Mr Francophile (aka Mr Bacon)

Bonjiorno Milano!

2008-01-02T03:21:00.000-08:00

Kind of like the SOUTHWEST of Europe, Katy and I were able to get tickets from Paris to Milan on EASYJET for just $80 or so each. Like Southwest, Easyjet is a first-come, first-serve, no-reserved-seat airline with very cheap pricing. But they do have new planes, and the flight was easy and we arrived into Malpensa with little drama, although the flight was delayed about 30-40 minutes. Most shockingly, though, was the baggage service.

When we arrive at JFK or SFO, we can generally count on a good 45min to an hour wait until we see our bags. We showed up at the baggage claim area at Malpensa...5 min later the conveyor belt starts moving...5 bags in are both of our bags. It was like a dream about what baggage claim should be!!!

On the other hand, the taxi ride from Malpensa to our hotel in the middle of Milan was less dreamy. Who would have thunk that the taxi would take nearly an hour and 75 euro (over $100) to get into town? Ouch. But we got to our hotel, the Westin Palace Milan, in the heart of the city at the Piazza Repubblica, and settled into a very large room...perhaps 3 times the size of our hotel room at the nice, but petite Hotel Bel Ami in Paris.

While still in Paris, I looked up an old friend of mine, Piero Scotti, from my SGI days who used to work in the SGI office in Milan. I hadn't talked to him in years, but thank yahweh for social networking services...it took all of 5 min for me to track him down. While in Paris, we exchanged e-mail catching up on the past 10 or so years and agreed to meet for dinner in Milan the night that Katy and I arrived.

Chowhound and Fodors seemed to agree that a restaurant called La Milanese was good for classic Milanese cooking, so I called the Westin while still in Paris to ask them to book us a table there...which the concierge very considerately did. Our late arrival at Malpensa and the long ride into town resulted in me being late to the restaurant by perhaps 30 min, but thankfully Piero was as well. Katy was feeling a bit under the weather, so we agreed that she should focus on her health and I went off to meet Piero on my own.

Taking the taxi into the center of old Milan, I arrived at the restaurant...located on a street that was barely wider than the taxi itself - very charming. My only concern was that the restaurant, which both Chowhounders and Fodors had called La Milanese was called Trattoria Milanese. This was the right address, I thought, but the name was different. In a bit of a panic, I called the concierge at the Westin and, even though he wordlessly booked the restaurant for me, told me that "there is no La Milanese - Trattoria Milanese is the name of the restaurant". Whew!

I think I'll have to have a word with Mr. Fodor.

Piero met me there and it was like no decade had passed between us at all. I had gotten on with him better than perhaps anyone at SGI in Europe and he and his wife had entertained me before. It turns out that he had moved from the Milan area to Umbria, where his wife is in city management in Todi and where they purchased a 600 year old mill house that they've been restoring.

~~Swedish penis enlargers~~ Restoring old houses is my bag, baby!

Anyway - had some decent fettuccini ai porcini, scallopini Milanese and, thanks to a great recommendation by the owner, a lovely bottle of Montepulciano and, to wrap it up, a warm, thick, creamy and absolutely delicious tiramisu. Oh yum.

Although I've always been in love with France, Italia (yes, Lisa, you were right) was starting to sing its siren song to me...

Farewell Paris!

2008-01-01T06:00:00.000-08:00

Well, after nearly seven beautiful, interesting, and inspirational weeks, the time had come to bid Paris adieu.

Katy was done with her work and we were off to Milan for the next phase of her project. Just four more days and we'd be off to Rome for our long-awaited vacation (since we actually had planned to be in Rome and Puglia in May of 2007 so that we could visit Katy's uncle Herb and aunt Joey in Rome, but we were forced to cancel since Katy had some critical work at the time and couldn't afford the time).

The departure was bittersweet. Paris was lit up in its Christmas glory. I had gotten a couple of great last-minute meals on my own while Katy was off at work (notably chef/owner Christian Constant's Les Cocottes where everything is served in a cocotte [basically a cast-iron covered cooking pot in various sizes - typically manufactured by Le Creuset or Staub], be it the velouté de potiron [pumpkin soup], the main or the dessert). I had walked around a little more to take in the last of the Parisien ambiance, and said my silent goodbyes.

On our last day, true to Paris form, we had a special treat. Searching for one last hot chocolate before leaving town, I took Katy to Steiger for that melted-dark-chocolate-bar cup of yumminess. Uh...no. Not doing hot chocolate today. Ugh. OK. Plan B. Head over to that standby classic of Paris hot chocolate luxury - Angelina's. Score! No big line of tourists out the door...they sat us in less than 5 minutes...and we had a wonderful salad (with foie gras, thank you very much) and a croque monsieur and, of course, their marvelous chocolat chaud.

Taking a taxi back to our hotel from Angelina's before heading to the airport, we got into a cab near the Rue Rivoli, told the driver where our hotel was, then this little guy peeks up over the passenger seat. Awwwwwwwww. What a nice way to end our visit!

Ciao, Italia!

A sweet farewell...

2008-01-01T05:42:00.000-08:00

Before Katy wrapped up her work in Paris and before we headed off to Milan for the next stage of her project, I stopped off at the shop of one of my favorite Pastry chefs, Pierre Hermé. At home in San Francisco, I have two of his cookbooks and I have used them extensively and with tremendous results. I just had to visit his palais de chocolat!

As a little present to Katy, I purchased a variety of his macarons - but not your garden variety Chocolate, Raspberry or Hazelnut. No...I got:

Vanilla (well, the girl just loves them, so this one was a gimme)
Caramel w/Fleur de Sel
Olive Oil Vanilla
White Truffle
Black Truffle
Foie Gras

Now for those of you who don't think that truffles and foie gras can be a dessert...I must now beg to differ. Sweetened, but not sweet, those truffles had rich earthy flavors and a touch of sweetness that made them both rich and unusual. I don't know that I'd have them every day (particularly since the black truffle Macaron was something like 8 euro), but it was truly a treat to get the chance to try them!

Katy, Girls. Girls, Katy.

2008-01-01T04:49:00.000-08:00

Since I'd been blathering on about Katy to my classmates for the whole of the 6 weeks that I was in school, and since two of my classmates, Sarah and Suzie, had taken on 1-week internships in the main kitchen of the Ritz and thus were still in town, I set up a lunch date so that they could meet Katy. One of our other classmates, Yuko, was in Paris for an extended stay and was getting ready to start more courses, so she was able to join us as well.

Sarah and Suzie were spending 8+ hours each day prepping vegetables, learning new techniques and recipes, and even plating some dishes...for paying customers...very cool.

Going through my research notes about where to eat in Paris, I kept seeing the name of one restaurant show up over and over on Chowhound and elsewhere. Mon Vieil Ami is a bistro just a couple of blocks away from Notre Dame, but on the Ile Saint Louis (Notre Dame is on the adjacent Ile de la Cité). Set in a very old building right on the main street that runs down the center of the island, they've chosen to "hip it up" a little - using modern tables, chairs and design, but retaining the amazing old exposed stone walls and enormous dark wood ceiling beams.

Suzie and Sarah met Katy and me at the Saint Germain metro stop nearest our hotel and we walked the mile or so to the bistro, meeting Yuko there. The day was beautifully sunny, but the wind was blowing and it was fri-gid! It wasn't unbearable as long as you kept moving, but it was certainly bracing.

We arrived at the restaurant and they sat us at a tall communal table to the left of the entry - there are also separate tables around the restaurant for parties of 2 or 4. The French couple seated right next to us greeted us as well...and became conversation partners through the rest of our meal...some in French, largely in English. The husband travelled the world for business, so he had been everywhere that each of us lived. Cool guy.

I just have to say that I've sat next to more nice people and started some great conversations over lunches and dinners in Paris. It was truly a warm place to be...even when it was cold.

Mon Vieil Ami is a modern bistro by Antoine Westermann specializes in Alsacienne cuisine, so there are german influences, various stews, soups, etc. We were blown away. The food was absolutely fabulous, but if you should choose to go, I heartily recommend sharing - the portions were huge - particularly the stews. I had a soup to start with cooked shrimp and decorative vegetables and herbs onto which they poured a lovely chestnut velouté (like a purée). I followed that with a Confit de Veau with roasted vegetables and fresh noodles served in a large dutch oven that was both huge and uh-maze-ing.

Suzie had this fabulous duck, also served in a dutch oven, perfectly cooked and seasoned, properly warm, and particularly enjoyable since it was not your traditional Parisienne bistro magret or confit.

The waiter was responsive, efficient...and had a very wry sense of humor. The only thing that caught me off guard was the wine.

I told him what we were having and what style of wine we were looking for. Rather than the typical pulling out of the wine list, pointing out various options and describing them, he just said "Ah", then walked off. He came back with a bottle of wine which, naturally, I expected he would show to me and describe. Nope. With nary a word, he opened the bottle and poured. I was a little shocked, but I tried it...and the wine was lovely...but I'd never had a waiter or sommelier do that before and wasn't sure that I liked the presumption. Nevertheless, it turned out well and he was great overall, so this is just an observation, not a complaint.

Over the course of nearly two hours, Katy, I and the girls enjoyed our several courses, Katy got to get a feel for my new friends and what it was like when we were all bantering back and forth at school every day, and we made some connections that I hope we can keep over the years as our travels bring us to Sarah's UK and China, Suzie's Thailand, and Yuko's Japan.

At the end of the day, we had a tremendous time and I can't help but recommend it - Mon Vieil Ami was truly fabulous.

She's here! She's here!

2008-01-01T04:28:00.001-08:00

Well, it was a few weeks ago, and "here" was Paris at the time, but I was pretty excited that after 6 weeks apart, Katy arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport on Dec 13th. We had planned to vacation together in Italy after my class, but by an amazing stroke of luck and fortunate timing, she and her company won a bid for a research project in Europe that would require a researcher in Paris and Milan starting just a week after the end of my classes!

Boo-ya!

So now I have to thank her company, Cheskin, for bringin' my baby back to me.

"Thank you, Cheskin!"

I do have a question for the airport authorities at CDG, though. Looking at this warning sign to the left of the passenger exit from customs, I have to wonder...what the heck is a person if they're not a "physical person"?

And with all of the hoopla in the US of A about Illegal Immigrants, why is it either (a) a problem to be a "legal person" or (b) 10 times as expensive a fine if you're a "legal person" versus a "physical person"?

Arunh?

Whatever. The girl's here. I'm happy.

Dinner with the Gang of Four

2008-01-01T04:13:00.000-08:00

With the end of our program approaching a few weeks ago, a few of my classmates and I decided to go to a restaurant - 404 - (which I'd been praising to them for some time) for a kind of farewell dinner. I'd been suggesting that they all go for a while, but with my time in Paris running out and us all soon to part, we chose that as our group destination. I knew that it was in the 3rd arrondissement, which started right around the corner from my apartment, but only when I ran their address through Google Maps did I realize that it was a scant 400 paces from my front door. Well...I was just getting to know my way around this town and that was a happy surprise.

Katy and I had learned about this fabulous and hip Moroccan restaurant from our friend Iana last year and had gone there while we were in Paris for my 45th birthday and had just loved it. Started by the same owner as the fun and delicious Momo in London (which Katy, but not I, had been to and loved), 404 kicks out chill Moroccan lounge music while serving delectable Pastilla, Tajine, and Cous Cous. I had even recommended it to a nice Aussie family that I met a couple of nights earlier over dinner and, oddly, they showed up shortly after we were seated and sat at the next table.

Spooky.

That's me and my gal pals (Jessica, Sarah, Suzie, and Yuko).

What's up with the French and Woody Allen?

2008-01-01T03:57:00.000-08:00

I'd always heard that the French had some odd obsessions with Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen (but not as a couple, I don't believe). Being in Paris for even a short time, the Woody side of that equation quickly became inarguable. In the Etats Unis (US) these days, Woody isn't terribly visible on a day-to-day basis, but in Paris, he's the king of the town (roi de ville). There's a movie of his (Cassandra's Dream), a play, magazine covers with his mug, and numerous best-selling books lining the front shelves of bookstores with huge 64-point type on their covers proclaiming WOODY. Oy.

My god it's been a long time...

2008-01-01T03:53:00.000-08:00

To all my fearless readers, I apologize.

