Tag Archives: Poilane

school days in Paris

17 May

So far, we have visited Pôilane, the market, and eaten a fabulous lunch, and oops I forgot to mention the wine tasting at Le Dernièr Goutte, so a fair question to ask might be, “Did you actually cook in your cooking class?”  Well, yes, yes we did.  The delicious recipes celebrated the spring season and were a joy to make.  Each class member was assigned a dish for the day’s meal , one day it could be  the main course and the next day, maybe a starter or a dessert.  We all cooked together in the kitchen of Patricia’s school apartment in the 6th.

Monday morning began with a gift from Patricia, courtesy of Pôilane.  These edible rolls last forever, once they safely make the perilous journey home in  a suitcase.

This six-minute steamed salmon dish was finished was a luxurious shellfish cream sauce, then seasoned with truffle salt.  How divine!

These lovelies came together to create spring in a bowl. Fresh peas with mint and spring onions were warmed in a skillet with a bit of melted butter just before serving.  Everything tastes better with butter, non?

Not much to look at, but its flavor was amazing.  The guinea hens at my supermarket look nothing like this, probably because they come shrink-wrapped in white plastic.  Patricia’s sweet husband, Walter, gave us a lesson in preparing the bird for roasting, leaving me to think that shrink-wrap wasn’t so bad after all.

The remnants of our wine tasting made their way back to Patricia’s to join a lunch of poached turkey breast salad, sbrisolona/almond polenta cake, and sorbet au lait Lait Fermentè/buttermilk-honey sorbet.  All of the dishes were made in advance–good decision, good decision.

Bright in both color and flavor, this chilled cucumber and avocado soup was very refreshing.  I particularly enjoy serving this is the heat of a Texas summer.  No cooking required!

A petit pot de crème au chocolat au piment d’Esplette/chocolate custard with piment d’Esplette, a chili pepper harvested in the southwestern part of France.  The pepper imparted an unexpected spice to the chocolate, just enough to be interesting.

While not a class dish, this picture of a beautiful, delicious tart enjoyed outside at Les Deux Magots while watching Parisian life go by seemed worthy of inclusion in the story.

I had such a great time with my cooking classmates; we’re already talking about a reunion, maybe this time at Patricia’s place in Provence.  I can’t wait…

 

 

 

Yum, Poilâne bakery

9 May

Last spring, I was fortunate enough to attend a week-long cooking class in Paris hosted by Patricia Wells, a cookbook author, food critic, and long-time resident of Paris.  The week was filled with cooking, of course, as well as tours and tastings and the sweetest one by far was a tour of Poilâne bakery in Paris’s 6th arrondissement.  Begun in 1932 by Pierre Poilâne, the bakery slowly gathered a following among the area wine bars  after the war and, well, the rest is history.

Speaking of history, the wood-burning oven is more than 200 years old!  It burns 24/7 and is fired every two hours for 20 minutes.  The cost of wood is too high to allow for any other method.

Each loaf of sourdough is marked with an elegant P,  a brand that was created to distinguish Poilâne’s bread from the growing number of impostors’ designed to capitalize on the bakery’s successful style.  Each master baker makes his own tool, this one is essentially a razor blade embedded in a handle, nothing fancy and he doesn’t share.

All in a day’s work, oh that and all of the beautiful pastries that come next.  Because the loaves cook for about an hour, they go in first, followed by the whatever cooks for 45 minutes and so on.  He fills the oven back to front, and by the way, the oven reaches out under the street in front of the store.

Pierre’s son, Lionel, joined the business in the ’70s and among other things, worked with Salvadore Dali to create a room-full of furniture made entirely out of bread.  An edible copy of the original chandelier hangs in the shop today. Sorry, no picture of that one.  We were to busy enjoy cookies and coffee.

Note the ridiculously long-handled pizza peel.  He uses that first, then progresses through the shorter ones as the he fills the oven.  Joan, pictured in the white sweater, was a charming and informative guide/translator with the bakery.

I bought this pillow two years before I visited Poilâne just because I liked its design. Hey, it’s a Paris address.  Turns out, it features the bakery’s address.

 

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