Our Juicy Life

The Perfect Day

                  

Today in Los Angeles, at the beach where we live, it was 70 degrees.  It's January 13th!  This is why I love Southern California.  Days like this in January when it's warm & sunny.  We got up and decided to go for a long ride.  We biked from our house in Marina del Rey to Palos Verdes and around the PV peninsula (this picture is from the PV peninsula).  Round trip - 50 miles, 3 1/2 hours.  Right now my legs are a bit sore, but it was a perfect day for a long ride.  We had our 1/2 day fine art camps over the holiday break (3 weeks) and it sure put a wrench in my biking.  I was also sick (or is it allergies), not sure.  All I know is that one day I went for a ride with Bruce and after 8 miles I had to turn around and come home...just didn't have the energy.  But not today, I'm back!  I'm feeling great and had a great ride.  As I was biking, which was along the beautiful pacific ocean, about 45 miles out of 50, I realized how lucky I was.  Look at my view...can't beat it and the temp - oh my!  When I came home I had to check the weather in France, YIKES....40 and rain.  Can I really do 40 and rain in January?  I'm not so sure.  I love California for this weather in January, but don't like it for many many other reasons.

I also decided to try another recipe from my French Market cookbook.  This time is was "Gougere au Jambon"  which is a choux pastry filled with ham.  Another winner!  This cookbook rocks.  Very very happy with each dish I have tried.  I highly recommend this, if you like ham (which we do).  It's not heavy.  In fact we had it with salad and some red wine, it was perfect - we both had enough room for dessert.  Apple/cranberry turnovers (I had some puff pastry just laying around).

We had a lovely day today.  Great ride, great food, great wine and scrumptious dessert.  Wish every day was like today.  Try this dish.  I know you'll be pleased.  Would love to hear if you made it and what you thought.

GOUGERE AU JAMBON

    The traditional gougere, make from choux pastry is baked as a single large ring.  It's simple to make, and     works with a simple green salad or as an aperitif with a glass of wine.  I made this gougere in an                 ovenrpoof dish (that I bought in Aix-en-Provence) that roughly shapes the dough and makes an easy and     tasty supper dish.

For the cream puff dough

1 cup water
8 TB unsalted butter, thinly sliced
1 cup flour
4 large eggs, beaten, at room temperature
1/2 cup grated Gruyere (my favorite cheese)

For the ham filling

2 TB olive oil
1 TB unsalted butter
2 shallots, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
3 TB flour
2/3 chicken stock
1/3 cup dry white wine
2 tspn. whole grain mustard
ground pepper, to taste
1 lb. cooked ham, roughly diced

Heat oven to 400F.  Butter an 11x8 1/2 shallow baking dish.

To make the cream puff dough, bring the water and butter to a boil in a medium saucepan over high heat.  Remove from the heat and stir until the butter melts.  Add the flour and rapidly beat until the mixture is smooth.  Return to medium-low heat and beat constantly until the mixture pulls away from the pan.  Remove from the heat and cool for 5 minutes.  Gradually beat in the eggs until the dough drops easily from the spoon.  Stir in the cheese.  Spoon the dough around the edge of the prepared dish (leaving a hole in the middle for the filling).  Bake until puffed and golden, about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling.  Heat the oil and butter in a skillet over medium heat.  Add the shallots and cook until tender, about 3 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.  Remove the pan from the heat, sprinkle in the flour, and mix well.  Return to low heat and gradually mix in the stock, then the wine, mustard and pepper.  Bring to a full boil, stirring constantly to avoid sticking.  Stir in the ham.  Spoon the filling into the center of the dish with pastry.  Reduce the heat to 300F and continue baking until the pastry is golden brown and the filling is bubbling, about 25 minutes.  Serve hot.

Two new winners!

                  

One of our customers Anne (her son who is a great artist comes to our studio) gave me this book for Christmas.  It's now my favorite cookbook.  "The French Market", by Joanne Harris & Fran Ward.  It's all recipes from Southwest France.  I'm in heaven.  This morning was great, very relaxing.  We got our coffee got back into bed around 7:30 to watch TV for a bit.  All the dogs were in the bed to.  I got a hold of the remote (very unusual) and went to the food channel.  Giada was making this lovely salad, so I decided to try it tonight.  I also decided that I was going to make one of the dishes in my new cookbook.  The first one I wanted to try was the  "Tarte au Chevre"....a goat cheese tart.  I already have a recipe for a goat cheese tart (which I have shared with you)  but I figured that I needed to try this one too.  It's amazing and our new favorite.  My old standby is great, but very rich, this tart is perfect, not too rich, just delicious.  If you have tried my old tart recipe, you need to try this one as well.  I guarantee you'll love it.  We just had it for dinner tonight.  We also had Giada's salad that I saw on TV today and it was excellent.  Here's the link for her salad.  Tuscan salad.

