"louvre" news and stories

A Paris McDonald's. Photo: Let Ideas Compete/flickr

Mona Lisa, meet Le Big Mac.

Lovers of French culture and art snobs are buzzing with disapproval after McDonald's confirmed its plans to open a restaurant within the Louvre in Paris, according to the Daily Telegraph.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary in France, McDonald's will open its 1,142nd French restaurant a few yards away from the iconic art museum in Carrousel du Louvre, an underground shopping center within the Louvre complex.

"I'm not against eating in a museum but McDonald's is hardly the height of gastronomy," Didier Rykner, head of the Art Tribune Web site told the Telegraph. "Today McDonald's, tomorrow low-cost clothes shops."

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that the movie version of Dan Brown's mega-seller The Da Vinci Code arrives in theatres today.

What you don't know, however, is that the success of Dan Brown's novel has inspired me to write a pastry-related religion/art history/murder thriller, The Da Vinci Scone. An excerpt is below and a real scone (like our Pumpkin-Cranberry, Dried Fruit or White Chocolate Buttermilk recipes) might help set the mood:


What did it mean, this baked good in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre?

The security doors were slammed shut. There had been no way out for whoever had left the scone in front of the Caravaggio painting.

"Is this some sort of biscuit?" Sofie asked.

"It's what we call a scone," Langdorn replied.  "A scone is bread product made with baking powder as a leavening agent. It's a component of the ancient English ceremony of high tea. "

Langdorn stared at the currants flecking the scone. They formed a strange shape. A star? A pentagram? An asterisk?

What message was contained within the elaborate pattern of the currants?

What sinister truth did this scone hold?