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Andrew was up unusually early (5am!) on Thursday so he was able to sneak in a couple meals before I set out to the Latin Quarter to prepare a fancy meal of my own. La Cuisine Paris is a cooking school in central Paris, not far from Notre Dame, that specializes in cooking classes of all types and interest levels. My particular class, which was four solid hours of French food information, fun and goodness, started at one of the oldest Parisian neighborhood Markets in the city called Marche Maubert. Similar to a farmers market in the states, this market sets up on the busy sidewalks of a Latin Quarter district on Tuesdays Thursdays and Saturdays each week.
Our chef extraordinaire, Diana, met us there and we planned out a menu based on what we saw in season and picked up our goods at the frommageries, boucheries and fruit and vegetable stands. We would have been lost without our head chef as took care of all of the transactions with each vendor, ensuring we were getting the best deal. Had one of us Americans been left to do the task, who knows what we would be taking away. On that note, Diana was a humorous and fantastic guide from start to end. She shared with us a huge amount of relevant information so that we might have an ounce of confidence if we were to recreate any part of the day from the market trip, to the prep, to the plating of the food in the end.
Our group of 10 English speakers (from Seattle to DC) walked back to the cooking school to prepare the meal and learn some helpful cooking methods from Diana. Since we developed our meal based on the ingredients that were available, we didn't follow a strict recipe, instead she provided many rules of thumb and ratios to consider. (Someone who understands how I like to make food!)
The menu was delightful and we were happy to have a container of tasting spoons in range at all times so that we could "test" our creations as we worked. Unfortunately I'm not able to post pictures to the blog for some reason so it may be some time before I can show off our work.
Working backwards from dessert (there were two), we created a cherry clafloutis and a dark chocolate almost flourless cake with whipped cream and sesame caramel crunch. We had a simple green salad with our homemade dressing (not like American French dressing at all), a mayonnaise mousseline to accompany our white asparagus, and for our main we had pork tenderloin marinated in soy caramel sauce that was done perfectly. Of course there was a cheese course with a sampling of a hard, soft and goat cheese.
The company and food were amazing and I think I will even be able to recreate a few of these things once I'm back in my own kitchen.
Thanks Mark and Andrew for a fun afternoon. You will reap the benefits later. J
- comments
Aunt Sara Sounds great! Awesome gift, Mark!
Kathryn So much fun!!! :)
Mary Ellen Delish. Glad you had such a good time.