Pizza Trois Fois (Pizza Three Times)

I know it hardly singles me out if I tell you that pizza is one of my favorite foods. Since I haven't started a blog about it, built a pizza oven in my courtyard, or, hell, moved back to New York City, you would rightly guess that my devotion has its limits. All the same, though, I join many others in thinking that a really good pizza is amongst the best meals that can be found. (Even better with a glass or three of the slightly fizzy Neopolitan red wine served here.)

Pizza made at home has considerable virtues--the sense of smug satisfaction derived from making the dough and sauce oneself, the ability to source exactly the right ingredients and the chance to eat it when it's still really too hot to be touched. Yet while it easily beats out grocery store and delivery alternatives (at least in my 'hoods), it rarely matches what can emerge out of a commercial oven.

But the first pizza of my vacation week was made at home and it was, all modesty aside, fantastic. Though I had achieved moderately good results with this Mark Bittman recipe some six months ago, the more memorable part of the evening was the back-to-back watching of the last two films in the Bourne trilogy. I don't know what, if anything was different this time. As before, the dough was left to rise slowly in the fridge, I used fresh, basil-infused tomato sauce, and the mozarella was the proper stuff. On this occasion, though, it was almost revelatory: frying the disks of dough on both sides gave the crust a spongy-yet-crunchy texture which is almost impossible to achieve in a home oven, and a brief flash under the grill melded the toppings without incinerating them.

It's been years since I've travelled to Italy, or even had a slice of NYC takeout pizza while standing on the sidewalk. Neither England nor (most of) France is particularly at ease with street food, nor do their respective climates normally lend themselves to dining al fresco. But my 2nd and 3rd pizzas of the week--both eaten in the southern heat of Marseille--reflected the well-known truth that food simply tastes better out of doors.

Marseille, though still some hours by fast train from the Italian border, takes its pizza seriously, with dozens of hole-in-wall joints boasting of their wood-fired ovens. At one of them, located on a heaving North African market street a few minutes from the Vieux Port, we had a very credible slice made pleasantly greasy and spicy with the addition of chunks of merguez sausage. Although I had enjoyed merguez many times before, I had never encountered it in this form, or with the sun beating down on my shoulders.

And the night before, 14 of us had sat at a long table in the garden of a rambling old Marseille house, drinking rose and eating pies embellished with olives and herbes de provence and cooked before our eyes. Here at the home of G's second family, with whom he had spent a year during university, the glasses were refilled with exuberance, the conversation was full of wit and emotion and the pizza was topped with everything from local goats cheese to a pungent Alsacian cheese brought by another former roommate. I couldn't begin to keep up--with either the wine or with the banter--but was content just to soak in the scene.

On sober reflection, I'm not convinced that either merguez or Muenster are pizza's most natural partners. As for the rose, though... well that's another story entirely.

Tartare au Maison (Tartare at Home)

So back to the subject of steak tartare. After thinking so much about it for my previous post, the risk of disappointment from yet another mediocre brasserie version was even greater. So when I noticed that one of the better local butchers sold a special tartare cut—composed, presumably, of small off-cuts of lean, tender beef—and that the supermarket down the road stocked Worcestershire sauce and Heinz ketchup, I convinced my somewhat sceptical eating partner that we should use this recipe to make our own.

I had sharpened up my knife to be ready for dicing, but the butcher surprised me by very coarsely grinding the meat. Back in the apartment, we mixed up Dijon, ketchup and Worcestershire, tossed it with the meat, chopped-up capers and a bit of parsley, and placed a fresh egg on top. The most time-consuming part was soaking the salt-packed capers, the most difficult getting the egg yolk to sit neatly on the beef patty.

It might be worth experimenting with the proportions in the sauce, or perhaps substituting in a bit of grated horseradish. And I’m not totally convinced that the parsley added much. But from the bloody, iodine-laced smell of the very fresh meat, to the contrast of soft flesh with piquant heat, it was just as elemental—and, quite frankly, sexy—as a good tartare should be.

I used to associate tartare primarily with decadent, dressed-up late suppers, but I now think that it may, particularly with an equally spicy Bloody Mary, be the perfect Sunday brunch-cum-lunch. Scrambled eggs and mimosas suddenly seem very prissy.

Les Secrets du Paris en Août

I’m not quite sure what it is, but Paris seems a bit meh of late. It could be August, when half the city is closed, and the other half is too full of people who still need to eat, shop and take the Metro. It could be the weather, which is neither so awful as to warrant a sense of injustice, nor so consistently lovely as to enable me to look anything other than pasty. It could just be that summer (or indeed any season) is more easily enjoyed a deux, and, perhaps, somewhere with a real beach.

Whatever the cause, the joie de vivre could stand to be kicked up a notch. My list of August-enhancers isn’t all food-related, but I’m hoping that one of these might do the trick.

