Denise Acabo

I bought this cabosse (cocoa pod) at the New York Chocolate Show last November. It looked different then. Brilliantly colored and much bigger than the dried up, dark bean you see here. I was told it would not stay colorful, but would rot quickly.

The best way to keep a cocoa pod, is to put it in a very low oven for at least 24 hours. Over time mine has shrunk even smaller and if I shake it, I can hear the fêve de cacao (beans) jumping around inside. Now I can join a Samba percussion group and shake my rattle. YAY
Back in the Paris confiserie of all confiseries (candy stores). The chocolate mecca for amateurs of France's meilleure (best) chocolat is the tiny shop, Denise Acabo in the 9th ème, on 30, rue Fontaine. I'd never seen copper chocolatières (chocolate pots) like these in the window -- maybe from Africa? The cabosses here are faux, made of plastic.But these bouchées au chocolat are definitely REAL. Bouchée means filled chocolate in a big version. The French sometimes skip lunch and have one entier bouchée instead. And if you have a big mouth, you can eat it in one bite, vous en faites une seule bouchée.
Some French people prefer to eat many small chocolates to one big one - more variety, unless it's a Rocher or good plain dark ganache. Once you bite into a big bouchée, you have to finish it, as the filling dries out. But with small bonbons chocolats, the outer coating prevents the interior from drying. No other country does bouchées au chocolat. They feel guilty when it comes to eating chocolate.." Hmmm..
Every Paris chocolaterie offers a variety of these bouchées au chocolat. I like them because you can buy just one in a fancy shop and not break the bank... Buying the best French chocolat is a heck of alot more economical than buying French couture. Merci, Dieu! Denise Acabo's shop, l'Etoile d'Or (the golden star), is famed for carrying French chocolate brands you can't find anywhere else in Paris. Le grand maître de Lyon, Bernachon in particular + Le Roux, Dufoux, Bonnat, Boyer, Fabrice Gillotte (not a relative, malheureusement ) and others. Her tiny shop is a delight and an adventure! Denise herself is pretty unique in Paris. Outfitted in navy blue Anglaise schoolgirl uniform with jupe Écossaise (Scottish plaid skirt) and nattes rouge (red braids), her passion for chocolate fills the shop. Let her help you choose from 30 different tablettes (bars of chocolate).
Here Denise is showing me her special 19th century-style wrapping paper, le papier d'Epinal, full of visual jokes. When you turn it upside down the images tell a different joke. Of course I saved this piece of paper, but could I find it yesterday? No! must be in my closet somewhere...
And why is it when you get a chance to take a picture of someone or something you rever, you get the camera shakes? If you'd like to own some cocoa pods vicariously, you can always treat yourself to a chocolate tree in Ecuador and help save the Rainforest.

My Candy (Art) Store

I found this carton à dessin (portfolio) in the Marais and I liked it so much I bought two. The writing/ecriteur is by the artist, BEN. It says, contient peut-être un vrai chef-d'oeuvre/perhaps there's a masterpiece inside.
The jaunes pages in the upper left, I ripped out a few years ago. Don't follow my bad example. The adresses of Parisien art stores (les magasin du beaux-arts) are outdated but still fun to look at. I tend to save old scraps of paper. The watercolor is thé et chocolat painted in Paris.This is my "candy store". It doesn't hurt that it's in Paris. Any art store anywhere is an adventure. Like the shop in Arezzo, it doesn't matter what you buy so long as you buy something. I found the Maison Gattegno by chance(permanently CLOSED), while looking for a nearby branch of Sennelier, which was closed.
It's on 13, rue de la Grande Chaumière is not by chance. Across the street is the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere attended by Modigliani and Calder. Paul Gauguin shared a studio with Alphonse Mucha. You can still walk in and attend a sketch class without registration fees.
A very traditional old art shop - the interior is dark. A flashlight could be helpful, but the owner knows his stock and can find what you can't see. I love the traditional plaster casts in the window. They remind me early days at PA Academy of Fine Arts, when castdrawing was obligatory. I regret not doing my value studies back then. This bulletin board of art class (stage, cours) ads hung by the door of the fermé (closed) Sennelier. Two art stores + an art school all on 1 street + artist's ads. A traveling artist's dream.Art stores fill you with nostalgia. You'll never forget the 1st time you paid for an "Artist" quality tube of paint and felt like a pro. Mel Bochner, a terrific artist, told me that Franz Kline was so crazy for the old,long-gone Torch art shop on 15th street in the village, that he named a painting after it, "Torch".
I'm amazed at this elegant boite d'aquarelle/watercolor box in the vitrine/window. Le prix/price is pretty amazing too. 924 euros. I was so excited to see all these Blockx godets porcelain watercolor pans or paint-filled 'ashtrays' that I saw at Café Deux Magots, my camera shook.  An art store will do that to you.

