For the Tea Drinker

I love tea.  Well, not all tea.  I love iced tea, I hate green tea, I love British blend tea, and I despise lukewarm tea of any sort.  My absolute favorite is the iced tea my grandma makes, even though she adds sweetener to it.  It's the tea I grew up on.

I used to be a full-packet-of-sweetener kind of gal.  Any time I ordered iced tea from a restaurant, I'd empty the packet into my cup and add even more when the server topped it off.  We never call the sweeteners by their brands; only by the color of the packets.  I switched to yellow when it came about, but because of my grandma, I started off partial to blue.  Then eventually I discovered raw sugar and went with that for a while.  But my juvenile taste buds matured about five years ago and I haven't voluntarily sweetened my tea since.

My aunt makes great tea.  It's strong.  Like, put-some-hair-on-your-chest strong.  Two packets of black tea and one of green, then steep in hot water until it's the color of coffee; cool to room temp on the counter and serve over ice.  If you're bold enough to drink this tea at all then there's no reason to sweeten it.  It's grown-up tea (and not the kind with rum and triple sec and all manner of other craziness) (in case you're wondering, yes I did need to Google 'Long Island Iced Tea' to figure out what's in it...I don't dabble with that stuff).

My favorite hot tea du jour is currently Suzette's Jasmine Orangerie.  It's loose-leaf tea that comes in a tres chic little red bag.  The flavor is light and floral with notes of orange.  Follow the directions on the bag to the letter; brew it any longer than two minutes and it starts to taste a little mucky.  I'll let you know if I find anything I like better, but I still have about a dozen teacups' worth of Orangerie left in the bag.  Talk to me in a couple weeks.

And now I think I'll brew another cup before the Blackhawks game starts.  It's part of my tradition.

~AF

A Fun Little Bistro, Hidden in Plain Sight

In Wheaton, Illinois, there are many places to eat.  One of my favorites is definitely Suzette's Creperie.  It's unassuming in both location and facade.  You could almost miss seeing it if you weren't looking carefully.  But once you get inside, you feel as though you've been transported to a cafe along the Champs-Elysées.

The restaurant itself is not just small...it's teeny-tiny.  They've managed to cram enough tables into the cramped space that a patron could quite literally rub elbows with his or her neighbor.  But this is one of the things that makes it unique.  It's bustling and serene all at once.

During my last visit to the creperie, I had a butternut squash-apple cider soup, pictured right, topped with a delicate, flower-patterned drizzle of creme fraiche.  It was just sweet. Not cloyingly so, but sweet all the same.  While it was tasty and innovative (cider was a great complement to the squash), I would have loved something more acidic in it than just the cider or the creme. 

My entree was a quiche with goat cheese, spinach, and tomato (shown left.  The crust was flaky and muted in flavor.  It wasn't there so much as a carb-laden star of the dish, but rather as a little something to hold the structure of the quiche together.  And I liked that idea.  When it comes to crust, I am a decided minimalist.

Each entree is served with a small green salad, a mesclun mix with a touch of red onion, dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette.  Believe me, this is probably the tastiest garnish you will ever consume.  Maybe it looks blah...but eat it.  Just stop complaining and eat it.  You'll like it.

The true food epiphany for me occurred at the very end of the meal.  I had heard of French macarons, but had never tried them.  For those who may not know, they are essentially sandwich cookies, usually light wafers with some sort of glaze-like frosting in between.  And as I found out, they are delicious.

Suzette's macarons are not necessarily the most authentic ones in town.  The cookies are a little cakier and chewier than a so-called "proper" macaron.  But this is hardly a pitfall.  It gives them a little more substance. 

The featured flavors were chocolate, pistachio, and raspberry.  The chocolate cookie was most macaron-like in nature; the cookie was almost crumbly, and the frosting was a ganache.  The pistachio was cakey, the filling was fluffy and light, and the flavor was spot on. 

Both were tasty, but my absolute favorite was the raspberry (that's the one with a bite out of it).  The cookie was chewy, and, though I don't know why, this made it totally awesome.  It also allowed the cookie to stand up better to the (hold your applause) raspberry jam that the baker smeared inside, along with the fluffy, creamy, almost marshmallowy frosting.

And so my first bistro post draws to a close.  Enjoy the pictures of pretty food, and check out Suzette's if you're so inclined.  C'est magnifique.