Think Blanche for La Rentrée

 

On Tuesday I did a little browsing for you at Merci in the Marais

WHITE is IN for Fall 🤔 for la RENTRÉE. Merci ‘immerses you in an entirely white universe.’

Piece O' Cake

If you're looking for a piece of traditional white cake in Paris, like you'll find on every counter of every Greek coffee shop in New York, just forgetaboutit.
If you're looking for a mountain of whipped cream with even more whipped cream on top, that you will find in just about any patisserie on any corner in any arrondissement.
This white cake with the Frenchie name of St. Honore was found in the Japanese shopping mall at Mitsuwa Marketplace in New Jersey not Paris.
This is one quite superb white cake you will find in Paris.
Every French girl's dream it is too, since it's a wedding cake.
But your average white cake (icing and layered) as we know it since childhood birthday parties, has yet to hit the streets of Paris.

Could it be the next big tendance/trend when the cupcake begins to pall in Paris?

While we're on the subject of white, I was walzing through Bloomies last nite and found this exquisite display honoring Vera Wang. Wang has been creating perfect white wedding gowns for 20 years. It's on the 4th floor by the way.

A true American Horatio Alger story - Wang could not find a wedding gown for her own wedding, so...

Et voila!

We are the happy beneficiaries of her divine ingenuity.

Her gowns truly are a 'piece of cake'.

Perfectly simple yet quite complex and often poetic...

Here's a very nice French 'piece o cake' seen in Bergdorf's windows last week from M. Alber Elbaz of Lanvin. Ruffles are IN, in case you hadn't realized.

I got this in the mail today from M. Pierre Herme...

It's Fête des Mères this Sunday.

I suppose if one must make do with a non-white cake in Paris, this will do the trick quite handsomely.

And who 'takes the cake' in yesterday's contest?

Aquarose that's who.

Let me know where to send it in Alaska Aquarose svp?

BONJOUR WHITE GATEAUX!

Mariage Freres Tout en Blanc

Mariage Freres Tout en Blanc,watercolor

On the Monday after Palm Sunday I went for lunch at Mariage Freres in the Marais.

It was empty unlike the day before.

The sunny skylight, the ratan chairs and potted palms, help you imagine you're sitting having Afternoon tea with Somerset Maugham at the Raffles Hotel in colonial Singapore...

Not difficult at all

 Everything is ROUND and shiny and reflective. The Mariage Freres Naples yellow logo is all over the white, white porcelain.The teapot is a veritable mirror, reflecting back yourself and the luxe surroundings.

Mariage Freres White tea, watercolor

Their book "The French Art of Tea" is brought to your table so you can choose from their 500 teas. Aiee! Thank Gawd the waiter assisted and suggested a white tea to go with my salmon.

Here's the description of my choice on page 43 of T2223 DOUYUN MAOJIANG:

The tender young leaves of this tea from the Douyun district of Gui Zhou Provice are covered with a very fine down, and must be handled with particular care. Their silvery forms recall dazzling snowflakes. The clear liquor yields a gentle, smooth, sweet aroma.
A distinguished tea.
Who could resist?

I ordered the Assiette de saumon fume de Norvege /plate of Norwegian smoked salmon..

Very fresh, acidic, light and YUM!

A Matcha Green tea bun thing arrived unannounced with my smoked Salmon. Ahem...mushy in texture. I still don't know exactly what this was.

Did I mention that the Mariage Freres waiters are  very tall, very thin, and decked out in colonial-whites. Are they freres? They look like they've drunk tea every single day of their lives.

They were most helpful.

Les Blancs de Paris...

Playing with warm (Burnt Sienna) + cool (Fr Blue, Cerulean, Cobalt) colors. The value study every student grapples with in art school. It never hurts to go back to basics.

A wacky window decoration - a wedding cake of crockery to hang jewelry off of?

I'm a sucker for Parisien doggies. This doggie purse, pencil case and notebook was in the stationary shop around the corner on rue Saint-Andre-Des-Arts - why didn't I get one of them?

Not exactly a true WHITE, but think of all the fun provided by these now faded winebottle corks...

In a wine shop window on the Ile Saint-Louis...

