When I stepped into the internet cafe, I looked around the dimly lit room to look for signs of the delicious crepes that were rumored to come from such an unlikely place. Situated next to two internet
terminals was the kind, elderly woman with a gentle smile. Right next to her was the round crepe making device. I had come to the right place. This was the crepe lady, and I was about to discover the deliciousness of The Crepe Lady.

Madeline or “The Crepe Lady” as she’s commonly known, serves up crepes in the most unusual of settings - inside of an internet cafe. You definitely have to keep your ears to the ground to know that you can find crepes inside of a place called Cyber Cafe, because it’s an unassuming store front. Lucky for you Cafe Creme readers, you have everything you need to know right here.

First things first, you must know that to find The Crepe Lady, you have to travel to 49th street, right off of 8th Avenue, and that Madeline is only there from Wednesday to Sunday. If you try to look
for her delicious crepes on a Monday or Tuesday, you’ll be out of luck. Once you know where to find her, the rest is a little easier.

You can order her crepes plain or filled with goodies like apricot jam, nutella, or something savory like ham & cheese. The prices are fair too, ranging from $4 for a plain, to $7.50 for one with ham &
cheese. What’s included in the price of the crepe is the opportunity to watch a master craftswoman at work. Madeline is meticulous with her movements, and she constructs your crepes with a deft touch. She pours the batter over the circular heating element and spreads it around with a wooden spatula. It’s always spread evenly and thinly. The result is a thin crepe that attains a light crisp edge. If you order it with fillings such as nutella, she spreads a spoonful or two of the good stuff on the crepe, and carefully folds it into a neat rectangle. All of this is done with such ease and efficiency that if you blink you would miss the photo op (I did! oops…) The result of her masterful work is a folded up crepe of geometric deliciousness.

With each bite, you quickly want to usher in the next one…

With the mercury rising in New York, I highly suggest you take your crepe to-go. A short five minute walk away on 49th street (west of 8th ave) is an open plaza where you can enjoy your crepe in the sunshine. I don’t know if crepes were invented to be consumed in the open sun, or if that’s how Madeline would suggest, but I can tell you it adds to the experience. With each bite, you quickly want to usher in the next one; the thin, crisp crepes never last long in the take-out container because you’ll want to gobble it up with gusto.

Are these the most authentic crepes you can find in New York? They have to be up there with the likes of Bar Breton. With Madeline though, you get to see the crepes made right in front of you and you can enjoy them this summer in the comforts of the sun and blue skies.

Madeline “The Crepe Lady”
Cyber Cafe
250 W. 49th St (Between 8th and Broadway)
212-333-4109
Wed-Sun 12 until… (They left this out on the flyer..)

French dazzling pastries at their best on 10th Avenue, why not ? This is the bet that Diane Cepeda and her sister Corine Fina are taking.

When it comes to pastries, history proves that sisters are well gifted. Remember the Tatin sisters? Caroline’s and Stephanie’s big mistake is nowadays one of our favorite sweets: the apple tart.   Turning as successful as the Tatin sisters? That’s maybe what Diane and Corine thought about before opening their Pâtisserie Salon in New York City a few months ago.

There are at least two excellent reasons to push the doors of the twin sisters’ salon. First, the pastries of course are delectable.   Second, the salon itself is luxurious, warm and welcoming.   Nothing has been randomly chosen. The Trianon blue color of the walls makes you feel like you are standing in a tiny and romantic Parisian room.  The twins have the same passion for glamour and looked for a place that would allow their wildest dreams.

“We really wanted to give a warm and luxurious touch to the salon,” tells Diane. ”We bought some furniture in France to be as authentic as we could. The onyx table reflects the atmosphere of a Parisian bistro; the crystal chandelier is dated early 19th century.  Even the pastries are wrapped into two layers of soft paper printed with the toile de Jouy as a pattern.”

Pastry jewelry

“Our goal is to name our pastries like traditional French pastry chefs used to in the past. Opera and Saint Honore are among the most known French pastries in the world and we would like to perpetuate this kind of tradition our way” explains Diane.

