in praise of sardines

Pierre Hermé macarons (Spring 2007)

"Oh please! Spare us, Brett. Macarons? That is so 2006," cry those food bloggers who just last year wrote about the macarons from the legendary Parisian pâtisserie, Pierre Hermé.

The veterans protest: "2006? People, we blogged about PH macarons way back in '05 (even '04!)."

Too bad. Add one more blogger's post and mouth-watering photos to the long list. This time it comes from the same blogger (me) who once left a comment vowing to boycott further posts on the topic on the grounds that such descriptions and their accompanying pornographic photos were too "deliciously cruel."

Call this photo set my revenge.

"So, Brett, what did you think?" you ask to be polite, suppressing your yawn.

Here's my take. (This is the part where I get in trouble).

Macarons are to Paris what cupcakes are to America. Like cupcakes, they're ubiquitous. Also like cupcakes, they're as irresistibly cute as baby chicks and as colorful as a bouquet of tulips. You just wanna squeeze their little cheeks and say "aawwwww." The main difference is that, instead of being smeared on top of cake, the buttercream frosting is squished between two sugary meringue buns, like a hamburger re-imagined by Oompa-Loompas.

Don't get me wrong. I like cupcakes. Even the sickly sweet ones sold at NYC's Magnolia Bakery. On occasion. Like once every year or two.

And I liked Pierre Hermé's macarons. At least some of the flavors. Whenever the master pâtissier added a healthy dose of bitterness to the cookies' buttercream filling, I was in heaven. Café, Chocolat, Caramel à la Fleur de Sel, even Huile d'Olive & Vanille (olive oil and vanilla) all made my tongue smile. I could gobble them up all day long. But the rest, brilliant and creative and sexy as the flavors were, made my teeth ache.

Did I say sexy? You bet. Check out the names PH has bestowed on the petite sweet nothings in his "spring collection." They're the strippers of the pastry shop: Jasmin, Rose, Arabesque (apricot and pistachio), Mogador (passion fruit and milk chocolate), Mosaïc (pistachio and cherry), and Ispahan (litchi, rose, and raspberry). Next month, Céleste (passion fruit, rhubarb, and strawberry) and Satine (cream cheese, orange, and passion fruit) will be joining them on stage. Rrrrowrr! Tell me you're not perspiring!

In my opinion, though, the reality of these sugar pills didn't live up to the promise of their fantasy names. But ain't that always the case?

So tell me, did I miss something? I mean, I like rosy, girly desserts more than your average feller. Were my expectations for the PH macarons too high? Is there a context for consuming these treats that's unknown to me? Am I just too much of a grease-stained, restaurant kitchen hot-line hillbilly to get what the fuss is all about over these gussied up French macaroons?

Food|and Drink|Paris|Pierre Herme|Macarons

I love Paris in the springtime: dessert

On our plate today are more culinary highlights from our trip to Paris at the beginning of the month. Granted, they're not all desserts, per se, but for this chef of the savory kitchen these are sweet memories.

Best meal of our Paris trip: dinner chez Clotilde et Maxence

Whenever you're on the road, don't you find yourself craving a home-cooked meal? Maybe it's just me. This is somewhat of a confession I suppose, but I find dining out in restaurants (even excellent new wave Parisian bistros) for breakfast, lunch, and dinner gets old quickly. I know, poor me. It's one reason I chose to stay in an apartment on this trip. Nevertheless, imagine my excitement when N and I got an invitation for a home-cooked meal from none other than the popular food blogger and soon-to-be-published cookbook author Clotilde Dusoulier! Talk about an offer you can't refuse!

Reading Chocolate & Zucchini over the years, I've often admired the playful attitude that Clotilde brings to her cooking. She seems to have an uncanny ability to come up with the perfect creative twist that will bring a French classic into the 21st century. Our delightful dinner with Clotilde and Maxence just before Easter showed off this talent and more.

We started with a lighthearted take on the classic radishes with butter and sea salt: avocado and radish canapés with smoked salt, accompanied by skinny saucisson sec on toothpicks. Then we sat down to a soulful slow-roasted lamb shoulder with flageolet beans served from a cast-iron cocotte. Our crave-worthy dessert was chocolate jelly with pineapple and violet (pictured above left) which is featured on C&Z today. What a great menu, no? What was even more amazing was to discover that Clotilde manages to cook all these wonderful dishes in a kitchen not much larger than a phone booth.

