Paris Journal 2015 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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One day last week, we saw a poster affixed to the utility pole on the corner, announcing that there would be a brocante (brick-a-brac or rummage or second-hand goods sale) at Place Charles Michels this weekend. We made a mental note of it. This is the kind of event Tom does not forget. Yesterday, late morning, we checked it out. It was far better than a brocante. There were booths that contained some fairly fine antiques, paintings, and oriental rugs, for example. Several booths featured silver flatware, all perfectly polished, and in some abundance. People paused to see if they could find any pieces that matched their silver at home. The quality of the brocante may be reflective of the kind of people living in the upper part of the 15th arrondissement. Tom recently read in L’Express magazine’s real estate feature that the people of the 15th arrondissement are “easy,” meaning that they are comfortably well off, well up into the upper middle class. I think that is true for large parts of the 15th, but not all of it by any means. There is a substantial amount of social (subsidized) housing in the 15th. That’s not so true of 6th and 7th arrondissements, where people are fairly significantly well off, and there isn’t much social housing at all. That’s also where you’ll find some of the highest real estate costs per square meter in Paris. (Part of the 16th and part of the 5th arrondissements are way up there in costs, too.) The 15th is a huge arrondissement, and so the real estate feature divides it into four parts. Where we are staying is the priciest part (near the Eiffel Tower and the Seine), and the least pricey part is the southernmost quarter. Put together, however, the four quarters of the 15th represent average residential real estate costs for central Paris (the 20 arrondissements, not the suburbs). We like the “realness” of the 15th. We aren’t overwhelmed by tourists here. That matters to us, because we are overwhelmed by tourists for three months of the year in Florida. There were very few tourists in the crowd at the brocante. The shoppers were local folk who were constantly bumping into somebody they knew, so there was a lot of socializing going on, in addition to the shopping. We only bought one thing: a brooch that looks like a dazzling blue dragonfly. Dragonflies are featured on the cover of Tom’s textbook, Back to the Lake. I wore the dragonfly to dinner last night at Bacco, a fine, new Italian restaurant on the rue Mademoiselle. This is not an inexpensive Italian place that offers mountains of pasta or pizza. This is gourmet Italian, and it is pretty great. Maybe it is a little expensive, but we were dining there with a 30 percent discount from Lafourchette.com. We dined at Bacco only one time before – in July – and then the place closed for vacation. It just re-opened this week. And it is air conditioned! We were warmly greeted and seated at the same table in the front window where we sat in July. The cheerful server brought us a delectable mis en bouche of a cool, creamy celery purée with sesame seeds – a great start. The sparkling water was an Italian brand we’d not seen before: Surgiva. Generally, we like Italian sparkling waters the best – they are less salty than the French Badoit, for example. We each ordered starter courses: a cold marinated beef salad for Tom (below), and a warm calamari and tomato sauce dish for me. Both were terrifically good. Tom said he could eat that starter course four times a week and not tire of it. He said “it had a delicacy, a complexity, and a piquancy, all at once.”
My main course was a risotto with prawns. I loved the spicy seasoning in the risotto, and the prawns were good. The risotto passed the rich-and-creamy test. Somebody spent a fair amount of time making that risotto, I know. Tom’s main course was a linguini with truffles. For him, it was a little bland. I gave him some of my risotto, and he said that was more like it. We skipped dessert, having each had two full courses. The walk home was short and fun. We continue to be amazed at how lively and popular the rue du Commerce has become. Today will be the last hot day of summer. But we plan to stay cool.
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Sunday, August 30, 2015
Bacco, a gourmet Italian restaurant on the rue
Mademoiselle.
A little mis en bouche of creamy celery
purée with sesame seeds.
Surgiva sparkling water, from Italy. Good stuff.
Calamari with
a delicious homemade tomato and vegetable sauce.
Risotto
rouge with prawns.
Linguini Tartufo (with truffles). |
