Does 2 + 2 Equal 4 or 22?

Happy Birthday to MYSELF - Some Mario Batali, What! - and "The Very French Bakery" in SeattleI'm 22 now. It is not as exciting as 21. Was 21 exciting? I worked last year. Right now I don't have a job. Because I'm a lazy-ass nobody. Ah well, at least there is cake.

What do yo want for your birthday? I was asked. My answer: Bourdain on DVD, Cake, lots of wine, and more cake. And I want to eat the whole cake by myself. And the wine too for that matter. No for serious mallory, you don't turn 22 every year. Well that's for damn sure. So, my dear old dad invited me out for lunch, and then like a good agent--i have many an agent propelling my career as executive food journalist--he led me to a French bakery at Pike Place Market, a bakery actually called "Le Panier: The Very French Bakery" should we be a little skeptic?...Just a little? We are pretentious snobs. But this is Seattle, so i'm hopeful. Let's investigate. On y va.

Le Panier is a "traditional French boulangerie" --do you not agree that the French probably are tired of hearing that--where could we find credentials. Upon entering one is thrown into a cute little bakery with an atmosphere wholly uuncommon to those in France, though on the other hand, after quickly glancing through the sugary scented glass, it must be noted that they did in fact stock the essentials. Pain au chocolat, croissants, financiers, palmiers, quiche, Madeleines, macaroons, meringues, and of course, le baguette held vertical in its stall behind the counter operators. Alright, so they had it all. So what. I don't feel like i'm in France. mallory--that is because you are not in France. So instead of so what we decide rather on so plenty: Le Panier is a perfect representation of what a parisian bakery is like. It is a bit of something good trying to show what else is out there--maybe one day a good-to-do Seattleite will watch a flaky skin slowly fall from his pain au chocolat to his knee, resting softly on his trouser, giving him the idea of do they taste like this in France? What else, I wonder, could they have as well? And the next day he is at the departures gate at Seatac on a direct to CDG. All of that from a French pastry shop? Yes, yes indeed. And it's right here in Seattle.

Le Panier was opened in 1983 on Pike Place and the corner of Stewart Street by a Frenchman and a University of Washington French studies graduate. The boulangerie has been serving hot baguettes year round ever since to not only the bubbling hot tourist crowd, but to old and new locals as well. The new line of multi-million dollar condos built just above the market on the hill gives the area a new "residential" crowd, so watch out tourists, you've got Seattleites to deal with now. Don't make them angry. You might either get a fish thrown at you, or perhaps a coffee burn. Stereotyping my own city into a Travel Chanel cliche? Why yes. Flying fish, coffee junkies, tree hugging sea people in Sperry Topsiders and North Face fleece? Alright alright, but there is one description i have heard that I am beginning to think is right--Seattle: obsession.

What does one find inside the shop? Surprisingly it was not overcrowded. Living in Paris one knows that the morning and evening baguette queue at nearly every corner boulangerie can oftentimes snake out the door and wind around the corner as if reenacting a 1940's rationing bread line. Today at Le Panier, the wait was not bad at all, the hot weather, of course, could well be a factor. Whereas Parisians can and do eat baguette everyday regardless of time of year; bakeries in the United States statistically are overwhelmingly more popular in the autumn and winter months. Seattleites--if the weather gets above 17 degrees (fine, 65F) then pull out the ice box, put on the bathing suits, it's summer time! Screw the bakery, we're getting ice cream and margaritas! Don't forget to put on the sunscreen.

Once inside, one finds seated around the room at the many available tables (what one would never find in a boulangerie in france) patrons sipping cappuccinos and oranginas straight out of the little round bottle. A busy staff in crisp blacks running to a fro behind the counter, restocking the tarts and crisps as they quickly disappear. On the whole the place is an A+ for a little France outside of France--but not France itself, that, is impossible. The prices--a little hefty i must say at $2.50 for a pain au chocolat, though, on the other hand, the $1 for the meringue, which yes, I once again have become the slave of, is a deal as its Parisian brother runs at the much higher 1euro. Chouette.

