lemony orzo and arugula salad

Another sunny summer evening, another summer salad. This time, it is tender orzo pasta and peppery arugula tossed in a simple lemon vinaigrette. 

Don't you always find pasta salads disappointing? So often they are bland, oily and mushy. Not to mention time consuming to prepare. I remain ever hopeful and continue to take servings of them at parties and potlucks, but I must admit it has been a while since I have undertaken making one myself. 

This salad is different. The orzo cooks up quickly and the heat of it ever so slightly wilts the arugula. It is quite nice. The recipe is from Everyday Food Magazine. 

lemony orzo and arugula salad

3/4 pound orzo
1/4 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons lemon zest
2 tablespoons lemon juice
salt
pepper
grated parmesan (optional)

1) In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook orzo according to package directions; drain.

2) Stir 1/4 cup olive oil, lemon zest and juice, and arugula into orzo and season with salt and pepper. Add a bit of grated parmesan (optional).

a discovery

If you played the board game Enchanted Forest as a kid, hopefully you'll be as thrilled as I was to find those toy tree pieces are real and growing around the entrance to the Musee de l'Armee in Paris (!)

tomato and beet salad

This lovely little composed salad was part of our Sunday evening supper. It is a revelation in it's simplicity: a bite of earthy dark beet with the sweetness of tomato, tangy salinity of feta, and lemony brightness of tender cilantro. Besides the roasting of the beets, everything else comes together quite easily, which on these hot summer days blending into hot summer nights, is about all I can muster.

The beets pictured here came from our weekly farmers box but in the refrigerated section of Trader Joes, they sell a little vacuum sealed packet of pre-roasted beets that I think are quite nice. Please do not let a little beet roasting get in the way of making this salad.

The recipe is from the July/August issue of Everyday Food Magazine (and a very good issue it is too.)

1 pound small beets
2 pounds tomatoes
1 pint cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup crumbled feta
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

1) Preheat oven to 400. Seal 1 pound of scrubbed small beets in a foil packet. Roast on a rimmed baking sheet until tender, 75 minutes. When cool, rub beets with a paper towel to remove skins.

2) Slice 2 pounds tomatoes, preferably heirloom, and halve 1 pint cherry tomatoes, then arrange with beets on a platter.

3) Top with 1/4 cup each crumbled feta, fresh cilantro leaves, and extra-virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

for the love of quiche

I am very fond of quiche. My mother first made this dish for our family for dinner on a wintry evening. When we asked what was for dinner and she said the word quiche, I remember thinking it was such a peculiar word and I had no way of understanding what it was she had just said.

She made the quiche with fresh dungeness crab and swiss cheese. I can still see the pitch dark winter night sky outside the dining room window and all of us silhouetted under the warm glow of the dining room table light. My mom assured us kids we would like it. We were silent as we tried our first bites. It was a revelation for me on two levels: first that such rich decadence could exist in the world as a buttery pie crust filled with an eggy creamy custard. And second, that my mother knew this thing. It was the first time that I saw her as a real person- that she had lived this other life before us (her all consuming children). I remember wondering about what would make her pause enough in a day to put such a lovely dish before us, trusting that we would love it too, but realizing that she had made something because she had needed it- that it wasn't all about us. There was a longing and a melancholy wrapped up in that little quiche.

I somehow tied this together with the snippets of stories my mom would sometimes tell about her summer spent backpacking around Europe. I think because of these earlier impressions, I have always associated quiche as being a sophisticated dish. In Paris, I ordered quiche for lunch twice- once it was the stunning wedge of vegetable quiche you see pictured here. A second time it was classic quiche lorraine- filled with fantastic french ham.

Prior to Paris, I had actually been on somewhat of a quiche kick. It usually happens every spring and is kicked off by my tradition of making quiche for Easter breakfast. Below is my favorite quiche recipe and it makes 1 10-inch quiche. The recipe is from the Fiddlehead cookbook but I add an extra egg. (I adore this Alaskan tome- a couple more of my favorite recipes from the book can be found here and here.)

