It’s sometime in the morning, I suppose, I don’t know. I haven’t looked at a clock in days, but it doesn’t matter anyway, because I don’t have anywhere to be but right here right now. We’re in the large, open kitchen at Maud’s house in Prades—I’m at the solid, knotty table, and Maud is up and about making a clafouti with cherries we picked up yesterday from the market in Pleaux. We have Jorge Ben Jor on, because I love this album, but also to drown out the feeble buzzing of a dying fly. The fly is one of eleven fat, black spots on a roll of flypaper that has been unraveled along the wire of a pendant lamp as a warning to other flies. Our tribal warning is ineffective; the flies fear nothing, and buzz and land where they will.
Our train pulled into Laroquebrou late Sunday. We were three to descend toward the small station light glowing yellow in the deep black night. A taxi ride round the winding country roads, and then we tumbled into the house, Maud and India and me, and we breathed in the house smell. “Tea?” Maud said. “Water and sleep,” I said, so of course in minutes we were sitting down to a pot of tea, a baking tin of Angéla’s chocolate cake, and a good slab of Cantal. “On a trouvé le fromage,” I said, “ou bien le fromage nous a trouvé,” because this, if you will remember from such episodes as last summer, is le fromage qui bouge tout seul. “Some bread maybe?” Maud said, and I went toward the bread drawer. “I like that you remember where things are,” Maud said, but of course I remember where things are, c’est dans la boîte quoi.
I was talking to CC on the phone yesterday, and she said, “You’re going to use your UK visa to spend all your time in Paris.” Well...yeah. Because, hot damn, Paris.
A week ago I packed up the Brooklyn house and said good-bye with little sadness, because sometimes it is just time to pack up and go, and, anyway, it is hard to wallow in grey nostalgia when a girl has a one-way ticket to Paris.
Paris is la fête de la musique the day I arrive, a bal musette in the courtyard of the Mairie du deuxième arrondissement, a woman in a giraffe dress and mascara’d eyes. We are all dancing, the tango, the rhumba, the farandolle, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the steps, because under the stars and the blimp in the sky and the strings of multicolored lights, the dance is the dance is the dance.
Paris is the drums at la Place Sainte-Marthe after midnight, deep and thumping and unstoppable up the street, and a couple kissing under a streetlamp, and a stumbling drunk, and Chinese families hanging out of their windows, in pyjamas or half-dressed, above rue Sainte-Marthe, watching the hullabaloo from overhead.
Paris is Moots and Panda and Magdalena and Fab. Manel, Sophie, Tania. Flojo and Chris and Philippe and Karen. Rebekah, Simon, Olive, Rémi. Gigi, Lili, Benjamine, Jeanne. Louis qui est Lui, Bastien qui est Spider, Paul qui est Pol qui est Tige. Of course Paris is Maud and Hector and Klem and Gabriel.
Paris is an afternoon siesta after an overnight flight, drifting in and out of sweet sleep while Gab plays a languid Spanish something that floats on the blue sky above Belleville. “C’est un peu le bonheur ici,” I said, because it was true. Later, we were lounging about, and the sky outside was white like the apartment walls, almost-white on off-white and the sunlight streaming in white-white, like starting anew.
Paris is hanging on tight on the back of Gab’s scooter as we scoot around the city, if this is not Paris I don’t know what is. The scooter is called Shadow, and Shadow needs a little tune-up, because at the moment he goes somewhat faster than a bicycle and groans uphill. “Faut pas être trop pressé,” Gab says, which is fine by me, because it is summer in Paris and I am in no hurry to get anywhere. We weave in between cars and putt along the Seine, we lean around corners and rattle about on cobblestone streets. Sometimes we stop for a crêpe jambon-fromage and sometimes we carry a bag of pastries from the swank Aoki Sadaharu on Boulevard Port Royal. Sometimes we are reflected in shop windows as we zip past, a silver helmet and a rose-print skirt and a big cheesy grin but I can’t help it. And the scooter ride around Paris is something, but the scooter ride around Paris at night after the dance, when the air is cool and quiet, when you turn your head to see the deep yellow city lights pulling away behind you, well there is a feeling somewhere inside you, and that feeling may well be l-o-v-e.
Paris is a picnic in the Jardin de Tuileries with Maud and Hector, after a stop into Ladurée for fancy-pants sandwiches and macarons de luxe. I tried to tell the story about the wide-mouthed frog, and—who knew?—the story exists in French. Hector saw me one histoire de la grenouille à grande bouche and upped me le clown qui s’est réveillé et qui se sentait tout drôle.
Paris is trying to bake a cheesecake and a chocolate tart, converting all measurements from American to French, and I am afraid I am turning into a two-trick pony with these baked goods, but what can you do when your fan club puts in a request. Where condensed milk as I have known it comes in a little can, in Paris the condensed milk comes in a tube that you can suck on. I am not making this up, this is a true story. I tried to squeeze out a little taste onto my fingertip, delicate-like, you know, like a jeune fille bien élevée, but Hector said the right way was to put the whole thing to my mouth and suck. When in Paris....