But what is it that makes it different besides it being in Seattle (obviously)? Well, there is the smell--where is it, what is it? All Patisseries and boulangeries in Paris have the smell; it permeates the sidewalk for meters, and hits you like a shot of liquor as you cross the threshold into one. It is the smell--is it flour? The mixture of sweets? Maybe just a different kind of four, any way, I have no idea what it is, but it is unique to the boulangeries of France. If I can smell the smell, no matter what where or how, if the smell is there, then France has finally been duped and cloned. Until then, we have Le Panier, a little piece of France, rather a little representation of the good things, and my friends, France, is the goods things.

A quick purchase of a baguette for my dad, and a meringue for myself, and we leave Le Panier to flaner a little around the market, ending at the flower stalls for the choosing of yes, the most beautiful bouquet in the market. I very much so love flowers. Have you caught on to that yet? Pike Place market is the mecca for beautiful fresh flowers. Wanna impress? Get a Pike Place bouquet.


It is awfully nice to see Seattle again; it truly is the emerald gem of the US. A quick day trip there and back--my Seattle stays the same, but now, now it looks just a bit smaller. But, they say, the smaller the cozier. After the bakery we returned home--where my family, and the myriad windows of which earlier I had graffitied with the phrase chouette awaited my return. My mom, after my brat-like answer of "cake and wine for dinner" planned her own menu of poulet cooked in wine and mushrooms (some call it coq au vin) along with a risotto and green salad. Awfully nice....but where are my presents!

The star of the evening--aside from the autographed Mario Batali "Italian Grill" book which my dad secured for me along with a photo of the man himself autographing the thing (thanks dad--c'est trop chouette) --was the three layer gf birthday cake of vanilla and chocolate with a raspberry butter cream, baked by mom and decorated by GR (Ryan, her name is Ryan, Ryan Noel, actually, would you like her social security number? her favorite color is green and she has a fear of velvet) beautiful, very beautiful. A decor of flowers, did I mention i love flowers? perhaps, I received many. Many alongside the mini-barbeque, chouette! It is for my new back yard--complete with grilling utensils, napkins, (wine) glasses, trays, and all that jazz. Let us see if Mario can teach us a few tricks.

Just glad it wasn't Bobby. No I jest--I'd grill with Bobby anytime, because im a slut for celebrity what can I say. Though the minute Bourdain arrives, I throw my 360 and it's all trash talk on you grill boy. Mario, you're safe though. You're safe. N'inquietez pas.

Twenty second birthday; why do I feel like a little kid still sticking my tongue out. Ah, n'importe de quoi, maybe I am. This means now that I really do need to start eating 22 haricots verts instead of 21.

Cake, famous chef autographs, cake, family, cake, my poulet, cake, wine, cake, and a little reminder that just because I am no longer in France, doesn't mean I cannot see, find, and create France around me. Thank you family, for the wonderful birthday, it is great to be back in my cidade; my cidade....for now.

à bientôt

The Family 4th--Je dise NON à l'Hamburger

It's as if I never left.

Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, and you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life--and travel--leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks--on your body and on your heart--are beautiful. Often though, they hurt...in the end, you're just happy you were there--with your eyes open--and lived to see it." -anthony bourdain

America, America, I stand on guard for thee! or is that the wrong song...I think that's Canada...ok so maybe I need a little practice getting back in, but I am getting much needed help already from Matt Lauer and Al Rocker as their voices assault my morning emails and milky teas. A tv free year indeed is quite blissful. My younger brother is taller than me. My youngest sister is quiet around me.Though the two dopes closest to me in age have managed to time capsule their personalities and maintain the same block headed-ness of which I love so much. Cheers GR and Kaitles, great to be back. By the way--i do find you both, very, very chouette none the less.

Let's get something straight here, I was informed, I don't want this whole summer to be about America bashing, you know the whole 'well in France we do it this way, in France this, in France that--our food is, yadda yadda,' if you don't like the cheese, then don't eat it. I stared, a few thoughts milling around in that confused vide space that is my head at the present moment, and all but replied, well tant pis. Get used to it, because darling this is me. Now, let's stop trying to take the France out of the girl, and instead let her put some France into this life. If not, something might fracture and crack.

