Richard Olney

Egg Shen — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:16:52 -0800

Like all shrines, this one is on a hill, and built into solid rock. Richard Olney saw it first in 1961 on an excursion south from his adoptive home in Paris. Olney, whose The French Menu Cookbook was recently judged the best cookbook ever by this magazine, immediately knew he had found his proper place on earth. The other pillar of Olney's reputation is Simple French Food - from which comes this recipe for Tourain à la bordelaise:

The various tourains of southwestern France are also onion soups. The onions are colored in goose fat, lard, or drippings and the simplest is moistened with water, simmered for from 45 minutes to 1 hour and served over crusts of bread. Garlic is sometimes added, often a spoonful of flour is stirred into the onions after they have been browned and before they are moistened, a handful of French thread-thin vermicelli may be added a few minutes before serving, and terminal egg-yolk bindings are not uncommon. The bread crusts may be rubbed with garlic, and certain households add a bit of vinegar at the last minute. The following is a typical Bordelais tourain and is traditional at the season of the wine-grape harvest. A native may first eat his sopped bread crust, empty out his (red) wine glass into the soup, and drink the rest from the soup plate, a performance known as faire chabrol (or faire chabrot) - to act like a little goat - and which belongs more to the realm of folklore than to that of contemporary habit.
1 1/2 pound onions, thinly sliced 1/4 cup olive oil Salt 4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped 3 medium firm, ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped 1/2 teaspoon sugar 1/2 cup dry white wine 6 cups boiling water Slices of stale bread
Using a large, heavy saucepan, cook the onions gently in the oil, stirring regularly with a wooden spoon, until they are uniformly light golden and very soft. Add the salt, the garlic, the tomatoes, and the sugar and continue to cook gently, stirring from time to time, for another 10 minutes. Add the white wine, turn the flame up, reduce by half, stirring, and add the boiling water. Simmer, covered, for from 45 minutes to 1 hour before serving out the soup over crusts of bread placed in the individual soup plates.

My Life in France

grapefruitmoon — Sat, 27 May 2006 15:43:26 -0800

My Life in France by Julia Child (discussed here, and here) has been published posthumously with the assistance of Alex Prud'homme.

What Price Stars?

Vidiot — Wed, 26 Feb 2003 05:38:28 -0800

We know that the French take their food seriously, and restaurant ratings are a BIG deal over there. But here's a sad illustration of that: famed chef Bernard Loiseau was found dead yesterday of an apparent suicide, and speculation centers around his downgraded rating from the influential GaultMillau guide. Shades of Vatel?

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"Michelin-starred restaurants began to look and taste the same."

Richard Olney

My Life in France

What Price Stars?