Le Cordon Bleu Paris

Samdi 9 mars Le Cordon Bleu - Portes Ouvertes
 

"1 - 2 - 3 crack!"

Le Cordon Bleu culinary school served as the set for the 1954 movie "Sabrina," in which Audrey Hepburn's character attends the famous French cooking school. Saturday was Portes Ouvertes/open house for cooks dreaming of becoming chefs par excellence. I came along to observe but many other names of renown studied here. Julia Child trained at Le Cordon Bleu before going on to write her best-selling cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," which in turn led to the development of her legendary PBS cooking show "The French Chef." Following in Julia's footsteps, many of today's celebrity chefs, including Bobby Flay, Giada DeLaurentis and Jamie Oliver also studied at Le Cordon Bleu.
 

We got the grand tour top to bottom.
 

Starting with a visit to the student work kitchens.
 

On to classes in action.
 

First stop - pastry chef Nicolas Jordan's macaron class.
 

Next stop chef Patrick Terrien's baguette class. A translator is always on hand translating word for word.

 

Back downstairs the French group and the English-speaking group combine in a big demo room. Let the show begin.
 

We watch chef Patrick Caals demo Noix de Saint-Jacques persillees, potimarron et jus truffe
 

The we get to taste a mini portion accompanied by a delicious crisp white presented by head of the wine department, Franck Ramage in the most animated way. All the presentations were animated and lively. No snoozing in these classes bien sur.
 

Pastry chef Xavier Cotte preps Macarons fourres au chocolat with a side of Earl Grey tea ice cream.
 

We are served by a student. Note the height of chefs hats. Students have mere caps and the hat grows in height as one climbs up the ladder of accomplishment.

Voila! Every bit as good as it looked. The meringue/coque shell is  toasted almonds plus a touch of noisette not crushed too finely so there's a bit of crunch to the bite. Paired perfectly with a Banyul wine that made me very happy.

Chef Cotte's individual creation. If you're into studying French cuisine do book a tour at le Cordon Bleu.

Chef Marthe - Macaron Class

 I drew this portrait business card for Chef Marthe as a 'Thank you' for letting me attend her class.

 Then she turned around and invited me to her macaron class the next day!

 My class mates were 4 British bridesmaids + the bride. This was their surprise gift - a trip to Paris and the macaron cooking class.

 I hope the bride(here) is happily making lots of macarons for her honey now.

 Chef Marthe demonstrates the perfect beaten eggwhite texture.

 We used the 'Italian method' for making the meringue shells, which entails heating the sugar and using the dreaded candy thermometer.

 Of course I fell madly in love with chef Marthe's adorable rooster kitchen timer but n'existe pas on Amazon thus far...

 Chef Marthe prefers Picard frozen raspberries to fresh for filling the macarons, because the berries are whole and not mushy. Who knew?

 I'm skipping around in the gazillion macaron making steps. Here the beaten eggwhites are being introduced into the colored almond flour.

 Chef Marthe has a gazillion tricks up her sleeve.

 Has the bride taken this class before? She's making perfect little round shells.

 Into the oven they go.

And out they come looking as perfect as can be with dainty little 'feet'.

 Another Marthe trick - removing the shells from the baking paper without breakage.

 Enfin...

 The tasting begins and goes on and on.

 The lucky bridal group is heading off to a night at la Moulin Rouge.
Au revoir et merci !

Macaron Memories

Sometimes you find treasures lurking on an old memory photo card. I found piles of Paris macarons photos from 2 years ago I'd completely forgotten about. It's been too long since we've looked at the not-so-basic Parisian macaron at PB. We've been focused on Maine lobsters, Bordeaux chateaux and this week Venetian gondolas (there are just a few left BTW till the sale ends tonight dear PBers). Two years ago I was obsessed with macarons colors...
I was madly trying to match pistachio macarons with paint - is that a watercolor challange! And so many shades of pistache. I was just as obsessed with macaron boxes. Gerard Mulot is constantly redesigning his boxes - with a window, without a window. That was the trip I came home with 19 macarons boxes and got stopped at CDG customs. I was wearing my macaron T-shirt and matching bracelet. What? They thought I was a macaron terrorist?

Fauchon has different mac boxes mainly changing the cover designs. I always loved this one.

I would suggest you NOT buy a pre-packed box of macs. Gawd only knows when they were put in the box?

On the other hand these original style almond macarons are sold attached to parchment paper they were baked on. The few crumbs sticking to the paper still taste just fine.

If you can't have the real thing there is always endearing macaron detritus/stuff...

Does a tragic feeling come over you as you near the end of the last of your Parisian macarons? Proust was ahead of his time writing cookie homages.

I have a very stale 5-month old box in the fridge surrounded by encrouching CSA veggies - not the correct company for a macaron no matter how past it's sell-by-date don't you think?

A flat of Mad MacNYC Bastille Day macs lurk in my freezer.
Nothing like a real taste of Paris.

What are your macaron memories?

Do tell all

BONJOUR MACARON MEMORIES
 

Macaron Class at La Cuisine Paris

A Toast to Macarons, 9" x 11"

We are overdue for a toast 🥂 to Paris macarons.

A new DIY macaron cook book just came out -Mad About Macarons  by Jill Colonna.

It looks 'authentic' and lovely. 

Last trip I took a how-to-make macaron class.

I've yet to acquire the essential pastry accoutrements but I'm working on it. I took a 2-hour class at La Cuisine Paris Owner Jane Berch. There were 10 of us. The class was in English - HOORAY!
We got tons of practical info and hands-on practice.

 How to tell when your Italien meringue is exactly the right consistency - a nice shiny stream.

And the right temperature and not a point more.

Good ingredients are essential.
Trader Joe's has pasturized egg whites.

Trader Joe's has almond powder.
But maybe the grind is too thick.

We all got a chance to squeeze out lemon macaron shells.

It was rather dramatic when they went in the oven.

And even more so when they came out!

Unfortunately some students multi-sampled the broken, slightly imperfect macarons. Unfortunately some students promised to subtract their eaten samples from the final take-home count. Of course they FORGOT.

Some other students, who did not multi-sample were feeling quite murderous 😖 towards the multi-samplers 😊

C'est la vie. No blood was shed. The macarons tasted terrifically lemony 🍋 

If you're in Paris right this minute race over to

Pierre Herme and taste his special Xmas flavors before they disappear off the shelves on December 23rd. 

Take a class at La Cuisine Paris And hope you don’t eat them all immediatement.

BONJOUR La Cuisine Paris!