The PB Murals: Pascaline et ses confitures

The market scene of the murals includes a table run by Philippe's maman, the truly lovely Mme. Pascaline Rispoli. While she doesn't actually sell her wares at the marché in Lyon, she does make confitures (jams) at home in France, and for the restaurant, when she is visiting here on Cape Cod, so I gave her a prime spot in the market mural, just for fun. 

Pascaline's jam has been acclaimed by the director of France's Guide Michelin ... and Daniel Boulud has called it, "the best jam in the world."

Philippe emailed me this photo of Pascaline, which I used as inspiration for my mural portrait of her.

I had to accentuate her features and the shadows, so they could be seen from a distance. 

Above, the painting in process

The finished market scene of Pascaline and her creations (above)

While Philippe's parents live near Lyon, they do come to visit Cape Cod several times each year, and Pascaline makes many jars of her confiture, each time she's here, depending on what's in season. Locals know her jams and can't wait to get their hands on each new batch, before they disappear. If your supply runs out, you just have to wait until Pascaline's next visit, to taste her divine creations.

Some of Pascaline's fabulous jams, available for purchase at PB Boulangerie Bistro.

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Recently, I had the great good fortune to make a batch strawberry jam with Pascaline, in the kitchen of PB Bistro. Besides being a lot of fun (comparing stories of motherhood and how we both weep when saying goodbye to our children for a long period of time), I learned a few new trucs or astuces (tips) I hadn't known before.

The strawberries were cleaned & hulled the night before, as Pascaline likes to let the fruit macerate in the sugar overnight. She says she likes to put in the minimum of sugar, so that the flavor of the fruit can shine through - which I wholeheartedly agree with. She adds a piece of butter to the pot, which keeps down the problem of the fruit boiling over. It works really well. I look forward to trying this at home, as I usually have such a fierce rolling boil, I cannot stop stirring for a second! 

While she uses a chaudron en cuivre (copper jam pot) at home, in France - as I do in my own kitchen - Pascaline uses these professional chefs' pots (below) in the restaurant kitchen. They have the same open surface area, which aids in the fruit reducing and gelling, and the bottoms of these are insulated. 

Two types of jam she will make today - one plain strawberry, and one strawberry/blueberry

 My new friend, Pascaline, stirring the pot

 The fruit darkens as it cooks

Ladling the jam into sterilized jars

The finished product! Pascaline immediately turns her jars upside down - another truc I hadn't known about. She says this helps keep a better seal. She turns them right side up after they have cooled.

Best yet - tasting the finished product on a fresh croissant from PB Boulangerie!

I have told Pascaline about the Concord grape jam I make here in the Autumn, and we plan to make it together when she's here next Fall. This is an American specialty she's not familiar with, so I can't wait to surprise her taste buds with some - freshly picked and made on Cape Cod.

The PB Murals: The Market Wall

Le marché - the market scene - is another that might be found in any French town or city. Here I have focused on Lyonnais specialties.

The chickens in their charming wooden crate are Poulets de Bresse, an exquisitely tasty chicken raised near Lyon and considered to be the best chicken in France, if not the world. They are corn fed and free range. The great Lyonnais chef, Paul Bocuse, has helped to make them known world-wide, but they have been classified as AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée - a trademark of local authenticity) since 1862. A fun fact about the Bresse chickens is that they are thought to be similar to the French flag (le tricolor de bleu/blanc/rouge) - blue legs, white feathers and red crests.

This video features a young, award-winning éléveur of volailles de Bresse. To those who aren't sure how Bresse could be so much better, he says, "Once you have it on your plate you will immediately know the difference."

The cheese seller offers local cheeses, such as St. Marcellin, Reblochon, fromages de chèvres, arôme de Lyon, Comté and Époisses. (I just happen to adore all of these cheeses, tops among them being St. Marcellin and Epoisses. Jack is a Reblochon lover.)

 A selection of our favorite cheeses - all from the area around Lyon (l to r): Reblochon, St. Marcellin, Époisses & Comté

The table in front features Pascaline Rispoli, mother of Chef Philippe, selling her homemade confitures (jams). While she does not really sell at the market in Lyon, her wonderful jams are available for purchase at PB...while they last. (If you miss out on getting some, just wait until Pascaline visits again!)

A selection of Pascaline's delectable jams at PB Boulangerie Bistro

The charcutier (cured meat seller) has hams, pâtés and other prepared meats beloved in Lyon. The poissoniers (fish sellers) in the foreground are offering local fish, as well as imported Cape Cod lobsters & Wellfleet oysters. This is fairly unrealistic, but we couldn’t resist! Even the people looking at the fish are Cape Codders on vacation. She is sporting her French straw market bag and he wears espadrilles, both newly purchased on this vacation.

