Postcards from Paris: Let them eat cake, Part I.

Happy belated Bastille Day! I meant to take advantage of Bastille Day celebrations to finally post about all of the food moments that I had in Paris in April, but of course work and travel got in the way, so here it is, a week late. (Also, the soundtrack for this post.) But I hope that's okay, because oh there are so many good food moments to share, ranging from the planned to the surprising to the serendipitous. I've gone back and forth on how to order this post--savouries versus sweets, neighborhoods versus cuisines--but in the end, I decided to tell my story chronologically, because the stories, the context--that's what makes the food truly memorable, for me. So here's Part I of my Paris food adventures. Part II to come, because there's just too much for one post!

In Paris, I based myself in Upper Marais, on the recommendation of a friend. I swear I picked this AirBnB on the sole criterion that it had beautiful plant life. Green!

After I checked into my place, I met up with a colleague of mine who was attending the same conference, and we went wandering around Paris, getting our bearings. For dinner, we went with a recommendation from another colleague of ours who works in the city: Szechuan hot pot at 蜀九香 Fondue 168. I have to say that I'm pretty excited that this place doesn't even really have a Western name. I know it's a bit unconventional to go to Asian food in Europe, but some of the best food that I had on my Paris trip was Asian-influenced (see below, too!). The hot pot came with so many dippables, from veggies and tofu and mushrooms galore to more unusual meats that I'd never had, like a shrimp/fish cake with an egg inside. Then, we hit up the Experimental Cocktail Club down the street, where I had a cocktail that was garnished with a whole radish at the bottom, which cleverly soaked up a hint of the drink! Talk about experimental!

Of course, when in Paris, one has to get serious about the pastries. Because Paris. Because cake! Luckly, several of the patisseries that I wanted to visit/that were recommended to me were in a similar area, so I got to hit several in efficient fashion. My very first stop (pictured in first photo above) was a pilgrimage to Pierre Hermé, naturally. Like, one of the greatest patisseries. Ah, be still, my heart! Behind the modern, streamlined case were rows and rows of impeccable and beautifully made desserts, in flavor combinations that my puny brain (however creative I pride myself to be) has yet to fathom.

Then it was off to a Japanese-French fusion patisserie, Sadaharu Aoki, that a good friend of mine recommended highly before I left on my trip. It's sort of an out-of-the-way bakery that isn't on a lot of the "top bakery" lists, but in my book, it's one of the most creative places I've seen. I snagged a small layer cake for myself, which had layers of black sesame cake, matcha cake, and vanilla-cognac mousse, and also picked up some gifts for others, in interesting Asian-fusion flavor combinations. All of the matcha things here that I tasted were amazing.

Armed with my various pastries, I headed off to the nearby Jardin de Luxembourg to find a sunny bench on which to dig into my stash. It was really funny, on a Sunday morning, to see so many people out and about, playing ball, jogging around the fields, or practicing taichi--all while my own, personal form of Sunday morning "exercise" was enjoying the hell out of a magnificent piece of cake. Only in Paris.

After pastries, it was time to seek out bread, at Eric Kayser, of course. Ah man, I swear I don't think I'll ever be able to have a baguette anywhere else again. These baguettes have ruined me forever! Accompanied by cheese from a local fromagerie and tapenade from a deli in the Jewish Quarter, this bread constitued many breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners for me while I was in Paris. Because with bread and accoutrements this good, who needs to go out for restaurant food?!

Okay, Part II of Paris food adventures coming soon!

Postcards from Paris: Out and About

When I went to Paris for the first time in April, I was much more excited by the prospect of desserts and museums than I was about actually seeing the big "sights". Like the Eiffel Tower. It was about a week after I'd arrived in Paris that I actually made it to the tower--because, how big of a deal could it actually be?

But, once there, at sunset, watching the lights glitter, with the silhouette against an uninterrupted gradient of colored sky, I got it. I understood the romance.

Mostly when I travel, I just like to walk around and run into whatever I run into. A few weeks after returning from the trip, I discovered that my phone's health app had been tracking my steps each day, and for the week I was in Paris, it was off the charts. I walked everywhere, hoping that my meanderings, combined with serendipity, would take me to see the best, undocumented-in-a-guidebook corners.

