Creative Parking

This is another post that sat, unfinished, for a long time. Which will explain why the pictures are not how Paris looks right now (ie, winter).


We are very happy that we do not have a car in Paris. At home we live in Center City, and we undestand what a problem parking can be. We will avoid going places if we have a good parking spot. We never take the car out on a Friday or Saturday night, since it will take hours of driving around to find a spot again when we get home. It doesn't seem to be any better in Paris, although it is much easier to live without a car here (public transit is much more extensive).

For the hardy souls who do have cars in our neighborhood, the most impressive thing is the opportunities they make for themselves to park their cars. (Pretty much all of these options would generate a ticket from the only efficient Philadelphia city service, the Parking Authority, if tried at home.)

Our neighborhood. There are a lot of cars parked on the streets, most days.

Most of the cars are smaller than American cars, which does allow more to fit in a given space. But if you have a Smart car, you can fit in spaces that other's can't. In ways other's can't.

Or, you can create your own definition of what is a space. So what if it includes a little sidewalk?

This is an example of either really bad parking, or just making that station wagon fit in a space that's too small.

Trying to be a Smart car, when you aren't. You still get the space! Twice! (Sorry for the fuzziness- I took this one while running.)

Here's my favorite. This person has taken advantage of 2 one way streets at the corner, to park in a spot that is out of the way of both lanes of traffic. And not even in either cross walk!

But make sure you remember where you parked, and move the car every once in awhile. This car is both right under a tree (and thus covered in bird poo) and the recipient of a number of tickets. Meter maids are usually not that persistent in Paris, so this car has evidently worn out its welcome by not fitting in with the image the neighborhood would like to project. Cover it in dog poo, no one would notice it.

Yes, it is really nice not to have a car.

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

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.

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.

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.

Annapolis- just like home!

Brick sidewalks everywhere- just like Philadelphia!

Dog poo- just like Paris!

Autumn's arrival

Apologies to anybody who actually reads this thing-- there's been plenty of cool stuff to write about lately, but time and motivation have been limited. Kind of literary constipation.

Maybe this post will be a move towards restored regularity.

My folks are in town, and so I've cooked for us a few times. Nothing fancy, but it's always fun to have people to experiment on. Since I was to cook last night, I went to the Prez Wilson market early in the morning before meeting my dad for some patrimonying.

No, I wasn't going to roll him for his retirement funds.

France opens up a bunch of its governmental holding to the public for touring each year, which is known as the patrimoine.

The French have had an love-hate relationship with the extravagances of their various rulers (monarchs, emperors), and with a lot of those extravagances being architectural or artistic treasures, it would be a waste to let them just degenerate, yet France is so lousy with the things, they can't all really support being tourist museums, either. So the government uses a lot of amazing old chateau or palaces for their digs, and for a few days each year, the public shows up to see these normally off-limits sites, and maybe to check up on the government, too. And boy do they show up-- the line to get into the Palais Elysees, the French White House, basically, had a line over half a mile long and about 6 people across. There were over 100 sites open in Paris, and other sites across France included places like this or this, both local govt offices in the Limoges region. We met in the 8e to see the Palais Elysees, but I got us into the wrong line and so we saw the ministry of the interior (Hôtel de Beauvau; not a hotel in the English sense, as one of the foreigners in line asked me, but a public building or mansion in the French sense), instead. Then we went to the 7e and saw the Italian embassy, a smaller mansion with genuinely spectacular interiors and garden and the Hôtel de Clermont, home to the ministry for relations (as in, "I did not have relations with that woman?") with parliament. All told, a pretty enjoyable morning and early afternoon, and we came home with pamphlets from each stop and even a souvenir DVD from the ministry of the interior.

Anyway, I had a lot of mutually exclusive ideas about what to cook for dinner, and as usually happens in that situation, I wound up coming home with way too much stuff and nothing appropriate for any of the original ideas. I blame the change of seasons. Even though the temps have stayed nice, we've clearly crossed the summer-fall food line. And I wasn't expecting such a rapid change.

