Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Last year, I wrote in this journal that I thought I’d become gluten intolerant. It wasn’t true, it turns out, according to lab tests on my blood. I have difficulty with cheap bread – called “pain industriel” in French – the rather ordinary grocery store pre-sliced bread sold in plastic bags. But it seems that if I only eat really good, artisanal bread, or high-quality pasta, I’m okay. Organic bread seems to suit me best. There is something, some chemical or whatever, in cheap bread that my body rebels against. So I do go into the bakeries with Tom now. My favorite bread now is not a baguette (I still avoid white flour). I really love the country breads that come in fat little round loaves with rough, thick, brown crusty exteriors. In particular, I like the multi-grain bread from the organic bakery around the corner. So does everyone else here, I guess. The bakery had sold out of the multi-grain bread yesterday evening, so Tom selected pain rustique for me. It was fine – sort of like a slightly lighter version of Poilane bread. I prefer the multi-grain bread, but this whole wheat rustique will do. At first Tom asked me if I’d like to try the bougnat bread. It looked good, but I said “no, not until I know what bougnat means.” I know now that bougnat means the owner of a small café who also sells coal (or used to in the old days). But it is also the name of a bakery, sort of like Poilane: Au Pain Bougnat. Pain bougnat is a light rye bread. Rye is okay once in a while for me, but it isn’t my favorite. I’m glad I said “no.” Speaking of the meaning of things, I was a little off about the origin of the name Grenelle (the former village, now Parisian neighborhood where we live). The name comes from the Latin word “garanella,” which means “small wild rabbit,” which tends to live on the plain. Bit by bit, “garanella” became “guarnelles,” then “garnelles” before taking its current form, Grenelle. So this swampy, flat meadow was full of little rabbits. There may have been frogs, too, but the rabbits got to name the place. There were no exciting adventures yesterday, and no Tour de France to watch. Having been here for two weeks now, we did the housecleaning instead (after we were done reading and writing, of course). Then we went out zig-zagging through the streets south of here, which I guess we haven’t spent much time on in the past couple years. Sure enough, things have changed. Not only is the rue du Commerce more trendy and chic now, but the streets between it and the rue de la Croix Nivert are also changing. We discovered, for example, a new fair-trade boutique selling ethnic art and decorative items from Africa. An antiques store that had been a dusty warehouse is now a nice boutique with an Art Nouveau storefront. New Thai restaurants have appeared. A few new tiny French bistros also have opened. An upscale Italian caterer and deli has appeared on the scene. Since it was Monday, several of these places were closed. But we made mental notes about them and will check them out again sometime. Returning to the apartment to hang the laundry to dry on the rack suspended over the washer, we sat for a moment and decided what to do about dinner. The decision was to go next door, to the restaurant that we can look down into from the apartment’s rear windows: Le Café du Commerce (not to be confused with the brasserie down the street called Le Commerce Café – I bet they receive each other’s mail often). For Paris, this is a sizeable restaurant – among the few able to handle tour bus groups, although there is no way to get a tour bus down the rue du Commerce. Anyhow, there was such a group in the big dining room off to the side on the ground level. Young Americans, they were. Fortunately, we were able to get a table en étage (upstairs). The upper levels are pretty, and they are really mezzanines surrounding an open atrium that has a retractable glass ceiling. That ceiling is what we can look down through from above, from our apartment. One of the two daily specials was a Limonde de Bretonne, served with English potatoes (boiled). The limonde is a mild fish, and it was to be served whole, and meunière style. The fish arrived with no heads. There were two of them! But they weren’t big. There wasn’t much of the buttery meunière sauce, but there was just enough. The potatoes were boring, but the fish was fine indeed. Tom ordered the pork roast with honey-cooked sauerkraut (jarret de porc), and it was undercooked. Not so good. Nevertheless, we ordered a dessert to share: the Baba Rhum du Commerce. Success! This dessert was redeeming. The restaurant has the best Baba Rhum we’ve tried yet. It was a big piece of pound cake, with a little dish of special marinated, glazed raisins and another little dish of whipped cream. The server brought a bottle of rhum for us to pour on the cake and raisins. The combination of all these things resulted in an explosion of flavor in our mouths. Superb! One of the many blessings of the rainy weather we’re having is that the glass ceiling of the restaurant is closed up; the noise of a tour group dining and drinking down there does not drift up through our rear windows, which are now also closed up. While the resto does take tour groups on the ground level, the upstairs is full of French locals. The menu includes two parts: one relatively inexpensive, and the other more expensive, but not too. In addition to the regular wine list, the Commerce offers a special list of 15 good wines for just 15 euros a bottle. A 50 cl carafe of sauvignon blanc is just 7.80. I think many of the French locals dine there for the value, and the old-fashioned bouillon ambiance. Another blessing of the cool, rainy weather is that Mother Nature is doing the watering of the many plants on the balcony. I don’t have to. And we get to wear lightweight jackets in the summer. Fellow south Floridians can appreciate the joy in that. Sign
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Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Ice cream
shop sign on the rue du Commerce.
The
chestnut trees are unusually healthy in the Place du Commerce. Many of these kinds of trees elsewhere in
Paris are turning brown because of a tiny insect.
A new
chocolate shop called Jicara on the rue des Entrepreneurs, off the rue du
Commerce. Below are more of their
wares.
The gardien booth at the Parc Violet. One of our favorite park benches to sit
upon is nearby. |
