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

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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Now I’m wondering: Are the vegetables from the Dia grocery store drugged? Three times now, I’ve made a savory pot of roasted vegetables to eat in the afternoon, and each time, after eating them, I’ve fallen into a deep sleep, missing some of the Tour de France. Tom has slept, too, but that’s not new for him. He is a champion at taking afternoon naps. But I’m not, normally. The first time it happened, I chalked it up to still recovering from the last several days of my dad’s life. At the Hospice unit, watching him slip away was very difficult, but necessary. As hard as it was, I don’t regret a minute of it because of several incredibly tender moments that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. It did take a toll. Grief counseling has been offered by Hospice, but I’m here in France, and they’re in Florida. Ironically, the wife in the couple who own this apartment makes a living by conducting grief counseling, in small groups, right here in this living room. She’s in upstate New York. Somehow, the roasted vegetables help, with their effect on my sense of well-being. Just being in Paris, home away from home, with Tom helps tremendously, too. People and life are wonderful here; I love them all. The second time the soporific thing happened, I decided that maybe roasted vegetables release tryptophan, like roasted turkey does. But vegetables have never had this effect on me in the past. Now it has happened three times, and I’m suspicious! While I managed to watch much of the lovely scenery during the stage, I missed some of the ceremony after the Tour de France yesterday, waking up only in time to see the four jerseys with their winners in them on the podium. Maybe it is only one of the vegetables. Not the mushrooms, shallots or garlic, because they weren’t present in the first two pots. Not the carrots, because they weren’t part of the second pot. That leaves the onions, tomatoes, potatoes, olive oil, pepper, and basil. The onions and potatoes from the first pot came from entirely different batches than the second two pots’. Olive oil and pepper are used in many things, so I’m ruling those out. This leaves the tomatoes and basil. What’s in them???!! Tom loves these roasted vegetables so much. When the tomatoes release their juice and it combines with everything else, the juice tastes like a nice chunk of beef has been cooked with them, and red wine added. But there’s no wine, and no beef in this dish. I’m zeroing in on the tomatoes. They are different here than in Florida. Like I mentioned before, the skins are thicker here, so I can peel them with a vegetable peeler without too much trouble. The central core of the tomato, beneath the stem, is also spinier, and so must be removed. And all the tomatoes I’ve used so far have come from the same carton. Maybe this batch is special. Raw, I much prefer Florida tomatoes. But cooked, these French tomatoes are very fine indeed. Do tomatoes release tryptophan or something like it? The internet to the rescue. According to the ecosalon.com web site, tomatoes contain the chemical phenylethylamine which releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter in the brain. “Dopamine is related to pleasure and euphoria,” the web site informs us. All I know is that each one of these naps have been deep, and when I wake up, I feel completely rested and content. Maybe French tomatoes have more phenyl than Florida tomatoes do? Or maybe I just need to roast Florida tomatoes more often, instead of just using them in the raw form. Before roasting the vegetables, we went out for a walk at mid-day, completing the avenue Bosquet walk that was rained out the day before, and then finishing by taking the picturesque rue de Grenelle to the Champ de Mars, where we noticed the Eiffel Tower vendors still trying to sell their trinkets. In Saturday’s issue of Le Parisien, there was a feature about these guys on the front page of the central section, Le Journal de Paris, which contains the interesting, juicy local news. People are complaining about them. One tourist said that the rain has been no problem, but these vendors are. The newspaper claims that there are at least 300 of these illegal vendors of Eiffel Tower trinkets in and around the Eiffel Tower and Champ de Mars. They occasionally branch out into selling bottles of water or umbrellas, depending on the weather. They even sometimes sell liquor illegally in the evenings, because revelers gather on the lawn of the Champ, picnic-style, to drink with their friends (another activity which I think is now illegal). The businesses that sell the Tower trinkets legally, from kiosques or nearby souvenir shops, complained