macarons: how to relax and reload...

if you live in nashville, then you know where i have been.  last week, a few of my coworkers and i made a 17 hour bus trip to new york city to prepare a special valentine's day dinner at the james beard house.  don't worry, at some point this week, i will post pictures and links to all of the clips and coverage.  but after a three day whirlwind trip and another 17 hour bus ride home, i needed to recharge and reload.  and since more than a couple hours of sleep was not an option, i decided to do what comes naturally-bake cookies.

 in december, i participated in a book release event for the bouchon bakery book.  and on friday morning, in a half hungover-half adrenaline overloaded state, i went for a walk on the streets of new york city.  in my wanderings, i passed bouchon bakery and then later in the day, found myself on the bus watching my coworkers sample macarons from bouchon.  so many pretty colors and enticing flavors.  it dawned on me that i had never tried making that type of macaron.  i had to reconcile that...

 well it was close to valentine's day

 my technique needs work...

 i need to get some red color-fuschia didn't cut it, they look like i flavored them with pepto bismal...

all filled and ready for a close-up.  i plan to make these again.  this time, i used the recipe from the bouchon bakery book.  the recipe is out there on the internet but as a cookbook author, i suggest you buy the book or at least borrow it from a library or friend.  and if not, i found it on the making of a foodie blog, but beware, sebastien rouxel works his recipes in grams and ounce conversions are tricky so your best bet is to work from his recipe in the book using the gram amounts rather than the ounce conversions on the blog page i linked to.  good luck and may the force be with you...now, i'm off to catch up on some sleep.