A return to Belgium pt 2: Beer

Though we'd vaguely discussed it before heading for Spain, we hadn't really planned to go to Belgium this past week. And so when Christmas Day rolled around, we had no hotels, no car rented, no logistical leg work completed to get us there.

And though through the wonder of the internet we'd managed to take care of most of the details by the night of the 26th, we were still without a hotel for the next night near or in Brussels. Diegem, the location of the day's (late) races, is very near the Brussels airport, which is on the side of town we'd need to drive through to get to Anwerpen the next day. So it was a no-brainer to stay in an airport hotel for the few hours we'd actually be there.

But I'd just read here about a good new beer bar downtown that we'd somehow missed in our visit earlier in the month, and in order to pay a real visit, we'd have to stay downtown. So it came down to convenience and common sense vs. beer. Common sense never had a chance. I just hoped that the bar was worth the trouble.

A return to Belgium: Cyclocross

We were (barely) back in Paris from Barcelona for Christmas before heading north again for Belgium. The week between Christmas and New Year's is packed with Belgian cyclocross races, starting with the World Cup in Zolder on the 26th, then races on the 27th, 29th, and 30th of December and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of January.

Since we'd already been up to see a GVA Trofee race (Koppenberg) and a Superprestige race (Gavere), Karen was eager to see a World Cup race, but we wanted to watch mid-atlantic super-junior Jeff Bahson-- who is attending the US cyclocross camp in Izegem this year en route to riding the World Championships in Tabor, Czech Republic-- race in the deep fields in Belgium, and the juniors went off earlier than we'd be able to pick up a car and drive there. So instead, we drove up Sunday to watch the Superprestige Diegem, used the no-racing day on Monday to do some site-seeing in Antwerpen, and caught the GVA Trofee Azencross race on Tuesday before driving back to Paris.

Since bike racing and beer are both important, there'll be a separate post on the non-cyclocross portion of the trip.

Like all of our experiences in Europe, the 4 cyclocross races we attended in Belgium this year weren't quite like we had envisioned. Here's a list of things we expected at a Belgian CX race and actually found:

Bon voyage

Life 3000 miles from home has its ups and downs, and the last couple of weeks have been a bit trying. Whatever Paris mojo I'd had earlier this autumn seems to have disappeared, either because I'm just off my French game or because the lingering glow of post-vacances tolerance has finally been extinguished from the natives. Suddenly my French isn't good enough for anybody, anymore, and more frustratingly I'm doing stupid things like fusing together pots and bowls used as double-boilers (admittedly a foreseeable, apparently inevitable, occurrence, in my weekly yogurt making; I've applied heat to the pot while applying ice to the bowl to break the vapor lock, but there's so much shared wall length and relatively little wall thickness that the two vessels won't act independently. It's out on the balcony now for one last-ditch effort at separation, and barring that, it'll at least make an impressive impression in the hood of the next Frog to lay on the horn. Still, a crying shame, as I love my bowl and I'll have to spend money to replace Madame's pot...) and shrinking my favorite sweaters. So it goes.

The ice-bound, vapor-locked pot-and-bowl double boiler that's soon destined for the garbage bin.

So when I had one of those baffling Paris exchanges at the market this week, it came as no surprise. I wanted duck breast, a pretty straightforward choice, given that I always buy from the same vendor, mostly because his magrets are better cleaned and plucked than many. But when I asked for one, he said he didn't have any more, despite the fact that we were both looking at several there in his case. Was this another "crepine" incident, or did he just not feel like selling me anything this week? Turns out that I'd asked for magret de canard, and he only had filet de canard. They're both duck breast, so what's the difference? The magret de canard is the breast from a fatted (ie, for foie gras) duck, whereas the filet de canard is the breast from a non-fatted duck. Learn something new every week.

Anyway, it's been birthday season here in the 16e, and usually we go out for a somewhat extravagant meal to celebrate them. But after all of the excesses of the last month, and with traveling yet to come, we decided to stay low key this year. But that doesn't mean there there can't be some playing with food. I particularly like getting to work with the same ingredients a few days in a row, to learn from mistakes, or at least try variations on a theme. Here's the highlights.

Beer Run: Brussels

There are a lot of things one associates with Paris, but beer is probably not among them for most people. And for good reason. Despite the fact that there are a lot (hundreds) of breweries in France making interesting, even good, unfiltered unpasteurized beers in small batches, finding said beers in Paris is nearly impossible.

Or rather, finding them in a bar in Paris is nearly impossible. One can always find them at La Cave a Bulles, a beer specialty store in the shadow of the (still-crippled-by-strike) Centre Pompidou. The proprietor there, who shares both an amicable and enthusiastic personality and a fondness for tie-died t-shirts with the owner of one of my favorite beer-related places in Philly, will be happy to dispel the notion that Kronenbourg 1664 and Fischer, or the handful of barely interesting Belgian imports that are on tap everywhere in Paris, define French beer. Even so, in the 8 months we'd been in Paris, we'd developed a bit of a beer craving.

And when you live in Paris and have a real beer craving, your best bet is to head for the border. If, like one of the members of my family, you think anything that isn't a generic by-the-book lager "tastes like mud," you'd best head east for Germany. If you like variety in your beer, however, or even just like mud, Belgium's a good bit more fun.

We spent 5 days in Belgium in Nov indulging our interests in beer and mud, combining vacation, cyclocross Superprestige spectating, and (for Karen) work.

