Merci, merci beaucoup, Woody Allen.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Minuit dans Paris
Merci, merci beaucoup, Woody Allen.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Dead Words
The dearly departed's last words. THE last word. Lingering sentiments, fond wishes, the text on a tombstone. Here lies...
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Naples...
Roman Holiday
Along a river bank during sunset, parrots wing from branch to branch in the trees above us. A meal of deep-fried-in-olive oil artichoke and mozzarella smothered aubergines. Ruins braced by small deli's and gelato shops. Small lizards crawl over sunburnt plaster walls, leading up to paintings of the Virgin and Child protected by glass-enclosed intricately framed boxes.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
le Liliputian
Petite. That’s our apartment in Paris. That’s everyone’s apartment in Paris. Rather than complain, Jay and I have taken to cajoling and complimenting each other on our tiny Nid d’amour (that’s love nest). Take for example the bathroom, as Jay puts it, one can only wonder at the sheer genius of the French who figured out a way to fit a shower (albeit one resembling your high-school locker but with running water), into an airplane bathroom. This picture says it all really, except you can’t tell from this angle that the water heater is suspended directly overhead of the toilet. Yeah.
One of my pride and joys of our almost-adequate-abode is our very own beer and chevre fridge! While we may not have a freezer that can hold more than 1-2 ice cube bags(amazing blue sandwich-sized bags that you fill a one-way valve with water and freeze then smack on the counter and viola! A bag of little ice cubes!), it does hold 4 very large beers, a big piece of chevre rolled in herbs, and the leftovers from last night’s pico de galo that Jay made(we have really gotten into Mexican food living in Paris-no doubt a side effect from seeing more crepes, croissants and cassoulets then we ever thought possible). Our beer fridge is SUPPREMELY important since, with very few exceptions, you can’t buy refrigerated beer here. Instead it comes straight off the shelf in aisle 4 of the Franprix at room temp. You CAN however buy Mon Cheri candies by the dozen in a box at the 8-a’-Huit for 9 euros with enough boozy liqueur in them to (combined with the sugar), give you a mind bending buzz. These little chocolate gems are contraband in the states which is why before I come back for a visit I will be filling a suitcase with them and strapping as many boxes to my ribcage and thighs as my pencil skirts will allow!
Storage options are limited in our minute-maison as well. I have taken to stacking lamp shades where our TV used to be and the TV now lives behind the cupboard that has become my dresser. We never used the TV since the one time we tried we found French television to be primarily new music videos of artists we thought to be retired or dead, episodes of Friends with French dubbing (believe it or not it does NOT make Jennifer Aniston less annoying), and strange game shows with such loud volume that it makes it difficult for us to hear our neighbor playing the Doobie Bros, “Takin’ it to the Streets”.
All in all, I am enamored and inspired by how little we need to live a very full and beautiful life: episodes of Parks and Recreation downloaded on our computer, a shelf to hold our baguette and bottle of olive oil, a table to play Scrabble on while snacking on French chocolates, and a bed to collapse in after walking from the 9th to the 1st to enjoy a falafel and shop for the perfect pair of seersucker shorts.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
le Vrai Paris
Sometimes the best things about a place, are the things never mentioned in a travel brochure. They don’t make the latest Crave guide, and you won’t find them in Eat.Shop books. None the less, you find them and they color your day far brighter than the tulips in the Tulieries, or the less frequented, Cite de Fleurs.
One fine example is the locks on bridges all throughout Paris. Small bridges over quays of the Seine, large famous bridges like that of Pont Alexander III, or just random padlocks left along some water walkway not much traversed. Jay and I stumbled upon this padlock horde near Notre Dame Cathedral-the most famous love locks bridge-Pont de l'
One thing is for certain, Paris will surprise you. Even with all the films, poems, songs, photographs, tour books, guides and postcards; until you come spend time here, until you wander, get lost, find a better bakery than the ones David Lebowitz rants about online, you haven’t seen Paris at all. And you will never know all it’s secrets. You won’t unravel it’s mystique. A lifetime would not suffice to crumble away its fromage façade, because Paris is through and through every bit as wonderful as you want it to be, and so much more than you could ever imagine.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Pain et Fromage
I couldn’t live in Paris without devouring an assortment and impressive range of bread and cheese. This, compounded by living here with my lover who loves these two divine delicacies as much as I do, makes for some pretty serious snacking. Our fromagerie is two blocks from the house up Rue Lepic, our favorite in the city and our go-to for when we run out of chevre, comté or gouda vieux at the house. We do make pilgrimages, however, for more provincial cheeses-the 24 month comté, Tomme de Savoie, or the lovely Roquefort-papillion(literal translation: strong casting-butterfly, Dawn's translation:smelly cheese for cracker-snacking goodness).
La Fermette(The Farmhouse) fromagerie is amazing and is my favorite for all those stinky cheeses that most people shudder at but which the French(and I) adore and can’t get enough of. The smell is, in fact, how you find a cheese shop. C’est vrai! Just follow your nose and that funky smell will lead you to small mountains of goat cheese, wheels of Pont l'Eveque, and wedges and wedges of gruyere stacked in piles with baskets of brie. When Jay first arrived in Paris, he couldn’t fathom that smell would ever become an aromatic intoxicant, but now-more than me!- he can’t walk past a cheese shop without lingering with a lustful gaze on herb covered chevres, slices of gouda avec poivre, and delicate portions of d’Affinois.
There is no way to describe how sensational the boulangeries are here, suffice to say I love living in a country where the word Pain means BREAD.