Paris Journal 2012 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
Find me on Facebook 2011
Paris Journal ← Previous Next
→ Go back to the beginning
|
We were late in starting our evening walk because of a skillet. You see, I’ve fallen in love with the large, ceramic non-stick skillet I bought for the apartment, at Monoprix, earlier this month. I just have to have one back on Sanibel. Yesterday afternoon, I saw one in the buy.com email I received, and it turned out to be on sale for about half price yesterday only. So instead of just looking at it or putting it in my “wish list” on buy.com, I had to buy it to get the sale price. Timing was good. It should ship and arrive a little after we return. The transaction took a little bit of time, and now the Luxembourg Gardens closes a bit earlier – at 7:15PM – due to the shortening days. We entered the park at 6:45PM, and I selected a route that avoided all gateways until we could make a loop through the entire park. My experience from a prior year was that when the guards started blowing their whistles and shouting “FERMETURE,” they made us exit through the nearest gate. I didn’t want to exit at the south, and then have to walk along the busy streets to get back to the restaurant where we’d reserved a table. I wanted to stay in the park as long as possible. The plan worked, and we were turning back to the north when the guards started blowing whistles and shouting. But they were not as insistent as in the past. As long as people were walking, moving as if they were going to some exit somewhere, even if it was not the nearest one, the guards didn’t seem to care. I think that they must allow 15 minutes to clear the park of people, and then they get more serious at about 7:30. That must be when they direct you to the nearest gate, toute suite. We said good evening to a guard as we passed him, and he very cordially returned the greeting. Nice. We arrived at La Cuisine de Philippe right at 7:30, when we’d reserved. There was already a table occupied by three 30-something French men. All the tables along the long wall appeared to be reserved. The server knows us now, and he was very pleased to see us because we live in Florida, where his mom lives now. The chef came out to greet us as well. The server wasn’t busy yet, so after he took our order back to Chef Philippe, he hurried back to our table with our drinks and a mis en bouche of paté. He was anxious to ask us some questions about colloquial English. Idioms. That’s what he wanted to talk about. But he called them “phrases.” The server doesn’t know this about us, but we feel obligated to answer these kinds of questions since Tom is an English professor, author, and editor, and I’m a science writer and editor. The server asked if we have a saying like “apprendre par cœur.” I said yes, but instead of “learn by heart,” we tend to say “know by heart.” I told him that to memorize something exactly is “rote memorization.” He asked about “you’re pushing my leg” when someone is fooling you. I said that the saying is “you’re pulling my leg.” He said he thought some of the English sayings were very funny, like “raining cats and dogs.” He giggled. Tom retaliated by saying “vachement.” The server said “touché!” We asked him how “vachement” came about. It means “really very much so,” or “strongly so.” But literally, it is “cow-ly.” Like a cow. Like many French people, he pronounced “cow” as “koh,” with a long “o” sound. I had to correct him because that is one mispronunciation that most English speakers will not understand. That “how now brown cow” exercise is a good one for French people to practice if they’re learning English. The server pulled out his smartphone and looked up the origin of “vachement.” Turns out that this idiom came about because of a German word that means “hard,” or something like that. Tom said he also thought it was funny to call a policeman a “poulet” (chicken) in French slang. The server explained that this not-very-nice term came about because the police headquarters, on the Île de la Cité, is next to the site of a former chicken slaughterhouse. Interesting. I told him that in English, a very, very bad slang term for a policeman is a “pig,” but that it is so bad that it should never be used. And if you do hear someone use it in addressing a policeman, then walk away, far away, as quickly as you can. We continued the conversation about slang and idioms until more people entered the restaurant, and the server had to get back to work. Before he left our table, he said that French people “really, really” like to talk about the origin of words and language. I’ve heard that before, a number of times, in a number of ways. A group of four, including an American couple and a French couple, was seated next to us, but not until after the American woman fretted about how difficult it might be to hear there. I fumed quietly, because we are so quiet. Of course, once they were seated and started talking, she was the loudest person in the restaurant. She is an administrator of a nonprofit organization in Boston, and we heard all about it. We know she’s 60. We know more than we want to know about her. Geez. What a big mouth. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our dinner very much. The cool Fall weather seemed to call for warm, comforting food. So Tom and I each ordered a navarin d’agneau, a lamb stew that included grapes, of all things. It was served with a little dish of potatoes au gratin. The lamb was tender, the sauce was savory, and it even included slivered almonds. Perfect. For dessert, Tom ordered the caramel soufflé again, and I ordered the tarte fine aux pommes again. I especially admire the way Philippe does a tarte fine aux pommes, with such flaky pastry, a little scoop of Calvados sorbet on top, and a drizzle of raspberry sauce. Delicious. Back at the apartment, I read an interesting essay in the Bonjour Paris newsletter about a man’s encounter with a bad policeman in Paris. Here’s a link to it; it is called “Nasty Story,” by Joseph Lestrange. I’m glad he did what he did at the end of the tale, but I totally disapprove of his habit of going out disheveled and unshaved every morning in Paris. As one character said in Almost French, “it isn’t nice for the baker.” |
Friday, September 28, 2012
Ironwork
that is not only decorative, but also a part of security, meant to keep
people from climbing over a wall at the École Militaire.
The
French Senate’s poster about its generous sharing of its garden with the
public.
Place
Saint Sulpice.
Navarin
d’agneau, with potatoes au gratin.
At
the corner of rue de Fleurus and rue Guynemar is Alde,
a business that specializes in selling old photos, manuscripts, documents and
books. Their catalog, above, featured
this photo of a mentally ill person being treated by a doctor. Below, we saw photos of the same mentally
ill man in an exhibit about electroshock therapy at the history of medicine
museum at Université Descartes, a week or two
later.
|
