DORIE GREENSPAN

Phelps Fever - Everyone's Got It!

The display case at my favorite fish market, Star Fish in Guilford, CT, is always whimsically decked out, but yesterday it was exceptional -- every plate of fish was Olympics-ized.  Tuna toted a gold medal, squid carried the Olympic torch, soft-shelled crabs were surrounded by flags of many nations and the arctic char was being reeled in by Michael Phelps, who makes a pretty cute merman.  I loved it and so did everyone else who walked in -- customers were walking along the refrigerator case the way kids walk along Macy's windows at Christmas time.

Actually, it seemed like sports day all over the Shoreline yesterday.  On our way back from Star Fish Market, we stopped at Jake's, a roadside farmstand.  Jake sets up in Zhang's parking lot in Madison starting about noon everyday but Monday in the summer and he's got terrific produce.  His corn is spectacular, his green beans the greenest and snappiest around.  In fact, the only thing that's snappier than Jake's beans is Jake's patter -- I love listening to him chat with his customers, almost all of whom are regulars.  And it was a regular who stopped by yesterday to pin a Boston Red Sox's banner on Jake's truck.  Not that Jake needed to be converted to the team, he was already drinking coffee out of a Sox mug.

The Kindness of Chefs: A Continuing Tale

 

If you can stand it, here’s the latest installment of “Aren’t Food Folks Swell”.  (Just let me know when you’re tired of hearing about how nice everyone is in Paris.)

 

Pictured above, the evidence I present to prove, for the millionth time, the generosity of chefs.  It’s an almond-orange tuile and it’s the first thing I baked in my new oven in our new apartment, and the reason I was able to bake it, even though my kitchen still looked like the inside of a storage bin and almost everything I needed to bake was packed in boxes bound with the stickiest tape I’ve ever come across, was because I had this little container of dough in the fridge, a gift from Yannis Theodore

 

 

a chef at La Robe et Le Palais and a guy with boundless enthusiasm for his craft.

 

To back up, we ended up at the bistro, a small, lively, very casual place, at the suggestion and in the company of our friends Christian and Simon, who go for the simple, tasty and often original food (Simon and I both started with profiteroles filled with asparagus ice cream, topped with crispy bacon and surrounded by a goat cheese sauce – they were great) and the quirky wine list.  Well, it’s not really a list, it’s this

 

 

a library box with 250 wine choices arranged by color and style, each with info on the producers and tasting notes. 

 

It’s a great idea, it’s fun and it’s almost never used.  Most diners just leave it to the wait staff to pick a wine for them because: 1) giving the box a serious flip-through means leaving your dining companions to twiddle their thumbs for a good long while; 2) the odds increase that you'll end up with something you’d never have chosen – or known – to choose; and 3) everyone loves a surprise.

 

Dishes at La Robe et Le Palais are copious and, having had ice cream at the beginning of the meal (such a good idea), we were tempted to take a pass on dessert, but, stalwarts that we are, we resisted temptation and ordered one moelleux chocolat (a molten chocolate cake) with housemade vanilla ice cream, one creme brulee and five spoons, and that’s when the adventure began.

 

Who’d have thought that there was anything new to be learned from the good old standby, creme brulee?  But with the first spoonful, we discovered that in addition to the crackly sugar crust on top, the custard had an undersauce, making it the love child of creme brulee and creme caramel.  Michael liked it so much, he urged me to ask the chef what he’d done.

 

Enter Yannis Theodore, who was so tickled by our interest that not only did he tell us about his creme brulee – the sauce was jelly that he’d put in the ramekin before pouring over the custard (in the fall and winter, the bottom layer is roasted fruit) – he told us about his tuiles, too.  And then he went one better than the telling, he ran into the kitchen and returned with a tub of tuile dough and the recipe.

 

 

Can you see why I’m crazy about chefs?

 

Given that our oven had just arrived that day and was crying out to be christened – and given that I probably couldn’t have found flour and sugar in the packing boxes if my life depended on it – I took Yannis’s gift as an omen of good things to come in our new home and baked a few the following morning.