Today I have about 10 or 15 entries to create since I have been largely without Internet access for...gasp...two weeks. Since moving out of my apartment in Paris on Dec 13th, I was in a series of hotels with poor or very expensive Internet access and couldn't get online. Now I'm in NY and thankful to our friend Mara for giving me back my electronic lifeline...

Happy New Year, everybody.

I love the nightlife, I want to boogie

2007-12-14T00:10:00.001-08:00

...well, maybe not. But I did have some fun a couple of weeks ago when my Greek friend, Kimon, asked me to join him one evening at the Buddha Bar. He was friends with the DJ (of course) and was trying to recruit the bartender to come consult for him at his hotel in Thessaloníki. Given that we weren't supposed to get there until around 10PM, I was a tad reluctant (since we did have class the next morning), but Kimon is Greek! No problem! We never go out before 10PM! We always work the next morning!

Perhaps if I had accepted a little more training from the inimitable Stephan W., I would have been better prepared. You see, when I go out to dinner or grab a drink back home, it's one glass of wine - or if I'm going crazy, maybe two. Going to the Buddha Bar with Kimon, it's a glass of wine, followed by a Long Island Ice Tea (that Kimon so thoughtfully ordered for me), followed by a vanilla vodka shot (that Kimon so considerately arranged for us w/his new bartender friend), followed by a rhubarb shot (quite delicious and graciously called for by...ummm...what's his name?), followed by the cucumber shot (lovely and soft and...no...wait...it's Kimon, right?), and some other something or other thing I...uh...what was I saying?

Man About Town

2007-12-13T22:49:00.000-08:00

During my sojourn here, I've been trying to capture a little of what the experience has been like walking around Paris and visiting the countryside (which, so far, I've only done once, thanks to Pierre and his mother, Stephanie).

Thanks to a turn in life 20 years ago when I lived with some architecture grad students in Ann Arbor Michigan, I have long been interested in and have appreciated architecture - not only for how it looks, but what images and memories it can conjure, how it interacts with its surroundings and with the people whom it serves, how it plays with, focuses, and delivers light, and how elegantly it does (or does not, all too often) serves its purpose.

Doing residential projects in the US, I think about all of these things a lot. Being here in Paris, surrounded by so many beautiful buildings and structures, I can't help but think of it every day.

One of the things that I think about constantly here is how much craftsmanship was and is involved in many of these structures. While the trend for many years has been towards a minimalist form of modern architecture, with extensive use of steel, glass, and concrete, I have always found these structures cold and impersonal. Not 100% of them, but most. Through the use of geometric qualities like sharp angles (Louis Kahn) and huge spaces (the new American Airlines terminal in NYC), I feel that much of this architecture is impressive in CAD and when viewed as an abstraction, but while some of these structures have played interesting games with light and form, the loss of connection to human scale and to a connection with the earth or with people has disturbed me.

The grand architecture of Paris, realized in edifices like the Petite Palais (see photo) and the Grand Palais, the bridges across the Seine, the cathedrals, and the thousands of 16th, 17th, and 18th century buildings also suffer, at times from a crisis of proportion - they were meant to impress - but unlike the huge expanses of steel, concrete and glass that are found in modern structures, the human touch is to be found in every square inch of these monuments to craftsmanship. The detailed carved stone, mosaics, leaded-glass windows, light fixtures, ironwork, and sculptures each call out for your focused attention and alert you to the human touch that went into crafting each little part. The big modern slab concepts could just as well have been formed in a factory by some machines, transported by other machines, and put in place by yet other machines. The human is not evident.

Walking around town, appreciating craftsmanship by sculptors, stonemasons, iron smiths, and mosaicists at every turn, I feel connected to them through their work, appreciative of their art and skill, and connected to the past in which they lived and crafted their works. This tangible connection to a distant past is something most Americans don't generally get to experience (outside, perhaps, for some parts of New England. Heck, in San Francisco, we consider anything built before 1911 historic. In Paris, London, Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, among other places, that's downright modern.

Unlike the grand monuments, when it comes to the functional buildings of Paris - the apartments, the restaurants, the offices - the focus is definitely about human scale. A typical 1BR apt here is usually about 30 sq. metres (about 300 sq. ft.). The restaurants pack the tables in tight - you usually have to pull the little 2-tops out into the aisle to get in and out of the seat by the wall. Older shops tend to be very intimate - it helps to walk in sideways ;^)

While our first impression is often that these places are too small, as Americans raised on large spaces (think Wal-Mart or Target or even the typical Il Fornaio), the intimacy forces you to forego unnecessary "stuff" in your apartment and gives you a good reason to strike up a conversation with those people at the next table whose elbows you keep bumping against. Paris hs t

Basque-ing in the Light of Mon Ami

2007-12-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

A little while ago, I went back to one of Katy and my favorite restaurants...Chez l'Ami Jean. This little Basque gastro-pub out in the 7th at 27 rue Malar is crazy popular. My chefs at the Ritz knew about it. My friends in Paris go there regularly.

I was telling my classmate, Kimon, about it since he arrived in Paris, and he was eager to try it. Since I could only get us in at 10PM, we did what we had to do and waited up for it.

I won't waste your time w/a lot of frivolous text here - just enjoy the photos (that's the caille [quail] on the right, 3 sauces- olive oil&garlic, orange, lemon sauces, and on the left, the sardines with tête et pied de veau). I should note that we ordered entrées and main plats and happily waited with our carafe of wine for them to come. After a while, the waiter looked at our clean table and, with a face of consternation asked if we had received our entrées. We said "no". He then ran off to the kitchen and brought us back an extra entree of the fromage de tête de veau to share.

The Magret de Canard (duck breast, right) was fab-u-luss and their presentation belies the pub-like setting. So if you see other notes from people that talk about the lack of service in restaurants - don't think that that's a universal axiom. It doesn't apply here.

Although it kind of sounds like Groucho Marx or W.C.Fields not wanting to join a club that would accept people like them, I should note that the restaurant was half-filled with les Americains. I refrain from a "ptooey". Not 3 weeks after Katy and I went to l'Ami Jean last year, the NY Times published a half-page article on the restaurant on the front of the Travel Section. No more "secret little find". Nevertheless, the cooking has not suffered and it is still a top destination for me every time I'm here.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

2007-12-06T23:20:00.000-08:00

Over the last 6 weeks, we've crammed a lot in. Being a basic cuisine class, we learned about the basic pastries, the basic sauces (orange, hollandaise, bernaise, bechamel, anglaise), the basic stocks (veal, chicken, fish), and how to prepare, cook, and serve fish, meat, vegetables and desserts.

Some of what we've done has been very Good. Like learning how to:

Fillet fish and prepare or remove the skin
Filet o' Fish
Poach and pan fry fish

Getting that Nice Pattern and No Curling in the Pan!
Tie up poultry to roast or cut up poultry into parts

Threading the caneton (small duck) up tight
Season while cooking
Appreciate Wine
Not be anal about recipes and use taste and judgment along the way
Make all the basic sauces

Crab Bisque or Shellfish stock or sauce - all from same base

Hollandaise
Make preserves
Prepare chocolate truffles
Utilize tools like metal rings and chinoise and spiders (like a wire-mesh slotted spoon)
Tap the awesome power of rich stocks to make sauces great
And a little bit of technique for presentation...
My Noix St. Jacques (scallops) turned out lookin' purty durned decent

My Carribean cake needed a little piping practice, but overall, not too shabby

I really like how this salad w/cold-cooked fresh salmon roulades turned out

But...not everything has been so useful.

Most of the recipes that we've made are very old French recipes - many of which result in meat or fish that's overcooked, heavy butter and cream-laden sauces that, while saying "old school", also seem to say "Please call my cardiologist. NOW!". Surprisingly, many of these sauces, which the chefs thought tasted good, resulted in me and Susie looking at each other with wrinkled noses and thinking "I don't think so". They were just plain Bad. Many of these recipes came out looking bland and/or tasting bland or overly rich, but underly flavorful and left me thinking that I'd never ever make those at home.

But I'm not one to let a few bad apples spoil the cart.

I tried to do as much as I could to learn. I feel like I'm taking quite a lot away from the experience...from things like Fish Stock - that we made enough times that I could almost make one blindfolded (aside, perhaps, from the part where I use the cleaver to chop up the fish bones) to turning vegetables and steaming them with aromatics in the water to impart flavor without fat (imagine that!!!).

I've spent a lot of time on plating and feel that I'm much improved in terms of making presentable dishes, but, sadly, that was not so evident in my final exam.

The exam was last Thursday night. It was a 3 hour affair where you're handed the names of two recipes and you have to make them from scratch doing all prepping, cooking, plating, and cleanup - without recipes. Although I am renowned the world over for my poor memory, I did manage to mostly remember the 6 recipes that they told us might be on the exam. For that, I feel like I accomplished something that night.

I felt good about how I was doing with my prep - everything cut the way it was supposed to be and in neatly separate prep bowls...until I started carving the chicken. I was cutting it up into several pieces to make Poulet au l'Estragon (tarragon) when I got a piece that didn't look right. I thought I needed to cut off a certain part when one of my chef instructors, Chef Christophe, came through the kitchen, looked at what I was doing and said "Please don't tell me that you were in my class. Please don't tell me that you were my student." O..U..C..H.

I told him what I thought I needed to do next, but he repeated his chide. I went on and did some other things first since I had lost some confidence about my meat-cutting skills when chef Christian returned...and then proceeded to show me what I needed to do...doing exactly what I had told him I thought I needed to do...but now I looked like a loser. It was so sad.

So I made my two dishes - Oeufs Meurette (eggs with a red wine sauce) and the Poulet. Burnt a little toast here...broke one of my poached eggs there...failed to sufficiently reduce and thicken the sauces...and finally, although I got both plated and warm to the table, the chicken was insufficiently cooked. Quelle désastre. Well, I thought, at least I can say that I went here even if I don't get my diploma the next day:^( I was actually OK the next day, but I was seriously depressed after I finished at 9PM that night...especially since my classmate Susie's dishes looked like they were right off the table from Gary Danko or Bouley. OK, OK, but she had worked in the kitchen at the Four Seasons in Thailand, so I don't want to pound myself too hard for this. Nevertheless, it would have been nice to have ended on a slightly higher note.)

Didn't really help that it was raining, either.

Ultimately, I did pass...not with flying colors, perhaps, but I passed. I now have a shiny new diploma to show for it and a little of my confidence has returned. Perhaps the fact that I gave the chefs a bottle of Koehler Pinot Noir improved my fate. Or not. Regardless, this has been a wonderful experience so far and I'm blessed for having had the opportunity.

I'm glad I came and I've gotten much out of living in Paris for a spell. My French, I fear, has deteriorated since I've been here, but I think that if I could stay for a year or two, I'd get the hang of it.

All in all, Paris has been beautiful. Heck, it was almost 60 degrees last Friday night (even though it was nearly 30 degrees last night). The architecture at night, lit up with lights, is just inspiring. The Xmas decorations are starting to appear (though not so much on the Rue des Rosiers - the main the Jewish quarter) near the Ritz and out in the 7th, near La Tour d'Eiffel. That whole "magic of the season" is definitely happening.

Living here has been extraordinary, if relatively brief. It's been great to settle into a neighborhood, find my way around the city a little better, explore the arrondissements, and not feel like I have to rush to this museum or that shop or get that perfect restaurant reservation every day, the way you do on a 1-week trip.

My ability to form a coherent sentence in French seems somewhat better, and although I'm still struggling with verb tenses, my vocabulary is improving. Frankly, I think that I won't get to sound much better than a 2-year old until I get to live here for a few years.

Sooooo....honey? What do you think? :-)

Procrastination...alright, it's a part of me

2007-12-01T03:00:00.000-08:00

Well, I know it seems like these posts are getting farther and farther apart...well...I guess they are getting farther apart. I think the huge backlog of things I've wanted to write about have created a bit of a block for me. But today I clear the backlog. Prepare thyself for the torrent.

TRADITION: COOKING

Let's get in the wayback machine and take a look back at last week. When we last left our hero, he was enjoying a lovely pork chop over at Le Temps au Temps. Since there wasn't enough fat in that pork chop, apparently, I decided to make my first attempt at making a foie gras terrine, back at my apt. I bought the whole foie, found an appropriate ceramic terrine just around the corner at Simon A. cookware (great toy store for cooks!) , and had some Sauternes-like Jurançon in my fridge.

