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Happy Macaron Day


Fat Guy

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Today we observed the Jewish holiday of Purim, an ancient tradition that this year happened on the same day as a relatively new holiday: Macaron Day.

Invented in 2005 in Paris by Pierre Herme and introduced to New York in 2010 by Francois Payard, Macaron Day is a celebration of that most delicious confection. I've occasionally thought of fabricating a holiday, but I've never had so worthy a justification as the love of macarons. I learned about the holiday last week when I was walking on Houston Street and saw a sign about it in the window of Payard's downtown shop.

I'm not sure how they observe Macaron Day in Paris, but in New York City several bakeries cooperated in a Macaron Day promotion wherein you could get a free macaron by mentioning Macaron Day. Normally for this sort of thing I'll clear my calendar and plot out a driving route, however today being Purim we already had a driving route laid in for delivery of Mishloach Manot. You see, there is a Purim tradition of giving gifts of food. My wife and son have been working all week to produce platters of baked goods for our friends, family and colleagues. The tradition is to deliver these platters on the day of Purim.

So the challenge became figuring out which bakeries we could hit along our Purim-food-distribution route. The human brain was barely adequate for this task, but we made it work. Complexity was enhanced by a late-morning time window: we had to be at a birthday party by 12:30, and we couldn't get started until about 10 because our son, PJ, was working on an art project involving the cardboard cores of paper-towel rolls. Unfortunately, two of the places we really wanted to go -- Bouchon Bakery and La Maison du Chocolat -- don't open on Sunday until 11:30am and noon respectively.

Our first stop (our first macaron stop, that is -- we had already made several Purim-delivery stops) was Butterfield Market on 78th Street and Lexington Avenue. I went in with PJ while my wife Ellen waited in our double-parked car. At Butterfield Market the setup was pretty elaborate. They had signage out on the sidewalk announcing Macaron Day. Inside, there was a standalone macaron station staffed by a woman who offered a choice of about six flavors. I chose pistachio and PJ chose cranberry. Then Ellen went in while we waited with the car. She also had pistachio.

We traveled up Madison Avenue toward more Purim stops and drove right past La Maison du Chocolat. Unfortunately there was still half an hour to go until the store's noon opening time, and Our schedle was tight: we had to get all our Purim and Macaron Activities concluded in time to park near and attend PJ's friend's birthday party on Central Park West.

Georgia's on 89th Street and Broadway had no visible indication of being a Macaron Day participant, and indeed most of the hundred or so people eating at the cafe, waiting for tables, or making purchases from the bakery counter seemed blissfully unaware of the arrival of this important culinary holiday. PJ and I made our way through the crowd and said to the guy at the counter, "We're here for Macaron Day." He offered us a choice of flavors. I selected "oreo" and PJ had mango-passion. He repaired to a secret stash of macarons behind a structural support column and gave them to us wrapped in opaque white paper. Ellen then went in and got a chocolate one.

The last macaron stop we had time for was Jacques Torres on 73rd Street and Amsterdam Avenue. Here the setup was self-serve. There was a macaron-laden table at the back of the store and you were told to take one. I took two -- one for me and one for Ellen, both chocolate -- and PJ took a lemon one.

All the macarons we had were excellent, and while I'd like to be able to report differences I can't identify any based on the small tastes I had. I don't even know if each establishment was baking its own, or if they were produced centrally for multiple Macaron Day participants.

The birthday party ended early enough that we could have hit a couple more places. We gave PJ a choice between more macarons and ice cream at home, and he chose ice cream which, he emphasized, was not an expression of a belief ice cream is superior to macarons but was, rather, driven by a desire to get back to his art project.

http://www.macarondaynyc.com/index.html

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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One of the more popular items at receptions hosted by the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, where I work, are the beziki kawowe (coffee macarons) from Cafe Riviera at 830 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint. Even our colleagues from the Alliance Française can't resist them. They make other flavors as well (chocolate, pistachio, lemon, lime, passionfruit, etc.), but the coffee ones really stand out.

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