A Perfect Fall Appetizer

I speak and write so much about seasonal living. When we embrace the seasons, it helps us to live in the moment, capture the present. Seasonal living means embracing and celebrating all the unique activities, flavors, foods, fragrances, and visuals that each season brings. It creates a subtle awareness to enjoy all of this each day, as it will be another nine months before this season returns.

Curried Pumpkin Hummus is one of my favorite seasonal fall appetizers. It is a delightful combination of spices that have a little heat, yet a lot of flavor. Culinary Tip: Spice Islands Curry is regarded as the best overall curry powder flavor, concurred amongst my culinary friends. Keep canned pumpkin stocked in your fall pantry, and you can whip up this appetizer in no time. Easy to make ahead of time and always a crowd pleaser. I originally saw it in Victoria Magazine, October 2013 issue.

Curried Pumpkin Hummus

Lovingly Adapted from Victoria Magazine

Makes 10 servings.

Ingredients:

1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin

3 Tbsp. tahini

2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1 clove garlic peeled

2 tsp. olive oil

1 tsp. curry

1 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Garnish: pepitas (pumpkin seeds), paprika, olive oil and fresh thyme

Directions:

In the work bowl of a food processor, combine pumpkin, tahini, lemon juice, garlice, and olive oil. Pulse until smooth. Add curry, cumin, kosher salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper; pulse to combine.

Cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Garnish with pepitas, paprika, olive oil, and thyme if desired. Serve immediately with toasted naan (an East Indian flat bread) or pita chips, or refrigerate, in an airtight container for up to 5 days.

What is your favorite aspect of the fall season? What are your favorite fall recipes? If you make this recipe, be sure and tag #bonniejomanion.

Basket of Fall Goodies

Last fall I was in the Toulouse, South France area with French General for a week long “France Getaway, Exploring Craft, Markets, and Food in France.” Since none of us can be there this year, I thought I would share with you a few photos from the trip. If you are interested in joining a week with French General, contact owner Karri Meng, as she will be offering these trips once again, when it is permissible. For now, sit back and enjoy a few photos, and imagine your are in France this fall.

Two Lucky Lovers Atop an Arch in Saint-Antonin

Walled Garden Below Toulouse Lautrec Museum

Learning the Fine Art of the Cheese Board

Impromptu Roadside Stop at Apple Farm

Completing One Craft, An Original French General Apron

Alfresco Lunch Setting at Local Winery

Cordes-Sur-Ciel Village, One Lucky Cat Lives Here!

Fields of Fall Sunflowers Before Harvest

Last Evening, Last Dessert

Carrots Hot Off the Grill

I am more of a “recipe seeker” than a recipe developer, maybe that will be change in the future. On the other hand, Tieghan Gerard of Half Baked Harvest is a natural recipe genius with her flavor and ingredient artistry and food styling bordering on culinary masterpieces. A Colorado twenty-something with already two cookbooks under her belt, and 1.9 million Instagram followers and counting, she has the ability to create a new mouth-watering recipe everyday. She is simply amazing and fresh in the culinary world. Check her out!

I seek out certain recipes for my culinary repertoire, hunting them down from cookbooks, friends, the internet, magazines, and saved recipe files. You know the ones, like Alice Waters’ Mulberry Ice Cream, Martha Stewart’s Lemon Bars, Patricia Wells Sorrel Soup, Ina Garten’s Spinach Gratin, Dorie Greenspan’s Gougères, and Sheila Lukin’s (Silver Palate days), Corn and Lobster Chowder, see below.

In the Bon Appétit, June/July 2020 magazine issue there is a terrific recipe I want to share with you, Grilled Carrots with Avocado and Mint. This is a “24 carrot gold” recipe. I had never grilled carrots before, roast them in the oven with a few other root vegetables, olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Yes and yum!

Grilling the carrots in this recipe caramelizes them, and the cumin-forward dressing is a perfect dressing companion. This is such a simple and well-rounded recipe. It has big flavor, acid, heat, spice and texture. The combination of avocado, toasted cumin, fresh ginger, mint, and serrano chile are divine!

