Les Papilles, FFwD and Paris Mushroom Soup

On a recent trip to Paris this November, G and I were lucky enough to have booked a lunch reservation at Les Papilles, a tiny wine shop/bistro.  Perhaps it was a morning spent exploring the wonders of the Musee d’Orsay, or the mad dash we had through the Luxembourg Gardens to make our reservation, but we arrived at the restaurant absolutely famished. 

We were greeted by a very attentive host, who quickly wedged us into the only 2 remaining seats in the house.  Then came the food: magical concoctions shrouded in utilitarian names: “Zucchini Soup” was ladled around islands of eggplant, lardons, feta, crème fraiche, cilantro, thyme and croutons;  “Chicken Fricasse” was bathed in a basil-infused cream sauce and served with roasted vegetables;  “Panna Cotta” was ethereally light and served with caramelized bananas.

I was really excited to see Les Papilles mentioned in the heading of the “Paris Mushroom Soup” recipe in Dorie Greenspan’s “Around My French Table”.  I was even more excited that it was chosen as a dish for French Fridays with Dorie. 

 Like the zucchini soup we had at Les Papilles, Dorie recommends serving the Paris Mushroom Soup around a simple “salad” at the bottom of the bowl.  And even more like the zucchini soup at Les Papilles, the Paris Mushroom Soup was much better than the sum of its parts! We served it was grilled ham and cheese sandwiches and a simple salad.

 My only misgivings about this soup was that (i) the gills of the mushrooms give the soup a slightly odd twinge of colors; and (ii) I couldn’t get the soup smooth enough (even in a blender).  Perhaps next time I will remove the gills (although this may prove to be a bit too much work for just an aesthetic) and pass the soup through a strainer.

A Note on Content

The content of 3441 Aylmer is not meant to be narrowly defined. However, to keep it from becoming a collection of random musings, it will be broken into two main sections: food and travel.

The food section will consist mainly of dishes that I've made, but will also have other little tidbits including: equipment reviews, submissions for websites such as French Fridays with Dorie and Food52 (if I'm ever brave enough) and ingredient spotlights. With regard to actual recipes: I'll only post recipes if the they have either been made publicly available or if I develop the recipe myself.

The travel section is meant to be a quick, down and dirty guide to places that my guy, G, and I have gone. It is not meant to be exhaustive by any means - it will merely list our general impressions, logistics (such as itinerary, transportation, places to stay etc.) and contain one or two photos to boot.

A New Year...and a New Blog

Hi There. As we are now firmly planted in the new year, I thought to make good on one of my (many) resolutions, that actually may have been a left over resolution from last year: to start a blog. I see this blog as a way of holding myself accountable for some of my other resolutions: (i) to become more computer literate; (ii) to take up photography; (iii) to improve my writing; and (iv) to cook more often. I have been a serial blog-lurker for a long time: cooking journals, around the world travelogues, lifestyle envy pages, you name it, I've followed it. However, I never really comment (or interact in any way) - hence the lurker description - and I figured that it was about time to come out of the shadows. Hope that you have a fun time following along with me!