So, moving forward as we humans are wont to do, life has ushered me out of New York for a while, and I write to you from my fireside in Paris, France. The days have just begun to hold that certain coolness in the air from which a sweater lends only minimal protection, and everything is becoming very clear and clean to see and also to breathe. We are alert to a certain virtue of Fall, which gives us a little nudge to make haste, as the days are drawing shorter. My husband, Richard, and I can no longer count on those long days of a northern French summer, where it is light until 10 p.m. And each day is getting shaved a little more, drawing us away from the badminton court a little sooner each day, so that sometimes we become too wrapped up in our work and forget to go outside in time to play. Today was one of those days. I missed my light, my chance to play.
As I sit here by the fireside looking out onto the empty lawn (where we will surely play tomorrow!) I anticipate making my first tartiflette, a dish whose richness I don't really deserve after a sedentary afternoon in chairs. But I am determined to create and recreate every French dish I can learn here, and sometime around the hour of eight I begin to lay out my ingredients, procured twice weekly from my local farmer's market, and I survey the situation. This evening I have potatoes, heavily coated in a thick layer of mud, which I wash but don't bother to scrub. I have onions, I have creme fraiche and vin blanc, and I of course have lardons, which the butcher kindly diced into small pieces for me, despite the threat of the sharp knife dangerously close to his already badly wounded fingers (and this in itself warrants a whole other post which will soon follow). Lastly, and most importantly, I have a beautiful creamy morceau of Reblochon cheese, whose melting point has reached the sublime in culinary arts.
As I sip my Morgon, I can smell the fat and onions crisping atop their potato pillows. They are slowly submerged by a rich blanket of Reblochon, which leaves behind only its rind, creating a delicate crown of crust. The wonderful aroma is filling the first floor, and my Morgon and I are eager to take a peek inside the oven. To distract myself I practice the language of my new country, and Richard brings wood up from the basement and arranges the logs. I anticipate the warmth of the fire and reflect that I never had a working fireplace in New York. In the city, it wasn't practical I guess. I also didn't have Reblochon cheese, and a butcher never once offered to dice the lardons, had I been able to find them. I'm also quite sure that a bottle of Morgon would cost more than six dollars there, and wouldn't be available at the little market down the street.
Yes, things are certainly different here. What is the same is the passage of time, though I am less aware of it. I know we have a Fall with golden leaves, a pharmacy on every corner, and 365 kinds of cheese to choose from. And when I sit by the fire and try to remember all of their names, and smell the Reblochon bubbling in the kitchen, I can't say I miss New York at all.
