Comfort Food

Well as you may have guessed...Petite Fille finally arrived!  Long awaited for and with all the due drama of a little girl making a grand entrance into this world...she is here, she is amazing...and I am in-love!  

...............Bien sur!

So since then, exactly three weeks ago, I have been searching for the re-boot button somewhere in my brain that causes me to think, be inspired, and write....and as it turns out, the jump start to that was to faire la cuisine!

So yesterday--on a bone-chilling day here in Normandy, compelled by the extreme need to be cozy, creative and consume comfort food--I made a fabulous, albeit tres simple one-pot dish of lentils and duck.... so here it is!  Give it a try--Bon Appétit!

PS--please forgive the mistakes or inaccuracies--"baby-brain" is in full swing! 

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 Duck with Green Lentils

• 2 tbs. Olive Oil
• 1 large carrot
• 1 rib celery
• 1 medium onion
• 1 medium leek
• chopped parsley
• 4-6 duck legs or thighs
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 1 bay leaf
• Fresh thyme
• 2 cups green lentils
• 3 cups stock

Sprinkle duck legs with salt, pepper and thyme. Brown duck with one tbs. oil  in large cast iron 'dutch-oven'....until skin is evenly brown and then remove from pan and set aside.

Dice vegetables and cook all together in pot with remaining olive oil, allowing vegetables to 'sweat' but not fully cook.

Rinse and add lentils to pot and add white wine and stock and parsley.

Place duck legs in pot and cover.

Cook for 1.5 hours at 350 f. /175 c. degrees.

Serve with crusty bread.

Happy King's Day!

Happy Epiphany or King's Day! My Galette des Rois is sitting in the oven, cooling down--I baked it all by myself--I repeat--I baked it.  Let me just come clean right away: here is the 'recipe':

I took the precious confection from it's festively decorated box (a-la-Picard!) and removed the plastic wrap, putting the folded cardboard crown aside for the winner of the 'feve'... set the oven at 180 degrees c. and baked it for 45 minutes.  

The entire house is filled with it's warm, comforting aroma and I may just skip dinner tonight and get right to it.

So here's a bit about the tradition of the Epiphany celebration here in France.  The short version is that it is a Christian feast that lasts 8 days, usually beginning on the 6th of January.  The celebration is a commemoration of the Son of God as the human being Jesus Christ, and also the visitation of the Magi (kings) to meet the baby.  That is the short-short version as the celebration varies depending on culture and customs around the world.  So in France we get to eat a 'Galette Des Rois' which is similar to a puff-pastry filled with almond cream (frangipane amande) that contains a hidden figurine, sometimes a king, made of porcelain.  In other places, such as New Orleans...you might find a King Cake closer to the start of Mardis Gras that is similar to brioche with candied fruit, wildly colored frosting, and a plastic baby Jesus hidden inside.  In either case the 'winner' or finder of the figurine gets to wear the included crown, and be 'King for the day'.

I have actually only observed and celebrated this 'tradition' for the past five years or so....dear to my heart is the most recent practice of making the trek over to Seattle to go to Le Panier French Bakery at Pike Place Market to pick up a Galette des Rois to bring back to the island--and I have to say I consistently surprised myself by making it back via the 30 minute ferry ride without very un-ceremoniously digging into it sans fourchette while still behind the driver's wheel in the cue to get home!  But at almost $30 for the cake and transit and time cost--it would be a 'tres cher' lapse of self control to eat it in the car!

So I didn't make the galette from scratch this year even though I am now in France, as I probably should have---because, well for the biggest reason (with the appropriate emphasis on biggest!) I am not doing too much creative cooking or baking because..........YES!  I am still PR------NT!  No I can't even say it!!  Grumpy, uncomfortable, large and ever so slowly going insane to meet 'Petite Fille' who should have been here for about a week now--and is still MIA!!!

Not that I am particularly choosey at this point--we managed to dodge an early arrival at Thanksgiving, a not so desired birth at Christmas Eve or Day, an eventful arrival on New Years Eve...and so now the next on the calendar would be a shared birthday with her biggest brother on January 13th...... Oooo la la! Quel dommage!

Today would be nice though--her cake would be taken care of already, and planned for many years to come and she most definitely could have the crown!