From $3 to $8, classics such as chocolate mousse, lemon tart, caramel cream with salted butter, walnut macarons, mille feuilles, mocha, and peach clafouti sit side by side on the menu with viennoiseries likes financier, cannelé and almonds brioche.
Besides the traditional items, Douseur de Paris touch is about jewelry pastry. Their Religieuse named Marie Antoinette is a gorgeous pyramid of pink glazed cream puffs aromatized with orange liqueur which looks like more jewelry than a traditional religieuse. The macarons are displayed like a croquembouche to make people step inside.

A lunch menu is also available with some exciting names: quiche lorraine, camembert, saucisson, cornichons and croque-monsieur. These dishes are sure to cause excitement in anyone who has studied abroad in Paris as well as any recent French transplants to New York.
“The first time we came to New York with my sister it was in the early 90’s and we were looking for a bakery. We were hungry and had cravings for some fresh brioche or jambon beurre sandwich. Unfortunately we didn’t find such a place. I guess the idea to run a business like this one in the city, came up that day.”

Douseur de Paris
652 10th Avenue (46th Street),
Private and Corporate Events
Call Diane at (646) 596-3460

Chit Chat with one of the best French Chef in New York city

Philippe Bertineau: You know when I first started ay Payard Bistro, I already had spent 4 and a half years at Daniel. Those years with Daniel Boulud were very rich and at that time I was 30 years old. I thought I was ready to express myself. The type of cuisine I had in mind was traditional, the one people can find in French bistros: simple but somehow sophisticated, far away from all the American stereotypes. This is what I still do at Payard Bistro today.
Take a look at the menu and you will find French basics like cassoulet, bouillabaisse and steak frites.

Over the years, I made some changes of course and I can tell that our clientèle for lunch now is mostly composed of women.  They order a main course and unlike men the burger is not really their cup of tea, that’s the reason why I introduce sandwiches and salads on the menu whereas pizzas and burgers were more fashionable in those earlier days.
Right now I’m thinking about surf and turf dishes. Mixing crab cakes and BBQ, chicken reduction in lobster bisque, nothing more precise but I’m working on it…

CC: How do you find news ideas?

PB: The Union Square Greenmarket is my garden from mid April to Thanksgiving. Fresh fruits and vegetables play obviously an important role in my kitchen.
I also love discovering good American products like lamb from Pennsylvania or veal from Vermont.  Mostly I use ingredients that I really like. For example, the Chilean carica is a very special fruit from northern Chile that a purveyor introduced to me a few years ago. The texture is very soft and firm, the taste is close to pineapple, and its yellow color is just amazing. It was fun to work with it and I teach customers how to appreciate it.

I really enjoy mixing different cultures into my cuisine. Japanese culture is one of them for the techniques and the flavors. I guess staying open-minded is a key to constant improvement. I like to say, “No Soul, No Food”, and I truly believe that taste has a Memory. Ingredients help me interpret what I feel inside.

CC: Restaurants are strongly affected by the economic crisis, so how do you manage during such a difficult time?

PB: First we decided to extend the winter restaurant week and then expensive products have been simply taken off the menu. I try to offer comfort foods and introduce beef tartare and crispy pig’s feet. I also choose hanger steak instead of sirloin. When times are tough you have to be more creative and that’s a good thing because you rediscover some simple products. These are a little bit more reasonable; I would say less noble, but still rich. Milk-fed lamb and veal are preferred to rack of lamb and truffles.  That said, customers’ habits don’t change really much and we still offer a $31 prix fixe menu.

CC: A few weeks ago Daniel Boulud and two others chefs had a roundtable discussion about recession and home cooking. “People don’t understand that trying to cook at home unless you know what you’re doing is going to cost you more money or you’re going to eat very lousy.” What do you think about his statement?