 

I used his dough and my instructions for Maple Tuiles (page 173 in Baking From My Home to Yours) and voila!

 

 

Merci Yannis for getting me and my kitchen off to such a sweet start.

BEHIND THE SCENES AT PIERRE HERME:French Macarons and More

As many of you know, I’ve been a Pierre Herme fan (okay, the president of his fan club), for years and years, in fact, since about 2 minutes after I met him in 1993.  At that time, he was the chef-patissier at Fauchon and had just created a cake that had the food, art, design and architecture worlds buzzing:  La Cerise sur Le Gateau, or The Cherry on the Cake

 

This was the cake’s official “headshot,” done by the gifted photographer Jean-Louis Bloch-Laine (who also did the photography for Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme).  The shape of the cake was conceived by Yan Pennor’s (sic), who went on to design Pierre Herme’s rue Bonaparte boutique in Paris, as was the three-sided box that was tied with a wide satin ribbon.  When you undid the bow, the sides of the box fell away and the bright red cherry on the top was revealed, in almost the same way a clown would pop out of a jack-in-the-box. 

 

When you got the cake home, you’d open it at the table, so that everyone could share in the drama, then gently lay it down on its side and, following the gold leaf lines, cut it into six perfect portions, each one containing all of the cake’s elements: hazelnut dacquoise, milk chocolate ganache, milk chocolate whipped cream, thin sheets of tempered milk chocolate and a spread of milk chocolate, praline and crushed wafers.  (A make-at-home version of the cake, called Plaisir Sucre, is in Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme.)  Everything about the cake was surprising, including its being made with milk chocolate in a country where bittersweet reigns.

 

Since that time, Pierre Herme has gone on to create so many desserts that have changed the way we think about pastry.  Case in point, his family of Ispahan desserts

 

 

based on the now iconic trinity of rose, raspberry and litchi (today, there's even a yogurt that plays on this combo), which has been appropriated by almost every pastry chef in France. 

 

Even knowing Pierre Herme’s desserts as well as I do and for as long as I have, I was as excited as a little kid when I visited his kitchen behind the rue de Vaugirard boutique a couple of weeks ago.

 

My guide for the visit was Andre Loutsch,

 

the 29-year old pastry chef who is part of Pierre Herme’s “test kitchen”.  As Andre explained, Pierre Herme creates all the cakes – and, as Pierre has often said, he creates them in his head – and then the work of turning the idea, its components, its “architecture of taste,” a term Herme has used for years to describe the combination of a dessert’s taste, texture and temperature, into something “real,” falls, in part, to Andre, who works with Herme to make the actual dessert and to give it its final look. 

 

It goes without saying that Pierre Herme wouldn’t have chosen Andre Loutsch to work at his side if he wasn’t talented, but what struck me immediately about the young chef (who is about the same age Pierre was when I met him) was his extraordinary enthusiasm for his work.  When Andre talked about macarons, it was as though he had only discovered them a minute ago.

 

The kitchen, under the direction of Colette Petremant, Herme’s executive chef (I wish I’d snapped her picture), who’s been with him for almost forever (it’s rare that anyone leaves), is smaller than you’d imagine and, like every other Pierre Herme kitchen I’ve ever been in, calm.  There’s a peaceful, purposeful quiet in the kitchen (one I’ve never been able to attain in my own kitchen – even working alone, I make more noise than Colette’s entire team!).  

 

As you enter, there’s a wall of pictures

 

   

 

And then, to the right, the space where dough is made

 

 

Everything that has dough, from tart shells to croissants, lives in this corner.

 

 

When I was there, the rose filling for the Ispahan was being made

 

 

 

But, sadly, not the macarons.  Not that there weren’t macarons to see.  There was an entire refrigerated room filled with macarons,

 

  

 

the room Andre called “Ali Baba’s cave”.  Andre said that no one leaves the boutique without buying a macaron and he’s probably not exaggerating.

 

I caught the team early in the morning when they were between projects and getting ready for breakfast, which is an all-work-stops time in the kitchen.  There’s coffee, tea, cakes, of course, bread from Claire Damon’s Des Gateaux et du Pain down the street and the same great butter that Pierre Herme uses for his pastries. 