July 4th, the Independence day of the United States. When I realized said day would fall but a few days following my return, I thought, what a slap in the Face. Welcome back to Americer! Have a hamburger, grab a sparkler, eat some yellow cheese, let's celebrate this great nation for ours! Yeah! God Bless America! Yes I am bitter, and no it is not because I hate America, or necessarily its image, I have much respect and gratitude for having been born in a free country, out of poverty and oppression, out of crime and toil. Any American is lucky, lucky compared to so many who live in nations around the world that cannot claim such rights that to us appear as the most basal and 'inalienable' but to many others appear as treats.

Every 4th of July I often ponder the same travesties of the state of no of our nation, but the state of the people in it. Is it actually funny and cute to see on the news the giggling Americans surveyed in street polls to "name the president on the nickel 5 cent coin"? Is it funny to hear the responses so blatantly painful and disrespectful to what this country is supposed to stand for? Is the image of a nation of idiots really what is wanted? It is not what I want; I may have been French for a year but I am still an American, and I will always be, even if only partly American, or perhaps someday again an American from afar, I will always be American, but never again, i feel, just American. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner.

That said, and perhaps sensitivity to such a subject held at a peak from a year in France, I wish to inform that I do not desire to reject America, no, I want to help America. How can I help America one may ask? Can I get its sticky fingers out of places it doesn't belong, pull its head out of its ass, and educate the throngs of the uneducated 'educated'? No, that is what we leave for Obama to do. Me? what I can do is bring a new view, a report, and say, "well the French do it this way, the Portuguese like this, in Germany they say, and in Brasil---here, let me show you." So slowly, and with many slaps in the face, with many rolling eyes, and with many rejections, we are going to infect each new place we inhabit. For now, it is America. So America, I'll show you how I would tweak it. On y va.

It is helpful, I will say, to have a non-classical american family, who feel little need to attend the street parades, buy the sparklers, sing the anthem, wave the mini flags, and purchase pounds of nearly inedible american beef products pounded into frozen circles ready to be adorned by a type of dairy bi-product some refer to as cheese. I find nothing endearing about a hamburger. Nothing. No matter how variant, fancy, "upscale"--call me a snob, call me unamerican. If I cared I wouldn't tell you. No, not here. But then again, are you surprised? I didn't think so. Like many holidays around here, we just like the decorations. It's all in the presentation.

The American 4th of July "back yard barbecue" usually consists of overcooked hamburgers and hot dogs smothered past saturation with the sticky sweet crap known as ketchup, more beer and soda products than is ever actually needed, a rainbow assortment of bagged chips, apple pies, cookies, perhaps some ice cream, lemonade, maybe a slice of watermelon here and a little carrot cube there--and always that red jello with a bit of coolwhip and a few blueberries for that adorable red white and blue touch. That is the american 4th of July we all know so well. But here, here we know that it is the visage of Thomas Jefferson on the shiny little nickel, and we know that shooting off some rockets in honor of our nation doesn't mean jack, here we have a 4th of July dinner the way we want to because we can; and we have our dinner, and are grateful for that.

No burgers--no. We eat fish. C'est vrai! Pan seared talapia, alongside a spring pea and almond salad. Some dessert? Excellent, let us bake. Lo and behold, there are no alternative flours in the house to be found. Well, now the baker has returned, but for now, a system D. Searching, we find an unwavering supply of tapioca pearls. This is a tapioca family. And there is a can of coconut milk--here we are then, a coconut and tapioca pudding, let me tell you a story of an easter in Paris my dear family. Let us jazz for a sauce though--blueberries, and creme de marrons, for i smuggled many cans and tubes into this country of mine. Vanilla sugar, and a dash of grand marnier, and we have, a delicious tapioca pudding treat to end the night.