First things first: After getting off the train, we dropped our bags at the hotel and made a bee-line for Le Pré Salé, where Karen had the most amazing mussels of her life. They were so good, I rolled the dice and had not 1 but 2. Even if I'd wound up in the ER, it would have been worth it. The Duvel was a nice first beer, too.

L'hiver est arrivé

Though it's officially still 4 days away yet, the temperatures here have definitely been winter-like. Then today, 2 things happened that cemented winter's unofficial official arrival.

1. It snowed. Snowfall in Paris, according to the locals, isn't a miracle event. But it also isn't an everyday winter occurrence. It started early this morning, before the nominal sunrise, and continued for much of the morning and early afternoon before kind of petering out. Since I'm not sure we'll get to see it again, I went out and took pictures, like a dork. It was fun.

Off the balcony.

One of the few times today La Tour was visible at all.

Square Lamartine

The Paris Groove

With all of the turmoil at work, I was only assured we could stay here until the end of August. That date came and went... work kept going, and there was no reason to go home. So we stayed.

The merger of companies occured, and I still have a job. The fate of the Paris office is still not clear, but it looks like we'll be here into the New Year at the very least, and possibly through all of next year. We had come with the mind-set of the 6 month assignment, and have been shifting focus back to the original target of 2 years, since it may happen yet.

So, we have been trying to get deeper into Paris and the Paris lifestyle while we are here. After success with the boots, I am rediscovering my inner clothes horse, and have been gradually acquiring proper French clothes. Last weekend I had success at a cool little boutique in the 10th- a dress, a skirt, and a top.

Dupleks

We've been marveling at the Christmas spectacle in Paris. The decorations definitely have a different esthetic. They really like white lights, and especially lights that look like dripping water. We have wandered up and down the Champs Elysees twice (once from the Arc de Triomphe end, the other time from Concorde) where there is a huge Christmas festival. Apparently Christmas in Europe involves a lot of little "chalets" in which vendors can peddle their wares. We had seen them in Brussles, but they are everywhere in Paris, in little clumps. You know you are in Europe when the snacks for sale include fois gras or duck breast sandwiches.

A Thanksgiving in Paris

Thanks to a visit from some friends from home, Thanksgiving weekend was a blur.

It started with a 10-h Thanksgiving feast as soon as our guests arrived on Thursday. How they managed to stay awake (or even alive) is beyond me. Talk about good sports.

Friday, after about 12 hours of food coma, we attended the fall edition of the Salon des Vins (this edition's motto: Now without food poisoning!), a convention of about 1000 independent French wine makers south of town. Preston decided he wanted to bring back cognac, which gave us a much-needed focus in the sea of tasting opportunity. Because sampling the offerings from all 13 cognac producers at the Salon would have buried us, we limited ourselves to just one subregion. Even from the restricted selection, the favorite was awfully good. And though one's tasting perceptions have to be viewed with some suspicion after 20 cognacs, the fun of working through them all does not. There was a boat show in the adjoining building, and I have to wonder how many wine-fueled yacht purchases were made over the 5-day Salon des Vins weekend.

We followed the wine convention up with a pleasant dinner at Hier et Aujourd'hui, a nice little place a little out of the way in the 17e. It's the kind of place that still does the help-yourself (and delicious) terrine and cornichons before the meal, and the 1-man kitchen turns out updated versions of classic French food. Good food, good value, and always a good time.

Having guests who wanted to see the non-touristy side of Paris was the perfect opportunity to so some things we'd been too lazy to get to. So we spent a soggy Saturday walking from the Bois de Vincennes to Bastille along the Promenade Plantée, a converted railway line that is now a greenway that offers diverse botanical and architectural views. From there we walked through the Marais, the warren of non-Haussmann small and twisty streets lined with hip shops, and then for contrast the Champs Elysees, all lit up for Christmas and hosting a Christmas market, complete with rides for kids, ice sculptures (10 eurobucks, please), a Ferris wheel, cheesy little wooden chalets selling just about any kitschy thing you can think of, and even a Santa sleigh on a zip line. It's not often in high-style Paris you get to see people in cow hats selling coo-coo clocks. We had dinner at my favorite restaurant in Paris, La Gazzetta in the 12e. The cooking there is both full of flavor and very delicate, a difficult combination to pull off, and the service is always exceptional.

After a delicious lunch of Portuguese roast chicken in the 9e on Sunday, we visited the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in the 19e (another Haussmann project) and made our way back along the Canal St Martin, stopping for hot chocolate and christmas beer in one of the many cozy neighborhood bars.

Reasons to live in Paris, entry 1

For my impending senility, or maybe just to look at on those occasional trying days here, I've decided to keep track of the reasons one should live in Paris. No ranking or top 10 list or anything-- just good stuff about being here, as it happens.

But if I were keeping a prioritized list, smart money would have a hot chocolate break on a rainy day at Jacques Genin's boutique/tea room near Republique pretty darn close to the top.

Paris has quite a number of good spots to get hot chocolate, and we've been partaking frequently, lately. Angelina's (wonderfully rich but a bit sweet for my tastes) and Charles Chocolatier (dark and intense, no dairy used so just a little gritty, which I quite liked) were both good starts. Unfortunately, perhaps the first entry onto the "reasons not to live in Paris" list, well, after the obvious entry of bilious coffee, is that there is also plenty of lousy hot chocolate in Paris, and while we were out wandering with guests last weekend, we had two examples of that.

