Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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PLEASE VOTE FOR MY BLOG IN THE GOLDEN BLOG AWARDS! There is a vegetable that I love that I just do not see often enough: Romanesco. I see it sometimes at the Worden Farms booth at the seasonal farmers’ market on Sanibel Island. (Winter is the “season” in south Florida.) I have seen it sometimes in summer in Paris, in particular at the fruit-and-vegetable vendor that we like best in the Saint Germain market. So I think of it as a sort of French vegetable, although the clever organic farmers at Worden grow it well in south Florida. When I type “Romanesco” into Google, I come up with mostly French language sites. Is that because I’m connecting in France, or is this truly more of a French vegetable than an American one? I don’t know for certain. Romanesco is in the species of vegetables that cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts belong to, and it may have been arbitrarily placed there. The “experts” are slightly confused about how it should be classified. But it is much better than those other vegetables in that species. Romanesco has a nutty, slightly sweet, and very fresh taste. It doesn’t have the slight bitterness that broccoli has. In France, it is often called “chou Romanesco,” but chou, or cabbage, has a much nicer connotation in French than it does in English. If a French mother ever calls her child “my little cabbage,” don’t be offended on behalf of the kid. Chou can actually be a term of endearment. French be warned: “cabbage” is never a term of endearment in English. Back to Romanesco. It is beautiful because it is fractal in its growth pattern, its stems ending in pointy logarithmic spirals. In fact, the entire Romanesco rises to a point. Romanesco dates back to at least the 16th century, in Italy as you may have guessed from its name. It is a rich source of vitamins C and K, and has plenty of carotenoids. Romanesco fills you up. I can have a snack of less than a cup – maybe a half cup – of Romanesco pieces, raw, and I’m not hungry for hours afterwards. I should eat it every day! Every day is precious, especially now that we are in our last week for this year in Paris. Tom’s been very busy sending off new chapter introductions, so we didn’t do much yesterday other than walk to Les Ministères for another gracious dinner over in the 7th arrondissement, on the rue de Bac. The Patron remembered us and gave us the same table as last Monday. The same older couple sat at the next table, just like last Monday. Tom had the Chateaubriand again, just like last Monday, and it was great. At 26 euros, it should be great. I had to be different, so I ordered the three-course, 29-euro fixed price menu, with a vegetable ravioli starter course and grilled bass for the main course. The dessert (ice cream) was really for Tom. The vegetable ravioli was rich and delicious, with its creamy sauce, sprinkling of chives, and shavings of parmesan on top. The bass, a whole fish, was grilled to perfection, and served with a little side dish of beurre blanc sauce. The garniture was a gratin that was rather disgusting, so I left it where it was, on the plate. (The gratin had been burned on top, and its sauce had broken and curdled; it was also bland and poorly constructed, with weird strips of limp celery among the overcooked, dry potato slices. Almost any cook could do better.) But the ravioli and fish made it a fine dinner for me. I happily removed the bass’ skin, head, tail, and bones, and relished the rest with the nice sauce. The ice cream, for Tom, was something special from Ardèche, a department in southeastern France from which many Protestants emigrated in the 17th Century. Tom chose the coffee flavor. This ice cream arrived in a disk shape with two layers of different coffee flavors, and little pieces of vanilla bean scattered throughout. Delicious. The walk home was just the right length (especially given our marathon hikes of the past weekend). We settled into another quiet evening with the bands of Artie Shaw and Kenny Baker playing softly on the stereo. Sign
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Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Beautiful
windows in the church of St. Étienne du Mont.
Dinner at
Les Ministères:
Vegetable ravioli, above, grilled bass and Chateaubriand, below.
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