Tonight I will not be watching fireworks. Tonight will be a few house calls from old friends, a few glasses of French wine (bien sur) perhaps, if i am lucky, a pink marshmallow roasted on a backyard deck fire, and of course, a salute to this country that gives me the freedom to question, disagree, scorn, leave, come back to, change, and leave again. With travel, with opening to cultures and allowing life to change, you create an irreversible affect, and these affects cannot be erased. There are never two lives, only just one, one made better with experience, with tastes, with people, with new flavors--you cannot leave yourself behind, so instead try to bring others with you. We can keep everyone, we just have to try, they will mix, people are not water and oil, culture may be different, but if we are all oil, then the difference is merely olive and canola, and perhaps, every now and then, a peanut.

Perhaps we can end the night by remembering that the French were the first friends of this baby nation, and though old and unlikely at present, there is hope. Hope I see that maybe soon our fridges will have that constant ripe and fermented smell of myriad cheeses fused together and forever melded into the plastic drawers and doors that the French, and the me, love, and will always love so much.

Happy Independence Day America

à bientôt

The Goodbye Cake

Apricot Carrot Cake Under the Eiffel Tower

Goodbye Paris. Goodbye for now.

I am leaving Paris; the city for which the word home has been tied to in my repertoire--on all of our travels, when it is time to go home, we go home to Paris. But now it is time to go home to another home, and leave Paris, my greatest travel, behind.

Is there a story in doing a "final wrap up" of a city like Paris?--no. I will not do it the disservice. I can, however, Say here, just a few words, an au revoir to my friends, all my wonderful friends who made life as a stranger all alone a wonderful one. My school mates, my children, my restaurant friends, my chef friends, and my best friend who has been in nearly every moment of paris with me until the end--i say thank you to you all. We all say au revoir together. But you will all come with me. I know this.


Recette:
cake ingredients: 1 cup tapioca flour ~ 3/4 cup white rice flour ~ 1/4 cup quinoa flour ~ 3 eggs ~ 1/2 tsp salt ~ 2 tsps baking soda ~ 1 tsp baking powder ~ 1 cup white sugar ~ 1/2 brown sugar ~ 1/2 cup oil ~ 3/4 cup milk ~ grated carrots (4~5) ~ chopped apricots ~ cinnamon ~ ginger ~ dessicated coconut ~ golden raisins ~ vanilla

method: in a large bowl sift flours, spices, baking soda, and baking powder. In another bowl whisk eggs, sugars, vanilla, oil, and milk. Combine. Add carrots, apricots, coconut, and raisins. Stir. Pour into floured cake pan of choice. Bake until done in a hot oven that seems sensible to you.

for the frosting i made the same coconut buttercream as i did for the anniversary cupcakes.

So, the only thing to be done is to bake a cake. I promised Flo, and as a child's memory never fails, to have a picnic under the Tour Eiffel with a carrot cake. She did not believe that vegetables could be found in such niceties, and she had the face to prove it. Though after the first bite, the face stayed true to feelings, and the smile did indeed appear, the true bakers all hope for. And I did indeed receive.

The adventures are not done--they just take on a different venue. We will still be here, I hope you will too.

Au revoir Paris! You have given us more than you could ever know, and hopefully someday we will be able to give back to you. But until then, we say just for now...

à bientôt

The Restaurant & The Sandwich Shop

Le Fournil de Versailles and Le Laurier
When, in the near future, you are standing on a long winding boulevard in Paris, eyes glued to the map searching for a real place to eat, elbows of passing cattle (tourists) jabbing into your sides, and restaurant hawkers assaulting you at every turn with their English language menus--take a breath, and stop fooling around! Pull out your Salty Cod Travel Guide jammed into the bottom of your Felix bag and get your arses to the best (biased yet correct) restaurant and sandwicherie in the big city of lights. If you do venture forth to Paris, and have the gall to visit neither of these establishments, we will first dub you the fool, and second disown you from our hearts and minds for a great deal of time. On y va.

