Unlikely Diplomat

How many pain au raisins do you think I can eat between now and then? How many sips of champagne can I squeeze in? Will I be able to find some closure watching my last episodes of Doctors?

I don’t know the answers to these important questions. But I do know that I’ve spent the last week swinging back and forth from being totally fed up with the rain and the lack of take-out food options and the bus strikes to being all googly eyed and nostalgic about the littlest things, like the way the light bathes my apartment’s herringbone parquet floors in the most beautiful honeyed glow, or how the FranPrix cashiers have finally started talking to me, or how the poulet roti from the butcher is simply unparalleled in chickeny excellence.

It’s so hard, this last week. Because I’m so so so ready to go home, to introduce le bébé to my family, to eat egg and cheese bagels again. But at the same time this city keeps trying to woo me with its fresh baguettes and friendly little old ladies and Christmas lights.

I mean, how can I leave when the darkest, dreariest nights are warmed by spectacular lights on every other street? Paris is so sneaky like that. Just when you think you can’t take any more of the hustle and bustle and inefficient public services and the ten different grocery stores you have to visit just to get basic necessities, you turn the corner and WHAM! Something like this hits you right in the face:

A spectacular view, a breeze carrying the smell of fresh croissants, a neighbor who’s finally warmed up to you after two years and offers to babysit. All these things make it so hard to say goodbye. I’m going to need to step in a few piles of dog poo next week to make things easier.

Last week was kind of a doozy. We recovered from Lyon just fine, but I soon realized that I had less than 3 weeks left in Paris and about 8 million things on my To-Do list. Actual important, practical things, not just things to eat. But in between chores and organizing for the big move I still managed to discover some new things, even if I didn’t have time to write about them.

For example, I discovered that the dark circles under my eyes aren’t residual mascara smudges. Nope! That’s the natural color of my skin now!

I also discovered that undercooked lamb chops are not the same as rosé lamb chops, no matter how tired you are and unmotivated to return them to the pan for a few minutes. They’re undercooked. And they will give you and your Husband synchronized tummy troubles.

(That’s about when I realized we get the tummy troubles here a lot. Enough that sometimes I think my tummy would be better off in a remote, sewage-filled village in India. But I take heart knowing that Julia Child had the same problem – she wrote about having to go on cleanse diets because of the havoc the rich French food was wreaking on her stomach. So as soon as I get home, I’m going to take it easy on the foie gras and champagne and bricks of golden butter. I swear.)

At the same time as my lamb chop discovery, le bébé discovered a new and exciting way to flex her vocal cords. It’s really endearing. It does not make me want to dig out my ear drums with a spoon at all.

And as evidenced by my state of appearance at the end of that video, turning 32 feels like getting punched in the face 32 times. While a really cute chubby baby squeals in your ear.

Actually though, it was a lovely birthday with lots of birthday wishes from the people I love. And flowers from Husband. And a fabulous dinner at a fabulously delicious, quintessential Parisian place called Bistro Paul Bert. There I put my tummy troubles aside and had a celebratory glass of champagne, and even felt brave enough to try some lièvre for dinner- that’s wild hare, stewed to perfection in red wine and blood (I know. Ew! But try not to think about it) and served with a celery purée so rich and creamy you could have sworn it was mashed potatoes.

It was hard to convince my table mates that celery and rabbit blood was in fact more delicious than the giant cave man cote de boeuf steak they were eating. And I will admit that they had one of the best specimens of boeuf I’ve tasted since being here, accompanied by some pretty stellar frites. But the intense gamey-ness of the hare was just so spectacular and different than anything I’ve tasted before. Plus I think it gave me some street cred with the waitress. And it was my birthday. So I win.

I hope you all ate enough dinde for your turkey-less compatriots here in Paris. Because while we did have the day off, I was too busy exploring, enjoying and uncovering new things to wrap my head around the logistics of trying to squeeze a bird into my tiny godforsaken oven. Here’s what I discovered over the past week:

1. Babies don’t like Diane Arbus.  Last Tuesday I met a friend at the Jeu de Paume for the Diane Arbus retrospective. It was my first visit to the museum, and my first in-depth exposure to Arbus, so I was excited. But 5 minutes and 3 creepy midget photos into the exhibition, le bébé started wailing. We made a swift exit and sat in the Jardin de Tuileries for a while instead.

2. Parisian pumpkins are not all the same.  In my quest to make pumpkin pie, I roasted up no less than 3 different kinds of squash and 2 sweet potatoes on Wednesday. What I learned: Potiron, which looks like a big cartoon Cinderella pumpkin and is sold by the slice at the market, is no good for pies. Too watery and stringy. Potimarron, however, elevates our Thanksgiving classic to new levels of deliciousness. Those bright orange, turban-shaped gourds have a rich pumpkin-like flesh that tastes like chestnuts. Even when my stupid oven didn’t cook it at the right temperature, my pie turned out awesome. We may or may not have already eaten the whole thing. At breakfast.

