Paris day 3

We got up early to go to market. Since it's Sunday, we'd bought nice bread yesterday anticipating that the bakeries would be closed today (in fact, most aren't; the closest one to us closes Mondays and is open Sundays). The loaf is called a meunier, and it's a round, tall loaf. We ate it with cheese and melon (a fabulous, perfectly ripe melon from the grocery around the corner), and had of course coffee. Variations on this will be our breakfast while we are in Paris, though most days we'll have a baguette of one kind of another.

We walked to market at Place Monge. We bought strawberries and cherries that ended up pretty disappointing. Some African of possibly Creole women were selling some fantastic-smelling prepared foods, and we bought some little fired vegetable turnovers they called samoussas de légumes, which were unbelievably good. I bought some dried sausages, as I always do: one called maigre (lean) tradition and four little cocktail-sized saucisses aux noix. We bough radishes, too. Then we walked to the markets on Mouffetard and bought cheese there (a crottin de chèvre, some sort of tomme, and nice soft fondant of some sort).

After a rest at the apartment we went walking again. We ended up in the Marais where we had two falafel sandwiches from L'As du Falafel. Instead of sitting in our usual playground to eat them, we ate while walking. Bertillon (best ice cream in Paris) is closed Monday and Tuesday, so we had to be sure to go today, but after lunch, we weren't hungry. What to do? Walk more! We walked around the Marais, paused at Place des Vosges, the had coffee at a café near Place St. Paul, and then headed toward Ile St Louis.

We stopped on the way, spontaneously, at the European museum of photography (that's not the correct name; I don't have the correct one handy). There were several exhibits. One was called Memento Mori, and featured large, sometimes blurry, black & white photos that had a sort of abstract quality. One was Trash – a guy took the garbage of famous people, laid it out nicely, and photographed it. That was surprisingly interesting and a little fun; sometimes depressing (Liz Taylor's garbage featured several boxes of food from Jenny Craig). One seemed to be photos of the dies that make engines (not very interesting). One was Androids Need Love, Too, and featured mostly computer-generated faces (sometimes interactive). A very disturbing video called "deep kiss" in that exhibit featured two computer-generated faces kissing – but as their lips approached each other, their other features (nose, cheeks) would just overlap, like they were melting into each other. The last exhibit, Earthlings, featured off kilter photos of people (& sometimes animals) in mostly ordinary situations. They often emphasized a sort of grotesque quality, and photographed from an angle or point of view that a person would not normally chose.

Then we had ice cream. Tony: pamplemouse rouge, rhubarbe, et groseille. Eric: caramel au beurre salée, praliné au pignons. So good. So good!

My friend Graziella had been in Nantes for a few days, and had returned late last night. We met her at Odéon to find dinner.

First we went to Café Rostand, across from the Jardins de Luxembourg, for a drink. Eric: white Sancerre. Tony: Dubonnet. Graziella: hot wine. They gave us popcorn & green olives.

Then we went for dinner to a restaurant on Mabillon right next to last night's restaurant. The name written on the matchbook we grabbed (Bistrot Mazarin) doesn't match what we seem to recall (Grille something). Tony: gravlax w/ toast and some sort of tasty sauce (yummy); steak tartare (not as tender as I would have liked; a little disappointing). Eric: magret de canard poëlée aux pêches (delicious; Eric suspects it was the best dish at the table). Graziella: giant slice of terrine de foie gras de canard with chutney (yummy). It came w/ a glass of sauternes or muscadet or some such thing, which Graziella didn't want, but I tasted. It was very botrytis-y and syrupy; I thought it was a good match for the foie gras. We all shared a bottle of Bourgueil.

Then we went to the Frog and Princess, a British expat bar which has a trivia quiz (in English and French) every Sunday night, which Graziella usually goes to each week. It was remarkably fun!

Labels: france, journal

posted by Tony at 5:01 PM