Just like a woman

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  "Nobody feels any pain
Tonight as I stand inside the rain
Ev'rybody knows
That Baby's got new clothes
But lately I see her ribbons and her bows
Have fallen from her curls
She takes just like a woman, yes she does
She makes love just like a woman, yes she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks like a little girl.
    Queen Mary, she's my friend
Yes, I believe I'll go see her again
Nobody has to guess
That Baby can't be blessed
Till she finally sees that she's like all the rest
With her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls
She takes just like a woman, yes
She makes love just like a woman, yes she does
And she aches just like a woman
But she breaks just like a little girl.
    It was raining from the first
And I was dying there of thirst
So I came in here
And your long-time curse hurts
But what's worse
Is this pain in here
I can't stay in here
Ain't it clear that.
    I just can't fit
Yes, I believe it's time for us to quit
When we meet again
Introduced as friends
Please don't let on that you knew me when
I was hungry and it was your world
Ah, you fake just like a woman, yes you do
You make love just like a woman, yes you do
Then you ache just like a woman
But you break just like a little girl.

Marathon days

Don't be confused, it won't be about any sport. It was just the spirit.... In fact, with the burgers too, I didn't stop cooking and baking this week-end. But I think the big marathon was Sunday.

Saturday, I did again the smooth cake, a "moelleux" in french (well, we'll call it "pudding", for now) with chestnut squash and orange, for my neighbours. It was really difficult to fail a cake !!!, but it seems it was ok, even if it wasn't totally the same - a little less sweet, seems, although I put the same amount of sugar.

I was planning to walk through L'Estaque's little and winding streets, and along the beach, and try to take some pictures, but the wind, our "mistral", was so strong and cold, I couldn't withstand it. So I just went to the grocer's and the greengrocer, and came back to prepare my burger, because I didn't have a meal at  lunchtime.

And the real thing was Sunday !! First I had good things to make for my mother, and after that a cake to bake for a dinner with friends.

For my mother I prepared a pizza, since she likes mine so much - for her, i'm the Pizza Queen , as I was called when I was younger !!! aahah, very funny ; ), good title ! So, the day before - as she always does according to her tastes - she soaked cloves of garlic in olive oil, so that the dough have a mediterranean flavour when i'll add it while kneaging it (^^O^^ I learned a word today !!!!). And since she prefers pizza in the Roman way than the Napolitaine one, I make thin crust.

The tomato sauce ? mother's doing. She's so good at it, that I leave this noble task to her....
Last, are the aromatic herbs, picked in the scrubland of ours hills....... and this time i used a little of "pebre d'ase".......... (provençal word, which means "donkey pepper", for "Sarriette"). Really yummy on the mozzarella slices.

It's orgasmic, seeing the dough has risen. When I was young and started baking pizza,  I was always waiting, and following this moment. Now I come back one hour later. But before, long time ago, always lifting - just a little...- xxxxx times the cloth covering it, peeking at how much it has grown...  So delighting...

Sweets time now !!

So, during the time the dough was rising, I baked a cake for my mother, I wanted to do it since some weeks. Both us are found of chestnut, chestnut flour, chestnut cream... And this cake seemed like a chestnut cream cloud.......... I must do it, I thought !!!! Without any flour (well only a table spoon of chestnut one), but with cottage cheese and stiffly beaten eggwhites (second expression of the day !! V) - a dream in mouth.

 

 

 

First try was (well, first try was raw, before baking it !!!! I almost died of pleasure !) with chocolate. Miam !!! 

And tonight, after eating it all day, i wanted to make it taste sexier in mouth.... Chantilly was a good idea, two like-cloud-things. Didn't have whipping cream, though, in my fridge, but good thick cream, a little sour, perfect. A touch of milk so that it'll become easier to wisk (third word ^^O^^), sugar, and hop!, in three fork beats, this Heaven's dish. Pure pleasure....

But, but, but,.... I'm talking about eating, tasting, greedily but it wasn't really part of the famous marathon. I only tasted this cake today, so.......

