The McTaste Test…

D has long been talking about doing a little blind taste test with macarons…I thought it was mainly just an excuse to eat a few different flavours of these Parisian gems, but he was really keen to pit popular brands vs. the elusive McCafe versions.  As it is our final week in Paris, this was our last chance.

Who did we purchase from:

McDonald’s – the underdog (0,90 euros/piece)

Pierre Herme – the king of the macaron (a whopping 1,95 euros/piece)

Hugo & Victor – the new(est) guy on the block as far as haute patisseries go (1,70 euros/piece)

Flavours: well, we started off with basic vanilla and chocolate from McDo figuring that was a safe bet and then found that Herme only sold chocolate this time of year, how crazy is that?!

The method:  I cut the macarons into small pieces, D turned away as I handed to him to test and then it was my turn.  Pretty simple except that a little lady was loosing it because all she wanted to do was eat every crumb on the plate!

The results: As we didn’t have a vanilla from Herme to compare, it’s not safe to say who has the best all-round of the three.  The elusive king of the macaron here in Paris did come on top with the chocolate with a surprise 2nd place finish by McDo.  The vanilla McMacaron did pale in comparison to Hugo & Victor in texture and more importantly flavour.

Did we solve the on-going macaron battle?  No.  There are soooooo many to choose from here, I don’t know how one would ever be able to decide on their favourite.  We did have fun though and were a little surprised by the results.  I think it’s safe to say that you get what you pay for but for those of you who aren’t pastry snobs (like we seem to be lately), the McMacaron may very well suit your fancy!

Photo Friday

Today was AK’s last day at her crèche (day care). It was sad to leave as she really enjoys it, and while she only knows how to say a few French words, she understands most of what she’s told which is pretty impressive for only two months. It was also the last day for her favorite teacher, so they had two parties to celebrate. We also had a quick McDo celebration with a small fry and ketchup on the way home…

Tags: AK, crèche, day care, last day, Paris

Wino Wednesday – Grand Finale Edition

Well, all good things must come to an end as they say….  This will be our final Wino Wednesday, why you ask? Well, we are leaving Paris after an exciting 5 months. While we had our apartment for another month, we wanted to travel, and when our landlady gave us the opportunity to leave without penalty, we jumped on it.

 

So where are we going?  Well, thanks to Easy Jet, we’ll be going to Morocco, Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, and Greece during February before meeting up with some family in March in Amsterdam.  How can we afford this?  All those flights (8 in total) cost less than Air Canada charged us to change our return tickets by two weeks.  Seriously don’t stay more than 6 months as Air Canada has a rule that basically means a ticket change costs about 75% of the value of a ticket.

 

What’s going to happen to the blog you ask? Well, while we won’t be writing lengthy posts filled with witty prose, we will be posting often throughout our travels to share some thoughts and photos of the places we visit.

 

Whoops, almost forgot about the booze!  Well this was champagne, surprisingly these were screw tops (who knew you could do that with champagne?).  All three bottles cost about $3 total, and before you go calling Child Services on us, Aria’s was only a prop for the picture…

Tags: Wino Wednesday, champagne

AK’s Faves…Part Deux

And next is Les 400 Coups:

While they don’t have the best coffee, it is by far the most requested destination on her list.  There is something about ‘washing the dishes’ that keeps her wanting more.  If only that cleanliness attitude would stick around…

Le stage…c’est fini!

I survived!  The challenging internship at Cafe Pouchkine is over and wow, how it flew by.  It’s amazing to think that I have spent the last two months waking up at 4:30am and working harder than I ever have before…and now I’m done.  While I will not miss the early wake-up, I’m sure I will long to be back in a pastry kitchen very soon.

We have big plans for February, stayed tuned.  For now, I leave you with a picture of the pastry I spent 20 minutes everyday decorating…and eating the scraps after cutting into portions (oh, how I will miss the strudel).

(Source: Pâtisserie Café Pouchkine Paris)

Wino Wednesday – Roches Linieres

Running out of creative ways to photograph a bottle of wine, so this week, I went with slightly out of focus…  Anyhoo, last week’s white went over so well, I thought I’d try my luck at bottle number 2.  Wanted to get a Muscadet from Alsace (just like last week’s Riesling) but those were out of our budget range, so I went with a Roches – Linieres from the Loire Valley.

It was pretty good, fairly similar to last week but maybe not quite as sweet.  We picked it because it was the only Muscadet we could afford.  Next week, likely champagne… Why? Well you’ll have to comback then and see…

Tags: loire, muscadet, white, wine, Wino Wednesday

Les Galettes des Rois

A long standing tradition in France, the galette des rois are available everywhere in January…from the grocery stores to the high end patisseries, including my lastest haunt, Cafe Pouchkine.  The puff pastry/frangipane combo are widely available as it seems that everyone celebrates the Epiphany, not just Catholics.  As we have been creating endless galettes at work, I haven’t felt the need to indulge.  To be honest, I was sick of them long before the Epiphany!  But then I stopped by Veronique Mauclerc this afternoon and saw this…

She had both the usual puff pastry with almond filling and then this lovely chocolate and raspberry concoction.  I figured if we were going to try the ever-popular galette, it has to be this one.  What a perfectly unique and delicious take on the traditional holiday cake.  And now I’m left with the need to figure out that chocolate puff pastry…oh so many things to experiment with when we return to Canada!

Tags: puff pastry, galettes, patisseries, traditional holiday, veronique

Photo Friday

Les Soldes! A twice yearly sale event across all of France.  Each year there are two major sales events, one in July and one in January.  The one in July I assume is to fund the shop keeper’s vacations (since they shut down for all of August), while the one in January is likely to get rid of all the junk no one wanted to buy for Christmas…

 

The sales are of course highly regulated by the government (what isn’t in France?).  There are many rules that the shops have to abide by in order to make sure they are being fair to the customers.  One such rule is that price reduction listed on an item must be taken off the lowest price of that item over the last 30 days.  This prevents shops from simply marking things up a week before in order to “reduce” them during the sales.  Most shops seem to have sale signs in the windows and apparently everyone gets in on the bargain hunting in January.

Tags: January, Janvier, Paris, Photo Friday, sales, shops, soldes

Wino Wednesday – J. Riehl Riesling

White wine? Why not!  We’re usually pretty predictable with our choices of various kinds of red wine, but this week C thought we should let our hair down and go crazy with a white.  I was pretty sure we liked Riesling, and this was the only one at the grocery store, so that made it our pick (plus I had $10, and after buying yogurt, cheese, and bread, it’s all I could afford).

 

What was it like? good.  Ok seriously, it was nice wine, I think you would call it “sweet” and in all honesty it tasted a bit like flat champagne (that’s a compliment, although it certainly didn’t sound like one did it?).  It went well with C’s home made (in a toaster oven no less!) pizza, and we’ll maybe try another wine from the Alsace region next week.

Tags: riesling, white, wine, Wino Wednesday

Paris Planner 2012

In need of some organization in your life? Maybe a nice picture or two? With some of my many Paris photos, I’ve made a 2012 Daily Planner (Calendar).  It features pictures taken with my xpan, voigtlander rangefinder, Holga, and Sony Nex 3.  I wanted to stick with only film cameras, but the cover shot was just too good to omit.

There are 14 pictures including the cover, and the last 20 or so pages are lined for notes.  It’s 5×8″ or “pocket book” sized and is available on Blurb for only $9.95  Click Here to see the book and purchase if you are interested.

 

Tags: 2012, BW, calendar, day timer, Paris, photos, planner, pocket