Eye Prefer Paris Tours

I absolutely LOVED my day with excellent guide (and blogger) Richard Nahem. FIrst of all, the guy’s a former New Yorker, so I felt seen, heard and understood 100%. Which was awesome. Totally approachable, and fun. But secondly — and more importantly — he’s a totally visual guy (Richard also posts a lot of photos on his blog). So we spent the day seeing a completely GORGEOUS, off the beaten path Paris I had never seen before. Frankly, I couldn’t stop taking pictures as there was another beautiful surprise around every corner.
I have been here 5 times, and spent a total of more than 5 months walking the streets of Paris, so I didn’t want just any old tour. I needed something a little beyond the usual touristic haunts, and Richard totally provided with his very sophisticated tour of Southern Pigalle and ‘New Athens’ in the 9^th. (I’d done Richard’s tour of Marche Bastille, which was SO interesting. AND delicious!) Truly, my tour was one of the highlights of this trip.
If you want a great guide who is interesting, highly knowledgeable and will show you more of photogenic Paris than you can cram into your camera, Richard is the one. You won’t be disappointed.

Superb Introduction to Paris food markets and a great cooking lesson
Background: Suppose you are going to spend a week or two in Paris in a flat equipped with a kitchen and you want to take advantage of the famous fresh markets of the city and cook some of your own meals? Now that sounded great when we were planning the trip, except we had never shopped in those markets and we suspected there might be a few cultural/​procedural differences from a typical farmers market in the US.
Solution: Our pre-​trip research uncovered the Eye Prefer Paris blog by Richard Nahem who can arrange a cooking class with Charlotte Puckette, a professional chef and caterer and the co-​author of The Ethnic Paris Cookbook. Here is the link to the site:
The Class: My wife and I were met by Charlotte at the Rennes Metro stop exactly as planned and after quick introductory greetings she gave us a detailed guide through the Marché Raspail. Charlotte keeps her groups small – no more than 6 – and this is key because most members of larger groups would be out of hearing range in this lively, bustling market place. She described the differences between French and American food products and agricultural practices, pointed out ways to identify the best vendors, and the best ways to interact with the vendors. We made several purchases and then hopped on the 87 bus to reach her home and extremely well-​appointed kitchen.
Soon we were busy preparing a lunch we would be eating in about two hours. We started first with the dessert that would be a chocolate ganache tart with a brown butter crust and we were happy to realize that this was something we could replicate at home. Next up was a mousseline sauce (similar to hollandaise sauce that would be used for the white asparagus. We then started to work on the vegetables: asparagas spears were scraped, peas were shucked, and shallots and figs were diced – no Cuisinart cheating here.
The main course would be roasted duck breast, with a Fig Gastrique sauce. The sauce was not hard to prepare and was an amazing accompaniment when paired with the duck. We learned it could be used with a variety of dishes, so those who are not big fans of duck, can move over to the pork tenderloin section of the meat market.
Charlotte is a superb instructor and a charming hostess, so this was far more than a cooking course; it was fun, educational, and delicious. Moreover, we felt quite competent afterwards shopping in the markets and small specialty stores during the rest of our stay in Paris. Charlotte provided copies of each of the recipes and we fully intend to try them all in our own kitchen.