No, once baked, I rolled out my crust, made the pizza, baked it, ate it, washed all the things I have used to cook them, and so, started immediately the cake for the evening. It was about 15h30, and a friend was going to pick me at 18 h................ Run, Forest, Run !!!!!
I have choosen a chocolate cake. But always in my experimental mood - I already hear from here the "Boouuhhh!!!," "Beeeeuurrrk", "Bââââhhhhhhh", and others  unappealing noises.
Yeah, but it's really strange, reactions were a lot more disgusted and afraid than when I tried the chocolate / chickpeas one (in fact I didn't even had a "Baaahhh" at that time, but rather a "Aaahhh ?" interested, followed by a "Aaaahhhh.... hmmmm !" of pleasure).
But here, when I announced chocolate cake with courgettes, everyone ran away.... or pulled such a face !!
And yet, raw courgette, when you thing about it, it's a vegetable with a lot of water, rather tasteless... So why all the commotion ? Did they think I was going to fry courgettes with salt, garlic and basilic for example, and mix it with chocolate, then bake it ???
Since courgette (and oil) was in place of butter, I was pretty sure it was going to melt.
In fact in order to obtain that, you need to grate them. Since I did manually, it took me time. But the chocolate part was a poesy..... Actually, you use here cocoa powder in the cake, but almost one bar too is chopped into chocolate chips. Wasn't seeing the end of it...
When at 17h, in a rush,  I put everything to bake in the mold, I noticed that I had left the olive oil in its measuring glass !! Add and mixed it in the mold at the latest time... phew !!!
And then at last,  I could cook me, euh, get ready!
The result was very good. But not really what I had in mind. First I think the last 15 min are too much ; a little less flour we'll be welcome too, and perhaps, for part of the cocoa powder, using melt chocolate bar instead (just a little).
Anyway  it was like there never was any courgette, and with them and olive oil, it was really light, and tasted like a very good chocolate cake. But I think I'll try to modify it a little like said, so that I can have a fondant.

And so ended my week-end - as well as my week ... a really challenging one.
So, see you soon, this new week, for the following of my culinary days in Marseille !!

Asimbonanga

I discovered it when I was a young girl. In kindergarten, we used to have a show for parents at the end of the year (June), always in the playground. The last year, one part of the show was about this song, Asimbonanga. So we made drawings and paintings on big sheets of paper (A3), that we held in front of us, like african warriors' shields. It was summer, I was so tanned, and I was wearing only a big T-shirt, mauve, from the brand Poivre Blanc. I loved it so much !!!! (digression)

So my father, who always shared music with me, making music tapes for me, put it in one of his. I liked to listen to it at night, in the dark, coz it was so beautiful.

And I'm listening to it again tonight.

Hope you'll enjoy it like me.

Homemade burger

Looking at some cooking blogs, as I'm doing since a week, I found a recipe of homemade burger. It looked so tasty, that I wanted to try immediately. I had a lot to do this week-end, so I thought it'll be a good thing in the evening, since it was really quick. ("entre vous et nous, c'est une histoire de goût♩♪♫♬ ".................  sorry, it couldn't be helped). This insteresting blog is a Berry girl's one, (V) and the result is really yummy.

I made two versions. One "by night", colorful and fancy, and a plain one, that I wanted the most. Very appetizing with its natural and country look. Ingredients were typical ones, since with the minced beef, we use "Viande des Grisons" (a dried beef from the canton of Graubünden - we eat it a lot with  raclette), Reblochon (cheese from Savoie), onion, and I added tomato slices, browned in the frying pan with the minced beef. For the "by night" version, since I had vitelotte (a purple potato) and yellow turnip, I did chips - but in the oven, I prefer. And for the deco, fresh spinach and beetroot sprouts - a beautiful and magenta color. I only knew alfalfa and leek sprouts until now, but Saturday morning I came across them, and fell for the color.... 

And for today dinner, I made the plain version, with more cheese than in the recipe, and it was just perfect. If you want, you can find the recipe here (it's in french though). Next time i'll try to make the buns myself, it seems really easy, and with a good flour (half white and half whole wheat) it must taste even more yummy.

Baking

Here, I'm baking a cake almost every day. What I bake are new sorts of cakes, with "experimental" recipes. I find them looking at some interersting blogs. The first ones were related in Gloubiblog, recipes she was passing on or that she modified, in accordance with her gloubiboulga principe... 