Pigeons (squabs) are hunted and cooked in many French homes and restaurants.

Cooked squab is very flavorful - like a cross between dark meat chicken and duck.

The guignol (puppet theater) is another cherished tradition in Lyon. PB has some Lyonnais guinol puppets on display in their bistro.

In the upper left corner of this wall is the coat of arms of Lyon and the map in the upper right corner shows Lyon’s location in France.

Concord Grapes - One of Autumn's Sweetest Gifts

Last week, in my post on foraging, I promised to write more about making Concord grape jam with grapes that are ready to be harvested this time of year. Concord grape jam has such intense flavor and fragrance - there is nothing else like it! While we are picking the grapes, the aromas wafting from the vines and even down the road are strikingly vivid.

 Looking up under the wild vines, you see the grapes hanging down, plump and fragrant.

 The baskets we use for picking the grapes happen to be made out of grapevines, themselves, which somehow adds to the fun of it!

Grapes don't have much pectin in them, but (as with all fruits) the less ripe ones have more pectin than ripe ones. So I always try to combine some under-ripe berries with the riper ones. I also happen to like that they make the jam just a bit tart - not overly sweet.






The first step in making jam is to pick through the grapes, discarding any that are past their prime. They can be very ripe, but you don't want anything that is brown or moldy or smells "off". Then I rinse them in a strainer, under cold water. (Technically, if you are using organic produce you picked yourself, washing shouldn't be necessary, but I always do anyway.) Only wash the grapes right before you use them. You don't want them to become waterlogged.

Making any jam is all about proportions and cooking time. For Concord grape jam, the proportions are easy: 5 lbs. (2 1/3 kg) grapes to 5 cups (1 1/4 liters) of sugar. I measure my grapes on a digital scale, after I've picked through them and removed the stems, but before rinsing them.

This year, I made two different batches of grape jam, one incorporating the pulverized skins and one with the skins discarded after they had cooked. The batch with the skins produced a thicker jam, but no difference in flavor. The following pictures are of the former process:

If you do incorporate the skins, you must first separate the skin from the meat of each grape. This is surprisingly easy, as these grapes are of the slip-skin variety. Just a squeeze and the grape pops open...the inner grape will actually shoot across the kitchen if you're not careful where you aim! (Don't let your kids catch onto this fun little fact!) This part does take a while, which is why some people prefer to skip the skin separating stage.

 You end up with little Pac-Man shaped skins!
(You can always spot someone who likes to prowl around in the woods, by the scratches on their arms!)

Then, before cooking the grapes, pulverize the skins in a food processor, with a small portion of the sugar, before adding them to the pan with the grape meats and the rest of the sugar. I also add a generous splash of lemon juice. This helps activate the natural pectin in the grape skins. As happens so often, once I got into making the jam, I completely forgot to take pictures. However (luckily) Jessie, the author of one of my favorite food blogs, The Hungry Mouse, posted a superb description of this process, including her own great photos. Also included is this video submitted by one of Jessie's readers:

One thing I do a little differently, is to add some additional liquid fruit pectin to the pot, if needed (and I find it usually is). I add it sparingly, as I don't like my jams to be stiff. As I said above, cooking time is an essential part of making any jam. If you don't want to use pectin (although there is no reason not to, as it is completely natural) then you need to simmer your jam for longer, to reduce the amount of liquid in it, thereby thickening it. The main reason I add pectin is that I find the grape flavor is fresher when not cooked so long. I hate to smell so much of the flavor goodness going up in steam!

If you decide to go the easier route and just use the grapes whole in the jam pot, then you want to crush them with a potato masher. In either case, I strain the jam through a finer sieve than shown in the video, because, while the seeds may seem huge in your mouth, they are still small enough to pass through the holes of many colanders. They are quite bitter, if bitten into, so I like to keep them out of my finished product.

The finished jam has an incredible perfume to it, evoking for me, a combination of sweet red wine and jasmine flowers in full bloom - very heady.

I always end up making a lot of jam (and many different kinds), so I do process my filled jars in a boiling water bath, just to insure that the airtight seals will last a long time. Here's what we still have, after giving away quite a few jars:

Just divine!

Okay, so now I'm dating myself, but who remembers begging their mom to buy Welch's grape jelly in the Flintstone glasses? I always find it shocking when I discover something from my youth available at antique sales! LOL

Bon appetit!