Delving into Delhi

My two week trip to Northern India began in Delhi/New Delhi where I spent the first 4 days with 6 women friends.  We jumped right into the culinary side of things with a dinner the first night at Bukara, one of the best Indian restaurants in the world where Barak Obama, Bill Clinton & Bill Gates have all eaten.  We ate with our hands and shared many traditional dishes including tandoori chicken, chicken tikka, tandoori prawns, paneer,  papadam & naan(breads) and daal!  We drank the local Kingfisher beer and some quite nice local Sula wines.

We got even more intimately connected to the foods of India the following day when we visited Old Dehli by cycle rickshaw and spent the morning in the vegetable market overflowing with spring fruits and vegetables.  

                                                                                                                           We also spent time in the wholesale spice market and were introduced to the basics of Indian cooking including the essential spices ~ cardamom, coriander, cumin, fenugreek seeds, mango and chili powders, turmeric, cinnamon, and saffron! WOW! A few other basics are garlic, fresh ginger, yogurt, paneer(cottage cheese), coconut milk and lentils.  After our great trip to the spice market we enjoyed a lunch at a private home.

We visited several temples in Delhi including the Sikh temple with a kitchen, called Langar, which feeds and nourishes the souls of anyone in the city for free.

We did not spend all our time eating in Delhi however.  We toured Humayum’s tomb, the India gate, a Hindu temple where a marriage was taking place and shopped until many of us dropped (more than we intended) on pashmina scarves made from goat wool in Kashmir, India.

Rolling Hills, Rioja Wines, Cod, Peppers & Perfect Pork in the Spanish Basque Country --- April 2015

My Delicious Connections Facebook page recently featured some of the early highlights of our weeklong trip to northern Spain, including running with the bulls in Pamplona and sitting with Ernest Hemingway in his beloved Cafe Iruna.

Bilbao's Guggeheuim Museum is a modern masterpiece as was our dinner at La Vina del Ensanche where I enjoyed sublime pork cheeks with asparagus.

We continued on to the Rioja wine region and headed for HARO where we visited several wineries including La Rioja Alta which was outstanding.  Our Delicious Connections friend, Roy Cloud, a wine importer, suggested we try their wines and we were thrilled.  All of their wines were wonderful but their Vina Ardanza Reserva 2005 was outstanding, rich, complex, earthy, and crying out for a piece of red meat!






After our tasting we headed for lunch nearby at La Vieja Bodega and had one of the best meals of our trip, including a superb garlic soup and their signature dish of local vegetables with slices of cod and a red pepper sauce.  The owner, Angel Perex Aguilar, took special care of us and together we visited his wine cellar under the restaurant.  Angel would love to run a trip with me in the future which would be amazing.

We saved the best for the last on this trip which was San Sebastian with its elegant promenade along its curving beach la Concha.  

The museo San Telmo is a gem of a museum on Basque culture and the entire old town quite charming.  But the highlights here were the food.  We had two superb meals, the first of which was at La Muralla in the old town where we enjoyed a 39 euro, 7 course tasting menu which included unlimited amounts of red and white house wines and delectable cod cheeks with peppers.

Our second dinner in San Sebastian was in a house up in the hills overlooking the town.  Zelai Txiki, is a family owned restaurant, run by Chef Juan Carlos and his wife Eva.  The pigeon and the suckling pork were perfect as were the vegetables grown in their own garden.  After our fantastic meal, we had the distinct pleasure of visiting their kitchen and wine cellar.  Juan Carlos and Eva want to work with me as well, so watch out, I may soon have a trip to the Spanish Basque Country!

Voices of Istanbul

The other night I was invited by the Turkish Ambassador to UNESCO, Huseyin Avni Botsah, to a concert and reception in Paris celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of UNESCO and the 30th anniversary of Istanbul's being named a world heritage site.

The concert was lively with classical and contemporary music and dancing onstage. I met the mayor of Istanbul, Kadir Topbas and Mr. Botsah, himself assured me the traveling to Turkey, including Istanbul, is very safe, if you avoid the Syrian border and Istanbul during the Turkish elections.  I enjoyed many mezes(both meat and vegetable), kebabs, dolmas(stuffed grape leaves) and baklava at the reception. YUM!

So, come with me and Chef Reine Sammut (http://deliciousconnections.com/sailing-in-the-turkish-isles/) to the Turquoise Coast for a week of exploring, shopping, cooking and eating delicious turkish delicacies.  

