Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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My mother is no doubt wondering whether or not I went to church on Sunday. It’s not that she’s worried about the state of my religious soul, but rather, she envies me the opportunity to hear the great Cavaillé-Coll organ. Mom, I did go at 11:30, for the end of mass and then a half hour of organ music. I don’t think there was a guest organist. David Roth, the chief organist, was probably playing, or it could have been Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, the associate. The music was all modern selections. I prefer baroque/classical, but it is good for me to hear modern occasionally, expanding my horizons. The organ was as grand as ever in its attempt to vibrate the church to pieces. So all was back in its normal state on Sunday. Normal around here is French, and by about this time every summer, we are still loving French food, but also starting to yearn more for the occasional very non-French food. Lately, I have not been cooking brunch as much. When I do cook it, it consists of one poached or fried egg for each of us, and then a little bit of ham, or once in a while, bacon. Tom has usually already had some toast, which he prefers to make with Harry’s American white sandwich bread. Harry’s American bread is a French imitation of Wonder Bread, and it is better than Wonder Bread, but I tend to turn up my nose at all ordinary white bread. I derisively refer to the Harry’s bread as “white man’s bread.” But Tom likes it, and evidently a lot of French people do because so much Harry’s American bread is stocked in every supermarket. As anyone who’s ever run a supermarket knows, anything that takes up a lot of shelf space is something the store sells in noticeable quantity. The best explanation I have for the French affinity for Harry’s American sandwich bread is that their kids like it. For breakfast/brunch, I prefer to slice some stale or slightly stale French baguette, if we still have any, into lengthwise sections and toast them. I don’t like “pain industriel,” which is the class into which Harry’s bread falls. “Fall” is a good word for that. This is lowly bread, in my opinion. On a typical day, if I did not cook something like eggs for brunch, then I most likely munch on raw veggies like Romanescu or French radishes in the afternoon., and maybe a little piece of Laguiole or aged Salers cheese. Tom eats ham sandwiches (on Harry’s bread) and sometimes he eats bananas. Yesterday, I was ready to do something different. Tom was working away on page proofs for The Norton Sampler, 8th edition. At 12:30, I said, “I’m going out to walk around for a bit.” I didn’t tell him that I had a destination. I wanted to surprise him. I walked straight to the west, to the boulevard Raspail, where one of those open markets was in operation. This market occurs on Tuesdays and Fridays, from around 8 or 9AM until early afternoon, and is set up in the pedestrian space in the middle of the divided boulevard. I walked down through the middle of the entire market, admiring the many booths of fruits, veggies, meats, fish, scarves, kitchen utensils, schlock, and other assorted things. But the first time through, I did not see what I was looking for. That’s probably because too many people were standing in front of it, blocking my view. I walked back up alongside the outside of the market, up the sidewalk along the east side of the boulevard. But I kept looking over at the market booths. Then, when I was just about at the northern end where I’d started, I saw it. I only saw a little piece of it, but I knew it had to be what I was looking for, because it was the English word “Meats,” in tan/gold lettering on a dark brown background. It was the only piece I could see, because so many people were standing in front of this booth. The booth was actually one of those gourmet food trucks that are popping up in trendy cities all over the world. This one was inspired by a particular gourmet food truck in San Francisco, I think. The truck is parked along the side of the market, and inside it is a kitchen. Panels move and make a long, wide window open to the market side. An awning stretches overhead, as is the case with most of the booths, and four high-top tables are in the booth space. French people are crammed around these little tables, eating with their hands! No utensils! This is an odd thing for a French person to do. This gourmet food truck is called Cantine California, and it was created by Jordan Fielders, a young man who is from San Francisco (and also Canada), who spent teenage years in France, and who is married to a young French woman. Cantine California serves hamburgers, tacos, and cupcakes. All ingredients are organic, fresh, and local. The fries that come with the burgers are hand-cut there, just before frying. I think that when Jordan started Cantine California, his chef partner was another Jordan, but female, and she was an American who’d attended the Ferrandi school of gastronomy here in Paris. But now the chef is a young woman from Finland, who seems to prefer to speak English while working, although I think she may have also attended Ferrandi. Jordan stands in front of the truck’s open kitchen window, facing the people who line up to place orders in the middle space between the high-top tables. Jordan went to a lot of trouble to find the right ingredients for making great, American-style burgers. For the buns, he finally found a baker in a northern arrondissement who could make a good hamburger bun. It is actually a brioche type of bread. The bakery is a North African Muslim-operated French bakery, and it uses this recipe to make a brioche that is popular during Ramadan. This bread, already topped with sesame seeds like a good hamburger bun is, is easy to digest after a day of fasting, and is not so heavy, allowing for the consumption of a feast along with it. For Jordan’s Cantine California, the bakery makes the bread into round-shaped buns. While we were waiting for my burger, I asked Jordan if this was a challenge, finding the source for the buns. He said it was, and that it requires fairly constant monitoring. The