Tarte Normande and French opening hours

The most difficult part of my adaptation to living in France is getting used to the French opening hours. I’m still struggling with these after living in Moscow:

* Pharmacies close for 2 hour lunch
* Food stores close at 1 pm on Sunday
* Hairdressers are closed on Monday
* Coffee shops close at 7 pm

To give you an idea of how patisseries work:

Pain au chocolat aux amandes and Artisan Boulanger

Pain au chocolat aux amandes and Artisan Boulanger

Yesterday I went to a new patisserie in Fontainebleau and found a pleasant surprise there. The place is called ARTISAN BOULANGER and is located in the heart of the downtown (11 Rue Grande).

French pastry: Mille-Feuille

Once more I’m standing in the Sunday morning queue leading into my favorite Fontainebleau patisserie. Old ladies, mothers with baby carriages, men with dogs crowd in front of colorful window with beautiful gâteaus. ‘Deux traditionells’ (which means two baguettes classic) is the phrase with which most of them approach the counter.
As always, I’m staring at the sweets. Today I feel like Mille-Feuille. I see it everywhere, since I came to France.

Party #3 Indian dinner

Party # 3

Feb 21, 2010
Club members count: 105
Nationalities count:  32

When I just came to Fontainebleau Prashant, one of my housemates, proposed to prepare an Indian dinner in the culinary club. He comes from India, but has lived in US for the last several years. We arrived at implementation of his idea last week.

The Indian population in INSEAD is the strongest one: over 40 Indians in my intake. Many of them have come with their partners. We were lucky to have many of them cooking for the event.

French pastry: branch in Thomery

Last Saturday it was a great sunny day and I was wondering how to spend the weekend when I got an email from my Indonesian friend Genie Njoto. She invited me for a Sunday branch at her place. There was no need to persuade me :)

10 am, Sunday, we are in the Fonty morning market (I’ve written about it before, when we did the cheese plate masterclass). We pick up some pastry, cheese, baguettes and jam and drive out of Fonty. We pass the garden of Chateau de Fontainebleau and drive through the Fontainebleau forest to an amazing small ancient village, Thomery. The village is on the river. It looks friendly and hospitable under the morning sun.

Tartiflette: French dinner for cold times

Yesterday I just came home from school around 8 pm. Passing by the kitchen, I saw Frederic, my French classmate, cooking. Mansi and Breanne – watching. I was lucky:

 Mansi: You wanna to join us for Tartiflette?
- I: Sure! What is it? :)

Latin-American dinner in INSEAD

It is the end of Latin-American national week in INSEAD. Several weeks during every year are devoted to particular countries/regions that are selected through pitch competitions (see youtube).
Tonight is the most culinary event of the week: national dinner. The food apparently doesn’t go without music and dance: the evening started from a salsa/samba class today, then continued in the bar with Cuba Libre, Mojitos and saxophone. Finally, 9 o’clock students are gathering at the buzzy lunch hall, drinking beer and Argentinean wine. Onda Cubana Band starts playing. While everyone is still sober the food comes into play!

Trip #1: Paris patisseries

Feb 7

Club members count: 73
Nationalities count: 30
Today I feel that it is quite competitive to organize entertainment in Fonty. After the yesterday party in chateau Villicerf hardly a half of people who planned to join the trip managed to get up to leave to Paris at 11 am. So there is 6 of us today. It is chilly and cloudy outside. We are going to visit several Paris patisseries that we’ve chosen from a guide by Jamie Cahill. These are old cafes and shops, each famous for some sweet specialty.

Unlike the rest of the group, I visit Paris for the first time today. I must look funny holding all these maps and guides in my hands… We get out the Gare de Lyon building and take the direction towards Seine to get to the 4th arrondisement. It is around lunch time and we are hungry so our first stop ideally suits us. After some wandering around rue de Barres we finally find L’Ebouillante (6, rue des Barres).

Restaurants: Aladdin (Algerian) in Fontainebleau

Today I was lucky to share the dinner out with Majed and Rasha. They come from the Middle East (Jordan and Palestine) so we are going to the Arabic restaurant in Fontainebleau. It is Aladdin, offering Algerian food, on Rue de France between Rue des Sablons and Rue Saint-Honore in Fontainebleau.


As it happens with most of the students coming here from outside Western Europe, we are not used to ‘hours’ of French restaurants. ‘Hours’ mean that you hardly can expect to be served for dinner before 7 pm. Thus we spend extra 30 minutes walking along Fonty streets…


Seems that today we are the first here for dinner. 7 or 8 tables, purple – white interior, Arabic music. Majed and Rasha are smiling – they are listening to the songs they know from their home countries. 4 page menu of Algerian dishes in French: I’m totally out of the game :) Guys start questioning the waiter in Arabic and soon we get oriented in the menu: starters, couscous, tajine, kebab.


Service is unhurried, we start from tea. I’m amazed by the elegant silver pot and beautiful movements of the waiter pouring the tea in the colored glass. The tea is green and (!) sweet. The atmosphere gets very relaxing.

Stereotypes about food in foreign countries: Japan

Kunii Hiroyuki in response to the survey results:

What else are typical (or widely consumed) in Japan?I did not expect 'honey and lemon' would come up, but otherwise, we Japanese enjoy most of the foods and drinks nominated for Japan quite a lot to my mind.

