Culinary roundup

Tonight for dinner, Ally made salade niçoise, as she has been threatening to do for weeks. We have learned that some of you haven't enjoyed this wonderful dish or are not familiar with its ingredients. It's like a chef's salad that includes--besides salad greens--tuna, green beans, hard-boiled eggs, boiled potatoes, and of course black niçois olives. The latter can be found in specialty food stores in the States, or virtually anywhere in France. Without the tuna and olives, you have made some sort of German-style salad--yuck! Who can resist throwing in some tomatoes as well? The dressing is usually the standard French thin mustardy dressing. French salads do not usually "star" the dressing as some of ours (caesar salad, anything with ranch or raspberry vinaigrette, etc.) do. We should note that the sweet tomato-based dressing called "French" in our country is not attested in actual French cooking. Having a choice of dressings is unheard of in France. Anyway, it is pretty good if you like those ingredients.

Eli does not, so he had a spinach omelette. French people eat omelettes for lunch and dinner, but never for breakfast. Cooked eggs for breakfast? Sacre bleu! Actually, we have seen that some cafés are offering breakfasts that include eggs and even bacon. They often call this "brunch." So you could come in at, let's say, eight, and ask for "petit déjeuner" (En. breakfast) to get bread and pastries; or you could ask for "brunch" (En., umm, brunch?) and you would get what we anglophones know as breakfast. You could do the same thing at ten in the morning, with the same result. I thought we had the G8 to prevent this sort of thing happening.

Eli also had strawberries. He demanded to have all the strawberries he could see put on his tray before he would eat any.

Many Provençal dishes include herbes de Provence. This is a spice mix first marketed in the 1970s that includes marjoram, rosemary, basil, bay leaf, thyme, and lavender. These are all grown in the region; lavender, in particular, is a major product of Provence. Just about any dish is improved by a dash of herbes de Provence. You can buy it anywhere in Provence, even at furniture stores and locksmiths.

If Rick Steves ever offers you herbes de provence or any other plant material, just say no.