There’s no better time than the first of the year to review the ABC's of French cooking. Join me on this leisurely stroll through a culinary alphabet. We’ll go letter by letter, the same way I practice the French alphabet with my granddaughters. To help them remember how to pronounce each letter, we pair it with a word we use every day. With our culinary alphabet, I will use recipes instead, easy ones.
The small corner of northern Paris we know best seems to be immune from the recession. While France, in general, struggles with slow business growth and high unemployment, a steady stream of new businesses keep appearing near the bottom of the butte behind the Bascilica of Sacre Coeur. True, some changes are cosmetic - here it's decorating, there, a store moves to a bigger space. Reasonable start-up costs and a stable local population continue to make Montmartre an attractive area to open such modest businesses as a second-hand book store, an art gallery or custom jewelry workshop.
We made quick trip to visit friends in London and check out the dining scene last week. It's an easy commute, really. After just two-and-a-half comfortable hours on the Eurostar tunnel train, we arrived in bustling central London expecting a smooth segue into a familiar culture. We speak the same language, share a great deal of history, therefore, we know what to expect from English food, right? Wrong! We were treated to wildly different dining experiences as unexpected as Monty Python skits - and just as much fun.
Our first dining stop was lunch at Abeno, the only okonomi-yaki restaurant outside of Japan. (Except for a second location in central London.) Okonomi-yaki is a traditional comfort food in Osaka: a light pancake of egg, minced cabbage, ginger and green onions, bound in a light batter and cooked on a hot griddle at the table. Variations on this formula include a cooked meat, fish or poultry filling.
Okonomi-yaki is obviously not of what we have come to think of in the States as teppan-yaki cooking where diners are entertained table-side by chefs wielding knives. The intimate dining we experienced could only have been inspired by a homesick native. Okonomi-yaki is a 400 year-old dish, but it's not serious dining. At Abeno it is garnished with concentric rings of Japanese mayo, Worchestershire, pickled ginger and powdered algae, just like a Chicago hot dog!