Paris is always a good idea

I once read this quote by Audrey Hepburn, and I take her advice very seriously. So my darling friends Cathy and Mike met me in Paris last May. Since we’d all been there before and had frequented the most obvious crowd-pleasers like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Champs-Elysées (the list goes on and on), we didn’t see the need to visit them this trip and had a fantastic time just hanging out. Sitting and chatting for hours in the gardens of the Rodin Museum, riding the Bateaux-Mouches without getting off at every stop, sipping chocolat chaud with unbelievable clouds of whipped cream, buying French shoes--now that was our idea of enjoying Paris.

Picture by Mike Brown

And we ate our way through the city and had amazing meals at elegant restaurants. As it happened, we also had hilarious misunderstandings with more than one French garçon. Our pronunciation must have insulted their French-ness, and so they served us hot coffee when we ordered Calvados as an after-dinner drink, and milk instead of Lillet as an aperitif. Ah, the French with their ridiculous idea that if it’s not pronounced their way, it’s the highway! We still giggle when we order Lillet at home where every bartender understands us perfectly well.

But besides eating fancy food in fancy places, I also loved going to any old bistro ordering a simple dish called oeuf mayonnaise as an entrée, which in France incidentally means first course. Not only is it hard to mispronounce, I love its simplicity: a few perfectly cooked hard-boiled egg halves with brightly yellow yolks topped with a dollop of lovely homemade mayonnaise. The eggs are served on a bed of crisp greens and the tangy creaminess of the mayonnaise mingles perfectly well with the mellow sweetness of the eggs. All this is sopped up with hunks of crunchy baguette. Now this is what I call a good idea.

Oeuf mayonnaise 

Serves 2

2-3 hard-boiled eggs

Dollops of homemade mayonnaise

A couple handfuls of fresh arugula

Homemade mayonnaise tastes so much better than the store-bought kind. This recipe is adapted from Molly Wizenberg and Mark Bittman, incredibly easy to make, all you need is a nice big whisk and some muscle.

1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/2 cup neutral oil, like grape seed or canola and 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, mixed together

Whisk egg yolk and mustard until light and brightly colored. Stir in lemon juice, salt and pepper and start adding oil, a few drops at a time using a 1/4 teaspoon as you whisk, until a thick emulsion forms. After that, the oil can be added more quickly, a tablespoon at a time while stirring constantly. The finished mayonnaise will be darker than the store-bought one and it should take about 10 minutes to make it. Taste and adjust seasonings and consume quickly! 

I like to serve the eggs on a bed of arugula, since the intense aromatic and peppery flavor goes well with the creaminess of the eggs.