Seemed pretty simple...you just de-vein the foie, shove it in the terrine mold w/the wine, cook it at a low temp for quite a bit of time, then put a cutout of cardboard with heavy weights on top to squeeze all the melted fat to the top. What I hadn't really counted on was how hard it would be to balance the cans on the cardboard - think of it like a surfboard - floating on a sea of deliciousy foie gras fat. I think I can hear a whole cardiologist's convention breathing either a heavy sigh of sadness for our future or of relaxation at knowing that their future business is assured.

How did it turn out? Well...looked great. Texture? Not so much. I think I failed to weight it down properly. We'll see if I try again...I do still have the terrine mold, after all.

TRADITION: BISTRO

What worked out a little better was the lunch excursion that I and my classmates took last week to Aux Lyonnais. This 19th century pub had fallen on hard times when the famed Alain Ducasse bought and refurbished it just 3 or 4 years ago to it's original glory. Unfussy, this very warm and traditional bistro is affordable (~28 euro for a prix fixe lunch) and always packed due to its classic lyonnais cuisine. More country than high cuisine, we enjoyed a variety of fish and meat dishes, from classic entrecôte (steak) to veal liver to rillet to pan fried fish.

I tried to be as good as I could be - starting off with a light root vegetable dish cooked - steamed mostly - en cocotte. If you don't work hard at it, it's all too easy for there to be nearly no vegetables in a typical French meal - or at least nothing other than some form of fatty potatoes (fried - frites, scalloped - dauphinoise, or whipped - almost always with a healthy (ahem) dose of cream). Nevertheless, I prevailed! Certainly a classic French lunch experience.

TRADITION + EXPERIMENTATION

This week, I took a few very different routes. Whenever I'd traveled to Paris or elsewhere in Europe in the past, I was only there for a few days, perhaps a week. As a result, I always stuck with regional cuisine. Now, for the first time, since I've been here a month, I set out to look for something different. I walked all over the neighborhood checking out innumerable french bistros with their confit, magret, entrecote, and foie gras but decided I had a hankering for something I-talian.

Fortunately, one of the closest restaurants to my apt, Terre et Soleil, with a warm and cosy atmosphere, had an extensive Italian menu. The "classics" that we would expect at any American Italian restaurant, aside from the Penne all'arrabbiata, weren't really there, but they had Osso Buco, various pastas and sauces, so that'll do (, pig).

I really wanted pasta, so I passed on the Entrecote, Escalope de Veau, and Osso Buco and perused the pasta list. Making my way through the unusual options, there were familiar pastas and sauces combined in ways I hadn't really seen, like the Carbonara, but with a tubular pasta called Sadoni that I'd never heard of and familiar pastas with unusual sauces.

What to have?...what to have?...

Ah...wait a minute...THERE you go! Yeah...that's what I'm talkin' about...boyyyyy.

Amongst the primaveras and arrabbiata's were a couple of real gems. The cavatappi with foie gras and figs and the rotelle with confit de canard and apples. Italian...yet French. Oh yum.

I wasn't hungry enough for both, so I went with the cavatappi. Good choice. VERY good choice. I may even have to see if I can talk Delfina or A16 into serving it!

Finishing the evening off with a little poached pear with sabayon was just the ticket.

TRADITION: BRASSERIE

Since the dollar is so damned weak, I do try to conserve my ducats at most meals. The odd 30 euro prix fixe lunch or dinner is fine, but not every day. So I take advantage of the ubiquitous crepe stands and the simple but delicious 5 euro tartine sandwiches available at Paul right around the corner. I also decided one evening to follow the advice of my lovely bride and try out a very old and traditional (and cheap) brasserie - Chartier. Tucked away behind an interior courtyard in the 9th, this place looks the classic brasserie. Bustling and packed with the black and white be-decked waiters running to and fro, it had a great energy.

And the menu? All the standards are there...and they are chee-eep. Where else can you find a 3 euro salad? Wow. Unfortunately, the couple right next to me turned out to be serial smokers, and the food, while inexpensive, was just adequate. My waiter? Ornery old guy - took quite a while to come by and then just stared at me waiting for my order without a word. When I ordered my food and hesitated about the wine...off he went. I guess with small bills and service included in the bill, there's not much to be enthusiastic about while working there.

My lamb chops were overcooked and a little dry, but the frites were hot and crispy and the Lyonnais salade was decent if not dee-licious. Those and a half bottle of Cote du Rhone totaled just 17 euro. Overall, a decent deal. Will be even better starting in January, when the restaurant smoking ban comes into effect.

TRADITION: SOUFFLÉ

On a different end of the refinement spectrum was a lunch I got one day on my own when I stopped off at a restaurant near the school for lunch.

Using the Pudlo guide that Katy had so thoughtfully provided me, I found a little restaurant called, simply, Le Soufflé. Now, having made soufflées in class, I was curious about a good restaurant's take on that dish. Also - I had mostly enjoyed classic soufflées in my life - Grand Marnier, Chocolate - but not many others. So I endeavored to experiment. For 28 euro, they had a nice prix fixe lunch with a choice of savory soufflé, sweet soufflé, salad and choice of a glass of wine or a demi-bouteille of water.

I went with a scallops and pétoncles soufflé as my main and a noisette (hazelnut) soufflé for dessert. Wow. I didn't think that you could make a soufflé with seafood or heavy nuts and have it be delicate and light. I was wrong. These guys were good. Everything - even the simple salad, was great. Now I'm looking forward to experimenting more at home!

Striking Out (and About)

2007-11-26T02:47:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm writing this on Nov 26th with all of the buses and trains back in operation now that the union and the government are talking, but last week, as many of you may have read, much of France was hammered by a transit strike. Although Silicon Valley work-around-the-clock folks may not relate, the French unions enjoy a 35-hour workweek, a month or more of vacation, and they get to retire with full pensions at 50. France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, wants to make changes to those policies to reduce the heavy economic burden of such an early retirement.

To protest this, the union went on strike for just over a week. During that time, some of my fellow students missed classes since they couldn't easily get into the core of Paris and traffic jams caused commutes to triple or quadruple in length. Some of the Metro lines were operating on a reduced schedule - it wasn't 100% shut down, but out of about 15 lines, only 3 or 4 were really running...and those were packed solid. Usually I don't appreciate it, but I have to say that the wandering musicians who got on the trains and played their accordions and horns kept the mood light at a very difficult time, so I was really grateful.

Since I walk so much, the strike didn't affect me much, but it did change the kind of decisions we all made about which neighborhoods (arrondissements) we were willing to go to and which were just a tad too far.

Using one of the working Metro lines, I went to lunch last Wednesday with my classmate Kimon out to the 11th to a restaurant I found on Chowhound, Le Temps au Temps. A clearly-knowledgeable Chowhounder had loved this little bistro and rated it right up there with one of my favorite Paris destinations, Chez l'Ami Jean. Interestingly, before I was even able to go there, in a bizarre coincidence, Katy's sister Anne came to Paris while I was out of town and was taken there by an old friend of hers...and loved it. My experience was right there.

This cozy little restaurant is owned by a young couple and has but 4 2-tops and 4 4-tops. You enter to a warm welcome and it stays warm from there. Diners around us were happy to point out what they were eating as we perused the menu and told us what was particularly good. We got into conversations with people from various tables and with the wife of the couple who owns it...and who works the front of the house. The menu, basque-oriented and creative, supplied me with one of the best pork experiences (yes!) in Paris to-date. I started with a mousse of Jerusalem artichoke, topped with a granite of cornichons (small pickles) and sitting on a bed of diced betteraves (beets).

For the main, I was wise enough to order the Cote de cochon "IBAIONA" lacquee - a pan cooked gi-normous pork chop which seemed so moist that it might have been brined before it was sautéed. As with most meat dishes in Paris, it seems, it was accompanied by pureed pommes de terre (potatoes).

Kimon had the pheasant which, while delicious, did have the distinction of still having some feather remnants in it...well, at least it was pretty darned fresh! His purees of chestnut and squash were perfect accompaniments. This was just the right kind of hole-in-the-wall find that we all wish for in a city we visit - welcoming, affordable, unusual, and delicious.

Josh Bob says "check it out" (sorry - old Denver Post reference there)...

Fillet o' Fish

2007-11-26T02:13:00.000-08:00

Technique Post

Maybe everyone learned this at their momma's knee, but I came from a non-fishy household, so it really has been a revelation to me to learn to to skin and fillet a fish this last week. In this case, it was a Sole, but I think the principles could apply more broadly. Given that Katy and I eat fish all the time, this could be useful, although unlike the fish markets here in Paris, most all fish that we get back the good ol' U S of A are already filleted. Perhaps if we have another couple over, I can give it a try with a whole fish...

For those of you interested in technique, you start by trimming off the fins by the gills and around the outside (but not the tail) using a scissors. Then, you use your knife to make an shallow cut across the midpoint of the tail through the skin, but not the tail bones. Using the blade perpendicular to the tail, you gently shove the skin towards the body, starting from the line you created with the knife. Once you have a little flap of skin free, at the body, you hold the fish down at the base of the flap with your left hand and use a cloth or a couple of folded paper towels in your right hand to pull the skin off in one sheet, moving your left hand along to keep it at the base of the free flap all the way. I have to say that this was pretty cool. Yeah, I know, I'm a kitchen geek now.

Now it's time to fillet away. Using a knife with a flexible blade (this is really important), you use just the tip, standing straight up, to draw a line down the center spine - just to the dept of the middle of the fish, where the spine is, not to the cutting board. Using just the fingers to gently draw a line down the spine until the meat on either side of the spine just starts to pull away - not more than 1/4 inch. This is where the flexible knife comes in. Having the flexible blade lets you make progressive slices at a shallow angle on one side of spine, from head to tail, pressing the blade down so that it bends and rides along the top of the bones, cleanly separating the fillet. After 3-4 passes, you should have the whole fillet - you can make a cut along the outside edge to detach it.

Since this worked great for me the first time, I'll put this down as one of the great tools that I'll be taking away from this course. Many of the class recipes haven't thrilled me, but I'm seeing the benefit in these techniques that I'm learning - how to fillet a fish, how to tie up a chicken, how to cut poultry, how to make basic sauces, etc.

Please let me know if you're interested in more of these instructional posts
...or not!

Truffles? Yes! Truffles? No!

2007-11-26T00:49:00.000-08:00

This last week brought some useful and not-so-useful new skills at l'ecole and some interesting observations about French culture and how subtle some of our differences are.

Truffles? Yes!

First, to the truffles...the chocolate kind. Both in and out of class, chocolate truffles were one of the big highlights of last week. Our Pastry class on Wednesday took us away from tarts, cakes, and pastry cream and into the world of truffles and fruit. The class had its highlights and lowlights, and perhaps some of those highlight differences in what we expect based upon what we were brought up with, but there was no doubt that the highlight was learning how to make chocolate truffles.

After I got over the horror at learning that our chef didn't care for dark chocolate all that much and thus used a chocolate for our truffles that was "only" 66% cacao (I usually bake w/70% and sometimes even go for 85%), I learned how straightforward it was to make a truffle with chocolate ganache...and how hard it is to make them in either (a) attractive shapes or (b) of a consistent size.

The ganache was much like others that I'd made in the past - particularly for my Mocha Hazelnut Dacquoise cake (damn, I wish I had my kitchen here so I could make one!) - just a blend of melted dark chocolate, cream, and, while we would use sugar, the chef had us use "inverted sugar" with the texture of thick honey called trimoline - a sucrose variant that avoids crystallization in the end product. These are cooked and blended together to make the filling, then refrigerated to make it thick enough to pipe out onto parchment with a pastry bag to form the core of the truffles.

After 30 min or so, we pull the ganache out of the fridge and start to pipe it onto the racks lined with parchment to make our truffles. When the chef shows us how, he creates beautifully-shaped truffles of even size all in a line. When we do it...not so much. While some of our truffles (yes, I'm talking about you, Suzie) looked great, most of ours varied in size from one to the next and looked like Hershey's Kisses or, as the ever-delightful Sarah kept calling them...poo. Yes, very appetizing. Thank you, Sarah!

