Paris Journal 2015 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Today is one of the hot days. We’ve had several of them this summer in Paris. But they seem to be isolated days, and the weather changes soon enough. The worst year was 2003, with the summer of the deadly heat wave that killed 15,000 people in France. I’ve sworn that if that ever happens again, we’re packing up and going to Scotland for the rest of the summer. We saw the work of a Scottish photographer when we ventured out for a walk this morning while the air was still somewhat cool. After walking through the neighborhood alongside the Eiffel Tower, we visited the garden of the Musée du Quai Branly. There’s a big section of glass panels on the back side of the café/restaurant building which is used to display huge photographs from the Musée’s enormous collection. Two striking black-and-white photos were exhibited there, overlooking the garden. The garden is reflected and superimposed on the photos, making them even more interesting. The subjects of the photos were young men from the Soloman islands. Two of them were taken by John Watt Beattie (1859-1930), a Scotsman who moved to Tasmania. In 1906, Beattie had the opportunity to take a 5-month voyage on a ship called the Southern Cross. It was then that he took many photographic portraits in the Soloman Islands. The Branly museum now owns 173 of Beattie’s photos. The garden at the Branly has two places where we especially like to sit and rest before resuming our walk. One is in a futuristic igloo-like structure that has plants growing densely on top of it. The other is a group of smooth, oddly shaped granite rocks shaded by a trellis made of rusted re-bar, with vines growing thickly on the sides and top. As I’ve mentioned several times in prior years, this garden was designed by Gilles Clement. We noticed several of his publications in the gift shop of the Branly, which we visited on our way out of the garden. Mixed in with those books were a couple about Gilles and similar garden designers, and an intriguing book about vertical gardens – the latest gardening craze in Paris. We keep seeing more vertical gardens popping up here and there in the city. There is a fabulous vertical garden at one far end of the Branly. We like to visit the gift shop at the Branly at least once every summer because of its unique collection of music CDs. We bought a jazz collection two summers ago, then last summer we bought a Latin jazz collection. This morning, we bought a jazz piano collection. We’ll never run out of jazz CDs to play during our summer evenings, after dinner. Dinner last night was at Le Tipaza again, on the rue Saint Charles. It costs us less than half as much to dine at Le Tipaza as it does at Le Pario. Yet Le Tipaza is just as elegant as Le Pario. The food is much more copious at Le Tipaza, so Tom took his ZipLoc bag along last night. We decided to walk along the rue de la Convention to arrive at Le Tipaza at 7:30. We were very warmly welcomed, and given a table in the air conditioned dining room. Exotic Moroccan music drifted out of speakers hidden somewhere . . . . We nibbled on Kemia while we decided what to order. We noted that the tables are a little larger than normal in Le Tipaza. That’s good, because of all the extra things that come with the dinners, like the pot of couscous. Ah, yes – la cuisine berbere! We were pleasantly surprised when the server brought us a fancy glass dish full of ice for our sparkling water. To get ice for the water is so very unusual in Paris!
I ordered a tagine with lamb, vegetables, and prunes, and Tom ordered one with lamb, beef, vegetables and prunes. Both were absolutely delicious.
For dessert, I ordered the Mystere flambé au Gran Marnier, and Tom had the Coupe Tipaza, which is really an ice cream sundae with whipped cream and hazelnut sauce.
I can’t say enough good words about Le Tipaza on rue Saint Charles. The people there make us feel so welcome and comfortable. And that North African food is good for the body and soul. At home, we listened to one of those Latin jazz CDs from the collection we bought at the Branly last summer. This one was the music of Herbie Hancock, and it sounded like it came from somewhere in … you guessed it … Africa. |
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Photos by John
Watt Beattie on display in the garden of the Musée du Quai Branly.
The igloo-like
shelter in the Branly’s garden (above and below).
More scenes
from the Branly’s garden.
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