Still More Wine
After our adventures with Reisling on Saturday, we carried home a modest half dozen bottles. We would have bought more, but we didn't have our grocery cart. However, we still had a ticket to
the show and it didn't end until yesterday. Consequently, I elected to continue the research in some other directions after my Monday class. After all, there were in the neighbourhood of 800 exhibitors from all over France, so we only scratched the surface on the first pass.
The ticket admitted two, so I conscripted a fellow from my French class, IS, to join me. After some lunch to prepare the stomach, we set off trailing the
chariot. I again made a list of medal winners, this time focusing on light reds and, mostly because I like to say it, Châteauneuf-du-Pape. With these mapped out, we hopped from one little booth to another. Traditional,
grand cru, vieille vignes, and on to the next. We tried to stay focused but occasionally digressed to something a vintner wanted to present.
I took notes at each stall, upon which to base later purchases. I paced myself fairly well and kept an eye on my blood alcohol, but by two-thirty things started to get a little fuzzy. IS had enough and departed, and I had a sandwich to soak up the alcohol. Talking to the people behind the counters was often much of the fun, but there came a point where the wine wasn't helping my French, even to my ears. After another hour or so, I could see an end in sight to any productive discernment, and since I also wanted to do a tour of Gewürztraminer, I switched my focus. Around five o'clock, I took out the notes that I'd scratched on the information sheets and business cards of the vintners and sorted out the ones with asterisks. Then I dashed around the floor again filling the cart. I brought the haul home, intact, on the rush hour bus.
Fourteen bottles, including mostly Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris but with a few Chinon: nothing to impress the serious
cave-ist, but a good start for us - and just a whole lot of FUN.
Marco Dorade
Recent posts have talked a lot about the food and drink we've been enjoying, and I fear presenting the house-husband view as my only perspective; however we have been entertaining a bit lately and with Janet up to her eyeballs in Turkey it's up to me to get the food to the table. There's little to report about job-hunting or French class at the moment, but I'm sure this current domestic phase will end all too soon.
This is apropos of our latest entertaining episode, in which S, an erstwhile colleague of Janet's in town for a couple of days on business, came for Sunday dinner. I selected a recipe for Red Snapper, made a list of ingredients, and headed off for the usual Sunday morning market trip. The problem is that the names of fish are totally different from the English, may vary greatly depending on whether the same fish was caught in the Atlantic or Mediterranean, and cannot always be found in a French/English dictionary. I did my research this time, and I looked up a picture of a Red Snapper in my Book of Ingredients (thanks, mum). Nonetheless, after canvassing every fish stall in the market, I was all at sea
: there was nothing labelled anything like what the dictionary translated "snapper" to be (lutjanidé), and the only fish that looked the right shape, called Dorade, wasn't red. I asked a couple of the fishmongers for their help, but they didn't know the English any better than I knew the French. One agreed that the Dorade might be it, because it also comes in a red-hued version (Rose Dorade, which nobody had either); but it was larger than I expected a Red Snapper to be - and of course, it wasn't red. After more dithering, and with the fishmongers by this time closing up around me, I elected to grab a Dorade. This was rapidly trimmed of its fins and scaled for me (do you have to scale Red Snapper?) and wrapped up for twelve euros, "un cadeau" I was informed.
At home I was confronted with further problems, since how do you cook a fish when you don't even know what it is? I surfed the net for insights (and recipes) but couldn't entirely confirm one way or the other that I didn't have a red snapper, although I was left with the impression that the only relationship this fish had to the intended main dish was a pronounced forehead. The recipe I had originally selected called for frying, and Marco (as I had dubbed him by the evening) wouldn't fit in our largest stove-top pan. So, tap dancing like mad and trying to keep Janet and our guest out of the chaotic kitchen with hors d'ouevres and wine, I adapted (made up) the recipe and baked him under foil. He barely fit in our modest oven.
In the end, the kitchen gods smiled. I served Marco, his vacant smile tightened to a dark grimace in the oven, on a bed of couscous, flavoured with Morrocan spices from Bon Marché, and he was absolutely succulent: moist, juicy and flavourful. S, fighting jet lag, was scintillating company. She had provided dessert, a chocolatey confection procured at a patisserie en route from her hotel. And, furthermore, she absolutely insisted on helping with the dishes. Now that's a good guest.
More Wine
Another Saturday together (the only day Janet will permit herself not to work). The traditional savoury omelette and we're off like a shot, cruising the sample tables in the Bon Marché food hall by 2:30. We also checked out their Christmas windows, which had little platforms in front to help the kids see.
