Supper Club: France

Welcome to this month’s Supper Club- a peek into the culture, food, and music of a different country each month.

I, of course, love France. It’s magical, beautiful and just so charming. I’ve been to many parts of the country, but rarely try my hand at cooking French food because it feels so daunting and labor intensive. Well, the dish I made this month was so easy and delicious that I’m sure it will be a regular staple of our meals. We savored this dish so much, taking our time, enjoying both the food and the company, much like they do in France, with meals being drawn out and shared.

The Dish:

I tackled Beef Bourguignon, which seemed perfect for the cold, Winter months. I have to tell you, I made this one other time and I remember thinking that it took forever. Well, the recipe that I used this time was for a slow cooker…. GENIUS! It was the best! I did use red wine, instead of a red cooking wine, which Whole Foods has conveniently labeled by country. I picked a red that seemed like it would work… did it ever, it was the perfect pairing. Traditional preparation of this dish is two days. Nope. I couldn’t do that, while still working, taking care of my child, etc… This recipe took about 9 hours from start to finish, with about 30 minutes of hands on time. I made it before work and had dinner by the time I got home. We paired it with a great crusty bread from our local bakery, Bottletree Bakery. We tried a few cheeses beforehand, like a sheep’s blue and a brie, again, all selected from the French section at Whole Foods. These went really well with the bread and was a simple addition to the meal, while I made the mashed potatoes that I served the stew over.

Tom was great at helping me cut the carrots and wash the potatoes, which we just put into the slow cooker whole. Here’s the recipe that I used.

For the mashed potatoes, I would say make them how you like them. Season them how you like them. I just used butter, salt, and pepper to mine. I didn’t want to over do it, and wanted it would take on a lot of the flavor of the stew.

Playlist:

We loved listening to this station on Spotify, while we cooked. We love jazz in our house, so any chance we get to listen to it, we take it…. We found a French jazz station, which reminded me of being in Paris and listening to street performers.

The Arts:

Muséé d’Orsay has a great listing of teacher and parent resources for teaching about the works in their collection.

Centre Pompidou also has a great resource page, to talk about some current exhibits while you are discussing France.

The Language:

I plan to look into this method for Tom Otis, as I’ve heard really good things about their program. But while we cooked, we talked about a few words here and there, to introduce a new language and get his mind thinking about other languages.

Enjoy!

– Erin 

This post was made possible by Whole Foods. Thank you to them for supporting Field Trip, so that we may bring you more fun and exciting posts.

The white Dansk pot can be found at Schoolhouse Electric.

Thanks!