But today, knowing we were going to be in that part of town, we made a point of finding Genin's shop, not certain it was open and less certain yet there was really hot chocolate to be had. The shop is luxuriously sparse, and any other place in Paris would squeeze at least 3 times as many tables into the tea room. As such, we had to wait nearly 30 min for a table, because to our modest annoyance, they don't offer the hot chocolate to go. But the charmingly gracious and graceful hostess brought us each one of Genin's fabulous caramels while we waited, which aside from nearly prompting a marriage proposal from me (my second of the day, because the waitress at Breizh Cafe, surely on another day its own entry onto the Reasons to Live in Paris list, brought us (me) not 2 but 4 caramels after I waxed poetic about their caramel beurre salé that came on my dessert crêpe), made me hope it might be another 30 or 60 min of waiting. And the experience once seated was worth at least twice that wait and made the thought of take-out seem downright silly. In addition to hot chocolate, which comes with a sugar bowl covered with an assortment of flawless chocolate-covered bitter orange rind or ginger (how is that that other tables were leaving these amazing treats on the table?), there's a menu of pastries, including popular made-to-order mille feuilles, and a tasting of chocolates.

We had 2 magnificent hot chocolates, rich, dense, smooth, and perfectly (ie, only modestly) sweetened. Oh. My. And Karen had a chocolate eclair, decent enough pastry filled with a heart-stoppingly good chocolate cream, and I did the chocolate tasting, 7 little chocolates filled with chocolate, spice, honey, herb, or nut, all of them superb. The only problem with the chocolates was that getting every nuance of taste while drinking the hot chocolate was a bit like doing a wine tasting while drinking a bottle of a big California cabernet. Next time (and there will absolutely be a next time) I'll do a pastry sûr place and save the chocolates for bringing home.

Chocolicious: the wonder that is chocolat chaud at Genin.

Don't blink

Paris the last month or more has been mostly cool dreary damp days, where the low clouds part and reform to give off-and-on rain. But if the clouds part at just the right time, the result can still be pretty spectacular. The show above lasted just a brief moment before dissolving.

The thrill of victory

We returned to Paris last night weary from work/site-seeing (I'll leave you to guess who of us was tired from which) and from the dense food and beer of 5 days in Belgium.

We were greeted on the metro platform at Gare du Nord by mass shouting, whistling, and chanting-- weird even in the Paris metro. At first we couldn't tell where it was coming from. When the sound got louder when the doors opened at the next stop, we realized there were two cars on our train packed to the gills with an energetic mob. Hmm. Happy energy or angry energy? And who were they?

At each stop, the pressure valve would release the compressed contents of the cars, expelling fervent youth with red-and-green-painted faces or waving Algerian flags onto the platform before they pushed their way back into the mosh pits or colonized other cars. The smiling and singing made it clear that this was celebration rather than demonstration, and there's only one thing going on right now that could trigger such euphoria: World Cup soccer. Indeed, Algeria had just beaten Egypt to gain entry into the tournament. From the looks of them, I'm guessing most of the revelers aren't old enough to remember Algeria's last trip this far, in 1986.

A busker had gotten on our car and just started to play when a group of about 8 displaced celebrators got on and carried on at full volume, pogoing up and down so exuberantly that it felt like the floor would crack. Even with his accordion and amplified accompaniment, he was no match for the small crowd, and so he finally gave up and sat down, watching warily.

In fact, we were all warily watching to see what happened next-- even a happy mob can turn into a disruptive mob. But at Franklin Roosevelt, the mob poured out of the subway to join the full-scale celebration on the Champs Elysées, and we heard honking and partying in our neighborhood for hours. I was too lazy to go out and take pictures, but you can get a pretty good idea of the fun from this one (Nov 19 photo) and this one.

France, too, qualified last night, though in less honorable fashion: they tied Ireland on what even the perpetrator, Thierry Henry, admitted was a handball and so won a 2-game, total-goals playoff 2-1. Had the playoff gone to penalty kicks and France lost, I suspect we'd have witnessed a less positive taking to the streets.

I guess there's still time for that next summer.

Coutancie beef

For a lot of years now, I've been on a first-name basis with many of my food vendors. I'm not sure any of those relationships is more important than with my butchers (except probably a great fishmonger, which I've never found).

But this past weekend was the first time I've ever been on a first-name basis with my beef. Or first-number basis, anyway. We went to a butcher around the corner from the apartment to buy something nice for a Saturday night dinner, and though we arrived thinking lamb, our minds had changed by the time our spot in the out-the-door line came around.

That's because it became obvious that the specialty of the house was beef, followed distantly by beef, and then, finally, at the very bottom of the list, beef. Placards throughout the store advertise that the beef in question is Boeuf de Coutancie. The colorful placards are difficult to see, though, since there are animal-specific certificates papering over nearly every surface.

Checking your papers at the door: well, they're somebody's papers.

The shop reminds me of the office of one particularly self-impressed professor in my department in graduate school. A savvy media user and unabashed self-promoter, his office walls were a dense mosaic of degrees, certificates, and official honors that confirmed his superiority over the rest of us. In a cheeky bit of subversion, a couple of his senior students slid a quality assurance certificate for a bottle of acetonitrile, a solvent used for some of the procedures in the lab, into a frame that was in the direct line of sight of the chair used by visitors into the office while talking to The Boss. Like the real accolades, the QA certificate that came with every bottle was printed on fake parchment with a gold seal and an extravagant signature, and I'd like to think the substitution was noticed but never commented on by visitors, though it's far more likely that it continued to hang unnoticed by anyone in a series of progressively bigger offices.

