When Elie Wiesel stopped in Bordaeux to give a speech, he asked members of the Jewish community for suggestions on where to eat. They told him to go to Jean Ramet, a marvelous thirty-seat southwestern-French restaurant. Run by a Jewish chef, it is located right down the street from the eighteenth-century Grand Théâtre. Raised in a Polish Jewish home in France, Jean doesn’t have many culinary memories from his childhood. He grew up in Vichy, where his parents, like so many other Jews returning to France after the war, had priorities other than food. But food became a career for Jean. He apprenticed at the three-star Maison Troisgros in Roanne, learning pastry skills. “Pastry-making gives you discipline; it is very important for a chef,” he told me. “You need the rules of pastry first.” In the 1970s, Jean met Tunisian-born Raymonde Chemla on a youth trip to Israel. They have now been married for more than thirty years, living mostly in Bordeaux, where they run the restaurant. On vacations, they often travel to Morocco, because they love the food of North Africa. “Moroccan food is sincere,” said Jean. “When I met Raymonde, I fell in love with North African spices, such as cinnamon, mint, and cloves.” This gratin of figs with a zabaglione sauce and a splash of orange-flower water is a dish that celebrates North African flavors and classic French techniques. It also captures the essence of the flavor of fresh fig. As the French Jewish sage Rashi so beautifully stated in his commentaries on the Bible, “Summer is the time of the gathering of the figs and the time when they dry them in the fields, and it [the dried fig] is summer.”
Turn humble onions into this thrifty yet luxe pasta dinner.
This pasta has some really big energy about it. It’s so extra, it’s the type of thing you should be eating in your bikini while drinking a magnum of rosé, not in Hebden Bridge (or wherever you live), but on a beach on Mykonos.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
This classic 15-minute sauce is your secret weapon for homemade mac and cheese, chowder, lasagna, and more.
A dash of cocoa powder adds depth and richness to the broth of this easy turkey chili.
This is the type of soup that, at first glance, might seem a little…unexciting. But you’re underestimating the power of mushrooms, which do the heavy lifting.
I should address the awkward truth that I don’t use butter here but cream instead. You could, if you’re a stickler for tradition (and not a heretic like me), add a big slab of butter to the finished curry.