PB: I can see what is saying. Home cooking is first about pleasure. Pleasure to cook and pleasure to eat. Today there is a « bastardization » of food. I mean, take a look to what Italian and Chinese cuisine has become. I’m fed up with dishes like Shrimp Scampi. To be honest this doesn’t make any sense. Home cooking, especially here in New York,  means take-out. If you believe that you are cooking when you buy frozen pasta and put some vodka sauce on it, then you are wrong. There are many different regional cooking styles in Chinese cuisine and it’s not all about noodles. Home cooking needs time and even for a salad if you want to do it well, it will take you some time, good ingredients and this costs money too.

CC: What do you cook when you are home? Is it difficult to share the kitchen with another chef?
(Philippe Bertineau’s wife is the executive chef at San Domenico)

PB: To be honest we take turns cooking. One time Italian, next time French.
We really like soup, antipasti with charcuterie. Salads, lentils and polenta are also among our favorites.
Sometimes I have costumers who bring me food at the restaurant and we try that at home. The other day, I had some polish eels from Queens. They were actually very good. Customers are full of surprises!

CC: What is your guilty pleasure after work?

PB: Among sweets I love pastries that we have here at Payard, and I really enjoy an apple chausson during the cab ride back home at the end of the day. It reminds me of childhood memories.

Payard Bistro
1032 Lexington Avenue
(between 73rd and 74th Streets)
New York, N.Y. 10021
tel: (212) 717-5252

Café Crème: Who created Modepass?

Olivier Abitbol: Modepass was created by Jam’s Brain, to offer a specific place were users can share their vision and their inspiration in fashion and beauty. So many people (stylish, talented, creative) all over Internet are doing great work everyday. They are offering something more fresh and human than fashion magazines do. Showing side by side all this work can give people a new sight.

CC: What is the site strategy? What are you trying to create/achieve?

OA: We want to build a very inspiring and positive community to share their vision of fashion and beauty, not through content like “what are you wearing?”
sites, for example,  but through inspiration. Fashion is more than wearing clothes.  The most interesting thing is the way you see, you feel, you’re modeling your style. This is our goal: showing concrete way of fashion.

CC: When did it all start?
OA: We are real Social Network and Web 2.0 supporters. The idea that people can be revealed because of their work, talent or creativity is for us an incredible experience. As a musician, movie maker or photographer you can find a way to promote your work, but for fashion there was nothing in France…. and not so much abroad … which is why, we saw people from all over the world opening their Modepass page. We’ve launched Modepass officially on September 3rd.

CC: Why did you call it “Modepass”?

OA: We spent 5 days to searching for a name. We wanted something with 2 syllables, fluid and reflected what we would do. A pass for fashion and beauty. Modepass is understandable in all languages, plus, it’s catchy.

CC: What is your vision and where do you want to take Modepass?

OA: Modepass, like I said, is not ours; it belongs to the community. We are only catalysts for professionals and members of the passionate public who have something to say. Modepass is merely the platform to say it. Here, everyone has a chance. Our work is about bringing out our members’ talents.

CC: The site is really international, created by a French team but gathering members from all over the world.
What do you think it brings to each member? Do you find there is a cultural exchange between members from all over the world?

OA: Yes, it was to our surprise and we love it. It’s exciting that people register from around the world, we often come across a flag we’ve never seen, it’s great.
Overall, yes, this fits well with our vision of the world: a cosmopolitan world with all its fashionable particularities.

CC: Tell us more about the way the site works? How to become a member?

OA: This site is very simple. Once registered, you can create your Modepass page as you wish to include photos, videos, articles, tips, join or create groups. On Modepass, you do not become a star in 2 seconds because you have a good look.  Like anything, you get back what you put in, and you will become known for your level of participation.

CC: You have launched the “traveling” piece from a designer? How do you choose the designer? How do you choose the members it goes to?

OA: The idea of “traveling” is to send the same clothes throughout the world to select members of Modepass so that each person can style it their own way. We have created in this spirit of exchange because we think this is a good way to raise awareness of emerging designers… there is such potential for generating compelling, original stories for us, for our members and for the designers.
We started with the brand Heimstone, then the second is that of Eple & Melk, the 3rd is that of Valentine Gauthier which for me is the brand that has the greatest potential.

