Contest: Who Makes NYC's Best Baguette?

*Note: Here are the winners for the Best Baguette contest I wrote about just below. Eric Kayser of Maison Kayser took home the grand prize by both reader and jury’s choice. A Special Jury Prize was awarded to the two runners-up for best baguette, Amy Scherber of Amy’s Bakery and Jerry Jan of Breads Bakery, and Clemence Danko of Choc O Pain took home the Special Fan Prix. Epicerie Boulud was acknowledged for the Most Original Bread, and Orwasher’s Bakery was named Best Specialty Bread.

Gentlemen, start your ovens! Fourteen of the city's best bakers and pastry chefs will be battling it out for the title "Best Baguette in NYC" at the Sofitel New York on Thursday January 21st.

The event starts at 6:30 pm and is open to the public; info on tickets is below.

The competition pits the finalists of a readers' poll conducted by the online magazine French Morning against each other, in a blind tasting judged by an impressive panel of experts.

Vying for the title will be: 

* François Brunet (Epicerie Boulud)
* Keith Cohen (Orwasher’s Bakery)
* François Danielo (La Boulangerie)
* Clemence Danko (Choc O Pain)
* Zachary Golper (Bien Cuit)
* Eric Kayser (Maison Kayser)
* Jean-Claude Perennou (Cannelle Patisserie)
* Hervé Poussot (Almondine)
* Gus Reckel (L’Imprimerie)
* Uri Scheft (Bread’s Bakery)
* Amy Scherber (Amy’s Bakery)
* Le District
* Fairway Market 
* Le Pain Quotidien

The professional jury: 

*Chef André Soltner (dean of classic studies at the French Culinary Institute, NYC; James  Beard Lifetime Achievement Award winner; former chef-owner of Lutèce).
*Ariane Daguin (owner/founder of D'Artagnan; winner of Bon Appetit‘s Lifetime  Achievement Award).
* Chef Didier Elena (culinary director of the Chef’s Club by Food & Wine; former exec  chef of Alain Ducasse at the Essex House, where he earned two Michelin stars).
* Sylvain Harribey (exec chef of Sofitel New York and Food Network alum).
* French novelist Marc Levy.
* Sara Moulton (TV chef, author, Food Network alum).
* Charlie Von Over (bread expert and author of The Best Bread Ever).

Event tickets are $30 per person and include a tasting of the baguettes (each chef is allowed two types), charcuterie (from D’Artagnan), cheeses (from Savencia) and wine (from Les Jamelles in the Languedoc).

To buy tickets online, click here.  If space is available, they'll also be sold at the door. 

The Sofitel is at 45 West 44^th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. 

Questions? Contact: daniel.harpaz@sofitel.com, 212-782-3013.  

Photo: Le Petit Parisien by Willy Ronis, 1952.

A French Mega Market in Lower Manhattan

Beverly Stephen, the former executive editor of Food Arts magazine, is a journalist and consultant specializing in food, travel and lifestyle. A lifelong Francophile, Bev lives in New York but jets off to France every chance she gets. She was thrilled when this new French food hall opened recently, not far from her lower-Manhattan home...so I asked her to tell us all about it. 

Can’t make it to France his year? Pas de probleme! Francophiles on the East Coast have a great new way to get their fix at a sprawling French market in lower Manhattan called Le District.

The just-opened 30,000-square-foot Gallic fantasy, located in Brookfield Place (the former World Financial Center, recently redone at a cost of $250 million), is divided into four "districts": restaurant, café, market and garden.  Within these districts, all culinary needs for eat-in or take-out can be met, from poisson to  patisserie and fleurs to fromage. Tourists seeking a respite from the somber 9/11 Memorial Museum nearby can happily sip a rosé from Provence, take a bite of ratatouille, and feel transported to the South of France...never mind that the sweeping views are New York Harbor and not the Mediterranean. Workers from nearby Goldman Sachs and Condé Nast are likely to eat-in at one of the restaurants, at one of the counter seats scattered throughout, or on the 7,000-square-foot plaza looking out to the Statue of Liberty. Everyone can buy plenty of ingredients to make dinner back at home...along with a chic bouquet for the table from fleuriste Yasmine Karrenberg.

Dessert  comes first at Le District.  Commanding attention at the entrance is the riotously colorful French  candy store La Cure Gourmande which offers an astonishing array of nougats, caramels, biscuits and even olives au chocolat (chocolate-covered almonds in disguise), all available in gift-worthy tins. This is the first U.S. outpost of the store that originated in the Languedoc-Roussillon and now has 45 locations around the world.

Across the aisle is a crêperie, a waffle station and a patisserie displaying jewel-like French pastries. And of course a coffee bar. 

