Cooking with Caillat

On Wednesday morning we were up early, headed over to Les Halles, to begin our day with Paule Caillat, our Parisienne host and grande dame of French cooking and culture.

Our visit with Paule started with a tour of the various markets in Les Halles:

Paule is a bundle of energy, full of insights on French culture, life in Paris, what is best in life and how one should live it.   She led us through a great tour of Paris markets, cooked with us for a few hours, taught us about French cheeses during a great tasting, and then hosted a fantastic lunch complete with a great conversation about food, wine, politics, religion and sex!   She also told me one of the best papal jokes I've ever heard.

Somehow I did not get a picture of Paule in action.   So, here is Paule (on the right) in her kitchen, from a picture posted on her website:

We were joined on our tour and class by Steve and Patricia from NY,  Cheryl from San Francisco, and Carolina from Luxembourg.  Here is a shot of Jenny in Paule's kitchen:

Our cheese tasting was in the following order:

Pouligny

Crottin de Chavignol

Saint Nectaire

Fourme d'Ambert

Maroilles

Comté
Mimolette

The highlights for me were the Pouligny, the Saint-Nectaire and the Comté.   The Comté was a revelation.  First 3 bites were like a cheese I might not normally choose to eat, but the 4th bite was like a chocolate candy bar.   Incredible.   Jenny loved the Fourme d'Ambert - a superb blue cheese.

We spent a few hours cooking the following (recipes available for those who ask nicely):

Terrine de legumes du jardin (vegetable terrine)
Sauce veirge
Tian d'Agneau (baked lamb with eggplant and tomato)
White Asparagus
Tarte aux Fraises Creme d'Amandes (strawberry tart with almond cream)
Souffle au Chocolat (chocolate soufflé)

Paule also shared her family recipe for tart crust.   She's already shared it with her friend David Lebovitz, Paris resident and American author of The Sweet Life in Paris.   Here is the recipe on David's blog: The Caillat Family Crust.

If you are interested in learning more about Paris, French culture, shopping in the great food markets in Paris, French cooking, or papal jokes, you should contact Paule at Promenades Gourmandes.  It will be a highlight of your trip to Paris.

"I never heard of Manet, but I heard of Monet."*

* anonymous 'merican tourist overheard at Musée d'Orsay

Tuesday morning was a late one, still fighting off jet lag.   But hey, we are on vacation, so who cares what time we get up, when we eat breakfast or head out for the day?

Today's itinerary included the Musée d'Orsay and the La Tour Eiffel.

Our trips to Italy and Spain with the kids set our expectations on how much we would be walking during our visit and we put certainly that to the test on our first full day in Paris.   We headed out for our 2.5km walk to the Musée d'Orsay after a nice breakfast on our terrace.   Everyone that we talked to about Paris said this museum was in many ways even better than the Louvre.   It did not disappoint.

Here is a bit of our walk along the Seine.

It was very crowded outside the museum, and there were heavily armed French army ranger guards with machine guns watching over the crowds.  Not sure if that was due to the OBL news, or just a regular level of security at this site.

It took us a bit of time to figure out the ticket buying process and which line we should be in.  We knew we could buy a multi-day museum pass at the d'Orsay, but it was not clear where we could make the purchase.  We finally figured out it was through a little side door labeled le kiosk, to the left as you look at the front of the museum.

The museum pass is a good deal.  It gives you access to the permanent collections at nearly 2 dozen museums (including the Louvre - but not La Tour Eiffel) and other historical attractions.  In some cases, the pass will let you skip long lines of tourists.   The challenge is you have to use it on consecutive days, so you have to figure out what sites you want to see and whether you can put them together in consecutive days.

The d'Orsay is housed in a former train station, from the late 1800s.  The main salon is fantastic; picture Grand Central or Union Station filled with incredible sculpture.   There are multiple levels of rooms with the most impressive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist art in the world -- Van Gogh, Gaugin, Monet, etc.   They had a special Manet exhibit while we were there - extra cost and another line to get in, so we skipped it.  But it yielded one of the funniest tourist comments I've heard, as you can see in the title of this post.

After a few hours in the d'Orsay (no pictures allowed) we wandered out to see the big tall pointy thing.

