1: Cuisine
Every morning Nadege or myself would wake and pick up croissants from her favorite boulangerie down the block. We ate them with coffee (for her) or tea (me) along with slices of baguette, strawberry or fig jam, butter, fruit, cheeses, and on a couple of occasions chocolate turnovers. One day we had olive bread. I joked one morning that we were simultaneously having four different types of bread. (Neither Nadege nor her roommate Laurent had ever heard of Atkins, tempering the joke.) These were considered thrown together breakfasts and were very fine.
My first afternoon in town Nadege took me to a little brasserie not far from the office of her "chiropractic therapist"-which doesn't really do justice to what this man does in that he performs massages, acupuncture, and "aura" manipulation-Nadege is a dancer. The brasserie was a plain, simple place in which everyone smoked. I had poulet stew along with the first of many half bottles of Muscadet. The chicken, on the bone, had been stewed with vegetables in a tomato sauce and served with chunks of potato. Nadege ate a traditional French dish made with country sausage that I did not like, it was fatty and peculiar, no doubt an acquired taste.
That first night I was severely jet-lagged and so we stopped by the neighborhood grocer to make a light dinner at home: three cheeses, some baby greens that resembled watercress but were not, and, terrifyingly, a gigantic can of duck confit. When I helped Nadege pry it open a big gob of gelatinous fat with duck meat ensconced in it slivered out in the shape of the can-and I did not hold very high hopes for the eating of that night. I went to unpack my bags and before I knew it had passed out asleep on the couch. The smell of food awoke me, succulent meat, one of those odors that make you feel you'll never go vegetarian. The cheeses had been placed on the table with bread. Nadege brought in plates of the duck with the greens sprinkled in a red wine vinegar and while we caught up on the past few years I ate voraciously, astounded at how delicious this "canned duck confit" was. Nadege talked and though I listened, mostly I ate. For dessert there was grocery store bought chocolate mousse that was delicious and then the remnants of an apple tart that had been lying around the apartment.
The next day we went to a very good bistro near the Pompidou (or "Bobo" as they call it) for a late lunch: a half carafe (around 300 ml) of a delicious Sancerre, a tomato tart made with pastry and then stacked with chunks of stewed tomato until it was almost a cascading "igloo." Surrounding the tart was a drizzle of olive oil, a tomato based sauce and a green drizzle that was made from basil. Sumptuous. It was the middle of the day, post lunch and yet before dinner and so I had to "settle" for Salmon with a julienne of vegetables. The accompanying sauce was made from mushrooms and red wine and was very good indeed. I lapped up everything, indeed.
That night we had a late-night snack at a café called "La Passerelle" over near the Bastille in the 11ème arrondissement that was very cool-a kind of political bookstore, performance space, gallery, and café all rolled into one with a Middle Eastern flavor. A band, some of whom were friends of Nadege's co-worker Blandine, played Arab music. The menu was very eclectic and all over the place-"enchiladas" next to "baba ghanoush" next to "salad nicoise"-which reminded me of New York. We shared a bottle of red wine from the Loire Valley that was not a Sancerre rouge (interestingly I came across a few red wines from the Loire Valley that I'd never heard of), the first bottle of which Marie, another of Nadege's friends, sent back. I had guacamole and then a ceviche made with white fish and chopped peppers, onion, avocado, cilantro, and marinated in limejuice. Neither of these was meant to be a big deal and both were excellent.
Friday night I had a rush I'll-eat-anything-I'm-starving meal at a brasserie across the street from the theater where Nadege works. Everyone apologized for my having to eat there. My steak frites came rare with a Roquefort cheese butter melted over the top. I lavishly slathered both the steak and fries in the sauce.
Saturday afternoon in the Normandy town of Honfleur I ate my finest meal-a half dozen oysters, called "No. 4°", then a taste of a simply splendid fish stew Nadege ordered sprinkled with cheese and served with toast points. I had skate fish on the bone with a beurre blanc sauce (butter and white wine), capers, and a white root vegetable. Simple. I drank a crisp Muscadet and it was all very, very good.
For dinner at Sarah and Etienne's off the sea in Le Havre our host served cornichon pickles and saucisson, very traditional, and a local pāté with French bread while dinner was prepared. (Their adorable 16 month-old daughter Mona kept begging me for more of the cornichons until she was cut off by her mother.) It was all so good I almost ate myself full, gorging myself with an open-for-two-days Bordeaux that was very nice. For dinner Sarah crafted a very simple meal of garlic-stewed zucchini over basmati(!) rice with some warm sausage from Toulouse that everyone was very excited about and was indeed very good. Then there was a course of very stinky cheese that "smelled so bad" it had been sequestered onto the windowsill outside all day but when eaten was actually very mild, silky, and smooth. I kept asking what cheese it was but everyone just shrugged as if to say, "there are thousands of cheeses, who can keep up with them?" It reminded me of asking my great-grandfather in which town in Mississippi he had actually been born and him responding repeatedly "off in the country" as if it didn't matter. I guess when there are so many good varieties of a thing you are expected to just eat them and be glad that they are indeed as good as they are. (When I mentioned this to Ryo he responded that they must not have been "foodies" and I wondered what of that some of these people to whom food seemed very important but far from fashion would think.) For dessert Sarah made crepes (she had prepared the batter earlier in the evening), and we filled them with a squeeze of lemon juice and sugar as she prepared one after another in a pan-we each had at least three. A local farm's cider was served that tasted so "of the earth" that everyone thought it must be bad. I found the earthy aftertaste fascinating but agreed the bite was somewhat "funky." The cider was the cause of much joking and was finally put away. I finished my cheese and crepes with a glass of Pinot Gris.
