Paris Underground

At Camila's I read the article on the Paris Catacombs in the February 2011 issue of National Geographic. I had thought that the article would only appeal to those who like looking at skeletons but it wasn't at all about that. Instead the article talked about the great underground mining of Paris: there were open limestone and gypsum quarries on the outskirts of ancient Paris and as Paris grew, they continued to mine the limestone and gypsum underground so that there are tunnels throughout the left bank. Periodically the ground will collapse and at one time, the cadavers in Paris's overcrowded cemeteries were dug up and used as fill. The city government has to keep an eye on the various tunnels to make sure they are not going to collapse. (Sounds sort of like Western Pennsylvania...)

The magazine has a map of the tunnels and its website has an interactive map as well as photos and a list of websites and organizations that will help you explore them. The magazine also has a cut-away view of the ground under Paris, showing the metros, the quarries, the sewers, the aqueducts and water table but I can't find that on the website.

The story was a collaboration between National Geographic and NPR and you can read another story about it on NPR: Life Below The City Of Light: Paris Underground and even watch a video (just click on the photo).

It is amazing that there are 180 miles of underground tunnels but I don't think I want to descend any time soon. I'm content to do my walking above ground.

Our Neighborhood on the Rive Droite

I'm afraid I'm putting way too many things on our Google map of Paris. It was extremely slow at work at 6 pm but it appears to have recovered. Yet I can't resist adding everything I run across and want to remember. My only complaint is that there is a French Google Maps, http://maps.google.fr/, and our map doesn't appear there and I can't see any way to export it from one to the other. Of course it is in French but I thought maybe they would have more information on locations.

One location I just added is a small "vintage" store on rue Saint Paul called au petit bonheur la chance. It would be for browsing rather than buying but Paris Breakfasts said it had a huge collection of cafe au lait bowls. Duet LetterPress said that it was "exploding with fabulous finds. from dishes to little apothecary bottles. parisian house numbers to vintage school supplies. silk ribbons to lovely table linens. old parisian pictures to vintage stamps. calligraphed cheese labels. little parisian chalkboards. vintage postcards. old labels. vintage greeting cards". We'll just look.

The photo to the left is of the Saint-Paul Metro stop, which is on the yellow #1 line and opened in 1900. Our apartment is between that and the Pont Marie Metro, which is on the pink #7 line and opened in 1926. The #1 stays on the right bank and will take us east to the Bastille, the Gare de Lyon, and eventually to the Château de Vincennes, a massive 14th-17th century French royal castle (the trip from Saint-Paul only takes 19 minutes). The #1 goes west to the Louvre, the Tuileries, and eventually to La Défense at the end of the line.

The #7 (that is the entrance to Pont Marie on the right - it's near the Seine) will take us north to le Gare de l'Est and to stops with interesting names like Stalingrad and Poissonnière, and it will take us south across the Seine into the left bank to Place Monge and Les Gobelins. A lovely name, just like gobblins. Gobelin was the name of a family of dyers who set up shop on the Beaver River (Bièvre) in the 1400s. The RATP has a map of the metro lines on their website. Just keep clicking on the + (plus sign) to make it big enought to read.

I'm getting worried that most of my google map icons are over on the rive droite, especially when so many people feel that the rive gauche is a classier place to live. But I'm feeling a bit better after having read Clotilde Dusoulier's selections for spending just Twelve Hours in Paris: all of her favorite places are on the right bank. She even made a google map to help us find them.

Books and Bookstores

Every blog leads you to another blog and so I came across a guide to "Lo-Fi Paris", which appears to be a compilation of Parisian locations that the blogger, an Asian living in London, particularly enjoys. The accompanying photos are of variable quality but she has a section on the Marais and also mentions La Maison Rustique, a bookstore specializing in gardening books, and La Librairie Gourmande, specializing in gastronomy books. And a librarian can never pass up a bookstore.

Clotilde Dusoulier has a posting on Emile Zola's Belly of Paris: Le Ventre de Paris which is about life in Les Halles market in the late 1850s. I didn't realize Zola wrote a whole cycle of novels about two families; this is the third novel in his twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. I took it out of the library and started reading it (in English, not French) and she is right that it is written "in Zola's style of intricate and lavish descriptions." We might say it has too much description but that is good if one is reading it to get a feel for the period and the city. One of Clotilde's favorite passages is a description of "the preparation of blood sausage in the charcuterie's kitchen", so maybe Fernando should read it too.

