Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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The sun was shining and the temperatures were in the low 70s. Does it get any more perfect than that? Tom had a great idea. He said, “Let’s walk over to the Rodin Museum to have tea in the garden!” Off we went. We did not have to wait in line for long, and the entrance fee just for the garden is only 1 euro per person. The little sparrows in the outdoor café always entertain us when we visit this gorgeous green place. Much of the great sculpture – like The Thinker – is out in the garden, not in the museum. If we are going to do this tea-in-the-garden thing regularly, we can buy a one-month pass for 6 euros per person. That’s a thought . . . . We lingered for a long time over “tea” (coffee and cake for Tom, and a glass of chardonnay for me). Then we took our time walking all around the garden. Sauntering home, we stopped in both of the little parks on either side of Les Invalides: Square Ajaccio, and Square Santiago du Chili. Square Ajaccio has a statue of General Henri Gouraud, not to be confused with the General Henri Giraud whom I mentioned in yesterday’s journal entry. Now I’m never going to be able to keep those two straight in my mind. If I can just remember that Gouraud is the older one, the one who lost his right arm . . . . He was the military governor of Paris. Also in the Square Ajaccio is a fine marble statue called “Home Defense” by Émile Boisseau (1887). In Square Santiago du Chili, several young American couples with kids were starting to gather for a children’s birthday party. They had a colorful picnic all set up, complete with a number of bright plastic child-size chairs. Cute. After we rested at home for a little while following our adventure, we decided to go out to have a fine French dinner at L’ Épopée again – just as we did last Saturday night. I had the rabbit in homemade tagliatelle pasta with a gorgonzola sauce. Beautiful, and delicious. Tom ordered the filet of beef with a dark, rich reduction sauce, and little sautéed potatoes. The filet was tender and excellent. The portions are not large at L’Épopée, so we each had room for dessert. We each ordered a Baba au Rhum. While much more beautiful and refined than the Baba au Rhum at the Café du Commerce, we still appreciate the Café’s Baba very much. There was something so real and honest about the way they plunked the entire bottle of rum on our table, and the pound cake was one big chunk that we could easily share between the two of us. L’ Épopée’s Baba consists of three light, delicate balls of cake, smothered in a fluff of whipped cream, set upon a plate with a drizzle of raspberry sauce, and accompanied by a carpaccio of diced pineapple. The rum is administered via little plastic vials that you squeeze to release the rum right into the cake. Very interesting.
Before others started to fill up the restaurant, we entertained the young patron and his new helper/server (both smart guys) by telling them about how we live with alligators and snakes in our garden at home in Florida. The new server, Tom and I all had fun guessing how to make the chip-less American credit card work in the resto’s machine. It was all done in very good humor, swiping the card this way and that way, pushing the right button on the keypad, smiling and laughing. It worked at last, and then I shrugged and quipped, “Les cartes américaines sont primitives.” The server laughed. Funny, but true. Sign
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Sunday, July 31, 2011
Rodin’s
“The Thinker.”
View of the
Rodin Museum from its garden.
L’ Épopée’s rabbit: Filet de Lapin, tagiatelles fraiches au Gorgonzola. Below, the filet
of beef.
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