Another HOT day 8-12-15

Today it was HOT again, we started the day out with shopping as we were getting down to a bare refrigerator again.   Getting out early has it's advantages because one can walk to the markets and not arrive in a sweaty mess.  We stopped at our cheese vendor first because they will be closing for 10 days beginning the 15th and stocked up.   Then it was over to the fruit and vegetable shop to get topped up there, don't know if they will close or not as there is no sign that we've seen.  We wanted fish but our fish vendor is  closed until the 21st so no joy. However, next door to the fish shop is a boulangerie that placed 3rd in the annual Paris wide baking
competition for baguettes in 2013, not as close as our regular shop but great breads and pastries.

Back home for lunch and trying to stay cool in heat.  I had an acupuncture appointment today and decided to go a bit early so that I could cool off beforehand but no such luck.  The park I stopped at was sweltering and almost no breeze so I went in to a market to the freezer section and got cooled down a bit.  A couple minute walk to the acupuncturist had me sweating again and that's how I showed up.   The elevator is so small that my shoulders touch both walls and it's about 4 feet deep, fitting into the well created by the winding staircase.
So I sweated on her table for an hour and then went and sat in the park again with a little better result this time.   Taking the bus home was the same story hot, hot, hot with the same sweaty outcome.

AUGUST IN PARIS - DEB'S THOUGHTS

*Amazingly, the leaves have started to brown and to fall. At least those from plane trees (sycamores in the US.) These trees are ubiquitous here because their bark sheds often, making them pollution resistant. I don't know whether they always start to lose leaves so early, or whether it's a factor of this year's drought. I do know it makes me feel that time is passing much too quickly.

*Several friends have commented that we must be getting really good at speaking French, and must be sounding like natives by now. Sadly, the truth is much more depressing. We get along and can get all our necessary transactions achieved, and even get into conversations, but are no closer to being able to keep up with the rapid-fire everyday French spoken here. Can only catch a few words of conversations overheard on busses for example, unless they are in the slow-motion vocabulary of people talking to tiny children, and even then the slang is incomprehensible. So embarrassing that every 3 year old surpasses us in vocabulary and verb tenses. Our vocabulary has certainly increased, at least for reading, but verb tenses in the melee of conversation remain elusive. Our consistently pleasant mongers (wine, meat, fruit, cheese, etc.) continue to try to engage us in conversation and discuss methods of preparation, recipes, etc. I admire their tenacity in the face of our consistent confusion.
  

* I try to increase my vocabulary by endeavoring to figure out the meanings of advertisements in the Metro and on the streets. Great for learning a bit of slang, and also usually amusing since European ads in general tend to be witty. My current favorite poster is for the huge climate change convention here. It is a play on a famous historical painting that shows an allegory of "Liberty leading the people", a busty, semi-clothed beauty leading the peasants over the barricades of the Revolution in Paris. The new version shows a megaphone-wielding Panda bear in the same pose as Lady Liberty, leading  modern people over the barricades to confront climate change. Regardless of your opinion on climate change, a witty, compelling image.

* There must be something in the air because we've witnesses several episodes of small child rebellion in the last couple of days. One was a pre-school aged boy who was actively disobeying his frazzled grandmother and running off ahead of her, down the street and repeatedly refusing to cooperate, a rebellion that can have dangerous consequences near the hazardous street crossing.. Another outbreak was from a tiny, just barely competent walker, pointedly declining her mother's hand, and clinging instead to her only slightly larger sister's hand. When pressed again to hold mom's hand, she stuck out a tiny lower lip and stamped a miniature foot, and stated firmly "Merci, non, Maman!" This morning we saw a small girl in an embroidered pinafore do a improvised dance of rage when exhorted to get into her pram. We only mention these because they are so unusual. French children tend to be so well behaved, we're not completely convinced they are real.

* With August come many closings - the fermatures estivals, summer closings. But our working class neighborhood can't afford the month long closings of more upscale areas. Some of our vendors aren't closing at all, like our butcher who is using the slow customer month to make hundreds of dried sausages to have ready for fall. Others like our cheese shop will only close for ten days (yes, we are panicking at the thought and did stock up more than usual today.) I thought it was interesting that she is selling her cheese stock down to the bare shelves. I'd have thought the cheeses wouldn't have suffered from 10 days, but obviously I haven't gotten the drift of fresh food here yet.

* For the first time this year, we found Warren's favorite plums, the tiny yellow Mirabelles in the fruit market today. About the size of a nickel, or the biggest ones, a quarter, these delicious little plums are only in season for a short time. People buy them by the kilo. We bought fresh ones and Warren bought a tart, as well. We'll be sampling Mirabelle tarts from every shop we see for a while. Each baker does them differently.

*Some small market surprises:

* How consistently good the watermelons are here. Who knew the French even did watermelons? These are like candy. No wonder the French eat so many fruit salads for dessert. They really do taste like dessert...

