By Our French Chef en Residence, Claire Tuffereau
“I am a wife, a mother and a grandmother; I am a gardener, a watercolorist and a teacher, but cooking runs my life, brightens my days, cements my relationships, and heals me mentally and physically.
“It all started with my parents and how food was at the center of our family life. When I remember my father and mother, he is in his country garden, painstakingly weeding away, and she is standing in front of the stove, concocting something magical out of the fresh produce he brought home at the end of the week. With this, and without words, they taught me love, respect, and how to care for others. They gave me happiness. If I am an inveterate optimist, I owe it in part to food, its smells, its colors, and its ability to dig deep inside my brain for adventurous and fearless creativity.
“If one day my life needs a summary, this is it:
“She loved, therefore she cooked.”
—Claire Tuffereau
We are delighted to post one of Claire’s recipes each month for you to prepare and enjoy—bon appétit!
Jackdaw Journeys French Recipes
THE LATEST RECIPES FROM IN HOUSE CHEF CLAIRE TUFFEREAU
In Praise of Winter
It has been almost a year since I started this rubric and I have not yet written about soups, even though they are the staple of our winter dinners: A soup and a fruit and we can go to bed satisfied, ready to hear the wind howling through the trees, and the rain -...
In Praise of January
“What do you mean, in praise of January?” asked my husband, reading over my shoulder, “what is good about January?” So I said the magic word: “Galette des Rois” (the Kings Cake), and his eyes lit up. On the first of January, this famous cake pops up in patisseries...
In Praise of Christmas Lima Beans
I have been in love with dry beans forever. Pink lentils enrapture me. I salivate over green split peas. I would never pass on cream of lima bean soup. By now, you know that it started with my mother, of course. When I grew up, legumes were inexpensive, they were...
In Praise of the Fall Season
Mid-NovemberThe trees have lost most of their leaves and the first frost has killed the last flowers in the garden. Pushed by an eastern gale, a few flurries have been dancing horizontally across the window panes, hardly visible against the white sky. We have...
In Praise of Inventiveness: Three Kings Apple Pie Recipe
What do you do with a left-over of sweet pastry and almond paste, and three Macintosh apples which have been brooding in the lowest drawer of your refrigerator and are begging you for attention? You invent a new dessert! I call this dessert the “Three Kings Apple...