Other temptations follow—freshly baked breads, cheese, charcuterie, salads and sandwiches (I chose a delectable roasted lamb sandwich with ras al hanout and hummus white sauce), brasserie-style meals, wine and beer. Packaged foods to take home include Provencal olive oils,  Les Comtes de Provence jams, argan oil, mustards, spices, salts and sausages.  If you prefer to avoid temptation, graze before 4 p.m., when the salad bar transforms itself into a chocolate mousse bar offering eight different varieties of white and dark with toppings such as orange confit and speculoos cookies.

Le District is the brainchild of restaurant impresario Peter Poulakakos of the HPH Group, a restaurant and development company, and his business partner Paul Lamas; together they pretty much have downtown Manhattan cornered with Harry’s Café and Steak, The Dead Rabbit, The Growler and Financier Patisserie among others. They took their inspiration from Parisian markets such as La Grande Epicerie and from other countries touched by French culture such as Morocco and Vietnam. Chef Jordi Valles, an El Bulli alum, was recruited to be culinary director of the whole project. Under him is an army of chefs and cheese mongers, butchers, bakers and sausage makers.

Poulakakos himself was standing in the aisle munching on a crêpe when I stopped him to ask about his vision. “I’ve always been thrilled with French cuisine,” he said. “It’s the backbone of precision.”  As for the customers. “I want to be there for everyone. People who live and work here love it.”  Of course, he’s not oblivious to the fact that 12.4 million visitors were counted in downtown Manhattan in 2014 with more expected this year.

Little more than a decade has passed since the area suffered the devastating 9/ll attacks. And then there were the angry flood waters of Hurricane Sandy. Now FiDi (the Financial District), arguably the hottest real estate in the overheated Manhattan market, has literally risen from the ashes. 

Comparisons to Eataly--the insanely popular Italian food hall on Fifth Avenue, with 26 other outposts worldwide--seem inescapable. Le District has already been dubbed the French Eataly. But who’s complaining?  Eataly has become one of the top tourist attractions in New York City behind the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. Last year, seven million shoppers crowded its aisles while the cash registers rang up $85 million in sales. Should Le District be far behind? Mais non!

Le District at Brookfield Place
225 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
+1 212 981 8588
ledistrict.com
info@ledistrict.com

Photos:  (1) The Fromagerie at Le District features nearly 200 varieties of cheese, from France, Switzerland, Belgium, Quebec and American producers.  (2) The Pavilion is the "front door" of  Brookfield Place. The dramatic entry hall was created by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects. (3) The layout. (4) Sweets from the patisserie section. (5) The dining room at Beaubourg, Le District’s flagship restaurant. (6) At the Boulangerie, at least 12 types of bread are baked fresh daily on site. (7) Catch of the day at La Poissonnerie. (8) A macaron tower in the Cafe District. (9) French mustards, jams, oils and condiments in the Market District. (9) Brookfield Place, formerly the World Financial Center, is just south of Tribeca, along the Hudson River waterfront. Originally built in 1985, the complex became Brookfield Place in 2012/2013 and is a five minute walk from the 9/11 Memorial.  (10) Click on map to enlarge. 

Photos by Jeff Thibodeau (1, 4) and Daniel Krieger (5, 6, 7, 9).

Beverly Stephen, who wrote this guest post, can be reached at bstephenwest@gmail.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Another Fine French Book Giveaway

I met writer Luke Barr a few years ago in New York, at a panel discussion at NYU.  Luke was discussing  his ongoing research for a book partially about his great aunt--the legendary author M.F.K. Fisher-- and a very specific chapter of her life in the South of France.  Listening to Luke’s anecdotes,  I knew the finished book would be a terrific read. It finally came out (in late October, in hardcover) and has gotten  wonderful reviews.

Luke and his publisher, Clarkson Potter, are graciously offering three copies as a giveaway to the readers of Provence Post.

In the course of her long career (she died in Glen Ellen, California in 1992 at age 83),  M.F. K. Fisher wrote 27 books, starting with Serve it Forth in 1937.  Her style was a unique combination of food literature, travel and memoir, and W. H. Auden once remarked: "I do not know of anyone in the United States who writes better prose.”

The American-born Fisher was a frequent traveler to France, returning again and again, for months and even years at a time. She lived in Dijon in the late 1920s and early ’30s, then returned to France--this time to Aix en Provence-- in 1954.  Between 1955 and 1971, she bounced back and forth between France and St. Helena, California (and lived for a time in Lugano as well). Contemplating her future in a letter to a friend, Fisher once wrote: “I know, at this far date in my life, that I was meant to live and if possible to die on a dry, olive-covered hillside in Provence.”