Despite Sarah's best efforts, we were not deterred. After creating our sheets of truffles, we put them back in the fridge to firm them up for an hour or so, then melted some chocolate, and while it was cooling a bit, filled a tray with cocoa powder, and then proceeded to assemble our truffles. To do so, we just dropped the truffles in the the melted dark chocolate - this would form the outer shell. Using special fine-tined fork-like tools, we pulled the truffles out of the melted chocolate and rolled them across the pan of cocoa to coat them, then set the finished truffles aside.

We each walked away with bags of 2 dozen truffles or so, but, believe it or not, we all felt we were taking as many as we could and still left a dozen or two to...I know it's shocking...toss away.

Please forgive me.

Since that class, I think I've eaten 2 or 3 of the truffles, but going to meet Pierre and Sophie and her parents on Saturday for lunch, I did the right thing, took them out of my fridge, and brought them to lunch so that Sophie and her mother could split and enjoy them. Whew! Dodged another artery-clogging bullet (although, I freely acknowledge, my coming to Paris and facing the once or twice-daily menu with foie gras, duck confit, great butter, chocolate mousse, and tarte tatin is, to follow the analogy, equivalent to throwing myself out into a hail of Mac-10 fire during a drug war).

To contrast a bit with the dark chocolate, we concurrently focused on a couple of fruit projects. Although perhaps nothing new to many of you, I had never made preserves before, so learning how to make confiture was a real pleasure for me. Creating both raspberry and pineapple-mango preserves was pretty straightforward - the biggest challenge was the endless stirring of the cooking fruit until it was thick enough that a drop on a plate didn't run when the plate was held vertically. I haven't tried them yet...perhaps these'll be some treats to take back home to the land of the free and the home of the fog.

Finally, we learned to make something that is popular with kids - particularly if they were not made into little squares like we did in class, but rather into what we all know as "fruit roll-ups". These fruit jellies are pretty damned simple to make, but I have to say that they're just too sweet for my taste. You can also easily see why making these with machines would turn out a very lovely and evenly-cut product - something a little challenging for us imperfect humans. Still, if you know how to present them, they could make a nice little touch at the end of a meal...but, truthfully, I'd still probably go with the truffles - they'd pair better with tea, espresso or cappuccino.

Truffles? No!

Talking about truffles...I thought I might interject a related observation. I think we all were aware that the French are protective of their culture and proud of their traditions. Rightfully so, in my opinion. The French have many wonderful foods, a beautiful language, a tradition of great art and architecture, and certain je ne sais quoi.

...but sometimes, methinks, it goes a little too far.

Case and point was my other truffle adventure this last week. When I'm in the US, Katy and I often buy cheese to serve as an hors d'oeuvre when guests are coming over. Some of our favorite cheeses (often from our favorite cheese shop, Say Cheese), have truffles in them. Most of these come from Italy, but pretty consistently, we can get them at any time of year.

Sottocenere - a semi-hard cheese with a coating of truffle dust
Cacciota - a firm mozzarella-like Pecorino with bits of black truffle inside
Teneralla - a fresh Italian mozzarella with cream, fresh Ricotta, and white truffles inside
Truffle Tremor - a Californian goat cheese with truffles (wow!)

Back to Paris. Josh gets a hankering for some truffle cheese last week to share with his classmates. Cheese shop one. Hmmm. All of the cheeses appear to be French, except, perhaps for a Parmesan. I ask "Bonjour monsieur, est-ce-que vous avez quelques fromages avec truffes?" A pause. A look of shock. "Mais non!" He laughed. Truffles? Of course not! Those are only available at the end of the year!

OKayyyyy.

I'll just try another Fromagerie. Shock! Amusement! Mais non!!!

Another. Ditto.

What...is...up with that? You go to any decent cheese section in the US and we have American, Dutch, French, Italian, and English cheese. Here? Seulement les fromages de France. Zut alors!

Hmmm...can you say "market opportunity"?

What's with the Chocolate?

2007-11-20T13:24:00.000-08:00

We have some chocolatiers in San Francisco. We have some in NY too. But here, it seems like every block in Paris has one. High falootin', low falootin' (well, not that low), they're just about everywhere.

Look on a menu at any bistro or brasserie...Mousse au Chocolat.

Look in any boulangerie (bread bakery)...Croissants au Chocolat.

Stop at any crêpe stand...Crêpes avec Chocolat ou Chocolat et Banane.

But those I expected. Those I knew well both from the States and from my previous experiences in France. I've never actually lived in France before, though, so I never really went to grocery stores. There are local specialist shops with meats, with fish, or with cheese...with pastries, with breads, or with prepared foods, but there are also general grocery stores. These tend to be small versions of our supermarkets, tucked into smaller urban spaces in this dense city than would be available to a typical Safeway or Whole Foods or Gristedes.

It was in one of these supermarchés that I found my most surprising indicator of the French passion for chocolate. This picture shows a set of breakfast cereals on a rack of shelves. If you look closely, you can see that just about every different cereal here has chocolate in it. All Bran with Chocolate. Special K with Chocolate.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself "but this is only one rack of cereal - what about the others?" Well, this was one of just two racks...and several of the cereals in the other rack had chocolate as well. Wow - a couple of more research studies proving chocolate's health benefits and the French will be dancing in the streets...no...wait...they already do that.

Bookstore Cafe? Hmmm.

2007-11-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

Back in the good ol' U S of A, we tend to attach cafés to bookstores - kind of two-great-tastes-that-taste-great-together kind of thing (apologies to Reese's). Here, bookstores tend to be bookstores, because you can't stumble over a stale baguette and miss a café, bistro, or brasserie in Paris...all of which are guaranteed to have plenty of chillin' seats where you can read your book, your Paris Match, your Nabokov, or your biography of Woody Allen, all while downing a lovely café au lait or thé (tea) or snack on a little tarte tatin.

So imagine my surprise when I found an attached café! Not to a bookstore, mind you. No, not a grocery store, either. It was attached to something we don't have all that many of in the US...actually, now that I think of it, I don't think we have any. Yes, it was attached to a store that specializes in Foie Gras, Truffles, and Armagnac - the Comptoir de la Gastronomique.

Yeah, I can hear it now.

"Honeyyyy, can you run down to the Foie Gras, Truffle, and Armagnac store and pick up some extra black truffllles??? We're out! And the Swansons will be here at six!"

Not so much.

Now, however is my moment of pride. Even though I had lunch at the café attached to the Foie Gras, Truffle, and Armagnac store, I had none of those things. I was most restrained. I had the Soupe de Moment (Soup of the Day...it was Asparagus) and a light non-creamy Risotto with Cuisses de Grenouille (Frog Legs) in Chestnut Flour. Dee-lish. And not evil (bwah-ha-ha) at all.

No dessert, just a coffee to help me last the day. Thankfully their desserts were not issuing the Siren's Song to me and equally thankfully, their dessert prices were astronomical (9.50Euro for a Tiramisu - that's like $13...puh-leez!). Another diet bullet dodged, merci dieu.

Another day off, another long walk

2007-11-17T12:02:00.000-08:00

It was sunny today again, although thankfully a few degrees warmer than yesterday. Not warm, mind you, just warm-ER.

Original plan for the day was to connect up with Kimon again for dinner, so I spent a while online this AM researching Chowhound, eGullet, Frommers, Fodors, and the NY Times to see what's shakin' in the reasonable-but-delicious dining world of Paris. In the time before I met Kimon, I thought I'd grab a quick Jambon et Fromage (ham and cheese) crêpe and check out one of the restaurants on my list, an old bistro on the Ile de la Cite, next to Notre Dame...appropriately enough called Le Vieux Bistro.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/walk/france/paris/954361759"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Paris Walk 17.Nov.07&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-walk/france/paris"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Walks in Paris, France&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Looks charming enough, has good reviews - will probably have to hit it for lunch one day. 20Euro for their lunch prix fixe sounds just reasonable enough.

On from there, I fought my way through the hoards of tourists that seem to have descended on this town to find a little chocolate shop (very near the school, actually) that one clearly-in-the-know Chowhounder described as making a hot chocolate that was so good, it made Angelina's seem like a mix (and most people regard Angelina's as having one of the best if not the best hot chocolate in Paris). This I had to see. He said that the old lady who works there makes each one by hand and the loving care is transformed into magic in a cup.

I did find this Steiger Salon de Thé (tea room) and went in.
I saw the old lady with the magic chocolate spirit.
I ordered my chocolat chaud...

Mais non! C'est impossible! What a tragedy! She apologized, but said that they couldn't make the hot chocolate on weekends. I suppose that my deep emptiness and sadness must have shown on my face, because she insisted that I take a a little dark chocolate noisette (hazelnut) truffle as a souvenir. Holding my chin up high and putting on my best McArthur stance, I assured her that I would return. Monday, most likely. Classmates in tow.

So droopy-headed, I walked from Steiger and decided to stop by Angelina for a substitute chocolat chaud. I could compare the two, I told myself. I walked down to Rue Rivoli, then fought my way down several blocks past all of the money changers, t-shirt vendors, and postcard shops lining the arcade that sits across from the Louvre and the beautiful Tuileries Gardens. Unfortunately, I was bound to be foiled by the masses of tourists yet again...the line for Angelina's was well outside the door.

Dejected, depressed, and with a sad and lonely pang in my stomach plaintively begging me for a decent chocolat chaud, I had to hang my head and just walk home. I think we'll have to submit this to that collection of "Problems of the Rich" (gee, I was so ready for a $10 hot chocolate, but the line was out the door and I had to deny myself what I wanted just when I wanted it. The tragedy!).

Once I got home, I figured that I would IM a little with the divine Ms. K and identify a good, affordable dinner option to which I could walk. I considered a couple in the 11th arrondissement and Katy suggested one in the 9th, but after reading the reviews on her suggestion, it sounded too touristy for my taste, so I went with the Pudlo Guide that she gave me and chose a duck-centric restaurant called Domaine de Lintillac at 10 re Saint Augustin. I figured that if I got there early, I'd have no problem getting in - and indeed I was one of the first into the restaurant.

This restaurant (they have 3 in Paris) was somewhat interesting. The owners make their own wine, foie gras, and confit and sell it all as packaged goods, in addition to operating the restaurants. I decided to try their goose foie gras terrine as an appetizer, with a small glass of Monbazillac (a sweet dessert wine, like Sauternes). Tasty, but maybe not head-of-the-class good. I followed this with their signature house dish, their Cassoulet (it was damned cold outside, after all), made with their own, homemade black duck sausage and their own duck confit. Served in a hot terrine, I think I may have cauterized a few taste buds on that one.

Net net, I got out of there for under 30Euros and enjoyed pretty much everything. Now that I have my list of restaurants, I'll have to do some experimenting before Katy gets here so that I can make sure she only gets the best of Paree!

Winter's Here

2007-11-17T05:10:00.000-08:00

Well, we were off from school yesterday, so one of the other students, Kimon, from Greece, and I decided to meet and explore a little. It was a beautifully sunny day, but damned if it wasn't ice cold. There was a chill breeze blowing through town that left the sky clear and blue and our skin similarly so.

Kimon and I took a walk over to the Grand Epicerie, associated with Le Bon Marche department store. It really is an amazing food store - kind of like a prettier and more full-service and larger version of Dean & Deluca. Fabulous produce, cheese, meats, fish, condiments, etc. plus a huge selection of beautiful prepared foods.

Afterwards, we sought out a Zagat recommendation for a typical brasserie - Balzar - for an early dinner. I had the Raie (Skate wing) in brown butter with a side of steamed potatoes (shockingly delicious for steamed food) and steamed spinach. All very competently prepared and tasty, but not cheap (40E/person and only I had a glass of wine, we shared a bottle of water, and no dessert or salads), and, perhaps not surprising given our early dining hour (near 6PM) and the Zagat recommendation, it was filled to the rafters with Les Américaines! Pas pour mois, merci.

Walking home after dinner, the city was alight and alive...and although I haven't yet figured out how to take a steady night shot without a tripod, the stunning view of the Pont Neuf over the Seine was yet another reminder of why I keep returning again and again.

Have a good weekend, all!

I suppose that I'm a Brest Man

2007-11-15T14:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was another Pâtisserie day. Ooh la la.

So the main objectives of the afternoon were to create éclairs et une gâteau Paris Brest. Of course nothing in Pâtisserie is ever really simple. You don't just bake these babies...you have to bake one piece, make a mousseline to fill it with, make a fondant to coat it with, etc. Lots of steps and sub-recipes. To make a mousseline, you add butter to a pastry cream (crème pâtissière)...so you have to know how to make a crème pâtissière as well.

