From slashdot:

“Google has begun to scan the streets of Paris as part of its Street View service, but the company may be hindered from publishing them unedited. The reason? French privacy laws. Google may be forced to blur faces or use low-resolution versions of the photographs. The Embassy of France in the U.S. has a page devoted to French privacy laws, that says the laws are needed to ‘avoid infringing the individual’s right to privacy and right to his or her picture (photograph or drawing), both of them rights of personality.”

From the guardian:

“Britain’s assault on French cookery has been stepped up by a Yorkshire bakery which has started exporting lorry-loads of baguettes across the Channel.
Fosters of Barnsley has used a legal loophole to beat local boulangers to a contract supplying the narrow loaves to the whole of the French railway system.

The order follows a double whammy for North of England butchers who stole Grand Prix d’Excellence awards earlier this year at Europe’s biggest black pudding contest in France. The Real Lancashire Pudding company went on to take two gold medals in the usually French and Belgian-dominated tasting organised by the Compagnons de la Gastronomie Porcine.

The baguette triumph, which has earned Fosters managing director, John Foster, the French media title of “most hated man in France”, is down to the firm’s expertise in making long-life loaves.
French local law forbids the use of fat which is key to the long-life process, Foster said yesterday, but competitors from elsewhere in the European Union can sidestep the ban, under European legislation. Building on the “rolling stock” order, the Barnsley bakery is now challenging the brioche market in France, using the same method.

“Their own bakers could give them a good product, but it didn’t fit the railway’s needs,” said Foster. “In Yorkshire we’ve a tradition of giving customers what they want. They asked for baguettes which don’t go stale and we said yes, we can do you them. We’re shipping the stuff out by the wagon-load.”

Foster said he had been surprised by the “cheek” of the mismatch between French and EU law but recognised a good sales opportunity.”

The baguettes made by the boulangeries near my place are not that great, sadly. I know! I’m in France so… what the??! Anyway, I might try to make some myself. Luckily, Baker’s Banter (King Arthur Flour) recently posted a step-by-step, HOWTO make your own baguettes.

Baguettes Do Try this at Home

Leave it to outside-the-box thinking* French designer, Philippe Di Méo, to design tableware inspired by sex toys. The collection of erotic tableware called, Souper Fin (which is a play on words of “fine dining” and “super fine”), was designed in collaboration with renowned luxury companies Baccarat, Goyard, Cristofle and Orfèvrerie d’Anjou among others.




Souper Fin will be exhibited at L’Eclaireur (Paris) in July. Each item will be complemented with a specially created chef’s dish and recipe. (I guess so you know how to use some of the utensils!)

* Philippe Di Méo once designed perfumes based on sweat, tears and saliva.

Souper Fin

[via]

Tags: french, luxury, erotic, kinky, tableware, france, sex+toys, recipes, Philippe+Di+Méo, Reso

With all of the GMO (genetically modified organisms) laws being passed here and there and everywhere so the public never knows what they’re eating, gardening is becoming the new black. Why be left to wonder if you’re eating pesticides and other toxins when you can grow your own food. More and more people are turning to their own organic gardening so they know exactly what they are consuming. But what about city dwellers? Those fortunate enough to have a large basement are turning them into hydroponic artificially lit organic gardens. Apartment people have to turn to other methods. This is where resourcefulness and ingenuity come in.

French product designer, François Clerc, has come up with something so purely awesome: Graine de pot, a biodegradable, expandable garden pot that is great for urban gardening. How does it work? Plant your seeds, expand as necessary, watch your veggies, say tomatoes or courgettes or peppers, grow, enjoy them all summer and later in the fall throw all of it including the pot out into the compost. Hopefully, your city collects organic rubbish or you can just give it to a friend with a garden for compost.

Now if you can get your hands on non-GMO seeds, you’re in business - but that’s another matter.

[via]

From Michael Ruhlman:

“Eduardo Sousa, a farmer in the Extremadura region of Spain is, according to chef Dan Barber, raising geese that bear the best foie gras the chef’s tasted. The critical part of the story, though, is that Sousa does not force feed the geese. He apparently lets their inclination to gorge themselves, once required for migration, take care of the fattening and simply makes sure they have all they want—nuts, olives, etc., but no corn. This suggests of course that farmers who force feed their geese and ducks are simply controlling what the ducks would do naturally and that the folks who want to prohibit the production and sale of foie gras on the grounds of animal cruelty have one less leg to stand on.

