Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
Find me on Facebook 2012
Paris Journal ← Previous Next
→ Back to the Beginning
|
Sometimes you
meet people for the strangest of reasons.
We don’t typically start up conversations with other Americans whom we
hear speaking in restaurants or cafés, particularly in this part of Paris,
because there are so many of them.
We’d spend all of our time doing that and nothing else. Last night, as
we sat at our table next to the drummer at Café Laurent, a middle-aged, hip-looking
couple came in and sat two tables away from us. Laurent, ever the efficient manager, asked
them to move to the table next to us so that he’d have the option of seating
four people at the the other two tables along that wall. They complied with his request, no problem. The music
hadn’t started yet, and so the woman in this couple took off for the ladies
room. She soon returned and said to
her husband, “The door seems to be locked, so I guess I’ll wait.” I had to speak
up then, because I know that new lever on the door feels like it is locked,
because it doesn’t move up or down.
But if you just push on the door, the heavy spring loaded hinges allow
it to open. So I explained to her that
it only seems to be locked; you just have to give the door a push. That opened the
door to conversation. And so we met
Mike and Marilyn from Santa Barbara.
We learned that she is a jazz pianist, as Tom is a jazz drummer. We chatted before the music began, and in
between sets. Christian
Brenner’s ensemble last night included Pier Paolo Pozzi on drums, and Laurent
Fradelizi on bass. In the second set,
they were joined by Paolo Innarella, an Italian flute player. We’ve heard Pozzi and Fradelizi play with
Brenner at Café Laurent a number of times; Innarella was new to us. This amazingly good musician lives in Rome;
he must have been visiting Paris and Christian somehow knew that – perhaps
Pozzi or Fradelizi told him. The magic of
improvisational jazz is that musicians who’ve never performed together before
can assemble, play, and make wonderful music. The magic
earlier in the evening came from dinner.
We’d put in a full day of work at the computers, and I had nothing to
eat all day except for a piece of toast made from stale baguette (so French,
I know). We were hungry for another
fine dinner at Le Christine. We left the
apartment early so that we could wander around on the streets between here
and there for almost an hour. When we arrived,
we were greeted warmly but the restaurant had somehow misplaced our
LaFourchette.com reservation. I was
able to show the confirmation on my smartphone, and the resto did then find
the reservation. Maybe it isn’t so
good to reserve almost a week in adance.
Could it be possible that last-minute is better? It was no
problem. We were given the table in
the front window again, and had a lovely time. The restaurant was busy and buzzing with
happy people speaking English and French. We were given a
mis en bouche made with crab and
beets – smooth, creamy, and delicious.
Then came the foie gras,
which was an artisanal slice of foie
gras entier, accompanied by a bit of homemade candied onions. The pregnant Canadian behind me ordered two
servings of the foie gras as her
main course! What a craving! One serving was plenty for two people as an
appetizer. Tom ordered the
massive, ultra-lean, grilled pork chop (below) that was accompanied by two
jumbo-egg-size lumps of puréed root vegetables which included sweet potatoes
that gave the concoction a pleasant autumnal orange color.
The fish of the
day was dorade (gilthead bream)
again, and so that’s what I ordered.
We don’t have dorade in
Florida, and I like it even better than sea bass. Sauces at Le
Christine are delicious. Often they
don’t look like much, but when you taste them, oooh la la! Dessert was a moelleaux au chocolat that I think was
not homemade; but it was made with high-quality dark chocolate and was
accompanied by a small scoop of outlandishly flavorful lemon sorbet. I leave you
with a humorous screen shot from amazon.com, below. This is what happens when a book is almost
sold out. Computer algorithms, I
guess, cause book re-sellers to propose prices like $5,283 for a new copy of
the second edition of Tom’s book, Back
to the Lake! As his editor in
NYC says, “It’s worth every penny!” (Tom is working
away on the 3rd edition while we’re here in Paris.)
|
Friday, September 13, 2013
Lavish
display of plants above the awning for La Palette at the corner of the rue de
Seine and the rue Jacques Callot.
The
shop on rue Christine where I took some photos on September 8 has no sign,
but I noted that a piece of paper taped to the door says it is Chez
Vidalenc.
Colorful
mis en bouche with quirky spoon at
Le Christine.
Delicious
dorade.
The
entrance to the beautiful, old Relais Christine hotel on the rue
Christine. The manager of the
restaurant Le Christine borrowed a high-chair from this hotel next door, to
accommodate a baby dining with his family.
It’s nice to see such cooperation among neighboring businesses. |
