Autumn notes.

Sophie Hunger's Le Vent Nous Portera (The Wind Will Take Us), with thanks to Delphine; do give the video time to upload.

Apples and walnuts, and all things chestnut.  That's just some of what's in season now.

I've already made my first nut tart, and the thick apple compotes, simmering away on the stove, saturate the kitchen--the entire house--with the warm scent of clove and cardamom.

 

   

At the market, I came across artisanal chestnut blood sausage (my daughter took the photo with her new camera, as I chatted with the butcher).  Haven't yet tried this sausage...

I did buy some fougasse, which is to our region what the pretzel is to New York.  The savory version of the Provençal  fougasse can be studded with olives, cheese, onions, or--as here--with bacon.

 

There were lovely slabs of bread, but also loaves of home-made pâte de coing, or quince paste, which in my mind is best enjoyed as the Spanish do it, with a wedge of good Manchego cheese.  Spain is only a carefree three hour drive away, mind you... 

The jars of honey are out in full force, despite the growing prevalence of colony collapse disorder, with more varietals than you can shake a stick at. I remain loyal to my purveyor.

 At home, there's the return to comfort, in its many forms, a buffer from the highly variable weather.  For a good friend, there's lots of cheer and a mildly sweetened gâteau au fromage, far less dense in texture than a New York cheesecake, but with the similar mild tanginess and a satisfyingly spicy crumb crust.  This is easy to make, easier to eat, and may be just the thing to chase those moody blues brought on by the earlier nights of autumn.  And once she's blown out the (70) candles and we've savored her well-earned dessert, I'll add the photo.  In the meantime, here's how I made it, and how you can, too.

Gâteau au Fromage (My French Cheesecake)

Serves...a whole party.

300 g store-bought graham crackers, McVitie's original digestive biscuits, or Belgian speculoos
50 g ground hazelnuts, or toasted sesame seeds
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 tablespoons organic butter, melted
1 1/4 kg (about 5 cups) organic fromage blanc (drained in a strainer for a couple of hours)
1/4 kg thick organic crème fraîche
400 g (2 cups) fine sugar
1 tablespoon organic cornstarch or arrowroot
4 organic eggs

Preheat oven 175C (340F). Grease a 26 cm (10.25 inch) springform pan.  Finely crumble and blend cookies and spices in a food processor.  Add melted butter and blend.  Pour into the prepared pan. Tamp the crumbs down evenly using a drinking glass, then place in refrigerator.  Add remaining ingredients in the (cleaned) food processor and blend until consistency is even.  Pour the liquid mixture onto the chilled, unbaked crust and place in oven.  Bake for at least an hour, or until the edges are a light golden brown and the cake is lightly set (the center should still jiggle).  If the edges start darkening too quickly, place a sheet of baking paper over the cake. The cake will rise puffily in the oven and deflate a bit once removed.  This is utterly normal. For best results, allow to cool completely on a rack, then chill cake overnight before serving.

Golden mountain again in view.

It's that time of year again, actually has been since mid-September, and I have been meaning to write about it. Cheese, I mean. Not just any cheese, but the Vacherin Mont d'Or, of haut Doubs, in the Franche Comté, a region far to the mideast, bordering on Switzerland.
This seasonal, raw milk cheese is named after the highest peak in the area, and is said to have been a favorite of Louis XV. The most famous cheese from the Franche Comté, unsurprisingly is the superlative Comté. The Mont d'Or, its lesser known relative, was developed as a way to make small rounds of cheese in autumn from the depleted quantities of milk produced by the Franche Comté Montbéliarde breed cows. A single 35 kilo (80 lb.) round of Comté cheese will require both a long, labor-intensive maturing period and some 530 liters of milk (the daily production of perhaps 30 cows). A single one-kilo round of Mont d'Or, however, is ready in just 21 days and requires only 7 liters of milk.

During its relatively short maturing period, or l'affinage, a Mont d'Or cheese, once solidified, is wrapped with a thin length of spruce pine, and allowed to rest upon a length of pine in the cave. The wood will lend an inimitable resinous element in the maturing process, as the cheese is regularly "washed" with brine (a solution of salt and water), in order to develop the rind your spoon will later cut into. Finally, toward the end of the aging process, the pine-belted cheese will be placed in a round pine box that is ever so slightly too small. This will ensure the characteristic buckling of the rind that you look for in a fully aged Mont d'Or.

A well-aged Mont d'Or will have a mouth-filling richness that might bring to mind a particularly flavorful and melty Brie, a suppleness and long-lasting aromas of mushroom, balsam and sometimes potatoes (which is why the fondue version is so prefect drizzled atop baked or hash-browned potatoes). I usually buy it in the smallest round, which fits in my cupped palms and is about half a kilo. The larger size I reserve for a winter crowd, when a rib-sticking fondue is called for; I bake it directly in the humid wooden box, adding a bit of white wine to make what's known as a boîte chaude, or hot box. Another one of those instances when the expression, once translated, somehow disappoints.
Extensive travel is generally not well-tolerated by any fine cheese, and the Mont d'Or does seem to get more delicious the closer to its home that you can sample it--that certainly applies within France as well. But you can get a pretty delicious idea by staying away from supermarkets and sampling some at your local fromagiste-affineur if he is well-versed in his craft. 'Tis the season, grab your spoon!

