Around Town

Street art in my neighborhood.

Vines.

I just like the textures and shadows here.

Bold outlines.

So peely and drippy.

More street art from the 'hood.

A watcher.

Another watcher.

Ble Sucre (Paris 2.10)

Vanilla financier, cocoa sable, lemon glazed madeleine.

So, on my daily snoop walk, I discovered Ble Sucre, a pastry shop in my neighborhood... I am positively bursting with sugar and butter right now.

Paris 2.7, 2.8, 2.9

True to form, I've been neglectful of this little blog over the past few days.
Here's what I've been up to:
On Sunday I walked to and from the Marais. Being one of the only areas in the city where shops other than large international chains are open, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to once again peruse for souvenirs. I'm not really a magnets and keychains kind of girl~ instead, I was looking for an interesting piece of jewelry designed and made in Paris. You know, something that I can cherish and wear for years to come without serious fashion regrets (like the dreadful platform sneakers incedent of 1998).
I found what I was looking for in a tiny little boutique called Matieres a Reflexion. This place is pretty fabulous, and believe me, I could spend some serious dough here. The shop is bursting at the seems with unique pieces of jewelry, leather bags that are made from old leather jackets, and shoes and clothing from up-and-coming designers. Most of it is designed and made in Paris, and most of it is actually affordable! After seriously contemplating an extremely cute pair of boots, I settled on a pair of art nouveau inspired earrings... though I'm not going to lie, I'm still contemplating the boots.
Monday was a gorgeous day, so I decided to hoof it up to Montmartre to check out the Sacre Couer. Google maps estimated it would take me about 1 hour to get there by foot. Oh, how wrong the estimate was. Still, it was  nice day, and it was interesting to see the city rather than traveling down below in its bowels.
Tuesday skies brought some of the most torrential rains I have witnessed in my life. I could hear the rain bouncing off the cobbled courtyard from two stories up! The sky was almost charcoal colored, and the wind howled like a caged wolf. I chose to stay in and watch movies. Boring, I know, but hey, the last thing I need right now is to catch a cold from being soaked to the bone.

Les Puces (Paris 2.6)

After being lazy all day yesterday, I felt like stretching my legs, so I headed up to Les Puces de St-Ouen. Les Puces are a collection of flea markets in the north-west of the city. Most of what you can get there is second hand, though there are a bunch of stalls that sell new shoes and clothing, and assholes on corners that will grab you to try and get you to buy fake Channel bags after you've refused politely...
It's a bit of a labyrinth once you get in there, and it's relatively easy to get lost amidst all the antique furniture, but there are some interesting vintage clothing shops (interesting in this case also means pricey), beautiful antiques and artwork.
A few hours here just took it out of me, so I headed home (the weather had basically turned from nice-ish to crappy anyhow).
Do you know what they have here?

Pre-made chocolate mousse from the organic market.

Pre-made chocolate mousse. Ingredients: chocolate, eggs, butter. Amazing. Definitely one of the things I love about France.

Day Off (Paris 2.5)

Yep. I took a day off from the rigors of being in the city. It was pouring rain anyhow. So I stayed in and watched movies. Just so you know, Bad Teacher is a horrible, horrible movie. Don't waste your time.

Laduree (Paris 2.4)

Given that all my time back in the city has thus far been spent on the right bank, I decided to get my butt over to the left bank for the day.
My first stop was at the wonderful Bon Marche. This is another of the city's famous department stores, and is sometimes regarded as the world's first department store. I wandered and browsed for a couple hours, seeing things like Peugeot peppermills, good quality baking pans, pocket knives, and 2300 euro watches. The watches made me want to barf. Seriously. Like is its gears made out of diamonds?
I decided my second stop was going to be Laduree. I think sugar is a great cure for sticker shock. Since my sister and I had already sampled the macarons from this shop, I decided to get one of their pastries instead. They have a great selection of impressive looking things made with choux paste (eclairs, st-honores, religieuses), pretty tarts (lemon, chocolate), and things made with pastel colored macaron bases, bright red fruit, glazes of every color. I settled on their Tarte Tatin, which is basically underwhelming ugly duckling of the group (they aren't even kept in the case, they're off to the side in a box).
Anyhow, what it lacks in looks, it definitely makes up for in butter, sugar, and apples.

Butter, sugar, apples.

This made my day.

