Barbara Cooley's Paris Journal

Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

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“A very successful evening,” Tom said when we finally returned to “our” apartment after 11PM last night.

After we’d done our food shopping at the Marché Saint Germain, he said, “Let’s go get your earrings.”

He’s been thinking about some earrings I admired in a shop window near the Place Dauphine ever since we saw them. That was on a Sunday, and so the shop was not open at the time.

We walked up the rue de Seine, which was busy with shoppers and sightseers. At the Seine, we walked along the broad sidewalk with the green bouquiniste stalls until we reached the Pont Neuf, where we crossed over to the Île de la Cite.

There, at 15 Place du Pont-Neuf, is a tiny jewelry store called Jeanne Danjou, which has been in business since 1920.

The jeweler who runs it now is not Jeanne, but perhaps his name is Jean. He was very nice and welcoming. I looked at everything in the shop, but finally settled on one of the two pairs I originally admired, and the other was very close to the other pair I originally admired; its stones were simply a different shade of blue. The stones are old crystal, in new, filagree settings.

The jeweler gave us a 10 percent discount because we were buying two pairs. We didn’t even have to ask for a discount.

My ears are not pierced, and so I wear clip-ons. The sharp-eyed jeweler noticed that, but I, too, had already seen the sign in his window declaring that all earrings could be converted to clip-ons.

So he did that conversion while we waited. A sign in the shop announced that the jeweler is happy to do repairs. I made a mental note about that fact, which may come in handy.

After we said goodbye to the jeweler, we walked on to the Place Dauphine, where we sat on a park bench and talked about what to do next. I wanted to see the streets just to the north of Notre Dame, and Tom wanted to find the restored clock that has been re-installed on the Palais de Justice. Tom’s destination was conveniently on the way to mine, so that worked out well.

I said that I suspected the clock was at the corner of the Palais where the top is graced by a spire/tower that sparkles now that the Palais exterior restoration has been completed. We’d already eliminated the west side of the Palais as a possibility.

When we arrived at that spire, and turned the corner at the boulevard du Palais, it was right there. The clock was sparkling over our heads, and people stood near us, taking photos of it. I did the same.

Moving on down the boulevard, we paused to look at the brasserie at the corner of the rue de Lutece. I reminisced about Tom and I having coffee there one summer day in the past as we waited for my mom and dad who’d gone to see Sainte Chapelle, which we’d seen several times. I am so happy that they made that trip to Paris together.

We wandered past the beautiful Guimard-designed Art Nouveau metro entrance and through the charming flower market.

From there we walked around the Hôtel Dieu (ancient public hospital), past its creepy “victims of the night” entrance, to the medieval streets I wanted to see: Massillon, Chantres, Ursins, Colombe, and the Quai aux Fleurs. There you can see what much of Paris was like before the changes made by Haussmann.

I was utterly charmed by that quiet little neighborhood in the shadow of the cathedral.

We wandered around and around, finding the site of the building where Héloise and Abelard lived, and then went toward the sound of music coming from the Pont Saint Louis, which connects the Île de la Cité with the Île Saint Louis. It is closed to traffic, and on weekends is generally the site where several buskers perform.

The source of the music was two young men, vigorously playing the piano and a violin. The music was traditional and lively, Eastern European or Russian. They were fantastic, and had attracted quite a crowd. Their buskers’ basket had many coins in it.

Finally, it was time for them to move on. The piano had a set of wheels on an axel, and a platform that worked with the wheels somehow to enable the piano to be moved through the cobbled streets.

It was time for the bicyle/clown/acrobat to do his performance, which we’ve seen many times, so we moved on to the left bank, and wandered through the streets in the direction of “our” apartment.

When we were only a few minutes away, Tom suggested that we might try to dine a La Procope. Saturday night, without a reservation, was pushing it, I thought. But we tried. We entered from the Cour du Commerce Saint-André side, and made our way through the ancient restaurant to the other side, where the maitre d’hotel stand was located.

Two young women were staffing it. They politely told us that it would be a 35-minute wait for a table. I said, “maybe another night,” we thanked them, and left.

Then I remembered the very pretty brasserie that I’d spotted a few weeks earlier, on the boulevard Saint Germain. Vagenende is its name.

The brasserie has recently been spiffed up and a nice new sign awning added. That’s why I’d noticed it this summer, although I guess it has been there for a long time, according to the history page of its web site.

Originally, the space was a pastry shop, in a building constructed in 1878.