Small Museums of Paris

I know we're tilting towards walking and eating and forgetting the monumental museums (ie, the Louvre) but I'm working my way through Edmund White's The Flaneur and he's telling me that "Paris has countless small and bizarre museums, little corners where someone's bid for immortality goes unnoticed - one might say a neglected shrine to a forgotten god.  Or sometimes the museum caters to a perfectly real and valid taste, but one not shared by too many people." 
And I figure we'll be stumbling on a number of these, even if we never get out of the Rive Gauche.  And we might nip in and take a look especially if the admission is free.  Par example there is Musee Nissim de Camodo which is mentioned in a Gourmet travel article:

"Facing the Parc Monceau, the Musée Nissim de Camondo is one of the most engaging and poignant of the city’s small museums. Built just before World War I by Moïse de Camondo, scion of a family known as the Rothschilds of the East, the house was designed to showcase his antiques. And after admiring the dazzling silver tureens made for Catherine the Great, wander through the spacious, bright kitchens. Restored to an as-built state, the fittings include remarkably modern water purifiers and a copper sink with a steam jacket to keep dishwashing water hot. And the vast stove, with separate ovens and a rotisserie, still inspires envy".

Now in The Flaneur, White has just spent part of a chapter on Jews in Paris on the Camondo family and tells us that all the family were killed at Auschwitz.  "The Camondos, who had contributed so much to the cultural life of France, had been extinguished, and the French authorities had done nothing to save them."

But, to lighten up, there are a number of other museums we might duck into especially the Musee des Arts et Mettiers:
Founded in 1794 and today occupying the former priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the offbeat Musée des Arts et Metiers is devoted to scientific discovery and mechanical and industrial inventions, which are organized according to seven themes: scientific instruments, materials, construction, communication, mechanics, energy, and transport. Perhaps the most famous instrument in its collection of some 80,000 objects is Foucault’s pendulum, which was popularized by a novel by Italian writer Umberto Eco.
60 rue Réaumur; 3rd
Do you think Fernando might enjoy this one?

Walking Paris

One of my library books, Walking Paris by Gilles Desmons, is due today so I copied seven of the walks that were in our area: Le Marais, Republique and Temple, Beaubourg and Chatelet, Les Halles, Bastille and Faubourg St-Antoine, Pere-Lachaise to Buttes Chaumont, and The Passages. Of course that means that we're going to have a lot prepared for the Rive Droite but little for the Rive Gauche. However, Penny stayed in the Latin Quarter so she can help us there, as well as in Montmartre. And we might just run out of time and have to come back for the rive gauche... or at least for the Tour Eiffel.

There is a blog, Ready When You Are, CJ, that had great things to say about the book Walking Paris: Wednesday Wonder: Walking Paris by Gilles Desmons.

Paris by Pastry

Right now I am listening to a 2007 interview on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth with Joyce Slayton Mitchell, the author of Paris by Pastry: Stalking the Sweet Life on the Streets of Paris. It's 50 minutes long and 2/3's of it is call-in questions from the listeners. Mitchell grew up with pastries because her father insisted on fresh pies and so her mother had to cook a pie every day. Fortunately the call-ins were well informed and interesting, one said he loved getting up early and buying pain au chocolat while it was still warm at the patisserie. Another woman said that she remembered the chaussons aux pommes. Mitchell herself loves the pain au raisin.

There are loads of books about Paris and its pastries, as shown in this list from Experience Paris, a service which will tailor make a Parisian adventure for you. By the way, they have Paris by 2CV (Deux Chevaux) and by electric bike and segway. But I digress.

The Riches of Paris

Did you think I was going to talk about the Louvre? Or the Musee d'Orsay? Not at all. The Riches of Paris by Maribeth Clemente is a shopping and touring guide to the finest shops and boutiques of Paris. Most of the shops are for fashionable clothing but there are a few others that might be interesting to visit if we walk past them. For instance, A La Mere de Famille which is a chocolate shop that children love and which has a location on the rue Montorgueiul. (And it is one of the few flash websites that works really well.) I'm afraid their chocolates are still awfully expensive (€37 for a 400 gram box) but we could lick the windows.

