Even as the temperature mounts, 33° celsius and rising, prepare for the convivial crowd around your July 4th grill with a batch of crackers. Not fireworks, no firecrackers yet, just a tray of zippy biscuits - as munchable with cold beer as with a glass of fruity sangria.  As I made these, variations on the theme were reeling round my culinary imagination.  For openers, make the Almond Sesame version, then try your own riff using other flours, seeds and spices.  Made in the cool hours of a summer morning, this type of cracker/biscuit can be sealed away in a tight tin for a week - if there are any left.

In a large bowl, mix together the dry ingredients, then cut in tiny chunks of cold butter with a pastry blender as for a pastry crust; stir in the yogurt and form a soft dough. Let the dough chill for 15 minutes, then take a quarter from the fridge to shape each batch. For crisper crackers, roll thinner (a bit trickier to manage) or cut back the baking powder by 1 tsp. Tasty gâteaux savoreux, rolled 1/4 inch thick and cut into diamonds, are perfect partners for dips.  This recipe makes about 60 to 70 crackers.

1/2 cup/85 g. ground almonds+ 2 tsp. Hungarian paprika (hot)

1 c./120 g. wheat flour (organic if possible) + 1/2 c/60 g. fine cornmeal

2 tsp. brown sugar + 1/2 tsp. fine salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda mixed with 2 tsp. baking powder

2 T. white sesame seeds, dry toasted + 1 T. black sesame seeds, dry toasted

1/2 cup/1 stick/115 g. cold butter chopped into bits

2/3 c/150 ml whole milk Greek style yogurt

extra sprinkling of flour for rolling out the crackers

Coat your fingers with flour, then work the dough into a ball in the bowl. When it pulls together, turn it out onto the flour-dusted work  surface (a cold slab of marble for shaping pastry works very well in warm weather). Work the dough gently, kneading as for bread dough for just a few minutes. Put it into a smaller, clean bowl, cut the ball of dough into 4 and cover. Chill for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 350°f/177°c. Remove one quarter of the dough at a time to shape each into a rectangle 10″ long and 3 to 4 ” wide, less than 1/4 ” thick. Cut into three parts lengthwise. With a long spatula, slide a strip at a time onto the baking sheet, prick with tines of a fork, brush with a beaten egg, and cut diagonally to form diamonds - or rectangles. Sprinkle with sea salt mixed with ground black pepper. Use a finger’s width spacing between them.  Bake on the top and lowest racks of the oven for 20 minutes if rolled thin; baking time is closer to 25 minutes for 1/4″ - until golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes, then shift to a rack.  Store in metal tins lined with baking paper.  These festive bites were inspired by Ruth Cousineau’s recipe in June 2009 Gourmet magazine, using cornmeal and green peppercorns.

The lure of the open road is so magnetic now:  back lanes and distant horizons spin into  summer’s dream destinations.  And as with all dreams - some are possible, even probable - while others must rest on the dreams shelf for later realization.  Maybe you also have a dreams shelf, where books bring to life far away places that one can only imagine exploring. When the travel itch bites and I know that a chair under the maple tree is as far as I can go,  I reach for one of the 500 Journeys series by National Geographic Books.  Journeys of a Lifetime was their first, and this summer I am lapping up all of the pages in the  “In Gourmet Heaven” chapter.  “A Wine Route through Hungary” takes me back to the Putza plains , “A Bedouin Feast” piques my curiosity about Jordan’s cardamom in coffee, and I even reread my own entry on a Sicilian Food and Wine. The destinations that the vagabondgourmand wrote number five in this book of dream journeys, and eleven for their next book, a stunning collection of Sacred Places of a Lifetime. Soon I will be curious to read what other travel writers reveal in the next up, Food Journeys - to be released in the autumn.

As cookbooks go, many of my collection serve to take me there….to northern Italy or Spain, the Greek Islands or southern Sweden. Thanks to a new title on my dreams shelf, I’ve been introduced to Swedish pastries, and the idea of going to Gothenburg’s historic old town grows more appealing. Vicarious travel begins with baking, steaming or stewing from the desired destination - a taste of what may lie ahead.  When I opened A Taste of Haga to Apple & Almond buns, Nougatine biscuits, a Victoria Torte covered with a delicate layer of marzipan, then Almond Horseshoes, the cobblestone streets and cozy cafés of the Haga quarter of Gothenburg became almost palpable.  My antenae are always up for almond details:  Haga’s bakeries come in loud and clear.  After a reality check on timing for the months ahead,  southern Sweden may be off my travel map, but in the meantime, there are recipes to sample…and one can always dream.

