From the non-descript outside, you really can’t tell what kind of restaurant this is.  As you walk through the doors and dark curtains draped at the entrance, you begin to understand that L’Oga is a funky cross between tradition and modern trend.  The lighting is dim candlelight.  The walls are covered with boldly colored contemporary paintings and handwritten chalkboards announcing the menu and wine lists- a décor full of edgy, eye-appealing contrasts.

We opted for the special Valentine’s menu (49 euros per person, not including wine). Although there were two choices for each course, we went true Valentine style and both selected: entrée- nage de St. Jacques au légumes et gingembre (scallops served in a light creamy sauce with leeks, carrots and ginger); plat principal- mi-cru de thon rouge au sésame et basilique, purée de carottes et patate douces au lait de coco (seared tuna with sesame seeds and pesto sauce, accompanied by a sweet potato, carrot and coconut milk puree); déssert- coeur coulant chocolaté, coulis pistache (warm chocolate dessert with creamy pistachio sauce).  Also included in the menu: a cocktail of either champagne, rose, and litchi or champagne, vodka and raspberry.

Sounds good.  What did we think?  The atmosphere: fun and amorous, excellent choice for an evening en couple. The cuisine: Very satisfying (except for the scallops, which had obviously been prepared in their dishes ahead of time, as they were served too quickly after ordering and were already getting cold).  The tuna was perfectly cooked, tender and quite tasteful.  The dessert was also enjoyable, though the pistachio sauce tasted a bit bland.  The service: Unfortunately, the service wasn’t quite up to par.  Most of the waiters were friendly, but (except for the scallops) we waited too long for everything, from ordering to receiving the dishes- and the person who took the dessert order outright forgot about it.  What was awkward was that the tables didn’t have one primary waiter, but a constant rotation of three or four different people.

All in all, we had a really enjoyable evening. I can’t put L’Oga on my personal list of favorite spots in Paris, though, mostly because of the service and lack of feeling completely at ease.  What I did like about this restaurant is that it helped me get closer to answering my ongoing question: what’s French Cuisine, Today? This experience was a hint that modern French cuisine has undoubtedly been influenced by the larger international community- chefs nowadays seem to be taking traditional dishes and spicing them up with such exotic ingredients as sweet potatoes and coconut milk- a trend my taste buds find especially appealing.

L’Oga

Address: 82, rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud (11^th)

Telephone: 01 43 57 60 15

Metro: Parmentier

As I mentioned in my posts about bourru and bernache, tradition has it that you eat roasted chestnuts with these young “wines” that show their faces only in the autumn.

There are two words for chestnut in French: marron and châtaigne. While we don’t seem to distinguish between the two in English, we certainly do in French.  Marrons come from marroniers (cultivated chestnut trees) and châtaignes come from châtaigniers (wild chestnut trees).  They are very similar; in fact, a marron is technically a type of châtaigne.  Both nuts fall from the tree when ripe and are encased in a prickly bur.  One difference between the two types of nuts is that the marron bur will contain only one “fruit”, while that of the châtaigne will contain two or three.  Marrons are larger and rounder than châtaignes.

In France, you’ll find marrons used in a variety of specialties, such as marrons glâcés (sweet glazed chestnuts) or crème de marron (a grainy spread often used in dessert crêpes).

Châtaignes are the best for roasting. In France, they’re often collected off the ground by passersby, taken home and eaten on chilling fall evenings.  You will also see them for sale at farmers’ markets and in certain grocery stores- already taken out of their outer burs, but still enclosed in their dark brown shells.  Now’s the time to take advantage of these cheery little nuts, as they’re only around from September to February.

This last week, I tried home-roasted châtaignes for the first time- and what a treat!  When cooked just right, the inside fruit is warm and steamy, soft and pasty- not at all like the other nuts I know.  I didn’t just eat, though; I also learned how to prepare them. Here’s the very simple and traditional recipe that Sébastien’s family shared with me.  All you need are chestnuts, an old cast iron pot and some heat.  We used a gas flame, but I’m thinking you’d might be able to roast them on an electric stovetop or even in the oven.

Recipe

1. Cut two small slits into the shell of each chestnut with a paring knife.  This keeps the nuts from exploding during cooking.

2. Begin heating pot over a high flame and add prepared chestnuts- as many an each person wants to eat!

3. Cook for about ten minutes or more (it’s better to overcook than undercook).  Test one chestnut by cutting it open with a knife- the outside will be blackened and the entire inside should be soft and warm.

4. Transfer chestnuts to a bowl and enjoy with some bourru, bernache or your favorite white wine.

A few hints: You eat each chestnut as you open it.  Just off the flame, they will surely burn your fingers, so use a cloth napkin to hold them.  Also, use a small knife (or your daring fingers) to help open the shell and dish out the “fruit.”  Before biting in, make sure the nut isn’t dark-colored, a sign of mold or rotting.  That happens in nature!