Regarding quiche filling, there is an endless variety of options. In this recipe you need about 2 to 3 cups of filling. Below I provide the recipe for salmon-mushroom quiche, but the quiches pictured are a variety. I think our favorite combination this spring was cubed ham with barely wilted-down kale. I generally just follow the format below of sautéing up a few things. If I am prepping this recipe the night before, I make the filling and refrigerate it separately from the unbaked pie shell. In the morning, the filling goes in the shell and the custard is quickly whisked together and poured over.

Salmon-Mushroom Quiche

1 10-inch unbaked pie crust shell:
2 cups unbleached white flour
1/4 pound plus 2 2/3 tablespoons butter, chilled
1/4 cup very cold water

Filling:
1 tablespoon butter
1 cup thinly sliced mushrooms
1/2 cup thinly sliced onion
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 cups cooked salmon, flaked
1/2 cup cream cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped chives or green onions

Custard:
2 cups half-and-half
5 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch of cayenne
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1) Preheat the oven to 325 and set a rack in the center.

2) To make pie crust: In a mixing bowl, cut flour and butter together using a pastry cutter, 2 knives, your fingers, or a food processor fitted with a steel blade until mixture resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle mixture with water, 1 tablespoon at a time, tossing gently with a fork, just until dough begins to come together. (Take care not to stir or knead dough, which will toughen it.)

3) Gently gather dough into a ball. If dough is warm or very soft, wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes to prevent butter from melting into flour when you roll out dough.

4) Roll out on a well-floured surface to a circle 3 to 4 inches larger in diameter than your pie pan and about 1/8 inch thick. Slip a long spatula or knife under dough to loosen it and carefully fold dough loosely in half and place in pie pan. Unfold, center it in pan, and trim edges so they overhang pan by 1/2 inch. Folding under itself, pinch overhanging dough to make an attractive edge that stands up on lip of pie pan. Refrigerate until ready to fill.

5) To prepare filling: Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a small pan over medium-high heat. When foam subsides, add mushrooms and onion slices. Stir and cook until wilted. Stir in flour and combine well. Remove from heat.

6) Distribute salmon evenly in unbaked pie shell. Dot with lumps of cream cheese and add cooked mushrooms and onions. Sprinkle with chives.

7) To prepare custard: In a large bowl (with a spout if you have one), whisk together half-and-half and eggs. Add salt and cayenne and pour over filling. Sprinkle pie with parmesan cheese.

8) Bake for 40 minutes, until quiche is golden brown on top and slightly puffed in center. Remove from  oven, cool for 15 minutes, then slice and serve warm.

Note: if you have only a 9-inch pie pan, make custard with 3 eggs and 1 1/2 cups half-and-half.

Rodin's garden

Friends- tomorrow, let's escape for the day to Rodin's garden in Paris.

Then, we can stroll over to the Rue Cler neighborhood, sit at an outdoor cafe, and eat the best piece of veggie quiche you ever had in your whole life.

Finally, we can walk a few blocks more to say hello to this: 

Yes, I think that is what we should do tomorrow. Who's in? 

Notre Dame Cathedral

What happens when a heart breaks? To match the rush of emotion or flood of numbness is there crushing of capillaries or pulse of contractions in the walled chambers of a physical heart- the one beating here right in my chest?

I am thinking about heartbreak this morning and all the heartbreak in the world. I spent a lot of time in churches in Paris. When we travel internationally, my husband and I love to attend a service at one of the large cathedrals. Our faith is not Catholic or Orthodox, but to me, it connects me to the thousands and thousands of people who have sought solace and communion with God in that building. Experiencing a worship service in a cathedral is much different than visiting it as a tourist.

So it was that on our first day in Paris we attended an early evening service at Notre Dame. We sat on small wooden chairs surrounded by people from all over the world and were provided (very thoughtfully) a program of the service that was also translated into many languages.

