Kitchen Culinaire

Paris view from the Pompidou

This is it. The final day of our trip and one final Paris post.

Our flight doesn’t leave until 3 pm and our bags are mostly packed and so we will still have the morning to take a walk around the neighbourhood and have a café crème at our favourite place at the end of our block.

Yesterday, when I was at the museum, I was thinking about what stood out as the most special part of our last two weeks here. The food we ate, the bakeries and museums and parks and landmarks we visited were all delicious/inspiring/amazing. The relaxed pace, the lovely apartment and the ease that my Mom and I have with each other also made for very happy days.

But the very best thing about our trip to Paris was just that we had plenty of time. The gift of two full weeks. To spend with each other and do what we wanted and talk and laugh and plan our days. Time to sit in a café in the afternoon having a glass of rosé and watch the world walk by. Time to talk long, long walks and think about the past and present and plan for the future.

Now I just need to figure out a way to inject a little bit of that spirit and space and time into my daily life at home. Especially when the pace gets crazy and I start to feel impatient and stretched. To find that precious time may require a less clean house or well-tended garden, it may mean less time on the computer and on the phone and a few other changes large and small.

I  do have some exciting/scary news to share once I get home. (No, I am not pregnant). I am hoping that this Parisian shift in perspective is going to come in handy over the next few months…

Now, onto cramming the last few treasures into my overflowing suitcase!

This is the Mona Lisa

I remember the first time I saw the Mona Lisa I was surprised at how small it was. This is certainly not a glass half empty comment. The painting is absolutely impressive when viewed up close but when you enter the Denon Wing, first floor, room six in the Louvre and you see La Joconde (which is what the French call her) way over there, on the far side of the room through a sea of people wielding their cameras and iphones and video recorders you just may be surprised by the actual dimensions.

I headed down to the Louvre this morning but forgot that there is free admission on Sunday which meant that by the time I arrived there were literally thousands of people lined up in the sunshine. My Mom was back at the hotel nursing her brand new cold and I really didn’t have any other plans so I joined the line and asked the guard how long he figured it would be to get in. He told he thought it would be a an hour and a half to two hours. We ended up striking up a bit of a conversation and after a few minutes he leaned in close and whispered, “You know, the entrance at the Porte des Lions does not have any line-up at all…”

I remembered that years ago Glen and I had used this “secret” entrance to gain admission without any wait time and best of all I still remembered exactly where it was. I thanked my new friend and made my way over to the unmarked side entrance and just as he predicted there was not a single person waiting.

I spent the next couple of hours wandering around checking out the Italian, Spanish and French paintings, the Greek and Roman Antiquities, the Islamic art and the sculptures.  Truthfully though, I spent as much time looking at all of the people as the art collection. I saw babies crying, kids playing, families with crabby parents who were annoyed that their kids weren’t taking the art “seriously” enough, couples making out, old people holding hands. An art gallery of humanity.

Veal with apples and cider sauce at Chez Toinette

Our time is winding down here. Today we had to move from our comforting and lovely apartment into a hotel for our final two nights. Luckily it is the same hotel that we stayed in last year and only a ten minute walk from the flat on Avenue Junot and so Mom and I rolled our (now very heavy) suitcases over the cobblestone streets to our new digs.

We weren’t able to check in until 2:30 pm and so we had a leisurely coffee and croissant at a café on Rue Abbesses and then wandered down the Rue des Martyrs with all of its wonderful food shops and cafés (the Rose Bakery is located on this street) and then continued to walk on the Rue Montmartre down to the St. Eustache Church.

When we did check in we were surprised to find our beautiful room on the 4th floor came equipped with a lovely terrasse, a split of Champagne, a bouquet of roses, some chocolate and free wifi! What more could we want?

We will miss our spacious apartment but one of the true perks of moving to the Hotel des Arts is that it is ten minutes closer to Chez Toinette where we had a dinner reservation for tonight.

We ate here last week and enjoyed it very much but tonight was even better. Muza, the main waiter welcomed us back warmly and gave us the best table in the restaurant. My Mom started with the escargot and I had the veal carpaccio and then for our main courses Mom went with the veal with apples and cider sauce and I had the pan fried scallops a al provençal. For dessert we shared the crème brûlée and Muza poured me a glass of rosé wine on the house. We really love this place.

