Paris Journal 2008
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Well, now I know why Barbara Walters was being videotaped (see July 25) at the foot of the Champ de Mars with the Eiffel Tower in the background. She was in town to interview the glamorous first lady of France. Click here to watch the Barbara Walters interview with Carla Bruni. Now that we’re living in the 6th we tend to go to the Luxemburg Gardens more than the Champ de Mars. During our walk in the gardens on Saturday morning, we noticed several Tai Chi classes being conducted. I heartily approve of this. Parisians need to relax; they are always in a frantic hurry, it seems. If Tai Chi helps them chill out, it is wonderful We were tempted to go by one of the groups singing a song that both of us know by different titles. Also, we know different versions of the last line. In discussing this, I realized that since I learned the song in Girl Scout camp, I must have the sanitized, non-authentic version memorized. So, we’ll go with Tom’s version of the song. It’s a simplified version of Ballin’ the Jack that we thought about singing to the Tai Chi classes: Put your right foot
in, put your right foot out. Put your right foot
in, and you shake it all about. Do the hootchie
cootchie and you turn yourself around That’s called ballin’ the jack. We didn’t dare sing it to the Tai Chi classes, we just had fun thinking about it. Here’s a nice version of the full song on youtube.com, featuring Dean Martin, Polly Bergen, and Jerry Lewis. The title really isn’t as racy as it seems. It’s slang, and it can mean dancing and having a good time, or in gambling, it can mean risking everything on one shot or roll of the dice. Here’s another story from a web page at www.slangcity.com : "To "ball" a "jack" refers possibly to the action of risking a shot in "Boules", or Bocce or its sister game Petanque. The jack in either case is the smaller ball for which the goal of the game is to either throw your team's ball closest to it, or to knock away your opponent's ball. To hit the target ball to another location, or to "ball the jack", is to alter the focus of the gameplay. To do so requires great accuracy, and assuming the game is scored for money instead of points (it is a drinking game, and takes skill and a bit of luck as well), takes risk as well, for in double or triple team play, you only get one shot (one ball per player). So to "ball the jack" is to risk a miss, and a wasted shot, at something that is really important to you." There are always men playing boules in Paris parks, so if we were to sing this song to anyone in the Luxemburg Gardens, it should be to the boules players. Yesterday evening after working, we walked through the Luxemburg Gardens and then up to Les Pres aux Clercs, one of our preferred brasseries in the upper 6th arrondissement. But it was closing up. This is something that many brasseries do on Sunday – they’ll be open for drinks all afternoon and evening, right up until the dinner hour (8PM), and then they close. I’m going to have to find out why, but I suspect this is a tradition that has its roots in encouraging men to leave the bar and go home to be with their families on Sunday evening. So, instead we went to the Bistrot de la Grille Saint Germain at 14 rue Mabillon. We’ve always had good luck here when ordering from the daily specials on the blackboard. If you go, don’t be dismayed if the restaurant looks full. There’s a whole dining room upstairs, above the bar, so there’s probably room for you. The décor is charming; there are lots of old black and white framed photos of movie stars. For a starter course, don’t miss the Terrine de Maman Brazier. It is a very good example of a French country terrine, and it is plenty for two people to share. As it should be, it is served with pickles that you pluck from a jar using the wooden tongs provided. We both ordered the carre d’agneau roti from the blackboard. These lamb chops were very, very good – almost as good as those at Le Caveau du Palais, but not as expensive. They came with au gratin potatoes (pommes gratin dauphinois). For dessert, Tom ordered from the blackboard: Aumônière de figues roti avec crème amande. We knew this involved roasted figs and almond cream, but we had no idea what an aumônière would be. I guessed that it was some kind of container. I was right. When this dessert arrived, we were fascinated by it. The figs were in a sack made of very thin pastry. The young French woman next to us asked us, in very good English, what dessert it was. I explained that it was the dessert of the day, pointing to it on the blackboard beside us, and reading it aloud to her. I asked her if she knew that word, aumônière. She said she did not. Her boyfriend, however, said it means some sort of sack. I was pleased that there were even some French people who don’t know that word. My French vocabulary isn’t bad, and it is getting bigger every day. The young couple did order the aumônière for dessert, after admiring ours. The almond cream turned out to be almond ice cream, a small scoop served on a piece of sweet spice bread placed next to the aumônière. According to my gastronomic dictionary, an aumônière is a “small apricot pastry, thin crêpe, filled and tied like a bundle.” The aumônière at Bistrot de la Grille, by the way, was excellent. |
Monday, September 8, 2008
I love the occasional sailboats that we see on the
Seine.
Cat faces were hung in several places on this nice
boat. They must be to keep the birds
(and their mess) off the boat.
A bar buvette aux
chiens in the Luxemburg Gardens.
That’s a place for dogs to get a drink of water.
Flags of the 27 European Union countries are on display
in the Luxemburg Gardens while Nicholas Sarkozy has the EU presidency. |
