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.  

Galeries Lafayette

Paris' oldest department store - floors upon floors of the fanciest brands.  Almost like a market with people in little areas like stalls hawking Chanel and YSL.  Just looking, thank you.  

The ornate detailing reminded us of the Alhambra.

They had just opened up a brand new shoe floor in the basement.  3000 sq. m. (YES 3000 sq. m.) of shoes too beautiful to bear, after a dizzying 7 minutes I had to flee the lair before it did irreversible damage to my expectations of normal shoe shopping.

 

Looking down on to the cosmetics floor.  You'd think their domestic, french brands would be less expensive than back in North America - nope.  I think the french take "luxe" very seriously.

There's a whole other building devoted to "Gourmet" - I'm going to have to go it alone this week.  Why P wouldn't want to spend hours walking up and down food aisles is beyond me.

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.  

The apple of Mai's eye...

I'm not sure how the conversation started, but it started with M.  M & K were staying with us for the first week and a bit in July and over some fine dinners and some "crazy" wines we got to talking about apple tarts.  Specifically, M started talking about apple tarts.  The object of her wildest apple tart fantasies consisted of apples, cooked to perfection whereby the texture remains fresh-tasting, tender with a subtle chew, atop a shortcrust pastry.  And very specifically NO GLAZE.  The discussion soon turned to whether this magic combo existed.  Was it just a figment of her extremely particular food expectations?  There was one obvious way to settle this: Paris-wide apple tart search.

The object was to find something that met what M had envisioned under 4 euros. The following days were met with intense research.  M tapped into the Japanese-paris foodies network.  K stayed cool, resting on a tip-off from a local friend, while P and I scoured a growing repertoire of impressive bakeries that we'd tried.  4 patisseries hardly qualifies as "paris-wide", but it did come to a showdown between patisseries from the left bank vs the right.  

You can see that the entry on the bottom right didn't exactly match the criteria of the others.  It hailed from the famous bakery Poilâne, and rather than slices of apples on a flat flaky crust/shell, it contained chunks of apple in a yeasty, bread-like pocket.  M & K knew they might break some rules with that entry, but they couldn't resist. Besides we're a lenient panel, and would you have turned away a sweet little thing like that?  Ranking 1st was the tart pictured top right (a layer of applesauce, which at first seemed bizarre, gave it a tangy apple-y edge), and descended in order going clockwise.  There was room for debate between the 2nd & 3rd.  The funny thing was that none of them met the specific elements that M had set her heart on, but none of us were about to blow the whistle on this party of caramelized apples and buttery, flaky bases.

Note that July was not exactly the season for apple tarts.  Some of the fine bakeries that we considered carried a "seasonal" tart instead, which was almost always apricot at the time.  

This treat came from the same place as the winning apple tart, on the corner of a quiet street behind Sacre Coeur.  It was called a "tulipe aux framboise", and consisted of a waffle-cone shell, coated with chocolate on the inside and filled with a raspberry cream and topped with fresh raspberries.  Tulipe cookies are traditionally a light thin cookie that is baked flat, but then put into a brioche mold while it's still warm and pliable.  They're often served with whipped cream and fruit, kind of like the version we had. 

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.

DIY - Kimchi

I would have never imagined myself making kimchi, or making it in France.  A, a Korean friend from Toulouse recently moved to Paris (who is now renting a room next door to our apartment), shared his mother's coveted kimchi recipe with me.  We actually didn't go by any recipes, and all I have left are these images to guide me through my next attempt (if there ever will be one).  Here goes:

A trick: split the chinese cabbage in 2 (then again) from the stem end, just half way through the stalks, stop where the leafy parts begin and separate the quarters keeping the leaves in tact.

Sprinkle rock salt in between each layer, making sure to get right into the stalky end and soak the whole thing in salted water for about 2 hours.
Prep the other ingredients: grated garlic, ginger, chives and daikon sliced into matchsticks.

The base of the paste is made from rice flour cooked until thickened in some water.  Sugar, chili powder, the garlic, ginger chives and daikon are mixed together with fish sauce (or fermented fish).  After the cabbage has soaked for several hours, drain the water and pack the paste in between each of the leaves, coating all surfaces.  Store in a cool dark place and let it ferment and go to a happy place.

After several days in the fridge, you get this lovely fermented cabbagey mess.  His response to the end product: "pas mal" with a bit of a shrug.  I asked if it was like his mother's, and he gave a definitive "non", head shake and all.  For what it's worth, I would buy the stuff in the future...or mooch from a Korean ex-roommate whose mom would stock our fridge with Kimchi rations to last a couple of weeks.