Like the certificates in that professor's office, I don't know the significance of the cow papers in the butcher shop. Second place in the third grade spelling bee, passing the motor scooter driving test, acknowledgement of delivery of a keynote address at a physics conference, admittance into the mile high club, or contestant on America's Top Model? Given the price of the meat, it could equally be law degrees (from Cowlumbia? sorry...) or official aristocracy papers.

That this beef has so many papers must appeal to the French fondness for bureaucratic paperwork (it's worth noting that none of the papers was folded-- anybody whose gone through the process of getting a carte de sejour knows that folding one's documents is strictly interdit). In fact, boeuf de Coutancie claims to have special characteristics, one of which is that it comes from the Perigord region in southwestern France, which is where foie gras and Limousin beef come from. The French put a lot of stock into famous origins and brands, as evidenced by the whole AOC system.

Appellation d’origine contrôlée, or controlled name of origin, is a certification granted to products of certain geographical areas of France. Whether a wine (say, Vouvray, Brouilly, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, or about 314 others), a cheese (Pont l'Eveque, Roquefort, or about 40 others), liquor, vegetable, or other, great emphasis is placed on certified product origin. In many ways, this makes sense. A given style of cheese or wine has an awful lot to do with the place it's cultivated, and so establishing where these things are officially produced helps protect the geographical “brand” and reputation. I mean, one would view a Côtes du Provence from Normandy with suspicion, right? Furthermore, the AOC designations establish rules (aging time, type of milk, etc for cheeses, eg) that help to protect and maintain the aspects of production that make a product what it is. Of course, these systems are established and administered with typical bureaucratic mindlessness and personal commercial agendas, and so are subject to the same shenanigans as any other biasable process: exclusion of competitors from higher profile/profit designations, rubber stamping and cronyism in whatever nominal product quality inspection takes place, etc. And those geographic limitations and protections can't counterbalance the industrialization of agriculture.

Whatever its flaws, the AOC designations have done much to protect traditional French agricultural/gustatory industries. And sometimes the AOC designation really does mean a difference in taste. One might not think that terroir plays a huge rule in dried beans, but the lentils from Puy-en-Velay trump any of the the various other “French green lentils” I've used. They're wonderful.

But back to our accomplished cows. I don't believe Boeuf de Coutancie is AOC, which on further reflection is probably exactly why so much paperwork comes with it, to convince of its specialness in the absence of bureaucratic proclamation. From what I can tell, Coutancie beef is named for the farm, rather than the breed of cattle. According to the distributor's website, the animals are raised on the prairies until maturity, at which point they're brought to Coutancie farm for a spa vacation, which includes a carefully selected diet of farm vegetables and grain presented in their comfortable feeding cubicles. Beyond their pampered food diet, the cows receive complementary beer and are massaged twice daily. While I'm maybe taking a little literary liberty with the description, I swear I'm not making any of this up. No word on mud masks or sauna access... The finishing diet, beer, and massage are similar to the processes used for Kobe beef and are purported to produce meat with excellent grain and marbling.

Would you call this delicately marbled and juicy red? I think that's some truth in advertising.

There's not a lot of challenge in cooking a good steak: make sure it's at room temp, season it, sear it well on both sides over high heat to give it that deeply browned flavor, and then finish it in a slowish oven until it's cooked the to temperature you like (hopefully not beyond medium rare...).

Cromagnon (appropriate in France, non?) meal: Every once in awhile, a good rare steak hits the spot.

It should be all about the quality and taste of the meat-- well marbled, fine grain, dry aged for at least a couple of weeks. We bought côte du boeuf, which had a robust flavor and a surprisingly tender texture for French beef (must be the massage). Karen opined that it was on par or even better than the superb beef we buy from our favorite butcher in Philly, and I can't argue. Good simple steak deserves equally good simple accompaniments: sauce Bordelaise, mashed potatoes, and braised endive. If I'd had good wild mushrooms, I'd have put those on the plate, too.

Beef: it's what was for dinner.

As much as they can be really satisfying, we don't eat a lot of steaks or chops. They're not that interesting to cook and they're expensive. They also seem extravagant with respect to animal use. We don't eat much meat at any given meal-- it's more often a flavoring than featured item-- but I try to use the whole animal in my cooking to the extent possible. When buying poultry or rabbits or smaller fish, that's easy, since the unit of sale is the whole animal, and buying from a real butcher or fishmonger (rather than in shrink-wrapped styrofoam boats), I can make sure that pretty much everything comes home in my basket. That's less practical when it comes to the larger 4-hoofed creatures (or, say, a 200-lb tuna). Sides of beef may have been acceptable forms of payment for services rendered by my grandfather many decades ago, but I'd like to see my grandmother try to store them in my French refrigerator or get a case freezer in my Parisian apartment! So I approximate over time, buying a lot more of the less glamorous cuts than steaks and chops. Not only do I feel an obligation to waste as little as possible, those meats, and the cooking techniques needed to maximize their edibility, are exceptionally flavorful. Which is a not insignificant point of cooking.

