Goodbye Paris, I'm really going to miss you.

A series of unfortunate events has really foiled my plans to live and work in France, namely a worldwide economic recession.  I could blame it on the bad timing, my sub-par french, or just poor planning on my part, but whatever it is - Paris isn't showing me any employment love.  I was stubborn and clingy to the idea of being with Paris, but eventually I came to terms with the fact that maybe it's just not our time.  

So.  I'm leaving Paris - for Burgundian wine country - on bikes and with a tent.  One last hurrah in France before we return home in November.  I can't tell you much besides that.  It's a real pattern for me and my time here in France - that is, not knowing what I'll be doing or where I'll be living 2 months out.  Oh, and we're going to try and get some work during the harvest.  In exchange for an authentic french country meal and free wine I am willing to endure great hardship.  In the mean time here are some random images from Paris:

We were on Pont des Arts one night with a friend.  Isn't this couple cute?  I love his navigational earnestness, and she looks like she's being patient and helpful trying to spot landmarks. It was a fine summer night, we were right smack in the middle of a pedestrian bridge over the Seine with views of Notre Dame and the island.  Where else did they possibly want to go?

You know.

Sunset from our apartment window.

A photo of Luxembourg gardens from my Paris "tour guide" days.

A print from an exhibit we saw on the Description de l'Egypt.  This was part of a temporary exhibit at the Musee de l'armee / Les Invalides / Napoleon's Tomb...or "Gold Dome" as we like to call it.  It really was an impressive undertaking.   A complete volume of the Description de l'Egypt was on display and in its entirety takes up a whole book case.  

In this photo, I've placed a keen young man next to the book case as a size reference.  His enthusiasm comes from the fact that he's been reading about culture and imperialism...a work that is coincidentally titled as such.  Some could say he was like a kid in a culture and imperialism candy store.  

But we just got here!

These photos are of the studio that we're staying in right now.  We've been here for almost 2 months, and are leaving in a week and a bit...but thought I'd share some Parisian studio-living pictures with you:

It's the nicest place, besides our little place in Toulouse (*heart), that we've lived in during our time in France.  The studio comes with its own lesbian art photography, full views of the Eiffel Tower and the Beaubourg, and too many flights of stairs.   It's in the 20th arrondissement, a few blocks away from Belleville, primarily a working class immigrant neighbourhood that's beginning to gentrify.  Thanks to the immigrant population here (a mix of north and sub-saharan Africans and Chinese) we've been "eating local", making tagines from meats bought at one of the many halal butchers,  and digging into algerian almond-based pastries with hot mint tea in the evenings.   

It'd be hard to tell from our apartment, which happens to be one of the few Haussmanian buildings about halfway up a hill from larger block-like apartment complexes, that the neighbourhood itself is a little rough around the edges.  Although it might not be what one might envision as the postcard perfect Paris, in some ways it reflect a more accurate Paris - a large cosmopolitan city where people live, work and go about their daily business without having to step aside every 2-strides to accommodate a map-wielding tourist.   Walking around here, you see kids on bikes, families on errands and old men hanging out at cafés.  Hookah and moroccan cafés are tucked right up alongside french neighbourhood bistros and bars, their patrons sharing the same sidewalk and a mix of 2nd hand cigarette and hookah smoke.

 There's this café a few blocks from us that's undergoing renovations.  At its most stripped down stage the doors were still wide open  (actually, there were no doors) with nothing but unfinished surfaces, a bar with a man behind it, some stools and the beer tap still in operation.  We've walked by this place almost on a daily basis, and it's fun to see the progress take place around the cast of regulars that seem to be permanently camped there.  It was like time-lapse footage where people are the fixed elements and the constructed environment transforms around them.  Seeing this made me understand café culture in a different way - that it really is an old school, hardcore dedication to your café and the social life in your community.  Floors or no floors.  

Vegetable plants for sale at a florist in our hood.  

