Jew Night: A Culinary Treat

As part of a project I'll call "family dinner," I made my three roommates and two friends dinner tonight. The idea was that the four of us living here, from four different countries, would feed each other something typical of our home nation.

But what is American food?

Hamburgers? Hotdogs? Cheetos? Steak with fries? That sounds pretty French, actually. TV dinner? No thanks.

It's also conveniently the fourth night of Hanukkah, and in this state of frenzied, over-abundant Catholic symbolism, I high-jacked "America night" and made it "Jew Night." Jew Night! I really called it that! It's been a long time since I've been so enthusiastic about cooking anything, and I actually spent a while researching different latke recipes and building my menu. My guiding principle: I would cook stuff that a) tastes good, and b) I like eating. Latkes were a must, but other courses would remain subject to my whim and tastebuds.

But there was a slightly shifty "c" component. And this is why I'm writing this blog entry.

In a fit of rash and completely absent logic, I invited a figure from last year's chapter to Jew Night. A certain maître à l'école more commonly known as P-O. My motives are still beyond me. My relationship with him isn't the subject of this post, thank god, but I do want to highlight the fact that P-O is SOLIDLY French. And the last time we hung out, it was in his kitchen. While he made lemon meringue pie from scratch. In the sweltering heat. With organic lemons.

What you should take from that:
1. P-O is a 26 year old French guy.
2. He's a 3rd/4th grade teacher
3. He loves Rage Against the Machine and shaves maybe once a week at the most
4. Dude can cook.
[4.5. We literally spent half an hour discussing avocados once]

All this to say that the possibility of cooking dinner for a Français was both wildly intimidating and pretty exciting. I don't consider myself an excellent or obsessive kitchen-dweller, but I do enjoy making food, and even more so, I enjoy watching other people enjoy that food. Actually, I think I take more pleasure in watching people eat my food than I do eating it myself. I'm usually not hungry at that point. So when P-O half-confirmed his attendance at Jew Night, I knew I'd be stepping up my game.

the menu:
-enough wine to calm me into civility
-baby spinach salad with walnuts, pears, and a balsamic vinaigrette
-fresh latkes
-[chocolate] Devil's Food cake with dark chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries

For those of you who don't speak dessert, I ummm, essentially made sex on a platter. I've made this cake a number of times (like for my last two birthdays for example) but can say with confidence that this was its sexiest rendition yet. Chocolate and raspberries, as P-O himself later put it, "work well together." They do. Raspberries don't have that bright tang of good strawberries, but they have something earthier, something muskier? Something more complex? Words fail.

What interests me most about this anecdote is how much I cared about P-O's opinion of my food. I of course wanted everyone to enjoy the dinner (including myself,) and was delighted when the others expressed their own appreciation, but I studied P-O's reactions. I studied how he ate his food and the words he used to describe it. Why does his nationality entitle him to a more respected take on cuisine? Why does his passport automatically garner my food-related respect? Why do the French "own" rights to good food, and the pronunciation of food as such? It doesn't seem reasonable. Yes, France has always had a reputation for culinary genius, and yes, they are self-proclaimed masters of things like soufflé and macarons and crêpes, but why does a totally normal school teacher get to take part in that tradition? Why am I giving him so much credit? I've seen him eat a fun-size package of Oreos for breakfast! Is P-O, whom I know to be a fairly discerning eater and enthusiastic chef, an incidental participant in this tradition, or is he just another Français. And they're all discerning, and enthusiastic, and consumers of organic produce...?

Food. I've lived in France for almost a year and a half now, and I'm still attempting comprehension. I'm still trying to understand why I adore Julia Child and yet refuse to eat 85% of what she cooked. Why P-O was impressed by the fact that I bought organic crème fraiche from Monoprix and yet shurgged at the fact that I made my own freaking apple sauce! (Yes, it IS easy. But still!) People are weird. And French people are the weirdest.

I can't wait to be home on Friday and have Jew Night: A Culinary Collaboration with Maman.

And so I don't give you a wholly unfair impression of my French acquaintance, he did tell me several times that he liked the dinner. And he ate his entire slice of cake. And asked me how to make the ganache.

Booyakasha. Aight!