-PROVENCE FOOD NEWS-

Here's to those crazy beer drinkin Irish!

2010-03-03T16:32:00.002-06:00

Please check out our St. Patrick's Day menu by following the link bellow to the PDF file. I think this is our best St. Patrick's Day menu yet.
On the back of the menu is an order form to make ordering a cinch.
Remember, St. Patrick's Day is March 17th.

St.%20Patricks%20Day%20menu%202010.pdf

Valentine's Day Menu 2010

2010-02-08T15:46:00.005-06:00

Check out our Valentine's Day Menu 2010 ready for download. Just click here to download the PDF file
Nothing says "I love you" like exquisite French pastries or chocolates!

Holiday Store Hours

2009-12-07T17:06:00.003-06:00

Hillsboro Village and Hill Center Green Hills
normal hours 7a.m. to 7p.m Mon thru Fri., Saturday 8a.m to 7p.m. Sunday 8.am to 6 p.m.
Exceptions-December 12th we will close at 6p.m. for our company employee party. December 24th we will close at 6p.m. CLOSED December 25th-OPEN December 26th normal hours. CLOSED January 1st.

Downtown Library
normal hours Monday Thru Friday 7a.m to 4p.m. Saturday 8a.m. to 2p.m. Sunday closed.
Exceptions-December 24th thru December 26th CLOSED. December 31st normal hours CLOSED January 1st.

Iris Cafe

Closed December 21st to January 1st, OPEN January 4th to January 8th 9a.m. to 2p.m.

French Macarons are the new cupcake

2009-11-25T16:39:00.003-06:00

If you love those beautiful photos of those airy cookies, please read this. It’s beautiful. Every last word. Enjoy.

via Stacy Finz of the San Francisco Chronicle.

“I fell in love in Paris. I know it’s a cliche. It’s so much cooler these days to fall in love in a gritty place - say, Death Valley in the summer.

But there was no sand. There was no man.

It all started on the Champs-Elysées at Ladurée, a romantic patisserie, where I spied my heart’s desire. Behind the bakery window twinkled rows and rows of perfectly round cookie sandwiches in pastel greens, bright pinks and vibrant yellows.

“What are those?” I asked, in awe of their dainty beauty.

“Macarons (spelled macaroons in English),” the attendant muttered, with Parisian disdain. They were nothing like the macaroons I knew, flourless kiss-shaped coconut cookies that we ate at Passover.

As I took my first bite I was smitten. The almond-flavored pastry had a texture that was both brittle and chewy. And the fillings - fruit, nut and chocolate ganaches - were concentrated and bold.

When I returned home, I looked for the macaroons everywhere, only to come up empty-handed or with an inferior reproduction. Recently, however, the real thing has been turning up at bakeries all over the country, especially in the Bay Area.

“I think they’re the next cupcake,” says Erin Bailey of the San Francisco Baking Institute, a school for professional and novice bakers.

Alexandre Trouan, a French pastry chef and owner of San Francisco’s L’Artisan, says that up until a year ago, people would look at his macaroons and ask, “What are those little colored hamburgers?” Now his customers are calling them by the French pronunciation and ordering them by the dozen.

Michel Suas, president and co-founder of the Baking Institute, says he’s getting calls from bakers from as far away as South America who want to learn the art of making French macaroons. A French manufacturer is now marketing a macaroon mix for professional bakers, which has made its way into the United States. Suas is afraid that “it will flood the market with an inferior product.”

French macaroons should remain an artisan pastry, not something with a shelf life of five months, he says. Nevertheless, the Parisian macaroon could soon be finding its way onto the bakery aisle at Safeway.

Unlike their coconut counterparts, which are drop cookies made with egg whites and sweetened condensed milk, French macaroons are made with almond meal/flour, powdered sugar, egg whites and food coloring, and are methodically piped onto sheet pans before baking. Once out of the oven, two cookies sandwich a buttercream, ganache or jelly filling.

At patisseries such as Ladurée and Pierre Hermé, the macaroons are aged for two to four days - often in a commercial freezer - before being sold, giving them time to reach the proper texture and flavor.

“They’re very temperamental to make,” says baker Kelli Manukyan, owner of Pamplemousse in Redwood City. “You even have to be in a good mood for them to come out right.”

When the Montreal native opened her French pastry shop 2 1/2 years ago, her clientele didn’t know what to make of her brightly-colored macaroons. On a typical day, she offers as many as 25 flavors, ranging from cassis and caramel to violet and yuzu.

“One Yelper complained that he drove all the way to the Peninsula because he heard about my macaroons, and when he got here they weren’t even coconut,” she says, laughing.

Manukyan says she understands that it will take a while for folks to catch on.

“They’re not like chocolate-chip cookies,” she says. “Even in Paris and Montreal, they’re considered a specialty item, an elite pastry.”

They’ve got a steep price tag to prove it - $1.25 to $1.95 for a cookie no larger than an Oreo.