First thing that tripped me up was the winter squash at Joel Thiebault's stand. I love winter squash. In fact, I've only ever encountered 1 winter squash I didn't like, and that was my first week in Paris, apotiron, a gargantuan orange squash they sell here by the wedge, since a whole one would feed the entire city of Paris. For a month. Maybe it was just a bad piece, but I made several days' worth of pasta sauce with it, and it was just nasty, with strong flavor of ... well, I still don't know, but something really objectionable. I don't really make it a point of sampling objectionable tastes, so my library is a little small, there.

So the bounty of different squashes on the back stand definitely had my interest. And since I've already learned that I have no idea what the squashes here taste like, I decided to try 2. Not the sucrine, which looked a dead-ringer for butternut, but 2 rather squat, wide varieties, one intensely green, the other the color of a butternut. I figured they had to be at least a little different from each other, and hopefully at least one of them would be edible.

The next find that derailed my plans was the availability everywhere of fresh cépes.

A cépe and its equivalent in 1-euro coins.

Quoi? Cépes-- porcini mushrooms. Or something like porcini mushrooms, since cépe can be used more generically for wild mushrooms. When we bike in Italy in the fall, it's always porcini season, and we often ride past porcini hunters. I absolutely love the things, but they're virtually impossible to buy fresh in the States. But as I said, they were everywhere yesterday at the market. They ranged from 12 euros per kilo (can't possibly be the desirable species that fall under that name) to 40 euros per kilo ($59 at the current painful exchange rate), so there's a lot on the line as you pick your vendor. I decided to try my potato-and-mushroom lady. Gotta figure that since that's all she does, they'd be killer. I bought 4. For $25. They'd better be killer...

And in fact, there was a little concern about that, because when I got home after the patrimonying, I noticed that one of the cépes was decidedly green on the underside of the cap, and it really didn't look much like the other 3 at all. I'm no mycologist, but I know that eating the wrong mushroom can go really badly for you, and I realized that offing my parents in Paris would probably fall pretty far on the low end of the bad-son/good-son scale, so I put the green one back in the bag to deal with later and used one of the good ones for an appetizer of fresh tagliatelle in a cépes cream sauce. Simple, delicate, let the flavor of the mushroom come through. The cépe was milder (wimpier?) than the porcini we eat in Italy, but it was still a nice mushroom. Having baked off both squashes (in quarters), I used half of the tan one for a squash puree to accompany the pork we had for the main course, since it was sweeter and moister than the green one. The rest of the squash, some leftover spinach, the mushrooms, and a big bag of band-sawed veal bones from the "crépine" butcher got stuffed into my tiny French refrigerator after considerable reorganizing.

Today, feeling a cold coming on and so not up for carousing, I set about emptying that fridge of leftovers, a kind of fall cleaning. The drier squash seemed a perfect candidate for either a pasta stuffing or gnocchi, just as I'd usually use a sweet potato. With a freezer already full of eggplant agnolotti, I made a big batch of squash gnocchi to keep the eggplant company: "rice" the squash by pushing it through a strainer, make a well, add an egg, some flour, seasonings (salt, pepper, nutmeg), cut that all in with a pastry scraper, form gnocchi, and freeze. Freeze 2 lbs, in fact. With a lamb or duck ragu, or just browned butter and sage (maybe some crushed amoretti?), they're going to make several great quick lunches or first courses for dinner.

The riced squash, egg, flour and spices before mixing

Dough combined and rolled out

Cut into portions

Rolled and ready for shaping

Forked

Frozen

But what to do with the 3 remaining cépes? Looking through the refrigerator, I saw that I still had some plums that I poached in red wine and spices earlier in the week. Plums are very much in season here, mostly tiny yellow, purple, and green varieties, very sweet, and delicious. But my yellow plums had gotten a little past perfect in the fridge and were too numerous to finish off quickly, so I poached them to extend their shelf life, as it were. I used them for dessert (with a genoise cake made with chestnut flour) in one meal and cooked down the poaching liquid to a syrup to serve with duck (with great success, if I do say so) in another. But I still have some left, and their (2nd) expiration is fast approaching.

