The current adventure actually started ten years ago, when our friend Sylvia learned we were about to leave on a trip to Paris. She pressed $50 into my hand, begging, “You have to get me two kilos of vanille des îles at Thé Mariage Frères.” Sensing my hesitation at possibly transporting a couple of kilos of some unknown (controlled?) substance, she whispered, “Try some yourself, you’ll love it.”

Turned out my friend’s drug of choice was an intensely flavored black tea infused with incomparable vanilla from Madagascar. And to procure it, my family wandered the winding streets of the Marais district of Paris to a quaint teashop with an elegant tea salon that served swoon-worthy pastries. Our then 9-year old daughter, Lila, fell completely under the spell of Thé Mariage Frères, as did my husband and I.

Thanks to a recent work assignment of my husband’s, the three of us are back again in Paris for a week. But this time—because of Bay Area Bites—I have an appointment to interview Monsieur Loris Thibaud, the man in charge of Thè Mariage Frères, in my role as journaliste amèricaine, and 19-year old Lila (a college sophomore and art major) will be my photographer.

When we enter, the teashop is abuzz with last minute shoppers. The walls are lined with hundreds of large timeworn tins labeled with mysterious names like fleur de désir, thé des impressionnistes and rose de porcelaine, from which white-suited clerks scoop and weigh the aromatic mixtures on ancient scales.

Monsieur Thibaud greets us and leads us up the narrow staircase to the little museum where we can talk tea in relative quiet among antique pots, canisters and baskets. He shares a little history:

As the oldest beverage in the world, tea began its reign in China 5000 years ago and moved on to Japan, Persia, the Islamic world, Russia and then to Europe in the seventeenth century. In 1665, after King Louis XIV‘s doctors told him tea would benefit his digestion, the King sent brothers Nicholas and Peter Mariage to Persia and Madagascar, respectively, to sign trade agreements and gather up the magical stuff.

Several generations of Mariages stayed true to the trade of tea importing and finally in 1854, Henri and Edouard Mariage commenced wholesaling to the restaurants and hotels of Paris. But despite the venerable looking, colonial design of the tea counter, this charming retail shop only opened in 1984 and currently, there are no more Mariage family members in the business.

The French take their tea as they take their wine: quite seriously and Thè Mariage Frères prints up a list of essential rules to make their tea correctly, which might actually come in handy since their collection of teas include black, white and green varieties from over 30 countries. But their specialty is fragrant blends, created much like perfume, by combining aromas and tastes, selecting from hundreds of scents: including the leaves, flowers, bark, seeds, roots, leaf-oil and fruit of an entire arboretum of plants.

After a bit of a wait in line, Lila and I are seated in the elegant tea salon, with its custard yellow walls and potted plants, surrounded by stylish patrons and their tea-fueled chatter. We order sandwiches first: melted cheese with smoked salmon and a smoked chicken with creamy spread, both served on greenish matcha tea bread.

In fact, Mariage Frères has pioneered the art of cooking with tea and every dish on their menu incorporates some form of tea, from tea flavored jelly, to tea infused rice and vinaigrette to a tart topped with pears poached in hibiscus tea, and a chocolate cream pie featuring bergamot, the essence of Earl Grey.

Each table sports a few of their exclusively designed teapots, which encase the black or white porcelain in a silver shell to help keep the tea warm (without need for a British tea cozy). Over the years, I’ve enjoyed a number of their teas, (especially black teas with fruit, like peach, mango or black currant.) But today, Lila and I return to our first love, the intoxicating vanille des îles.

The next morning, we are up early, exploring vintage clothing shops in the cobblestoned Montmartre neighborhood where we are staying. Lila notices the welcoming window of an adorable tea spot called MILK, which stands for “Mum in her Little Kitchen.”

No way we’re going to pass that up. So we head in for a mid-morning tea and toast that eventually leads to a decadent pistachio and chocolate fondant. The table is set with pots of homemade jam in flavors like strawberry mint or spiced clementine, plus a banana, date and coconut spread. The cozy space feels exactly like we’re sitting in someone’s 1960s kitchen, with Formica dinette sets in crayola colors and flowered dishes. Owner, Deborah Habib makes all the goodies daily in her kitchen in the back of the room. Her father is our server. Habib also sells cute accessories, arranged in niches around the room, which include a motley collection of paisley aprons, mushroom magnets and kitchen elves. Luckily, Lila has her camera along to capture the photogenic bric-a-brac.

I thought this story was just going to be about Mariage Frères, but it seems to be expanding. So I tell Lila, “If we’re going do more than one tea salon, we need to do three or four.” Tea parties have actually been a recurrent theme in our lives. A china cabinet holding my grandmother’s collection of English bone china teacups and saucers resides in a treasured corner of my dining room. When she was little, Lila loved giving tea parties, first for her teddy bears and then for her friends. Sometimes, in the more turbulent teen years, a shared cup of tea from a flowery teapot could call a momentary truce on eye-rolling or nagging. Now that she is away at college in Canada most of the year, our tea sharing opportunities have dwindled. What could be better than a mutual quest for unique Parisian tea salons?

Lana, a Paris native and family friend, who is the same age as Lila, suggests our next destination, La Fourmi Ailée. The robin’s egg-blue exterior of this intimate restaurant stands out amidst the historic buildings nestled in the shadow of Nôtre Dame. Its interior resembles something out of a fairy tale, with a whimsical painted ceiling of clouds, plenty of book-lined shelves, and a row of pre-loved teapots along the windowsill. Although a full lunch menu is available, we arrive after the kitchen has closed. The tea is good, but I find the pastries a bit odd: apple streudel with mushrooms?! It’s a sweet, funky place to sit and sip tea, especially if you are in your twenties, but my taste in Parisian tea salons runs more to gracious elegance.

We end the week in style, with a visit to a glorious tea salon in the spacious dining room of a 19th century mansion that is now a museum—Musée Jacquemart-André. Nélie Jacquemart and Edouard André were avid Italian art collectors as well as husband and wife. The opulent rooms of their former residence, filled with exquisite paintings, sculptures and furnishings, provide an intimate opportunity for visitors to engage with the works of art.

