VANESSA EATS

Vanessa visited this weekend.  Here are the restaurant notes from our eats.  She took this picture of me (above) on the Pont de Alma getting lost for the millionth time in my attempt to only walk on the prettiest streets and avoid any routes that might have cars.  

----- Where does one take a Swiss Italian who loves Zuma?

L'Avenue, 8eme, Avenue Montaigne - Small, white clothed table situated along the large pane glass window that is one side of the restaurant.  I watched impeccably dressed strollers go by.  Over my shoulder, Vanessa checked out the diners entering the restaurant with their Piaget watches, small Chanel bags, and perfectly messy hair.  Vanessa's salade nicoise was three, fat perfectly seared triangles of tuna over butter lettuce, tiny, bright green haricot verts, eggs, and heirloom tomatoes.  Almost like an extension of her fork lifting to taste the fish, she splashed on balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  I ate cold mint pea soup served with a savory creme fraiche.  I want to go back.

Ralph's, 6eme, Boulevard Saint-Germaine - Glass, silver, candles, greenery, and large canvas umbrellas beckon from the street.  The setting is a bit Edgartown sailed into an old, carved secret Parisian courtyard and caught the attention of the international fashion set.  The seats are black wrought iron covered in comfy, navy striped cushions.  Everyone around us ate hamburgers and the brownie sundae for dessert.  We ate grilled chicken breast, tomato soup, watermelon and tomato salad, and fries.  An overflowing bowl of crackerjacks is served with the tea.  I would go back to sit on secluded two seater and eat the brownie, which is more like a warm flourless chocolate cake with walnuts.

Cafe de Flore, 6eme, Boulevard Saint-Germaine - We went to Cafe de Flore for verveine menthe tea after Ralph's.  I like sitting on the banquette facing the street.  Even though there are people all around, it feels private and once the waiter drops off the drinks, he never comes back.  Interesting sorts come and hang out.  Girl Alex says it's a combination of unemployed bankers and consultants, the famous, the eccentric regulars, and tourists.  If it's cold, sit upstairs.  

(Pipilotti Rist)

(Palais de Tokyo courtyard)

Tokyo Eats, 16eme, inside Palais de Tokyo, Avenue du President Wilson - Palais de Tokyo is worth a visit.  The basement is downright scary and like a larger, more studied version of a non-Williamsburg Brooklyn warehouse.  It is several flights of concrete stairs down into the depths of a large cavernous, unfinished space.  Belly dancing music drifts out of a dark tunnel, that once entered, curves into a dark empty room showing a film of two men dancing in a dark empty room (Jewel by Hassan Khan, incredible).  Next door at the Musee d'Art Moderne, I liked the the two drafts of Matisse's mural for Mr.Barnes and the The Electric Fairy (La Fee Elictricite) by Raoul Dufy.  Vanessa liked a purple Marc Chagall bunny.  At Tokyo Eats, we ate beneath red spaceship lights and large Onomatopoeia Lichenstein style (they are actually Christian Marclay) colored windows.  I was very happy with my orange-ginger juice and pesto dressed beef carpaccio encircling a pile of arugula, bufalo mozzarella, and parmesan.  Vanessa mostly poked at her mayo drenched chicken salad.  We both liked watching the beautiful French children eating Sunday lunch with their families.  I want to go back at night to see the art in a party setting and if the Chris Ofili paintings glow in the dark.

Coffee Shop, 7eme, Rue de Babylone close to Rue Vaneau - I love walking around the 7th in the evening, from 5:30-8:30PM.  The streets are quiet, narrow, and full of white formal government buildings and sootier white residences with white shutters.  We stopped by a coffee shop for bio green tea and citron sodas on our little walk home from the 16th. 

(Jackie's wrists, by Vanessa)

Midnight Snack, 6eme, Rue Notre Dame des Champs - Cookies are not really a French thing, but after scouring the Rue de Rennes Monoprix ailes we settled on Baiocchi (il nocciola e il cacao) cookies from Mulino Bianco and healthy looking bio museli pepites de chocolat.  We ate these in between all meals along with Mariage Freres rouge teas.

