Cooking with Madame Sportif

Last week Madame Sportif (my new French neighbor) invited me over to cook chez elle. As you can imagine, I accepted her invitation and was thrilled for several reasons. The primary of those being that I finally (after all these years!) had another French woman that I could observe. It is all fine and well living off of the lessons I learned from Madame Chic and Bohemienne but those memories are becoming more and more vague as the years pass and I needed a refresher course.

You remember the Sportifs… Madame and her family are living in Santa Monica for one year and I am the lucky neighbor next door. It did take us nearly six months to get up the courage to make plans together, but then again, this is L.A. and that is quite rapid for next door neighbor relations!

We met and though initially nervous, (my French is very rusty- no one speaks it in L.A.) we really hit it off and spent four hours cooking and chatting.

On the menu? Leek tart or tarte aux poireaux , pear gratin and coconut macaroons. Madame Sportif, of course, did not use a recipe (they never do!) and showed me how to make the perfect tart crust. The leek tart consisted of a béchamel of leeks with Swiss cheese on top. It was delicious… the pear gratin equally so. We had such a lovely afternoon chatting. I asked her so many questions (she probably thought I was extremely nosy). What does she cook every night for dinner? How does she shop for groceries? Exercise? Raising children? Family life?

Luckily she didn’t find my insatiable curiosity regarding her French life too annoying (I think she was rather flattered. And to be fair, she had a lot of questions about my lifestyle) and we have planned to cook together once a month until she goes back to France.

I will divulge my findings in future posts. But in the meantime, the tarte aux poireaux and pear gratin are pictured above.

P.S. Madame Sportif found it very comical that I took a picture of our lunch… the things I do for you readers!