Flour power

Sometimes, when I'm out walking with papa, I notice a sudden boost in our pace. Since papa is never late, this usually means one of two things: we are passing in front of a nice terrace café, or we are passing in front of a boulangerie. Papa knows that if he slows down, I'm likely to drive him crazy.

"Papa dear, wouldn't it be civilized to stop at this nice terrace café, order an expresso, and watch the aimless wonderings of lives unexamined?

Or...

"Papa, I want a piece of baguette now and if I don't get it then every French person within three kilometers who has never seen or heard a spoiled child since French kids are so perfectly behaved will stare at you and silently accuse you of being the hapless failure of a parent that you are."

I don't always get coffee but it's really quite amazing how much bread I eat. And I'm lucky because, while the coffee in France is actually quite bad (nowhere near Italian standards), the bread is the best in the world. I know because Mr. Pichard told me so only yesterday.

That's right, Mr. Pichard himself, Frédéric Pichard. The Roger Federer of bread, the Michelangelo Buonarroti of the galette des rois, of Carlos Kleiber of the baguette. I met him. You may not believe this, but I not only net him, he actually taught  me how to make the best bread in the world.

It all started early one morning when Mme Frankart led the Grand Section 1 out for a special field trip. Downstairs waited our parent slaves. I had both of mine on this occasion. We walked about 250 meters up the rue Blomet to the corner of the rue Cambronne, crossed the street, took a right, walked about 20 meters and stopped at the bakery where were welcomed into the shrine of the croissant, the temple of the pain au chocolat, the Boulangerie Pichard on 88 rue Cambronne. The very one.

Many times I have stood in front of the Boulangerie Pichard, in rain, in sunshine, in rain, in snow, in hot weather, in cold (it's about a gazillion degrees below zero Kelvin at the moment) waiting for my baguette Pichard. Were we really going behind the scenes in this cathedral of crust? Yes, we were.

Soon, we were dressed like bakers and kneading the dough. All under the guiding eyes of Mr. Pichard and his apprentice. Mine was perfect. Not long after, we returned to school while the bread rose with the flours natural yeast (yeap, Mr. Pichard doesn't add yeast).

Lunchtime seemed to drag on forever as we waited to return to the Boulangerie Pichard. But after walking up the rue Blomet and turning right on the rue Cambronne again, we were back. And our baguettes were ready for the oven.

Now this is no ordinary oven, it a wood-burning oven. Only four left in Paris, and in a few short years, there will be only one, this one. The other three ovens are near the end of their lives and like most misguided people nowadays, their owners will not replace them with wood ovens; it's more cost effective to use modern shiny things that have no soul. This is the world I was born into.

Back to bread: we made a small incision along the baguette with a sharp knife (good idea to put a scalpel-like instrument in a 5-year-old's hands) and watched as our baguettes were placed in the large forged-iron oven. Then we went downstairs to learn all about how good bread was made.

I won't go into the story here but suffice to say that you have to study about 9 years after high school to become a top bread baker ( and that doesn't qualify you for the sweet stuff my dear, nine years for that - medecine is much quicker). This means that mama and papa only half understood what he was going on about. "The fifty-five of the wheat thingy is all the the king's bakers would use, and is what goes into the baguette Pichard...the 120 is used for the whole wheat...natural flour has 30 or 40 yeasts...added yeast has 10 billion..." And the five-year-olds? Well, we stuck our hands in the dough and erased the recipes from the walls.

My baguette was cooked to perfection. I ate it à la française: with a piece of 70% dark chocolate stuck inside. And Mr. and Mrs. Pichard are so nice that they gave us each our own personalized bun. Apparently you could let it dry and keep it forever, which is what papa wanted to do. In my book, forever is about 11 minutes. It was delicious.

Why not check out some snaps of our baking bonanza here: If you want to live in style you gotta have bread.

Or check out a couple from our galette des roi (which came from Pichard, of course): the King and I