French Cooking with Julia Child

I took my first French cooking class more than a year ago. That started me off baking, after I realised how easy it was to make a delectable chocolate lava cake. Actually there were some issues there with the outcomes because my actual oven temperature was well below the stated levels and I had to deal with underbaked cakes, but the process was easy enough. So I tried out a few recipes from Chocolate and Zucchini and went on baking from there. But where French cooking was concerned, that's as far as it went.

So fast forward a year and a bit. I'm flying back after a holiday, the in-flight entertainment hangs for the umpteenth time. I borrow my cousin's copy of "My Life in France" (MLiF), Julia Child's (JC's) story of her introduction to France, French food and the art of French cooking. I read Chapter One, end of flight, return book. Interest definitely piqued. A few weeks later, my cousin SMSes: do I want to watch "Julie & Julia", a movie based on MLiF and "Julie & Julia", a book by Julie Powell, a blogger who cooked her way through all the recipes in Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" within a year. We go to movie, I walk out and buy "Julie & Julia","Julia's Kitchen Wisdom" (a slim little book which JC describes as a "mini aide memoire for general home cookery") and borrow MLiF from my cousin. That's what Meryl Streep's exuberant, effervescent portrayal of JC can do to a person. I highly recommend both MLiF and the movie.

Going through the recipes, I started with a basic omelette. JC highlights the technique (the ingredients are same old, same old - eggs plus butter, salt and pepper) which her French chef teacher taught her - the "shake-and-jerk" method. You beat the eggs, season them with salt & pepper, put butter into the frying pan and when it's hot, add the eggs. Allow the eggs a few seconds to solidify and then pull the handle vigorously towards you. Somehow Newton's Laws of Motion apply and the egg curls up upon itself in the frying pan till it is a beautiful, neat oval. Then you sort of unmould it into a plate. My unmoulding technique needs work but nonetheless I was very happy with my efforts. Next, scrambled eggs. Beautiful.

But making an omelette or scrambled eggs are not something to write home about. I set my sights on making beef bourguignon, a dish which is not easy to spell or pronounce. It was featured twice in the movie and frankly it made me salivate just watching. My brother's birthday provided the occasion. My mother provided the beef. It only took me five hours to turn out a thoroughly delectable pot full of tender beef in an absolutely scrumptious broth, chock full of carrots, onions, mushrooms.

It was a slow, painstaking process which started with my making lardons (streaky bacon boiled for about 6 minutes to remove salt and smoky flavour), then drying the beef with paper towels before frying, to facilitate browning (what Julia doesn't tell you: use good quality paper towels which don't stick to the meat), and then popping beef, lardons, browned onions and carrots, one bottle of red wine plus assorted herbs and beef stock in a pot and cooking till the beef was tender. Whilst the beef was cooking I sauted some mushrooms, and brown-braised sliced white onion. The recipe calls for pearl onions but I couldn't find them in Fairprice so settled for a large white onion. The onions were fried in butter and oil till brown, then added chicken stock, a teaspoon of sugar and salt. They turned out silky smooth and sweet and yummy beyond words. The mushrooms and onions are added to the beef when cooked. But I still wonder how the pearl onions would have turned out.

Reactions: I seem to have gotten good reviews all round. There were leftovers, but I put that down to the rather excessive quantities of beef my mother thought necessary for the occasion. And this gives me an opportunity to eat more of the dish.

For anyone who wants the recipe, the link is here. I should note that there are differences in the recipe and the version in Julia's Kitchen Wisdom. Kitchen Wisdom omits the dredging with flour before the beef stock and wine added. The tomato paste is also replaced with a can of diced tomatoes.


Julia: I'm hooked!

By Train and by Plane

Our last day in Provence and in France!

Our train was at 12noon so we just wandered around a bit around the area. We went to the cathedral, Notre Dame-des-Doms, which is next to the Pope's Palace. Architecturally, the main features of the church are the crucifix right in front, and the statue of Mary right on the top of the church, covered in gold. Set on top of a hill, the cathedral provides a good view of the square below, the rooftops of Avignon and of Villeneuf le Avignon across the river. Behind the church, the gardens. We did not explore there, however, but went inside the church itself.