In San Diego, California, we are lucky that we can grow carrots all year long, and now there are so many heirloom and rainbow colors to grow besides the beautiful orange through seed companies and buy at our farmer markets.

Bon Appétit, June/July 2020 Issue

Bonus Recipe from My Recipe Archive

Shelia Lukin was at one time a Food Contributor for Parade Magazine, dates unknown. This chowder is special and elegant enough for a Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve Dinner, or a very special occasion. Enjoy!

Shelia Lukin’s Elegant Corn and Lobster Chowder

I enjoy hearing from you all, your kind words, suggestions, and comments. They all come to me, and I try to respond back. If you want to comment on my actual blog you will have to click on the tab, “click on original post” at the bottom of this blog post, which will direct you back to my original post location on my blog and website. Either way I see your comments!

Merci Mille Fois!

The Cook’s Atelier Storefront

One of my best cooking school experiences has been at The Cook’s Atelier in the storybook town of Beaune in the heart of the Burgundy, France region. An easy weekend getaway by train situated, either about an hour south from Paris or about two hours north above Avignon. My husband and I met dear friends in Beaune for a fun weekend. The gals had pre-booked “A Day in Burgundy French Cooking Class” and shopping on their agenda, and the fellas scheduled superb wine tasting venues.

The Cook’s Atelier is a small family business offering French culinary cooking classes, private events, a culinary boutique, and wineshop all situated in a 17th century lovingly restored stone building, beautifully lit by three floors of floor to ceiling windows overlooking a central atrium with a skylight. The original wooden spiral staircase magnificently connects all the floors. Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini are mother and daughter American expats who dreamed of living in France and showcasing their culinary skills and wine background in one of France’s gastronomic meccas. Kendall fell in love and married Laurent, a Frenchman from Provence, moved to Beaune, started a family, Marjorie joined them, and the entire dream and family business has taken off.

The Cook’s Atelier is a visual masterpiece for your senses, from the start of the day to the finish. Your day begins with meeting at the Beaune market with many of their special artisan food producers and buying seasonal ingredients for the cooking class and extended savory lunch. A quick walk through the historic heart of town, and you are at their storefront, ready for your hands-on cooking class. The teaching kitchen is on the top floor, the dining room on the second, and ground floor is the culinary boutique and wine shop at street level. Students are taught and work on recipes for lunch, learn basic techniques, simple recipes, and culinary tips in general.

Handsome Merchandizing Mixes New and Vintage Pieces

Looking Down Through the Atrium

The Cook’s Atelier Teaching Kitchen Ready for Students

The Table is Set for Our Hard-Earned Lunch

“Rack of Lamb with Herbs” and Spring Vegetables was Star of the Lunch

Marjorie and Kendall, A Dynamic Duo

Lunch was seven courses from appetizers to dessert with accompanied wine pairings chosen by Kendall’s husband, Laurent. The copper, the tea lights, the peonies, the embroidered napkins, the soup tureens, all of the details were so simple yet stunning, and lunch was absolutely delicious! A day of savoring “joie de vivre!”

Marjorie and Kendall wrote and published in 2018 a beautiful cookbook, The Cook’s Atelier, with many of the recipes that were featured in our “A Day in Burgundy French Cooking Class.” This cookbook is beautifully written and is organized by the seasons, and how their year unfolds which I always love. My dream is to return once again to this special region of France, and immerse myself in one of their week-long intensive cooking classes. If you can’t make it to France, like this year, many of their curated products are available online at www.thecooksatelier.com with worldwide shipping available.

Do you know of The Cook’s Atelier? Have you experienced a day that totally takes you to another level of experience and thinking, you are forever changed?

San Marzano Tomatoes

Last February a dear friend gave me San Marzano tomato seeds from Italian Franchi Seeds to grow. Fast forward to August, and it was time to harvest. San Marzano tomatoes make a beautiful sauce, but I wanted to dehydrate them, a first for me. I have a setting on my oven, and used that method over night.