 

And, because it was still early, I was able to watch the shop come to life as the pastries were arranged in the display cases.  Here’s the Cherry on the Cake “in situ”

 

 

 

A quick aside:  When La Cerise sur le Gateau was conceived, the mold for it was made of plaster.  Just a few months ago, the cake joined the modern age: the new molds are silicone.

 

 

 

Don’t you love the indentation for the cherry?

 

And I saw the fabulous Mosaic desserts, combinations of pistachio and griottes, sour cherries, that are only available for a few weeks during the year, les temps de cerises (cherry season)

 

 

 

And, finally, one of PH’s most unusual creations, a dessert made with spaghetti – real spaghetti – cooked in strawberry juice, called Emotion Fragola (fragola is Italian for strawberry)

 

 

 

The night after my kitchen tour, Pierre and I were having dinner and I asked him where that dessert had come from.  He said he’d read that Italians had once made a dish with pasta and strawberries and the idea so intrigued him that he kept playing with it until he finally came up with this – a winner, which has the strawberry-cooked spaghetti (yes, it's al dente), crushed strawberries, balsamic gelee and mascarpone cream.

 

I finished my behind-the-scenes visit just as I’d hope I would – tasting macarons with Andre

 

 

 

And forcing him to do the impossible – choose his favorite: milk chocolate/passionfruit. 

 

Fortunately, Andre is politer than I am and he didn’t put me in a similar spot.  I could never choose just one favorite – never.

Cafe Salle Pleyel Burger: The Burger of The Times

You may remember that last fall I wrote about the terrific hamburger at the Cafe Salle Pleyel, a restaurant created by my friend Helene Samuel, about whom you've heard me talk before.

Well, today the Cafe Salle Pleyel burger got big-time coverage -- it's the star of Jane Sigal's extensive story In Paris, Burgers Turn Chic.  It's a really good story and, after you read it, you should take a couple of minutes to view/listen to the accompanying audio/slideshow as well - the pictures are swell.

Now here are the two best parts of the story: 

First, there's guest chef Sonia Ezgulian's recipe for the Pleyel Burger with capers and cornichons and Parmesan cheese (my photo was taken when the cheese of choice was a very American cheese).

Second, and unimaginably exciting, wonderful, smart, funny, talented Helene Samuel is the author of The New York Times's Quotation of the Day.  In the space usually reserved for the words of heads of state, Nobel Prize laureates and rock stars, my friend Helene is quoted as saying about the burger:

"IT HAS THE TASTE OF THE FORBIDDEN, THE ILLICIT -- THE SUBVERSIVE, EVEN."

It makes our national favorite sound pretty romantic, doesn't it?

The Big Cheese: Rodolphe Le Meunier in Tours

 

Cheese is a tricky business no matter how you slice it.  While the paean has it that cheese is the highest achievement milk can hope for, the reality is that first you’ve got to have good milk.  And, like everything else about cheese, the milk is a partnership between man and Mom Nature.  It’s Mother N who provides the cows, goats and sheep who’ll give the milk and, since she’s also responsible for the grass the animals will eat, the taste of the milk is her doing as well.  After that, it’s us humans who turn the milk into cheese, an ancient process that’s deeply respected in France, where it’s often pointed out that you could eat a different cheese every day for a year and still not have made your way through the country’s offerings. 

 

Except in the case of fresh cheeses, which are eaten within days of being made, newly made cheese is only a faint, faint whisper of what it is meant to be and what (if all goes well) it is capable of becoming.  To bring the cheese to perfect maturity – or, put another way, to see that it lives up to the potential Mother Nature and the cheesemaker gave it – you need an affineur, the expert who ages the cheese.

 

In some cases, the affineur might be the cheesemaker, but often it’s the cheeseseller, and in France, where being an affineur is an important craft, a cheeseseller who does his own affinage will announce it proudly: his sign will say Fromager-Affineur.

 

Recently, when I was traveling with Maison de la France in the Loire Valley, a region unparalleled for goat cheese, I met a young cheeseseller/affineur who is one of the country’s best, having gained the title of MOF, Meilleur Ouvrier de France (best artisan in France).

