A Florida expat with spitfire spunk and a Southern drawl as thick as molasses, Wendy Lyn is not your typical Parisienne (hallelujah to that!). What she is, however, is every foodie’s fantasy come true. For an inside taste of Paris, join this culinary go-to-gal on one of her fabulous food walks.

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When Wendy Lyn moved to Paris twenty years ago she found herself living out a foodie version of the book series, Eloise. Instead of the Plaza hotel, she had the famous Paris bakery Poilâne as her delectable dominion. With the luscious scent of buttery pastries as her alarm clock, she’d run down from her chambre de bonne on the top floor of the bakery to pick up apple turnovers or sourdough country bread fresh out of the wood-burning ovens.

Often she’d be invited to join the owners and staff in the adorable dining room behind the shop for breakfast under a bread chandelier. Call it crazy, call it fate, call it freaking unfair, this mouthwatering set-up sparked Wendy’s incurable passion for food—its origins, its producers, its purveyors and its best Paris addresses.

Today, Wendy’s got the city’s culinary circuitry running through her veins. With the speed of a 1920s switchboard operator she can plug you in to the latest hotspot, make an impossible reservation, or have your sipping Champagne with a three-star Michelin chef. When she’s not doing all of the above for her international clientele of gastronomic journalists, professional chefs, and restaurant owners, she’s leading lip-smacking food safaris and wine crawls through Paris.

So on one of the coldest days of the year, I bundle up to meet Wendy and a family from Chicago (I blamed them for the weather) for a winter wonderland tasting tour through St. Germain des Près. Leading us on a side street passed a bagel stand that I, the New York native, had never heard of (!!), we arrive in front of Wendy’s first apartment above the Poilâne bakery. Standing there, she gives us a primer on the history of the site, explaining that it was originally a 17th century monastery before it was purchased by the Poilâne family in 1932, and that during WWII hungry artists nearby would barter paintings, many of which are on display in the secret dining room inside, in exchange for a steady supply of fresh bread.

Once inside, we’re led down a stone staircase to the ancient wood-burning ovens to see how the famous miche bread is made. “Every time you eat piece of Poilâne bread, you’re tasting a part of history,” says Wendy, explaining that not only the recipe, but also the starter is the same as the first batch of Poilâne loaves from 1932.

Light dusted with flour, we take our appetites upstairs to pick up some shortbread punitions before heading down the street to another benchmark in edible history: Debauve & Gallais, the first chocolate shop in Paris. There, Wendy tells a brilliant behind-the-scenes story about how Dr. Debauve, the royal pharmacist to Marie Antoinette, was asked by her doctor to hide the Queen’s meds in something sweet (she did marry at fourteen, remember).

He “started goofing around, putting medicine in chocolate along with rose petals, earl grey tea, honey, orange blossoms and rolled them into shapes,” says Wendy. They were such a hit at Versailles that they had to be hidden in hollowed out books in the library to keep the staff from stealing them. Which lead to another problem: them melting together. So, the chocolate box as we know it today is actually the pillbox of yesteryear: a way to keep the Queen’s gout and flu medication separate. Go figure!

Skipping ahead two centuries in chocolate history, we enter the cutting-edge kingdom of master chocolatier Pascal Caffet with his hot pink eclairs, single origin, single bean, single plantation Venezuelan bars, and salted caramel, chocolate-covered crispy treats that Wendy appropriates declares “as good as sex!”

After a quick stop into the Ladurée’s secret gift shop, we’re ready for a savory salve to all those sweets. Within minutes we’ve got the most delicious mulled-wine I’ve ever tasted warming our insides while we speak with the purveyors at the delectable oyster and Champagne stand at the annual St. Sulpice Christmas fair.

We’re told to save our appetites for something that’s going to knock our socks off: a fresh stack of Ibaïona ham croquettes made-to-order by Wendy’s friends at Yves Cambdeborde’s hot new wine bar, L’Avant Comptoir. Crispy, gooey, sinful and addictive, they’re the perfect finish to our expertly-led edible escapade.

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Tour length: 3 hours
Prices: 80E/person, 300E for 4 people, 460E for 6 people (tastings along the way included)
Reservations: Through Wendy’s online food-magazine, The Paris Kitchen™

All images by Nicholas Calcott for Paris By Appointment Only™

Over the last few years there’s been an influx of American chefs in Paris. Fusing American-style entrepreneurialism and experimentation with France’s gastronomic history, they have carved out a cross-cultural niche in Paris’ contemporary dining scene.

