Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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We have been watching the Tour de France practically every late afternoon this July, as usual, but we haven’t been as excited about it as in previous years. But yesterday’s stage was very exciting. We were so enchanted that we didn’t notice that it had been raining the entire time while we were watching the race. Taking care of the plants on the balcony has been such a feature of our stays here for the months of July and August. But this year, with all the rain, there is nothing to do out there! I have not watered the plants even once! We haven’t even had one aperitif outside at the little table and chairs on the balcony. Our leafy friends out there are very leafy, and not very flowery, this summer. Yesterday evening, the rain was light, but nonstop. About 7PM, we decided to walk with our umbrellas open the couple of blocks down to our “neighborhood pub,” Le Commerce Café. I saw a few people walking quickly with no umbrellas or raincoats in the cold rain; they looked miserable. They’d evidently waited as long as they could before leaving work, but when the rain didn’t stop and the dinner hour approached, they had to tough it out and go on home. I felt so sorry for them. After Wednesday night’s feast at Le Cristal de Sel, I was wanting something simple and light, and Tom said that he felt the same way. However, Tom feasted on one big, gorgeous, roasted rack of lamb, and a pile of well-roasted potatoes, another pile of green beans (which I did help him with), followed by coffee, hazelnut cake and some sort of apples-and-cream dessert. The Tome is a gastronomic athlete, what else can I say? I ordered the veal scallopini, which in this case came as a perfectly grilled, thin slice of lean veal accompanied by two artichoke hearts, a smattering of cream sauce, and a nice serving of light, homemade tagliatelle pasta. I did help the Tome consume some of the green beans. I do love those French green beans! The food arrived quickly. One of my friends claims that this is evidence that the restaurant is using frozen, pre-prepared food. But there is no way that last night’s food was frozen, pre-prepared food. The trick is ordering from the specials on the blackboard. These are items that the kitchen has ready to go. Homemade, fresh pasta takes very little time to cook once it has been made. Sauces can be made in the afternoon before the dinner hour. Thin slices of veal take almost no time at all to grill. The rack of lamb must be done to a point, then kept and finished quickly in a hot oven just before serving. Potatoes at Le Commerce Café are very clearly hand-cut, and not commercially frozen products. I would love to visit that kitchen at Le Commerce Café. It must be highly organized. The pizza man was at his station, very near the very nice table that we were given. Not many pizzas were being ordered at first, but finally I got to see him start twirling a ball of dough into a disk. Cool. We were even impressed by the mustard last night. Unlike at La Terrasse, where I had to ask for mustard to go with our lamb chops, and where it was delivered in an anonymous little stainless steel cup with a small spoon, at Le Commerce Café, the server automatically and unceremoniously plunked a plastic, commercial container of Dijon mustard on our table as he delivered the lamb and veal dishes. It was attractive, for a commercially packaged mustard. And that would have been interesting enough. But the surprise was the taste. This is truly superior mustard, the Dijon that goes by the name of Rochambeau! I cannot find much about it on the internet, except that some other English-speaking people seem to have accidentally discovered it, too, and have been equally pleasantly surprised by it. And lots of épicerie web sites seem to carry this product, selling it online in France and even in the U.K. I am sure I have seen it on the shelves at Monoprix and Bon Marché. But this is the first time we’ve tasted it. Rochambeau Dijon is several notches better than the best Maille Dijon mustard that we’ve had. Maille is the monster brand that seems to dominate the mustard world in France. And it is Maille that I have seen on shelves in stores in the U.S. I’m afraid that Rochambeau Dijon mustard may not be available in the U.S. Please don’t let that be true! For la moutarde industrielle, this is good stuff! Let’s see; I seem to remember writing something about Rochambeau in this journal in the past. Ah. Here it is. The entry for July 12, 2001 (gulp!). Scroll down on that page and you’ll find a photo of this statue, about which I wrote: After [visiting the Musée Guimet, Oriental art], we found a café nearby, close to the Palais Galleria (modern art museum), with service continu (continuous service), so it was possible to have a very late lunch. This café, named for the Galleria, faced a small triangular square dedicated to the memory of Rochambeau. Here's his statue, complete with bouquets with red, white and blue ribbons at the base. On the pedestal was engraved, "Commander of the French Army/He took Yorktown on October 19, 1781/in the American War of Independence/Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur/Count of Rochambeau/Marshall of France/He died at Rochambeau [a chateau in the Loir -- not Loire--valley, I believe]/in 1807." So, of course, this café has been accepting American Express since 1989. Madame even exclaimed, "Americain! Trés bien!" as she took our credit card. I’m happy to report that after returning to France following his heroic successes in the American Revolution, Jean-Baptiste escaped the guillotine, even though he was arrested, during The Terror. That’s especially good because the motto on his coat of arms is “To live as a gallant knight, and to die as one.” Now, back to the subject of food. We just had a discussion about bacon this morning, as we ate some. What we Americans call bacon is not what is called bacon here, of course. “Bacon” in France is something more akin to what we call Canadian bacon in the U.S. To find bacon in the grocery store in France, one looks for “poitrine fumé,” or slices of smoked pork belly. I suppose that is what bacon really is, but the slices of poitrine fumé found here are shorter in length than American bacon. Which brings up the questions: Are French pigs shorter in length? Or are the pork bellies smaller in France than in the U.S.? I think not. Once again, I believe this crucial difference in bacon length must be a difference in the way meat is butchered in France, vs. the way it is butchered in Germany, Britain, or the U.S. The cuts are just different. The butchers go to different schools. Something else is different, too, about poitrine fumé . . . . a certain je ne sais quoi. But we like it, whatever it is. Like so many things that are difficult to define,
sometimes you just have to rejoice in their existence. Vive la
difference! Somehow, that reminds me of a message/story that the Tome recently concocted, on the subject of evolution. Here it is: Dear John, Barbara and I were dining at the Collision restaurant and sitting next to us was the Higgs boson, so I asked him if evolution were true. He said he'd think about it, that it was a dark matter and probably a black hole, and meanwhile to remember that HE was the god particle and without him you couldn't have mass or any other religious service. Tom You see why I married him? |
Friday, July 13, 2012
Le
Commerce Café on July 9, when it was not raining.
The
blackboard listing last night’s specials at Le Commerce Café. I am not sure why it appears to be bright
outside; it wasn’t. The evening was
dreary, wet, and slightly chilly.
Tom’s
rack of lamb at Le Commerce Café.
The
café’s exquisite, lean, grilled, thin slice of veal, accompanied by a very
light, homemade tagliatelle pasta and artichoke
hearts.
An excellent Dijon mustard:
Rochambeau.
Neon
sign on the Tour Eiffel brasserie on the rue du Commerce.
Cool
light fixture on the old beamed ceiling at Le Cristal de Sel. |