There are places where we eat, then there are places where we eat. Any human with the ability to sit up and chew knows that while taste is the number one ingredient of a good dining experience, it is not the only one. Presentation and ambiance play crucial roles in determining whether a meal was good, great, or enlightening (if the food itself falls under the level of "good" then there is nothing a setting and scene can do to recoup their failure.) What then do you have when the food is not only undeniably fantastic, but the ambiance and setting are so friendly and welcoming it feels as if one is dining with family--well, you never have to fear the dreaded "eating alone," for your friends are already there.

Abdel, the master boulanger on the premises of Le Fournil de Versailles, runs a team of three others along with his wife who often appears alongside him at the baguette counter in the evening hours after her workday hours are complete. Le Fournil de Versailles, at first glance is just the seemingly "average" corner boulangerie and midday lunch hub for the nearby schools and local business workers, but on closer inspection and trial, one discovers this place to be truly owned and operated by the most genuinely friendly people one could ever expect to find on the planet. Why? Well, this is not a tourist district. The interior (and exterior) is nothing special, nothing glamorous, nothing to make you sigh "oh très jolie!" this is one of those situations where the lunch time line snaking out the door speaks for itself.

Le Fournil offers breakfast to dinner baguette service, baked fresh right there (you can see the ovens) along with the fare of any standard boulangerie; croissants, tarts, cookies, cakes, meringues, macaroons, etc. At lunch time, on the other side of the round-about counter is a lunch window full of crisp fresh baguette sandwiches, hot paninis, quiche, and salads available alongside a dessert and beverage for emporter (takeout) or sur place (seated at one of the tables, the window bar, or outside at one of the terrace tables). A good deal too--do not expect to pay more than 7euros for the whole meal. 7, yes that is what I said.

Me--I have been eating a salad for lunch at this corner shop 2 to 3, to sometimes 4 times a week. It is less than a minutes walk down the street from me, and a second home. If you are a friend of mine in Paris, you have eaten there. If you have visited me in Paris, you have eaten there. Even Flo and C, my little French children, have enjoyed a few lunches seated at the tables inside Fournil. Though it took a while to convince Abdel and the others that I wasn't the only person in the world who didn't eat wheat, and after many questionable looks and comments of "oh American diets" the usual slowly became "salut mallory my little flea (sounds better in French), what salad today, poulet ou thon?" The chicken and the tuna salad are my particular favorites, though ham and salmon are also available.

Nicoise olives, hardboiled eggs, cheese, and tomatoes have been my midday companions--though I never take the sauce--Abdel here is my secret I never would tell you: take it home, add 21 haricots verts, salt, balsalmic vinaigre, anise seeds, and two crushed bay leaves. That is what I do to your salads. Though they are darling on their own none the less. For dessert--who chould shed a tear over missing the apple crumble, pain au chocolat, and brownie when there is fromage blanc; a sour yogurt style cheese taken naturel, with strawberry jam, or a bit of creme de marrons. All that is then missing is the perrier.

Going to Fournil de Versailles? Tell them you have a very good friend who recommended you to them--then casually drop my name, and report back to me. Avoid 12h30 if you can--before noon and after 1h00 will give you more room to breath and more attention. French is always smiled upon if you try--but fear not here the use of your English, you will be welcomed and quite well understood. And don't cut and run afterwards, stick around for a cafe, and then perhaps a walk to the Roland Garros, or the Greenhouse of Auteuil, or perhaps the bois de boulogne. See what the southern 16th has to offer.

metro line 10 Eglise d'Auteul--take left metro exit and walk straight down rue Chardon Lagache, turn left at rue Jouvenet and continue straight until Ave de Versailles, it is on the corner. Or line 9 Exelmans--take boulevard Exelmans direction toward the Seine, turn left onto Ave de Versailles, and continue straight until 136 on the left hand side.

Din din time. Stay clear of the Champs Elysees, and get the hell out of montmartre. Where am I sending you? Where few tourists have gone before--but oh how they will have wished they had. The 14th--south of Montparnasse. Never thought you would make it south of that big boy did ya. Make your way down the charming, diverse, more "oh this is where normal people live" part of Paris to the little restaurant on the corner, Le Laurier. Laurier means bay leaf, and it is fitting, for this small restaurant of traditional French cuisine is so god-awfully gifted in the usage of spices and flavors that I can not imagine ever eating French style cooking without making a form of comparison in my mind. This place had the goods. You want French? You belong here. You want real waiters that don't wear berets and suspenders? You belong here. You want an ambiance and quiet charm fancy yet laid back and as French as it can get? You belong here.

