Charred courgettes

A postcard from Paris

Hello friends,

Something different this week. I’m sending you a belated postcard from Paris, where we escaped last weekend. I meant to write to you from there, I really did, but the thing was, I didn’t end up cooking at all. There was so much good food to be had, and so much atmosphere to soak up. It felt sacrilegious to decamp back to the sixth floor Montparnasse walk-up apartment a friend had kindly lent us and cook dinner on the tiny stovetop. So instead we ate our breakfasts at the apartment, looking out over stormy skies, mirrored by the blue-slate Parisian rooftops. We ate golden pastries, the first apricots of the season. And for every other meal we ate out, cycling from one end of Paris to the other on our vélibs, hunting down exciting food.

It was my first time back in Paris since corona. There was jubilation in the air, a post-corona renaissance, hotels overflowing, tourist sites suddenly humming with a new energy, a fierce return to life. Coming back felt as if I had grown wings, as if I could suddenly fly around the city. Reuniting with a few old friends, it felt as if no time at all had passed since I last saw them, the way corona time collapses at the barest interrogation, folding in on itself until two years ago becomes yesterday.

One evening, we ate at Big Love, a beloved vegetarian Italian trattoria. The highlight of the meal was the pizza. The dough indelibly light and chewy, with a flavour that comes only from a long fermentation of the dough, served charred at the edges and topped with a thin tomato sauce, dehydrated onions, flecks of dried chilli, red pepper jam and tarragon leaves and mint, plus hand ripped chunks of buffalo mozzarella. The whole experience was such a whirlwind. Who cooks with tarragon anymore, and why do we not? Whoever knew it would work, so wonderfully, on a pizza, pairing with the hot-cold numb feeling from the mint, chili. We cycled home down the Marais, which slopes towards the Seine, along the new cycle path that now marks out the river from the traffic, and then up the hill back towards our pied-à-terre in Montparnasse. It was coming on 10pm but the sun was not yet set, as we inch our way towards the summer solstice. It was the witching hour when the light is suddenly pink and everything feels possible. At an intersection, a car full of guys is waiting at a red light, loud French rap pumping from the open windows. Suddenly, a motorbike pulls up, one guy sitting behind the other, holding on by the waist. They park right next to the car and then all of them are singing together, yelling the words to each other, dancing and waving their hands out the window, the hook of the song etching its way across the sky. Then the light turns green and the motorbike zooms away.

Another evening, we ate at Au Passage. We had a reservation, but walking towards the address it felt as if we had chanced upon it ourselves, unsure if we were in the right place as the hustle of the main street gave way to a narrow alleyway with a decidedly seedy vibe, no-one to be seen. It is unpretentious, experimental. The first picture is from there. We ordered all the vegetable options on the menu. Giant heritage tomatoes with caperberries, caper leaves and medlar; a honey-encrusted halloumi topped with sprigs of fennel, raspberries, a few pickled red onions; fresh bread; and the dish which was by far my favourite, a half a courgette, charred on a hot plate, with wild garlic, a creamy, lemony sauce, and tamarind paste drizzled over in stripes. I wasn’t sure about the puffed buckwheat, which has inescapable breakfast connotations of ricies for me. But the dish as a whole was so excellent that I was inspired to try and recreate a version when I got home.

To make my version of Charred Courgettes: cut a large courgette in half and cook it under the grill or on a hot plate for 10 minutes until cooked through, the edges should be charred. Meanwhile, make three sauces that are thin enough to drizzle over the courgette. The first is a tahini, (microplaned) garlic, water, lemon mix; the second mint leaves with olive oil, lemon and salt; for the third sauce, pour boiling water over tamarind pulp, push through a sieve and then mix with water until also thin enough to drizzle. Once the courgette is cooked, alternate stripes of the three sauces atop it, top with a few mint leaves, quick-pickled green chillies slices and some black sesame seeds.

We ate the courgettes with: marinated raw jerusalem artichoke with hazelnut dukkah (thin slices of jerusalem artichoke dressed with lemon, olive oil and salt, leave for 15 minutes before eating); halloumi; and hummus with green olive oil and smoked paprika; alongside some toasted flatbreads.

On coming back home after a few days away, we found the nest empty. Our baby wood pigeons have grown up. They’re now both happily roosting in the tree behind our house, still getting fed once a day or so by the parents who are looking decidedly thinner and more harried than when this began. The gap between the two children is rapidly narrowing, South has had a late growth spurt and is coming into his adult plumage. But North, who found his wings first, still seems more adventurous, willing to fly further from the tree and explore.

Here’s one last snapshot from an early morning walk in Paris, before the city had woken up. It was wonderfully peaceful.

Amelia.