Dream shelf details:   Journeys of a Lifetime, 500 of the World’s Greatest Trips, published by National Geographic Books.  See site: www.nationalgeographic.com/books.  A Taste of Haga, by Eija Niskakari, was published in 2008 by Ic Bokförlag, Forma Publishing Group AB.

Time for berries and cherries? Absolutely! And when the baskets are full, with no time for stirring jams and jellies, what to do?  This was a banner year for both red and yellow cherries - friends were giving them away: Eau de vie to the rescue!  Basic fruit spirits preserve all sorts of fruit, but when I reached for a jar in the pantry….oh, oh…..only vodka was at hand.  After an over-the-fence counsel, a short course from my petite voisine (little neighbor), I was ready to pot up the lovely cherries. Once the fruit is clean (any firm fruit will do, but avoid soft fruit like strawberries) and some are de-stemmed, they are ready to pop into a sterile canning jar (Mason, Kilner type wide-mouthed glass jars).  She said simply:  2/3 spirits - pour that over the cherries, then top it up with a light sugar syrup, cooled.  Basic ratio:  2/3 spirits to 1/3 simple syrup. Scald the lids and rings, set in place and screw on tight. Within a week, the fruits’ colors change, becoming muted as they wait….

Our cherries will be bathing in spirits for a year, waiting in a dark, cool cupboard for the 4th year celebration of VagabondGourmand!  This week marks our 3rd year on the Net, gathering impressions and passing them along. You have watched as the posts evolve, become more frequent, more varied and covering more ground.  I see a loyal following emerging, as thousands of visitors flock around - more specifically from Canada, from France and Ireland over the last 6 months. Bienvenue, and let us know what you would like to read about as the vagabond forages farther afield for the best ingredients, unusual markets, a dash of history, news and local color.  And because I know you will read more pages with every visit, from your perch somewhere in the wide world, I thank you again…merci mille fois!

There is no easier bread to bake than Fougasse. That was my conclusion this morning when I stirred up a small batch of this ever-so-basic bread before lunch.  Fougasse was originally an unleavened “hearth bread”, baked under the coals or cinders in the fireplace or bake oven in the “casa foganha“, the kitchen of an Occitan farm. Clearly, it is humble fare.  Traveling across southeastern France today, the region of Occitania called Provence, one doesn’t hear the Occitan language spoken (except, occasionally in the back country livestock fairs) anymore. You may sometimes hear the rustic Fougasse called “ladder bread”  shaped in circles, rectangles or leaves with slits in the dough. Some bakers top the dough with olives, salt, seeds and herbs, while others make a simply unadorned, delicious loaf.

To have Fougasse for lunch, begin 2 to 3 hours ahead by letting 1 teaspoon of dry yeast proof in 3 tablespoons warm water for 10 minutes. Warm bowls and flour at room temperature speed up the process. Measure* 250 g/2 cups bread flour (a light whole wheat flour works well - I use organic T80) into a warm bowl and make a well in the center, pour the dissolved and slightly thickened yeast mixture into the well.  Dissolve 1 teaspoon sea salt in 2 tablespoons water (it should not be mixed directly with the yeast), then mix it with the flour:  use a long handled wooden spoon or stand mixer with a dough-hook (wish I had space for one!), sprinkling more flour to make a workable dough as it pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  Oil your hands with olive oil, pull the dough together and knead on a lightly oiled surface. Add a little more flour if needed, turn and pummel the dough as it becomes more elastic, then form into a ball. Let it rise in an oiled bowl until doubled (about 2 hours, depending on temperature), punch down and split in half; on an oiled metal baking sheet, shape into rectangles and flatten them out to form 2 leaves or rectangles. Let rest, covered, for 30 to 50 minutes. Turn the oven on to 225°c/420° to preheat for 35 minutes.  At this point, you can make slits like the veins of a leaf, poke the top with a fork, or poke with your finger overall to make a dimpled surface. Brush with oil, lightly press 1 tablespoon chopped fresh (Not dried) rosemary leaves and sea salt over the surface. To top with olives, gently press halves of pitted olives into the top. Bake for 10 minutes, then lower temperature to 200°c/400°f  for another 15 minutes - but watch that it doesn’t brown too much. For a crunchy crust, spray with a water-mist sprayer when you put them into the oven, or put a pan of water in the lower half of the oven. If you like a puffier bread, don’t roll it too thin and avoid misting. The thinner style of Fougasse is more like a crisp Ligurian Focacia - a close cousin - both traced to the Latin foyer, hearth or focus of the home.  Toss a green salad, set forth a plate of local cheeses, pour chilled rosé into glasses all around…. an easy-going summer lunch is ready!