               

Here is the Tarte au Chevre recipe.  Would love to know what you think...do you like the first one or this one?

    TARTE AU CHEVRE

    If you want to use store bought puff pastry, go ahead.  But if you are adventurous, please try the pastry         shell recipe here.

        For the pastry shell

            1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
            pinch of salt
            4 TB unsalted butter, chilled and diced
            4 TB vegetable shortening, chilled and diced
            3 TB ice-cold water, as needed

        For the filling

            3 TB unsalted butter
            3 medium leeks, white and pale green parts only, thinly sliced
            2/3 cup half-and-half
            2 large eggs
            salt to taste
            pepper to taste
            5 ounces rindless goat cheese

            To make the pastry shell, stir the four and salt in a medium bowl.  Add the butter and vegetable                 shortening and rub it together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Stir in             the water with a fork until the mixture comes together.  Place on a lightly floured work surface and             knead briefly until the pastry is evenly blended, shape into a disk.  Wrap in plastic and refrigerate             for 30 minutes.  (I used my food processor and it's much easier and faster and made a great crust).

            Lightly butter a 9 1/2" tart pan.  On a lightly floured surface, roll out the pastry about 1 inch wider             than the pan's diameter.  Carefully roll the pastry around the rolling pin and unroll onto the pan.              Press into the pan and trim off any excess pastry with a small knife.  Refrigerate for another 30                 minutes.

            Heat oven to 350.  Line the pastry with aluminum foil and fill with dried beans.  Bake until the                 edges of the pastry look set - 30 minutes.  Lift off the foil and beans, bake until the pastry is barely             browned, about 10 minutes more.  (If you are using store bought puff pastry - cook pastry for 15                 minutes covered with foil & beans and then 5 minutes without foil & beans)

            For the filling, melt butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat.  Add the leaks, cover and cook             for 15 minutes.  Whisk in the half-and-half and eggs, and season with salt and pepper.  Pour into                 the pastry shell.  Top with cheese and bake until filling sets, about 45 minutes.  Serve warm or                 cooled to room temp.
            Yum yum. 

Cold and rainy day here in Los Angeles.  Good day to stay in and cook.

Christmas Dinner for Two

                  

What do you do when it's just the two of you for Christmas dinner?  In our case, it's a chance to try a new recipe and to have duck.  We just love duck but you can't find cut up duck here in Los Angeles.  I have to buy a whole duck and cut out the spine, cut off the wings, legs, breast.  It's a big job with sharp scissors, but it's so so good.  I use my Le Creuset of course, because it makes the juiciest meat.  All I do is make up a butter, herb de provence and garlic mix and stuff it under the skin.  Salt and pepper each piece and then brown it in olive oil and then put it in the oven for 30 minutes.  So easy and so good.  I also made roasted potatoes and a new salad called Bettes de Vigneron (vineyard-style swiss chard).  A parent of one of our students gave me this fantastic cookbook called "The French Market" and I love it.  There are so many authentic french recipes from southwest france.  I had to try this 'warm' salad.  It has swiss chard, onions, garlic, raisins, walnuts and lemon juice (salt & pepper too).  It was really good, very earthy and yummy.  Something we will be eating again soon.

Here is the duck.  Don't get tons of mean from this little bird...just enough for two.

The Swiss chard salad was so good. Very french.

But the best part of making dinner is that Bruce always cleans up.  I love to cook, love to try new recipes and he's so open to try new things and he's always there to clean up my big mess (although I try to clean as I go so I don't have tons for him).  I was going to make this traditional french dessert called "floating islands" - which is custard with meringue and caramel sauce, it's in the "french market cookbook", but after reading it I decided it would be too much work.  I'm not feeling 100%.  Been fighting a sinus cold for a few days, so instead we had vanilla bean ice cream with this armagnac (a french brandy), sea salt, caramel sauce that another parent (who happens to be a food writer for the LA times) made for us.  She told me that you can basically put it on anything and it was unbelievable on the ice cream. 

