I Prefer Paris

Richard Afoot by Michele Kurlander

2012-02-13T06:02:00+01:00

I am taking a blogging vacation this week but not leaving you high and dry without any postings or with reruns. I have invited a different guest blogger for each day, so please welcome them. Today my friend the writer, Michele Kurlander, who wrote the wonderful farewell to George Whitman from Shakespeare and Company in December, has written a very special profile about me. We spent an afternoon together about a year and a half ago prowling around the Palais Royal and the rue St. Honore finishing with a glass of Champagne at the Crillon Hotel. We had so much fun that Michele promised someday she would write an article about it, so here it is . I am most touched and honored. The photos are by Michele too. (By the way, these are my fat pictures. I have lost much weight and inches since then).

I’m returning to Paris from Chicago for another visit soon, and I hope that I again will have the opportunity to walk with Richard Nahem. Though I have never taken one of Richard’s formal “walks,” I have, indeed, walked with Richard - and it was quite the experience.

In September of 2010, I stayed in a friend’s apartment on Ile St Louis for almost two weeks and experienced Paris the way I like to - as a resident rather than a tourist. I woke up when my body decided it was time, slowly dressed and packed my small purse and backpack for the day, and then either took a cup of coffee and some fruit to the computer to write - or walked slowly down to the west end of the Ile to write in my journal while seated with a coffee and croissant at the little café at the end of the street, from which I could see Notre Dame and people watch for an hour or so.

On my way, I passed the lovely old church, school children on their way to class, and the charming little restaurants and shops that were just opening for the day.

One day, I also passed a familiar figure in a black beret, holding forth with gesticulations to several rapt listeners about a croissant shop and - voila! - I realized I was walking by Richard Nahem during one of his tours. We said “hi” and both continued on.

The next day, seated at my small table, journal in hand, I turned to look at the café’ just across the street - and there he was again - surrounded by obviously happy followers. We again waved.

Finally, a day or so later, Richard and I met on purpose. When he suggested lunch I couldn’t resist. We met on rue St. Honore and had lunch at La Regalade (while he took photos and copious notes for a review he planned).

After lunch we then strolled together towards the Petit Palais where I planned to attend the new Monet exhibit.

What I hadn’t realized, was that even a casual walk with Richard turns into an expedition where you learn that on every street there are small things to see and remember and photograph - things that you might not otherwise notice.

Walking by a restaurant on rue de Rivoli, not far from the Louvre, Richard realized that the surface of each of the little café tables sitting on the trottoir was covered with a reproduction of a painting - Renoir, Degas, Monet etc. He couldn’t resist! For the next 30 minutes (yes -I heard the words “just one more” over and over again) he walked around the tables for different angles, moved an occasional obstructing chair, and just descended into his intense photographic mode. It was fun to watch such intensity of purpose. Here is a photo of Richard taking a photo.

From there, I pointed out to Richard a beautiful doorway - not realizing the consequences. Our forward motion was again delayed for an extensive period of time, but I did have the opportunity to once more study the rare subgenus of homo sapiens known as Nahem photographius. Everyone knows how this species feels about doorways! See below for my one and only shot of the door that Richard spent ten minutes shooting from every conceivable angle. I have to admit it was a wonderful specimen. Yes, that is himself searching for his first shooting angle.

From there, we walked by a lovely garden where I photographed two people centuries apart in age in an intensely romantic clench (See below for my April and December couple clenched only the way the French can do), along with some flowers; while Richard concentrated on the intricacies of the statuary and the landscape elements.

Finally, I watched on rue des Pyramides while Richard moved slowly from angle to angle - his eye catching the best points of view for capturing images of some of the Paris street lamps he loves to find - and at the same time I found a hanging lamp set against a threatening sky where the sun emerged from its hiding place behind a cloud just for a moment as if it represented a fleeting hope in the blackness. I have used that photo for the cover of my first book of short stories - and I am ever grateful to Richard without whose eyes I would never have stopped to look.

Michele Kurlander is a 67-year-old Chicago corporate lawyer, writer, small business and women's issues advocate (past president of the Chicago Area Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners) mother of three grown children, and grandma of six. She fell in love with France and all things French many years ago when she first traveled to Europe as the chaperone of a younger cousin in 1967. She travels back to France at least once each year ( often two and three times), whenever her addiction overwhelms her. and keeps up her far from fluent but passable French by reading detective stories by George Simenon about Inspector Maigret. Some of her fondest memories of Paris are (i) sleeping on a bench on the third floor of Shakespeare & Co. one year, and waking to the bells of Notre Dame; (ii) spending her "big" birthdays (50, 60, and 65) in France (the first two entirely in Paris, the most recent both in Paris and in an old stone cottage in a small hamlet in the Aveyron).

