The French Patiisserie in West Ajijic

brigitte wrote:and they are, Bakersfield has a large Armenian population which at least brings diversity to the cuisine. Barstow may have a few "gourmets" but I never met them not even at Burger KIng!.

The French place is a patisserie not a bakery( boulangerie) English is such a poor in vocabulary language... In France there are 2 licenses one for boulanger who make breads and one for the patisseries who make cakes. Some places have both licenses but some do not. This place would be called a patisserie not a boulangerie as he does not have breads.

The croissants , pains au chocolat, pains au raisins and viennoiseries are not eaten with lunch or dinner and not considered as bread. They are eaten for breakfast or at 4or 5 in the afternoon for an afternoon snack for the kids or the old ladies. Usually boulangeries and patisseries sell those.

In San Cristobal we have a wonderful baker , I asked once if he was planning to make fruit tarts and he said," I have to stick with what I am good at, I am a boulanger". I was told off real fast for even suggesting that he made patisseries! Thank Goodness we also have a French patissier in town but I have to say that the one in Ajijic is better.

So all we need now in Ajijic is a French baker who makes the breads and we are all on our way to be very thin since, the French as a rule are thin...By the way the Rye bread at the other place is wonderful as well.

Thanks for the bakery knowledge. I would love to walk somewhere and pick up real french bread.



Barstow has a good mexican resturant down by the roadway inn (great place to stay cheap, clean and taken care of) but that is about it. Spent too much
time in Barstow. Walked the whole town many times. Gourmet ....no. Interesting about Bakersfield LOL. I usually eat at the in and out burger so I obviously don't know.

Z

Well I would think the people who are "sophisticated " enough to make the difference between good and bad rye do not care if he thinks the town is not sophisticated, that puts them one step ahead of the masses...

Zed, the problem with French bread is that it is only good for a few hours so it is not cheap and you have to eat it all for lunch or dinner or you will break a tooth.
This is why we have invented all kinds of dishes with stale bread, including French toast which are rendered ineatable in the States where they forget the rhum!
Unfortunately the baker in Chiapas only makes country bread that will last..like rye bread, sour dough fougasse etc..more in fashion but nothing like a good "Parisien".

brigitte wrote:Well I would think the people who are "sophisticated " enough to make the difference between good and bad rye do not care if he thinks the town is not sophisticated, that puts them one step ahead of the masses...

Only right rye bread in my opinion. Some eggs with some good chorizo added, home fries, and two good pieces of Fernandos rye with new zealand butter
on top is just yum yum. A fresh orange juice from the tree in the yard makes it perfect.

Rum in french toast? Hmmm have to try that. I assume Rhum is rum.

Z

brigitte wrote:Zed, the problem with French bread is that it is only good for a few hours so it is not cheap and you have to eat it all for lunch or dinner or you will break a tooth.
This is why we have invented all kinds of dishes with stale bread, including French toast which are rendered ineatable in the States where they forget the rhum!
Unfortunately the baker in Chiapas only makes country bread that will last..like rye bread, sour dough fougasse etc..more in fashion but nothing like a good "Parisien".

I can live with four hour bread. What else do I have to do other than collect food, volunteer, clean the pool, and drink good liquor and beer.

Z

Zed sorry rhum is not rhum, we use dark rhum from Martinique. For cooking the most popular (not the best for drinking) is Rhum Negrita. Paz sells it.

brigitte wrote:Zed sorry rhum is not rhum, we use dark rhum from Martinique. For cooking the most popular (not the best for drinking) is Rhum Negrita. Paz sells it.

Rhum Agricole - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhum_Agricole


Rhum Agricole is a type of rum distilled in one of the French West Indies islands from freshly squeezed sugar cane juice rather than from molasses.

oh how interesting. I will have to try it. It would be very different than molasses based rum.

Z

Fresno -not Bakersfield - has a large Armenian population. Bakersfield has a large Basque population and the restaurants, bakeries, and lukainka sausage factory to support it.

You are absolutely right Fresno for the Armenians and Bakersfield for the Basques...unfortunately the Basque food in Bakersfield has stayed way behind and is plentyful but pretty lousy...a shame because Basque nouvelle cuisine is some of the best in France and Spain.