Nighttime exploration beyond the neighborhood

Just across the bridge from our neighborhood is Le Marais, a large historic area of Paris that is currently home to shops, restaurants and an interesting nightlife.   Now, recognizing it was a Monday night, we did not have very high expectations, but thought it would be fun to explore this area a bit.

We located a restaurant recommended in Alexander Lobrano's Hungry for Paris - Le Carre des Vosges.  Unfortunately, it was closed!  So we walked a bit more, and stopped at a bistro right on the Place des Vosges, called Ma Bourgogne.  It was recommended by Rick Steves and by David Lebobitz, author of The Sweet Life in Paris.   It did not disappoint.

Straightforward bistro food.   We were not looking for anything too adventurous on our first night.  I opted for a simple mixed green salad and a nice filet with bernaise and pommes frites.  Jenny had a mixed salad with duck confit and a terrific entree of pork sausage and potatoes.  We had a nice Cote du Rhone to accompany dinner.  It was excellent, with a nice sidewalk table across the park at Place des Vosges and friendly waiter who did not give us too much grief for our poor French.   A great first night out.

Getting to Know the Neighborhood - Day 1

We finally woke up and summoned the energy to venture out into our neighborhood for the week.  We are staying on one of the islands on the Seine in the middle of Paris.   From our terrace we saw this intriguing church spire, so decided to investigate it:

On the island right next to us - a two minute walk from our front door - is where we found our neighborhood church:

If you turn around from this vantage point on the back of the church, you can see the end of our street across the bridge.

We took the time to walk through Notre Dame - the cathedral, not the tower - on our first visit.  It was a quick run through since we plan to go back to tour the tower before we leave Paris.

We headed back to our apartment, stopping at the small market across the street to get some basic provisions for the apartment (wine, coke lite, coffee, yogurt, fruit, cheese) then bought a baguette at the boulangerie right in our building before heading up the three, count 'em, three flights to our two-story apartment.

That little trip earned us a break on the terrace, with some wine, cheese and grapes:

Nice way to end the day and get ready to head out for dinner!

Arrival in Paris - Day 1

Our flight to Paris could not have been better.   No adventures and on time.  We had to make our way to baggage claim since my bag was checked at the gate, but waited only about 10 minutes before it appeared.  

During that 10 minutes I received a text from Steve Hyatt with the news that Osama had been killed and the State Department was cautioning Americans abroad to be careful and vigilant.  Great, just what you want to hear when you land in Paris!

We shook that off and headed to the exchange to pick up some Euros for the taxi ride into Paris.  The exchange rate was pretty bad, so we would not recommend exchanging at the airport - Jenny got a better deal at the bank before we left.  The taxi ride from CDG is about 40-45 Euros, depending on where you are heading in the City.   Round up to the nearest ten in tipping on a taxi fare and you are at 50 E.

Normally we are public transportation users when traveling abroad, but given we were headed to an island in the Seine (no Metro stop) it seemed best to take a taxi -- that and our landlord "strongly recommended" it.  The taxi ride turned out to be great - it being a Mercedes Benz taxi didn't hurt the comfort factor.  Amazing how many taxi's are MB's in Paris.

We were met at the apartment by our landlord's assistant, who gave us a quick tour of all the essentials.    It was overcast, raining on and off, so it seemed a good time to nap.  We both crashed.

Off to Paris - May 1

May Day was hectic at our house - Mass, final shopping for last minute trip needs, final packing, DCU academy game at 4:30 pm, making sure everything was in place before we left, then a great (but hurried) meal of homemade lasagna prepared by Ginny Spirito, our friend in town to watch the kids and house for the first half of our trip. 

Dylan dropped us off at Dulles at 8:00 p.m., so we had enough time to enjoy a cocktail at the airport bar before we left.   When we jumped in the queue at 9 p.m., I was pulled out because my carry-on was "too big" according to the check-in crew.  Minor hassle, bag gate checked, no problem.   But I did look at every other carry-on though, endlessly repeating to Jenny, "that one's bigger than my bag, look at that one, that's surely larger than my bag."

Our flight took off nearly on-time and arrived in Paris at Charles de Gaulle a few minutes early.  Great flight, great service, but not much sleep for me or Jenny.