Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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Yesterday was a rain day, so we did stay in to work at the computers and then watch the Tour de France. After, we ventured out . . . but not too far. This time we opted for the elegant, but reasonably priced, restaurant just around the corner: Le Café du Commerce (not to be confused with Le Commerce Café, the brasserie a few blocks farther south on the same street). It was already after 8PM, but somehow we managed to get a table, upstairs (which is best), with no reservation. The maître d’ was very nice about it. The menu, while not as lengthy as the one at the brasserie of the similar name, is more traditionally French and a bit classier, with a slight North African or Spanish influence. The interior is gorgeous. Once a large, multi-level fabric store, at some point early in the 20th century it was converted into a restaurant for workers at the nearby factories. The factories are long gone, but the little brass plates with a number for each table are still there, nailed to the chair rail at the top of the wainscoating. That chair rail really needs to be dusted, by the way, if anyone there at the restaurant is reading this. I love the fact that restaurants for Parisian factory workers were so very nice, even elegant. The places called “bouillons” operated by the Chartier family, which I’ve written about in the past, are fine examples of this historical phenomenon. Le Café du Commerce is very well staffed. The servers are dressed up, in black and white, and each part of the restaurant has a “captain,” who wears a very nice suit and tie. Our “captain” was particularly handsome, and I was entertained by seeing a single woman – a woman dining alone – flirt with him shamelessly and audaciously. Ah Paris. We began our dinner by sharing an order of six big Burgundy snails: Véritables gros escargots sauvages de Bourgogne (de la Maison de l’Escargot). They were perfectly cooked. Absolutely delicious. For the main course, we each had one of the specials of the day, but this time it was Tom who ordered the fish and I who ordered the pork. Tom’s was salmon, grilled, and served with puréed potatoes that were topped with a Spanish sauce and red and green peppers that had been roasted and sliced. A freshly made tapenade graced the fish. Mine was a couple of slices of pork tenderloin, in a nice brown reduction sauce with some girolles (mushrooms) and a polenta that was the best I’ve ever had. The polenta had golden raisons in it – just a few, and just enough to bring out the taste of a bit of honey that was hiding in that cornmeal concoction. We love the baba au rhum so much at this place that we each ordered one, rather than sharing. Because we hadn’t really eaten all day, we managed to consume almost everything we were served – well, not quite. Before dinner, we did make a run down the street to that dreadful discount grocery, Dia, because we needed supplies and because it is so close that we can take the rolling cart (a big canvas shopping bag on wheels). We stocked up on breakfast and lunch foods and household items. The large bag was chock full and heavy when we rolled it back down the street to the apartment. The total bill? Only 55 euros, and I’m happy to say the euro is down to $1.23 now. Taking the cart, or “shopping trolley,” as some Brits call it, I think, is much harder to do if you have to cross intersections and deal with curbs and such. This grocery down the street is so close that rolling the cart there meets with few obstacles. We did pause, however, to admire the new cat residing in the shop window at Reza the Plumber’s place. Reza, who is originally from Iran, for years has had two gorgeous white Persian cats living in the shop. Last year, I think he had only one. So now a new, part-Persian of a smoky color is making himself at home there with the one remaining white fluffball. Sweet. The darn Dia store still had dirty floors, but Tom selected some beautiful produce there, including delicious looking strawberries. No bottles exploded near my head this time. And the prices on eggs, organic milk, Cantal cheese, coffee, and orange juice were hard to beat. The selection is a bit limited, however, so we will still need to venture into places like Monoprix for necessities like laundry detergent. Ah, the laundry. I don’t know if I’ve ever explained how we do the laundry here. The apartment, like so many in Paris, does have a washing machine, but it has no dryer. The washer is in the bathroom – but of course! The washer is a front loader, but it is far smaller in capacity than my front loader in Florida. And it takes far longer to wash a load. But it does a nice job. Fortunately, it spins the heck out of the clothes and towels, so the drying is possible. Hanging up high above the washer is an expanding rack with a number of horizontal bars, all very close together, on which to hang the laundry. This works for small and medium size things, but not so well for large things. To hang things on the rack, even I, who am not short, must use a small ladder/stepstool. This is a good way to stretch upper arm and shoulder muscles. Bigger or longer things must be put on hangers and hung from the shower curtain rod. Weather permitting, I then open the bathroom window, and open another window on the other side of the apartment. I prop the bathroom door open so the wind won’t blow it shut. Then a nice cross-breeze will blow through the bathroom and half of the apartment, and the clothes dry – slowly. The evapotranspiration (ET) effect also serves as a sort of air conditioning on hot days. (No, of course there is no real air conditioning in the apartment. Don’t be silly. Air conditioning in apartments is very rare here.) But these are not hot days, and with the rain, the clothes just have to dry without the cross breeze. I’m just happy to have access to a washer in the apartment. Some people don’t, and they have to haul their laundry down the street to the nearest laundromat. Today is market day, and I think I have a window of rain-free opportunity this morning, so that’s all for now folks. A bientot. |
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Two
of the three levels of the dining room at Le Café du Commerce.
Grilled
salmon with black olive tapenade, puréed potatoes, sauce with slices of
roasted peppers.
Pork
tenderloin with reduction sauce, girolles, and
polenta from heaven. Sorry about the
blurry photo – because of the rain, I didn’t take the real camera, and relied
on my smartphone’s excuse for a camera instead.
When the baba au rhum is served, it comes with a bottle of rum
on the side. The bottle has a spigot
that allows you to gently douse your pound cake with the rum.
Reza the Plumber’s new cat.
Construction fencing at the Musée du Quai Branly
garden shows what the new shelter will look like. Its roof will be planted. |
