DORIE GREENSPAN

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.)

Homage to a Cake: The Gateau Basque Museum

I have a feeling that were you to ask my husband why we traveled to the French Basque Country, he might say that I planned the whole trip around our visit to the Gateau Basque Museum.  I hadn't thought I was so obvious, but yeah, that was pretty much the reason.  I mean, wouldn't you want to go to a region that nurtures a museum dedicated to one particular kind of cake?  And wouldn't you be willing to travel about 8 hours to get there?  Of course, you would - and you wouldn't be disappointed.

I'm not sure what I expected, maybe a small regional museum with docents dressed in old-fashioned garb (think Williamsburg with cake), but whatever I imagined, this wasn't it. 

We followed the signs to the town of Sare, parked our car, as instructed, near a faded step van, then proceeded to walk down a steep curving path with signs that begged us not to pick the wild fruits and berries.  Toward the bottom of the hill, we came to a small, hand-built ticket kiosk (closed until 10 minutes before the tour would begin), a tool shed and two buildings: one clearly a home and the other evidently the museum.

Since we were early and the only people around, and since you could only see the museum as part of a tour, we wandered a bit, pressed our noses against the window of the modern bakery in the back of the museum and the found the gift shop, where we bought a mini Gateau Basque.

If this were all we'd get for our hours of travel, Michael and I decided it would be, as Michelin says, "Worth the voyage."

Time out to describe a Gateau Basque: It's a double layer of dough, more like a thick tart crust than the word "gateau" would lead you to believe, encasing a layer of either vanilla pastry cream or dark cherry jam, a local specialty.

By the time we finished making our mini gateau last as long as possible, there were 20 other cakelovers in line and our guide, Bixente Marichular, appeared.

I was surprised to see him dressed in chef's whites and even more surprised to discover that what we thought would be a tour would be a 90-minute talk and demo.  During what probably seemed like an eternity to Michael, who neither bakes nor speaks French (although he caught most of what the chef said), our guide revealed the secret to making a crust that won't crack when rolled - coarse sugar, the kind used for making jam; admonished us never to use any other preserves but the cherry jam made in nearby Itxassou; and showed us the traditional way to differentiate a cream-filled cake from one filled with jam - the jam cake should be topped with a piece of dough shaped like a Basque cross:

Not only did I learn a lot about the Gateau Basque, I learned a little something about the French, too.

At the start of the demo, Bixente grabbed a hunk of his beautiful dough, handed it to the guy in the first row and told him to taste it and pass it along.  Having given many baking demos, I couldn't help thinking how different things were in France: No one was wearing plastic gloves; no one complained that the dough was being pawed and passed from hand-to-hand; and no one said peep about the raw eggs in the dough.  And, when we were given cookies and told to dunk them in the pastry cream and the jam, no one snitched on the double-dippers.

When the demo was over and people were wandering off, I stayed to talk to the chef.  During the class, I'd asked to see the sugar and the chef, hearing my accent, asked where I was from.  When I said, "New York," he fired back quickly, "You can probably get sugar like this at Dean & DeLuca."  So, my first question to him apres class was: "When did you work in New York?"

Of course he laughed, and of course he had worked in New York.  He'd been in the City in the late '80s and early '90s and had worked with Gray Kunz at the Peninsula Hotel.

Once again, the food world had made the real world a tiny place.  Here we were, in a very small town in the middle of the French mountains and we were talking about shared friends, colleagues and memories.  I love when this happens and I love the community that makes this happen.

When I got back to Paris, I made this Gateau Basque (with the wrong pattern on top - I hadn't left enough dough to craft a cross):

It was pretty good, but it wasn't Bixente's.  I'm still working on it ...

The Dinner at Del Posto: Bon Appetit/Buon Appetito

It took me sooooooooooooo long yesterday to post the names of the Bon Appetit Award Winners, that I never got around to telling you what we ate at Del Posto.  In between the cheers, clapping and wonderful camarderie, there was truly memorable food and wine from Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich.  Here's the menu:

ANTIPASTO

Insalata Salumi Misti (which included the great Swiss chard tourte at the top of the plate)

Tocai Friuliano, Bastianich 2005

PRIMI

(Cloud-light) Potato Gnocchi al Pomodoro with Basil Pesto

Rosato, Bastianich 2005

FOLLOWED BY

Hand-made Orecchiette with Lamb Neck Sausage ( a WOW!)

