Paris Journal 2014 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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“C’est jolie,” said the taxi driver, as he pushed open the heavy door I had just unlocked with the door code. “C’est très jolie! C’est jolie.” I love to hear grown men use the word “pretty” with such sincerity and enthusiasm. (This driver was genuinely nice and interested in giving us the best possible service. Tom had tipped him well, at the beginning of our ride, because the driver had so amicably helped with moving the luggage from the porte cochère into his taxi. He then took the best, most efficient route over to the apartment in the 6th. He did not charge us for the baggage, as he certainly could have done.) He was the second taxi driver Tom had approached at about 3PM at the taxi stand on the boulevard de Grenelle. The first one did not want to go over to the 6th arrondissement, for some reason. Perhaps it was the end of his day, and he wanted to head in the opposite direction because that would be closer to home. Sunday dinner with the family can be a mid-afternoon affair, and one that you would not want to miss. Family is so important in France, and so is dinner. Put the two together on a Sunday (normally a day for not working), and you have a sacrosanct occasion. We weren’t sure what time we’d be ready to move, so we had not been able to arrange for the taxi ahead of time. Phoning for a taxi at the time you want one takes longer and costs more. We always have better luck with going out and finding one. Our routine for the move, once all is packed and the apartment cleaned, is for me to wait with the baggage in the porte cochère while Tom hunts for the taxi. This best done at a taxi stand, and the closest one that really has taxis in it is up on the boulevard. Besides, Tom had to go out to the pharmacy anyway; he might as well find a taxi, too. While I waited, the tall gentleman who stores his big motorcycle in the padlocked shed in the courtyard arrived. With superb efficiency, he opened the big double doors at each end of the porte cochère passage. He went back to his motorcycle, and as he was starting the engine, the thin and elegant Madame B., a well-known judge who lives in the building, had exited the elevator and entered the porte cochère. She was not pleased that a motorcycle was about to noisily pass by her so closely, inside her building! The tall gentleman simply nodded his helmeted head very slightly at her, and did not even pause. He was imposing himself, a sort of bespectacled James Bond type, and not easily intimidated. She left, and a moment later, he was padlocking his bike safely away, then shutting and bolting the big, heavy doors pack into place. He was in and out of there in less than 90 seconds. Along the side of the passageway, I’d been holding my breath; I felt like I had witnessed a near clash of the Titans. For this simple shed, I’m sure the tall motorcyclist pays a premium rent to the man who owns so many of the apartments in the building. The tall gentleman on the motorcycle does not live in the building, but rather someplace else nearby. The courtyard where the shed sits is also part of the evacuation plan for the restaurant behind our building, in case of fire. That’s good, because the main entrance to the restaurant is at the end of a long corridor – a potential disaster in the event of a fire that causes a human stampede. The fire exits to our courtyard are much closer to the dining areas. The night before, we’d dined in that big resto, Le Café Du Commerce. It seemed appropriate to eat there on the occasion of our last night in the 15th for this summer.
The restaurant gave us complimentary champagne and tapenade hors d’oeuvres to begin our feast. Au revoir, Café du Commerce. A l’annee prochaine! The excellent dinner was a fine send-off from the 15th. Cynthia S. wants to know more about our “new” quarter. It is not really new to us, of course, because we have been here for many Septembers now. But she means “new” in the sense that we just moved yesterday, from the one quarter to the other. These two left-bank arrondissements are very different, but Tom and I do not attempt to compare them in an evaluative way. We would not say that we prefer one over the other. If forced to phrase it very succinctly, I’d say that the 15th is more for living in Paris, and the 6th is a great place to stay if you are visiting Paris. But that’s selling the 6th a little short, and I don’t want to do that. And to say that the 15th is more authentic because you hear more French spoken there and much less English is also probably not fair. The 15th was only annexed to Paris in 1860, so it is much newer, but when we look at it, we would hardly say it is “new.” Some of it is, and some of it – with its old village-y charm – decidedly is not. The building where we are now was built in 1640, and the big door that the taxi driver was pushing open as he said, “this is pretty” is a listed historic monument. An objective observer would say the door looks knarly and old, not pretty. But to one who is smitten by the history of Paris, in the context of the building, the street, and the quaint courtyard within, that door is darned pretty. To enter the courtyard from the street is to pass through a “once upon a time” charming space. Once we were unpacked, settled in, and had a nice visit with our friends Ron and Elisabeth, across the landing from us, we ventured out to find some basic supplies. The irony of being here, even closer to the centerpoint of this great city, is that the grocery stores and other things we need for everyday living are farther way, a longer walk, than they are in the 15th. But I suppose that may be true in many big cities; for example, going to the grocery if you live in Brooklyn is probably generally more convenient than it is if you live in Manhattan. I knew that on a Sunday afternoon, our only neighborhood option was the Carrefour Express on the rue de Vaugirard, and Ron had confirmed this in our conversation. Fortunately, the very good bakery that we passed on the way was also open. So after we bought a few things at the frenzied, crowded, little Carrefour Express, we stopped at the bakery for a fine baguette. The long line in the bakery moved along quickly. Back at the apartment, we rested briefly and then walked out to the Place Saint Sulpice. We sat on a bench, gazed at the stately fountain, and watched a young man speaking to a group of people. I think these were potential new members of the Église Saint Sulpice.
The church also had some banners hanging on the square, seemingly using its music program (with that famous Cavaillé-Coll organ) to generate interest in attending services. That’s a good idea; it has worked on me. I have attended mass at Saint Sulpice; the music has attracted a Protestant like me. We rose to walk to dinner at the Bastide Odéon, over by the Luxembourg Palace and the Odéon National Theater. The resto seems to be staffed by a totally different crew than last year’s excellent team. The current group did a good job, but we found ourselves missing the ones who are gone. I ordered a starter of marinated slices of beefsteak tomatoes on a green salad, topped off with wonderful filets of marinated sardines. These are not the sardines of the salty, skinny, little tinned variety. These are fresh fish, much bigger, and not salty at all. Everything about the dish was cool, fresh, and zippy with flavor. I urged Tom to try the sardines; he did, and he was surprised at how good they were. His main course was a poulet fermier (roasted chicken, dark meat)
and roasted potatoes. Not that great,
he said. Tant pis. Mine was a prawn, calamari, and linguini dish with strips of roasted peppers. The sauce was a simple aioli, and many square shavings of fine Romano cheese topped it off. It was excellent, but copious; I had to leave most of the linguini on the plate. For dessert, Tom went for the giant and delicious millefeuille, made “at the last minute,” according to the menu. There was a mountain whose strata were layers of crispy, flakey fresh pastry interspersed with luscious spoonfuls of vanilla cream. As the server said, “Monsieur has made an excellent choice.”
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Monday, September 8, 2014
An excellent filet de
daurade at Le Café du Commerce (above), and steak and creme brulée (below). Tom also had some excellent fries with that
yummy steak.
On our last full day in the 15th this summer, crowds of
residents were visiting the various booths set up by community associations
in the Place du Commerce and the parvis
in front of the town hall on rue Peclet.
A live band played in the gazebo of the Place du Commerce. This is a typical neighborhood “rentrée” (back-to-school, beginning of
the new year) event. (Photo above, and two photos below.)
The fountain in the Place Saint Sulpice, flowing nicely and
in good repair this year.
Prawns and calamari on linguini, with Romano cheese, at La
Bastide Odéon. Below, the magnificent millefeuille.
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