In their former dining room, the walls are hung with tapestries and the space is dotted by huge flower-filled, burgundy vases, that match the floor-length drapery and thick carpet. When we are seated, the tea service is polite and refined.

I pick a luscious wedge of plum pie and Lila chooses a decadent raspberry cream tart. We drink Ceylon tea, perfumed with aromas of strawberry, cherry, raspberry and redcurrant. Outside the windows, massive stone lions guard the manicured garden. The tea is fragrant, the pastry perfect. Lila and I sigh contentedly. This is a moment to savor.

(All photos, except this one, by Lila Volkas)

There is no dinner there at Dinner, a performance happening at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in conjunction with its current exhibition, Seeing Gertrude Stein: Five Stories, part of a summer-long, city-wide celebration of Stein and her artistic legacy. (There are 2 more performances of Dinner today, June 5th, at 1pm and 4pm.)

Such sly sleight-of-hand may have pleased Stein, who loved to upend even the simplest of words, and the most basic of readers' expectations, until they were stretched out, turned around, repeated ad infinitum to become something utterly new, intentionally teetering between poetry and profundity, banality and babble.

Then again, Stein and her lifelong companion, Alice B. Toklas, loved a good dinner, as any reader of The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook would know. With their taste for both solid American home cooking and (to contemporary eyes) unimaginably elaborate French cuisine bourgeoise, the ladies might have found it hard to get through 2 hours of clamorous jazz and spoken word on the wee buffet provided by Bar Bambino. On a side table were deviled eggs, slivers of frittata, and tiny olive-and-mozzarella crostini, followed at intermission by one-bite polenta-kumquat cakelets and matchbook-sized wedges of Tcho chocolate cake.

Unless, of course, Alice had slipped a couple of sticky pieces of her cookbook's infamous Hashish Fudge into her purse. That's right, fudge, not brownies, and not the tourist-trap chocolate kind, either, but a much more Moroccan-minded mixture of dates, figs, almonds, and spices, plus a dusting of enough cannabis sativa to provoke "euphoria and brilliant storms of laughter; ecstatic reveries and extensions of one's personality on several simultaneous planes are to be complacently expected."

However, as the surrounding exhibit revealed, Stein and Toklas had a high tolerance for eccentricity, their own and those of the many genius Bohemians they cultivated and whose work they collected. Dinner, therefore, is organized around the idea of a dinner party populated by an odd lot of history's eccentrics, half known (Virginia Woolf, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Hart Crane, Salvador Dali, Stein herself), half lost to footnotes, if that.

These quirky folk were too preoccupied by art, higher math, the invention of anti-gravity boots, the location of Shakespeare's bones, and more to give any thought to a menu; instead their imagined monologues, rants, and overlapping conversations were spoken and played by San Francisco writer Jesse Nathan (voice) and artist/musician Chris Janzen (guitar), with Tyler Cravines (drums) and Curtis Buettner (saxophone).

What's it like, this guest-by-guest performance in 14 parts? As if an all-guy free-jazz combo had hooked up with the poetry editor of McSweeney’s, poured a round of Red Bulls for a few choice members of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, then set 'em loose (outnumbered two-and-a-half to one by a bunch of crazy dudes) at a Saturday-night free-for-all in the basement of Viracocha. Sometimes, like Stein's work, the effect was ravishing (especially the lyrical saxophone solos); other times, also much like Stein's work, a little of looping, loud, repetitive, and nearly-unintelligible business can go a long way. There's a reason this kind of stuff is usually performed in close proximity to a willing bartender.

So, actually, it wasn't a bad thing when, three-quarters of the way through the show, Nathan's microphone suddenly went dead. ("The kitchen has just blown up!" he joked). As a team of stylish museum staffers scrambled to find a replacement, Nathan and Janzen took the chance to do an informal Q&A with audience members. The criteria for this imaginary party's guest list? First off, remarked Janzen, potential guests "had to be dead." Then, they had to have walked that fine line between genius and madness. Some changed the language of art, music, literature, or dance forever; others had great potential or massive contemporary popularity, but were overtaken and sunk by their own obsessions. Drug addicts, provocateurs, two suicides by drowning, a mathematician who refused to bathe: hardly a cozy group to gather around the table, but certainly stimulating subjects for art.

By the time the microphone was restored, we knew a lot more about what was going on onstage. Or perhaps the coffee and chocolate had kicked in; whichever it was, it finally seemed like the kind of party at which Stein, Toklas and her own gleefully idiosyncratic cohorts would have felt right at home.

On Mon., June 6th at 10AM, KQED's Forum with Michael Krasny discusses The Life and Work of Gertrude Stein with Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture at SF MOMA, and Wanda M. Corn, guest curator and Robert and Ruth Halperin professor emerita in art history at the Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco.

While I was in Paris, I was determined to get my hands of some cannelés. I'd never seen any in the Bay Area and I was intrigued by these little cake-like treats that were cooked in very expensive copper molds (yes, I know you can buy silicon molds, but they don't caramelize the outer shell of the pastry).

Thankfully, in Paris, cannelés are not in short supply. You can get them at almost any patisserie, including the famous shops, like Pierre Hermé and Ladurée. While I samples cannelés all over Paris, some of the best I had were at tiny hole-in-the-wall pastry shops, where the baked goods were fresh and the patissier beamed proudly over their work.

Still, though, I wanted more. I asked the ladies at Librairie Gourmande where I should go to sample some of the city's best cannelés, and she sent me to Baillardran a chain shop that supposedly sells real Bordeaux cannelés throughout France. As luck would have it, there was a Baillardran just east of Paris, in a little suburb that I could easily access by the Metro. So I made an afternoon of it.

I walked into Baillardran and surveyed the goods. There were cannelés everywhere -- piled into mountains, arranged in circles, and patiently waiting in baking trays. They come in three sizes -- small, medium and large -- and you can also buy them at varying levels of "doneness," similar to a steak. I liked the variety, which I wasn't expecting to find in a shop that sells only a single kind of pastry, but the options were exciting. I bought a few cannelés in the "medium" style, browned but not burnt, and then indulged in a handful of aluminum-lined copper cannelé molds, which they were selling for surprisingly cheap.