ZED
Yes Rhum agricole is the best but I do not think Negrita is one of those. One of my cousin lives in Martinique and another in Guadalupe and my family has tons of rhum agricole. My brother loves to give rhum agricole tastings. These rhums are very good but they would throw anyone out of the tastings for even mentioning Negrita. which is just for cooking..

What we desperately need here is a bakery selling REAL San Francisco style sourdough French bread. I get all teary eyed remembering it.

Gary here. The real Baguette from Paris is a type of sourdough. I asked him if he planned to make it, he said no - something about the ovens. Then I remembered, sourdough is somewhat lazy to rise, and the oven injects steam at a critical stage. There is a doctor who collects sourdough cultures from all over the world (including 'genuine' S.F. sourdough) and sells them on the internet. Very good Arab breads.

That shop amazes me because they only speak French and Spanish, I tried out some Quebecois phrases, in the 'correct' Rene Leveque accent - that cracked them up. My bad Quebecois French is worse than my Spanglish, or maybe it is Spanglishois!

They make a cane rum in Trinidad called "10 Cane" - never been able to find it.
http://cocktails.about.com/od/rumreviews/gr/10cane_rum_rvw.htm

I have also tried Cachaca from Brazil and Aguadiente from Mexico. I think it is vastly under rated as an ingredient in ponches and cordials, much better than overproof vodka or everclear (ethyl alcohol).

My doctors have me on a tight diet, with herbal supplements, I haven't had a drink of alcohol for a couple of weeks - the worse part is that I totally assumed that I had to be teetotal the whole time, I never asked them - at the end, they will probably tell me 'Oh yeah - you can drink in moderation'. Sort of like old men and sex, if they aren't getting it - they can at least talk about it

I like Armando's sourdough. (The texture is chewy, but a bit more like a white bread, and not a hard, crunchy crust if that's what you mean by "San Francisco style". Actually, sourdough became so ridiculously popular and overproduced in the '80s, I'm not even sure what would be considered "authentic" any more.) Anyway, I think he sells a sourdough, and also a "white bread", but even "white bread" has a sourdough flavor. All of his bread is really good, and his multigrano is absolutely spectacular. So is his focaccia.

He's sells at the Tuesday Market/La Huerta, and is back selling at the Wednesday Tianguis in Ajijic (yay!). Also on Sundays in Chapala at the plaza (I think).

He sells out early.

I totally disagree...the "real French baguette" is not sourdough or a type of it.
Sourdough used to be sold in the country in France and was a specialty in Paris, nothing we would eat on a daily basis unless we specifically were looking for it. Pain Parisien, batard. baguette and so on are not sourdough bread. A real baguette is not dible after 4 or 5 hours, sourdough bread is.

Chillin - funny post. They do have some english. My numbers in french are way better than spanish but there similiarities (sic). When there, I ask for the price in french, it's easier for me. Speaking "joual" (quebecois for cheval) to them, would, of course, crack them up. Ur Rene Levesque/Jean Chretien impersonations would be totally lost on them. They speak "Metropolitan french". "Those People" would have no clue re the finer nuances of Cdn politics, federally or provincially, and their leaders, or the great joy we take in trying to imitate the lingo of those rubes.
Next door to the patisserie, that lady's place (she is very nice, good english - don't really know the purpose of the place) supposedly acts as the patisseries' depot for the bread from their boulangerie. The boulangerie is baking out of some garage in La floresta that nobody (me) could find. The whole lot was next to Tabarka, there were issues (permit wise?), etc., hence "the move". This is all hearsay, by the way. So, in the interest of "good bread", anybody want to do a little digging, drill down, and get back ?

Ok now I am curious. There are French Canadians I have no problems understanding , the accent is different the rythm of the language is different and some words are different but I have no problem with it, but for exemple a couple of days ago I was in Walmart and I heard a strange language so I listen wondering where the couple was from...no clue..until may be two minutes later I picked up some French words and I realized they were Canadians. I am always wondering if the people are speaking a dialect or is their accent so different that it makes it not understandable to someone from France?-

One day the ame happened to me on a boat in Hawaii and I asked the people in English what language they were speaking. When they said French I did not volonteered the fact that I was French...