Au Pied De Cochon (Paris 2.3)

So after staying up slightly too late last night reading, I had a bit of a sleep-in this morning. When I finally got out of bed, I pulled open the curtains to reveal a grey and rainy day. Blech. I promptly made some tea and some porridge, plopped myself down on the couch, draped myself in a quilt and focused on building up some motivation to head out into the world. It took until 1:00pm. Interesting to note here, at noon the sky was pierced by the shriek of air raid sirens. Apparently on the first Wednesday of each month they test the sirens to make sure they are in working order. The sirens are sounded for a few minutes at 12:00 sharp, and then again at 12:10. Scary if you don't know what's going on I guess~ luckily (?) for me, I had experienced air raid sirens in San Francisco. They test theirs every Tuesday.
Anyhow, two things were on my agenda today:
1) Tracking down a couple more Christmas present things
2) Eating pig foot
The Christmas stuff was mildly irritating. Christmas always seems to make me painfully aware of how much I hate shopping for anything other than shoes, knives, or groceries. I concentrated on the task as long as I could, and then had to look for a shoe store to calm my nerves. I found one. It was called "Shoestore". That made me laugh pretty hard. At that point, I decided I was sick of being out in the rain and the wind, so I decided it was time for pig foot at Au Pied De Cochon.
When I went to this restaurant with my sister, we had soup, marrow, and tarte tatine~ these were all good solid choices, but I wanted to be a little more adventurous this time around. I seriously considered ordering their plan, which is a fairly decent deal at 23.50 euros for an entree, plat, dessert and 1/2L of water. Choices for the plan aren't regular menu items, and you have three or four items in each category to choose from. Had I gotten this, I would have chosen the pig foot terrine with grainy mustard vinaigrette for my entree, confit pork belly with bernaise sauce and frites (minus the frites, damn allergies!) for my plat, and warm rhubarb clafoutis for dessert. I wasn't hungry enough to deal with that much food though, so I decided to just have an item off of their regular entree list, Croustillant De Pied De Cochon (crispy pig foot) and a beer to wash it down.

Pig foot?

When my crispy pig foot arrived at the table, I was surprised. It looked nothing like what I expected, which was a whole crispy fried foot on my plate. Instead it was basically disks of a terrine made with pig foot (done similar to a head cheese), coated in breading, and fried until golden brown. On the side, I had expected to find frisee salad and balsamic reduction because that's what the menu said it came with. I got lightly dressed frisee with some red onion. There wasn't a drop of balsamic in sight.

Porky goodness

Overall, the dish was pretty killer. The terrine was perfectly seasoned, the breading was evenly fried and crispy. The frisee added freshness. A few things would have really elevated the dish:
1) It needed to be hotter. In my opinion, the combination of fat and gelatin which basically holds a terrine like this together has to be either really cold or really hot. When it's lukewarm, it sits heavily on the palate.
2) It needed more acid. Fried things need acid. Fat needs acid. Pork needs acid. Acid. The vinaigrette on the frisee was sharp and mustardy, and even a little more of that would have done the trick.
Once I was finished with the foot, I decided to have a little dessert. I was in a state of chocolate withdrawal following my heavy dose yesterday at Angelina's, so I chose the Moelleux au Chocolat (molten chocolate cake).

Moelleux means softness

This was also pretty damn good. There's a reason why people love the molten chocolate cake: warm oozing chocolate. I don't care if it's totally 80's. I don't care if it has become a cliche dessert all over the world. It's amazing.

Liquid chocolate middle

The cake parts of the dessert were soft and souffle-like, with a melt-in-your-mouth texture. The liquid chocolate part of the dessert was slightly richer and thicker than my hot chocolate yesterday. The vanilla bean ice cream on the side was a perfect accompaniment, and the crushed wafer which was holding the ice cream in place on the plate was a nice touch adding just a little crunch to the plate (I'll have to remember it in the future).
With my belly full and my chocolate levels replenished, I bundled up and stepped back out into the chilly afternoon, umbrella open and thoughts of napping laying heavily on my mind.

Angelina's (Paris 2.2)

Ah! It's good to be back in the city!
After a decent sleep-in, I woke up, ate some cold remnants of my leftover pizza, got dressed, and hit the streets. First on my to-do list for the day: groceries. The whole week when Lindsay was here we seemed to find either fancy epiceries or those strange French equivalents of bodegas. More than once I found myself wishing that we would happen upon a regular old grocery store where I could buy some fruit and some juice and some snacks.
Well, for this stay in the city I am armed with the knowledge of Biocoop, a French chain of organic markets. I discovered them in Perigeuex (along with horsemilk). They had a little booklet with recipes by the checkout stand that had a complete listing of all of their locations in France, and wouldn't you know it, there's one about 15 minutes away from my apartment by foot! So, with my re-usable shopping bag in hand, I skipped along the streets into Biocoop to buy yummy things for my belly. What I love about this store is that things are locally sourced when possible, and all of the produce has a sign indicating where it is from. Since it's mostly local, it also means that you do not see things here that are out of season ie. no fresh tomatoes in December! 40 Euros poorer, I skipped home to make a lovely brunch of congee (not very French, I know).
After my brunch, I bundled up and headed out to start Christmas shopping. Gifts for my sister were top priority, and I found myself in BHV (Bazaar De L'Hotel De Ville), one of Paris' historic department stores. This place has pretty much anything you could ever want to buy, from electronics and tools, to jewelry, kitchen gadgets, home furnishings, and fashion. I could have spend hours and hours here just browsing, but I was on a bit of a mission. Two hours later, I emerged. I was hungry again, so I started making my way towards Angelina's, one of Paris' tearooms, for "lunch".
Angelina's was established in 1903, by an Austrian man who named it for his daughter in-law. It's definitely a fashionable spot to go, and is famous for its hot chocolate L'Africain, and for its Mont Blanc. I ordered them both, expecting extreme decadence. I have to say, I wasn't really prepared for what I got, which was extreme decadence^8 + 49 x 2.724 (gotta love equations).

