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Thai cook goes to France and loves it!
By MANTANA HEIM
In my dream, I am Ina Garten, the celebrated chef-caterer, and goddess of the TV program “Barefoot Contessa.” I cook several perfect meals in no time flat; I set beautiful tables with perfect tableware and flowers, and I lived in a perfect home with wonderful garden.
In my dream, I conversed fluently in French (just like Ina) and chitchat happily with merchants in a Paris green market. After selecting mushrooms, fish, olives, red peppers, prosciutto and five kinds of cheese, I return to my chateau and prepare exquisite meals for my friends.
In real life, I live in the small town of Moneta, south of Roanoke. I am a Thai chef and a foodie. I have never cooked anything French but would love to, and my home is OK, but forget about the perfect Ina’s garden!
But, come with me to experience the life of an ordinary woman who followed her dream to learn to cook, to shop and to spy on the French. Tighten your safety belt, we are flying to France!
I landed in Nice, France, on Oct. 4. The weather was perfect, about 70 F., with no humidity. From the air, Nice was a wide spread of sand color buildings hugging the hillside. It reminded me of San Diego with less greenery.
I walked out of the arrival gate and five smiling faces with one big bouquet of pink roses met me. Sandra, her family, and her godparents were there to welcome me. Sandra was my exchange student, Patrick is her husband, and Chira is their 5-year-old daughter. We arrived at Sandra’s home in Grasse within 20 minutes. This was to be my home for the next 13 days.
Dinner that night consisted of cold boiled French green beans, pickled heart of palms, several kinds of olives, green salad (with only bibb lettuce), a small platter of proscuitto, several kinds of cheese, baguettes and of course, red wine. We had coffee, fresh yogurt and fresh fruits later. Water is served with every meal, and I did not see butter the whole time that I was there.
My wake-up call was a light kiss from Chira. “Bonjour, Mantana,” she chirped! Chira talked to me non-stop and asked her mother why did I speak funny.
We had a wonderful breakfast of warm croissants, (bought piping hot from the neighborhood bakery) yogurt, and cereals with fragrant and wonderfully strong coffee. Not the “sock washing water,” which they called our coffee!
The cooking class started the first day. Kathy, the girlfriend of Sandra’s father, taught me the family favorite, “Osso Buco A La Milanaise.”
First, we had to shop for the fresh ingredients. We went to a grocery store named Auchan. Auchan is a big chain store, a combination of mall, grocery and clothing store. The foods I saw that day are better than those at Fresh Market! This is when I had an education of French utmost perfection of their foods!
We went to get the turkey legs. (Kathy said that we could use veal, but since we have to go to a special butcher, we opted for turkey legs.) Turkey is cheaper and less fat, she said.
The meat cases were piled high with rabbits, turkeys, yellow chickens, black chickens, game hens, quails, Cornish hen, ducks, beef, pork, ribs, cutlets, leg of lamb and lamb chops. The one thing that jumped out at me was how very fresh all the items were, with no visible fat!
We went to the next aisle for seafood and there was eye-popping fresh seafood for sale that day! There were mounds of fresh squid, large octopus, tuna, salmon, flounder, sea bass and other fish that I couldn’t name.
The people of Southern France love their seafood and the aisle of seafood proved it. The fish were super fresh with bright, clear eyes. I didn’t detect any “fishy” smell.
We shopped for red peppers, carrots (with bright green, fresh tops), onions, fresh strawberries and grapes (light green, the Italian kind; they tasted like honey). Kathy said that she was low on cheese, so we went to the cheese section and, my, there must have been 100 different types in the case, including fresh yogurt!
Sandra told me that this is a small selection of cheese, since normally in the cheese specialty shops, you could have more choices! (There are more than 400 different types of cheese in France, according to Cloude, Sandra’s godmother, who worked in a cheese shop for more than 25 years.) To cut down on the plastic waste, customers bagged their own groceries into their own canvas bags.
When the time came to cook, it was a hands-on class. “We must flour the legs this way, and we must taste it,” Kathy said.
At 8 p.m., we sat down for dinner. We started in the living room with champagne, a small bowl of potato chips, five kinds of olives and two choices of hard sausages.
We next moved to the dinner table and began with Osso Buco a la Milanaise, served with fresh pasta, baguettes and Epi bread. The dinner dishes were removed, and we followed with five different kinds of cheese and ,of course, more bread, red wine and water. Coffee and fresh fruits came after and, when I thought all was done, a tossed green salad was served. The dinner lasted more than two hours!
During the next 12 days, I had three more cooking classes with two other French families. There were several memorable meals and numerous shopping outings. I went to Antibes, Aix-en-Provence, and the American war memorial in Rhone. I visited several ancient hill towns perched on the mountaintops. I visited Froganard, the company which made world famous perfume in grasses. I visited Canne, where the film festivals take place and gawked at Cartier, Hermes, and Yves Saint- Laurent merchandise.
Even though I speak very little French, I was happily shopping, eating and gawking at several food markets, but the best, which topped Ina’s food market in Paris, is the world famous Cour Saleya market in Nice!
The most memorable events of my trip were the trip to Cour Saleya and dinner at Le Nid d’ Aigle (The Eagle Nest) restaurant, perched on the mountaintop at the ancient village of Gudon. The waitress told me that President Putin of Russia ate there last year during his visit to France.
The small hill towns of St. Paul De Vence and Mougins captured my heart with their ancient, cobbled stone roads and vibrant flowers spilling out everywhere. A black kitten peeked at me from a window covered with bright pink impatiens. And Ah, the foods!
But the best memory of all is my memory of the warm, unpretentious and helpful nature of the French family I was with. We laughed together at the butchered French I tried, and there was loud applause of approval when I hit it right. My American breakfast of homemade waffles and pancakes was a big hit, and my Thai dinner was a bigger hit.
I was very sad to leave. This dream trip will remain in my heart forever.
OSSO BUCO A LA MILANAISE
For 4 to 6 persons:
2 1/2 lb. veal hock or turkey legs
Flour (a little )
3 oz. butter
1 T. olive oil
1 yellow onion
1 tablespoon tomatoes juice(in can)
½ c. dry white wine
½ c. water
A bourquet garni.(bay leaf, rosemary, and thyme)
1 garlic pod
salt, pepper
3 fresh tomatoes
Parmesan or Gruyère cheese
Lightly flour the meat in seasoned flour (salt and pepper). Brown the meat in little olive oil and butter in the pressure cooker. Removed the meat and add the chopped onion in the same pot, brown well, scraping the pot constantly to include the brown bits.
Add meat, the tablespoon of tomato juice and the white wine. Simmer for about 5-6 minutes. Add the water, the fresh herbs, the garlic smashed, salt and pepper. Close the pressure cooker and let cook 25 minutes.
Ten minutes before the end of meat cooking, add peeled and chopped tomatoes.
For serving, put the rice in a deep dish with the osso buco on top. Eat with Parmesan or Gruyère. (Or serve with fresh cooked pasta.)
Mantana Heim lives at Smith Mountain Lake where she writes and runs Thai cooking classes.
Comments or questions? E-mail to comments@primeliving.net.
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