Vespa Bianco, Bastianich 2004

SECONDO

New York Strip Steak with Summer Bean Salad (it should have read "Amazing Summer Bean Salad") and Crispy Brasato

Morellino di Scansano, La Mozza 2005

DOLCE

Crostata di Mele with Almond Cream and Pancetta Streusel (another WOW from pastry chef Nicole Kaplan)

Dindarello, Maculan 2006

Biscotti Assortiti

A Swell Party: The Bon Appetit Awards Dinner

Last night was a terrible night to go out to dinner in New York - all the chefs were at the Tenth Annual Bon Appetit Awards Dinner at Del Posto, the restaurant owned by Mario Batali, who was running around in his trademark shorts and sneakers, welcoming everyone to his home and generously doling out bear hugs

Joe Bastianich, who wasn't in my line of sight, but whose wines we all enjoyed, and Lidia Bastianich, the Italian mama we all wish we had

seen here with legendary editor, Judith Jones, the woman responsible for the publication of, among hundreds of other books, Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl (she is the one who, as a very young woman working in Paris, found the manuscript in the slush pile and championed its publication) and Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking (and almost all of Julia's other books), and who has now written her own story, The Tenth Muse.

The event is relatively small because the guest list is pretty much confined to past and present award winners, Bon Appetit staff and contributors (which is how I got my precious invitation) and friends of the Bon Ap family, which means great chefs, restaurateurs, artisan producers, trendsetters and designers.  I can't believe I was lucky enough to be seated with Eva Zeisel, who, at 100, just designed two new lines of dishes from scratch

Eva Zeisel, who was the recipient of last year's Bon Appetit Lifetime Achievement Award, is seated to the left, her daughter, the actress and childrens' book author, Jean Richards, is next to her, and Barbara Fairchild, Bon Appetit's Editor-in-Chief, is standing.

The invitation read: 6:30 Reception, 7:30 Dinner and Awards Presentation, but it was well past 7:30 when we sat down - people were having way too much fun chatting and catching up with one another to pay attention to the staff gently and probably way too softly imploring us to be seated.  I mean, how would like to be the one to tell Jeffrey Steingarten, Vogue's Food Critic and The Man Who Ate Everything, he had to put down his reverse vitello tonnato and take his seat?

Or break up the conversation of (from left to right)

Eric Ripert, chef of Le Bernardin and Bon Appetit's 2005 Chef of Merit, Dan Barber, chef of New York's Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns and this year's Chef of Merit (who gave an acceptance speech that was so funny I thought the talent scouts from late-night tv would grab him on the spot) and Joel Robuchon, who, in addition to being Bon Appetit 2006 Chef of the Year and chef of L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Paris, New York and Las Vegas, is the man most great French chefs consider the greatest chef.  Actually, it's not just the great chefs who idolize him, Americans are pretty crazy about him too, which explains why, when M. Robuchon was leaving and gave me the traditionally French set of kisses, a woman passing by said, "You're never going to wash your face, are you?"  (Well, maybe not those two spots.)

While the awards are very serious, the presentation was pretty lighthearted, which is just what you want and just what you'd expect from our host, Ted Allen, the food guru from Queer Eye, who now hosts the PBS series, Uncorked: Wine Made Simple. 

He's seen here with Peter Elliot (left) of Bloomberg, who looks like his separated-at-birth brother.

