littlelynx’s blog

If you're wondering where I went, take a look here...

Well...it was a nasty, rainy day...and I had a bunch of errands to run...and I got really hungry...but I'd already thought on my way out the door that I really wanted to finally buy something in his flagship store, which is just a skip and a hop from here...and one thing led to another...and here we are.
So at least I took pictures before these little treasures warm the lining of my stomach.

He knows something good when he sees it...

L'Ispahan, the undoubted star of Pierre Hermé's creations and the main motivator in getting me to finally buy something in there.  It's a rose-flavored macaron  (not to be confused with macaroons in the US which contain coconut, macaron are essentially composed of two almond meringue disks with a ganache sandwiched in between) with lychee flavored cream in the center surrounded by raspberries. I would like to draw your attention to the "dew drop" on the rose petal which does not come from the rain outside but appears to be crystallized sugar? maybe. It is a thing of beauty, and even if I end up not liking the taste, I have to admit it's a little pastry rock star in the looks department. There are other pictures in the gallery if this one just isn't satisfying enough...

And these...they are other kinds of macarons, in the usual fashion of presenting them which is the almond meringue shells with a ganache sandwiched in between. Pierre Hermé is also famous for bringing these back into fashion after they had been left to the usual chocolate, vanilla, coffee, etc... much like éclairs for example, which had led them to become ho-hum in public opinion. His claim to fame with them is, of course, that he has renewed them by creating all sorts of exotic and unusual mixes of flavors. This right here is just a sample, they were out of a lot of flavors by the time I hit the shop at the end of the day. But I have a little pamphlet with pictures and descriptions of all the different kinds they make... food for thought.
Anyway, the big one farthest on the left is pistachio/morello cherries, next to that is a chocolate/chocolate one (I love the traditional flavors because I find they give me a good way to make comparisons). Then at the bottom of the bag on the right, the little ones from bottom to top are:  salted butter caramel, coffee, and olive oil and vanilla, which I am very curious to taste.

Utter decadence I tell you. Some of you in far lands must come visit me quickly so you can taste all these goodies.

This is what happens almost every day when it's springtime and one is the new & proud owner of a Magic Bullet:

And this is what happens when Lynx makes banana chocolate chunk bread that doesn't last a whole day and so needs to make a new one... and since she's in the kitchen anyway, might as well test out some chocolate cupcake recipes and also put the excess banana bread dough into some cupcake tins. Then afterwards she discovers that in translating cups to grams she has actually been putting twice as much flour in the banana bread as she was supposed to. But it tastes good.
This also means that she is going to have to try the banana bread recipe with the right amount of flour just to see the difference. I know, my life is hard...

Nicolas Sarkozy Président: Night One people, not even Day One.

I can't embed because it's a French video website that's not connected to Vox so you have to go see the Bastille video here.
OR the Lyon video here.
OR the Rennes video here.
OR the Montpellier video here.

I'm not one for senseless violence (nor really justified violence either...well...maybe sometimes...), but I actually hope that they will go all out and do this for three weeks like they did last year, except I wish they would do it in the bourgeois neighborhoods rather than their own (where they are only reducing the meager resources available to them), and I live in one of these bourgeois neighborhoods, so it's not a question of beating up the "other side."
If the police beats up or carts away too many people, it will help the Socialists win more seats in the Législatives (Parliamentary Election) so that it will block him from doing the only thing he may be able to do as President which is to beat up on the poor and the little folk because they have no one to speak for them.
Also, to all the people who look at this and say "well Sarko is here to clean this racaille -scum as he called them- up", please keep in mind that not only is that a racist comment of the worst kind, but that violence to persons increased by 14% while he was Minister of the Interior. And since he didn't do anything for the economy as Minister of the Economy, I don't want to hear any comments about how he has a Plan for the Economy.
The truth about him is that he doesn't do anything at all, he's just a little power-hungry gnome. I would have preferred Ségolène Royal not just because she's way taller than him and could pull off looking presidential, but because she would have led us all gently into that good night, rather than like this.

1. Thou shalt do no harm to the baked good, the baking utensils, or to thyself. Also, thou wilt not attempt to poison anyone with the fruit of thy labor.

2. Thou shalt do no harm to anyone in the vicinity of the baked good, baking utensil, or thyself, lest they keep thou from making the baked good, using the baking utensil, or moving around as thou needst to in thy baking endeavors.

3. Thou shalt not scrub the baking pans with the harsh side of the sponge, nor shalt thou use corrosive agents to clean the baking pans.

