Brat Like Me » food

Starbuck is Dead

Jean Curtis — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:57:50 +0000

Oh I do loves me some strong coffee. In America, we used to have this amazing machine that giveth some perfect espresso every morning. It’s gone now as are my yuppie years (and we ponder what an aging yuppie will become. A “Guppie”, geriatric-urban-professional? A “Muppie”, maturing-urban-professional? ). As we settle into peasant farming life, you really must arrange your caffeine consumption to match your economical means with your palette. After much research involving (close your eyes Michael) instant coffee, stovetop espresso, “French” press and drip machine among other crazy concoctions, we settled on this combination:

- drip coffee machine

- cheapest Arabica “doux” you can find

There is a very cheap “robusta” you can buy, but WOO BOY, don’t go there. Bitter. Yuck. Doux (pronounced “doo” and if it’s cheap you call it “disco doo”) is the entry point to great coffee. I picked up the cheapest filter coffee pot I could find and here are the problems:

- horrible fill trough

- small heating plate, coffee gets cold

- only makes ten cups. If you have four kids and herd of cattle, you need a lot of coffee. More than ten cups.

So I bought Starbuck. She was a tall, orange, drink-a-water with a horrible logo. We popped a little mermaid sticker that Lucy had laying around to cover her brand. Knowing her coffee would never achieve coffee mogul-dom, we called her Starbuck. Her fill trough stills sucks, but oh she made the coffee fast, kept it warm and delivered a stellar cup every morning two pots at a time. At one point, we didn’t trust her. In haste, we replaced her with a crap filter machine and stuck her out in the rain. The replacement turned out to be a cheap weekend fling. With apologetic wipes and a used replacement carafe, we brought Starbuck back in to fulfill the job she was built to do. And she delivered. I cleaned her every Sunday. But this Monday was different. She didn’t complete her brew. She pooped out. She became fatiguée. After four cups she stopped. I tried to revive her with all I knew how. Silence. She was gone.

R.I.P. Starbuck. We laughed. We cried. We kissed twenty bucks good-bye.

… and with good YouTubeWars ammunition, we solute you with this … if you can replace “red” with “orange” it’ll all fall into place

Best Pizza I Ever Ate

Jean Curtis — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:08:28 +0000

It was show time at our new corral. Thankfully and gratefully, we were able to have a helping hand from friends. Today was our annual cow blood test. The kids are on vacation so we needed some help keeping them happy while we gave our new cow pens a whirl (thanks G!). Our absolutely awesomely accented Scottish farmer friend helped us work the cattle. Once the vet arrived, we were ready to see how the concrete, the screws, the barriers, the terre held up.

When Brent and I first talked about this design, we had a tall order of putting the pens under cover in case it rained. Thus far, we’ve experienced drought conditions, I think we got sun brained. Of course, our first run of the pens was presented with one of the hardest downpours I’ve seen here in the Gers. But only for twenty minutes at a time and no wind. Thankfully, we didn’t have to wait out lightening. Nothing more daring than working livestock around large steely things in a lightening storm. Working in the rain didn’t stop us. It just made the tea and cake afterward taste that much better.

The girls did great. With so many unknowns like “gee, will their horns fit through the alley?” and “will the calves escape?” and “will they go in the pens at all?” – we now have a pile of bug fixes to work through for our next run. I’m sure Mr. GrassPunk will share the details. Most strongly I left our run through with the feeling that I’ve never felt more panicked about concrete. When I made concrete, I was all like, “whew, concrete. Just like makin’ bread in my kitchenaid.” Then, when you see your concrete in action with giant masses of steak on legs testing your work, you think, “shit, I suppose I could have used a bit less sand and maybe not so wet. Is that going to hold?!” Everything is still standing. There is some settling ( we only finished the work yesterday!) as well as a few bumps to strengthen.

Aside from the blood test, we also tagged a few more calves and did a few inspections on our mamas ( Heather, we named a calf after you, just so you know ). For me, tagging in the alley was much better for everyone involved. Brent had an easier time catching the calf, the calf was safe and calm in the alley and I had a bit more confidence piercing baby bovines. We might get the hang of this.

After a hard few hours, lots and lots of rain, a well napped baby, we wrapped up and got set to do the rest of our daily chores. Brent did his final rounds with the bovines and I got the kids up-to-date with their food and childish needs. Lucy and I made pizza. Because if I could order pizza and they would deliver, I would do that on this day only. But as there is no take-out nor is there delivery and since I make everything I possibly can except for sugar, wine and coffee, we made our pizza and it was the best pizza I ever ate.

