Feed them on your dreams - Anselm and Margriet in Paris
Mar 22nd, 2007, 12:36 PM
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<b>The second apartment: “Books do furnish a room”</b>
Two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments are at a bit of a premium. We narrowed our list down to two: a flat on boulevard Henri IV (http://www.vrbo.com/76435) and this one on rue des Petits Champs in the 1st http://preview.tinyurl.com/y3kzl9. (There are additional photos on this site, where the owners also list: http://preview.tinyurl.com/ys5l3e.) We chose the second one; it felt more welcoming, and the bookcases looked intriguing.
It rained on the day I moved from rue de Saintonge. A taxi was nowhere to be found, despite Jean-Michel’s best efforts, so I carried my luggage into the Metro and arrived in rue des Petits Champs wet and late. Roland, the owners’ representative, showed me around the flat.
This apartment is large and beautifully decorated. You enter a wide hallway; a bedroom and a bathroom are on either side as you walk towards the living room. A long, large room opens up, windows on the far side overlooking the street. The kitchen and dining area are on the right, then the living room itself, and beyond that, way off to the left, a separate study. The master bedroom and its ensuite bathroom are to the left off the living room. Both bedrooms overlook a quiet courtyard, while the tall windows on the front of the building wash the kitchen, dining area, living room, and study with light. There is a long, wide balcony just outside those windows, with plants and flowers.
I had mentioned to the owner that we would be preparing some of our own meals. She wrote back to say that we would find the kitchen “convivial,” an apt description. As Margriet will describe, we did cobble together some interesting meals.
The dining table seats eight. The living room has good reading lights and comfortable seating. Introverts (that would be all three of the Adorne family) wanting a bit of time to themselves can retreat to the study, where there is a fold-out couch and desk. There are sliding doors between the living room and the study, so the study can be used as a third bedroom. The library is diverse and extensive, the bathrooms elegant, the beds comfortable, and the bed linens—well, the linens are sublime.
One of the big questions here on Fodor’s is “What are the owners like to deal with?” All of my dealings were with Sheila, who was blazingly fast on responding to e-mails and whose humour and good-will were never far from the surface. Roland, their agent in Paris, is gracious and fluently bilingual. I recommend this apartment without hesitation.
This was our first time spending any amount of time in the 1st arrondissement. There is a bakery across the street, and a Paul a block away. Basic groceries can be purchased at a Monoprix on avenue de l’Opéra. Within two blocks is Place du Marché St-Honoré, with its Wednesday and Saturday markets. Nearby is the Le Coq du St-Honoré, where we bought poulet de Bresse. There are at least three wine shops within a few blocks. The nearest Metro is Pyramides. There is some traffic noise during the day, but the apartment is on an upper floor; we didn’t find it irritating or intrusive. It is quiet in the evening.
There are treasures nearby: the beautiful Palais-Royal and the nearly perfect Place des Victoires. The Opéra, rue St-Honoré, and the Louvre are within a ten-minute walk. The Passages Choiseul and Vivienne are very close.
Next: Margriet is going to add a post about the food we prepared in the apartment.
Two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartments are at a bit of a premium. We narrowed our list down to two: a flat on boulevard Henri IV (http://www.vrbo.com/76435) and this one on rue des Petits Champs in the 1st http://preview.tinyurl.com/y3kzl9. (There are additional photos on this site, where the owners also list: http://preview.tinyurl.com/ys5l3e.) We chose the second one; it felt more welcoming, and the bookcases looked intriguing.
It rained on the day I moved from rue de Saintonge. A taxi was nowhere to be found, despite Jean-Michel’s best efforts, so I carried my luggage into the Metro and arrived in rue des Petits Champs wet and late. Roland, the owners’ representative, showed me around the flat.
This apartment is large and beautifully decorated. You enter a wide hallway; a bedroom and a bathroom are on either side as you walk towards the living room. A long, large room opens up, windows on the far side overlooking the street. The kitchen and dining area are on the right, then the living room itself, and beyond that, way off to the left, a separate study. The master bedroom and its ensuite bathroom are to the left off the living room. Both bedrooms overlook a quiet courtyard, while the tall windows on the front of the building wash the kitchen, dining area, living room, and study with light. There is a long, wide balcony just outside those windows, with plants and flowers.
I had mentioned to the owner that we would be preparing some of our own meals. She wrote back to say that we would find the kitchen “convivial,” an apt description. As Margriet will describe, we did cobble together some interesting meals.