Left behind in Paris in August? You poor thing.

This city has become a ghost town.  Relatively speaking that is, and it still depends on what neighbourhood you're in.  The Parisians have made their mass exodus out of the city starting the long-weekend of July 14th (Bastille/National Day) and slowly continue to trickle out to seaside destinations.  What's left behind?  Throngs of tourist in the centre and disgruntled workers who have to stay and form the skeleton staff of companies.   Little shops shut down for the month, putting up signs in glib handwriting, "bonnes vacances".   This might explain the lack of postings as offices and work in general grind to a halt, making my job search here in Paris almost impossible.

 

In an attempt to provide a balm for all those left behind, the City of Paris puts on "Paris Plages" in the summertime.  Large stretches along the Seine and some canals are transformed into...a beach.  The busy roads that run the stretches of the Seine are closed off, fine sand is trucked in, beach loungers are set up, and pétanque (french lawnbowling) pitts are cordoned off.  The Seine-side beach comes equipped with a stretch of boardwalk, showers, changing stalls, news vendors on bikes and potted palm trees.  It looks really beachy, non?

     
If for whatever reason you're a Parisian and can't take a portion of your standard 5-week holiday in August, the City of Paris graciously brings the beach to you.  As kitschy as it may be, I'm pretty psyched about scoring my own lounger on the faux beach and watching the museum tourists scuttle across bridges from the Louvre, to Notre Dame and to the Musée d'Orsay.  *sigh, oh Paris, this is so like you.

Paris and its firemen's balls - it's exactly like it sounds

Did you know that every year, the night before Bastille Day, the firemen of Paris throw what's called a "Bal des Pompiers"?  Probably not, because I didn't.  60 firehalls/firehall courtyards are transformed into giant neighbourhood parties, staffed by firemen and the like.  I know.  Ladies, it's true, I wouldn't lie about something like this.  To top it all off, the champagne was a-flowing, and served in adorable plastic flutes. 

Oh, and did I mention that the firemen in Paris and Marseille are of a particularly elite class?  Aside from being firemen, they're also members of the french military, which explains why they are uniformly young and uniformly clean cut.  That is to say, uniformly everything that you'd expect a fireman/soldier to be.  All were welcome at the event (families included) and we went as a group of 2 canadian couples and our friend from Paris, we all had an amazingly fun time -- but let's be honest here, it's really a party for girls.  The guys that we came with, just had to shrug and go along with the spectacle of the whole thing like the good sports that they are.  

The beauty of the whole thing was that these young firemen waited on you at every possible part of the party.   They were there: at the entrance greeting you, taking your coat at coat check,  serving you at the bar, in the women's bathrooms replacing the toilet paper, and at the end of the night thanking you for coming to their party.  And at each turn they were there with their cocksure, easy good looks, cranking up the flirt and charm because it's their party and, like all good hosts, they wanted everyone to have a good time...and also to reinforce all the positive sexual stereotypes that come along with being french, a fireman and in the military all at the same time.  

Also at the party and in their uniforms, were members of the French air patrol.   You can spot them in their baby blue jet fighter jumpsuits (think Top Gun, but 2009 and euro).  They were also one of the very few with cokes instead of alcohol in hand, as they had to be en pleine forme for formation flying at the Military Parade on the Champs Elysées the next day.  M and I figured that there were always at least 3 women clustered  around each of these pilots every time we chanced to look.  Not that we looked often.  The firemen were one thing, but these men were of a different breed.     

My favorite moment of the night was when the dance floor went nuts over a string of 80's french hits.  It was awesome, and in the way that a medley of bon jovi, acdc and def lepoard is awesome - only more because it was the night before le quatorze juillet in Paris, and we were tipsy off of champagne and dancing in the open-air of a french firehall courtyard.

photos courtesy of M's camera

Yes, I still like food...

