Cooking Class at Le Cordon Bleu

As this trip had much to do with eating, one of our more exciting expeditions is to take a 3 hour appetizer cooking class at the Cordon Bleu.  The building, near the Eiffel tower is an unassuming building on an unassuming  street.

Le Cordon Bleu Paris

The appetizer class consists of:

• Three tomatoes, balsamic cream and Parmesan mousse served in a glass
• Fingerling potatoes with fresh seaweed, salmon tartare and smoke herring caviar 
• Duck mousse and fruit salad flavored with spiced honey

The class was taught by a french chef with an english translator helping out.

Appetizer Class

We take the appetizers home and have them for dinner, along with a bottle of wine and some bread from the boulangerie around the corner. There is way too much for the two of us to eat, as there are 4 full boxes worth of appetizers.

Pompidou Centre

Wednesday is a light day, we plan only on visiting Pompidou Centre and then a cooking class at the Cordon Bleu later in the afternoon.


The centre is only a few minutes walk from the apartment and houses the Musée National d'Art Moderne, the largest modern art museum in Europe as well as a huge public library and a music and acoustic research centre.

Pompidou Centre

While english speakers call it the Pompidou Centre and french speakers call it the Centre Georges Pompidou or Beauborg (for the neighborhood), we call it the hamster house due to its many tubes and glass walls.

Place Pompidou Centre (seen from inside pompidou centre)

Today the museum had a special exhibit by Women artists which was quite interesting. The kinetic exhibits were also fascinating. The outdoor sculpture terrace on the 5th level was not open, which was a shame as we could clearly see Paris and especially the Basilique on the hill through the dirty windows in the museum. The museum had a kinetic artwork by an artist Loretta recognized from earlier last week at the Antiquaries art show, it may have been Victor Vasarely.

It had different sections for different periods, that is, historic modern era (1905-1945) and modern era.

Yves Klein's patented blue

View of  Sacré-Cœur Basilica from Pompidou

Walk along Seine