And the evening's winners were:

Chef of the Year:  David Chang of New York's Momofuku and Momofuku Ssam Bar

Cooking Teacher:  Molly Stevens, author, most recently of All About Braising

Chef of Merit:  Dan Barber of Blue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns

Pastry Chef:  Kamel Guechida of Joel Robuchon's restaurants in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas

Wine and Spirits Professional:  Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club in New York City

Designer:  Kelly Wearstler, designer of, among many other places, Whist, the restaurant in the Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica

Food Artisans:  Herb and Kathy Eckhouse, whose company, La Quercia produces extraordinary cured meats

Tastemaker:  Target Stores

Restaurateur:  Laurent Tourondel, whose BLT (Bistro Laurent Tourondel) restaurants in New York have become a not-so-mini empire

Food Writer:  Barbara Kinsolver for her wonderful book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, about a year of eating locally

Humanitarian:  Father Gregory J. Boyle, who founded Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles and helped thousands of gangmembers become bakers, chefs and caterers

Lifetime Achievement:  Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw, founders of Zingerman's Delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan and a great online resource for all things delicious

Back to (Chocolate) School with Valrhona

On Monday, when all the little ones were heading back to school, I went to class too – chocolate class.  The class was a Valrhona Chocolate seminar called The Cultivation of Taste and my classmates were a pretty swell group.  Among the 70 or so people who played hookey from work to learn more about chocolate and to taste Valrhona’s new crus were the cookbook author Rose Levy Beranbaum, Judiann Woo and Raina Bien of the go-to website Pastry Scoop, Chocolat Moderne’s Joan Coukos, Alexandra Leaf of Chocolate Tours of New York, and my tablemate for the afternoon

Michael Laskonis, pastry chef at Le Bernardin and 2007 James Beard Outstanding Pastry Chef of the Year.

It’s not easy to keep a room full of opinionated professionals quiet for three (count’em) hours, but that’s what Pierre Costet, Valrhona’s Chief Cacao Sourcer (I almost wrote sorcerer)

And Vanessa Lemoine, their Sensorial Analysis Manager, did.

Speaking in French (there was a simultaneous translator on hand) and working in tandem, Pierre and Vanessa led us through the growing, fermenting and drying of cacao beans, the intricacies of finding and working with growers and the science – and pleasure – of tasting. 

There was way too much for me to recap reasonably, so I’ll just hit a couple of the highlights.

Cultivating Cacao and Cacao Growers:  As Pierre was talking and showing us pictures of the cacao growers he works with in South and Central America, the Caribbean Islands and Africa, I was struck by two things:  the startling contrast between where chocolate starts, i.e. the rustic plantations and simple fermentation and drying facilities, and where it ends, i.e., the world’s most luxurious boutiques; and the similarity between cocoa and coffee.  Then, in yesterday’s New York Times, there was a long and thoughtful piece about coffee and the similarities were reinforced for me. 

The Difference Between Odor and Aroma:  While we English speakers think of odor as something unpleasant and aroma as something delicious, Vanessa Lemoine made a completely different and extremely interesting distinction between the two.  When you bring something to your nose and smell it, what you smell is the odor.  Odor is direct.  However, when you are eating something, you are also smelling it, but indirectly or retronasally.  What you smell through the post-nasal route is aroma.  According to Vanessa – and I’ve heard and read this before – 90% of the information you get about what you eat and drink is gotten through your nose.

FiveTastes And Maybe One More:  This is my favorite news flash.  As you know, our tongue can distinguish sweet, salty, acidic and bitter tastes, as well as umami, which is a very complicated taste found most notably in protein foods.  Now, according to Vanessa, there’s the possibility that our tongues have a sixth taste receptor and what it tastes is licorice!  (As many of you know, I’m a licorice lover, so you can be sure that I’ll be finding out as much as I can about this and reporting back to you.)

How to Taste Chocolate:  Here are the seven steps to getting a full picture of the chocolate at hand: 

1) look at it so that you can appreciate its color (and its sheen – if it has been properly tempered, it will have a shiny finish);

2) bring it to your nose so that you can smell its odor;

3) break it and listen for a crisp snap (another sign of good tempering);

4) put it in your mouth to assess its texture;

5) let it melt in your mouth by pressing the piece of chocolate against your palate with your tongue;

6) distinguish the aromas, which usually come one after another and often in this order – the volatile aromas, the fruity and floral aromas, come first; they give way to the warmer aromas, those of roasting and spice; and finally the heavier aromas, aromas of toasted nuts, camphor and woods, come in; and

7) while you’re appreciating the chocolate’s aroma, you taste it, and with most chocolate what you taste at the start is acidity, which makes you salivate, and then bitterness, which is a persistent taste and an important chocolate flavor. 

