DORIE GREENSPAN

Three Wonderful Things: Chestnuts, Pierre Herme and a Tart

I've got a special place in my heart for chestnuts.  I associate them with my mother, who'd roast them late at night; I think about them when I think of Paris - hot chestnuts wrapped in newspaper and bought from a street vendor are ace handwarmers when you're browsing the outdoor flea markets in winter; and I have chestnuts to thank for my friendship with Pierre Herme, the famous Paris pastry chef.

I can't remember what year it was (1991, maybe? ), but, although I was in Paris for vacation, it was impossible then not to do a little research for a chestnut story I was doing for The New York Times.  Chestnuts were everywhere!  It wasn't just the carts on the street corner or the iconic trees in all the squares, there were nuts decorating store windows, turning up on menus and just beginning to be seen in their most elegant and expensive incarnation: marrons glaces, or candied chestnuts.

Marrons glaces are chestnuts that have been serially cooked and soaked in a sugar/glucose syrup until the nut is thoroughly candied and has a thin, crackly, crystaline coating.  Traditionally wrapped in gold foil so that they look like the jewels that they are, they are a treasured holiday luxury. 

Because I was curious about how marrons glaces were made, I telephoned Fauchon for information and was told that I'd have to talk to the pastry chef, M. Herme.  And so I did.  I called and Pierre invited me to come to his "lab" (that's what French pastry kitchens are called) the following day.  I showed up with my husband, Michael, in tow because I thought I'd just be meeting with the chef for about the amount of time it would take for Michael to have a cup of coffee.  Wrong.

First of all, Pierre, being gracious Pierre, welcomed both of us and wouldn't hear of Michael taking off.  And then he took us around the kitchen and we talked and talked and talked and tasted and tasted and two hours - count'em - later I discovered that Fauchon did not make their marrons glaces in house (so I never got to see the process) and that I was in love.  Actually, I fell in love 1 hour and 55 minutes before the chestnut discovery:  I was smitten within minutes of meeting Pierre Herme and all these years - and two books together - later, I'm still smitten.

But back to the chestnuts.  When Pierre and I were working on our first book, Desserts by Pierre Herme, we were told that Americans are not as wild about chestnuts as the French or, for that matter, the Italians, and that we should make sure that if we included a chestnut recipe it could win converts.  Well, we included two and they're both winners.  One is the Christmas Log, a ladyfinger cake rolled around a chestnut, rum and cassis filling and finished with a chestnut buttercream; and the other is the tart, which is filled with a chestnut-Scotch clafoutis (a corss between custard and flan) studded with pears and chestnuts and topped with a phyllo crown that is gorgeous, fun to make and a neat little trick to have in your repertoire to dress up other tarts or even cakes.

CHESTNUT AND PEAR TART

Adapted from Desserts by Pierre Herme

Makes 8 to 10 servings

The crust:

One unbaked 10-inch tart shell (make it from a sweet tart dough)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the tart on a lined baking sheet.  Line the crust with foil or parchment, fill with beans or rice and bake it for just 15 minutes.  Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the crust to cool to room temperature.

The filling:

2 to 3 very ripe medium pears (Comice or Bartlett pears are good here)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

3 tablespoons chestnut puree (stir before measuring)

2/3 cup whole milk

1/3 cup creme fraiche

1 1/2 teaspoons Scotch whisky

1/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

2/3 cup dry bottled chestnuts

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Core and cut the unpeeled pears into small (about 1/3 inch) cubes; you should have about 2 1/2 cups of fruit.  Toss the pears in a bowl with the lemon juice to keep them from darkening and set aside.  (Pierre likes the extra flavor and texture he gets by keeping the skin on the pears.  If the skin on your pears is thick, or if keeping the skin on doesn't appeal to you, by all means, peel the pears.)

Scrape the chestnut puree into a medium bowl and, using a whisk, stir the puree to loosen it, then blend in the milk and creme fraiche.  One by one, add the whisky, sugar and eggs, stirring until the mixture is smooth.  There's no reason to be overzealous - you're aiming to make sure the filling is smooth, not airy.  With your fingers, break the chestnuts into small pieces and scatter them over the bottom of the crust.  Turn the pears into the crust, spreading them evenly over the chestnuts, and then pour in the filling (you might find this easier to do if you put the baking sheet with the tart shell into the oven before you pour in the filling); depending on how much or how little your crust shrank during baking, you may have some filling leftover.

