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View From Your Table

Mme. la Lectrice écrit: We had a blowout Bastille Day dinner last night at which I kept forgetting to take pictures, but I did get a good one of the salads (beet tops with Lentilles de Puy, roasted beets and crème raifort.) You can see from the background that the bottles of wine kept pace […]
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland

Mme. la Lectrice écrit:

We had a blowout Bastille Day dinner last night at which I kept forgetting to
take pictures, but I did get a good one of the salads (beet tops with Lentilles de Puy, roasted beets and crème raifort.) You can see from the background that the bottles of wine kept pace with our courses!

Main course was bar meunière, whose simplicity belies its divine nature. Have you done this? Firm white fish filets, dipped in milk and then seasoned flour, fried briefly in vegetable oil. Squeeze of lemon, generous drizzle of brown butter, chopped parsley. Whoa.

Tonight, keeping it simple with one other couple: Vichyssoise, salad and French cheeses followed by mousse au chocolat. (Alternate name, according to JC, is mayonnaise au chocolat. Ew.)

JC = Julia Child, but you could be forgiven for thinking that in this crowd, we’re talking about that other JC.

Hélas, we didn’t have a blowout Bastille Day dinner. We’re trying to move house, and I’m trying to recover from a sinus catastrophe. We did have Hannah over on Saturday to tell us about her trip to Europe. I roasted a chicken in lemon and rosemary, stoved some new potatoes and served them with homemade aïoli, and oven-roasted a black iron skillet full of grape tomatoes from Julie’s garden in chopped garlic, rosemary, and olive oil from Burgundy. Oh, and green salad with vinaigrette. We opened a bottle of cold French rosé, and I raised a small glass (because antibiotics) to le Roi, SOB that he was, la Vendée and la France. That was our Bastille Day. I was exhausted by the cooking, but I couldn’t bear to let the holiday go by unobserved.

In fact, I’m not a royalist, but I cannot bring myself to celebrate Jacobinism. Serious question: what do French patriots who despise the Jacobins do on le 14 juillet? What is their alternate national day, if they have one? Maybe I should simply toast Gen. de Gaulle and be satisfied. Anyway, royalist or Jacobin, you cannot love France and love liberty without loving this hallowed moment in cinema history:

UPDATE: Thought I’d pass along a good idea to you. The tomatoes I roasted the other night in garlic, rosemary and olive oil were so terrific that I’d like to suggest it to you. It’s very, very easy. I don’t have a recipe; I just made it up as I went along, but it’s simple to do. We are at the end of our tomato season, and I was trying to figure out how I could use up the ones we have on the counter before they go bad. Tonight I took all the grape tomatoes we had left, as well as four standard tomatoes (that I quartered), put them in a black iron skillet with four garlic cloves (chopped), four sprigs of rosemary, a generous pour of olive oil, and salt (sea salt if you have it). Into a 400 degree oven they go. I roasted these for an hour an 15 minutes, but after 40 minutes or so, you’ll want to keep a close eye on them. You want them to start to blacken on the bottom, and stick to the skillet. As you get near the end, stir them a little bit so they’ll be able to stay in the oven for as long as possible. You’ll be able to tell when they’re ready; the roasted tomatoes thicken. Taste them to see if they need more salt. Remove the rosemary stems, and serve. They go great over pasta, or as a side dish. The roasting intensifies the flavor dramatically, deepening it and sweetening it, and of course the garlic and rosemary are indispensable.

I just pulled these out of the oven and put them into a bowl to cool, and to serve tomorrow over pasta, for lunch. I stood at the stove, sopping up the leftover olive oil in the bottom of the skillet with a piece of bread. Try it out — it could hardly be easier, and it tastes profoundly of summer.

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