We had a lovely day.  It was about 70 and sunny here.  We relaxed, took the dogs to the park, went for a bike ride (although I had to turn around after 8 miles because I wasn't feeling great...Bruce ended up doing 38 miles).  We ate some great food, we exchanged gifts in bed this am with all the dogs and took a great nap this afternoon.

Can't ask for anything more! 

Cookies...yum yum!

Been baking lately.  Last week I did traditional chocolate chip cookies - I really don't like chocolate chip cookies (I know I'm crazy) but they really don't do much for me, but they are easy and Bruce loves them.  I did some of the cookies with nuts and liked them much better.  I guess I like the salt & sweet combination.  This weekend I added a twist to Oatmeal Raisin.  I did Oatmeal Cranberry/Coconut.  Yum yum...these are good cookies.  Bruce is chocolate man, but he really likes these.  They are very simple to make too.

I got this recipe from Martha Stewart  - Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, if you like raisins then go for the 2 cups, but the cranberries add a little something special - so I replaced the raisins with 2 cups of dried cranberries. 

I'm having some oven troubles.  I have a 1949 General Electric stove.  It's electric - seriously...and yes, you can cook on electric.  I think you end up being a better cook when you cook on electric because you have to be more careful with what you are doing.  Anyway, my stove has 2 ovens (thank god), because my main oven has decided not to heat up properly.  It probably gets up to 250 but that's it.  So I have been using my 2nd oven, which is a bit smaller but am finding out heats really really fast.  The recipe says 18 minutes for the cookies to bake - WHAT - it took mine 9 minutes to be nice golden brown.  So if you have a fast heating oven, watch the time.

Try these out and let me know what you think.  I think I'm going to go have another right now.

PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE...

My husband Bruce.  Yes, my husband.  After being together for 11 years, on November 11th we tied the knot.  Not many people knew we were getting married and in fact most of our customers thought we were already married.  We told people we were married because we thought it was easier than trying to explain to all the kids that come to us that we live together but are not married.  I don't have any pictures of the nuptials right now, they were taken by 2 friends and they are sorting through them and putting together a nice on-line album.  But I didn't want to wait for them and just had to tell the world. 

This is my handsome husband Bruce.  Man of my dreams....and 6 years younger than me!  ha.  We never planned to get married, just didn't think it was necessary.  We don't have and don't want children and have a great relationship (why fix something that isn't broke), but our accountant/financial planner Ben told us that it would be smart to get married.  We own a house, we own a business...it's just smart to protect ourselves.  So we thought about it, talked about it and thought why not.  Our good friend Elizabeth married us on the beach with our friend Chris taking pictures, it was perfect.  Then we had a party at a great restaurant called Beechwood Restaurant.  40 of our closest friends, great wine, cupcakes instead of a wedding cake, no wedding dress, no first dance, just fun!  It was the perfect day.  Bruce bought me a lovely ring from Anne Sportun.  Simple, elegant and beautiful! 

This is my niece Gigi and my nephew Mathieu.  They are the children of my best friend and sister Anne. My mom, sister (Anne) and the kids arrived here in LA (from Michigan) on Thursday and we went to Legoland on Friday.  They had a great time and Mathieu told us many times that la is paradise...he wants to move here.  He cried when he left on Tuesday and called us from Minneapolis on their way home.  It was great having them here, I speak to my sister a couple times a week, she's too far away and I wish she lived closer. 

We had a great 4 days with the family and it was great to celebrate with all of our friends.

The Aveyron Region

We left the Rousillon region and headed north to the Aveyron region.  This region is north east of Toulouse and is one of the most remote regions in france.  The landscape was so different from where we were and we instantly fell in love.  It took us about 2 hours to get there and once we did we knew we definitely stepped up in terms of beauty, the landscape is like a dream.  Best of all, the Aude valley has...no WIND!  The picture above is our beautiful restored 13th century barn on the property of Nala and Neerva McEvoy.  The hamlet is called Finnerols and it's in the middle of the countryside, the road is 1 mile long and has about 6 houses along it, ours is the very last one on the top of the hill.  This area is in the gorges de l'aveyron, surrounded by the Aveyron river and huge limestone cliffs.

