The Kasbah Chronicles: la St Valentin 2024
The Kasbah Chronicles, Free edition;Valentine’s 2024 edition Musings; Kitty heads to San Francisco. Champagne could soon stop producing champagne; too many Meyer lemons?
The Kasbah Chronicles: Valentine’s 2024 edition
Musings in English and en français
-Kitty in the media: CBS8.com/The Zevely Zone (San Diego)
-Updates on Bitter Sweet: A Wartime Journal: Off to San Francisco
-In memoriam: If you came on one of my tours to Morocco, you met Roselyne Rahoule, my neighbor in Azemmour
Updates on Bitter Sweet: A Wartime Journal
When it rains make Matzo Ball Soup with Duck Fat
Need a speaker for your book club?
Any suggestions for dining in San Francisco? delis and bakeries? I WOULD LOVE IT!!
Musings: It is pouring outside as I write; San Diego newscasters have been warning us for days about destructive downpours. For Northerners and those used to “here we rust we don’t tan” type of environments, the emphasis on rain, and the excitement surrounding an impending storm may seem laughable (you may be right) but San Diego did suffer floods for the first time in 100 years last week.. So I am hunkering down and making soup!
Zevely Zone: cbs8.com:
I had a delightful experience when Jeff Zevely of the Zevely Zone on cbs8, San Diego. CA. spent a couple of hours in my kitchen talking about Bitter Sweet. The show will air on the news 6 (six) times on February 26, 2024 on cbs8.com/zevelyzone. Just sign in to the CBS8.com TV station.
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IN MEMORY of a dear friend:
Roselyne and her husband Abder own a riad a few steps from Dar Zitoun. Abderrahmane Rahoule, her husband, is one of Morocco's foremost modern painter and ceramicist, and helped illustrate my first Moroccan cookbook, Cooking at the Kasbah: A Cook’s Tour of Morocco (I still have a handful of copies if you would like to order one.) We used to organize art exhibits at Dar Zitoun, for my group. As son as we had a chance, we would gather in Roselyne’s kitchen, to feast on her inimitable French fries in duck fat. Passengers who came with me on a tour to Morocco will remember Roselyne as an affable hostess, and co-owner of the art gallery in Azemmour. She opened her home, a combination home and art gallery featuring Abder’s paintings, to my groups, and served us mint tea.
Les frites à la graisse de canard de Roselyne
Roselyne’s French fries in duck fat
I can still picture my friend, standing at her stove in Azemmour, patiently waiting for each frite to turn just the right shade of brown. It will take a while, don’t rush!
Large potatoes, peeled and cut into thin wedges.
Rendered and melted duck fat
Salt to taste
Preheated skillet
Pat the potatoes dry. Fry them slowly in the duck fat until golden. Drain and pat dry. Sprinkle with salt, and binge.
Roselyne would often greet my return to Azemmour with her lip-smacking gratin of potatoes called TARTIFLETTE. You can use Reblochon (traditional), brie, or camembert.
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I love duck, but I don’t cook it often. I found out to my delight that many fine grocery stores carry roast duck duck confit in their frozen sections. I purchased such a duck leg, and saved the fat from the confit. C’est super delicieux in matzo balls! As you know I don’t like making and cooking things at the last mn. I have made these matzo balls, boiled them, and frozen them. Then thawed them in chicken broth a week or two later. No fuss. Make chicken broth with left over chicken bones (roast chicken and its skin is best! Reserve and freeze.
Matzo ball soup is not a Sephardic tradition (where couscous is de rigueur) , but a tradition of European Jews.
Boulettes de Pain Azyme à la Graisse de Canard
Matzo Balls with Duck Fat
Makes about twenty
(almost included in Bitter Sweet, but cut)
1 cup fine matzo meal
3 tablespoons rendered duck fat (see Note)
¼ cup chicken stock
4 eggs
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ginger powder
½ teaspoon grated nutmeg
¼ teaspoon white pepper
12 sprigs Italian parsley, finely minced
In a large bowl, combine the matzo meal, duck fat, chicken stock, eggs, baking powder, 1 teaspoon of the salt, ginger powder, nutmeg, white pepper, and parsley. Cover and refrigerate for at least four hours.
Wet your hands and fashion the matzo mixture into balls the size of walnuts.
In a large pot, bring 12 cups water to a simmer and add the remaining salt. Carefully drop the matzo dough into the water and cook for 25 to 30 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the matzo balls to a colander to drain.