The basic pastry dough that serves as the cake component of these recipes is called Choux. Made with water and milk, you just melt some butter in the hot liquid and add in flour - just like making a roux. Mixing this quickly with a spatula, we then mix in eggs, 1 at a time, until they're all integrated, then beat the heck out of it until it's silky and falls off the spatula in ribbons. That's it. Then you have the basis of both the cake and the eclairs.

Since this is a liquidy dough, you actually lay it out on the baking sheet by squeezing it through a pastry bag. For eclairs, all you need to do is squeeze out a simple line.

For the Paris Brest cake, you just make a single circle, plus a stack of 3 circles. The 3 circle stack gets coated with a mound of chopped almonds. Interestingly, the latter bakes up and looks like...well...a bialy. I think I just heard Chef Didier say "Oy!"

The origin of the Paris Brest cake is an interesting one. As related by Chef Didier, apparently there was a bicycle race from the city of Paris to the city of Brest, in the Northwest, in 1894. Along the route was a patisserie, owned by an enterprising pastry chef. To commemorate the race, he invented a round cake with a wheel in its design. Et voila!

Starting with the choux pastry circles, you make a hazelnut chocolate mousseline to pipe into the hollow insides of the "wheel" and for decorating the edge of the other, triple ring. I don't think I'd ever had one of these cakes before, because I surely would have remembered it. It is extraordinarily yummy. I should note, I suppose, though, that there is so much butter in the mousseline, that Katy will surely ban this recipe from our relatively health-conscious household (we do actually cook out of Cooking Light magazine most of the time - it's not all bacon, all the time, despite my poetic waxing on the subject!).

P.S. Sorry for the crappy image quality - I forgot my new camera at the apt and had to use my low-res, flashless, Treo camera. And yep, that's my finished Paris Brest cake on the right...

Memento

2007-11-15T13:51:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the time gap, but classes had been on hiatus for a couple of days this week and double classes on the other days have left me pretty tired. I really don't know where professional chefs get the energy, but I assume that there has to be a genetic component (note me on the right in the sign ;^).

Even though the chefs actually do most of the cooking during our classes, I am typing notes into my Treo so fast that I'd impress an SMS-happy Japanese schoolgirl. Not that I'm trying to impress any Japanese schoolgirls, mind you. The mental challenge in capturing all of these notes is that in any given 3 1/2 hour class, we'll make about 5 different dishes. Keeping track of which pot or pan or which set of prepped ingredients are for which recipe at any given time keeps us wired. It doesn't really help that most of recipes call for rather unspecific quantities or times.

A typical recipe will say something like "boil water with a little sugar" or "bake until done". Of course the chefs, with their experience, know how much salt to add or when to get something out of the oven, but for the rest of us...not so obvious. Some of us (read: "I") are more confused than others. It doesn't help that I have a memory like a sieve...or a chinoise. Come the end of the course, we'll be expected to make at least two dishes in a limited time frame...with no recipes. We need to know them going in.

They will identify six dishes for us from which the two will be specified, but we'll need to know how to make those 6 dishes sans recettes (recipes). I suppose that to put this in context for you, I should note that every time my Katykins and I have people stay overnight, I make fresh popovers in the morning. I've been making this popover recipe regularly for over 5 years now. I still need to look at the recipe. Every Autumn, I make pumpkin pie. Ask Kevin Gorey. I've been doing it for years. It's one of my favorite recipes and I'll make multiple pies during the holiday season. Yep. Need the recipe.

Am I worried?

Does Bill O'Reilly vote Republican?

So, when I start to approach the end of the program, perhaps my best option will be to get some strategic tattoos.

Le Ouch.

Here, Fishy Fishy Fishy...Part Deux

2007-11-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

OK, apparently, as I have learned from the collective masses, Kevin Kline may have appropriated the line "Here, Fishy Fishy Fishy" for use in the film A Fish Called Wanda.

Even if that is so, the originators of that classic quote hearken back farther and are none other than Bert and Ernie from PBS's Sesame Street. Check it out here.

Here, Fishy Fishy Fishy

2007-11-10T07:07:00.000-08:00

A gold star to anyone who gets the title quote!

OK, Sorry for falling behind on my blogging duties, so today I'll add 3 posts...

This week was a short week...just Tues - Thurs (boy, they have more vacations than the French! Oh...wait a minute...er...nevermind).

Weds was another Savory day. This time focusing on meals built around fish. The star of the show Weds was our lesson in the cleaning, cooking, and serving of a whole Turbot. This bottom-lying flatfish is similar to halibut or flounder in that it has its eyes on the top of its body and swims in a horizontal rather than vertical mode. In the US, us consumers are so used to just popping down to the market and buying a filet of this or a steak of that type of fish, that we rarely get the chance to buy a whole 15 or 20lb fish to clean, gut, cut up, cook and serve. It's a different story for restaurants, and I am in a cooking school for professional chefs, so I guess it makes sense that we learn butchery along with cookery.

Cookery? Not quite as romantic-sounding as "cuisine", but it seemed like a good word at the time.

For this meal, we cut up the turbot and learned to poach it in a pot of water, coarse salt, pepper, anise pods (these REALLY worked great), thyme, bay leaf and some milk. To accompany the Turbot, we learned to make both Bearnaise and Hollandaise sauces (which, when made completely by hand, apparently require the upper body strength of a baseball slugger). To keep ourselves busy, we also made a fish stock, a shellfish stock, and two vegetable sides - Petite Oignons aux Champignons (mushrooms), and steamed carrots, zucchini, and turnips.

Now, when I always made steamed vegetables at home, I'd just clean 'em up, drop 'em in a steamer, take 'em out, and plop them on the plate - sometimes with a little drizzle of something over them for flavor.

But steamed vegetables at the Ritz? Mais NON! That will not do, Monsieur Francophile!

I suppose that if you're eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant, your expectations will be higher for your steamed veggies. So we learned to turn our veggies. Peeling the carrots, baby zucchini, and turnips and cutting them into 2-inch pieces and then those into thirds, you use your paring knife to shape each piece into a lovely little tapered and rounded torpedo. Time consuming, but at the end, you have not just just "steamed veggies" but rather "torpilles des légumes, cuites à la vapeur". Damn, skippy...that does sound (and look) a lot more appetizing. (Sorry, no good pix)

Making the two sauces mostly required a lot of non-stop fast whisking. For chef David, it was aucun problème , mais pour moi...le ouch (c'est moi, a gauche).

Nevertheless, the results were worth the effort.

After class, we got to take the results home with us (not a bad little dinner, at all). After getting back to my apartment, however, I checked e-mail and, lo and behold, there was an e-mail from Iana giving me the contact information for her cousin Pierre (and his main squeeze Sophie) who live in Paris and with whom I had gotten along famously in SF when they were in for Michael and Iana's wedding. So I called Sophie to say hello.

Sophie is a real go-getter...as they said in the movie Spinal Tap, she's turned up to 11.

It was 7:30PM when I called and she says "I'm going to a Brazilian friend's house for drinks tonight...can you meet me at 8:30PM? After that we can get some dinner at Chez l'Ami Jean." (the Paris restaurant we realized that we both loved when we met in the US). Pierre had actually scored a prep-chef job for a week just for fun.

Wow. Well. OK, forget the Turbot. It's Parisien nightlife time, mon ami!

I meet Sophie over at Blvd Victor Hugo for drinks at her friend's apt - nice little social scene, but definitely reminded me about how far my command of French needs to go to follow along with their rapide speech. From the party, we left with a couple of other Brazilian friends to go to l'Ami Jean. Getting in to the restaurant at 10:45PM or so, I suppose I realized that I had a late night ahead of me...thank Krishna I didn't have class until 10AM the next day (as if I ever did).

It really was a blast. Good food, good wine...all I was missing was my sweetie, back in Cal-i-forn-eye-a. Wish she coulda been there with me, but as a taste of my upcoming month to come, I look eagerly forward to the rest of my stay.

C'est moi!

2007-11-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

OK, I've been getting some pressure from a few of you for a photo of me in my chef's outfit. Well I now have one. I should note that it is not a particularly good or flattering photo, but in the interests of "telling it like it is" and respecting Michael's career in photojournalism, I am including it nevertheless.

All of the pictures today are high resolution, courtesy of Monsieur Lumix. I am also, for the sake of science, including my first video, to see if anyone is interested - if you do enjoy the video, let me know since it takes a bunch of time to upload...

I do, however, retain the right to replace it in the future with a photoshopped image of Thomas Keller with my face.

Today was a pâtisserie day. We learned about all of the common sauces and creams and how the same ingredients can be magicked together in different ways to make soufflé, pastry cream, crème anglaise, glace (ice cream) and crème brulée...and we made them all. They all utilize pretty much the same ingredients - even similar quantities for many of them, but how you mix what and when makes all the difference.

Of course, Chef Didier makes it all look easy, but I think some of it is starting to sink in. I actually got a great ego boost today after the Chef watched me serve a scoop of the Pistachio Ice Cream that we made. Unlike my pastry cream piping skills, I did pretty a pretty decent job of matching his technique, so he asked me what my real job was. After I told him I worked in Real Estate, he said, en Français, bien sur:

"Are you sure that you're not a pastry chef on the side?"

I'm still blushing.

Although delicious, we sadly left a huge pile of them all to toss - you just can't eat a souffle, a chocolate souffle, a bowl of creme anglaise with a flottante (floating island of soft meringue), a dish of creme brulee, and pistachio ice cream all in one sitting.

Not and walk away from it unscathed, that is.

The Camera is Dead. Long Live the Camera.

2007-11-05T15:18:00.000-08:00

Well, everybody, I just wanted to let you know that we...are...back in business.

Boo-ya!

First, on a note of sadness, the Canon SD400 camera that I brought on the trip with me, and with which I took my first few pictures at the cooking school...has died. It was sudden and unexpected. There was no long illness. And most sad of all, it was still such a young camera. Katy and I shared that camera at our wedding, on our honeymoon, and on our many adventures together. It will be dearly missed.

Since the untimely death of my dear SD400, I have had to put an extra burden on my poor little Palm Treo 650, with its sadly underpowered, flash-less and low resolution camera. It stepped up to the plate and did its part. Unquestioningly and unfailingly.

Now, my friends, a new era is about to begin.

Tomorrow morning, when I walk the mile and a half to and from school (uphill both ways, I assure you), I will have a brand spanking new Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX12 in my pocket. Just saying that name makes me tingle all over. Hey! I said tingle, not tinkle. Get your mind out of the gutter. I'm talkin' photo romance here. 7.2Mpixel resolution, Leica lens, 4.5X optical zoom, shake reduction, video...the works!

Yeah, baby. You know what I'm talkin' about.

Yep, in less than a day, this BLog is gonna be filled with sharp, high-res stills and video...yeah, you heard me...video. Don't believe me? Come check it out for yourself 2-morrow, my friend.

Yes indeedy do. The Lumix is in the house.

Now That's More Like It

2007-11-05T04:33:00.001-08:00

Ah...what a difference a day makes.

I got out quite a bit earlier this morning, stepping into the cool morning air, and seeing a very different sight from yesterday. Gone was the uniform overcast of hier, and here comes the sun. It's alright. In addition to the sky smiling upon me, this was to be quite a different day from yesterday.

Sure, there was the long walk, but only 5, not 20, miles this time
Sure, there was the walk to Le Bon Marché, but it was open this time
Sure, there was a walk past the digicam store, FNAC, but it too was open

Paris Walk 05.Nov.07
Find more Walks in Paris, France

Per my registered and recorded PlanForTheDay(tm), I was to go by the Michel Cluizel chocolatier on Rue Faubourg de Saint Honore (yes, the one mentioned in While You Were Sleeping) to take a picture of their dark chocolate fountain at the request of Monsieur Bob, of Say Cheese fame (on Cole Street in SF).

So, monsieur Bob...Voila!

Savoring my sense of accomplishment and perhaps pushing my luck a little, I thought I'd take another shot at walking to Le Bon Marche. It really is a treat to walk around Paris on a bright and sunny autumnal day, so I chose a route that would take me past the Louvre, across the river, and up Rue du Bac, where my favorite eyeglass shop, Les Opticiens du Bac, was. Sadly, it appeared to be no more. I had bought glasses there with Katy just last year, and before that had bought 2 other pair over the years, so it created a brief pang of loss for one of the few traditions I had established between me and mon Paree.