Tonight we went to dinner in Najac a beautiful village about 15 minutes away.  The first thing we see when we get out of the car is this little frenchie.  Just sitting outside of the restaurant.  He was so cute we just had to get a picture of him.  The grey-tiled houses of this beautiful village tail out westwards in a single street along a narrow spur that connects the valley side to the castle hill.  It's a long walk up to the 12th century chateau, but worth it.  We ate dinner at L'Salamandre and had our best dinner yet with the full complement of aperitif, wine, entrees, plats and desert.  The creme brulee was the best we have ever had.  Before we left we had a great conversation with the owner who fled Paris with his family to settle in Najac.  He told us that the restaurant he worked at in Paris would go through 10 kilos of coffee in a day, almost 1500 coffee's.  He and his wife and daughter (17) work in the restaurant and they live upstairs.  They are closed November - February!  Not a bad life. 

We got out for a nice ride through the beautiful landscape and discovered that the roads - at least nearby - go two ways - UP & DOWN.  We are going to burn off every croissant we eat!  We road from the barn house to the villages of Lunac _ Lescure - Laoul and back around.  After some lunch with drove to Villefranche de Rourgue, a beautiful small city on the Aveyron right.  We made dinner in tonight, pasta with Jambon, peas and goat cheese.  Along with it we had a delicious 3 euro Chateau Chateloup Bordeaux and for dessert a cafe eclair. 

The next day our host - Nala (Patrick) took us down the road to his friend Jacques house.  Jacques is 60 something and a huge cyclist.  He actually has an arsenal of bikes, two of which are very close to being lightest in the world - we were in the middle of nowhere and here is this man, living in our hamlet, in a 13th century home and he has tons of bikes...expensive bikes!  It was mind blowing.  He offered to take us on a 30 mile ride along the rive viaur and we road and talked most of the way.  He would become a great friend.  We had dinner at his home with 4 other people and went on many other rides with him.  Our original itinerary was to spend 1 week here and then head back to Spain and spend 1 week in Girona.  Well, after 3 days here we have decided to extend our trip here and not spend 1 week in Girona.  We have found the area we love...we don't want to leave.

The next day we packed the bikes in the car and drove northwest to Cajarc, in the Tarn (the department next to us), we had a great ride along the river tarn and cliffs to the beau village of St. Cirq Lapopie (above).  The ride was mostly flat but the few hills made the 26 mile ride feel like 46.  This village was so pretty.  We had lunch here and I visited a potter who told me that she is open April - September and spends October - March throwing, bisquing and glazing.  Not a bad gig!  We stopped in Villefranche and got some croissants and had sandwiches at the Cafe des Arcades.  They have the best jambon and brie sandwiches for only 3 euros. 

Today was a rest day for us.  Our legs are killing us from all the hills!  We woke to more sunny skies - we have had the most beautiful weather here and no wind!  I didn't have a converter that worked here, so I had not been drying my hair....I needed to dry my hair!  So we ventured to the Hyper U, which is a sort of mini target/walmart/grocery store.  It sure lived up to it's name, it was 10 am and it was quite hyper.  It was a Wednesday, so children were not in school (they don't go to school on Wednesday).  I found my hairdryer and it was our first investment in relocation...a french hairdryer!  This afternoon we decided to check our emails.  We were told that the library in Najac had internet access, so we headed over there..only to find that they are only open Saturday from 10:30 - 12:30 - so french!  Alas, no news is good news.

Here's Bruce in front of the biblioteque....of course it's not open.

Today we were tourists.  We drove to Cordes sur Ciel (above) to explore a bit and found a studio of a couple who make etchings.  The wife makes the plates and the husband prints them.  L'homme etais tres sympa (the man was really nice).  We bought two small etchings.  We had pizza for lunch at a lovely restaurant.  We then went to Villefrance to the Thursday market - it's huge and there is everything you could imagine - food, spices, veggies, fruit, clothing, toys, pottery, leather goods, etc....a bit overwhelming.  We picked up some fromage, fruit, rose and honey.  Then we drove south to Albi and visited the Musee de Toulouse-Lautrec.  Albi was hot and as always the musee was tiring, so we drove back stopping for some cafe and rose before returning home.

Tonight we stayed in and I made lamb for dinner.  Our friend Jacques stopped by to show us his sprained ankle.  We had a great time talking with him and Nala even came over for a chat.  We had some vin rouge de Gaillac s'apelle Marquis d'orial 2003......so good.

