Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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An extraordinary day, this is. First, it is Bastille Day, or more commonly known here as Quatorze Juillet. The weather is gorgeous – at 9AM, about 60 degrees F and sunny, with swallows playing, circling around our building and screeching in delight. And it is a special day for my Dad and my family. Dad died on June 25, at age 87. What would he do on a holiday such as this? That’s easy: he’d stretch out on the sofa and watch TV. Specifically, he’d watch American football on TV (or somewhere in the past, baseball). Sometimes when my siblings and I were small, we’d get together with another family with kids and we’d have a fun picnic in a place called French Park. We’d pick wild blackberries or search the creek for fossils. (There’s nothing particularly French about French Park; it is simply named for a man called Herbert Greer French – an art collector and former Proctor and Gamble executive.) What we do on Quatorze Juillet is not all that different. We watch TV – first the grand military parade on the Champs Élysées. We have the bathroom and kitchen windows open wide, so that when the airshow is going, we can dash across the apartment from the TV to the windows to see the military aircraft first on the screen, and then in the air. The cool, clear weather is a blessing for all the military people wearing their dress uniforms in the parade. After the parade is the usual interview of the President (now Nicolas Sarkozy) by well-known journalists. I believe I remember Strauss-Kahn’s wife, Ann Sinclair, conducting this annual interview years ago. Then we watch the day’s stage of the Tour de France. The Tour is far different from American football, but it is sport. And again, you just can’t beat the helicopter scenery. Happily for France, a French rider, Thomas Voeckler, is now in the winning yellow jersey for the national holiday. We have picnic-like food, which we eat out on the balcony at lunch. We don’t search for fossils in a creek, but there are many fossils imbedded in the carved limestone that forms the base of the balcony. Fossils are under our feet. There will be fireworks tonight, just like on the Fourth of July, but maybe even more so. The entire evening’s show becomes more elaborate each year. The Champ de Mars has a stage with live entertainment from 6PM to 10:30PM, before the 11PM fireworks display over the Seine, by the Eiffel Tower. We watch the fireworks from the kitchen and bathroom windows, where we have a view of the top of the Eiffel Tower. We generally avoid crowds, but in the occasional year when we’ve had houseguests on Quatorze Juillet, we do go out with them into the mob for the show. Since we are so close to the Champ de Mars, which holds the stage and most of the crowd during the show, we like to watch the droves of people making their way there, up our neighborhood streets like the avenue Emile Zola and the rue du Commerce. A perfect place to start doing that is dinner at Le Tipaza, an elaborately decorated North African restaurant that opens itself entirely along the sidewalk, although it does not have tables right on the sidewalk. I saw Mohammed, the manager of Le Tipaza on avenue Emile Zola, the other day as I walked up the rue du Commerce to meet Tom at the Branly garden. I tried to catch Mohammed’s eye to wave hello, but he was doing what so many Parisians are doing these days: he was looking down into his smartphone as he walked along and across the busy streets. Just as I gave up and turned my head toward my path ahead again, I saw Mohammed wave in my peripheral vision. But we both were then absorbed by different droves of pedestrians going in opposite directions. Oh well. I suppose we will see him tonight. Le Tipaza, unlike many Paris restaurants, is always open on Quatorze Juillet. The staff makes us feel welcome, and a part of the neighborhood. Their food is good. We went out yesterday evening to walk along the Champ de Mars to inspect the many impressive preparations for tonight’s shows. I was briefly distracted by Rudy’s shoe store on rue du Commerce along the way. I bought a pair of shoes – “gladiator” sandals that zip up in back. The tiny shop was a hive of activity, because of the good values being offered. Onward to the Champ de Mars! In addition to the stage, there are multiple installations of giant sound and video equipment, and even a large temporary generator system. The local electrical infrastructure probably cannot handle all that is required for this event. Part of the sound system was already being used to announce, repeatedly, in French and in English, the upcoming show to the crowds who waited in line, as always, to ascend the Eiffel Tower. A section of the announcement sound track included a loop of Latin music, specifically Flamenco, that made me dance a little on the Champ. For dinner, La Gitane was on my mind. When we were there the other day, the proprietor, Olivier Mayeras, had given me a postcard with the check. On one side of the card was a replica of the carte, or menu. I noticed that the regular Wednesday night special was an échine de porc. I didn’t know what part of the pig the échine might be. Tom and I looked it up on the internet, and just as I thought, because French butchers cut the animal up differently than English or American butchers do, there is no equivalent. From the internet information and my cooking experience, I determined that the échine is a part of the roast that I use to make pulled pork (a Boston butt or shoulder roast). In the American cut, this one part of the pulled pork roast is only half of the échine. As I went on my errands yesterday to gather treats for this holiday, I stopped at the butcher shop to buy boudin blanc (white sausage) and a roasted chicken. There in the case I saw the échine de porc, in its uncooked form. That confirmed my idea of exactly what this cut is. The échine at La Gitane on Wednesday nights is prepared Basque-style, which means a nice sauce of tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, thin little slices of onion, diced peppers, etc. I could not resist. It was a little early for Parisan dinner, but we were cheerfully seated at a great little table just inside the front window, where we could watch people but were still protected from smokers on the terrace. We could also watch all the people as they entered La Gitane, almost filling up the restaurant by 8:30PM. We began by sharing six escargots, which were absolutely correctly prepared in their shells with herb/garlic butter. We each had a thick slice of the Basque-style pork roast, which came with roasted potatoes. The server who seated us is one of my favorites. She’s a no-nonsense, straightforward, direct person, and she does not put on any airs. The shock for me last night was that she made it clear that she remembered us from last summer. Specifically, on July 28, we had dinner there and I said something funny to her (described at the end of my July 29, 2010, entry in this journal) as we were paying our tab. She remembered the quip (about some noisy Australians at the resto that night), and remembered us, she told us with a smile. Being remembered for an effective sense of humor is good. Last night, an important-looking couple came toward the restaurant not that long before we left. I say they were important-looking in part because Madame la Patronne (Corinne Mayeras) saw them coming, and went out on the street to greet them. (Also, I believe I’ve seen their photos in the local newspaper. The Mayeras couple are former barons of the news media, who have tombés dans la marmite – “fallen into the pot,” an idiom meaning they fell for the restaurant/cuisine business – according to L’Express.) The important couple wanted a table on the terrace, but something was wrong with the first one they were given. I think they didn’t like the people seated just inside the glass, by their table. So the important couple was then given the table just outside the glass where we were seated. I’m so glad that we passed muster. Olivier Mayeras sat at their table, making notes and having a significant discussion with them as we were leaving. I glanced over his way, and smiled when he looked up and over at me to say goodbye and thank us for coming. Returning the greeting and thanks, we were on our way, back out into another lovely night in Paris. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here.

Thursday, July 14, 2011 The restaurant Pere Claude has a small specialty grocery behind it. The window decal indicates a little black dog with a red X on it, and the text around it saying “I must not enter, thank you.” Obediently, Tom waits for his mistress here, outside the Pere Claude grocery. Shoes purchased on the rue du Commerce at Rudy’s. Échine de porc, et les escargots, au Restaurant La Gitane. The American actress Pearl White’s grave in the Passy cemetery. ← Previous Next →