Our closet-sized kitchens in Paris have been driving me insane.  The experience best resembles trying to cook in a 3-person elevator (these are common in France).  Instead of fun and experimental meals, I've been restricted to meals that are elevator-cooking friendly, that means minimal prep, minimal chopping and minimal cooking (only 2 burners).  But don't you worry, we're still eating well.  Observe:

  

"Ispahan" from Pierre Hermé - raspberry meringue, lychee and rose-scented cream with fresh raspberries.  *die. No, seriously.

They grow them a little cuter in France.

The market experience in Toulouse was pretty amazing, and 2 months into our stay there, I knew our way around town and the markets like the back of my hand.  Markets kind of operate on a self-serve system in Toulouse, there are small baskets that you take and fill with your choice of produce, and it makes the line move quick.  It also gave me the freedom to poke around and handle produce that I haven't seen before.  In Paris, I'm often served by someone - you tell them what you want and in the quantities and they put your order together for you.  Upside: it's nice to be served.  Downside: you can't take your time because the madames behind you are impatiently fidgeting and "accidently" bumping into you with their roll-away grocery bag things.  One time, I accidentally ordered 2 yellow "boats" (navettes) instead of 2 yellow turnips (navets).  Embarrassing.

tombstones and a little tranquility from facebook...

Went to the Père Lachaise cemetery last week and wandered around just taking it all in.  It was really beautiful and still there, aside from the handful of tourists in search for Jim Morrison's grave (anticlimactic by the way).  BUT, check out this beaut - Oscar Wilde's grave.  It was recently re-done by a benefactress that was a fan of his work.  If you zoom in, you can see lipstick kisses all over it!!!  Love love love.  Shades of pink, reds and browns - lips on stone.  

There was a little bit written about him on the back, but also a lovely little epitaph:

And alien tears will fill for him

 Pity's long broken urn.

For his mourners will be outcasts

And outcasts always mourn.

More of what the rest of the cemetery looked like.

  

View from our living room. 

I joined facebook the other day.  It was a little overwhelming at first and I'm retreating to this blog as a security blanket of sorts.  It's so quiet here!  Facebook is like a highschool science fair, everyone's lives on display on a 3-panel bristol board.  Or maybe a highschool cafeteria, where there are so many people you can go and talk to in 5-minute intervals before moving on and getting in line to order your fries.  I'm more used to wordy blogs and lengthy emails of late - but that's because I've had time and lots of it.  I wonder if I am in actuality a homebody or if it is just being with P, ironically he happens to be the most socially well-received person I know.  But P loves being at home.  "Hate" is a strong word, but I'll say he was "glad to escape" Vancouver and all its (our) social obligations.    As I flip through photos on facebook and see myself and my friends I really question if I'm as homebody on the inside as I've come to be with P.  

Paris week 1 + visitors...it just doesn't stop

*sigh, what can I say, it's Paris and it's beautiful.  The food is beautiful too, and we've only been here a week.  We managed to stumble on a bakery that was voted "meillure boulanger 2008" in the 10th - had to buy a half loaf, could not resist.  More on Pierre Hermé later,  all that I will say is: they're expensive, and yes they're worth it.

Fraser struggles to mount the block, not the spry little guy he used to be, but just wait and crank some of Paris' "grime-y" electronic beats into him.  Note in the background how others are using the blocks to take pictures, using perspective to make it look like they're holding the tips of the pyramids.  Joke/gag pictures abound in Paris and the Louvre.  So many nude statues, so many opportunities and hy-larious photo-memories to be had.  Fraser never fully got up on his feet, something about his hip.

Ian waiting at our metro stop.  We're staying in the 5th for the month of May.  The apartment is a bit run-down, but the outside looks lovely...and it's super central.  

Lunch.

