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Nov 3

No. 37: Guy Roux Maître Chocolatier

Leave it to  the French to produce amazing sugar-free chocolate.  Guy Roux is affectionately known as the le roi du chocolat sans sucre. Using a selection of beans from South America, he and his artisanal staff produce pure cocoa butter chocolate without sugar. It’s 100-percent natural (no artificial sweeteners), has 40-percent fewer calories, and it is surprisingly delicious!

After hours of tastings, it was pure delight to come across this exciting young chocolatier. I was dubious chocolate sans sucre would tempt my taste buds, but indeed it did.  His mendiants were deliciously on par with others at le salon du chocolat, but what really “took the cake” was his  chocolate spreads.  Handing out his products and gamely chatting with the crowd, he and his creamy and subtly sweet cocoa concoctions completely won me over.

Vocabulaire

le mendiants: traditional French confection composed of a chocolate disk studded with nuts and dried fruits representing the four mendicant or monastic orders of the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans and Carmelites. Each of the nuts and dried fruits used refer to the color of monastic robes with tradition dictating raisin for the Dominicans, hazelnuts for the Augustans, dried figs for Franciscans and almonds for Carmelite. Usually found during Christmas, recipes for this confection have veered away from the traditional combination of nuts and fruits to other combinations incorporating seeds and fruit peels. Wikipedia.

le roi du chocolat sans sucre: the king of chocolate without sugar

 

 

Nov 3

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No. 36: Salon du Chocolat Encore

“Chocolate doesn’t make the world go ’round, but it sure does make the trip worthwhile!”

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The theme of this year’s Salon du Chocolat was enchantment, the question asked, “Why is chocolate so magical?” The event itself was certainly enchanting, delicious, and completely over the top. If you are passionate about chocolate, and I am, this is the not-to-be-missed event of the season.

The annual salon brings together an amazing collection of chocolatiers, pastry chefs, cocoa experts and confectioners. This year, over 180 French and international chocolate makers filled the grand exhibition space (20,000 sqm) at Port de Versailles representing (and providing tastings of!) some of the biggest names and the highest quality chocolate products from around the world. Another 350+ participants provided samplings of bonbons, cakes, ice cream, crepes and sugarcoated delights.

I met my girlfriend Em first thing in the morning and spent nearly 8 hours nageant dans le chocolat. It was fabulous. Imagine a whole day bathed in a space completely dedicated to chocolate and sweet treats. The first floor, the Tendance Confiserie was dedicated entirely to fantastical sugary confections, new trends in confection and included a space devoted to les enfants offering little ones the chance to make and decorate les bonbons. For me the space was more eye-candy than mouth-candy. It was a photographer’s dream a fairy-tale land of colorful sweeties and fun.

The second floor on the other hand was for the serious chocolate connoisseur. This is where the big guns come to play and show off their newest creations. Just like the fashion industry the superstars have the chance to roll out their new fall line and share their established winners. And there were a lot of winners…and things got a little carried away! Never has the saying “so much chocolate, so little time” been more accurate.

Moderation, schmoderation…by the end of the day, we were completely chocolated-out, but completely and contentedly under the spell of the magic of chocolate.

“Oh, divine chocolate!

They grind thee kneeling,

Beat thee with hands praying,

And drink thee with eyes to heaven.”

― Marco Antonio Orellana

Vocabulaire:

les enfants: the children

nageant dans le chocolat: swimming in the chocolate

Nov 3

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No. 35: French Idioms: Fruits et Legumes

Steve Martin, Good Cop, Bad Cop, The Pink Panther, 2006

Steve Martin, Good Cop, Bad Cop, The Pink Panther, 2006

“Bizu: And now he’s pushing up the daisies.

Inspector Jacques Clouseau: He is not ‘pushing up the daisies,’ he is DEAD!

Bizu: (glares) It’s an idiom!

Inspector Jacques Clouseau: You, sir, are the idiom.”

Steve Martin and William Abadie, The Pink Panther, 2006

I’ve just started an intensive French course, so don’t be surprised if November’s post are a bit heavy on new vocabulary and sayings. Today our class spent the afternoon learning about French idioms, particularly those with references to food. Et bien sûr, le French adore eating and cooking so it only makes sense that their language is flavored with the stuff meals are made of…

…here are some of my favorites:

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J’ai la pêche! I feel great! (I have the peach; I’m peachy)

Couper la poire en deux: to meet someone halfway; (to cut the pear in two)

Sucrer les fraises: to be a bit nutty; (to sugar the strawberries)

Se prendre une prune: to take a punch/hit, or get a speeding ticket; (to take a plum—perhaps the purple skin resembles a bruise?)

