Come fly with me ….

 

Jordan with the world on  string,
and the Eiffel Tower in hand.

Well, we won’t really fly but we can go to Paris in our imaginations. Jordan has sent pictures of her adventure. Having never been to Paris, I’m not sure if the Eiffel Tower dominates everywhere you go or if that’s just Jordan’s perspective. I also know she is enjoying the casual French attitude about wine—in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, whenever.

The above was supposed to be the opening to a blog full of pictures of Jordan’s 48 hours in Paris—but I couldn’t make sense of posting them in any order to Blogger. Cutlines ended up with other photos, photos ended up where I didn’t want them, and it was generally a mess. So I gave up. Trust me, there were a lot of photos of the Eiffel Tower from all imaginable angles. My favorite though was Jordan and her travel colleague, a girl I don’t know, with glasses of wine in hand (of course, it is France, is it not? Vivez la belle vie!) You will have to trust me that the other pictures were fun and interesting, and my grown child looks very much a fashionista—slim jeans, a black bomber jacket, and the fedora.

This morning she texted that they left Paris early, like six in the morning, to avoid the riots. What a minute! Riots? What riots? My child was in the midst of riots? Yes, it seems the French staged May Day riots over Macron’s pension reform. But when last heard from Jordan was in the port city of Brest preparing to board a ship for Iceland. Her Paris stay was brief but apparently wonderful.

I have been thinking that Henny, that good Chicago girl in the Irene in Chicago culinary mysteries, ought to go to France now that Irene has been to Texas, but I resist that idea because I’ve never been to France and, despite reading quite a bit of fiction, I don’t think I could pull off an authentic French background. Somehow, I don’t think Jordan’s brief stay was enough for her to supply what I need. Henny will just have to stay in Chicago.

Meanwhile, back in Fort Worth, it was Monday all day. I made a Dagwood sandwich for dinner for Christian and me (Jacob was at the driving range) and it was really good. But there’s a tale behind it. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a round sourdough loaf from Central Market and asked them to slice it horizontally instead of the traditional vertical. I got a vertically sliced loaf, so when they asked, as they do every week, how my shopping went, I told them. The manager from curbside pickup called, and we had a long talk. She told me to call the baker when I ordered—but Sunday I forgot and just placed the order. She called again, and we had another long talk. Behold, I got a horizontally sliced loaf of bread. They could not make it into five slices as I wanted, because the machine is set to only one length—I gather hand slicing didn’t occur to them, and I don’t blame them. I did it once and came up with an awful mess, though I have since heard if you run a whole round under water and then bake briefly it will slice.  I wasn’t quite up to that.

Dagwood ready to bake

Baked Dagwood

Long story short, I just used every other slice, so now between the leftover sliced, the loaf that was sliced wrong, and the bread I already had on hand, I maybe have a year’s supply of sandwich bread. But our Dagwoods were so good tonight! Tomorrow I will call curbside and thank the manager.

Christian laughed tonight at my over-stocking. I admit I have enough sharp cheddar in my fridge for maybe three months. Tonight I was about to order legal pads so I could take some notes, and he found several in the cabinet. No wonder the cottage is overflowing!

This week I’m all about anticipation of the coronation, even planning to make the special Coronation Chicken Salad. So sweet dreams everyone—may your dreams be a jumble of kings and queens and the Eiffel Tower (better than the Tower of London, don’t you think?)

Travel, sort of, and food

I was in Paris on a photojournalism internship. I wandered the city, finding charming homes and picturesque old business buildings to photograph. I marveled at the cleanliness of the city (true or not) and remarked on an article about their careful treatment of the disabled. I was just ready to write my essay on the week and grieved as my sojourn came to an end. And then I woke up!

Meanwhile, back in the reality of Fort Worth and my kitchen, it was a food weekend. It began with Friday lunch. Jordan ad I have developed the habit of getting lunch from our favorite take-out, Local Foods Kitchen. This week, she said she didn’t need anything, but I said let’s go because they might have salmon cakes (a mutual favorite). We came home with a salmon cake each (I thought mine dry and made it into salad—so good), ceviche, egg salad, and a Hello, Dolly dessert (which my daughter declines to eat and I parcel out through the weekend). In addition, our neighbor sent over some roast duck. What a lunch! Friday night I had dinner with a group of interesting people at the Kimball Museum buffet—delicious quiche, salad, a wonderful cucumber/spinach vichyssoise.

Then Saturday, it was back to my kitchen. I spent much of Saturday cooking, following a New York Times recipe for spring lamb and a snap pea salad. I should have known the recipe called for cooking the meat too long—what they called “tender” I call overdone. I love beef and lamb medium rare, and after an hour, these lamb cubes were well done, like stew meat. Good flavor, but not what I expected when I sprang for that expensive meat. The salad was good and a learning experience—I have long wanted to shave cheese, and vegetable peelers just didn’t work. I found that my mom’s old square grater does a perfect job—we had shaved pecorino. I also let the mint for the salad wilt and it didn’t refresh in ice water. The salad called for thinly sliced fennel—I’ve never used fennel, thought I didn’t like it because of the licorice taste. I loved it—crunchy and crisp, with the licorice taste barely a hint. Phil, one of my guests, thought it was a new kind of onion; I said no, fennel, and he said, “Fennel onion?” My summation: I probably won’t use those recipes again, but the cooking was fun, I learned some things, and an evening with old and good friends was priceless.

Today I volunteered to make Doris’ casserole, a family favorite, since Jordan, Christian and Jacob were out of town until late afternoon. The casserole has a tomato/hamburger layer (seasoned only with garlic, salt and sugar); an egg noodle layer with cream cheese, sour cream, and scallions, and a top layer of grated cheddar. It’s irresistible. It's also in my cookbook, Cooking My Way Through Life With Kids and Books.

However, it’s 8:00 and I’m still waiting for dinner—which has to be cooked in the house since I have no oven. Jordan has gone to a friend’s to borrow jewelry, a bit of a disappointment because I thought we would sit and have family dinner together. Win some, lose some. I’m still hungry, but it will be worth waiting for. And once again, it was a lovely happy hour on the patio.