We went for a beautiful dinner at a restaurant in the 11th called "le Chateaubriand".  All male-wait staff in threadbare white shirts and scraggly french beards.  It was perfect.  So very casual, serving beautiful, seasonal and thoughtful food.  They do a 5 course tasting menu, starting with a cold tofu and fish foam for an amuse bouche.  Then it was seared mullet with fresh garden peas and a chicken liver mouse, cod with white asparagus and black olives, and a bavette with some sort of shallot and fish-roe sauce.  DESSERT?  Fresh mint ice-cream served with "sticks" of chocolate and vanilla meringue and a basil butter.  The basil butter was a gift that really kept on giving - basil butter burps, you get it.

Ian took this amazing picture (he's a pro and has shared some amazing photos with us).  This was off from the Pyramides from the Louvre.  This little girl was rapt with attention watching the fiddler.  Just her, and the guy, his fiddle and the music.  I died, it was so cute.

Goodbye Toulouse...

We're leaving Toulouse for Paris next week...most things are taken care of and the next week will be relatively stress free.  We've had 2 sets of visitors since last week.  First it was A & J making a pit stop in Toulouse from their trip to Barcelona and then P's cousin J & S from Canterbury.  It is always nice to have visitors, it helps us re-see Toulouse for all its pretty charm and past the dog shit and whiffs of urine from small medieval alleys.

Here are some photos that J took during her visit - some rare ones of us at the market doing our usual market thing amidst older french women in fancy sunglasses.  They love their fancy sunglasses here.

Piles and piles of different types of salad.  I'm waiting to pay for radishes and red oak leaf lettuce.  We're at the daily market of Blvd. Strasbourg.  

Hands down, the coolest carousel we've seen so far.  Rather than garish horses and carriages on the typical merry-go-rounds, this one had different versions of old flying machines, boats, a giant bucking ant, rhinos and a crocodile.  After one turn, I saw a little boy go up to the old man who ran the thing and the old man pulled out a little candy from his pocket for the boy.  Love, love, love that.  

Just when we were getting into it...

It's mid-march and I'll be leaving Toulouse in a month.  A month!!  We finally got some of that southern france weather (the weather we came for) this weekend.  It was 19 and sunny.  yeah, I know.  Our landlord's mother, told us that this has been an unusually cold winter and that this 19 degrees business usually starts in February, but instead we were slogging through an extra rainy/cold winter.  But no complaints, we're going to make up for it this next month.  P and I went to lunch at Place St. Georges...or where the rich, beautiful and sunglasses clad french families go to dine.  *sigh, here in France, small children wear nicer clothes than I do - and by nicer I mean WAAY nicer,  like burberry trenchcoats and such.  

P got steak tartare (our first time here), and the thing came out as a raw hamburger mound with chopped up cornichons, onions and capers in it...AND a raw egg right on top.  I mean, we knew what we were getting, but it was still a sight for us non-raw-hamburger/egg-eating types.  It was a lot of raw beef and raw egg in one sitting, but we liked it and ate it all.  It comes with worsteshire sauce, mustard and tobasco sauce on the side - a nice lady sitting at the table next to us gave us instructions on how to eat and manage the thing.  Put the sauce on it, mix it through with the egg (much like one would prepare fresh hamburgers, only you don't throw it on the grill), then mound it onto bread and eat. 

When we're not pigging out on raw meat amidst beautiful french families, we're eating this:

Choucroute garni - it's an Alsatian specialty of saurkraut (warmed through) garnished with sausages, smoked meats and potatoes.  We walk by this stuff at the pig butcher stalls, but never tried it until last week.  We asked the lady to explain to us what to do and how to eat it and she packed up enough for a meal for the 2 of us.  In the picture we have: 2 types of sausages, a slice of smoked pork shoulder, some boiled potatoes and the choucroute.  Who knew a steaming mound of hot sour cabbage would be so good.  There's a butcher that specializes in choucroute garni and we're going to get stuff from there next time and see how the two meals compare.

love - a belated valentine's day post

If P and I celebrated anniversaries together, we would have just rounded our 7th year.

