Meeting the French- Gerard Mulot

On our last trip to France we spent an amazing morning visiting a working boulangerie and learning how baguettes and croissants were made. We all loved it so much that this year we did another visit organised by the same company, Meeting the French.

This time we went to the 13th to visit Gerard Mulot and discover how to make macarons and chocolates. But first we ventured into the shop and saw all manner of deliciousness.

This one really caught my eye, but was to remain untasted
Couer Frivole
Biscuit chocolat-amandes punche cacao,
mousse chocolat noir, chocolat au lait

Culinary competitions in France often involve sculptures as a way
of showing off techniques and mastery of many processes.

Meeting the French send a translator/guide to meet you, and accompany the tour, they are always friendly and engaging. After donning our rather attractive protective gear we were ushered into the production areas. First stop for our group was the chocolate room- it smelt so amazing in there!

We learnt about the three main chocolate producing areas

Samples of chocolate!
The first of many...

We learnt how to make molded chocolates pretty

Demonstrating how to cut chocolates with the "guitar"

The chocolate covering machine

Another chocolatier practising techniques for a sculpture
 for a competition later in the year

After our time in the chocolate room, we moved through to the macaron room. Macarons have taken the world by storm in recent years, but they taste even better in France. They are a delicious mix of egg white, powdered egg white, almond meal and flavourings. 

At Gerard Mulot they finish the mix by hand which
gives the chef a  better feel
of the texture and helps ensure a lump-free mix

The regular shells are piped out of a
computer controlled machine to ensure perfect size

While the large sizes need to be hand piped

They're cooked for 14 minutes in an oven on a rotating shelf

Our visit helped confirm my decision not to try making macarons at home myself. I know some people have success with them as home cooks, but it's daunting to see how the professionals cook them, and how they make them so perfect. They can adjust the oven temperature by a single degree to allow for changes in the weather or humidity. I'd rather eat beautiful professionally made macarons on the rare occasion that I get near them than have my likely dodgy home made versions. I'll stick to the more forgiving madeleines.

They were making Ananas Gingembre (Pineapple Ginger) when we visited

They make the flavours from lighter to darker on a given day. Any misshapen shells are discarded.

But there were trays of deliciousness everywhere

And the samples kept coming! 

We ended up sampling four macarons- Nougat, Vanilla, Passionfruit and the Pineapple Ginger.

Of course we needed to buy some more to take home

And check out an ice-cream

I wasn't all that familiar with Gerard Mulot before our tour but am definitely a fan. He has several shops in Paris (we ended up visiting three of them), and offers sweet and savoury creations. His macarons turned out to be Master Wickers favourites this trip. His pineapple ginger macaron was certainly one of my favourite macarons, and a flavour that I would never have ordered left to my own devices, so I was very pleased to try it. I'm sure we'll do another Meeting the French tour on our next visit to Paris.

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly meme now hosted by WestMetroMommy

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

My first Weekend Cooking post for some time.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

I wasn't really sure whether I had read this book before or not. It's such a very famous story in Australia of course, and there was that movie in the 70s so that I do have some memory of people wandering in the bush calling "Miranda, Miranda", but wasn't sure whether that notion had come from seeing the movie or reading the book. I do feel reasonably sure now that I hadn't read this rather sensational book before.

A group of girls at a boarding school in rural Victoria go for a picnic to Hanging Rock on Valentine's Day 1900, some never to return. Joan Lindsay toys with us from the very outset:

Whether Picnic at Hanging Rock is fact or fiction, my readers must decide for themselves.

Most of the book is actually the time after the picnic, after the disappearances. The rumours, the speculation, the gossip, the fallout from a single day. All written in a wonderful way, a beautiful Edwardian language, with a tremendous sense of humour and fun.

The boarders at Mrs Appleyard's College for Young Ladies had been up and scanning the bright unclouded sky since six o'clock and were now fluttering about in their holiday muslins like a flock of excited butterflies. 

A pasty-faced fourteen-year-old with the contours of an overstuffed bolster was standing a few feet away, staring up at the window of a room on the first floor.

I can certainly see why Picnic at Hanging Rock made it into the top 10 Aussie Books You Should Read Before You Die. It's a stonking good read. It's historical fiction, it's a mystery, it's a character study, it's incredibly descriptive. Often lyrical.

And there was God Himself in a red and blue glass window- a terrifying old man rather like his grandfather, the Earl of Haddingham, sitting on a cloud and interfering with everyone down below. Punishing the wicked, caring for the sparrows fallen from their nests in the park, keeping an eye on the Royal Family in their various palaces, saving- or allowing to be shipwrecked according to whim- 'Those In Peril On The Sea'... Finding and Saving, or allowing to perish, the lost schoolgirls on the Hanging Rock.

I will look forward to rereading this one. And watching the movie for the first time this century. I wonder why it isn't on tv terribly often? But first I'm going to search out the mysterious Chapter 18, the unpublished final chapter and read that too.

211/1001

Paris When it Sizzles

I had high hopes for Paris When it Sizzles. I enjoy Audrey Hepburn movies. She was so gorgeous, although I don't know that she was a particularly good actor. A few years ago I made the plan to watch all her movies, I started with Breakfast at Tiffany's, and last year I watched Funny Face (also largely set in Paris). I've watched My Fair Lady this year too, but don't think I got around to blogging about it. 