CC: What other “all over the world” experience have you created?

OA: We have created the “Life-style Paris,” where we proposed to members to create a nice profile page. A jury of 11 persons of the press and television selected the winner, who was then offered a weekend meeting in Paris with creators, and a walk through the Museum of Fashion and Beauty. But like I said, the next event is  modepass.com/yourpub which seems to be the most international.

CC: What’s next?

OA: This is my favorite question! Next? What we are doing now?
Often I’ll say, “We already have so many projects!” You’ll see. Still focusing on our members to help them grow, share, discover. We are still working on new tools to match our vision.  We’re developing technical tools to share and discover users’ work more easily. Animation tools to develop interaction between users on the site AND in the real life Surprising tools because we can’t tell everything

http://modepass.com
First Picture: http://modepass.com/liebemarlene
Second Picture: Valentine Gautier

Balthazar is one of my favorite destinations for a wine bar. The French brasserie atmosphere is punctuated by its warm red color, Parisian style waiters, and European newspapers displayed on a table.  I love it all, especially the cheesy crostinis that come with the wine; they represent a nice starter for a French apéritif experience. Lucky for me, I recently develop a new kind of affection for their Petit Dejeuner.

Half of their menu consists of a number of choices of eggs. Soft boiled organic egg, eggs benedict eggs norwegian, eggs florentine, eggs en cocotte, omelette…
The second part is a mix of french toasts, crepes, bagels and cereals.
The sélection of viennoiseries is reminiscent of old-fashioned european pastries, but still very eclectic, with some pains au chocolat, tartines, croissants (plain, almonds, ham and cheese), brioches, foccacia, scones, sticky buns… A new entry on the menu also attracted my attention : american doughnuts. They are available for $2 a piece.

The Petit Déjeuner is clearly a French oriented breakfast. However, you still have options should you choose to adapt you “little lunch”. The English version is available with eggs, bacon, beans, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried bread.

I passed on cocktails (Bloody Mary, Mimosa et Bellini) and simply enjoyed a hot chocolate. Filled in a small cup, and accentuated with unctuous cream, it was delicious without having an overpowering chocolatey flavor. Don’t get me wrong, a hot chocolate served in NYC with a super strong chocolate taste is not bad. But this variant, with subtlety and finesse, is just too rare. Many of the hot chocolates in the city are very syrupy, almost like melted chocolate without hot milk. Here at Balthazar no doubt about it, the milk is in the cup.  I only have doubts regarding the price of the cup. Almost $4, whereas the bowl is at $4.75.

Eggs en Cocotte was definitely the preferable choice compared to the French toasts, which were served with crispy bacon. The first one was genius whereas the second one suffered from a lack of love. A little more attention on them would be nice. A fresh strawberry, some mint leaves or at least something more colorful would definitely help the plate. As for the texture, I thought they were a bit dry. I had to ask for the maple syrup to make them softer.

The eggs en cocotte went way beyond all my expectations. Small pieces of toasted bread surrounded the ramekin and the soldiers invite you to go deep inside the dish. Creamy on the inside and crispy on the outside, the plate was everything but boring. The cheese softly covered the eggs and the mix between the thyme and the cream was very well balanced. It was for sure a very simple dish but how nice it was to enjoy a very well executed simple dish!

Balthazar
80, Spring street
New York, NY 10012
212 965 1414

A blind taste test between French and American wines

What’s one difference between French and American wine? I posed that question for five of my friends one afternoon during a blind wine taste test. The concept was simple - An American red versus a French red, an American white versus a French white. My friends ranged in age from mid 20s to early 30s. Their backgrounds as varied as their age, with one from Nashville, TN and another from upstate New York. All Americans, and all with varying degrees of wine knowledge. My friend Eric claimed expertise in grape drinks, especially of the fermented variety. He meant wines, but most of the time I don’t think he can tell the difference from one to the other, the guy just loves to ‘get his drink on’.

