A Moveable Feast

Back on my favorite café terrace

Thanks to a strike of the air traffic controllers in Paris (no, it is not a clichée), I stayed in Germany a bit longer than planned. I had spend the Easter holidays with my own family and the one of my godchild Amelie and her new born baby-brother. Here she is after finding the first hidden egg (traditionally brought by the "Osterhase", the easter rabbit) on Easter Sunday.

To make sure I wouldn't relax too much, I had brought my cooking tools and the pâtisserie recipes for all the possible desserts and cakes that could be part of the final exam. So they got one dessert and one cake per day. I am glad I practiced, because there were a couple of mistakes I made, that would have made me fail the final exam, that now won't happen again. For example the caramel for the most basic french dessert, Crème Caramel, failed 2 times, I almost gave up. I should blame it on my most regular blog reader's stove, and completely inadequate cooking tools, though. I think that is a good excuse.

To make things worse my friends had invited some of their friends for dinner one evening announcing, that the desserts would be made by a "great French cook". Thanks for the pressure.... But I made it, and so they got a nice selection of the big classics (tarte au citron, creme caramel, tarte aux pommes and mousse au chocolat), and it seems their guests loved it...

But now I am back in Paris with gorgeous Summer weather, temperatures around 27° C, and so as I predicted before leaving it is impossible for me to just stay inside my tiny dark appartment and accomplish my power learning plan. So I agreed with myself this morning on a compromise, and took instead of the Sunday newspaper a cuisine book to the Café de la Place, being able to combine my favorite occupation with studying for the final exams.

The plan is to use the remaining seven days of my last vacation for studying the books and practicing each day in my kitchen two to three dishes that are likely to be part of the final exam. For example yesterday the plan was Quiche Lorraine, Jambonnettes de canetons a l'orange braisées, and Bavarois rubanée. As the stuffed duck legs in orange sauce is a rather complicated dish that I had missed in class, I started that one first, when Martina, a German student from the sup class called. Martina is a career changer like me, while she has a lot more cooking experience, including professional experience at three star restaurant Lucas Carton and in the Ritz where she is working right now, and she has her own weekly cooking show on German TV.

Already before the vacation she had offered me to provide some tips for efficient C.A.P. exam preparation, and when she called yesterday she suggested to overcome my unavailability to come to her house (with all that was going on my my kitchen !) by me taking my duck legs and all the mise en place already prepared to her. Great plan ! So I hopped on the bus with all my ingredients and continued cooking my jambonnettes in her kitchen, while getting lots of advice for free from a TV cook ! I was lucky, because there were many many of things to improve, that I would not have noticed on my own. Danke Martina !

I think, below I asked her "Glaubst Du dass die garniture jetzt genug caramelisiert ist ?" 

   

The plan for today :
- theory : One chapter done with cafe crème in the sunshine. Closed.
- practice : catch up with plan from yesterday and combine with plan from today. That would mean : starters: quiche lorraine, velouté Dubarry
main dish : truite grenobloise, truite meuniere
desserts : bavarois rubannée, oeufs à la neige

If you wonder what all those are, check out tomorrow, to see whether I completed the plan (it's a lot though).

And now .... find me in my kitchen until ???.

Happy...

Happy Valentine's day from the most romantic city of the world with this classic but always beautiful photo by Robert Doisneau of the kiss in front of the Hotel de Ville.
(yes, I know it was not as spontaneous as it seems...)

Special greetings to Margaret and Andy, remember ? ;)

Tu te souviens Sophie ?

To thank my friend Sophie for the longest and warmest comment ever created on this blog, (although as usual I understand only half of it, but she uses French slang on purpose) and to test her fantastic 2007 resolution (which is : checking my blog more regularly), here is a picture of her and myself during one of my 2006 highlights, when Sophie spent a weekend in November chez moi et avec moi in Paris.

Druing that weekend she treated me to many "decadent" meals, and together we went to see Isabelle Adjani, one of France's best known actresses in "La derniere nuit de Marie Stuart" in the Marigny theatre on the Champs Elysées, in which she played Mary Stuart during her last 2 hours before being executed. An overwhelming performance, Adjani was so much into her role that she actually cried at the end, even still during the curtains...

D'ailleurs on a toutes les deux mal estimé son age. Elle aura 52 cette année, incroyable non ? Et, sa mère est Allemande, tu le savais ?

Bonne Année 2007 !

Happy New Year to all of you ! Meilleurs Voeux ! Frohes Neues Jahr ! Health, lots of happiness, many good meals and all you wish for in 2007.

And this is where and how I experienced my first New Year in Paris :

Fröhliche Weihnachten ! Joyeux Noel ! Merry Christmas !

 

Metro ligne 6

The Metro ligne 6 goes directly from my home (ok - from close to my home) to the Arc de Triomphe. I recommend to watch and push (a bit) for a window seat, especially at night. Just for the view between the stops Dupleix and Bir-Hakeim, as I had it this evening (well prepared with a camera in hand).

Illuminated fields

The fields between Place de la Concorde and l'Arc de Triomphe with Christmas illumination tonight....The City of Lights lives up to its name !

La Messe des Charcutiers

Now for something very French...