22 year-olds P&P having lunch at the Maggie Benston Centre at SFU.  I really dug P's "Andrew-Jackson" coif back then.  He wears it differently these days.

After 7 years together I didn't really think that there would be much more to learn about each other...I kind of felt that we were now in "new-experiences-together" mode, and less the "getting-to-know-each-other" mode.  We're at the point where we anticipate each other's sentences and jokes don't need to be finished before we mind-meld into "pault" and crack up at punchlines that never drop.  We even got each other the exact same valentine's day surprise, each having secretly dropped by the same chocolate shop minutes apart from each other.  We have always spent a lot of time together...we like to.  Since coming to Europe we've taken it all to a whole new level, like we're in one of those machines that make diamonds from carbon (what do you even call those things?), it's as if we get super intense, highly-pressurized, focalized laser beams of each other.  All pault all the time.  And yet, I'm happy to report that we still manage to learn new things about each other.  Love and romance thrive on mystery, non?  Check out these new mystery nuggets that I recently discovered in my lover:

1) P CANNOT STAND middle-aged women with short, severe bobs (straight cut bangs, straight cut everything).  He can handle the two separately, he might even like either of those components in their own right, but just NEVER together.  I found this out when we sat across from a tall norwegian woman with that kryptonitic combination, paul was made irritable and uneasy that whole train ride.  

2) P HATES wind, or even breezes.  He gets fussy and unnerved by the slightest movement of air out of doors.  A perfectly beautifully, sunshiney day is, in Paul's opinion, ruined by the slightest traces of a breeze.  He gets so worked up about it.

   

Here we are on the windy west-coast of norway.  I am lovingly drawing P's hood, to minimize his exposure to wind.

3)P tolerates human cloning (this is a gross simplification of an hour-long debate) - like, really?  On a more positive note, we've come to the conclusion that we very much look forward to having traditional "mixies", rather than clones.

photos of the two of us together are rare.  This was at Ruby Lake on the Sunshine Coast.  Our friends V and S took us to a secret spot where we picnic-ed, swam and went to town on the rope-swing.

It's been 7 years, and P just doesn't want to hear it sometimes.

Jornessa & Pault in Aix-en-Provence

The 4 of us took off for Aix-en-Provence after a week in Toulouse.  It was a cute little town and, from our conversation with the roadside chicken rotisserie guy, seems to be overrun with Brits and Americans.  We went by train, but the next time we go to Provence should be by car...and should be in the summer time so that we get that whole fields-of-lavender-and sunflowers effect.

Lunchtime in a square in Aix.  Like a modern day Renoir - non? It's a pretty typical scene in France.

 

We ate inside that day.  Here is me morphing back into my T1000 form.

"Have you seen this boy?"

I'm holding a contest for the best caption for this photo.

Goodbyes at the train station - Jordan and Vanessa were on their way to Nice, Italy and then Paris.

How did THIS happen?

It's 8:22 friday morning.  I've got class today at 9:00, usually it's 8:30 but 9 for fridays, not complaining.  P's got classes at 8:30 still and I love love love being the person that gets to stay in bed while the other has to get up.  I've been e-absent of late because long gone are the days when all I really had to do was wake up, think about food, read and cruise the internet.  We are full time, elbow-deep in French classes.  I miss the retirement schedule of december, but it's been so great to learn french.  Tradeoffs.  We've gone back to "easy" food for dinners and lunches, but the weekend is coming and I'm going on a market tear for saturday and sunday AND it's Chinois Nouvel An so gotta figure out something to eat...fish, I think it's a must for new years.

Nuther post to come.

Christmas and kisses...

(It snowed on the morning of the 26th...big fat fluffly flakes, but was gone by the afternoon - the view of the snow - not in all its glory from our window)

 

So it came and went. P and I spent a quiet, but gastronomically indulgent christmas season.  2 versions of a christmas meal, a french one on christmas eve involving oysters, scallops, duck, creamed chard and other coronary damaging foods and a more familiar dinner of turkey and the associated trimmings for Christmas dinner.  I should also say that I've been doing a lot of "experimental" baking in our toaster oven and we now have a (tiny) freezer full of christmas baking to last us through to the new year.  