*For larger loaves (more coming for lunch?) follow a ratio of 5 parts flour to 3 parts water as  proportions. This and heaps of other sensible advice is at hand in Michael Ruhlman’s book: RATIO, The simple codes behind the craft of everyday cooking, published this year by Scribner. Keep it IN the kitchen, for referral on everything from custard and ganache to toffee.

Note: Rosemary, romarin, is tender in June, the perfect time to chop it onto a fougasse or to freeze stems for later use - by the end of the summer, the rosemary leaves stiffen up like little green needles…. gather your rosemary while ye may.

With a ruling that rosé wine must be made in the traditional method, using contact with grape skins rather than blending red with white wine, Europen Union officials this week reversed what could have been a low blow for French wine-makers.  But it wasn’t only the voice of French vignerons that turned the tide:  Italy, Greece and Hungary raised their objections to blended rosés. The ruling was due to take effect as of August 1, so the pressure on Brussels this month was insistent - to the point that the European Agriculture Commisioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, withdrew the upcoming June 19th vote.  A sigh of relief was voiced in regional newspapers across southern France.  If passed, the ruling would have decimated over thirty years of refining quality control in making French rosé, and would allow blush-plonk to flood café terraces across Europe.  Loss of jobs would accompany loss of quality and leave the growing, discerning rosé market in the lurch.

Making rosé is not a simple process, as I learned in a recent conversation with a Bordeaux winemaker, Jacques Demonchaux. “It is more challenging to make a good rosé than to make a good red wine”, he explained in the tasting room at Château Pierrail. The temperature must be cool, between 5 and 15° c/42° to 59° f, and maceration (when skins and pulp are left in contact with the fresh grape juice)  is closely watched for 2 to 24 hours. I lifted a glass of the limpid rosé to the light, admiring both its luminosity and translucent qualities before sipping the fragrant, refined wine. To get to this point is a tricky process, one that can be appreciated best by sampling the many styles and hues of traditionally made rosé, whether from the Var or the southwest - each region has its own twist on the refreshing theme. The rosé learning curve is underway, with summer months ahead to pair rosés with fresh fish and cold soups.  And we can cheer with the Italian agriculture minister who acclaimed the decision: “Tradition has prevailed!”

Sites for more about rosé:   Look for wines from a vinyard in the Var, www.peyrassol.com - try their fruity, pale rosé. For a deeper toned, complex wine, try rosé from www.chateaupierrail.com, made in the eastern reaches of the Bordeaux Supérieur region. Both are well worth a visit for their historic settings, as well as their fine wines.

June’s open roads offer optimum timing to ramble across the French hexagon - before the school year is over and everyone is en vacance.  In July it will be the juilletistes, followed by aoûtiens in August flocking to French beaches and mountainsides. The vagabond, after traveling to summer fêtes and foires to write La France Gourmande, is fed up with clogged roads and bouchon (bottlenecks) around cities, preferring June to find “the road less traveled”.  And if you find the backways and byways of the south appealing, head to the northeast corner of Provence to both taste and observe age-old traditions.

The Transhumance, when sheep are driven to higher ground for summer grazing, is good reason for two fêtes in the Verdon region. One will take place on Sunday, June 14th in Castellane, and another Fête de la Transhumance follows June 21st in Riez. But be ready for another kind of slow traffic:  the sheep fill the main street - a sort of four-footed bouchon.

Haute Provence celebrates local bread traditions on June 21st in Pourcelles, when bread ovens are filled with fougasse and pompe à l’huile for their Fête du Pain. On higher ground in the Mercantour, Jausiers brings folks together with their Fête du Pain on June 27-28th.  All of these fêtes are a little off the beaten track, in the refreshing air of Provence’s stunning back country.

Reference sites: www.alpes-haute-provence.com/sorties  and www.jausiers.com .  Watch this space for a provençal fougasse recipe….soon.

