BonjourParis

Little did I know, growing up in Geneva, that the popular Café de Paris, down the street from the Gare Cornavin, was already an icon. I just knew it smelled great inside, a busy, beefy aroma of thin-sliced entrecôte, bubbling butter sauce, and frites à volonté. Replicated in Paris and renamed l'Entrecôte, the concept became the embodiment of the French steakhouse. For me, it's comfort food.

Recently, after much urging from family and friends, I decided to start my own little business: La Cucina di TerrESa with the simple desire of offering cooking classes that celebrate the vegetable kingdom—more specifically, organic, seasonal produce—and food tours emphasizing all that is organic to Americans vacationing or relocating in Paris.

Let’s try something new for Valentine’s Day. You’ve already got the card (or sent one by email) and the chocolates. Now comes the celebration. This year, how about a choice? Here are some possibilities, a champagne tea, or a special dinner with wines. Either will be a treat if you are tired of surf and turf and cutesy restaurant ads for two for Valentine’s Day.

With antique shopping at St. Sozy behind us, geese grazing under walnut trees grab our attention more than the gentle bends in the road toward Creysse, our anticipated next stop. We think, “Why not pull over and watch school children in the valley below conquer a cornfield maze?” Then, downstream, a huge roadside factory interrupts the lazy day and a billboard notifies passers-by that tours of the fromagerie are being conducted. I lift my accelerator foot a bit but then press down again, chased away by the smokestacks and the parking lot built for tour busses.

I was pleased to note this title on the front page of the December 26, 2007 Washington Post. Finally, I thought, we will have a column that explores the merits and demerits of point scores for wine! Turning to the Food Section to the article indicated revealed a disappointment. Here was no analysis of point scores at all. The author said that point scores “allow the average person to choose a good bottle without knowing the soil characteristics of the Medoc.” 

Christmas. Let’s begin with Christmas dinner. Here, Dickens meets Escoffier! You want plenty to serve, and good quality without breaking the budget. For starters, you might offer a real treat, a 2005 William Fevre Chablis “Les Champs Royaux” ($16.79). This wine is a careful blend of excellent Chablis vineyards, not first growth but well selected, for quality and value, as Fevre himself told us durng our visit to Chablis. Starting the dinner with a glass of real Chablis will set a flavorful tone for a memorable dinner.

I recently gave a wine seminar at the first Talbot County International Wine and Food Festival (www.talbotfoodandwine.com). It was fun to pair fine wines with food, and this first annual event for our Eastern Shore community was a promising inaugural, with Ambassadors from France and Argentina also present to enjoy the festivities and preside over their respective national dinners. My seminar was on stocking a wine cellar, not an easy thing to do at today’s prices for fine French wine. But with some careful thought, you can start or continue your own wine cellar, taking advantage of the excellent 2005 vintages in Bordeaux and Burgundy as well.

How would you like to taste a historic French culinary delicacy favored by royalty and presidents, savor its delicate aroma, put it in your mouth, bite down and delight in its flavor?  Does that sound good?  Does that sound very French?  Well, be careful. If you do that these days there’s an increasing chance that you could get socked with a 6,000 Euro (8,400 dollar) fine and possibly a six-month jail sentence.

The season is beginning for wine dinners. They offer a chance for a good chef to show off his skill, and at the same time, allow matching of wines as the food courses succeed each other. It is fun, and entertaining. Usually on the pricey side, it is up to you, the consumer, to decide if the dinner is worth the cost. That doesn’t mean that you should rule out a dinner because of price alone, if you can skimp on the budget somewhere else.