 

Rodolphe Le Meunier, once dubbed the Zidane of fromagers (Zidane was probably France’s greatest soccer star and a national hero), earned his stripes (as an MOF you’re entitled to wear blue, white and red stripes on your collar) in 2007 by passing a blind tasting; a jury tasting of his cheeses; a theoretical written exam; an oral exam; and a cutting test in which he had to slice a series of cheeses to perfect weight, size and form.  He also had to create and serve a dish based on cheese – he made a mousse of Langres with spices.

 

Although he learned his craft from his family, like so many young chefs, winemakers, farmers and producers, he’s found a way to use modern technology to recreate centuries-old traditions.

 

Walk into Le Meunier’s “cellars” and you’ll find yourself in a large, cold space that could double for an operating room.  Gone are the romantic stone caves with their iffy humidity.  In their place are perfectly controlled refrigerators, each set to the exact temperature, humidity and ventilation levels needed for each type of cheese.

 

 

For sure, push-button control has made a part of the affinage process easier, but none of the buttons can determine when a cheese is at its most sublime.  For that, you still need people as knowledgeable as Rodolphe Le Meunier.

 

And to give us a taste of what it means to age a cheese to perfection, he cut a piece of Comte from July 2005.  Comte is a firm, pressed cheese from the Jura that is sweet, fruity, nutty and, when it’s as old as this one was, speckled with little grains that could be mistaken for salt, but which are casseine (a protein).

 

 

Aged Comte is one of my favorite cheeses and one we usually serve at Christmas and New Year’s with either Savignin or Vin Jaune, both wines from the Jura.  This one was exceptional!

 

If you live near Le Meunier or are visiting Tours, lucky you, you can go straight to the source.  Or, if you’re in Paris and want to nibble on Le Meunier’s work, you can find his cheeses at his friends’ shops, Dubois (47 Blvd. Saint Germain, Paris 6) and Quatre’homme (62 rue des Sevres, Paris 7), both fromagers/affineurs and MOFs.  If you’re nowhere near France, you can still get a hunk of something wonderful from him through the magic of two-day delivery.  Finally, if you’re just curious about Le Meunier and his cheese, you should go to his site, Fromages en Jazz (did I mention that he’s also a musician?).  In fact, you should go there even if you don’t love cheese – it’s got great stuff.

Bloggers Who Lunch

I had a great lunch at Racines, 8 Passage des Panoramas (Paris 2; 01-40-13-06-41), a wine bar with exceptional food/ a bistro with exceptional wine, and I had it with great people, the bloggers, Meg Zimbeck and David Lebovitz. And at some point during the lunch, I had to giggle -- and snap a picture

 

As soon as we bloggers sit down, we pull out our cameras the way the generations before us pulled out their packs of Lucky Strikes.  And the instant the dishes are set down, it's click, click, click.  It's incredibly amusing and so interesting to see how each person gets a different shot.

And speaking of different shots, Meg and David got much, much better pictures than I did, so to see the salad of thinly shaved vegetables from Michelin-3-star-chef Alain Passard's garden, the hand-cut steak tartare (so good), the meltingly tender braised pork cheeks or the perfectly cooked pasta, you'll have to visit them.

Oh, and when you do, you'll also learn more about the talented, charming -- and very good-looking -- Pierre Jancou, Racine's chef/owner/wine ace.

A Taste of Vegas Uncork'd

I'm in Las Vegas for Bon Appetit's Vegas Uncork'd, billed as an Epicurean Experience, it could modestly be called a culinary lollapalooza.  It's three days of lunches, dinners, workshops, tastings and general jolly-making with tens of Las Vegas chefs, which means tens of the country's best.  The amount of talent in this town is mind-boggling.

I've been here only 36 hours and already I've got too much to tell you and not enough time to sit down and do the telling.  So, I'll mention just a few things and then try to tell you more when I'm not in the midst of it all.   In no particular order, here are some tidbits ...