In 1904, the Chartier family, of bouillon fame, turned the shop into one of their Art Nouveau wonders. After the Chartiers, it was run by the Rougeot company, then sold to the Vagenende family in the 1920s.

This jewel of a restaurant was threatened with destruction, to make way for a supermarket, in 1966. But André Malraux, a novelist, was minister of culture at the time; he decided that it would not become a supermarket. Instead, Vagenende is now on the historic registry, and is owned by Monique and Marie Egurreguy, who obviously treasure and preserve it.

Everything has been cleaned and polished, and new lighting has been configured in cleverly adapted ceiling panels that preserve the original moldings and tiles.

Woodwork throughout has been cleaned, waxed, and buffed, but not refinished, thankfully. The original thick ceramic tile floor is in place, and the many paintings on glass signed by Pivain remain as an integral part of the wall surfaces, with new lighting cleverly added above each one.

Soft blue velvet curtains hang in the spaces between pillars, and a stained-glass verriere remains, illuminating part of the main dining room.

The many infinitely reflecting beveled glass mirrors that cover much of the wall space make the place spectacular. The restaurant was fairly full, so I could not take many photos of the rooms, but you can see more photos on the vagenende.com web site.

Just being in this beautiful place was enough, but then, oh my, the food!

Shortly after we were seated, a woman sitting near us had the most divine looking dish placed before her. Tom pointed it out to me, and just then our server arrived at the table. I thought the dish was probably the quenelles that I noticed on the menu, and sure enough, when Tom asked the server, he said that was what they were.

Quenelles de brochet soufflées, sauce Nantua: souffléed pike quenelles, with bisque-like crawfish sauce.

There would be a 20-minute wait for these, the menu and the server cautioned. I did not mind. Great food is worth waiting for, and these quenelles looked truly great. Besides, we had this beautiful place to wait in, so we didn’t care about the time.

Tom ordered the Chateaubriand, in part because it was to come with fries. He really wanted some fries.

After a 30-minute wait, the food arrived. We were pleased that we had not ordered a starter course.

My two quenelles and sauce were delivered to the table in a very hot copper pot. They were large. Tom had to help me eat them, and we still could not quite finish the second one, but we tried, because these quenelles were masterpieces of fine cuisine.

Tom said his steak was delicious, too, as were the fries.

After this fabulous dinner, we were ready for more fun. So we walked up the rue Dauphine to Café Laurent at the Hotel d’Aubusson. It was time for live jazz.

Christian Brenner is still away, so we heard a different pianist named Martin, one whom we’ve heard before, and an excellent bass player. The drummer, Olivier Robin, we’ve heard many times. Tom admires his talent and loves to watch him play.

A vocalist, a petite 50-something-year-old woman from Marseille, sang through most of the two sets that we heard. Her name is Isabelle Carpentier, and she sings jazz superbly. She sang all these great American jazz standards with style, passion, and precision. She sang like Diana Krall, with no accent at all, yet when she spoke English, she had a French accent.

Here’s what her myspace.com page says about her background:

Isabelle Carpentier started singing jazz at the age of 28 . She took lessons with Sara Lazarus and is now playing with different bands. She was involved in projects with Olivier Ker Ourio, Pierre de Bethmann, Gildas Bocle, Franck Agulhon, Pierre Christophe, Jacques Vidal and Eric Surmenian strings sextet. She recorded her 3rd album last September with Serge Merlaud on guitar, Eric Surmenian on double bass and Pierre Dayraud on percussions. She is also a composer and lyricist. She teaches vocal jazz and improvisation at Ariam Ile de France and in master classes in Paris, Marciac, La Reunion, Rennes ....

Pierre Cristophe was the pianist we heard at Café Laurent last week. I get the feeling these musicians all know each other, just like the jazz musicians back home seem to know each other. They mix and match themselves to form various combos.

Sitting there, in Café Laurent, reminded me of so many pleasant evenings we spent listening to live jazz in Columbus, in places like Bexley’s Monk. Don’t sneer – Columbus’ jazz scene is great, maybe even better than Paris’. And people like Michael Feinstein and Nancy Wilson came from Columbus.

Sated by good food, good music, and nostalgia, we walked home through mobs of drunk young people who were partying on the rue Dauphine. We couldn’t just end it there; we had to play that Coleman Hawkins CD, Body and Soul, ending the day on a blue note.

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Sunday, September 23, 2012