Fête des Plantes, Floralies, Foire aux Fleurs…anywhere in France during May and June, plant-shoppers flock to their favorite plant specialists’ stalls to bring color back home.  In fact, color, fragrance, and taste are all to be found  in every Foire aux Fleurs. Vendors gather in a church square, or on the grounds of medieval monasteries to tempt gardeners of all stripes.  Geraniums for your balcony? Maple trees and bushes of great diversity to enhance your slopes or lawns?  A Meyer Lemon tree for the terrace (and pies in good time), bamboos or ferns, perennials or old roses are all to be admired - and bought - in this season’s floralies.

Two of the vagabond’s favorite plant festivals are set against 13th century walls.  In Cadouin, between Bergerac and Sarlat, stalls sprawl across the square of the grey stone abbey church that was once a stopping point for pilgrims on the route to St. Jaques de Compostella. Now, the village May Floralies draws some of the finest plant specialists in  southwest France.  Whether one is searching for a special cyclamen or pots of lavender, a wide variety of greenery and related wares tempt gardeners.  How many new kinds of peppers can you find for the potager?  The vagabond succumbs to enticing piments et aromatiques each year at the Cadouin fair.

At L’Abbaye - Nouvelle, a 13th century Cistercian site in the Lot  south of Gourdon, a Fête des Plantes in May brings together vendors of everything from bonsai to aquatic plants, as well as camelias and jasmins.  Usually held on Sunday, floralies fit into my calendar of special markets, a visual feast as well as  a chance to bring fragrance home….and to watch a new season unfold in the garden.

A note on the Poppy shown above:  the star of the borders this week is Picotee, a robust poppy found at a plant fair three years ago.  Picotee has a different tint or orange sorbet blush every year.  And the seed pods are always left to dry, ready to poke open and sprinkle a few black seeds into yogurt cakes or for an added crunch in a crumb crust for fish.  Any poppy seed recipe ideas are welcome…to include in the Poppy Seed file - comments and tips bienvenue!

Morels?  Cèpes? Too early for Girolles - but let’s be on the lookout anyway: May is mushroom time.  Maybe your “woods” are in Michigan, in Minnesota, or just over the line in northern Iowa.  Or perhaps your sturdy mushroom-walking stick is poking through a ferny forest floor in the Périgord - where  every hunter needs a good “mushrooming stick”.  The Périgord’s brief morel season has slipped past, usually a fleeting moment late in March. One year I spotted three fine morels under our pear tree about that time, but no such luck this time around.  So, when friends brought us a fern-lined basket of cèpes this week, the mushroom-loving vagabond was delighted.

Get out the black cast-iron skillet, the mushroom season is underway! Whether you call them cèpes,  porcini or boletus edulis, a healthy dose of garlic, parsley, and duck fat are the traditional partners for enhancing their earthy flavor.  To keep them fresh for a few hours before cooking, wrap them in ferns and avoid contact with plastic.  The first step in preparing cèpes is simply to wipe off the cap and stem, then chop the stem and mix it with minced garlic and chopped (flat-leaf) parsley in a bowl to add later. Peel and slice rounds of firm, red-skinned potatoes (ratio of at least 1 cup  sliced spuds for each mushroom). Heat 2 tablespoons of duck fat (or olive oil) in your good old skillet, and add the sliced potatoes, stir to turn them over and as some crisp and become transparent, add the cèpes - left whole if small, in slices if large. Then, don’t be surprised if the mushrooms seem to dissolve, melting with the heat, infusing the pototoes with flavor. Add the chopped stems with garlic and stir the mixture, lower the heat and cover, to cook for 20 to 30 minutes. Check at least 3 times, turning so nothing sticks and burns, a little more oil or duck fat is usually needed.  Sprinkle with more chopped parsley and serve with a green salad tossed with a lemon vinaigrette dressing. Other than a cold beer or a glass of white wine, you’ll need only good company to complete a perfect spring lunch.

“Damage, major damage today in Aquitaine vineyards” - news carried like wildfire about hail the size of pigeon eggs.  “It was raining ice the size of 2 Euro coins”… or pingpong balls, depending on which report I read.  About sundown last night, violent hailstorms swept from Angoulême in the Charente across Cognac vineyards, with force enough to leave car roofs dappled with dents.  Some mighty pigeon eggs, I would say. The winds, lightning and hail swept across the Médoc north of Bordeaux, leaving vines in Margaux vineyards with barely a leaf intact.  Two phases of grapes, just in delicate first growth have been stripped from the vines across Blaye, Bourg, Fronsac, Entre-Deux-Mers, and St. Emilion.  Counting on 300 to 500 grapes per vine, winemakers are faced with less than 50 fruits per vine, but the leaves that should protect them from summer sun have been put through nature’s  shredder. Estimates of loss in some vineyards run between 70% and 100%.