*Preparations of stew, soups, canned meats in beautiful glass jars. Our butcher, for example, has some lentil soups gazpachos and various local specialties in his shop as does our cheese monger. I was noticing them in the Grande Epicerie, the high-end grocery store we visited a week or so ago. I started reading their labels and was quite amazed. The "Chicken in Three Mustard Sauce" contained the following: farm-raised chicken, 3 specific mustards, cream, onion, salt and pepper. That's it. No preservatives, artificial colors, artificial flavors, nothing. By comparison, a nearby can of a well-known American soup had 11 ingredients beyond chicken, veg and spices. Many of them I can only pronounce because of my degree in Chemistry. In fairness, the American soup was markedly less expensive than the French product. Mustard costs more than corn syrup.

(to be continued)

Cite des Fleurs 8-11-15

I've been lobbying to go see the Cite des Fleurs for quite a while but things have not worked out in that direction until today.   Located up in the 17th arr, the Cite des Fleurs is a gated private street around 300 meters in length lined with houses dating as far back as the beginning of the street in 1847.  It may be the oldest development in Paris with housing covenants which are still in place and enforced.  The street is lined with a variety of architectural styles and a large percentage are quite lovely in design, while some are more utilitarian.   All have fences facing the street with front yards of one type or another.  Some yards are paved while many others are gardens with flowering plants and at least one has palm trees.
We walked down the street the first time looking at houses on one side of the street, then left the street to walk around the neighborhood looking for a place to have lunch.  During our walk we found 3 different little parks within about 5 blocks, one was hidden at the back of a dead end street while the others were bounded by streets and buildings on all sides.
After our little walkabout we settled on the first restaurant we had seen, Irene et Bernard, sitting on a corner about a block from the Cite des Fleurs gate.  We both had a tasty filet mignon of pork with roast potatoes in a mustard sauce.  Of course, seeing filet mignon I ordered my "saignant" which is bloody, it was only after it was delivered that I realized it was pork which explained the somewhat nonplussed look of the waitress when I ordered.
After lunch we walked back to the street and walked it again looking at the houses and gardens on the opposite side.  It does appear that there must have been builders who constructed more than one house on the street because there are several with markedly similar designs.
When we finished with the street we walked over to yet another park a couple blocks away, named in honor of Martin Luther King.  It contains a skateboard park where children were going wild on the ramps and pipe, almost no skateboards in evidence but several scooters like the types we see in the streets.   The great majority of kids were just running up on to the upper stages of the pipe and then sliding down without any equipment.   The kids on scooters were going down the ramps and trying to jump across middle ramps then up ramps at the other end.
We watched this mayhem for an hours or so and then headed home, where I was able to pick up my blood test results from the morning visit.

All Quiet on the Paris Front 8-10-15

Today was a day for undone tasks, Deb wanted to catch up on apartment cleaning and I had to do so chores that I'd been putting off for a while.

When I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago he gave me a medical order for a blood test, I send this to my doctor in the U.S. as a 6 month followup, and told me to take it to a medical laboratory.  He said my pharmacy could tell me where one was located, but since it's right next door to my pharmacy I didn't need to ask.  When I got there they asked me if I had eaten, and of course I had so no joy, come back tomorrow.  


My next destination was the barbershop for a haircut and beard trim.  My shop is staffed by either Indian or Pakistani barbers and they are very good, Western Coiffure if you need a haircut in Paris.   This is my third visit and Deb says that they really know their business. Plus it's very inexpensive 12 euros for a scissor haircut w/ straight razor edging, and a scissor cut beard trim.  Those are Great Clips numbers.

After finishing up I went to a local cafe/bar and had lunch as I didn't want to disrupt Deb's momentum for the day.   I had a nice 13 euro lunch w/ beer and watched the activity on the street go by.   Then back to the apartment, I was going to make a small trip somewhere in town but when I looked it was almost 16:00 (4 pm) and I would have been out and about quite late then.   Deb finished up and we had a tomato/bread salad with burrata cheese that had been marinating for the last 24 hours for a delightful and light dinner.