Les Bonbons

Someone commented on the pigment store post saying, "You must feel like a kid in a candy store". You know what they say about people who work in the candy store or bakery...after a while they can't look at the candy much less eat it. Color is a different story, and I'm often surprised and inspired by the color combinations people pull off the shelves and put together... With all my running around to fancy, deluxe chocolate shops last May in Paris, M. said I MUST not miss a charming confiserie up the street on #6, rue Brea, 75006. Les Bonbons is only slightly larger than my closet...Small as Les Bonbons is, it's famous for it's vast selection of bonbons à l'Anciennes (old fashioned candies) from all regions of France. Plus they have confitures (preserves), miels (honey), pain d'epice (ginger cake) and gateaux (cakes) and chocolat (chocolate) of course. Most pf their products are fabrication artisanale, i.e.made in small factories with less than 50 workers.Les Bonbons' shelves are lined with too numerous to count apothecary jars. Note the ROSE labels everywhere* I loved the look of these toothpaste-like tubes filled with crème de marron, a traditional recipe of chestnuts, vanilla, sugar and water from the Ardèche, but I didn't buy any... This shop is like a musée de confisierie (candy museum) for all the variety offered. I've seen these yellow tins at Dean & Deluca. Sometimes the outer packaging seems like it might be more interesting than the candy inside...decisions, decisions. I did finally choose these innocent looking foil-wrapped sardines. They're in fact filled with rich, dark chocolate ganache and just one sardine goes a long way on the satisfaction scale.Now here's the mystery in most Paris chocolate shops - giant tins of many varieties of thé (tea). The French take it for granted that thé et chocolat are a natural pair as an afternoon snack? More to come on this.

Pigment 101

I might have mentioned that I worked for 5 years in a pigment shop. It changed my life and changed my painting when I finally got around to cooking up my own watercolor paints. Being surrounded by 500+ colors did it. The Kremer Pigmente catalog cover is from one of my color test sheets..it wasn't my idea. We have dozens of color charts like the one below, hand-made in London, How else to show a gazillion colors?

Passerbys come in begging to buy these glass jars all the time. Not for sale. Sometimes I am asked if that is Yves Klein's Blue in the window? No, but we have 33 different shades of blue to choose from.  

My Moleskine to the rescue. That rock chunk is a piece of unmilled pigment - Burnt Sienna. 

They roast Raw Sienna in a big oven to get that color. It doesn't come that way out of the earth. And Terre Verte? The Old Masters loved it (they didn't have too many choices back then) . Now called Green Earth, but Terre Verte sounds classier. 

These are just a few of the Cadmium pigments - 22 different colors. They come packed in 100 gram bags - yes Metric system. That's about 3.3 ounces. Why is it when I'm in Paris, I never have any trouble with the Metric system in a patisserie..hmm

This is what our new store looks like on west 29th street. HUGE! The old store in Soho was about the size of my closet. You couldn't turn around and by the end of day I was coughing from pigment dust. If you'd love ❤️ to be covered in pigment visit the Holi Celebration in India and get it out of or into your system.

Hand-blown glass mullers for mixing your paint up. You will not be grinding the pigment. They already did that at the mill in Germany. You will just be integrating binder (linseed oil, honey, gum Arabic, egg tempera etc.) into the pigment. 

On the left is a pharmaceutical mortar and pestle. 

You can get one in a kitchenware store.

P.S. I made the pilgrimage to ROUSSILLON in '05 and wrote about it in May.

Wine Tools 101

Ok, back into the closet and the kitchen cabinet, and I don't mean Kabinett here.. I used to collect old wine tools and accessories as avidly as I now blog. I was on Ebay everyday looking for stuff to paint that was wine related. Or so I told myself..I was definitely going to paint all these chatchkes...hmmm..
Most of them came from the UK, Italy or Netherlands - anywhere but the US. So another fun aspect - strange packages arrive covered in foreign postage.

