Our new washing machine overloaded and dumped water all over the utility room floor. This necessitated a major bail and mop. Then our antique dishwasher decided to call it a day and did the same thing, so within a couple of days, there I was again, cursing and mopping up buckets of water. I’d just…
Soupe Joumou: Sunshine in the Midst of Darkness
When a man pours you his soup, he pours you his soul, even when it’s soup cooked up on a hot plate. Maybe especially then. My friend Marcel celebrated New Year’s Day by making soupe joumou, the beloved soup with which Haitians start the new year. For Marcel, it was not enough to make soup…
Sake-Spashed Millet with Miso and Gingered Greens and Tofu
I have for some time been searching for a line by one of the French decadent poets. Baudelaire? Rimbaud? Verlaine? One of them guys. The gist of the citation is, be drunk. On wine. On life. On love. On poetry. But be drunk. I’ve interpreted “drunk” in this context to mean loose, uninhibited, delighted by,…
Obsessive Turkish Noodle Stew With Sesame
I remember a time when I was a little girl, riding in the car somewhere with my parents. The car, I believe, was a Dodge Dart, and it seemed to go on for a city block, This was before the days of confining car seats and I was in my own vast world of the…
Vegetable Soup With a French Accent
Years ago, I put my husband through grad school. He took night classes, I worked days, we basically didn’t see each other for two years. We had no money. I got by by reading a lot of bleak British post-war novels where the heroine wears tatty sweaters because she’s always cold. She doesn’t have enough…
It’s Great American Meatout — Kiss a Cow
French-kissing cows are the logo for Les Halles, the Franco-American steakhouse in New York, Washington DC and Miami. If you go tomorrow night, I can recommend the petatou, a warm goat cheese and potato salad, the lovely salade d’Auvergene, with arugula, apples, walnuts and blue cheese, a very decadent macaroni and cheese or the healthier…