I never thought they had any leg to stand on if they …”

Read the article

[via]

Tags: spain, best, foie+gras, food

Sadly, it happened. The last several years of SATC, CSI (aka in France Les Experts), and face it, all American shows - has shaken the reason out of Europeans. What am I talking about?

Take out coffee cups. You know, you see everyone with them. Everywhere. Those ridiculous disposable paper or worse, plastic cups with plastic lids. HATE those. Don’t we need to REDUCE our waste? Don’t we know that PLASTIC is evil and toxic? What is wrong with us? Are we stooooppid? Oui, je dirais.

We saw this poster on a cafe and felt sort of disgusted. I mean, these take away cups are for espresso so they are little disposable cups. Hello…maybe I shouldn’t be complaining since it’s not like a ventimongosize cup from Starbucks (which I HATE) but I can’t help it. An espresso in France, that’s like 3 TABLESPOONS of strong coffee right there in a teeny tiny cup with a handle through which you can’t even fit your fingers. It takes like 3.5 seconds to consume in a cafe. WHY do we need to have it to go?

Cute Chocolate Chick (that disappeared quick(ly))
Bernigaud
Chocolaterie/Pâtisserie
18, rue de la République
58170 Luzy (Burgundy) France
Tel: 03.86.30.04.70

What do you get when you take my preferred computer platform, Macintosh - and mix it up with Vietnamese cuisine, a postcard perfect medieval French village and friendly service? Answer: My new favorite restaurant/Mac store in Sarlat!

I’m not kidding. This is a Mac Store AND a Vietnamese restaurant; yes, all in the same place. (Not an official Apple store, but a reseller.) What could be a better combination?

The awesome collective power of Mac and Southeast Asian food beckoned us to give Ma Pomme Tao a try and now a mention because it was one of those awesome and unique finds when wandering around France. Actually, I probably wouldn’t have mentioned it if the food was bad, which it wasn’t. In fact, the food was exquisite.

Most of the restaurants in Sarlat cater to the tourist looking for regional specialties like cassoulet, confit de canard, foie gras and other heavy yet yummy dishes from the southwest, but the beauty of Ma Pomme Tao, is that if you are in Sarlat for more than a few days, once in a while you will need something different: say, a store that sells Macs and iPods, oh and meal-wise, something other than meat slowly cooked and drenched in goose fat. Ma Pomme Tao was the refreshing alternative and offers all that, even vegetarian dishes; what a concept! Seriously. Vegetarian dishes are hard to find here.

We couldn’t wrangle our entire party of 6 to the restaurant, so we had to order out. More points go to Ma Pomme Tao for having take out! Everything we ordered was really excellent even the xung-xa (jelly) desserts they offered us for free. (What we ate: Vegetarian nems, shrimp nems, bo-bun, beef lemon lemongrass salad, crispy noodles and vegetables, the luc-lac beef, 5 spice pork meatballs, beef sate skewers, shrimp wrapped around sugar cane.)

Highly recommended.

Ma Pomme Tao
37, avenue Thiers
24200 Sarlat-la-Canéda France
+33 5 53 59 71 88
*reservations are required*
email: tao-la-cantine@orange.fr (restaurant)
email: postmaster@ma-pomme-tao.com (store)

Related: hotels in sarlat

Just ignore my silly, rhyming title; I couldn’t resist.

There’s a cute boutique dedicated to our favorite French, Les Ch’ti (pronounced SHTEE) from the very north of France.

We were surprised while visiting the city of Périgueux (southwest France) when we saw this timely boutique, “La Ch’ti Boutic,” with all things Ch’ti. Since the Ch’tis are la tendance, this business-minded shtorekeeper shtepped up to the ch’plate to tempt his luck at Ch’ti Shtuff.

It’s filled with goodies like chuques (coffee candies filled with caramel), pardon bonbons sucrés au caramel (caramel candies), bière de Lens (beer from Lens), sac de charbon (sack of coal, which is actually candy), les bêtises de Cambrai (mints), spéculoos (gingerbread cookies) and more.

