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Just got back from two weeks in France - two days in Paris, one at Versailles, one back in Paris, and then joined up with a tour of Champagne and Bordeaux. The tour was heavy duty and not for wimps, departing the hotels daily around 8 am and returning around 11 pm. In nine days I tasted 181 different wines at a slew of chateaux. including Krug, Dom Perignon, Chateau Margaux, Haut Brion, Pontet Canet, Vieux Chateu Certan, and many more. Lunch and dinner was usually at a chateau with matching wines. Most of the lunches and dinners featured one older wine in the 1996 to 1976 range along with newer wines in the range of 2000 to 2009. After foie gras for dinner and lunch and all that wine for nine days I came home with a few extra pounds. The good news on the calorie front was about half of the wines were barrel samples and after a few of the older wines it got real easy to taste and spit them out! Spitting out the better wines remained a challenge! (My wife and I lucked out on being invited to join this essentially once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!)
Didn't have much time to hit bakeries but did go to Poilane to try the miche and to Eric Kayser to try his Pane and Baguettes aux Cereales. Both were really impressive. I felt my miche is fairly close to Poilane in quality and I like the look and cereal quality of my Kayser mimic better than his loaves BUT his flour is absolutely amazing. The aftertaste of the loaf was sweet and clean and went on for an hour. I don't think I have ever tasted flour like that! And I clearly cannot reproduce that facet of his loaves!
I was really struck by how tender the crumb was on the Poilane and Kayser loaves. Both are IMO really first class!
Now to go into withdrawal and start losing weight again!
Jay
Didn't have much time to hit bakeries but did go to Poilane to try the miche and to Eric Kayser to try his Pane and Baguettes aux Cereales. Both were really impressive. I felt my miche is fairly close to Poilane in quality and I like the look and cereal quality of my Kayser mimic better than his loaves BUT his flour is absolutely amazing. The aftertaste of the loaf was sweet and clean and went on for an hour. I don't think I have ever tasted flour like that! And I clearly cannot reproduce that facet of his loaves!
I was really struck by how tender the crumb was on the Poilane and Kayser loaves. Both are IMO really first class!
Now to go into withdrawal and start losing weight again!
Jay
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