I'm staying at Wynn and being spoiled silly.  When I toddled into my room last night I found this amazing box of chocolates by Frederic Robert waiting for me.  It was very late and I was very tired, but as soon as I spotted the huge box I started giggling like a little kid.  From left to right by rows, there's:

• Candy bars -- coffee and coconut
• Caramel bouchee and milk gianduja bouchee
• Lollipops
• Chocolate-covered hazelnuts
• Tablets of milk chocolate, dark chocolate and white chocolate with fruit and nuts
• Chocolate-covered almonds
• Spiced mixed nuts
• Popcorn, and these

• Soft pretzels with mustard, which made a great snack this afternoon

These chocolates -- I called them, the package and the thoughtfulness amazing already, didn't I? -- joined another little goody, which also came with a story. I was picked up at the airport by someone from Wynn (told you I was being spoiled) and, in the course of our chatting, I mentioned that I love M&Ms and was hoping to find time to visit the M&M museum.  Thirty minutes later, when the bellman arrived with my bags, he said, "I understand you like M&M's, so maybe you'll like these," and he handed me this:

a bowl with enough M&Ms to keep me for the weekend.

In between chocolate treats, I hosted a dinner at Payard, Francois Payard's gem of a patisserie and dessert restaurant in Caesars Palace.  Here I am with Francois and Mario Rinaldi from Champagne Paul Goerg, who makes Francois' excellent rose Champagne (if you know my blog, you know that I almost never appear in pictures, but last night, whenever I said I wanted a picture of someone, I seemed to get pulled into the shot)

I was so busy eating and chatting with guests that I didn't get to take food shots, but if ever you're in Las Vegas, you've got to go to Payard, have the four-course dessert menu -- all of which will be prepared in the kitchen-in-the-round in the center of his beautiful and very intimate (only 40 seats) restaurant -- and hope that the Milk Chocolate Payard Candy Bar with Gianduja and Caramel Glaze is on it.

At the dinner was someone I think many of you know

the adorable (funny and smart) Adam Roberts, The Amateur Gourmet and the star of The FN Dish on the Food Network's website.

Then this afternoon, I played sidekick to Anthony Amorosa, executive chef of Michael Mina. 

Anthony did a workshop that had us all mesmerized -- he prepared a lobster cannoloni and a boneless rack of lamb sous-vide and got everyone in the overflow audience (me included) so excited about the possibilities of cooking this way at home that we were all teasing that soon we'd be competing against one another on e-bay to buy immersion circulators, the tool chefs use to keep water at a constant 68 degrees C, the ideal sous-vide temp.  Because it was so fascinating, I'll tell you more about Anthony's workshop and what I learned in a separate post.

The workshop was in the Bellagio, which means I had the chance to ogle Jean-Philippe Maury's pastisserie.  In the pastry case, I found Maury's contribution to rose fever

and on display, this whimsical assemblage of sculpted cakes

There's more, but I've got to get dolled up and get over to Caesar's for the Grand Tasting.

Hungry For Paris

The only thing wrong with Alec Lobrano's new book, Hungry for Paris, is that, after 418 pages and 102 stories (and solid information) about restaurants, you're starved for more.  Read the book like a novel - the writing is superb and each restaurant "review" is more short story than traditional critique - and when you reach the end, you might want to start all over again.  For sure, you'll want to go to Paris, follow in Alec's footsteps and eat your way through the city.  The book is a little gem.

And really, so is Alec, who is a friend of mine and the best dining companion on any side of the Atlantic.  Alec is an American who's lived in Paris for over 20 years, has watched the Paris scene since his arrival, and has reported on it for many, many publications, most notably as Gourmet's European Correspondent, all of which doesn't tell you the important stuff about Alec: he's top-of-the-class smart, charming, so funny that I never go out with him without making sure I have a handkerchief, so I can dab away the inevitable tears of laughter (I also make sure not to wear mascara that can run), boundlessly talented and deeply passionate about food and restaurants.  After years of eating out, thousands of restaurants and just as many articles about his adventures, Alec is still in love with the scene - and it's all on the page.

Can you tell I'm crazy about him?  And can you see why?