A colleague of Janet's provided us with tickets to a huge tasting of
independent wineries at the exhibition halls. Two floors of a massive exhibition hall filled with little stalls for each little winery. You were given a glass when you entered, and then all the tastings were free. We commenced by seeking out the medal winners from Alsace, and trying their Reislings. When we started to lose our ability to distinguish, we switched to reds, made another list of medal winners further south (looking for places where we might spend a long weekend), and tasted until we started to lose track of more than which wine was best. We came home with a modest six bottles, and a goal of becoming sufficiently educated in oenology by next year that we can pick out the real bargains for a cellar.
Café Flo
It is D&T's turn to have guests this week, five university-era friends using a fortieth birthday of one of their number as an excuse. We joined the whole gang for dinner last night at the original
Café Flo. This establishment has become a bit of a chain, even unto the cafeteria in the chi-chi department store
Printemps. The interior was remarkable authentic art nouveau, and they even appear to have preserved the patina of nicotine that the ceiling has acquired over the decades.
Dinner was properly leisurely, taking three hours from nine-thirty in the evening. Most of us had the house specialty of Alsatian
choucroute. Despite T's assurances to the contrary, the last metro train must have gone through the station around a quarter to one, and after some increasingly insistent announcements on the metro public address system (the insistence not increasing its comprehensibility) we finally understood we were to proceed to the exits, where we joined a lengthy line for taxis.
More Cheese
Some of the fun of the market is found in the rituals of preparation. I bought a
poulet fermier (free range chicken) today and watched whilst the cheerful butcher weighed the bird, cut off various undesirable bits, salted and peppered the cavity, then bathed it all with a blowtorch; meanwhile I and the other customers were treated to samples of some of the sausages on offer and chocolate truffles.
But a bit of research will help before venturing into the marketplace. This I discovered when I went a few stalls down to buy some Gruyère. "
De Gruyère, si vous plait." I said, but received a blank look in return. My cheese book says that Gruyère is one of the great French cheeses, so it must have been pronunciation. I tried again, annunciating more carefully, but got only a questioning look and a gesture towards the Emmental. My "Gruyère" sounds like Emmental? I dithered some more, and fell back on asking for something fairly strong, whereupon the
vendeuse firmly indicated a yellow slab labeled "Beaufort", which looked close enough so I gave up and accepted a large chunk.
Back at home I consulted the cheese book again. It turns out that there are three types of Gruyère: Emmental (sometimes considered its own type), Comté and Beaufort, of which the latter is referred to as "the prince of Gruyères", owing to its use of extremely rich milk. Since I intended it for sandwiches, either of its less pricey cousins would have sufficed; and thus the lesson about research.
Another Visitor
Yesterday was a relatively lazy Sunday for me, while Janet went off to work. I pursued the market routine on the rue de Versailles, and puttered for the afternoon.
Janet's Aunt Lois came over for dinner and we made the lamb and mushroom dish that had been so successful earlier to try to put a further dent in the mushrooms. This was done; however in the morning I had succumbed to a deal on 2 kilos of tomatoes so we have another challenge.
Lois had more tales of Paris adventure from her month here than we have accumulated in two.
Shopping In the Marais
Yesterday was, in a way, our first day to actually enjoy Paris together. We had no urgent chores, no deadlines, no timetable to meet. We could just go out and look around for ourselves.
Up at a decent hour, coffee, breakfast, and we were out the door at the crack of noon. (Because we had somehow accumulated in our fridge a large number of mushrooms in several varieties, the morning included a large mushroom omelette. This may have delayed our launch a little.)
We first headed towards Avenue Victor Hugo to a shopping area seen from the bus but not yet explored. We immediately bagged a pair of boots and shortly after a winter coat, contributing to my stylish wife's evolution from a Torontonian to a Parisian.
We emerged at the Arc de Triomphe and took the metro to the
Marais, where we found lunch and simply wandered amongst the shops. This area is a little curious because, owing to its history as a Jewish area of town, many of the shops are closed on Saturday yet many are open on Sunday. One can find oneself on a block where all the storefronts are firmly shut, then turn the corner and be again amongst shopping throngs.
We added little to our purchases, but strolled here and there and tried things on. We drifted out of the streets and into BHV, our department/hardware store. We had brought a list, but the Saturday crowds were too daunting, and we cut it to a few essentials and departed for home.
