sick yet. And then halfway through my stay in Budapest, the hammer dropped (is that an expression, or is my Franglish inventing colloquialisms again?) and I got pretty sick, pretty quickly. But of course, I was in denial and went about my business as usual – it was only a cold right? Last week my body literally staged a coup and I had to cede and stay home from work for almost the whole week. I think the French children are trying to kill me with their cooties…

Needless to say, during that time, I was craving some serious comfort food. On a rare outing into the real world from my “sick cave”(otherwise known as my tiny attic studio), I met my friend Emma at Apple Pie for lunch on St. Patty’s day to usher in the celebration with homestyle cooking by my most favorite Irish lass in Rennes, Lisa. Can you imagine a more comforting meal than Smoked Salmon, Irish Beef Stew and Irish Coffee Cheesecake? All of it local, fresh, organic, and served with a side of warm Irish wisdom and humor. Voici, the St. Patty’s day meal…

So, besides the glorious aforementioned meal, last week was pretty crummy. On top of being really sick, my mom had a skiing accident and broke her leg! She will be needing surgery, and thus my parents had to cancel their plans to come visit me for my Spring Break. Dagger to the heart! I’ve been dreaming of and scheming for this trip since I arrived in Rennes: where and what we will eat, all of the places we will visit. But, the good news is that I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, so they’ll have plenty of opportunities to come visit in the future. So get better mama, and everyone who reads this please think positive thoughts about her upcoming surgery!

After being a shut-in last week, I am finally becoming human once again this week. Nothing to make you feel alive and joyful like a picnic in the park on a day that feels like summer. Yesterday I met my girlfriends in Parc Thabor, the park that is right around the corner from my apartment. There’s no place to picnic like France: fresh baguettes, tomatoes, smoked salmon, the holy trinity of cheese (comté, camembert and chèvre), and some chocolate and sparkling crémant to wash it all down. And of course, the juicy gossip of four friends that hadn’t all been gathered in one spot in far too long…

Tomorrow is Friday, which means it’s almost the weekend and there will be many more picnics in the next few days I’m sure. I’m looking forward to basking in the sun and feeling like a human once again, rather than a sickly vampire!

Stay posted for the tale of my Friday Night Dinner that I will attempt to cook tomorrow. I’m not too experienced with steak, so it may very well be a disaster...