4. Thou shalt not leave the baking pans on top of or next to the heated oven if they be empty as thou wouldst be damaging them which would violate the first rule.

5. Thou shalt not cut the baked goods directly in the baking pans with a knife or fork or any other sharp metal utensil, no, instead thou shalt use plastic or silicone utensils to dislodge the baked good from its pan onto a proper cutting surface, where thou canst be free to use any cutting utensil thou wishest.

6. Thou shalt not use baking pans improperly, as in, thou shalt not use a Charlotte pan to bake a cake in the oven as a Charlotte pan is not made for use in the oven.

7. Thou shalt not spill what thou hast created before it hath a chance to bake.

8. Thou shalt not substitute ingredients with no forethought as to the result as this will more often than not come back to bite thee in thy proverbial bottom.

9. Thou shalt be free to experiment as thou wishest as long as thou art not subjecting innocent victims to the potentially poor results of thy experiments. This is a corollary to the first rule.

10. Only share thy successes with others as one failure is sufficient to ruin all successes and will be remembered for all time.

11. Thou shalt know what thou knowest and what thou dost not know. Thou shalt know thy limitations and try as much as thou canst to raise the level of difficulty thou canst achieve.

12. Thou shalt share recipes.

Yeay! Yesterday I found a recipe for chocolate-chip banana bread that I used to have and lost, so I had to put it to the test right away. Of course, as usual, I made some little changes to it... I can never help myself on that score. It came out of the oven last night and it's already gone. I have four overripe bananas left, guess I have to go make some more then....
Even the cat appeared to show some interest, it must have been all the butter in it. Rest assured, he didn't get even a single crumb.

This whole photographing-the-food-you-made-thing is quite interesting and so different from any other kind of photography I've ever done. As soon as I have a dSLR I will be exploring this more seriously. Right now I make do with my little Canon Powershot S400.

If you could pick a cartoon world to live in, which would it be?  Why?
Submitted by Scio, Scio.

It would, without a doubt, no contest, be Tex Avery's cartoon world...

And if that weren't possible, it would be hanging out with Bugs Bunny in Chuck Jones' cartoon world.

So I'm testing out recipes for Tchatchke's wedding cake (which she has very kindly asked me to make for her even though I am not a professional baker) and I think I've found the basic idea for the cake I'd like to make for her. I stumbled upon this decadent chocolate cake recipe on a wonderful website called Chocolat & Caetera (sorry folks, recipes are in French, but, if you ask me insistently, I may be brave enough to translate them). It's a cake called Feuille d'Automne, which means Autumn Leaf, by Pierre Hermé who is one of our national pastry/chocolate-chef treasures. It's basically meringue disks layered with chocolate mousse and covered with chocolate ganache. Since this was my first time making it I didn't bother with decorations...I wanted to see if it tasted good to begin with. the result was quite satisfactory. Here's the complete cake pre gustatory trial. The icing application needs work which is a perfect reason to go buy myself what's called an elbowed spatula to smooth the whole thing out as soon as the ganache is poured on...

After making it I was left with a lot of egg yolks because of all the mousse in the cake requiring only egg whites, so I made this Brittany Cookie recipe (sablé Breton) which actually comes from a Valrhona recipe on the Valrhona website. The recipe on the website calls for making them with chocolate chips (or cut chocolate chunks from Valrhona chocolate) but I split the dough in 4 and made chocolate-hazelnut, chocolate-pistachio, almond ones which I dipped in the extra chocolate ganache I had left from making the cake, and almond-orange ones. They are to die for...

That means the mean little midget for non-French speakers here. Not that I have anything against midgets. This one, however, reminds me oddly of Gargamel (from the Smurfs in case you have no idea what I'm talking about).

I say midget, in case you wonder, because he stands 1m 58cm tall which is equivalent to a hair over 5'3". And if all goes according to plan - in case you didn't know we're having a presidential election right now - the mean little midget will be our president for the next five years. Ô rage, Ô Désespoir... not that I think Ségo is much better, but in terms of picking a poison, I prefer the one that would gently lull me into a deep permanent slumber than the one that would have me flopping around like a gasping fish wishing my stomach would secede from the union. So in this spirit of anti-Sarkozy-ism, I offer up the following (a send-up on the Mitterand campaign poster)...

Inspired by Lemon, and remembering how much I enjoyed watching the All Blacks play when I was in New Zealand during the last World Rugby Cup, I linked to, imho, the best way to bring a team together at the beginning of a game and instill terror in the hearts of your opponents ...and just look at the French team's faces: they are, rightly I might add, terrified.
So I give you...the Haka.