Foods: Tempura, Grilled Eel, Okonomiyaki (looks like pancake or pizza), Curry & Rice (Japanized), Nabe (any kinds of one-pot dishes including Sukiyaki and Shabu Shabu), Tonkatsu (pork cutlet), XXX-don (e.g. Gyu-don, Ten-don, Oyako-don, Katsu-don, etc: a bowl of rice topped with XXX), Foods made of soy beans (e.g. Tofu, Natto, Miso, Yuba, etc) and seaweed (e.g. Nori, Wakame, Kombu, etc)

Stereotypes about food in foreign countries: Russia

The picture of Russia in the survey came out much more full than I expected. But still it is rarther far from reality.

I’ll try to give my perception of how people actually eat in Moscow. First of all, people tend to consume a cocktail of world famous dishes including Caesar salad, pizza Margarita, California rolls, mushroom cream soup etc.
I’ll also name some “Russian” dishes that are still widespread. Among soups these are certainly borsch (on the picture, nice to see it in the survey), shi (beef and cabbage soup), chicken soup with noodles.

Party #2 French cheese plate

Jan 24, 2010

Club members count: 40

Nationalities count: 22

The classes are running already. We start getting busy, consumed by group work, career activities, clubs etc. The house often becomes silent and I can only wonder if there really is no one at home, or everyone is just sitting in their rooms.

Fortunately, we still often gather downstairs for dinner. And happily many of us have found some time to meet today. This time we are lucky. Claire and Sebastian, both coming from France, are telling us about French cheeses.

It is Sunday and we start from the morning market. It opens at around 7 am and closes at 1-2 pm and works on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays on a small Fontainebleau square bordered by rue des Pris, rue de la Paroisse, rue du Commissaire Calas and Halle du Marche. We come at 10:00 and the market is crowded already. “I planned to obtain the cheese map of France, but it was too late to order it” – Sebastian sais – “so we’ll have to use the road map”.

French pastry: drives me crazy

Buns are a very important part of my life. Their role has strongly increased when I moved to Fontainebleau. I can’t say that there is a lack of pastry in Moscow. But what I have found here is much more than I expected. Small ‘pâtisserie’ shops surround you wherever you go. You get the best choice if you come before 3 – 4 pm. Many of them are crowded, but it is normally worth it to queue on. Don’t worry, the queue moves very fast!

So what do I choose? Today I managed to stop myself on three marvelous buns.

The best thing I’ve tried here so far is ‘palmier’. You will find if baked in different forms, but this one is ideal in my opinion.

Stereotypes about food in foreign countries: survey results

In this community of people coming from all over the world it is almost impossible to voice a delusion and not be corrected by someone. These people know almost everything. And they feel relaxed to share their opinions.

We decided to find out how close to the reality we stand in our understanding of what people eat and drink in the foreign countries. We launched a questionnaire asking people to name what food/drinks comes to their minds when they think of certain countries that are not their home countries (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WL6TNJ3). The results are to be shown to each country nationals to hear their opinion.

Around 15 club members (more than 10 nationalities) have already completed the survey, so we can see what has come out:

Brazil. Leading guesses are Feijoada and Churrasco. Also named: Churrascaria, Bobo de Camarao, Caldo verde, diferent kinds of grill meet, Flavored meat, anything with beef. Among drinks absolute leaders are Cachaca and Caipirinha. Also named are Guaraná, sweet cocktails.

Canada. 50% scream - Maple syrup, besides: salmon, game fowl, pancakes, sandwiches, hot dogs, French fries, crumble, poutin. Drinks: beer, whisky (e.g. crown royal) and also rum, Ice wine, Canada dry, Coca-cola, soda, tomato juice.

China. Absolute leaders are spring rolls, Peking duck, wontons. Also named: xiao bao (soup dumplings), Yakimeshi, noodles, spicy sauces (e.g. sweet and sour), Kwetiao, Nems, rice, soy, tofu, Shanghai crab, Mapo Doufu, Tenshin, soups, stir fried veggies, ginger beef, pork dumplings, dim sum, pork in sour and sweet sause, fried worms, lychees in caramel, mango pudding. Among drinks green tea and Tsingtao is leading, sake named 2 times (!) also show up Chinese wine (inc. rice vine, plum vine), beer, fruit juices (mango, etc), Báijiǔ, Shàoxīngjiǔ.

Party #1 Appetizers & aperitifs

Jan 10, 2010
Club members count: 16
Nationalities count: 12
We've just arrived on campus in Fontainebleau and the studies are about to begin. We started the club by e-mail and finally we gather to greet each other personally. Many of us have brought some local specialties from home. We decided to start with ‘starters’. The table looks equally diverse to the people who surround it. Appetizers & aperitifs from our home countries are set out and the party begins.

Claire and Sébastien are Parisians and we get a chance to taste foie gras (litteraly ‘fat liver’) (Photo by Mansi Maken). Put a piece on the white bread toasts. Take a glass of sweet white wine. Foie gras is traditionally served with Sauterne. We are drinking Jurançon (Domaine Bordenave) instead. “You will find out why if you look at the price”, adds Claire. What we are eating is the duck fois gras, which is more typical for the south of France. Tastes sweetish and creamy. Its taste is normally more intensive than that of the goose fois gras, produced on the North. Claire mentions the debate surrounding this specialty: as it is produced through intensified feed it raises the issue concerning the defense of animals. Each of us is clearly clad that the debate has not produced any bans for production yet as what we are eating is delicious.