Then there is the caviste Lucien LeGrand Filles & Fils where they are supposed to have about 100 different corkscrews and there is a quaint parfumeur called Detaille. Listen to the description of this perfume: A few green touches, an armful of flowers, jasmine, Ylang Ylang, narcissus and orange flower, and in the background, the exquisite softness of vanilla and benzoin, the mystery of precious wood, sandalwood and patchouli. I can see why it costs €85 for 100ml but I'm afraid it's beyond my budget, and I don't care for patchouli. That's why I'm thinking that we'll be doing a lot of window shopping, like we did in San Francisco as children, and that my favorite store might be the Monoprix five and ten.

But The Riches of Paris also mentions two Provencal fabric stores on the left bank (6th arrondissement): Les Olivades at 95 rue de Seine and Souleiado at 78 rue de Seine. We've been so happy with the round table cloth that I got in Lausanne that I wouldn't mind getting another one. In France they call this fabric Indienne because the paisley design was originally from India. Souleiado also has dishware and clothes (the teapot is 70,00 € but maybe they'll have a sale). I wonder if any of these stores would have a terra cotta cicada.

Clemente also mentions that you can get the hand painted terra cotta santons from Provence for nativity scenes in stores around Saint Sulpice, specifically G. Thuillier (10 Place Saint Sulpice) and Au Service de la Liturgie (8 rue Madame). I don't imagine we can afford any but they would be nice to look at. Yes, I know it sounds like I should be going to Provence and not Paris.

Clemente mentions another parfumeur in the Latin Quarter: L'Artisan Parfumeur that sells handcrafted terra cotta balls filled with aromatic vegetable ambergris (not quite sure what that would be). Again something interesting to look at but unaffordable ($90). I wonder if we can go into the store and sample the perfumes like in an american department store. Probably not.

Super Marmite - Cooking Near You

Look what I found on VINGT Paris, one of the blogs Cathy mentioned:
"On a cold night, one of the finest things one can have to warm up is a tartiflette. The Savoyard dish of potatoes, lardons, and melted Reblochon cheese is a wintertime standard around France, well outside its mountainous region. I tucked into one that was not only warming but absolutely delicious. And best of all, it was made by a young lady just down the street.

There was no overpriced formule with paltry choices. There was no disinterested waiter to ignore me. And the cost was negligible. This was actual, home cooking – from a neighbor who heretofore was a complete stranger.
That's the premise of Super Marmite, a social site that allows you to discover what's cooking in the myriad apartments in each of Paris' arrondissements. And to taste them. And – if you're interested in cooking – to share what you have with others. Cooks can post what they're making, how many portions are available, set a (reasonable) price, and the time and date it will be available for pick-up."
Now we can forget those rude waiters, and we don't even have to cook.

Paris Blog Rundown

The second blog on the list, IVY Paris News, evidently has morphed into Vingt Paris Magazine which comments about cultural events in Paris and also interviews expats and asks them 20 questions like:

19. What makes someone a Parisian?
A big nose to sniff out every small thing that no one else can even notice.

Third blog is La Coquette but it is only fashion. Seems like everyone works for fashion houses on these "best blogs". How about these accessories? That purse is €2,400 at Département Féminin and looks a lot like the one I got at Macy's for $49. Ah, but the hat is on sale for only €100! Fortunately this store is in Toulouse so Fernando doesn't have to worry.






Oh, Oh, the 4th blog, Le Blagueur, stopped Blagueing in March 2009 - I guess my Top Ten list is too old. Should I dump the list or keep on? The next one, La Maitresse is alive and well (with a Badaude graphic for a header) but she just got an email that the Paris English-language bookshop the Village Voice is going to close. Of course she can't stop talking about how she orders all her books online from The Book Depository...

The 5th blog I've already run across because it's about food: Paris Breakfast, and this week she has all these lovely photos of pastries! (Non, non, non, Cathy!!) She has lovely watercolors as well but I'm afraid I found her writing a bit disturbing when her bear steps out in Paris. But perhaps she is just an animal lover and she does have some good photos of animal life in paris.

I think I'll go search out my own non-food Paris Blogs. I wonder if there is one for gardeners...

Oooo! More Blogs!

