Market salad & French cooking

The French general strike means that I am stuck in France, but I think we can all agree that there are worse places to be! The weather has cleared up and it is nice and sunny again so, besides spending some quality time outside, I am also using this extra time to cook.

In fact, the remainder of this month will be a collection of various French recipes or foods that I’ve picked up on my latest trip. We’ll have celeriac salad, and baked cheese, plum flan and pasta paella – something to look forward to.

Needless to say, we’ve done some terrific eating on this family trip, but our numbers have dwindled as some people were able to depart during the strike and we’re trying to do some lighter eating here the last couple of days. When it’s this warm out again, I just crave all kinds of fruits and vegetables and we’ve been able to find some great late season plums, grapes, oranges, lovely figs, tomatoes, and avocados.

So today we made two variations on my mom’s favorite local avocado salad:

rocket/arugula + avocado + mild goats cheese (Petit Billy, one of my favorites)

and

little gem lettuce + avocado + poached shrimp + tomato

The ‘secret ingredient’ in both is the light but smooth citrus vinaigrette. You’ll need: lemon juice; white wine vinegar; olive oil; salt & pepper. The proportion of lemon juice to olive oil should be 1/4:3/4. Whisk those two together briskly first, then continue mixing while adding the vinegar (2-3 tablespoons) and seasonings, to taste.