Baby artichokes braised in white wine & thyme

At the market this morning there were these gorgeous purple baby artichokes.

Ignoring my promise to not buy much of anything since we are leaving for a vacation later this week, they sang to me so I bought them, happy with the challenge of figuring out how to cook them. I've seen the baby artichokes at the market several times, but never had any idea how to cook (or eat) them.

But I love artichokes and they are among the few veggies that my DH really likes too, so I figured it was worth a try (even though the big globe artichokes are a steady favorite). Turns out they are pretty time-consuming to prepare, but the result was indeed very good. Next time I need to remove more of the outer leaves and pay more attention to buy really really small ones. I bought two batches of them, and one set was noticeably smaller than the other - and they were MUCH easier to eat.

My recipe, from the San Francisco Farmer's Market Cookbook, was pretty easy and turned out quite well, although next time I'll try to cut down on the olive oil and add lemon.

Ocean's 12 & Ocean's 13

We watched these Hollywood movies back to back last night. We'd seen Ocean's 11 back in January I think, and E picked up 12 & 13 recently.

We were in the mood for something easy and this was definitely easy. Ocean's 12 was really bad in my opinion (although E thought it was okay) but Ocean's 13 was amusing and fast-paced, although not as much so as the original Ocean's 11.

In both there are plenty of people quite easy on the eyes, and the all-star cast is clearly why these movies have worked at the box office.

La Mosquée

Tonight we went to La Mosquee for dinner. We were already walking around not too far away and it's been a long time since we've been here (and never for dinner). Couscous is one of those local cuisines that the French take for granted - it's very exotic for an American, and as I don't eat it often it's something I am still discovering. It's also kind of like pizza places or Mexican food in the US - there are a lot that are mediocre, but not many that are really good.

I made the same mistake I've made several times at a couscous restaurant - I ordered a tagine (like a stew) instead of just sticking with the basics of couscous. Luckily my DH & I had agreed to share, and luckily couscous is always quite generous - the couscous was much better than the tagine, as was the case the last time I had couscous too (which was probably about 2 years).

Walking around the Latin Quarter

We had a lovely day today - first really nice weekend of the Spring, full of sunshine.

We walked around a bunch of lovely places - rue Mouffetard, the Pantheon, La Sorbonne, the Jardin des Plantes, and a bunch of shops that make up the outdoor-and-sports stores of Le Vieux Camper.

It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon and evening - and makes me fall in love with Paris all over again (and maybe a little bit more in love with my husband too!)

Guy Savoy

I'd been wondering whether I should add a category of "restaurants" here and last night tipped my decision.

On a Friday night where we had nothing in particular planned, my DH suggested we go to a nice restaurant. We really enjoy the fine dining experience, and tend to hit 2 and 3 star Michelin restaurants a few times a year. I suspected it wouldn't work out - seeing as he made the suggestion at 6pm for that same night and we had nothing reserved. But, it is a vacation period in Paris, and after 20 calls he found a table at Guy Savoy at 10pm.

It was excellent. We took the "menu prestige" option which is a tasting menu of many courses to give us a taste of several of Guy Savoy's most famous dishes, and we were not disappointed. This is a chef who really knows how to ge the most out of each ingredient and taste. There were many courses but my favorites were :

Myriad of Young Peas - the essence of the fresh baby pea, in gelee, in the peas themselves, and the play of textures from peas to gelee to poached quail's egg to the little sprouts on top. Divine.

Cold steamed land and sea assortment - amazingly good fresh steamed veggies presented very dramatically over steaming dry ice. By far the best simple vegetable dish I've ever had. The "sea" mention came by way of a very original oyster vinaigrette which was deep and oceany and amazing (and I don't like oysters).

Soup of artichoke heart and black truffle - very good, one of his famous signature dishes, but I found it less amazing than some of the other things. The mushroom and truffle brioche that was served with it was out of this world however.

Crispy sea bass in vanilla spice - was probably the best fish dish I've ever had. The fish was perfectly cooked, extremely flavorful, and the sauce was absolutely out of this world. Vanilla but the flavor was only complex and savory, no hint of sweetness.

There was also a half rock lobster (very good, but nothing particularly surprising about it) and duck magret with foie gras (the foie gras of course I didn't eat but as usual my DH doesn't complain to have a second portion of foie gras).

The cheeses were really good - I particularly liked a fresh goat cheese, a Corsican sheep's milk cheese that was covered in spices, but the knockout was a 2004 cantal.

The desserts just kept coming - but I'd seen that from tables around us (one of the advantages of a late seating is seeing the end of the meal of earlier tables) so I'd done my best to save room. The desserts from the menu were a "Strawberry Textures w granny smith apples" and it was another fabulous example of Guy Savoy's ability to highlight and magnify the essence of an ingredient - it was fabulous. Less surprising was the chocolate fondant layered w praline, but then again I'm never a big fan of praline. On the sweets cart - this is in addition to the two small desserts served in the Prestige tasting menu, mind you - there were many things to tempt us. I tasted the sorbet au petit suisse (a yogurt sorbet) and raspberry cheesecake and a nut cookie and had a few bites of my DH's fabulous choice of rose rice pudding.

In all, a great experience. Restaurant was very good, not stuffy, service excellent. We had a great champagne upon arrival and the white wine was outstanding. I really liked the red demi that we had as well, but it was mainly well-adapted to the duck - on it's own it didn't have the complexity of the white.

Sabotage - Alfred Hitchcock

One of Hitchcock's early war films, last night we watched Sabotage. this film was a nice change from our TV episode habit on evenings where we are too lazy to read... As it's pretty short (90 min) it's do-able at night.

Not a great film, but amusing. I really liked the "commie" rich bad guy character - a tell-it-like-it-is attitude that was funny and well-played. Not that much suspense, as it was very much a wartime morality play, but a nice break and a decent part of the Hitchcock development. We didn't identify the Hitchcock self-placement in the movie, but we didn't start looking for him until relatively late... he was probably there somewhere.

Cafe Delmas

I was with a colleague today and we were looking for a quick lunch before an appointment and walked a few minutes to this small square in the 5th district where there were a bunch of cafes facing a fountain. It was one of the first sunny and warm days and a place in the sun was our mission, and we found it at the Cafe Delmas.

The cafe was a great choice - we took a Chinese Chicken Salad which was really, really good, but saw several very pretty dishes served to those around us.

I'd definitely come back and try other things, and it's nice to know a good cafe in this part of town