I made it to Le Bon Marché, but after all that hoopla to get there, it looked too chi-chi for my dollar-based budget, so I just walked next door to their Dean&Deluca-like Epicerie (high-end grocery) and walked around. Oh yum. Might have to go back there with my classmates.

As I was doing all of this walking around I would pass one real estate office after another, their windows plastered with bright white 8 1/2x11 sheets, each with a single picture, pitching various flats for sale or rent. As I looked at these pretty apartments, it got me to thinking about Real Estate. Given my new choice of profession (no, not Cooking), I thought it might be worthwhile commenting un peu about the real estate market in Paris.

Certainly there is no end to the number of charming old structures with gorgeous dark wood hand-hewn beams or handsome rough and ancient stone walls. What is rare, however, and my little rental apartment stands in testimony to this, is space.

These moderate-sized apartment buildings have been divvied up into tiny spaces, each often 250 to 300 sq. ft. - a size probably half that of a typical San Francisco apartment with the same number of rooms. Everything is small (well, not exactly everything, I suppose).

My TV? 12"
My bathroom? 4'x4'
My Bedroom? Enough room for a full-size bed and 18" extra on 2 sides

We're talkin' tie-knee.

And my apartment isn't the exception, it's absolutely the rule. As I look at those real estate ads in the windows of rhose sales offices, it's clear that per square foot, Paris is just about double the cost of San Francisco. Thus while most San Francisco properties sell for a pretty rich $750 to $1000/sft, most Parisien properties sell for $1500-$2000/sft.

Oo-la-la!

The Long March

2007-11-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

Well. It's Sunday here, in the middle of a 4-day National Holiday weekend.

Tourists are everywhere and families are all out and about. It's a rather grey day, but, although cool, the weather is very comfortable for walking. So walk I did. I don't think I planned to do a mega-walk, but that is certainly how it ended up.

PLAN A

The original plan was to find some recipes online at my apartment, head over to the nearby Rue Montorgueil to hit the seafood, vegetable, and meat vendors to shop for ingredients, then pick up a couple of additional pieces of cookware, return to my apartment and practice some of the recipes from my classes. Simple enough, no? Apparently "no".

Yesterday all of those shops were wide open until late at night. Today? Toute fermé. De-nied!

So, next option...

PLAN B

Go get something to eat and head over to the big department store, Le Bon Marché. Simple enough. Or so I thought. Below is what I ended up doing today, and this was the path:

&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/walk/france/75002-2e-arrondissement/835625764"&amp;gt;Paris Walk 04.Nov.07&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;br/&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyrun.com/find-walk/france/75002-2e-arrondissement"&amp;gt;Find more Walks in 75002 2e Arrondissement, France&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;

So I walk from the end of Rue Montorgueil over towards the Ile Saint Louis to my favorite cafe on the Ile, Le Flore en Isle. It overlooks Notre Dame and has a decent brunch and isn't too cher (expensive), although it does get a lot of tourists. All of their outside tables are fully seated, so j'ai marcher inside.

I sit on the banquette, looking out the window at all of the families out on their sunday walks, scarves around the necks of the men, women, and children tied in so many different ways that a sailor would be impressed. For as few times as I've been in Paris, I do have a "usual" at this café, so I order Le Brunch with les oeufs brouillé (scrambled) avec saumon fumé, jus de pamplemousse (grapefruit), croissant, et café crème. As I eat and soak in my surroundings, I note the couple next to me engaging in a hushed tête-a-tête. They longingly reach across the table to embrace, hold each others' hand and touch each other's face. They kiss. They appear to speak of their passion for one another as they mimic les pyramides de I.M.Pei by meeting midway across the table by leaning at 45 degrees in to form a perfect triangle.

Clearly he is French. She, a strawberry blonde, is perhaps German, perhaps Central European, speaking no French. As with their improvisation in geometry, they meet halfway as they speak in a language clearly non-native to each of them...English.

I continue to eat and observe the room and the world outside. She gets up to go wash her hands. Despite the typical French social norms, I engage him in conversation - telling him it's difficile pour moi to see them next to me comme çà since it makes me miss ma femme (Madame Katy). I tell him that I wish I had her here so that I could lean across the table like they have been doing.

He is quite friendly and open and we chat a little. He doesn't usually come to this cafe since it is "tros touristque". I agree, but also note that the view of Notre Dame est merveilleux. She returns, their desserts arrive, et un plus "chapter" de mon expérience Parisienne est complet.

Paying my bill and heading off, I thought I would check out the most chic of the large Parisian department stores, Le Bon Marché, on the other bank of the river, in Saint Germain. It's quite a walk, but the day is cool and comfortable, the trees are awash with the full pallet of autumn colors, les cafés sont plein (full), and the architecture est très jolie.

Walking past the elegant hotel Lutetia, I see the Bon Marché and...it is fermé! Ugh. Sunday! Zut alors!

PLAN C

Well, since I'm already in the 7th Arrondissement, let's explore a new neighborhood. I walk some more and get to a Place (major intersection of many roads) where there's a carte (map) of the neighborhood. I'm now in the 15th, where I thought my friends Nadia and Nicolas had told me to go to a great Chocolat Chaud café - Carette. I look it up in my little pocket guide (thanks, monsieur Bill) and see that Carette is not in the 15th - it is at the Place Trocadero...on the other side of the Seine just across from La Tour d'Eiffel. Should be a nice walk, I reasoned, so off I went.

Now this was starting to get to be a long walk, it seemed, so I was ready...VERY ready...for a chocolat chaud (hot chocolate). So I battle my way through the throngs of tourists, hawkers of crappy tchotchky's, and mimes and get myself over to the Trocadero.

I get to the door and..."Pardon, mais Carette est fermé depuis l'Octobre 2007 pour 3 mois". Closed?! For 3 months?!!

Merde.

PLAN D

OK. Maybe I'll just walk back over the Seine to the 7th since that's where Katy and my favorite restaurant in Paris resides - Chez L'Ami Jean (Pierre and Sophie's favorite too!). I didn't remember the address and foolishly never put it in my phone, but I remembered that it was 1) in the 7th arrondissement 2) it was on a rue perpendiculaire a la Seine et 3) the street had a short name, probably starting with an "m". Since there was such a street named "Rue Malar" in the 7th, I aimed for that.

After another long trek, I find Rue Malar and...Oh Happiness...there is L'Ami Jean! And...and...it is fermé.

Double-merde.

But at least I did find it. OK...nothing to do but walk home, I suppose.

PLAN E

As I walk to the end of Rue Malar and turn right, I take the long walk along Rue de l'Université that will lead me back to Saint Germain and perhaps a little café to keep me going. This street is a long one and leads from the 7th across the long park that leads from the Invalides to the river and on through to the 6th Arrondissement. The Invalides is a huge old building, beautifully lit up at night and is one of those reminders about why Paris is so special...and why I so miss my Katy-girl.

Passing the Invalides, the street goes past a number of government buildings and offices with police stationed outside around the clock. Just a few steps past them and I find myself face to face with No.81 Rue de l'Université. Or, as Julia Child called it when she first moved to Paris in 1948, "Roo de Loo". Julia is one of the inspirations for my trip, so it warmed mon coeur to see where she lived when she first moved to Paris.

Moving along, I was really dragging - this was some long walk - so I made my way to the famous Café des Deux Magots on the Boulevard Saint Germain. When I arrived, I felt blessed. There were several open tables outside, so I went in and asked the waiter if I could just take a table...he said yes! Oh joy! This is one plan that is finally working out! So I chose an open table and sat down, waiting for the waiter to arrive. I watched the terrier on the lap of its owner on the next seat over and I watched the waiters come within 2 tables of me for 15 minutes, but not a soul walked over to or past my table.

I almost gave up when a waiter (who had been to the adjacent table 3 times, studiously ignoring me each time) walked over to clear the adj table. I waved to him, he said "un minute monsieur", finished clearing the almost-empty shot-sized glasses of beer and the ashtray full of spent Gauloises, and walked away.

I was ready to throw in the "tao-elle" when another waiter finally walked up, grabbed the ruins of the three 1/2 pints of beer on my table and ask for my order. Un café creme s'il vous plait. Merci! I could almost taste it...one plan in action...one plan so close to fruition.

Although the waiter showed no sign of it, it felt to me like I was letting them down - waiting so long to order, then buying nothing more than a café crème. Perhaps they're just used to it. Perhaps they do enough volume to justify a few customers ordering nothing but a single biere ou café.

Now, with my order in, I relax a little and look around. They have many many tables on the street and they're situated next to a lovely cathedral that is all lit up for the night. It's been un jour gris (grey day), but ce soir (this evening), les avenues et les eglises (churches) sont illuminé. It is pretty beautiful here. Unlike many cities, spending time in Paris is not just spending time in the present. The breadth of old architecture around the city leads one to connect both with the present and the past at the same time. Something you feel in a place like Old Yaffa in Tel Aviv or in Rome or down in the small towns of the Dordogne. There's a spiritual aspect of this connection - something that reminds me a little of the feeling I get when I feel the connection to the earth in Santa Fe. Have I lived in California too long? Hmmm. Peut être.

Time to move on...pay l'addition pour mon café...et...quoi? What? €5.20 ($7) for just ONE café?! Damn, Skippy. I suppose that that is just the price of drinking coffee at Les Deux Magots...

Off I walked from my caffeine buzz, down Rue Bonaparte past the fabulous Ladurée, looking in to see them still open past 7PM on a Sunday night, still selling those little addictive pills they call Macarons. Exercising superhuman self control, I buy nothing.

Across the street is Hotel Le Villa, where Katy and I stayed for my birthday in 2006 (and the trip on which she discovered L'Ami Jean for us). I keep walking...on and on, past Saint Germain, down to the Seine, across, up past the old markets at Les Halles, and home.

20 miles. 5 plans. 1 tired puppy.

Bonne nuit.

Ma Vie en Paris

2007-11-02T17:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday and Today were about more than just school. They were about connecting with this city that has enchanted and inspired me to cross the seas for so long.

Walking around Paris the last few days, I made some observations. Growing up in NYC, one of the things that I took for granted was that cities were filled with trees. Every street and avenue in New York is lined with trees every few feet. Those sidewalks are also lined with something else, but that's another discussion.

As I began to travel, I noticed something about other cities that I found distressing. In cities from Pittsburgh and Tokyo, I found many great cities most unlike my New York. The streets were, like New York, bordered by pedestrian sidewalks and were filled with buildings both big and small, but those cities lacked a high density of trees. Many of their downtown streets had no trees at all. The effect of this was that those streets felt hard and cold, surrounded by nothing but stone, concrete, asphalt, and steel.

Yet Paris is a city that I have always, since my very first visit, found beautiful. The architecture oozes a sense of history and the detailing on the buildings lives as a testament to the craftsfolk that built them. Like New York, the grand avenues of Paris are lined with trees. But, as I just noticed for the first time, many, if not most of the side streets of Paris are virtually or completely treeless. While I'm not thrilled about this, it doesn't change the fact that I still find the city beautiful.

True, I find it feeling a little more "hard" than I had once perceived it, but I do understand. The sidewalks of New York, even on the side streets, are at least 6 feet wide, leaving plenty of room for both trees and pedestrians. For those of you who have had the pleasure of spending any time here, you know that the sidewalks on most Parisian side streets are little more than 3' wide. So I do get it...it would be nearly impossible to line these sidewalks with trees. But still, Paris remains the apple (not the big apple, perhaps, but at least the pomme) of my eye.

The narrow streets speak of history and shops are tucked into spaces most US shops would allocate to the loo. The lovely carved stone embraces the intricate ironwork of balconies and planter boxes outside many of the windows, and every street in the city bustles with life from 10AM to 4AM. Thank yahweh the bedroom in my rental apartment is in the back, away from the street.

CONNECTIONS

Yesterday, we had just a lecture instead of practical kitchen work, reviewing all of the techniques involved in making different sauces, stocks, and jus'. Right after class, I rushed off to catch the Metro out to the 15th Arrondissement. Cousins of our friends Michael and Iana, whom Katy and I had met at Michael and Iana's wedding, live out there and had invited me to lunch. When we met Nicolas and Nadia and Nicolas' brother Pierre and his beau Sophie in the US, we knew that we now had family in Paris.