And, after you’ve tasted one chocolate and want to taste the next, you should clear your palate with flat water and crustless bread – the crust (we’re talking about a loaf with a significant crust) has too much flavor and it will interfere with your tasting.

Having been instructed on how to taste, we began to taste, starting with two chocolates that Valrhona is just releasing:  Abinao, a strongly flavored, toasty, roasty chocolate with long-lasting tannins and a very high cacao content, 85% (I loved it); and Tainori, a Dominican Republic chocolate with 64% cocoa and a kind of tang, which Vanessa referred to as freshness (from the camphor flavor) and likened to the flavors you get from a sucking candy. 

Then we tasted another chocolate that I really liked, Alpaco, which was so interesting because it had the same cocoa percentage as Tainori, but was much stronger in chocolate flavor, proof once again that you can’t buy chocolate by the numbers.  With chocolate, it’s about where the bean came from, how it was fermented, dried and roasted and how the beans were blended.  (It really sounds like wine, doesn’t it?)

Finally, we tasted Palmira, which is a 68% chocolate, but which was completely different from all the other chocolates in the panel.  Palmira is made from extremely rare porcelana beans and it is a single-estate chocolate, meaning all the beans come from one estate, Plantation Palmira near Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela.  I really liked this chocolate, which seemed warm and toasty and a little spicy and all-around lovely.  (Lovely was the word I wrote in my tasting notes, even though it wasn’t one of the “approved” descriptors.)

Our reward for being such good students was five chocolate desserts made by Derek Poirier, a Valrhona chef who teaches and trains pastry chefs in the US and Canada, and Yann Duytsche, a former Valrhona pastry chef, now chef of Dolc par Yann Duytsche in Barcelona.  Some of the desserts came from Duytsche’s new book, Sweet Diversions, some were based on recipes from Valrhona's L’Ecole du Grand Chocolat and all used what Valrhona calls Grand Cru chocolates.

Here’s the box of desserts we were each given

The five cubes in the line up were:  Coca Nibs Foam; Alpaco Sacher; Abinao Hot Chocolate (with a brioche beignet); Tainori Jelly (a light agar-agar mousse); and an Araguani Cube Cake.

As I walked home, I kept thinking that if school were always this interesting – and delicious – there’d never be an attendance problem.

Farm Aid and Frankie the Butcher

Yesterday was the 22nd annual Farm Aid concert and this year it was in New York City - not exactly rural territory, but a place where people care deeply about food and where more than 70 greenmarkets stake claims every week.

And while the thousands of music lovers weren't denied funnel cakes and fries, there was plenty of organic milk and yogurt - Horizon Organic was a major sponsor - and the VIPs (artists, production people and folks who bought all-access tickets) could catch a glimpse of Alice Waters (she was in town on book tour) and have some good eats from the Dinners-at-the-Farm chefs, Jonathan Rapp, of River Tavern, and Drew McLachlan of Feast Gourmet Market in Deep River, CT, who drove their big red kitchen-on-a-truck to the city without mishap and with baskets of some of the most fabulous wild mushrooms any of us had seen in a long time. (They ended up on top of grilled pizzas.)

Michael, my husband, and I were there to lend the chefs our hands, but they were so super organized and so well staffed that there was time to duck out to hear Matisyahu and The Derek Trucks Band.

A lot of sun, a lot of music and a lot of dishwashing later, we took off,  knowing it was going to be a grand hassle to find our way off Randall's Island and on to the Upper West Side.  (If only we'd been as smart as Peter Hoffman of restaurant Savoy in Soho - he and his son bicycled to the concert!)  But no, it wasn't a hassle at all.  We stumbled on a booth marked "Transportation" and discovered that the concert organizers had arranged to ferry staff hither and yon.  So we hopped into a car with a guy who worked with Willie Nelson on a recent recording and headed across the river.