The Big Choco

Jean Curtis — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:35:39 +0000

In America they call them “chocolate crow-sants.” In Most of France they’re called “Pain au Chocolat.” Here in southwest France we call them “chocolatines.” But there’s only one place I’ve seen that makes a DOUBLE chocolatine. A great little bakery in a cute area of Auch. They call it “The Big Choco.” Take your ordinary run-of-the-mill chocolatine and crank it to eleven. Only then will you approach the Big Choco. Otto, a seven-year-old boy, is in choco heaven my friend.

A Well Hung Sausage

Jean Curtis — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:20:31 +0000

Brent killed a pig and we had a black-out. Totally unrelated, but all signs point to “fun.” I can remember as a kid growing up in San Diego when the lights would go out. It was no doubt in the summer when people and their air conditioners were reunited at last. My mom and dad would crack open some wine and bring out the cards. It was all crazy and magical when we had no electricity. After an hour or so, the lights would come back on and we’d shut everything off as though it never happened. Blackouts are fun and clearly memorable. Lucy still talks about “what a weird night” we had last Sunday when the lights went out in Southwest France. We explained to the children that when this house was built, they didn’t have lights. This is how dark it got when the sun went down. Through the candlelight, you could see their large eyes trying to understand a life without electricity.

… and in other news, with all the pig parts we’ve acquired, we now have pots and pots of boudin noir and country paste. Brent helped kill the pig and prepared the bits and pieces for the Pâté de campagne. Included in our pig purchase, we procured Coppa. This Coppa is fresh and needs to be hung on a strong nail in a cool place for a few months. It just so happens we have that cool place and that nail that surely helped many other Coppas of the past attain their Coppa-cabana-dom. It was suggested that I get a “ham sack” (or Sac a Jambon for an easy French feeling) to ward off any flies and the rest while it hangs there all yummy-like. So there it rests drying out for a culinary yumdom of next.

A Culinary Tale

Jean Curtis — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:23:40 +0000

It was magic. I had hearty leftovers with big ideas. Some pork, some roasted root veg could so easily be made into omelets or bubble-n-squeak, but no I remembered a trick my mama used to do. If I was hungry and the dinner window was not open, she would give me a snack that wouldn’t curb my appetite. She would offer healthy foods done all fun like. I was of the generation before baby carrots, so she would thinly slice cute carrots for me to nibble on while I waited for dinner. Her other trick if carrots were not available was the ol’ toothpick routine. You see, offer a child anything in bite-sized pieces with a toothpick and you hit gold. She would give me a small dish of red kidney beans with a toothpick that shut me up until dinner was ready. It’s all about presentation, I tell you. So riding this wave, I thought what could be more funner than soufflé?! Not a damn thing. I’ve made a fair bit of soufflé and nary a catastrophe have I encountered. Until, that is, I tried my first savory soufflé. It all worked out so perfect. The leftovers a-go-go, the soufflé mash nicely fluffed and the timing right on. I stuck it in the oven and got a great rise. But let me tell you, the soufflé doth rose but it was a total flop. For some reason, the innards were an absolute stream. Boo! And there goes my blog post. “no, soufflé is so easy, why don’t people do it more often?” I’d ponder. “Are they afraid of a little egg fluffing?” Ha ha, but the joke is on me. Brent thinks the oven was too hot. I think he was right (but, please don’t tell him. It’ll ruin my perfect score). I recooked the little bastards and they cooked all the way through. At that point, it was more omelet, less soufflé.

Cut to the next day. My soufflé debacle slept on and a need for our next soup. I’m trying to always have a pot of soup on the stove to keep us healthy and warm. I know you can’t stick a toothpick in soup, but the kids enjoy it mostly. From where I eat lunch I can see the chicken coup. It’s a coup with too many roosters. I want to make soup … I have too many roosters … I look at recipes. There’s one that I’ve made before called “poule au pot” that is LOVELY. You stick an entire chicken in a pot and make it all soupy with yummy legumes. I don’t have a chicken. Though I notice, one finger pointing at a recipe calling for “farmer’s chicken” and four fingers pointing back at me (well, three fingers pointing back at me and a thumb in desperate need of a manicure pointing down at the ground somewhat). Aw well, I’ll go do the laundry. I’m not afraid to air my dirty laundry. We have a lot of it as we are a family of six and making dirty laundry seems like our M.O. I hear a squawk. I hear a thump. I see a black chicken fall. Legend is fairly good with the chickens, but has an uncontrollable need to chase ten specific chickens. Sadly, Zora was one of those chickens. She would have gotten away were it not for that nasty window she thunked into. It wasn’t looking good for Zora, so I had to act fast. I suddenly saw soup in our future. I gave Zora a few moments to recover from her nasty run-in with the window to see if she’d perk up. She didn’t. Then off to youTube for “chicken processing.” TONS of videos on how to process chicken. And so off I went. I will tell you this, the “coning” went fine. The plucking needs work. The gutting went okay. The smell of the soup bubbling away, divine. I woud’ve kept Zora for eggs, but she made a wrong turn into a window. We’ll soon see how the poule au pot turns out. As with most great things, it’ll take some time.