My goodness. Penny has turned me on to the world of Paris blogs that aren't about food! So I'm beginning my discovery with this list of The Top 10 Blogs About Paris and was quite impressed with the first one: Badaude because the author is a graphic artist and she illustrates each posting. Of course she also works in fashion so the appeal beyond the artwork is limited in my case. But I would give anything if I could turn out a graphic cartoon like she does for each posting! Of course, the graphic art IS the posting. See below she is telling us that we have to "layer" our clothes - the new look that is oh-so-practical in the winter.



She creates graphics for this fashion site TwentyThirtyForty, which excludes us I guess since we are FiftySixtySeventy at least! When I take another break, I'll move on to the next blog on the list.

Paris Blogs not about food

Perhaps it was sauerkraut at 6:30 a.m., perhaps it was knowing that whatever we eat in Paris will be just fine, whatever the cause I set out on a search for Paris blogs not about food. 
First I found Walks in Paris, about streets and architecture in the Marais.  Stylistically challenged it may be, there is lots of architecture history and I love admiring those architectural details.  And it's our neighborhood.
Then I found Ailyn Wong's entry Love in Paris which sort of reads like a French movie written by an Asian.  Are we looking for love in Paris?
And much more substantive than that is the Paris Blog.  Since 2005, the Paris Blog has published the voices of Anglophone expats in Paris. With posts daily, the blog grew to become the #1 daily digest on Paris in English.  Yesterday's entry talks about waking up to a sunny day!
And Chateau: Paris Wine Tastings has a blog entry Bitching About Waiters which may explain all those negative comments on Trip Advisor and elsewhere.  And may make you appreciate this phenomenom as just another aspect of French culture.
And last (because I've got to get ready for work and the number of blogs is endless) is Beth Arnold:  Letter from Paris.  Beth has wholeheartedly made the leap to New Media (that means she does a lot of blogging with bells and whistles), is an expat with a great haircut and tireless self-promoter, and she tells us all sorts of things about Paris.
So now it's time for breakfast, but it won't be sauerkraut.

MoBlog and Figaroscope

I just discovered that Clotilde Dusoulier, author of the blog Chocolate & Zucchini, has another blog, rather a "moblog" of photos she takes with her iphone: Clotilde's Moblog. I suppose that is something we could try but I haven't found that the iphone photos are any good. Hers aren't THAT bad and I guess she doesn't want to carry a camera and have anyone peg her for a tourist. The photo above is of Choucroute Garnie from L'Alsaco, 10 rue Condorcet in the 9th (V. good.). And Clotilde also has a Flickr Photostream so you can check out even more dishes from restaurants, which is very helpful so that you don't end up with that pig's trotter.

And now I've found another resource: Le Figaro's Figaroscope or Guide to Paris. You can get a list of restaurants by arrondissement, for instance, in the 4th Arrondissement, which is where our apartment is in the Marais. You can either look at the list or see them plotted on a map. And if you go to the listing for Schwartz's Deli, they even have a resto-video that shows it and tells you about it. Figaroscope has an app for the iphone but evidently only in the French app store since I can't pull it up in a search in ours.

Figaroscope led me to an article in Le Figaro for Les meilleurs financiers de Paris. This isn't a list of bankers but a review of the little cake called a "financier", sort of like a Madeleine but thicker and rectangular and made out of almond flour. It is supposedly called a "financier" because it is shaped like a bar of gold. Along with Madeleines, croissants, and brioches, this is one food item we will have to remember to try.

Choucroute Garnie

So I've decided to take Penny's recommendation and search by the food I want to eat rather than the restaurant. I've always liked sauerkraut and sausage so maybe I should try the Alsatian version. A search for choucroute garnie brought up some recommendations in ChowHound, which led me to a search for the restaurant "L'Alsaco" which led me to this 1995 New York Times article by Patricia Wells: Choice Tables: A Winter Favorite in Paris: Tasty Alsatian Choucroute. (I also have Well's The Food Lover's Guide to Paris, published in 1999, and I see that quite a few of the restaurants have closed.) Wells reviews L'Alsaco, Cafe Runtz (which is closed), Brasserie Lipp, La Coupole (in Montmartre), Baumann-Ternes, Chez Jenny (which a poster on ChowHound didn't like), and Bofinger (which Wells didn't like and which consistently gets bad reviews for lousy service).

