Paris Journal 2010 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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All day long yesterday, there wasn’t enough water pressure in our building to make the hot water heater work. I heated water in pots in the kitchen and dumped them into the bathtub that had some cold water in it so that I could bathe. Later, Tom did the same. But we had to stay home. Tom was working hard on the table of contents for the new edition of Back to the Lake. Today, I woke up with the feeling that something was wrong. That’s because something was wrong yesterday, and we are the kind of people who are not used to not being the ones who are fixing the problem. But we really had to leave yesterday’s plumbing difficulties up to Mr. B and the plumber. I didn’t have much confidence in their success because it took so darned long for the water pressure to come back. Tom said that in a building like this, to cut the water off completely is pretty drastic. There are eight levels that then have to have their pipes fill back up so that there is water pressure. Each apartment has a hot water heater that provides not only hot water, but in the cold weather, it is the boiler that provides the heat for the radiators. That kind of water heater won’t turn on unless there is a certain amount of water pressure. I guess all that translates into a lot of pipe that has to fill back up. A “water column” is what Tom called it at one point yesterday. I was dubious. But now I believe, because we have water pressure again and we have hot water. I just hope it is enough to last for an entire shower – and to do laundry tomorrow. After I’d been awake for an hour this morning and realized that today, maybe the problem has gone away, I became very sleepy and relaxed. I went back to sleep. So I’m getting a late start. The weather has been cloudy and cooler for a few days, and Le Parisien made a big deal out of that yesterday. The newspaper had a feature story about how the cooler weather had hurt the tourism business this summer, and how people get depressed when there isn’t enough sunshine. But I’m a native of Ohio, so I don’t think this cloudy weather has been anything to complain about at all. Today, the sun is peeking out again. In Ohio, it is possible not to seen sunshine for weeks at a time. Really. After fretting about the water and working so hard just to be able to take baths, we were very hungry last night. So I called La Gauloise and reserved a table for just the two of us at 8PM. We were given a great table and had a delicious dinner. La Gauloise operates so smoothly. The staff is efficient, gracious and polite. The video link above gives you just the right impression of the place. When we were about halfway through our dinner, an American family of four came in and were seated at a table not far from us. The mom was okay, but the dad insisted on keeping his baseball cap on in the restaurant. What a goofball. Their two big sons were awkward and underdressed, wearing t-shirts and jeans with athletic shoes. Our wonderful server did his best to speak English with them, but they absolutely didn’t understand him when he asked if they wanted their water with gas or without gas. He tried three times. They didn’t understand. I feel somewhat to blame for this kind of thing, because we are American and we always know what the servers mean when they say this, even though they should never say it that way in English. We’ve given the servers the wrong impression, just like we do when we don’t correct our German friend when he mixes French words into his English. That’s fine when he’s with us, but when he goes shopping in Florida, I think this habit of his gets him into a little trouble. So I spoke up last night, and said in a voice just loud enough to carry over to the Americans’ table, “sparkling water or not?” They answered “not sparkling,” and then the mom said “thank you” to me, whereupon I said “you’re welcome.” I think the server was mildly embarrassed at his faux pas, but he’ll probably learn to say “sparkling” instead of “with gas,” which is a good thing. Who wants their water “with gas” anyway? How unappealing. There’s also “fizzy,” “bubbly,” or “carbonated,” but I think “sparkling” is best, don’t you? Maybe I could give a seminar for French servers who know how to speak English, but who need to know some other things like this to be able to better communicate with their English-speaking customers. Tom and I shared a country terrine appetizer. Tom then had the beef bourguignon again, which he said was great, and I had a “Frenched” chicken breast served with a rich, savory, brown demi-glace sauce. The chicken was cooked perfectly, retaining its juiciness. Tom’s dish had pommes vapeur (steamed potatoes) inserted at the last moment, and my potatoes were the same except that they’d been sprinkled with herbs and spices and placed under the broiler for a short time at the end. We had thought we’d have dessert, but we just couldn’t manage it. Enough was enough. We left early enough that the restaurant could turn the table over to a couple more customers if they needed to. When we came home, we listened to the music of Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra, and I fell asleep a bit early. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 La Terrasse brasserie at Place École Militaire. I love the iron work on the Castel Béranger. The “dragons” look like giant mosquitoes to me. ← Previous Next →