Market Table

Normally, breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays at Nos Chambres en Ville starts at 9 a.m., but on Saturday, July 25th, Karine was kind enough to have our breakfast ready at 8:30 so that we could walk a few blocks up the hill by 9:00 for Plum Teaching Kitchen's all-day Market Table cooking class.

Our instructor, Lucy, is an American married to a Frenchman. She is a French-trained pastry chef who teaches various classes out of a storefront kitchen on the Croix-Rousse hill. Our group consisted of five not-young Americans and a young Australian, all but one female and, by coincidence, most trained as nurses.

Lucy got out a market basket and a two-wheeled market bag and we went to the Montee de la Grande Cote, the pedestrianized street up the hill.

At stops on the way up, Lucy explained the history of this street and the Croix-Rousse generally. Before the French Revolution, this was the only road up a hill covered with monastery gardens and vineyards. The buildings toward the bottom of the Montee were the only non-church-related buildings on the hill. After the Revolution, silk production was moved from Vieux Lyon to the Croix-Rousse, where new buildings with large windows, on the south-facing hill, brought much better light to the silk-making process. This industry, once primary to Lyon's identity, has now disappeared, except for a little artisan or artistic silk production.

At the top of the hill, for many blocks along a street, was the market, a crowded, booming, buzzing affair. We spent over an hour there, deciding what to pick up for our meal, based on what was available. We collected our purchases and headed for a boulangerie (bakery).

The French buy their baguettes daily. Next was the fromagerie (cheese shop). Lucy said that she doesn't normally buy cheese at the market, because it isn't as fresh. Across the street was a chocolatier (called "Chokola") that Lucy recommended. While we were waiting for the cheese purchase some of us went over and bought some very nice chocolate.

Now we went back down the hill and, first, had a snack: three different types of meat pate, with little thumb-sized cheeses and berries.

Very nice. Then, to work, all of us being given various tasks involving washing and chopping. Beets were cooked and sliced and interspersed on the plate with goat cheese: our first course. We took it into the dining room behind the kitchen and enjoyed the first fruits of our labor, along with some wine.

Next we created three different sauces for lamb chops and cooked the chops themselves. Meanwhile, Mary Joy, who had said that she couldn't bake, was given most of the responsibility for dessert: a tart of apricot slices in a bed of almond paste.

After artistically plating the main dish,

we went back to the dining room and ate it, along with more wine. Then came a course of several different cheeses, followed by Mary Joy's wonderful apricot tart. By then it was nearly 6 p.m.

This was one of the best cooking classes we've ever taken. Lucy kept things running very smoothly, involving everyone.

Afterwards, we wandered around a little, finding the Amphitheater of the Three Gauls and, down by the Saone, the Fresque des Lyonnais, a windowless seven-story building wall that had been painted with a trompe-l'oeil mural of famous lyonnais, leaning on balconies, including chef Paul Bocuse and the Little Prince (along with his author, Antoine de St.-Exupery).

We went back by the Hotel de Ville and Opera, then crossed the bridge over the Rhone. By then it was getting dark, so we went back to our room.