Now we are tucked into our double bed and planning what we should do on our final day in Paris. I am voting for a trip to the Louvre as it seems somehow wrong to come to Paris and not spend at least a couple of hours at this cultural haven. My Mom is not so sure and would be just as happy to wander the streets in our neighbourhood soaking up the laid back Sunday afternoon atmosphere and maybe even sample the wares of a bakery or two…

Lunch today was a croque madame on Poîlane bread and a glass of rosé

I have thoroughly enjoyed eating my way around the city these last twelve days. It is funny though, the most memorable meals that my Mom and I have eaten in Paris have not been from the fancy or famous restaurants that we visited.

The food and meals that we have enjoyed the very most have been from bistros and brasseries where the classics dishes are prepared with care and love and a sense of culinary history. The French take their food very seriously and I think this shines through most brightly in the day to day cooking that is simple and straightforward and relies on very good quality ingredients and a light touch.

On my way to do some gift shopping for Max and Glen this afternoon I stopped at a little cafe, grabbed an outside table and ordered the most deeply satisfying lunch: a glass of rosé and a croque madame sandwich which came with a little salad of arugula and some slices of tomato with a basil vinaigrette. When I cut into the egg on top it bathed the sandwich in the runny yolk which mixed in with the melted Gruyère cheese. Pretty simple stuff but pure gustatory bliss.

I sat and ate and watched the world go by. I thought about how to capture this artful simplicity in French cooking and bottle it up and bring it home with me, right into my own kitchen.

An evening walk in Montmatre

Today was the perfect day in Paris.

I know that I have been saying that almost everyday (except for the day that the waiter yelled at me) but today was particularly perfect. This didn’t stem from a particular event but was more of a overall feeling and both my Mom and I felt it.

Do you ever have those fleeting moments when you feel perfectly at home in the world?

They don’t happen everyday but today was a day where me, my Mom and Paris truly clicked. We didn’t do anything earth shattering, in fact we went and saw and did far less than on most of the other days of our visit.

I did get up early to have coffee with my friend Jack who moved to Paris, from Vancouver, a couple of years ago. In addition to his teaching and writing gigs he also oversees the sublet on an apartment his friends rent three months each summer when they head back to Canada. We were ostensibly meeting for me to check out the flat for a possible future stay but the highlight of our time together was having a cafe crème at his local café and talking for 45 minutes.

I came home to have a late breakfast with my Mom and then we headed down to the Rodin museum which is one of my very favourite spots in Paris. It seems an odd choice in many ways. In general I am not a big sculpture fan or even a huge Rodin fan but this museum with the display of works in his one-time temporary accommodations, surrounded by rose gardens and a large pond and a stunning view of the Eiffel Tower wins me over every time. It is a small collection of his works, some of which are displayed in the gardens, and so one always has enough time to thoughtfully appreciate each piece.

On our way to the Rodin Museum my Mom found the “Paris dress” that she has been coveting since our arrival. We stumbled upon a lovely dress shop with a patient and enthusiastic sales lady and voila, my Mom found a flattering cream coloured, scoop neck, sleeveless, light crepe material dress with small flecks of blue and green. The flecks look a bit like confetti and she is planning on wearing it to my cousin’s wedding so that made it all the more perfect.

Tonight we met up with my very, very dear and sweet friend Jeannot for dinner. Jeannot is a Parisian born film and television director who frequently visits us in Vancouver and he is truly one of my favourite people in the world. He is a man that always makes you feel like your best self.

Jeannot is spending a few months in Europe with his family before heading back to Los Angeles for work in August. His family is based in London and so it was sheer good luck that he happened to be in Paris during our stay. We planned to have dinner and he booked us a reservation at one of his favourite bistros just off the Champs Élysées.

Chez Savy is a traditional French bistro and we enjoyed everything from the charcuterie plate with the saucisson sec to the raw mushroom salad and the lamb shoulder main course to the cherry clafoutis, cheese course and a mirabelle eau de vie. The laughter and conversation were very good too.

After dinner we walked down Avenue Montaigne and saw the Eiffel Tower lit up in all of it’s glory. It was on my Mom’s list of things to see in Paris.

And then, on our walk home from the métro, we witnessed the lights in our neighbourhood that were quietly impressive and inspiring in their own way. The perfect ending to our very, very good day.