France

Making your own lunch in Paris

Posted on by David
We used to have a professional dancer friend from New York who always signed up for a dance class when she visited Boston. We thought it was an amusing quirk--until we discovered that most dancers take classes when they travel. At worst, they get a good workout. At best, they learn something new. In that same spirit, I signed up to make my own lunch in Paris with a half-hour express class through L'atelier des Chefs (Chefs Workshop), which offers a whole array of cooking classes for home chefs and, judging by my classmates, for bachelors who are cooking for themselves for the first time and women who would like to relieve them of that chore. Most classes take an hour to half a day...Read More

What to buy in a Paris grocery store

Posted on by Pat and David
It is funny that France is such a fantastic country for eating but we rarely discover as many finds in French grocery stores as we do in other countries. Part of the problem is that most of the good stuff (like the sausages and the fresh produce and seafood) can't be brought home. The other factor is that many French foods are available in our local groceries, so we have learned to be restrained. We have also found that the fancy stores like Bon Marché and Galeries de Lafayette are big on stocking what they consider exotic delicacies-like American ketchup. There are a few things we just cannot pass up. Here's our shopping list when we visit Paris: Herbes de Provence. We've been told that...Read More

Reprising Julia Child’s first French meal

Posted on by David
The marvelously bourgeois restaurant La Couronne changed the way Americans eat, so when I was in Fécamp to write about Bénédictine for the Robb Report (see "Leisure: A Secret for the Centuries"), I had to stop off in Rouen on my way back to Paris. Mark your calendar: On Wednesday, November 3, 1948, Julia and Paul Child stopped for lunch after their ferry landed at Le Havre and they began the drive to Paris. Writing years later, Julia called it "the most exciting meal of my life." It was her first taste of French food. Founded as an inn in 1345, La Couronne (31 Place du Vieux Marché, 33-02-35-71-40-90, www.lacouronne.com.fr) has a strong claim as the oldest auberge in France, not that the countryside Art...Read More

French Chocolate Mousse for Valentine’s Day

Posted on by Pat and David
We have been racking our brains for something special to conclude our Valentine's Day dinner. We simply lack the skills to reproduce our all-time favorite dessert from Fauchon, the amazing gourmet shop, tea house, and patisserie on Place de Madeleine in Paris. That would be Megève cake—perfect thin layers of crisp meringue with chocolate ganache and chocolate mousse. But we did recall a dynamite, foolproof version of chocolate mousse given to us by a French housewife, Madame Picavet. Given that Monsieur Picavet was very fond of Burgundy, it made the perfect companion to the last glass in the bottle. She used dark chocolate, but we've had good luck using an American bittersweet chocolate like Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips. FRENCH CHOCOLATE MOUSSE Ingredients 6 oz. bittersweet...Read More