Taking my tart from the day before as a little "thank you" for having me, out I navigated my way to their stop and walked the couple of blocks to their home. Have I sung the praises of the Metro yet? I've done it before and I'll do it again. This is one amazingly clean and practical public transit system. No matter where you are in the main Arrondissements of Paris, you're never more than 1/2 dozen blocks from a Metro stop. They're everywhere, well marked, and easy and affordable to use. I love walking in this town and do so all the time, but when you're in a rush, the Metro will get you there.

Visiting Nicolas and Nadia at home and going out to their little local corner restaurant/café for lunch felt so comfortable...so natural...that I realized for the first time that I could live in Paris. For me, it felt like visiting my siblings in NYC - from getting around on the subway, to the relaxed comfort of a visit with family rather than the more formal visits between acquaintances or mere casual friends.

I'm sure that I'll see more of them and their rather shy 4-year-old, David, as my visit here unfolds, as well as trips to l'Ami Jean with Pierre and Sophie, but I was fortunate enough to have a similar experience tonight...actually, given the time that I'm writing this, I guess it was last night...but night bridges two days, so it's still tonight. Can you tell that I'm tired? How kind of you to be diplomatic (and no, I wasn't talking to you, Mikey ;^).

Today was the first day of the national holiday, so we were off from l'ecole. I ran around to find a battery charger for my digital camera and...voila! I found one. Bought it. Took it home. Realized that it was the camera itself that was dead, not the battery. UGH!!! Now I need to go find a new camera.

But back to CONNECTIONS...

For our day off, one of my classmates, a lovely native Francaise named Florence, offered to have some of us join her for an evening of food shopping and cooking out at her house in the Paris suburb of Eaubonne. Three of us took her up on the offer and made our way through the Metro and RER regional rail system to head out there this afternoon. Since one of the other students, Suzie, from Thailand, was coming from my neighborhood, we decided to trainpool together.

Meeting at the Etienne-Marcel Metro station, we hopped a boxcar for Saint Michel, where we would change to the RER 3 to Eubonne. Everything was going exactly to plan - a perfect Oceans 11 start to our adventure. When we got to Saint Michel, the signs were clear and lead us right to the tracks. We waited on line to purchase our tickets, then got to the tracks just in time to miss our train. Asking at the ticket office, they told us when the next train would be...so we waited the 15 min or so until the scheduled 1:48 time. At 1:46PM a train shows up and all it says on the front is "SARA". We don't know if this is our train. There are no signs on it anywhere suggesting that it is going in the direction we want or to the stop we want. The woman who had helped us at the ticket booth was off somewhere else, and just as she returned, the doors closed.

She looks at me. She looks at the train, still sitting there with the closed doors. In French, she asks "Alors - why didn't you get on the train? That's your train!". I stumbled through my awkward complaint that the clock still showed 1:47 and there was nothing on the train to suggest it was our train. It would be another 15 min until there would be another train to our stop. Over the course of that time, each train to some other destination would pull in with a 4-letter word in front "VICK", "DORS"...whatever. Slowly Suzie and I came to realize that for some peculiar reason, RER decided it would be fun to name their trains rather than specify their destination in their signs. Josh switches to annoyed Frenchman tone "ALORS! Qu'est-que-c'est la? C'est stupide! Fou! C'est dinge! Idiots!". OK, got that off my chest.

So we finally get on a train to Eubonne, where Florence was to pick us up...only to get there 40 minutes late, with neither me nor Suzie having a cell phone, and neither of us having Florence' address were we to even find a taxi should we not find Florence. We circumnavigated the station, looking for a pay phone high and low when...zut alors! There was Florence. She had patiently waited for us there at the station. Becky showed up a few minutes later and off we went in Florence' huge Pontiac minivan. No joke.

On our trip to the super-marché, Florence was our tour guide. She gave us regions, qualities, and histories of les fromages et les vins, discussed the cuts of meat that we just don't see in l'Etats Unis, and bought dozens of cheeses and half a dozen bottles of wine for us to taste. As we got to the checkout, we all reached for our wallets and Florence dismissed us all with a wave, insisting that we were her guests. Mais non!, we said. Mais OUI!, she said. To avoid an international crisis that might draw the attention of the Bush White House, we conceded.

Back at Florence' home, we got to meet her relatively-fresh young bébé, Emma and her chats, Milou and Bill (interestingly enough named after the film Kill Bill...don't ask. I could tell you, but...). Emma was a most gracious hostess. Not a scream left her lips and she smiled and laughed her way through the entire visit. I would definitely have to say that this was the mostly smiley and happy baby I have ever met. Warmed mon petite coeur.

Florence put out the spread of fromages, saucissons (sausage), and cornichons, as well as some local farm butter, raisin bread, walnut bread, and pain Poilâne (from the well known Poilâne bakery) and continued our cheese lesson, labeling each of the cheeses with a slip of paper.

I suppose that Becky, Suzie, and I (wow - doesn't that sound like a bunch of folks in a booth at a diner in American Graffiti?) all thought that we would be joining in for the cooking of the dinner, but Florence was determined to be our host and only let us help her prep a little while she prepared us a salad of baby greens with smoked duck breast, tomatoes, and raisins in a light raspberry vinaigrette. I seared some fresh foie gras and made a lingonberry reduction while she took the rest of the foie and showed us how to de-vein it and prepare a terrine de foie gras. Always learning. Yep. That's us.

Once the seared foie and the salad was consumed, Florence set about preparing one of her favorite dishes - magret de canard (moulard duck breast), cooked in a pan, then sliced and served with a crème fraiche, cognac, and pepper sauce. It was truly amazing. No. Really. It was just great. All the while, we're drinking Sauternes and Saint Emilion wines (not Chateau d'Yquem or premier grand crus, mind you) and sharing our life stories and why we're doing what we're doing.

Suzie (taking the picture of the fromages in what I have to note is an AWFUL photo I took with my crappy phone camera - all three of them look inconceivably better in person!!!) went to college in LA, has her mom and sister there, and has worked at the Four Seasons in Thailand. She came to Paris to attend the full program at Ritz Escoffier - 6 full months of classes, leading up to a master chef designation. Her goal? Move with her partner to Vietnam and get a job at a 5-star hotel. What hotel? Hey Katy? Remember where we had our most elegant dinner in Hanoi? Yep. There.

Oh. The rest of you weren't there with us, were you? Good thing, too. That was OUR honeymoon, dammit.

Anyway - she's thinking about the Sofitel in Hanoi - a gorgeous structure in the heart of Hanoi with elegant colonial architecture and a set of luxury goods shops that would be right at home on the Riviera. I have to say that I love working with Suzie. She's open and friendly and sharp as a pin. I have not a single doubt that she'll achieve anything she aims for.

Becky (standing on the right w/the camera) has been a chief purser and chef on mega-yachts for many years. Putting up with super egos and living all over the world, we learned tonight that Becky made her first expat move from Australia to Mexico, not knowing what she'd do or where she'd do it. She worked in an art gallery (sound familiar, Iana?), stayed for a while with Doctor Who, and ended up several months ago working as an intern at a fabulous restaurant up in Mont Tremblant opened by a friend of hers. That experience convinced her to get more real cuisine schooling under her belt so that she could apply that to her business as a free agent for yachts and hopefully earn enough to buy herself some land to build a home on the lake at Mont Tremblant. Boo-ya!

How do I read that? Katy and I will have a place on the lake at Mont Tremblant to visit!

Finally, but most certainly not leastly, our hostess Florence. Florence has this beautiful new baby and wants to work close to home. She owned a restaurant, working 18 hour days, for many years, often as the sole person in the kitchen, serving as many as 200 people a night, but it became too much, so she sold it. Now, the grand plan is to convert her home into a cooking school and the Certificate in Cuisine from the Ritz is her ticket to credibility with students...and possibly even with the Food Network, with whom she has discussed a show!

That was a lot of great food and information to pack into one evening. Now...to bed.

Bonne nuit, mes amis!

And I thought 3 1/2 hours was tiring...

2007-11-01T15:54:00.001-07:00

OK, so I heard you loud and clear. More photos. So...why no high-res photos today? Well, my dear readers, there is a simple answer. Before I left for France, I bought a replacement charger for my Canon SD400 battery. Cheap Jew that I am, I pass on the $50 original Canon charger for an aftermarket charger for something like $12. "Hey", I said to myself, it's Amazon that's selling the replacement charger - it's not like I'm buying from some unknown vendor in Hong Kong or something. Amazon is trustworthy...right?

So about 10 pictures into my trip...the camera goes dead. I go back to my apt and plug the battery into the charger. The next day, battery back in the camera, power it up and...nothing. Still no Lazarus trick. OK, feeling a sheepish at this point for cheaping out. But it was AM-A-ZON! Please! Well, here I am with a useless charger and the best thing that has come out of it is that I can use my favorite expression:

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Covers all manner of sins, don't you think? Anyway - back to school.

First day, Tuesday, was a short one, just 3 1/2 hours, focused on making stocks, jus, and sauces, for the most part. Wednesday, however...Wednesday was another story.

Wednesday packed in two full 4-hour sessions. Totally exhausting. I think I went to bed at 8:30PM that night.

WEDNESDAY AM

First, we get introduced to another chef, Chef David. Oh. My. God. He's right out of the movie Mostly Martha, only instead of being Italian, he's French. His English is mostly perfect even though he only started studying it 7 months ago. If you haven't seen Mostly Martha, turn off your damned computer, run over to the video store and rent it right now.

If you're on Netflix, scratch that, leave your computer on, fire up FireFox, go to www.netflix.com, search for Mostly Martha, click to rent it, then go to your queue and ask yourself why you've got all those other, non-cooking-related films there, then move Mostly Martha up to the top. If you still have a Netflix movie in your house, go over to your DVD player, press "Eject", stuff it in it's sleeve, put that in the Netflix return envelope, go to the front of your house, open the door, walk down the block, and put it in a mailbox...preferably one with a pickup before 9:30AM. Now close this blog, wait 3 days, go to your mailbox, get the Mostly Martha DVD, go back to your DVD player, press "Eject" again, remove "The Little Mermaid" or "Bourne Supremacy" or "Mr. Bean" and pop in Mostly Martha. After 109 minutes, you can go back to your computer, fire up FireFox, type in mrfrancophile.blogspot.com and start again...

Here.

Whew. OK, so now we all know what I mean when I say that Chef David was just like Chef Mario. He prances into the room singing and joking - always a sly smile on his face. He makes over the top facial expressions and gestures and clearly loves...LOVES...what he does. Being around him, it's just impossible not to be infected by his good humor.

That is Chef David to the left. To his right, Rebecca, my fellow student from Australia, in full blushing-mode, snaps a picture of the vegetables that we will soon prep.

Throughout the whole process, we have all been furiously scribbling notes (or, in my case - geek alert - tapping them into my Treo) and snapping photos of different stages of prep so that we can remind ourselves what we are supposed to do and how we are supposed to do it. At the end of the 6-week program, there's a test where any of us doing the whole thing must make a menu on our own, with no help.

For the morning of my second day, we made a lamb shoulder, wrapped in a sheet of lacy abdomen fat and stuffed with a vegetable, meat, and bread stuffing. In addition, we prepared a ratatouille (yay Disney!) and a plate of blanched vegetables assembled into an artistic tower. Now I should note that when chef David made his absolutely beautiful vegetable sculpture, the vegetable were fresh off the stove, warm, and firm. By the time, 10 min later, that we got to start making our own sculptures, they were getting a little...shall I say...flaccid. Not a pretty sight. And not so easy to make stand up...er...erect.

So here's what I ended up with. Not terrible, but not parfait, as we dit dans la belle France.

To make the ratatouille, we all had to prepare the various vegetables as a brunoise (very finely diced) and I must say, it turned out pretty darned good. Once the lamb shoulder was done and our morning session was over, we divvied up the lamb and the ratatouille and packed them up in plastic containers, as well as our own vegetable creations and five of us decided to take them out to the Tuileries gardens (just off the end of the Louvre) down the street from the ecole (school) to have a little pique-nique. A couple of cans of Fanta Orange Soda rounded out our gourmet fare.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

OK, We've been on our feet slicing, dicing, and making mounds and mounds of julienned veggies, but after a pleasant hour or so in the park, it's back to the grindstone...or at least the kitchen.