In the fall of 1970, M.F. (as everyone called her) and her sister Norah (Luke’s grandmother) rented an apartment not far from Plascassier,  near Grasse, where Julia Child and her husband, Paul, had built a vacation home five years earlier. Julia had come to Provence to escape her American fame… to cook for friends…to shop the markets…to relax. The Child’s house sat on the estate of Simone “Simca” Beck, Julia’s great friend and co-author of the two volumes of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The Childs named their vacation home La Pitchoune. 

“For a few weeks in 1970, the kitchen in the Childs’ house in Provence was the epicenter of the American food world,” Barr explains, in an April, 2013 Travel + Leisure article entitled Return to Provence.  “James Beard and M.F. came to dinner, or stopped by on their way back from a day at the Fondation Maeght museum; Richard Olney, the reclusive American author of the just-released French Menu Cookbook, who lived a few hours away outside Toulon, came to pay his respects. Judith Jones, the editor at Knopf who’d discovered Child and Beck, visited with her husband, Evan, staying at a nearby inn.  

“The trip that fall of 1970 was a fateful one, not only for my great-aunt, but for the entire American food establishment,” Barr continues. “They were all there in Provence together that fall and winter, more or less coincidentally… the people behind the seminal cookbooks and food writing of the era. They ate and drank and cooked together (and talked and sniped and gossiped, too), and they were all, in one way or another, rethinking their attachments to France, where they had each fallen in love with food and cooking to begin with.”

To write Provence 1970, a project that took him three years on and off, Barr (who was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Switzerland and now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters), took two leaves of absence from his job as an editor at Travel + Leisure. He combed archival research, interviews and the letters and journals of his great-aunt to re-create this pivotal moment.  He also used  the journals and letters of Fisher, Child, Olney, Beard and Beck…and the pages of Paul and Julia Childs’s “Black Book” (an “astonishing” binder of details about their home in France).

Luke also made multiple trips to Provence. “A few were trips in summertime,” Luke tells me,  “and one wonderful trip in November, when the weather was cool and beautiful, and there were no tourists or traffic. I had tracked down Raymond Gatti, who was the chauffeur everyone hired to drive them anywhere in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and who still lived in Plascassier. We spent days driving around together, visiting places that come up in my story, like the Fondation Maeght and the diet clinic where James Beard was enrolled in 1970, which had been torn down and was now the Grasse police headquarters. Raymond also showed all his old photos....’’

Luke also rented Julia Child’s home La Pitchoune  and you can read about that experience here.

And while the book itself has no photos, Luke has some wonderful images on his website here.

Among the flurry of positive reviews Library Journal calls Provence 1970 “…delightfully engaging, highly narrative, and intimate,’’ saying Barr does an excellent job of tying together the various threads of their collective stories through a blend of travelog, cultural history, and biography. “His account is quick and episodic in its pacing and feels vivid, authentic, and authoritative…” the review continues. “This small gem of a book is a fascinating delight.’’

And here’s what chef Alice Waters--owner of the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley--has to say: “Luke Barr has inherited the clear and inimitable voice of his great-aunt M.F.K. Fisher, and deftly portrays a crucial turning point in the history of food in America with humor, intimacy and deep perception. This book is beautifully written and totally fascinating to me, because these were my mentors—they inspired a generation of cooks in this country.”

My old friend Clark Wolf, a culinary historian and food consultant who splits his time between New York and Sonoma, knew all the characters in Provence 1970. So I rang him up to find out  what he thought about the book. “I love it but I may be prejudiced,” Clark told me. “For a lot of us it’s the pre-quel to our lives.  Like M.F.K., there is a real sound and feel to this writing that stays with you long after the story ends.  With food and wine we call it a long, fine finish.  With writing, we call it brilliant.”

To enter to win a copy of Provence 1970,  simply leave a comment under “comments” below. Be sure to leave an email address so we can reach you; signing in with your Google account is not enough. Tell us why you simply must have this book...or what the food and cooking of Provence means to you…or tell us about a fabulous French meal you’ll always remember…or which of M.F.K. Fisher’s books have been most-memorable for you. The more personal and evocative your comment, the better!

If you’d like to buy the book (288-pages, hardcover), you can find it on Amazon here or in the Kindle edition here.

Bonne Chance and Bon Appetit!

*Note: If you live in the New York area and are interested in food and food history, get yourself on the mailing list for Clark Wolf’s terrific discussion series at NYU. Called “Critical Topics in Food,” it’s held at the NYU Bobst Library on Union Square. Events (three or four each year) are open to the public and video archived. To get on the mailing list: assistant@clarkwolfcompany.com.