3. Babies do like king size hotel beds.  On Friday we made a brave, brave decision to hop a train to Lyon with a 4 month old in tow. A 4 month old with a habit of waking up at all hours of the night and flexing her newfound vocal cords. But miracle of miracles, le bébé was a total dreamboat on the train ride, a sweet cherub during all our restaurant meals and walks around town, and absolutely the most happy child I have ever seen when we let her flop around on the cushy hotel bed. So apparently she likes nice hotels as much as I do.

Lyon is known for it’s fabulous food, being the hometown of renowned chef Paul Bocuse and all. Enjoying that food was somewhat difficult with an infant on board, especially since the only time she seems to sleep without complaint is between 6:30 and midnight. Kinda wipes out the dinner hour.

But we did manage to check out some amazing markets and sample some delicious piggy parts– le cochon is a Lyonnais favorite.

And as a parting gift, Husband took us over to Les Halles (the city’s famous indoor market) for one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had. Oysters and a glass of white wine on an empty stomach…not for the meek, my friends.

I know you’re probably all thinking that I gave up on the discovery challenge. And you wouldn’t be totally off base to guess that I spent the weekend curled up in a ball in the corner, praying to the baby gods to show me the righteous path to non-screaming baby life.

But you’re wrong! Despite a dear sweet cherub who’s been waking up every 3 hours to yell at me, I’ve been busy discovering things. Here’s a recap:

Friday: Pastries

I took advantage of the gorgeous fall weather to walk all the way across the river to Hugo and Victor, one of the patisseries on the best patisseries in Paris list.

And since I walked all the way there, I decided to taste-test at least 3 pastries. So from the very fancy glass cases on the wall I chose from the pastries representing the shop’s 3 “star flavors”: the vanille, the chocolat and a caramel mille feuille.

The pictures really don’t do them justice. And my formatting sucks. But let me just say: SWEET BABY JESUS IN VELVET PANTS. These were some extraordinary pastries. The vanille was the most vanilla-y vanilla you could ever imagine, the chocolate so deep and rich but feather-light at the same time. And the caramel? Come. On. Caramel pastry cream wedged between delicate layers of puff pastry cannot ever be bad.

But you know what really got me? If you order a sampler of chocolates or biscuits from Hugo and Victor, they come packaged in a beautiful box that looks like an old book. I may have squealed with glee when I saw this:

Saturday: O-Chateau

After a very sleepless night, we needed a break from le bébé. And a lot of wine. So we joined some friends for the Tour de France of Wine at O-Chateau.  Five wines, one champagne and several hunks of stinky cheese later, I can highly recommend this place for anyone looking to do a wine tasting in a beautiful old stone cave just down the street from the Louvre. We had dinner afterwards at the wine bar upstairs, which was also wonderful – and I got the chance to try a Malbec from France. I didn’t even know those existed.

Sunday: Speed Pho

It was a cold, crisp day spent mostly lounging on the couch, trying to catch up on sleep. But around 4:30pm I got a hankering for some pho. And apparently the best place to get it is at Pho 14, all the way down in the 13th. With bébé’s impending bedtime, that left us about 2.5 hours to go 12 metro stops, grab a table, eat, and sprint home. Which is exactly what we did.

It was kind of like an Amazing Race challenge, complete with surly Vietnamese waiters. Thankfully we were seated immediately, served quickly, and asked to get up and hand over our table just as fast. The pho was fabulous though and we made it home without any major complaints from our third wheel.

All in all it was a great weekend, filled to the brim with new things. Which is why yesterday I discovered the beauty of afternoon naps.

Today I’ve been stuck in the apartment waiting for the plumbers to come fix all the leaky faucets and managing a crazy 3 month old who’s giving a chubby little middle finger to any kind of schedule I might try to ease her into. (hmm, I wonder where she gets that willful spirit from? Dad, any idea?)

But I haven’t let that put a damper on my discovery challenge: today I discovered an entire website dedicated to Parisian pastries.  A website that includes several lists of the best pastries in the city, determined by months of taste-testing and research by one astonishingly slim expat chocofile.

Upon finding this invaluable resource, my first thought was: why the bleep didn’t I think of that?! This guy is making a living eating millefeuilles and macarons. Absolutely brilliant, if not dangerous for your blood sugar levels. But my second thought was: I just found my next 38 discoveries.

