DORIE GREENSPAN

Getting to Know the Marche d'Aligre with David Lebovitz

He who hesitates is lost.  Well, I’m not exactly lost, but I was certainly beaten to the posting punch by my friend David Lebovitz.  I’d been getting organized to write about the great day I spent with David touring his market, le Marche d’Aligre, probably the liveliest in Paris, but he actually pulled it all together.  To read about our day, click over to David.

For a few footnotes, stay put.

About Ble du Sucre (7 rue Antoine Vollon) and those madeleines:  The patisserie, which is only a teensy detour from the market, is worth a trip on its own.  The chef, Fabrice Le Bourdat, had been at the luxe hotel Bristol for seven years, and before that he was in Cannes at the Martinez, but for New Yorkers he’s “the one that got away.”  He told me that when pastry chef Francois Payard was leaving restaurant Daniel, Daniel Boulud asked him to fill the slot.  Le Bourdat went to New York, spent a week in the City, and flew back to La Belle France.  Too bad for the Big Apple; awfully nice for Paris.  Ble du Sucre has what fashion designers would call a well edited collection – meaning there aren’t a trillion things in the case, but there were plenty of treats, among them madeleines, which is what David wanted me to taste and I’m grateful to him that he did: they’re lovely – moist, supple, buttery and finished with a sugar glaze that’s slightly crunchy (the glaze is a great idea that I'm thinking of adopting).  Not wanting the sweet little madeleines to be lonely, I got some financiers, too. 

About the fish guys at Peche Paris (rue d'Aligre):  If I lived near the Marche d’Aligre, I’d become 100% fishatarian – they’re very cute.

About La Graineterie du Marche (8 place d’Aligre):  It was only the thought of having to drag an even heavier bag around the market that stopped me from buying one of everything Jose had there.  As it was, I came back with a sack of hibiscus flowers (I want to make a syrup), some licorice candies (of course) and so many cans of sardines and tuna that I feel like I’ve got my own little school of fish in the kitchen.

About Salim at Le Verger d’Aligre (in the covered market):  David’s right – he’s adorable and he’s got some of the season’s prettiest fruits and vegetables, just about all of which he wanted us to taste. 

About David:  Rest easy David adorers – he’s as wonderful as you think he is. He’s also a guy with terrific taste (I know I’m not telling you anything new).  It’s not just that he knows a good madeleine when he sees one, it’s that he knows how to savor the pleasures of this city.  I realized this again when we went to the Café Aouba (rue d’Aligre), a little shop with a big coffee roaster and a happy bustle.  Drinking his espresso, he looked out at the market, which was in full swing around us – from where we stood you could almost feel the pulse of the market – and said, I think this is my favorite spot in Paris.  Of course it would be.  It could be the center of the universe for all of us who love Paris and the way life is lived here.

I’m heading back to New York tomorrow, but I’m putting in my reservation for another day with David when I get back.

France: Three Exceptional Views from the Pays Basque

I have so much I want to write about from my recent travels - and I will, eventually - but it will probably take me as long to get organized as it did to get from place to place. (Okay, it's already taken me that long and I didn't get organized - but I will, I will!) 

In the meantime, here are three great views that tured up in three of the least expected places. 

Here's what you see when you walk out of an underground parking lot in Biarritz

And here's what's just over the low stone wall of the Hotel Euzkadi's  parking space in Espelette

And here's my favorite

It's the view from a CLOSET in Ostape, the stunning auberge in Bidarry directed by Alain Ducasse.  (Coming soon, a post on the terrific lunch we had there.)

Paris: The Mark of the Veliber

Velib rolled out almost two weeks ago and the Paris genies who set up the citywide bicycle program are probably cartwheeling merrily around their offices – what they’ve done is great!

People are riding around everywhere at every hour and they all look really happy.  (Except maybe the 18-year-old student I saw who got a ticket for going up a one-way street the wrong way and couldn’t cry her way out it.  Tears usually work here, but this poor kid had the bad luck to run into a cop who was completely unmoved by them.)

And all the bikers have The Mark of the Veliber, even if some of them are oblivious to it.

