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Published: August 8th 2007
Looking for some macaroons to put out there We rush over to Rue Claude Pouillet to see Mom and Bob off. They are leaving a day earlier than the rest of us, and by 8:45am, they are in a cab and off to CDG. Au revoir! Though tempted to just stay in the apartment and relax on our last day in Paris, we have a lot of stuff to do. We simply must find LaDurée and try the secret recipe macaroons, and I’m also looking for a pair of good walking shoes. We jump on the Metro and exit near Rue Royale. LaDurée’s celadon green façade meets us, and we join the line inside. It seems that we’re not the only ones with a hankering for the mini macaroons. The company makes over 16 flavors, but some of them are seasonal. Bett and I choose three each - 2 chocolates, 1 coffee, 1 caramel, 1 pistachio, and 1 citron, please. They are crispy on the outside, and smooth as silk on the inside. We think of buying more as gifts, but we’re not sure they’ll last through a trip home. We definitely have to put these delicious desserts out there, although
Ladurée
GoodiesI’d have been ecstatic if they had a hazelnut one!
Champs-Elysées and Mouffetard Part Two We weren’t able to walk the entire Champs-Elysées last week, so we return to the grand avenue and do the walk from the end we never reached, stopping by places like Nike and Adidas for shoes (no purchase) and the Virgin Megastore for music (French jazz purchase). Then it’s back to Rue Mouffetard to have a proper French lunch. We have a lot of boxes to check today, and that includes eating escargots and foie gras (for me). Bett would like another attempt at beating her four-cappuccino feat (I’ll break the suspense, she does not). On Mouffetard, Leroy searches for a restaurant that a scientist at Tularik, the biotech firm he worked for in 1999, mentioned as one of his favorite restaurants in Paris. But we can’t find Jardin de la Mouffe today, although Leroy has seen it on many an occasion while in Paris. It’s just always been out of his price range as a student. Today, Bett (our new sugar momma) offers to treat as to lunch. The bistro at Jardin de la Mouffe’s old spot is called Jardin d’Ivy, which is
about four years old. We decide to go for it anyway; they have a nice menu to select from. As a side note, when I mention “menú,” I mean it the European way, which means they have a fixed price set of appetizer, entrée, and dessert from which you can pick one item in each category. This usually is a more economical way to go. Bett and Leroy both choose from the menu, while I stray in order to get a plate of escargot in butter and herbs. I’ve only tried escargot once before, at a swanky place in Northern California that a law firm took us to, and it was rubbery. I figure there has to be more to it than that. Leroy has a salmon started and the Dorade entree, Bett has a salad with fried goat cheese, and I can’t remember what I ate.
“I’d rather eat a snail than…” The snails come out of the shell in a ceramic dish with 12 small holes, like a mini muffin pan, I guess, except instead of baked goods, there lie 12 little slugs in butter and herbs. I’m nervous. I’m a huge fan of weird food -
foie gras, oysters, sushi - but I still find other things icky - carpaccio, insects, frogs legs, and escargots. But I want to try this, so I take a piece of bread and scoop up the squishy grey thing, making sure to get more butter and herbs on top so as to hide it. Then I pop the entire thing in my mouth. The sauce is good, but the snail doesn’t really taste like anything. Just 11 more to go. I beg Leroy to help me finish it, because even if I loved escargots, the appetizer is much too big. Bettina absolutely refuses to have some. I learn to like it enough, but I definitely think seared foie gras is more up my alley, so long as I don’t remind myself of what it’s like to be one of those birds. Leroy has about four of them, and even lucks out with twins in one of the holes. Then, he starts talking about how we’re going to have a big last night in Paris. We have plans for dinner at Maman’s with Quitterie, but afterward, there is a to-do called La Nuit au Musée (Night at the Museum), where there
is a party at one of the Parisian museums with a different activity each time. Bettina is dying for a relaxing night and says she doesn’t want to go out, but Leroy taunts her about making the most of her last night in Paris. Then, she blurts out, “I’d rather eat a snail than go out tonight!” Okay then, we make her take one, and then grab our camera to take multiple shots of the torture that is escargots for Bett. This girl hates oysters, but I think she might hate escargots even more. Schnail Schlime! Point taken - she wants a quiet night tonight. Funny thing, we have no intentions of going out anyway; Leroy also wanted a quiet night chilling with Quitterie and then Maman. Oh you dirty dog…
Dinner with Quitterie: Leroy Finally Gets His Raie The rest of the afternoon is spent napping and getting Leroy’s laundry done with the washer/dryer at Bett’s apartment. We’ve gotten the thing figured out now, but with time constraints, Leroy does the wash at the apartment and then goes to the lavanderie down the street to dry. Sound like a lot of work? A wash is €3.50 and a
drying cycle is just €1! Anyway, we have to leave and get ready for Quitterie’s visit, so we walk with Bett to the shoarma spot down the street so she can order her dinner. She’s pretty excited for her quiet night, and though we invite her for another fantastic dinner at Maman’s, she is feeling a bit shy today.
