Beautiful Food in Paris

In the life of a student, luxury is something that normally comes in small doses, so I have come to be very appreciative of the luxurious pastries that pass through my life (=mouth). The parisian macaron is of course one of those extravagant moments that I love the most, and while a few dollars seems like a lot to spend for a few bites of bliss, it certainly can fit an economical budget from time to time.

Pierre Hermé, my favorite macaron provider in Paris, is closed for another four days for their summer revamp (not that I'm counting or anything), so meanwhile I have explored a few other options. The macarons above are found, well, at McCafé, and I believe are only 90 centimes. I tried the caramel au beurre salé, and it really wasn't bad! I have had much worse from patisseries in Paris, and it turns out that McCafé gets their macarons from the same provider that Ladurée does, albeit of a slightly lower quality (more on Ladurée later). Quite the affordable, speedy, and widely available option.

The McCafé at the Louvre food court

I also did a bit of research into cooking classes here; thanks to David Lebovitz and Clotilde Dusoulier's fabulous sites/books, I was introduced to the affordable Atelier des Chefs. Some of their lessons are as low as 15 Euros for a class that can be taken at lunchtime, which includes the food that you make so that you can eat it for lunch. They have many locations and different classes in Paris - and other cities in France - so you can choose one at a convenient place and with a menu that you find interesting. I chose a class for 36 Euros at the BHV store on the rue de Rivoli which featured financiers and caramel macarons. Predictable, perhaps, but given the opportunity to take a class on macarons in Paris, I had to take it!

In the end I learned some valuable techniques from the class, and will definitely use the pistachio-confit orange financier recipe (and will post it in English; click here for a demo video and the recipe in French). The final product of the macaron shells, however, was quite disappointing - they were crunchy, and not as smooth on the surface as I would have liked. So, I will take what I learned and supplement it with the other recipes and techniques I have read.

The Atelier des Chefs kitchen at BHV rue de Rivoli

I finally succeeded in making it to fine chocolatier Pierre Marcolini's store at a time when they weren't closed for their long daily lunch break - this is the third trip to Paris when I've tried to buy their chocolate-covered marshmallows/guimauves.

Pierre Marcolini rue de Seine boutique

Some of the best gourmet marshmallows I've had, and of course the chocolate was excellent! I love that the French for these is "Vanille enrobée de Chocolat" - as if the marshmallow is clothed in the chocolate.

Of course, other beautiful things popped out at me once I entered the PM shop, so I returned another day to buy these macarons, which were not quite delicate enough, but well flavored and very pretty.

Mojito and Limoncello Macarons

And this bouchée of nougat and chocolate cream topped with crisp cookie wafers had me intrigued, so I had to try it:

Mmmmmmmm....

I also made a stop at the nearby Patrick Roger shop, where I bought this caramel dome for a ridiculous 4 Euros, which I assume pays for the fact that it comes in its own box like a piece of jewelry (like I said, moments of luxury):

liquid caramel with a touch of citrus encased in chocolate

And my final moment de luxe this week was my first trip to Ladurée, the classic and classy tea shop that invented parisian macarons. As I have confirmed with my trial of their macarons and conversations with Parisians, these are good macarons, but not the best. The flavors were good, but the texture was lacking the magic of the Pierre Hermé macarons. Their shells were slightly too thick, and the filling in the middle not quite plentiful enough, so that the result was less delicate and less fondant in the middle. All the same, good, just not mind-blowing.

Ladurée to-go bakery at the Champs-Elysée location

I did very much enjoy the other pastries I got at Ladurée, which included a millefeuille praliné (praline napoleon) and an Ispahan macaron, which is actually a flavor creation of Pierre Hermé's: rose, raspberry, and lychee all together (which I had in croissant form back in June, amazing).

Ispahan and millefeuille praliné from Ladurée

But Paris on a daily basis for me has been typified by the wonderfully fresh foods that are all around the city in outdoor markets and even neighborhood supermarkets. My generous hosts even picked up pastries from a local shop for one breakfast:

And I have enjoyed this lunch on a number of days: whole grain cracker with goat cheese and fresh peach slices (see the caramel macarons in the background from my cooking class?). No complaints here! Gotta balance the rich pastries somehow.

Thank goodness for gorgeous weather to go running through the Parc des Buttes Chaumont!

Loving Paris in June

And let the summer travel posts begin...

Last week I spent two days in Paris on my way to Israel (I tell myself that this is a way to get used to the time zone, but let's face it, really it's an excuse to produce a post like this!), and the beautiful pastries wet my appetite for my three weeks in Paris in August.

This was a visit that, more than the others I took this past April or in May 2008, reminded me of the significance of my student days in Paris. Perhaps it was the time I spent in the Marais this time, or the long hours I took walking the city, but whatever the reason, these two days brought to mind the girl I was 9 years ago, just at the cusp of developing into who I am now.

