Dreaming of France on a Hot Summer Night

I’ve never been great with heat.

Somewhere, in one of my boxes someplace, is a picture of me standing near the edge of the pool that was attached to the apartment I grew up in, in Forest Hills. I’m about three, wearing a yellow and orange gingham bikini and holding a dripping Creamsicle in one hand; the other hand is deftly covering my navel, because I was certain that it was absolutely not meant to be visible in proper circles, even though, in the same picture, my bikini top has managed to hike its way up around my neck, like a scarf. I don’t seem to notice.

It was hot, and I was young.

That said, I look thoroughly and completely annoyed. And even now, all these years later, my response to a spike in temperature — actual temperature or metaphysical temperature (the latter currently exemplified by the unbearably moronic goings-on in Washington at the moment) — is more or less the same. To be clear, I don’t go marching around public pools with my hand over my navel and my bikini top hovering around my chin; I do, however, get cranky.  And there seems to be only one cure for this crank (or, as my father would call it, this crenk), and it’s French.

In the dead of winter and for reasons I’ve never been able to explain — maybe it’s the brightness of flavors in an otherwise dark and murky time of year — I get sucked into an Asian food vortex so ragingly intense that my dinner table sags under the weight of homemade Vietnamese pickles, Thai curries, Chiang Mai noodles, Mapo Tofu, Charlie Phan’s turnip cakes … I could go on. And even my kitchen and the tools I use in it changes: the Sabatiers stay attached to the magnetic strip on the wall under the hanging pots and pans, and instead I find myself using my four or five inexpensive Asian cleavers exclusively, and chopping on the ironwood boards that I bought a few years ago at The Wok Shop in San Francisco.

It’s probably a little bit excessive — I know — but the whole thing manages to get me from the beginning of November to the end of March without my turning into Jack Nicholson in The Shining, which I count as a small victory, living in an area that last year was the recipient of 80 inches of snow.

But in the summer, when the air conditioners groan and growl against the heat — the temperature hovered around 104 here in Connecticut the other day and everyone was miserable — I want one thing: I want French.

I want French everything:

French ice cream.

French wine.

French cheese.

French aperitifs.

French movies.

French vacations.

French literature.

French Bulldogs.

French sailor shirts.

French sneakers.

French bicycles.

French beaches.

French music.

French grandmothers.

French carbon steel knives.

French carrots.

French breakfast radishes.

French butter.

French green beans.

French lamb.

French gazpacho.

French glasses in which to serve the gazpacho.

French home cooks.

More French home cooks.

More French home cooks.

Ines de La Fressange. (Please, god.)

French market bags.

French games.

French attitude.

The list could go on and on. But I decided to stop at attitude because if the implacable French people were being jerked around to the extent that we Americans are right now — with no rise in the debt ceiling, no agreement between anyone, and nothing more going on than a whole lot of incredibly dangerous posturing and public waving around of one’s male body parts — and all the older folks in France were losing sleep over whether or not they were going to receive the checks they need to buy their French carrots and green beans (see above), the entire country would go on strike and come screeching to a halt, and everyone would go out to play boules. Really. A big, old F YOU to the suits in charge; let’s just (very seriously) rant and eat and drink and take good care of each other because, frankly, no one else is going to, after all is said and done.

But I digress.

This past weekend, with the temperature in the triple digits even after the sun went down and the threat of rolling electrical outages keeping us in Connecticut instead of in Virginia — which is we were supposed to be both to visit my cousins and their infant daughter (and our godbaby), and to see Emmylou Harris at Wolftrap — I didn’t make anything that was apparently cool and refreshing. I didn’t go for a dip in the neighbor’s pool, I didn’t drink an icy white wine, I didn’t eat cold fruit salads and spicy Asian food laden with Ayurvedically-proven cooling spices and aromatics, like cilantro and mint.

Instead, I went French. I fired up the grill and made homemade merguez sausage (the recipe for which I don’t give here; great merguez is not hard to find). Admittedly, standing over a blazing hot grill when the temperature is over 100 degrees may not be for everyone, and on the face of it, it’s not for me either, since I hate heat; it makes me want to wrap my bikini top around my own neck.

To make matters steamier, I decided that we couldn’t really have merguez without socca, and while I’ve made all variety of the Nicoise chickpea flour street treat over the years — some baked, some a la Mark Bittman’s tortillita, with shrimp — I wanted the real thing. This involves cranking your broiler up to its absolute highest setting, heating a cast iron pan until it smokes like a chimney, pouring in part of the batter, and quickly letting it set up and blister and char back under the broiler.

Which means more heat.

The result, though, was glorious: together, Susan and I sat around our little dining room table in monstrously hot suburban America, trying to forget about what’s happening in Washington, and eating our socca and merguez and dreaming dreams of Lulu Peyraud and chilled Bandol rose and nighttime rounds of boules properly played on long pitches of crushed oyster shells.

Everyone was beautiful, and dressed in blue.

Until the air conditioner died.

Socca

Crispy, nutty, salty, a little bit greasy, and perfect for nibbling on or wrapping around grilled vegetables or (yes) merguez — spicy lamb sausage — socca is Nicoise street food at its most traditional. Over the years, I’ve tried making it every conceivable way: on top of the stove in a stick proof skillet (it got spongy and didn’t brown); baked in the oven (it got spongy and greasy and didn’t brown). I’ve made Mark Bittman’s Spanish version (see above) which is wonderful, but isn’t really socca. To date, the most authentic, do-it-at-home version I’ve found comes from David Lebovitz’s great book, The Sweet Life in Paris. (Read his blog entry on making socca here.) The version below is an adaptation — I like my socca a bit thicker, and laden with toasted cumin, cayenne, and thyme (which makes it “not the real thing”) — but it is delicious.

Note: I haven’t given a yield here because, judging from experience, it’s very easy for one person to eat an entire socca in one go.

1 cup chickpea flour

3/4 cup water

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided

1/4 teaspoon toasted, ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, water, one tablespoon of the olive oil, and the balance of the ingredients except the salt. The consistency should be like thinnish pancake batter; if it’s too thick, add a bit more water. Cover and set aside at room temperature for up to 2 hours.

2. Preheat your broiler to high. Coat a 10 inch cast iron skillet with the remaining olive oil and place under the broiler until it just begins to smoke, about two minutes. Carefully remove the pan and pour in the batter — just enough to coat the bottom of the pan — and swirl it around. Place it back in the oven for three to four minutes (watch it closely) until it begins to brown and blister and pull away from the sides of the pan.

3. Remove the pan from the broiler, and using a flexible spatula, turn the socca out onto a wire baking rack. Repeat the process until all of the batter is gone.

4. Sprinkle the socca with salt and pass around on a large platter, tearing off pieces to wrap around vegetables or (in our case) merguez.