The boutique has only been in business for a few months, so I hope it lasts, even after all the Ch’ti madness had died down.

La Ch’ti Boutic
25, rue Limogeanne
24000 Périgueux France
Telephone: +33 5.53.03.22.59

Since our friends from the U.S. were visiting, we thought it would be fun to meet in Provence and go wine tasting. Some of France’s finest wines come from Chateauneuf du pape and everyone was up for that, so off we (three Americans and one French guy) went.

We stumbled upon a wine cellar that produced award-winning wine and received an informative presentation from the vintner, who spoke fluent English. We tasted 4 wines, and thought about buying a few bottles. They were excellent wines. While discussing what we would get amongst ourselves, the vintner blurts out that he expected we buy CASES of wine. He said something like, “Hey, I’m not a reseller, you know; I’m the producer.”

Me: “So!??”

Ok, I didn’t say that but wanted to. Yes, he’s the producer but he’s still selling it.

This, of course, made no sense anyway since he knew very well that Americans cannot take much wine back to the U.S. And because our friends just brought carry-on luggage, they wouldn’t be able to take any bottles at all with them. He began to annoy me with his greed. Still, we decided to buy ONE case (6 bottles): all the wines we sampled, including a gold medal awarded wine from 1999.

Things were rolling along and we paid our 104 euros ($159) for the six bottles until the vintner began filling the box with our order. He made sure we saw what he put in the case, then says, “and lastly, here’s the 1998 bottle.”

My sweetie says LOUDLY, “we bought the 1999 bottle, you know, the one that costs 26 euros (about $40). Not 1998.”

The guy tried to rip us off!

Anyway, I found that to be so rude, greedy and annoying, but ultimately pathetic. I mean, I could be recommending his little “domaine” right now but instead I simply can not.

How many Americans did he trick?

That just isn’t right.

Yes. If this isn’t THE reason to visit Avignon, I dunno what is. Alright, I do and there are gobs of fabulous things to do and see here but this cuppa hot chocolate at the Salon de Thé in La Mirande Hotel is amazing. It is so silk-chocolaty and heavenly that you can see heaven in its reflection.

Ok, that’s really the reflection of the sky. We were sitting outside in their beautiful garden patio.

I think I may have to say that this hot chocolate is MUCH better than the one at Angelina in Paris. GASP! There, I said it.

Of course, while the waiting staff at La Mirande is great, they might not be as colorful in personality as the staff at Angelina.

La Mirande
(Hotel, Salon de Thé, Cooking School, Award-winning Restaurant)
4, place de la Mirande
84000 Avignon France
Telephone: +33 4 90 14 20 20

Since last week’s early release of the new movie (Bienvenue chez les ch’tis) about the particular group of northern French people, Les Ch’tis  seem to be the new black in France even before its official opening yesterday. We went to the movies at Cité Europe in Calais (the north) where there are 12 movie theatres. Four were dedicated to Bienvenue chez les ch’tis. All four were sold out and jam packed so we went to see Cloverfield.

Anyway. On to pastries. The tarte au ch’uc / sugar tart, is a typical Ch’ti pastry and so is pronounced “tarte au ch’uc” (shuke). These are not very easy to find unless you’re in the north. We spotted them at a bakery in Amiens where we visited last Friday. It’s basically a pastry crust with no filling but with sugar on top, as far as I can tell, but very tasty. If you ever meet a Ch’ti, he’ll reminisce for days about them…in addition to another Ch’ti specialty: beer soup.

Related: French Pastries

This photo is from a “fancy” bakery’s window display in Wimereux, a dingy yet upscale beach town in the north of France - because cookies are starting to pop up here and there. It’s disorienting. Why? While these are cute, they aren’t necessarily enticing and who would choose cookies over French pastries…which RULE?

Not knocking cookies. It’s just that I can just make any ole cookie at home, and we are in France afterall and France has amazing pastries! Why buy a cookie when you can get a Paris Brest or Mille feuille or Tarte au n’importe quoi or Mousse au chocolat or lots of other mouth watering delicate pastries? Cookies, no matter how tasty, just seem so basic. I guess they’re la tendance / the trend - and trendy things seem better. But they aren’t. Necessarily.

