Paris Journal 2013 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Autumn has
arrived in Paris. Gray, wet, and cold
(to us) was the weather that greeted us when we emerged from a day of work at
the computers. Fortunately, we did not
have to go far. Tous au Restaurant began yesterday. This annual event that is fitted into the
week between Heritage Days and the Garden Festival is about promoting one of
those important aspects of French culture:
la cuisine au restaurant. A large number
of restaurants in the city participate.
The deal is two three-course fixed-price menus for the price of
one. None of this is promoted or
explained in English anywhere, as far as I can tell, so for non-French
speakers to participate, they must understand a few French words. One is “offerte.” When you see the words “acheter” and then “offerte” in an ad or promotion, that
generally means “buy one, get one free.” Tous au Restaurant now uses Lafourchette.com for its
reservations. I don’t think that was
always the case, but now it is. So one day last
week I trolled through the Tous au
Restaurant offerings in Paris and selected two – one for last night, and
one for tonight – for us to try. The
restaurants I selected aren’t new to us, but the Tous au Restaurant deal is one we’ve not yet tried. I was a little
worried about our ability to each consume a full three courses; we’re used to
sharing an appetizer and dessert. The
other concern about Tous au Restaurant
is that you have no choices; you accept the fixed menu for the evening, and
you cannot make substitutions. That’s fine for
the restaurants that reveal the menu on the Tous au Restaurant web site.
But a number of them do not itemize the menu, so if you have any food
allergies, too bad. When I found La
Boussole in the Tous au Restaurant
listing, I was pleased to see a light, refreshing menu described on its
page. It would be a duo de saumons, l'un fumé, l'autre mariné
aux épices douces, céleri au curcuma, followed by a pavé de cabillaud, réduction de béarnaise au poivre de Séchouan,
and finally, for dessert, a crème
brûlée à la fève de Tonka. Translation : A salmon duo – one smoked, one marinated
with mild spices – with a celery-root/tumeric slaw as an appetizer. Main course of cod with a bearnaise
reduction and sezchuan pepper. And
dessert, a crème brûlée with Tonka bean flavoring. What, you might
ask, are Tonka beans? You might ask
this because they’re hard to find in the U.S.
That’s because the FDA has banned them. You see, in great enough quantity, they are
toxic. You’d use Tonka
beans like vanilla beans, as far as I can tell. But they have a stronger, smokier
flavor. They look like burnt,
dessicated almonds. A little Tonka
bean goes a long way. I know that I
liked the sauce made with foie gras
and Tonka bean that I had last week, and I liked the crème brûlée with Tonka
bean flavoring last night. As for the
toxicity, I don’t know what to say. We
eat so many foods in the nightshade family:
potatoes, tomatoes, certain peppers, and eggplant. In high enough quantity, these foods are
toxic, too. In fact, many people like
me have found that reducing the amount of food we eat from the nightshade
family reduces our arthritic joint pain.
I still eat all those foods, because they’re good, and good for
me. But I watch the quantity closely,
and limit it. And that’s what
you do with a Tonka bean. You only use
a small amount. The dinner was
refreshing, creative, colorful, and delicious. I’m a big fan of both celery-root and
tumeric, and I didn’t realize how much I liked really good marinated and
smoked salmon until last night. I’ll
order it more often now. The cod was
presented on a little round bed of puréed potatoes (but not too many
potatoes, so I did eat them without concern).
The thickened bearnaise sauce on the fish was bursting with flavor. Many of these
dinners this summer have not included enough veggies (with some notable
exceptions, like the great helping of perfect green beans at Vagenende, and
the superb bowls of veggies at Axuria).
To counteract that, I usually make salad for lunch, and I urge Tom to
have some of it, too. Yesterday, I’d
nibbled on my Romanesco in the afternoon. The crème
brûlée was very nice, and the smoky, vanilla-like flavoring was a great
touch. Ah, and speaking
of smoke: tobacco is in the nightshade
family. We all know what that can do
to you! We’re delighted
that fewer and fewer Parisians are smoking these days. Those who do are to be found on the outdoor
terraces of cafés and brasseries, where smoking is still allowed. At a restaurant like La Boussole, which has
no terrace, smokers have to don their jackets and go out into the cold night
to smoke. It’s an inconvenient habit. When we arrived
at home, we found that the CD player in the little stereo that we bought for
this apartment had died. I thought it
had only been a couple years ago that we bought that little stereo at FNAC
Digitale. I was aghast to learn from
my Quicken records that we bought it seven summers ago! I was much more
disturbed about how the years have flown by faster than I could imagine than
I was about the demise of the CD player. All we can do
is keep on keeping on. |
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Square
Honoré Champion, in the 6th arrondissement, above
and below. Champion was a publisher
(1846-1913).
Scenes
on the rue de Seine, above and below.
La Boussole’s salmon duo with celery-root/tumeric
slaw.
Cod
with a thick béarnaise sauce on a small bed of puréed potatoes, at La Boussole. |