Well, I’m a Sel Snob

Jean Curtis — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:57:18 +0000

Thankfully it fits within my peasant farmer budget. In Seattle, I was approaching Salmon Snob. I never could master salmon ‘ella ella ella … eh eh eh. But, I really loved that white, wild caught white salmon that turned up at my favorite fishmonger to which I paid my yuppie premium. No, but salt. I can tell you now that I prefer sel de Guérande to sel de Camargue. I taste it. I could prolly do a blind taste-off. It’s rad. I’m pretty satisfied with your run-of-the-mill sel de gris, but give me a Guérande and fah-guetta-bout-it. Love that taste It’s truly better. Husband is playing Britney. K. now J-loi and Pitbull doh! now David Guetta (well not so bad and hard to avoid as he dominates the radio and I hate him but DAMN! everything he creates makes you want t screeeeeeeeam! and here you are reading a silly little post about salt not knowing shit about David Guetta. knowing more than you knew about David Guetta. you go!). K. done here.

Cinnamon Buns

Jean Curtis — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:07:23 +0000

Well, cinnamon rolls really. Our family loves the word “buns.” I make buns every so often. I could even see myself running a line of Jean’s Buns in the future. I’ll stick anything in a bun with sauce. My mom every so often would make cinnamon rolls for Christmas day. I thought I’d giver ‘er a go this year and makes me some buns. It was my first effort. Though they were edible, they were also a bit delayed. I was hoping to pop them in the oven when the kids giddied around the house on Christmas morning. Not only do you need to raise the dough once, after you roll your cute, little buns, you need to raise them again for a couple of hours. And according to Nutella WeatherCam ™, it was a bit frosty today. Which means inside this Gascon house, Nutella spreading requires heated crêpe to spread. This is all to say that my dough doth not riseth. I did nestle it in all cozy like next to Mr. Green, but I think the yeast had checked out. I did get a little rise out of it and decided to stick it in the oven to see what would happen. After twenty minutes, delicious buns emerged. I popped a quick sugar glaze on those babies and off they went.

Now with each passing day, I find myself more of a Fannie Farmer kinda girl. It’s the cookbook that instructs recipe after recipe to stick shit in a bowl, mix it, cook it. After twenty minutes, everything comes out just fine. I do, however, have a pile of Cooks Illustrated material. I often start there when I’m trying something new. Quickly I descend into a mumbling housewife, looking for her wine and wondering when this damn Cooks Illustrated recipe will get on with it already. They tend to go ON AND ON about how they determined this recipe to be “the best” recipe. And, I don’t care. I do enjoy many of their recipes, but I wish they were five double-clicks removed from what they publish. So many times have I started with Cooks Illustrated, got pissed and began to abandoned steps left and right. It’s rebelish. It’s liberating. Then I consult Fannie Farmer and low-and-behold, my missing steps match up with the Fannie version. Fannie is for people who want to cook good shit without all the pots, pans and nonsense. This cinnamon roll recipe was the makings of Cooks Illustrated with the execution of Fannie. Even with sheepish yeast, the buns tasted a’ite.

Thanksgiving In Parts

Jean Curtis — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 11:40:29 +0000

Back in America we would host Aliens Thanksgiving. Every year, Seattle has a lot of foreigners wandering around on the fourth Thursday of November wondering, “where the heck is everybody?” We’d turn on a little turkey beacon and invite them in. I was usually the only American at the table and was forced to explain the meaning of thanksgiving. I’d mumble something about crazed European nutters taking over other people’s land in search of help from the locals to get up and running while simultaneously killing themselves and the natives with disease, laughing it all off at the end of the day with some corn on the cob. Now please, pass the stuffing. No, but really it’s a feast of brown and good friends and warming up the imminent cold, dark days.

Lucy sets the table for everyone. She refused to do a “kids table.”