Sunday, Diane and I attended a very special event, "La messe des Charcutiers" (Butcher's mass, actually charcutier means pork butcher) in the St. Eustache church in Paris. We had found out about this event through the Aromes and Saveurs association via Laura. The butchers’ guild traditionally gets together once per year to"Messe Solennelle du Souvenir" commemorate the members who have passed away during the year. This was the 198th time.

The very serious 90 minute long mass, including beautiful music from Bruckner, Schutz, Mozart and Schubert interpreted by the St Eustache choeur and le Grand Orgue, the reading of the butchers' names who had passed away, was followed by a pretty wild and crazy "vin d'amité", a buffet of French charcuterie and beaujolais nouveau IN THE CHURCH. This was a very special ambiance, I have never seen something like this before. Here are some impressions from this event.

The church seen from outside and Le Grand Orgue

 

The best charcutiers of France ("M.O.F."s, Meilleur Ouvrier de France) marching in the church at the beginning of the mass, to be regognized by their chef's Toque and the French national colors on the chef's uniform. Ambiance during the reading with the choeur in the background.

Rush to the buffets, all in the church, after the mass. MOFs greeting each other.

 

After some fighting for space with the before so peaceful citizens, Diane (right) and I (left) eventually got hold of the beajoulais, and enjoyed it in that special environment.

 

At the lastest after the 2nd glass everybody was chatting with everybody, and we made some new friends. The church almost became a dating place.... No kidding. My best catch of the evening was this cute guy, who followed me everywhere, but eventually I shook his hands and said "au revoir", I think the age difference would not have worked out between us....

Thanks to Aromes and Saveurs for sharing this very special and fascinating part of French gastronomic culture with us !

From the Eiffel Tower to the Statue of Liberty

From the Eiffel Tower to the Statue of Liberty it just takes about 20 minutes, or a bit more, depending on how often you stop to take pictures. And no check-in at the airport necessary....Did you know that ?

Today was a gorgeous day. Although the temperatures are dropping sharply, it seems as this year the terrasse de café season doesn't end. No signs of the so much talked about dull gray Paris weather. With an endless blue sky today felt like spring, and my mood was at its best. So after some restaurant-testing-for-internship-compatibility at lunch I found myself in the 7th arrondissement not far from the La Tour Eiffel.

Normally I had other plans and I didn't want to walk there, as I have seen La Tour (not to confuse with "Le Tour", which is "de France") so many times, but there is something about it, that I can't explain. What always happens is that when I am not too far away from La Tour something draws me magically closer and I forget my original plans, until I am under the tower. Each time overwhelming. It is so beautiful. Here are some of the photos I took today...

    

But this is my favorite one. I was happy when I found the caroussel by accident...

From the Eiffel Tower I walked south along the Seine in search of the Statue of Liberty. I crossed the Pont de Bir-Hakeim half ways, then walked down stairs to the path, allée des Cygnes, that is in the middle of the Seine at water level, leading to the statue, just in front of the pont de Grenelle.

It is a bronze replica at 1/4 scale of the original Statue of Liberty, offered on July 4, 1889 by the American community in Paris to the French. It faces west, towards the original Liberty in New York Harbor. C'est beau ça... ! Oh and in case you didn't know the original Statue of Liberty was funded completely through the donation of the French people to honor the friendship between the two nations. It was designed by French sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi and by French Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (yes the same Monsieur Eiffel as for "La Tour"). In order to bring it from Paris to New York Harbor, the Statue of Liberty was dismantled into more than 300 pieces. But enough history teaching now...

So I dedicate those pictures to my "old" American friends in the US and my new American friends in Paris. Long live French-American (+German !) friendship.

For Margaret, Andy, Kate, Vini, Karen, Mark, Diane, Robbin, Irene, Cathleen, Laura, Phil and Kelli (bienvenue en France !).

And here the view near the Pont Mirabeau, both icons together on one shot (this is what I had actually been looking to find)...

 

Ma Nuit Blanche en Bleu

This morning I am still overwhelmed by yesterday's experience of the Nuit Blanche (white night = "sleepless night"). I feel lucky that I have seen the Place de la Concorde in a way it will probably never be illuminated again. Thousands were out in the streets until long after midnight to discover the events that had been set up, a very special ambiance... Next to the loss of the French soccer team against Scotland (ouch...), it was the key topic in the Sunday newspapers.

Robbin and I started the evening with an apéro in the heart of Saint Germain. Call this photo décadent, if you want, but the combination of a verre de Muscat and the view on the église de Saint Germain is something special.

Photo and Muscat taken in the café of the house where Jean Paul Sartre used to live.

We continued in a famous jazz club in Saint Germain, Le Bilboquet, where already Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis have played ! On the program yesterday was a Groove/Swing Quartet with a very talented and handsome Saxophone player, who looked like Alain Delon. A very enjoyable and rare combination. Sigh......I  miss my Saxophone lessons.

After 3 hours and the most expensive glass of Champagne I ever had, we felt the need to move, so walked along the Seine to the Place de la Concorde. In the spirit of the artist Yves Klein’s blue monochromes, a blue light "IKB" (International Klein Blue) was to illuminate the Obelisk, the statues and the fountains. The artist had imagined this project in 1958, 4 years before his death, but only yesterday his dream was transformed into reality.

Those photos were taken at 1 a.m. this morning. As it was impossible to get a taxi, the metro had stopped service and night bussed were packed, I walked home, like everybody else, reaching my appartment at 2.30 a.m....