Thought for Food

When Elizabeth and her husband got married in Paris, they skipped the tiered wedding cake and served great tomes of cheese as well as saucisson, smoked duck breast, medjool dates, tiny black grapes….

Should they ever do it again, perhaps stateside this time, a wedding cake made of cheese by Wisconsin company The Cheese Shed would do quite nicely (via Cup of Jo).

nadia-muses:

bonjour, mes amis!

beautiful picture of paris in springtime, non? while i wish i could be there among the old buildings & bustling cafes, it’s great to stop and appreciate the present, too.

i have a 15 minute walk to work, and happily watched the chic denizens of chelsea with their espressos from joe’s coffee, young women dressed in flowing sundresses {it’s hot!}, and shopkeepers smiling at their customers. as i approached madison square park, i heard - the spotted - a man playing the bagpipes on the corner. amazing!

we often get into routines, but i love slowing down every morning to relish the taste of my coffee, the sun on my face, and unceasing energy of manhattan. enjoy!

Yes! I rarely listen to podcasts or music or read* on my morning commute (that is, 20-block walk), because I enjoy taking in the sights, sounds, and smells (oh! those smells. damn you kiddos partying late into the East Village night).

Side note for you, Nadia: we should get lunch & eat it in Madison Square Park. Sounds like we work very close to each other.

* Yes, I often read while walking, have done since I was a kid, even on busy city streets. It’s not as though everyone around me doesn’t have their nose buried in a smart phone!

Elizabeth — author of the new memoir of food and romance in the most beautiful city in the world, Lunch in Paris — recently received a gift for the ages: the recipe for the traditional French cake that is served on Galette, the feast of the Epiphany. The cake, she writes,

is a dense almond cream called frangipane, tucked between two layers of puff pastry. Inside the cake is hidden a tiny figurine – la fève – originally a broad bean. He who finds the fève is king for a day – paper crown and everything.

Ah! It it the pastry forefather of New Orleans’ beloved King Cake. And her description brings back a delicious memory: many years ago, my family and I spent New Year’s Eve in New Orleans. One day, we went to a French bakery and bought a Galette cake and it was so heavenly that we ate it with our bare hands right there on the street! (Perhaps I’m exaggerating.)

And I found la fève and fell deeply in love with New Orleans and together we lived happily ever after….

(Again, I may be embellishing. Apologies. But the power of the Galette cake is just that strong. So strong that for many Carnival seasons in New Orleans I searched high and low for this very special King Cake but had no words to describe it, merely a taste memory fading by the day. And now! I can make it at home. For it just so happens that M. has some homemade puff pastry in the freezer that he demands I make use of. Only doing my part.)

Thanks to Elizabeth Bard of Lunch in Paris, I’ve spent the last 20 minutes marveling over unusual, intelligent, and beautiful kitchen- and tableware designed by Konstantin Slawinski.

A sculptural metal squiggle, dubbed the “Noooodle,” is a pasta-measuring guide that doubles as a trivet. The “Throwzini” knife block echoes the sexy curves of a magician’s assistant and magically keeps the knives in place with magnets. Graphic candles set the pace of your dinner party, moving from cocktail hour to after-dinner cigarettes (Slawinski is French, after all) to bed.

Elizabeth writes of the “S-XL” cake pan, which marks out slices in four sizes; “Is it me or does [it] seem tailor-made for judgment and humiliation? Go ahead, take the piece that’s the size of a throw pillow, I dare you.”

If you dared me to buy everything in Slawinski’s collection, I just might do it.

Distraction of the day: Lunch in Paris, a charming and addicting blog by Elizabeth Bard, an American expat living the foodie, mommy-bliss dream in Paris. She’s the author of the upcoming book of the same name, which looks utterly fabulous.