Paris Journal 2009 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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The fish soup at l’Abri Cotier is warm,
hearty, and memorable. With its smooth
texture and brown color, perfect seasonings and delightful garnitures, it is
unlike any fish soup I’ve had anywhere else.
It is served in a white tureen, and when the server brings it to your
table, puts three ladles-full it into your bowl, you think surely that he
will then take the tureen away with him.
But no, he leaves it on your table; you are supposed to consume the
remainder when you are ready. The garnitures include a
ramekin full of homemade, golden garlic mayonnaise (with saffron), another
full of shredded Emmental cheese, and some crispy toasted little slices of
baguette for use as croutons. The whole ensemble – soup bowl,
tureen, and tray with garnitures – takes up much of the table’s surface. You can order soupe de poissons rouille a la carte
for 10 euros; it is a meal in and of itself.
Or, you can get it as part of the fixed-price menus. The least expensive of those, two courses
for 15 euros, makes it a real bargain. I could not do this most
nights, but yesterday evening I was feeling up to the challenge, so I ordered
the 15-euro menu with the fish soup as a first course. The air was a little chilly, and it had
been breezy while we strolled in the Luxembourg Gardens. We paused for quite a while in the gardens
to examine the new, temporary photographic exhibition on the Iron Curtain and
its history. That studious inactivity
made us fairly cold. The thought of hot fish soup
was very appealing. I’ve come to know and trust
this restaurant so much that I ordered the inexpensive steak, the entrecote grillé, with pepper sauce,
as the main course. Tom ordered the expensive
steak, the filet, and before that,
he had the escargots in profiteroles.
This starter comes with a rich brown sauce that the restaurant
recently changed a little, and la
patronne was sure to ask Tom how he liked it since it was different from
before. He did like it, indeed. There are supposed to be 12
escargots, each in its own little round profiterole. But usually the chef stuffs extra escargots
into some of the pastries. This time,
Tom thought he probably had 24 escargots in the 12 profiteroles. The fish soup was all I could
have hoped for. It doesn’t taste
fishy; it just tastes smooth and rich and brown. I put only three croutons in the soup,
topped with the shredded cheese and little dollops of the homemade, saffron
and garlic mayonnaise. I didn’t even attempt to eat
all of the soup, and I made only a small dent in the generous ramekin of
mayonnaise. The soup was heavenly; but
I didn’t let it destroy my ability to eat some of my main course. Our two steaks looked utterly
different, except they had the same pepper sauce and the same kind of slices
of sautéed potatoes. Only a few slices
of potatoes came on each plate, but that was fine with me. Tom still had to eat two of my slices. His steak was very thick and
didn’t cover much surface area. Mine
was very thin and covered an area of about 3 inches by 6 inches. In Europe, when you order steak, especially
the cheaper cuts, you can expect it to be tough and grisly. But my steak was tender, juicy,
and very tasty. That’s because this is
a very good restaurant. We were both pleasantly
surprised at the spiciness the pepper sauce.
This is unusual in France; but then, of course, this is a Corsican
restaurant. That’s about as far south
as you can go in France, without going to French
Polynesia or somesuch dom tom. Dessert was out of the
question. We’d both consumed copious
starter courses. That was it. We paid the check, and bade our friendly
farewells. The walk home in the dark along
the rues Bréa, Vavin, Guynemer, Vaugirard, and Férou was as pleasant as
ever. Somehow, even though it was
cooler, we felt warmer than we did before dinner. We’re both feeling rested,
healthy, and relaxed these days. I’ve
even lost a few pounds. This is what
the summer can do for us. Even with
the Great Stepstool Fall, I’m doing pretty well. The bruises are going away, but I still
have a nasty hole in my left upper arm.
I should have had two or three stitches, I guess, but I didn’t want to
go to a big city emergency room on a Friday night. The hole isn’t as nasty as it used to be,
and it never became infected, thanks to Altabax ointment. Thank you, Dr.
Stanley Schwartz, for prescribing it to me last Spring. Speaking of health care, I
cannot believe how much my friends on Facebook are getting into the nitty
gritty of the health care bill! All
the fuss over this requirement to show proof of citizenship! At the emergency room, it doesn’t
matter. Everyone receives emergency
care; it is just that some can pay their bill, and some cannot. That’s the way it has been and will be. It is non-emergency care that
is the question. As I said on
Facebook: A
few claim that the requirement to check status of illegal immigrants has been
blocked in the health care bill. Know this: The specifics of how a law is
enforced are left to the agency, but the agency must comply with the LAW. This
is why we have LAWS legislated by Congress, and REGULATIONS promulgated by
agencies so that LAWS are complied with. The LAW in this bill is very clear!
Saying otherwise is to lie. Or as Lee Michael Diamond
responded: This
is true. You cannot include every single detail in a piece of legislation. I
think there might even be, like, standards or crafting guidelines. We move
from the Constitution>>>>Statutes>>>>>Federal
Regulations. There is an extensive process for writing federal regulations,
public hearings and final promulgation in the Federal Register. The liars are taking advantage
of the fact that most people don’t know how the Federal government
works. Why would they? In most government classes, you don’t get
this far into the mechanics. Those who’ve
worked for Congress, Federal agencies and for government contractors are the
only ones likely to be familiar with this.
In many states, I don’t think government class is even a requirement
in high school anymore. Ah, I digress. I’m supposed to be writing about Paris,
France. But you know what? People in France don’t have to be getting
so worked up about something as basic as health care; it is taken care of. So we in America must keep on
fighting until we get to that state of affairs. Health care is a basic right, not just a
privilege for the fortunate. |
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Trees
in the park on the north side of the Champs Elysées are starting to look like
Autumn. This is something we southwest
Floridians do not get to see at home!
The
colors here are never like those in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, or New
England, however.
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