I sat down and took a bite. The texture was what I expected: firm and gently smoky on the outside, tender and luscious on the inside, like little caramelized nuggets of soft bread pudding. These cannelés were more rummy-tasting than the others I'd had, adding a liquory tang to each bite. I ate one, then another, and then the final one that I'd expected to save until the next day. Alas, they were just too good to hold onto for more than a few minutes!

Baillardran
Address: Map‬
‪2 Boulevard Jean Jaurès‬
‪92100 Boulogne-Billancourt‬
‪France +33 1 55 60 90 07
Phone: 05 56 99 13 75

It's no secret that I'm a fan of sweets, and macarons are at the top of that list. I've written about macarons extensively on my blog, and made hundreds of them while testing recipes for a macaron cookbook. I've eaten them at every location in San Francisco that I learned made them, and it's not uncommon for me to BART over to SF just to visit Paulette.

I was in Paris this week, and the very first adventure I went on was to go find the two most famous pastry shops in town and try their macarons. That's right -- I went on a macaron pilgrimage, visiting both Pierre Hermé and Ladurée in the same day. I bought a couple in each location and put them to the test to see who had the better pastry.

Ed note: You'll notice I used the term "pastry" instead of "cookie." That's because every time I called macarons "cookies" in Paris, I was corrected. According to the Parisians I talked to, macarons are most definitely not cookies. Lesson learned!

After a little digging, I learned that both Ladurée and Hermé had locations on Rue Bonaparte, not far from the Seine River. Headed to a perfectly central location on the left bank, I planned my day: I would buy a handful of macarons at each bakery, then enjoy them in the sunshine while sitting along the river. The weather was topping out at 72 degrees that day, and I couldn't think of a better way to spend my afternoon than nibbling gourmet goodies in the Parisian sun.

My first stop was Ladurée, where the scent of pure sugar wafted out the door and down the street to greet me at the corner, beckoning me to the shopfront. I was immediately swept away by an incredible assortment of pastries in all sizes and colors, including a selection of ten or so flavors of macarons and a handful of larger macarons that were three times the normal size. The decor was delightfully, classically "French," or at least what this American girl thinks of when she dreams of French pastry from thousands of miles away in California. Think rich greens, blues and browns, pinstripes, and matching seafoam-green ribbons on every box. I felt like I was walking into a Parisian pastry fairy tale.

The line was out the door, but no worry; that gave me plenty of time to gawk without looking like a loafer. After staring in awe at their selection of sweets, I chose two flavors of macarons -- salted caramel and chocolate orange -- and headed out the door to visit Pierre Hermé's shop down the street.

Pierre Hermé was less classically decorated than Ladurée, and was instead very sleek and stylish. The place was decked out in glass and dark teak-looking wood, rounded out with black accents. Here, the desserts provided all the color to the joint, and I suspect that was the whole point. In the dark environment, each little treat glowed like it was Louis XV's crown jewels.

Here I selected two more macarons -- passion fruit and vanilla olive oil (!!) -- and made my way to the Seine River to put these little jewels of egg white and sugar to the test.

The Test
Visually, both shop's macarons were gorgeous. Their colors were bright and they flaunted themselves, unashamed, in the Parisian spring sunshine. The first thing I noticed, though, was that Ladurée's macarons were a little lacking in the filling department, and their shells were a little cracked, while Hermé's macarons were literally bubbling over with filling and the shells were perfectly in-tact, with not a crack to be seen. Upon the first bite, though, it turned out that one of Hermé's macarons -- the passionfruit -- had soaked up the moisture in the filling, making the shell soggy. Also, the passionfruit was really, really tart, and almost made me turn my face inside out. While I did like the flavor, it was a little shocking considering the fluffy texture of the buttercream filling.

Here it's important to note that both bakeries use the Italian meringue method for making macarons, since it yields a more stable batter (anyone who's made macarons knows how volatile the process can be) and a somewhat denser finished product. While Ladurée's macarons had less filling to boast and the shells were a little worse for wear, they both displayed consistency in quality -- the shells were crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, and had a lovely little crunch when bitten into. Hermé's on the other hand, were softer and lighter, floating on your tongue like little sugary clouds, like the very first bite of cotton candy you tried when you were four years old.

Flavor-wise, both were lovely, but I felt that while Ladurée's macarons were more consistently better, Hermé's flavors were more creative. The vanilla olive oil variety was particular unique, and incredibly satisfying, but the passion fruit was a little too much of a sock in the face for me to enjoy it. Ladurée's chocolate orange was smooth and creamy, and the salted caramel divine, but they were flavors I'd expect to see in a macaron, and therefore didn't stand out beyond their high quality of overall flavor.

The Verdict
If I had to pick a winner (and I guess I do, given the title of this post), I'd say that the Macaron Oscar goes to Pierre Hermé, with his vanilla olive oil variety. Hermé also packed in the filling, which made for a better visual experience and a more satisfying first bite, making the overall package a sheer dream. That said, Ladurée certainly held their own in the battle; their macarons were more consistently good, but the shortage of filling and the cracked shells were kind of a bummer.

My final word? Visit both. If you're in the left bank area, the two shops are only like three blocks apart, so stage your own battle!

Pierre Hermé
72, rue Bonaparte
75006 Paris, France
Tel : +33 (1) 43 54 47 77
Near the Saint-Germain des Prés Paris Metro station

Ladurée
21, Rue Bonaparte
75006 Paris, France
Tel : +33 (1) 44 07 64 87 ‎
Near the Saint Sulpice Metro station

There are myriad guidebooks to Paris: Pudlow, Michelin, and Lonely Planet, to name a few and all of them worth the money. They tell you where eat, where to stay, and what to see.

And then, of course, there are guidebooks to Paris-- those that tell you all of the above plus a little bit more, like how to navigate unfamiliar social customs, how to blend in with the landscape-- in short, how not appear as though one has arrived from Central Casting to play the Ugly American. The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz is that and a bit more:

It has recipes. Lots and lots of recipes.

