•1 (200-gram) bar dark chocolate (70 percent cocoa)
•1 stick unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing ramekins
•4 eggs
•1 pinch ground cinnamon
•1 pinch salt
•2/3 cup brown sugar
•½ cup all-purpose flour, plus extra for coating ramekins
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour 8 four-inch ramekins. Break the chocolate into small pieces, and melt in the microwave at 20 or 30 percent power for 30 seconds. Stir, and repeat, continuing until the chocolate is smooth. Melt the butter in the microwave the same way.
In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs, cinnamon, salt, and sugar with a whisk. Add the melted butter, and whisk again. Little by little, add the flour, whisking into the mixture. Finally, add the melted chocolate, mixing well. The color of the batter should be chocolate brown. Pour the mixture into the ramekins. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cakes are puffed up; they may still look a little uncooked, but they won’t be flat. Cool for at least 2 minutes before loosening the cakes out of the ramekin. Serve with vanilla ice cream and cherry compote (p. 298), fresh raspberries and a dollop of whipped cream, or crème anglaise.
SAUTÉED ROSEMARY POTATOES
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Serves: 4
Great for: side dish for meat, chicken, or fish
•4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
•8 medium-sized red or gold potatoes, diced into ½-inch cubes (1 cup per person)
•3 sprigs fresh rosemary, needles removed and stem discarded*
•3 to 4 pinches fleur de sel, kosher, or sea salt
•Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or deep, large pan on high heat. Add the potatoes and stir. Cook for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down to medium-low. Add the rosemary and salt, tossing all ingredients together. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes until the potatoes are golden brown on the outside, tossing occasionally. Season with salt and pepper.
*If you can’t find fresh rosemary or don’t have it on hand, use dried rosemary or a few pinches of herbes de Provence or thyme.
ELVIRE’S GTEAU AU YAOURT (YOGURT CAKE)
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 30 to 35 minutes
Serves: 6 to 8
Great for: breakfast or a snack
•¾ cup plain or Greek yogurt
•¾ cup sugar
•1¼ cups all-purpose flour, sifted
•¼ cup canola oil
•1 teaspoon baking power
•½ teaspoon salt
•1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•2 large eggs
•1 lemon, juiced
•1 lemon zest, finely chopped
•1 cup strawberries, sliced
Preheat oven to 375°F. Using an electric mixer, combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl, mixing until smooth. Bake in a lightly oiled loaf pan for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool. Serve with fresh, sliced strawberries.
Ingredient Five
LOVE
24
STEPMOTHER’S DAY
I’d decided that stepmothers get the shaft. So, I came up with a new holiday: Stepmother’s Day, which takes place on the Sunday in between the French and American motherly-love events. I picked the day because I didn’t want to upset the kids by making them feel as if I were competing with the memory of their mother. But I was doing all the things mothers do. Surely I deserved one tiny moment of appreciation. Flowers? Bring them on! A day off from cleaning? Yes, please.
With three miscarriages behind me, I needed this. And I was pretty sure Jean-Luc and the kids didn’t realize that I wasn’t quite over the pain of three consecutive losses. Because how could I be? The sadness just crept up unexpectedly. I should have received an Academy Award, one that I’d accept with a fake smile plastered across my face. I was happy, yes, but I always found myself questioning what could have been. Don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t needy. But my inner strength, that woman who said everything was going to be fine, could only take me so far. And grief was something that took time to come to grips with. I had three scars on my heart. But they could be healed. Give me one day. Just one day, I prayed.
So I wasn’t opaque, and I didn’t hide all of my feelings as I’d done when I first moved to France. I told my family exactly what I wanted, needed, dropping not-so-subtle hints here and there. Because when I looked at Max, Elvire, and Jean-Luc, sometimes these losses ripped me to the core. Max and Elvire were such beautiful kids—smart, too. What would the three babies I’d lost have looked like? Me? Him? Her?
“Don’t forget. Tomorrow is Stepmother’s Day,” I said.