So this week, while buying the côte du boeuf, I also bought a bunch of oxtail, which I used to make a ragu (of course). Mostly the same procedure as all of the others: brown the oxtails (I dredged them lightly in flour, this time), lightly cook the aromatics, add a little tomato and some herbs, then some red wine, reduce a little bit to get rid of some of the alcohol, add a little water to adjust the volume, then cover and pop it in the oven for a long slow simmer, the bottom of the lid turning a deep mahogany with the simmering juices. Mmmmm. Once super tender, pull the meat off the bones, skim the (copious) fat off the sauce, mash the veggies up, then add back a little of meat. It makes an intensely rich sauce, which we've eaten with chocolate pasta (finally, a great pairing of the chocolate pasta-- I only wish I'd had some good black olives to add to the ragu that night), as lasagna (with some pecorino cheese), and over polenta. And there's a lot of meat left, which looks destined to flavor a white bean casserole next week.

Oxtail ragu over polenta: winter comfort food

Mid-week weekend

Nov 11 is Armistice Day. Unlike the United States, where the remembrance has grown to encompass all veterans, here in France it is still a day of remembrance for those who lost their lives in WWI, which is a heckuvalot of people. The armistice treaty ending the war on the western front was signed in a railway car in the forest of Compiègne, a little north of Paris, where a replica of the car can be visited today (never one to pass on symbolism, Hitler chose the original car as the site for French surrender in WWII, then had it hauled off and blown up by the SS). The last of the French WWI veterans died last year, a rather amazing 90 years after the armistice signing, and so the nature of the celebrations for this holiday may change, but for now it's still a major holiday. A parade down the Champs is standard, and this year German chancellor Angela Merkel was in Paris for the observation, the first Armistice Day visit by a German leader.

We didn't see the parade, though. Since it was a holiday, Karen had the day off from work. And since it wasn't raining for a change, we took the opportunity to get in a mid-week bike ride. We considered exotic destinations, riding a bunch of hours to someplace new and taking a train back, or heading up north of the city by train to ride in the rolling hills and fall colors of the Oise valley. But in the end, it was more of the same, ie, destination: Chevreuse. Even so, there were still some vivid colors on the cold, damp ride.

In the end, the safe/known path turned out to be a good one, since it took less than 90 minutes for the stabbing pain from my Blois trip to make a reappearance. As we pulled over to discuss our options, we saw we were fittingly at rue de 11 Novembre. And though the train back into town took as long as the ride out of town, we were lucky to have gotten to the station moments before it departed, because between the holiday and the ongoing regional rail mini-strike, the next train wasn't for a long while. Even luckier, we escaped a right-on-red (not allowed in France) directly in front of a police van with just a long and patronizing scolding instead of 90-euro tickets.

But best of all, after hot showers, some lunch, and basking in the afternoon sun that poured through our big front windows (where was that during the ride?), we were invited to dinner at friends', where we shared good company, food, and wine. A treat on any day, and especially luxurious on a Wednesday.

Rain of terror?

One rainy day last week when I came back from my morning bread run, our building's concierge (in French, "keeper" or "caretaker"-- he doesn't make dinner reservations for us, or anything) was polishing the elevator door handle in the lobby and commented first on the rain and then, C'est hiver: it's winter. It's been rainy, dreary, and dark here lately. And judging from the concierge's comment, there's little reason to expect a change in the near future.

Since there's no specific event or season to train for, the wet weather has put a damper on our riding. We'd planned to ride this morning, but it was wet and about 40 degrees when we got up, and well, there just seemed to be many more reasons not to go (for instance, having to take showers with our bikes on returning) than to go. And while it's painful to watch the tiny little bit of fitness I had leave me, not riding does enable other activities.

Like leisurely cups of coffee together and extra-special breakfasts on weekend mornings. A few weeks ago I ordered 2 coffees from Square Mile Coffee Roasters in London, a relatively new roaster that has already gained a reputation for good coffees. I bought the La Vega & Cipresal from Guatemala and the Kagumoini from Kenya, two very different but excellent coffees. The La Vega & Cipresal is toasty and roundly sweet/nutty whereas the Kagumoini is full of black/red fruits and autumn spices. Because I don't drink caffeine every day, I'll not manage to get through both bags while still fresh, but having 2 coffees to compare is a lot more fun than just 1. I'll definitely order from them again. The only problem with having one's good coffee at home is that you can't have while eating a good bakery breakfast out. We devoured an exceptional baguette and some treats under awning in the rain at Blé Sucré in the 12e, and maybe the only way it could have been better would have been to have a good coffee alongside.

Two terrific autumn coffees.

The tarte tatin, a play on the classic french dessert-- poached apple filled with some kind of crumble-like filling, sitting on a cookie-like base, and of course, covered in delicious perfect caramel. We don't go to Blé Sucré that often, since it's out of the way for us, but when we do go, it's torture to decide what treat to get. This choice easy since it was among the few remaining options by the time we got there. That this was left either speaks badly of the tastes of the patrons who passed it up or of the quality of the shop's entire offerings.

Last Sunday was the first Sunday of the month, which is a day when the national museums in Paris charge no admission for entry. The goal is to draw the locals in to their own museums. Some of the museums participate year-round, others only in the winter months. Last weekend we visited 2 of the latter. We visited the Conciergerie and Sainte Chapelle on Ile de Cite. Both museums had their high points but were crowded. There were plenty of Francophones, so it seems the free first Sunday approach is working, but even this late in the year it's hard to escape tourists, and there are always knuckleheads like the American in line ahead of us at Ste Chapelle who had such an unnatural fondness for his umbrella that he couldn't bear to put it through the security X-ray machine. The lengthy the exchange with the security guard came to its climax when the American pointed to his umbrella and, evidently not knowing the french word from umbrella, pronounced umbrella with a (poor) French accent. Oh yeah, now the guard will understand. In any event, we were glad to see both museums for free, no matter the company.

