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CLASS IS IN SESSION…and it’s DELICIOUS!

Paris

Nov 2008

From amateur foodies to would–be professional chefs, lots of people come to Paris for cooking classes — but how often does the class come to you?

We found one that did, in the person of Edward Keller, a personable American expatriate from Northern California, now living here with his French wife and family.

Not a formally trained chef himself, Keller learned his artistry in the kitchens of his new French relatives and later getting jobs in some top Paris restaurants. Now, he works as a personal chef for locals and visitors, and teaches one–day cooking classes for travelers who have their own kitchens.

We found him through My Genie in Paris, one of several Paris–based travel companies for visitors ready to get off the tour bus and take on a more personalized, hands–on experience in the City of Light. Bilingual. Very creative, very patient and understanding with nervous Americans.

He came to our apartment at the Pomerol and spent a morning with us in the rue Cler, shopping for the ingredients for lunch. No set menu, just wandering through the shops, seeing what was fresh and grabbing it.

The first thing he spies are fresh scallops, still in their shells. A few words to the fishmonger and they are in our bag, shelled and ready to cook.

From there, it’s off to the produce market for three types of mushrooms, two of them wild, endive, mixed greens, fresh figs, some raisins and an orange, then to the bakery for a good loaf of rustic French bread that we never would’ve spotted on our own. A bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau and we’re good to go, except for dessert.

As we walk the cobbled street, we share our own litte Paris food adventure with chef Edward. In perusing these markets the day before, we had spotted something that looked like a somewhat oddly shaped tomato. We tried one and liked it.

When we showed it to chef Ed the next day, he laughed. It was a persimmon, he said. We had heard of persimmons, of course, but never actually seen or tasted one.

He looked at it for a second, then said, “You know what? I could make a cake with that.”

We brought everything back to the apartment and chef Ed took over, showing us how to clean and scrape the delicate mushrooms without washing them, how to bake the figs, snipping off their stems, making a small cross–cut on the freshly opened tops and drizzling them with balsamic vinegar before popping them into the oven, sauteeing the scallops.

He even had us assisting with the mushrooms, which I managed to do without slicing off a fingertip! Kay did an expert job of checking the wild mushrooms for pine needles, which hide inside the growing mushrooms after they fall from the trees.

Chef Ed then proceeded to make his persimmon cake, without the benefit of a mixer, food processor or baking soda. Flour, sugar, eggs, a little cream, that was it. Into the oven it went.

How did the results turn out? If you’ve read this far, you’ve already seen them. And every bit of it tasted as wonderful as it looks ! All done from a menu off the top of his head, in a kitchen he had never seen before.

The lunch menu:

Mixed green salad with wild mushrooms and a balsamic reduction dressing with baked figs.
Sauteed scallops and endive in orange sauce.
Persimmon cake with raisins
Beaujolais Nouveau 2008

This was a great experience for us, and it was possible only because we chose to stay in an apartment instead of a hotel.

If this sounds like fun, a cooking class — either in the chef’s place or yours — can be set up through agencies such as My Genie in Paris or Paris Perfect, the people who provided our apartment. Or you can contact chef Edward Keller directly through his own website, Carotte et Caviar.