Granted, The Sweet Life in Paris was neither written nor is it marketed as a comprehensive guide to the sights and flavors of the city. Rather, it's more or less an organic extension of Mr. Lebovitz's blog, which chronicles his life and experiences as a San Francisco pastry chef who packed up everything he owned and moved to Paris-- and all the pleasures, pains, and frequent head-scratchings that accompany French Culture Shock.

I refer to his book as a guidebook because that is precisely how I used it on my recent visit to his adopted city-- an entertaining, human, and extremely useful guide.

For example, his chapter "The Most Important Words to Know in Paris" warns that one absolutely must say "Bonjour Monsieur" or "Bonjour Madame" to the first person one makes eye contact with in any store or restaurant or "even in an elevator." It's a minute, but extremely important bit of information to share with Americans who are by nature accustomed to a thin veneer of anonymity when out in public. That and the knowledge that even the most feeble attempt by an American to speak French goes a very long way with Parisians. Having French-speaking abilities on par with a backwards two year-old, I found this comforting knowledge and entirely true in practice.

I purchased a copy of The Sweet Life in Paris the afternoon before leaving on my trip, hoping to read it on the flight over. It's a smooth, pleasurable read that I decided to put down at around page 200 so that I might finish up in the city itself.

Perhaps I should have read one chapter further...

Prior to my visit, I contacted Mr. Lebovitz, suggesting that we might meet up for lunch or a glass of wine so that I might talk to him about this latest book of his, and to which he politely agreed. Two days into my stay, I resumed reading and was horrified by what I read in the next:

In "The Visitors", Lebovitz shares his growing distaste for out-of-towners-- especially friends of friends-- who expect him to drop everything to meet up with them. Here's an excerpt:

The final straw was when one of those friends-of-friends types, whom I foolishly agreed to meet, deeply insulted a waiter at what was once my favorite café in the Marais. The charming waiter, who liked to joke around with me, said to this fellow, who ordered his drink in English, "You should try to speak a little French, after all, you are in France!" To which my gracious guest glared and shot back, "You know what? I don't even want to try." It would have looked a little funny trying to disappear by sliding under the table, so instead, I gulped down my drink quickly and got out of there as politely as I could. And I haven't gathered up the courage to go back. After that, I swore off guests forever.

As an out-of-town friend-of-friend, I gulped and quickly shot him off an email underscoring the fact that lunch or drinks or shiny baubles were on me.

I had short list of questions I wanted to ask Lebovitz when we finally met up for lunch, which happened at 5pm and turned into a bottle of wine and no food except the obligatory bar snack that seems to arrive anywhere, anytime you order a drink in Paris. And I don't think I asked a single book-related question. I didn't really care. I was enjoying myself.

Some people read better on paper than they do in person. Sometimes the persona a blogger dons is bigger than the one he wears in real life. Neither are true, so I discovered, with Mr. Lebovitz.

After a couple of hours and a couple of glasses of red wine later, Lebovitz offered us some advice as to where to have dinner. With that tip, we said goodbye and I headed off to the suggested restaurant, A la Biche au Bois.

Upon arrival without a reservation, I looked the man I took to be the owner in the eye, said "Bonsoir, Monsieur," and, in my terrible French, apologized for not having a reservation, but that we would very much like to "eat of the food here." He looked around at the very crowded restaurant and back at me to say, "There is no room for you!" Then he paused a moment and said, gruffly, "Come back in 45 minutes."

45 minutes. No problem. But he didn't take our name, which would have been the expectation, had this been happening here in San Francisco. Instead of worrying about it, we just decided to do as he said, go next door, and drink a kir or two (which happens to be the first recipe on offer in The Sweet Life in Paris and purely a coincidental occurrence).

At the agreed-upon time, we re-appeared, and so did the tall, bald linebacker of a man who told us to come back in the first place. He waved us to the rear of the restaurant and wedged us into a tiny table next to the service station, where a basket of old silver spoons lay tantalizingly within reach.

In short, the meal was simple and wonderful. It remains one of the favorite memories of my stay in Paris. And the best part of all? When Monsieur Gruffiness came by at the end of our meal, he looked at our water glasses and said, "You'd better drink up, boys." We did as we were told and emptied them in a gulp. He then refilled them with Armagnac from an obscenely large bottle he held under his arm. His serious scowl was replaced by a grin which led me to think he may have had one or two snorts himself. He roamed the place pouring out the bottle to his guests.

From the moment I entered the restaurant to the time I left, I played the "W.W.D.L.D."* game. From how I said hello, to what I ordered, to how I attacked the cheese platter, to how I eventually (and reluctantly) said goodnight.

It was a little bit of Paris for which I am grateful. Though it could be argued that nearly any Paris guide could lead you to such a place, how many of them will tell you, an American in Paris, what to do when you get there? The Sweet Life in Paris does.

And, of course, the others don't have recipes.

*What Would David Lebovitz Do?

I've currently got Paris on the brain. I'm about to invade that city for a week of eating and drinking and wandering and thinking.

So, naturally, the first thing to pop into my head for today's post was, "Oh, I should do something German."

Because that's how my mind works.

Oh, it's not what you're thinking. My mind has been on the Franco-Prussian War, naturally enough, since I'm currently re-reading The Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne.

Paris is a city that has been, at least historically, in perpetual turmoil. It started with the Norsemen pillaging and burning the town until they were bought off with a big chunk of land in the North (Normandy). Only to see those same Normans a couple of centuries later restyling themselves as Englishmen and setting the country afire during a little conflict known as The 100 Years War.

Then, of course, there were several plagues, internal revolts, sieges, and revolutions-- 1789, 1830, and 1848 (twice in three months), World Wars I and II, and a near-revolution in 1968.

But never did the city of Paris suffer more than during what the French refer to as L'Année Terrible, 1870-1871.