Our Christmas night was made a little more exciting by a sudden power outage in our apartment (we were cooking) - everything in the fusebox looked right and the lights in the apartment building on our floor were on...so we had no choice but to knock on Monsieur Boudon's door and ask for help.  M. Boudon lives on the 1st floor of our building and is something of an informal "keeper" of the building.  We were introduced when we first moved in and were told to go to him if we ever needed anything.  M. boudon has a clear, booming french voice (only french) and is an amalgamation of a Hans Moleman in his "youth" and a  character from the "Guess Who" boardgame.  Does your person have small eyes?  Does your person have a big nose?  Is your person impossibly french and exactly the type of short and slightly pudgy person to run your french apartment building?  Is it M. Boudon?!  When we told him that our electricity had cut out, he shuddered at the thought of going up the stairs to the fourth floor, but nevertheless, put on some shoes and brought along a flashlight.  It was a quick fix after all.  Nothing to do with the breakers, but rather a giant button that was apparently linked to the main generator.  It wasn't the first time M. Boudon saved us, so in a panic, I looked around the cupboards for a "thanks/merry christmas" kind of treat.  (Un)fortunately, all we had were some chocolates that we had picked out for christmas from a nice shop...we shyly presented it to him and he refused, but we said that it was a little gift for christmas...he couldn't really refuse.  I got some christmas kisses from him and with a handshake for Paul, he went back to his flat.  Not that we were in need of sweets for christmas or anything and we were more than happy to give them to him...but we kinda missed those chocolates - I'd handpicked each one.

We've made some friends here (through someone from Paris we had met in Berlin) and have since gone out a couple times with them.  Yay for friends!  I was scolded on the first night we'd met because I put out my hand for a handshake and they said, "put that away, you're in France and a girl - you kiss".  Alas, I've been initiated into the world of bisous.  From that point on, it was kisses.  You know, I was wondering about that, if I was going to do them and how it was all going to go down, but it was all good.  I feel 10% frencher.  We went out for drinks the other night with 2 guys and by the end of the evening even P was being kissed goodbye.    

Produce from the market on the morning of Christmas eve.  We went to the madhouse that is Christmas Eve at Les Halles Victor Hugo for the seafood and duck.  Imagine a covered market with stalls of seafood, butcher counters, cheese stands and bakers..and then imagine it packed with frenetic french people clamouring for their christmas food.  Oysters were being sold like chocolates in the shops, each displayed in their own wooden crates ranging from 6 to 20 euro/dozen.  

Pain d'epice (spice cake) from the Christmas market.  This is to die for as it is, and transcendent in a trifle with port and prunes (we had enough trifle to last 4 days - no complaints).  A sexier dessert, I cannot think of.  It's hard to say why this is so mindblowingly delicious - maybe it's the dense texture, or the spicy and at times licorice-y tones...whatever it is, i am sad that no one at home can have a taste and confirm that I'm not crazy for being so seduced by this cake.  There is no shame in being hot and bothered by this cake.  NO SHAME.

This was our Canadian christmas for 2.  We did herbed turkey breast wrapped in bacon accompanied by its groupies.  Christmas in France was a little surreal, and it wasn't until we sat down at this meal that we felt it was Christmas.  Didn't take any pictures of the fancy french dinner - which was a little hairy during the plating and preparation, what with the oysters being shucked and having to deal with all that hot, rendered fat from the duck. 

Even ten-thousandsdaires experience culture shock...