We enjoyed our châtaignes plain- not salt, no butter, nothing- pure, simple tradition.

Can’t help sharing this “feather ruffling” NPR article on the controversial subject of McDonald’s opening in one of the most celebrated museums in the world.

Anyone who knows me can probably guess what my initial reaction to hearing this was (similar to when I learn a tree will be cut down- only a longer, deeper, even more threatened moment of stunned silence).  What makes me sad is the idea that the Louvre, a museum, is becoming more and more commercialized.  It also troubles me that “American cuisine” will be/already is represented by a fast food chain.  That must be why people seem so surprised when I mention that organic products and vegetarianism are quite developed in the US.

What’s your reaction?

Autumn doesn’t only announce it’s arrival in France with colorful leaves, but with a very unique, very young, and slightly bubbly wine called bourru.

Driving on the outskirts of Bordeaux this weekend, I noticed several handwritten signs along the roads.  “Le bourru est arrivé,” wine merchants were announcing, inviting clients to purchase the juice from the first pressed grapes of the season.

A festive mix between grape juice and sparkling wine, bourru is an extremely young wine with a small alcohol content. Taken directly out of the barrel at the end of the fermentation process, it’s still full of carbonic gas and dregs.  You won’t find it in a traditional glass wine bottle and stopped up with a cork.  Instead, it’s sold in old plastic water bottles sporting pin-sized holes in their caps.  Since this energetic liquid is just at the end of the fermentation process, the hole in the cap keeps the bottle from bursting- not so easy to carry home!

Drunk cold, bourru is fresh, sweet and quite lively, thanks to the effervescent carbonation.

Bourru is sold at wine shops at this time of the year as a way of celebrating the vendanges (grape harvest) and is traditionally drunk accompanied by roasted chestnuts, another sure sign of autumn.

My head’s been swirling with a stew of questions, all wondering about contemporary French cuisine.

Since I’ve been reading up on Julia Child this year, I’ve been vicariously living in post-WWII France, salivating over elaborate descriptions of the food and wine she discovered (and would soon share with her fellow Americans) in the 1950s.  Thanks in part to her memoir (My Life in France) and her two-volume cookbook (Mastering the Art of French Cooking), we have a pretty decent picture of what traditional French fair is all about- ingredients, preparation methods, and so forth.  We also have images of what food shopping in Paris was like in the 1950s, what students at the Cordon Bleu were learning and what restaurants were serving.

What got me thinking was simply the fact that I don’t live in quite the same Paris as Julia Child did. While many traditions and ways of life in France have remained, others (naturally) have changed.  The marché des Halles (the vast market in the center of Paris that Emile Zola referred to as “le ventre de Paris” and where Julia Child did much of her shopping), for example, has been moved to the southern outskirts of the city.  Since 1969 culinary professionals have instead been going to Rungis to buy their fresh products.  This is only one of the many evolutions in the French culinary world since Julia’s time.  I wonder what other changes have taken place and what effect they’ve had on “French cuisine.”  Whether talking about how it’s bought, how it’s prepared, how it’s eaten or how it’s appreciated, I also wonder what culinary traditions have persisted.

This brings me to my big question: What is French cuisine, today?

It seems to be a fad to write about the decline of anything French nowadays. Take, for example, American journalists Michael Steinberger (well-known for his writing on wine) and Donald Morrison (long-time writer for TIME magazine).  The book titles alone get my blood boiling: Au Revoir to All That: The Rise and Fall of French Cuisine and the more recent Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine and the end of France are Steinbergers contributions.  I, unfortunately, haven’t been able to get my hands on either copy yet, so can’t make any judgments.  I’m hoping he has some interesting points to make- the titles, however, make me wary and hope they’re nothing like Morrison’s.  This author’s contested (by people over here at least) 2007 article, “In Search of Lost Time,” followed by his book The Death of French Culture, left me wanting to scream over the Atlantic: France is still alive! I thought it was ironic- and slightly amusing- that Morrison was promoting his book on French soil just after Le Clezio had been awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, for example.

All of this talk about the “end of France” obviously puts me on the defensive.  My hunch is that we haven’t been keeping up on what France really is today.

What traditions still reign? What transformations have taken place? Do today’s cultural, economic and environmental contexts play a role? Think, for example, of citizens’ increasing awareness of environmental sustainability.  Think of the plethora of cultures co-existing in contemporary France.  Surely foreign cultures must have an influence on everyday cooking and culinary trends.  Have peoples’ eating habits changed?  Have their cooking habits changed?

Today, I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I do know that, whether the rest of the world notices it or not, France is alive- and “the French” are eating- at least the ones I’ve been around for the last five years.  I’ve been eating, too- and I’ve been eating well.

In other words, I’m launching a quest to find out what French cuisine is all about, today.