February Follies...with Julie

February was visiting month with Julie, Matt and Marcy coming over back-to-back weekends. I have finally surfaced to talk about it. Here you can even take a “virtual tour” with Julie or Marcy and me. (Julie is a friend who, way back, used to work in the same lab as me at Columbia. Marcy is a friend who was in the same class as me at Columbia.) Matt has set a schedule, of which I approve, of a visit every 1 1/2-2 months. So his Paris photo album has many pages left to fill. Some of which I will post on later blogs.

Julie taught me a new French expression when she was here: “leche vitrine.” Window shopping or, literally, window lick. And that is just what we passed our time doing. The first day she was here, we used as our base a street that I like to call the foie gras district because it is lined with boutiques selling and serving this delicacy. It is at the geographical and emotional heart of Paris. Of the shops that we discovered that day, the highlight was Dehillerin. (Julie did great pre-visit research!) This is the oldest cooking store in Paris, according their site, established in 1820. This remarkable establishment sells every type of appliance or ware for every item deemed fit for culinary consumption. Julie found her coveted lions-head detailed porcelain bowls. And walked in the footsteps of the Celebrity Chef Barefoot Contessa, as shown below.



Me, I took a load off in a pot big enough to cook a small child.



Of course, obligatory trips to the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur (through a taxi window) were made in between shopping expeditions.




We launched expedition numbero deux from the Golden Arches (of Café McD) in front of some other famous arch (look in the background).


Julie and I happened upon LaDuree, supposedly the first tea salon in Paris. It was there that I discovered God. In the form of a Macaron. Anyone who has eaten a macaroon at Passover knows that, while good, it is not exactly divine. But this is not exactly a Passover macaroon. Rather the best cookie in the world. A crunchy sugar shell encapsidates a chewy cookie with a cream or jelly (depending on the flavor) core. This picture captures Julie at the perfect instant: before the first bite of the best of the macaron flavors, pistachio. I am a little embarrassed to admit that, since our LaDuree discovery, I have been back about every week.



After the feast for the palate, we had a feast for the eyes at Le Louvre and his gardens. Julie, inspired by the Louvre Pyramids, gave me the Cliffnotes version of The Davinci Code. (Thank you for saving me from the time of reading the book!)






For our Last Supper, we went to a restaurant behind the Louvre. Probably a mistake in such a touristy area. Definitely the worst, and only bad, meal I have been served in Paris. Julie’s French onion soup came in the form of a clump of powder at the bottom of a bowl of broth. With the support of Julie and a couple righteous Parisian girls at the table next to us, I complained to the waiter. (I am becoming less timid and more vocally disgruntled the longer I am here!) The waiter was less than accommodating. He finally took the bowl away and came back, approximately five minutes later, with the exact same soup. When we still weren’t having it, he directed me to the owner. The owner pointed out for me that, as I am American, I do not understand food or restaurants, and I will eat what I am served. I was proud of myself for telling him, “I am sorry, I thought the French had pride in their cuisine!” He gave me such an icy cold stare I was afraid he would serve me a head-butt Zidane-style. He didn’t. But he taught me an important lesson: Unlike in the USA, the customer is NOT always right. The Parisians at the next table confirmed this general truth. I suppose, though, that with boutiques like Dehillerin and LaDuree, the customer can tolerate being wrong once in a while!