Tomber dans les pommes: to faint/pass out; (to fall in the apples)

Avoir la banana: to have a big smile; (to have the banana)

Etre la bonne poire: to be easily tricked/duped, to be too trusting (to be a good pear- ripe for the picking)

Avoir un coeur d’artichaud: to be tender-hearted, to fall easily in love; (to have the heart of an artichoke)

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Appuyer sur le champignon: to drive very fast, speed, accelerate; (to press on the mushroom)

Raconter des salades: to tell lies or exaggerated stories; (to tell salads)

Ne plus avoir un radis: to have no money, to be broke; (to no longer have any radishes)

Les carottes sont cuites: it’s all over, nothing more can be done; (the carrots are cooked)

Mon petit chou: a term of endearment; (my little cabbage)

 

Nov 1

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No. 34: Salon du Chocolat

As we are running off for homemade Thai food tonight, I am leaving you with a few scrumptious pictures of how I spent the day….completely overwhelmed by chocolate! Stay tuned for the story tomorrow. Bonne dégustation!

Vocabulaire:

Bonne dégustation! Happy (good) tasting!

Nov 1

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No. 33: Last Minute Finds

IMG_4058It’s not always easy to find the missing ingredients from your homeland in France. Sometimes it can take weeks or months to track something down when you’re desperate for a piece of home.  But tonight was an exception to the rule. Cet automne, j’ai du pain sur la planche with so many different and exciting things, that I didn’t even remember until last night that today America is celebrating Halloween.

Halloween on the metro….
…zombies et un diable…BOO!

Most Frenchies don’t observe Halloween. It’s not part of their history. Toussaint, tomorrow, is their holiday, and a pretty serious one at that. So when ma fille cadette came home from rehearsal for her Sondheim showcase tonight, and announced, “No one even acknowledged that today was Halloween,” I felt a little pang of regret. Even though Button is halfway to 18, I know she misses the fun and high spirits of dressing up, trick-or-treating, and being a teen in America.

So because I’m a good maman, while she was showering and changing, I ran out with Taz, and thought I’d take a chance on finding some Halloween candy for her to share with the cast ce soir. Et, voilà au marché d’à côté, on the highest shelf, sat one lone box of miniature-sized American candy! Quelle chance! That never happens in Paris.IMG_8452

A burly Russian tourist stood on his tiptoes and knocked it from the shelf and into my grateful hands.

Alors, happy Halloween à tous!

Vocabulaire

 à tous: to all

au marché d’à côté: at the market next door

ce soir: this evening

Cet automne j’ai du pain sur la planche: This autumn, my plate is full, literally “the bread is on the board”

ma fille cadette: my younger daughter

marché d’à côté: market next door

Quelle chance! What luck!

Toussaint: All Saints’ Day

Oct 30

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No. 32: Blue-and-White Stripes

One of the many happy surprises of our p’tit week-end down south was our encounter with stripes. I was thrilled to see that particular French cliché alive and well and wandering the streets of Marseille. En fait, les rues were bursting with stripes. Once we saw our first friend dressed in stripes, we started to see them everywhere. It was good fun stalking and photographing the best stripes, turning into un jeu du chat et de la souris. The cat holding the camera while the mice scurried through town.

The more blue-and-white stripes I saw, the more I wanted to learn the history behind the stripes. I always associated the stripes with the French sea and it turns out that the striped shirt was indeed part of the official uniform of the French Navy. The theory was that if there were a “man over board” he would be more easily spotted among the waves and brought to safety if he was wearing stripes. Originally the uniform had 21 stripes, each one symbolizing one of Napoleon’s victories. At the time the uniform was conceived, the majority of the French Navy was located in Brittany, so the shirt became known as the “Breton”.

The “Breton” became popular with the non-military crowd once Coco Chanel, enamored with the sailing shirt, made it part of her fashion line for the modern woman. By the early 1930s the blue-and-white stripes were considered haute couture, and in the decades that followed, the “Breton” featured prominently in French cinema and Hollywood’s motion pictures, until it reached a sort of iconic status.

Today in Marseille you see mostly blue-and-white stripes, with a healthy handful of red-and-white ones thrown in…such a playful break from the black-on-black of Par-ee!

If you haven’t already seen Audrey Tautou in Coco Before Chanel, take a look at this teaser. Moi, j’adore ce film! Maybe you will like it too.

Vocabulaire:

En fait, les rues…  in fact, the streets…

Moi, j’adore ce film! Me, I adore/love this film.

un jeu du chat et de la souris: a game of cat and mouse

 un p’tit week-end: long weekend get-away (literally a small weekend)

Oct 30

3 Comments

No. 31: Savon de Marseille

IMG_8425I love the world famous soap from Marseille. The authentic product is made from vegetable oils, mostly olive oil, and must contain 72 percent oil to be stamped as savon de Marseille.

Marseille and Provence have been associated with soap making since the 16th century. According to The Insiders Guide to the Most Beautiful Part of France, “in 1900, 60 percent of the population was involved in soap-making in some capacity and records from 1908 state that the city then had 81 factories producing 140,000 tons (308 million pounds) of soap a year.” That’s a tremendous amount of soap!

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Being crazy for color, I love to look at the colorful displays of soap found at every market in Marseille and Provence, but as far as washing up, I go for the natural miel et citron. With no artificial colors or dye. It smooths and nourishes and smells heavenly to boot…

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Vocabulaire

savon de Marseille: soap from Marseille

miel et citron: honey and lemon

 

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