The Year in Review

A sickly Emperor Napoleon III declared war on Prussia on July 19th, 1870, hoping to distract people from the problems at home in his dying Empire. It was a bad move, but one made with characteristically Gallic flair. The French were trounced, the Emperor was captured six weeks later at Sedan, and that was pretty much that.

Or so the Parisians thought. They celebrated the fall of the Empire with a lot of cheering and declared The Third Republic two days later. The war was lost, but at least it was over.

Or not. The Prussians, with the iron-willed, iron-fisted, all-around Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck forging policy, kept on coming. The French, Bismarck felt, needed to be taught a lesson.

So they marched on Paris.

Surrounding the city, the Prussians sought to starve Paris into capitulation. For five months, the only contact Paris had with the outside world was via hot air balloons floating up and over the enemy filled with letters and dispatches from those trapped inside. The only messages in came from an occasional carrier pigeon. Rats, horses, house pets and nearly every animal in the zoo (one exception being monkeys because, apparently, the Parisians embraced Darwinism) were consumed by the hungry Parisians in their effort to fend off starvation*. By the time the French surrendered, Germany had united over the near-dead body of France and declared itself an empire. At the palace of Versailles, of all places. Nice touch.

But that wasn't the worst part.

As happened so often in Paris, the working class sparked a revolt, leading to a government take-over. In a nutshell, The Paris Commune was set up, socialist reforms were attempted and things went generally crazy. The Tuilleries Palace was burned to the ground, the Vendome Column toppled, even Notre Dame barely escaped destruction-- it's benches had been piled up and doused with kerosene but was saved at the last minute.

The Commune ultimately failed-- stamped out by the what was left of the French government and army in the bloodiest moment of the city's history-- 20,000 Parisians were slaughtered in just one week alone. The city was shattered.

Or was it?

What has always amazed me is the resilience of Paris. Each time it is beaten down, it seems to come back a little bit stronger. After a year of alienation, isolation, the pounding and ensuing humiliation by a stronger enemy, self-destruction, and thanks to a 5 billion franc war reparation bill, crippling debt, Paris rebounded into one of the most brilliant (or at least, fondly remembered) periods of its history-- La Belle Epoque, which lasted nearly 43 years. Solidly, it returned to and confirmed its status as the cultural capital of Europe, if not the world.

It's as though Paris can historically shake off its woes with its world-famous shrug.

So why the history lesson today?

Well, I'm coming out of my own p'tit année terrible-- one that strangely mimics the year Paris faced, but on a much smaller, human scale. So I'm off to see how the Parisians manage it; to do a little shrugging of my own, you might say. I will eat and wander and observe the natives in a place that is more than likely Bismarck-free both in terms of the pastry and the guy who brought Paris to its knees. Or the one who brought me to mine, for that matter.

And maybe I'm hoping for a little belle époque of my own to begin. 43 years? Yeah, I think that will do. That will do nicely.

I will be back blogging June 19th.

* On the bright side, the Parisians were never in any danger of running out of wine.

Bismarcks

Bismarck is the Canadian/American name for the German pastry Berliner, as in John F. Kennedy's famous declaration, "Ich bin ein Berliner." In Berlin, however, they are referred to as Pfannkuchen.

Call it whatever you like.

Apart from the time spent allowing the yeast dough to rise, these doughnuts are relatively simple to make. And delicious-- the unfilled pastry being light and airy and not especially sweet. Fill them with whatever you like, sweet or savory. Hell, toast one and use it to bookend a hamburger, while we're eating things named after German cities.

It's a good thing Kennedy wasn't in Hamburg when he decided to make that speech. Or worse, Vienna.

Makes: 12 Bismarcks

Ingredients
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 packages of yeast
4 tablespoons of sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 egg yolks
a pinch of salt
Raspberry Jam for filling
Powdered sugar for dusting

Preparation:

1. In a saucepan, bring milk to a boil. Turn off heat and stir in butter and sugar. Cool to lukewarm. Sprinkle yeast over the top of the milk mixture and leave it to bloom and reanimate for about 10 to 15 minutes, until it starts to foam up.

2. Add this yeasty liquid to a large bowl in which the flour and salt have been patiently waiting. Stir and fold to combine into a sticky mess of dough. Cover with a damp, clean cloth and set in a warm place to rise for two hours.

3. With floured hands, turn dough onto a lightly-floured surface and roll to a 3/8-inch thickness. Cut into circles (I used a 3 1/2- inch cutter). Place them on a baking sheet or what-have-you and cover with the same damp cloth to rise for another 30 minutes or so.

4. Fry the Bismarcks in 350° F vegetable oil or lard for 4 minutes. I find flipping them every 30 seconds helpful for some reason. Drain on a paper towel-lined rack to cool.

5. If you are filling these pastries (and you should be or they're not Bismarcks), if you lack a pastry syringe, cut a small opening into the side of each bun and wiggle your knife or (what I used) scissor blade around the inside to create a small pocket into which the jam might find purchase.

6. Put jam into a pastry bag with a plain tip. Place the tip into the pastry's hole and pipe in the jam until it starts to spill out the side like some mortal flesh wound. The jam should be cold, like the blood of Bismarck himself.

Serve fresh, and not over anyone's white carpeting.

I love cookbooks. If I didn't, I wouldn't bother reviewing them. When I read them, I try to imagine who the book might appeal to, if not me, and I try to be as fair as I can. If I don't think a book is worthwhile, I generally don't bother to review it. I'd rather focus on the ones I'm excited about.

I am particularly wary of self-published cookbooks. They usually lack editing and sometimes lack focus. The authors don't necessarily have much credibility or authority either. But there was something about Throw a Great Party. I was intrigued by the premise of the book "Inspired by evenings in Paris with Jim Haynes." The book offers recipes and tips for throwing and catering parties for 25 to 100 people. It's written by three friends who have been throwing legendary Sunday night dinner parties in Paris for 30 years. One of the authors has been a restaurant chef, a cooking instructor and also a food blogger.

Could the book have used some editing? Absolutely. There is plenty of shorthand, some details are skipped, there are some odd choices in the index, and not every recipe feels like it has been independently tested, but in some ways that's part of its charm. Each recipe comes with a story about who created it and tips on how to make it work for a big group.

