Salon.com > Francis in France!

Building a perfect Paris picnic

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:01:00 +0000

Vacation multitasking is one of the most sorrowful ideas imaginable. You're on vacation! Try to enjoy it! But if your time is short in Paris, (or even if it's not), why not see half the city and have lunch at the same time? Because this town is built for picnics, and here's a highly recommended trail of crumbs.

First of all, have a few friends with you, because you're going to need help eating all this stuff. Or a lover! It's going to be a romantic stroll. But you'll still need extra stomachs ... better to have a few lovers then. Hey, it's cool. It's France!

Start in the morning, of course, with bread, and for that, head to the original Eric Kayser on Rue Monge in the 5th arrondissement, in the shadow of Notre Dame. Eric Kayser is home of a deliriously good baguette -- several, in fact: the classic, with an extra-crisp crust and clean flavor, and the baguette Monge, with its thicker, richer crunch and the aroma of a slow rise, and well, OK, you can probably end up getting swept away with any number of other breads there. But choose wisely; we've got more bread coming later. (Note that there is an organic -- "biologique" -- Eric Kayser bakery a few doors down. The bread is not nearly as good there, in my opinion.)

Where a $40 cocktail is worth it for the theater alone

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 12:01:00 +0000

The Ritz in Paris is nearly the definition of fancy. A hotel built literally like a palace, it's where the word "ritzy" comes from, where Auguste Escoffier codified and invented generations' worth of French haute cuisine. Deep inside the hotel, past a hallway of toys for the private-island set, is the Bar Hemingway, a shrine to the original Big Papa's version of American manliness, where his favorite typewriter sits above the fireplace and his hunting rifle hangs above the bar. And hiding in this particular bush with a friend the other night, I spied for myself a rare and elusive species: the Crass Jetsetter (Uglius Americanus).

Fromage fort: The cheese that tried to kill me

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 01:01:00 +0000

Here is a fundamental truth about cheese: It is rotting. The original point of cheese was to find a way to keep milk from going bad, and so what some strong-stomached people found was that it was better to go ahead and let it rot, but control the process. They cultured the milk with harmless bacteria and let them stave off any deadly microbes in a microscopic turf war. The trade-off, of course, is that the friendly bacteria get to feed on the milk, too, only in doing so, they break it down and remake it into a complexly delicious food for us. Win!

But the French cheese I just had tonight, fromage fort, tried -- I swear -- to kill me. And not that boring old, "I'll just sit here and let you eat me so I can poison you" kind of killing. I mean it got up off its plate and waved a knife in my face.

I have to say first that, of course, it's just stupidly easy to get your hands on socks-knocking-off-good cheese in France. On my very first day here, my friend Julia and I went down the street and randomly came home with a wedge of Brie from Melun so good, so soft and so sticky and so rich and woodsy and creamy that I caught her talking to it the next day. "Hey, Brie," she purred after getting home from work. "I've been thinking about you, baby. You been thinking about me?" (No, really. That happened.)

The most eye-opening steak of my life

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:01:00 +0000

I am not a great lover of steak. I mean, I get swept up as much as the next guy in the animal appeal of sitting down to a slab of meat, the King-of-the-Food-Chain thrill of it, but frankly I get bored easily. Twenty bites into the same massive, bloody thing, it's a little painful to feel myself start dinner lustily and finish it by going through the motions, like a joke about marriage in fast forward. But the steak I had last night was truly revelatory, giving me a new idea of what beef can be, and it's just gravy that it also happened to be one of the cheapest meals I had in Paris.

Two French ways to boost flavor in food: One good, one evil

Sat, 29 May 2010 00:20:00 +0000

This is a tale of two gentlemen of France, Dr. Mirepoix and Monsieur Pinçage.

Dr. Mirepoix was so kind his sweat was fragrant and sweet, smelling of carrots, celery and onions, and he was happy to share his charms. "Bonjour, Dr. Mirepoix!" his neighbor said. "I've got a bag of bones from the butcher and would like to make a stock! Would you mind coming over?"

"Mais oui!" the good doctor said, changing into a tasteful bathing suit. "I love the Jacuzzi!" He bathed in the stock for its last hour or so, sweetening the pot, giving it a golden color and a background of flavor, and he smiled and shook hands with the happy neighbor on his way out.

One day another neighbor called out: "Bonjour, Dr. Mirepoix! I am roasting a chicken and would like something to lay at the bottom of the pan to catch the juices and perfume the bird. Would you bring Mademoiselle Potato Head over?"

"Mais oui!" the good doctor said, putting on his tanning goggles and laying out with his tuber lady friend, smiling and shaking hands with the happy neighbor on the way out, not minding that his lady friend decided to stay for a while. "I'll call you tomorrow!" she said to him. Only halfway home did Dr. Mirepoix remember he has no phone.

In search of the perfect baguette

Fri, 28 May 2010 00:20:00 +0000

The baguette is the national bread of France (literally -- the recipe and cost used to be regulated by the government so everyone could recognize and afford it). Since my trip here is based on discovering the true foundations of French cuisine, I figure I should get to work quickly on calibrating my appreciation for this long stick of bread.

My friend Julia came back to her apartment. It was early, I was still lying like a sack of potatoes on her couch, and she handed me a baguette. "Here," she said. "Cuddle with this. It's still warm and toasty." I took the bread and held it to my chest. I fell back asleep and dreamed that it told me it loves me.

The Eric Kayser baguette is one of the first things I ate in France, and it was the kind of experience that makes you think that you done did do something right. The first thing was the crust -- both crisp and crunchy, a thick-cut potato chip crunchy, a bass-drum kind of crunchy. I actually laughed out loud, thinking about the fact that I've had bread before that I called a "baguette" that was so floppy you can bend it 90 degrees without ripping into the dense, smooshy, Wonder Bread-tasting insides.

Making the food pilgrimage to Paris

Thu, 27 May 2010 12:01:00 +0000

I'm on a plane pointed toward Paris, and I swear I just saw a woman in a flowing bow of a neck scarf, made of the same material as her shirt. Classically chic, she could walk right into my vision of what I've always imagined Paris to be, strolling past gilded statues on a bridge over the Seine, on her way to meet a deliriously beautiful lover to nibble on cheese and, eventually, one another. It was exactly the sort of thing you don't want to see on your way abroad, because the reality of the world rarely matches your fantasies, and it's best to travel with realistic expectations. But I can't help it. I'm flying into a fantasy of France.

"Why are you going?" a woman asked me in the airport.

"To eat baguettes and macarons," I said with a jokey smile. But I meant it. When my friend came back from his honeymoon there -- a friend who inspired me to go to culinary school -- he said that going to Paris was like a pilgrimage. French food may have fallen a little out of fashion in favor of the brasher cuisines of Asia and Latin America, the earthiness of Italian cooking, the creative haute cuisine of Spain, and the amalgam of these things we have in America. But what I'm looking for isn't flash and bang, it's the basics, it's the foundation.