01 January 2015

Welcome to 2015

Let's hope we all have a happy new year. Maybe the world will calm down a little (but it never really has before). Wishing all of you good health and happiness. A little prosperity wouldn't hurt either. Enjoy the tail end of your holidays.

Meanwhile, here are some of our New Year's Eve and New Year's Day foods. Some are French, some are American. Seafood is for December 31.


First some shrimp, served French style — heads, eyes, feet, tails and all. You peel them at the table and eat them with the sauce of your choice. I made a mayonnaise verte for us to have with ours. That's a home-made mayonnaise that contains a good quantity of a minced fresh herb, or several. I used basil.


Oysters are typical French holiday food. This year, we baked ours. That's the easiest way to open them. You just let the oysters right side up on a rack in an oven pan with some water in it. As soon as some of the shells start to open, they are ready. They're not cooked, just slightly warmed up, and they're good with shallot vinegar or lemon juice. Completely raw oysters are really good when you have them in a restaurant and a professional has opened them for you.


Finally, I made some French-style cornbread to have with our black-eyed peas today. Black-eyed peas are a southern U.S. specialty. Eating them on January 1 brings good luck for the new year. The cornbread here is not what we call cornbread in the U.S. It's a yeast bread made with equal quantities of wheat flour and fine corn meal. In the photo above, it hasn't yet been cooked.

27 comments:

  1. Happy New Year. All food is tasty. But the most inteesting is cornbread. I have never eaten it before

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  2. Gosia, I will publish a recipe. It's easy to make, especially if you have a good mixer. Happy New Year to you and yours.

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  3. Those shrimp are Australian style too (except they'd be called prawns). I became a big fan of black eyed peas last year and I'll be interested to see the cornbread recipe too. We buy a 'tricolore' sometimes from a bakery in Loches which is a plaited baguette made with one strand rye, one wheat and one corn. I've made 'your' cornbread quite a few times now and I always like to ring in the changes bread-wise.

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  4. Ooops! PS Happy New Year, with plenty of good food and fine company.

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    1. Nobody here but us chickens, Susan ... well and Callie and Bertie. Thanks for the good wishes.

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  5. Happy New Year, Ken...
    may 2015 be kind.

    Look forward to the bread recipe...
    our boulanger does a mais loaf...
    that also has real maize in it.
    Absolutely superb with paté or soft cheese...
    and toasted it can be eaten as a snack "sans beurre"...

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    1. Thanks, Tim. Same to you. I'll post that recipe tomorrow.

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  6. Happy New Year to you, Walt and your 'petite ménagerie' :). And happy cooking (and eating) in 2015!

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  7. HNY en france to you and walt and the animal companions!

    today is braised boneless pork roast and sauerkraut (spouse's german tradition) and plum pudding with brandy sauce (my british tradition).

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  8. All the best for 2015, Ken. Thank you for your
    steadfast blogging. You write so well, and I look
    forward to each day's post. Now thinking about
    seeing that bread when it comes out of the oven.

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  9. Happy New Year to you all!
    Shrimp eaten like that are Scandinavian style too -- usually served with lemon and garlic maynaise. Ate them a lot when I lived in Denmark & Norway.

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    1. A., did you learn to pronounce it "maynaise" when you were growing up in America? It's the way people where I lived said it. Not [mah-yo-NEZ] as here in France... Happy New Year.

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  10. happy new year!! i'm sending and Walt every best wish.
    :-)

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    1. Happy New Year to you and yours, OFG. In France, people never wish you a happy new year until after the year has started, and you can continue to wish a happy new year to people until about the end of January. Different traditions... I do both.

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  11. Replies
    1. Bonne et heureuse année, C. in Calif. Hope to see you this year...

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    2. We are headed to France again this year, but for a wedding in Brittany. Not sure if we will make it down your way. Any chance you and Walt would want to visit us (we have rented a house) in the nord?

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  12. I remember reading past posts about black-eyed peas on your blog...Happy New Year to you!

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  13. Wishing you all good things in 2015, Ken and Walt! I hope the black eye peas and greens bring you health and prosperity and lots of good eats for us to enjoy here. Thanks for sharing your French life with us.

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    1. Thank you Evelyn. All our best wishes for the new year to you and Lew too.

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  14. Replies
    1. Merci, Olivier. Tous mes bons vœux pour 2015...

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  15. Happy 2015 Ken. Hope it's good for you and yours. I echo Susan's comment about eating prawns like that being the Australian way. Messy! Sue

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    1. In the U.S., shrimp/prawns are almost always served without their heads, peeled, and deveined. At least in my experience. Happy 2015 to you and Leon too.

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  16. It's been so long since I commented I've forgotten how the interface works. In case my original comment is suspended somewhere in the ether, I'll wish you both a happy, healthy 2015 again with all the best food, wine, and adventures!

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