Two pioneers in this delicious movement are American chefs Braden and Laura. In 2007, the couple moved from Seattle to Paris to set up Hidden Kitchen, an underground, word-of-mouth, dining destination located in their Parisian flat. Modeled after the elaborate dinner parties that Braden and Laura would hold back home, HK is a sophisticated supper club where food-loving strangers come to meet and eat.

So how does it work?

Twice a week, Braden and Laura host elaborate, market inspired, ten-course meals with wine pairing for 16 diners at their swanky, super central Parisian pad (their address remains “hidden” until your reservation is confirmed via e-mail). The adorable couple greets guests with a refreshing aperitif before leading them to the communal table to meet the evening’s eclectic company, which include gourmet globetrotters, visiting friends and American expats to yes, a smattering of French!

At Hidden Kitchen, the fabulous food is the gastronomic glue that binds the diverse crowd.

At the beginning of each exciting course, Braden steals away from his tiny kitchen to explain the inner workings of his Franco-American fusion fare, fielding questions about the perfectly formed poached eggs (heat-resistant plastic wrap) and the French translation for sunchokes (topinambours) to the contents of his addictive white salad (fennel, endive, celery, cucumber, white truffle, lemon and parmesan). Meanwhile, Laura moves around the table to fill glasses and give the inside scoop on each accompanying wine.

Despite the complexity and elegance of the 5-hour meal, the atmosphere and energy at the table is amazingly relaxed. Mid-way through dinner you’ve forgotten that your tablemates began the evening as absolute strangers. By dessert, you’re exchanging phone numbers and emails. By the time you go to pay, you wish someone would plan a follow-up party to keep the spirit alive.  One night, one guest was so charmed by the evening’s company he insisted on picking up the tab for the entire table.

“Complete strangers who have met at our table have decided to go have drinks together the following night,” says Braden.

But the true champions of this cuisine-led community are the hosts themselves. “Almost everyone that we know in Paris has come from Hidden Kitchen,” says Braden, who in between HK events holds more casual, comfort food dinner parties of pea soup with dill dumplings and handmade pizza with home cured meats, ricotta and pickled cherry peppers for his and Laura’s group of friends.

Unfortunately, those events are by invitation, not reservation, only.

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Suggested Donation: 80€/person, not including gratuities

Not all appointments are planned in advance. This is the second in a series of posts about appointments that made a surprise splash in my schedule.

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The text message buzzes in at 10:30 am on Sunday as I sit in bed with a splayed cookbook plotting the morning’s meal.

“Want to test a bagel?” writes my friend Marc.
“Yes! Where are they?” I reply, my heart racing. “Can I bring a couple home for b-fast?”
“2 now,” I get as a response.
“Where?” I type anxiously.
“Bob’s,” he writes back.

I know the place: “Be there in ten!”

I brush my teeth, throw on a jacket and some gloss (you never who might run into in my hood) and run around the corner to pick up the special package at Bob’s Juice Bar, a neighborhood hot spot owned by my good mate and fellow New Yorker, Marc Grossman.

For the past few months Marc has been testing bagel recipes for his third cookbook, a highly-anticipated (by me, at least) tome devoted to the rare art of homemade bagels.

This is a big deal, especially in Paris, where mislabeled rolls with holes are overpriced luxury items that don’t hold a crumb to the golden deliciousness at my bagel alma mater, Bake City Bagels on Avenue X in Gravesend, Brooklyn.

Both fiercely opinionated about our bagels, Marc and I have shared many conversations about this project and the principal cornerstones to a great bagel: a slight toothiness to the bite, nice luster, moist, chewy dough that’s dense and springy at the same time.

My first appointment with one of his bagels: this is major for us both!

I whiz by Bambi, one of Marc’s employees, on the way down the block who says, “he’s got two waiting for you, hurry.” I quicken my pace thinking “how amazing is this, my first Sunday bagel in Paris, could this actually become a ritual?”

I enter the doors of the juice bar. Marc hands over the brown paper bag with the goods and says that he’s eaten six bagels in the batch and is confidant enough to let me try.

