Cucina Testa Rossa

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from my table to yours. May we soon be able to fill our homes with beloved friends, family and delicious food. ~Laura xo

Salsa y Salsa v4.0 ~ Vodkas y Latkes

Bienvenidos to our weekly Friday Funday, Salsa y Salsa (y Cocktail!) with Laura y Manuel!! Each week, together we will all make a cocktail, a salsa and learn a new Salsa dance. Ay caramba!

This week, though, is a little different. Oy vey, you say?! This week, to celebrate Hanukkah, it's Vodkas y Latkes! We'll be drinking Vodka martinis and making Latkes and learning about this tradition and meaning behind it from my new MEA bestie, Lisa Carmel. So please sign up below! 

      
 

THIS Friday, Dec 4 @ 5-6pm PT - Vodka y Latkes y Salsa y Salsa v4.0: REGISTER

• Cocktail: Vodka Martini
  
  • Ingredients:  vodka :
• Latkes: NYT Latkes or Kitchn Latkes by Lisa Carmel
  • Ingredients:  potato, onion, egg, matzo or breadcrumbs, canola oi
• Salsa: Fresh Apple Salsa (or Applesauce) + Sour Cream
  • Ingredients: tart apple, onion, cilantro, lime, jalapeño, poblano, ginger, simple syrup, walnuts, sour cream
• Salsa: Manuel Velazquez, award-wining dance instructor & professional dancer will teach us all how to salsa! Ay caramba! 

We are SO looking forward to salsa-ing all together again on the interwebs very soon! We'll be hosting these every Friday, so come work of all the holiday cookies and then join us for one last salsa.  

Besos y un gran embrazo,
Laura y Manuel xo

Epiphany & Gallettes des Rois

Epiphany is tomorrow but tomorrow is my day to post at KQED's Bay Area Bites so I thought I'd post this a day early. It is actually a repeat from two years ago. Sorry, I'm still jetlagged :) Click here to have a delicious epiphany...

Joyeux Noel de Paris!

Inspiration.

"...Never this different, never this wonderful..." CBS Evening News, Feb 23, 2006 ~ Watch the video!!!

Racial Tension & Righteous Voices

Gospel Dream at the American Cathedral in Paris, France

As violence spread across France, voices soared high above Paris. Last night, fires burned from the banlieu to Belgium while voices that could only have come from heaven above shook the American Cathedral to its very foundation, all coming together to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. 

In response to the hurricanes and the profound desire to help, American not-for-profit groups in Paris joined together to present a "Southern Musical Review" of Gospel, Jazz, Soul and other music from the region. From the Dixieland marching band to the angelic voice of Parisian opera star Adèle Belmont to the earth shaking Gospel Dream,  22,000 euros in ticket sales and donations were raised to provide relief directly to the hurricane victims!

Parisian opera star Adèle Belmont

Just as the US hurricanes threw open the doors on our profound racial divide, France has been experiencing its own racial storm, ignited by a neglected, ostracized, disenfranchised strata of the population that decided to be heard – loud and clear. Unemployment is rampant and even the educated can’t find work because of social prejudices. This also clearly illustrates one of the reasons (besides those pesky, elusive WMD) that Chirac wouldn’t join the US in the war against Iraq.

Some articles that outline the situation much more clearly than I ever could are listed below.  Thank you for your kind emails of concern. I don’t have a TV and after seeing what is shown on US “news”, I highly recommend it!
________________________________________

Behind the Furor, the Last Moments of Two Youths
By Thomas Crampton ~ New York Times: November 7, 2005

CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France, Nov. 6 - In life, they were uncelebrated. In death, Zyed Benna, 17, and Bouna Traore, 15, have inspired more than 10 days of riots that have spread from housing projects in the suburbs of Paris to cities and towns across France....

10 Officers Shot as Riots Worsen in French Cities
By Craig S. Smith ~ New York Times: November 7, 2005

PARIS, Monday, Nov. 7 - Rioters fired shotguns at the police in a working-class suburb of Paris on Sunday, wounding 10 officers as the country's fast-spreading urban unrest escalated dangerously. Just hours earlier, President Jacques Chirac called an emergency meeting of top security officials and promised increased police pressure to confront the violence...

French Officials Try to Ease Fear as Crisis Swells
By Mark Landler and Craig S. Smith ~ New York Times: November 8, 2005

PARIS, Nov. 7 - The civil unrest sweeping France spread to nearly every major city in the country by Monday, claiming its first death, and even touched two cities elsewhere in Europe as the French government sought to reassure a jittery nation that it can quickly bring the escalating situation under control....

Reason #3925 – Why I Love Paris

Photo © copyright Pia Roussel, Arômes et Saveurs

Prayers and Pâté!

Or Church and Charcuterie as the case may be..... Not only do the French make the most incredible pâtés, they fête (celebrate) the very people that do so!  This could also be titled "Only in France" but what a wonderful tradition my friend Alisa introduced me to that is celebrated throughout France for centuries in honor of the oft-neglected charcutier or sausage maker!

On Sunday, November  20th at 5:00pm (17h) St Éustache Church will host the Charcutiers Mass.  The Souvenir de la Charcuterie Française (France Sausage-makers Guild) commemorates its members every year with a magnificent service at l’Eglise Saint-Eustache, the largest Gothic-style church in Paris. It is coincidentally (or maybe not) located next to Les Halles, at the foot of rue Montorgueuil, the heart of Paris’ food tradition.