Related: French Pastries 101

From news.com.au:

“FRENCH President Nicolas Sarkozy said he wants to see French cuisine listed as a world heritage item by the United Nations.

“Agriculture and the jobs which produce it every day are the source of our country’s gastronomic diversity. It is an essential element of our heritage,” Mr Sarkozy said at the opening of France’s huge annual agriculture show in Paris.

“That is why I want France to be the first country to apply to UNESCO for our gastronomic tradition to be recognised as a world heritage,” Mr Sarkozy said.

“We have the best gastronomy in the world,” he said.”

[source]

If you find yourself walking down rue Thiers in the heart of Boulogne-sur-mer (northern France) and don’t happen to see Philippe Olivier’s famous cheese shop, you will surely smell it. I’m not gonna lie: it stinks, and we were just there yesterday so imagine what summer smells like!

Philippe Olivier knows cheese and his family has been in business for 101 years, 4 generations of fromagers.

The list of awards they’ve won cannot fit on the longest scroll in France. it’s a true cheese lover’s paradise and a must visit when in the area.

We left with 10 pounds of cheese.

Philippe Olivier
30, Rue Adolphe Thiers
62200 Boulogne sur Mer, France
+33 3 21 31 94 74

Cheap cheap fish! Here’s an ad (from one of the hypermarches in France) for the fish called Pangas (also known as Pangasius, Vietnamese River Cobbler, Basa Fish and White Catfish). I took it as a reminder to alert you to the dangers of this weird fish. I learned about Pangas not long ago. It’s online here: Documentary all about Pangas.(in French)

Poisson ou poison?

Pangas, which are industrially farmed in Vietnam along the Mekong River, has only been recently introduced to the French market, but in a very short time, it’s gotten very popular in France. The French are slurping up Pangas like it’s their last meal of ramen. It’s dirt cheap, is sold de-boned and it has a mild flavor and texture; people compare it to cod and sole. But as tasty as some may find it, there lurks something immensely unsavory about it. I’m not saying there aren’t problems with other food like pork and other meats, I’m just making a point about this particular fish and hope it will serve as very important information for you and your future choices.

Here’s why I think it should be avoided like the plague:

1. Pangas are infested with high levels of poisons and bacteria. (arsenic, industrial effluents and toxic and hazardous by-products of the growing industrial sector, metal contaminants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), DDT and its metabolites (DDTs), chlordane-related compounds (CHLs), hexachlorocyclohexane isomers (HCHs), and hexachlorobenzene (HCB)). The Mekong River is one of the most polluted rivers on the planet and this is where pangas are farmed.A sidenote: our friend lab tests pangas and tells us to avoid eating them due to high amounts of contamination. They are still accepted by large markets and they still sell them to the general public knowing they are contaminated.

2. Pangas are packed frozen in contaminated river water. Ew.

3. Pangas are environmentally devastating, a most unsustainable food you could possibly eat - You know how you should “buy local” in order to create the least amount of environmental harm as possible? This is the very opposite end of that spectrum of sustainable consumerism. Pangas are raised in Vietnam. The food fed to Pangas comes from Peru (more on that below), their hormones (which are injected into the female Pangas) come from China. (More about that below) THEN, they are transported from Vietnam to France. That’s not just a giant carbon foot print, that’s a carbon continent of a foot print.

4. There’s nothing natural about Pangas - They’re fed dead fish remnants and bones, dried and ground into a flour, from South America, manioc (cassava) and residue from soy and grains. Obviously, this type of nourishment doesn’t even remotely resemble what they eat in a natural environment. But what it does resemble is the method of feeding mad cows (cows were fed cows, remember?) What they feed pangas is completely unregulated so there are most likely other harmful substances and hormones thrown into the mix. The pangas grow 4 times faster than in nature…so what is exactly in their food? You guess is as good as mine.

5. Pangas are Injected with PEE - Honestly, I don’t know how they figured this one out but they’ve discovered that if they inject female Pangas with hormones derived from the dehydrated urine of pregnant women, the female Pangas grow faster and produce their eggs faster (one Panga can lay approximately 500,000 eggs at one time). Essentially, they’re injecting fish with hormones (they come all of the way from a pharmaceutical company in China) to speed up the process of growth and reproduction. That just can’t be good. Ok, now some of you crazy ass people out there might not mind eating fish injected with dehydrated pee and if you don’t good for you, but just consider the rest of the reasons to NOT eat it.