On my way home I pick up the fixings to complete the taste test: skinless, boneless sardines in olive oil, cream cheese (in this case, fromage à tartiner by Leader Price which I’ve been replacing the nearly-impossible-to-find Philadelphia cream cheese with for years) and a nice plump shallot (in lieu of red onion).

The recipe—cut bagel in half, smear with a cream cheese, then top with smashed up sardines and thin onion slices—was invented by my grandmother, Zelda. I had it ever Sunday morning at my grand parents’ house growing up. Entrenched in our family’s culinary DNA, it is, in my opinion, the absolute benchmark for bagel appreciation if not a stinky one at that. (Marc agrees so much that he’s included the recipe in his book).

Results: Definitely the best bagel in Paris! The golden crust was bubbly and slightly sticky (as it should be), had good tooth feel, but was giving on the bite. The dough was dense and bouncy with a mild yeastiness, but the shape was on the smallish side. Given the fact this is Paris, and everything here is petit in comparison to NY standards, I can definitely live with the resizing as long as Marc promises to keep the supply coming.

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Bob’s Juice Bar: 15 rue Lucien Sampaix, 75010 Paris
Bob’s Kitchen: 74 rue Gravilliers, 75003 Paris
Update: The book is out, with my bagel—Le Zelda—featured on the cover. Order your copy online here, or better, yet, stop by the Juice Bar or Kitchen to pick one up.

Not all appointments are planned in advance. This is the first in a series of posts about appointments that made a surprise splash in my schedule.

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Appointment with: Frédéric Malle, founder of Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle
Meeting place: Café de Flore, Paris
Date: April 30th, 2009
Time: 8:30am
On the menu: Coffee and Dalloyau Croissants
Purpose: Interview for Monocle magazine

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Last month my editor at Monocle called to see if I’d be free to do a last-minute interview with fragrance maestro Frédéric Malle for a rubric in the mag called My Last Meal. The concept of the column is brilliant: each month a non-food professional is asked to describe their proverbial last meal (where they’d have it, with whom they share it and what, of course, would be on the menu).

Back in my early days as a beauty editor at Dutch magazine I did a brief interview with Malle at the opening of his first boutique, a salon-style shop where customers are invited to “experience” his perfumes by sticking their faces into giant smelling columns that look like they walked off the set of a 1930s sci-fi flick. Since then he’s opened a smattering of intimate outposts elsewhere in the city and around the word (if you can’t make it to the flagship, Barneys New York also has the cool sniffing towers I’m told).

Malle now lives in New York and comes back to Paris only occasionally. Almost ten years since our last meeting, I’m psyched to see him again and get to know him through a different lens. Instead of fragrance—top notes, base notes, inspiration, bottle design, blah, blah, blah—we get to talk about, um, well, death, not in a creepy way, but as the final celebratory frame of his life.

For the setting of his final meal Malle chose the Café de Flore, one of Paris’s most touristy Left Bank cafés. I have to admit, I wasn’t impressed. Why would someone choose a place that serves mediocre, overpriced children’s food for their last chowfest? What was the deal? Was it the lure of the café’s famous past patrons? Was he the owner? Had he met his first love there? Were his kids conceived in the bathroom?

Within seconds of his arrival it all started making sense. Malle, an icon of St Germain elegance in a light grey gabardine suit, shiny brown loafers and slicked back salt-n-pepper hair, walked in greeting every waiter by their first name. After he caught up with Marie Hélène at the till and said hello to the early-morning regulars, he settled into his favorite seat on the corner of the terrace with a perfect sidewalk view. This image of Paris, the warm welcome, the beautiful setting, the elegance and poise.…ah, the atmosphere was almost cinematic.

Raised nearby, Malle has been coming to the Flore all his life. For him it was only natural to end where it all began.

“I like the simplicity of having breakfast and having just a very, very good croissant and having my last day as if it were a beginning,” explains Malle, while enjoying a simple pot de café and a rich, eggy Dalloyau croissant.

From this familiar perch, Malle is simulating a scene from his life as plain as it is profound. The routine, etched in his DNA, is about the pleasure of the familiar, the perfection of simplicity, and the peacefulness of home. There’s something about the whole thing, admits Malle, that reminds him of a scene that took place here in Le Feu Follet (The Fire Within), his favorite of his uncle’s films.