The Conciergerie is one of Paris' oldest buildings, located on the Ile de Cite. The oldest portions of the palace were in place before the 10^th century, but it was extended/renovated/fortified through the 13^th (Louis IX, later St. Louis) and 14^th (Philip IV) centuries before being dumped for bigger and blingier digs, the royals eventually winding up on the right bank in the Louvre. The palace eventually became a prison whose greatest notoriety derives from the Revolution, where it was the seat of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the Reign of Terror. Prisoners brought in for their trails could expect 1 of just 2 fates: release or guillotine. Highlighted spots in the building include Marie Antoinette's cell and chapel, and the so-called grooming room, where prisoners on the way to the guillotine, some 2500 of them in the last 18 months of the RoT, were removed of the last of their personal belongings and got a nape shearing to make the guillotiner's job easier-- after all, he might well have been the hardest working man in the history of France. But all wasn't terror and grimness for the condemned. According to the placards in the museum, they were given a last “feast.” Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a table for a feast in Paris?

The Conciergerie

St. Louis built Sainte-Chapelle to house his Holy Relics (no, not his rock band, real relics, including the crown of thorns), which he bought used but not cheap in a bid to increase the power and prestige of France. There are 2 floors of chapels. The lower one was for the help and received a colorful updating/restoration (it's not clear from any of the text I've seen whether it's faithful to the original) in the 19^th century. The upper one is what all of the fuss is about, primarily the stained glass windows, which are currently undergoing cleaning (yet somehow the place isn't lousy with the scent of Windex) and repair. It was a dreary rainy day, so we didn't see the windows at their best, but even on a crummy day they sparkled. Not that the rest of the interior was built to fade into the background. Let's just say that the French kings left no lilly unguilded.

Ste Chapelle against the gray sky

The lower chapel-- not too shabby for the B-chapel

One of the restored stained glass panels.

Having obtained our small dose of culture, we set off to the falafel stands of the Marais for lunch, huddling in a doorway to avoid letting the rain dampen the crispy goodness. Then an hour or so half-hearted shopping, followed by some whole-hearted hot chocolate drinking. What Paris lacks in coffee (which is a lot) it makes up for in hot chocolate. These particular emporter cups came from Angelina's on rue Rivoli, and we wandered under the protection of the arcade while enjoying the winter warmer. A bit sweet for my tastes, but still very thoroughly chocolatey. Looking forward to searching for a favorite, which might just be enough to sustain us through the damp, dark, winter to come.

There's a lot going on on this lamp post base on the Pont Au Change, on the way over to the Marais.

Rain or no, the Marais was hopping...

... but we were standing firmly on 2 feet to make sure not to spill any of the falafel

Goldilocks in Paris

Now that it's winter in Paris (winter defined as dark, cold and rainy= pretty much every day now), all of the women are wearing boots. I have had boot envy. So I decided I must go shopping.

I have been shopping for weeks. I had in my mind the ultimate pair of boots, and of course nothing matches the ideal. I kept looking. Too short, too tall, heels too high, heels too low, too shiny, too lizardy, too pointy, too round, too suede-y, too much cuff, too tassely (pom poms hanging from your boots are big here), too everything. I tried several pairs on, and besides not being right, most of them were also too uncomfortable. Yuck. I quickly learned that I needed boots with a zipper, because the ones that pull on are much too baggy at the ankles. I do not have fat ankles, and do not want boots that make me look like I have fat ankels.

Rolf and I were out wandering around today in the 4e and the 11e, and I was ready to give up. Rolf wouldn't let me quit. Just a few more shops... and there they were. We found a shop that had Italian shoes and boots (always a good thing), and they had really nice boots. I tried the black ones on, and really liked them. Zip up (slender ankles), heel just right, a small strap/buckle on the back for interest, but not fru fru, classic with style. Yes. Rolf convinced me that they looked even better in brown. The leather had a really nice color. And brown with black clothing is all the rage.


Just right.

Game on

Gratuitous picture of the Chevreuse valley filled with mist on a cold morning in Oct.

It's definitely fall here, and so it's hunting season. When we were riding in Italy, hunters of both animals and porcini abounded, the sound of popping guns echoing through the hills and groups of hunters eating and taking coffees at the country roadside eateries and caffes. Hunting is also popular in France, but aside from the fashionistas chasing down the latest styles, hunters don't much prowl the streets of Paris. So imagine my surprise as I rolled down the sidewalk just outside the apartment on a recent Sunday when I crossed paths with a 50-ish year old, tall, stout fellow dressed all in tweed-- knickers, sherlock-holmes hat, and cape (yes, cape)-- with high wool socks and carrying a basket and a long, vaguely triangular bag I recognized from my Italy rides as a hunting rifle. Trés aristocratic, and quite the rare sighting in the 16e.

And I felt a game craving coming on. Deer. Boar. Hare. Game birds. Unlike the US where hunted game can't be sold at butchers, hunted game is fair game in many countries in Europe. I've not yet figured out where one buys big game here; I've not seen deer hanging on hooks like at D'Angelo Bros in Philly. But I realized that I've not even cooked a rabbit since moving to France, and that seemed a shame. I like to cook rabbit at home-- it's more interesting than chicken and still inexpensive. I especially like to serve bunny on Easter. And whereas I'll admit that's a little perverse, especially when there are little kids at the table, it's darned good whenever one chooses to serve it. I've eaten rabbit out many times in Paris, as paté, saddle stuffed with house-made prunes (the dried French plums are exquisite and nothing like grandma's industrial medicinal varieties), or fricasseed with raisins and pistachios. But despite the fact that they're available in all of the butcher shops and at most of the markets, I'd never bought one.