I’ve never understood why women get so angry when their significant other forgets a big event like a birthday or an anniversary—why not just remind them? Jean-Luc might have been a rocket scientist, but he was also a bit absentminded, forgetting where he put his keys and phone. With me around, he’d always remember a significant event.
“How could we forget when you’ve been reminding us for the past month?” said Jean-Luc. He rolled his eyes. “It isn’t even a real holiday.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “It’s 100 percent real. And it’s extremely important to me.”
In the morning, I was in the kitchen having my coffee. There were no flowers, there was nothing. And I was seething. But, before my mind could spiral into deep depression, I heard Jean-Luc and the kids giggling in the dining/living room. “What’s going on in there?” I asked.
“Happy Stepmother’s Day!” they yelled, racing up to me with a gift—an orchid in a cute wooden box with a “Bonne Fête Belle Maman” sign in the shape of a daisy. Belle Maman was stepmom in French. This made me all kinds of happy. I knew I’d forced the fake holiday on them, but it was nice of them to pull through. I didn’t cry until they handed me a small puzzle. Once I finally managed to piece it together, I flipped it over, and in Elvire’s creative marker writing, the card read: “Nous t’aimons, nous t’aimerons toujours car tu seras gravée dans nos cœurs et aussi car tu es la meilleure. Gros bisous, Max, Elvire, et Bella.”
We love you, we will always love you because you will be engraved in our hearts and also because you are the best. Big kisses, Max, Elvire, and Bella.
“Thank you. This is the sweetest holiday ever,” I said. “Tonight, I’m making a strawberry apple crumble for dessert.”
This statement was followed by hugs—real, hard loving hugs.
Jean-Luc kissed me on the forehead. “Go relax,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said. “It…it…it means the world to me,” I said with a stutter, so touched.
“I know.”
As a family, we normally cleaned on Sundays. The kids did the upstairs and their bathroom. Jean-Luc vacuumed and mopped (he didn’t like the way I did it, so I wasn’t going to change my wily ways). And I tackled all the surfaces in the kitchen, our room, and the living room, as well as the never-ending piles of laundry.
I was so emotional by this point, I could only think of one thing to say. “Really? I don’t have to clean today?”
“No,” he said. “Elvire will be doing your portion.”
“Mais, Papaaaaaaaaa,” said Elvire.
I ignored her. “Honey,” I said, turning to Jean-Luc, “Sometimes I act like I’m stronger than I really am.”
“Sam, I know. And it’s because you have a heart.”
Part of living a passionate life together means sharing one another’s passions. In my case, this meant scuba diving in the summer and skiing in the winter, two sports that made my heart race with fear, two sports the kids and Jean-Luc enjoyed immensely, two sports I was completely miserable at. But a family that plays together stays together, and I set a goal to try to kick my nerves to the curb and to learn how to breathe—extremely important when it came to diving.
In late May, we headed to the Costa Brava region of Spain for the biannual scuba trip with Jean-Luc�
��s work group. I’d say we went to Spain—but the Catalans are very proud to be Catalan (they even have their own flag), and so our destination was Catalonia.
On the three-hour drive, I had to smile. I loved this aspect of French life. When I lived in Chicago, I could visit Lake Geneva, the Indiana dunes, the Michigan beaches, or go apple picking in the fall. But in southwestern France, I could visit another country.
We were staying at a “camping” site, consisting of plots of land for camping cars and tents, as well as bungalows, which was what Jean-Luc had booked for us. “Camping” sites in France and Spain came complete with restaurants, swimming pools, and entertainment. This location also had a dive center and an aviary filled with tropical birds.
Set beside a pond, dotted with grass umbrellas, our accommodations were adorable. The bungalow had a front porch, a small kitchen/living room, and three bedrooms. The kids were thrilled to have their own rooms.