Update: one of my kind readers pointed me in the direction of blogger Chez Loulou who highlights favorite cheeses (with some great shots) in her Fete de Fromage. Do check it out if you go weak in the knees for cheese.

The story of Pelardon.

I've just been in Claudie and Bruno's barn and cheese room. About time I allowed my curiosity free rein, as I have been buying goat cheese whenever possible from their market stall for the better part of this decade. They make a very fine Pélardon to which I remain exceedingly loyal.

The Pélardon, a small, round goat cheese, has been made in the Languedoc Roussillon since the dawn of time. Well, perhaps its history doesn't stretch quite that far back, but Pliny the Elder did speak well of it, noting that the cheese was served at the best tables of Rome...In the ensuing centuries, while the cheese continued to be made, its status drifted rather miserably downward, as goats were long considered the poor man's cows. For a good long stretch, up until the twentieth century, really, the Pélardon was pretty much off the wider culinary radar, being made only for at-home consumption, rather than being sold.

Today the reputation of the delectably tangy, creamy Pélardon (and other goat cheeses) has been very much rehabilitated. The Pélardon now additionally benefits from the imprimatur of the AOC, which came about thanks to the combined efforts of locals who conscientiously standardized the ancient cheese-making ways in the 1960s and avid, quality-focused Pélardon fans who lobbied for national recognition in the 1980s.

But how is Pélardon in fact made? This was the question driving my visit to Claudie and Bruno's barn. For starters, this raw-milk cheese is seasonal; that is, it is available while the goats produce milk, and cannot be made from frozen milk. This means you can start getting your fix in February or March, when the nanny goats have their kids. As it gets hotter, there is less milk; by autumn, the only Pélardon you can get is amply aged (in a good way). Then the goats have a well-earned break, and we go without for awhile.

The goats are required by AOC law to be outside a minimum of 210 days a year in space large enough to ensure at least 0.2 hectares per animal. In the Cevennes this translates to grazing in forests often dominated by chestnut trees, and herb- and scrub oak-filled open heath (called the garrigue). What these goats eat is of course bound to affect how their milk--and thus their cheese--tastes. Hence Pélardon typicité, which is why at least 80 percent of the goats' feed must be from local, native vegetation (rather than hay for example).

Claudie milks twice a day. Each of the goats, which are required by AOC rules to be either Saanen, Alpine, Rove or crossings of these three breeds, produce on average, about 500 liters a year.

Live cheese cultures and rennet are added to fresh drawn milk, which causes it to curdle (i.e. solidify). This goes on for 24 hours, after which Bruno scoops the jelly-like milk into perforated forms. The curdled milk will rest overnight in the molds; by the next day, the volume in each mold will have decreased by half, with the clear liquid (whey) having slowly seeped out of the perforations. The resulting little cake is put on a metal grill to rest, then flipped over. The grills, filled with rounds of fresh, very white cheese are carried into an temperature- and humidity-controlled drying room, where they will continue to decrease in humidity and thus size. Next they go into the aging room, where they will take on their distinctive bluish or beige-ish color and aromas. They will still need to be turned every two days, and will spend at least 11 days ripening. At no point are any flavors, colorants or concentrates added, nor is the milk ever heated.

Once the rounds are ready, Claudie sells them at market at a range of ages: "fresh" ones, creamy (with a soft center), mi-sec, or "half-dry" (which has a more assertive, rich flavor) all the way to the smallest, darker and more solid Pélardons, which have the fullest flavor. Each type has its best uses, and the fun is in comparing them to one another. It is a wonderful cheese to grill on toast and serve with a mustardy green salad. But this cheese, which fits easily in the palm of your hand--and is the cheese of the Cevennes--definitely has its place simply on the cheese plate, along with any one of the other 365-some cheeses of France.

Sigh: so many cheeses, so little time. While I strategize how I am going to manage to try all the French cheeses, I think I'll have another piece of Pélardon.

Paris by night.

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris. -F. Nietzsche

Go ahead, play the video while you're reading this. I really think you won't regret it.

So Patrick Watson visited one of my favorite cities. Granted, you don't actually see much of the city, but you don't need to. That warm cast of the streetlights is classic Paris at night. And thus my day, a day filled with all the best reasons, surprises and reminders of why one moves to the south of France, comes to a perfect end with the discovery of this footage (thanks, Cerre).

If I have left you yearning for more of the Canadian Mr. Watson's lush sound and delectable voice, you can find him on You Tube; his Great Escape stopped me in my tracks, but browse and discover your own favorite. Tell me what you decide. In the meantime, I'll be mixing the season's first gin and tonic, with a generous squeeze of lime, while nibbling at shavings of a very special Basque Tomme de Brebis, or sheep's milk cheese, which you'd have to taste to believe. It's that good. And it's even finer eaten out in the fresh air, under swooping swallows.