Food we love now that we are old, wise and never wrong.
We have expanded our food loves and passions (we all have affairs with food right?) so I think we need another Post section to cover what we love now and any recipes we have to share.
I'll make a subject for discussion since some of our ACP Early Years FaceBook group weighed in on the topic of Ice Cream. Personally, with a few exceptions, as an ice cream lover, I have moved over to other forms of frozen desserts that are based on ice cream but that are made of other ingredients. For example, while, as some have already noted, standard ice cream in France, mostly represented "Carte d'Or" is not bad but hardly eye rolling, it is the "home made" in its top and good restaurants is does make the eyes roll back in their sockets. But many times instead of using boring old cream, they will use crème fraîche with real sticks of vanilla for the flavor or other interesting ingredients. They will use marvelous, inventive flavors like lavender, olive oil, jasmine, green tea with ginger . . . whatever comes to them in their delicious flashes of inspiration. But these are not the ice cream style of the US and UK, these are based on the warmer, softer products of Italian gelato. Part of the talent to couple the flavor of the frozen whatever it is with another ingredient. One of my favorite combinations (easy to make) was at La Bastide Marie near Menerbes in Provence (made famous by Peter Mayle in his "A Year in Provence") It was "Williams Pear poached with Liquorice Stick Provence Financier with Almonds, Jasmine Ice Cream" http://gourmetvoyageurs.com/other-pages/recipes/poached-pear.html . Mostly these desserts are served not with a scoop but using a soup spoon that make the serving look more like an egg than a scoop. But France and Italy do not have a lock on great ice cream. I agree that Haagen-Dazs produces some wonderful ice creams and sorbets. Reeds produces a fabulous green tea with ginger icecream. Ciao Bella, Stoney Field (organic), Breyer's with their really good Vanilla 1/2 the fat sugar free that even I can eat and so many others that are available here in the US and many, many other, really beat the pants of most other countries except Italy. I am a chocoholic. Yes, I have learned to just come out with it rather than have it appear in the tabloids. So even if I did not live on Ojai, I would come here to eat at "Suzanne's Cuisine" (http://gourmetvoyageurs.com/country-pages/pages-usa/pages-ojai/suzannes.html) just for her chocolate sorbet which is a chocoholics dream come true. No nasty butter fat to dilute the pure taste of Valrhona Belgium chocolate. Forget the needles, white powders, coughing - eat Suzanne's chocolate sorbet and enter Paradise for a few minutes. My idea of heaven is a daily dose of her sorbet. The rest of the time I would be happy floating on a pink cloud. I would even endure robes, wings and sing celestially if I could be promised "deux boules" of Suzanne's.
This is a recipe from an Italian friend I make when, like today, I have lots of escarole in my vegetable garden & the weather is cool. Great comfort food. Take a bunch of escarole, wash, dry & slice into ribbons. Set aside. Saute diced onion in olive oil & then add minced garlic and saute for a few minutes. Add the escarole, stir the pot, & cook a few more minutes until the escarole has wilted. Add a couple of cans of chicken stock. Simmer for about20-30 minutes or until the escarole in tender & tasty. Now add a can or two of rinsed cannelini beans & heat though. In a separate pot, cook small elbow macaroni until al dente. Add to the soup pot and mix everything well together. Serve with plenty of freshly grated Parm with Italian bread. Note: you can add tiny cubes of pancetta with the escarole if you'd like. Tasty but optional.
I'll make a subject for discussion since some of our ACP Early Years FaceBook group weighed in on the topic of Ice Cream. Personally, with a few exceptions, as an ice cream lover, I have moved over to other forms of frozen desserts that are based on ice cream but that are made of other ingredients. For example, while, as some have already noted, standard ice cream in France, mostly represented "Carte d'Or" is not bad but hardly eye rolling, it is the "home made" in its top and good restaurants is does make the eyes roll back in their sockets. But many times instead of using boring old cream, they will use crème fraîche with real sticks of vanilla for the flavor or other interesting ingredients. They will use marvelous, inventive flavors like lavender, olive oil, jasmine, green tea with ginger . . . whatever comes to them in their delicious flashes of inspiration. But these are not the ice cream style of the US and UK, these are based on the warmer, softer products of Italian gelato. Part of the talent to couple the flavor of the frozen whatever it is with another ingredient. One of my favorite combinations (easy to make) was at La Bastide Marie near Menerbes in Provence (made famous by Peter Mayle in his "A Year in Provence") It was "Williams Pear poached with Liquorice Stick Provence Financier with Almonds, Jasmine Ice Cream" http://gourmetvoyageurs.com/other-pages/recipes/poached-pear.html
ReplyDelete. Mostly these desserts are served not with a scoop but using a soup spoon that make the serving look more like an egg than a scoop. But France and Italy do not have a lock on great ice cream. I agree that Haagen-Dazs produces some wonderful ice creams and sorbets. Reeds produces a fabulous green tea with ginger icecream. Ciao Bella, Stoney Field (organic), Breyer's with their really good Vanilla 1/2 the fat sugar free that even I can eat and so many others that are available here in the US and many, many other, really beat the pants of most other countries except Italy. I am a chocoholic. Yes, I have learned to just come out with it rather than have it appear in the tabloids. So even if I did not live on Ojai, I would come here to eat at "Suzanne's Cuisine" (http://gourmetvoyageurs.com/country-pages/pages-usa/pages-ojai/suzannes.html) just for her chocolate sorbet which is a chocoholics dream come true. No nasty butter fat to dilute the pure taste of Valrhona Belgium chocolate. Forget the needles, white powders, coughing - eat Suzanne's chocolate sorbet and enter Paradise for a few minutes. My idea of heaven is a daily dose of her sorbet. The rest of the time I would be happy floating on a pink cloud. I would even endure robes, wings and sing celestially if I could be promised "deux boules" of Suzanne's.
Italian Escarole and Bean Soup
ReplyDeleteThis is a recipe from an Italian friend I make when, like today, I have lots of escarole in my vegetable garden & the weather is cool. Great comfort food.
Take a bunch of escarole, wash, dry & slice into ribbons. Set aside. Saute diced onion in olive oil & then add minced garlic and saute for a few minutes. Add the escarole, stir the pot, & cook a few more minutes until the escarole has wilted.
Add a couple of cans of chicken stock. Simmer for about20-30 minutes or until the escarole in tender & tasty. Now add a can or two of rinsed cannelini beans & heat though. In a separate pot, cook small elbow macaroni until al dente. Add to the soup pot and mix everything well together. Serve with plenty of freshly grated Parm with Italian bread.
Note: you can add tiny cubes of pancetta with the escarole if you'd like. Tasty but optional.