I HEART PARIS

I’m having a Paris moment. More specifically a Lunch in Paris moment, crossed with a  French Women Don't Get Fat crisis. You see, I’m reading Elizabeth Bard’s delightful ‘an American in Paris’ love story, and it’s stirred up a yearning to return to my favourite city on the planet... and since she’s so thoughtfully provided recipes at the end of every chapter it’s a short fall from longing into gluttony.

Paris features heavily in my travelling life, but its culinary delights have played a little harder to get. As a dirt poor backpacker in 1994 I only ever graduated to a baguette, and a bit of supermarket camembert (okay, there might have been a chocolate éclair or two in there somewhere, and a daily croissant). In 2001 there was the strange dislocating evening at a ‘vegetarian’ restaurant in early September. French cuisine is almost allergic to vegetarian food, and it transpired this was hardcore vegan. It did prove that no amount of je ne sais quoi can salvage tempeh, given it looks and tastes like cardboard. My friend was so mortified by where her dietary restrictions had led us, fish swam straight back into her diet. In 2005 I was coming off the traveller’s curse in Morocco, and 2009? At the Fromagerie Bernard LeFranc on the small city island of Ile Saint Louis my mum and I pointed at, and bought, the stinkiest, runniest cheese in the shop. We found a park bench next to a church, slathered the cheese on chunks of baguette and cracked open the pinot gris. Finally, I’d found the French beat of my heart. 

Food was also Bard’s way of entering, and falling in love with the French culture, whilst giddily falling for her brainy, sexy, tap-dancing husband, Gwendal. Lunch in Paris features all the classics – profiteroles, beef daube, more asparagus than you can poke a spear at (sorry – couldn’t resist), and of course French Onion Soup. It was the soup that started the yearning – at 4am no less – and it continued to haunt me until I just had to get into the kitchen and cut up 2kg of onions. And then the crying took over.

Classic French Onion Soup
From Gourmet Traveller, July 2007 
Serves two for dinner or 4 for starters

100g butter coarsely chopped

2kg brown onions, thinly sliced

1L (4 cups) beef stock

4 thyme sprigs

3 parsley stalks

1 bay leaf

8 1cm thick slices of baguette, cut on a diagonal and lightly toasted

250g coarsely grated Gruyère

Melt the butter in a large, heavy-based saucepan over medium heat. Add the onions and cover, stirring occasionally for 20 minutes. They will soften and go a little translucent. Remove the lid and cook for an hour, stirring to make sure bits don’t stick to the bottom of the saucepan. The onions should slowly caramelise. 

Add stock that has been gently warmed, 1/2 a cup at a time, and simmer for 5 minutes (the stock should have almost evaporated). Repeat 3 times until the 2 cups of stock are added.

Tie the herbs together with twine, and add to the mixture. Add remaining stock immediately and season. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes or until thick, stirring occasionally to make sure caramelised bits aren’t stuck to the bottom.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Ladle soup into oven-proof bowls and transfer to an oven tray. Scatter with half the cheese, and cook for 5 minutes.

Toast the baguette then scatter with the remaining cheese and put under the grill until the cheese is bubbling. (Alternately you can top each soup with 2 baguette slices and cheese in the oven. The underside of the bread will absorb the flavours and add to the heartiness of the soup. Perfect for a rainy day!) Serve immediately.

If you don’t want to spend 2 hours coaxing onions to reveal their sweetness, an easier way to get some French groove on is Moules Marinières. I’ve eaten this in more Parisian cafés than I can remember. It’s so simple to make, and the combination of mussels, wine and shallots is divine.

Moules Marinière

Serves two

1kg fresh mussels (I buy live, debearded, ready to cook in a pack – it saves a lot of fuss)

115g unsalted butter

1 clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped 

2 shallots, peeled and finely chopped 

200ml or 1 cup of dry white wine

1 bay leaf 

1/4 teaspoon of thyme

1 large handful fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

Prepare the mussels: for debearded just dump in a colander and rinse. For bearded mussels pull away the strands (beard) around the shell and scrub under cold running water.

Heat 50g of the butter in a large saucepan or large enamel pot. When the butter is foaming add the garlic, shallots, thyme, wine and bay leaf. Cook over a medium heat until the shallots are soft and translucent.

Then bring the mixture to the boil. Add the mussels, cover the pot, and cook over a high heat for 2-3 minutes, gently shaking the pot as you go, until the mussels open. Discard any mussels that remain closed after cooking or are shrivelled. (And I repeat – throw out any mussels that DO NOT OPEN.)

Divide the mussels into two bowls. With the remaining mussel liquor in the pot, add the parsley and remaining butter and bring to the boil. Pour the mixture over the mussels and serve immediately with crusty baguette.

This dish is also handy when you’re eating alone in situ in Paris because it requires intense concentration – all those shells to discard, all that sauce to mop up with baguette. It’s something to focus on when you’re surrounded by lovers who can’t keep their hands off each other. Yeah. This is the City Of Love, and the locals don't want you to forget it. 

Elizabeth's mussels use less butter, possibly because it falls in the chapter where she's ruminating on why exactly French women don't get fat (something to do with portion control, and being worshipped by their men). Personally, I reckon another reason for this miraculous state of affairs is because Paris is a very walkable city. 

My favourite route: Start at Notre Dame and then amble to Ile St Louis for an ice cream at Berthillon. Cruise by all the cute antique shops, go to said cheese shop, and then cross the bridge to the Left Bank. Find the amazing English-language bookshop Shakespeare and Co where writers have been hanging out, and sleeping on the floor since the 1930s. Move on to the Lumas gallery, and then make your way to the Cluny Museum. 