I came across a website for Americans in Toulouse and they had an entire page devoted to culture shock.  It's defined by an anthropologist in the 60s as, “the anxiety that results from losing familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse.”  Lacking an active social life (and probably suffering from a mild case of culture shock), I was quick to wrap myself up in the melodrama of being in culture shock.  The general indications for Month 1 was accurate for the most part.  Month 2 sounds depressing and Month 3 is supposed to be marked by depression and weightgain.  P, being my (self-procalimed) "voice of reason", said that we're not in culture shock.  A lack of confidence borne from my foreign surroundings didn't allow me to contest his denial.  Culture shock or not, things are different here.  Some differences good, some bad.

It was somewhat of a miracle that we managed to find a place in a week, without the use of a rental agency...  (read more)

Apartment photos...

It's a little plain, but it's the way we like it and it's a place to hang our hats.  Don't have pictures of the kitchen or bathroom...but they are both new and spacious.  The kitchen is really a dream by french apartment standards (especially since we're in a studio apartment).  It's got a large window and more counter space than I know what to do with.  

You can see the corner of the kitchen at the other end of the apartment, the frame of the window is just visible to the left of the hood.

Our bedroom...er bedtent.

Livingroom.

View from the front door.  Windows are small, but luminous.

Mystery market

About a week and a half ago, when we first got to Toulouse to look for an apartment there were some mysterious stirrings at the Place du Capitole.  The Capitole is located in the very centre of Toulouse and boasts a large open space for exhibition, markets and impressing girls on your scooters and motor bikes, popping wheelies.  Large restaurants line the perimeter of the Place and the small curvey streets that make up the centre of Toulouse all radiate from…or lead to the Capitole.

The mystery consisted of some temporary fencing and what looked like small, neat wooden cabins stacked together in a solid square, a cabin condo on one floor.  There would be new development each day, the cabins would be moved from one end to another and there was always work going on in the fenced area, but with little clue as to what was actually being done.  Then a small sheet of ice was put down in one corner, the cabins spaced apart forming small rows…then some lights, and then they were open!  Well, duh.  Of course.  CHRISTMAS MARKET!!!  Most open-air markets that we’ve experienced so far are set up and torn down on a daily basis, so what may be a bustling market scene on Sunday morning, will be completely cleared out and restored back into the parking lot of a church or a little square by 2 in the afternoon.  The Christmas market is on every day until 8 in the evening from now until Christmas Eve.  What do you think I like best about the market?  Oh, could it be the aligot and truffade?  How about the mugs of hot spiced wine…no, maybe a slice of some spice cake sold by weight?  We walked by rows of specialty cabins selling hot chocolate, fried ham/bacon sandwiches with fried onions, and giant slices of country levain bread under some creamy substance and grated cheese broiled open-faced, advertised as a “slice of tradition”.  Don’t even get me started on the baked potatoes topped with your choice of gizzard confit, fried duck skin, or ham/cheese/tomato & crème fraiche.

P and I solemnly declared to try every Christmas market street food item between now and Christmas eve, and whether you like it or not – I’m going to tell you about it. We went where the line-up was longest, so first up: aligot.  Basic components: mashed potatoes whipped with cheese (in the style of cantal, laguiole or salers – you can get it at Les Amis du Fromage in Vancouver).  Remember titrations in chemistry class?  Yes.  The maximum amount of cheese that any given mass of mash potatoes would molecularly tolerate.  You wait in a long line until you come up to the counter, where a large “wok” of aligot sits steaming and stringy.  Mr. Aligot has to plop and pull the ladle high to free the cheesy mass into a small rectangular container. 2 plastic forks and 4 euro later we are pulling the stuff into our mouth like the locals do.  What struck me most was how potato-ey it tasted despite how simultaneously cheesy it was.  The texture: cheese stringy, but not chewy, soft and smooth like good mashed potatoes. But let’s call it what it really is – aligot.  *note, truffade was sold at the same place. From what I could tell, it was aligot with bacon and pieces of potatoes.    

The day before the market started - you have to imagine these things all laid out next to each other in a solid block.  You can see the framing for the ice rink just to the right of the photo.

Salade de chevre chaud...chez nous.