Ratatouille-go round

Okay, so I'm on the Ratatouille band wagon-- this has got to be the cutest movie of the year, and certainly one of the best films about food ever-- No really, right up there with Babette's Feast and Like Water for Chocolate.

I love that in order to make the movie's kitchen so perfect, the animators spent SIX YEARS on "research"-- travelling to Guy Savoy, Taillevent, Tour d'Argent and of course the French Laundry.

"Oh we HAD to take cooking classes," one of them says.

I'm sure that four years into the process someone said, "Um.. yeah... I think I don't really remember how that truffled foie gras course looked at Taillevent. I think we need to do some more research..."

ANYway. Check out the QTVR of the animated kitchen on the official site. I'm counting six --SIX, mind you -- la Cornues. But Holy Moley, do they really have flames like that on the bottom?

I know, I know, I have an unhealthy obsession with La Cornues. Yeah. Well. Anyway. Enough about that.

Seriously though, the movie is a hoot, and for those of you who've missed the miles of ink on the celebrity chefs who've been involved, here's a link to an article from the NY Times, along with Thomas Keller's rendition of the titular dish.

One look at the parchment paper cover that they use for cooking the dish in the movie, and there can be no doubt about who it was that created THAT recipe!

Mrs. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour, whose blog offers an addictive look into life in the kitchen of Guy Savoy, also gave a peek into what it was like to go to the Parisian preview with Savoy himself.

Paris: Springtime and L'Ardoise Restaurant

Paris

April 15, 2006

Did you know that Jon Stewart does a global edition of the Daily show??

“Hola!” he says, as he kicks off a half hour of riffing about international news – riots in France mixed with bits I saw back in the US on Tom DeLay. I don’t care – I’ve missed my shot of Daily Show!

It’s actually been another jam packed day.

We rolled into the Gare d’Austerlitz at about nine this morning after an unimpressive journey on the Trenhotel from Barcelona
It’s not that the trip was unusually poor, it’s just that with all the buildup about the modern new Elipsos trains and how fantastic the dining car was, I was expecting just a bit more than the glorified airplane fare that they served. Certainly the first class cabin was no more elegant than the one that we had on the trip from Granada to Barcelona. In fact it was precisely the same.

To be honest, I enjoyed the trip from Vienna to Paris far more, even though it was supposedly on an older train. Austrian efficiency beats Spanish style there.

Nevertheless, we got into Paris and checked into the hotel with only a minimum of fussWe’re staying in the 6th near the Musee d’Orsay and we couldn’t resist going out immediately and wandering the city.

It’s much colder than I had planned for – in fact, not so different from the rains of San Francisco, say I, as I stuff paper towels in my wet shoes and hang up my soaked through socks.

Still, nothing really dims the pleasure of walking around Paris. It’s Easter weekend and we had planned to find most places closed for the holidays, but a fair number of them are still openMost importantly, the Maille mustard store was open, and I went in to get four jars of the special mustards (au cassis, au marc de Bourgogne, au frais, au cognac) as instructed by Eric

And then we swung by Angelina’s on the rue de Rivoli for a few morsels of chocolate.

But our fave part is going back to L’Ardoise, Pierre Jay’s little restaurant in the 1st (28 rue du Mont-Thabor) with an unbelievable 31 Euro prix fixe menu.



We got there a bit early to catch dinner before going to the Opera Bastille, and Jay came out of the kitchen since there was no one else there and kindly agreed to let us slip in without a reservation.







L’Ardoise’s thing is the slates with the menu handwritten on them. Most of the diners these days are Americans who’ve read about the restaurant in Bon Appetit or Gourmet – the waitstaff can be heard always translating the menu items -- but in the five years that we’ve been going there, the food has never been a disappointment. Still it does put a damper on the atmosphere when I hear from across the room an American voice demand, “Don’t you have anything else besides wine? We’ve been having wine for two weeks and I’m a little sick of it.”

Well, darling, are you in the wrong place.

Are we all that embarrassing? I hope not. I mean we did balk at the cow snouts and bull testicles in the Boqueria, it’s true, but for the most part we’ve tried not to have a closed mind about any of the food and I have to say, I think we’ve eaten pretty well. I might have had to avoid the gaze of the langoustines as I dug into my paella or mentally deferred any questions about “that white stuff” as I popped a pintxos into my mouth, but can it be that all of us Americans are so … so… hopeless?

Well, it’s too late to change my order to pigs feet now, and I did order my pigeon rare, so I’ll just have to stop thinking about it.

This time I went for the tuna tartare, which had diced zucchini and ginger along with some of his beautiful sauces. The colors on the photos can’t possibly do justice to the bright plate he sends out.