As with Fournil de Versailles, I am a frequent visitor of Le Laurier; 1 to 2 times per week. As with Fournil, if you are a friend of mine in Paris you have either dined there or we became friends there. As with Fournil, the waiters and chefs have become some of my greatest friends in Paris, a Parisian family if you will, after hours as well. I grew to love the Laurier team-- weekend picnics and sunday night poker parties, the Parisian philosophy on food has taught me a great deal about food, and foods place in life and culture. Life is around the table, whether they are seated next to you or running around like mad men--if you don't eat with people you love and care about around, why bother eating at all.

I have had everything on the menu at least once. And it changes with the season. C'est vrai. Except many of the desserts. Those I have just observed. There are a few permanent residents of the menu--the classic gouts that never change; the tartar du boeuf which is in the end my favorite main plate, served with seasoned potatoes and a delicately dressed salad. The duck--always excellent. Fillet mignon, scallops with fois gras, steak, lamb, roasted chicken--and of course there is always the daily special. The salads are impeccable as well; the salad Laurier comprises of shrimp, mango, avocado, and a plethora of flavors and sauce all above a bed of fresh maché, there is the antipasta, and the smoked salmon salad which is moreover smoked salmon and sautéed potatoes accompanied by a few leaves of lettuce.

The entrees--fluffy and light terrine of blue cheese over a tomato red sauce, fois gras, mozzarela and tomato salad, tuna tartar, pumpkin soup with craw fish, and my particular favorite--pureed lentil soup with a creme sauce topped by a drizzle of raspberry syrup.

Desert--hands down the creme brulée is my recommendation, three small rounds of variant flavored cremes sometimes a chocolate, or a berry, or a nut, depending on the season--caramelized to that near blackish and crackling state of perfection. The nougat glacée, the rice pudding melded with a caramel sauce (a bit Portuguese do you not agree?) and of course there is the ever changing tare du jour.

Laurier is a bar à vin, and as such i have had much, much from its store. Glass, carafe, bottle--they boast an impressive stock, and it is there where I have indeed found my favorite flavor. The boys can also offer a classy aperitif if you desire--a cocktail bien sûr, and Antoine, I must say, mixes quite a nice caipirinha, a result from his joyous travels abroad. However, I will say, and I do boast this with pride, I was the first customer at Le Laurier, to ever ask for one--the virgin bottle of cachaça retrieved from the cellar and opened just for me. What can I say. Just, what can I say.

when to go? any day of the week except sunday, lunch or diner. Dinner after 8h00 is best, but remember there is no special on saturday. Metro line 13 Pernety, exit metro and walk straight forward down rue Pernety until the end, Le Laurier is on the left hand corner.

What is so outstandingly brilliant about these two places that I would send you trekking west and south all around the city just for a meal--what you ask. So what if you are friends with the baker and the waiters--so what, perhaps his bread is as good as any of the hundreds of others that line the Parisian streets, so what. Well, so plenty. These establishments are dear to me, I recommend them with a heart to do you good. When I return to Paris, I will eat no where else before I have sat down at these tables again. Getting there is half of the adventure, find the other pockets in the city, get out of the line at the Louvre, your photo at the Eiffel Tower is lovely, but that crepe you ate on the Champs was pre-cooked. What you will remember in ten years is the 3 hour meal you ate in a charming restaurant you went on a treasure hunt to find, surrounded by laughing locals, sleeping dogs, and friendly, charming, and high-on-life waiters. You will remember how you could not stop pouring the wine, and that though there were three courses, you felt satisfied but never full. You will remember the meal. Everyone remembers the meal. And by remembering the meal, you remember the people, and you remember Paris. I will miss my friends dearly, thank you for your friendship, we will meet again soon, ça, c'est sûr.

à bientôt