Paris Journal 2007

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This little stone alligator will just have to do as a substitute
for the alligators I’m used to having in my back yard.

This one lives in an antiquities shop window on the
rue de Varenne.

 

This Bordeaux must be related to our friends, the Verdots.

 

Monument at Place de Breteuil and the Eiffel Tower. 
The weather has since cleared up, I’m happy to say.

 

Lady Cristl potatoes.  I don’t think these are available
in the U.S. – just the U.K. and Europe.  Tell me if I’m
wrong.

 

The garlic comes from Egypt, and the shallots and yellow
onions come from France.

 

Below, the lion at Cambronne.  Tom is the man walking
in the background.

 

Friday, July 13

 

This summer is like no other in terms of friends and family who will be here in Paris.  We have already visited with Alan and Deb from California, who were here for a vacation after having lived here for three years, ending last summer.  And our friends Steve and Kathleen are staying at the apartment in the 6th arrondissement now.  Steve gave a presentation at a hospital here in Paris, on the subject of adult Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.  Le Parisien devoted almost an entire page to this subject and his presentation in Wednesday’s edition.  We’ll take a copy to him on Monday, when we will meet him, Kathleen, and Elisabeth for dinner at L’Espadon Bleu – a highly recommended restaurant of Jacque Cagna’s (25 rue des Grands Augustins, 6th arr., telephone 01-46-33-00-85).

 

Tomorrow, Tom’s son Dan and our daughter-in-law Mary will arrive for a two or three week vacation.  Fortunately, we will have François’ and Patricia’s apartment to use so that we won’t be too crowded.  Then Dan’s mother, Sheila, and her husband, Guy, will be coming for a couple weeks.

 

My sister Carolyn and brother-in-law Doug will be arriving for two weeks, starting at the beginning of August.  Then Wendy and Carol and Ron will be here until the end of August.  They’re all staying in another apartment, too.

 

A former colleague of Tom’s, Susan, and her husband and son, are visiting us this evening for a drink.

 

Other friends who will be in Paris and with whom we will get together at some point in August and September include Arly, Rick, Jim, Maddie, John, Linda, and probably more.

 

We must also find the time to visit Karima and her family’s chocolate shop in the 17th arrondissement.  And we’re sorry we missed Lennie and Doug, who were here in June, before we arrived.

 

 

The other day, my subject was a comparison of the quality of health care in France and the U.S.  Today’s newspaper carries a story about the use of ultrasound instead of invasive surgery to destroy fibroids in the uterus.  The article even admits that this procedure has been available since 2004 in the U.S., but has only just become available in France. 

 

I still emphatically say that the focus needs to be on access.  The U.S. desperately needs to have universal coverage for health care.  We have great quality of care – it just is not available to every U.S. citizen, and that is a crying shame!

 

Recently I read that given a choice of giving up your Hummer or giving up hamburgers, which do you think would reduce your carbon footprint more, the correct answer is giving up hamburgers.  I guess the production of beef is a huge greenhouse gas generator.  I try to imagine the French giving up beef and it is just about impossible.  In fact, last Sunday on the square outside the city hall, there was a big beef promotion by the Ile de France (Paris region) butcher’s federation.  Three entire cows were roasted on the square.  About 3,000 carnivores waited patiently for the beef to be done, hoping desperately that there would be enough for everyone.  Many of those waiting consumed bottles of white wine and slices of sausage to control their anxieties.

 

 

Back to the subject of homeless people – We’ve been noticing far fewer tents in Paris this year.  These tents were given out by the hundreds by Doctors without Borders, I believe, starting last year or the year before.  In 2006, we saw them in so many places on our walks.  Not now.  Evidently, 30-some of these tents and their associated homeless people were just recently evicted from the banks of the Canal St. Martin.  Then almost immediately, 30-some tents appeared in a park in the 13th arrondissement.  To keep the tents from coming back to the Canal St. Martin, the authorities installed a scattering of large blocks of concrete.  Not a pretty sight.

 

 

I’ve been enjoying all the cooking I’ve been doing.  We’ve been shopping mostly at ED (Épicerie Discount) just down the street from us, and at the Monoprix at the corner of rue du Commerce and boulevard Grenelle.  The Monoprix has become more crowded and frantic than ever – even at 9PM!  (It closes at 10PM.)  In prior years, we had thought that the quality of food at Monoprix was better, and that’s why they can get away with charging more.  This year, however, I’ve noticed that the quality of food (both produce and meat) we’ve bought at ED is better, and the prices are certainly much lower there.  ED isn’t as trendy as Monoprix, and I think that is the reason Monoprix has so many more shoppers in it.

 

I’ve already gone on a bit about how much I like mache (French for lamb’s lettuce).  Now moving on to another vegetable:

I found these wonderful little potatoes at ED.  They’re called “Lady Cristl,” according to the tag, and they come from Noirmoutier.  Wikipedia tells me that Noirmoutier is actually on an island, Noirmoutier-en-l'Île, a commune in the Vendée département in western France, with a population of 5,001 as of 1999.

 

The island is in the Atlantic Ocean. The commune covers the northern point of the island, and contains three villages: Noirmoutier, L'Herbaudiere and Le Vieil.  There is a chateau in Noirmoutier that was built in the 11th and 12th centuries.

 

At any rate, the Fothergills people (in the UK) say that the Lady Cristl is “A splendid creamy fleshed, smooth skinned well-flavoured variety producing very good crops when grown as an extra early or first early. Boils beautifully as a tasty ‘new potato’.”

 

So far, I’ve used Lady Cristls to make a pomme purée and to make a potato salad Provençale-style.

 

And moving on to poultry:  Last week I bought boneless skinless chicken breasts at ED.  I had my knife out, ready to cut the tendons in the back to flatten out the meat (just as I showed Carol in England a couple years ago), and I was delighted to see, when I opened the package, that this had already been done!  There also was not one little bit of chicken fat to trim away.  And the quality of the chicken was just about the best I’ve ever tasted (after sautéing, of course!). 

 

Then this week I bought some boneless skinless chicken breasts at Monoprix, and the results were not the same at all.  There were quite a few tendons and fibers to cut until the breast was flat, and there was some waste to trim away.  Plus, the quality of the meat just was not the same.

 

At ED, I also found a very cool package of garlic, shallots and those great French onions all together, for only €3.  Shallots are quite expensive in the U.S., so this is a treat.  I love to cook with garlic and shallots – yummm.  I must be part Provençale somehow.  Or maybe I’m part northern Italian.  I adore fine Italian cuisine.  We’d go to Italy for the summer, but it is too hot there.

 

Paris is just fine.

 

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