eat
learning to cook

Learning to Cook: Paule Caillat

by Karen Burns

One of the best of these intimate schools is "Promenades Gourmandes" operated by Paule Caillat out of her apartment in the trendy Marais neighborhood of Paris. Paule makes a day of it. You start by shopping for the ingredients for the lunch you´re going to make. Paule takes you around her lively neighborhood market, introducing you to a merchant who sells mushrooms that he grows in his cellar (a dying French tradition) or to a butcher who sells the best free-range, milk- and corn-fed chickens from Bresse. Your last stop is the bakery for a fresh baguette or loaf of pain de campagne (country-style bread).

Then it´s over to Paule´s apartment on the rue du Temple. Her kitchen is enormous by Paris apartment standards: granite countertops, two electric ovens, and a professional-quality gas cook top. Lunch will be the standard three courses, perhaps a cheese soufflé as appetizer, then a main dish such as poulet au vinaigre (chicken with a dash of vinegar and a complex sauce of crème fraîche, tarragon and tomatoes). The meal will be topped off by a typically French dessert such as tarte au chocolat or the famous apple upside-down cake Tarte Tatin.

No need to worry if you don´t eat meat or if you´re allergic to peanuts, when you sign up for the course Paule asks you if you have any food preferences or restrictions. "My classes are small and can easily accommodate special requests", says Paule, a native of Paris who was college-educated in the U.S. "I try to find out what my students are interested in making." While you´re grating cheese or chopping onions, you´ll pick up all sorts of culinary tidbits à la Paule. For example, she says that for best results the ingredients to any recipe, even meat, should be at room temperature.

And to wash mushrooms (a good idea when you don´t know your mushroom grower personally), add a splash of lemon juice or vinegar to a bowl of water and then throw in the mushrooms for a minute.

When lunch is ready you and your classmates take your places at the large antique oak table set with Paule´s yellow Provençale porcelain, and eat! Since this is France, lunch includes wine, maybe a Côtes du Rhône or a white Beaujolais produced by a friend of Paule´s and not available in stores.

You´ll be tempted to sit there all afternoon but there´s more to your day at Promenades Gourmandes. That would be, naturally, a "promenade". Are you addicted to cooking gadgets? Paule will take you over to Dehillerin, a warehouse-like store near Les Halles (at 18 rue Coquillière) with everything from the perfect paring knife to the latest in silicon madeleine molds. Do you have little space left in your suitcase but still want to bring home something for the kitchen? Paule knows a superb spice shop open only when the owner, an expert in spices, is available and then only on some afternoons.

"I am not competing with the large professional schools", Paule says. "People come here for the experience, to learn something about French culture and food, and to have a good time."