You know how you can tell surfers by their hair?  Skateboarders by their chains?  Dancers by their turned-out toes?  Well, new as Velibers are to the sport, they’ve got their give-away too.

Here I am showing my mark of the Veliber to David Lebovitz (thanks for the picture, David):

Can you see how grimy my palm is?  I’ve taken six Velib bikes and six times I’ve ended up grubby.  I think it comes from unlatching the bike. Or maybe it happens when I adjust the height of the seat, which I always have to do – who knew that I was so short or that the Parisians were so tall?  Whatever it is, it’s messy!

Given that the program’s inventors seem to have thought of almost everything, I’m sure they’ll think of something nifty to clean-up this problem.  I’m hoping for a (stylish) Purell dispenser at every station.

Snacks: Just Say "Non"

Last night, as I was flipping through a stack of French food magazines, I came across this advertisement for Lay’s Potato Chips.  The headline reads:  “A New Recipe for Happiness,” and the ad goes on to say that because the kinds of fats we eat is a concern these days, Lay’s Chips now have less mauvaises graisses, or “bad fats.”  For sure it wasn’t this copy or the suggestion that Lay’s Chips can happily accompany a chicken, roast beef or barbecue that grabbed me, it was the not-so-small print at the bottom of the page that made me stop.  It reads:

FOR YOUR HEALTH, AVOID SNACKING BETWEEN MEALS.

And then it gives the following web address:  www.mangerbouger.fr

MangerBouger means EatMove and it’s an initiative funded by the French government to get people to eat foods that are good for them and to exercise routinely. 

For a while now, there have been dire warnings on cigarettes in France.  I mean really dire, like the words Smoking Kills in bold black letters so big they stretch across half the pack. And soon there’ll be an icon with a slash over a silhouette of a pregnant woman with a glass to her lips, and a line saying that would-be moms should have zero alcohol. 

Now there’s the snack patrol and three other messages saying, “For your health” …

• Eat at least five fruits and vegetables each day.

• Exercise regularly.

• Avoid eating foods that are too fatty, too sweet, too salty.

While French people still look chicly trim to me, there’s a sense among some that these warnings are really needed because the scales are tipping, quite literally.  The other day, a Parisian nutritionist (I know, there was a time when this might have sounded like an oxymoron), told me that obesity is on the rise in France and that there are more overweight children here than ever.  She said, with alarm, that France is 20 years behind the United States in terms of the percentage of the population that is obese - her fear was that the gap could close rapidly.

I can’t imagine that companies are happy about having these warnings pasted on the bottom of their advertisements.  But if they don't like the tag lines, it seems they can avoid them by contributing 1.5% of whatever their ads cost to INPES, a national institute devoted to nutrition education.  An interesting option, isn't it? 

In a country that values personal freedom as much as it does foie gras, I think a campaign like this is fascinating and I wonder what it’s going to do.  We'll know it's working if it gets me to give up M&Ms.  I'll keep you posted.

At Home with Pierre Herme: Time for Dessert!

If you were having dinner chez Pierre Herme, the world-famous pastry chef, what would you expect to get for dessert?

Bet that whatever you guessed, you guessed wrong. 

When we finished our dinner, the table was re-set for dessert with brightly colored glass plates and adorable little sporks (spoons with one forkish side).  Then the chef brought out a big tray stacked high with:

Boxes of his ice cream!

Just seeing the boxes made us feel like kids at the best birthday party ever.  We all grabbed containers, opened them lickety-split, took scoops and politely put them on our plates.  But a couple of spoonfuls later, the plates were forgotten and we were passing the boxes up, down and across the table and double-dipping like mad.  It was great fun, but it was only the beginning. 

When all the ice cream was gone, out came dozens of macarons!

In addition to knowing everything there is to know about pastry, Pierre knows a lot about how to make his friends happy – really happy.