The semester I spent at the Sorbonne in 2001 was a formative point in my adult life; in particular, I was at an important place in developing my sense of aesthetics. I was constantly struck by design throughout Paris - in the art museums, in architecture, in advertisements, in clothing, in the juxtaposition of the new and the old in an historic but modern city. I gathered pictures from magazines and ads until I had a notebook stuffed with scraps of paper, and I even tried to draw a little bit. Living outside of the U.S. allowed me to let go of my perceptions of what art is, and simply listen to my personal experience of sensory expressions - which brings me to the food in this post again.

My aesthetic sensibilities are at their happiest, perhaps, with beautiful food. I know I rave constantly about Pierre Hermé, but really, he is an artist. His medium is of the highest quality - no one could beat the textural and flavorful perfection of his macarons - while he also executes a creativity in flavor combinations and presentation that takes the technical work to a level of sophistication that is so pleasing to me. The photo above is of his Ispahan croissant; Ispahan is his signature "fetish" collection flavor that combines raspberry, rose, and lychee, with some almond paste as well in the croissant. Brilliant, right?

I devoured this croissant, and then ate the crumbs from the bag. Amazing pastry, striking filling, lovely sweet glaze.




And OF COURSE I got some of his macarons, in flavors I hadn't tried yet (except for the caramel): clockwise from upper left, Mosaïc (pistachio, griottine cherry, and touch of cinnamon), Mogador (passion fruit and milk chocolate), Arabesque (apricot and pistachio), and Infiniment Caramel (salted butter caramel). I am always surprised by the touches of bitterness or sourness he allows to remain in his flavors; the passion fruit was certainly on the sour side for me, and the caramel actually has a bitter edge to the burned sugar flavor. Few pastry chefs would make that gusty choice in the States! I think Mosaïc was my favorite this time.




I ran into this place while walking around town, and while its Asian-inspired flavors were interesting, I just had to buy...



...one of these: a Chocoron, or Chocolate-Dipped Macaron. Oh yes.




Raspberry and chocolate isn't my absolute favorite combination, but I could not resist the colors of this amazing confection. Sadaharu Aoki's macarons in general had stiffer shells, which structure fit the chocolate dipping better than a soft Hermé would have done. It is truly difficult to look at this photo without being able to take a bite of one right now.



Berthillon's ice cream was a must-try, and I was glad I sat down to eat it at Ma Bourgogne at the Place des Vosges, even though it cost three times as much as getting a few scoops on Ile St. Louis. The honey nougat and the café dauphinois were fabulous with the gavottes that accompanied them.




And the final culinary highlight of the two days was this religieuse from Des Gâteaux et du Pain; I literally have wanted to try this for two years, and this time happened to be staying a few blocks away from the bakery. After this trip, I highly recommend staying in the 15th arrondissement for high quality pastry and baked good options.




Choux pastry (think cream puffs) filled with salted caramel pastry cream, coated in caramel icing, held together with caramel buttercream piping.




I don't usually talk like this, but...GET IN MY BELLY!




A bientôt, Paris!

Tasting Morocco (and Paris again)

And more than a month later. . . here I am again with the longest post ever. I've got a pile of recipes and photos to share with you all, but I've gotta start with tidbits from my trip to Morocco and Paris, which were full of succulent treats.

Although I did pass by the Ladurée stand at CDG on my way to Morocco, I saved my Parisian macaron experience for the days in Paris that followed the week in Morocco.

Like Ladurée's selection of macarons, the food in Morocco was vibrantly colorful and diversely spiced; I find that the mix of 42 spices that I brought home from Fez characterizes an approach to Moroccan food that creatively melds a whole variety of flavors (cinnamon, fruits, and savory together, etc.).

The most common food we encountered on the trip was the tagine (or tajine), which can best be described as a stew - really any mix of cooked food, whether veggie, meat, fruit, nuts, or any combination thereof. While most of our travel group grew weary of tagines, one can't help but admire the diversity of offerings: lamb with prunes and almonds, chicken with preserved lemons and olives, vegetables (carrots, squash, etc., with a ton of butter!), and kefta (beef meatballs with an egg cooked in it and lots of chili powder).

We were also lucky enough to have a few meals prepared for us at a center where we were volunteering; they went out of their way to make a delicious couscous for us (even though couscous is traditionally eaten only on Fridays for the Muslim holy day), as well as a lovely chicken with preserved lemon. The bread that accompanied the meals was a yeasted flatbread, called khobz in Arabic, that was meant to be used to scoop up the food - although they provided us with forks.

A few of the Moroccan ladies showed me how to eat couscous by using this technique of taking a handful of it, and forming it into a ball with one hand by sort of rolling the ball in a motion back and forth, almost like one's hand is a whiffle ball catcher. They then threw the balls into their mouths - not something I was able to accomplish, but fascinating!

