Once in a while I enjoy going away overnight for a short weekend trip. Don't get me wrong, I love vacations but I am not a big fan of day trips or short weekend trips. The reason is that there is always traffic coming back into the city and it does take the fun out of the trip. This past weekend my husband and I were invited to my husband's co workers vacation house in upstate Hudson, New York. We took a two hour Amtrak train ride from Penn station and stayed overnight. It was great leaving the city behind. We were met with greenery, space, fresh air, no humidity, lake, BBQ, sunset and small town shops. One of my favorite destinations were this new little french Boulangerie called Cafe Le Perche. The Boulangerie had a very impressive oven, a circular brick bread oven, specially imported from France. The manager is the same woman who managed Le Pain Quotidien in NYC and I believe that the interior in Cafe Le Perche was inspired by Le Pain Quotidien. I tried a few different things. The cranberry & Orange muffin, the muffin top was really crispy and the muffin body was juicy and full of cranberries without being too sweet. The basil pesto dinner roll was absolutely amazing and something that I must to make myself very soon. My husband had a sandwich with ham and cheese. The bread was moist and the crust crispy. We also shared a broccoli and cheese biscuit which I must say, was a bit disappointing. On Saturday mornings I usually take my dog and visit the local farmer's market on the UES, one of the vendors make amazing cheese and broccoli biscuits. If you are not there on time, they will definitely be sold out.
This is a picture from their
facebook fan page.
The main baker invited us to see the special wood fired oven so I took the opportunity to take a picture of it.
A few weeks ago I took a baking class at Le Pain Quotidien here in the city. I have always been a fan of cooking and baking but I rarely bake bread so this class was perfect to give me a kick start and inspiration to start baking bread.My freezer is till full of bread from the class but as soon as I have eaten it all up I will probably start by baking the basis pesto dinner roll :).