“I thought that Burgundy was a type of grape, oops…”

A recent study by London’s International Wine & Spirit Record revealed that Americans average 68 glasses of wine annually. Meanwhile, the French drink 280 glasses per year. Facts simply don’t lie – The French know how to party and we Americans need to catch up. This blind tasting probably won’t help offset the disparity anytime soon, however.

Personally, wine is a fairly new thing to me. For example, I had no idea that French wines are labeled by regions; for the longest time I thought Burgundy was a type of grape, like merlot. Oops.
My main concern was whether more expensive wines taste better. I restricted the wines to moderately priced wines. I polled my friends prior to the wine taste test, and they believed that moderately priced wines ranged between $15 to $25 dollars. For the French wines, I went to a wine store and picked up a white and a red bottle in the $20 to $25 dollar price range. For the American wines, I found two bottles at the local Trader Joe’s store for $7 and $13.

“Cheap=American”

The blind taste test started with a 2007 Sauvignon Blanc by Ghislaine & Jean-Hugues Goisot (12.7% alcohol). My friends said it was “lightly oaky,” “sweet,” and “not that dry”. This led all of them to assume this made for a cheap bottle costing less than $10, when instead it really cost $20. They also roundly believed it was American, believing that cheap = American.

Next up was a 2007 American bottle of Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc (13% alcohol). The commentators said, “Dryer,” “complex,” “more alcoholic than the first.” They all agreed it cost more than the first bottle except this bottle was $7 dollars, merely a third of the price of the first bottle. Unanimously, they thought this was the French bottle.

With two bottles to go, the taste test group had mixed up the French wine for the American, and the expensive for the cheap.
Let’s see how they do with the reds!
If you hear about a bottle that’s “bold,” “rich,” and “a little more alcoholic”, what would you think? Would your first guess be that it’s an American bottle? The first red wine we tested was a ‘Red Table wine’ from Hahn Estates made in 2007 (14.5% alcohol). Again, everyone misidentified the place of origin!
The last wine of the test was from Chateau Pimpine. It was a 2005 Bordeaux with a 80% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Sauvignon mix (12% alcohol). The lesser alcohol content in this bottle made for a more muted experience that was expressed by the panel as “Oaky/smoky,” “less body,” and “generic”. It was interesting to note that while smokey or oaky was on more than one response, “generic” also appeared on multiple responses. Again, this bottle was roundly miscategorized as the American bottle.
Wine novices can’t correctly identify an American bottle from a French bottle. There’s a bias to assume good wine comes from a far away lands. Perhaps a taste test with oenophiles would be different…

Geyser Peak - $7.99
Hahn - $13.49
Chateau Pimpine - $24.99
St Bris Goisot - $17.99

Lucy has done what most people only dream of doing. To celebrate her twenty-second birthday, and her mother’s own milestone of turning 50, the two decide to embark on a six-week trip to Paris.
French Milk is a book in which Lucy recreates their Parisian adventure through her whimsical drawings, photographs and musings.

Café Crème: First of all, I would like to know if you went back to France since then, and if not, do you plan to go back in the future? Maybe for another book?

Lucy Knisley: Last year, my mom took an incredible cooking class in Paris in the spring. I was supposed to be in my graduate school classes, and finishing up the corrections on French Milk for my publishers, but she said, “I don’t wanna go back to Paris without you!” and so I told everyone I was going on a “fact-checking trip” for French Milk, and zipped away to Paris with her for a few days. This was in the Spring, and so vastly different from when we were there in January. I probably enjoyed it mostly because I was playing hooky, but it was also warm and sunny and gorgeous. I hope to go back as soon as I can, but I think I may have used up my Paris trips (2 in 2 years!) for a little while!

CC: What kind of clichés and pre-conceived notions did you have about France (before the trip) that were completely false or true?

LK: Like most Americans, I have trouble speaking French. I was terribly embarrassed by my limited grammar and bad accent before I left to go there. I was sure I’d be completely flummoxed by any sort of conversational interaction. By the time we’d been in the city for a few days, though, I found that most Parisians I encountered were kind and understanding about my attempts to speak French, and often were nice enough to compliment me on it, even though I’m sure I was almost unintelligible. I picked up so much French while I was there, too, that I was shocked to be able to understand quite a lot of the signs and announcements that I heard or read. My other preconception about Paris was that French men were terribly handsome, which proved to be very true, but I found my head turned mostly by the women, who are astonishingly gorgeous, and who seemed to acquire their fabulous clothes from mysterious places that I never could quite find or afford.