Bake the tart for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a slender knife inserted into the custard comes out clean.  Remove the tart from the oven and, keeping it in the pan on the baking sheet, set it on a rack to cool.  (You can make the phyllo topping while the tart cools or do it later, at your convenience.)

To finish:

3 sheets phyllo

Confectioner's sugar

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place the outer circle of a 10-inch tart pan on a baking sheet.  Working with 1 piece of phyllo at a time, and keeping the other pieces under a damp cloth, scrunch the phyllo to fit it inside the tart ring.  Neatness doesn't count here, so just get the phyllo, with all its hills and valleys, into the ring and then pat it down lightly.  Repeat with the 2 remaining sheets, piling the sheets one on top of another.  Dust the top of the phyllo crown evenly but not too heavily with confectioner's sugar and slide the baking sheet into the oven. 

Bake the phyllo for 5 to 7 minutes, or just until the top sheet is shiny and caramelized.  Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the crown cool to room temperature.

To serve, remove the tart from its pan, transfer it to a serving platter and top with the pyllo.

Keeping:  The tart should be served at room temperature - it's really best kept out of the refrigerator - and eaten the day it is made.

Ronnybrook Milk Bar:Soups, Shakes, Salads and More at the Market

There are so many reasons to love the Chelsea Market - among them Amy's Bread, Sarabeth's and the Chelsea Wine Vault - and now there's one more:  Ronnybrook Milk Bar.

Those of you who know the Market may remember the tiny milk bar, where you could get ice cream cones, fresh-from-Ronnybrook-Farm milk and butter churned from Ronnybrook cream.  Well, just a few months ago, the bar was transformed into a modern-day soda shop/luncheonette, a place with enough charm to make us nostalgic for a time most of us know only from books and movies, and enough edge to make you think it would be cool as a club.  (I bet the pumpkin-pie milkshake would be great with a shot of rum.)  Actually, it's already been vetted as cool:  I.D. magazine featured it in a recent issue.

But unless you're a designer and want to see what Mark Sarosi (above), who spent four years with David Rockwell (aka, Mr. Restaurant Design), has done with the space - okay, even if you're not a designer, you should see it:  look at the way the milk crates lining the walls pull out for extra seating:

you need to go for the soda-fountain treats - the shakes and ice cream cones, the lavender-infused milk (yum), the floats - and the food.  The menu is so appealing and the ingredients so terrific - as much as possible, Mark is trying to source his products from other local farms - that it's just not easy to figure out what you want.

Cast-iron eggs with roasted mushrooms, Ronnybrook's farmer cheese (I love good farmer cheese) and herbs?

Country-style turkey meatballs over buttered egg noodles with sweet cream gravy?

Roasted herbed Berkshire pork sandwich with avocade aioli (a great idea) and watercress on 7-grain bread?

If the world were a perfect place, we'd have a Ronnybrook Milk Bar near us no matter where we lived and the adorable Mark to whip up shakes for us at the first sign of an urge to slurp.

For Thanksgiving: Daniel Boulud's Chestnut Soup

I know just how hard it can be to change even one dish on any family's traditional Thanksgiving menu - it took me years to get rid of our dread stringbean-swiss cheese-cornflake-topped casserole even though no one really wanted to eat it anymore.  Traditions can be like that.  So, knowing that, I wouldn't dare suggest that you give up whatever soup you normally make for the holiday and turn to this one, but if you're undecided in the soup department, here's a winner.

As soon as I tasted this soup - which would have been in 1998 when I was working with Daniel Boulud on The Cafe Boulud Cookbook - I knew it was going to knock my traditional carrot soup off the T-day menu. 

The soup is a mix of chestnuts (I used jarred chestnuts), celery root and apple.  It's a great combination and it can be served as is or it can be dressed up with a few add-ins.  Daniel suggests some shredded duck confit, thin strips of prosciutto, sliced truffles or cubes of foie gras, but some nice little croutons tossed with minced thyme would be good too. 

If you don't have room for this soup on Thursday's menu, hold onto the recipe - Christmas and New Year's Eve are just around the proverbial corner. 