Juliette Lelchuk, an instructor at the San Francisco Baking Institute, says the price of the cookie reflects the expense of the ingredients - the almond flour Manukyan uses costs $15 a pound wholesale, not to mention the price of her exotic flavored fillings - and the labor. “They’re extremely time intensive,” says Manukyan, who pipes each cookie half by hand.

For the consumer, Lelchuk says, “It’s an indulgence and should always leave you wanting more.”

Even in Paris, where the cookies are made by machine, the price can run as high as 8 euros for a white truffle macaroon at Pierre Hermé. The pastry chef and his self-named bakery have sparked debate among aficionados over whether his innovations have made him the reigning macaroon king. His new cookbook, “Macaron” (published in French by Agnes Vienot; 2008), is already on back order.

“Hermé really spearheaded the modernization of the macaroon,” Suas says.

Making macaroons is as much an art form as it is a baking challenge, even for the accomplished cook, Lelchuk says. A good macaroon should be smooth with no cracks in the pastry. And each cookie round should contain a “foot,” a crackly, puffed second layer that measures about 1/16-inch high.

“If you don’t see a foot, you’ve probably overmixed your batter,” Lelchuk says. “A flat foot either means you overmixed or you underbaked.”

The history of the French macaroon is as elusive as the perfect texture. According to Relais Desserts, a French trade publication for bakers, the cookie was probably developed in the Andalusia region of Spain before the 1492 expulsion of the Jews and was created for Passover, when foods with flour and leavening are forbidden.

Others believe that it was introduced to France by Italy and was made famous by two Carmelite nuns who baked and sold them during the French Revolution to make a living. Relais Desserts says the name macaron probably originates from a combination of the Greek term for “cake of the blessed” and the Italian word macaroni.

France’s King Louis XIV is said to have served macaroons at his wedding. But according to most sources, it wasn’t until 1862, when baker Louis-Ernest Ladurée decided to turn the little cake into a cookie sandwich, that the pastry was popularized.

Until the late 1980s, macaroon flavors were pretty prosaic - chocolate, vanilla, coffee and an occasional raspberry. Hermé, who originally worked at Ladurée, is credited for expanding the macaroon repertoire and even introducing savory versions, like his now faddish ketchup one.

San Francisco baker Trouan says he’s also moving in the savory direction, topping a half macaroon with ingredients such as prosciutto, salmon eggs and delicate cucumber slices. Manukyan is sticking with sweet macaroons and playing around with new flavors - pumpkin for Thanksgiving and cranberry for Christmas.

For her, the cookies are a “luxurious little pleasure” that won’t break the bank.

And as long as she keeps making them, I’ll always have Paris”

2009-11-02T11:32:00.004-06:00

We've got a great line up of Holiday pastry, breads, and savory Hors D' oevres to make any party a gourmet success! Please download the PDF version of our Holiday Menu and fax or e-mail your orders.
Click here for menu download or click here for the latest version of Adobe Reader.

Best of Nashville

2009-10-23T13:09:00.004-05:00

Thank you Nashville for voting us the best place to buy bread for the 13th year and running. We are proud to be Nashville's local, all natural, Artisan Bread Bakery. This win represents the hard work, creativity, and dedication of many key folks in our bakery but I must give credit where credit is due...thank you Keith Brown (head baker) and Kim Totzke (Culinary and operational director) for leading this awesome team of ours...you guys are rock stars every day of the week. Keep on living the dream.

Fall Pastry Fete-October 10th, 2009

2009-09-29T15:50:00.005-05:00

Join us at our Hillsboro Village location on October 10th for our Fall Pastry Fete (celebration) and sample our Holiday pastry line with pastry chef Megan Williams and Owner Terry Carr-Hall. Please click on the link below for the 2009 Holiday Menu and for more info on the Pastry Fete.
pastryfete_poster.pdf

holidaymenu2009.pdf

2009-05-03T17:46:00.003-05:00

Please click on the link below and follow us on Twitter for real time updates on everything Provence...from what our bakers are saying to specials of the day. We are excited to share the daily musings of all things bakery and cafe (and the craziness of running a food business), as well as our daily quest for "food nirvana" as we taste our way through our kitchens and share with you the good, the bad, and sometimes the truly sublime.

follow me on Twitter

Yummi Yo! Frozen Italian Style Yogurt at Green Hills and the Nashville Airport

2009-03-22T18:21:00.014-05:00

http://www.yummiyo.com/

Yummi Yo! is a natural Italian style frozen yogurt with live and active yogurt cultures and no fat grams. Pure, creamy, and refreshingly tangy, Yummi Yo! has all of yogurts natural goodness such as calcium and protein and is fat free and gluten free. Did you know that yogurt can result in numerous health benefits such as improved digestive health and a stronger immune system?
Stop by our Hill Center location in Green Hills and ask for a free sample. Tell them you read about it on the Blog site.

Yummi Yo! was developed by Provence and is a trademarked product.

Don't forget St. Patricks Day!