These are 2 taste vins I collected. The goldie color is unusual. Usually they're silver, the better to see the true color of the wine and check for sediment in the wine. Something like the picture of the wine glass being held against the white paper.
Wine is not just about drinking but about describing wine's colors, aromas, flavors, "legs", on and on. A lot of chatting goes on among wine lovers. That's what makes it such a socialable activity, unlike chocolate you want to keep to yourself. One wine bottle can make 4-5 people very happy. One chocolate bar - it's not the same thing.

When you visit Burgundy wine tasting houses (Marché aux Vins) particularly Beaune, they give you a tastevin to keep instead of a glass. They're not silver of course, but it's fun to bring home a souvenir. The tastevin is traditionally Burgundian. You won't see them in other parts of France.

These sketches are from my crystal decanter period. If you're a regular on ebay, you're bound to go through phases. I used to covet beautiful decanters, often from Ireland or the UK. They're not cheap either... I've got a decanter that looks like a duck - the beak opens and out pours the wine. When I grew tired of all these wine accessories I didn't take them back to ebay, but out to 33rd street, where other collectors can find them.

I went through a period collecting corkscrews, till I realized they were out of my range..well the ones I liked.

Everyone has at least one funny Ebay story. I fell for these small wooden wine pitchers - so paintable. I bought this from I don't know where. When I saw another from a Netherlands dealer, I bought it thinking it would make a nice companion.

I waited and waited but no pitcher. I contacted the dealer, he searched and found it had been returned to his post office. Out it went again. I was patient but after another 2 months, I contacted him. He was terribly apologetic and gave me my money back. End of story.

Six months later, it turned up on my doorstep. But this was no small wine pitcher. Who knows what they poured out of this? I contacted the dealer,"could I repay him"? Though it was much bigger than I'd imagined? He laughed and said, “just keep it!”Note the tall Bordeaux red umbrella within - I got that at Fete de la Fleure. You can not imagine the wine stuff there is to collect for potential still life painters or wine lovers. The wine industry is so mechanized these days. Most wineries will blind you with all their shiny high-tech equipment. The days of glass bungs, tire bouchon (corkscrews), wooden wine keys, etc. are gone and forgotten. Except for avid collectors on ebay up at dawn waiting to get their bids in.
*To look at this old stuff, I recommend a visit to the Musée du Vin in Paris. They have wine tools and tableaux (wine making scenes) stashed away in an old wine cellar in the 16th ème. The musée has a sweet little restaurant too, where you can get a nice flight of wines with your lunch. It's never very crowded when I visited. Not like the Louvre!

Wine Tasting 101

This is going to be a very sketchy intro to wine tasting, no pun intended. I'm writing this off the cuff, since I forgot to spit yesterday (more about that later) and I didn't drink the requisite glasses of water required between tastings.. In otherwards I was a bad and I'm a bit hung over today. Hmmm... German Rieslings are just too damn delicious in my opinion and I'm a complete sucker for sweet wines anyway. Lord knows how I did that painting this morning? I fell dead asleep when I got home and missed watercolor class last night :(
After they've let you into the tasting, take a good look around at the scene. A whole lot of chatting goin' on. It doesn't hurt to review your Riesling notes or whatever wine you are tasting before you go. It's always nice to make intelligent conversation with the winemaker or owner pouring, as in:
~
What grape varieties are in this wine? or What percentage of alcohol or sugar etc? How was the harvest this year? Get ready for the full weather report BTW. The point is, you do not run up to the table, shove your glass in, get a slug and then run off. At least pretend to be interested!