Chestnut, Celery Root and Apple Soup

from The Cafe Boulud Cookbook

Makes 6 to 8 servings

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 medium onion, peeled, trimmed and thinly sliced

1 medium leek, white part only, thinly sliced, washed and dried

2 McIntosh apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

10 ounces celery root, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 bay leaf

1 sprig thyme

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Salt and freshly ground white pepper

3/4 pound peeled fresh chestnuts (from about 1 1/4 pounds chestnuts in the shell) or dry-packed bottled or vacuum-sealed peeled chestnuts

2 quarts chicken stock or store-bought chicken broth

1/2 cup heavy cream

Heat the oil in a stockpot or large casserole over medium heat.  Add the onion, leek, apples, celery root, bay leaf, thyme, nutmeg and salt and pepper to taste and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes, or until the onions and leeks are soft but not colored.  Add the chestnuts and chicken stock and bring to the boil.  Lower the heat to a simmer and cook, skimming the surface regularly, for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the chestnuts can be mashed easily with a fork.  Add the heavy cream and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes more, then remove from the heat and discard the bay leaf and thyme.

Puree the soup until smooth using a blender or a food processor, and working in batches if necessary, then pass it through a fine-mesh strainer.  You should have about 2 quarts soup.  If you have more, or if you think the soup is too thin -- it should have the consistency of a veloute or light cream soup - simmer it over medium heat until slightly thickened.  Taste and, if necessary, adjust the seasoning.  (The soup can be cooled completely and stored in a covered container in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days or frozen for up to one month.  Bring the soup to a boil before serving.)

Cafe Salle Pleyel: Listen Up

Helene Samuel, the genie behind Delicabar Snack Chic in the Bon Marche department store has created a new, equally chic spot, Cafe Salle Pleyel, in another mythic location, the newly renovated Salle Pleyel concert hall.  The girl knows how to pick her places.

The Cafe Pleyel is what the French would call a confidential address, meaning it's one insiders know about.  But while it's confidential now - it's on the second floor of the Pleyel building and there is no sign on the street - it won't be for long:  Le Figaroscope just wrote about it.

The room is modern in a deco kind of way; cool in a zen way; and relaxing in every way - the tables are far enough apart that you don't have to whisper secrets and the chairs are so comfortable that a friend of mine wanted to buy one along with her coffee.

And the menu is signature Helene - light, funny, smart and appealing.  (Here's la belle Helene)

For the Cafe Salle Pleyel, Helene (whom I'm sooooooo lucky to have as a friend), created the menu with her Guest Chef for the year, Sonia Ezgulian.  (I love that the restaurant has a Guest Chef just way an orchestra has a Guest Conductor.)  Sonia, the former restaurant critic for Paris-Match, chef of her own restaurant in Lyon and a prolific and very good cookbook author, comes to Paris once a week to change the menu. 

All the dishes at Pleyel are cooked either on a plancha or in a wok and every week there are different gremolatas and fleur-de-sels set on the table, so you can season whatever you want as you want.  It's a great idea.  (Last week, the gremolata was hazelnut, orange and cilantro and the fleur-de-sel was mixed with candied ginger.)

While the Cafe, which serves lunch Monday through Friday and dinner on concert evenings, has only been open a little over a month, there's already a signature can't-take-it-off-the-menu dish:  Le Cafe Salle Pleyel Burger.  Although it looks like a great all-American cheeseburger, a rarity in this town, it's actually got a secret ingredient:  chopped cepes (porcini mushrooms), which make the meat seem even meatier.  The burger comes with housemade pickles, confited tomatoes, salad and more of those delicious mushrooms.  (This picture comes, with permission, from Caroline Mignot's terrific blog.)

It's hard to pass up the burger, but then neither is it easy to ingore the wasabi-marinated vegetables cooked on the plancha and served with a sparkling little herb salad.  And how can you give up the mango-pain d'epices croque for the caramelized baked apple filled with dried fruits and nuts?  Oh, just go with friends and share - it's the only way to have it all.

And speaking of friends, when you see Helene, say "hi" for me.

Maca-rounds from Pierre Herme

This summer, when I had dinner at Pierre Herme's, we had ice cream for dessert and, as our after-dessert dessert, we had macaroons, which came to the table in this fabulous round box, the top of which also has a hole in the center, making it a Macaroon Lifesaver (which, and I don't think I'm speaking for myself alone, is often just what we need, isn't it?).  At that time, the box wasn't in production - we were getting a sneak preview - but this afternoon, when I went into the shop, there it was.  And with it, the perfect-for-the-season macaroon, the Marron et The Vert Matcha, a chestnut macaroon filled with Matcha green tea and marrons glaces (candied chestnut) cream.  Coming later this month:  Infiniment Vanille, an all-vanilla macaroon, and Pistache, a pistachio macaroon with a white chocolate and pistachio cream. 