I'm sure if you are one of the estimated 100,000 people who have eaten dinner at Jim's and perhaps dined with people like Yoko Ono or R. Crumb or Chloe Sevigny, this book would be a memento of sorts. But it's a practical guide for another audience. If you are in the position to throw a big dinner party, this is a very unique book written by those who have done it again and again and again. Recipes range from Gazpacho to Sabz Ghost (lamb in coconut milk) to Cassoulet. Each are home cooking recipes, not restaurant recipes and generally inexpensive and fairly easy to prepare. And if you'd like to dine in Paris with Jim, by all means, head to the Jim Hanes website and request an invite!

Note: Each recipe comes with amounts for 25 or 100, but we're only posting the 25 person version.

Beet Salad with Walnuts, Shallots and Parsley

Serves: 25

Ingredients
5 lb (2 1/2 kg) beets, cooked and peeled (see method below)
1 lb (500 g) walnuts, toasted briefly
12 oz (375 g) shallots, minced
1 bunch parsley, finely chopped

Preparation
1. Chop beets in to bite sized pieces and place in a large bowl.
2. Chop the walnuts coarsely.
3. Make the vinaigrette. (see recipe below)
4. If the salad is to be served later, store all the ingredients in separate closed containers in the refrigerator.

To serve: Beat the vinaigrette to emulsify and add the remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Toss lightly, but thoroughly. Serve in small bowls or plates.

To cook raw beets in quantity:
1. Thoroughly scrub beets, having first cut off the greens but leaving about an inch of stalk at the top.
2. Place the beets in 1 or 2 baking or roasting pans, packing them in one layer.
3. Drizzle generously with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
4. With your hands, roll the beets in the oil and seasoning so all sides are covered.
5. Cover the pans tightly with foil and bake in a moderately hot oven (375 degrees) for 1 hour.
6. Check for tenderness by piercing with a knife. Beets cook slowly and may need more time.
7. Cool and peel, using rubber gloves to keep our hands from staining.

Vinaigrette

Ingredients
1 Tablespoon garlic, finely chopped
3/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons pepper

Preparation
Place the vinegar, garlic, salt and pepper in a large bowl and whisk in the olive oil in a steady stream. Store in a closed container until ready to serve.

Recipe reprinted from Throw A Great Party copyright © 2007 by Mary S. Bartlett

In New York in early May, I found myself on a Thursday evening with cancelled plans. Thank goodness for Dorie Greenspan. She immediately invited me to her sit-down interview with Patricia Wells that evening at the Alliance Francaise. Patricia was in town promoting her new book, Vegetable Harvest. Dorie and Patricia are such good friends that you did feel like you were in their living room having a chat by the fireplace. Many of Patricia's former students were there, nodding knowingly as she talked about the markets of Paris and Provence.

Q: What are your favorite market in Paris?
A: "Boulevard Raspail market. It is the only all-organic farmers market in Paris. Create relationships, forge friendships with the farmers, learn about where they come from, how they grow their produce, ask about their children. This is what makes the markets so special."

Q: Do you have any advice for people who shop at Safeway (or other huge supermarket) and don't have a farmers market across the street?
A: Speaking to her New York audience, she recommended going the few extra blocks or subway stops to get to a market or a store that carries the freshest product, organic if possible. The quality and flavor and contribution to sustainability makes it worth it.

Q: What are your favorite recipes in the book?
A: "Zucchini carpaccio with pistachio oil (pg 214), asparagus braised with fresh rosemary and bay leaves (pg 160), potato salad with spring onions, capers and mint (pg 227), chick pea and basil puree (pg 16), artichoke and white bean dip (pg 19)." Patricia serves these all the time at home and are always a hit with her guests. I can't imagine anything she cooks not being a hit, bit I digress...

Q: What advice would you give to new culinary students fresh out of cooking school?
A: "Pick ten recipes and perfect them. Have a range of recipes, from appetizers, main course and desserts and cook them over and over until you can make them from memory."

Q: What was it like working with Joel Robuchon?
A: Patricia beamed. "It was the most amazing experience and I still hear his voice when I'm cooking or at the market." He always said "It's easy to be the best, go out and do the best you can do every day." Other pearls of wisdom he shared include "There is no such thing as perfection but strive for it every day" and "A chef's job is to make a mushroom taste like a mushroom."

Q: Who are the most influential people in your career?
A: "Joel Robuchon and Julia Child."

Q: Are you working on a new book?
A: Patricia's next book is all about salads as a meal, not everything with lettuce, but dishes with many elements on the plate and focused more on healthy eating. In Patricia's last two books, she took the pictures herself from the markets of Paris and Provence.

Q: Are you ever going to update The Food Lovers Guide to Paris?
A: Patricia wrote this in 1984. It was a different era in publishing, in information, in access. Now people just Google the information they want, they don't need to buy a book to plan a trip or find good bakeries or restaurants.

Q: Do you ever eat take out?
A: Never, but when I travel my husband, Walter orders pizza & Ben and Jerry's ice cream delivered to our apartment in Paris."

Q: Have you discovered any new products that have captured you attention?
A: "Olive oil from Castelas."

Castelas is a relatively new olive oil from Provence with a very grassy flavor that hints of artichokes, almonds and a pepperyness and the fabulous Provencal countryside. Produced in the foothills of Les Alpilles, this oil is early hand harvested, immediately custom cold pressed and variety blended, it is unfiltered so a golden hue. It won the Medaille d'Or in 2003. It is not for the faint of heart as 500 ml (17 oz) will set you back anywhere form $35 to $45. This is the best price I could find.

Catherine and Jean-Benoit Hugues, of the Vieux Telegraph family and proprietors of Castelas, spent 15 years in Arizona heat working in the hi-tech industry before following their hearts back to their native Provence. We are glad they did!

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That evening, Patricia served chickpea and basil puree on toasts. It's a simple as it gets but delicious.