So I decided to make a mushroom-and-plum dinner. Sounds weird, but combinations of fruit and mushrooms are fairly common in northern Italy, and I was hopeful that the wine-ginger-quatre-epice poaching liquid would really work with the earthiness of the mushrooms. With freezer space now fully accounted for, I made a lasagnette for dinner. Never made a lasagna with my own fresh pasta before, so this was to be a learning experience.

First, though, I still had the little issue of the green mushroom. I thought a long time about whether to use it or not. I mean, I paid $6+ for the damn thing. So it basically came down to wasting $6 vs dying in my sleep. Oh, what the heck-- I've had a good run. Throw it in! I did at least pull off the green fins under the cap and hoped that whatever poison might be lurking there would be protein, so the cooking would denature it. Mushroom baddies are usually alkaloids, though, so even I knew that was wishful thinking.

Rolled out pasta dough to match our little loaf pan, parboiled (15 sec, before moving to cold water and blotting), then layered with sauteed cépes, some chopped poached plums (just enough pieces so you'd get about one in each bite per layer), béchamel (enriched with a little truffle oil-- if I'm going to kick tonight, no reason to spare the extravagance), and some parmesan. Baked at high temp for about 20 min, served with simple green salad with mustard vinaigrette (I am still in France, after all).

Cépes and poached plum lasagna

Maybe it's the hallucinogenic effects of that tainted mushroom, but holy cow, was that lasagnette good. The sweetness and spiciness of the plums went beautifully with the mushrooms, and the homemade pasta in the layered section was perfectly toothsome, but crunchy and delicious on the curled up edges. It was heavenly. I don't think I'll ever make a lasagna with dried pasta again. I was only planning to eat half of the little pan tonight, but knowing it wouldn't be nearly as good tomorrow night, I had to make the sacrifice and finish it off.

I just hope it doesn't finish me off later tonight...

Best thing about Paris in September

No ragweed!!

En vacances

Around Bastille Day the city started to empty- summer vacations had begun. We were away in Japan most of the first 2 weeks of August, and it is striking coming back, that anyone who had not left in July, is now gone for sure. Our apartment building is empty; we are the only ones here. All of our favorite shops are closed. We had to eat dinner in the more touristy 7e on Friday night, because all of the restaurants in our neighborhood are closed.

It's a ghost town.

Embassy odyssey

I had lost my wallet awhile ago, and looking at the PennDOT website, the only way to get a replacement driver’s license was to fill out a specific form which could be mailed in or brought in, in person. But the hitch- regardless, the signature has to be notarized.

Website searches and talks with ex-pat American lawyers revealed that the typical American notary public doesn’t really exist here. Apparently the French aren’t impressed with signatures that have seals next to them- maybe too royalist? There is something called a Notaire, but that is really something more like a Master- a lay judge who has a completely different set of functions.

However, acknowledging the American fascination with notarization, there is some obscure federal law which requires all US Embassies around the world to offer notarization services.

To get this service, you need to make an appointment. But of course when I tried to do that the web link was dead. An email to the embassy in Paris got a response- Washington runs that server, and they’re working on it. A few days later I was able to really make an appointment, for about a week later. An appointment letter, a US passport, and $30 were all I needed. Note that the website also says something to the effect of: Yes, we love all Americans. But please don’t come and bother us if you can possibly avoid it.

We had gone to the French Embassy in Washington, DC to get the long stay visas. But the American Embassy in Paris- wow, those French guys were amateurs.

I took the Metro to Concorde, about a block from the Embassy (although you have to walk about 3 blocks underground to get to the exit.) When you get to the Embassy there’s the expected police presence (French) and bicycle barriers, and you had to cross the street, walk a half block down, and then walk through a maze of barriers back across the street again to get to the first check point at the Consulate.

