Recipes From Trip to France
As promised, here are the recipes that my daughter Nicole and I made one evening while in Paris. I have got to say, both recipes turned out amazingly delicious! Enjoy… Oh and enjoy some photos too 
Me & Nik in Paris near the Eiffel Tower
Me and Nik in the South of France... Are we cute or what?
Okay, first recipe and first course for the evening:
Soupe Printaniere
Spring Harvest Soup with Fava Beans
This fresh, creamy green soup celebrates the arrival of spring’s first fava beans, they are so tender.
Serves 6
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 onions, finely chopped
4 slices bacon, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
5 cups chicken or vegetable stock
3 pounds fresh fava beans, shelled
Sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
A bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped
1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.
2. Add the onions and bacon and cook until the onions are browned, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more.
4. Stir in the stock and about three-quarters of the beans. Bring to a boil.
5. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the beans are tender, about 30 minutes.
6. Blend in a blender until smooth and return to pot. (we used a blending wand right in the pot)
7. Add the remaining beans and simmer for 5 minutes.
8. Season with the salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the parsley, mix well, and serve hot.
Nicole & host parents enjoying the soup
Next course:
CHEVRE CHAUD A LA GASCONNE
WARM GOAT CHEESE GASCON STYLE
This recipe is a regional version of the classic warm goat cheese salad.
Serves 6
Endive & Warm Goat Cheese Crostini Salad... It was delish!
A bunch of fresh basil
2 garlic cloves
3/4 cup olive oil
Sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
6 individual small goat cheese rounds (crottins)
1 baguette
1 head red endive, leaves separated (our endive was not the red version, it was green)
1/2 cup pitted black or mixed olives (we used mixed)
To make the marinade, finely chop the basil and garlic, then add the oil, salt, and pepper. Pour the marinade into a shallow dish and add the cheeses, making sure they are coated evenly. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours. (Huh? we may have not read that little section when we made the dish, so our cheese only marinaded for about 2 hrs and it was still fantastic
1. Cut the baguette into 12 thick slices and toast.
2. Cut the cheeses in half crosswise, arrange on a baking sheet, and grill under hot broiler until golden.
3. Place 1 cheese on each toast.
4. Divide the endive leaves and olives among 6 plates.
5. Place 2 toasts on each plate, then top with the marinade.
You might be asking, “what about dessert Dianne, you said there was typically 3 courses?” Well, you’re right. However, we cheated and bought dessert. It’s Paris for goodness sakes! They have amazing desserts already made for us 
Hope you enjoy the recipes and have a chance to try them. Let me know what you think.
Final Chapter of the Book & More From My Trip To France
I want to talk a little about Rituals today.
We have so many cultural and holiday rituals that we experience every year. Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s Eve, Thanksgiving, Fourth of July and so on.
Rituals give us meaning to different aspects of our lives; other important rituals include birth, marriage and death. Mireille Guiliano states in Chapter 5 of French Women Don’t Get Fat, “through it all, until the end, there is the ritual of eating.”
In our fast paced world, daily rituals can be a source of comfort. I know that while I was in Paris with my daughter, I was fortunate enough to stay with her host family and experience the ritual of eating every evening… Nicole and I even cooked for them one evening. I will share photos and recipes of the meal in the next post. but I have to say it turned out amazing and we bought all of the ingredients at the local markets.
It is the French tradition to have 3 course meals every evening, with a possible 4th course of cheese before dessert. And that, was my experience.
Our Cheese Course Before Dessert. So Fresh, So Good
It was lovely and relaxed and of course, there was wine. So why do the French stay slim and still manage 4 courses and why was I able to not gain weight during my 3 week vacation… It’s because of several factors.
Each course was a small to moderate portion. We ate slowly and enjoyed the company and conversation, most of which revolved around food. It’s weird, the French absolutely love their food, but they don’t obsess about it.
The majority, if not all of the ingredients were fresh, no preservatives and no chemicals. Even the simplest dish was so tasty because of its freshness.
Each dish has a new plate that is served separately, one at a time. As Mireille states, it is unheard of to have the whole meal on one plate. Eating one dish on a separate plate, one at a time allows you to slow the eating process down and also allows for improved digestion. The French do not leave the table feeling full; they leave the table feeling satisfied.
Another very key component to eating as the French do is to eat seasonally. In chapter 6, Mireille explains this idea and its importance. Most of us in the U.S. have moved away from this idea because of the convenience of global distribution.
We should be eating with the rhythm of the seasons to keep our bodies in a state of balance and equilibrium. For instance, right now during the warm/hot summer months, we should be eating more cooling type foods. Salads & berries are ideal. However, in the colder winter months, this style of eating is not conducive to good digestion, we need more warming and hearty foods.
Eating the fresh Strawberries on the beach in the South of France... It was a rough time
Fresh Strawberries from the open air market! So Sweet!
This is an area that I will be sharing quite a bit about with you soon. For now, feel free to get the book French Women Don’t Get Fat and enjoy all the recipes and wisdom Mireille Guiliano has to offer.
Stay tuned to the next blog post with the recipes that my daughter & I made one night in Paris.