Many familiar faces from the Porquerolles trip, as well as a couple of new ones, surrounded us. But I was too nervous to talk to anybody—mostly because it was time for me to fling myself backwards off the side of the Zodiac into the Mediterranean. Admittedly, this experience was quite fun, much like doing a somersault underwater. The moment I emerged, I shot Jean-Luc the okay sign. So far, so good. We swam about sixty feet to the area the boat captain had pointed out, where the depth of the water was around six meters, perfect for a discovery dive. Once there, Jean-Luc stopped and removed the regulator from his mouth. “Ready to descend?” he asked.
Swimming at the surface with a twenty-pound bottle of air strapped to his back was child’s play for Jean-Luc, but I wasn’t used to this kind of effort, especially in a rough sea. Instead of catching my breath, I held it in, the water churning like my fear. Finally, I sucked in a mouthful of air and took the regulator out of my mouth. “Aren’t you going to give me any instruction?” I asked, panting.
“You’ve done this once before.”
“Two years ago,” I said, remembering my first baptême de plongée (introductory dive) when Jean-Luc took the kids and me to Spain for a long weekend. My instructor was a fiery, redheaded Catalan woman whose wet suit was equipped with red horns on the hood and a pitchfork tail on her rear. I didn’t hate the experience. But I didn’t really love it. “She didn’t speak one word of English,” I continued. “What if I missed something important? I mean, I could run out of air and die or get compression sickness.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Put the regulator back in your mouth,” said Jean-Luc. “Just breathe. You’ll be fine.”
“I can’t do this.”
“You can,” he said.
But I couldn’t. Not when I was close to hyperventilating. Fins between my legs, I swam back to the Zodiac, Jean-Luc in tow. After removing my weights and dive vest, the captain and another diver hoisted me up. The kids raised their eyebrows. I knew what they were thinking: loser. Disappointment set in. I had dreams of diving in tropical waters, sea turtles and manta rays surrounding us, my family by my side. Which was the reason I wasn’t going to give up.
Before the second outing, a simple beach dive at a natural park called Anse de Paulilles, located in the beautiful department of Languedoc-Roussillon-Midi-Pyrénees in the Pyrénées-Oriental region, almost eased my frazzled scuba-diving nerves.
The drive along the sea was spectacular. Lush vineyards, which produced the wonderful white and rosé wines named after the town of the same name, Collioure AOC (Apellation d’Origine Contrôlée), and châteaus on one side, and the glistening sea, rocky cliffs, and sandy and pebbled beaches beckoned to us on the other side. To the south was Banyuls sur Mer, known for its fortified AOC dessert wines and also its sweet and mellow vinegar. A mere twenty miles from the Spanish border, we were in Catalan country, the weather as sunny and warm as the people.
The park of Anse de Paulilles was beautiful, the fern-bordered path taking us through beautiful Mediterranean gardens and exotic vegetation, through forests of pine, olive trees, and a pasture with two adorable bushy-eared donkeys. Apparently, the land used to be owned by a former dynamite factory, but it had been sold to the Conservatoire du Littoral so that the natural terrain of seventeen hectares would be protected against real estate developers. The buildings of the former dynamite factory now housed a museum on the heritage of traditional Catalan boat repair. All of this—the museum, the nature trails, and beach—was free to the public.
One of the dive masters had set up the day for the families of the club’s divers, and he’d coordinated a truck to take our equipment down to the small, rocky beach. Which was a relief, seeing how heavy the equipment was, especially the air bottle, and we had to walk about a mile. Today, there were mostly little kids doing their baptême de plongée, and a giant baby: me. Jean-Luc and I suited up and made our way down to the shoreline.
“Ready?” he asked.
“As I’ll ever be.”
We swam for a few minutes, and I was able to acclimate myself before the descent. Jean-Luc guided me under water, and after a few moments, my nerves settled, and I was no longer sucking in air like a Dyson vacuum cleaner set on high. My breath became more stable, and I was feeling at ease. Everything was going swimmingly until Jean-Luc pointed out the small octopus, and pushed me toward it, face-forward—as if I’d miss this creature with bulbous yellow eyes and suction-cup-encrusted tentacles scurrying around in the sand. My body flailed. Jean-Luc led me to the surface.