1) Croissants from Pierre Herme. Yes, they are just as good as the macarons.
2) White peaches from one of the fruit stands still open at the market.
3) Sampling the perfumes at Diptyque.
4) An Americano at Le Fumoir.
5) The vista of the city, framed by two outdoor Picasso sculptures, on the 5th floor of the Centre Pompidou.
6) Iced tea made with the thé vert aux fleurs from La Graineterie du Marché
7) Cycling on the cobblestone roads lining the Ile St Louis and Ile de la Cite.
8) A warm salad of yellow courgettes fried with garlic and topped with fresh mint and feta.
9) Beginning a meal (every meal?) with gougeres and a glass of rosé.
10) Company, and a few days in Marseille at the end of next week.

Yellow Courgettes with Mint and Feta

This doesn’t really require a recipe—just an assembly plan. And while I tend to stick to these ingredients, it could easily be adapted: plain old green courgettes (though not too bulbous, as they tend not to fry down well); basil in addition to or instead of the mint; a creamy, rindless goats cheese in place of the feta; textural contrast and some extra complexity from pine nuts, red onion (chopped fine or sautéed) or mild black olives. A few hints, though:
-Slice the courgettes in thin even rounds or half-moons, and make sure the pan has enough room for them to soften, brown and even catch slightly.
-Serve the salad warm, not hot. You’re not looking to melt the cheese, just to meld the ingredients.
-Finish with a drizzle of good olive oil and, if you like, a squeeze of lemon juice.

Je Ne Viens Pas De Texas (I'm Not From Texas)

It's been some years since I shed the vintage cowboy boots and the bumper sticker which read, "I'm Not From Texas, But I Got Here as Quick As I Could." The relationship didn't last, nor my short-lived affection for pickup trucks, but my visits to Texas did leave me with an enduring appreciation for Lyle Lovett and any kind of food which could be eaten in or alongside a tortilla.

As a long-ago New Yorker cum Londoner cum Parisienne (and one who has never travelled south of Austin) I'm in no position to be a purist about the myriad differences between Tex-Mex, Southwestern, Americanized Mexican and true Mexican food. I've never eaten from a taco truck or cooked a fresh tomatillo, and my copy of Diana Kennedy's Essential Cuisines of Mexico is still free of telltale stains. But although last night's dinner wasn't a total success, I'm feeling re- inspired to pull out the lime, cilantro and dried chilis more often.

I first got the idea for making steak tacos a few weeks ago, when I came across an old recipe in Food and Wine written by Alice Waters' daugher, Fanny Singer. When this week's NYT featured a spicy, Cuban-esque marinade for grilled beef, Saturday's dinner plans were confirmed. I headed to Borough Market for ripe avocados, skirt steak (technically onglet) and lots of tomatoes and, after lunch, doused the meat in an aromatic souse of cumin, orange juice, lime zest and bay leaves. Following an afternoon of newspaper reading, West Wing-watching and napping, I began work on the flour tortillas.

Since I didn't have the milk required by this recipe, I went with another one instead, substituting Cornish butter for the shortening. The flour, fat and hot water came together almost instantly into a plump, pliable mound. But when it came to rolling out the tortillas, the still-warm dough stuck to everything: hands, counter, rolling pin. Though the too-thick and comically misshapen breads which eventually appeared were tasty enough, they were hardly the revelation which I had promised.

Although the recipe didn't call for it, I'd like to think that a spell in the refrigerator would have made the dough easier to handle. But even if I'm not in the strongest position to recommend homemade tortillas at present, I would advise without reservation the combination of grilled steak--crusty on the outside, blood-red on the interior, homemade guacamole, and salsa made smoky-hot with chipotle in adobo.

In my defense, I doubt that more time in Texas would have burnished my tortilla-making skills. For just as no rational Parisian would dream of baking a baguette, any self-respecting Texan would know just where in town to buy freshly-made, perfectly-symmetrical tortillas. Lyle sums it up well: "You say you're not from Texas. As if I didn't know."

Although the quantities below are certainly enough to flavour 4 portions of meat, the excess could also be boiled down and served over rice. The marinade could be applied anywhere from an hour to a day in advance.

Flank Steak With Garlic, Thyme, Orange and Cumin

adapted from Melissa Clark in the New York Times

1/4 cup orange juice (from 1 large orange)
2 fat garlic cloves
1 tablespoon packed fresh oregano leaves (I substituted dried thyme, which is commonly used in Caribbean cooking)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
zest of 1 lime
between 150 and 200 grams (about 1/3 pound) skirt or flank steak per person

Chop the garlic and zest the lime. In a shallow dish large enough to hold the meat in one layer, combine the marinade ingredients, mixing so that the cumin dissolves. Add the meat and season, turning several times to ensure it can absorb the marinade fully. Cover and leave, refrigerating if longer than 1-2 hours. Before grilling, lightly brush off any bits of chopped garlic. If using as a sauce, strain and bring the marinade to a full boil before serving.