At Sunday breakfast there was a baguette and some chocolate bread with butter, jam, yogurt, and fruit. I drank tea. It prepared us for the day of walking along the cliffs and beaches at Etratat (this is where I picked up rocks to give to friends and especially my grandfather who had landed on D-Day). That afternoon, my last in Normandy, I had moules (mussels) and frites at a silly little touristy place right off the sea. The mussels were excellent, in a sort of Provencal broth made with butter, garlic, herbs, cream, but with an added twist of smoked salmon tossed in. These were tiny mussels, very delicious, and I was very happy, eating them along with a green salad and yet another half bottle of Muscadet (Nadege would usually have a glass). She and Sarah "weren't very hungry" and so had grilled head on prawns with rice and root vegetables. The dipping sauce for the prawns, something of a spicy aioli, was delicious. Baby Mona ate pasta in a butter sauce with diced tomato. For dessert we shared profiteroles and an apple tartine. (As a gift for their hospitality I left Sarah and Etienne a bottle of Calvados I'd picked up locally-the apple brandy is produced in and around Normandy.)
Back in Paris I watched football with a bunch of French-Africans at a little grec place along rue Faubourg Saint-Denis in the 2ème (or was it the 3ème?). I chowed down on one of many kafte/doner kabobs I'd have over my stay. In Paris kabobs are not served on pita but on little French bread baguettes, which I initially found absurd. The bread is fresh, soft, and tasty and by the end of my stay I came to think of it as very French and forward thinking. (I still yearned pita bread when I got back to New York.) This particular eatery made one of the best grec frites I was to have and the man who owned the place was the nicest person I met in all Paris. We all watched the match and laughed and shouted, I just nodded my head when I didn't understand. The dudes I sat with were so excited about the football match that no one noticed I didn't speak French.
On Tuesday we had lunch with Karin, who I'd known in New York, at a place called "Wepler" at Place du Clichy. I had fois gras made with chicken liver served with cornichons, pearl onions and frisee that was very good and a half carafe of Vin de Pays OC that was very nice too. My entree was a duck confit that Wepler is supposed to be famous for but did not knock me on my ass. For dessert I had a plate of five delicious cheeses that rescued the meal.
Nadege's friend Marie and Brazilian boyfriend Roberto hosted a dinner one of my last nights. Marie prepared a traditional Brazilian stew that she had discovered on a recent trip through Brazil visiting Berto's family. The stew is called something "camarones" (shrimp) in Portuguese and was made of pumpkin, shrimp, onions, peppers, peas, and served over rice. We drank caipirinhas to begin with and then with the stew a soft Gamay. For dessert there was pineapple sautéed in a compote of coconut, served with ice cream. It was wonderful. We listened to Brazilian samba and bossa nova during dinner then switched to Serge Gainsbourg later. After dessert I leafed through Berto's four volume photo illustration books of Godard's Histoire(s) du Cinéma films, yet to be translated into English. Berto's friend and co-filmmaking partner, Olivier, then proceeded to escort myself, Nadege, and her brother Romain, (who was driving) on a mad dash hour-long trip through the streets of Paris. This one o'clock in the morning trek included the Bastille, Champs Elysees, Eiffel Tower, Paris Opera House, Louvre, Orsay, bridge Pont Neuf, that little island in the middle of Paris, a canal, the humongous main Police station off the Seine where Marie Antoinette spent her last cake-less days before being beheaded, and many, many more little idiosyncratic sights that I'm not remembering-it was incredible. He wanted to make sure I saw the "real Paris." It reminded me of that scene in Godard's Band of Outsiders where the young friends sprint through the entire Louvre in nine minutes. Returning somewhat to food-we ended the tour in Olivier's Stalingrad neighborhood where there was an ongoing bet concerning whether or not the promised fast-food place "Ghandi Fried Chicken" actually existed. I'd been amazed in my sojourns through Paris to come across an establishment called "Paris Fried Chicken" (in English) and found it so hilarious and absurd that when Olivier mentioned there was also a "Ghandi Fried Chicken" I was sure he was pulling my leg. We found it though, it was insane. (We did not dine there.)
At Nadege's family home in suburban Vigneux Mrs. Catenacci prepared a splendid dinner of toast points with a hard melted cheese, store bought "butter pāté" on baguette that was delicious, salad, then spaghetti with ground beef and shaved parmesan. Along with it was a regional sausage from Nadege's father's hometown in Italy that was simply fabulous-spicy, bursting with flavor, irresistible. We had apple tart for dessert.
On my last day in town I had lunch at a Middle Eastern place in Montmartre I'd often go to in which hordes of working-class men took their lunch. The staff knew me pretty well by this point. I ate my last grec frites and then in the street picked up a croissant for Nadege at her favorite boulangerie, got a banana from the fruit market and sauntered back to prepare for the trip home.