Sort of a Guinguette Weekend 8-9-15

We woke up this morning to rain, not heavy but persistent.  However by around 10:00 it had stopped and we decided that we would try to find the guinguette, that I stumbled on in a Paris blog, La Guinguette Auvergnate. However being August we felt we should try to determine whether they were closed for the month or not so I found their website and there was no mention of closures.  So we took the Metro down to the station where we could pick up the RER C which would take us to a nearby station.
As part of the entry I read about there was also a 3+ kilometer walk along the Seine leading up to it.  It is supposedly a real throwback to the early guinguettes, prices are very moderate and on Sundays they feature dancing as well as offering food and drinks in a rustic atmosphere, just the kind of place that interests people with a cabin in Guffey.
So we caught the train out to Choisi-le-Roy and got out.  The first order of business was to walk across the Seine and find the walking trail which we would follow down to Villeneuve Triage, our goal.
We had some concern about the weather due to forecasts of rain, but it stayed overcast and turned out to be quite comfortable walking. It is very industrial down here south of the city center and the path along the river is a little run down but it is very quiet and, at least today, little used.  It was very positive to see that there were birds on and fish in the river so the water is healthy.  After an hour or so we arrived at our destination and when we got to the front door there was a hand-written note "closed from 6 August until 23 August for the fermeture annuelle".   So we made it to both guinguettes but no beer or dancing at the one today. At least we had a nice walk down along the river and we'll come back in the fall.

The other positive note was that the railway station back into Paris is only about 25 meters from the front door of the Guinguette, so we got back to Gare de Lyon in about 20 minutes.

Maybe a Guinguette Weekend 8-8-15

Our goal for today was to go down to the Marche de Vanves, in the Southwest corner of the city.  It is an every weekend market with pretty much the same vendors every week, but it's fun to see what new things they may have brought to sell.  We haven't been there for several weeks and it was a nice day so we boarded the Metro and Tram to make our way down.  Sometime back I went to an auction and on a whim bought a print.  Cheap, but fun for the focus of a bit of research.  It was printed under the auspices of a man named Cadart in the late 1800's.  Not really exclusive stuff but interesting nonetheless because of his attempts to bring fine art to the masses.  There were at least two vendors specializing in etchings and prints and neither of them have ever heard of Cadart, so it looks like an interesting area to pursue.   If we find more than one print we may try to give a little presentation to our print club when we return, we'll see.   None were to be discovered today.

But after the market we continued on the tram down to the terminus, at the Pont du Garigliano, and over to Guinguette La Javelle for lunch.  We discovered it a few weeks ago as well and since we were in the neighborhood it seemed like a good choice.  You may remember, or not, that it is basically an outdoor space on a quai next to the Seine, filled with tables.   There is an open air bar where one can buy drinks, wine, beer, and sodas, and each day there are two featured food trucks that setup at one end where one can purchase food.  Today was a burger truck and another truck featuring Moroccan fare.  

Since I've not had a burger since we arrived we settled on those, mine was based on a black pepper sauce (au poivre) and Deb's was focused on a spicy mayonnaise sauce.  They had all the trimmings; lettuce, tomato, cheese, grilled onions, etc. and are served with frites.  I got us the medium pichet of red wine and another of water and we sat waterside to have a leisurely lunch.  Deb favors making this a Saturday ritual as long as the weather cooperates.   

After lunch we wandered over to the Parc Andre Citroen, this is the park we were headed for last time when we were waylaid by the guinguette La Javelle.   This park is formerly an industrial site where munitions and then automobiles were manufactured.  After it was abandoned the city developed this park for neighbors in this section of town.  If today was an indicator then this park likely gets quite a lot of usage.  

There are many water features in the park but I think due to the water restrictions in place for the canicule (heat wave) many have been turned off.  Still they have a circulating channel surrounding a large grass field and fountains at one end where children can play in the jets of water, they also have a small cascade at one corner of the park where one can sit between two walls of water falling over textured surfaces.

Tomorrow the plan is to go to another guinguette further out in the countryside, we'll see as rain is forecast and it may be too muddy for the suggested walk.

We didn't get enough a couple days ago 8-7-15

When we went to the Musee Cernuschi two days ago we were really impressed with their collection, especially as it is a small museum.  I suggested that we go to the Musee Guimet a much larger Asian museum that rates as one of the top Asian museums in the World.  We got to the museum by 11:45 and looked through some of the Cambodian and Indian rooms before taking a break for lunch at the museum restaurant.

A word about the restaurant, they serve a varied selection including, surprise, asian cuisine and it's quite good.  But even more interesting is that they have several porcelain/stoneware artifacts from the Ming dynasty, Ming Vases!   They are displayed in several locations, and in another museum they might be the crowning piece of the collection, how nice.

After our lunch we went to the top floor to start working our way down, but after about 5 hours we had only seen a bit over half of the museum.   The sculptures from Cambodia and India were spectacular ranging in age from about 3000 BCE up to around 1200 CE.

The collection covers an entire range of endeavors from painting and sculpture through jewelry, porcelain, and weaponry the range of human endeavor and that's just the part we've seen so far.  There will be additional visits to this museum.   As we were leaving I noticed a woman who was meditating in front of one of the old temple sculptures, she was a bit self-conscious but went forward, very interesting

It had rained while we were inside, so when we came out it was very comfortable not too warm not too cold.  The trip home on the Metro was relatively uncrowded, but then many of these people cannot afford to go to the country or the beach for a month's vacation.