Kerry Beal

Lunch at Suculent Wonderful olives. Brandade. Shrimp ceviche - absolutely perfect. Bread with tomato. Grilled octopus with chickpeas. Steak tartare with roasted bone marrow. Two of these great sinks in the bathroom. On our travels we saw parrots eating the bread people throw for them and oranges that are windfalls. I've seen lots of gargoyles - but this was my first cowgoyle.

At the market this morning we saw some interesting things - this is a copper candy pan inside a chamber that keeps it hot for making praline nuts. If you look carefully you can see an alembic still on the left side of her display table. She sells essential oils and such. Cheesecakes. Tarts made with puff pastry. Chicherron. Orange rind covered in a nice dark chocolate - enjoying a piece right now. He also makes 'truffles' with chocolate, sugar and olive oil rolled in cocoa powder. Spreadable sausage. Paella will be happening later in the day. One of Jess's favourites, almond paste around dried fruit and rolled in roasted pine nuts. Hofman bakery - Jess got a flavoured croissant and I tried the Kouign aman. Nougat joint - the story of our lives today was to show up to shops that were closed, justing closing or not open yet. The lady in this one was not yet ready to receive customers and made no bones about it. So she returned later. Wookie Cookies. These little delights - no name for them but they are a nice crispy biscuit with almonds attached, dipped in dark chocolate. Kronuts! There was even a bit of a lineup just like the real thing. On the way to lunch we passed this Iberico ham seller. Managed to get a little taste of a nice soft, 2 year aged leg. A bar that sells some candy - to differentiate from a lot of other shops that sell pastry, chocolate and also sell liquor. Had to drop around to Oriol Balanguer's shop that sells chocolate - was quite facinated by his payment system. If you are paying cash - then you put the bills and coins in and it returns change to you. Guess it keeps the staff honest. Tried two chocolates - a sweet corn which tasted like peanut and might just have been but was rather nice - and an orange that didn't have much orange flavour and had an extremely thick bottom.

I have Alleguede's wife Jess with me - she speaks both french and spanish (not so much Catalan - but that's not causing a huge issue). She was raised in the south of France near the Spanish border and spent a lot of time in this area over the years. She has been the only reason I can get to all these places successfully - I would be totally lost here without her. In fact she is the one who determined all the places we needed to see - with input from her hubby who keeps sending along new suggestions. Well I'm not sure if they were supposed to - but I kept mine!

What looks like a white tablecloth is actually a piece of white leather so it cleans up well after. I picked the crawfish with my fingers, sucked every little bit of goodness out of them and completely covered my fingers with the onion and sherry sauce that they came buried in (which I also sucked off my fingers). Cleaning my hands meant that I completely fouled their white cloth napkin - so much so that I didn't want it back on my lap for dessert.

So tonight we are in Barcelona. We had thought to pop down to Aix en Provence after I discharged my students to explore a callison producer however that would have cost somewhere in the region of €1000 so we thought perhaps heading to Spain to check out torrone production might be more sensible. Vivanda. House made vermouth Pan con coca y tomate Crawfish for me Tuna tartar for Jess Tarte tatin Pannacotta with bitter orange marmalade

It was our great pleasure to have lunch with jmacnaughtan and his wife today at Les Climates - a burgundian restaurant. I had presumed upon James to take delivery for me of a large order of IBC Power Flowers which are concentrated colouring for chocolate. The food was fabulous, the wines excellent and the company stellar. Gougères and palmier as amuse bouche A nice Crémant The burgundy to accompany the main course Snails Dressed with their sauce Lamb, gnocchi with veg Sole for one diner After's were cheese plate or Rhubarb Couple of different Chartreuse - yellow and the VEP Mignardise

Yeah - won't be happy with the ones at home. Cake toppings have progressed indeed!

A more 'old fashioned' appearing store - but had a lovely pink peppercorn ganache that I was quite taken with. We have been invited back for a tour of the manufacturing area on Tuesday. More things seen in our wanderings this morning. What happens to all those poor legless frogs.

Breakfast provided by the hotel. I'm not going to be happy with the baguette when I get home I know!

Here are the eggs gifted to us by Edwin of Edwart. It was late while I was posting last night - apparently I reposted a picture of a shelf of books rather than this!

