Rabbit rabbit

As I stand at the stove (taking the time to brown the liver carefully for the farce I’m making) I think about how few people get to see their meat so intimately. I trace the contours of the rabbit’s body with my eyes. The muscles, the blood, how pink it is. The carcass is still intact with its jellyroll red lungs and small dense olive sized kidneys. Its face looks calm, eyes like a glass of watered down Pastis. It was a living creature and now it’s on my cutting board. I have a greater appreciation for what I do and eating in general when I get the chance to break down full animals, fish or crates of produce. It’s grounding to have the dirt from vegetables on my hands or smell the iron rich air of fresh blood. You can leave the restaurant reviewers their neatly organized white china and polished glass wear on the periphery. Here I have product in front of me that was life; it grew for months or years so that I could break it down, season it, fry it, braise it, blanch it or mash it.

Butchering rabbits and other small animals takes extra care and precision. Their bones are sharp and brittle, the muscles small and their skin as thin as cloth. I start by removing the organs first so I can brown the livers and cool them while I break down the rest of the body. I remove the head tracing the line of the shoulder, careful not to nick the loin. I remove the front legs, one and then the other. The hind legs are next; I pop the joint and make a slit to detach them from the body. The rabbit is so fresh the bones are still blue. The last step is to remove the two small loins with the belly flap still attached. I trace my knife down the spine freeing the light pink meat from the vertebrae. The flesh is so delicate it tears easily like tissue paper.

Today I’m making rabbit roulades. I stuff them with a deep gray farce of its own liver emulsified with foie gras and I sous vide them very gently to preserve the tender white meat. Many hands touched this rabbit before it got to my board and then to your plate. It’ll only take a few minutes to see it vanish into hungry mouths.
Glad to know you Mr. Rabbit.

Cherries and wine before noon.

There is a calm that I feel when I smell dry hot earth, animal shit and chlorophyll.
This morning I went to visit an organic farm that provides a selection of produce for the château. It is about 20 kl from the château and is run by a large local family their extended family and neighbors. The drive way was rocky and worn and on a slight angle giving you a good perspective of the wide terraced fields that make up the farm farther up the hill. The road is flanked with fields of Cote de Rhone grapes and half a dozen or so olive trees short and windswept with their beautiful two-toned leaves. This is so typical of what I have constantly fantasized I would see in France that I feel transported thought a dream.
As we arrive at the barn there is a wide rectangular pen right in the middle of the driveway. It is divided into smaller squares that house various types of poultry; they all have small hand built houses and shallow murky watering holes that are so picturesque I feel like I am looking at a Painting. Nestled in the bushes on the side of the driveway are several rabbit hutches housing 5 to 10 rabbits each. Closest to the barn is an open roost for pigeons. As I step out of the car I can here their loud cooing emanating from the cage. To top the menagerie there are two peacocks patrolling the perimeter of the poultry cages stopping every so often to turn their small bald-heads to the sky when a hawk or large bird flies over.
Chef Barnard and I are greeted by one of the sons who helps run the farm, who instructs us to head across the farm down a dirt and grass road to the cherry trees where the families matriarch was picking. We walk down the long rows of shiny dark leaved trees with branches so heavy with fruit they almost appear to be groaning. We meet her with a basket hanging half full of cherries from her waste. She is high on a ladder with her head in the leaves.
I am inspired by the universal pride of ones crop that bypasses language. Held in her worn knobby hand she offers me a perfect cherry so shinny and red it almost looks fake. I thank her the best I can in my broken French and pop it into my mouth, it is still warm from the sun. There is so much juice in it that when I bite it the juice runes out the corners of my mouth. I have been lucky enough in my life and travels to be around fresh fruit and vegetables straight off the vine, plant or tree. Summers on the farm in Maine meant plump raspberries shoveled by the handful in to ones mouth and yellow plums so juicy you had to extend your butt out and your arm far away from your body so as not to be drenched completely in their warm sticky nectar. And now I am here experiencing it again in a field in France, it never gets old.
As we moved on in our tour of the farm we hopped into a banged up Toyota Helix with no seatbelts and a passenger seat with no locking mechanism. We drive up the windy bumpy road the seat rocking back and forth on its rails, turning me into a bobble head. We arrive at the strawberries; four long rows flanked with straw. The plants are a foot tall with huge leaves creating perfect shade for the ruby red berries below. We grab some small wooden crates and join one of the sons in picking. The berries are for the most part are small but the flavor is concentrated they are sweet and juicy and smell wonderful. I help pick a few crates and after a few minutes the patriarch tells me its time to stop and have a drink and to rest. We wind our way back down the hill to the barn.
Inside amongst the farm equipment is a small dusty table and chairs. On the table is a silver tray of misses matched jars and glasses, a bottle of wine, a bottle of Pastis and a jug of ice water. The wine is opened the Pastis is poured, everyone sits back in there chairs gossiping about the topics and news of the day. Although the conversations are in a language I barely understand and I am thousands of miles away from home. I feel such comfort and happiness in the dust the smell of farm animals and the slight buzz I am catching from the wine and the handful of cherries all before twelve o’clock.