Chickpea and Basil Puree
Tartinade de Pois Chiches au Basilic

2 cups canned chick peas, drained and rinsed (reserve liquid)
4 garlic cloves, peeled, minced, green germ removed
1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
4 cups loosely packed basil leaves
6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1. In a food processor, place the garlic, salt, and basil and process to a paste. With the machine running, slowly pour in the oil. Taste and season (salt and pepper) as needed.

2. Add the chickpeas and puree until smooth, adding some of the reserved chickpea liquid if necessary.

Bon appetit!

Patricia in the center in red and Dorie on the far right

Last week I promised more Dorie and her heart-warming stories of life in France and cooking with Pierre Herme, Daniel Boulud and Julia Child. Voila....!

It's hard for me not to gush. I have found this oh so sweet culinary world to be acerbic so when one of the industry luminaries takes a moment to even acknowledge me much less spend time discussing careers, options, and advice, the feeling is near rapture. I'll try to rein it in to profound gratitude though I have no doubt some gushing will seep through the veneer. So enough about me, on with the fabulous Ms. D.

I asked Dorie about her life in New York versus her life in Paris - how she lives the best of both worlds and her favorite aspect of each.

"I love life in Paris, the rhythm of life, the ease of the city. It's simple to get together with friends here. Days seem longer, there's always time for friends. And, unlike when I'm in New York, I always have the urge to be outside here, on the streets, walking, exploring and discovering." 1971 marks her first visit to Paris with her husband, Michael. Her dream was to be here and the moment Dorie arrived in Paris, she knew she was meant to be here. She immediately decided that she would some day live in paris. Dorie never wavered from her goal and has spent the past 10 years living in both Paris and New York City. "New York is about work, but I find it hard to work in Paris. It's easier to write in New York but so many of my ideas and creativity originate in Paris. My head explodes with ideas and creativity here in Paris."

What is it like working with The Greats?

I showed Dorie my sheet of questions where I had listed "What is it like to work with Julia Child, Pierre Herme, Daniel Boulud?" Dorie looked at it, hugged her arms and shook her head saying, "It's hard to believe I worked with these three greats. It's hard to believe I worked with one of them, but three!"

Dorie spoke about Julia, Pierre and Daniel being natural teachers and mused if perhaps that wasn't a trait of all the greatest chefs? Not just a necessity of or part of the job of teaching your sous chef and so on down the brigade, but a higher sense of duty, like the doctors Hippocratic oath, compelling them to teach the next generation to preserve this tradition, this history in order to keep the cuisine alive. "Il faut transmettre le savoir faire" as they say, translating literally as "one must transmit the know-how" or carry on the traditions.

What was it like cooking with Julia Child?

I barely had the question out of my mouth when Dorie replied "extraordinary". "All the cliches are true, she was extraordinary. Her warmth, generosity, incredible intelligence, her curiosity about the world - it was all extraordinary." Like everyone else who worked with Julia, Dorie discovered that the persona on television was exactly the same person live - full of "warmth, generosity, curiosity and humor. Julia loved learning. She was a born teacher and also a shameless flirt."

Before Julia moved to Santa Barbara, Dorie, Michael, and their tall, handsome son Joshua visited Julia in Cambridge. As they were headed out to lunch, Julia's assistant Stephanie Hersh suggested Dorie take Julia's walker warning Dorie that she wouldn't want to be responsible if Julia were to fall. Julia overheard this and replied, "When I'm with a young man, I don't need a walker!" With that she linked her arm around Joshua's and headed for the car.

Dorie lived in Cambridge for 8 weeks while working on the Baking with Julia cookbook to accompany the series. Geoff Drummond, Julia's producer, initially recommended her to Julia and Julia immediately concurred, stating, "I like the way Dorie writes recipes. She writes them just like I do." When Dorie spoke that last sentence, she put her hand over her heart, claiming "What an honor!"

At one point in the tv taping, Julia mentioned that something was wrong with her computer, so Michael and one of the show's tech guys went to look at it, which was upstairs in her room. Julia came in a few minutes later and, at 85 years old (!!), wanted to know exactly what was wrong and exactly how they had fixed it because if it happened again, she wanted to be able to fix it herself. Even at 85 years old, she was still inquisitive, curious and always learning. And as a testament to her whimsical sense of humor, her screen saver read: "Creme Fraiche".

I asked Dorie how she met Julia. Dorie gave a cooking demo at Boston University after the release of her first book, Sweet Times. Her demo followed Julia's demo - "not a place," according to Dorie, "that any new author wants to be." At a dinner that evening that included Jacques Pepin, Dorie sat next to Julia. Julia asked her if she'd seen Dan Ackroyd's Saturday Night Live skit impersonating her. Dorie replied that she was probably the only person in the country who hadn't seen it so Julia stood up and re-enacted the entire routine for her! With a melancholy smile, Dorie reminisced, "I miss her. I really, really miss her."

What is it like working with Pierre Herme?

"With Pierre there is an excitement to his teaching, to making others understand and see things that he sees, tastes, and feels in the cuisine. For Pierre, the word "genius" is so overused but Pierre is truly a genius - you see it in his ideas about perceptions of taste and texture and how he thinks about combinations. Pierre would always refer to the Three Ts - taste, texture, temperature. How he creates around these three is truly remarkable." I would like to humbly add a 4th - visual - because his creations are true works of art and one's mouth begins watering at the mere sight of them. Dorie claims to have graduated from the "School of Working with Pierre Herme" because he changed her whole way of looking at what makes food a pleasure.

Dorie and Pierre met in 1993 while she was working on a story about chestnuts for the New York Times. Dorie wanted to learn about marrons glace (candied chestnuts) so she arranged for a meeting with Pierre. She brought along her husband Michael thinking it would be a quick interview and that they would then go on their way. Two hours later, Pierre and Dorie decided they were separated at birth while Michael claimed they were "meant to meet." They had so much to talk about, the hours flew by. After that initial meeting, Dorie and Pierre stayed in touch and visited when Dorie was in Paris or Pierre was in New York. When Baking with Julia was finished and Dorie was looking for her next project, Michael suggested she talk to Pierre about collaborating on a book. She sent him a fax asking if he'd like to work on a book for the American market and he called her back in minutes saying, "I thought we'd already agreed to do this?!"