I tried two. One with crystallized fennel. It was so soft, it was an ovation. Soft, in texture and taste, due to the use of both olive oil and blond sugar - I must add that it was an AOC and medal oil, produced here in Provence, at Aix-en-Provence. Both children and growns up found it delicious, and my little neighbour - a lovely little girl - was totally addict. She ate slice after slice, greedily.

The crystallized fennel with vanilla. My favourite vanilla is the Tahiti's one, whose pods are really pulpy (thick?) and wet. The flavour and the fragrance can't be compared to the other vanillas, it's strong, spicy but so sweet. I first discovered them in a well-known parisian grocer's, Izrael, the Ali Baba's cavern for spices lovers, where you can find the subtlest and rarest ones - and the most expensive too..... But a Tahiti vanilla pod is the equivalent of several Madagascar ones, for example, so you only use pieces of your pod, and not the whole one.

Mmmmmmm. Just hot from the oven, it filled the air and was fragant with a good scent of  fresh  butter....  when there wasn't an ounce of ...... just oil only.......

("it filled the air and was fragant with a good scent of fresh butter".... I must say - well maybe there are beautiful english expressions for it - that I'm so disappointed with this translation. It 's so beautiful and literary in french when we use these expressions - specially for cooking scents. "Il embaumait et fleurait bon le beurre frais"......... for language lovers, you can only be upset when you can't translate it..... because it gives off immediately dream pictures in the head. It's very specific and the sound of the words contribute to it too. You miss something in english. Sad.)

 "En habits de fête"..... (like we say in french :P)

 

So the same day, I also baked a chocolate cake, but in place of butter and flour, canned chickpeas mixed with milk were used. I love it a lot, really light. My neighbours' children don't really like chocolate cakes, so I can't tell, and they prefered the fennel one ; for my mother, there wasn't enough sugar. But the others who tasted it were addict, the parents, as well as my best friend, who previously visited me from Italy.

Now, let me introduce the third one. Found in another blog (les miam miam d'Annabel) With chestnut squash and orange........ I was really attracted. But I made two mistakes baking it. First, with my mother's oven, when you change the cooking program, it automatically puts on the last temperature used for this program..... I didn't know that, since I only have a little oven. And once I had put my cake in the oven, choosen program and temperature, I wanted to change the program......... so.......... 15 minutes before the end, I saw it was 240°C, and not 180°C like needed.............. Aarrrrghhh !!!!! it rose, at first, with the heat, but after that the excessive heat hardened it with a little crust, so it stopped to rise....   Luckily, I found then my second mistake, which corrected the first one. In fact not really corrected, but helped it to taste better. In fact, when I weighed the mashed squash, I went out to get soft brown sugar at my neighbour's... and I stayed there for an hour, drinking Rooibos tea, lefting the mashed squash in the scales. When I came back, I forgot that I had around 400g (well 360 I think) instead of 300..... 

But as a result, it helped the cake to taste better, and to have a pudding texture. Hot, I found it rather good. The day after - today- it was really good, like a true chestnut squash pudding, with strong orange flavour. My neighbours were amazed, they were found of it. Their little girl, who was reluctant after hearing the word "chestnut squash", found it delicious. And they gave me all the chestnut squashes they had left, so that I could bake it again this week-end !!!!! But the same cake, the failure!  not the one I should have baked...... So i'm facing now a new and harder challenge, how to deliberately fail a cake...... Don't know if I can get the same result... it'll be the surprise !

In Marseille.

Back in Marseille since Saturday, I'm spending a really good time here. The last part of my travel by train was very great, the sky of Provence was deep blue, the sun so hot and so warm, it was almost summer. White limestone, scrubland, little villages with their tiles, perched here and there, or beige farmhouses cuddling between cypress edges that were casting their shadows through this winter sun... I thought "I'm very proud of being born here". A great luck.

At Saint-Charles station, I took a local train to go to l'Estaque. I almost died from the heat (22°C), with my winter clothes, when by foot I walked along a very very long street, bathed with a deadly sun, high upon the sea. Beneath this zenithal light, the voices of children playing football, the muffled noise of the ball, were the only one sounds echoing in this silence. I like this South's atmosphere, of an early beginning afternoon.