Consider the cider

Yes, I’m in the oyster zone and I haven’t eaten nearly my fill this fall. When I think of perfect oysters past, I’m put in mind of a meal and setting so perfect it will make you want to gag. It was a sunny and windy day in Normandy in the summer of 2001, when 911 was just an emergency code and the franc was still legal tender. One hundred of them – about $15 – would get you a superb prix fixe meal in Paris.

My parents were visiting me and Josh, my then-boyfriend, while we were living in Paris for the summer. After a mesmerizing turn at the Bayeux Tapestry we headed toward the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial on the English Channel by Omaha Beach. We were pretty hungry after examining that gorgeous tapestry so we stopped at a small seaside restaurant right on La Manche.

It sounds cliché, but it does seem like it’s generally the unplanned meals that end up being the ones you can remember decades later, the ones you’ll probably bore your grandkids with. I guess it’s the lack of anticipation or expectation. We sat at a picnic table on a deck right on the water and shared a plate of oysters, two of mussels and a bowl of frites. My mother, who grew up in Belle Harbor, Queens, right at the ocean, was in shellfish heaven. My father, on the other hand, was from Sunnyside, Queens, only a few miles inland but galaxies away when it came to eating raw seafood. Plus, he had grown up in a mostly kosher home (except when his mother snuck in shrimp cocktail for the kids).

Josh and I were stupid with joy and bivalves. The beverage: a dry lightly sparkling hard cider, the kind you can get all over France and Canada. That dry cider was very much a part of the meal and I do believe that it is a most satisfying partner to the oyster.

The Times ran a piece last week on the ice cider trail in Quebec. We’re a little clueless about hard cider south of the border but there is a growing cider movement in the States and Autumn Stoscheck of Eve’s Cidery in Ithaca, New York is one of its pioneers. The 28-year old Stoscheck and her husband make dry and semi-dry hard cider as well as peach-apple wine and apple ice wine. I love the driest, Northern Spy, and that probably comes closest to the Norman cider we drank that summer day in France. The ice wine is a kick. It’s very sweet but has a nice acid backbone that makes you want to taste and taste and taste.

When I spoke to Autumn a few weeks ago, she said she thought that cider was the ideal beverage to drink when cooking. She says it’s refreshing, light and is made from 10% alcohol, a little less than wine. I thought I’d test Autumn’s theory on Friday night. As I cooked lamp chops, curried cauliflower, roasted asparagus and couscous, I opened a bottle of the semi-dry Autumn’s Gold. The cork popped violently and about a quarter of the cider landed on the floor, and counter and me. Once I cleaned up the mess and actually put the stuff in my mouth I thought, Autumn is not wrong. It is delightful to sip cider while cooking. It was even more delightful to sip cider with my friend Miho who came over for dinner.

So I’ve got oysters on the agenda for the next few weeks. I’ll let you know when I check them off my to-do list. Also on the agenda is finding a BYO oyster restaurant so I can bring Autumn’s cider along for the ride.