Arctic char tartar at La Mas Tourteron

I had the pleasure of dining at La Mas Tourteron in Gordes France,
with two great friends last week. It was an amazing dining experience
that lasted hours and left us giggling with glee at the beauty
and simplicity of the food put in front of us.
Here is what I ate.

May 11th 2011

Whipped avocado with Serrano pepper and olive oil, served with bread.

Sweet and sour pickled vegetable salad
Fennel, carrots, onions, celery and red pepper

Arctic char tartar
Radishes, romaine hearts, brunoisie of vegetable
And citrus vinaigrette

Sesame seared Dorade zucchini “pasta”
Celeriac puree, dry cured tomatoes, artichokes
and beuere blanc

Lemon merrange pie, strawberry soup
Mouscat

Madalines, dark chocolate mignardises


As we walked out of the restaurant through the ivy archways, fruit trees and jasmine to the car, we stopped and grabbed some dark red cherries that were still warm from the sun for the road.

They were a perfect close to the night.

France gets under my skin

France has started to set in and my brain feels less scrambled.
I’m relaxing, enjoying absorbing the new culture, eating, listening
to people speak and watching them work. I see at least two parallels
between France and New Orleans; the love of leisure & pleasure and
the importance of food in daily life. Lunch with girlfriends here
feels like the all day crawfish boils we have at home. It is a complete
giving of one’s self to the subtle pleasures of enjoyment.

The workweek here is different from stateside. Chefs,cooks and serving
staff’s weeks are capped at thirty-five hours. They take a three-hour
break during the day and for meals everyone sits down to eat. For me
it’s been an exercise in slowing down that at times goes against my
nature. I’m used to running around sweating, keeping my pockets full
of snacks to eat on the run and trying to make sure that the seemingly
never-ending prep list at work is completed. Being in any kitchen feels
like running to catch a train during New York City rush hour. Am I going
to make it? Is the subway running on time? Do I have all my luggage?
But it’s that constant feeling of adrenaline and the satisfaction of
making it all happen that keeps all of us in the service industry going.
This drive exists in the south of France but it feels as though everyone
is pacing themselves for a lifetime of this work.

It’s been a slow start to the season here so the kitchen has been pretty
laid back in comparison to what I'm used to. I’ve spent my days working on
various components of the Sunday Jazz brunch I’m responsible for, cutting
mirepoix, making sauces and stocks and doing lots of recipe conversions.
Its been wonderful practicing this new pace of cooking, getting back into
perfect knife cuts, picking fresh herbs from the château garden and I just
have to taste,taste, taste everything.

Integrating into the kitchen at the Chateau hasn’t been as difficult as
I had imagined. Folks are kind and patient and there are a lot of hand motions
to explain tasks and words. The kitchen staff here is small, Chef de
Cuisine Barnard, Sous Chef Arthur, Tournant Ari, Pastry Chef Milton and
two young cooks, Robin, 16, and Wilfred, 18. Despite their youth, Robin and
Wilfred are motivated and knowledgeable which is good since they’re
responsible for the majority of the prep that happens in the kitchen.
Robin has been my best translator, always laughing at my badly pronounced
French but very helpful. I am fascinated with the culture of apprenticeship
that seems commonplace in French kitchens. A lot of time and energy is put into lifting up new generations of cooks. It feels deeply rooted in French culture
to encourage young people to be chefs. There is pride in this profession here.

Sunday is when it all culminates with the grand example of pleasure:
Jazz brunch. A groaning, fifteen foot table is replete with cold salads
brimming with white and green asparagus, heaps of shrimp with various
dipping sauces,an amazing garde manger display of a whole salmon coated
with white aspic and decorated with bright vegetables.Soups, large roasted
meats, overflowing sausages, roasted potatoes and cauliflower gratin, seafood
stew,sunnyside up eggs on crab cakes and what seems to be a never ending
supply of raw oysters.
On a smaller table there is an equal overflow of handmade desserts.
The corner of the patio houses the jazz band, led by a sweet white haired
octogenarian who still plays his trumpet with vigor. The band provides a
perfect soundtrack for the leisure, pleasure and SUCCESS of brunch.