I missed the Sunday markets while on my ride, but thankfully we have one local butcher who opens Monday mornings. The fellow behind the counter, by now accustomed my asking for weird stuff (chicken feet, veal joints, crépine), pulled out a whole rabbit, head attached, and teased me a bit by starting to wrap it up without dressing it. I take that as a good sign. I also take it as a good sign that he didn't throw out anything he cut off until checking with me. Very little wound up in the waste bin.

And good thing, too. My 3 lb rabbit cost me 20 eurobucks, which thanks to the crappy exchange rate is $30. I pay $12 for them at home, but I guess the rabbits in France dine on foie gras and chocolates before their dates with the butcher.

So, OK-- I had my expensive rabbit. What to do with it? I'd been thinking a fricassee with olives and fennel, but the high cost called for something more economical: a ragu. I love rabbit sauce for pasta. Our first experience with the bunny genre was at a country hotel in Italy on a bike trip, where Karen's serving of pasta with hare sauce came complete with lead shot-- the husband had hunted it the morning before. Rabbit produces a milder version, but it's still possible to make an extremely flavorful ragu by braising the meat in wine and stock without actually putting (any or much, depending on your preference) of the meat itself in the finished sauce; I like to include the minced liver at the end, which enhances the flavor and texture. Ragus like this are traditionally served with wide noodles (pappardelle or tagliatelle) or specialty pastas like pici. I also love making lasagne with them. To me they scream "autumn," and they're so flavorful that you don't need much on the pasta to make a delicious meal.

As for the meat, I pulled it off the bone and ran it through the food processor until it was finely ground. I combined about half of it with some russet potatoes I'd cooked and pushed through a strainer to “rice”, an egg yolk, and a tablespoon or so of the fat from the ragu and stuffed agnolotti with it. Most of the other half went into another batch of agnolotti with a base of polenta and risotto, which I'd been looking for an excuse to try out. The last bit went into a pasta sauce with winter squash. Served as first course before a light second course of veal scaloppini, it offered a varied week of dinners, with several nights of agnolotti leftover. Yea.

Here's how the meals evolved:

Mon night: Rabbit-and-potato agnolotti in rabbit ragu. One word: Bunnylicious.

Tues pasta: Chestnut pappardelle with rabbit ragu. The chestnut flour makes the pasta sweeter, and though an interesting combination, I didn't think it worked as well here as it might have with hare or other gamier ragus.

Tues main: Veal with porcini-creme fraiche sauce and sauteed spinach with garlic. Mushrooms and greens love each other, so it was hard to miss on this. I used the freshly dried porcini we bought at Mucci on our way home from Italy, and they're very good.

Wed pasta: Rabbit agnolotti with sauteed long-leaf radicchio and chestnut milk. The long-leaf radicchio, maybe the best I've ever had and wonderfully bitter, went really nicely with the savory rabbit filling, and I used the milk I'd simmered my roasted chestnuts in (with a bay leaf, the chestnuts going into agnolotti) to temper the radicchio.

Wed main: Veal with lemon and olive oil, sauteed swiss chard. Simple, but better suited for grilled meats.

Thurs pasta: Chocolate fazzoletti (handkerchiefs, or about 2" square pieces of pasta) with rabbit ragu. Though I eased way back on the cocoa compared to here, it was still too much for the rabbit. Would have been perfect with venison, oxtail, or beef short ribs, though.

Thurs main: Veal with a radicchio cream and a timbale of chestnut, celery root, and apple. Both of these worked really well. The radicchio was sauteed with whole garlic cloves, then pureed without the garlic and used to infuse a cream-milk mixture, strained, and reduced. The bitterness of the radicchio balances the sweetness of the dairy. The timbale was just a touch cakey, but the flavors of chestnut and celery root are made for each other, and the apple added a nice fruity note. I'll definitely work further on both of those methods.

Fri pasta: Tagliatelle with a sauce of rabbit, winter squash, guanciale, swiss chard, and sage. Very nice. Very autumn.

Fri main: Veal with red wine and veal stock reduction (it's kind of cheating, since it's so easy, but it's so good...), sauteed radicchio, and a timbale of lentils, which though not the prettiest of colors, had the texture of a lentil mousse and a lovely earthiness.

Sat first: Polenta with the last of the rabbit ragu. Good, hearty fare.

Sat main: Pan-seared sea bream on a winter squash timbale and watercress puree. It's not often I cook fish, as even here it's hard to find really fresh fish at the markets. But when I do find something especially good, it's hard to resist the opportunity to work with it. I'd have preferred to pair it with something earthier-- fresh cepes or girolle mushrooms, but Karen's digging the squash right now, so we went that direction, instead.

Sat desert: Gateaux from Gantier, our favorite boulangerie/patisserie. Monsieur Gantier bakes some mean breads, but his primary training was as a patissier, and the opera (dark chocolate, almond, and coffee) is to die for. The other gateau was also very good, a vanilla mousse on top of a chocolate mouse, with a caramelized genoise-like cake layer above and below. Check this out: a listing of all of the boulangeries and patisseries in Paris.

A bunnyless meal, but one of Karen's favorites: warm lentil salad with good baguette for a weekend lunch.