PS: Just in case you were wondering, among the ice-cream flavors we had were:

• Ispahan: Litchi and rose sorbet with raspberries
• Caramel au Beurre Sale: Caramel ice cream made with salted butter
• Plentitude: Chocolate ice cream with flecks of chocolate and fleur-de-sel
• Satine: Orange, passion fruit and cream cheese
• Montebello: Pistachio ice cream with strawberry sorbet

Hautvillers: Rocking the Cradle of Champagne

I don't know about you, but when I walk down the street I don't usually bump into a smiling guy carrying four bottles of Champagne.  If you don't either, then the problem might be that neither of us lives in Hautvillers, a place where Champagne is so important and so beloved that I thought (okay, hoped) it might have replaced water in every faucet.

Hautvillers, a beautiful French village founded in 658, overlooking the Marne and surrounded by vineyards, is called The Cradle of Champagne because it is here in the Abbey that Dom Perignon made the cloudy, effervescent regional wine of the time (we're talking the mid-1600s) into something Louis XIV adored and something close to what we now know and covet as Champagne.

The Abbey itself is definitely worth a visit.

Go for the architecture - the inside of l'Abbaye de Hautvillers is spare and exquisite in its simplicity; for the relics - the best are the relics from Saint Helena, the mother of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine (time frame circa 247 to 328) and the person generally credited with discovering the remains of the True Cross; and to see the tomb of Dom Perignon, the Benedictine monk who was in charge of the Abbey's wine cellars until his death. 

Or go just to walk the cobbled streets of the town.  When you look out from Hautvillers, you see the bountiful Champagne vineyards.

And when you look up, you see the whimsical house signs.  There are 160 of them in the small village and almost all of them have something to do with Champagne.

While we were in Hautvillers, we were lucky enough to spend time with Catherine and Patrick Lopez, proprietors of Maison Lopez-Martin Champagne, a house that produces beautifully made Champagne in teensy-tiny quantities.  (FYI: You can visit many of the Champagne produers by appointment.  While some of the large houses have regularly scheduled tours during the busy tourist seasons, the majority of small houses are strictly by-appointment-only.  Big or small, the best thing to do is to make arrangements ahead of time.)

As we walked through the Lopez-Martin cellars, we came to the riddling rack, the pulpit (as it's called in French), where Champagne bottles, which have been topped with metal caps (the kind used on beer bottles), are inserted at a tilt, regularly turned and then gradually racked at ever steeper angles until whatever sediment was in the wine has lodged in the neck of the bottle.

In the days of Dom Perignon, bottles were pushed into sand piles so that the sediment could collect.  It wasn't until the 19 th century that the Veuve Clicquot invented the riddling table (a cruder version of today's pulpit) and the process of turning and tilting the bottles became more efficient and less back-breaking.

I'd seen riddling stands before, but I'd never seen a pro riddle, so it was terrific to watch M. Lopez turn the bottles.  He worked so quickly I had the feeling that if he ever decided to give up Champagne he could have a career in the circus doing sleight-of-hand tricks.  Here's a picture - I wish I had a video.

Actually, most riddling is done by machine these days.  The bottles are packed in special crates and the crates are manipulated by crane-like machines controlled by computer.  Hand riddling is done mostly in small Champagne houses or in the larger houses when they have special cuvees or Champagne in bottles that are not the standard size or shape.  (For example, Veuve Clicquot's Grande Dame must be riddled by hand.)

Once the sediment has collected in the top of the bottle, M. Lopez stores the bottles upside down until it's time to disgorge them.

Just before the Champagne is corked, muzzled with wire and shipped, the neck of the bottle is frozen, the metal cap is popped and the plug of sediment shoots out, or disgorges.  Then the wine is dosed, which means that a mixture of wine and sugar is added to the bottle, a process that both sweetens the Champagne and fills in the amount of liquid that went flying out with the sediment.

That morning, M. Lopez disgorged a bottle for us.  (The plug and whatever liquid escaped went into this little white cage - very tidy.)

And then we drank it as is, sugar-free, or sans dosage.  What a treat!  You could really taste how good the wine was without the excitement of bubbles (Lopez-Martin is a premier cru Champagne made with equal parts chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes) and you could imagine how great it would have been had we had some oysters, which is what M. Lopez said he and his fellow champenois eat with this extra-brut brut Champagne.

