Susan Loomis - Tarte Tatin - More of La Belle Vie on Rue Tatin

More of La Belle Vie on rue Tatin

I dedicate this book to our children Joseph and Fiona, whose love, humour, and energy suffuse life with a very special richness. I also dedicate this book to the memory of André Taverne whose jokes and ready smile are missed, to his wife, Marie-Odile, and to his sister-in-law Marie-Claire, for their friendship.

Cover

Title Page TARTE TATIN More of La Belle Vie on rue Tatin

Dedication DEDICATION CONTENTS Cover Title Page Dedication The Opening up of On Rue Tatin The Kitchen and the Cooking School A French Poodle in the House An Ode to the Market in Louviers The Florists Be Careful of Me, I’m Dangerous The Place for a Party There’s an ‘ Ado ’ in Our Midst Driving À La Française Paris While Louviers Sleeps Shopping and the Cart Michael’s Studio and the Gentrification of Louviers Bi-Culturalism and Play Ball! Cultural Differences/Cultural Sameness Home Away from Home – September 11 Afterword Keep Reading List of Recipes Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright About the Publisher I dedicate this book to our children Joseph and Fiona, whose love, humour, and energy suffuse life with a very special richness. I also dedicate this book to the memory of André Taverne whose jokes and ready smile are missed, to his wife, Marie-Odile, and to his sister-in-law Marie-Claire, for their friendship.

The Opening up of On Rue Tatin

The Kitchen and the Cooking School

A French Poodle in the House

An Ode to the Market in Louviers

The Florists

Be Careful of Me, I’m Dangerous

The Place for a Party

There’s an ‘ Ado ’ in Our Midst

Driving À La Française

Paris

While Louviers Sleeps

Shopping and the Cart

Michael’s Studio and the Gentrification of Louviers

Bi-Culturalism and Play Ball!

Cultural Differences/Cultural Sameness

Home Away from Home – September 11

Afterword

Keep Reading

List of Recipes

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

It had been five years since we’d moved to rue Tatin in Louviers, northwest of Paris. The house was habitable, though hearty draughts still tugged at the curtains, and attic rooms remained as they were when we bought the place: dry but in sad repair. We used them to store things, like the dozen or more beautiful antique doors that were in the house when we acquired it, building materials and electrical supplies, as well as the general flotsam and jetsam that collectors such as Michael and I accumulate.

We had pretty much adjusted to the schedule of Joe’s school, accepting that – just as we’d feel we were getting into our individual rhythms – it seemed to be time for another vacation. Professional demands dictated that we rarely went on holiday, so we would divide our days in two. Michael would generally be with Joe in the morning while I worked, and I would take Joe in the afternoon while Michael worked. Joe would have friends over now and then, but the French don’t share their children in the way Americans do, so it was less often than either we or Joe liked. We had put Joe in a local school, thinking he’d make friends in the neighbourhood but, as luck would have it, most of his friends lived in other towns, and the few boys his age who lived locally were kept hidden somewhere; we’d see them only on their way to school.

Michael and I were settling in with a close group of friends that included Edith and Bernard, Christian and Nadine, Babette and Jean Lou, Chantal and Michel, our neighbour Patrick and Anne-Marie and Patrick. We’d even met two Franco-American families who lived in towns nearby, which provided us with some comic relief when we got together and shared evenings, laughing at each other’s jokes because – for a change – we understood them. We had friends in Paris, too, which occasioned going there regularly for dinner, driving back in the wee hours when the roads were empty. I always say it takes an hour to get to Louviers from Paris, but at 1 a.m. it’s an easy forty-five minute trip.

We were, all in all, beginning to understand how things worked in France, and to feel comfortable as the only American family in Louviers. Louviers, and France, were beginning to feel like home.

My French Farmhouse Cookbook had been published, and I was currently involved in developing and testing recipes for an important American cookbook that was a collaborative effort by many of my colleagues. I was also doing research and testing for the Italian Farmhouse Cookbook , which for two years took me to Italy for long periods of time. I loved doing both projects, particularly the Italian book, since it gave me an insight into a country, people and culture with which I was unfamiliar. I wanted it to be my last farm book, as I felt I’d said what I could say about farming, and I knew that just writing books would no longer be enough to support our family. I began thinking about what would be next. I wouldn’t stop writing books, because it is something I am made to do. But I wanted to use our home for a business, and the business I’d always imagined operating was a cooking school. Way back when we had lived in Seattle I’d wanted to do the same sort of thing, but the situation there hadn’t been right. This time, it just might be.

My inspiration to open up our home came initially from the time Michael lived on a farm in the Dordogne with the Dubois family – nearly twenty years ago. Danie Dubois, in an effort to augment her income and give herself an interest outside their isolated little village, decided she would take in paying guests for meals and the night, and would offer ‘cooking weekends’ using local specialties as ingredients. By the time Michael went to live with them, Danie’s business was prospering. She not only made endless meals to satisfy her guests, but she also offered pig and foie gras weekends.

For her ‘ weekend de cochon ’, she and her guests turned an entire pig into delectable pepper- and salt-cured hams, rillettes, blood sausage, head cheese, roasts, chops and more. For the ‘ weekend d’oie ’ she transformed geese into untold marvels like confit, stuffed gooseneck, foie gras en terrine and a wonderful local delicacy called ‘ demoiselles ’: goose carcasses grilled on a wood fire. Everything Danie made was sumptuous: her foie gras was so delicate and buttery that it made any other of little interest; her confit was beguilingly crisp on the outside and mouth-melting inside. The confit went so well with her creamy pumpkin soup, the wonderful dandelion salads, made from leaves picked in the field next door and dressed with her own walnut oil, the crisp country breads, her homemade cheese, the grapey wine her husband Guy made from their own grapes … Danie would grill country bread over the fireplace coals and spread it with fresh foie gras. She served this as an aperitif, and what an aperitif it was.