As we waited for the service to start we craned our necks at the vaulted ceiling and sighed over each new detail as it unfolded itself before us. I kept thinking over and over, "Thousands of people have sat where I am sitting, looked up as I am, and longed for God."

I do not fully understand everything that went on during the service but it was quite exciting when a procession of bread bakers came marching down the aisle, dressed smartly in their kitchen whites, hauling enormous baskets of rolls and others with arms wrapped around stacks of baguette. With hundreds of people in attendance, I was hoping for a "loaves and fishes" moment. Alas, it turned out to be some kind of blessing event and the rolls and baguettes were part of the processional as well.

The music was beautiful and spare. I love when there is an acknowledgement that the place where we are is so grand and there is no need for further embellishment or elaboration. The pure simplicity and pitch perfect voice of the song leader (I am sure there is a wonderful title for such a person, but I do not know it) piercing through the vastness of the space while the incense rolled upwards, sometimes in shadow, sometimes haloed by late afternoon light, pooling in through a stained glass window. And all the time I was thinking, "Thousands of people have sat where I am sitting, looked up as I am, and longed for God."

After the service, we did take a few minutes to wander about the Cathedral. I was glad that my first moments in that place had been through the lens of a church service because it is so easy to flip back into tourist mode, to separate myself from a space as an observer.

It is a marvelous Cathedral, stunning in it's size and grand gestures. We were walking up the side of the interior, where there are a series of altars and stands of candles. The effect of the candles on the din of the space was quite beautiful and there were several people around (including us) taking pictures. There were just enough people around that it was not until we were standing right next to him that we noticed this gentleman:

His vulnerability took my breath away. I perceived such a depth of loss and sorrow in his expression. It was then that I realized, thousands of people sit, look up, and long for God. The space went from past tense to present tense. In the midst of a sea of tourists, happily snapping pictures and going about their holiday, this man had heartbreak and understood the true nature of where he was.

I am still processing through what all this means.
One thing I am thinking about, is that we never know what point of heartbreak a person is in. We each carry within us the heartbreak of our lives, tote it around in these physical shapes. Large losses, small losses - it all adds up.

And maybe that is a portion of why grace is so important. We must be gracious with one another, to those we love and to strangers. We must be gracious enough to allow each of us our moments, be they in a holy Cathedral, or wherever they occur.

I pray that today, whatever stage of heartbreak you may be in, you will find enough grace not only yourself, but for others as well.

(Many thanks to my husband for capturing the beauty Notre Dame Cathedral in the pictures above.)

Breakfast in Paris

We recently returned from a big vacation: 8 days in Paris, 2 days in Amsterdam. In one word: lovely. My husband and I are great travel partners because for both of us, it is all about the food. Hands down my favorite part of the trip was just soaking up the Parisian cafe culture: long lingering meals in sidewalk cafes, taking in the surroundings and people watching.

About breakfast: It is all about the croissants and the bread and the butter. Oh, and the fresh squeezed orange juice too. Some mornings we had a "walking breakfast": croissants or baguette picked up at a boulangerie while marching around the city. Time change had us waking up pretty early (3am- hello!) and we liked the early morning walks before the crowds hit the streets.

One morning, as we marched to the Musee de l'Orangerie, I had this lovely little rhubarb tart for breakfast.

Towards the end of our week we settled into a routine of taking breakfast at a nearby cafe. We had cafe noisette (shot of a espresso with a tiny pitcher of milk on the side), fresh squeezed orange juice, a basket with croissants and very good toast, butter and jam, and a soft boiled egg perched on an egg cup with toast soldiers. The perfection of the simplicity of the meal highlighted what I think is so great about French food: the bread and dairy (butter, cream, cheese) are out of this world. While we breakfasted we would look over the guidebook and maps and plan the days outings.

From our cafe perch, I also loved to watch the morning routine play out in Paris as it does in cities all over the world- families rushing in the morning to get the kids to school and themselves to work! (Can you see the kiddo being led somewhat reluctantly in the picture below?)