News from Eastern Paris
Thank you, Daniel Buren, for reminding me of the importance of pepper.
While on a recent Belly of Paris tour with some lovely guests, our day ended with a walk through the Jardins du Palais Royal. Before we said goodbye at the southern end of the gardens, I pointed out Daniel Buren’s oeuvre, the 260 striped marble columns in the area sandwiched between the Culture Ministry, the French Council of State, and the Comédie française theater.
Buren’s work invites active participation: visitors take photos standing on and around the columns. They experience the work physically, and make it their own. The same can be said of the covered arcades that run down three sides of the Palais Royal gardens. Appropriating them – walking through them – and experiencing that linear beauty, is downright meditative.
The repetitive interplay of all those columns, both classic and modern, combine with Buren’s further contrast of black and white. Pre-1986 Parisians imagined they would never work together.
They fought the project, even though the area was previously used as a parking lot. A parking lot! (Apparently, the Eiffel Tower suffered the same abuse in the 1970s.)
And yet somehow, they do work together. Paris is full of these incongruities, but classic and contemporary vibes all fit together in a (mostly) harmonious way.
My tour guests were a delightful couple from the East Coast, first-timers in France. They set the bar high for newbies: they’d spent the last 9 months learning French, and had read books like Let’s Eat Paris, pretty much from cover to cover, to prepare for their trip. They were practically Parisian by the time they arrived!
And strangely, or maybe not, since we’d just visited Paris’ most famous cookware store, E. Dehillerin – and because the most ordinary things can prompt my brain to thoughts of food – the columns reminded me that my Peugeot peppermill needed refilling. But here’s the essential question inspired by Buren’s columns: black or white?
Usually I fill our peppermill with a mix of various black and green peppers. Years ago, I used to add into the mix baies rouges, pink peppercorns, to tame the strength of the others.
But one day, my Peugeot stopped working. When I took it into the shop for a little révision, or check-up, the men there looked at me with a disapproving scowl, asking if I’d put baies rouges into my peppermill.
Why yes, I had. I discovered, unhappily, that one should never put pink peppercorns in the mill because they aren’t even pepper at all, but rather a fruit, and their moisture gunks up the gears of the peppermill.
So I went over to the dark side: owning two peppermills.
In the larger one, I use a mix of black, white, and green peppercorns, which all come from the same plant (they’re just harvested at different stages of maturity).
In the smaller one, I pour in only white pepper.
I’ve come to love white pepper: it’s milder than black, and traditionally it’s used in French cuisine for white sauces. Think about it: you’ve just made a lovely béchamel, the mother of all sauces (or technically, one of the mothers, since there are five sauces mères) and it’s beautifully beige. No one wants to find black specks in an otherwise pristine preparation, one that you’ve spent your precious time and care to create.
It’s the same deal for hollandaise sauce, or a blanquette de veau, classic French veal stew, or for delicate fish and their sauces.
And pink “peppercorns”? They’re now banned from my kitchen. -AZ
On the Table This Weekend…
Since we returned home from les vacances, we’ve been buying more fish than usual, whether at home, or enjoying it in restaurants like an amazing out-of-the-way address in Champagne’s little-known Côte des Bars region (read about it below!).
But one of our favorite go-to recipes on weekends, specifically for our just-home-from-the-market Saturday lunch, is Steak au poivre, one of France’s most iconic dishes. Just hearing the name conjures a well-browned slab of darkish beef, bathing gently in a piquant yet creamy sauce.
The coarsely crushed peppercorns – mignonette – fill your nose with that not-so-subtle fire, while the crème fraiche gives off a lactic tang. These flavors, married with meltingly fatty and flavorful beef, create an ambrosial experience that needs little accompaniment, save for a lofty pile of extra-crisp French fries.
But when I look through the myriad recipes for steak au poivre on line, they seem overly fussy — you need a thermometer, veal stock or demi-glace, and they include superfluous ingredients like shallots or garlic.
We’ll be eating my Frenchman’s steak au poivre this weekend. His way of making it is simple (especially for me…) and delicious.
Do you have a favorite steak au poivre recipe? Please share your source/link in the comments below!
And I’d love your input for a future post, to continue the steak au poivre conversation:
Merci, et à très vite !
This Month’s French Restaurant Pick
Located in Champagne’s lesser-known southern growing area called the Côte des Bar, the tiny town of Gyé sur Seine is just one of the pearls in a string of little villages positioned along the Seine River – the very same one in which Anne Hidalgo swam just before the Olympics, to prove that the water was safe.
The Côte des Bar has gained prominence in recent years as a fashionable region in Champagne – its inclusion in the appellation “only” dates from 1927 – and features wines made from a majority of pinot noir grapes.
One champion of these wines – and their most natural iterations – is Le Garde-Champêtre. This modern “farm-restaurant,” located in an abandoned train storage warehouse, features dishes made almost exclusively from products grown on the organic farm just steps from the restaurant’s front door.
The half-acre farm grows up to 300 varieties of heirloom vegetables per season, as well as 20 chickens (kept primarily for their eggs). And, as the restaurant’s website points out, guests are welcome to walk through the gardens “with a glass of Champagne in hand.” Yes, please!
The day we visited was an odd summer combination of hot and blustery. After settling on the outdoor terrace, our hair and napkins took flight, so we decided to move inside the renovated warehouse. In an amazing feat of design, the barn-like building manages to be bright, warm, and minimalist all at the same time.
The dishes, created by Japanese chef Kazuya Miyashita, are also somehow minimalist yet exuberant. We decided on the prix fixe menu, and at 35€, it was a steal. (Of course, prices in the French countryside are considerably lower than in Paris.) The abundant but not over-done flavors on our plates largely compensated the modest portion sizes, and the price was offset by the consumption – obligé! – of the local beverage, Champagne.
Tender-crisp green beans and the bright flavors of apricots, marigold petals, and hazelnuts created a fresh starter. (And I liked this dramatic use of negative space on the plate!)
A white tuna sashimi with escalivada, or Catalonian-style grilled vegetables, sang of umami and the citrus notes of timut pepper (really a berry! uh oh), and the nasturtium leaves on top lent another peppery touch.
Eric Maurois’ farm chicken was well-seasoned and served with fava beans, potatoes, and a soft pressed eggplant. The anchovy-inflected jus rounded out the flavors, and a smattering of purslane provided a lovely bit of crunchy-soft succulent to the dish.
The rumpsteak had been aged for 50 days, and was served with a smooth pepper sauce!
A selection of cheeses was accompanied by the freshest of farm salads and a micro-mound of rhubarb.
For dessert, we enjoyed a raspberry sorbet with whipped yogurt and a strawberry salad topping a crunchy cardamom crumble.
And the restaurant’s name? Gyé-sur-Seine’s last protector of the rural environment, known as the garde-champêtre, was Monsieur Droze.
“Monsieur Droze was a memorable personality. A swarm of bees? Call Monsieur Droze. For any breach of the country laws, Monsieur Droze was summoned. Upon the opening of a nearby dance hall, Monsieur Droze, a Gitane cigarette dangling from his mouth, hopped on his bicycle, equipped with his homemade megaphone, and combed the streets to announce the news.”
The restaurant’s team now see their role as a modern garde-champêtre, stimulating social interaction and a community spirit. The memorable food and convivial atmosphere – surely fueled by all that Champagne – fulfill the role quite admirably.
Bon app’ and until next time!
I don't have a great recipe, but I generally trust Serious Eats. I tried their recipe, and the steaks turned out great - the sauce was good, but not outstanding: https://www.seriouseats.com/steak-au-poivre.