Chez Nous Bistro

Wow, I just finished reading a fantastic cookbook!
Yes, I read cookbooks like I read novels, is that strange??
Anyway, I’ve been devouring this book over the last couple of days, after a trip to Boston to check out “Flour” bakery. A small sampling of their delicious pastries drove me to grab a copy of the owner, Joanne Chang’s, cookbook since I can’t just go to Flour bakery whenever I want to (but if any of you are going to Boston, don’t miss it!) and I was hoping that the recipes would be as good as the real thing.
So far, a couple of tested recipes haven’t disappointed and there are many, many more that I can’t wait to try. But really what inspires me is the book itself; it’s so well-written and smart and fun. Will I ever write a cookbook? I have no idea. The thought of it daunts me, but it’s true that I do have a lot of great recipes…
If I never get to write a book, though, then I’ll never get to write “Acknowledgments.” I love reading “Acknowledgments.” It can be so moving, particularly after finishing a book that includes as much love, hard work and intelligence, and that brings you into the author’s life, as a book like the Flour Bakery cookbook does.
So just in case I never write a cookbook, I thought I’d write some “Acknowledgments” for Chez Nous, our restaurant, for the occasion of our sixth anniversary, and mine and Franck’s 10th anniversary:
I’d like to thank Selma Miriam and Noel Furie of Bloodroot restaurant, for letting a fledgling cook and baker into their kitchen and sharing their hard-earned cooking and baking smarts with me, along with their general wisdom and love, as well as letting me into their lives & their gardens.
I’d also like to thank Michael Finehirsch, who I only worked with only for a short time at Wheatleigh, but who not only introduced me to a completely new way of thinking about pastry — flavor combinations and techniques that blew me away — but who remained a key mentor for me in my first years working in professional pastry kitchens. Ditto for Jill Rose, who also remains the person responsible for the existence of Cakewalk Bakery, and that of Chez Nous, and therefore an incredibly special person in our lives.
Michel Roux Jr. at Le Gavroche in London: Franck’s most important mentor and a tremendous educator and chef in every sense of the word. Working in that kitchen, you can be sure that you are learning from the best: the right way to do things, the hard way, to be sure, but you come out on the other side so strong and carrying the knowledge of generations of top professionals. Thank you so much.
Our staff at “Chez Nous.” What can I say? Our customers remind me daily of how amazing our staff is. Michele, our sous-chef, constantly makes us smile with her talent, drive and humor. Raphael, our manager, brings his warmth and intelligence to work every day, and has indelibly made a mark on the quality of the service at Chez Nous. The caring and hard work that all of our staff contribute provides us with the energy we need to feed off of and to keep working to improve and challenge our vision for the restaurant.
I really did learn to cook and bake at my Nana’s side, and our entire family benefited from her talent and generosity in the kitchen. My parents were never more supportive of me than the day that I told them that I was stopping my graduate studies in literature to become a pastry chef. I think somewhere they must have always known that I’d caught that bug from Nana and it was going to have to surface at some point. I continue to be grateful for their unflagging support, not just for me, but now for Franck as well.
Franck, my husband and now business partner, without whose support I never would have survived such difficult challenges as being the pastry chef at The Point, at Le Gavroche, and opening my own bakery, and then our own restaurant. His talent and unrelenting drive are the inspiration for our daily work at the restaurant. My love and respect for him, now at our 10th anniversary, are unwavering. Our son Jolyan, now three, gives our work new significance and our lives new sources of joy. Merci!
Phew! at least the hard part of my some-day book has already been written, right?!!?

The first time I had a Galette in Brittany was actually before I met Franck. I was visiting the people for whom I’d worked the summer before in the Loire Valley, and ended up in a 400 yr old stone house in Brittany for the weekend with them! Neighbors brought a real “biliq” to the house (a crepe griddle that can run on electricity or gas; you turn the batter with your wrist using a wooden scraper…not easy!!) and we had an amazing dinner of cidre and Galettes and Crepes.   In Brittany, when you go to a creperie for a meal, the savory dishes are on the Galettes, which are crepes, but made with buckwheat flour (“ble noir”). For dessert, you order a Crepe, which is made with white flour and which we see more often in the States. You can top your Galette with whatever you like: cheese, ham, onion, mushrooms, egg: the works is called a “Complet”. At the restaurant, we often serve them with fish, filled with julienned vegetables. They always surprise and delight the guests…they are just so delicious! We can’t wait to share them on Thursday night for our “Manger! Boire!” crowd.  This is really Franck’s soul food, and he loves to demonstrate them!

It’s so strange to still be on vacation; the new website has required some amount of attention, but basically this year, with no major renovations at the restaurant, we are truly RELAXING…We’re also playing a lot with some of the delicious ideas that we got from our trip to St. Martin.  The most wonderful being “Sauce Chien” or the unappetizing English translation:  ”Dog Sauce.”  We ate this sauce with delicious whole fish, fried fish accras…I could put it on almost anything. A little bit of browsing has revealed the source of the name to be the idea that it is so delicious, you could put it on a dog and eat it…taking my last statement to the extreme.  I’ve compiled many different recipes into one here, and testing it we were definitely taken back to Chez Hercule in St. Martin.  It’s not so seasonal these days, with the freshness of this sauce, and we’ll feature it on the Spring menu only with an appetizer, but go ahead and try it if you are in the mood to make something plain and grilled, fish, tofu, meats…and top it with something simple, fresh and yummy:

Sauce Chien

1/2 onion, chopped

3 scallions, sliced

1-2 clove garlic

1/2 red or green pepper, diced

1 small tomato, diced

juice of 1 lime

4 sprigs cilanto

2 T olive oil

salt, pepper, pinch dried thyme

-Pulse everything in food processor and let flavors develop together while you cook the rest of your meal.

Last night we had a vegan diner who informed us in advance that she was coming. What a pleasure it was to put out a satisfying meal for her, when I know that she didn’t expect one in a “French” restaurant. Not only did she take the carrot ginger soup that Franck make to supplement the other soup choice, which had fish in it, but she also took our delicious heirloom beet salad as well. For her main course she had our Farro Risotto with local Wild Mushrooms, which we often finish with parmesan and mascarpone, but it’s equally fabulous just finished with good extra-virgin olive oil and a ton of veggies. She was literally jumping up and down in her chair over this dish. For dessert I made Sourdough Chocolate cake with a poached red wine pear and blackberry-cabernet gelato. This cake is so moist and fudgy, it’s impossible to believe it’s vegan. She loved it and we loved serving her. The difficult customers are the ones who don’t know what they want. When they know, it’s really not hard at all.

I have to say, I’m grateful for the really small amount of complaints that we get here at our restaurant. But I’m mostly grateful for the people who handle their complaints by telling us directly, rather than going online and just writing a random bad review about some problem that they had here, which will be online forever, and which we can no longer to anything about fixing. It’s so frustrating when people don’t tell you something directly, but just tell lots of people –don’t go there!!— and it’s so satisfying when we do discuss a problem with a guest, and find a way to fix it! In fact, we find more customer loyalty generated by this, rather than the opposite. People appreciate being heard, and we appreciate being given another chance.