“Did you see the octopus?” he asked.
“How could I have missed it?” I replied. “When you’re pushing my face into it?”
Jean-Luc laughed.
To me, this wasn’t funny. “I think I want to take the diving course in the pool.”
Baby steps. Baby steps. Baby steps.
“Good idea,” said Jean-Luc.
“Wait. Who is the instructor?” I asked.
“I am.”
Uh-oh.
After all the home renovation projects we’d done together, I wasn’t looking forward to Jean-Luc bossing me around. Oh, the things we do for love.
25
GET ME TO THE CHURCH ON TIME
Isabelle and Richard were getting married this summer at their home in Provence. Max and Elvire would stay with us at their house for a few days, so they could spend some time with the Vérant side of the family, playing with their cousins and swimming in the pool, not to mention participating in the very competitive ping-pong tournaments, before heading to Meme’s.
André and the rest of the Vérant siblings, along with Jean-Luc, had finally convinced Jean-Luc’s mother to move into the maison de retraite, the retirement home, in La Ciotat. André simply couldn’t take care of Marcelle anymore.
I understood Marcelle’s initial fear. One day, one of my neighbors, a woman about the same age as Marcelle, knocked on my door. It was raining out, and she stood on my front stoop shivering. So was her little dog, a Yorkie.
“Je peux entrer? ” she asked. Can I come in?
I was a bit worried about what Bella would do to her Yorkie, but of course I said, “Oui, oui, oui, entrez.”
The old woman was breathless. I heard words like “my son” and “my daughter,” and “I don’t want to go.” Meanwhile, I’d thought she’d locked herself out of her house. So, I invited her inside, sat her down at the dining room table, and offered her a cup of coffee and some biscuits. I asked her if we could call somebody. The woman shook her head no. Elvire came downstairs. I was supposed to take her shopping. I shrugged, my posture letting her know that I didn’t know what to do. An hour later, the woman hadn’t moved. Elvire was getting impatient. I asked the woman if I could walk her home. Hesitantly, she agreed.
The front door of her town house was wide open. She hadn’t been locked out after all. I escorted her in and went back home. Elvire was happy when I returned and said, “On y va.” While Elvire and I were pulling out of our parking spot, I saw the woman knocking on my neighbor’s door. Sylvie let her in. Later that day, I
found out from Sylvie that the woman was hiding from her children; she didn’t want to be sent to a retirement home. She didn’t want to leave the home she knew, her dog, or her cat.
I thought of my grandmother, Nanny. She lived in Virginia with my Aunt Laura. Although her health wasn’t the greatest, due to emphysema, she got around just fine. She still played bridge with her friends and, when she wasn’t winded, the occasional golf game. More like Nanny, this woman obviously wasn’t having any major health issues that I knew of, like Jean-Luc’s mother. Bedridden or in a wheelchair, Marcelle couldn’t move; she definitely needed professional care to shower, to go to the bathroom, and more. But surely this woman’s family could care for her? Perhaps they just didn’t want to. I tried checking on her a few days later, but nobody answered the door.
The kids, Jean-Luc, and I didn’t know what to expect at the maison de retraite when we visited Marcelle. At first, it was a strange experience. More like a hospital, the place wasn’t exactly homey. We sauntered into the main room, followed by the eyes of every inhabitant, their curious faces marked with wonder, some with jealousy: Who are they here for? Are they here for me?
Marcelle was sitting at a table with André. She saw us first. “My family!” she said with a cackle.
Seems there was some competition at the nursing home.
As we exchanged la bise, Marcelle eyed me. “What’s your name again? MMA?”
MMA was the acronym for a health insurance agency.
“Non, maman, this is Samantha, my wife,” said Jean-Luc.
“Oh, yes! I remember her now!” She grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly.
Jean-Luc’s father shook his head. “She’s doing better here, but sometimes she still forgets things.”
How to Make a French Family Page 23
