Cockles and Pasta Recipe - Ile De Ré

What a splendid way to start the summer, escape Paris, head for the beach, get a tan and treat yourself to the most divine and rewarding seafood dish! My petit sejour on the Ile de Re was exactly that with fellow blogger and friend Ge.

I share with you here our delicious yet simple recipe for Coques aux Pates (Cockles with Pasta), and pay our thanks to Ge's sister who passed us the recipe.




Cockles with Pasta- For 2 persons

Ingredients;-

• 500g hand picked cockles (if you aren't near a beach you'll have to make do with your fishmonger)
• 2-3 garlic pieces
• 150g of fresh parsely
• lots of olive oil
• sea salt
• fresh ground pepper
• 250g Spaghetti

Method – as per Ge and I

Cockle preparation (picked from the beach):-

• We picked well over 2Kg of cockles from the beach at low tide which made about 500g of cockles after the de-shelling. Washed off residue sand and soaked them in seasalt and water overnight – repeated this 4 times to get rid of the sand in them.
• Rinsed the cockles once more and placed in a pot of boiling water enough just to cover the cockles. The cockle shells opened up with the heat – once all opened, heat turned off and strained. Ran cold water over them so that they were ready to be de-shelled.
• Picked out the cockle flesh – and discarded any which weren't open.

Sauce:-

• Roughly blended together garlic, parsley with the olive oil and salt & pepper to taste. Texture was bitty and not pasty.

Cooking:-

• Cooked pasta adding sea salt and olive oil into water – timing according to packet Split the pasta into 2 plates.
• Heated a frying pan and splashed a dose of olive oil in it before sliding the de-shelled cockles in.
• Then added in the sauce and stirred for 5 mins until the aromas filled the kitchen
• Added additional fresh pepper to the dish and garnished with sprigs of fresh parsley – like the pros do it.

The dish was soon wiped clean from the plates! We thank Ge's sister for the recipe!

Bon Appétit!

Ben Kweller rocks the Cigalle

It was hum more than a few weeks ago when I entered into the infamous Cigalle music hall in Montmartre to watch Ben Kweller. For those of you who do not know him, he is a young and very talented Texan musician and singer who writes all his lyrics that rock and rhythm to every beat. He also apparently played all the instruments for all the songs in his last album – “Ben Kweller”. The Cigalle hall is an intimate venue - we were standing up the whole time and being only 10-15 ft from the stage. Accompanied by his fellow band members he was truly an amazing performer with great live vocals belting out his new album “Changing Horses” and gracing us with some of his previous hits. Unlike the previous album, the songs and melodies on this one was more in the genre of country rock. I only wished there were many more of us in the audience –he deserved so many more thundering claps of appreciation.

Encore! Encore! Encore!

The T.A.G grafitti art show - Exclusive in Paris!

A bit on the wild side this time with the T.A.G exhibition at the Grand Palais. T.A.G refers to 'Tag and Graffiti' - the signature of the artist woven into their Graffiti art. The Graffiti movement which grew out of New York and other large US cities in the 60's, were driven by citizens who used the walls, metros, bridges in the fringe areas such as the Bronx to express their dissatisfaction and anarchism over society and establishments.
French architect Alain-Dominique Gallizia is the compiler of this unique collection inviting 300 hundred international graffiti artists (mostly French and American albeit) to work on the theme of 'love' and their tag on 2 rectangular canvases. The result is quite inspiring and interesting interpretations of such a tight brief. And furthermore these canvases are/were temporarily housed in an unfinished section of the Grand Palais of which its crude brick walls gave a truly authentic background to the graffiti artwork.

It could be coming soon near you...as M. Gallizia hopes to be able to tour the collection.

The World of Andy Warhol in Paris

No sight of the infamous Condensed Campbells Soup work of art at the Andy Warhol exhibition (Grand Palais)– it rests at the MOMA (New York). I hadn't realised that pop art pioneer Andy Warhol had gained so much fame (and fortune) during his lifetime...in fact he called himself a commercial artist, painted for money which of course increased his exclusivity factor. Having worked in journalism, fashion and music industry he became very well connected in the upper echelons of society. Turning his passion into a business, proving his extraordinary talent and not afraid of being `different' can only be admired. I was intrigued by the vibrancy of the bold and often clashing colors used to enhance certain features of the face, simple and striking. Seeing so many different heads in a few rooms was a bit overwhelming for the brain, especially once you begin to spot the celebrities (Deborah harry, Stallone, Diane Von Furstenberg...) and mentally morph them into what they look like today. We leave the exhibit through a corridor pasted with his apparently other 'well known' piece of art, the 'Cow print wallpaper' (photo).

Exhibition at the Grand Palais until July 13th, 2009 – not to be missed!

David LaChapelle - Edgy, Wicked Modern Art

I finally made it to the David LaChapelle exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris. What an artist! I learned of the ultra-unique photographer/artist through the friend who I went with and then realised from my web searches that I recognised a few of the pieces that had made the headlines such as the one where glitzy dressed Paris Hilton is being 'gently' held by 2 cops (Hi Bitch, Bye Bitch – see photo). My first impressions from scanning his works on the web were; shocking, controversy, taboo....and then after further reflection, ironic, clever and even beautiful. These same impressions carried over to the museum during my visit but I was triggered with a lot more emotional charge and my eyes were hungry for more. David LaChapelle – obviously expression through art is what he does well depicting controversial, decadent, materialist pop culture in the lives of both celebrities and the ordinary. The only shortfall was that there was only a small selection of his works at the exhibit.

Look out for my next Art visit...coming soon....

The French shuts down 'The Body' exhibition in Paris

French law has clamped down on this famous Body exhibition which has traveled the 4 corners of the world - I went to the one in London, twice in fact about 5 years ago and have seen it pass through Montreal and New York....so what is the problem? Yes I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about what my reactions would be before entering for the first time, but all in all it was educational and presented in an 'art gallery' format. I could not believe that Human rights groups claimed that the show denigrates the human body....and believe me the majority of the comments made on lemonde's article was pro the closure. I thinks it's a total shame, and apparently so do these people in the photo who are obviously going to be the last few to catch this show before the organisers get a hefty fine. Photo taken around midday on my way from my French lesson at Madeline.

I wonder what will be next to bite the dust!

Chocolate Art at Easter Time

This was the display of our favourite (at least mine) in our area yesterday(Easter Sunday)....see the beautiful chocolate? that was probably merely 1/3 of what they had left over. I should have taken a shot to the right past the entrance to show the 50+ people queue. So observation 1 - Parisians will walk a few blocks out in search of their local favourite 'pattiserie' and bakery...and I now understand why since I am doing it too. The quality of the baguette, cakes can be so much more refined than your nearest joint. 2nd observation...you think us British had the monopoly on Easter bunnies....come to France! For a couple of weeks now many of the 'pattiseries' have been displaying their works of chocolate art carefully wrapped in plastic film in preparation for the Easter weekend in the form of bells, chickens, rabbits, fish...and compilations of farmyard animals in their own chocolate pen...endless creativity.

Needless to say that I won't be touching chocolate with a barge pole for a while.

Happy Easter!