Felice

Perhaps they are relocating but they haven't said anything like that in any of their emails. Here is a bit from the email I received from the shop just today.... Nous fermons définitivement jeudi 14 décembre, mais serons ouverts ce dimanche 10 décembre de 14h à 19h. Passez prendre un dernier verre. Claude DELOFFRE et Marie MERSIER And here is the email they sent last week Bad News : FOOD fermera ses portes le 14 Décembre Good News : TOUS nos livres sont SOLDÉS à MOITIÉ prix ( à part les nouveautés ) Nous serons ouverts les Dimanche 3 et 10 Décembre de 14H à 19H

Every year on the last evening of the Fooding festival, a panal of food critics chooses the year's 'Fooding awards', which can be found on their website. This year's winners are..... Fooding 2006 du meilleur billot latino (best Latino ‘butcher block’) Unico Fooding 2006 de la meilleure table ex aequo (best table, tied) Le Chateaubriand Fooding 2006 de la meilleure table ex aequo (best table, tied) Sa Qua Na (Honfleur) Fooding 2006 du meilleur déjeuner (best lunch) Youpala Bistrot (Saint-Brieuc) Fooding 2006 du meilleur voir et être vu (best place to see and be seen) Hôtel Amour Fooding 2006 de la meilleure maison de campagne (best country restaurant) La Cour de Rémi (Bermicourt) Fooding d'honneur 2006 (Fooding award 2006) Le Transversal Fooding du mérite culinaire 2006 (2006 culinary achievement) Claude Colliot (L'Orénoc) Fooding 2006 de la meilleure rue (The 2006 Fooding for ‘the best street’) La rue Paul Bert 75011

I am a little biased when it comes to Chez Jean because I spent several Saturdays last year attending a cooking class they was offering . We were normally a small group and the Benoit Bordier, the chef, is adorable. Each class was based around a theme, with one week being shellfish, another game and when Christmas came around we made foie gras several ways. The classes were mostly demonstration but we did get to try a few things and then all sat down and ate each course paired with a glass of wine. Each class was only 40€ so it was a pretty great deal as well. They called me a few weeks ago for a make-up class we had missed in the spring but I don’t know if he is continuing this year.

Sadly Food, the charming bookstore in the upper Marais which specialises in food related books that Fresh A mentionned above, will be closing their doors on December 14. In the meantime they are selling most books at half price, excluding newly released books. They will be open both December 3 and 10 from 2pm-7pm.

I agree with Lucy that Strat's place which has recordings of native speakers seems to be the best. Strat's place pronounces 'Banyuls' with no s sound while Robin Garr's page clearly pronounces the S. I am assuming that the later in correct.

And if you don't feel like cooking there are several restaurants which have Thanksgiving dinner. I have an Amercian friend who works in the kitchen at Les Ormes and the chef is allowing her to do a complete Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday night. The menu is 49€ and includes an amuse bouche, pumpkin soufflé, turkey with oyster and cornbread stuffing, champagne-cranberry compote, whipped potatoes and gravy. Dessert will be pecan pie or tarte Tatin with homemade vanilla and pumpkin ice cream.

This Thursday's edition of Liberation will have the Fooding pull-out supplement.

It works for me, merci Fresh A !

It's a shame really that Beaujolais nouveau has given the whole of Beaujolais a bad reputation. Beaujolais and Beaujolais nouveau are very differnent wines. Try something from one of the AOC regions like Chénas, Morgon, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Moulin à Vent, Brouilly. I love Foillard's Cote du Py Morgon or Christian Bernard's wines from Fleurie. Eric Janin, Marcel LaPierre and Thivin are others.

While wandering through the eG wine forums I found this thread that discusses Burgundy Need advice on French Burgundy

Nathalie, I have to say that I really enjoyed your book and have even gone back and re-read a few of the chapters. I’ve been trying to learn more about wine, specifically French wine, and have read books like French Wines for Dummies and Andrew Jefford’s The New France. Recently a friend gave me your book as a gift and I quickly devoured the entire thing. I can honestly say that reading your ‘stories’ about wine rather than just the straight facts about terroir and how wine is made has made things sink in for me a lot more. I walked away really feeling like my knowledge had increased and it was a facinating read as well. So merci beaucoup for a wonderful book. Will you be launching the book in Paris as well?

I will dine at the Celadon for my arrival night..just for the convenience...I have made a list of breakfast places for some morning variety that are in the area. For restaurants I have taken from recent lists and from good friend, Laidback ,who has just returned. So far this is what I am looking at: Le Comptoir Les Papilles La Ferrandaise Aux Lyonnais Maison du Jardin Dominique Bouquet Violon d'Ingres (always, good friends) No biggies on my list this time...I have done many of them previously. A mixture of the above for lunch or dinner. I am open for suggestions, additions and deletions. Joan Grace ← That's pretty close to my list except I'd do Ze rather than Comptoir but that's me. ← hmmm, I'm going to disagree with John and say if you can get in, I would do Le Comptoir. I've been twice for dinner and numerous times for lunch and loved it, however dinner reservations are, not surprisingly, hard to come by. I'd add L'Ami Jean to the list.

Grace can you give us an idea of what sort of places you are looking for? It might be helpful if you posted a list of the restaurants you are considering and then people can chime in with feedback.

It has long been my contention that there shouldn't BE a wine on any restaurant's list that doesn't have some particular merit or interest ← Fully agree. At the end of the day - no matter the price point - every bottle, every food offering, should be valuable: price paid was worth it, given the experience. ← Just wanted to say I agree as well and this is the reason that I only buy from wine shops where I trust their opinion. There is a shop that I go to quite frequently and I know that even if I buy his least expensive wine it will be good because the owner has handpicked and tasted every bottle. He just doesn't sell something he considers to be poorly made, so even his 3€ bottle of wine is an acceptable every day drinking wine.

