Fred Hersch @ sunset

While classical may be my life partener, my love, my everything; jazz has always been my mistress. Paris is a very jazz-influential/influenced city, but the prices to hear the great artists coming through town can be prohibitive. This unfortunately means that I don't get out to discover new musicians that often, but I do save my centimes for old favorites.

I remember in great detail the first time I heard Fred Hersch. My mother had bought a compilation album at Border's with a particularly beautiful album cover. The proceeds of the album were to benefit Classical Action, and all of the composers featured were HIV positive. If this weren't touching enough, the music was enrapturing. But the most memorable composition was Hersch's Tango Bittersweet for piano and cello. This is a piece of music that has stayed with me for years, one that I find myself humming every once and a while in the metro, one that I loved so much, I became simply obsessed with playing it. At the time it was not yet published, but I simply had to play it so I contacted the cellist on the album. He replied within a couple hours explaining that he no longer had the music, but he would forward my email to "Fred". No word for several days, then one day in the mail I received an envelope. Inside was a photocopy of the original, handwritten score with a note wishing me good luck. How do you not love a musician like that ?

So it was my delight when I got an email announcing Hersch's concert in Paris a couple of weeks ago, and within three minutes, I had two tickets in hand. The concert was truly beautiful. Hersch's stage presence is calming, humble, and yet entrancing. He played a couple of standards with a special guest on the clarinet, and several recent compositions. The compositions were mostly dedicated to jazz greats, and while he announced the inspiration for each, the musical style was so precisely indicative of their muse, the announcements quickly became superfluous. His other compositions, as well as the manner in which he interpreted standards, were exciting, and charming, and made for an evening terribly well spent.

Testing out the video-function on my new camera, I caught all of the encore. A little Hersch original:

Rangoon !

Since I've moved to Paris, one of the cuisines I've consistently craved is good chinese food. While their are loads of traiteurs chinois around town, the idea of my food sitting out all day and then being microwaved, instead of being properly prepared on location is chilling. That especially applies to anything that is normally wrapped in a crispy wanton. While their are good chinese restaurants to be found, they are concentrated in particularly inconvenient areas (well, for me anyway) near Belleville and Place d'Italie. And even when I do manage to make the trek, they rarely serve my guilty americanized chinese addiction-- the crab rangoon. I credit my even more addicted mother for passing on a genetic predisposition for being obsessed with the rangoon in all it's crispy delight.

All of this said, I was visiting the Marché d'Aligre with André on Sunday when we spotted a small asian grocery on the far side of the square. We wandered inside and what should I find but these:


Visions of grandeur came to mind as imagine how many crispy triangles of wonder I could fry up with this package (if you'll look closely, the price tag does indeed, say 1.15 !!). And so Caroline's corn rangoon was born !

First I mixed up a tasty, yet utterly unphotogenic, batch of filling. In the container are corn, cream cheese (for those of you in France, I used Kiri squares), paprika, salt, garlic powder, and black pepper.


Then I tossed a dollop onto a wrapper:


Folded the wrappers into triangle-like shapes, then stuck them into the freezer for about an hour so the cheese wouldn't be so ooooozy.



Then I fried them ! Frying not pictured due to, well, being busy frying. I didn't deep fry as we don't have a proper deep fryer, and I cringe at the thought of wasting that much oil. But I put about 1/2 an inch of oil in the pan and flipped them around 2 minutes. I think they turned out pretty well ! At least they must have, considering Monsieur le picky eater ate enough to feed a small farm animal. so voila !



And here is a gratuitous shot of Lucie, who wouldn't stop miaouuuuuuing at me from the terrasse while I was cooking :