Mailboxes across France are smelling a little better recently. Because last month, La Poste released a limited-edition of, yes, chocolate stamps—or des timbres au chocolat. When I saw them over at La Cuisine de Babeth, I raced over to my local branch of La Poste and asked to buy a sheet. When the woman behind the counter handed the sheet over, the smell of chocolate…
Aside from the massive safe in the Banque de France, probably the toughest place to get in to in France is the Ecole de Grand Chocolat Valrhona in the little town of Tain l’Hermitage. Admission to the professional cooking program I attended is by invitation only, and several times of the year, pastry chefs and chocolatiers from all over the world come to Valrhona to…
To those of you who’ve been writing and pleading to get into the laboratory of Jacques Genin, the most elusive chocolatier in Paris, the wait is over. After years of jumps and starts, he’s opened a boutique in Paris. So his dream is finally a reality—and what a dream it is!
There’s a misconception that the French don’t eat junk food. While it’s true that the drugstore shelves around here are lined with, of all things—drugs, there are some foods around that don’t quite fall into the high-fallutin’ AOC category elsewhere. It’s become commonplace to see teenagers swilling la Coca from plastic liter jugs on the sidewalks and it’s not unusual to see a Parisian toting…
If you want to see a normally unflappable Parisian go into a little bit of a crazed frenzy, you don’t need to watch their reaction to me mercilessly butcher their beautiful language. One just needs to utter a single word — cheesecake. As soon as I took the cream cheese out of the refrigerator this morning, my French other-half started circling the kitchen counter, to see what was…
Rochoux’s caramel-filled chocolate bar. At the shop, they advise you that after you’ve started it, to store it upright to prevent the caramel from running out. That is, of course, is based on the assumption that there’s going to be any left over in the first place. John-Charles Rochoux 16, rue d’Assas (6th) Tél: 01 42 84 29 45 (Map) Related link: John-Charles Rochoux; Parisian…
A while back it was cannelés. Those little eggy pastries baked with a cracky-crust, that everyone was going ga-ga over and just had to bring home the copper molds to make. (Hands up, folks. How many of you have ever used them?) Then everyone moved on to macarons, dainty little “sandwiches”, made from two crispy almond meringues, with a layer of buttercream or jam in…
Paris chocolatier… Michel Chaudun 149, rue de l’Université (map) 01 47 53 74 40 Michel Chaudun (in Japan)
[UPDATE: La Maison du Chocolat may have stopped making this particular chocolate.] At a recent tasting at La Maison du Chocolat, I sampled at least eight chocolates—not to mention passion fruit ganache, chocolat chaud, plus two of their newest summer flavors: melon and star anise. It was a lot to get through, let me tell you. I normally avoid any hot chocolate that’s offered in…
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