On the metro on the way home we had corroborated for us the advisory that line 1 is heavily frequented by thieves. Stopped in the station, outside the open doors directly opposite where we were standing, there was a sudden commotion and shouts of "police". Two or three plainclothes police immobilized two people, one of whom was a more indignant than guilty-looking West African man. The other I couldn't see. Handcuffs emerged and just as things were calming down half a dozen uniformed police arrived (in the pillbox caps that make them almost as quaint as London bobbies) and there was more commotion as they wrestled the passive prisoners to the ground. I was sorry that our recent guests missed the show, since A in particular would have found it professionally interesting.
Guests and Entertaining
We have had our first guests and now have even entertained in our apartment for the first time. Friends of Janet's from her old office were in Paris and came over Wednesday evening to join us and A&M for an aperitif. We served flutes of kir royale, just to be oh so French. All were effusive in their praise of our apartment, which was very gratifying to the host and hostess after the last month. The six of us then went out for dinner at one of our nicer neighbourhood places, and had a lively party.
Yesterday was the day the Nouveau Beaujolais officially arrives, and all of the bars and restaurants acknowledged the occasion with signs and specials. I met A&M after my French class for a bottle of the '05 with lunch.
After a last day that took us up Montmartre for the sunset and to Oberkampf for a modest pub crawl, they departed this morning. They were perfect guests, and even left behind some of the Paris books they brought with them, for the next occupants of our guest room.
Versailles
A&M arrived Saturday morning, adjusted rapidly to the time change, and have been tearing around Paris all week. Yesterday I tagged along to Versailles. They prepared a picnic while I was at French class, then we took a bus from the end of our metro line to the chateau.
The place is fantastic, of course. Pictures and descriptions cannot prepare you for the scope of a place that was once someone's house, albeit a house where complex affairs of state and rituals of court etiquette were conducted.
The grounds are especially impressive, and I plan to go back at other times of the year. While the time of year saw us avoiding the crowds, much was prepared for winter. It would be nice to see the fountains and the flower beds at their best.
Unbelievable splendour notwithstanding, I was disappointed with the presentation and explanatory materials. We all rented the audio guide, and while I imagine that most of the time they need to encourage people to move through the apartments without lingering, there's no excuse for the paltry information provided on the disk. There was a short explanation of each room and in all but a few cases, nothing further. There could have been additional selections to explain aspects of the decor, individual paintings and furniture, or post-revolutionary history. The audio guides covered only limited areas of chateau, and the signage added little. Where the audio left off, the signage was no more comprehensive.
The audio guide also entirely ignores the last two hundred years, as though nothing has happened at Versailles since the mob hauled away the aristocrats. Wasn't there a treaty or something...?
It really seems like all the information provided for the tourists was an afterthought. Even maps and brochures were brief and uncomprehensive. The vast numbers of admissions, each charged a rather steep fare, would suggest more than adequate revenue for such things. Granted maintenance must cost a bundle, but one feels a little milked.
Rain held off for our picnic, but it started to pour while we were exploring Marie Antoinette's
hameau, the remarkable little play village built for her to entertain herself with peasant fantasies. Another place worth re-visiting.
A Sense Of Accomplishment
A full day of hefting, hammering and hauling, but we now have a home fit for entertaining! Painting done, furniture in place, and the guest room ready. We did a little shopping and for the first time since we got here have been able to "put some flowers 'round my home."
We toasted our new home with champagne before (a very late) dinner.
Exhausted. To bed.
Three Mushrooms
In the course of our Sunday food shopping in our street market near Port St. Cloud, we obtained some Brobdingnagian mushrooms to be used with lamb in one of Janet's favored recipes. When our total was given they turned out to cost, at almost 20 euros per kilo, nearly 30 euros for three mushrooms. There isn't a lot of time for second thoughts in the crush of the rue de Versailles marketplace, so we paid and carried on.
Back at home we were apprehensive that the dish would do justice to such elevated mushrooms; indeed, we wondered if once cut up and cooked one would actually notice the difference between these and more pedestrian fungii. Even truffles can be hard-pressed to justify their expense, in my opinion. Could these
penny bun boletus mushrooms (we looked them up later) really justify such a cost?
As it turned out, dinner was fantastic. Certainly the chef deserves her due, and the lamb played a key part. But we've never before come to the end of a meal where, with furtive looks towards the neighbouring building in case anyone was at their window, we picked up our plates and licked them.
Janet's diplomat friend observed the other night that one spends a lot more on food here, everybody does. But you do because it's worth it.
The Fragrance Of Feet
Janet finds that she gets very good attention in a
fromagerie when she explains to the person behind the counter that she moved to France for a job but her husband moved for the cheese. Well, that somehow implies that I would have come without her, which of course is ridiculous. But there is a grain of truth there somewhere.