meat was a challenge, too, but Jordan and his partners figured out the key to making French beef work for American-style burgers: put more fat into the mix. You see, French beef cattle have been bred for lean musculature, whereas American beef cattle have been bred more for producing well-marbled, tender steaks. The Cantine California staff grind their own beef, which comes from French cattle. They put some beef fat into the grinder along with the beef, and the ground beef that results makes for wonderful, juicy burgers. I’d read a few articles about Cantine California in places like the Bonjour Paris newsletter and a New York Times blog. So I knew some of this before I went out to the Raspail market. I read more later. The only way to figure out where this food truck will be and when, as far as I could tell, is to consult the Cantine California web site, which I had done. My timing was good, because only one couple was in line when I arrived at the food truck’s booth. They were asking Jordan lots of questions about this “exotic menu”; Jordan seems to expect that, and he likes to answer. Even when speaking French, he had that slow, laid-back, manner of California speaking. When it was my turn, he said “bonjour” to me, meaning that he initially thought I was French. After I said “bonjour” back to him, he switched to English. Later, as I listened to him greet others in line behind me, I realized that he judged by appearances first, and almost always he was right about who was French and who was American. His greetings alternated between “hi” and “bonjour,” accordingly. I knew what I wanted, which was a “Cali’classic” burger. On the menu on the web site, this is described as “boeuf bio grillé sur pierre de lave, real cheddar, organic bacon, tomato, red onion, pickles, organic lettuce, avocado and our home made sauce.” That’s an interesting combination of French and English, Jordan! “Bio” is the French word for “organic,” by the way. It is short for “biologique.” On the truck itself, all the words to describe its offerings are in English. Jordan explained in one magazine interview that he consciously decided that the truck would “speak” English, as an indication of the authenticity of its American cuisine. Other burgers offered by Cantine California are the Half Moon Bay burger (boeuf bio grillé sur pierre de lave, bleu d'auvergne AOC, blackened red peppers, tomato, organic lettuce, caramelized onions), and the Dude’s burger (boeuf haché grillé sur pierre de lave, double cheese {fromage beaufort et gouda}, organic bacon, caramelized onions, blackened red peppers, tomato, organic lettuce and our homemade sauce). There’s also a VeggieBurger (homemade veggie pattie, cheddar, sauté mushrooms, blackened red peppers, tomato, organic lettuce, pickles, avocado). Each comes with fries, or if you prefer, a side salad. The tacos are made with “épaule de porc bio épicée et mijotée 7 heures, tortillas maison, chipotle salsa, black beans, coriandre, citron vert.” That’s a pork shoulder roast cooked for at least 7 hours; in other words, pulled pork. For desserts, Cantine California offers homemade cupcakes, and real milkshakes. Milkshakes! In Paris! Imagine that. For brunch, from 10AM to 12:30PM, the Cantine California offers up buttermilk blueberry pancakes, French toast, and a breakfast burrito. Surely the Cantine must provide plastic forks for eating the pancakes and French toast! Other vendors in the market like Cantine California because it has “breathed new life” into the market, attracting more shoppers, and because they enjoy this food, too. I had to wait about 10 minutes for my burger, which I expected. This is not fast food, after all. It is freshly prepared, made to order, in a real kitchen that happens to be in a truck. I looked over at others eating their burgers and tacos at the hightops. The food looked great! I’d ordered it “to go,” so when it was ready, Jordan put the paper tray with the burger and fries into a paper lunch bag, which I then carefully placed in the bottom of my plasticized reusable shopping bag. I smiled and said “Thanks so much. See ya later.” Wow. That felt good, to say “see ya later,” American to American. French people in line looked at me curiously, as if to say, “ah, so that’s how to speak American.” Quickly, I walked through the streets, gripping the top of my shopping bag closed, to preserve the warmth of its treasured contents. When I came through the apartment door, I said “I have a surprise treat for you,” Tom was delighted. He was hungry. We split the burger with a knife. We shared it, and the fries. It was all excellent. The only thing I’d do differently is to cut the fries at the beginning of the day, and to allow them to dry a little before frying. They were a bit too soft or moist. But tasty, nonetheless. The burger was just the way we like: medium rare, which is what Jordan called “medium.” The onion on it had been thinly sliced and sautéed as slivers, resulting in a delicious concoction. Jordan prides himself in using only the best cheeses; and why not? This is France, after all. Cheese really matters here. Really good American burgers made with really good French ingredients: heaven on earth. And the only people unhappy about this are the brasseries that are now offering burgers. Their results, while good, are nothing like this. Jordan is doing Americans proud. On Jordan’s Cantine California page on Facebook, I wrote a thank you and told him that we’d be back on Friday. He commented back to me, “Awesome!” |
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Today
is the day that a new exhibition opens at the Musée du Luxembourg, very near us. I believe that a new location of Angelina’s
tea room will be opening along with it, in the temporary structure just
behind the fence and poster.
Angelina’s
chocolate is being stocked on the shelves.
Glass
eyes used to diagnose eye diseases and conditions, on display in the museum
of the history of medicine, at the Université
Descartes.
Anatomical
mannequin, above, and table with mosaic of petrified body bits and parts,
below, at the museum. Note the four
ears. More scenes from the museum,
below.
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