Tantalizing Truffles and Fabulous Foie Gras

There couldn't be a better way to get through one of the coldest winter's on record, then to spend a week feasting on foie gras and truffles with Chef Pierre Corre at the Auberge de la Truffle in the Dordogne.  Ten of us did just that in February.  Nini, our intrepid truffle pig, with her owner Daniel, found at lest 50 "black diamonds" which tantalized Chef Pierre and all of us beyond belief.

     

Our truffle cooking class and dinner included scallops with truffles, a "cappuccino" of celery root cream and truffles, and duck breast with foie gras, truffles and a sauce perigueux --- Almost sinful!

We each got a fattened duck for our duck cooking class and prepared a terrine of foie gras, confited duck legs, and rillettes, all of which we got to take home with us.

I already have dates for next winter, January 29 - February 4, 2016, so grab a spot and get ready to forage, feast and have great fun!

Still Dreaming About Brittany

Jean Yves and Nicole Jaquin who own and run La Ville Blanch in Lannion, have been dear friends for many years and Jean Yves cooking is more and more divine.  He began his professional life as a butcher and is a mater of gastronomic delicacies from the land and the sea.

We recently tasted his warm oysters on a flan of foie gras with buckwheat galettes and his beef cheeks on a puree of butternut squash both of which were really sensational.

  

For dessert, we had a cold mint and chocolate mousse which was just what our palettes craved.

I have done many cooking classes with Jean Yves and below is one of his simple recipes for French Clams.

Palourdes à l’ail et à l’orange 

1 3/4 lb littleneck or cherry-stone clams, scrubbed

1 cup    dry white wine

4 cloves  garlic, crushed

zest from 1 orange, finely minced

3 1/2 oz butter, diced

1. Place the clams, wine, garlic, and orange zest in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.
2. Add the butter
3. Serve in soup plates 

Yields 4 servings

Another Wonderful Thanksgiving Week in France, November 2014

     As you may remember, last year we celebrated Thanksgiving in France three times which was extraordinary.  This year merely twice, on the Saturdays before and after, but both celebrations were festive and delicious.
   
    Back in Picardie for the 8th year with our dear friends the Blancs, we had the largest turkey ever.  It weighed more than 20 pounds and barely fit in the oven.  As usual we began our meal with oysters

and finished with the most delicious "french" dessert, a vacherin (meringue cake) filled with homemade cassis/raspberry sorbet and topped with whipped cream.  So for us, our Franco-American Thanksgiving lives on.

 

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, we joined American journalist friends, Joanne and Gerry Dryansky, at their Paris apartment for a traditional meal with turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, candied sweet potatoes and apple pie.  But, there were a few Eastern European touches with champagne.  We enjoyed Joanne's handmade piroshki (small pastries with meat) and incredibly flavorful chopped liver with black radish slices.

    So as you can see, Paris is truly a mecca for International celebrations.

Beloved Brittany

20  years ago, in May of 1994, I met Chef Patrick Jeffroy at his Michelin, one-star restaurant in Plounérin, and fell in love at first bite!  I talked him into letting me spend a week with him in his kitchen and felt like I had died and gone to heaven.  I was Patrick’s shadow in the kitchen, the markets, the sea (collecting shellfish), and in his garden.  Bliss!

Several months later, we moved back to Washington, DC, and I returned to Paris 3 weeks later to run my first culinary trip with Patrick, a test trip for my new business, LLD, then called Cook France in English.  It was another one of the most memorable weeks of my life with incredibly delicious fresh food and endless behind-the-scenes experiences with Patrick.

I went on to run 2 more trips with Patrick in Carantec at his new Michelin, 2 star Restaurant Patrick Jeffroy.  And, Kent and I spent our 25th wedding anniversary there.

  



I had not been back in 4 years until last week.  We were both blown away by the view and the food which was truly some of the best I have ever eaten.  We had the menu “Cormoran” (99 euros) that first night, which included 3 amuse-bouches, including one of the first coquille St. Jacques (scallops) of the season, with cêpes,

followed by a sublime lobster and foie gras dish, which I am still dreaming about.  The lobster was followed by Patrick’s wild pigeon with perfectly cooked potatoes and root vegetables and wild mushrooms.

  Then we had his Roquefort cheese terrine (see Facebook for recipe) and finally a scrumptious dessert of a chocolate cream with a figue confit and a raspberry, cassis sorbet.





We watched the sunrise and then had a smaller feast for lunch including a squid dish with a heavenly shellfish/mushroom cream sauce.

When I asked Patrick 20 years ago to spend a week in his kitchen, I said I had heard that he was one of the best chefs in France.  It is more and more TRUE.  Take yourself to Carantec if you possibly can.