The first guys (who were still French police) looked at your letter, your passport, checked it against a pre-printed list, and let you go about 5 feet to the next waiting spot. Then you waited in line to be allowed into the building where you went through airport security. There was a huge trash bin full of water bottles (what- this isn’t really an airport??) The website had warned you not to bring *any* electronic devices. I left my cell phone in my office at work, I didn’t bring my iPod on the Metro, but rather some work to do. When I was finally in that building, the next French policeman searched my purse. They didn’t like my chapstick, my tiny bottle of Advil, but finally put those back in. But they really really didn’t like the security device on my keychain (a PIN randomizer to get into the VPN at work). It had never occurred to me that this was a suspect electronic device- it doesn’t send/receive anything, can’t take pictures… but was suspicious enough that it got checked into a plastic bag which would await me, in exchange for the ticket on a neckchain that I got instead. After the manual search, I went through a metal detector, and the purse now went through the x-ray machine. I waited on the other side, and the police man kept wondering why I wouldn’t leave. Uh, mon sac… (my purse). Finally he gave it to me. So now I get to walk out of this building, and over to the real building.

At the entrance here, you got your number, like at the bakery. They were in different series; D was the notary line. (I was D07). Then you got to go into the waiting room. It was standing room only, with about 100 seats, and 20 different windows. Most people were there for other services, like getting visas for visitation. My appointment was at 1:30, I had originally arrived at 1 pm, and it was about 1:20 when I got into this room. The windows dedicated to notary services were all shuttered. Finally after 1:30 the first opened, and called D01. After no one went to the window, they called D02. After about 5 minutes they called D03, who actually went to the window. It wasn’t like there was anywhere you could go- you certainly didn’t have the opportunity to sightsee in the Embassy. Finally around 2 pm my number came up, but when I walked to the window there was a woman already there with a huge stack of papers. The clerk told me “you’ll have to wait- she had an earlier number”. Ok, I have to wait because she couldn’t figure out when her number was called earlier? After about 10 minutes the late woman got sent to the cashier, and I finally got my turn. I explained to the clerk that all I needed was my signature notarized on this already completed form. She took my passport, looked at the form, and complained that there wasn’t enough room for the notary stamps. She stamped a generic “US Embassy, Paris” print below the notary block, but sadly, she was not the real notary, just completing step one. She then gave me an invoice form filled out for $0. Apparently since this request was for a government agency, you didn’t have to pay. But you did have to go to the cashier and not pay. The cashier’s booth (window 20) had been empty the whole time I was waiting for my number to be called, but now there were 4 people in line, the first of whom was the woman with the big stack of papers. I'm stuck behind this lady twice?! The couple in front of me asked me questions in French about filling their application out. They were apparently Vietnamese, with US green cards, but the guy had lost his. He worked in France for a number of years, and did not speak English. Ok, whatever. His question was the difference between a commuting and non-commuting resident. In my halting French I tried to explain the work in one country and live in another concept, none of which was really related to his working and living in a 3rd country- not his native land, not his adopted land, but a different one yet. We all decided he was non-commuting, and he got his turn to pay. They didn’t take too long, I got up to the window, gave my slip to the guy who said thanks, you’re done, wait and they’ll call you again.

Now I had to go sit down again, to wait for the real notary to appear. After another 20 minutes, I got called up to the third window, where the notary quizzed me about what was going on, gave me my passport back, had me sign, then signed and did her sealing thing. All of which took about 30 seconds, about as long as this whole episode should have taken.

So, I’m not sure what PennDOT will make of an application notarized at the US Embassy in Paris, but as long as I can now get a new driver’s license, it’s ok.

Summer

It's July 15th. The summer solstice was almost a month ago. Memorial Day was nearly a month before that. Our first (and thankfully only, so far) real heat wave here in Paris was 2 weeks ago. We've been eating insanely luscious cantaloupe for 3 weeks. Summer vacances here started in earnest for many here about July 6, and Bastille Day yesterday is when a good number of the hold-outs will have pulled the rip-cord.

But summer on av Henri Martin didn't start until this evening, with the year's first bowls of ripe heirloom tomato pasta. Over the past half decade or so, this has been our go-to summer dinner, the combination of real tomatoes, a little garlic, peppery olive oil and fresh herbs, all uncooked and tossed with hot just-drained pasta and eaten voraciously, never getting old. Sometimes we add a little parmesan, or toasted pine nuts, or black olives, or fresh fish or even canned tuna. Tonight it was just 1 red, 1 orange, and 1 green tomato, 1 clove of garlic, a glug of olive oil, and a generous batch of basil from our balcony. Oh, and some wonderfully minty/menthol-y ground pepper. Yea, summer.

