PICNIC

I forgot to mention that I went to the DUMBO farmers market in Brooklyn on the 14th. It was small yet they covered all the essentials. There was a baker who made a very crusty loaf from Chardonnay yeast. It seems a little surreal to walk past the enormous pylons of the Manhattan bridge and then encounter a little bit of wonderful vegetables…. although New York does that thing that Paris grocery stores do, of setting up a display of produce right on the sidewalk.

The Maubert market on Saint-Germain, certainly not unique in Paris, just offers so much more then any stateside market I’ve been to. The variety of fish, cheese, pork, lamb, beef, mushrooms, vegetables, bread…. I don’t think there’s anything you couldn’t get here. Among other items I purchased: heavy cream as thick as glue; boletes; black trumpet mushrooms; and purple, orange, yellow, and green tomatoes.

We went to Taillevent for lunch. There was lots of food. This is a crustacean mouse with a yuzu meringue puff.

Chopped boletes, with sliced boletes, some filo crust on the bottom, and a mushroom sauce.

These are raw scallop slices with apple and mango dice, a bitter fruit jam, and tarragon, parsley, and savory.

Skirt steak alongside potatoes topped with an intense eggplant/sausage/tomato/caper preparation.

These were impossibly tender veal medallions, with a very rich beef (or venison) reduction sauce, with sweet potato puree, leechee, and roasted apple.

This is a slice of cheese with a mixed fruit jam, arugula, and a thin wafer of toast. The black dusting is pepper.

A little group of desserts, we each got one of these plates. The cube is a marshmallow, then a strawberry maccaroon, chocolate truffle, mini mango tart, and a rich chocolate cake.

The sandwich is, from top to bottom: shortbread, chopped mangos, vanilla sugar wafer, vanilla whipped cream, and another vanilla wafer, alongside some coconut sorbet.

After lunch I walked to the Louvre. I was looking for some dutch etchings, but ended up wandering past some decadent picnic scenes. The meal consists of: bread, a rabbit, 10 to 15 pounds of ham, a pie (most likely with meat), and several bottles of Burgundy.

Another exciting find. This is Egyptian 6 row barley for making lager, and it’s 3500 years old!

Me and Elena had lunch on the right bank, on the Rue de Rivoli. I love how simple a sandwich can be. In France sandwiches are mostly bread. It makes me think that Americans are in fact frightened of bread, we think that even when it’s great it’s still just ‘for filling up.’

In the subway fruit is for sale.

For dinner we went to Le Cul de Poule, (The Hen’s Ass), which was in the sex district. They actually had a taxidermied posterior of a hen on the wall. Elena ate a pea custard with pork lard foam for an appetizer.

They had a very nifty, fully automatic meat slicer with which they prepared the charcuterie plate. The flywheel is brought up to speed on the left by hand. The mechanism in the middle, which secures the meat, is engaged. This shuttles back and forth automatically, feeding the meat into the spinning blade. Once the meat is secured in position all that is required is to spin the wheel.

Salmon tartare with creme freche on the left. Fried rice ball with carmelized onion and salmon on the right.

Crispy smoked chicken leg ‘mojo’. As tender as duck confit. Meat is either rare or cooked for hours. There is no in between.

‘Pure brebis, Pure pleasure!’

I’ve been seeing adds for Brebis on the subway. Somehow the fact that the wheel of cheese and the loaf of bread are the same size blows my mind.

So I’m in Paris for a week with my sister and cousin. I flew out from Brooklyn on an overnight Air France flight. The meal was pretty good for a plane, they had Tillamook cheddar and I got a 1/4 bottle of Vielle Ferme, an excellent wine made by the same guy who does Vieux Telegraphe. I had the chicken with tarragon cream sauce.

I went to Le Grande Epicene at Bon Marche, which is down the street from where we’re staying, to stock up on some essentials. I love how they butcher their fowl. For dinner on Saturday some of my cousins friends are coming over and I want to roast a Bresse chicken.

My sister texted me mid morning, ‘we have something special for you!!’ Turns out it was a foie gras sandwich.

For dinner we all went out to Allard, a classic french bistro. On the wall were various certificates the chef had been presented with, including a ‘knighthood’ from the Chevaliers du Taste Vin and one from ‘The society of philosophical gourmands’. To begin with we got boletes sauteed in butter, green beans with a cream and horseradish sauce topped with a slice of coppa or prosciutto, and oysters. The women split a dish of delicious, medium rare scallops with a very crisp beurre blanc sauce, (I might almost say soup). I got the cote de beuf with a morel sauce, steamed spinach, beets sauteed in butter, and a very, very rich potato tart with cream and gruyere. The potato tart was exactly as my mother makes it, except that even though she adds nothing but cream, this one was even richer! Perhaps this one had triple cream?

Dessert was ‘orange soup with oranges and preserved oranges’, as the menu said. The slices of orange are preserved like a marmalade, and they sit in a pool of fresh orange juice.