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My husband and I had a delicious late lunch at Maison Kaiser, an evergrowing in popularity French patisserie in Manhattan, when we lived here in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, Maison Kaiser did not exist, nowadays you can easily find one no matter where you are in the city.
This one was located at 21st and Broadway, right down the street from the Flat Iron building, we sat outside and while we waited for our food, we spent our moments together in silence doing the run of the mill New York thing, people watching. They come in all shapes, sizes, ages, nationalities, walks of life, a real cornucopia of humanity. It is one of my favorite pastimes, here and everywhere, people are always interesting.
My husband started his lunch with rillettes of duck, served with cornichons and French bread; rillettes of canard or rillettes of anything is simply a meat or fish that has been roasted or poached and then shredded and mixed with butter and salt and pepper, it is rich and decadent and so, so good!
I started with something so basic and classic to French cuisine that it has been eons since I have seen it on a menu, poached leeks in a vinaigrette, I realize that it doesn’t sound like much to rave about, but trust me, the flavors are very reminiscent of asparagus with vinaigrette or hearts of palm with vinaigrette. My leeks were exactly what I had imagined and when I offered a bite to my husband, he was very surprised at how delicious it was, he wasn’t so sure when I had ordered it.
Our main courses were delightful as well, he had a cocotte of salmon and spring vegetables and it came in a baby dutch oven of the French variety, a mini Le Creuset, the presentation was adorable.
What I had placed in front of me was something similar to what I had ordered back in France in 2012, in Avignon when I was traveling with our daughter, it is called a tartine, basically an open-faced sandwich, mine was fava bean themed, the bread had a fava bean tapenade spread on it, with fava beans sauteed in olive oil and sea salt, sliced radishes, thin spears of asparagus and snippets of arugula, it was a festival of spring flavors laid out on wonderful French bread.
We got dessert to go and as you can see from the picture, they are little bits of scrumptious, I am saving them for later this evening.
It is crazy hot and muggy in New York today, we are under threat of severe thunderstorms and walking around reminds me of when my cousin and our friends came last year for their photography club outing. It is that hot outside and it is soupy, tomorrow hopefully will be cooler.
laurieanichols 