In addition to my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, we now offer Eye Prefer New York Tours, 3-hour walking tours of New York's best neighborhoods including Soho, Meatpacking/West Village & Tribeca. Tours cost $195 for up to 3 people and $65 for each additional person.Come take a bit of the Big Apple on an Eye Prefer New York Tour!

Come experience my blog ìliveî with my Eye Prefer Paris Tours, which are 3-hour walking tours I lead. The Eye Prefer Paris Tour includes many of the places I have written about such as small museums & galleries, restaurants, cafes & food markets, secret addresses, fashion & home boutiques, parks, and much more.Tours cost 195 euros for up to 3 people, and 65 euros for each additional person. I look forward to meeting you on my tours and it will be my pleasure and delight to show you my insiders Paris. www.eyepreferparistours.com

New! Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes
I am happy to announce the launch of Eye Prefer Paris Cooking Classes. Come take an ethnic culinary journey with me and chef and caterer Charlotte Puckette, co-author of the bestseller The Ethnic Paris Cookbook (with Olivia Kiang-Snaije). First we will shop at a Paris green-market for the freshest ingredients and then return to Charlotteís professional kitchen near the Eiffel Tower to cook a three-course lunch. After, we will indulge in the delicious feast we prepared along with hand-selected wines.

Cost: 185 euros per person (about $240)
Time: 9:30AM- 2PM (approximately 4 1/2 hours)
Location: We will meet by a metro station close to the market
Class days: Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday
Minimum of 2 students, maximum 6 students.

Click here to sign up for the next class or for more info.

Sweet Week 4, Day 4: Paris My Sweet by Amy Thomas

2012-02-09T12:03:00+01:00

I decided to end Sweet Week 4 with a sweet read: Paris My Sweet by my friend Amy Thomas. Amy is from New York and in 2009 had the good fortune of transferring to Paris for a golden job opportunity working for Louis Vuitton. Amy is a sweet freak (in fact she writes a blog called Sweet Freak) miles beyond me and makes me practically look like an amateur when it comes to uncovering the best sweets and pastries.

Paris My Sweet is a memoir about Amy's adventures living in Paris for two and a half years, the highs, the lows, and in-betweens, all set against a backdrop of methodically and obsessively uncovering the best sweets in Paris. Not only does the book constantly compare the differences between Paris and New York, it also pits the favorite French desserts and pastries against American ones, for instance macarons versus cupcakes, madeleines versus muffins, and pain perdu versus French toast. I can so identify with her constant angst about New York versus Paris, wrestling with which is better, constantly going back and forth, then finally coming to the conclusion that maybe there isn't a definitive answer.

She covers many of my favorites- Jean Paul Hevin, Pierre Hermé, a l’Etoile d’Or, and du Pain et Des Idees, but I have learned about some new places I don't know about-Ble Sucree and Au 35. Now I have some new places to investigate for my next Sweet Week and to possibly add to my chocolate and pastry tours. The other great thing about the book is that Amy writes about some incredible sounding sweet shops in New York, many which have opened after I moved to Paris, which I will now have to try on my next New York trip. Amy smartly puts a full address list of all the Paris and New York sweet shops so you can rent a Velib bicycle and track them just like she did.

Thanks Amy for making my sweet day and a perfect end to Sweet Week 4.

Click here to order Paris My Sweet on Amazon.

http://dessertfordinner.blogspot.com/

Sweet Week 4, Day 3: Helmut Newcake

2012-02-08T06:02:00+01:00

It may not be the most decadent patisserie in Paris but Helmut Newcake is an exciting first: the first gluten-free bakery in Paris and all of France. The owner Marie Tagliaferro trained to be a pastry chef in France but soon discovered much to her dismay that she was allergic to gluten. She gave up baking for a while and moved to England. She moved back to Paris and came up with the idea to invent her own line of gluten- free pastries. After testing over 600 recipes in the last two years, she opened her bakery last December 27 with her husband Francois in the 10th arr. near Canal Saint Martin.

