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Dandelions

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This Spring I have employed a new strategy in my endless battle of garden warfare against the evil weeds: If you can’t beat them, eat them. Henceforth I shall season the offenders with oil and vinegar rather than spray another deadly concoction of chemicals onto my lawn.

The opposing forces are led by none other than my very own son Beaumont, who unwittingly has unleashed an endless supply of dandelions in my yard. My son is an aficionado of blowing dead dandelions sending millions of dandelion seeds parachuting into my yard, ready to strike.

dandelions

General Beaumont deploying his dandelion troops throughout our yard.

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Day Two: Poulet de Bresse

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Every trip to France always becomes a holy pilgrimage looking for the perfect croissant and pain au chocolat to start the day. I often hear people stateside whine on about how there are no good ones left, or that the croissant were fabricated elsewhere and only baked on premises. I say hogwash, I find them every trip and completely relish in the ancient alchemy of decadently crispy, buttery croissant still warm from the morning bake off. You know the kind, the ones that make a definite crunch when you break a piece off, sending golden shards of flaky pastry flying into the air.

Lucky France subsidizes boulangeries so every village has at least one, but I will concede, not every one is great. We accidently stumbled into Thierry and Elisabeth Cochard’s boulangerie while searching for the rumored vegetable market in Nolay early one morning.  After circling the town several times in vain, we ran into the boulangerie to ask for directions. Elisabeth laughed and said the town’s farmers were lazy and they would never be there on time or ever for that matter. While she talked, I became transfixed by the sweet smell of baking baguettes, chaussons aux pomme and pain au chocolat.  Rows and rows of perfectly cooked breads stared at me as I tried in vain to concentrate on her answers. We succumbed to a shameless amount of pastries before returning to Puligny Montrachet empty handed….

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Shakshuka, a Tunisian Egg Dish

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Shake Shake Shake, Shake Shake Shake, Shake Your Shuka – KC and the Sunshine Band

This week’s post, actually it should have been last week’s but i got busy, is going to be quick and dirty. I won’t make excuses. I promised a simple weekly post about what we were eating and here it is week two, and I already screwed up. We had planned a weekend away from Vancouver’s snowmageddon, visiting family in Poulsbo, Washington then a leisurely drive down the coast to Astoria, Oregon in search of the Goonies. Everything was so rushed to get on the road that I forgot my sole New Year’s resolution. I did not have a lot of time to think so I reached for a dish that was quick and packed a lot of spicy, comforting flavors. The kind of dish you would probably make hurriedly after finding out your friends, whom you had forgotten that you drunkenly invited over for brunch three weeks ago, were going to be only a few minutes late. Shakshuka is one of those dishes that crosses all cultural boundaries and in the process, has become as ubiquitous on menus worldwide as New England Clam Chowder is in the United States. Shakshuka is piperade on spicy steroids. The word itself translates to “mixture” and generally implies an egg dish with a tomato and chili sauce. It is as much a culinary chameleon as pistou is in Provencal cuisine. You can add whatever you have on hand and still call it shakshuka, baby. I have friends who told me of adding chorizo, goose, fried sweet potatoes or eggplant, but I like a simpler version.

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Bacon Crack

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Date nights are to parents, what binge drinking is to college students.

Date nights are liberating moments designed to foolishly make us believe, for however short a period, we can live as freely as we once did. Well at least like you did prior to acquiring your very own five-year-old dictator hellbent on micro-managing every second of your waking life.

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