In a little side chapel on the left of the church entrance, there was a mini-exhibition on the shroud of Turin - what must have been a life-size picture of the original, stretched across the altar. The "face" could be seen quite distinctly, as can be seen in this photo.

The church itself was a little sombre, but what I found interesting was the little "in memorium" plaques which were put up around the statues in the various side chapels of the church, of different dates, in different eras.

We left the church, did a spot of shopping and then went back to our B&B to pay the bill. Indeed, I was a little sad to leave this charming and restful little hotel, with the beams across its ceilings, its narrow staircases with the worn steps and the internal courtyards. I will miss the breakfasts too - the morning coffee and chocolate, the fluffy croissants and the cup of fruit.

It was going to be a long journey back to Singapore from Avignon. Because of the crowded trains, we left Avignon on an early train to connect to another train in Lyon. This resulted in us getting to the airport 7 hours before our flight (which was delayed another half an hour). But the train journey was fairly well used - we sorted out most of the accounts. At the airport itself, I did a little surfing, reading, and a fair amount of shopping. What we did not have very much of, was FOOD. The French pride in and passion for food stops at the airport. The main food court closes by 8pm (8PM!!!!) and there are only two small kiosks left, both pretty crowded. However they were at both ends of the terminal and I did not find them when I did my initial round. So, after a light baguette lunch, we had a light dinner. Sigh.

The flight home was not too bad. Because we checked in 7 hours early, we got our seats changed to the front row just next to the exit. That makes such a difference! Wonderful to stretch your legs! The other thing about Air France as opposed to SQ (and believe me, SQ is ahead in most other areas) is that there are more French movies. I'd watched "The Choir" on the way out, so this time round I watched "Two Days in Paris". This was written, directed, and starred Julie Delpy. It charted the deterioration of the relationship, between Delpy's character and her American boyfriend, on their way back to New York from Venice, via Paris. The plot is limited, and the emphasis clearly on the dialogue and the interaction between the characters. This is rather like "Before Sunset" and "Before Sunrise" which starred Delpy and Ethan Hawke, but whilst Sunset/Sunrise encapsulate the perfect brief encounter, "Two Days" in some way is its dark reflection. Some reviews here and here.

At last, our plane touched down. It was 6pm Singapore time, exactly 24 hours after we had left Avignon.

And so ends my visit to France, my first for many years. In particular, I enjoyed my visit to Provence, even though its legendary sunshine had temporarily deserted it. The charming little villages, the old towns and Roman ruins, the beautiful countryside make it a place I would definitely want to visit again.

Au Revoir!

Cultural Learnings of America

On my last full day in the US, we went off to see Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It was strongly recommended by one of my classmates as being completely hilarious. And it was very funny, but I must say that I agree with the review which said that any movie billed as such always finds it difficult to live up to expectations. And after watching the movie, I wasn't really surprised to find out that Sacha Baron Cohen (the actor who plays Borat) is a British comedian. Borat is like a hugely exaggerated Mr Bean with a fake accent and moustache, and with a politically incorrect factor of x10. Borat is a Jew-hating sexist journalist from Kazakhstan making a documentary about the US to show in his home country. But he watches an episode of Baywatch and then gets the hots for Pamela Anderson. For her sake, he drives across America interviewing people along the way.

And this is where Mr Bean meets Reality TV. Many of the people interviewed were ordinary folk who were not aware that Borat was an invented character. He went to a humour coach, an etiquette coach, met feminists, car salesmen and attended a dinner party in the Deep South of the USA (where he brought a black prostitute as his date). Half of these people are now sueing Cohen for tricking them. Its incredible that more people didn't see through his strange behaviour.

There were also incredibly funny scenes which were staged -my favourite is where Borat and his producer engage in a nude wrestling match and run all over the hotel in the nude.

I am trying to work out exactly what makes it such a popular movie and have concluded that it lies in the deliberate way Borat sets out to offend every single last sensibility of politically correct America. Somehow Borat makes it politically correct to enjoy a crude, vulgar movie which helps them laugh at themselves.

Was quite surprised to see that Borat is opening in Singapore, 28 Dec. Well worth watching and it will be interesting to see Singaporeans' reactions.