Kitchen Talk

I seem to be blogging much more often and longer than usual! Can you tell my husband is out of town and I've been on my own for several days? 

First...more info about the Picard stuffed chicken from yesterday. Christelle tells me it was stuffed with foie gras, duck liver. It is considered a "must have on the table for Christmas," just like cornbread stuffing with your turkey! The foie gras is what made the chicken so expensive. And that was a strip of fat down the center of the chicken to make the breast moist. It worked great...we do the same thing in the U.S. only with bacon...because bacon makes everything taste better!

Since we are on  the subject of duck...here is what one of my husband's co-workers gave him for Christmas...

I'm going to let Christelle explain this to me and how we should ideally prepare it. From the back it looks like a jar of fat...

 

but when I tip it to the side I can see what looks like a duck breast.

We eat Confit de Canard all the time in restaurants. (Canard is duck...that's about all I know.)

Since I complain about my tiny Paris kitchen, my friend Bonnie wants to see some pictures...so here is the grand tour of our apartment kitchen. We are renting a completely furnished apartment...to include all the dishes, pots, linens, etc. I shipped a mini sewing room but other than a couple of pieces from IKEA we haven't done much more to the place.

As you walk from the main hallway and turn to enter the kitchen...

you see right away the first thing that irritates me...the only toilet in the apartment is practically in the kitchen. There were worse options when we were apartment hunting since we requested an older style apartment. These rooms were not in the original building plans over a hundred years ago.

I am very thankful to have a washer and dryer...with a boiler for the kitchen hot water mounted on the wall...but it is very noisy to have any laundry going on when you are in the kitchen. The piece on the left is the front loading washing machine with a top loading dryer on the right. Behind the dryer is a door that leads to the apartment building hallway...thank goodness we don't need to use that door.

Here's the heart of the kitchen; dishwasher, gas cooktop, one tiny sink, and on the wall to the right is the oven.

Here's a better view of what is outside my window...the back courtyard of the apartment building where I can see lots of other peoples' apartments. Notice the mesh covering on the wall on the left side. The limestone exteriors of these Paris buildings need regular maintenance and there is always a set of scaffolding set up somewhere on the block to accommodate this work. Some days the workers are noisier than others...today is rather quiet...or maybe the workers are still on their two-hour lunch break!

If I want to open the oven I have to make sure and move everything on the counter out of the way.

And the black shopping bag that is hanging on the wall is for our recycling...we regularly need to take that to the back courtyard and dump it in the recycling cans. We don't have curbside recycling where we live in Alaska...we take everything to the dump so this is a new chore for us.

There was an eat-in table in the kitchen when we moved in but it was so low it was inconvenient as a working surface so it got moved to the sewing room where it became the perfect table for my computer! I never once sat at this table when it was in the kitchen.

We replaced it with a butcher block table that is taller...got it at IKEA. LOVE THAT PLACE! This table is our primary work surface in the kitchen.

Here's the kitchen back wall. Tiny refrigerator and freezer with a very small microwave. Part of that counter top had a coffee maker on it until recently. I have converted Bryan to the cooktop espresso brewing method so I was able to free up some more space!

Here's my stash of American food we keep on hand.

I think the strangest item is the Kraft Parmesan cheese...it is the main ingredient of my Italian salad dressing...the real stuff just isn't the right fit.

And I thought I would add...we do have a lovely dining room with a table that can be expanded to double the length...just in case I want to cook for a lot more people...I really can't imagine that happening. The door on the left is what I would call a butler's pantry.  It holds all the glassware.

Food, Glorious Food

Thank goodness Christelle got back into town and had internet service again so she could read my blog and catch my error. It's not less salt that makes French chocolate so much better but less percentage of soy...makes a big difference when cooking with chocolate, too.

So I was confusing our discussion about frozen foods with the chocolate conversation. She encouraged me to try food from the "Picard," shop which only sells frozen food. It has less salt and sugar than American frozen foods. I can taste the difference!

First...here's my favorite section in the Picard shop...freeze dried, chopped herbs. These are so cool! I need these in Alaska so badly!!! And I just noticed the pesto sauce in the photo...must try that!

I ran out of fresh garlic the other night and remembered I had bought the frozen stuff to try...it was so good...had it on garlic bread.

For Christmas I bought a frozen rack of New Zealand lamb and prepared it using a recipe from the Picard website. Delicious! You roast the lamb chops at an extremely high temperature for about 20 minutes and then pull it out and coat it with an herb and almond mixture with some mustard and then pop it back in the oven to finish off the cooking. We licked our plates clean. Just blogging about it makes me anxious to eat it again.

For New Year's we tried a stuffed duck. ***Update...thank you to the anonymous comment. It is a chicken stuffed with duck liver. My husband an I had this long discussion about this meat because I didn't think it was duck for the main part but he thought it might be. Nothing like having a blog to figure out what one is eating!

It said to defrost for 36 hours...check. Notice the strip down the center. I think that was extra fat...it was a little strange. Maybe Christelle knows what it is.