Photos: There are no photos in the book but Luke has these beauties and a few more on his website (lukebarr.net). 1. Julia Child on the terrace at La Pitchoune, her vacation house in Provence, in the early 1970s. 2. In the kitchen at La Pitchoune, Paul Child painted outlines of Julia’s tools and equipment on the pegboard walls. [Photo by Benoit Peverelli]. 3. Bert Greene, James Beard and Julia Child cooking together at M.F.K. Fisher’s Last House, in Sonoma County, in the late 1970s. Child, Beard, and Fisher remained lifelong friends, seminal figures in modern American cooking.

Another Fine French Cookbook Giveaway!

Two of my old food-industry pals, Laurent Gras and Mitchell Davis, have just released an interactive digital cookbook called Laurent Gras: My Provence. It includes more than 40 dishes from Gras’ early years, growing up in Antibes and working for top chefs on the Côte d’Azur. The new digital publisher Alta Editions, released the book last month and they’ve offered me two copies to give away to my readers.

The book contains hundreds of gorgeous high-resolution color photos, instructional videos, loads of chef tips and Laurent’s personal stories. It also gives readers who prepare the dishes the opportunity to share their own stories and photos directly inside the book. 

Known for his innovative cuisine, Laurent has received three Michelin stars for his cooking at three different restaurants over the past 20 years. But rather than focusing on his restaurant cuisine, the new book finds him returning to the flavors and memories of his youth. Readers can enjoy: 

*Classic Provençal recipes such as Ratatouille and Clams Marinière. 

*Creative preparations, such as Burrata Ravioli with Orange and Sage, made with time-saving wonton wrappers instead of fresh pasta. 

*A Pork Chop en Papillote made with with juniper berries, which Laurent used to collect on his family’s property in France and which are often used to flavor meat and game. 

*The Garlic-Roasted Côte de Boeuf Laurent learned as a cook at the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo. 

*Laurent’s  grandmother’s Gateau de Galette, a gorgeous coffee-infused cake made with LU Petit Beurre cookies, chocolate and buttercream--like a French tiramisù. 

With step-by-step photos and videos, the book requires no downloads or software; readers who purchase (or win) it access it by logging onto the Alta Editions site. It’s browser-based HTML5 e-book optimized for the  iPad that can also be viewed on any laptop or desktop. You can watch a brief video introduction to the book here. 

Alors! To enter the giveaway, leave a comment below, under ‘’comments.’’ The more creative, the better of course. Make sure to provide your email address or we won’t be able to reach you; logging in with your Google name is not enough. If you’d like go ahead and just purchase the e-book, it’s $9.99 and you can do that here. 

Here’s a bit more about Laurent. He was born into what he calls ‘’a family and culture focused on food.’’ Early in his career he worked with a remarkable group of chefs including Jacques Maximin, Guy Savoy, Alain Ducasse and Alain Senderens. After attaining three Michelin stars as chef de cuisine at Ducasse’s restaurants in Monaco and Paris, Gras moved to the U.S. where he received widespread acclaim for his cuisine, first at Peacock Alley in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel (NYC) and later at the Fifth Floor restaurant in San Francisco. With well known Chicago restaurateur Richard Melman, Laurent opened L2O in Chicago in 2008. It was named ‘’Best New Restaurant’’ by Esquire that same year. Gras left in late 2010, the same month that Michelin bestowed three stars upon the restaurant, its highest rating. 

Laurent’s co-author, Mitchell Davis, knows a thing or two about the kitchen as well. He’s a cookbook author, food journalist and the executive vp of the James Beard Foundation (NYC), with a Ph.D. in Food Studies from New York University. In addition to three previous cookbooks, Mitchell has written extensively for GQ, Food & Wine, The Art of Eating, Saveur and Gastronomica. Mitchell also co-authored the book Foie Gras ... A Passion, which won the International Cookbook Review’s ''Best International Cookbook of the Year.'' Mitchell is a frequent guest lecturer and panelist on a variety of food-related topics, and has taught food and theory classes at New York University and Cornell University. You can follow him on Twitter here and read his blog here. 

So leave a comment below to enter the contest, the more creative the better. Winners will be picked next week. Bon Chance et Bon Appetit!

Subway to the Sud de France

Can't make it to the South of France this summer? Not to worry--you can taste it in Manhattan thanks to the Sud de France Festival which runs through July 25th.  The festival was created to make New Yorkers more familiar with the Languedoc-Roussillon region of Southern France, which, according to festival organizers, produces more wine--and the largest amount of organic wine--than any other wine region in the world. 