The dining table seats eight. The living room has good reading lights and comfortable seating. Introverts (that would be all three of the Adorne family) wanting a bit of time to themselves can retreat to the study, where there is a fold-out couch and desk. There are sliding doors between the living room and the study, so the study can be used as a third bedroom. The library is diverse and extensive, the bathrooms elegant, the beds comfortable, and the bed linens—well, the linens are sublime.
One of the big questions here on Fodor’s is “What are the owners like to deal with?” All of my dealings were with Sheila, who was blazingly fast on responding to e-mails and whose humour and good-will were never far from the surface. Roland, their agent in Paris, is gracious and fluently bilingual. I recommend this apartment without hesitation.
This was our first time spending any amount of time in the 1st arrondissement. There is a bakery across the street, and a Paul a block away. Basic groceries can be purchased at a Monoprix on avenue de l’Opéra. Within two blocks is Place du Marché St-Honoré, with its Wednesday and Saturday markets. Nearby is the Le Coq du St-Honoré, where we bought poulet de Bresse. There are at least three wine shops within a few blocks. The nearest Metro is Pyramides. There is some traffic noise during the day, but the apartment is on an upper floor; we didn’t find it irritating or intrusive. It is quiet in the evening.
There are treasures nearby: the beautiful Palais-Royal and the nearly perfect Place des Victoires. The Opéra, rue St-Honoré, and the Louvre are within a ten-minute walk. The Passages Choiseul and Vivienne are very close.
Next: Margriet is going to add a post about the food we prepared in the apartment.
Mar 22nd, 2007, 02:49 PM
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One of the joys of renting—whether it’s a village house in the Auvergne or an apartment in Paris—is making our own meals, or as we call it, cooking from a suitcase. Anyone who can’t imagine wanting to cook while on holiday can skip this bit (restaurants are coming a little later), but I thought that fellow travelling cooks might get some vicarious pleasure from reading it.
Our first rule is to keep it simple. I enjoy cooking, but I don’t want to be tied to the stove—especially an unfamiliar one. Simple recipes can be cooked from memory or made up on the spot, they don’t require restocking the pantry (about the only herb you can count on finding in a rental kitchen is herbes de Provence), and they don’t create so many dirty dishes that the washers-up revolt. Best of all, they let you compare tastes. I now know that an under-ripe tomato shipped from Morocco to France doesn’t taste any better than an under-ripe tomato shipped from Mexico to Canada.
<b>Breakfast</b> After a few years of research (and for the record I did <i>not</i> spend 20 minutes in the yoghurt aisle at the Carrefour in Uzès—no matter what my brother-in-law says) we have declared Mamie Nova Yaourt Gourmand to be our favourite yoghurt (3.5% BF and 20% fruit). We were very happy to find it at the Monoprix. Unfortunately they didn’t have fig, our all-time favourite, but there was peach, wild cherry, pear and quince, rhubarb, and fresh pineapple and passion fruit. Graham tried the chocolat noir, but even he had to admit that it was a bit much for breakfast.
The bakery was literally across the street from the apartment. We particularly enjoyed their pain au levain (sourdough), which they called “baguette à l’ancienne.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t always ready first thing, but the regular baguette was also very good. Some of us think that breakfast doesn’t get much better than a few slices of baguette with unsalted butter and apricot jam. But the kids were in charge of the morning bakery run, and they tried everything. The viennoiseries (croissants, chocolatines, pains aux raisins, chaussons aux pommes) were excellent—buttery without being greasy or soggy (except for the lovely wodgy centre of the pain aux raisins where they put the pastry cream).
<b>Lunch</b> The charcuterie counter at Monoprix and the shops and market stalls around Marché St-Honoré furnished lunch. Ham (jambon à l'os supérieur), paté or terrine, raw veggies, celery remoulade and herring and potato salad, about four kinds of olives (the guys at the market kept giving us different ones to taste), and, of course, cheese—St-Nectaire, bleu d’Auvergne, brebis, chevre in its many forms, brie de Meaux, Munster—we barely scratched the surface.
<b>Supper</b> We ate supper in on four of the nine nights we were in Paris. Which brings us to our second rule: take advantage of the best that France has to offer. I’d heard of the famous blue-legged chickens from Bresse (http://preview.tinyurl.com/yojk4x) in southern Burgundy, but had never eaten one. On Friday we bought one from our local volaillerie, Le Coq St-Honoré (www.coqsthonore.fr). I coated it with Dijon mustard mixed with chopped shallots and garlic, stuck a branch of fresh rosemary (from a plant on the balcony) into the cavity, and roasted it. With it we had a simple green salad and tiny potatoes sautéed in olive oil and butter. The chicken was incredible, intensely chickeny. It was definitely free range—the meat was lean and tender, but firm, not “wet” like most North American chicken. The shape was quite different, too, with a long body and very long straight leg bones. Such perfection comes at a price; at 10€ a kilo, the 2-kg bird cost over $30 Canadian, including the head, the feet, and whatever else madame kindly removed for me.