Today we went to visit a village called St. Antonin Noble Val (what a great name).  We have discovered our favorite village as of yet.  Just the right size with a nice mix of people, it is really pretty and friendly...it could be the one!

St. Antonin Noble Val sits on the river's north bank beneath the beetling white cliffs of the Roc d'Anglars, where it developed in the ninth century around an abbey said to house the remains of the evangelizing St.  Antonin.  The picture above was taken in the place de la Halle, the main square in the ville.  The building in this picture is the Maison des Consuls, the town's finest building, whose origins go back to 1125.  This picture below is about 1/2 mile outside of the village...

Bruce is obsessed with these hay circles.  They are everywhere.  Today we went on a long, hot and hungry 50 mile tour de Jacques through the Aveyron gorge with friends Anka and Fabrice and Jacques girlfriend Fabiene, with Jacques in tow in the car due to his sprained ankle.  There were lots and lots of hills and not enough food, it's made us very tired towards the end, although you only have to look around to appreciate the suffering.  We finally made it back to the car and had sandwiches and ice cream in Cordes as our legs stiffened up.   We went to dinner in Najac at a restaurant called Belle Rive, which was below the chateau  Bruce had real Roquefort cheese...quite blue and very furry, but packing a big taste.  Another world from the blue cheese at home.   We have tried many things new on this trip.  Rose, aperitif, duck, lamb, fois gras, pate, Roquefort all new tastes.

Our neighbors

Last night we were invited to a soiree a' chez Jacques.  It was tres intereseant.  It was Bruce and I, Jacques, his daughter, Nala and their friend Francious.  We enjoyed a great dinner with soup d'Averyon, salad with fois gras, confit de canard, potatoes, cheese and great wine.  It was difficult to follow the conversations, always at least two at once, but fun to try.  Our french is getting really good but when a debate explodes we get a bit lost.  We stayed until almost 1 in the morning and ended only because I was falling asleep at the table.

This is a view from our restored barn.  I could never get tired of this view.  We leave today....we are both very sad.

Left takes you to the motorway....and home.  Right takes you to paradise.....which way should we go?????? 

As we crossed the border into spain, we say au revior to france in search of a place for the night.  We are heading to Barcelona and on to home.    We took our last ride yesterday from our favorite village and hopefully new home soon, St Antonin Noble Val, where  picked up a ring that was handmade for me.  It was hard to say goodbye, we stopped at Anke and Fabrice's home and later at Jacques.  We made some great friends on this trip and the Aveyron and around could be the best place we've yet been.  We packed up and said goodbye to Nala and we both had to choke back the tears.

We will be back....sooner than later!

3 weeks in France

This is what we saw when we got off the plane in Paris.  Bruce just had to shoot this, even though we have been to france 3 times before...  We are back from our 3 weeks in france and all I can say is it was life changing.  I'm going to do this blog in groups.  This first blog will be the first 5 days.  We flew from LA to Paris and Paris to Barcelona Spain.  We chose Barcelona because our first stop was in a little village called Maury, just west of Perpignan which is just over the Spanish border into France in the Midi Pyrenees region and the department of the pyrneese orientals.  The flights were cheaper (much cheaper) than flying to Toulouse, france and the car rental was much cheaper too and the drive is about the same.  We left at 3:00 pm on Sunday the 2nd of September (my 44th birthday) and arrived in Barcelona at 4:00 pm on Monday...what happened to my birthday???  Bruce said we were celebrating my birthday for 3 weeks in france...I like that idea.  We then had to get the bikes (we took our bikes with us) and luggage (just 1 piece for the both of us) and then our rental car and then had to head north to the french border.  We arrived into our little town at 8:00 pm Monday night, starving!  We rented a village house and the management company met us there with the keys and then we headed down to the center of the village for some food.  We were beat - completely exhausted.  We came home and fell asleep at about 9:30, but woke up at 2:00 am (france is 9 hours ahead of us here in Los Angeles).  We read for a bit and fell back asleep at about 4:30 am and woke around 7:30 am.  Where are we?  What day is it?  What time is it? 