“Whose you’re uncle?” I ask, never thinking for it instant it was, no…could it be…OMG Louis Malle!! “Yes,” he says shyly, “I hardly ever talk about him, many people don’t make the connection.”

Once I get my wits about me, Malle goes on to explain the film’s narrative. It’s about a troubled man who lives in St Germain in the 60s (“a central figure in the neighborhood”) and the things he does on the day that will turn out to be his last. “Wow,” I say, with wild eyes, “does the character know he’s going to die?” (Aka dude, do you see the similarities here, is there something I should be aware of?)

“I don’t know if he wakes up in the morning thinking he’s going to kill himself but it’s quite likely,” says Malle, reassuring me that he’s not at all in that frame of mind, but that he’s always had a strong connection to the film, it’s setting (the Paris of his youth) and the struggles the character faces. “There is a certain attitude and look about this St Germain Left Bank world. I think that in a modest way this is really where I come from. You don’t really escape that.”

For the complete interview, pick up a copy of Monocle’s June issue.

Like most, my truffle hunting knowledge is quite limited. In fact, it could easily be summed up in a single image: old men in wellies tugging hogs on ropes.

So when some visiting friends and I decided to take a trip down to the Périgord—a ravishing, rocky region about a six-hour drive from Paris, well-known for its truffles, foie gras and Medieval castles—we couldn’t think of a better activity than ratcheting up our “black diamond” IQ with two of the area’s connoisseurs.

A few hours of research and a couple of phone calls later we had a time and date set to meet two of this elusive edible’s leading experts: Edouard Aynaud and his truffle-sniffing associate, Titeuf the golden Labrador.

This truffle tag team resides in a tiny hamlet called Pechalifour. Nestled within a Tuscan-like landscape of rolling hills and sun-soaked pastures, the minuscule village consists of a handful of homes, each belonging to one of Aynaud’s family members (except one, which is owned by Rita, a very friendly American, we are told).

Within minutes of meeting Edouard, an energetic truffle activist with over 40 years experience, we are ushered into a truffle atelier filled with home-made extracts, powders, oils, and truffles the size of baseballs, freshly cleaned and ready to be shipped to a chef in Belgium. Before we know it our truffle education commences, and we’re thrust into a thicket of fascinating truffle trivia, including, but hardly limited to:

• The number of days that a freshly-picked truffle remains fresh? Answer: 10 days.
• How to keep truffles fresh for longer than that? Answer: Slice into thin strips, drizzle with olive oil, cover with plastic and freeze.
• Why Italians pick their prized Alba white truffles at night? Answer: So that their neighbor’s can’t see them.
• Foods that truffles pair best with? Answer: Neutral ones, like potatoes, rice, pasta, salad and bread.
• Why female pigs make great truffle hunters? Answer: Truffles smell like the sex pheromone of boar saliva, a scent they find irresistible.
• Why dogs make better truffle hunters? Answer: They learn easily, are clean, don’t try to eat the truffles (unlike pigs) and are easier to work with than sex-crazed sows.

This is the first phase of our two-hour tour, and our noggins and noses are loaded already. Once out on the property, we weave our way through truffle trees of all varieties.

Not all of them are giving up the gold, we’re told. Some are dormant for the season or are too young, some had record output decades ago and may not reproduce for at least another, some are part of a magnetic field experiment that Edouard says won’t bear fruit for three more years…

Truffles clearly require patience, something we’re loosing in proportion to our increasingly freezing toes (this was back in January, and damn was it cold!). Just as we start to wonder if we’ll ever see a black diamond in its natural habitat, we’re introduced to Titeuf, a fabulous truffle hunting mantra, “Elle est où Titeuf. Je ne la voie pas. Cherche Titeuf, cherche” (Where is it? I can’t see it? Search Titeuf, search.), and the intoxicating scent of truffles plucked straight out of the earth.

Here’s a clip of Titeuf in action:

Reserve your own private tour with the dynamic duo by clicking here. The site is in French but you should get the gist of it.

And, if you want to stick around for a lengthier visit, Edouard and his wife Carol have a wonderful guest house that they rent by the week, free truffle tour included!

For more Titeuf truffle hunting videos, visit my ParisBAO YouTube page.