DORIE GREENSPAN

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.

Chateau de Cande and the Would-be Monarchs

I've been traveling through the Loire Valley with Maison de la France and have not had much internet access, so I've got a pile-up of things to share -- now all I've got to do is find the time...

For starters, there's my visit to the Chateau de Cande, where Edward, Prince of Wales, and Wallis Simpson, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, were married on June 3, 1937.  Here, on the walls of the chateau's library, are the Windsors' signatures and their wedding date, carved with a rotograveur.

And here's the menu for what might have been a storybook wedding, but which turned out to be the start of a life in exile:

• Jambon d'York
• Langouste
• Foie Gras
• Caviar
• Salade Russe
• Navarin aux Legumes (lamb stew with vegetables)
• Fricasse de poulard et poulet (fricasse of young hen and chicken)
• Patisseries
• Fruits refraichis (cold fruit)

All set out as a buffet in the chateau's dining room

The Man-Who-Would-Be-King, Edward, who abdicated the throne of England for the woman he loved, married Wallis Simpson, the twice-divorced American socialite at Cande, the home of their friends, Charles and Fern Bedaux, in the heart of the Loire Valley, far from either England or America, and, as it turned out, far from most of the important people in their lives.

While the couple invited 300 people to their wedding, only 16 showed up and, even in the fabulous wedding portraits by Cecile Beaton, the couple don't look so cheerful.

The sad and fascinating story of the Windsors has been written about endlessly, but it's not a story that ever interested me enough to follow it -- it's not easy for me to be interested in two extraordinarily privileged, but profoundly selfish people.  Yet, after the tour of Cande, all I wanted was a comfy couch, a mound of bonbons (or M&Ms) and a stack of Windsor biographies.

Cande is unique among the famous chateaux of the Loire because it's not as grand as the others -- it would be easy to settle into the library for an afternoon catnap -- and it wasn't built (or even visited) by a king, as so many of the chateaux in the valley were.  But it was home to the Windsors for months before their marriage and there's plenty of Windsorbilia to see.

The photos of the Windsors are extraordinary, particularly the famous picture by Philippe Halsman, which was part of his series called Jumpology.  Halsman's theory was that a person's true personality was revealed in his face during the act of jumping, the idea being that you drop your "mask" when you have to concentrate on thrusting yourself in the air and landing safely.

Here are the Duke and Duchess of Windsor caught mid-air, she looking happier than she appeared to be by all reports, and he looking terrified, as though he knew what a sad future he'd consigned himself to.

The Halsman photographs are remarkable and, even though it's totally unrelated, I can't resist showing you the picture he took of a jumping Marilyn Monroe for the cover of Life Magazine

All tours of Chateau de Cande are guided and our guide had a touching understanding -- an affection, even -- for the Windsors.  For any royal-watchers, the tour is a peek into a part of the family the Queen would probably like to forget; for anyone interested in fashion, the tour is a treat.

Wallis Simpson, credited with popularizing the phrase, "A woman can never be too rich or too thin," spent her riches clothing her thin body, and there's a small, but wonderful, selection from her wardrobe at the Chateau.  Her panther jewels from Cartier, her painted luggage, some of the elegant gowns made for her by Schiarparelli and Dior, and this ensemble

a very early design by a very young designer, Karl Lagerfeld, now the man responsible for Chanel.

Wallis may have lacked many qualities, but she sure had a good eye.

 

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.

Kitchen Library, A Gem in the New Oxbow Market in Napa

This is Steven Rothfeld standing at one of the tables in his new shop, Kitchen Library, a place so chockablock with beautiful books, photographs, tableware, paper, soaps, ceramics, antiques and vintage finds that people come thinking they'll just take a peek and end up staying hours - every time you turn your head just the slightest bit, there's something new and wonderful to see.

Steven is an extraordinary photographer - whenever I need a little inspiration, want to dream, armchair travel or just take a break, I look at the pictures on his website - and a man who has traveled the world many times over and recorded some of his travels in books that are so evocative of the places they feature (often France) that I can't look at them without finding myself rubbing the pages, a little like rubbing a magic lantern in the hopes of being transported, and a little like rubbing something that you think, or wish, was real.  He's also a guy who was born with the collector gene.  In Kitchen Library, Steven brings so many parts of his work and life together, offering the things he loves and the kinds of things he's collected.  The space is small, but he's built a lyrical world within its confines.

In fact, all of the spaces in the new Oxbow Market in Napa are small, but there isn't one that's not interesting.  The market, which opened just a month ago, is still growing, but if you go there today, you can buy exotic teas at The Tillerman Tea Company, vintage kitchenware at Heritage Culinary Artifacts, Lisa Minucci's stand, from which I was dying to buy the sign she's standing in front of,

spoonables from Three Twins Organic Ice Cream, seasonings from The Whole Spice Company, and gifts from Fete, where we found a folksy handcrafted rooster that's since come back to nest with us.