It's a charming, open space with tables to have coffee, which is rare in Paris because most patisseries don't have cafes. There were festive white feathers strung on the ceiling. I looked in the case and the pastries looked quite appealing. I chose a lemon meringue tart and sat and had a coffee with it. The outside layer was crispy and light and the meringue and lemon were a good consistency. The only criticism I have is that it was too sweet. I also bought a bag of two large chocolate chunk cookies for Vincent and sampled one. Again everything was good about it but it was too sugary. Maybe in time Marie will tone down the sugar. Other pastries that day included financiers, cheesecake, tartelettes, and fondant.

Marie and Francois have some ambitious plans including a Sunday brunch menu with gluten-free pancakes, breads, and pancakes. In addition to the pastry menu, Helmut Newcake offers two Plat du Jour, one with meat and the other with fish and vegetables. There are also gluten-free daily wraps and the day I was there it was a warm chicken one with mint sauce. On one side of the bakery is a packaged food section featuring gluten-free dry cereals.

I have been asked before by many clients and readers if there were any gluten-free pastries in Paris and sadly I would say no and tell hem to have a macaron. Now they can have macarons and an added treat of gluten-free pastries at Helmut Newcake. The name is a pun playing off the name of the photographer Helmut Newton.

36 rue Bichat, 75010
Metro: Goncourt
Tel. 09 82 59 00 39

Sweet Week 4,Day 2: Ganache Tasting Contest

2012-02-07T06:01:00+01:00

Every year for the last three years Tom Reeves and Monique Wells of the newsletter Paris Insights have conducted a chocolate tasting contest. They always choose a specific type of chocolate and last year it was chocolate covered cherries and the year before, chocolate truffles. In fact when they did the truffle contest in 2010, I duplicated their truffle tasting on my own and published my results for Sweet Week 2010.

This year I was honored to be asked to judge the contest and was talking about it for weeks on end before about what a difficult job it would be. There were three other judges, Eric, who is a chef and who runs a cooking school, Yetunde, a manager of apartment rentals in Paris, and Robyn, a blogger from Canada. We were invited to Tom and Monique's apartment in the Latin Quarter on a cold Sunday afternoon in January for the tasting.

This year the product was Venezuelan ganache and we were to blind taste test five varieties from high quality chocolate shops from around the city. Tom gave us each a serious looking scoring sheet with five categories to rate the chocolates on: appearance, aroma, texture, flavor, and overall rating. The ratings were from one to five, one being the lowest, five being the highest. The tone was very serious and we were methodic in our judging. Our opinions varied but in the end we all chose the same one our favorite. In between each tasting, we were offered bread and water to cleanse our palates.

I now understand the stress that Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler must endure when they judge American Idol, although we don't get the free glamorous wardrobe like they do. We have the power, just like them, to make or break a chocolatier's career.

Here are the five brands we tasted in the order they were served and the results.

Michel Cluizel- The finish was flat and unimpressive and the taste milky and waxy, not very flavorful. I thought it tasted like cheap milk chocolate from the supermarket even though Michel Cluize is one of the better chocolatiers in the city. We all pretty much agreed there was a lot more to be desired.
My overall rating: 2.5

Pierre Marcolini - We all agreed this was superior to the first one we had, and it had a rich smell, a smooth, buttery texture, and a clean taste. I liked the rectangular shape with the word Venezuela written in bold white letters.
My overall rating: 4.15

Debauve & Gallais- I thought this had a decent taste but was not great. It was a little on the milky side but I liked the long after taste. Also, the presentation was nothing memorable. We had a difference of opinion on this one, with some give it a rating in the 2s and some as high as 4.
My overall rating: 3

Fabrice Gilotte - This ganache overall got high marks, but it's no surprise because Fabrice Gilotte was named one of the 12 best chocolate makers in France and also won the the title Meilleur Ouvrier de France Chocolatier-Confiseur in 1990 at the age of 26. What I like most was the hard outside, which crumbled, and the soft, smooth, buttery center that had a long-lasting aftertaste.
My overall rating: 4.25

Servant- Last but not least, Servant had the most mixed opinions. I quite liked it because it had a slight tinge of coffee and it went down the easiest.
My overall rating: 3.75

I didn't find a perfect five, but we all thought Fabrice Gilotte was the best we tasted, so he was the clear cut winner. After our intense tasting, Tom served a bottle of Le Clos Paulilles, a red dessert wine.

