Happy Bastille Day-
When I was 16, it was still the 1980's. Paris had a reputation then- elegant yes, but a little aloof. Like lots of reputations, especially those influenced by beauty, it was not at all true. So sweet, so warm! (and that is saying a lot for a someone who grew up in one of the world's friendliest cities). My family lived a summer at the Cite Fleuie - an artists' residence in the 13th. I learned more in those three months about the pleasures of the table, and of really every good thing in life, than in any decade before or since.
My parents spent their mornings in the atelier; I spent mine at the Mouffetard market. Maybe that is why I found it so warm. A young Americaine with public high school French and a curious palate, I made friends quickly there. Rather, I mostly badgered them into being friends - "What is a mirabelle, anyway?" - "Do I eat the skull of the small bird whose head is sticking out of that pastry?" They had questions, too: -"Mademoiselle! Comment on appelle ceci en Amerique?" -"Eggplant." They thought that was hysterical. (To be fair, it is a less elegant word than aubergine.) Cuisine ruled the day- market in the morning, with the bread and croissants too, organizing the produce, then out again to the cheese store and the charcuterie. The lady at the cheese store had questions for me too, and demands- anxious of her cheeses' uncertain fate in the hands of an ingenue. There would be no eating of cold Camembert, not on her watch. Everything was so perfect as it was, it was hard to want to actually cook, except maybe dipping the conventionally large strawberries in chocolate (not the tiny, fragile frais du bois - they were too shockingly expensive to conceal). We had cous cous several nights a week at a neighborhood Moroccan place with dark green walls. I always had au sept legumes, with lots of harissa. They put a kilo of sesame halvah on the table after and we would help ourselves, just like they bring the whole terrine at a casual French place.
My grandparents came, and we went on a trip to Normandy. Everywhere we stopped, old men would keep looking over at my grandfather, an american of a certain age. Eventually they would come over to table. Had he been in the war? In France? (He had been in Italy, but spent some days in Paris after VE day.) He had the same questions for them. I translated every now and then, but their cameraderie didn't really need any help.
For a girl used to the charming dinginess of the New York subway, the metro was so elegant! Polished tiles, the gracefully arched ceiling, gold frames(!) for the advertising posters, and best of all the sound- that long horn when the doors are closing, the smoothness of the rubber tires.
I was many times since then, and when I was there last year, many years after that first visit, everything that I remembered as perfect - which is simply to say, everything - was still just as perfect.
In random order, things to love-
* How you have to say "Bonjour Madame" when you enter a shop.
* Hot chocolate at Angelina's.
* Celerie Remoulade.
* Niki de Saint Phalle's whimsical fountain:
* Pernod, Ricard, and, even better, the various water pitchers from Pastis manufacturers.
* Ice cream from Berthillon:
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| Vintage Promotional Carafes at Chez Violette, Exarchia, (Athens) |
* Ham and butter on baguette.
* The view from the roof of La Samaritaine department store.
* Art students out with their sketchbooks everywhere:
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| Sketching on the steps of St. Genevieve. |
* Going to half a dozen shops just to get things for lunch.
* Those barges:
* and bridges:
* And the people who taught us how to do pretty much everything worth doing.