CC: It was nice to notice that you already had some “French” (bad?) habits like drinking wine and smoking before your trip. Do you keep smoking/drinking?

LK: I haven’t really smoked much since I came home. It’s just not as romantic and sexy when you’re smoking in Chicago. I mostly wanted to smoke in honor of Oscar Wilde and Jean-Paul Belmondo and other such dramatic icons (Oscar Wilde is, of course, not French, but spent his final tragic days in Paris, and is buried at Pere La Chaise). I wanted to be in a classic French film, with the smoke drifting sexily from my parted lips, but I’m not a natural smoker, so I wound up taking girly little puffs and picking tobacco from my tongue. It wasn’t a good habit for me, so I stopped almost as soon as I returned, which coincided nicely with Chicago’s smoking ban. The wine, though, I still love, and drink on most weekends. It’s the French food, though, that is my most chronic and obsessive addiction!

CC: What do you miss the most from Paris?

LK: I miss the food, of course, which is undeniable. There is just no other place on earth where such delicious food was so readily available. It seemed like there was another patisserie or boulangerie on every street corner, just brimming with the most incredible things. I miss certain food the most– the Epoisses from the cheese market, or the chocolate fondants from the little bakery on the Mouffetard. I miss the easy availability of blood-orange juice, and good saucisson, just there in the local supermarket! Cornichon in the tiny shop below our apartment, fresh lychees in the fruit stand outside, duck confit at the restaurant around the corner… It’s so incredible to live among such delights.
I also miss the smell of the river and the beautiful men in beautiful scarves and the specialty shops that seem to contain such a small selection of such wondrous things… But mostly I miss the food!

CC: Are you a fan of French/European comics? If yes, which ones?

LK: I LOVE Bande Dessinees! I grew up reading Tintin and Asterix, and completely adore them. Hergé, especially, is a major inspiration to me. I love his sensibility, and the attention to aesthetics and detail. In recent years, I’ve discovered David B, of Epileptic, whose art completely enraptures me. I’m terribly upset that I don’t read French more adeptly, and I have such difficulty reading these books in their original format. On my last trip to Paris, I picked up Blitz, by Jean-Claude Floc’h, whose incredible varied line strokes are absolutely gorgeous, and Orange et Désespoir, by Lucie Durbiano. This last one I’ve especially adored, as we share a similar first name/profession, and her beautiful, simple colored stories are fascinating, even if I can’t fully read them, as they’re in French.

CC: Tell us about your life now. Are you still living in Chicago?

LK: I do still live in Chicago. I’m finishing up my second year of graduate school, and working on a new graphic novel about food, and growing up with a mother who is a chef. I’m sharing an apartment with my boyfriend, John, in a pretty little part of the city, and we’ve recently adopted a big fluffy orange cat, who is frequently crabby. The three of us (the cat slightly less so) are working our way through French language lessons, in the hopes that someday we’ll be able to live there.

Cathy continues “At home my husband and I speak French and so does Jules-Anton.  But he is so comfortable with English now that he naturally became my personal translator!”  She admits that now she is the one who has to make efforts to introduce the American culture at home.   Cathy admits that Jules-Anton’s favorite meal is nothing else that the trio burger, French fries, and Ketchup.

“That said, it’s only a diet he enjoys during the weekends. I don’t really know if it’s good or bad habit, but I try to make him remember that we are French and not American. We have some habits that are quiet different from what an American would have and a healthy diet is also a good aspect of our culture and I feel good to preserve it. Jules-Anton is used to say ‘I’m not eating ice cream before dinner because I’m not American.’ Well, after such a statement I can only make him forgive me, that’s why scoop and doughnuts are welcome on the weekends !”