Moette Kigawa, 14eme, Rue Chateau -  The food is French and the chefs are Japanese.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the teeny tiny pale yellow space looked beautiful and special so we gave it a try.  The rest of the room spoke Japanese.  We stayed in our own little world eating salmon tartar, cod, and green tea gelee and mascarpone mousse with bright red strawberries.  

Epi Dupin, 6eme, Rue Dupin - The maitre'd at Epi Dupin is a live wire of a man who speaks perfect Japanese and English.  He prefers pastel colored shirts, took care of me, and started me off with a glass of dry red wine.  I like him.  I sat at the tiny bar and ate a pate (more like a rillettes) of tuna, roasted hazelnuts and fresh herbs as an entree and breaded lamb sweetbreads over a disk of strands of fennel and carrot as my main.  For dinner, there is only a set menu.  The dishes change daily and sound promising.  Vistors from all over come for the food.  I really wanted to like Epi Dupin and will go back to try it again since it's my local restaurant, but the food was a little heavy for me tonight and didn't really surprise me.

Hotel Costes, 1eme, Rue Saint-Honore - Vanessa went to lunch while I went to French class.  As she tells it, she was squeezed into one of the last tables on the veranda and had a good view of all the action: the models, fashion people, and power people.  The menu was the same as L'Avenue.  The area has Collette, Fouchon, and high end wagashi.  Next time, we'll have to leave the left bank and hang out in the land of luxury shops and small, fancy cafes.

SALMON and TOMATO VINAIGRETTE

I invited Baptiste and Agathe over for dinner and wanted to make a dish that they wouldn't usually eat in Paris.  My meal at the cook's table at Chez Panisse was my inspiration.  Alice Water's meal was so special because it presented food I had eaten before in a completely new way, but a way that was still simple enough so that I could see all the parts and how to put it together myself.  I think this is my favorite type of food.  This dish is not French in the sense that it uses olive oil instead of butter, there is no sauce just some vinegar and shallots, and fresh basil is the garnish.  The acid in the vinaigrette balances the fatty salmon, the sweet tomatoes  contrast nicely with the spicy basil, and the shallots give a little bite.  And the colors of the coral, red, green, and purple look beautiful on the plate.

A Summer Meal for Five

Find the best salmon you can.  It should be fat, bright coral in color, and look good enough to slice and eat raw as sashimi.  Mine was Breton Salmon from the Grand Epicere.  Lightly salt and pepper.

Mix together about three large handfuls of sweet cherry tomatoes, two small shallots sliced into small pieces, 2 tablespoons of capers, and 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar.  Taste, and if needed, salt (I did not need to salt because the tomatoes had so much flavor and the capers already added enough salt).

Heat olive oil in a pan until almost smoking.  Cook salmon skin side down until the skin is brown and crispy and the salmon is about halfway cooked through.  Flip and cook until the other side is golden and the middle of the salmon still looks raw from a side view.  About 6-7 minutes total.  Do not overcook.  Remove and plate.

In the salmon pan, cook the tomato mixture until tomatoes are just starting to give and are still bright red.  Spoon over the salmon and garnish generously with fresh basil leaves cut into thin strips.

Serve with a good baguette traditional or l'ancienne (ours was from Eric Kayser) and a light red wine like a 2010 red Domaine Auchere Sancerre (check that that the label says that the region is an official Apellation Sancerre Controlee and that the bottling is a local Le bois l'Abbaye, BUE-en-SANCERRE (Cher).  Discuss the way that a Parisian woman ignores a man in order to signal that she likes him, the curves of the French language, contradictory signals, and indefinite ways of communicating over goat cheese crotin and fresh cherries.  Perhaps light the table with pink and lilac colored candles from Trudon near the Odean.

* The candle image is 100% inspired by the Richter candle I saw at his retrospective at the Pompidou.