Dehydrated San Marzano Tomatoes

Beautiful crimson color matched with a flavorful tomato intensity, I wished I had grown more of these tomatoes. Remembering a quick recipe from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food II, I made her Crostini with Dried Roma Tomatoes, Anchovies, and Capers. This recipe is made with simple but ingredients you most likely have in your pantry, and with the star addition of dried Roma Tomatoes.

Anchovies, Capers, Olive Oil and Dried Roma Tomatoes

Dried Roma Tomatoes, Anchovies, and Caper Mixture Ready for Crusty Bread

Lovingly Adapted from Alice Waters, The Art of Simple Food II

Waters likes to add fresh chopped parsley or marjoram to each crostini for a touch of green, punch, and texture.

Please share if you dehydrate tomatoes or other foods you grow. Please share if you have a great Roma tomato recipe.

Simplicity is Key

If you have been to one of my “Lunch in Provence” culinary events, chances are you have heard me talk of how I embrace the French Country lifestyle in my everyday. Much more than a desirable lifestyle, it is a solid philosophy to live one’s life. Elevate Simplicity to Elegance. Live in the Present. Cherish Now. Live Seasonally. Combine Beauty and Function. Celebrate Each Day. Honor Family and Traditions. Appreciate What You Have. Re-purpose Rather Then Dispose. Be Kind to Others. Respect Mother Earth.

The French are masters of simple living! Thomas Jefferson is often credited with this quote, “Every Man Has Two Countries, His Own and France.” When you think of France, is it the natural beauty, the rural countryside, the markets, the food, the quaint villages, the people, the style, or all of the above? This is not about choosing one country over another, rather observing the very essence of what creates this very desirable and seductive lifestyle, and how you might adopt it for yourself too. You can create this lifestyle where ever you live, and not just when you are in France. You can keep the French Country lifestyle in your heart, and for everyday! Perhaps you already living the lifestyle without realizing it.

France is very rich, and I am not speaking necessarily monetarily, in quality of life. The French Country lifestyle which seems to be effortless and natural is often envied, and it starts with “simplicity” and the ability to live in the moment or present. Simplicity is really another name for sophistication and elegance. Imagine a beautiful vintage ironstone bowl filled with lemons, a pastel patina stone house accented with a happy olive tree and wisteria, or a table of close friends lingering over a fresh baguette, bowl of tapenade, and a crisp bottle of rosé.

Saint Saturnin-les-Apts

Tandem with simplicity is the very powerful “living in the present.” It is not easy to keep your attention and thoughts in the moment, especially if you are not used to focusing on your present. There is a certain magical sweet spot of living in the moment, which once you experience and keep it with you, unfolds in many surprising ways.

You can experience true happiness and the joy of life—joie de vivre, living in the present. With that comes gratitude. Time for others. Time to enjoy. Time to pause, for you will never have this powerful present moment again.

Simple is Elegant

“Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication.” —Leonardo di Vinci

“Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance.” —Coco Chanel

“Elegance is the only beauty that never fades.” —Audrey Hepburn

“Creativity is maximized when you live in the moment.”—Anonymous.

“Living in the present, refreshes and renews your energy.” “Change happens only in the now, triggered by self-awareness.” “When we feel the connection to our simplicity of being, we have hope as well.” “It may be challenging to see ourselves as ageless beings that grow in wisdom and spiritual fulfillment in each passing moment, but living in the present enables us to literally stop time.” —Deepak Chopra

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.” —Mark Twain

“Listen to the signals or whispers, always to guide us.” —Oprah Winfrey

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past, if you are anxious, you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.” —Lao Tzu

“Learn to live with an attitude of gratitude.” —Sir John Templeton

These reflections on two of the main pillars of the French Country lifestyle regarding simplicity, and “living in the present” are what I have observed as an expat high school student living in Europe and my many trips to France as an adult. If you asked someone from St. Remy or Bonnieux, Provence, they might think otherwise, but I firmly believe the French Country lifestyle is firmly rooted in elevating simplicity to elegance, and the uncanny ability to live in the present effortlessly.

Do you love simplicity? Please share how you stay in the moment, and if wonderful things have happened to you.