Simmer matzo balls in chicken broth or Pot-au-feu (see page XXX) for 10 minutes, and serve.
Note: You can purchase containers of rendered duck fat online or in fine grocery stores.
Copyright Kitty Morse 2024.
When the garden gives you too many Meyer lemons, make these: My Meyer lemon tree is dripping with lemons. I use smaller lemons to make my Moroccan preserved lemons (recipe in all my books and on my website).
MY TREE
Lemon Ricotta Cakes
from The California Farm Cookbook by Kitty Morse (Pelican Pub. 1999)
For these exquisite little cakes, Judith Maguire a pastry chef and caterer in Berkeley, uses Redwood Hill Goat Milk Ricotta produced at Redwood Hill Goat Dairy in nearby Sebastopol. The creamy goat ricotta, explains Judith is "more elastic" than regular ricotta, and goes well with lemon. Since lemon peel is the essential flavoring, Judith insists upon organically-grown lemons with unwaxed peels. Jennifer Bice, who, with her husband Steven Schack manufactures the ricotta, likes to top Judith's cakes with freshly-sliced berries…
1 tbsp. butter, margarine, or non-aerosol oil spray
8oz. Redwood Hill Farm Goat Milk Ricotta
1/2 cup, plus 1 tbsp. granulated sugar
2 tbsp. flour
Grated zest of 2 organic lemons
2 eggs, separated
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease mini-muffin tins with butter or non-aerosol oil spray. In medium bowl, with rubber spatula, mix together ricotta, sugar, flour, lemon zest, and egg yolks, until mixture is smooth. In other bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Gently fold egg whites into ricotta mixture. Fill muffin tins to 2/3, and bake for 20 to 30 minutes (check cakes after 20 minutes.) Baking time depends on accuracy of oven. Let cakes cool in muffin tins for 10 minutes (cakes shrink as they cool.) When cool, gently turn over onto serving platter or plates. Yield: 24 mini-muffins
NOTE: Cakes have a tendency to loose their shape if made in large muffin tins.
My friend Debbie Kornberg, owner of Spice and Leaf, spiceandleaf.com) imports the freshest spices from around the word. She has a snow on FOX TV the last Friday of every month. Debbie loves Moroccan cuisine, and this is what she fixed last time on Spice it up with Deb!
Quelle Catastrophe!
Have you heard about this tragedy in the making: Could Champagne soon stop producing champagne? Global warming is impacting grape crops that are used to produce champagne. Some regions outside of Champagne, France, are hoping to carry the torch.
www.npr.org › 2024/01/01 › 1222380410
Could Champagne soon stop producing champagne?
Kitty is headed to San Francisco:
Omnivore Books
Tuesday, February 13th, 6:30 to 7:30 PM
Presentation and book signing
Books Inc. Palo Alto, Town & Country Village
855 El Camino Real, #74
Palo Alto CA 94301
Wednesday, February 14th, 6 to 7PM
Presentation and book signing
contact: gseamer@booksinc.net
LONG BEACH, CA: Join me at this new cookbook store in Long Beach.
Saturday February 24, 2024. 1-2PM.
Reservations required. Free.
Kitchen Lingo Books
2116 E. 4th Street
Long Beach, CA 90814
shop@kitchenlingobooks.com
I will be giving a talk on February 24 from 1-2pm
Book Signing with Kitty Morse, author of Bitter Sweet: A Wartime Journal & Heirloom Recipes from Occupied France.
February: Private book club
March: Retired Teacher’s Association, Oceanside, CA
I love speaking to book clubs or cookbook clubs. Need an entertaining and informative speaker to give a presentation to your group? CALL or e-mail me! I am booking now for the summer and Fall.
Thanks to the increasing number of paid subscribers I am now publishing a paid and free version of The Kasbah Chronicles.
What to expect in the paid version of The Kasbah Chronicles
Additional recipes
New feature: Deep diving into my freezer: Improvising on a food theme
What’s growing on the farm?
From the personal view point of a Casablancaise: MY MOROCCO. Questions about the cuisine or places to see? (I do not plan itineraries)
Excerpt from my travels at winedineandtravel.com
Thank you so much'
Ill see if I make it to Berkeley!!!
Off to compare your preserved lemons recipe with the one I’ve been using for decades! P.s. please put a link to your website somewhere near the reference. Thx much, Liz