Watercolor courtesy of Paris Breakfasts

If I were to credit France for one thing, aside from contributing to the expansion of my waistline and deteriorating my English, it would be the blossoming of my culinary palette. I am guilty of having grown up eating frozen dinners, peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches daily for lunch and thinking of vegetables as something only vegetarian hippies ate. Yes, I was a gastronomical mess.

If there was any “green stuff” on my pasta dish, I wouldn’t eat it. If my mom tried to sneak any fruit other than banana into my cereal, I would push my bowl aside. In my defense, my parents never forced me to try new things, quite possibly because I was too difficult and it was more of a headache to coax me into eating than to just let it go. Still, I was the girl who brought PB&J with her to lunch even in high school.

It wasn’t until I came to Paris and met my husband that I realized I was either going to starve or balloon up like a whale from too many baguettes if I didn’t push myself to try new things. What would he think if I told him I didn’t like anything he prepared and had to hold my nose in front of Camembert? Surely, he would have written me off immediately. They say it takes trying something at least ten times before you develop a taste for it – wine, cheese, men (just kidding) – and fortunately for me, that seemed to be accurate.

Among the dishes I tested and incorporated into my diet, my favorite was the sweet Mont Blanc, a mountainous cake composed of puréed chestnuts and whipped cream with a meringue base that I tried at the famous Café Angelina. One of Angelina’s specialties, the Mont Blanc features an ingredient I had never heard of nor tasted before – crème de marrons (chestnut cream). It’s a delicious sweet paste made of puréed chestnuts that you’ll often see on the list of ingredients at crêperies all over France. Ok, so it’s not asparagus, but it was new for me and is now among my favorite spreads.

It may not be widely available outside of France but you can order it off of Amazon and certainly in specialty shops. Here are a few recipe ideas for a weekend en douceur….

Butter Cookie Sandwiches with Chestnut Cream (Martha Stewart) 

Mont Blanc (Delicious) 

Chestnut Mille Crêpes (Zen Can Cook) 

Chestnut Cream Torte (Food Network Canada)

Crème de Marrons Brownies (ODélices – the recipe I botched!)