Back at Maman’s, we meet a new student who will be staying with her for a month-long internship. Valerie, the American, left on Thursday to graduate from college. Quitterie is already there, and we talk about the upcoming wedding she is attending in New York. Felipe stops by for just a minute to say goodbye because he’s going out tonight, but he doesn’t escape fashionista Quitterie’s gaze and critique (“No, you can’t go out with those shoes, they don’t match your outfit!”). Conversation is light and pleasant, and I love that Quitterie thinks it’s amazing that “Americans can eat chicken everyday.” True, I could. But you know, it could be chicken filet one day, chicken burrito the next, then Chinese chicken salad, Thai chicken curry, Indian butter chicken, chicken adobo, and so on. Maman is also aghast at the monotony
Would you really rather eat snail than go out?
Sometimes you have to learn to live with regrets. of poultry. We sit down at the table and have drinks first - I’m enjoying a Muscat wine. We also break out the goat cheese (not chèvre) that we bought Maman in Amsterdam, and while it’s good, it’s definitely a blander flavor than French cheeses. But I love all cheese, so I’m all over it.
Then comes the piece de resistance - raie aux fines herbes (skatewing with fine herb sauce). The dish that Leroy waxes poetic about when he reminisces about his life in Paris. I am excited to actually taste it! First, Maman says that Leroy must prepare it for me, because I might not know how to eat skatewing. I know I don’t! We made quite a mess of it at the restaurant in Giverny - there were all these hollow, translucent little bones, and my mom and I just kept spitting them out, or trying to separate the flesh from them with our forks. Quitterie laughs and says we must have been the laughing stock of the entire restaurant. I ask Leroy if he knows what he’s doing, since he’s standing over the raie with serving utensils in hand but a blank look on his
Schnail Schlime!
You ate schnail schlime?! face. “Absolutely no idea.” Maman sighs and grabs the utensils, then shows Leroy how to serve skatewing. You take a large fork and scrape the flesh off the plane of bones in smooth, swift movements. When one side is done, you turn it over skillfully and do the same on the other side. That should leave you with a pile of delicious flesh and a fan-like plane of bones that is easily tossed. Then, serve the flesh to your guests and let them cover it in fine herb sauce. Maman has also boiled some potatoes, which fill a gigantic dish. Secretly, I wonder how she was able to boil so many potatoes. That must have taken forever. The raie is spectacular. It’s no wonder that Leroy loves it so—to put it out there would be an understatement! The fine herb and butter sauce is perfect, and with the perfectly cooked potatoes, the entire meal is a joy. At one point, Leroy must show that he has learned how to serve raie, and he tentatively goes about the task; poor Caroline (the new girl), she had to wait so long for Leroy to finish and give her some fish! Bravo encore,
Maman!
Dinner conversation covers many topics, as to be expected, but one of my favorites was about weddings. How to get married - ahh, that question has come up so many times on this trip. Without a dowry (i.e. financial support from pops) and without income as yet, it’s hard to imagine planning a wedding. We’ve entertained the thought of a destination wedding, perhaps in a locale where it would be more affordable. Of course, the trade-off is that guests would have to spend more to get there, and perhaps fewer people would show up. Plus side is that destination weddings are a lot of fun and a chance for people to have a vacation while sharing your special day, particularly if it’s somewhere cool like an island or Paris or Brasil. In the end, I don’t think we can pull it off until 2009, although we’d both love to do the deed in 2008. Maman tells us what it would take to get it done in Paris and that we could make it as simple as we please. Paris is definitely on the list of contenders… although I’ll admit that City Hall has also been on my list.
Now, here comes the potato secret. I mention to Maman that she was able to boil so many potatoes (we clearly could not finish all of them), and she says that she likes to make a lot of them all at once, and then she can just use them in different ways over the following week. I would do the same, but boiling potatoes can take almost an hour, and with the quantity in the bowl (perhaps four pounds?), it would be impossible. Then she shows me her pressure cooker. It’s humongous, and it is what she calls the Rolls Royce of pressure cookers, a Lagostina. The lid is bent and can be inserted under a shelf of metal at the rim of the pot, then the handle is twisted, and the lid straightens and locks itself onto the pot. No matter how much pressure is generated within, the top won’t fly off because it’s secured by that ledge of metal. With this contraption, she can boil all those potatoes in seven minutes. I want one.
It is late and Quitterie has to go home. She has so much to do in the next few days, and we’re
so happy that she was able to come spend time with us, considering her crazy schedule before leaving for New York. We say our goodbyes, and then off we are to our room. I start packing even though it’s late, because I hate packing right before leaving. It’s sad to go through our things and toss the evidence of our Parisian adventure - the tickets to the museums, used up metro carnets, receipts from our amazing meals. It’s time to leave Paris, and I feel like I’ve just gotten the feel of the city. Bett is also sad about the end of her vacation and saying goodbye to Europe - the cappuccinos with chantilly, the long walks, the boulangeries-patisseries-boucheries-fromageries-and-choclateries, and the “Hey, you’re on vacation” mentality. In the morning, we’ll have to say goodbye to Maman and Lotus.
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