One of our favourite winter dishes is saucisses lentilles (we braised the sausages with garlic and red wine; the lentils, of course, were lentilles de Puy, which Anselm cooked with onion and carrot). It’s a perfect meal from a suitcase, accompanied with a salad of fennel, orange, and frisée. Leftover lentils mixed with vinagrette make a nice salad for lunch.
And on another night it was lamb chops from Monoprix. They were very good, though not quite as good as the agneau de pays from the butcher in Nyons or the lamb from Besse-en-Chandesse, just a few kilometres down the road from the house we rented in the Auvergne. With the chops we had tomatoes provençales, spinach with cream, and more of those sautéed potatoes.
There you have it, good simple meals eaten in the comfort of our apartment. We usually started with smoked salmon and capers and ended with patisserie from the local bakery. Along the way we drank a bottle of Badoit and a couple of bottles of wine. We found some very good Chablis, Sancerre, Corbière, and Côtes du Rhône Villages in the €6–10 range.
Our first rule is to keep it simple. I enjoy cooking, but I don’t want to be tied to the stove—especially an unfamiliar one. Simple recipes can be cooked from memory or made up on the spot, they don’t require restocking the pantry (about the only herb you can count on finding in a rental kitchen is herbes de Provence), and they don’t create so many dirty dishes that the washers-up revolt. Best of all, they let you compare tastes. I now know that an under-ripe tomato shipped from Morocco to France doesn’t taste any better than an under-ripe tomato shipped from Mexico to Canada.
<b>Breakfast</b> After a few years of research (and for the record I did <i>not</i> spend 20 minutes in the yoghurt aisle at the Carrefour in Uzès—no matter what my brother-in-law says) we have declared Mamie Nova Yaourt Gourmand to be our favourite yoghurt (3.5% BF and 20% fruit). We were very happy to find it at the Monoprix. Unfortunately they didn’t have fig, our all-time favourite, but there was peach, wild cherry, pear and quince, rhubarb, and fresh pineapple and passion fruit. Graham tried the chocolat noir, but even he had to admit that it was a bit much for breakfast.
The bakery was literally across the street from the apartment. We particularly enjoyed their pain au levain (sourdough), which they called “baguette à l’ancienne.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t always ready first thing, but the regular baguette was also very good. Some of us think that breakfast doesn’t get much better than a few slices of baguette with unsalted butter and apricot jam. But the kids were in charge of the morning bakery run, and they tried everything. The viennoiseries (croissants, chocolatines, pains aux raisins, chaussons aux pommes) were excellent—buttery without being greasy or soggy (except for the lovely wodgy centre of the pain aux raisins where they put the pastry cream).
<b>Lunch</b> The charcuterie counter at Monoprix and the shops and market stalls around Marché St-Honoré furnished lunch. Ham (jambon à l'os supérieur), paté or terrine, raw veggies, celery remoulade and herring and potato salad, about four kinds of olives (the guys at the market kept giving us different ones to taste), and, of course, cheese—St-Nectaire, bleu d’Auvergne, brebis, chevre in its many forms, brie de Meaux, Munster—we barely scratched the surface.
<b>Supper</b> We ate supper in on four of the nine nights we were in Paris. Which brings us to our second rule: take advantage of the best that France has to offer. I’d heard of the famous blue-legged chickens from Bresse (http://preview.tinyurl.com/yojk4x) in southern Burgundy, but had never eaten one. On Friday we bought one from our local volaillerie, Le Coq St-Honoré (www.coqsthonore.fr). I coated it with Dijon mustard mixed with chopped shallots and garlic, stuck a branch of fresh rosemary (from a plant on the balcony) into the cavity, and roasted it. With it we had a simple green salad and tiny potatoes sautéed in olive oil and butter. The chicken was incredible, intensely chickeny. It was definitely free range—the meat was lean and tender, but firm, not “wet” like most North American chicken. The shape was quite different, too, with a long body and very long straight leg bones. Such perfection comes at a price; at 10€ a kilo, the 2-kg bird cost over $30 Canadian, including the head, the feet, and whatever else madame kindly removed for me.
One of our favourite winter dishes is saucisses lentilles (we braised the sausages with garlic and red wine; the lentils, of course, were lentilles de Puy, which Anselm cooked with onion and carrot). It’s a perfect meal from a suitcase, accompanied with a salad of fennel, orange, and frisée. Leftover lentils mixed with vinagrette make a nice salad for lunch.