Hot Chocolate L'Africain

The hot chocolate L'Africain is an old fashioned hot chocolate, served in a small pitcher with a bowl of whipped heavy cream that you mix together in your cup according to your personal preference. It also comes with a rather large pitcher of cold water. I was a little puzzled by this until I tasted my hot chocolate. My first sip was straight up, no heavy cream to sully my experience, oh no. But oh my god! This was pure bliss. Descriptions fall short, surely. It was basically like drinking a liquified bar of dark chocolate, or maybe like sipping on ganache when it's still hot. So rich I needed to chase it wish a little water. I added some whipped cream to my chocolate, thinking that it might cut the richness a bit. Clearly the sugar was already affecting my ability to think, because why would the addition of fat make something less rich? Three sips in I decided to embrace the richness and just go with it. Warm and happy, with liquid chocolate flowing through my veins, I made the decision that if I ever have to be put to death by drowning, I would choose Angelina's hot chocolate as the liquid.

Mont Blanc

The Mont Blanc is a pastry which combines meringue, chantilly, and chestnut cream. At roughly the size of an average cupcake, its humble appearance is entirely deceiving as this little guy packs a punch. This was super rich as well, yet somehow, despite the meringue and the fact that I was washing it down with chocolate, it managed to avoid being too sweet. The chestnut cream was the most prominent flavor and texture. I've said before that chestnuts remind me of baked beans in flavor and texture... I take it back.
Anyhow, my incredible sugar high was followed by an equally incredible sugar crash, so I made my way home to the apartment for a quiet night in.

Back In Pareeeeee (Paris 2.1)

After seven weeks in the country, I've come back to the city!
It's slightly strange to be here, to have to deal with the hustle and bustle that comes with a city of this size, to see more than three people in a day, to hear more sounds than the conversations of animals.
I'm ready for it though.
I spent most of the day on various trains coming here from Perigeuex. Had grand ideas about hitting the city for some supper, but lost all motivation once I got to my apartment and opted for pizza from next door instead.
Sometimes you just need pizza.

Yep... I'm pretty bad at blogging regularly

Okie dokie.
I think the last time I made an entry in here I was just about to head south to the Aude to WWOOF near Carcassonne. The plan was to be there for three weeks before heading back to Paris.
Was.
Past tense.
Things didn't really work out as expected.
For various reasons, I decided to leave the farm after only eight days and have been back in Dordogne at the home of my first host for the past two weeks...
Overall, I am glad that I had the opportunity to go to the second farm. It made me aware of several things.
1) Farms in France face the same fate as elsewhere in the world. Which is to say that the average small farmer is not really able to compete and with big business, and many farmers cannot rely upon the income from their farms to support themselves. Children of the farmers are opting to move into cities rather than taking over the family farms. Lands are mismanaged. Operations shift to unsustainable practices in an effort to cut costs and boost yields. Pesticides are used liberally (French farmers use more pesticides than other European countries).  It's sad.
2) WWOOF is definitely abused by some farmers. I had heard that there has been a lot of criticism of the organization from the government (in France and elsewhere) as WWOOFers do the work that citizens could do. This takes work opportunities away from citizens, allows farmers to get work done without having to pay the government any taxes on wages, and without having to pay out any wages at all, since WWOOFers work in exchange for room and board. Where the abuse of the organization comes in is that WWOOF is supposed to be an exchange. To provide very basic accommodation is not out of the ordinary. To provide very modest food is not uncommon. But to provide these things and consider that the obligations of hosting have been fulfilled would be ignorant. It's sad too.
3) I like clearing forest. I like being in semi-immersion situations to learn language. I like toilet paper. I like clean houses. I like eating meals that are well balanced and have all the food groups. I do not like having to fill up on bread just to have something in my belly. I do not like being in situations where there is a gap in communication that is created by something other than a language barrier. I'm over it.
Regardless, the last two weeks have been fantastic~ filled with all the tasks that are needed in order to prepare a space for winter (clearing, cleaning, cutting, planting, covering, burning). I planted an Amalanchier du Canada (Saskatoon Berry Bush) purely by chance on St. Catherine's day.
Heading back to Paris tomorrow afternoon.
More then.