Now this is the real story of the day:  Our volunteer driver was Frankie the Butcher!  If this name sounds familiar to you, it's because he was on Law and Order and in Spider Man 2 and he was Bobby Flay's sidekick on a bunch of Food Network shows.  He's an actor, but before that he was - and still is - a real-life butcher.  In fact, he can often be found at Oppenheimer Meats on the Upper West Side.  And how can I be sure he's a real butcher?  He talked about veal chops all the way into Manhattan!  (And yes, he does look like he's related to Tony Soprano. )

I've been convinced forever that the world is a small place and that the food world is even smaller, and last night certainly proved it - again.

Bordeaux: The Spirit of La Tupina and Jean-Pierre Xiradakis

Before I go back to France next month, I'm determined to write about more of the people I met, the places I visited and the food I ate on my last trip.  Of course these are all the things I meant to write the instant they happened, but ...

Take, for instance, our meal at La Tupina in Bordeaux.

La Tupina is a place I dreamed about.  Michael and I had first gone there in 1995 with Pierre Herme and his wife and now, 12 years later, I can still feel the pop of excitement I had when we walked through the door.  Then, as now, what greets you is a long rustic table sagging beneath the weight of pottery bowls heaped high with vegetables and wooden boards laden with thin slices of saucissons (dried sausages) so irresistible that no one walks by without pinching a piece.  And, behind the table is the centuries-old cooking hearth, taller than most men and big enough to cook most beasts.

It's fitted with spits and pulleys, grates and grills and it's here that meats are seared and poultry is roasted, and here that the fat that drips from the slowly turning ducks lands on the thick-cut potatoes and gives them a flavor you remember for a lifetime.

Jean-Pierre Xiradakis is the master of the house and, the first time we were there, it was Jean-Pierre who was working the spits and handing out small squares of pate or a piece of piping hot chicken liver to guests to as they came up to the hearth to revel in the aromas.

I returned to La Tupina about four years ago and it was just as I remembered it, and then, on this last trip, Michael and I came back with our friends Jana and Luc, who live in Bordeaux, and it was still just as wonderful. It's always risky to try to relive a treasured moment and always a thrill when the goodness you recall is sustained.

There were the ducks and the potatoes and the hefty cuts of beef, the lamb from nearby Pauillac and the chickens with skin as burnished as a great-grandmother's hope chest.  The atmosphere was as festive, the crowd as jovial (people still snatched bits off the table) and the food, what Jean-Pierre calls simple, honest food from France's southwest, as lusty and satisfying.

It was cool, drizzly and well past midnight when we left La Tupina.  As we walked out of the restaurant, there was Jean-Pierre sitting under the awning at a table with two friends.  The light from the restaurant, coupled with the mist from the rain, and the fact that they were the only people you saw as you peered down the street, made the scene look as if it had been set for a film, one that would show la belle vie in France.

We walked over to say goodnight and joined the men briefly as they savored the last of their cigars and Armagnac.  We were there for just a minute, but I left with a feeling that the trio was, indeed, enjoying a moment rare for many of us, but seemingly a regular part of their lives.  That the men were friends who truly cared about one another seemed evident; that they knew they were lucky to have this special time together seemed even clearer. 

And I wasn't the only one to be struck by the scene and the feelings it evoked.  Now, even weeks later, Michael still mentions that moment - it's become a touchstone for what it look likes to be caught in the act of relishing life.

As we were leaving, Jean-Pierre asked us if we'd want to join him for coffee and his morning walk around the city. 

At 8:30 the next morning when Jean-Pierre pulled up to the cafe on his candy-apple red scooter, you'd have thought the mayor had arrived.  Everyone waved and the waitress had his coffee and croissant at the table the instant he sat down.

Since walking was the purpose of our rendezvous, not coffee, we set off quickly, heading for the medieval part of Bordeaux.  Just steps from the beautiful, newly renovated riverfront, the modern shopping streets and the imposing limestone government buildings, is the old city, which feels more like a village.  The scale changes, the buildings' facades change and, when you come to the old church, you can imagine yourself in another time completely.