Maybe macaroons don't make the world go round, but they certainly make the round world a sweeter place.

Lenotre Bakes Itself a Birthday Cake

Maison Lenotre turned 50 and it's celebrating its Juliblee Year with a series of creations called Jubilantes, any one of which would make any birthday a happy one.

Among the treats that executive pastry chef Guy Krenzer and his team are introducing are two new macaroons: one is whisky and tonka bean, and the other is chocolate with orange zest.  The chocolate macaroon is called Camille and is named for the young apprentice who invented it.  I love that an apprentice is given the chance to make this kind of contribution and get this kind of recognition from a legendary house - bravo, Lenotre.

Then there are lollipops that look like pieces of jellyroll on a stick.  In fact, they are pieces of bittersweet chocolate jellyroll cake, but there's no jelly anywhere:  the cake is rolled around foie gras.

Finally, because every birthday should be celebrated with a cake, there's the Ice Cube in the picture.  Looking like a velvety Rubik's Cube, the cake's elements include: dark chocolate ice, ice cream, dulce de leche and hazelnut dacquoise.

Gaston Lenotre, the founder of this remarkable company, has been called the father of modern French pastry, in great measure because of his forward thinking creations, but also because of the systems he developed to produce polished, grand-quality pastry on a large scale; the schools he created to train professionals, Ecole Lenotre (I went to "chocolate college" there years ago and treasure the experience), and amateurs, Pavillon d'Elysee; and the hundreds of pastry chefs he inspired, nurtured and launched, among them Pierre Herme, who apprenticed under him.

Happy Birthday!  Here's to another 50 delicious years!

Chez Roellinger: Seafood and the Sea

This was the view from our bedroom in Chateau Richeux, Jane and Olivier Roellinger's inn just outside Cancale, a village on the Bay of Mont Saint Michel. 

I can't remember the last time I went someplace and felt so at home so immediately.  The Chateau, a large stone house dating from the 1920s, with a curl-up-and-get-comfy sitting room, dining rooms looking out onto the sea and gardens filled with fruit trees, has the feel of a house in which children once left their muddy boots at the door and ran up and down the stairs giggling.

When we ran up the stairs, we found apples from the garden on our desk

and a tin of Olivier Roellinger's salted-butter sables (shortbread cookies) on our bed

I had wanted to come to Cancale and eat at Roellinger's for several years, but it never worked out - I always called to reserve just a little too late.  Then Mr. Roellinger earned his third Michelin star and it became even more difficult to nab a reservation ... but I got lucky this year. 

The night we arrived in Cancale, we ate at Le Coquillage, Roellinger's seafood bistro in the Chateau Richeux.  (His Michelin-starred restaurant is in the Maison de Bricourt in Cancale proper.) Sitting by the fire and having a glass of champagne and a few nibbles, like this foie gras over spiced fig jam (the red flower was plucked from the pineapple sage plants in the garden)

we decided on a meal that would give us the chance to taste just about all the seafood the team had in the kitchen that night.  It was called the Menu Grignotage, or snacking menu, and it turned out to be a great choice for us.

Chef Roellinger later told me that the inspiration for this meal was the classic plateau fruits de mer, the large round platters that are piled high with shellfish and are both the specialty and mainstay of seafood restaurants all over France.  In fact, his Menu Grignotage included a plateau, two actually, but the plateaux, or trays, were rectangular and they carried a surprising mix of fish, seafood and vegetables. 

The first plateau held the appetizers and included (in the order in which it was suggested we taste everything)

• Warm Jerusalem artichoke soup with parsley puree
• Warm curried vegetable samosas (The Kid liked these so much that the waiter brought him extras)
• Cancale oysters
• Bouquet (sweet shrimp)
• Bigornaux (like baby whelks), which we pulled out of their shells with pins
• Snapper tartar
• Scallops marinated in soy, sesame, lemon and ginger (a favorite)
• Smoked mackerel and lime
• Potato and lightly smoked cod salad tossed in a mustard vinaigrette (a great combination)

Then came the "main course" tray with

• Calamari with a tomato chutney/jam
• Crabs and clams, almost "casino"
• Scallop brochettes
• Brill (like a turbot) over bulgur with a tarragon mousseline sauce
• Sea bass cooked on a hot stone and seasoned with herbs, flowers and oils, a quiet tour-de-force and the kind of dish you remember forever

Then there was the dessert cart, wheeled around by a pastry cook who looked as though he wasn't old enough to be up so late, but whose eyes sparkled when he talked about the millefeuille.  As much as I would have loved the millefeuille or the tarte Tatin or the cream-filled savarin, I just couldn't.  Michael, Joshua and I shared some profiteroles (the chocolate sauce was wonderful) and tip-toed up the stairs. 

