CHOCOLATE SHOW NY 2009

I just came back from the New York Chocolate Show!!!
I think I may be all chocolated out. I lost all restraint.
They are imploring you at every table and booth to EAT CHOCOLATE!!!
You can not let these people down! It would not be fair to them after all.
At E.Guittard there are enough tastes to keep you extremely happy and at the same time learn about every source of chocolate's origin.
Le Chef Patissier pate de fruit and caramels au beurre de sel and truffes and, and, and...
At Cotton Tree Lodge you can go off to Belize for a Mayan chocolate week....
And learn how to make your very own chocolate bars from the bean...
Through roasting and grinding and sorting and finally conching for 2 days and then dip a pretzel into molten chocolate you made yourself. Does it get any better than this?
Ecuador was there too with their bars...

The same french spice company that shows up at the Paris Salon du Chocolat has a ton of chocolatey teas and ginger and cinnamon sticks and....

There are just as many books on chocolate as at the Paris show too...

Bacon is showing up everywhere it seems as the hot new flavor (not in Paris though)...

This was an absolute first - Camel's milk chocolate from Dubai by Al Nassma!!!

Wildly creative pastry chef Martin Howard always knocks your socks off as with this green witch number!

Hello Paris chocolate fashion designers? Fait attention!

Not scary at all gals serving Love Potion#9 dressed as Aunt Sam...

Designer Vedika Webb was creating her chocolate Marie-Antoinette gown on the spot...

Chefs are doing demos on the hour for all 3 days...

All kinds of chocolate spa stuff to put on your skin as well as in your tum..even Hershey is into the spa biz now...

It's hard work covering the Chocolate Show for you all ya know.. You better show up after all my efforts.

At least your trick or treat bag will be very full!

BONJOUR CHOCOLATE SHOW!!!

Row upon row

My niece popped in on me for 3 days while in Paris and mentioned in passing that I shoot an awful lot of things in rows... Out of the mouths of babes... It's true I often shoot things in rows...But it's not my doing. Like these balcons at Galeries Lafayette, a great purveyor of rows. Another obsessed row-liner-upper is Patisserie Stohrer, with some very nice entrees (starters) for your meal.A few steps away on the same unpronounceable rue Montorgueil you'll find rows of roast chicken.

And haricots verts from across the rue.

Pick up a bottle of vin rouge further down. You could line up in a row quite a nice din-din with these items.

We went instead to Rose Bakery, where they line up their tea tins in a row. I'd never noticed before...

Our plate of mixed veggies was a tad disorderly, but delicious none the less.

Parisiens line up in rows all the time. Marty asked if they sometimes glare at me when I shoot them. *Note small dog on the lower right doesn't mind a bit.

 Parisian macarons - always neatly lined up in rows. Must be genetic.

New from Sadaharu Aoki - piles of rusk macarons and addictive.

I demand my ice cream lined up in rows!

 Chocolates too - which I hope to see a ton of at tomorrow's New York Chocolate Show. Just 3 days to immerse yourself in chocolate - will you be there?

Next Monday I will be hanging row upon row of Paris Facade watercolors at the Boston French Library.

The opening (vernissage:) is next Thursday, November 5

6:00 to 8:00 PM,

featuring row upon row of Franck Deville macarons direct from France!

RSVP appreciated

617.912.0400
Will you be there?
BONJOUR FRENCH ROWS!

Le Gros Poulet...

As you walze around Paris.You're bound to bump into an awful lot of...Chickens! Have you noticed? Admittedly some of them are waiting to go into the pot like these poulet de Bresse...

FYI:The difference between "poule" and "poulet"
A "poule"is a hen while a "poulet" refers to chicken meat..cooked chicken.

As grace said previously the last time the French chicken came up- That's not a chicken in the window laying macarons, that's a ROOSTER (or coq), symbol of France! Cocorico is what it says (instead of cock-a-doodle-do)

Shall we rename Paris "Le Gros Poulet"?

After all they call New York the "La Grosse Pomme"

Here's another rooster in a St. Germain galerie vitrine...

These could only be French chickens in my opinion.

They're quite imposing and aristocratic no?

Remember Blog, the dog the painting assistant and constant critic...

We dined on blanquette de voie...

BONJOUR LE GROS POULET!!

Paris Stalker...

I don't know how Scott does it?
Well maybe if I looked like The Sartorialist I too could shoot people in Paris from the side, front or full on.Give me a back and I know what to do with it.
Very non-confrontational too. And a person's back reveals alot about them, like Paul Bocuse. I find it so much easier to shoot backs in Paris.

Paris Monuments...

At the Salon du Chocolat, Leonidas made this huge chocolatey homage... To the Paris Opera. If I didn't look at all this chocolate in an abstract way my goose would surely be cooked. And I would weigh in at 500 pounds as some readers have suggested...ahem
The first week in Paris your eyes are glued to the patisserie vitrines (windows). Then they start to wonder up above to the amazing architecture... No wonder Parisien chocolatiers and patissieres are strongly influenced by the aesthetics of their surroundings. Is it possible not to soak this up and then recreate it into chocolate walls and bricks of great beauty ? OK, they should have tried harder to show off their asthetic heritage - this purveyor is from the sticks obviously... The magnificent of scale, the grandeur of Paris...

La Maison du chocolat knows how to translate it with style and genius.

Sigh...

Yum...

So lovely...

Very lovely indeed...

Is there another place on the planet that combines beautiful architecture...

And beautiful pastry? I think not.
When I got home I found the perfect homage to both sent me by designer Susan Hockbaum. Susan had the wherewithal to take Paris pastries outside and shoot them amidst the architecture."In Paris, everything looks like dessert."

BONJOUR PARIS MONUMENTS!