Peonies in Paris

On Friday someone commented,” Carol, i just love your peony watercolour sketches! Will you be offering them for purchase? I think of them as "A Suggestion of Peonies." 🌸 

A seed was planted. Late at the Sunday Bastille marché, finally headed home, loaded with pamplemousse, I noticed the flower stand was packing up. 

Fauchon Thé et Infusions

Yesterday I continued my hunt to paint Fauchon’s rose bud tea.

They have a new shop 

At 11, Place de Madeleine. 👏 Granted its tiny and mostly teas, plus tea accessories. 

Inside endless cabinets of exotic teas. 

Inhale and choose. 

But its Fauchon. You can order way more goodies online. Do they ship overseas? No idea.

They still have those hot pink Grosgrain ribbons 👏

And their logo mugs 👏

For years I’ve flirted with their hourglass tea timer. Could it work for procrastination? 

3-4-5 minutes to get down to work. Then maybe an alarm could go off - Notre Dame’s bells? 

Mariage Frere’s Teas is a few doors down. 

A little further, red-tinned epicerie Hediard may re-open in the distant rosy future. I got home in time for curfew at 6 PM clutching my tea. Sometimes a bottle of rose buds is the best distraction from all the chaos going on.  Bonne rosy weekend PBers ❤️🐻🌹💋

Irving Penn, EclairWeek2017

Tuesday morning was the preview 

The Irving Penn retrospective at the Grand Palais.

My photography professor friend, Sardi Klein 

Always told me to study Penn's still life, "After dinner games" (top picture) for inventive arrangement & depth of field.

I vowed to do still life thumbnail studies 

Every day after seeing the original.

Post-exhibit I ran over to Fauchon for still life painting (and eating) ideas.

They are celebrating the 10th anniversary of Eclair Week september 14-23. Hurry up.

You have just 48 hours to get this delightful 10-eclair box and upstairs their savory eclairs await.

House pastry chef, Patrick Pailler created a daunting array of flavors and designs. Hokusai's Great Wave is included.

I went for plain fraise/strawberry. Anything red wins my vote. Pretty to paint.

Fauchon's pastry graphics are the best in Paris.

Oui or non? To paint at home I got their classic chocolate eclair with tiny gold sprinkle decorations.

Rush over to Fauchon to celebrate their annual #EclairWeek 2017 Take a selfie in front of the eclair backdrop and win a trip to Paris or an eclair. 

You can receive Parisbreakfast letters, maps and eclair watercolors in your mailbox📮 Just look in my Etsy shop. Thanks for reading parisbreakfast.

Eclair Mystique et Fauchon Noel Éclat

Since I came up for air I've been immersing myself in the land of chou.

Here's a map of what I tasted yesterday and today.

While painting Jill's éclair I was struck by lightening. I asked Jill about the stunning ridges on the sides of some eclairs. They look so labor intensive. Nothing of the sort. It depends on the shape of the nozzle on your pastry bag.
C'est tout.

Oh.

 Eclairs are made of the very basic pâte de chou pastry, same as the lowly, quelle ordinaire cream puff. In fact Jill says they're brother and sister, cut of the same cloth, just different shapes. One round and empty. The other long and empty. Both filled with flavored (or not/nature) creme patissiere. Yet the eclair is far more upper crust than the petite chou..well depending on their surroundings. A round chou, caramelized and set into a towering piece monté was the queen of French wedding cakes till the macaron showed and pushed it aside. Chou has been making a stylish come-back the last few years. Even pastry king Christophe Michalak now has a choux shop.

Time to visit Fauchon, maitres of the eclair and deep in the throes of holiday festive desserts.

Firstly my eye landed on the perfect marriage of chou pastry, cream puff and éclair in the savory department!

In desserts eclairs have been king for a long time at Fauchon.

Just think of this as an elongated chou/puff decked inside and out in luxuriou deep chocolate.

I fell hard for their holiday  religieuse de vanille de Tahiti. (8€)

What is it? 

Two chou/puffs pasted together. That's all, with fancy clothes on, outside and in, white chocolate and so forth.

Fauchon's latest for the kids is an all-black Batman eclair. Shhhh Colored chou pastry.

Still quite a stunner.

For a witty twist on the traditional eclair Fauchon has special for the holidays mini eclair-like marzipan. Adorable no?

All this research is so exhausting. Time for an afternoon gouté(snack) of fromage blanc topped with red fruits preserves.

Fortified, I moved on to Maison Lafayette to look for more choux pastry samples. (3,50€) A chou a la crème from Sadaharu Aoki.

Why not a salad eclair? Not yet. The l'Eclair de Genie stand of Christophe Adams formerly of Fauchon and creator of the Mona Lisa éclair.

I got the vanille-cerise combo to try. (5€)

Back on Ils St.-Louis good old (empty) little puffs covered in rock sugar, chouquettes - a mere 2,50€ for 100 grams. That's a lot of choux.

Not to be missed - the new chou in town on St.-Louis, La Maison du Chou

5, rue Jean de Bellay 4e

Baked inhouse and filled before your eyes with pastry crème.
woo woo

Bottoms up.

Top down.
It doesn't get fresher that this, my absolute favorite of all the chou tasted. They have another shop in the 6th at 7, rue de Furstenberg. You can sit down and have a caffe crème should you need a little more crème in your life.

Well I hope I've dispelled some of the mystique of the eternal éclair, my mission. Clearly the little chou puff and the high falutin' éclair are joined at the hip. And mine especially after this research project. The wonderment of Parisian pastry can never be brought to far down to earth. Let's face it, we're all 5-year olds like this kiddie trying desperately to pass through glass.
What's not to love?