After our recent trip to Paris I thrilled the boys with my pick for Friday Night Movie Night last week when I picked Paris When It Sizzles. I didn't know anything about it, but Audrey looked cute on the cover, and there was the Eiffel Tower too. Sadly neither Audrey, even clad head to toe in Givenchy, and wearing Givenchy perfume, or the Parisian setting can save this awful film. A preposterous story, Audrey's character Gabrielle Simpson turns up at alcholic scriptwriter Richard Benson's (William Holden) hotel room to help him knock out a movie script in two days. 

Gabby arriving complete with birdcage
Picture source

They brainstorm a number of increasingly ridiculous ideas, which are acted out before our eyes. It's all too ridiculous, and only funny in a farcical way. It's silly. Really silly. Master Wicker actually enjoyed it well enough, and laughed in a different way to the nervous can this really be happening laughter of his parents. 

I wonder if Givenchy designed these too?
Picture source

Paris When It Sizzles is much more interesting to think about than to watch. A remake of a 1952 French film La Fete a Henriette/ Holiday for Henrietta. Wiki tells us that both Hepburn and Holden were forced by their studio to make the film as part of their contractual obligations. Complicating matters the main stars had had an affair while making Sabrina a full decade earlier. It wasn't just Richard Benson who was an alcoholic, William Holden was battling alcoholism during the filming. Miss Hepburn's perfume is credited (Givenchy natch). 

Actually the bird was one of my favourite characters. You need to know a modicum of French history to appreciate why the bird is called Richelieu, and get the jokes about cardinals. 

Picture source

We saw that portrait in London! It dominates a room at the National Gallery. There was a similar portrait in the Louvre too.

Paris When It Sizzles sadly doesn't. I can't recommend it at all. Watch Funny Face instead for a dose of Paris avec Audrey. 

Dreaming of France is a wonderful Monday meme from Paulita at
An Accidental Blog

Pub Signs of London

Recently I went to London for the first time. It was great. While London will never replace Paris in my heart, I did really enjoy being there, and seeing so many world famous sights and amazing things. One of the things I particularly enjoyed were the pub signs.

Even the signs for public houses convey such a sense of history. Next trip to London I must manage to actually visit a pub!

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly meme now hosted by WestMetroMommy

Wondrous Words Wednesday 7/8/13

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a fabulous weekly meme hosted by Bermuda Onion, where we share new (to us) words that we've encountered in our weekly reading.

Some fantastic wondrous words from my recent reading of the Australian classic, The Magic Pudding.

1. Sockdolager

'If punching parrots on the beak wasn't too painful for pleasure, I'd land you a sockdolager on the muzzle that'd lay you out till Christmas.'

i) A conclusive blow or remark.
ii) Something outstanding

2. Poltroon

'You're a poltroon,' shouted Bill.

A wretched coward.
An abject or contemptible coward.

Definitions from the free dictionary.

Busman's Holiday

Mr Wicker is a photographer. A pretty damn good one too. On our last trip to Europe in 2010 he took a big camera body and several lenses, and he took great photos, but it was big and heavy to lug around. This time he took his little Fuji X100 to simplify things. But the results were still big. Wherever we were.

Dom Tower, Utrecht

Versailles

London

Millenium Centre, Cardiff

Le Bon Marche, Paris

Place de la Concorde, Paris

Crowded House may have advised us to always take the weather with us, but as a photographer what you really need to take is the light.

Amsterdam

Hyde Park, London

Natural History Museum, London

Pont de la Concorde, Paris

Saturday Snapshot is a wonderful weekly meme now hosted by WestMetroMommy

Catching Fire

Holiday reading doesn't always go according to plan. Especially when a holiday is as Utterly Fabulous as my recent Paris based holiday. It has to be said that I actually did mostly Holidaying, and not all that much Holiday Reading.

Naturally I started early and planned much Paris-themed Holiday Reading. I'd done quite a bit of pre-reading, most of which I haven't blogged, but some of which I have. Paris to the Past. Joan of Arc. Into a Paris Quartier. Pearlie in Paris.

I was in the midst of reading Nicholas when I left, so took that with me expecting to finish it on the plane heading to Europe. Instead I watched French movies and didn't sleep. I did read the delightful The Rosie Project along the way though. Perfect.

I did eventually finish Nicholas, and was then planning to dip into the rather large but beautiful hardback version of Les Miserables that I had bought specifically, and then lugged halfway around the world. But as is often the way I didn't feel like it by that stage, so instead I borrowed Catching Fire from Master Wicker and delved into that instead. It seemed more plane reading material.

I had read The Hunger Games last year, and quite surprised myself by really loving it. I saw the movie when it came out too, and enjoyed that, but not so much as the book. Last year Master Wicker was too young for his mean mother to let him either read the book, or watch the movie. This year the second Hunger Games movie, Catching Fire, will be released in Australia November 21 2013, and this year Master Wicker probably has the maturity to watch it. Regardless he was very keen to read the books and see the movies. I'd read The Hunger Games with him before we left, and he plowed through Catching Fire in a few days on holiday.

I didn't love this one as much. Indeed I don't think I liked it much at all. It took me a while to get into the book, and then I was disappointed by the storyline. Catching Fire is more a repetition of Hunger Games, rather than a continuation, or sequel. I know that we have to suspend disbelief with the whole book for this type of story, but for me Suzanne Collins crossed the line to preposterous story elements in Catching Fire. I didn't like the ending either, all too improbable. Master Wicker enjoyed it much more. Still I imagine that I will read the third book at some stage.