Tonite and tomorrow night, for instance, there will be wine tastings ($20 per person) led by Languedoc wine expert Jamal Rayyis and others at the Maison de la Région Languedoc-Roussillon (10 East 53rd Street). Tonite's event is 7 to 9 p.m. tonite; tomorrow night it's 6 to 9 p.m.  


All told there will be free tastings and educational sessions at nearly 60 wine shops in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, plus Mediterranean menus and wine specials at restaurants ranging from casual to Michelin starred. Participating restaurants include Les Halles, Café d’Alsace, French Roast, Marseille, L’Express, Pigalle, Le Monde, Maison, Cercle Rouge, Bar Tabac and Le Singe Vert.


Consumers can enter a contest to win dinner for two ($150 value) at any of the 51 participating restaurants. Another contest prize will be a Languedoc food and wine basket.


In July, highlights include a winemaker dinner (July 20th) at the brand new Le Pain Quotidien (Central Park and West 70th), as well as special events surrounding Bastille Day. 


On July 19th there will be a sommelier contest to choose this year’s Sud de France Festival Sommelier of the Year.


An interesting addition to this year’s festival is Le Pain Quotidien, which will exclusively feature organic wines of Languedoc-Roussillon (two red, two white, a rosé and a sparkling), alongside the wines of founder (and Languedoc-Roussillon resident) Alain Coumont. Le Pain Quotidien will also showcase a special Sud de France menu.


The Festival is an international campaign conducted by Sud de France Export, an agency promoting the wines, culinary products and other industries of the Languedoc-Roussillon. Other Sud de France Festivals are conducted in Shanghaï, Düsseldorf, Cologne, London, Brazil and Mexico. 


For complete info on the New York festival, click here.  

A Taste of France in New York

The French Institute/Alliance Francaise (New York) will host its fall festival, Crossing the Line, Sept. 12th to Oct. 3rd. The schedule includes so many great events (concerts, performances, shows and more) it would be impossible to list them here. The kick off is an afternoon dance party/picnic in Central Park's East Meadow tomorrow (Sept. 12), with choreographers from France presenting a new take on the bal populaire, creating short dances to be taught section by section to the public. There will be tastings of cheese, chocolate and bread...while a brigade of top chefs from both France and New York will offer up modern bento boxes. Or, bring your own picnic. This is a free, family-friendly celebration. For all the info, click HERE or call 212-355-6100.

Four Days of Rosés

On a wet gloomy Wednesday last week, New York City's Meatpacking District was transformed into a little corner of Provence, thanks to the delegate of 16 Provencal winemakers who flew in to Manhattan host a series of tastings and events called Four Days of Rosés. The restaurant Fig and Olive--a large, pretty space with rosemary growing in tall planters and a Mediterranean menu--spread out a buffet of French cheeses and charcuterie while the winemakers poured from their best bottles, mingled with the press and generally spread a bit of Provencal sunshine around the cobbled streets of the city's far West Side. Among the wines being served were rosés never before poured in the States, now available in New York and other U.S. wine markets. The event was sponsored by the CIVP/Provence Wine Council, which represents more than 750 Provence wine producers; combined they make 95% of the region's AOC wines. I happened to be in New York at the time and was delighted to have been invited…to taste some fabulous rosé, to meet the winemakers and to schmooze around with Provence wine experts such as Francois Millo, director of the CIVP.

Rosé wines, it seems, are enjoying a “global rebirth” with sales of dry rosé in the U.S. growing eight times faster than table wines in general. France is the worldwide leader of rosé production, of course, responsible for 28% of the world’s rose. More than 85% of French rosé comes from Provence, home to France’s oldest vineyards. Rosé now accounts for 86% of all wine produced in Provence. The CIVP visit coincided with the news that a controversial European commission initiative, if approved, will accept the “blending” of red and white wines to produce rosé. The EU referendum is scheduled to be ratified on June 19. The CIVP, along with the French government, is strongly opposed to the proposal, arguing that proper and authentic rosés are produced only by a special technique that includes briefly macerating red grapes and removing the juice before it becomes heavily colored. The French government has said that it will bar the new production practice within France regardless of the EU’s legislation. Polls indicate that 87 % of French consumers oppose the EU plan.

Wednesday’s event was designed for the press and the turnout was predictably great, with writers from the New York Times, Wine Spectator, Food Arts, The Wall Street Journal and other publications turning up. Subsequent events were being staged for the wine trade--importers, distributors, retailers, restaurateurs--and a number of tastings for consumers were also scheduled. For more info about Provence rosé, check out the CIVP’s new site: www.winesofprovence.com.