Ah, we are in the village of Maury france in the Pyrenees oriental department and they have a market every morning, up in the town center right by the patisserie.  So I grabbed the basket and headed up to get some coffee, croissants and fruit.  The basics, just get us by this morning until we go to the Intermarche (the big grocery store).  We are staying in our village house for 5 days so we need breakfast, lunch and dinners.  Today was a rest day (no biking) since we were so tired and a bit confused.  We walked around our tiny village for a bit (it was very small) and then went grocery shopping and then went for dinner that night.  I was so tired I couldn't cook.  We had a great dinner with some wonderful wine and met really nice people.  Time to start speaking french - nobody spoke english here or if they did we would ask them to speak french and they loved that.

our 2nd day we decided to go for a bike ride.  We picked a village about 15 miles away called Tauteval (above), it would be about 30 miles round trip..perfect.  We looked on the map and chose very small roads so there wasn't much traffic.  Found out that these roads were probably the original roads, I wouldn't call them roads, they were just 1 lane paths, but they were paved.  They were also right in the middle of all the vineyards.  It was so beautiful, riding with all the grapes...no traffic, just beautiful french countryside.  We went to a village called Tauteval, home of the Tauteval man, at 450,000 years old, said to be the oldest European.  This area had a constant history from approximately 1 million years ago....crazy!    The ride there was wonderful but the ride back was so hard.  We are in the Pyrenees mountains in a valley and the wind (le vent) is horrible...the worst wind I have ever biked in.  It took us twice as long to get back.  Everyone says that it is windy all the time here...why didn't the people we rented our village house from tell us that!!!!!

Decided to take a bit of a road trip today (only 1 hour away) to visit the medieval city of Carcasonne.  We strolled the busy but pleasant streets and walked through the medieval castle (above) which despite the tourist trappings and accompanying tourists, was quite amazing.  We tried to imagine daily life in this storybook medieval village.  I made dinner tonight and we are settling into a better rhythm, helped along by a bottle of Chateau de Blanes 2003, Cotes du Roussillon, the local region.  Still having trouble sleeping, so we stopped off at the pharmacist and they gave us these little sleeping pills.  I would take 1/4 and bruce 1/2 and boy did it help us.  Our 4th day we awoke at 8am...we both slept through the night - yes!   Tonight we have reservations for dinner at a restaurant where everyone sits at one long table.

Dinner was a success, Bruce was seated at the head of the long table and we enjoyed a true french meal from start to finish.  A bottle of the proprietors own label, tartine breast of duck with potatoes and veggies and amazing calamari in a pesto sauce.  We had chocolate cake and profiteroles for dessert.  We were stuffed and high on food.  The highlight was the two British couples we dined with.  Des & Phil, Brenda & Pip provided a great conversation.  Dogs, french, America, lady di, the princes were all topics of discussion, along with much laughter.  It was truly an experience to dine together by chance.  The owners were gracious and warm and the husband seemed to get a kick out of our conversation.  Their dog came in for a visit (of course) and then let himself out of the door, much to everyone's amusement.  Bruce ordered some local aperitif, "Maury hor d'age" some local wine that simply tasted like eating wine.  We bought two bottles for later and staggered up the narrow path under a starry sky to La Maison. 

This is the front of someone village house - looks like a postcard!  Maury has grown on us and we have come to appreciate the local terrior and it's offerings (we picked up some local chevre from the tiny store in town and it was pure heaven on a fresh baguette, which cost 66 cents).   We don't really LOVE this area...we like it but don't love it.  Very arid and very very windy.  We leave tomorrow for Najac, which is in the Aveyron region, just northeast of Toulouse.  We'll spend 15 days up there.  Our trip is starting to unfold slowly, growing better each day as we relax into it and the underlying tensions of daily life in busy los angeles fade away.  It really is the life!

   

A scrumptious tart

A year or so ago, we went to this french restaurant called Lilly's, it's a great place for dinner.  They had this lovely Flamiche Chevre et Poireaux which is a goat cheese & leek tart and I knew after my first bite I had to find a recipe for it, because it's unbelievable.  After much searching around I did find the recipe. How can something with leeks, cream and goat cheese be bad...no way.  I've made this many times and it always come out great.  It's very easy too.

I have only used leeks for this recipe.  They are really good, but I don't know any other recipes that call for leeks.  You really have to wash them well though, since they grow in the ground and have many layers (looser layers than an onion) they seem to be pretty dirty.  I usually rinse them and then them chop them and put them in a colander and rinse them again.