Borderreiver you are totally right any impersonation of any Canadian politician is right over our heads. You may not have notice but the man has a strong accent from Toulouse , she does not. Did you catch that one?

B...when you lived in Alabama, did you ever stray over to Lafayette, LA for a French lesson?
They don't even understand each other.

We returned from Cali, Colombia on Saturday and I brought a bottle of 8 year-old Colombian Ron. It's delicious. It has a hint of banana in the aroma!

Can someone tell me if it's to the left or right of the old Hacienda Steak House as you look toward the lake. I have a bum foot not and can't afford to walk much. Thanks Need to find eclairs!

thanks

I did not have to stray to Lousiana, I lived accross from Montlouis Island,Ala an island founded by a French man from my mother´s home town who had gone to Canada and then down the Mississipi, There the people spoke a French dialect I did not really undertand but they understood me. At the time there was a small black community living there and I wish I had taken notes on their language. The area has gentrified and who know if that small community still exist.
I understand some of the French in Louisiana after a couple of days or so.

I think that at least some of the French in Louisiana speak and Acadian dialect, originally from the New Brunswick area of Canada.

Dr. Ed Wood sells the mild French sourdough. Here is a link from the gurus of bread making in North America, King Arthur Flour, and how to mimic the steam in baking baguettes at home - http://www.kingarthurflour.com/blog/2011/07/13/baguettes-do-try-this-at-home/

Right off the bat what they call baguette on the picture is not a what is called baguette in Paris. We have the flute the baguette the batard et le pain. None of those are sourdough in Paris .
What they show I would call a batard. So much for the gurus ..

brigitte wrote:I did not have to stray to Lousiana, I lived accross from Montlouis Island,Ala an island founded by a French man from my mother´s home town who had gone to Canada and then down the Mississipi, There the people spoke a French dialect I did not really undertand but they understood me. At the time there was a small black community living there and I wish I had taken notes on their language. The area has gentrified and who know if that small community still exist. I understand some of the French in Louisiana after a couple of days or so.

I know this is about the fun new patisserie in West Ajijic which we greatly enjoy. I usually get there at mid-afternoon when the inventory is more limited but yesterday I got there at 9:30AM because we were having guests for lunch and wanted a small variety of French pastries for lunch including mille feuilles, eclairs and jesuites and had a ball consuming them along with a Nicoise-style onion,anchovy, oil-cured olive, tomato paste and garlic pizza. Well, I can attest that if you get there at about 9:30AM, the inventory is great and perhaps a danger to your health. This patisserie along with the fabulous new Pascaderia Pacifico which is doing a booming trade and the well-stocked grocer all within easy walking distance of each other are enhancing the excellent food choices impressively in West Ajijic. Now no need to trek over to San Antonio and other points east as often as was a ritual journey for years for those of us living in the Six Corners area.

I had to tout this fine new patisserie here but was really inspired to write because of my wife´s above comment on Montlouis Island, Alabama which is actually known as Mon Luis Island but named after the town of MontLuis Sur Loire in the Loire Valley in France from whence the original owner of the island hailed. Mon Luis Island was a fun, if primitive area on the shores of Mobile Bay in the early 70s when we lived there. Isolated and mostly of African American heritage with a small population speaking a French patois but pretty much significantly changed today as the Western Shore of Mobile Bay has changed from a hub of bayfront industrial activity and small, impoverished fishing villages to the gentrified exurban residential hub of Metropolitan Mobile´s upper middle class and wealthy. Nice, fancy homes there now but something was lost in the transition as happens everywhere when the well-to-do are attracted to waterfront properties and acquire the mobility to settle farther from the city´s centralized economic activities and commute. That´s life. When we lived there in 1971, it was cheap and rustic but no more. Adios.

Thank you for clearing that up Brigitte. You must understand that I have had very little exposure to people from France, especially those like you who I trust explicitly on matters of culture, food and wine. I have really enjoyed the French literature classics -Proust, Flaubert and Balzac - but always in translation.

Now, another French bread myth you may be able de-smock. 1) It is considered rude to saw away at bread and buns with a knife - it is always broken by hand. 2) It is considered rude to slather fresh bread and buns with gobs of butter.