As we shifted over to Patisserie, David handed off the reins to Chef Didier. Chef Didier doesn't really have a command of l'Anglais, but we understood most of what he said, en Francais, and his assistant and translator, Manako, filled in the rest for us. Our afternoon goal was to learn how to make pastry creams, mousselines, and basic pate sucre (sweet pastry crust) as well as how to make a small French fruit cake and how to decorate a cake. Oh? Is that all? Do we really need 4 hours for just that? Puh-leeeze.

OK, so we take our flour, powdered sugar and butter and mix it in our bowls with our hands to form our crusts - just a 1/2 egg and our dough is done. Somehow, mine turned out extra-sticky (always the trouble-maker). After a little session in, as Sargeant Shultz would say "The Cooler", the dough is ready to be rolled out (again, per Chef Didier's specific rolling instructions) and formed with a ring into a perfectly-shaped tart shell. All of our shells were then filled with an almond pastry cream and baked to form the foundation for our tarts. The goal, at the end of the day, was to assemble a complete tart from the almond cream base with a decorated edge of Pistachio Mousseline (a creamier Pastry Cream suitable for decorating using a pastry bag - another first for me) and a range of fruit, including pineapple (ananas), Rambutan (like a Lychee), Apples, Mangos, Bananas, and Kiwi. Much of our time was spent learning how to cut all of these different types of fruit, all of which we coated with a sticky glazing syrup - mostly to give it a great shine.

When all was said and done, Chef Didier assembled the example tart and then we went off to assemble our own. You be the judge of how well I did (or didn't do)...that's mine on the right, his on the left (now granted, his had the better lighting and was already on a gold serving round which mine eventually did too...and the decorating tip slipped...and Dylan ate my homework!!!)

First Day of School

2007-10-30T05:21:00.001-07:00

OK, I just have to say it. I have NO idea how chefs do it. My first day of school lasted but 3 1/2 hours, yet I am already exhausted.

Let me start from the beginning. Up at 6AM since I have to be at the school around 8AM. I figured that after a shower and walking to the school from my apartment (it's about 1 1/2 miles away), that I'd probably find a nice little café along the way for a quick croissant and a grand café crème (pretty much a cappuccino) . The light rain that fell yesterday has left the city feeling fresh, and the sun is still not fully up. The air is cool, but in a refreshing way, not cold. Few people are out and about yet, just a few men in each of the lighted cafés and bars along the way having their espresso and a cigarette.

A few homeless people packing up for the day. Perhaps an odd thing to note, but quite a few of the homeless had dogs - but not like those in San Francisco. While our homeless tend to have pit bulls and big wolf-like dogs, every single one of the homeless dogs I saw this morning were cute little dogs - more like you'd find among the old-moneyed on Russian Hill or in Presidio Heights.

So on to my cute little café for my croissant and grand crème. You can find these places all over the city - tiny, with just enough space for a bar and an espresso machine and a few small tables inside and, more often than not, a few outside on the sidewalk as well. I suppose that I should note that most of these sidewalks on the little side streets are little more than 3 feet wide. These sidewalk tables are tiny.

The one I decided on was just down the street from the school on Rue Cambon. Also typical of Paris, one of the walls was beautiful and old rough-hewn random-sized stone, lending an aire of history to the otherwise new and hip bar/café. Warm orangey-red fabric drum lamps hung from the ceiling, also warming up the feel of the interior. I wasn't really looking for the perfect breakfast, just a nice, non-smoky, place to chill with my café and croissant. This place fit the bill.

Walked from there to the school, was met by the woman with whom I'd been corresponding for 3 months (not to worry, honey, just business ;^), Marie Fleur De Cosnac. Friendly, welcoming, and with impeccable English (although I did ask her "Français s'il vous plait", she gave me lowdown on the class, lead me to the laundry deep in the underground warrens of the Ritz to get my uniform, and then on to the classrooms.

In my class of 7 students, aside from yours truly, there was a Malaysian, two Japanese, an Australian (you hear that, Dylan?!), a French woman, and another Californian...but despite being from San Diego, she and her husband have been living in France for 3 years.

The chef, Christophe, was fabulous. Since most of the class were native English speakers, he conducted the whole class in English, but he had an assistant who was French and had lived in Colorado for quite some time, with perfect English as well.

Chef Christophe was beyond competent, gave clear instructions and walked us through all of the steps needed to make veal stock and veal jus, and from those, veal glace, and demi-glace. We also created a crab jus which he then showed us how to make into a bisque if so desired. The main dish we created was a Magret de Canard (duck breast) seasoned with 4-pepper coating and an orange sauce from caramelized orange juice with a balsamic vinegar deglaze and veal stock finished with blanched julienned orange and lemon peel. Finally, we made a mushroom soup with leeks and bouquet garni.

So that's the list. If that seems like a lot to do in one sitting, you're right. It was. Chef Christophe's energy level was unbelievable - constantly on the move for our 3 1/2 hour class. We were all doing, watching, tasting, photographing, and scrambling to take notes as fast as we could. When class was over and we'd all caught our breath and tasted each of the magnificent creations that Chef Christophe had wrought, we packed up little care packages for ourselves of Canard au l'orange, Soupe de Champignon, et Crabe Bisque and headed for the lockers.

We have a great group of people - I think that I'll enjoy working with them all and we've even agreed to get a group of us together this weekend and practice our sauce making skills. In the meantime, I think I'm going to practice napping.

A bientôt, mes amis!

Made it

2007-10-29T05:50:00.001-07:00

Bienvenue a Paris, mon amis!

Well, I am finally here. Whew. As if direct flights weren't long enough. I guess I can't complain. Getting tickets on Continental using frequent flyer mileage saves a big hunk o' change, so I suppose that dealing with the layover in the Houston isn't really too much to ask. I did, after all, find a softcover copy of Julia Child's book My Life in France at the Houston International Airport, so perhaps it was meant to be. Although Julia had the romance of arriving at Le Havre by ship (after what sounded like a truly tortuous crossing), I simply glided into Charles De Gaulle airport watching Ocean's 13 on my little video monitor while simultaneously reading The Economist (just had to throw that in there to give myself at least a skosh of intellectual cred).

Both of my flights were, shockingly, right on time both taking off and landing. Continental, equally shockingly, even served food for which they didn't charge extra on the flight from San Francisco to Houston. I just can't bring myself to call it George Bush International Airport. I know it's the name, but after all, I still call that small airport in Washington D.C. "National Airport" - when I think about Ronald Reagan, all I can think about is him saying that "trees cause pollution" and that when it comes to kids getting healthy lunch options at school, "ketchup is a vegetable". I know that this must seem like a digression, but isn't it cool how I brought it back to food?

By the way, Ronnie (and yes, I know that you're on the other side now), ketchup is made from tomatoes...and a tomato is a fruit.

OK, back to Paris.

Landed at CDG right smack on time...no...actually, we were 15 to 20 minutes early! But. There always has to be a but, huh? After exiting the plane and walking into the terminal, we were funneled into a hall that lead to customs (Douane) and baggage claim. But there was a backup in the hall. At first we were walking, but 100' down the hall we stop behind what looks like an endless line of people. Although nobody bothered to announce the problem to us, apparently somebody had abandoned (or forgot) a bag in the customs area and they were waiting for the police to come and take it away for disposal. What was the effect? Nearly 500 people were standing in this hall for nearly 45 minutes. Grrrr.

OK - so they wave us through customs quickly - that was nice. Baggage claim was just what it is everywhere, slow, but the bag did eventually show up - and not even the last on the conveyor! From there, I buzzed right out to get some cash using my nearly worthless US dollars and find my way into Paris. Waited on line for the ATM about 10 min...only to have it go offline as I walked up. Double-grrrr. Finally got it working and pulled out a stack o' Euros for the cab. Now I was supposed to meet the property manager for the apartment I rented at 11:30, but even though I got in at 9:20AM, the 45 min wait in the hall, the 15 min wait for the cab, and the 6MPH traffic all the way in to Paris meant that I was nearly an hour late to meet her. I suppose that I could have used the French GSM phone that my friend Bill lent me to call and let her know that I'd be late, but...er...well...I guess I forgot the phone back in SF. DOH!!!

After all that, I did find her, I hauled my bag up the old stairs to the apartment, and found that when you access Google from a French IP address, it always comes up with google.fr. No duh. Maybe I just need that nap.

Pierre and Sophie's Favorite...and ours too!

2007-10-12T09:45:00.000-07:00

OK, haven't left the states yet, but already I feel like I'm in Paree. Our friends Michael and Iana are getting married this weekend and Iana's far-flung famille have crossed the oceans to be here. Among them, plusieurs Parisiennes. Yesterday, I took two of her cousines on a quick tour of San Francisco and we discovered, to our mutual amazement, that we both had the same favorite restaurant in Paris...Chez L'ami Jean (see the link).

Now l'ami Jean has been written up in the NY Times (after, I should note, Katy and I went there for my birthday last year), so it's not really a secret. But it's also not really well known - even by Parisians. An unassuming Basque pub-like restaurant, it's hidden away on a dark and quiet street in la septieme (7th) arronidissement, not far from the Eiffel Tower. Walk in and you'd think you were just in a noisy and smokey neighborhood bar. But sit down for some food...zut alors! If you can get a reservation, you're in for a treat.

Sophie and I waxed philosophical about l'ami Jean's respect for terroir and the sophistication of their preparation. What really blew me away was that Sophie actually worked there for a while as a line cook! Wow. What a job. What a coincidence. She's my hero.

Although l'ami Jean looks like a smoky pub, the food preparation and presentation are more like you would expect in a Michelin 2-star restaurant. The problem with the whole star rating (and Sophie would back me up on this), is that Michelin factors in sophisticated service and room design into their ratings. So what happens? The highest-rated restaurants tend to be hush-hush quiet and reserved, elegantly designed, and...well...frankly, not that comfortable - you just can't relax and enjoy your food and your company and exclaim "Mon Dieu! Cette foie est magnifique!!!". Or however you would properly say that in French (my apologies to all true francophones).

Ahhhh...I am definitely looking forward to a dinner there with Pierre and Sophie while I'm residing dans la cite d'amour in a few semaines! Merci Iana!

Why start Mrfrancophile's blog now?

2007-10-05T11:30:00.000-07:00

Because ma famme has been most generous and has given me the freedom to pursue a lifelong dream to pursue training as a chef. I love to eat, so why not cook - then you can definitely get it hot off the stove. I've put this off for years with one excuse or another...can't take the time off work...can't afford it...can't speak French. But my wife, just like our good friends at the Nike megalopolis, said "just do it."

So I am.

Right after my sister-in-law gets married on Oct 27th to her gourmand partner-in-crime, I jet off for gay Paris for the six-week César Ritz course at the Ecole Ritz Escoffier, off the dark back alley behind the ritzy Ritz hotel on the Place Vendome. I'm a little intimidated due to my limited knife skills, short attention span, and abysmal command of the lyrical French langue, but the classes are translated into English and there are no tests! I believe the French term that best describes that would be "boo-ya!".

Ever since I was 8 years old, I loved to bake. Since my mom wasn't really into baking, someone had to pick up the slack. Over the years, I worked my way up from yellow cake (no, Mr. President, not that kind of yellow cake) to flourless chocolate tortes, crème anglaise, and mocha hazelnut dacquoises. Yup, me likee the bakee. What's not to like? Butter, oeufs, chocolate, sucre. All the good stuff. The 3 food groups, actually. Fat, Sugar, and Caffeine.

But mon amour is a little bit more focused on health.

So now we buy only organic produce and dairy whenever possible, cook most of our meals out of Cooking Light (which are actually pretty spectacular recipes, for the most part - very flavorful while less fattening than your typical Gourmet or Bon Appétit fare) and all around don't bake that much anymore. So what does this mean now that I'm heading to the Grand Temple de Cuisine? Well...

OUT Plan A: Pursue Certificate de Patisserie

IN Plan B: Pursue Certificate de Cuisine

Hey, what the hell. I figure that if I'm a better cook all around, it works out better for everyone, whether it's super light and healthy or pork belly stuffed in lobster wrapped with bacon in a raspberry citrus brown butter (oh sure - it sounds gross to you now, but just wait until I make it!).

So now it's just pay the bills, pack the bags, arrange for the taxi at Charles de Gaulle, and spend some quality time with the girl before I'm leavin' on a jet plane.

Details as they happen, mon amis!

J