I also love puff pastry.  There are so many things you can make with this lovely stuff!  My oven cooks very fast though.  I actually have a 1939 vintage range....and it's electric.  Seriously.  I cook so much and love to bake and it sometimes is very difficult without gas burners, with electric you get hot, hotter or hottest.  I think it's made me a better cook, but I can't wait until I get my Lacanche cuisiniere, I dream about the day when I get mine!  I'll probably be living in france, but hopefully that's not too far off.  We keep thinking about getting a nice commercial range here, but it would be very expensive, not just for the range, but to run a gas line from the back of our property all the way to the kitchen....we don't have a gas line into the kitchen and our water heater won't take the btu's.  So, I do my best with my old "girl"...she's got 4 electric burners, 2 stoves,she's an old workhorse and I've been cooking on her for 7 years and never had a problem (except for burning butter, garlic or oil when I'm not paying attention). 

OK, back to the tart.  I highly recommend this beauty, I also highly recommend the restaurant and if you are ever in Los Angeles or live here, try it...you'll love it.  If you make the tart, let me know how you like it.  Here's the recipe.

Flamiche Chevre et Poireaux

ingredients

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (half of 17.3-ounce package), thawed
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 small leeks (white and pale green parts only), halved, thinly sliced crosswise
1 cup whipping cream

1 5.2-ounce package soft herb cheese (such as Boursin), room temperature
1 3.5-ounce package soft fresh goat cheese, room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
2 large eggs

2 tablespoons plain dried breadcrumbs

preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll out puff pastry on lightly floured surface to 12-inch square. Line 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom with pastry, cutting off excess at edge. Using fork, pierce dough all over. Freeze pastry 5 minutes. Cover pastry with aluminum foil. Fill with dried beans or pie weights. Bake pastry 15 minutes. Remove weights and foil. Bake crust until golden, about 5 minutes longer. Cool completely on rack. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover with plastic wrap. Let stand at room temperature.)

Preheat oven to 425°F. Heat olive oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add sliced leeks and sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add whipping cream and simmer until leek mixture is reduced to 1 1/4 cups, about 5 minutes. Let mixture cool.

Using wooden spoon, beat herb cheese, goat cheese, and cream cheese in large bowl until well blended. Stir in leek mixture, then lemon juice and thyme. Season mixture to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in eggs 1 at a time, blending well after each addition.

Spread half of filling over bottom of crust. Bake tart until filling is set, about 30 minutes. Transfer to platter. Let tart cool to room temperature. Cut tart into wedges and serve.

ENJOY.

A Lovely Evening

We are pretty much homebodies.  I think it's because of our business, spending all our days with kids, talking to them, talking to the parents, always being "on".  When we are finished with work on or the weekend we love to be at home, just hanging out, just the two of us.    But when we were invited to dinner at a friends house (with another couple) we were excited and immediately accepted.  I guess it's because of the couples...they are great people.  We arrived at Kevin & Erica's lovely spanish style home at 4:30.  Their house is so beautiful, up in the hills, beautiful artwork and inviting pool.  The wine started immediately.  As you know Bruce and I are big French wine drinkers, K is a huge wine connoisseur of California wines, so it was a real treat.  Peter & Elizabeth our other friends arrived a bit after us.  They have 3 boys (6,8 and 10) so being exactly on-time just isn't in the cards.  Peter is probably the funniest man I have ever met, in my life.  He always makes me laugh.  We knew we were going to have a wonderful time.

Erica made this wonderful baked brie, it might not look pretty right now, but it was when it was first served...it was so rich and gooey and delicious.

The green olives were right in front of me, bad news...I ate so many.  I can never get enough green olives. 

It's so great when you have friends you are totally comfortable with.  We haven't know Kevin & Erica and Peter & Elizabeth for very long, we met them through our studio, their kids come to art classes and Bruce also teaches a "private" adult class and Erica and Elizabeth are both in the class.  In fact Erica was the one to "create" the class.  Like I said, we are homebodies and really don't do a lot of socializing, but, we always have a wonderful time and laugh a lot when we see Kevin & Erica and Peter & Elizabeth... we can't wait to do it again.