The world famous Saint-Eustache Choir will perform Gounod’s Ave Maria and other religious musical masterpieces. The Mass will be followed by a reception; a buffet of traditional French charcuterie (cold cuts) prepared by the Charcuterie School apprentices accompanied by French wine.

A little prayer, a little pâté? Life is good! Some French wine? Even better!

______________________________________

For Reservations: (yes, you need reservations!)
Cost: 7 euros (best buy in town!)
Call: +33 (06) 80 52 44 26
Email: www.saveurs-aromes.com/contact.php

Aromes et Saveurs
181 rue Vercingétorix
75014 Paris
Tél. : +33 (06) 80 52 44 26
www.saveurs-aromes.com
[email protected]

L' Église St-Eustache
2 impasse St-Eustache
75001 Paris
Tél. : 01 42 36 31 05
www.st-eustache.org
[email protected]

La Vue de Ma Fenêtre ~ Eglise St Sulpice

"You will change the face of the earth" ~ Banner in St Sulpice Church ~ October 2005

Le Boo!

Say “Bonjour” to my petit potimarron, a small squash that is a cross between a potiron (pumpkin) and a marron (chestnut). And they taste like, well.....a cross between a potiron and a marron. Go figure. You can roast it, puree it, steam it, or just carve it up for a mini-jack-o-lantern which is what I ended up doing. The seeds, which I have every intention of roasting, will no doubt sit in my fridge until they say "Bonjour" to me when I open the door.

Halloween is a holiday barely acknowledged by adults here in France. While children are embracing this Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), in no small part due to EuroDisney plastering half the city with posters advertising Halloween Night at Euro Disney, France has traditionally celebrated Toussaints or All Saints Day. It is tradition to visit the cemeteries and leave flowers on the graves. Someone asked me where exactly Toussaints (tous = all; saints = saints) came from and I am embarrassed to say I didn’t have a very good answer, so after a quick spin around Google, I was quite enlightened.

It seems this Halloween tradition hails back 2000+ years to an early Celtic holiday at the beginning of the winter season, October 31st. “...Spirits of the dead were believed to roam freely and on the day known as "The Day of the Dead," living relatives would help their dead loved ones complete a safe journey to the afterlife. People would paint or carve scary faces on gourds and turnips and disguise themselves in outlandish costumes to scare away the evil spirits that were also thought to be wandering the earth that night. The Catholic Church, angered by these pagan practices, sought to eliminate them by declaring a new festival of religious observance called All Saint's Day ("Toussaint"), a day in which every saint would be honored...”

A much more uplifting holiday if you ask moi, and one that could have avoided the spawning of Freddie Kruger and his 10 sequels of horror. Happy Halloween and BOO!

Ay Caramba! Chocolate Chili Ice Cream!

Ever other Sunday, my friends Kendall & Bob from Ohio have a big pot luck dinner party and anyone and everyone is welcome. The day before each dinner I would ask Kendall what I could bring and she would inevitably reply “Whatever you feel like…you’re the chef, you should know!” which made me want to tug on her flowing blond locks and yell “I am not a chef, just tell me what to make! Don't make me think!”

So after some not so subtle suggestions on my part, these dinners now have themes. Careful what you wish for…..last weeks’ was Mexican. Ay caramba, what am I going to make? I am a disgrace to my home state and my profession as I can’t make a mole sauce to save my life, that and the fact that I would kill for a Chevy’s fajita right about now. But seeing as I am in Paris and Chevy’s is not, I will have to make do.

I have been begging my friend Jackie to teach me her mother’s mole recipe but that hasn’t happened yet. I did however remembered reading about a chocolate chili cake here so i thought i would give that a go. It is basically the standard recipe for flourless chocolate cake with some chili powder thrown in and even I, the most pastry-inept person alive, can swing that with minimal trepidation.

I trekked around town buying the chocolate, eggs, chili powder (that took 4 stores to find! last stop was a little greek traiteur at the end of rue Mouffetard) and silicon baking sheets. Just as I was about to hunker down in the kitchen I received a texto from my friend Samantha who was also going to the dinner. It read: Question: If I covered chocolate cup cakes with dark chocolate then sprinkled with flecks of chili would that work?

AAAK!  She read my mind! The one Mexcian thing I could make and she went and stole my thunder.  Now what am I going to do!?  I spied my ice cream machine paddle drying on the dish rack and I thought “Pourquoi pas (why not)?” Chocolate chili ice cream! 

So I tucked into my crème anglaise recipe, melted the chocolate, added a few tablespoons of hot chili powder, added it to the ice cream machine and let’er rip!  I had about a cup of ice cream mix left over so I went ahead and made the chocolate chili cake recipe anyways and added the ice cream mixture to the cake batter!  I added a few extra teaspoons of flour to the mix to compensate for the additional cream, threw it in the oven and prayed to the chocolate chili gods.

Sam used real chilies on her mini-cakes (pictured above left) and yowza, they were hot, delicious but hot, and she used just a tiny sprinkling of peppers. My little bites surprisingly turned out ok, especially considering it was more science experiment than cuisine. They were very moist with a very subtle layering of chili flavor that came in at the end of the palate.  Same for the ice cream, very creamy with a smooth understated pepper that kicks in at the end.  Pas mal (not bad) as they say here, because as I’ve mentioned, they, not all but most, would rather die than pay a complement... So here are both the recipes...Feliz Cocinar!