Ptipois

That indeed must be Le Roland-Garros, in the 16e arrondissement. 2 bis avenue Gordon-Bennett, métro Porte-d'Auteuil. But maybe the Cat in the Hat has another address in mind?

Cassoulet is an inland dish, so head westwards. The geographical zone of cassoulet includes Carcassonne, Castelnaudary, Toulouse (considered the capital cities) but actually concerns other towns like Albi, Montauban, Auch, Tarbes, etc. I have no particular place to recommend, suffice it to say that I've had very nice cassoulets in cafés, auberges and hôtel-restaurants without looking very hard. The less showy the place, the better. The overall quality will be good because cassoulet is taken seriously there. Focus on Castelnaudary, Carcassonne, Toulouse and Montauban. I have a soft spot for Castelnaudary. Ask where you can buy a real "cassole" to make the cassoulet and go get it directly from the potter.

There was a pudding in Aruba Natives called the Jumbo Rum Baba. When they tried to share it, The Gods couldn't bear it And sent forth the demon Humbaba.

I think turkey is insipid (except a well-roasted rôti the way my grandmother used to make ). Also, I have this personal thing with huge roasting birds — they make me feel like I'm eating some kind of dinosaur. I'd probably have enjoyed the idea at age 7, but now it's a bit too late. My upper limit in size is a good capon. I am also a bit suspicious of the common availabiility of turkey meat in France, and the relative rarity of free-range turkeys. I already loathe battery-raised chickens, so it's worse with larger birds (agh, battery-raised dinosaurs!) Sorry to be uttering my deep feelings so close to Thanksgiving. But I assure you it's only my personal taste. It is by no means a common view throughout France, or Europe in general. Just see how much turkey parts you can find in supermarkets and how much turkey steaks are grilled everyday for school lunches.

You can also spend a good deal of time in a place and still miss a few things. I think Menton is quite right. Saying that the French "tolerate" you is, honestly, a gross generalization.

To add up on John's excellent and concise reply: Issue #1: I seldom buy turkey but I think that at this time of year (for this is not a French holiday) you're not likely to get good prices on free-range turkey. You'll have to rely on organic markets like Raspail, Batignolles or Boulogne, or on specialty butchers like Le Coq Saint-Honoré, and they won't be cheap. Look out at street markets too. Free-range turkeys at affordable prices start popping up in supermarkets around Christmastime, not earlier. Idea ©Ptipois: rôtis de dindonneau (rolled-up turkey joints) available at Monoprix, Champion and the like are often satisfying. With that rather insipid bird that is turkey, it's all in the way you prepare them. Why not try something different this year and invent lovely Thanskgiving recipes out of that interesting, overlooked product? That is definitely what I'd do if I were celebrating Thanksgiving. Issue #2: try an ethnic neighborhood like Belleville, Barbès, North of gare du Nord and especially Château-Rouge, and sweet potatoes will be all over the place. In Château-Rouge you'll even get them of every different color possible: orange, purple, white. And cheap, too. But if you don't want to go that far there's always Monoprix, Champion, Casino, etc. They all carry sweet potatoes. Issue #3: I know that sounds repetitive but there's cranberry juice (allright, Ocean Spray) at my local Champion on boulevard Saint-Marcel. There should be some at any sizeable Monoprix too, not to mention Lafayette Gourmet et al. Also, around Thanksgiving, large vegetable stands and Cours des Halles at street markets do sometimes carry bags of imported fresh cranberries.

Exactly. I never fail to be amazed by reports like "We were disappointed by one restaurant, we had a few bad bottles, well what is this thing with France?" Relax, it's only a country.

I do agree that Charentes butter is perfect for pastry, because of its dense texture and purity. Echiré does have a distinctive taste, though mild. To eat raw, I much prefer the more flavorful butters of Brittany and Normandy. My favorite pineaus are made from red must, they are a bit more difficult to find. I like the pineaus of Oléron and Ré for their slightly iodated taste.