Day One in Paris
As exhausted as I was landing in Paris at 7:30 a.m., I was also exhilarated! I was seeing my daughter for the first time in over 5 months and in France for the first time.
Our first day was full! We went to the flat where my daughter has been living with her host parents Ghislan and Samir and their baby Nathaniel. After appropriate greetings, Nicole and I were off for a long walk in her neighborhood on the outside of the center of Paris.
We walked for about an hour and a half. Our first mission was to find fresh bread and cheese for our walk… We did and we found a beautiful open air market with amazing and beautiful fresh fruit, veggies, cheese, poultry, fish and flowers.
After finding our fresh out of the oven, still warm bread, we continued our walk through a beautiful green pathway. (see video below). After our walk we went back home to a freshly prepared lunch of Moroccan cous cous and vegetables and a little wine of course !
After lunch, we took the metro into the center where we saw the Place de Bastille, Louvre, Jardins d Tuileries (Tuilerie Garden) & Place de la Concorde. In Tuilerie Gardens, there were two large duck ponds where we proceded to take a long nap in the sun before heading back to the flat for a Pique Nique (picnic) by the lake, lovingly prepared by Nicoles’s host family…
After a long day and an episode of Friends online, I passed out for 10 hours of sleep. Now it’s past midnight on day two and I am still awake… Enjoy the short video that gives a quick run-down of day one’s events… A vientot…
French Women Don’t Get Fat! Chapters 3 & 4~Recasting
Chapter 3 finds Mireille in a three-month “re-casting” mode… She is resetting her individual equilibrium, with the help and guidance of Dr. Miracle. Yes, the beginning is three months of resetting new/old (French style) habits. Dr. Miracle fully understands that quick fixes will not yield long-term results.
Before beginning this process, it’s important to consider a couple of really important questions…
- Ask yourself, “Why am I doing this?” So often, our reasons are fear and self-loathing based, or what others or media says we should look like… What is your why?
Mireille states in chapter three, “To embrace recasting, you have to be ready to embrace pleasure and individual happiness as your goals… It may be easy for a wife, mother and full-time worker to neglect pleasure; perhaps a part of you even thinks it’s selfish. But you must understand there is nothing noble in failing to discover and cultivate your pleasures. (It will make you not only fat, but grouchy.)” Read more
French Women Don’t Get Fat ~ Chapters 1 & 2
Chapters one and two take us back a little way to Mirielle’s first trip to the United States. She was 18 years old and on a one year exchange…
Here is where her love for brownies and bagels and poor eating habits began, only to return back home to France with an extra 15 pounds and a welcome greeting from her father “Tu ressemles a un sac de patates” (You look like a sack of potatoes”). Ouch, a sting she would not soon forget…
She definitely had feelings of embarrassment. None of her other friends in France had put on what we in the states refer to as the “Freshman 15”.
Enter Dr. Meyer, aka Dr. Miracle, the doctor Mireille’s mom retained to help with her mounting concern.
First things first, what are you doing asks Dr. Miracle? He asked Mireille to log what, how much and where she is eating. Measurements not to be exact, but approximate.
Fast-forward 3 weeks later, as it turns out, Mireille’s dangerous adoptive habits of American eating had gotten out of control.
The first thing Dr. Miracle noticed is that she was doing the majority of her eating on the go… walking from her apartment to school… The second most obvious thing he noticed was what she was mostly eating during those times were pastries… Yikes! And as she said, Paris is a “pastry minefield”. (ooo can’t wait)
She had turned into a pastry junkie and like any addict, her body “came to expect too much of what had once been blissfully intoxicating in small doses.”
“Tout est question d’equilibre (Everything is a matter of balance): this was Dr. Miracle’s quintessentially French mantra” and he was to remind Mireille of this too. But first, a little re-programming…
Equilibrium, which is the French way and what Mireille believed in, had to be cultivated gradually. And for the long-term shift to be successful, Dr. Miracle understood that quick positive reinforcement would be important… and to that he introduced, The Magical Leek soup. The soup would be eaten for a little more than a day and a half and this will be the only time anything “radical” in the diet will happen.
Why the Leek soup you ask… “Leeks are a mild diuretic and low in calories but highly nutritional”.
Here is the recipe and the suggested instructions from Dr. Miracle:
Ingredients:
2 pounds of Leeks
Water
- Clean the leeks and rinse well to get rid of sand and soil. Cut off the ends of the dark green parts, leaving all the white parts plus a section of pale green.
- Put the leeks in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer uncovered for 20 to 30 minutes. Pour off the liquid and reserve. Place the leeks in a bowl.
Dr. Miracle recommends this to be done over the weekend.
The juice is to be drunk (reheated or at room temperature to taste) every 2-3 hours, 1 cup at a time.
For meals, or whenever hungry, have some of the leeks themselves, ½ cup at a time. Drizzle with a few drops of extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Season sparingly with salt and pepper.
This will be your nourishment for both days, until Sunday dinner, when you can have a small piece of meat or fish (4-6 ounces) with 2 vegetables, steamed with a bit of butter or olive oil, and a piece of fruit.
This all seems reasonable to me, sounds like a little reset your system detox to me… I think I will try it very soon. Perhaps even before my trip to France…
What do you think?