The Gironde (now matched by the Hérault region in the Languedoc) is the largest wine-making region in France.  Damage wrought by the storm stretches south of Bordeaux into the Graves, Barsac and Sauternes region, about which I have recently been absorbed in research. When I heard an interview with the mayor of La Brède (yes, the home of the philosopher and winemaker, Montesquieu) in the Graves, the news struck a chord. These horages devastateurs not only compromise the harvest of 2009, but will have an impact on wines of 2010. The regional news’ apocalyptic images of bare vines in the Cognac region only reinforce the impact of this disaster for winemakers - and for wine lovers.

For more (in French) see: www.france-info.com/ or www.sudouest.com/charente/actualité, or www.aquitainemeteo.com

Green and fuzzy, the early stages of an almond’s life hold little in common with the adult nuts that we roll into Christmas kringle or Noël gâteaux.  In fact, what can you do with the sour little brats - within a few days, baby almonds go from a viscous gel to a tangy white lozenge that melts on your tongue.  Fragile, edgy, prone to changing character within hours, the green almond is not a volume item in shops.  A small basket of the pale green nuts - if you are lucky to spot one  in the produce cooler - might be found from April to June in Whole Foods Markets, or in the open markets of Provence. In San Francisco last spring about this time, I spotted a basketful in a Ferry Plaza restaurant - but backed up when someone pointed to the “No Photos” sign.  Since the vagabond is not close to green almond venues, and since the four (at last count) almonds clinging to the top of my almond tree are inaccessible, I was most grateful when friends returned from Perpignan with a branch in tow.  Not a laurel branch, but this was a stem loaded with downy-soft green almonds from the windy Roussillon, one of the best French almond regions.

“What will you DO with them?” my friends asked.  I slit one to extract a rather soft ivory almond, popped it in my mouth and puckered up. Maybe ‘tangy’ is too gentle a word for this stage.  This is the almond for tapas tables - I can imagine bowls of them on bars in Barcelona:  shell it, dip into sea salt, then do that again, with a sherry apéro.  So, the green almond lends itself to salty, appetizing tidbits…and to topping seafood tossed with pasta. With a few more almond branches, I would give the mortar and pestle some pesto action, to blend the green almonds with fresh herbs such as tarragon and chives and a few capers stirred with oil and minced aillet garlic. Chefs team green almonds with everything from squid to chilled soups.  Why not try that…a cauliflower soup accented with delicate green almonds?

This recipe, concocted as a foil for the strange little almonds, is a simple vegetable soup:  wash 2 leek whites (about 400 grams) thoroughly, chop, then sauté in a soup pot with 2 tablespoons duck fat or vegetable oil.  When the leeks have cooked about 10 minutes, add 1 cup chopped celery branch with leaves, cook another 5 minutes and add a medium head of cauliflower, (just under 500 grams) trimmed of leaves, and chopped (include the core/stem chopped).  Pour 5 cups of water into the pot, add a bay leaf and 2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves (add fresh tarragon, too - if you have it) and bring to a simmer. Cook the soup for 30 to 40 minutes until all is soft, add salt, (remove bay leaf) blend to a coarse purée with a blending wand. Taste for seasoning: a chicken bouillon cube and pinch of salt may be added to your taste; if it is too thick add a little white wine or water and cook 10 minutes longer. Let the soup cool, then refrigerate overnight.  Prepare the almond garnish, slitting each almond open, slicing lengthwise (depending on the stage - the gel-center stage is best chopped crosswise).  In a shallow bowl, mix seasalt (such as fleur de sel), ground white pepper and a pinch of Hungarian paprika - toss the shelled almonds in this before serving (not too long in advance or the almonds will ‘weep’).  Serve the soup in small bowls - or in chilled lowball glasses -  topped with the seasoned green almonds.  Or… if it is a cold, rainy spring evening, reheat the soup and serve hot, topped with the baby almonds, and a pair of sesame grissini at each place.  Pour a chilled Montravel white wine, to toast Spring in all its phases.