An Interview with French Food at Home’s Laura Calder: Part II

KS: What was the first meal you remember eating?

LC: Fried potato skins.  My mother used to bake potato skins, and these are organic of course, they have to be.  You eat your potato flesh and then you have the skin.  She used to fry that with butter and it was absolutely delicious.

KS: What would be your death row dinner?

LC: Oh boy, I don’t think I’d be able to eat frankly, but… I think it would have to be something family-orientated, one of my mother’s soups.  My mother’s very good at, you know, hearty kinds of soups, so something like fish chowder or a beef stew.  Maybe a big beef stew.

KS: What food reminds you of your grandmother?

LC: Baked beans, baked homemade bread, biscuits and that kind of thing, and definitely all the fish chowder and corn chowder and beef stew with dumplings in it.  English cakes, you know, those English cookies with the thumbprint and the jam in them.

KS: What do you make when you are in love?

LC: I make everything, I cook like crazy, and preferably with the person I’m in love with.  Cook like a demon and eat it.  You work up appetite for another round.

KS: And what about when you’re out of love?

LC: The way I cook on the show is the way I cook for myself.  I don’t cook differently for me than I do for when people are coming over.  I cook, I don’t cook for other people.  I cook for me and whoever gets to eat.

KS: If there were a dish that was made à la Calder, what would be the recipe, something that’s signature you?

LC: Oh well there would definitely be orange and lemon zest in it.  Because people are always joking they know when I’ve been in their house because there’s not a skin left on an orange in the house.  I’m always running around with a zester putting it on everything.  So that’s kind of a touch.  And then anything that I serve, [it’s by] putting a big platter on the table.  If I can put it on a platter on the table, I do, and even if I have individually portioned things, like say a little pot de crème, I put them all on one platter and then put them out.  I can’t stand the little individual things.  It drives me nuts.

KS: The last question, what is your favourite restaurant in Paris?

LC: Actually, I don’t eat out very much at all.  I always used to say my preference is to go eat at someone’s house in Paris.