Next time. 

And next time might be real soon.  Now that there are several sleek, comfy TGVs (fast trains) zooming daily from Paris to nearby Reims (the trip is under an hour), sipping Champagne at the source is very doable.

Champagne: How to Keep the Fizz

A French friend once told me that the way to hold an opened bottle of Champagne was to stick a silver (or silverplated) spoon in it.  Since my friend had never steered me wrong, that’s what I did and I was happy for lots of years. 

Then some know-it-all told me that the spoon thing was an old wives’ myth.  He shrugged dismissively when I mentioned that my spooned Champagne seemed to have fizz a day later, and he insisted that the only thing to do with bubbly wine was to drink it up quickly – admittedly, not a bad idea, or to seal it with a cap made especially for that job – also not a bad idea.  So, I bought a cap and I used it and it was fine, perhaps finer than the silver-spoon solution, but I couldn’t really tell because, just like with the spooned leftovers, we sipped the stoppered stuff only a day later.

These days, I always have a stopper at hand, but I’m just as likely to grab a spoon as I am the little gadget, so you can imagine my delight when tonight, just as we were finishing a really delicious dinner at Chez Josephine (on the rue du Cherche-Midi in Paris), I saw the waiter pop a spoon into the top of an opened bottle of Champagne before stashing it in the fridge.

My question was: “Does it really work?”

And his answer was:  “It works for me; it works for my mother, who taught me the trick; and it worked for her mother, who taught it to her.” 

Of course.  And who’d argue with three generations of spooners?

PS.  After I wrote this, Serious Eats picked it up and posted an interesting idea on what works, what doesn't and why when it comes to keeping the bubbles in the bottle.  Click here to read it.

Recipe for a Perfect Wedding

The first thing you need for a perfect wedding is a couple who are so in love with each other and with life that just seeing them together makes grumpy people grin and pessimists believe that all is right with the world.  Meet New Yorker Kerrin Feldman, whom I met a few years ago at The Chocolate Show (you meet the best people over chocolate), and Parisian Olivier Rousset, who were married on France's most important day, July 14 (14 juillet), just outside of Paris in what had to have been one of the most joyous weddings ever, ever, ever.

Then you need to plan, plan, plan!  I wish I had a picture of Kerrin's files for you.  She and Olivier planned the wedding themselves with long-distance help and encouragement from Kerrin's parents, Lani and Steve,

and Kerrin's color-coded, hand-written and Excel-ed spreadsheets are a marvel.  Here are a few of the things Kerrin and Olivier did that you might want to snatch and make your own:

• Shuttle your out-of-town guests to and from Paris in a bus and put your friend Pierre in the front seat, so he can ask the driver to crank up the a/c, hand out water and, to help keep the crowd happy in stop-and-go holiday traffic, offer Laduree macarons in eight flavors: chocolate, vanilla, coffee, pistachio, cherry, raspberry, cassis and the sublime caramel and salted butter.

• Have your wedding in the Chateau de Baronville, which looks like it was made for a fairy tale.

• And choose just the right spot on the chateau grounds for the ceremony.

• Along with Premier Cru Pierre Gimmonet Champagne and pigs and blankets (yes, they had them and yes, both the French and the Americans made quick work of them), serve an assortment of sliders, including foie gras, tarama and smoked salmon -- and make sure the bun is brioche.

• Keep the cocktail party lively with a Dixieland band.

• Don't forget to have a foie gras station.  (As the pieces of foie gras came out of the skillet, they went on small pieces of baguette and then it was up to the muncher to top the morsel with coarse salt, cracked pepper and/or onion marmalade.)

• When it's time for everyone to come into the chateau for dinner, have each of the tables named for a pastry (Kerrin is wild about everything sweet).

• Stock the restrooms with everything anybody could possibly need and toss some Carambars (France's favorite caramel candy) into the basket too.

• Sometime around midnight, get everyone outside by announcing that you've got a surprise for them and then have a spectacular fireworks show (they probably didn't have fireworks at Versailles, but as soon as the first rocket went off, I felt like i was at one of Louis' grand balls).

