Joie de Vivre: Simple French Style for Everyday Living by Robert Arbor

Arbor believes whole heartedly in casual elegance. He grew up in the French countryside and now owns nine restaurants in New York and Boston. In this book he offers us insight into how to bring that style into our own lives. My favorite parts are his descriptions of meals among friends and market days. I would love to try Patis, an anise flavored liquor. Also Kir, a combination of white wine and crème de cassis. He recommends only Valrhona chocolate, 75 percent pure, for cooking and drinking. I made his Honeyed Fruit Salad at least 8 times this last summer. For breakfast, I would love to have my own café au lait bowl to use each day. How he makes a breakfast tartine on a baguette every morning. Use European butter with a higher fat content, 82 percent. Relax and contemplate the day ahead.

My sister, Lisa, has an apricot tree overrun with ripe delicious fruit, so I made this recipe. Half of it I covered with Crumble recipe . And the other half of it I saved as sort of a stewed fruit dish, then I discovered that it goes in a smoothie perfectly.

Basic Fruit Compote

3 pieces of large fruit, such as apple, pear, peach
Butter, a thumb-size chunk
Juice of ½ lemon
1 vanilla bean, split, with the inside scraped out
1 cup sugar, or to taste

Peel fruit, remove cores, cut into ½ inch chunks.
Melt butter in skillet and add fruit. Add lemon juice and vanilla bean scrapings. Add ½ cup sugar.
Cook on low heat, covered, until fruit is just tender. Do not brown. Add more sugar, if necessary. Keep in covered glass jar in the fridge.