Summer in a bowl.

We've had some gorgeous days here, lately. The view off the balcony in the evening, with the strongly directional light, can be arresting. Hard to believe we really live here, sometimes.

Summer out the window.

Speaking of Bastille Day, or locally just the 14th of July, we joined the throngs of humanity near the Arc de Triomphe for the much-anticipated air show in the morning at 10:35, which preceded the military parade. The air show was about 8 groups of planes, starting with fighter jets streaming red, white, and bleu, then an AWACS aircraft, then progressively older planes including WWII-era bombers and early prop fighter planes. Pretty cool aircraft, and it would have been really interesting if you got to see them for more than 4 seconds. We kept waiting for them to make a turn and come back around for another viewing, to do some maneuvers, or, frankly, anything. But no-- that was it. For all we know they've made it to Tokyo by now.

The parade was pre-assembled in the space surrounding the Arc, the roads choked with military vehicles ready to roll. It kind of looked like Paris was occupied, even if it was just by the French, themselves. I haven't ever been to a 4th of July celebration in Washington DC, but I don't generally think of the parades as being military affairs. This seemed more like something one would expect in a May Day celebration than what I assumed a July 14th parade would be like. My recollection of French history is that they stormed the prison at Bastille that day in revolt, eventually getting around to beheading their king, destroying a bunch of churches, silencing bells, and otherwise trying to remodel French society before changing their minds and reinstalling another king. It's not like it was a big military operation. Maybe the military parade is a demonstration that no such shenanigans will be tolerated in the near future?

Like any good celebration, the evening included fireworks, the major set going off around the Eiffel Tower, 120 years old this year. We had a great view from our balcony, and they did a really great job of making use of La Tour itself as a scaffold for some of the charges, shooting them off the top and from the sides. Halfway through the 30-min show, we heard competing booming from the opposite direction, coming from another set of fireworks in the west, maybe in the Bois de Boulogne, or from one of the near suburbs, like Neuilly. We spent the rest of the show watching back and forth, heads pivoting like spectators at a tennis match. Great seats for a very good show.

The Eiffel Tower amid fireworks.

The mystery fireworks.

But my favorite part of the whole thing is the French word for firework, which I learned just yesterday: feu d'artifice (fake fire). How cool is that?

Gobelins and Ghouls

When we first arrived in Paris, I often made a point of doing my chores in far-flung parts of town as an excuse to explore and walk the various neighborhoods. With time, though, one finds one's preferred shops and shopkeepers, and with more of my days being spent on the bike (before the knee problems) and in the kitchen, efficiency had become more important than exploring. So much so, in fact, that I'd gotten into something of a rut.

Thank goodness, then, that I ran out of chestnut honey a few weeks ago. I'd seen that there's a shop specializing in all things honeybee in the 13e, a short walk from the Manufacture des Gobelins, which I've been meaning to visit for awhile. Including stops at BHV for some odds and ends, a boulangerie I'd heard good things about, and a source for mustard on tap (can't live in France without mustard in your refrigerator), I had a 5-h walk through 6 arrondissements on a beautiful Spring afternoon.

Sweet spot: Les Abeilles in the 13e.

When a French colleague at work asked where we'd be living, he pulled a disapproving face at the response, saying those neighborhoods are very bourgeoise, where people go to have children. It turns out that it suits our needs just fine: it's a nice neighborhood, with good access to La Défense so Karen doesn't have a long commute, good access to Bois de Boulogne so we can get our early morning rides in quickly, and good access to high quality markets and food shops. That said, we'd certainly look at other options if were to stay in Paris indefinitely, mostly because there are a lot of really neat places to live here. Neighborhoods range from staid monumental places to chaotic and energetic places full of recent immigrants, to quiet but charming and intimate locations.

The neighborhood where the bee place is, Butte aux Cailles, definitely falls into the last category. Mostly full of 2 and 3 story buildings, lined with small cafes and shops, it feels a little like the Fitler's square area of Philadelphia. Very homey and unpretentious.