Below are the addresses of the chocolate shops if you want to do your own personal tasting, but if you do, you have to bring me a piece from the best ones.

It was tough assignment, but someone had to do it, and it might as well have been me.

Michel Cluizel
201, rue Saint Honoré
75001 Paris
Tel.: 01 42 44 11 66
Hours: Mon to Sat from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
http://www.cluizel.com/

Pierre Marcolini
89, Rue Seine
75006 Paris
Tel.: 01 44 07 39 07
Hours:Mon 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.; Tues to Sat 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.; Sun 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
http://www.marcolini.be/

Debauve & Gallais
30, Rue des Saints-Pères
75007 Paris
Tel.: 01 45 48 54 67
Hours: Mon to Sat 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
http://www.debauve-et-gallais.com/v1/

Mococha (for Fabrice Gillotte chocolates)
89, rue Mouffetard
75005 Paris, France Tel.: 01 47 07 13 66
Hours: Tues to Sun 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
http://www.chocolatsmococha.com/

Servant Chocolatier
5, rue de Sèvres
75006 Paris
Tel.: 01 45 48 83 60
Hours: Mon 2:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Tues to Fri 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Sat 10 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.
http://www.chocolaterie-servant.com/

While on the topic of contests, Cat Bernuier, a cupcake baker in Paris, is running a contest now through February 12 to win a gift-box of 6 Valentine's Day cupcakes, giving away a total of two. Click here for more information and to enter contest.

Sweet Week 4, Day 1: Henri Le Roux

2012-02-06T06:03:00+01:00

It's my annual Sweet Week, edition four. My sugar levels have climbed higher in service of finding this week's sweet shops. I also have a few surprises up my sleeve, so fasten your sweet belts, it's going to be a long, sweet ride ahead.

Henri Le Roux is a well known and respected chocolatier whose original shop is in Quiberon in Brittany. He recently opened his first Paris shop in St. Germain des Pres.

Not only is Henri Le Roux a formidable chocolatier but he is also one of the best caramel makers in the world. In fact, he invented the salted butter caramel in the late 70s, with the idea of taking salt from the nearby sea and putting it into caramels mixing them with crushed hazelnut, walnuts, and almonds to give it the right texture. After being a huge success, many candy manufacturers jumped on the salted butter caramel bandwagon, producing many imitations. Not happy with his imitators Le Roux decided to register the name CBS (Caramel au Beurre Salé). Le Roux is an official caramelier, the only one in France with the title. He has many awards including the best chocolatier in France by Guide des Croqueurs de Chocolat and the award for the best sweet in France at the “Salon international de la confiserie”.

The Paris shop is a high tech version of a typical Bretagne style building with painted brown beams, white shelves, light wood floor, and splashes of orange all around. There are two rooms, one for candies and caramels and one just for chocolate with a long counter showing off rows of pristine chocolates. One interesting feature in the chocolate room is a counter facing the street with four stools for having tea along with the chocolates.

As always, I face a dilemma in choosing what to sample, and Henri Le Roux didn't make it easy with over 80 varieties of gorgeous, mouthwatering choices. After many questions and a few suggestions from the sales girl, I strategically made my decision. I knew I had to sample the caramels so I chose the Ble Noir, the specialty of the house, and the tatin. Even though I have had my fair share of salted butter caramels, these were in a whole other taste universe. Smoky and intense, the taste was close to mind-blowing. Biting into the tatin was like eating a big piece of tarte tatin except it was compact and chewy. The Ch'tou was the best chocolate of my three, a chocolate sphere filled with caramel and cider liqueur from Brittany. The sensation of the soft, melted caramel with a quick after taste of the sharp apple liqueur was sheer heaven.

One of the other specialties that intrigued me was the truffe de truffe, a chocolate truffle with a truffle from the ground. Intrigued as I was, I wasn't game to try it, I just wanted straight, no nonsense chocolate. I looked around some more after my tastings, and contemplated what I would try next time. The fruit jellies, the caramel sauce and the many varieties of chocolate bars including their award winning Yuzu Macha green tea bar looked quite appealing, but I am sure I would be happy with anything from Henri Le Roux.

Henri Le Roux
1 rue de Bourbon le Chateau, 75006
Metro: St. Germain des Pres or Mabillon
Open everyday
Monday 11AM to 7PM, Tuesday to Saturday 11AM to 8PM, Sunday 11AM to 6PM
http://www.chocolatleroux.eu

OMG caramels