I hated to miss the Tatin, but it was funny that, in being a grown-up and saying no, I had the memory of being a child.  When I was little, I never wanted to go to bed.  There was always one more thing I wanted to do and I was always begging for more time, but my mother's answer was unfailingly the same:  "Tomorrow is another day."  And so, taking one last look at the moonlit bay, I thought "Tomorrow is another day ... and tomorrow I'll be having dinner chez Roellinger again."  It made it so much easier to give up the tart.

A New Pain Poilane: This One's Peppery

All good bread can sustain and comfort us, but for so many reasons, Poilane bread can make us dream.  There is something romantic about the bread, the way it is made (it is shaped by hand and baked in woodburning stone ovens), the way it looks (dark, rough, imperfect but elegant), the way it feels in our hands (substantial and reassuring) and the story behind it (the story of Lionel Poilane, who didn't want to become a baker like his father, but who did and who, in the process, became a world-famous champion of wholesome, authentic artisanal bread). 

Today, Maison Poilane is headed by Lionel Poilane's daughter, Appollonia

 

who, along with Michelin-three-star chef, Olivier Roellinger, known for his extraordinary talent with spices, created a new bread, Pain Poivre, a loaf that's a little rustic, a little refined and shot through with just enough of Chef Roellinger's special pepper mix to make it the perfect accompaniment to fish, eggs, grilled vegetables and anything that would be happy to have a pinch of pick-me-up. 

The bread was introduced Tuesday night to chefs and restaurateurs - for now, the bread is only being made to be served in restaurants - in one of the city's most romantic settings, the Palais Royale.  And, just to add more drama to the equisite backdrop, the Palais' arcades were lit by candelabras crafted from bread.

The serving tables were set up in front of the garden gates

and, along with Champagne, guests nibbled Pain Poivre with soft boiled eggs (the egg holders were rounds of bread that had been baked with egg-sized holes in the center, and the bread was cut into fingers, toasted and spread with butter); mackerel rillettes (a recipe from Jane Roellinger); club sandwiches with Culatello jam, arugula, avocado, grilled eggplant, Parmesan and olive oil; goat cheese; and, because no party would be a party without dessert, chocolate ganache spread over still-warm slices of toast.

Each guest left with some bread

and, I'm sure, some ideas of what they were going to do with it the next day.  I had bread and chocolate in my mind, but the following morning, I had bread and Jean-Yves Bordier's butter in my tummy - and so did Michael and The Kid.  I'd meant to save a slice, but ...

La Ferrandaise: Rare Beef and Rarer Ice Cream

Last night, having just gotten to Paris and surviving the transit strike and the news that the money we'd wired to our bank hadn't arrived, we went to meet a friend for dinner at La Ferrandaise, a bistro named for a cow (see Bossie above) and decorated with nothing but pictures of cows (see Bossie above).  The first time I went to La Ferrandaise, located just across from the Luxembourg Gardens, I thought both the name and the bovine decor were a little odd; now, won over by the food, I find them endearing.

Ferrandaise cows were abundant in the Auvergne at the turn of the last century, went almost extinct and have been carefully brought back over the past 30 years.  As the restaurant's menu says, "La Ferrandaise is rare in France, unique in Paris," since the only place you can get it is at this eponymous bistro.

You'd think that a restaurant named for a cow would be the equivalent of an American steakhouse or would certainly offer a menu bullish on beef, but you'd be wrong: usually only a maximum of three dishes on the fixed-price menu (32 euros for three courses) are ever beef, actually mik-fed veal.  Not surprisingly, I always order one of them. 

Last night, there was calves liver with amazing mashed potatoes (I know because that's what my husband had and I kept reaching over to swipe them), blanquette de veau (which the man at the neighboring table had and which caused him to sigh loudly and repeatedly) and perfectly roasted veal with shallot-jus and a more than credible risotto (which is what I had and which, I'm afraid, I, too, may have sighed over too often and too audibly).

