Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard Read Free Book Online

You’ll find yourself sprinkling it
     onto omelettes and steak, and in recent years it has become a fashionable addition to chocolate desserts. Espelette truffles—yummm.
    1 small chicken (2½–3 pounds), cut into pieces
    Coarse sea salt
    2 teaspoons piment d’Espelette
    3 tablespoons olive oil
    8 ounces lardons fumés or cubed pancetta
    4 medium onions, sliced
    3 cloves garlic, halved
    2 medium red peppers, sliced
    2 medium yellow peppers, sliced
    one 28-ounce can whole tomatoes, with juice
    1 bay leaf and a few sprigs of thyme (optional)
    In your largest frying or sauté pan, brown the chicken on one side, season with sea salt and 1 teaspoon of
piment d’Espelette
. Turn, then season with additional salt and the other teaspoon of
piment d’Espelette
. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside.
    In the same pan, heat the olive oil, add
lardons,
and cook for 3 minutes. Add onions and garlic; sauté for 10 to 15 minutes. Add peppers and sauté 20 minutes more, stirring
     occasionally.
    Add tomatoes, crushing them between your fingers, and juice. Bring to a boil; return the chicken to the pan with the bay leafand thyme. Cover, lower the heat, and simmer 30 to 40 minutes, turning the chicken at the halfway mark.
    I serve this stew, as Chez Gladines does, with sliced red potatoes tossed in olive oil and roasted in a medium oven.
    Yield: Serves 4

CHAPTER 4
A Birthday Celebration
    I get carsick, dramatically, green-around-the-gills carsick. So imagine the knot in my intestines during the five-hour drive
     to the Brittany coast to meet Gwendal’s parents, forty of his nearest and dearest friends—and a leek.
    Gwendal and I had been living for the past year in our own little Paris-London bubble. Because of the enchanted but ill-defined
     nature of our relationship—not to mention my pathetic level of French—we had avoided social occasions. But he was turning
     thirty at the beginning of May and wanted me to be there.
    I was terrified, but I was also curious. Despite a certain nonchalance on my part, we were slowly paddling toward the deep
     end. I had not exactly
responded
to Gwendal’s sausage declaration, but it was there, dangling like a ripe pear on a tree. He didn’t pressure me; not for the
     last time, he seemed to understand my feelings better than I did and was content to wait me out. We had begun to lapse into
     the comfortable silence of two people who know each other better than they care to admit. Most days ended with the phone to
     my ear, just listening to him breathe. I needed to know what would happen if we ventured beyond our little weekend world.
    Being the studious type, and also scared out of my mind, I was determined to come to this party fully prepared. I resurrected
     my college French textbook (
why oh why
had I done my junior year abroad in Scotland?) and asked Gwendal for a guest list. I memorized Catherine the biologist; Bastien,
     the fashion victim. I put a star next to those who Gwendal had met when he studied in Canada—maybe I could switch to English
     in a pinch.
    I also quizzed him about the first question I should ask when I met someone. He shrugged, thought about it, then shrugged
     again. Clearly, starting a conversation with a French person was going to be more complicated than “So, what do you do?”
    When we arrived at the house in Saint-Malo, preparations were under way for a family lunch. The house was in a grassy new
     development, a ten-minute walk from the sea. It had the feel of a year-round beach house: white tile floors and an open living
     room, dining room, and kitchen with doors leading out to the back garden. There was a spiral staircase in blond wood curving
     up to the bedrooms.
    We were greeted at the door by Gwendal’s father, Yanig, who bent to kiss me on both cheeks. He had been a sailor most of his
     life, the skipper of a boat he’d built with his own hands. With long limbs, watery blue eyes, and a graying beard, he looked
     like someone perfectly