When it came time for Dorie and Pierre to start work on that book, Pierre invited her to join him and his wife Frederick on their upcoming vacation. Dorie declined, saying of course she wouldn't dream of interrupting their vacation. Pierre insisted she join them and said it would be the only time he had to work on the project. They drove to the west coast of France, to Arcachon south of Bordeaux, with crates of recipes in the trunk. They set up a very long table, literally on the beach with their toes in the sand, and hooked up a generator behind them to power their laptops. They sat in a row - Dorie, Pierre, Frederick, Michael - looking out on the Atlantic Ocean and the entire book was organized in those few weeks. Every morning they would go to the market then return for coffee. A few hours of work on the book would be followed with lunch. A return trip to the market for dinner would then be followed with Dorie and Pierre working by the light of one lamp until 1:00 am. The delicious results of that "vacation" are Desserts by Pierre Herme.

-------------------

I hope you enjoyed this visit with Dorie. She has such a unique and heart-warming way of experiencing Paris, reading her blog is like taking a petite vacation through the cobblestone streets of the Left Bank. Bon appetit!

Part I of II

The support and endless encouragement of accomplished women in the culinary industry is in a word or two, profoundly inspiring. Whenever I am lost, down on myself, confused, pity party for 1 please, I know I can zip an email off to Jerry DiVecchio (Sunset Magazine), Linda Carucci (Cooking School Secret for Real World Cooks), Emily Luchetti (Farallon) or Dorie Greenspan (Bon Appetit, Baking with Julia and now Baking from My Home to Yours), confident they will respond with kindness and encouragement or a kick in derriere to get out and get going. It's more meaningful, more touching, more inspiring than I can describe.

What does the Dalai Lama say - it's not the destination that's important, it's the journey - or something like that? If not for these generous, funny, thoughtful trailblazers, the journey of discouraged, searching cooks like me would resemble a pinball bouncing back and forth across this culinary world, eyes skyward pleading for direction. They are beyond generous with their time, their knowledge, their experiences and profoundly excited to see other women coming up the ranks succeeding, happy to share the stage and pass the torch.

Some of my most treasured memories in Paris are of time spent over a chocolate chaud or a vin chaud or an impromptu walk around the 6th with Dorie Greenspan. She knows everyone. Really. Everyone. It's amazing. And very fun. I try to stay in her wake, hoping some of her magical fairy dust will float back onto me. She tells me stories after stories after stories of the richest, most delightful experiences, experiences with some of the industry luminaries. Over a delicious lunch at Le Comptoir this week, Dorie shared more of her fascinating life with me. I can't begin to convey them with the humor and joy that she did but I hope they at least bring a smile to your face and a warmth to your heart as they did to mine...

I first talked with Dorie about her new, just-launched, uber-cool blog aptly named "In the Kitchen and on the Road with Dorie". Dorie was so inspired after her most recent book tour for Baking From My Home To Yours that she decided to create a blog to stay in touch and continue the dialogue with all these people that she'd met along the many stops criss-crossing the country last year as well as to connect with new people who shared her passion for baking and continue the culinary conversation.

What was your funniest cooking moment?

"Oh! The cake that got me fired!" Dorie describes it in more detail in her book (page 278) but she was fired from her very first job as a pastry chef. Dorie was cooking at a tres chic restaurant in New York City and daily she made a version of Simone Beck's (Julia Child's co-author of Mastering the Art of French Cooking) cake with whiskey-soaked raisins, almonds and chocolate. Bored of cooking the same thing every day, Dorie decided to get creative. She swapped almonds for pecans, prunes for raisins and whisky to armagnac. Sounds reasonable. Unbeknownst to Dorie, this was the restaurant's signature cake and changing it caused a small revolution upstairs in the dining room. She was fired that afternoon for "creative insubordination".

What was your biggest cooking disaster?

"When I burned my parents kitchen down...their just-renovated kitchen!" I remembered reading about the fire in the introduction of Dorie's new book (page xii) but I thought she couldn't possibly mean the entire kitchen. Maybe just a little grease fire? No. According to Dorie, her parents came home from an evening fundraiser, so very dressed up, to find Dorie and her friends sitting on the front step, heads in their hands, with firemen coming in and out of the house behind her. Dorie didn't cook again until she was married. Thankfully for us she was soon married!

What is your favorite recipe? Or is it even possible to choose a favorite recipe?

Dorie laughed and said she thinks the reason she had only one child was so that she'd never have to choose a favorite. But when it comes to the thousands of cookies she's baked over the years, World Peace Cookies get her vote as hands-down favorite. Why? Many reasons. The brilliance in the simplicity of the recipe. The deep chocolate flavor. And Grandmothers for Peace. It seems that World Peace Cookies have taken on a life of their own. Grandmothers for Peace have adopted them as their official cookie and are giving them away and asking people to bake their own and share them with other. Also, people are really responding to the name, especially now. She loved them first as Pierre Herme's chocolate sables, claiming they were as revolutionary as the Toll House cookies. Dorie included them in Paris Sweets named then Korova cookies. However it was Dorie's neighbor that labeled them World Peace Cookies, declaring if everyone ate these daily, we would indeed achieve world peace.

World Peace Cookies
-Reprinted from Baking from My Home to Yours (page 138) with permission from the author

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick + 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter at room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into bits, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachmenet, ot with a handy mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter in medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugards, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 more minutes.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the dry ingredients, drape a towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from the flying flour and pulse the mixer at a low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek-if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more.; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at a low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough-for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don't be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days and frozen for up to 2 months. If you've frozen the dough, you needn't defrost it before baking-just slice the logs into cookies and bake for 1 minute longer.

Getting ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Using a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you are cutting them-don't be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes-they won't look done, nor will they be firm, but that's just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

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Please check back next week for Part II where Dorie shares the most heart-warming stories of life in Paris and working with Pierre Herme, Daniel Boulud and Julia Child.