Paris Journal 2010 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com

Photos and thoughts about Paris

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As much as I dearly love stone buildings and houses, they can be difficult to heat. What we south Floridians call “cold weather” has arrived. Low temperatures in the nighttime are in the mid forties (F), and during the daytime, highs are in the low sixties. Out in the country and in little villages, people like Clive and Barbara have tough decisions to make about heating. Clive’s house is a simple stone house in the village, but like many places in little French villages, it is actually a farm house. Farms were very small. On his “farm,” they grew garlic. Clive found that his house was difficult to heat, so he put in more walls, making the living room much cozier and easier to heat. He has an open outbuilding where the garlic grown on the “farm” was dried, but he will not enclose it. Some future owner might. He’s not interested in trying to heat it. Barbara owns what was once some kind of important building in the village. We can call it a chateau if we want to; parts of it date back to the 12^th century. The stone it is made from is “dressed,” that is to say it is cut relatively smoothly and flat on each side of each block. Many farm buildings are built with very rough, fairly uncut stone. But not Barbara’s home. She built a newer wing on the house. The wing looks like a somewhat old French house, but it isn’t. That’s where her kids stay when they visit. She’s kept the old part for herself, where she’s made a gourmet kitchen, a lovely greatroom, a beautiful winding staircase, and, upstairs, a master suite that is a real fantasy. There is also an extra bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Her master bedroom has a soaring ceiling that shows all the great old beams and roof structure. The luxurious bathroom is divided from the master bedroom by a custom-made divider that looks like a rood screen. There is lots of volume in that master suite. She cannot put heating in the floor, because it had to be made of wood due to weight restrictions. So that room is not very warm in the winter. She lives with it the way it is. She has a high-tech tubular glass shower that looks like the thing you go into and then say “beam me up, Scotty.” In that shower, she says, she is very warm. To her, that’s all that matters. Fortunately, the apartment where we are in Paris is warm. It isn’t like a rough stone house in the country. It is easy to heat. We have the hot water heat set on the lowest possible setting, and we’re very comfortable. We went out to eat, all bundled up, to Le Tournon last night. Tete de veau was one of the specials, so I ordered it. Tete de veau, now that I’ve eaten it in several restaurants, I realize is something that can be served in any number of ways. The version I had last night had so much of the broth that it was really like a hearty soup. The hot soup nature of it I really liked. But the product itself did not have much meat on it. Now that I’ve become such an “expert” on this dish, I’d say the best version that I’ve had is at La Gitane, in the 15^th arrondissement, on the avenue de la Motte Picquet, very near the École Militaire. The one at Bouillon Chartier, not far from the great department stores, is also good. For those who have trouble with the idea of eating calf’s head, Joel Valero’s is the best (Oh! Duo) because he arranges it so artfully on the plate. But on a cold night, the soup version of tete de veau was just fine. It really warmed me up. After dinner, we walked up to the Café Laurent at the Hôtel Aubusson and listen to Christian Brenner and his invitées play jazz. This was our last chance to hear them this year. The audience was very appreciative. Christian had a guest guitarist named Serge with him, as well as a bass player and drummer named LeChante. We enjoyed the comfortable atmosphere and the great music, and managed to get ourselves home by about 11:30PM. Sign my guestbook. View my guestbook. Note: For addresses & phone numbers of restaurants in this journal, click here. And here’s the 2009 Paris Journal.

Sunday, September 26, 2010 A cute restaurant called L’Etape de l’Angéline in La Romieu. The church in Condom (above and below) calls itself “Ste. Germaine du Condomois.” Le Bleu de Pastel, where French blue dye is made from a plant called Woad, near Lectoure. ← Previous Next →