Yeah, I went to McDonald's once in Morocco - I am always curious to see what they do differently in different countries. Here it was the McArabia, a sandwich on flatbread spiced with cumin and coriander; not bad, after all.

Paris brought me to beautiful things of a more familiar, but still lovely, nature. Like my last trip to France, it was a few days of bakery bliss, with a couple gorgeous meals to even out the sweets. I may have OD'd a tad on sugar, since I've been uncharacteristically avoiding it since my return, but everything I had was amazing.

I had to visit the specialty baking store G. Detou after reading rave reviews of it on Chocolate and Zucchini and David Lebovitz's blog; I have to admit that I spent more money there than anywhere in Paris in order to buy all the chocolates I wanted my family to try. Because it was the week before Easter, they had some fabulous chocolate eggs filled with almond paste, plus their normal selection of high quality chocolates.

The savory star of my Paris time was this gorgeous, gorgeous trout. I'm not even that much of a fish person, but this was quite tender and, well, soaked in browned butter. I've been reminded since my trip that one of the first meals Julia Child eats in Julie and Julia is a fish cooked in butter, and if it was anything like this one, it absolutely deserved the raptures that Julia went into over it. I sopped up every drop of that butter with the fish and cleaned that plate dry. Yes, that is the butter all over the plate.

The fish was followed by a huge crème brûlée - I couldn't even finish it since I was so full of the fish (and butter).

On top of the deliciousness of the trout, the meal was a treat because I got to eat it at the oldest café in Paris, Le Procope. Perhaps Voltaire or Benjamin Franklin enjoyed this same fish dish years ago? I highly recommend a meal here - for a nice sit-down lunch, it's a good deal for the afternoon formula menu.

I was reminded on this trip that the Left Bank is really my favorite area in the city; this may have something to do with the fact that the whole district is full of amazing bakeries and bookshops, two of my favorite things. I love the pedestrian bridge that crosses over from the Louvre to L'Institut de France on the Left Bank; it's Le Pont des Beaux Arts (the Fine Arts Bridge), so there's always something interesting going on there, like these random locks.

The Left Bank is also home to my still-preferred baker/bakery, Pierre Hermé. His were the first macarons to pass my lips, and they are still the best two years later, even after I have tried them at other shops in Paris, all over L.A. and San Francisco, and made them myself. On this trip I remembered that one must still be picky about bakeries even in Paris, since I picked up a very mediocre macaron at a beautiful and fragrant bakery called Gérard Mulot in St. Germain. Both their macaron and dark chocolate tart were disappointing.

On the other hand, Pierre Hermés' mille feuilles infiniment caramel (infinitely caramel Napoleon pastry) made my day. Wonderful caramel flavor all throughout the cream, and between the pastry layers, and on top. Yum. I also bought the macarons pictured with the Eiffel Tower above at PH, and they were as tender, lightly chewy, and well-flavored as I remembered.

Also on the Left Bank, next door to artisanal bread bakery Poilâne, is Cuisine de Bar, a restaurant that makes tartines (open-faced sandwiches) with Poilâne bread. On David Lebovitz's recommendation, I ordered the tartine with garlic mayonnaise (very heavy, as you can see!), roasted chicken, capers, chives, and sardines. While I could have done without the fishiness of the sardines, the tartine was very good, as was the simple salad it came with. To finish the meal I ordered a coffee, which was accompanied by a little edible shortbread spoon to be nibbled upon after stirring in the sugar and dipping in the coffee. The service was great, so if you're looking for a teeny little restaurant to have lunch in alone without being too conspicuous, this is a good choice.

My final fave on the Left Bank was the Rodin Museum, which was another good memory I confirmed on this trip. I have always enjoyed museums that feature one primary artist, since they are smaller and more approachable than places like the Louvre. Rodin's (and Camille Claudel's, also featured here) works of the human body always strike me as beautiful and full of feeling, whether they be in bronze or marble, so this was an aesthetically worthwhile stop.

On the other end of town, in the 11th arrondissement, I took my final meal in Paris at West Country Girl, another Dave Leb recommendation. The name of the crêperie refers to its Breton-style crêpes and galettes (from the west of France). Everything was made fresh there, including the amazing caramel sauce. This was another good lunch deal - 9 Euros for a savory crêpe (I got the crêpe du jour with ham, goat cheese, and chives), a sweet crêpe (salted butter caramel sauce!), and some light cider.

West Country Girl is not that far from the Père Lachaise cemetery, which I visited for the first time. I made the obligatory stop at Oscar Wilde's lipstick-littered grave, and otherwise enjoyed the unique vistas of the cemetery as I searched for other famous people (mostly to no avail).

A completely wonderful trip to Morocco and Paris - and the people I spent time with were absolutely the crème de la crème! I hope you feel inspired by this little stroll through my travels.