It looked lovely...and there was plenty of pan drippings to make a nice sauce.

Baked a couple of frozen asparagus tarts, too.

A little salad, a little garlic bread from our stale bread...and dinner was served. Lots of rich, dark sauce on the meat! Totally delicious. And we still have leftover duck chicken which will be my dinner tonight.

Now the duck chicken was expensive...$31 Euros/$42 U.S. but we had leftovers! 

Check out the frozen vegetables at the Picard. Clear bags so you can see exactly what you are buying. Don't they look perfect. You would never get frozen broccoli that was only the "trees" in the U.S. The down side is my apartment refrigerator freezer is tiny and I can only buy what I plan to use immediately. Of course there is my stockpile of frozen herbs that will probably be added to every time I visit the Picard.

There a was a dinner with some kind of fish from Alaska. My husband is pretty skeptical about that meal. I'm not a fish eater so I won't be the guinea pig on that one.

There was a frozen salmon mousse...hope they didn't use the pink or "dog," salmon from Alaska...seems like that gets sent out of state very often and that is not the good salmon!

It is nice to have some easy prep alternatives for meals. And Christelle mentioned the selections change seasonally so of course I must check the Picard often!

Now is the Time to Panic...

I'm going to run out of my primary fabric for the Bear Ridge quilt...which I bought in Alaska last summer. I had plenty for my original design when I packed for Paris.

This is what happens when one is obsessed with making all quilts biggie-sized!

I really tried to go smaller from the start...I don't need another king-sized quilt...but the design kept telling me it needed to be bigger. 

I'll keep trying on future designs to go smaller but I think it's a trapped trait. I may just have to embrace it.

So...I hurriedly ordered more black batik to be sent to my Alaska home which is where my husband is headed for the next week. I sure hope it arrives before he leaves to return to Paris. I can see some international shipping in my future.

By the way...I did find some black cotton thread at the local grocery store. It was pretty pricey, $6.70 Euro...$9 US. Ouch! 

Looks like really nice thread...and it's next to my baby bear paw blocks...so cute and little! I really need to work on this "going smaller" attitude.

All this talk about black thread and fabric makes me think of dark chocolate because in French it is called cacao noir intense. Noir is black...you got the "intense" word already...see...you know a little French, too. And of course "cacao" is pretty close to "cocoa." Sometimes the foreign language thing isn't so difficult. That 70% indicates the percentage of chocolate...very important. My husband will do the 99% chocolate...icky...I need a little sugar with mine.

I asked my friend, Christelle, why dark chocolate M & Ms from the U.S. taste complete different from the French ones...

Turns out the French have some rules about chocolate production...much less salt for one thing and the French let you know the percentage of chocolate right up front. The higher percentage of cocoa the less sugar. I'm pretty much a dark chocolate convert...rarely touch the milk chocolate anymore. The salt was the second to the last ingredient for the M & M's. I will have to check out the U.S. ones next summer. I didn't see any salt in the ingredients for the Lindt chocolate. 

They are soooo delicious. I need to stock pile these to bring back to Alaska. Why is chocolate (food production in general) the one thing the French do so well...why can't it be making batik fabrics???? I don't need any more foods to lust after in my life!

A New Year

I have been enjoying reading other bloggers' New Year's Resolutions. Even if they don't make resolutions most have project lists or goals. I'm working on my lists. 

My number one goal is to create more of my own original quilt designs and write patterns to post on my blog...for free! A big hurdle will be conquering the graphic art side to illustrate my patterns. I love Bonnie Hunter with her blog and all the great patterns she offers...for free...but she relies on photos of each step which makes her directions long. The pattern I have done free on my blog is the same technique but I really want to get to a more condensed format. My ultimate goal is a book. I think this a very interesting time with technology and self publishing. I could go paperless and just do a digital format. I think I am completely capable of doing that so it's what I am working toward. I like it when designers offer their patterns for a limited time on their websites for free and then pull those into a book...I'm thinking along those lines.

I have tons of ideas so stay tuned. My current theme of work revolves around inspiration from my home, Alaska. I am to the border stage of my latest design, "Bear Ridge." My Paris apartment is a terrible location for taking photographs of quilts...sorry for the poor photo quality. The focus batik is a bear print..hard to tell from the photo. The finished size of the quilt will be 105 x 105 inches. I am a biggie-size quilt maker...or rather...a maker of biggie-sized quilts.

I will be adding some baby bear paw blocks to the border. Here's a drawing of what I think I will do...but I could change my mind!

EQ7 is a wonderful toy! I haven't figured out how to out-smart the program yet to get what's in my head to the design without lots of extra blocks in the drawings. I'm hoping to improve my knowledge of the program this year...a second goal.

I am almost out of black thread...oh no...wonder how much that's going to cost me to buy in Paris? I don't have enough to finish the border so it is a must-buy situation. At least I have a notions shop nearby.