I bought my first pair of Ballerina shoes in Paris in a shop that no longer exists in the 6th. Paris and ballerinas are synonomous for me and they say Audrey Hepburn too...
Look, these shoes in Vivaldi's window in the Marais are like real point shoes!
No art shop worth it's salt is without plaster casts, usually of Beethoven and Mozart.
Again the chance to do those value studies in warm and cool colors or just shades of grey. I refused to do caste drawing while at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. I still rue the day I didn't learn how to figure out the values of a picture from the getgo. I've had to make up for it many times over. I cannot do a watercolor successfully without first doing a little pencil sketch of the grey values. It's like going into the deep end without your waterwings. Well, finally some yummy WHITES...

I'm not a big fan of whip cream but these were too lush to pass up at Gerard Mulot's. I will take the carmelized bits though :) Click on this to get the full effect.

Les Blancs = Yogurt

Les Blancs 2, watercolor, 9" x 11 1/2" I'm havingt another go getting more down to the basics of painting whites.

Too much objects and not enough abstract qualities like space, shape, pattern.

AIn Les Blancs I was searching for the perfect French plain yogurt. On the AirFrance flight home in October they served us an unidentified cup of amazing plain FRENCH yogurt and I was completely smitten!

The florist asked me to not take any more pictures, purely on principle!

My new Holy Grail was to find this unidentified yogurt - creamy, smooth, thick and VERY TART. Lordie, Paris supermarkets offer up a gazillion brands of PLAIN WHITE YOGURT. How do you choose? Believe me I tried many. I read that Danone Veloute Nature is the best.  

I'm convinced the French have the yogurt thing totally wrapped up and I'm not just saying this because I'm biased and very pro-French stuff.

But, and it's a BIG BUT, where do they get off DROPPING THE G FROM YOGURT? YAOURT? (YOW-URT) I don't get it.

Naturally in my search for the perfect French plain yoGurt, I kept seeing a lot of WHITE EVERYWHERE. French baby clothes are the BEST hands unless you're in Italy.

Here's a white perfume, FLEURS BLANCHES by Catherine Memmi.

Yesterday I made this in my new Donvier Yogurt Maker in the vain attempt to make "French" yoGurt at home. You can not buy it in New York. Maybe I'll rename it yogurt soup and call it a day. It tastes pretty Frenchie - nice and tart But the consistency sucks - I could use a straw with this stuff Help me out here

  FEIST always seems to be dressed in WHITE - she must eat a lot of yogurt...

Les Blancs...

Les Blancs, watercolor, 9" x 11 1/2"

I noticed "Les Blancs" or whites much more in Paris this trip,

since I was searching for the perfect French plain yogurt!
Les Blancs can mean a bunch of things in French...
Just a few:
Les Blancs de echecs / white chess piecees
Les Blancs de poulet = white breast of chicken
Les Blancs Mouton = white sheep
Les Blancs = referring to white wines
You would Battre Les Blancs if you were making a Bechamel sauce...
Les Blancs des Quimper
Les Blancs = a play by Lorraine Hansberry
Painting les blancs objets is no piece of cake.
I need more practice...
The last time I showed you this shop window it was full of bleu cafe bowls.
If you can find the post you win a prize... I can't find it :(
YAY! I found it!
No wonder..it was called, "Not Macarons"!!!
They seem to always have a theme to their windows...
The shop's name is PORTOBELLO on 56, rue Notre-Dame des Champs in the 6th eme...
Close to rue Vavin

Everytime I pass this shop it's closed :(

Next time I can check their hours here :)

Not Macarons...

Last Sunday, Corey did a lovely post on her friend, Shelly and French blue café au lait bols. I was reminded of the bleu bowls I saw while window shopping on rue Notre-Dame Des Champs last May in the 6ème.By the way lèche-vitrine (licking windows) is how you say window shopping in French -- it feels more accurate somehow.Are windows just more delicious in France?

*Here's a travel tip. It takes a good week and a half to get your eyes above window level in Paris. Then you can start to see the amazing architecture. Don't even try before 1 1/2 weeks...useless in my opinion.

I don't even drink coffee but I've always loved these bleu café bols. There's something about them that says grandmother's kitchen, something homey and comfortable. Maybe I've seen too many old French movies.

OK...So one GREEN bowl snuck in here. But these window still lifes are just too beautiful. Does Cézanne or Chardin own this shop? I bought a red and white café au lait bowl in France way back, made by Genevieve Lethu. I filled it with peaches and thought I'd paint it for this post...but no go :( It seems the MACARONS are still flying around in my head. Or maybe if the bowl had been BLEU?