Cognac is part of the Saintonge region, belonging to a cluster of small provinces (Aunis, Angoumois, Saintonge) gathered under the two départements of Charente and Charente-Maritime, nestled between the provinces of Aquitaine (Bordelais), Périgord, Poitou and Vendée. Aunis and Saintonge-Angoumois used to be part of the greater duchy of Poitou (which included Vendée), hence very strong cultural, linguistic and culinary similarities with Poitou and Vendée. But not with the Loire valley, Southwest or Brittany, which are different regions altogether. France is a culturally diverse country, and pointing a compass on Cognac and expecting "influences" from remote regions (Bretagne, Loire, the Southwest) doesn't do it. It doesn't work that way. For cheeses, the great goat cheeses of Poitou come to mind, and Charentes produce some very creamy goat's milk or cow's milk cheeses on a semi-artisanal level (mottin charentais, and a camembert-like goat cheese that is very good). Charentes are also a butter country, though this activity is by no means traditional and was only started in the late 19th century to compensate for the loss of the vineyard after the phylloxera plague. Charentes butter (Echiré, Surgères, La Viette) is very dense, very clean, very pure, but not very tasty. Very different from the tastier butters of Normandy and Brittany, but it sure explains the quality of the pastry, for instance the galette charentaise (a flat and round shortbread), which has a brother in Poitou, the broyé poitevin, and another one in Vendée, .the galette vendéenne. Not being primarily a duck or goose region, it doesn't have a specialty of confits and foies gras, though those are produced there as they are produced in other regions of France. However the place thrives on pork products (white wine sausages eaten with oysters, gigouri which is a rustic pork stew, rillons which are large slow-roasted chunks of pork belly, etc.). Local people are also known for loving snails (cagouilles), in various preparations : boiled with spices and aromatics, stewed in a sauce, etc. Wines are not remarkable though the region, particularly Aunis and Saintonge, is covered with vineyards. The medium-quality wine yielded by those grapes is almost entirely used to make cognac and pineau (grape must fortified with cognac). Pineau is made in Aunis and Saintonge and as far as the islands (Ré, Oléron). To find good wines you have to look for coteaux-vendéens and fiefs-vendéens up North (good whites), and red wines from Poitou to the Northeast. Of course there's Bordeaux and Périgord to the South and Southeast. The great culinary glory of Aunis-Saintonge is its seafood, and of course oysters (Marennes-Oléron). Really no need to refer to Brittany, remote and unrelated. Waters are much colder in Brittany too so the species are different. Saintonge and Aunis coast are famous for céteaux (tiny Dover soles only available there), skates, shrimp (La Cotinière in Oléron is the first shrimp-fishing harbor in France), sea bass and meagre, Dover soles, Dublin bay prawns, mackerel and just every fish that is also caught off the Basque coast, owing to the mildness of the climate. They can be just grilled, cooked meunière with butter, or stewed with cognac, onions and tomatoes in the local fashion. Out of sheer curiosity you might want to take a look at this map (scroll down a bit, stop at "carde 2"). it is a cultural map of greater Poitou, including Vendée (unnamed, the portion to the North bordering the sea); Aunis (with La Rochelle and the island of Ré); Angoumois (Angoumaes, with Angoulème), and Saintonge (Séntunjhe, with Saintes, Royan and Oléron). The names are in Poitou dialect, a subdivision of langue d'oil (Northern French). Those regions have a mild climate, very sunny in the Summer, and are famous vacation places, especially near the sea. Their romanesque churches (11th-12th century) are celebrated and really lovely, and I advise that you visit a few of them: particularly Aulnay and Matha.

I ordered that pigeon too when I went there with John, and I was in heaven too. Best pigeon I ever had besides Laurent Pourcel's pigeon au cacao.

The basics of the menu, "landmark" dishes, and things like the cervelle de canut appetizer, were set up by Jean-François Piège, who is not from Lyon but from Valence. A foreigner.

That ile flottante was not (unless specified on the menu, which would surprise me) flavored with rose. The color comes from the ground pink pralines that are mixed into the meringue. The tarte is definitely Frédéric Robert's tarte aux pralines, and it is not rose-flavored either. It will taste of sugar and perhaps a bit of almond. If you expected rose, you certainly were disappointed. Those recipes were given by Alain Chapel to Frédéric Robert, who in turn gave them to the Ducasse house before leaving for Las Vegas. I agree with you about Aux Lyonnais, I think the food is not great, and overpriced. I've never had a good experience there. I've even had bad ones.

Wonderful report, Megan, especially about the Champagne region. Even in real life I've never seen so much of it. You grasped the atmosphere of that place beautifully.

In France, for a good forty years!

That is a real problem, Lucy. I tend not to buy ready-prepared dishes anyway, frozen or not, and I like Picard above all for the frozen raw materials (fish, vegetables, fruit). There again picking is necessary. Yet I believe that the Picard frozen dishes, for all their additional starch and sugar, are still better than the refrigerated, conservative-laden, chef-stamped yucks from the "rayon frais". Good prepared stuff from Picard include (IMO) the aligot, the desserts and pastries, breads, ice creams, escargots and other stuffed mollusks, salmon tartares... The small boudin créoles are great. That is already a lot to pick from.

"Pourriez-vous me l'emballer sous vide s'il vous plaît ?" "J'aimerais emporter ce fromage* emballé sous vide (s'il vous plaît)." *Ou : ce magret de canard, ce foie gras, ce saucisson, etc.

I went twice and was somewhat disappointed. Some of the starters looked, felt and tasted like they had been waiting hours to be served and there were hints of reheating and slight staleness on a few of them. One Mediterranean-style tian tasted exactly of overbaked and reheated pizza. Some taste and texture associations were sophisticated but pointless. The second meal was better than the first one, though, but assembling lots of tiny dishes in this manner is not choosing the easy way for a chef. Good points: the setting is beautiful and comfortable, the desserts are outstanding. "Go for dessert" is also my advice.

There is Au Petit Riche (great décor) on rue Le Peletier but I haven't been there for a long time. They specialize in vouvray and andouillette.

Found clotted cream, Devonshire cream and of course Jersey cream at the Grande Épicerie du Bon Marché the other day. They even have small cartons of sour cream and that's a real rarity in Paris.

Where have you stayed? There's plenty of Picard stores all over France, except in Corsica.

It has to be precised, for Americans — who are used to a much different culture of tipping than the French one — that tips in France are optional, and generally lower than in the US. A 15% for service is included in the restaurant prices. When you say "including tips", are you referring to that mandatory 15% or to the "extra" tips, which should legally not be included in your wages?

I'd love to help you here, but I have no precise idea. I will ask around. I don't know precisely what kind of salary one should expect when newly employed as a cook in a small Parisian restaurant but I know at least that would not be high. In a Parisian 2-star, I was told about the rivalry between the waiting staff and the kitchen staff because of strong disparities in salary (the waiting staff being substantially paid more than the kitchen staff, and that was described to me as a general rule). SMIC is currently (I think) of 8,27 euros per hour before social charges. That makes about 1150 euros on a monthly basis. That is the official minimum wage.

Thank you! My mom's family is from pays de Caux, so we were literally born in cream.

Exactly. A couple of rules when choosing prepackaged dishes in France: 1. Avoid the chef's hat at any rate; they're selling the chef, not the food. 2. Avoid refrigerated, prefer frozen, and Picard has really nice stuff, and no grinning chef on the package.

Welcome here, Vivelafrance.