And for a main I had a pigeon roti, with most buttery delicious peas you can possibly imagine. Spring peas? French peas? Peas sent from the gods in return for a human sacrifice?

We washed it down with a very pleasant white wine from Saint Veran.

For a finishI had the cheese plate of course!

As we were one of the first to dine, everyone stared at our table as our server set down the assiette de fromage in front of me.

As I helped myself to a nice hunk of Brie de Meaux, I heard the woman at the next table say to her husband, “Well, I know what you’ll be having…”

The meal was MUCH better than the opera as it turned out, which was a bit of an overblown, over-hyped modern commission called "Adriana Mater." I’m still not prepared to enjoy the elevation of the story of the modern common hero or heroine to operatic status.

“Tsargo! Tsargo! Non! Non! Non!” she sings.

“Non! Non! Non!” sings the unseen chorus from behind the sides of the stage. I wonder if this is just the best gig for them – no need to suit up, put on wigs, makeup, stretch, hit marks. They just stand backstage someplace and sing, “Non! Non! Non!” and then probably go back to scanning the latest Paris Match.

I spend a lot of time wondering how that cool lighting effect is achieved and admiring the cavernous space of the Opera Bastille.

With an hour behind us, and an hour and a half in front of us, my Dad and I decide that we’d rather walk back in the rain than listen to any more Adriana.

I think it’s much nicer.

Graindorge's film on cheese production and some notes on Sainte- Maure de Touraine

So for those who are Pont l'Eveque fans -- and you know who you are -- I ran across this film of Graindorge's production. It focusses mainly on their Livarot, although I think their Pont l'Eveque is superior.

Graindorge Village Fromager film clip

While we were in France, we deemed the Du Plessis Pont to be mighty fine, though I'm sad to say, it seems unlikely we'll see it in the US.

In other news we had a nice conversation with a cheese guy (not our usual Cheesepusher friend) at Whole Foods, but we're still quite confused on the issue of Sainte-Maure de Touraine.

Often Sainte-Maure looks like this, but see that small stick in the middle? That's supposed to help hold it all together when it gets runny. RUNNY... We had a deliciously wonderfully super-rich and runny Sainte-Maure at L'Ardoise in Paris, but have never seen such a thing since.

Can it be repeated? We've asked lots of people about this, and some have told us that the cheese gets less runny as it ages, which runs counter to the usual intuition of older => riper => runnier. We sampled some at the Whole Foods counter -- although we ultimately purchased the Metronome you see below -- and it has some of the same tang, but, see, it was that lovely texture that made us so ecstatic that we almost cleared the whole thing from the cheese plate at L'Ardoise. That's what we're looking for... If we take that cheese home and do the hold in a drawer trick will it turn into a fabulous Dali-esque drooping, melting mass? Apparently not.

He tells us (as did the cheesemonger at Le Grand Epicerie on Rue Sevres) that the cheese dries out and gets harder. He also implies that we are NEVER going to get a young enough Sainte-Maure in the US to see goopiness. Awww...man.

So I guess it'll have to be, um..... back to Paris.

Gillot Camembert... mmmmm

Oh, the Camembert...

Okay, so back in the states, we had "camembert" -- a sort of semi tasty but a bit rubbery brie-like thing. Well, okay, maybe it was a bit headier than brie, but, eh. okay. It was better heated.

On the Air France flight over, we had the French President brand of Camembert. Okay, maybe a bit more flavorful, but, eh.

Then at L'Ardoise, Pierre Jay's fabulous little restaurant near the Tuileries, we had a stellar cheese course, with a wonderful Camembert that melted in the mouth.

But then, we drove out to Normandy and passed through the little town of St. Hilaire-de-Briouze. Really, it's not even a "little town" as the real little town is Briouze. St. Hilaire-de-Briouze isn't even on most maps and it seems to consist of the four houses on the outskirts of Briouze. Oh and the Maison Gillot laiterie, whence comes the artisanal Camembert that won the Concours Generale Agricole de Paris' gold medal.

Oh yum.

OH YUM.

You can buy it for 2.50 Euros in Briouze's equivalent of the local Safeway supermarket.

Not knowing what we had in our hands (silly us) we carried it all the way to Mont St Michel, planning on a little midnight snacking. Midnight found us in our hotel room with one plastic spoon between us, digging madly at the little round of the best damn cheese you ever put in your mouth. Oh, so good, you want to smear it all over yourself and lick it off.

Where can you get some, you ask? Well, here's the thing, we here in the States are not permitted to have real Camembert. Yes, the Department of Homeland security actually has a BUDGET to keep French raw-milk cheese from making it over the border. Explosive taste? Yes. Terrorist threat, hmmmm.... not so much.