Paris Journal 2010 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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We needed a few odd things, so yesterday evening we paid a visit to Zola Color, a big, rambling hardware and housewares store on avenue Emile Zola. I was pleased to see that Zola Color has a nice selection of food processers, something I’m seriously thinking about buying. I love the vegetables here, and I love to make vegetable soups. I have not had any luck with using a food mill, and blenders can’t hack it. The weather has been a bit too warm to do much cooking, but that is changing today, even as I write this. Rain is spitting, and the temperatures are dropping. The long-range forecast calls for very moderate temperatures for the next couple weeks, and by then the days will be getting shorter, so the likelihood of any heat wave is rapidly disappearing. I was also pleased to see that Zola Color has reconfigured part of its space on the main floor, with an entrance onto rue Saint Charles, as a newspaper and magazine shop. It is open on Sunday mornings, until 1:15PM. This is important information for the month of August, when other shops have closed and the news vendors at the street kiosques take some vacation time. After Zola Color, we walked back along the rue des Entrepreneurs, discovering a couple shops that we did not know about – including a newspaper/magazine/bookshop that is open from 7:30AM to 7:30PM! However, it is just the kind of place that might well close up in August. We stopped in the fromagerie near our apartment about 45 minutes before closing time. Tom asked for 300 grams or so of the Salers cheese. The young man running the shop made an educated slice, and was mightily pleased, when he put it on the scale, to see he had made a perfect 300-gram chunk, right on the nose -- exactement. I reminded Tom that we also needed eggs, and the young man made a joke about it being too late, he’d already printed out the ticket with the total for cheese only. He was making fun of that tendency of some Parisian shop keepers to be less than interested in meeting the needs of the client and making money, and more interested in maintaining some illusion of orderliness and control. We laughed, paid, said thanks and goodbye, and were on our way back to the apartment, to enjoy a bite of splendid Salers cheese and discuss where to go for dinner. And oh yes, we did get the eggs, too, at a discount, according to the young man in the fromagerie. It was hot, and I was in the mood for fish, so we decided to call Oh! Duo to ask for a table at 8PM. We were not disappointed. The air conditioning was going full blast when Françoise Valero seated us, so I put on the lightweight jacket I’d brought for just such an unlikely occasion in Paris. This time I selected the 22 euro menu, with a first course of a little green salad, fresh & thin slices of apple, and a warm goat cheese croustillant on top. Make that a HOT goat cheese croustillant. It was delicious. Tom had a tomato, roasted and stuffed with escargots and other yummy things as a starter. Then he had the selle d’agneau, thin slices of lamb cooked a point in a slightly sweet sauce. I had the simply and beautifully poached salmon, in a lovely light sauce with very light, smooth puréed potatoes. That was very satisfying and enough for me. So when Françoise asked me if I wanted ice cream on the apple tart that comes with the 22 euro menu, I didn’t know because I had no intention of eating it. Tom answered for me, “sans,” (without). A moment later, as the apple tart was about to be served, I told Françoise that the tart was really for Tom. Then she understood why I didn’t know about the ice cream. When Joel Valero brought the tart to the table, he placed it right in front of Tom and he said “pour madame,” with a smile and a wink. Tom is convinced that Joel’s apple tart, or tarte fine aux pommes, is the very best. At first, there were only two other tables occupied as our dinner began. One was a varied group of five local French people, having a grand time in a way that only smart French people enjoying their food can do. The other was a table of four Americans, including grandpa, grandma, and two adolescent kids. They annoyed me in these ways: 1. They did not even try to speak one word in French, and I know that Françoise is very uncomfortable with her extremely limited knowledge of English. We speak only French with her and with Joel. 2. They were badly dressed, wearing rumpled clothes, dirty athletic shoes and messy hair. Oh! Duo is not a bar or brasserie or even a café; it is a nice restaurant. 3. They were too loud, or at least grandpa was. He spoke loudly on his cell phone at one point, announcing to the person on the other end of the line that he was “Jack Lytle,” so then everyone in the restaurant also knew who he was. 4. They had the best table in the house, I doubt that they appreciated it at all, and they certainly didn’t deserve it. I pray that they were not at Oh! Duo because of my restaurant recommendations on this web site. Fortunately, some other people entered the restaurant during the course of dinner, and that changed the atmosphere in a good way. Speaking of Americans, yesterday’s Tour de France was kind of exciting because we could watch an aging Lance Armstrong try very hard to win the stage. But he just could not do it. He came in 6th. There is a time and a season, and you just have to know when it is time to retire. |
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
This
photo is for Lennie, who was wondering if the ferris wheel is still there in
the Tuileries. It is, or at least it
was on Sunday when I took this picture.
A
piece of the over-decorated Pont Alexandre III, my favorite bridge, and the
roof of the Grand Palais.
Ducks
living among the boats in the Seine.
This
photo is for my pastor, John Danner, who loves to do puppet shows for the
kids and who can speak French beautifully.
He also does a hilarious imitation of a Frenchman trying to speak
English.
Donkeys
and pony in the Champ de Mars. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of
restaurants in this journal, click
here. |