Or we could just make choucroute in the apartment a la Jacques Pepin. That way we could choose our own sausages. But it might have to cook for several hours -- maybe overnight and we could have it for breakfast. Paris Perfect says that Davoli, the Italian delicatessen on Rue Cler, sells the best Choucroute. And from the photo at the right, it looks like choucroute and sausages are sold in openair markets all ready to take home (or to the park) and eat.

I would like to go to a brasserie but all the reports of horrible service are quite intimidating. But wait! Now I remember that Au Pied De Cochon that Penny wants to go to for onion soup is a brasserie. The one that is owned by Le Groupe Frères Blanc, along with Flora Danica and 28 other restaurants. Oh my. I don't see much on their menu besides pigs trotters. DON'T read the reviews on Trip Advisor. Maybe we should really skip the brasseries and stick to bistros, markets, and cafes! I'll just pick up my choucroute at the Italian delicatessen - unless there's a Jewish delicatessen that has it nearby - ah, but it wouldn't have pork sausages.

Bistros (or do I want a Café?)

We've already got around 20 Bistros on our Google Map of Paris and we aren't going to be in Paris 20 days. Nor are we going to double or triple up on days like Jane and Michael Stern do on their road trips. Maybe this Guardian article from 2008 will help us select just a few: Top 10 Paris bistrots on a budget. I like the budget part of the title. I thought that bistrots were homey little neighborhood restaurants but at some point it appears that bistros became meccas of gourmet food. John Brunton of the Guardian gives the following pointers: "Lunchtime is the best time to find bargain set menus. Prices will inevitably be more expensive in the evening, but most of these bistrots offer a €25-30 (£20-24) set menu for dinner, which is still excellent value considering the quality of the cuisine."

The first one they list, L'Ebauchoir, has a fancy website in flash but fortunately they also have a blog on blogspot that has the menu. They still have the prix fixe menus: 2 course for lunch is 12€, 3-course is 13.50€. Dinner is 22.50€ for 2-courses and 25€ for 3. They have photos of their dishes and they look quite delicious. It is located in the Quartier d'Aligre and the characters in the frescos on their walls also appear on their website.

Maybe what I'm really looking for is a café, not a bistrot. Le Pause Café, located near the Bastille, appears on the Guardian's Ten top Paris pavement cafes, and it says that "Ever since it featured in the cult Parisien movie, Chacun Cherche son Chat (Everyone's Looking for their Cat), the Pause Cafe has attracted a fashionable Bobo (Bourgeois Bohemian) crowd." (Neither the library nor NetFlix has the movie which is supposed to tour the quartier looking for the cat.) The Foody Froggy says Le Pause Café is her favorite in that quartier. The “plats du jour” are written each day on the blackboard and they have steak frites -- how could you go wrong? When we go to the Marché d'Aligre perhaps we can stop by and check it out.

Let's Go BoBo

BoBo is a term for the fashionable Bourgeois Bohemian crowd that frequents places like the shops in the Marais and outdoor cafes. If we want to go BoBo, here's a list of the Top 10 Paris Pavement Cafes from the UK's Guardian. Unfortunately it is an April article and Paris probably doesn't put out the chairs and tables in March. But the Guardian does have another article on Parisian Cafes: Top 10 Paris cafes for sipping vin chaud. "In Paris, mulled wine isn't just for Christmas – it's served until early spring." So maybe we could do that instead and although it would be cheaper to heat up vin in the apartment, you wouldn't get the architecture of Cafe Marly in the Louvre, that's for sure.

I thought the term "BoBo" was a French invention but BoBos have been around for some time, as you can read in this New York Times article from 2000: In France, a New Class Reinvents the Good Life: 'Bobo' Style Has It Both Ways, which claims that the term came from David Brooks' book "Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There." (Yes, "our" David Brooks on the PBS NewsHour). Apparently the normal Frenchman or woman does not consume as much as Americans except for these BoBos.

OH, OH, and look at this third article from the Guardian: Top 10 traditional Paris bars à vins for quality wine, cheese and charcuterie. Penny, the first one they show is Le Baron Bouge, the quintessential Paris wine bar.

Brasseries

I'd like to go to a Brasserie in Paris just so that I can eat choucroute garni. But after reading a slew of negative reviews on Trip Advisor about Bofingers (horrible service), I want to be careful in the one I select. The Guardian has an article on The Best Paris Brasseries but it is from 2002 and a lot can happen in 9 years!

