Paris Journal 2014 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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We strolled away from the apartment, past the wall with the poem by Rimbaud, into the elegant square in front of the Saint Sulpice church. The church is very inviting and open this year; we entered and slowly walked the circuit around its interior, in a counterclockwise direction, so that we visited the Delacroix paintings first. Then we entered the Sacristy – everyplace seemed to be open in the church this time. A nice man walked into the room behind us, and asked if he could help. Booklets about the church and music CD recordings of the organ concerts are now available there, he said. We thanked him and explained that we just wanted to look at the beautiful carved wood panels in that room. These were restored with funds donated by Americans. At the far corner of the church, we went into a hallway that houses a marvelous, oval, spiraling, stone staircase ascending up several floors. Back inside the sanctuary, we continued our circuit. When we reached the Mary chapel, I sat down to meditate for a short time, then we walked on down the other side of the nave. The severe beauty of Saint Sulpice moves me every time. Upon leaving the church, we decided to walk through the narrow streets to the north, a remnant of near-medieval Paris. The rue des Cannettes, and then the rue de Ciseaux, and out the other side we went, back into a more modern-day Paris with speeding cars and wider streets, beginning with the rue de Four and then the magnificent, broad boulevard Saint Germain. Window shopping along the boulevard is always fun, and in no time, we realized we were near FNAC Digitale. We both were thinking of buying a CD player, because the ones in the apartment do not work. We need to play our ocean surf background sound CDs to cover up the obnoxious noise of the constantly playing, brain-rotting television belonging to the literary critic (!) immediately downstairs from us. Alas, the FNAC Digitale is gone! Disparu! Perhaps the one that opened in the Beaugrenelle shopping mall replaces it. Tant pis. That reminded us of another significant (for us) disappearance that we’d recently noticed: the little restaurant on the corner, just down the block from “our” apartment, is also closed permanently. The name of the place, Au Bon Saint Pourçain, was taken from the wine that was featured on its menu. François Bonduel, who started the resto many years ago, has retired, according to our friends Ron and Elisabeth. And his daughter Fabienne now works at Chez Philippe, just down the street on rue Servandoni. We did not dine at the Saint Pourçain often. The menu was very traditional and limited, and a bit too expensive for what it was. But often, the food there was very good. Occasionally, it was not. The place was tired. François did not own it, Ron and Elisabeth explained; he only rented the space. So now it is up to the building owner to do renovations and find a new locataire. François Bonduel had a long career in the restaurant business in Paris. He started as a server at the famous Deux Magots. Then he and his colleague Franck Pasquet started the Bon Saint Pourçain. We wish them both the best in their retirement, and we wish Fabienne the best in her ongoing career. Life goes on. We left the former site of the
FNAC Digitale and visited the former Cordeliers
convent that houses part of the massive medical school of the Sorbonne (the
corner of the rue Hautefeuille and the rue de l’École de Médecine). We like the garden in the ancient cloister,
with its awesome statues, including the one of death itself. In that former convent is an old
museum of anatomy (Musée Dupuytren)
which we intend to visit this year. It
houses, among other things, Paul Pierre Broca’s
brain collection, which Tom referenced in his book The Ivory Leg in the Ebony Cabinet:
Madness, Race, and Gender in Victorian America. We turned onto the rue Antoine
Dubois, which is for pedestrians only because part of it is a wide, steep set
of stairs. Antoine Dubois was a
surgeon who is known for improving a number of surgical instruments, most
notably the forceps. He was also the
father of the more famous obstetrician Paul Antoine Dubois. I was photographing interesting,
ancient doors in this neighborhood.
No, we sure aren’t in the 15th arrondissement anymore. At the top of the steps, we
turned right on the rue Monsieur le Prince, and soon we were in the busy
little intersection called the Carrefour de l’Odéon. I showed Tom the attractive brasserie
called Les Editeurs where I had lunch with another
Barbara C. during the summer of 2011. The Danton brasserie, across the
street is also very attractive. We
spotted a fascinating costume and mask shop there, too. Moving on down the rue des Quatre Vents which quickly becomes the rue Lobineau, we paused to photograph the tiny resto aptly called Le Petit Fernand. It is an excellent bistro, but it is indeed
tiny, and therefore crowded. After a brief rest and freshening
up at the apartment, we went back out across the Place Saint Sulpice to the rue Guisarde,
where we had a Lafourchette.com reservation at La Bastide
d’Opio. We
were seated in the open front window, which was wonderful because the evening
was balmy and beautiful. The décor of the resto has been neatened and cleaned up, and the food is
just as good or maybe even better than last
year. A young woman was expertly
running the dining room. Her English
was passable, and absolutely necessary in this area
which is overrun by tourists. There
were a couple of French speaking couples in the restaurant last night, but
they were a small minority. One group of three American
women embarrassed us by their rudeness.
Well, I guess it was just one of them who was
particularly loud and rude. Another table next to us was
occupied by two American couples who were very nice and well-mannered; they
did not embarrass us. An interesting-looking older
couple who were speaking English in the resto
turned out to be from Chile. Our starter course was an order
of Ravioles du Royan –
little ravioli stuffed with cheese and herbs, a specialty from the Rhône Alpes region of France.
A food critic at foodandpassion.blogspot.fr says this dish is “the
perfect cure to a long, hard day.”
That’s what Tom needed, because he’d worked hard on the next edition
of Back to the Lake, all day long,
right up to 5 or 6PM. These Ravioles du Royan were served in a creamy,
herb-laced sauce topped with shredded cheese which had been crisped under a
broiler. The dish was served piping
hot, still in the little cast iron pan in which it was cooked. Tom ordered salmon which came
with some yummy ratatouille and salad.
The salmon was perfectly grilled, and was dressed by just a bit of
herbs in olive oil. My main course was tournedos of duck breast, accompanied
by stunningly delicious, small roasted potatoes. My duck, which I ordered to be cooked “à point,” came out perfectly: very, very rosy and moist. The woman at the table next to ours, who
ordered the duck “medium rare” was disappointed because the duck was dry and
overcooked; it was medium to well done.
Go figure. The dessert we shared was an
amazingly good, homemade Mirabelle (golden plum) tart prepared like a clafouti.
All in all, we had to say the
dinner at La Bastide d’Opio
was significantly better than the fancier Bastide d’Odeon. That was
a bit of a surprise. Alas, I need to sign off now. I did not get enough sleep last night, thanks to the rude neighbor and his television downstairs. A demain.
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Tuesday, September 9, 2014
This one is for my sister:
Saint Sulpice, in all is stark splendor.
Stairway (above) and Mary chapel (below) in Saint Sulpice.
Statue in the former Cordeliers convent cloister – now part
of the medical school.
Ravioles
du Royan were
amazingly good at Bastide d’Opio.
Below, the salmon and the duck.
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