While there's a weekly farmers' market and more stands are due to open this month and next - including The Model Bakery and St. Helena's cult eatery, Taylor's Refresher - no one visiting the market ever has to go hungry.  There's plenty to nibble and there's Folio, Michael Mondavi's Enoteca and Winery, by which he means a complete micro-winery!  When I joined the crowds there, I was delighted to find that the chef is Sarah Scott

You may not recognize Sarah's face, but my bet is that many of you, like I, have made lots of Sarah's recipes.  She's written stories for Bon Appetit magazine, her most recent being those terrific desserts in the Thanksgiving issue. 

Sitting in the market with Steven was like being on a Main Street front porch in the liveliest, friendliest small town in the world.  If Oxbow weren't more than 3,000 miles from New York (and more than 6,000 miles from Paris!), I'd be a regular.

If you live nearby, lucky you!  If you're a visitor to the Napa Valley, put Oxbow and Kitchen Library on your must-go list.  They would be worth a detour on their own, but happily most food and wine lovers will end up there without a detour because they're just steps from Copia, the center for wine, food and art.

Because we got to Copia early in the morning, we didn't do any of the guided winetastings - aarrgh - but we did see a great exhibit , Forks in the Road, and, of course, we went to the Julia Child corner. 

While The Smithsonian has Julia's kitchen, including everything that was in every kitchen drawer, Copia has the most iconic piece of Julia's workspace: the ingenious pegboard wall with the outlines of all her pots drawn on it.  The idea for this quick and easy removal and replacement system came from Paul Child, Julia's husband, and I wish I had a penny for everyone who copied it when they saw it on The French Chef

I loved being in the Napa Valley - I know, I know, is there anyone who loves food and wine who wouldn't love being there?  I was there to do a chocolate class at The Napa Valley Reserve (take a look - it's so gorgeous) on the grounds of the fabulous Meadowood Resort, which was a treat in itself (and about which I'll tell more when I get the pictures), and, as much as I adore New York, it was awfully hard to get on that plane and fly back. 

Hand-picked micro greens ... cult wines ... artisanal cheeses ... breakfast croissants from Bouchon Bakery ... organic everything ... miles of magnificent vineyards ... sunshine and breezes ... the definition of California dreamin'

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.

Cancale: Oysters and Racing Tides

This sculpture of women hauling baskets of oysters sits in the center of Cancale, a town on the rugged coast of Brittany, where oysters are everything.

Here, the bivalves are simply called Cancale Oysters - that's their name; there are no varietals.  They come in two shapes: flat and humpbacked; and they come from one place: the oyster beds built in the Bay of Mont Saint Michel

When the tide goes out, the oystermen drive their trucks between the beds to harvest the bivalves, the way vignerons go through their rows of grapevines.  And, when the tide comes in, so do the workers - the Bay's tides are among the fastest in the world and no one who knows the sea would be foolish enough not to respect them. 

As the tide turns, the trucks, piled high with sacks of oysters, bump and rumble their way along the main street.  By the time the water is almost in, only a truck or two remains on the "farm" and, for sure, it stays close to the seawall.

I guess it goes without saying that the oysters we ate just a few yards from the beds were among the freshest imaginable.  But they were also some of the best I've ever had.  Their flavor was clean and pure, their texture full and smooth and they could have defined brininess. 

If all Cancale had was oysters, it would deserve its status as a Site of Remarkable Taste

But Cancale is home to Olivier Roellinger as well, about whom I have much to tell - I just don't have time now.   

All Things Considered Considers Tarte Tatin

A year ago, when Baking From My Home to Yours was published, Michele Norris, host of National Public Radio's All Things Considered, invited me to the NPR studios in Washington, DC to talk about baking.  It turned out that Michele, who is a very talented cook, wanted to become a better baker for the best reason possible:  She wanted to be able to give her children the same kinds of sweet, wonderful memories that she has of her mother in the kitchen.  And with that we began our journey, which has taken us through holiday treats and Valentine brownies to rugelach and cobblers and now, this Tarte Tatin.

Last week, just before coming to Paris, I flew to Washington and spent the most marvelous day in Michele's kitchen - a room made for buddy baking - peeling apples, caramelizing butter and sugar and crafting a big, luscious Tarte Tatin with flaky, buttery pie dough, the perfect Gallic-American mix.

I was delighted that Michele had chosen the Tarte Tatin for our next lesson, not just because it's one of my favorites, ideal for apple season and fabulously delicious, but because it's one of those recipes that you think is way too hard to make at home and that turns out to be something you can master quickly and make your own. 

You can get the recipe and listen to us on the NPR/All Things Considered website, just click here.

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 ...

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.