Fortunately the Guardian lists Penny's Les Halles choice first: Au Pied de Cochon, where Penny is going to have Onion Soup and Fernando is probably going to have La tentation de St Antoine. That is a mix of pig's tail, ears, trotters and museau -- the snout. John Whiting in Whitings Writings says: "the pig’s offal, which is what I really came for, was superb – every wicked morsel had been deep fried into total submission. It came with a finger bowl which, by the time I had finished with it, would have made a tasty starter for the next punter."

But Au Pied de Chochon doesn't have a menu up and I don't see any photos of choucroute garni. The Guardian next recommends Brasserie Flo and Bofingers and Brasserie Balzar, which are now all owned by FloBrasseries. John Whiting tells the story of how Jean Paul Bucher bought up the various brasseries in his posting on Brasserie Flo. So he wouldn't go broke, Whiting ordered the 24.50€ prix fixe menu whose options included Marbré de canard au foie gras, compotée de rhubarbe and Choucroute Spécial, including ample portions of good saucisses de Frankfort and Montbéliard, poitrine fumée and carré de porc. I think that is what I am looking for.

More of John Whiting's Writings can be found in his list of Paris Bistros. Evidently he is 90 years old!
The Guardian article also talks about "Getting the best from brasseries dining": Rather than be tempted by the gourmet-sounding dishes, which rarely live up to expectations, stick to classic brasserie fare: a vast plateau of fruits de mer, a steaming plate of choucroute garnie, steak tartare with crispy frites, a tasty andouillette sausage, or a simple sole meunière.

I think I'll leave the "tartare" off my steak frites.

In Paris, a Crash Course in Modern Fashion

A review of past postings shows we are interested in fashion.  So here is an exhibit for us, spotted by the Globe Spotters of Paris in the New York Times which was posted as In Paris, a Crash Course in Modern Fashion on Jan. 2, 2011.    "If you missed the last two decades in fashion, here’s our chance to catch up. “The Idealized History of Contemporary Fashion Vol. 2,” the second of a two-part exhibition that looks back at contemporary fashion history, runs through May 8 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (107 rue de Rivoli; 33-1-44-55-57-50; www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr).
Perhaps we are getting a bit too French?  I'm tempted to bring only white tennis shoes (sneakers, Keds, whatever one calls them), sweatpants and torn jeans (not that I have any - I'd have to shop)

Paris by Mouth

I ran across the Paris by Mouth blog on the website of Alexander Lobrano (Hungry for Paris). It compiles postings about Paris from food writers/bloggers and cookbook authors, including Lobrano, Patricia Wells, Clotilde Dusoulier, and Dorie Greenspan, so they are all plenty qualified. If you go into Mouth Who on their website, it lists the contributors and also their "Top 3 Paris Tastes".

On Paris by Mouth you can search for restaurants by arrondissement and they will list the ones they have reviewed and give you basic information about the restaurant and then link you off to the reviews on their members' blogs. For instance, here is the listing for L’As du Fallafel, which is obligatory.

We'll have to keep an eye on Paris by Mouth so we'll know where the free wine-tastings are when we're in Paris. You can subscribe to their weekly digest of postings and, oh my, they have a guide to Paris bakeries with a google map! But they don't list any in our neighborhood! We'll have to explore and suggest some to them to review.

Les Halles - the Belly of Paris

"Les Halles, the centuries-old central Parisian food market, was banished from the city to the suburb of Rungis in the late 1960s and early '70s, its beautiful old iron pavilions pulled down; a soulless modern shopping mall later took its place.  When the first half of Les Halles was shut down and relocated in the early 70s' (the rest following soon after), the bistros of the quarter were struck hard; their livelihood depended almost exclusively on the business generated by the market community.  Of those hundreds of bistros, only a few survive today,"
In the Saveur article "The Belly of Paris" (2007) Megan Wetherall reminisces, provides history and a lot of bistro tales as well as recommending Chez Clovis, Chez Denise and Aux Tonneaux des Halles, a bistro situated just behind the church of St-Eustache on the cobbled old market street of rue Montorgueil.
Don't you think we have to try one of them....The haricot de mouton—a bread-crumb-topped casserole of tender lamb and succulent white bean at Chez Denise sounds awfully good.