Though the rabbit was kind of a game substitute, I discovered that one of my butchers on rue Poncelet does have a display case with game birds and wild hare. So this weekend I bought a wild pheasant for the relative bargain of 10.50 euro-bucks. Never having cooked pheasant before, I pan-roasted the breast meat for a nice dinner with sauteed porcini mushrooms, oven-dried fresh figs, and the lovely creamy red rice from Camargue, all beautifully complemented by a soft merlot-heavy bordeaux, a rare splurge out of our usual under-5-euro-buck wine collection. Perhaps the most memorable thing about this meal was that since we'd spent a delightful evening of drinks at Karen's father's cousin's apartment in the early part of the evening, we didn't get home until after 10.00 PM, and so we didn't eat dinner until midnight. Ie, we're finally eating on Paris time!

The useless legs (pheasants are running birds, so the legs are sinewy and tough) and all of the bones went into a rich stock that formed the base of the sauce (along with chicken and veal stocks) and a second weaker stock that I used with the thigh meat for a ragu for later in the week. Whereas the breast meat was milder and tamer than I'd expected (and, frankly, hoped) from a wild bird, the thighs gave off a strongly gamey aroma as soon as they hit the oil, and the resulting ragu was wonderfully flavorful.

Chestnut agnolotti in a celery root cream...

... followed by the pheasant breast with figs and porcini/cepes and pheasant reduction.

And of course, pheasant ragu with tagliatelle. Pasta rules in our house.

I'm looking forward to more game as the autumn and winter seasons progress.

Mwah!!

This entry somehow didn't get posted when written, back in early Sept. No question it was user error. So think back to when summer was just winding down...

Summer's officially over in Paris.

It's not so much that the weather has changed, though this morning it was 46 degrees and we had a couple of days last week that didn't get out of the 60s.

It's that everybody's finally back from their vacances.

The elevator in our building no longer remains on our floor overnight, the hundreds of windows in the courtyard behind us, all white with their closed metal shutters in August, are now open, and the last of our food vendors are vending again.

And there's tons of kissing. Cheek kissing, that is. Two passes per person as friends or co-workers see each other for the first time in a couple of months. We were out to dinner recently when a table of 6 showed up, and the kissing must have taken 15 minutes, and a flow chart to work out. Kissing, kissing, kissing.

The French get, and actually take, a lot of vacation. Five weeks is mandated. If you work in an office, you probably get to pick when you take it. If you work in a shop that closes in the summer, you have to take your 4 weeks during the closure, leaving you with that 1 remaining week to get you through the other 11 months.

Which may explain why people seemed to be at their grumpiest at the end of June, several months after they've burned that last saved day, and at their nicest right now, after 4 consecutive weeks of being away. I've never found that a week of vacation from work was restorative. Two weeks was better, but returning to work was still usually a downer. Between the press of "Hey, before you go, can you take care of..." stuff leading into it, and the digging out on returning, sometimes it seemed it was hardly worth it.

But 4 weeks has done wonders for some of the grouches in my life, here. I've gone to the same boulangerie for a baguette or two and 4 pastries (our weekend breakfast) twice a weekend, and more recently for a baguette several times during the week, since about the middle of March. That's roughly 50 visits to the same shop. I'm not a difficult person to remember-- I'm abnormally tall for France, have abnormally goat-like facial hair for France, and speak abnormally poor French for France. And on weekdays, I go in early in my bike kit on the way back from a ride: pretty sure there aren't many Guy's Bicycles team members rolling through the shop. I always smile (hard not to, knowing that I'll soon be eating as close to heaven as can be achieved on earth), give correct change (change is hoarded here, but that's a topic for another day), and make an effort to be especially nice. Still, the shop matron never so much as grinned in her interactions with me. It's not that she was rude, she just wasn't personable. She was personable with others, sometimes. But even if I came in as she chatted with a customer about this or that, I'd get the stoney face when it was my turn.

Our heavenly boulangerie was to close on Aug 4, until Sept 3. I was terrified-- would we survive? Even though I'd been in there 50+ times, our bread and pastry consumption is such that I've had plenty of experience with the alternatives. And though I can get some reasonable stand-ins for the baguettes closer to the apartment, the substitute croissants, chaussons aux pommes, and other pastries just leave us sad. I don't even want to contemplate the emptiness we'll feel weekend mornings after we've left Paris.

We left for Japan Aug 1, and so I went in that morning for our Last Breakfast in over a month. I purchased my goods from Mme Stoney and at the end of the game of one-upmanship that is any exit from a shop in Paris, I added "... et bonnes vacances!"

And she smiled.

As I picked up the baguette and pastries I'd dropped on the floor in shock, she said that they'd be open for a few more days. But you could tell that she was looking forward to les vacances.

Since then, it's been a whole different vibe in that shop. My first visit was their first Fri open, on my way back to the apt after a short but hard ride in a cold, soaking early morning rain. Drenched and covered with road grime, I was worried about messing up the jewel-like shop, losing whatever meager rung I'd gained on the favor ladder in August. But she smiled at me when I came in, and as she got my baguette commented on how dedicated I was to be riding on a miserable day like that. Since then, it's been all smiles and (a little) chat, helping me with names of unlabeled items, helping me when I tell her I shouldn't buy a kouign amann again today by saying, "mais vous êtes sportif!" I like her.

Now that I know the secret to getting in good with my vendors, it's only another 10 months of grouchy service before I can work on the others.