I remember a lot of what Jean-Pierre told us about the city as we walked, but what I remember best, and most fondly, is something having nothing to do with bricks and mortar and so much to do with spirit.

Every few blocks, either Jean-Pierre would stop to chat with a friend or a friend would stop him.  At some point I said to him, "It doesn't look like there's anyone you don't know.  Is this the route you take every day?"  "Oh no," he said, smiling broadly, "what would be the interest in that?  I take a different walk every day, so that each day I can meet different people, have different conversations and learn different things.  C'est ca l'art de vivre."

Yes, that's the art of living - the joy of it, too.

Dinners at the Farm: Great People, Great Food and a Great Cause

When a day starts out like this, you've got to believe it can only get better:

What you're looking at is the team from Sunday night's Dinners at the Farm pushing the "chucktruck," better known as the thing without which there'd be no dinner.  At the lead is Jonathan Rapp, chef-owner of River Tavern, and behind the wheel is Drew McLachlan who, with his wife, Claudine, owns Feast Gourmet Market in Deep River, Connecticut.  Just a minute or two beofre I snapped this picture, this is what you would have seen:

That's me behind the wheel!  I was having such a good time until my husband told Jonathan that I was better at truffles than trucks and that I probably shouldn't be the one steering when they finally got the monster moving.  I love my husband, but sometimes he can be a spoil-sport.

Dinners at the Farm is the brainchild of Jonathan, the McLachlans and Chip and Carol Dahlke of Ashlawn Farm.  Carol, who is the roastmaster at Farm Coffee, stayed home, wisely - she'll be having a baby any day now!  But here's Chip, who, in addition to being the host of the dinners, started the wonderful Lyme Farmer's Market:

The dinners, which kicked off in June (click to read about the first one, complete with thunder and lightning), are usually held on a local farm (Sunday night's was the exception; it was held on the grounds of the Wadsworth Mansion, just after the annual open-air market pulled up stakes), always use ingredients straight from the area's farms and always benefit a not-for-profit organization.  Sunday night, the proceeds from the dinner went to the local chapter of American Farmland Trust.

This time, I was at the dinner as a volunteer kitchen hand.  It was an outdoor dinner for 150 people and nothing was prepped ahead - it all happened on a bunch of plank tables under a tent and on the truck and it was a testament to what precision organization and a lot of talent can do.

Of course, it didn't hurt that everyone was anxious to get their hands on the food - everything from the fruits, vegetables and fish, to the pork from Four Mile River Farm, was local and most of us knew all of the farmers personally.

When I climbed up onto the truck and gasped at how beautiful the food was, Jonathan said, "It's impossible not to make beautiful food out of stuff this wonderful."  Take a look at just a smidgen of what we had to work with:

There was a great sense of camaraderie among the team, which was made up of pros and volunteers, including my mates on melon brigade.  This is Steve Lapenta, who owns The Bridge, a tofu company in Middletown, and who just walked over and asked if he could lend a hand:

And here's Christy Wilson, who in real life is from Santa Monica, but who came East for a spell to be an art director on Righteous Kill, the upcoming DeNiro/Pacino/50 Cent/Scorcese film that's being shot in Bridgeport:

I couldn't stay through dinner - we had to drive back to New York - but I was there to help get the pizzas ready for the grill:

 

and to plate the Charentais melons with smoked scallops, heirloom tomatoes, cilantro and a dressing of toasted cumin, lime, chiles and extra-virgin olive oil:

I wish I had a picture of the soup that went out before the melons - roasted corn with littleneck clams - but I was too busy picking parsley for the next course to grab my camera.

Here, though, is the whole menu, large enough, I hope, for you to read it and smile in delight:

It was terrific to be part of a community helping a community and I can't wait to do it again.  And I will.  The Dinners at the Farm team will be in New York City at Farm Aid on September 9 and I'll be there too.  If you're around, come by, I'd love to see you!

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.