I have been in a cross-stitching mood lately. Seems to coincide with quilt designing as while I'm stitching I often get ideas and run to my computer or make a quick sketch. I got another Santa nutcracker ornament done.

I'd best get on with the rest of the day. Almost time to do a little shopping. Grocery shopping is a constant chore in Paris.

Design Wall Monday

Lets get right to it. I've been busy sewing!

My bear paw blocks went together so quickly since my half-square triangles were trimmed to the perfect size using the bloc-loc ruler. I didn't have to do my usual basting at the points because everything matched perfectly. I had to correct a few with the seam ripper but not many.

I finished a little cross stitch ornament of a nutcracker Santa.

Back to stitching...

Must-Have Ruler

I got sew much accomplished yesterday but last night I got very little sleep...wrecks all my plans when that happens! I am almost through with this day so I guess I'm doing an okay job of just pressing through it. Being tired like this always reminds me of when I had a new baby to take care of all night...some memories never fade!

I want to share my favorite new quilting tool. It is a bloc-loc ruler for trimming half-square-triangles. A quilting friend from the Breakfast Club in Anchorage recommended I get one this summer. (Thank you Megan!) I am very glad that I did. I absolutely love this ruler and as I recall the normal retail price was a little steep but I got it on sale!

I used a method for making 8 HSTs at a time that I learned from Carrie Nelson's book, "Another Bite of Schnibbles." I took a 6 1/2" square of the two fabrics I'm using. Drew two diagonal lines from corner to corner and stitched a scant 1/4" seam in each side of the line.

Cut like so...

Press open the eight units and  trim with the Bloc-loc ruler. There is a recessed channel on the underside of the ruler where the seam allowance nests against the diagonal center line.

Flip it and trim to the final size.

No more try to hold a ruler in place while it wobbles over the seamline when trimming. It made a huge difference to work with this ruler rather than a standard one.

I made 192 HSTs. The camera flash on the acrylic is making it difficult to get a good photo of the full ruler. 

I forgot to show you the gift I got from my niece...she got the ideas from reading my blog.

I got a little cross stitch project, felt balls...I've been planning to make a fancy felt ball pin cushion for months...and DMC floss...the most popular 36 colors. I know I will use those.

Love my wonderful presents and my niece who was so thoughtful!

The Day After

I got to spend a lot of time with my husband the past few days so I didn't get around to blogging. 

We spent Christmas in Paris while our two sons spent it in Alaska. We did offer to fly them to Paris for the holiday but both had work commitments and would prefer to visit in the spring. Hubby and I decided to start a new Christmas tradition...begin the day with French champagne mimosas. I tried my first chocolate croissant...fabulous!

Around noon I coerced my husband into taking a walk with me. A couple of blocks from our apartment we walked by a bakery with a line outside the door. We were shocked to find all three of the bakeries within two blocks of our apartment open on Christmas morning.

The folks in line had a nice view of the Eiffel Tower.

Fresh-baked goods are taken seriously in France!

We spent the day watching "Hell on Wheels," the first season. My husband got is as Christmas present and of course we hadn't ever seen the series. He really enjoyed it right away...his first comment was, "Good...it's violent." I thought that was funny! One of his all-time favorite mini-series is, "Lonesome Dove," and he put it in that category so I guess we'd better get the second season DVDs.

I made a tiny rack of lamb for dinner. I bought my ingredients from, "Picard," a French chain-store that sells only frozen foods. I will be doing an extensive blog on this store soon...lots to share about it! I got the recipe from their website...in French of course. I must have translated it fairly accurately because it was incredibly good. We licked our plates clean! That recipe is going in the family-keeper file. The lamb is encrusted with a mixture of mint, thyme, garlic, sliced almonds and a mustard vinaigrette.

A couple of days before Christmas I went for a walk up to the Seine and thought I'd try and show the horrible traffic in Paris the week before Christmas.

This is a beautiful bridge that crosses the Seine about mid-point of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. On the right side of the photo is an intersection where cars look like they are pointing in every direction...gridlock! I think it is crazy driving in Paris every day but the last couple of weeks were exceptionally bad. When we came back from London we took a cab from the North train station to our apartment. It took twice as long as the ride would normally take. Our cab driver told us all the extra traffic was from all the non-Parisians coming into the city to shop. He didn't speak any English but my husband's French is getting pretty good and I understood most of the conversation too! 

The weather was horrible on Christmas eve...very windy and rainy...I didn't leave the apartment at all but I did start a new quilt project...bear paw blocks for a bear-themed quilt.

This is a pattern I came up with on EQ7 this summer. Hopefully I brought everything I need with me to make it. So far I'm loving it. Yes...of course it is all in batiks. I can't ever get a decent photo of the fabric colors. I really miss my well-lit studio in Alaska!

I also finished the top of the Cupcake Angel stocking. This was a very fun one to work on.

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I might have to buy a Lego set to open next year...I really miss putting together those sets with the boys on Christmas morning!