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?

Kitty Morse

Feb 09, 2024

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.

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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?

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