Funny, but I think that when you read Hungry for Paris, you'll be able to tell why.  You'll also be a lot more savvy about Paris restaurants.  In addition to what Alec calls "portraits" of the 102 restaurants, there's a section about "how to have a perfect meal in Paris," a glossary of French food, quick summaries of each restaurant, indexes of restaurants by type and price, and, at the end of each chapter, a not-to-be-missed story.

I've lived in Paris for a while and I know a lot about the city's restaurants, but still, as I read through Hungry for Paris, I found myself sticking Post-its on tens of pages.  Bet you will, too.

If you want to follow Alec as he travels around, visit his new website.

Rose Fever - Paris's Got It

It has to have been about 10 years ago that Pierre Herme created the Ispahan, a dessert composed of the now iconic trinity: rose, litchi and raspberry.  His first Ispahan was two rose-flavored macarons sandwiching a rose cream studded with fresh litchis and raspberries, the whole topped with a fresh red rose petal.  Since that time, not only has just about every pastry chef in Paris created something rose flavored, Pierre himself has created at least a dozen desserts, jams and pate-a-fruit (fruit jellies) using the combination. 

I find Pierre's fascination with the flavors remarkable and love how he never seems to tire of working with the threesome.  Quite the opposite, creating with this trio seems to energize him and this energy has brought us the newest family member: the above Gateau Saint-Honore, version Ispahan.

The Gateau Saint-Honore is a completely Parisian creation, having made its debut in 1846 in a pastry shop on the rue Saint Honore (how fitting that Saint-Honore is the patron saint of pastry chefs) owned by Chiboust, who gave his name to the cream filling, a pastry cream lightened with meringue and stabilized with a little gelatin.  The cake is a luscious but complicated affair.  From the bottom up, you've got: a puff pastry base; a ring of caramelized pate-a-choux (cream puff dough); a few caramel-crowned cream puffs (which are filled with either chiboust or whipped cream); a chiboust filling; whipped cream swirled like a prince's turban.  In Pierre's version, the cream is rose-flavored (of course), there are raspberries and litchis, and the caramel is a sexy, iridescent pink color.  And yes, it's fabulously delicious.

Pierre has taken to devoting weeks at a time to what he calls his "fetishes," and March was Fetish Ispahan, a fetish all of Paris seems to share.  So the last night I was in Paris, I went on a little Ispahan spree and bought six little treats to serve to friends after dinner.

The Gateau Saint-Honore is in the center and right above it you've got the Surprise, a crisp but fragile meringue confection wrapped up like a bon-bon for a good child.  Going clockwise, there's the Ispahan Cheesecake, the Ispahan Tart, with little squares of litchi gelee (sooooooo good) and the classic Ispahan. 

Talk about la vie en rose ...

Michelin Names Their Favorite Breadbakers in Paris

What you're looking at are some of the 143 traditional baguettes that were brought to the bakers' union on Ile Saint-Louis in Paris to be judged for this year's 'best baguette in Paris' award.  According to a French reporter writing for Via Michelin, 14 of the breads were disqualified for not meeting the standards for a baguette, which specify that the bread must be 70 cm long (27 1/2 inches), weigh between 250 and 300 grams (about 9 to 10 ounces) and contain additive-free wheat flour, water and salt. 

As you'll see when you read the article, the judges are as passionate about bread as the bakers (in some cases, far more passionate) and it's a good thing they take their jobs so seriously because the winner of the Meilleur Baguette de Paris is charged with supplying the daily loaf for the President of France (and, we assume, his gorgeous new wife, Carla Bruni). 

This year's winner, 28-year-old Anis Bouabsa, has a bakery in Montmartre and said he would need to hire someone to make the morning deliveries to Elysee Palace, proving that being honored can be both flattering and expensive.  Not surprisingly, Bouabsa is included in the list of Paris's Ten Best Bread Bakeries that Via Michelin just published.

I'm going to check out all the bakeries when I've got some time - and the energy to bicycle all over Paris, since not even one of the ten best is in my neighborhood.  In fact, there isn't even one in my whole arrondissement.  Zut!