And on another night it was lamb chops from Monoprix. They were very good, though not quite as good as the agneau de pays from the butcher in Nyons or the lamb from Besse-en-Chandesse, just a few kilometres down the road from the house we rented in the Auvergne. With the chops we had tomatoes provençales, spinach with cream, and more of those sautéed potatoes.
There you have it, good simple meals eaten in the comfort of our apartment. We usually started with smoked salmon and capers and ended with patisserie from the local bakery. Along the way we drank a bottle of Badoit and a couple of bottles of wine. We found some very good Chablis, Sancerre, Corbière, and Côtes du Rhône Villages in the €6–10 range.
Mar 22nd, 2007, 04:14 PM
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WOW!
<<There you have it, good simple meals eaten in the comfort of our apartment.>>
We have got to find a couple of neighbouring gites 1n 2008. Margriet - those meals sound wonderful.
More! More!
<<There you have it, good simple meals eaten in the comfort of our apartment.>>
We have got to find a couple of neighbouring gites 1n 2008. Margriet - those meals sound wonderful.
More! More!
Mar 22nd, 2007, 04:32 PM
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Finally, the trip report I've been waiting for! Thanks, Anselm. I'm truly enjoying your journey and devouring every tidbit about the apt. on rue des Petits Champs and its environs. Merci mille fois, EJ 
Mar 22nd, 2007, 06:53 PM
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mmmm, oysters. I was thinking of oysters too on my last night but I wanted to eat out.
So I guess that dull butter knife that made me think, "man, they should probably replace this," was an oyster knife!
Fun report, looking forward to more. Is your camera still working?
So I guess that dull butter knife that made me think, "man, they should probably replace this," was an oyster knife!
Fun report, looking forward to more. Is your camera still working?
Mar 22nd, 2007, 07:17 PM
#30
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Thanks to all for the comments. More tomorrow, including a link to some photos.
Fishee, the camera worked as long as I didn't try to focus on anything close. I took it in to my camera shop last week and the conclusion is that the lens is damaged, not the body of the camera. So, the lens is now in the hands of Nikon, who will let me know how much it will cost to repair.
I have mixed feelings about this. I am still smarting over my stupidity in letting it fall, but every cloud has a silver lining: it may cost so much to repair that the best solution is to buy a new lens. Now that sounds like an upgrade opportunity, right? (I hope Margriet misses this post.)
Anselm
Fishee, the camera worked as long as I didn't try to focus on anything close. I took it in to my camera shop last week and the conclusion is that the lens is damaged, not the body of the camera. So, the lens is now in the hands of Nikon, who will let me know how much it will cost to repair.
I have mixed feelings about this. I am still smarting over my stupidity in letting it fall, but every cloud has a silver lining: it may cost so much to repair that the best solution is to buy a new lens. Now that sounds like an upgrade opportunity, right? (I hope Margriet misses this post.)
Anselm
Mar 23rd, 2007, 05:08 AM
#32
Oh wonderful, merci, this tale has everything. Apartments to fantasize about, new neighborhoods, shopping and cooking to make me want to be your neighbor and stop in to borrow a cup of lentils and be invited to stay for dinner. And a tale of two degrees of separation.
Keep it coming.
Keep it coming.
Mar 23rd, 2007, 06:00 AM
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<b>Living on rue des Petits Champs</b>
Margriet and I meandered from museum to museum and from café to café, interspersed with resting in parks, shopping trips for groceries and wine, and cooking. I’m not sure whether it is our age or our growing comfort with the city, but we’re doing less and seeing more.
Warm February sunshine brings parents and children into the parks. Toddlers trip over the tiny fences that separate the paths from the lawn, while those a little older bend over to rearrange pieces of gravel on the paths. Older children kick a soccer ball or run under trees. Kids have a particular fascination with the Daniel Burin sculpture in Palais-Royal, those striped stone pedestals of varying heights. They race back and forth between them or stand on top, laughing and waving. Adults chat, read, doze, or watch ducks grooming themselves on the edge of a fountain.
Paris employs an army of lime green men who clean sidewalks, groom parks, and drive lime green vehicles that vacuum streets and pick up garbage. When a sweeper arrives at the end of a block, he kicks a roll of old carpeting into position and leans over to open a valve on the curb. Water starts to flow along the edge of the street, diverted one way or the other by the carpeting. With a long broom he sweeps litter across the sidewalk towards the running water. Pigeons, who seem to have been waiting for this moment, settle in the water for a bath. When the sweeper finishes, he turns off the water and kicks the roll of carpeting back in beside the curb. It will be there for next time.