Issue #1: I guess you could try a capon, but I dont know if it is less expensive than a turkey. I recently called a butcher that specializes in poultry and I think his turkeys were 6€ a kilo, does that sound right? Issue #2: I would imagine that you could find sweet potatoes at the marché Aligre and it shouldn' be that expensive, have you tried? My market in the 20th at Place de la Reunion has them and I don't remember thinking they were very expensive. And there is an African market, but I can't remember where; Goutte d'Or maybe or La Chapelle, I will look if someone doesnt come up with it. Issue # 3: I have seen cranberry juice at many markets in Paris, keep looking. I think both my Champion and Monoprix have it.

Let me say thank you as well Dorie for taking the time to be with us this week, especially given your very busy schedule. I was wondering what it has been like for a woman, and an American one no less, to assert herself in the world of French cooking. Not an easy task I would imagine. What kind of challenges did you face being an American woman?

What lovely pictures, merci beaucoup!

Hmmm, well I am certainly no expert either, however from everything I know Burgundy is one of the most difficult appellations and has a reputation of having not only some of the most amazing wines you will ever drink, but also some pretty terrible ones. In Jancis Robinson’s How to Taste she writes “If red Bordeaux is a reasonably reliable commodity, red burgundy can be infuriatingly variable…But when Burgundy is good, it is more thrilling than all but a handful of red wines from Bordeaux.” In The New France by Andrew Jefford he writes that unfortunately “much red burgundy remains, even today, of insultingly low quality: raw, thin, inarticulate” this is not to say that he dismisses burgundy wines, quite the contrary, but admits that there are poor wines out there. I think this is one of the difficulties with French wines, you have to do your homework and it’s complicated. But, it is also what makes French wine so exciting. You can really taste the difference between a wine made with the same grapes, by the same wine maker, but just a different part of the vineyard. It’s the winemakers job to bring out the terroir in the wine which is why French wines are labelled by region and not grape variety, the terroir is what makes each wine unique and the wine makers responsibility is to bring out that uniqueness. Maybe the difference is that many New World wines are being produced for a mass market and therefore are made for consistency and big fruit flavours. Since they can blend their grapes, they have more room to play around and therefore are more consumer friendly. In France if a wine has an AOC they can’t blend, they can’t cheat and have to work with what nature has given them—the land, the weather and the grapes—so it is more difficult. To say however that the French wine industry is smoke and mirror though, to me, is simply not true. I have met many wine makers at tastings since living here and the good ones are passionate about what they do and are not making wine for profits, they are making it because this is what they love to do. Are there people in France who insist that French wine is better just because it is French and rest on its laurels? Of course. But one or two bad bottles of wine is not an indication of the entire industry. I think your friends had bad luck. They probably went to some touristy parts of each area, were sold bad quality wine at high prices and naturally left with a bad taste in their mouth. It’s a shame, but in one of the most visited places on earth, it’s bound to happen.

In case you missed it, I thought readers in the French forum might be interested in reading Craig Camp's article on French wine in the Daily Gullet this week. It can can be found on the eG Society home page. Kissing the Frogs, Yet Another French Paradox

I think if you had one of the ten beaujolais crus like those from Morgon, Chiroubles, Chénas etc you might change your mind. I recently went to a beaujolais tasting and tasted some pretty amazing wines, however I dont know if you can find them in the US. I would asume that many French wines never make it to the US market. Look for Christian Bernard, La Chaponne, Jean Foillard, Janin, Marcel Lapierre, Thivin. The key is to find a wine store that you trust. Of course there is crappy French wine out there, but I go to a small shop where I know they really care about wine and I can find great everyday drinking wines for less than 10€. And thanks Craig for a great piece!

It sounds like you have a pretty great list so far, however I would add in a bistro as well. Places I would highly recommend are: L'Ami Jean, Chez Michel, La Regalade, and Le Troquet amongst others.

I was lucky enough to have dinner with Laidback and his charming wife on Friday at Sensing and the service was the only thing that was lacking. Not that it was terrible per se, just not great. Actually we were served by several different people, most of them quite charming but our main waiter was aloof on the verge of cold (Laidback was being very generous saying he doesn’t need sucking up to ). Having worked in many restaurants I normally don’t have a problem with service and am more than understanding when things don’t go well, but our server just didn’t seem very comfortable nor very happy in his job really. He definitely didn't seem like a stagaire though. Our food runner was quite charming however, taking a minute to explain everything he brought out and another woman who served us periodically was also quite nice, so half of the service was good. It left me thinking that to have a truly amazing experience, the service really needs to be good as well.

Megan, I'm glad to hear that you liked Au Vieux Chene. I went sometime last year after reading that it got Pudlo's distinction of best 'rapport/quality prix' (quality for price) but I was disappointed and never went back. I'm sure it was just an off night then which certainly happens.

Yes, thanks Megan for such an amazing report. Were you able to visit any of the villages that surround Strasbourg along the wine route? The whole area is full of charming, beautiful little villages, so beautiful that they seemed unreal to me. And the food is so different. That's the beauty of France, each region is distinct with its own cuisine and specialities. Paris is wonderful, but the French countryside can be breathtaking. I am so glad you are sharing this with everyone. I'm looking forward to hearing about your Paris experiences

Thank you John, for the very wise advice.