6. You get what you pay for - and then some. Don’t be lured in by insanely cheap price of Pangas. Is it worth risking your health?

7. Buying Pangas supports unscrupulous, giant, greedy evil corporations that don’t care about the health and well-being of humans. They only are concerned about selling as many pangas as possible to unsuspecting consumers. These corporations only care about bottom line.

8. Pangas will make you sick - If (for reasons in #1 above) you don’t get immediately ill with vomiting, diarrhea and effects from severe food poisoning, congratulations, you have an iron stomach! But you’re still ingesting POISON not poisson.

Another note: due to the prodigious amount of availability of Pangas, be warned that it will surely end up in other foods: surimi (those pressed fish things), fish terrines, and probably in some pet foods. (Warn your dogs and cats!)

Watch this Report on Pangas

(Video excerpt from Capitale on M6, which aired about 3 months ago)

Links: Buying fish in France, Le Panga, nouvelle abération de la mondialisation ?, carnival of the green

From Reuters:

“Americans may eat it if they want, but the agriculture minister of France said on Thursday that if offered a dish of cloned meat, he’d have to say “non.”

Asked if he would eat cloned foods, Michel Barnier told a radio interviewer: “No. You ask me a direct question, I reply no. There is no question of it for now.”

“I think there are ethical problems and problems of social acceptability and we are not going to start copying the American model,” he said in the interview with RMC radio.

The agriculture chief of Europe’s biggest agricultural foods producer, and arguably the world’s most food-conscious country, was speaking after Europe’s food safety agency and the main U.S. health agency declared cloned food products safe to eat.

Confirmation this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that food from cloned animals and their offspring is as safe as other food means meat and milk from cloned offspring will enter the food supply before long.

Europe’s top food safety agency also declared this month that cloned food products are safe to eat but has yet to give the green light to marketing cloned food products to consumers.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has opened a consultation process with member states and industry until February 25 before giving its final opinion in May.

Barnier said France would push for a reformed agricultural policy across the bloc which would favor traditional methods of farming and would reject cloning.“

From AFP:

Snail’s egg caviar anyone? It may sound like a challenge to the taste buds, but the salty, pink-white delicacy could be gracing hundreds of French tables this Christmas.

Caviar and champagne are a byword for the festive season in France, while a dozen “escargots” — or snails — cooked in garlic and parsley butter and served in or out of their grey-brown spiralled shells, are a much-loved staple.

But a couple of snail farmers from Soissons, in the Picardie region northeast of Paris, found a way to roll two delicacies into one: their snail caviar, called “De Jaeger”, hit the shelves in October.

Dominique and Sylvie Pierru ditched their old jobs in 2004 — he as a construction worker, she running a fine food market stall — to set up their snail farm, and start work on a recipe for caviar.

The next three years were spent perfecting a way to harvest the eggs of their 50,000 gasteropods, reared on an open-air diet of herbs and cereals, and to tenderize them without altering the taste.

The result: small, cream-coloured pearls that burst on the palate to reveal what the producers describe as “subtle autumn flavours with woody notes.”

The Pierrus recommend serving the caviar on a…”

Continue

A couple of months ago, we spent about a week in the Lyon area and a bit farther south for work, and today, I am still digesting the meal we had down there.

One of our clients wanted to take us out to dinner, which always confuses me a little about our client relationships here in Europe. Aren’t WE supposed to be taking THEM out to dinner? Not complaining! We have the best clients - ever. Anyway, he picks us up at our hotel in downtown Lyon (they are NOT in the Old Town like they advertise) and off we go at bullet speed until we reach the tiny town, Collonges au Mont d’or, which is a couple of miles north outside of Lyon along the Saone River. We enter the parking lot and I gaze up at the brightly painted (pink, red, orange, yellow, green) building that looks vaguely familiar to me.

“I’ve seen this place before on TV.”

Then I see the larger than life painting of Paul Bocuse on the side of the building looking out from a painted balcony window, a veritable study on narcissistic exterior restaurant design (little did I know, that was just the tip of the iceberg.)