Spend the next day on the Right Bank. You could go to the Louvre (it's easy to get lost for an eternity in there), or visit Le Marais district. I try and go up Rue de Rivoli to check out some of the shops. And then back to the Left Bank for a visit to the Musée D'Orsay.

So after all that walking, you can surely have some dessert. Elizabeth promises her husband’s quick and dirty souffle is rich, but not deadly. 

Guilt-free Chocolate Cake 
[a small variation on “Gwendal’s Quick and Dirty Chocolate Souffle Cake, from Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard, pp 302-303] To serve 6-8

220g chocolate [60%-70% cocoa]

2 tbsp of filter coffee

5 eggs, separated

1/2 cup of caster sugar

A pinch of salt

1 tbsp of plain flour

Butter (for the cake tin)

Crème fraîche

Preheat the oven to 180C and butter a 20cm spring-form cake tin. Make the coffee and then add to the broken up chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and heat (on defrost setting) for about a minute, then stir until all the chocolate is melted. Set aside to cool.

Separate the eggs into two bowls – the whites in a large dry bowl and the yolks in a medium.

Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together.

Pour the egg yolk mixture into the chocolate mixture and quickly whisk together until combined. Add flour and stir until fully combined.

Beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt. Keep at it until you have stiff peaks.

Fold a third of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture (don’t worry if you do more than fold... like stir thoroughly - it still turns out all right). Then add this mixture back into the egg-white bowl. Now fold gently - you want quite a bit of air in the mix.

Pour the mixture into the cake tin and then bake for 20-24 minutes. Test with a skewer in the middle. If it’s oozing a little that’s OK, and as Bard says if it falls a bit in the middle before it reaches the table don’t worry – it still tastes good!  

Serve with a dollop of crème fraîche.

So if you have a petite slice, your body might just forgive you. After all, how can anything made with love ever be bad for you?

GORILLAS IN THE WILD

Location: Rwanda. It was early morning, and at 2600 m above sea level, the air was thick with moisture and it felt like it would rain. This gorilla looked cold, and to my (anthropomorphic) mind a bit jaded (what, another bunch of gawking tourists?).

We’d trekked (and slipped and stumbled) two hours up the mountain through ankle deep mud and bamboo rainforest to find this family and then there He was. I think we all felt pretty awestruck in the hush. And then... he farted. Long, loud and lingering. You’re really not allowed to laugh at a gorilla, so we all moved right along.

The Parc National Des Volcans in Rwanda is home to the some of the world’s few remaining mountain gorillas. This is Dian Fossey territory. You may have heard of the late primatologist who studied and documented the ape families here. If you haven’t, and you’re interested, then see the film Gorillas in the Mist. 

This big boy is part of a relatively young family headed by the silverback named Charles (gorillas, incidentally, are identified by their unique nose print). Charles had, at one time, been part of another family, but as he grew up he got sick of the celibate demands of playing second fiddle to the silverback of his group, and, after staging a brawl ran off with some of the ladies. Such tactics are necessary to get some satisfaction, and are great for the diversification of the gene pool. And it was a win-win. Rather than a fight to the death between a patriarch and the upstart, there’s a entirely new family, and no fatalities.

It’s not always easy to find these guys, and the guides won’t guarantee a definite sighting. But the trackers go up in advance and then radio their location. And then the main challenge is to make it up the mountain without keeling over (I recommend being fit, especially because it becomes harder to breathe on ascent). We were deep in a thicket of bamboo when an enormous black shape in the clearing ahead reared up and started charging our way. Charles was onto us, and his strength and speed was something to behold. There was a brief moment of terror – we were all trying to backtrack up the slope but kept getting caught among the bamboo, but the trackers and guides seemed to communicate in a series of grunts to him that we meant no harm, and Charles settled right back down.

And then we entered the clearing.

It was chow time, and the silverback was at it with gusto. So, we sat down a little further away. Charles then shifted somewhat closer. Now you’re under strict instructions at the point and they go something like this: a) don’t run, in fact don’t move at all, b) don’t scream, and c) don’t give the silverback the death stare. Easy enough, but that is when he eyeballed me. 

And... I relaxed. Okay, yes at over 400 pounds he was a bit fearsome, but actually there was just a strong sense that here was a sentient, super smart creature (sharing some 96% of our DNA) who could judge the balance of power just fine, without having to sit on me to prove the point.

In fact Charles was so laissez faire, even with 11 people watching his every move, he also had a lie down. Perhaps he was just showing off how great the gorilla lifestyle can be.

At the time of visiting, our guide reported there are only 308 gorillas up in the Virungas, and apparently that’s hopeful. Which is so goddamn depressing the only adequate response is action. Numbers have been decimated over the decades by the deadly triad of civil war (this Rwandan habitat borders the Congo, Burundi, and Uganda), the trade for bushmeat, and poaching for rich people’s trophies (a gorilla hand ashtray, anyone? Like really, Get A Life). Not to mention loss of habitat. The state of emergency is such that the UN finally got their butts into gear and initiated the Great Apes Survival Partnership. You can even adopt an ape.

The jury is out on whether it’s fair for these gorillas who have been habituated to humans to have their days interrupted by tourists, and there is a risk they could catch something from an unwell human (which is why you are closely scrutinised before being allowed to go). But at present the greater risk is poachers and there’s no doubt the US$500 cost of the gorilla permit (56 permits = US$28,000 a day), provides the medical infrastructure, research and security guards to keep them safe from their main threat – us. Currently it is the only way to raise that money outside charity and philanthropy. 

So if you’re a wildlife nut, and you ever get the opportunity, this is how you can find yourself face-to-face with a mountain gorilla. If I ever get back there, this is the nose print I'll be on the lookout for. Here's hoping.