Barbara Cooley's Paris Journal

Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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One of the first images to catch my eye and then my camera yesterday was a flyer about a lost cat. The flyer was stapled to a pole across from the Saint John the Baptist of Grenelle church, very near the popular Gosselin fruit shop.

Last Sunday night, the cat jumped out of the window of a domicile near the rue du Commerce and the rue Lakanal. Now that is a number of blocks away from the church, but I think the person who posted the flyer knew that most of the neighborhood folks from rue Lakanal shop on the rue du Commerce, like the Gosselin fruit shop, and, if they attend mass, probably go to St. John the Baptist of Grennelle.

It is, after all, the old center of the former village.

We shall watch for this fine animal, whose name is “All in,” a “Texas Hold ‘Em” poker term. We wonder how he got that name? Do Parisians play “Texas Hold ‘Em”? If so, this is the first I’ve heard of it.

Speaking of names, one of our friends unwittingly has given my husband, Tom, a new name that he rather likes. In a Facebook message the other day, she committed a typo and referred to him as “Tome.” Being a writer, Tom rather likes the nickname “Tome.” I said he could be known as the “Tome of Cooley,” which sounds a bit like the “Book of Kells.” Oh, he REALLY liked that one.

The Tome of Cooley received an email yesterday from New York with samples of the design for the 8^th edition of The Norton Sampler. We spent some time poring over them. The typography and design of the inside pages is improved over the current 7^th edition, and the cover is a real knock-out. The Tome and I are very pleased.

We were in the mood to celebrate this milestone, so I’d made a reservation at Le Cristal de Sel, on rue Mademoiselle. That’s why we took our evening stroll down to the area in front of the church, where rue Mademoiselle makes its contribution to a lop-sided-star-like intersection.

Facing the same, slightly complicated intersection in front of the church, on the corner of the rue des Entrepreneurs and the rue de l’Abbe Groult, is another one of those old “village-y” buildings that now is home to a bar now called Charlie Birdy.

This is our fifteenth summer in Paris! As far as I can remember, this building has had a bar in it. It purports to be a restaurant, too, but not really. Not seriously. It is a bar.

On the overblown web site for this place (www.charliebirdy.com), you can read about the origin of the name, if you read French, and you can inspect the weird menu, which is in French but has a lot of English words on it. Maybe this is a good place for hamburgers and hot dogs, I don’t know. But really, it is a bar, supposedly named for Winston Churchill’s parakeet.

The concept of an American cocktail lounge is appealing here. But the French don’t call it that. When it occurs someplace in a bar in Paris, it is called something else.

At Charlie Birdy, it is called a “sofa bar,” which in our minds conjures up images of lap dancing or some related activity. But “cocktail lounge” isn’t descriptive enough for the French, and “sofa bar” says more about what the place looks like: a room with sofas and comfy armchairs where drinks are served and consumed.

Mostly, however, people want to sit outside, on the terrasse, which in this case, we would call the sidewalk. They want to be there in part to enjoy the great outdoors, but also because that is the one place that smoking is still permissible. There is no smoking inside, even in the “sofa bar.”

The great outdoors has been cool and damp so far this month, but we do not dare to complain, given what our friends back home in the U.S. have been dealing with. So, no more talk of the weather here.

We decided to check out the park called Square Saint-Lambert, situated at the east end of the rue des Entrepreneurs. Normally resplendent with flowers, the climate this year has been conducive to greenery, but not blooms (oops, sorry, I slipped back into that weather topic).

But at least the fountain was working again! So often, when we’ve visited this park, the fountain has been turned off, and its pool has been drained. Not now. The fountain is blasting away, and the pool is weirdly green.

There were a half dozen old people gathered on a couple benches that would have been in the sun, if there was sun, doing what old people do in Paris in the hour or so before dinner (which is at 8PM or later): talking. Other than these regulars, there was almost nobody using the park. Normally, people would be stretched out on the grass here and there, and kids would be running and playing. They seem to have given up on summer.

We walked around the north side of the park and back out on the street called Leon l’Hermitte because we wanted to avoid the clouds of gnats that swarm from the trees in the wooded end of this park.