2009-03-13T14:14:00.002-05:00

St. Patricks Day 3/17 Menu

Yazoo Beer Bread - Talk about local! In our search for the best local ingredients, we certainly didn’t have to go far for this one. After months in development, Yazoo and Provence are happy to introduce the Yazoo Beer Bread 4.00

Irish Soda Bread – Traditional Irish Table Bread with Zante Currants for our own American flair 4.25

Grasshopper Mini Cake - Layers of Mint Buttercream, Chocolate Ganache and Chocolate Cake just big enough for two. 10.95 (available in larger sizes by special order)

Shamrock Cookie – Vanilla sucree shamrock shaped cookie decorated with royal icing 1.65

Lamb stew – Traditional stew of simmered lamb and root vegetables 12.95 per quart

Meet Kim Totzke, Culinary Operations Manager

2008-05-01T11:18:00.006-05:00

February 16 . 2009

Kim Totzke was named Best Chef in Nashville by Nashville Scene food critic Kay West. In her column, West has said Kim, “is as well known for her quirky, extroverted personality as she is for her unbridled creativity in the kitchen.” And this is how it started…

Totzke fell in love with cooking when she was five years old and her grandmother would play her favorite game in which she blindfolded Kim and fed her bits of food to ask her what she tasted - “Salty? Sweet?” By age nine, she was cooking on her own at home while her parents finished up at work. A few major pitfalls led her to a 4H cooking class, and for her 10^th birthday she received cook books. By high school, she was teaming up with girlfriends to save allowance to buy supplies to prepare exquisite “dinners for six” with Bon Appetite magazine recipes. A few of her friend’s parents owned restaurants, and occasionally Kim and her pals would help in the kitchen when they were short on staff. After a three month tour of Europe, Kim went home to Florida to work in the Sheraton Dolphin Hotel and Winter Park’s Briar Patch on Park Avenue. One evening, her best friend’s boyfriend introduced her to the chef at Park Plaza Gardens, which eventually led to an apprenticeship at Coco Pazzo at74^th and Madison in Manhattan. In 1992, with her apprenticeship complete, she moved away from the hustle and bustle of New York to Nashville. Nashville is where Kim finished her education and became a certified chef through the American Culinary Federation.

And a rising culinary star continued to shine…she met Deb Paquette and took a job with her at Cakewalk, then onto the Belle Meade Brasserie with Robert Siegel, then again with Deb Paquette at The Bound’ry, followed by a post as general manager of Bongo Java and Fido. As she began her ninth year as a known powerhouse and dynamic member of Nashville’s chef community, she landed gracefully in 2001 as executive chef of The Yellow Porch. It wasn’t long before she was named creative director of food and wine for the entire company including Wild Iris, Cross Corner, Flying Horse, and Pegasus Catering. Kim’s latest challenge was to revamp the Ombi restaurant concept as it’s general manager/co-chef. Ombi has been critically acclaimed by both local and national media alike.

Kim Totzke’s versatility and originality, balanced by consistently extraordinary cooking skills, makes her the darling of Nashville’s foodies, not to mention a legion of loyal regulars. In her spare time, she enjoys teaching classes at local schools and colleges and using her talents to raise funds for deserving causes like Nashville’s Table. Kim Totzke passed her first level sommelier exam by the Count of Master Sommeliers and is now working with l’ Ete’ du Vin to offer bourbon tastings at their 2008 auctions, solidifying her commitment to quality in every aspect of the industry. It is no wonder that West called her “a maestro of multi-tasking,” and, certainly, “a seasoned but still effervescent chef.” I’m sure that the most exciting adventures are sure to come.

If you like Pinkberry Frozen Yogurt....

2008-05-01T11:01:00.005-05:00

May 02 2008
You will love our latest product line developed by Provence-Yummi Yo frozen yogurt. We visited the latest trend setters in the frozen yogurt world (Pinkberry etc.) and designed a low fat and no fat yogurt that tastes like the real thing...tart and creamy yogurt. Our favorite toppings are fresh berries, kiwis, pineapple etc. Please visit our Cafe located on the Peabody Campus (The Iris Cafe) for a sample of this wonderful new product.

Intelligentsia Coffee!

2008-05-01T10:16:00.005-05:00

May 1, 2008
In our never ending quest for outstanding quality, we have partnered with Intelligentsia Coffees
out of Chicago IL.
From Doug Zell, one of the founders of Intelligentsia: "We purchase our green beans from either the world’s most renowned importers or directly from the growers themselves. Our purchases are based on the cup quality of the coffee. Whenever possible, we seek growers and importers that are known to be both environmentally and socially responsible. It is almost always the case that these individuals produce and offer the best quality. Our coffee is roasted daily in our vintage German roasters. As a result, you will not find a fresher, more flavorful cup anywhere. At a company level, we adhere to the philosophy that the compassionate treatment of people and the environment inevitably yields higher quality. So whether you are enjoying a cup in our store, your favorite café or restaurant, or in the peaceful confines of your home, we are certain that you will taste the difference that care makes."Cool%20photo%2008.pdf