When not walking, I did sort of fall in love with the Paris metro system. Maybe it's just that it was wonderful being back in a city with a proper metro, by which I mean one that runs at reasonable hours, with a convenient and constant availability of trains, and with stations pretty much near everything. Throw on top the beautiful station-specific designs that pepper the system, and one starts thinking of the dizzy, convoluted, dense maze of colored lines as idiosyncractically artistic. The metro system sure does have character, I'll give it that. Also, if you are ever near the Arts & Métiers stop, you must go explore it. I missed my chance of getting a photo of it (I have a phone photo somewhere...), but one level of the station is totally steam-punked out, covered wall to wall with copper plating, holographic portholes, and gigantic exposed gears protruding from the ceiling.

I will say, though, Paris gardens are a funny breed. After being used to the rambling, "I woke up like this" unkemptness of English gardens, I wasn't expecting the expansive, gravel-sand boulevards that are favored in Paris, which are lined with hedges cut in unnaturally rectangular rows and studded with statuary. Also, everytime I find myself in England, or now Paris, I'm thankful that I'm from a country that doesn't care so much for people to walk on and enjoy the grass, because what's the point of swaths of lawn in no one can wiggle their toes in the dew-green blades?

The ducks get to enjoy the grass...

So this post is just about the outdoor scenes in Paris. For inside museums, see the previous post here. I'm saving the food for last... and also, a most serendipitous meeting with a fellow food blogger halfway around the world.

One last thing, yay, SCOTUS! Go, equality.

Postcards from Paris: The Museum Life

So here we are. Ah, Paris. About a month ago, I got to go to Paris (actually, France!) for the very first time ever. For some reason, the City of Light just had never been on my must-go European radar. I think a bit of the aversion stemmed from the inferiority complex I have of being one of the only linguists I know who does not speak any French. But here's the thing. I know plenty of French. You know, the important stuff like pâtisserie, or boulangerie, or baguette, macaron, croissant, tarte, chocolat, madeleine, thé, fromage ... At least I didn't starve to death because of my terrible French, I'll tell you that!

Oh, but food. Food is for another post. There is just too much to chronicle, to share, about my trip that I've decided to break it up into shorter "postcards" for you all. I hope you don't mind the episodic nature, but it will give all of us more to look forward to, right? Plus, Paris. One should not rush Paris. One should stroll slowly, and study everything.

So this post. This post is about something that set my heart a-flutter in Paris: THE ART. I didn't have much time, so I spent one day at the Louvre, and another day at the Musée d'Orsay. How I would have loved to visit all the museums, but no, stroll slowly. Study everything.

There were moments in these museums when I would see a piece and be like, no no no, I can't possibly be standing in front of a Manet tabletop, or a Cezanne, or one of Monet's ladies, or a Degas figure sculpture, or a Rembrandt portrait, or a de Heem floral still life, or Van Gogh's vigorous brushstrokes. I nearly cried at the first Cezanne.

And really, it wasn't about the names. Those could matter less to me. (I think I made the "not impressed face" at the Mona Lisa. But that could have also been due to the bajillion tourists crowded around the painting.) What I was most fascinated by was the interpretation of the visual world, which made the art so devastatingly beautiful to witness. You can see the individuality of how each artist's eye sees the world, and how light and dark and color gets uniquely translated from the eye through the mind and body, to the canvas. But in these incredibly longitudinal collections housed in Paris, you can at the same time see how much the ebb and flow of communal ideas from the time, culture, and community that each artist lived in also influenced the way they made sense of imagery.

My absolutely favorite part of these museums was standing as close as I could without getting yelled at by the docents, to see each brushstroke on canvas. It's this texture that you just don't get with prints, and basically can't get unless you're standing in front of the original thing. It was amazing (argh, using that word so much here) to see the diversity of each stroke, how much or how little paint made it on, how each different type of stroke had its role in telling the overall story.

I thought a lot about my art--dessert, photography--while studying these masters. As an artist, what one does is transfer some sort of vision into a different medium. For these guys in the Louvre or Musée d'Orsay, it's the visual world to paint. In photography, it's the visual world to pixels or printed page. (In dessert, the world translates into sugar and dairy and flavor.) But, that old adage is true: something always gets lost in translation. The translation is imperfect. Because we can never give the viewer a complete, 100% replica of the world, what we're translating. The message is always mediated, e.g. by unconscious factors that we can't control (i.e., the way our brain processes light). But what makes these masters masters -- I think -- or, what makes artistry in art -- is the way this imperfect translation, the loss, becomes something more. Something beautifully represented and full of vivacious complexity in its own right.

That's what I want to (quite humbly) strive for, too.

In Paris, stroll slowly. Study everything. And one might yet receive a private art lesson from Cezanne.

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More Paris soon, stay tuned!

(Also, post hoc apologies to any actual art peeps out there for my very amateur ramblings.)