Italian Pesto Basil, Renee’s Garden Seeds

This year I grew basil from seed for the first time, and had resounding success. I used great seeds from Renee’s Garden. She has many types of basil but I chose her Italian Pesto Basil seeds specifically for making my own pesto. This basil was very easy to grow, in two rows in my raised bed. The green color alone is fabulous, and as you pick the leaves or pinch the flowers the fresh basil smell is intoxicating.

A Partial Glimpse of Beautiful Cinque Terre

My incentive for growing basil, and making my own pesto from the garden was Wine Vault & Bistro’s Italian Culinary and Wine Tour, my husband and I, and friends took two years ago. The tasty tour focused mainly around Florence and Tuscany, and paused in Cinque Terre. Cinque Terre is five separate coastal villages perched precariously high above the Mediterranean within Liguria in northwest Italy. These villages because of inaccessibility, were virtually unknown to the world until shortly after World War II. They are all now part of the Cinque Terre National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In the fifth and furthermost village of Monterosso, our tour had a planned amazing lobster and seafood lunch along with other local delicacies at the sweet Hotel Pasquale. An extra bonus was an optional pesto making class beforehand from the restaurant’s own Nonna. Taking notes as quickly as I could, I share with you her authentic Pesto Recipe. This is the recipe I am using this summer from my garden, and share with you now.

Informal Pesto Making Class in Monterosso

Italian Basil Pesto (For Two People)

80 small Genoa basil leaves, or fresh basil leaves of your choice. One clove garlic.

One tablespoon pine nuts per person, not roasted but raw.

The best pine nuts are from Pisa, Italy. One heaping tablespoon Parmesan cheese per person.

For more people use 4 tablespoons pine nuts,

3 garlic cloves, but use same amount of Parmesan cheese and garlic proportionally.

Add into ingredients 1/2 cup good olive oil for two people, more olive oil, if making for more people.

With a mortar and pestle crush your basil leaves until they become a paste. Add other ingredients.

Add your olive oil to mixture last. Pesto should be a cream-like consistency.

Don’t normally need salt, because the cheese has salt. Use over warm linguini.

Becoming Authentic Italian Basil Pesto

My recipe notes. You can use a food processor as an alternative to a mortar & pestle for your pesto, but know the Italians still prefer a mortar & pestle.

This pesto is made up of a few simple ingredients, so try and find the best of all of these ingredients. I use this fresh pesto over my pasta yes, but also for my

homemade pizza, and tomato tartines. Enjoy, and maybe it will take you to Italy someday, or take you back to Italy once again.

Happy Domaine de Manion Grapes

This year has certainly been a time of reflection at Domaine de Manion. It seems like while the outside world has been ever changing and experiencing unchartered territories, our vineyard has been constant and steady doing what it likes best, growing a great Syrah grape for us!

We, being my husband John and I, first planted our vineyard in 2006, dropped the fruit the first two years, so 2020 will be our twelfth harvest. It promises to be a great harvest with a high yield, and gorgeous clusters that give us reason to smile. Some of the grapevines are yielding more than 25 grape clusters per vine. It is often said that the best fertilizer for a vineyard is the vineyard manager’s footsteps, and this year we have been in the vineyard even more following shelter in place.

In the beginning it was one big experiment. Whether we had a good location for a vineyard? Could we grow a good grape? Could we find vineyard experts to help us get started? Could we learn to manage a vineyard? Could we make good wine? All unknown.

We pushed through the unknowns, being ahead of the curve as far as backyard vineyards go. Now backyard vineyards are prolific in San Diego County with all of their great attributes: 1) four-season beauty and interest, 2) drought tolerant, 3) capability to make wine, 4) becomes a wonderful lifestyle, 5) attracts great people and friends domestically and internationally.

It is a lot of work, and time consuming at times, as farming is. Some years are better than others, and we learn something new each year with our vineyard. It is a constant reminder that life is unpredictable. For now this year, our grapes and harvest promise to be an especially great one.

I encourage all of you, if you have an idea, dream, or goal, go for it! Even if you hear a few naysayers, and especially if it something that sticks in your mind. Follow it, and don’t stop at the first “no.” You never know what fruit it will bear!