First things first. Go and get a fresh glass. This will be your glass for the event. It's specially sized for that particular wine type. Some events they let you take them home. I have quite a collection of odd sizes... OK, you're at a wine table. Take a look down. There will be a ton of information to help you out. Wine notes or fact sheets on each wine, so you'll know what to expect in terms of flavors, vintage, ratings, etc. Like clip notes, they'll help you out in the conversation area.
Maps are big in the wine world. The chocolate world needs maps too. Heck! I love maps of anything...You're ready to begin. Start with the left-hand bottle. Usually you'll taste from dry to sweet and there's also a price factor involved. Lesser to more expensive. It's polite to do the whole range rather than rushing to the most expensive wine first thing. It will give you a better picture of that particular vineyard.
With Rieslings, you start with the dry light Kabinett (pronounced like "kitchen cabinet" I was told yesterday :) You'll work through the Spatlese and Auslese, getting to the Eiswein if they have it and you're lucky.
Mind you, this process is repeated and repeated over again. This is where the spit buckets come in and the pitchers of water. If you really want to do justice to a tasting you need to spit like a pro or learn to. A quite famous wine person revealed that she practiced for hours while in the bathtub... The water pitchers are there to clean out your glass between tastings and to cleanse your palate and to keep you vertical!
Before you take that first wonderful taste you want to check the color of the wine, usually against the note book they gave you to write your personal wine thoughts in. At least pretend to scribble something, even if you haven't a clue. It'll look good. Swirl the glass a bit without spilling. Then "nose" the wine to get it's full aromas. Yep, you put the whole nose into the glass, not just a partial sniff puleeze. With Rieslings you can expect crisp green apple, peaches, apricots, all fresh fruit, honey, black pepper aromas, on and on. They're famed for their drinkability = they go well with most cuisines and they're climbing in popularity rapidly. Try a bottle.Don't forget the nosh at tastings, usually cheesy and fruity things to clear your palate and refresh you and keep you going. If I got anything right here, it's because I took Kevin Zraly's Windows on the World Wine School a number of times. First as a volunteer cracker server. I was not allowed to pour...hmmm... I have a Spanish wine + tapis tasting next week. Hasta luego

Français 101

Yesterday was a tough one so I'm making up for it with some FRENCH silliness and it's not wine, art or macarons silliness. I used to think FRENCH POP stunk! Yup, I only listened to www.radioitalia.it But then I fell out of love with Tuscany and back in love with Paris. YAY In my little studio on rue Vavin I was expecting a TV, a computer...Hey, communication with the outside world, but there was zip. Désespérément, I ran to the nearest FNAC and bought a "combo" for 39 euros et voilà! The HOTTEST song my combo played over and over was JEUNE DEMOISELLE by DIAM'S, a jeune rappeuse (a young femme rap singer). Watch the video here. Just cliquéz the button, regarder la video. Here are some of the paroles (words). Google's translation leaves alot to be desired...

Jeune demoiselle recherche un mec mortel

Un mec qui pourrait me donner des ailes

Un mec fidèle et qui n'a pas peur qu'on l'aime

Donc si t'as les critères babe laisse moi ton e-mail Ok here's what [ Translate this page ] says: Young young lady seeks a mortal guy (mec)

A guy who will be able to give me wings

A faithful guy and who is not afraid that one like it

Thus if has you the babe criterion leaves me your e-mail So where are the so-called FRENCH leçons in all this nonsense? I believe in sleep learning / awake learning. The same goes when learning FRENCH. If you have FRENCH blasting day and night something will sink in - the process of osmosis. Oui, and the fastest, cheapest way to get to Paris is via NRJ, pronounced énergie, on your computer. It's the #1 POP station in France.

It's hard to paint without music blasting music? Everyone is blasting music anyway...Thank you i-pod. So it might as well be FRENCH music, pourquoi pas? On your AirFrance flight over you can hear NRJ top hits too.

cliquéz on NRJ. Then hit NRJ on the list. A big ridiculously, futuristic window will pop up. What's great is you get the song titles and album covers, so you can run out and buy your favorites. Plus there's a WEB CAM button - you can look into NRJ's studio!

I love it that NJR plays multi-culti music - Spanish / Italian / American / English / French / Brazilian / Rap, everything you can't hear on any one US station. And NRJ makes the transition to Paris so easy. You get there, turn on the radio et voilà! You'll feel chez toi, tout suite if you've been listening back home...

For some real FRENCH silliness. Watch any Jacques Tati DVD -> MON ONCLE or PLAYTIME from the greatest comic of French cinema. Tati made fun of the French love for le gadget and would have had a good laugh at NRJ bien sur. Now I'm listening to SHY'M - FEMME DE COULEUR and MISTIK FEAT. And don't ask me where they come up with these silly names SHY'M, MYSTIK FEAT, DIAM'S!? Tomorrow I'll get back to wine. I have a Riesling tasting this afternoon...à toute à l'heure