A Passion for Fashion

Ever since I did that fashion presentation for my Italian II class, I've been less dismissive of the whole scene and actually find it rather interesting and entertaining. Who would have thought?? You have to admit that the flowing floral fabrics in the French fall and winter collection are quite beautiful. Of course, you have to sift through an awful lot of outrageously horrible styles to get to the beautiful ones, and since every website is done completely in flash, it takes much more time than it should. And some designers are so atrocious that it is always good for a laugh. I must admit, though, there's an awful lot of black this year. Check out the designers at Mode A Paris. So far I like Kenzo the best and he's Japanese!

In any case, today I took out the 2009 edition of Suzy Gershman's "born to shop Pais" and so I've been looking at some of the entries. Right now I'm on Department Stores and she says that the Galleries Lafayette have a fashion show every Wednesday at 3 pm which is free, although you need reservations. Well, don't we want to be Parisians? Do you remember when we used to go to Bullocks Westwood to have lunch and watch the fashion show? See that scarf on the right? Do you think that's scarf enough for the three of us?

A Passion for Cheeses

Rather than pastries or bread which we understand, perhaps we should be studying cheeses.  After all, we come from a country where Cheddar is considered exotic.  Lebovitz talks about nutty Cote and Beaufort, milky sweet Cantal, Blue de Laqueuille, Reblochon, Rocamadour, etc...... How ever are we going to choose?  Perhaps I'll take myself to Fairway Market and order some, but I'll have to get a very small amount, as all the cheese I buy quickly molds and this is not blue cheese we're talking about. 
But before I go I'll check out Fromages.com which has a bewildering assortment of cheeses in the Cheese Library arranged under pictures of what I take to be a cow, goat or sheep (that one's a little hard to decipher).  There look to be easily 200 different entries...a few more than  Mozarella, Pepper Jack, Provolone, Swiss, American and Cheddar. 
And can you believe that I didn't know that cheese must be cut certain ways..determined by the shape and size?  I thought you just whacked off what you thought you could eat.  Non, non, non!

How are we going to choose the restaurants?

I've added a few bistros today to our google map of Paris, trying to stick around our neighborhood. And I ran across this posting from The Independent: France: There's a great place I know ... that interviews famous Francophiles about their favorite restaurants. As long as they are inexpensive bistros that might be a place to start. And here's the Belly of Paris article from Saveur, where they mention Chez Clovis and Chez Denise near the old Les Halles.

I'd also like to go to a Brasserie, which they say means brewery and so I interpret it as a German Beer Hall since they are supposed to be large and loud... Here's a list of Aveyronnais bistros in Paris, which sound to me a lot like brasseries. Aveyron is a department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France.

I'm reading a book by one of David Lebovitz's friends, Alexander Lobrano, called "Hungry for Paris: The Ultimate Guide to the City's 102 Best Restaurants". I usually don't like reading restaurant guides but this one has actually interested me in going to every other restaurant that he tells a story about. Especially the ones with regional French food like L'Ambassade d'Auvergne where he tells you not to miss the country-ham smoked over a chestnut wood fire, the pounti (terrine of pork, swiss chard and prunes), the lentil salad seasoned with goose fat and bacon, the stuffed cabbage and the aligot (potatoes whipped with Tomme cheese and garlic). I guess we'll just have to go after we hit the Pompidou on Sunday evening. How can you say no to a restaurant whose website plays Bach (isn't it)? Although Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne would have been more appropriate, or am I the only one that likes them? Or maybe we could go there for lunch since they have a menu for 20 euros IN CASE OF LITTLE HUNGER AND LITTLE THIRST.

John Whiting has a short review of L'Ambassade d'Auvergne.

Alexander Lobrano also has Gourmet articles on Eight Great Places for Roast Chicken in Paris and another one on A Remembrance of Things Present (A Paris transplant decides to revisit some old-style restaurants where they serve the soul-satisfying food on which French cuisine was built.)

Public Toilets

David Lebovitz said in his "The Sweet Life in Paris" that it was often hard to find a bathroom in Paris and that's why the French don't drink many liquids with their meals. However, here's a posting from untapped paris: I NEED TO PEE!: Public Toilets in Paris that talks about the self-cleaning sanisette units installed by JCDecaux, previously pay when you go but since 2006 free in Paris. Europe for visitors offers additional information, like hours: normally open from 6 am until 10 pm; and detailed instructions on how to use a sanisette.

And the mayor's office has a list of more than 400 sanisettes by arrondissement.