The art of Beurre blanc and béarnaise

Like many people, I saw the movie "Julie and Julia" and I read Julia Child's book, where pages -if not chapters - were devoted to her near obsessive desire to make the French white butter sauce, beurre blanc, easy enough for the home cook. Well...it actually IS fairly simple, but does require patience - a trait I have rarely heard anyone use to describe me.

Beurre blanc is a hot, emulsified butter sauce made with a reduction of white wine with shallots. The cold butter must be melted/whisked into the wine and shallot reduction slowly, keeping the temperature of the mixture even to avoid separation of the ingredients, which isn't a good thing in the sauce world. Sauce Béarnaise uses white wine, vinegar, shallots, tarragon,chervil, peppercorns, egg yolks, and - of course - butter. And lots of it. Amazingly, there were some sauces today where butter was not one of the main ingredients. We made a wonderful fresh tomato sauce, a fragrant ginger sauce, and a citrus vinaigrette using reductions of pink grapefruit juice, lemon juice, and orange juice. Interestingly, there was also a Sauce Sate Tandoori made with peanut oil, garlic, chicken stock, lemongrass, and Tandoori spices. We marinated chicken quarters in lime zest and juice, then roasted the chicken at high heat, finally serving it with the Tandoori sauce and a covering of coconut milk...it was delicious. Another interesting dish was made with hard boiled eggs, yolks
removed. The whites were then stuffed with a wonderful mushroom and shallot mixture with our
Béarnaise poured over the top. My first thought was, "I'll pass". But it was actually quite
good.

I really love the classes, the instructors, and my classmates. But it feels like running a
marathon. We do not sit down for nearly 7 hours, which might be the length of time it would
take me to finish a marathon. I was relieved, however, when the 21-year old in the group
admitted she was exhausted. Of course, I claimed to be energized and refreshed. The pace is
very, very fast with little time to think. You just do. I felt like i stayed behind most of
the day today, so my classmate, Marie-Helena, and I tried to get a step ahead by beginning a
dish while Chef was still giving instructions. In hindsight, not the best plan. Turns out, the
word "imbecile" is French in origin and sounds pretty much the same as it does in English...



Susan arrived late this afternoon for a visit. We had dinner at the bistro on the corner (the
one with the delicious ratatouille bruschetta and salad dish) and took a long walk along the
Seine. Tomorrow night we are having dinner in the home of a Parisian family, which should be
amazing and a great way to continue to practice my French. I am going to a meet-up in a few
days with some local people. The group is mainly American ex-pats who came to visit and
met/married Parisians and stayed. So that should prove interesting as well. It has been so
much more enjoyable to experience Paris with locals rather than just being a tourist.

It is nearly 11:30 at night here. Susan is asleep and, of course, I am not. Is recovery from jet lag just one more thing that is easier at 24 than it is at 53? Perhaps when she wakes up, she can also figure out why I am having trouble uploading photos from my iPad to my blog.

Bonsoir from Paris.