GIRL ALEX EGGS

My first morning in Paris, Girl Alex made eggs for breakfast and the herbs made them taste unlike any I had ever had before.  The secret is butter, Albert Menes rosemary, fleur de sel, and mad skillet skills.  The Albert Menes rosemary is really special and makes everything taste good.  It's sold both in the Grand Epicerie and the Franprix, it's a right not a luxury.

A French Breakfast

Heat a generous amount of butter in a pan.  Crack up to 4 eggs into the hot butter.  Let cook, then flip, don't be afraid to cut them apart and mush them into each other a little.  Salt, pepper, season generously with Albert Menes rosemary.  Slip onto plates while yolk is still runny.

Serve with warm toast dolloped with more butter and spread with Bonne Maman framboise confiture.  Use toast as an eating vehicle and to sop up any yellow yolk that runs onto the plate.  Delicious alongside a Mariage Freres blue flower, earl gray tea that only has a hint of the bergamot and blends wonderfully with a drop of milk.

Don't worry about the fact that French people do understand toasting fresh bread.  They only toast old bread.

BAGUETTES

I am still searching for a baguette that moves me.  One mistake I realize I've been making is simply asking for a "demi baguette."  Not specifying results in the baguette ordinaire or parisienne which have rather lifeless white insides, are thin, and often have a slightly charred bottom.  The best baguettes are l'ancienne or tradition or de campagne.  Boulangeries that are artisan make their own bread.

Eric Kayser on Rue Verneuil is pretty good.  The inside is nice and tender with large, irregular holes.

POILANE TARTLETTE AUX POMMES

There is a delicate crackling like a tentative step into dry autumn leaves.  The teeth can't stop, they keep pressing, smashing the thin layers of pastry - that seem suspended in a space left by evaporated butter - into each other until the tender denseness gives way to the soft flesh, and a tiny burst of sweetness, of delicate sweet juices wet the mouth, completing the bite.  My toes curl.

6 eme PASTRY notes

My neighborhood finds so far:

Poilane, rue du Cherche-Midi - Everyone already knows about Poilane and their standard sourdough brown bread.  In the window quietly sit tarte aux pommes that embody everything a pastry should be.  They also make nice loaves of a "miel" bread that is a little sweet and very good with milk.  The consistency is a little more crumby, like a cake, but still dense and tender like a bread.  It tastes best when just baked and still too warm to slice, so that the Poilane lady gives you half a loaf and a clear plastic bag to keep the bread in once it has cooled.

Bread and Roses, rue Fleurus - I prefer the viennoiserrie (a word that Thomas taught me which refers to croissants, pan chocolat, and pain aux raisins) in the back to the "pastries" displayed in the front.  The words for foods are very specific here.  Pastry refers to fancy, constructed miniature works of baked art.  Breads are Poilane country loaves and baguettes.

La Grand Epicicerie, rue du Bac - Pistache, cassis, caramel au beurre sale macarons.  Incredible.  Perfect.  Le gateau, the cake that apparently won the best chocolate cake in the world award.  It is a perfect cube made of an uncountable number of layers - praline, strawberry balsamic vinegar gelee, pistachio cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate ganache. 

Le petit Lux, rue Vaugirard - The peche tarte is the most beautiful I have seen in Paris.  The crust is a long pastry of deep golden flakey layers all floating on top of each other.  The fruit is shiny with an apricot glaze and dark from the juices that have caramelized.  It tasted so good that Alex and I immediately next ordered a framboise crumble tart.  

Bill Cunningham says he

goes to Paris

every year to educate his eye.

COEUR de LION CAMEMBERT

When I was 12 and living in Mimizan, France for the summer, we usually ate lunch outside at a simple table right outside next to the grill.  Often, an entire box of Camembert, still in its wooden box would be pushed in the cooling coals to wait while we ate.  When the blacked box was brought back onto the table, it held a melted, creamy goo.  We ate the goo with the bread we had left from lunch.