bitterly to the authorities, because these illegal vendors sell the items at one-fifteenth of the price that the legals charge. The illegal vendors do not pay any tax; the legals must pay 8 percent of their total business volume to the City of Paris. So, supposedly, the Prefecture of Police is going to go after the illegal vendors. It wasn’t happening yet yesterday, but plans include printing and distributing thousands of flyers, from now until Sept. 28, that say, in French (and hopefully in English), “When you buy the illegal souvenirs, you feed the clandestine organizations.” The Prefecture claims that since the beginning of the year, already 562 arrests have been made. Yet with summertime, the illegal vendors are back, in substantial number. This is happening in spite of a law passed on March 14 which makes this crime (selling illegal Eiffel Tower trinkets, counterfeit designer handbags, etc.) punishable now by six months in prison and a 3,750-euro fine. The sentence can increase to a year in prison and a 15,000-euro fine if committed by a group (more than one vendor approaching you at a time) OR accompanied by threats of violence. The police say that the sales tactics and attitudes among these illegal vendors are becoming more and more aggressive. They claim that they’ve conducted more regular “eviction operations” against the illegal vendors (we haven’t seen that; in fact, we witness the opposite), but that these operations have not discouraged them. So now the Prefecture says they will focus on discouraging the buyers of the objects. In addition to the flyers, there will be posters in the metro stations, starting somewhere between August 10 and September 28. No matter what the officials in the Prefecture of Police are saying to the media, what we see is the police in the field ignoring any responsibility for arresting, or even stopping and “educating” these illegal vendors. The police we see are simply looking the other way. The cops who are out there seem to be uninterested in enforcing this law. Don’t get me wrong; I have many good things to say about the police in Paris. C. W. Gusewelle, the author of A Paris Notebook, which I read earlier this month, is quite critical of the police here. I don’t agree with him on that topic. But the situation is that there are so many of these illegal vendors; they far outnumber the police. The cops who are out there probably feel like they have more important crime to deal with, and these illegal vendors are just trying to feed their families. The Prefecture’s official line, however, is that their efforts are not so innocent; the money, they say, is feeding black-market, clandestine organizations. When we walked yesterday, rain was not threatening and I was therefore carrying my camera, openly, not zipped up in its little rain jacket. I noticed that with my camera out like this, the illegal vendors do not approach us. I took pictures, at a distance, of many of them anyway yesterday. If the Prefecture wants the photos, they can ask me. On va voir. After waking up from our delicious naps, we went for a big walk through the lower part of the 15^th, far from the Champ de Mars with its trinket vendors. The roasted vegetables had the additional pleasant effect of reducing our appetites. No dinner out at a restaurant last night. We came home to a pleasant evening of reading, once again. Reading includes reading Facebook, where I saw news posted of my new grand-niece, Addysen Jocelyn. What a nice name. Another new grand-niece is due in September. What a joyful time! Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here.

Monday, July 25, 2011 Statue of Liberty from the Pont de Grenelle. Unlike 10 years ago, potato chips of all kinds, from regular Lays’ to this gourmet English cheddar potato chip bag, are now available in grocery stores everywhere in Paris. Le Parisien recently reported on a California Academy of Sciences study that found potatoes, especially chips and fries, to be addictive. The oils in these treats release “endocannabinoïdes” just like marijuana does, inducing a sense of well-being that the brain comes to demand. Nevertheless, the American researchers work now to develop a drug that will block the receptors for these “cannabinoïdes,” according to the French paper. Dolls and lamb slippers in a shop window on the avenue Felix Faure. Flowers in the Square Saint Lambert. The sky through the chestnut trees of the Parc du Commerce. The top of a former factory seen from a garden near the Parc André Citroën. The Passerelle Solferino’s railing has started to collect little padlocks left there by lovers. Not far away, the Passerelle des Arts is loaded with these little locks. While we sat here on a bench at Solferino, a young couple came up and added another lock to their lock – she was pregnant. ← Previous Next →