HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!

This quick little recipe is a modification of one developed by Marika and Abe, who don't travel much but sure know their food:

KUMQUAT/CRANBERRY SAUCE: Take a pint of washed kumquats and slice crosswise into 1/4" rounds; remove the centers (they pop right out, a lot quicker than trying to find the seeds) Put in a heavy saucepan with 1/4 c water and 1/2 c brown sugar. Simmer until almost tender (check to see it's still wet), about 10 minutes, then add 1/2 pound fresh cranberries (pick them overcarefully), and three cinnamon sticks. Continue to simmer until cranberries pop, about 6 minutes.  Can be made a day or two ahead and refrigerated, Serve with roast anything. Great on a cheese sandwich, with or without the turkey. And it's so pretty!

Kumquats are an underutilized fruit. It's the rind that is where the flavor and sweetness reside. They make a fine addition to stuffing, are beautiful candied, and look fabulous whole, pickled, in a jar, as a holiday gift.

EGYPTIAN EPIPHANY

This food awakening began in late October when I visited Egypt. Friends warned me that Egyptian food was, to be kind, unremarkable. I might even - gasp - go hungry! I was prepared to loose a few pounds, in return for immersing myself in 5000 years of long-studied history. I have been a Tut-ophile since my teens (somewhat less than 5000 years, thank you very much), and had prepared myself for the trip by reading a dozen or so books and guidebooks. I couldn't find an Egyptian cookbook, darn it.

With a long list of places to see, I flew to Egypt. Nothing prepares you, however, for the chaos that is Cairo. Nothing prepares you for the insane traffic, or the street-level smog. Nothing prepares you for the agenda-driven Cairenes, either: 'you are a tourist, therefore I will lie, exaggerate, and finagle until you are broke and lost and starving'. And nothing prepared me for the food, either.
This was a mega budget trip. Two months on the road can be expensive unless you really work at cheap. If anyone can work at cheap, it's me, and food was one of the two places to save (lodging the other, but I'll never tell you details of where I stayed). On Tallat Harb, not too far from the incomprehensibly grimy and underfunded Cairo Museum, is a small eatery called Felfla. A utilitarian storefront with very little seating, crammed with locals and backpackers of all ages, this place offers fabulous food for almost nothing. The uniformed staff was happy to help even a non-Arabic speaking tourist.Their vine leaves (a dozen for little more than a buck) were superb, their felafel, their baba ghanoush excellent.
But the dish that really got my attention is KOSHARI (accent on the first syllable ). This macaroni/sauce/ frizzled onion dish is just the thing to teach your 10-year old son, if he doesns't know a ladle from a lemon, how to cook. This will serve four to six depending on appetites.
Cook a mixture of macaroni: ditalini, elbows, even mini-penne. Leftover pasta is good here, too. Just nothing really big, and nothing long or heavy like ziti. When cooked, drain, return to pan and keep warm.
While the pasta cooks, make a tomato sauce NOT Italian style, but the inevitable sauteed chopped onion,

 garlic enough to deter a vampire, canned mini-dice or fresh tomatoes with a generous helping of chopped cilantro, salt and pepper to taste, and ground cumin. A small shake of cinnamon is good, too.

Slice a good-sized onion and fry it in peanut or other neutral oil until brown and crisp. I suppose you could use those things in a can, but I like to scratch cook.

Open a can of garbanzo beans (even my culinary hero Mark Bittman says it's okay to use them), add a couple of smushed cloves of garlic, a generous handful of chopped cilantro, and simmer until everything is ready.

In a shallow bowl, put a ladle of pasta. Top with a ladle or two of sauce. Top with a generous spoon of the hot garbanzos and an equally generous spoon of the fried onions. Sprinkle, for an upscale look, more chopped cilantro.

At Felfla, they offer two sauces, one nicely spicy. You could do that as well. This could become a family stand-by and - who knows? - your kid could go on to become the next Food Network Star!

FOOD MEMORIES OF FRANCE

Left: the fabled  French oyster - these are in a St. Malo market - are considered the best in the world. Just pry open the little darlings, squeeze lemon over, and down the hatch! If you don't like eating live things, try putting them on the half shell in a shallow pan, sprinkle chopped garlic, shallot and tomato over top, add juice of a lemon, a dusting of red pepper flakes, then dot with butter and slip into a 400 oven for a few minutes. Serve with crisp slices of toasted baguette.  Above right: MOULES FRITES...classic French bistro fare, above right from a local eatery near Mont St Michel. French mussels are smaller than our humongous farmed mussels, and they seem tastier. Simply steamed until they open, then poured into a plate with the inimitable french fry.

MY FAVORITE SALAD...broiled goat cheese atop a slice of toasted baguette. Easy? You bet! A thick foundation of spring mix, a hard-cooked egg in quarters, a bright rose of sliced tomato. And then one of my higher powers, lardons: lean cubes of bacon, fried until crisp and lavished atop the greens. A bit of vinaigrette to one side, extra bread for the thick chunk of chevre (a half inch is ideal, and if you only can get a skimpy log, just reshape it to a  more generous diameter). It rarely gets better than this!

FACTORY FOOD? Mais non, mes amis! In most French towns, food stalls are marvels of creativity and honesty. The deli counter in the Nantes food market pictured on the left offers scores of salads, dips, grilled and marinated veggies, an unctuous heap of brandade de morue, vine leaves, stuffed peppers and courgettes and zucchini, salted anchovies in huge tins (none of this measly eight fish in a tiny can, thank you). All amazingly fresh.

Right: The BUTTER master slicing off this sublime artisan-produced buerre! It's cut to order, given a final spank with wooden paddles, and lovingly wrapped for the client. Take that, Land O Lakes!
 

NOT HAPPY ABOUT THIS...years ago, I would never fail to visit Au Pied du Cochon in the old Les Halles area. It was a real bistro of the old-fashioned sort, and justly famous for its French Onion Soup Gratinee. Nothing ever, in my estimation, came up to its quality. The down-to-earth ambiance didn't hurt, either. My friend Val and I went in on a brisk, rainy evening this October; I'd raved too much about it, she wanted to try. The place had been tarted up something fierce, and the waiters wore tuxedos. Yikes! The floors were carpetted! We were seated amidst thick white napery, heavy silverware, fifty tourists, and a warehouse full of Murano glass chandeliers. The prize came in the traditional huge bowl, the cheese browned and crisp. It was served with a flourish (on not one but two plates, yet). It looked like the real thing. Pretty! Eagerly, I dug in. And...? It was thin, over-salted, tasteless. What a shame what the siren call of a million tourists can accomplish.

SO...WHAT IS THIS? Sometimes I run across a kitchen or serving impliment that's new to me, and I like to see if anyone can identify it. This one is French, and I partook in its use in October at a birthday party in Paris. The user of this silver impliment had to search over the city to find it, but when he had it in his clutches, Jean-Marc really knew how to use it! So...what is this?