Margriet and I ate lunch in a café near Place des Vosges. The owner walked by our table and remarked that we were enjoying food from Auvergne, his birthplace. We told him we had spent a couple of weeks there and we spoke for a few minutes about food and volcanoes. “You know the geography of France?” he asked. We said we did. “You know, then, that Auvergne is the centre of France and that the rest of the country is just a tiny border around the edge?”
Anti-smoking laws are driving workers out onto the sidewalks, where they stand smoking in doorways. Balconies provide an alternative. I glanced up at one of the offices on avenue de l’Opéra and saw a woman standing on the fourth floor balcony, cigarette in hand. A second later a tall window opened on the fourth floor of the adjacent building; another woman stepped out onto her balcony and lit a cigarette.
Kate ordered crème brûlé for desert. “Listen,” she said, holding up her spoon. We all leaned towards her. Grinning with Amélie-like pleasure, she tapped the crusty surface with the back of the spoon. We all heard it fracture.
Here is a link to some of our photos: www.pbase.com/anselmadorne/paris__07_2 Click on the first photo and then move to the next one by clicking “next” on the upper right side of the image.
Margriet and I meandered from museum to museum and from café to café, interspersed with resting in parks, shopping trips for groceries and wine, and cooking. I’m not sure whether it is our age or our growing comfort with the city, but we’re doing less and seeing more.
Warm February sunshine brings parents and children into the parks. Toddlers trip over the tiny fences that separate the paths from the lawn, while those a little older bend over to rearrange pieces of gravel on the paths. Older children kick a soccer ball or run under trees. Kids have a particular fascination with the Daniel Burin sculpture in Palais-Royal, those striped stone pedestals of varying heights. They race back and forth between them or stand on top, laughing and waving. Adults chat, read, doze, or watch ducks grooming themselves on the edge of a fountain.
Paris employs an army of lime green men who clean sidewalks, groom parks, and drive lime green vehicles that vacuum streets and pick up garbage. When a sweeper arrives at the end of a block, he kicks a roll of old carpeting into position and leans over to open a valve on the curb. Water starts to flow along the edge of the street, diverted one way or the other by the carpeting. With a long broom he sweeps litter across the sidewalk towards the running water. Pigeons, who seem to have been waiting for this moment, settle in the water for a bath. When the sweeper finishes, he turns off the water and kicks the roll of carpeting back in beside the curb. It will be there for next time.
Margriet and I ate lunch in a café near Place des Vosges. The owner walked by our table and remarked that we were enjoying food from Auvergne, his birthplace. We told him we had spent a couple of weeks there and we spoke for a few minutes about food and volcanoes. “You know the geography of France?” he asked. We said we did. “You know, then, that Auvergne is the centre of France and that the rest of the country is just a tiny border around the edge?”
Anti-smoking laws are driving workers out onto the sidewalks, where they stand smoking in doorways. Balconies provide an alternative. I glanced up at one of the offices on avenue de l’Opéra and saw a woman standing on the fourth floor balcony, cigarette in hand. A second later a tall window opened on the fourth floor of the adjacent building; another woman stepped out onto her balcony and lit a cigarette.
Kate ordered crème brûlé for desert. “Listen,” she said, holding up her spoon. We all leaned towards her. Grinning with Amélie-like pleasure, she tapped the crusty surface with the back of the spoon. We all heard it fracture.
Here is a link to some of our photos: www.pbase.com/anselmadorne/paris__07_2 Click on the first photo and then move to the next one by clicking “next” on the upper right side of the image.
Mar 23rd, 2007, 07:13 AM
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Loving every word! The food sounds marvelous! Your pictures are soooo good -- loved the Montmartre ones and the water fountains -- you can just hear and feel the water splashing. Thanks so much, both of you, for sharing Paris with us and making us feel like we're right there!
luvparee/joy
Thanks, Michael Paris, for the correct female flaneur -- sounds wonderful -- "flaneuse."
luvparee/joy
Thanks, Michael Paris, for the correct female flaneur -- sounds wonderful -- "flaneuse."
Mar 23rd, 2007, 07:47 AM
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But doesn't flâneuse suggest - however unfairly - something, well, a bit like Mistinguett's "Je cherche un millionaire": "C'est pour ça que j'fais les boulevards!" ?!
Mar 23rd, 2007, 07:55 AM
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Anselm and Margriet, I'm savouring your report and looking forward to more! The photos are wonderful too. What kind of Nikon camera do you have, Anselm? All the CSIs on TV seem to use Nikon DSLs with huge lenses.