A few nights ago, I didn't have much for dinner and so popped into the petit marche across the street to see what I could find.  The store is the equivalent of the Korean grocer's in New York, except here in Paris the owners are Moroccan.  The bright red and gold label of the coeur de lion camembert looked modest but the wooden box promised "du bon lait de Normandie," so I handed over my 2.90 euros.  This cheese is both creamy and gooey, it brings back memories, it has a distinct flavor that as I child I found strong and now I love.  It is incredibly easy to eat.  I ate some straight from the box and also melted a wedge in a piece of tin foil to eat with my Bread and Roses baguette leftover from lunch.

There are many fancy cheese shops in Paris.  Androuet on Rue de Verneuil and Barthelemy on Rue de Grenelle have all sorts, including the best runny, stinky, I've died, I've died (Saint Felicitan) types that come in terracotta dishes.  But it's nice to know that if I need a fix for creamy comfort food, Coeur de Lion is there.

  

PARIS JULY FOURTH POTATO SALAD

Alex, Annie, and I celebrated Independence Day with a picnic themed dinner.  We burned red, white, and blue candles in Domaine Tempier bandol rose bottles.

Brianca's recipe

Boil enough red potatoes for 4 people with the skin on until a fork can slip in fairly easily.  Drain, and when cool cut into bite sized pieces.  Boil 4 eggs only until the yolks are cooked but still very yellow and have just passed the thick, runny stage into the delicate soft stage(about 5-7 minutes in boiling water).  Chop the eggs coarsely and add to the potatoes along with one chopped celery stick and a few chopped radishes.  While potatoes and eggs are cooking, mince two shallots and add to an equal parts mustard and red wine vinegar mix.  About one spoonful of mustard is enough.  After the shallots have marinated for a bit, add the tiniest drizzle of olive oil and whisk in both directions.  Keep adding tiny drops of olive oil and whisking until the mixture begins to expand and gets very creamy.  Add more olive oil, about double the amount of the liquid already in the bowl.  At this point, the dressing should be able to easily absorb the oil as you whisk.  Season with salt and pepper.  Taste.  If there is too much mustard taste, add more oil.  If too bland, add a dash of vinegar and more salt.  Do not add to salad unless an emulsion has been achieved.  Pour dressing onto the potato salad and stir well (Alex uses her hands).  Mix in a generous amount of sweet, flat leaf parsley.

Eat with lemon and herb roasted chicken.  Use fingers both both foods and enjoy licking them afterwards.  A peach walnut crisp served with fresh rasberries and praline ice cream makes a nice dessert.

    

SARIETTE, CROTIN FRAICHE, TISANE

There is one organic farmers market in Paris.  It is on the Rue de Raspail on Sundays, and I live right up the street.  All the meats, cheeses, fish, fruits, and vegetables are "bio" but only a handful are raised on farms by the sellers and many are imported from Spain and Italy.  I tried to stick to "notre production" foods and left lugging home a basket of eggs, goats milk cheeses, herbs, yellow jeune onions still covered in dirt, tiny white onions at the ends of long white stems, and bright, saucer shaped red onions.  

My simple lunch and breakfast

One of my goat cheeses was a white dome of soft fresh crotin.  I wanted to try this immediately for lunch.  Place about half of the cheese in a bowl (my cheese was about the perfect size to fit in the palm of my hand).  Add a generous amount of fresh savory leaves picked off the stems (I think thyme would also be good and I want to try this next time), a pinch of fleur sel sel, and a good pour of olive oil.  Stir around a little with a fork.  Eat with a toasted baguette.  If you don't have fresh herbs, cumin is also delicious.

When I picked up the sariette to smell, the herb lady said in French something about being good for a tonic (maybe she meant tisane?) in the morning.  I figured this alone made the herb worth trying.  The report is that sariette not only tastes incredible with fresh goat cheese, it also makes a lovely, fresh tea in the morning.  The taste is a hint of thyme and a teeny tiny bit spicy, which I like because it wakes me up a little, very gently.  I poured boiling water over a few sprigs and waited about 5 minutes before drinking the pale, clear liquid.  Huge improvement over the Monoprix verbena citron tea bags.

Eat and drink in a peaceful setting where you can fully enjoy each bite and sip.