You might also think that in a restaurant where the dishes are firmly rooted in tradition, the desserts would run to the beloved but expected, and this time you'd be almost right.  Like the savory dishes, the desserts are variations on the classics.  Just as you'd hope there would be, there was a tart Tatin, but it was made with quince and apples, and there was a moelleux chocolat, a plain chocolate cake, but it was cut into slender bars and served with gentian ice cream.  (Never having had the herb gentian in anything but a digestive, I wasn't sure what to expect and now, having had it, I can't describe it.  It was milder than I'd anticipated and, just when I thought I might have caught the elusive flavor, the little scoop was finished.)  And there was a wine-poached pear, but its playmate was unusual: licorice ice cream - the component that clenched my decision!

I think the ice cream was made by melting Zan, teensy hard licorice candies that are bought in thin, scored plaques.  The flavor of the ice cream was strong - licorice doesn't ever really fade into the background -  but it managed to be a good team player paired with the pear and a couple of speculoos (spice) cookies.  Of course, I want to try making this at home - and I will.

It was great to discover a new flavor combination just a few hours after hitting town.  I'm taking it as a sign that there'll be lots more surprises in the coming weeks.  I'll keep you posted.

Cedric Bechade's Auberge Basque: An Oasis in the French Basque Country

I don't know where the time has gone.  Tomorrow I leave for three weeks in France and I haven't even unpacked from my last trip and certainly haven't gotten around to telling you all that happened over the summer.  I know I'll never catch up, but there was a place in the French Basque Country that was so wonderful that I've got to tell you just a little about it before I take off.

It's called the Auberge Basque, but it might as well be called dreamland.

I think there must be lots of ways to tell how passionate chef-owner Cedric Bechade is about food, but the easiest is to (bypass the gorgeous terrace and) walk up to the desk of the Auberge Basque, which is both a stylish inn and an extraordinary restaurant.  Stand at the hotel desk, look through the huge window and what you see is the kitchen!

And what a kitchen!  Open and completely state-of-the-art, it is as calm as a library.  Bechade and his very small brigade move through the space with the grace and quiet of dancers, looking out occasionally at the nearby tables and beyond them, through the glass wall that separates this almost zen-like retreat from the lush mountains, to the sunset.  It's a spectacular setting that is at once warm and welcoming and spare and simple.

Bechade, a ten-year veteran of Alain Ducasse's restaurant in the Plaza Athenee in Paris, is just 30 years old.  But, judging from the oasis he has created, accomplished beyond his years.

I'm not sure what the traditionalists in the tiny town of Saint-Pee-sur-Nivelle make of Bechade's newly renovated 17th century farmhouse, and I can't imagine what they think of his modernist takes on the region's classics, but what he is doing is groundbreaking and exquisite and I think it would be judged stellar in any part of the world.  That the auberge is in La France Profonde, and that the food is based on a cuisine known for its rusticity, makes it even more exceptional.

All of Bechade's ingredients are local and many of his dishes are riffs on Basque classics.  I can't do justice to this dish in picture or words, but what you're looking at is a play on piperade, a pepper and egg stew.

In Bechade's dish, all of the flavors of the piperade are present, but you find them in different forms: the whole green pepper is filled with a gelee made from piperade juice and the dish's egg is divided - the yolk is in the pepper and the white is whipped into a meringue.

Similarly, the corn crepe that wraps around foie gras is a play on the traditional corn pancake of the region, but Bechade's is delicate, where the original is hearty enough to satisfy lumberjacks.

I was glad we came to the Auberge after we had eaten several authentically Basque meals because we could pick out the region's star ingredients and heirloom recipes and marvel at their translations.  But then, I would have been glad to have Bechade's food at any time and anywhere - context made the dinner richer, but no more memorable.

After chatting with the chef and visiting some of the auberge's rooms (each time we saw a room, I'd say, "This is the one I want to stay in, " until I realized that I just plain loved them all; they're all elegant but curl-up cozy), I asked him how much courage it took to leave Paris and the Ducasse Group and set out on his own in the countryside.

"Of course, I was nervous," he said, "but I talked to lots of chefs, including many who were older and long established, and they all said the same thing: If you want to start your own business, do it now, before you turn 30; after 30, your path is more set and less easy to change."

Bechade took their advice and he - and every visitor to the Auberge Basque - is happier for it.

As the French would say, this is a chef to follow.  I think you'll be hearing a lot about him. 

(For more information about Auberge Basque and for reservations, click here.)