This Week At The Market

Griottes
Like many things in French, there can be several names for the same thing. Chicken breasts can be blanc de poulet, suprême de poulet, or poitrine de poulet. And there are 7 different ways to say “because of” (a cause de, grace a, car, parce que, etc…) When people ask me how long it took to learn French, I tell them that even the French don’t know how to speak French! They’re always learning more, consulting their dictionaries and checking their verb guides. Some French business people actually go back to school to improve their language skills. (Hmm, on second thought, I can think of a few Americans who could use a couple of language lessons too.)

Griottes, for example, are sour cherries. Yet there’s also Montmorency which are slightly smaller cherries, but can’t they just call them all sour cherries for bakers who are trying to learn the language?

So I bought a nice little sack of them to make Adam’s Sour Cherry Frozen Yogurt. If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere that sour cherries are available, I suggest you take advantage of them. They don’t last very long and should be used within a day of purchase. Most of the time, they’ll look kinda funky, somewhat dinged up, and a bit dark, which is normal and since most Americans stopped making fresh sour cherry pie (and the French don’t make pies), they can be hard to find.

Many year ago, trying to figure out what to do with the surplus, an enterprising man from a company called American Spoon Foods decided to dry the excess, hence the proliferation of dried sour cherries. I bring hoards back to Paris when I return to the states. We’re just beginning to see them here, but they’re pricey. My French friends love ’em and I use them for special occasions. If you ever want to bring a gift to a French friend, or to me, I recommend dried sour cherries.

I also like caramel corn (thanks M.N.!)

Salted Butter
Holy s@%#t!
Life doesn’t get any better than this. Look at all that salt! Every pore of this hunk of butter is oozing salt. To those of us who’ve been trained to use only unsalted butter, we forget how much better salted butter tastes. A chocolatier friend who just visited New York City to meet with investors who wanted him to open a chocolate shop, came back to Paris and told me he didn’t know if he could do it since the butter was so lame.

This is called beurre salé, and whenever I see those big streaks of Breton salt embedded in a mound at a fromagerie, I always end up taking a slab home. The smell is incredible. I can only describe it as similar to the smell that comes from when you melt butter on the stovetop, and there’s that lovely sweet-cream, dewy scent.
I can’t wait for breakfast tomorrow! In fact, maybe I’ll dig in right now.

Tapenade
I used to make my own tapenade, thinking that my own…um, well…something doesn’t stink. That my homemade tapenade was always better. But I’ve been buying mine from a great olive vendor and it’s excellent. I eat it simply spread on bread, like a baguette tradition from Eric Kayser, a favorite bakery of mine.

Brugnons
Brugnons look like white nectarines, but are considered a cross between a nectarine and a peach, which originated in France. There seems to be a lot of conflicting information about how they were hybridized, but I’ll leave that up to other foodies to argue. All I know if that they sure are good. They taste like a full-flavored white nectarine but are more complex and not as sweet, with a rather nectar-like taste.

Arbequina Olive Oil
I’m gonna channel Rachel Ray and say… yum! (sorry). I was visiting one of my favorite huileries in Paris (Allicante at 26 Blvd Beaumarchais), and tasting a few of the new olive oils that she just received. This Arbequina olive oil from Spain was sensational; super-fruity, buttery, aromatic…everything a guy could want in an olive oil.

So yesterday I made a salad of tomatoes, roquette, flat-leaf parsley, and ricotta salatta that I got from the Italian épicerie, which my French friends had never tasted. If you’ve never had it, it’s a dried sheep’s-milk cheese similar to feta, but without all the salt and milder. I love it in the summer and crumble it recklessly over pastas and salads. Or bake tiny fingerling-like potatoes in it. I can’t wait to play around with my new oil.

Haricot Beurre
Although people seem to associate French with haricots verts, I can’t resist their paler, and sometimes more curious, cousins.