She's also fond of pointing out that the really good (in many poeple's opinions) stuff smells like feet. Now, if your feet were to smell as odiferous as the cheese she brought home yesterday, you ought to see a podiatrist PDQ. But, yum!
Paris Is Not Burning
After seeing the news on the Globe's site and others, I feel that I ought to provide a firsthand report of the riots in the suburbs of Paris. And, based on the questions that have been coming from home, clearly a breathless eyewitness account of carnage is expected. Alas, there has been no sign of problems here in the 16th. No mobs in the streets, no columns of oily smoke, no police on the street corners.
One of the friends with whom we had dinner last night works at the Canadian embassy and is involved in sending reports about the situation back to Ottawa; yet we all agreed that it might as well be on another continent for all that we're affected. It's certainly in the papers (although it got knocked off the front page of The Metro by the opening of Kirsten Dunst's latest movie), but not with any more than the usual journalistic disapprobation.
Of course, the degree to which most of the French are insulated from the bleak conditions and absent prospects of those living in the
banlieue may be partly why they're rioting.
Painting Progress
The living room is finished and we unpacked much of its furniture on Sunday. It feels funny to be sitting on the sofa in our
salon, back to a 'normal' we've never actually known but that we always visualized for it.
We finally found curtains and have moved into our bedroom. It's yellow like at home; but half the width and twice the height. Noisier, too; but except for the scooters (they sound like chainsaws on wheels) I'll get used to it.
We'll have dinner with friends tonight, but then it's one big push through to Friday and the arrival of our guests. The vestibule will get painted, but more than that is hard to say. The den will still be boxes to the ceiling; little will be hung on the walls; and the bathrooms will lack towel rods, lights over the mirrors, and a fresh coat of paint.
Frigo
Our second-hand fridge kicked its castor-clad feet in the air last weekend and slipped this mortal refrigeration coil. A bit unexpected, given we’d only had the thing for a month, but it was not a young fridge and I guess it had been stressed in the move.
Living without refrigeration, while not the worst possible urban privation, was awkward. There was initially a push to eat everything possible, but we lost a lot of good food before we could consume it, including some nice French cheese and chicken soup I’d made myself from scratch. Naturally, one doesn’t like to chuck anything until it has convincingly expired, so the week has been one of “How about this? Ew, yuck
”, as things were progressively discarded. Eventually, everything edible was in plastic bags on the counter, and dinner was purchased daily. Consequently I was elated to take delivery of a new appliance this afternoon. We had debated finding another one second-hand, since we’d be more likely to find one in American dimensions that we could afford; but fearing a repetition of the week’s difficulties we ordered a new one from Darty (it’s kind of like Future Shop, plus). It’s large by local standards, but we’ll have to manage our groceries a little more carefully than we’re used to doing.
Its European provenance is revealed not only by its size. There is a handy little guide printed on the door of the freezer that uses pictograms to indicate the maximum length of time that one ought to keep different types of food frozen before consumption. The common food items shown include rabbit and duck (4-6 months and 7-9, respectively), and the four examples for 10-12 months are pears, aubergines, artichokes and deer. Clearly we’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. (Say, can anyone explain why it seems to be okay to freeze a chicken for 4-6 months whereas turkey drumsticks should not be kept for more than 2-3?)
And They Call It the City of Light
We are not meant to have light bulbs in this place.
Janet bought three second-hand lamps before we moved in, so that we'd have something by which to work. I managed to knock one over in our first week in the apartment, blowing the bulb. I thought I'd broken the lamp altogether, but it turned out it had simply tripped the circuit breaker.
I bought a pair of replacement bulbs, however the spare was required very shortly, when I knocked over a lamp again and shattered the bulb. My clumsiness was compounded by the fact that I did it in front of my wife, and became the butt of some "light" humour.
The jokes stopped when she brought home several packages of replacement bulbs and we discovered that they were all for push-and-twist sockets, instead of the familiar screw-in type, which all of our lamps have.
We bought another table lamp on Monday, from Ikea. We took a pair of bulbs from the bin right next to where we found it, carefully checking that the socket was the correct type for the lamp. They were the expensive long-life conservation type. When we got them home I discovered that while the socket was correct, there simply wasn't space under the shade for the bulb, which is slightly larger than a regular bulb of its type due to the extra energy-saving electronics in the collar.
Another Ikea lamp I installed this weekend didn't light up when I switched it on this morning. It turned out to also be controlled from the wall switch, which had been turned off by Janet; but I was ready to give up and light candles before that was revealed.
