Emily in France 🇫🇷 I Kind of Love My Foodie Ruts
Do you get into food ruts?
When I was first living in Paris, I got into the habit of buying a very specific salmon panini from a bakery that sadly no longer exists. It was made on a roll totally covered in sesame seeds, and in addition to a lot of mozzarella cheese (yes, with seafood), it also featured a lovely tarragon mayonnaise. Perhaps best of all, it was conveniently sold halfway between two of my classes, and so I ate it again and again and again and again... until suddenly I couldn't bear the thought of it, and I moved on to something else. (If I remember correctly, it was a very specific cabbage salad with a slightly sweet dressing from a very specific Vietnamese restaurant also located about halfway between two of my classes. Or else it was a curry chicken baguette from that first bakery.)
I know that I'm not the only person to get into food ruts – or, if you will, adopt habit meals. They're the sort of thing that requires neither forethought nor choice, that can be made (or purchased, as the case may be) with almost no decision-making whatsoever. I prefer my rut meals to keep me full and contain some semblance of nutrients, but other than that, there are no rules to a rut meal... and I never know how long I have to enjoy one before its appeal wears off and I'm forced to go in search of something new.
I was considering this recently because I realized it's been weeks – nay, months – since I had The Salad, a recipe I developed before the pandemic struck and passed on to my father, who has since tinkered with it enough to make it his own. Mine, at the beginning, was a tahini-lime juice dressing spiked with way more red pepper flakes (Kirkland brand) than any one person should really consume in one go. Into this base I would supreme an orange and squeeze out the remaining juice, and then I would add spinach and arugula and kale, if I had it, as well as a diced avocado and some thinly sliced red cabbage. And that was it. I ate it for lunch and dinner daily for months on end, and even after I started diversifying, I would often eat it as a comfort meal, particularly when I was dining out a lot for work.
The Salad is, of course, the extreme example, of a rut meal, but I've had a lot of other habit meals in the past. And since I often get asked what I eat when I'm not eating for work, here's a selection, in vague chronological order.
In high school, I used to get pasta from the pasta bar of the school cafeteria, top it with shredded cheese from the salad bar, and microwave it until the cheese shreds melted as much as they were going to before turning to plastic. I would pair the concoction with three whole oranges and a baby spinach salad with mushrooms and balsamic vinaigrette. I ate this probably every day for a year.
When I lived in Canada, I used to regularly make endive, blue cheese, and apple salads with Dijon vinaigrette: Lunch, dinner, and sometimes for a midnight snack.
I went through a period of mixing bagged cole slaw mix with canned corn and balsamic vinaigrette in a bowl just slightly too small to contain it all.
When I first grew tired of The Salad, I co-opted my sister's pasta, cherry tomato, avocado, and nutritional yeast combo.
One summer when it was way too hot to even consider heating anything at all, I went through a period of blending frozen mango and coconut milk and topping it with shredded coconut and almond butter in an ad hoc play on a smoothie bowl.
My current go-to lunch-on-the-go is a very specific brand of onigiri available in some — but infuriatingly, not all — Monoprix and Carrefour supermarkets. It's stuffed with a very non-traditional combo of canned flaked tuna, mayonnaise, and cream cheese.
My current go-to dinner when dining alone is potimarron and yellow beets coated with way more red pepper flakes (Kirkland brand) than any one person should ever really consume in one go (sensing a trend here?) roasted in linseed oil and accompanied by a very limey kale salad.
And in a major throwback... my junior year of college, when I was very very broke, I would microwave potatoes and have them with a cold sauce made of plain yogurt seasoned with dried chives and mustard. It was a recipe I gleaned from the very first French host family with whom I lived, and I still find it absolutely delicious.
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Cheese of the Week
Last week, Taste Atlas released a list of the "World's Best" cheeses, which had a lot of my fellow cheese lovers at a loss, seeing as France didn't even make it into the top 10. (Reblochon, the first French contender, ranked #13.)
Its severe Italian bias aside, the major problem I had with the list was that it didn't share how the cheeses were selected – an issue that thankfully isn't shared by the Guild of Fine Foods' World Cheese Awards (aka the cheese Oscars), which I had the distinct pleasure of judging last year. While Comté took top billing this time, in the 2019/2020 contest, it was American Rogue River Blue that came out on top. Made with autumn milk and aged for nine to eleven months, the cheese is hand-wrapped in organic, biodynamic Syrah grape leaves soaked in pear spirits, lending it a lovely sweetness that complements the pleasant bitter edge and rich creaminess of the cheese itself.
In short? It's a winner for a reason.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
What I'm Eating
Disclosure: I was a guest of the property for this meal. All opinions are my own.
At first glance, Nellu feels like the sort of spot that would have been better suited to the 11th (the arrondissement that a friend, colleague, and resident of the neighborhood has dubbed “the Williamsburg of Paris.”) It had the dimmed lighting, open kitchen, and natural wine selection I’ve come to expect at such spots, but on one recent visit, it revealed itself to also boast a phenomenal precision and technicity. More on the blog.
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france and on the blog.
Where I'm Going
1. To Monbleu and Laurent Dubois au Printemps du Goût for a very cheesy project I'm super excited to reveal very, very shortly.
2. To Long Island, to gorge myself on spicy ramen, sushi, and quality time with my dad.
3. To Pennsylvania, to listen with rapt attention as two of my bestest regale me with their recent culinary adventures in Japan!
What I'm Writing
1. Do you think that cheese belongs on a charcuterie platter? How about that cheese and red wine make the perfect pair? I debunked these and other cheese myths for Food52.
2. Business as usual is no longer an option in the restaurant industry, but as these Bay Area culinary leaders attest, solutions aren't easy to come by. For InsideHook.
3. Here's a crispy, savory, date-night-ready pork belly recipe. For InsideHook.
What I'm Saying
The English words warranty and guarantee both come from the French garantie, but French has a word English doesn't: garant. To explore what this term means, I'm joined by fellow PUR host Gail Boisclair on this episode of Navigating the French. Her work as a property manager in Paris will help us shine a light on how the necessity of a garant reflects an innate French trust in people over data... and a bit of a tendency to resist change.
What I'm Reading
1. I loved reading this story about a woman who up and moved to rural Ireland on a whim, but it felt incomplete to me, somehow. I’m sure that if a Hollywood producer got his hands on it, it would morph and change, which isn’t what I want – all I wanted, I guess, is more. In CN Traveler.
2. My dear friend and Nantes Writers' Workshop co-host Anna Polonyi recently launched a documentary series about painter Rosa Bonheur. In this essay for Hidden Compass, she explores what it was like to dig this famous lesbian out of the closet.
3. I love hearing about how other professional creatives organize their days, so this story about a day in the life of a literary translator was fascinating to me. One of my favorite quotes: "My day might include sending a few emails, doing some bookkeeping, and translating 2,000 or 3,000 words for a draft. Or sometimes it can look like spending six hours searching for 10 words.” In the Tyee.
A bientôt !