“Paul Bocuse! L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges!” (and I thought, doh! I didn’t bring my camera to take food photos for my blog, forgetting temporarily that it was a business meeting.) Paul Bocuse’s restaurant in Collonges au mont d’or was included in Restaurant Magazine’s Top 50 Best Restaurants in the World for 2007.

We’d recently watched a documentary about the life of Paul Bocuse on ARTE, and it became immediately crystal clear that the life of this Michelin starred chef, is a far cry from that of the ordinary French lifestyle - well, from the lives of mostly anyone anywhere.

“Did you know he has THREE wives??!”

Back to the restaurant.

We were brought into a salon for hors d’oeuvres (foie gras or smoked salmon on tiny square inch toasts) and drinks, and later escorted to our table.

Once seated, one could not miss the name, “Paul Bocuse” etched on…EVERYTHING. The napkin holders, the plates, the butter dish, the wine cooler, the walls. Paul Bocuse this. Paul Bocuse that. I get it. You are NOT to forget where you are. Period. I think his name is now indelibly tattooed on my eyeballs.

How was the food? The food was… pretty tasty. I don’t have photos of any of the dishes. Sorry. Needless to say we had little complaints (except the lobster cassolette was a slightly over salted. I’m sorry but is WAS.) from the aperitifs to the desserts (the house ice cream was great). Worth mentioning is the sea bass with lobster mousse baked in a puff pastry shell, which was excellent, as was the cheese cart supplied by La Fromagerie La Mère Richard. You must sample their famous Saint Marcellin cheese, which is to-die-for (to find cheeses from La Mère Richard, go to Les Halles market in downtown Lyon). The Bresse chicken cooked in a bladder with morille mushrooms wasn’t too shabby either. They bring the whole thing out and pop the bladder in front of you. Do you think it would not taste as good if it were NOT cooked in a pig’s bladder?

During our meal we thought we saw Paul Bocuse on the other side of the restaurant. The waiting staff, which by the way, is no short of extraordinary (some of the guys are pretty cute too), confirmed that he comes to the restaurant every day to eat and to make an appearance. Then, I saw this ginormous chef-apron-and-toque-clad man approach our table.

We all say in unison, “Good evening” to this culinary icon.

He just stood there and stared with a half smile. Then disappeared.

Squinting and in unison again, “Why didn’t he say anything?!”

“Were we supposed to say ‘Oui, chef!’ or something??!”

The other strange thing was that in our section of the restaurant, there were other tables but he only came to our table. Very odd, indeed.

Maybe….maybe it wasn’t really Paul Bocuse!! You know, the restaurant borrowed wax Paul Bocuse from Madame Tussauds and he rolled away on tracks…

Paul Bocuse Restaurant - L’Auberge du Pont de Collonges
40 Quai de la Plage
69660 Collonges au Mont d’Or France
Tél. : (33) 04 72 42 90 90
Website: Paul Bocuse

Note: The waiters gave me a menu to take home with me and if you want Paul Bocuse to sign it, you can ask him while he’s in the restaurant. Also, I went back to the restaurant on our way out of town to take some quick photos. I know. I’m such a nerd.

Sometimes it’s just cool to be different. In this case, French sculptor Etienne Meneau has designed a wine decanter that eerily mimicks blood-filled veins (or stick figures!) when filled with a fruity Merlot or cranberry juice, for that matter. Both Decanter N°2 and N°4 (with more veins) are made of borosilicate glass, which is better known as Pyrex.

They’re limited editions, priced at €2000 each.

Get one now

[via apartment therapy]

Every year about this time Pierre Hermé comes out with his very own limited edition designer Bûche de Noël, the infamous, notorious, luscious yuletide pièce de résistance Christmas log cake. Last year he’d teamed up with Swarovski and created a to-die for creamy white log with a crystal star as the finishing touch. They made only 180 cakes each costing 78 euros.

This year, he’s come up with something completely different: a Christmas log made with lady fingers with roasted almonds and marscapone topped with shavings of black truffles from the Périgord. OK. That could be interesting. Anyway, it goes for 245 euros /$361 (serves 8).

Order one?