I was also fortunate to get a sneak peek of Clotilde's dynamite new cookbook (pictured right, in the author's hands). As if I wasn't already, after our scrumptious dinner I'm especially excited about this book. For a more objective perspective, check out the glowing review of the book in yesterday's New York Times magazine.

For what it's worth, here's one blogger's-eye view of the new C&Z book. Granted, I only got a quick glimpse, so my comments are limited to the superficial. My brief look was enough to convince me that fans of Chocolate & Zucchini (myself included) will be thrilled with this book. It's as heartfelt, playful, and stylish as her blog. The book's format is a totable 8- by 6-inch quality paperback, so there's no reason to leave it behind during your market trips. The recipes (most previously unpublished) and stunning photos (all by the author) look and sound as delicious as our dinner. Need I say more?

Head on over to C&Z and follow the link to preorder Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen, due for release in about 3 weeks. Alternatively, go to your local independent bookstore next month and buy it. You won't regret it. With her youth and imagination, I believe Clotilde is the perfect ambassador to rekindle everyone's enthusiasm for French cooking!

Best snack: L'As du Falafel

Here's another place that's doing just fine without my endorsement. As the astute Amateur Gourmet Adam wrote the other day about his arrival in San Francisco, I wanted my first bite in Paris to be memorable. Unlike Adam, whose first bite on his visit to my city was a lousy slice of pizza, N and I hit a home run without even trying.

The famous L'As du Falafel was only about 200 yards from the apartment we rented, and the line on Palm Sunday/April Fool's Day came practically to our door. After a 20 minute wait, during which I endured much head-shaking skepticism from N ("We came all the way to Paris and you want me to eat falafel? Is this one of your April Fool's Day pranks?"), we tucked into our prize: 8-10 little greaseless balls of falafel stuffed into a fluffy pita with tangy cabbage, cucumbers, roasted eggplant, tahini yogurt sauce and a spicy harissa-type sauce piquante on the side. MmmmMmmm. I was in heaven. Even my skeptic was converted.

I love Paris in the springtime: the plat principal

The Parisian bistro.

Conjures images of closely packed tables. Tobacco-smoke-stained walls. Hammered zinc bar.  Laughter. Boisterous conviviality. Chalkboard menu. Rickety bent-wood chairs. Pale red beaujolais poured into small glasses from a carafe. Well-worn mismatched silverware. Copper pots. La cocotte. Smoke-filled dining room. Cheeky waiters in long white aprons. The stern matron.

Admittedly I'm slathering the stereotypes on a little thick, like salted butter on a baguette. Might as well cue Édith Piaf or Django Rheinhardt. Roll the tape from Pagnol.

Regardless, this is the picture many of us — Americans at least — carry in our psyche. In our subconscious, this image dictates our vision of what a neighborhood restaurant could and should be. Keith McNally understands this. So does Gabrielle Hamilton.

The whole reason I chose Paris over another visit to Spain was to explore les bistrots (I'll leave it to others to explain why the word sometimes ends with a t, sometimes not).  In particular, I wanted to check out the néo-bistrots of the so-called bistronomie movement, whereby chefs have left grandiose Michelin-starred restaurants to open their own small restaurants on more modest budgets. According to the press, these chef-proprietors use high quality ingredients to create more contemporary versions of classic bistro fare. I felt a bond with these chefs. We share a vision. Their restaurants sounded exactly like what I hope Olallie will some day become.

Besides, I hadn't been to Paris since I started down the culinary career path a dozen years ago. And, despite my love of all things Spanish, my cooking is rooted in French technique as much as any other American chef's is. ("Plus," N pipes in, "Paris is incredibly sensual and romantic!").

Although our list of must-visit bistrots grew longer with each person we spoke to and each website I read, we ended up visiting 4 néo-bistrots and we liked them all.

I love Paris in the springtime: the entrée

If the previous post was the amuse bouche, then we'll call this the entrée. That's French for appetizer, by the way, not the main course. But you savvy readers knew that already, didn't you?

Whenever I travel, I get my bearings by visiting local food markets, from corner grocery stores to farmers' markets, bakeries to butchers. I like to believe these forays offer a glimpse into the every day world of the locals. But perhaps that's just glossy food magazine drivel. Regardless, there's really no better way to start the morning. And no better way to whet one's appetite for a 3-course lunch.