Elizabeth brought the salad and I brought dessert.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of it...but it was so rich, a double chocolate cake with ganache.  If you really love a dense chocolate cake, here is the recipe Double Chocolate Cake, it was pretty darn good.  Kevin did veal chops and roasted potatoes (on the grill), the roasted potatoes were super good, here's the recipe for them Grilled potatoes.  We also had many many glasses of excellent wine.  The night went too fast, the next thing we knew it was 11:00 pm.  Very late for us...we are usually in bed at 9:00 and asleep by 10:00 pm (and we don't have kids). 

We spent most of the evening outside by the pool.  We live by the ocean, so evenings are pretty cool (with the marine layer), so it's nice to be a bit more inland so that the evenings are really nice.  We had such a great time.  The hardest part was waking up Sunday morning at 7:00 am when our friend Steve called about our planned 40 mile bike ride.  We met him at 8:00 am, blurry eyed and tired.

Reservations have been made

                                       

We just finalized our September vacation, we are going back to France for 3 weeks.  This is our 3rd year in a row going to this lovely country and we love everything about it.  The people, the food, the wine, the croissants, did I say the wine, the countryside, the love of cycling, the tour de france, the history, I could go on forever.  We have been taking French for 2 years now.  It's so hard to learn a language when your brain is so old.  After our first trip we decided that we wanted to move there.  We both love it and life is too short.  So that's the plan, that's our goal, to move to France.  We like to teach children art, paint and do pottery in our our old Mas (farmhouse).  Our first trip we went to Paris.  Our friend in the states let us stay in her apartment (it was her mothers), it was 2 blocks from the Eiffel Tower in the 7th.  A beautiful arrondisment.  We didn't speak the language back then but everyone was very friendly to us.  We both fell in love with Paris but I knew that I didn't want to live in a big city, I wanted to live in the country.

Last year we went to Provence and the Dordogne.  The first week we spent our time in a beautiful farmhouse in Lourmain (where Peter Mayle wrote "A year in Provence").  We stayed in Les Olivettes. A beautiful restored farmhouse.  We then drove West to 1 hour outside of Bordeaux in the Dordogne region.  We stayed in a 100 year Old Bread Oven.  We were in the countryside and this bread oven fed the workers 100 years ago.  The British couple who bought the farm house (Mas) restored the bread oven into a 1 bedroom "gite".  It was perfect.  We took our bikes and road all over.  What a great way to see a country.   We had 1 year of French under our belts, so we were a bit better at speaking.  Although, our first night in Lourmarin Bruce decided to tell the waiter that he'd like him to make the choice for dinner.  What?  Not me....I'm going for the Poulet (chicken).  So, the food came...mine looked like chicken but what was on Bruce's plate?  It looked like a bunch of mushrooms.  Very meaty.  He took a bite and looked at me with a "what was I thinking"...then we saw the cook look out of the kitchen...he wondered who ordered the "vue de rognes".  I tasted it....not good.  Very strange taste, yuck!  There were some people next to us that were speaking french, so Bruce asked them what he ordered.  Oh, "kidney of calf".  Huh?  Kidney of calf.  2 of them loved it and the other 2 didn't.  I didn't and Bruce didn't, but he didn't want to insult the chef, so he ate a little bit.  He NEVER asked the waiter to choose for him again.  Silly American.  We had a fantastic time.  Provence is beautiful, but very touristy.  The Dordogne is a gem.  Rolling hills, wild boars, beautiful villages.  We fell in love with this region.  But, two things were a problem, the first is the weather...it gets very cold in the winter and being from Southern California that just doesn't fly with me.  The second is the area.  It's so remote that we are not sure there would be a town near us that would have the kids who might want to come for art classes.

So, this year we decided to see the Southwest, down by the Spanish border.  We'll fly into Barcelona and drive up to the village of Maury, which is 1 hour from the village of Perpignan.  We'll stay in a beautiful village house called Maison Voltaire.  We'll stay there for 1 week.  Then we'll go North 1 hour to just outside of Toulouse and stay in a restored barn called Le Roucan.  We'll stay there for 1 week.  Then we'll head to Girona Spain and stay in a beautiful place called Raco de Madremanya. We are really looking forward to seeing this area of France.  The weather is nice all year round and Toulouse is a big enough city to have the clientele for us.  We are going to look at some homes while we are there.  We would like to move in 2 years.  The plan is to hire someone to take over our studio and possibly sell it if things go well, that is if we can make it work in France.  If we can, we'll sell the business and if we can't we'll come home and go from there.  Follow your dreams, take a risk...life is too short