Houses like this aren't common everywhere in Paris.

Like jams and preservers, honey is a popular condiment in France. Supermarkets carry varieties produced by bees that preferentially visit a number of flowering plants. So it's not really for lack of options that I needed to visit Les Abeilles, but it offered even more. Eucalyptus, pine, lemon, thyme, acacia, chestnut, and many more. Bee buzz soundtrack playing quietly in the background, a gentle older man helped me, giving me tastes of several honeys. I bought mild acacia for cooking and pungent dark pine for eating. While paying, I realized that the buzzing was live, not Memorex-- there was a bucket of bees on a shelf near the rear of the shop. One of them searched my hair for pollen for a few seconds but thankfully found none and moved on.

Yes, these are both really honey.

And so did I. Honey secured, I stopped in at the nearby Manufacture des Gobelins workshops to watch them make their famous tapestries. Established in the 1600s, and named for a family of dyers who produced a particularly pleasing red color, they eventually became the workshops for the King. Three different techniques are used to make tapestries there, all requiring what seems like infinite patience: a tapestry often takes several years for 2 or 3 workers to complete. Subject matter can be ancient (repair and reproduction of ancient tapestries is performed) or modern (there is a jury that chooses artwork to be interpreted in tapestry), but either way you can't buy them. Tapestries are produced only for the State, which hangs them in its embassies or uses them as diplomatic gifts. The workshops seem to be maintained mostly to keep the art of this type of tapestry making alive, which is kinda neat.

Even the drunks in in the 5e have nice places to hang out.

St Nicolas du Gewürztraminer... er... Chardonnet in the 5e

Vienna had its gold-painted Mozart performers, this busker had a Kurt Cobain marionette that was "performing" blaring Nirvana on Pont l'Archevèche.

The rump of Notre Dame is at least as impressive as her face.

Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation on Île St Louis

I then walked from Manufacture des Gobelins over to the right bank, past the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation on Île St Louis (closed for the day; will have to go back later), to get mustard from the tap at Maille on Place de la Madeleine, and then bread in the 2e. By then, I'd gotten tired and decided to take the metro back home. Distracted while thinking about the other chores I needed to take care of before dinner, I got on the train going the wrong direction. Realizing my mistake the minute the doors closed, I got off at the next stop to change directions and on the stairs down to the connector was met by RATP control, checking metro tickets and passes. No problem. Unlike the hordes of people I see every day jumping the turnstiles in plain view of the ticket vendors, or pushing through behind paying customers, I buy a monthly pass. I handed the pass to the control, a humorless woman probably in her 50s, and she ran it in her hand-held machine, which said it was valid. Great-- can I go now? But we weren't done. She pulled me out of the line of other controllers and said there was a problem: my pass didn't have my picture on it.

Well, yeah, there is that. I'd been meaning to put one on there, but the extra pictures I have from the dozens needed for visa and other purposes are a little too big, and I just couldn't swallow paying even more money for pictures for documents. Besides, this is a subway pass-- how big a deal can it be?

The Arts et Metiers metro station. It used to be my favorite...

A 25-euro fine, that's how big. On a 52-euro-a-month pass. I told her I was really sorry, that I didn't realize it was obligatory, and that I'd get one that afternoon, hoping she'd show the slightest bit of flexibility, but she wanted her 25 euros right there. I understand I'd not completely followed the rules, but I've gone out of my way to make sure I'm paying for my tickets on the metro and on the RER (where, depending on the stations you go between, validating your ticket is on the honor system). 5 euros, OK, but 25? I bet riding without a ticket is less than that. I was steamed. It's a good thing I don't know any vulgar French, because I would have used it, for sure. But since I didn't, I'll also avoid vulgarity in English and just say, the ghoul. Oh well, it's France. So I paid her, and she gave me a receipt good until the next morning, in case I was controlled a 2^nd time that day.

That night I cut down one of my document photos and stuck it in there. I thought of using this one,

but I figured that would be a 100-euro fine: 50 for an invalid picture, and another 50 for being a smart-alec.