At last, we made it to our destination, the fine little restaurant called Le Cristal de Sel, in time for dinner (8:15PM).

Last year, we discovered this place in July (thanks to suggestions from a couple friends), but were not able to dine there until after the proprietors returned from vacation in early September. It was more than worth the wait and the persistence. You can read about our experiences there in last year’s journal entries for September 2 and 15.

Cristal de Sel is wonderful, and popular with the locals. We did see one walk-in get a table, but in reality you should call ahead and make a reservation.

I’m not sure why they bothered, because they don’t need more business, but the restaurant has gone to the trouble to create an English menu. It was offered to us, but we declined. At one point, the server asked if we speak English. I said, “Oui. . . . mais Francais aussi,” with a little smile. He seemed to be pleased not to have to try to speak that confounded anglo-saxon tongue.

Last May, the restaurant posted this on its web site:

Direction le sud-ouest pour notre nouveau plateau régional de charcuteries françaises! Venez vous régaler de hure de canard, magret fumé de canard, pâté de porc basque, jambon de Bayonne et autres charcuteries.

Tom decided to try this platter of charcuterie from the southwest of France, consisting of a duck terrine, smoked duck breast, Basque pork pâté, Bayonne ham, and more. It was all delicious.

I ordered the croustillants de gambas à la coriandre, sauce aux épices tandoori, as I had on September 14. If anything, this jumbo shrimp appetizer was better than ever, if such a thing is possible. Like last year, “these were delicious and fascinating, with the paper-thin pastry covering that mimicked the look of the shell which had been removed, and the Indian spice. The shrimp were accompanied by a pretty little salad of dark greens.”

For his main course, Tom ordered what I had on September 1 last year: ravioles de langoustines, embeurrée de choux et beurre de nage. I didn’t take a photo of it last night, but the photo from September is on the September 2, 2011, journal page.

Langoustines are like small lobsters. They are not, as some web pages say, prawns. Gambas is the French word for prawns. Lobster, or homard in French, is generally better if it comes from the waters near Maine (or even Florida), not Europe.

But go ahead and order the shrimp, prawns, and langoustines in France; at a good seafood restaurant, they can be truly wonderful.

And such is the case at Cristal de Sel. Tom pronounced his langoustine ravioli as “delicious” and the butter-soaked cabbage as “delightful.”

My main course was the râble de lapin à la moutarde cuit au four, tartare de tomates anciennes à la marjolaine et oignons rouges rôtis, sauce des carcasses: oven-roasted chunks of rabbit served with an exciting assortment of garnishes, including old-fashioned stewed tomatoes, roasted red onions, mustard, and a shellfish sauce. Different flavors exploded in my mouth as I ate from different parts of the concoction. It was an entertaining and delicious dish to consume.

There were two servers working the dining room last night. The younger one seemed to be a bit somber at first. The other man was more at ease, and we remembered him from last September. But even the younger one warmed up as dessert time approached.

Ah, dessert. We could not resist ordering the aumônière de crêpe, pommes confites au caramel sale again. In fact, we ordered two. Better than apple pie, these apples are cooked and wrapped in a crêpe. The rich, dark caramel sauce that the surrounds the crêpe sack of apples is divine.

Thank you, Chef Karil Lopez, for helping us to celebrate an important stage in a new book’s production. It could not have been a better dinner.

The restaurant will close for the annual vacation on the 22^nd until August 20. I dearly hope that we will dine there again this year – maybe more than once.

Three courses for each of us is a rare occasion anymore. This is not because of the cost; it is our age that curbs our consumption. Of course we do not need to order all three courses at such a restaurant; but when we go to someplace that is this good, it seems unwise not to take advantage of the opportunity to experience wonders.

Other Sanibellians have now invaded France: our friends Jim and Maddy are on their houseboat/barge, in Carcassonne, and they’ll be exploring the waterways of France once again this summer. We might be able to meet up with the chef/caterer Leslie and her son this evening. Hope so.

And even more will be arriving later this month and in September . . . .

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Thursday, July 12, 2012