One of my favorite memories of this Parisian trip was Friday morning's trek across the city to buy just picked artichokes and cauliflower from a farmer named Joël Thiébault, whose family has been growing heirloom vegetables since the Middle Ages (well before "heirloom vegetables," légumes retrouvés in French, were "rediscovered"). I crawled out of bed at dawn, leaving N safely tucked under the sheets. On my walk from our apartment in the Marais, I marveled at the sight of Notre Dame in the morning sunlight. Then I joined the sleepy school children in matching uniforms and climbed aboard the RER commuter train to the 16th arrondissement to a farmers' market across the river from the Eiffel Tower.

Not all market excursions were as picturesque. Other days we visited more typical markets where, presumably, real working Parisians shop.

One morning, for example, N and I stepped into the future and visited the frozen tundra of a branch of Picard ("2 to beam up, Jean-Luc."). If you spliced the DNA from the frozen food aisles of Trader Joe's with the embarrassment of riches of Dean & Deluca and the sterile strangeness of Woody Allen's Sleeper, you might come up with something like Picard: gourmet frozen food. Our visit prompted the burning question "when is my local Safeway gonna start carrying frozen escargots de bourgogne, foie gras canard entier cuit au torchon, choucroute garnie au riesling, and macarons caramel au beurre salé?"

Another day N and I found ourselves wandering the opulent aisles of excess at La Grande Épicerie de Paris on the ground floor of the Bon Marché department store, Paris' answer to Harrods Food Halls in London. We ogled the terrines and mousses and fromage and the best butter in the world, favored by 3-star chefs like Alain Passard. The selection is dazzling. They even sell horse milk. What kind of nut job would drink such a thing?

I love Paris in the springtime: the amuse bouche

For those of you who have never used a "Pictobrowser," click the big photo to advance to the next photo. Or click the little photos below. To find out the title of the picture, hover your cursor over the corresponding thumbnail under the big picture.

Yes. The whispers and sightings are true. N and I sneaked off to Paris last week.

Our goal was to keep our trip low key and unplanned and spontaneous. Back in January when we realized the restaurant opening was going to be delayed even further (we're looking at autumn now, folks), we cashed in some frequent flyer miles for plane tickets, rented an apartment in the Marais (the first listing we saw, without any second guessing or further research), and that was it.

Sounds easy, no? For you, maybe. But not for little ole me. Let me give you a glimpse of last summer's OCD trip to Spain. I booked, confirmed, and reconfirmed every excruciating detail of our trip — from the hotels to the car rental to every single lunch and dinner — as far in advance as 10 months. Then I laid it all out on an Excel spreadsheet that listed addresses, phone numbers, and websites. I stopped just short of scheduling the piss stops.

Last week was the mirror opposite. We let our hearts guide us. Occasionally our stomachs took the lead. Our carefree attitude yielded equal and in many ways better results than those trips where we've spent countless hours researching and planning and fretting (OK, so I did break down at the last minute and send a frantic email to Rosa of Edible Paris to make half a dozen reservations for us. But we ended up canceling or changing most of them once we arrived. *Sigh* Old habits die hard).

We didn't go to one 3-star restaurant. Or even a museum. Or *gasp* a single chocolatier. The one tourist site we saw (repeatedly) was Notre Dame, but only because it was a 5-minute stroll from our apartment. Though, now that I think about it, we did find ourselves acting silly under the Tour Eiffel on our way to lunch one day.

Instead, N and I idled for hours at little chef-owned bistros and cafés, took long walks, did a little shopping, enjoyed each other's company and, on a couple of nights, the company of friends. I even foraged at the farmers' markets one morning and threw together a simple dinner.

I've learned my lesson. Pick a city or village, rent an apartment, and stay there. And if it can be avoided, no rental cars. I doubt we'll ever travel any other way again (although a teensy little phone call to L'Astrance or Le Comptoir back in January couldn't have hurt). I suppose I've truly entered middle age.

I'll save my angst-ridden planning and obsessive compulsive attention to detail for where it belongs: opening and running my restaurant.

Warning: As you may have noticed, I'm a self-diagnosed binge blogger. No posts for weeks, then *bam!* 4 posts in 4 days. It would be safe to expect several stories and photo collections from our trip over the next few days. Consider this an amuse bouche.

Food|and Drink|Paris