Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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It finally happened. I knew it would happen someday, but yesterday turned out to be the day. As we were leaving the Cristal de Sel restaurant, when Roy, Barbara C., and Tom were already out the door, as I was turning to say goodnight to Damien Crépu (the boss in the dining room and wine cellar), I realized he was already right behind me. He was coming to stop me, to tell me something. He thanked me, and, he said, thank you for recommending us. “We read your blog,” he said. And furthermore, he told me, the chef (Karil Lopez) sends his regards and thanks from the kitchen. Voila! This is the first time restauranteurs have told me that they’ve seen this Paris Journal, although I suspect others have. I told him it was my pleasure. We said goodnight, see you soon, and then I caught up with my friends out on the sidewalk. I told Tom what had just happened. He got a kick out of it. As a starter course, Roy and I had the croustillants de gambas à la coriandre, sauce aux épices tandoori, and shrimp snob that I am, I have to say these were delicious and fascinating, with the paper-thin pastry covering that mimicked the look of the shell which had been removed, and the Indian spice. The shrimp were accompanied by a pretty little salad of dark greens. My main course was a merlu cuit au plat, figues noires rôties, pommes Dauphine à l'ail, quelques morceaux d'encornets. Merlu, or hake, is a long skinny fish, so I was surprised that what I received was more like a cod steak. But it was all excellent. The “encornets” were only one squid, but it was not too small and was cooked correctly – which means it did not taste like a rubber band, but instead, was yummy. With the figs and a couple little delicate pommes Dauphine (potato beignets) along with a smattering of delicious, light sauce, it turned out to be a fabulous dish for a fish lover like me. Tom ordered the classic onglet de boeuf Simmental, grenailles confites à la graisse de canard again, and again he enjoyed it very much. Roy and Barbara C. had the pigeon rôti en croûte de cajou, cocos paimpol noix de coco/curry, sauce des carcasses, les cuisses confites, and I think they enjoyed it, but we forgot to talk about it because we were talking about so many interesting things! Three of us had the aumonière de crêpe, pommes confites au caramel sale for dessert! This is the first time in a long time that Tom and I have each had three courses, without splitting one or two of them. Tom and I had walked all the way from the apartment in the 6th to the one in the 15th, where we had a drink with Roy and Barbara C. before walking down to the restaurant, only a few blocks away. We wanted them to know about Cristal de Sel because it is so conveniently close to them. After the restaurant, we picked up some books at Roy’s – items which he’d rescued from the American University’s librarian, who’d put them on a list of books to be discarded unless somebody wanted them. Tom got two copies of his dissertation director’s (Ed Cady’s) book, The Realist at War, and I got a 14-volume set of the works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-94). Tom also received a copy of William Dean Howells’ The Leatherwood God. We’d brought two shopping bags with us to help us get these books home. So of course, we had to use our last two metro tickets. Time to buy more! Holmes was widely regarded by his peers as one of the very best writers of his time. History, in its fickle way, has not given him quite the same rank, but I still do. Also I admire the man greatly as a doctor, a leader in medical practice, and a champion of women’s health. He studied medicine in France, as the very best doctors did in that part of the 19th Century. He brought his knowledge back with him, and revolutionized the practice of medicine in America. Somehow, he was able to eventually convince the medical establishment that it was doctors who, by not washing their hands well, were killing women who were giving birth to babies. It was the doctors who were transmitting puerperal fever to the patients. Most doctors had difficulty in accepting this. Not only did Holmes help the cause of women’s health (and survival), but he also tried his best to have a woman, and later a group of African-American men, admitted to Harvard’s medical school when he was a senior faculty member there. He tried, and was not entirely successful at this, but his effort was the beginning of the breaking down of that barrier. And that brings us back to the topic of medicine. Yesterday, while I was complimenting the state of catastrophic health care coverage in France, I did admit that “the French public health care is certainly not always the best,” and that “the everyday, ordinary health care provided in the French public system is not great.” Let me elaborate a little, and illustrate. Tom, as I’ve written in previous years’ journals, had his arm broken by a pickpocket about eleven years ago while we were in the last days of our Paris sojourn for that year. He was treated in the French public system, and that was to say he wasn’t really treated at all, and the break in the arm was not diagnosed until we returned to America. In another year, he experienced the private health care system in France when he had a little problem. He went to a good specialist, had tests done, and paid cash. Still the mysterious episode went undiagnosed, but when he saw a specialist and had tests back in Florida after the summer, that also yielded no diagnosis. One of our good friends from Florida had to have an emergency appendectomy while she was in France. Her appendectomy was performed at a hospital in Vernon (the city near Giverny), where she received excellent care. However, another friend had a much more unhappy experience. I hope she won’t mind if I share it with you in her words: "Perhaps the French public health system is good for the French, but I urge all Americans to add a rider to their homeowners to cover health and travel. My surgeon described the care I had at the University Hospital in Dijon as ‘barbaric.’ I had two ‘barbaric’ surgeries and had to be redone once back on American soil. BTW if you didn't watch the CNN/Tea Party debate of republican candidates, you didn't hear the audience cheer when Perry first said he's proud of the Texas killing of inmates or when Ron Paul said if a poor man can't afford to pay for healthcare and is turned down and dies, that's too bad. Very scary things are happening here. Sorry to rant, but I'm still in therapy after a year and all because I had very bad care in France." My heart aches for her. How horrible this must be. The problem, I think, is this darned two-tier system in France, where the care in the public hospitals can be very sub-standard, while the care in private hospitals and clinics seems to be better – but you have to pay more for that, and hopefully have supplemental insurance if you’re a French citizen. Of course, private hospitals and clinics are not available everywhere in France, as they are in Paris. But one shouldn’t have to worry about that distinction, and regardless, the care at a major university hospital should be top-notch and cutting-edge, so to speak, but evidently is not. And of course, I must admit that I’ve heard of botched operations and bad care happening in Ohio and Florida, too. With Florida’s relatively new “three strikes and you’re out” law for doctors, it is inevitable that Florida will not be attracting the best doctors in the years to come. That may be what has happened in France. The best doctors go into the private system where they can make more money and have more say over their practice, and the lesser docs end up, far too often, in the public system. That isn’t right, and I hope America doesn’t go there. Yet I’m so worried about where American health care is going, if all citizens aren’t going to be covered by insurance and injudicious cuts continue to be made in Medicare and Medicaid. On va voir. We shall see. Sign
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Thursday, September 15, 2011
I took this
photo through the locked gate of a private lane at 27 bis avenue de Lowendal. It is a residential
setting that Tom and I have admired this summer.
Above and
below, pretty places in the Luxembourg Gardens.
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