I’ll let you figure out how to pronounce that one. In the meantime, I’ll tell you that it’s the name of the most spectacular pastry I’ve come across yet (don’t tell the pain au raisins). Kouign Amann is a specialty from Bretagne, and its name actually comes from the Breton words for “butter” and “cake.” And I think that’s pretty much all it’s made of: butter, butter, some sugar, and more butter. It’s amazing. And I just discovered that the bakery around the corner (the one with the not so good baguettes, so I never go there) sells them. Score!

It’s only day 2 of my discover something new project, and I almost didn’t make it out of the house. Le bébé is going through a growth spurt or something, and isn’t particularly happy unless she’s sleeping or eating. Or eating when she should be sleeping.

So motivating myself to get out the door and risk public baby screaming was tough today. But I dug deep and decided to do some much needed grocery shopping at Le Marché des Enfants Rouges, one of the oldest covered markets in Paris and by far one of the most fun – it’s got everything from organic produce and oysters to Moroccan food and fresh flowers.

It’s also one of my favorite places to get a crepe, so I set out to fill my grocery cart and my belly. And yes, technically that’s not a new thing. But I’ve really only wandered through on the weekends and I’ve never devoted much time to more than browsing the usually hectic aisles. So I set out to really discover everything the marché had to offer.

Unfortunately, what I discovered is that the Marché des Enfants Rouges isn’t very fun on a Tuesday afternoon.

Most of the stalls were closed for business. The awesome crepe guy was nowhere to be found. And I was definitely the only person there hauling around both a granny cart and an infant. But all was not lost — I did find a very cool little vintage photography shop tucked away in the back.

The old guy in the fedora was chain smoking while sifting through boxes of black and white photos, tossing the keepers (or the losers, I couldn’t tell) into that big plastic bin labeled “anonyme.” Those snapshots of “anonymous” or “unknown” people and places were just a euro each. I could have stayed there all day leafing through them, but the cold baby nose pressing into my chest said it was time to go home.

Or should I say, bonjours.

That’s right, I’ve got one month left here, and I don’t plan on spending it saying goodbye. Because really, I’m absolutely positive I’ll be back one day. But more importantly, I’m not done with this place yet! Goodbyes mean you’re wrapping things up, and I feel like I’m just getting started.

So I’m challenging myself to discover one new thing a day until I leave. Or until they disconnect my internet, whichever comes first. What kinds of things will I uncover? Well, today I stumbled across a cute little restaurant called 22 Peas (I have no idea why it was called that) and had myself a slice of tarte salée (quiche) made with poireaux (leeks) and Saint-Nectaire cheese. It was spectacularly delicious.

But I’m going to try (not very hard) to make sure I’m not just discovering food things. Museums, boutiques, and beautiful vistas are all fair game. Hopefully le bébé will cooperate – I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings (me to eat)!

Don’t panic! I’m not saying goodbye to Paris just yet. I’ve got a whole month left of this fabulous city, so please redirect your tears as I bid a bittersweet farewell to a friend who’s served me well over the past two years:

Ohhhhh J.Crew Sherpa Fleece. Your cozy hood and cushy fleece interior have kept me warm and toasty since early 2009. I’ve worn you daily since we touched down in Paris. I can always find you hanging on my door knob, ready to fend off damp chills, frigid mornings, the odd cool breeze. Your elbows are worn in the exact spots that my arms rest on my desk while typing.

How I love you J.Crew Sherpa Fleece! Splattered with red wine stains from evenings curled up on the couch, marred by maple syrup remnants from Sunday morning pancakes. Your boxy shape is just snug enough, your pockets perfect for stashing car keys or a cell phone. Or a handful of pretzels for later.

I don’t want to say goodbye. But it’s time. And there’s a new Sherpa Fleece in my life now. She’s downy soft and smells fresh, and I know she’ll conform to the shape of my torso in no time. But I’ll miss you, Original Sherpa Fleece. Thanks for keeping me comfy, so far from home.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s glossed over this blog that I think French cuisine is magnificent. The bubbly and the foie gras, the seared lamb chops and rich sauces, the crispy butter moons they call croissants — it’s all spectacularly delicious, and usually done to perfection.

The French people have a rich culinary history that’s uniquely tied to their culture, which can be a beautiful thing. Until, that is, those historically gourmet palates meet modern day fast food. That’s where things start getting really, really weird.

Case in point: the “plain” pizza at Dominoes that has goat cheese on it. The club sandwich made with smoked salmon. And Nutella sushi.

Read that again: Nutella. Sushi.

Yes, the people at Planet Sushi have taken that delectable hazelnut spread to a place it should never, ever go: the inside of a maki roll. And just in case the thought of Nutella wrapped in sticky rice wasn’t weird enough, they went ahead and swaddled the whole thing in a gag-inducing sheet of egg.

Is it for breakfast or dessert? Do you dip it in soy sauce? Eat it along side a piece of raw tuna? It’s just so, so wrong.