• Have bunches of wedding cakes and cake-cutters too.

 

• Drive off (nephew in tow) and LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Bicycles in Paris: Two Days to Go

On Sunday, July 15, Paris begins its grand bicycle program and the whole city seems to be getting ready for it.  On a walk along the rue Saint-Honore, I came across this poster urging everyone to get on a bike.

In Colette, the hip "concept" store, there was an exhibit of bicycle art and these beauties for sale

And, on the streets, crews were literally paving the way for the program to begin

The columns you see are bicycle hitching posts and the machine to the right is the meter that dispenses your Velib pass.

I'm going away for the weekend, so I won't be around for the kick-off, but I'm really looking forward to seeing these bikes rolling through the city on Monday.  In fact, I'm looking forward to being on one. I'll keep you posted.

France: A Great Afternoon in Espelette

Last week we stayed in Espelette, a picture-postcard pretty town in the Pays Basque that is about 30 minutes from everywhere you want to go in the region, including the beaches of Biarritz

the markets of Saint-Jean-de-Luz, where the fish is spectacular (this is dorade)

and the dozens of small villages tucked into the Pyrenees

People come to Espelette for many reasons, among them to visit Andre Darraidou, the proprietor of the Hotel Euzkadi (where we stayed), who knows everyone for miles around and who can tell you the story behind just about every Basque specialty.  And they come for the famous peppers, piment d'Espelette, which are harvested in the fall, tied into beautiful bunches (reminiscent of New Mexico's ristras; in fact, the chiles came to France from America)

dried, seeming on every available surface

and then ground, made into jelly, syrups, mustards and sauces, or added to chocolate (the Cote Basque was one of the earliest chocolate centers in France)

When the peppers are ground, they're a beautiful red and their spiciness is not so much hot as it is deep.  In every restaurant we went to, from the simplest and most traditional to the most modern (about which more in another post), the pepper that was on the table was piment d'Espelette, sometimes in grinders, most often in small bowls with openings just large enough for you to grab a pinch.

We came to Espelette because we'd never been.  And, as it turned out, we came at a special time. 

The Saturday of our short stay in town, the village hosted its 32 nd annual run/walk/horseback ride up and along the mountain peaks that surround it.  (The following day, a runner told me that there are 600 important road races in France and that this one is among the ten toughest; anyone looking at the looming Pyrenees wouldn't think of arguing with him.)  Some 3,000 people came to race and it looked like each of them brought a friend, spouse, kid, parent, horse or two or three of each. 

We had gone out on a drive-around and got back to town just as the horseback riders were heading out

and as hundreds of runners approached the finish line, passing our hotel at the 50-meters-to-the-end mark and getting cheers, whistles and screams from the onlookers who lined the cobbled street. 

We stood with the crowds for a while then went up to our room, only to be drawn out minutes later by the haunting sounds of men's voices against the background of an accordion.  Walking downstairs into the Euzkadi's bar - a place I can imagine packed to bursting when there's a good soccer match - we found the choristers circled in front of the zinc singing in Basque, a language that is very much alive in the region and one that a friend described as made for singing. 

After the group finished and everyone had thanked them and bought them another round of Eki beer, they moved on and so did we, but only to the front door, where a brass band was tuning up.  They, too, formed a circle and were instantly surrounded by people who sang with them and danced.  A round of beer, happy farewells and, hup, another band, more music, more singing, more beer. 

It was raucous, yet I felt strangely quiet.  I was touched by the music and even more affected by the sense of shared tradition and community it conveyed.  I loved how the bands would come and go and how the people would join in singing or how a line of dancers would form or how a few couples here and there would start dancing.  For an instant, I thought I was caught in a film, but nothing about this was staged - it was just a moment of spontaneous happiness and we were lucky enough to be swept up in it.

Our part of town calmed down at about 10 pm, just as the sun was falling below the mountains and the banquet for the footsore and happy was starting down the road.  As soon as everyone marched away, I missed the music.