Lunch today - Foie on Pain d'Epice for me Cheese plate for Jess Sorbets for both Dinner was - Kir Royale for Jess, Campari and grapefruit for me. Moule frites for me Pasta with chicken for Jess Then we went and enjoyed tea and dessert at the Plaza Athenee. A bit posh - we stopped short of getting a selfie with the waiter who felt the necessity to explain where Ceylon was located.

Libraire Gourmande - source of all cookery books - this is some of the english language books. Looks like they've got just about everything covered cake topper wise. We saw this Pacojet wanna be at Mora - apparently it's been there a long time - price would be negotiable - but power is 220 unfortunately. Sugar sculptures at Deco Relief. Bumblebee made from two half spheres. Another visit to Edwart - the second of their three locations - this time we had the opportunity to meet Edwin the other owner. He makes the sculptures. I was very excited by the bonbons these guys are making. Heads and tails above the rest. We had a long chat - and he gifted us with a couple of his eggs left over from easter. Art outside a restaurant.

While I don't think it would be appropriate for me to share here all the info that the students learned at this course - I would like to show a few pictures of the ganache mixing method that Valrhona is now promoting. When you look at the recipes we were given - most actually describe the 'old' way of doing it (pouring the hot cream over the callets) - but all the ganaches were made using the new method this course. The claim is that you get a much more elastic ganache and that it will have better properties and a longer shelf life. As mentioned above I will test that when I get home. We have discussed this method before - link - and clearly it caused some differences of opinion. So essentially what is being done is to add the cream in about 5 additions - in the initial stages the cocoa butter separates from the mass and forms a shiny surface. Friction is applied to help allow the proteins in the chocolate to form the stretchy matrices that give the ganache it's flexibility. Friction can be applied in the form of elbow grease or using an immersion blender. Room temperature butter is added with an immersion blender when the ganache is sufficiently cool so that it's emulsion is not broken.

I hope to test the theory that the weird mixing method of ganache being promoted by Valrhona actually reduces the water activity of the product.

Dinner this evening - again at Cafe Mucha. Needed a bit of wine tonight. Scallops for me. Soup and salad for Mary Grace. Bread - but of course! Cake with creme anglaise.

Another Patric Roger store with sculptures made from the original chocolate models. Sadly pictures of the front of these elephants didn't turn out well - so elephant asses are all you get!

Ok - had about 50 pictures up here - answered a PM - 50 pictures gone. WIll upload in smaller chunks. So on our return to Paris - we went in two vans - to the antlier of Alan Ducasse and to the production facility of Jacque Genin Two pictures taken to make John DePaula nostalgic.

I'm back! Will post more later tonight - but now just happy to be in contact again.

Ah - well it's feasting days and fasting days (not totally fasting) - it's hard to do the fasting days in France! I'm not a coffee drinker - but I do drink gallons of tea in a day. So it's challenging to change from my orange pekoe to something like Rooibus. You are allowed caffeine between 3 and 5 pm - but invariably I'm not near my tea pot at that time and feel deprived.

Yup - I've done it about 3 times now - gone are the days of barfing in the bidet at 3am with a nasty headache. I was fine the day of arrival and woke up the next morning still fine. I'm going to endeavour to do it again for the return flight - I've had problems sticking to that before - but I suspect the short term pain will result in long term gain in the westerly direction as well.

Found a little spot called Cafe Mucha a little way up the street. A negroni Lamb chops with green beans Creme Brûlée

Walking home from the big tower in the middle of the city - we decided to stop for a bit of lunch before Jess caught her train to Burgundy. Half bottle of nice Provencal rose. Can't help picturing all those frogs in wheelchairs now. Can't eat without bread! Steak frite.

Thought you might enjoy a peak outside my hotel window. The packaging at this chocolatier was very impressive I thought. Like postcards really. Next we were off to La Grande Epicerie de Paris. Kitchen aid has two new competitors - the first similar to a thermomix - but without a built in scale. The other can actually go on the kitchen aid mixer and give you a bain marie while you mix that will heat between 40 C and 140 C I believe. A random candy shop - reminded me of the candy shops in Provence. This a a cheese monger - the owner is a MOF - many very lovely cheeses. Asked how much I wanted - I asked for a couple of hundred grams - wrong answer apparently from the distain on the face of the clerk. That's ok - I have my wafer thin piece of cheese. Foolishly I thought he might cut it across instead. Ah well - live and learn. Obligatory shot of that big tower in the middle of the city.

Interesting - I remember looking for US Benefibre in the past (likely for the same reason) and finding only flavoured varieties.

Love a bit of curry powder in my yellow split pea soup.