December 2002

THE HOLIDAYS

In the States, Thanksgiving marks the advent of the holidays. Here it is the first of December, the season of advent itself, that sparks the window dressings and beribboned Christmas trees, the chocolate, coffee and caramel bûches de Noël on patisserie shelves alongside candied chestnuts and myriad chocolate Pères Noël. In Louviers, the holidays are in the air, and every day, it seems, one more element of Christmas emerges. Soon it will be Père Noël himself, whose small wooden house with its magical icicles has just been erected on our main downtown square. He will stroll the streets of the town each afternoon handing out bon-bons and giving children kisses.

We, like most Americans, are still imbued with the Thanksgiving spirit. We celebrated on Friday, for children have school which precludes a late night on Thursday. All day Friday I, along with an American friend and her French husband who flew over from Texas to be with us for the holiday, cooked our Thanksgiving meal.

I had planned to brine the turkeys this year, but I met with an unexpected obstacle in the form of the farmer who agreed to sell me my turkeys. I say agreed, for in France the turkey is served at Christmas so that getting a turkey for the end of November is extraordinary. The farmer, who sells gorgeous poultry at our market and lives about fifteen minutes from Louviers, was happy to fatten the turkeys for me, but she refused to sell them to me Wednesday for a Friday night meal. “Oh non, Madame, the turkeys are delicate, they won’t keep that long. I will kill them for you late Thursday so they will be good for you Friday. You mustn’t get them too early.” I explained what I wanted to do and how much time it would take. “Aah, I understand, yes. But you know, brining them for just a few hours is better, so Friday morning will work out fine for you.” I didn’t even argue, reasoning that it would be futile. I can see that I am becoming more French with each passing year.

I picked up the plump birds at the farm Friday morning, got them home and slipped a blend of butter and garlic under the skin of one, a mixture of ginger, butter and hot peppers under the skin of the other. I stuffed both with bay leaves from the tree in the garden then roasted them in a 450 degree F (220C) oven for 2-½ hours. When I took them out they were exquisitely golden and beautiful. A sprinkling of sea salt on either side was all they needed before being flipped onto the breast side to sit and absorb juices until I carved them.

I made my traditional pork stuffing with chestnuts that we gathered in the Forêt de Bord, outside Louviers. They were small and peeling them was laborious—thanks goes to my friend Jean-Nat who did most of the work—but the results were incredibly sweet and tender, worth the work. I modified the recipe which is in my Farmhouse Cookbook (Workman, 1990) with extra chestnuts and a dusting of cinnamon, and put the stuffing in the oven of the Aga to bake. There, the temperature remains a gentle 375 degrees F (190C) and the door closes with such a tight seal that no aroma escapes. Given the joyous nature of preparing Thanksgiving dinner with friends helping, children running in and out, music playing, I neglected to set the timer for the stuffing and completely forgot it. Two and a half hours later I remembered it and flew to take it out of the oven, fearing that I would find nothing but a chunk of carbonized pork. What I took from the oven was an astonishingly beautiful, sizzling golden brown with a heavenly aroma. I cut into it and gingerly tasted a mouthful. It was wonderful. The long, slow cooking had locked in all the flavor and moisture. I learned what I’ve often learned before—accidents in the kitchen are often happy. This one was particularly fortuitous, to the point that the stuffing will reappear on our Christmas Eve dinner table, as a first course along with a green salad.

I prepared many aperitifs including prunes stuffed with a blend of Roquefort and toasted walnuts, salt and paprika toasted Spanish almonds, spicy roasted pecans, rounds of cucumber topped with curried hard-cooked egg, and fresh-off-the-boat sea scallops which I sautéed with garlic, lemon and parsley. Our American guests greeted the Thanksgiving array as old friends, for the ingredients, and the lay-out of the meal—all the dishes served at once, buffet-style—was traditionally American. Our French guests were astonished, and filled with questions. Where do pecans come from? Why are American cranberries so huge? What exactly are sweet potatoes? Why is corn a part of Thanksgiving? Why do you prepare so many different dishes? It is such a pleasure to answer these sorts of questions, and to talk about the indigenous bounty of the U.S. and how we Americans, who are wrongly considered to be not only junk-food addicts but bad cooks, know how to prepare it and make it delicious. Such conversation makes me feel as though I'm a sort of ambassador for all that is good in the U.S.

Now that Thanksgiving is behind us we begin our preparations for Christmas. We started Wednesday with our friend David Lebovitz, a pastry chef and author of Room for Dessert (Harper Collins 1999), who came to teach Joe how to make marshmallows. He arrived with a sheet of marshmallows he’d made the night before, a big pot of glucose (like corn syrup), a huge hunk of chocolate, cocoa nibs, and peanuts. Once we’d had a quick lunch David, Joe and I put on our aprons and got to work. It was soon obvious that I was to be assistant and dishwasher as David nudged and cajoled Joe into performing miracles in the kitchen, from tempering the chocolate to whipping up his own batch of marshmallows. The chocolate, it turned out, was to make rocky road and Joe took immense pleasure in first adding peanuts and cocoa nibs to it, then folding it into marshmallows that he had carefully cut to size. I saw his eyes open to the size of macaroons when he bit into his first piece of rocky road, a confection he’d never heard of. I could see in his eyes that look that I often see in the eyes of guests who come to cooking classes—a mixture of astonishment and pride that he actually made something so delicious.

With our tins of home-made marshmallows, lightly seasoned with vanilla and carefully cut into whale, cat, and heart shapes, and our tin of rocky road—which is rapidly disappearing—, we are well on the way to Christmas. The next week’s activities will fill the house with aromas of chocolate and orange, pecans and vanilla, cinnamon, cloves and butter as I—with the help of my children—whip, stir and fold our way to a delicious holiday season. Michael will participate too, as he decorates the house and comes into the kitchen from time to time to sample. It is a glorious season for all of us as dreams—and simple ingredients like chocolate, spices, corn syrup and peanuts—turn into scrumptious reality. The crowning glory of the season, aside from the actual joy of Christmas itself, is when we invite our friends and neighbors in to sample the strange and wonderful American Christmas creations from the kitchen at On Rue Tatin.

All of us at On Rue Tatin wish you an equally delicious holiday season filled with family and friends, and the sharing that makes it all so warm! And to help you along I offer you the recipe for my pork and chestnut stuffing. If you don’t have a chestnut woods nearby, simply buy the best-quality vacuum-packed chestnuts you can find!

Pork and Chestnut Stuffing

	3 cups (750 ml) water
	2 pounds (1 kg) fresh chestnuts, peeled (or 2 cups vacuum packed chestnuts)
	2 pounds (1 kg) lean pork sausage meat
	4 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
	½ cup finely chopped fresh parsley
	8 sprigs fresh thyme
	2 dried, imported bay leaves
	Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
	3 cloves garlic, green germ removed, peeled and minced
	4 large eggs, beaten
	¾ teaspoon cinnamon

1. Bring the water to a boil in a vegetable steamer over high heat. Add the chestnuts, cover, and steam until they are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the steamer basket from the heat.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (180 C).

3. In a medium-size bowl, gently break the chestnuts into bite-size pieces. Mixing well after each addition, stir in the pork, shallots, herbs, salt and pepper, garlic, eggs and cinnamon. To test for seasoning, pinch off a teaspoon of the mixture and cook it in a small skillet over medium heat until it is cooked through. Taste for seasoning, and adjust accordingly.

4. Fill a 9 x 6-inch (22.5 x15cm) baking dish with the mixture, smoothing it with a flexible knife or spatula.

5. Bake until golden brown, about 2-½ hours. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes, then serve.

10 servings