This wasn’t what I had planned on posting. Not that it isn’t worth posting about mind you. Helen DuJardin aka Tartelette is definitely worth the bandwidth. She is an incredibly talented pastry chef, photographer, food blogger and teacher – not to mention a warm, gracious and funny woman. I am posting about this since I had the honor of attending a class she gave this weekend on Macarons – those delicious and beautiful french confections which are now all the rage. Don’t believe me?? Check out the freezer section of your nearest Trader Joe’s – yep, they are in there!!!
The class was organized by three talented and energenic food bloggers – Rachael of La Fuji Mama, Gaby of What’s Gaby Cooking and Jen of Devour the World. I think they may have an additional career in their future though – as event coordinators for celebrity food bloggers!!!!
My favorite part of the class was after we had baked the Macarons and some of them, mine included, were not exactly perfect specimens of Macaron mastery. Helen, in perfect gallic fashion shrugged her shoulders saying “pfft” and said that you learn more from your failures than from your successes”- wise words indeed. She of course also pointed out that it was the oven and not us that was the problem and reassured us that she has also had batches of Macarons that weren’t perfect – so there is definitely hope for me and my Macarons- to -be!
Driving home I thought a lot about what Helen had said. While it is true about Macarons it is also true about cooking and life itself for that matter. I have always learned far more when a dish has failed than I have when one has succeeded – something I know I don’t always keep in mind. So Helen, thanks for the wonderful class and for reminding me about the value of failure!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
So Nancy, were you able to stave off munching those luscious little beauties for the requisite 92 hours or did you, as we at Cafe S'mee did, dive right in and label yourself a true American?
(wiping the ganache from the corners of my mouth!)
It was nice to meet you! Hope to see you again soon!
Are those your Mac's? Because, they look amazingly perfect to me. Loved meeting you and thank you for stopping by my blog post. I'd love to keep in touch and hope we get to cook together again.
Wonderful post! Here's to failures! Now I hope you go and make some macarons and have beautiful success! Thank you so much for coming to the class–it was a pleasure to meet you!