Barbara Cooley's Paris Journal

Paris Journal 2011 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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Friends ask if I cook while we’re in Paris. You’ll probably remember my tales about the roasted vegetables that I made a few times during July, to consume as we watched the Tour de France on TV.

I also cook breakfast, but not until lunchtime. In the morning, we just have juice and coffee. Espresso for Tom, and café au lait with a bit of chocolate powder for me. And we might have toast.

Then we get to work at the computers. At noon or 1PM, I go into the kitchen to cook a sausage link and one egg, sunny side up, for each of us. If we are really hungry, I make a small serving of sautéed potatoes for each of us.

If we run out of something, like sausage, or eggs, we just don’t eat it that day. We go a little hungry.

Then that’s it. That’s all we eat until dinnertime. We just drink water. Unless we have “tea” in the afternoon, which is only occasionally.

We’d like to put off dinner until 8 or 8:30, but that doesn’t work so well for Tom anymore, so we eat dinner usually at about 7:30PM. He sleeps better that way.

This year, we realize that this earlier dining time has the additional advantage of our not needing to make reservations so often. We can be more spontaneous about where and what we eat for dinner. We are sometimes the first diners to enter a restaurant for the evening, as we were last night.

I do have the phone numbers of all of our favorite restaurants programmed into my cell phone’s SIM chip, however – just in case.

Now we are in a dangerous situation: we know that fabulous Grand Marnier soufflé can be had a few blocks to the south of us, and a few blocks to the north of us. Thank heavens it isn’t right next door.

Our walk yesterday was to the south, down avenue Félix Faure, so of course we were drawn to Axuria, the restaurant with my favorite Grand Marnier soufflé. Tom now says it is his favorite, too. But we do love the soufflé at La Gauloise, too.

And so we dined again at Axuria. I ordered the bar à la plancha, basilic et pomme purée à l’huile d’olives. This was an expertly cooked, thin filet of bass, served with a seasonal vegetable mélange and a hush puppy or fritter made from a light, fluffy purée of potatoes and olive oil, fried to non-greasy perfection.

Tom ordered the veal, which was served in slices with a rich brown sauce, mushrooms, and shallots. Again, his main dish was accompanied by two side dishes of vegetables and soft potato slices with tender mushrooms.

I’d wondered what made the carrots in the mélange of vegetables so good. Analyzing them independently with my tastebuds, I realized last night that this is exactly the way carrots taste when I cook them in butter and honey, as I do sometimes. Aha! The vegetables may be served as a mélange, but they are not cooked together at Axuria! Mystery solved.

The main courses were lovely. Absolutely delicious. Wonderful. And the service is friendly and fast. All in French, just the way we like it.

Portions are small here, so it is possible to eat like this without gaining weight, as long as you walk a lot. Isn’t it wonderful?

The soufflé au Grand Marnier, as I’ve said, is difficult to describe, it is so fantastic.

We were surprised that the restaurant did not fill up with customers. The problem is that the regular customers are people who live in Paris, and most of them are gone away on vacation now – especially the ones who can afford to eat at Axuria.

Not that Axuria is too expensive. If you can eat all three courses, which we can’t manage to do, it is only 34 euros. A la carte, we had two courses each for about 27 euros. Plus, they start you off with a mis en bouche (also sometimes called amuse bouche) of rillettes (a spread) and thin, toasted rounds of baguette slices. So it is really like three courses even if you only order two.

Wine by the glass is 5 euros, or 7 if you splurge on the more expensive ones.

If you really have a big appetite, a cheese course is also offered. We decline that, because it is just too much food for us.

Axuria is not inexpensive, but for the top-notch quality of its food and service, it offers great value. The tourists have not yet discovered it. So go, now, while you can still get in!

Tom suddenly has lots of work to do – the New York publisher has been making email requests for this and that. And that is good. Our summer in Paris is the best time for us to get work done. Really.

So yesterday, I went out for some basic supplies at the Monop while Tom continued working. The discount Dia on our street does not carry the Italian espresso coffee that we prefer, Lavazza, so I made the longer walk down to Monop.

After buying the French newspaper and shopping at Monop, I decided to stop into the shop on the rue du Commerce that sells only shampoos, conditioners, and other hair care products -- nothing else. Tom wasn’t with me, so I could take my time.

I was hoping that the shopkeeper would be a woman who knows the products there and who would be able to make a good recommendation of a conditioner for my hair.

The water here is so different from that of southwest Florida, that different shampoos and conditioners are required.

But this is vacation time, and the “expert” who would normally be in the shop was replaced by a muscular, gothic tattooed man with lots of piercings, a heavy five-o-clock shadow, and a skinhead haircut. He was deeply engrossed in a paperback. I didn’t want to know the title. I’m positive that this guy rides a motorcycle and knows nothing about hair.

So I just gave him a friendly “bonjour,” which he returned, and then he continued to read as I set my bags on the floor and started to look around.

I started in the wrong place. After a minute, a realized that I was looking at the hair care products for black women.

I moved to the other end of the spectrum on the shelves. There was still a lot to examine, and finally, after about ten minutes of reading packages and labels, I selected the right conditioner for me (I hope) and went to the counter to pay the man.

The man’s machine wouldn’t scan the product, so the poor guy had to get up and find the price on the shelf. I was no help because I couldn’t tell if the first number was a 6 or an 8 – the sticker on the shelf wasn’t clear. Or maybe I’m getting cataracts.

I love the idea of an entire shop – and not a tiny one at that – devoted to nothing but hair care products, just a couple blocks away. Isn’t that cool?

The skinhead and I had a friendly exchange of thank-you’s, have-a-good-day’s, and goodbye’s. He does have good manners, even if he is very scary at first sight. He must feel out of place in that shop.

But hey, it is a job, during this month of August when so many workers are out of work. When a person enters the metro car and gives a speech about being out of work for this month of August, Tom always gives him a few euros (coins).

Even though there are still plenty of places closed up for this slowest time, the middle of August, each summer now we are more and more surprised at how many places are still open – like Axuria. One of our other favorites, L’Épopée, was open earlier in August, but we notice it, too, is now closed for a short vacation.

The closings for vacation seem to be getting shorter, on the average. Reza, the Persian plumber down the street, was gone for only a week. Others, too, seem to be taking only a week or two, instead of the traditional 4 weeks or more of the past.

Some places, like La Gitane, are making a big deal out of being open for the month of August. Corinne and Olivier have proudly posted signs announcing this on La Gitane’s windows. Their only concession to the tradition is to be closed for Sundays and Mondays during August.

Paris is slowly changing.

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Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here.

Thursday, August 11, 2011