Now that we’re in France, I’ve missed our cloud of aliens eating, drinking and giggling. Each year we’d meet new people as the aliens would get married, have children or bring other aliens. One dude married an American who increased our native count to two (love ya Kris!!). Brent did most of the cooking, Kevin played sous chef and I picked up the rest. Kevin caught a moment during 2002 when Brent, dressed in chef wear, had just pulled out the Turkey. Bassam is playing the role of restaurant owner. This photo is in my kitchen and I cherish it.

The dust of our new life in France has settled a bit and we’ve managed to put on a proper American feast. Brent is officially American now so as a family, we are the aliens. We had British and Australian representation as well as a lovely Scottish accent and a Swede at the table. I cooked as much as I could the day before and prepped the rest the morning of. It was a little difficult because I burnt the crap out of my hand two nights ago. Not unlike Mr. Toht from Raiders of The Lost Ark, I felt I should model a replica of the scar and see if it will lead to forgotten treasure. Instead I prepared the turkey with the fat-salt-pepper routine and learned first hand what salt does to an open wound. With thanksgiving dinner locked and loaded, I could relax and giggle with our guests. It was an enjoyable evening.

Tosca rests up for an evening of dropped Thanksgiving bits.

Having Thanksgiving in France forces a few tweaks in a traditional meal. The main difference is in our part of France we can’t buy a whole turkey to roast. I had dreams of raising a turkey for this day, but other important things took priority. Instead, I went to the shop to pick up a small collection of turkey parts. I managed to locate four turkey legs and two turkey roasty ball things. So we had a four-legged, two-balled turkey. I did a few turkey part roasts in the past and I’m starting to prefer this way of cooking turkey. You can pull the legs out early and let the thicker breasty-ball-roast keep cooking.

The other Thanksgiving tweak is we eat on Saturday. France is alive and working on the fourth Thursday of November. Our giant meal doesn’t fit with school the next day. The cool thing about having Thanksgiving on Saturday in France is that the next day is Sunday. On Sunday in France nothing is open. This means you are not enabled by giant money-saving super sales preying on your trypto-coma to spend your money. It’s a “spend nothing” day.

I wish all the Americans, Aliens and European nutters out there a Happy Thanksgiving.

Otto plays with the plasma ball

A Fleeting Moment On My Kitchen Bench

Jean Curtis — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:37:41 +0000

I set my glass of wine down as I was looking up a recipe in Fannie Farmer for apple pie and suddenly I felt a photo coming on. This counter is oozing with Autumn. Market apples for one fiddy, pumpkins from the neighbor and field mushrooms brought in from Brent’s pasture walk sit patiently as I prepare for processing. Last year’s garlic and shallots hang expectantly next to some dried peppers we received from another friend. I hope next year I will hang my home grown ones. They are snugged in nicely in our new veggie patch. Now I wait.

Culinary Nirvana

Jean Curtis — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 14:33:09 +0000

On the door of our fridge, I rolled out some white board contact paper. On it I list “what’s in the fridge.” A few days ago I hit a chef’s dream. Not only did we have various animal fats to cook with, we had a surplus of duck parts and pastured pig.

I’m very proud of the contents of my fridge. I try very hard to keep it full of local food free from packaged nonsense.

On the list was:

To Cook:

Duck Breast

Sausage Meat (made by me! and like, it tastes good! OMG!)

Foie Gras

Duck Hearts

Pumpkin Purée

Poitrine fumée

Duck yum for stock

Charcoochie-coochie:

Pâte

Brie de Maubert

Salers

Strausberg

Mirepoix on standby, champagne chilled, I was ready to cook damn near everything. I’ve not picked up foie gras in awhile because it’s been out of season as well as expensive. When our grass-fed beef is sold and loved, I hope to add our weekly foie gras back in the budget. This set of duck parts was given to us by our neighbor. Their brother accidently cut down our a boundary hedge and fence which was REALLY disappointing. Brent called them on it and they felt very bad for their mistake. A few weeks later the lady stopped by with a pile of duck. When we shared our experience with an American friend of ours, he pointed out that often this type of mistake is usually resolved with a lawsuit rather than foie gras. Honestly, I think I prefer the foie gras route.

We’re still in warm-mode. The only fires we’ve burned have been more for novelty than necessity. On the Nutella Weather Station, we’re still spreadable but with chance of stodgy bits. The Nutella is beginning to need a bit of warmth to spread. Bug the cat has assumed his winter position under Fremont. Every once in awhile he’ll step out to cool down before another warming session. GreyCute, our house-cat-in-training, has following his lead by snugging for hours on the green chair.