Paris is knowing where I’m going, rue de l’Atlas to rue du Buisson Saint-Louis, hang a left on rue Saint Maur, hang a right on rue du Faubourg du Temple, et le Monoprix nous y voilà for wine and yoghurt. This is what else I know: In Belleville, the corner in front of Wing Seng smells like durian. No one will share the durian with you, so it is best to leave it alone, but rambutans are innocuous and just five euros a kilo to satiate a craving. On rue Saint Maur, stop for a pain suisse and a bar of chocolate at the first boulangerie, not the second. In the Marais, the Muji shop is just down the street from the falafel joint; the falafel joint is just down the street from the park in which to eat a falafel sandwich in the shade; the park is just down the street from Le Palais des thés; and in Le Palais des thés, they have tea for the sampling, cold and light on a hot day.
Paris is out and out and out, and then hot and tired but out some more, but then Paris is also coming back in, and being quiet with a book, sometimes, or a movie, sometimes. If you are lucky, Paris is walking about in the cool after an afternoon storm, and then coming home at night to find a surprise companion for a mousse au chocolat and a DVD rental.
Chez Gab on ne dort pas avant trois heures, and mostly Paris is going to bed around four, or staying up talking till the sky starts to lighten again and the birds chirp hello. We rested one on top of the other, and the moon made her way from left to right in the sky, low and round and bright. Paris, then, is waking at half past noon, because why not.
Paris is the Friday market in Belleville, people pushing, trolleys and bags and baskets, melons and tomatoes and beans, cheeses and meats and fish, dresses, shoes, things. Gab walked me to the métro after, and he said, “So maybe some cherries? And maybe some figs?” and when I got back he’d gotten both, we like Gab a lot. Sunday morning some of us had a bowl of fresh figs and honey yoghurt, and a teacup of strong coffee, with La vie devant soi propped on our knees, we like Sunday mornings a lot.
Paris is picking out all kinds of treats at Gérard Mulot—a pear tart, a pistachio-grapefruit tart, a good generous helping of peach tart—and then Paris is a thé de pétasses downstairs at the Buisson. We talk about girls, Maud and Gigi and me, but we also talk about boys. And we talk about London, and we talk about Paris, and there will be visits here and visits there, we like Gigi a lot. We also like the Buisson a lot, for when there is not a thé de pétasses, there may be an apéro de connards, or chouquettes and croissants for breakfast, or a late-night petit suisse with pear jam, or a sandwich and fries from the Tunisian place round the corner on a rainy afternoon.
Paris is my own personal amazement that I speak French, and Paris is the triumph of hanging up the phone after a Whole French Conversation, without the aid of gestures or pantomimes or any kind of nonverbal cue, a Whole French Phone Conversation in which I understand everything, even a boy locking his shirt in the attic, which seems like something got lost in the translation, but which in fact is exactly what he said.
Paris is chez Gab, chez Maud, chez Benjamine, chez Philippe. Friday night, boulevard de Choisy smells of roast pork. Up seven flights at Philippe’s, sourires et fous rires, we noshed while the saffron curtains billowed in the wind. The storm came down, then, and the sky far in the distance was purple with thick rain.
Leaving Paris Sunday afternoon made us stomachaches and bad moods, even if we were heading for the country, and even if the country is brown butterflies and giant heads of lettuce in the sprawling garden, and maybe sixteen teapots in the kitchen cupboard, and volcano stones in the big room. There is more to say about the country, of course, but it is hours now since I started this post, and I have been in my pyjamas all day, mais enfin ce sont les vacances quoi.
Our train pulled into Laroquebrou late Sunday. We were three to descend toward the small station light glowing yellow in the deep black night. A taxi ride round the winding country roads, and then we tumbled into the house, Maud and India and me, and we breathed in the house smell. “Tea?” Maud said. “Water and sleep,” I said, so of course in minutes we were sitting down to a pot of tea, a baking tin of Angéla’s chocolate cake, and a good slab of Cantal. “On a trouvé le fromage,” I said, “ou bien le fromage nous a trouvé,” because this, if you will remember from such episodes as last summer, is le fromage qui bouge tout seul. “Some bread maybe?” Maud said, and I went toward the bread drawer. “I like that you remember where things are,” Maud said, but of course I remember where things are, c’est dans la boîte quoi.
I was talking to CC on the phone yesterday, and she said, “You’re going to use your UK visa to spend all your time in Paris.” Well...yeah. Because, hot damn, Paris.
A week ago I packed up the Brooklyn house and said good-bye with little sadness, because sometimes it is just time to pack up and go, and, anyway, it is hard to wallow in grey nostalgia when a girl has a one-way ticket to Paris.
Paris is la fête de la musique the day I arrive, a bal musette in the courtyard of the Mairie du deuxième arrondissement, a woman in a giraffe dress and mascara’d eyes. We are all dancing, the tango, the rhumba, the farandolle, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the steps, because under the stars and the blimp in the sky and the strings of multicolored lights, the dance is the dance is the dance.
Paris is the drums at la Place Sainte-Marthe after midnight, deep and thumping and unstoppable up the street, and a couple kissing under a streetlamp, and a stumbling drunk, and Chinese families hanging out of their windows, in pyjamas or half-dressed, above rue Sainte-Marthe, watching the hullabaloo from overhead.
Paris is Moots and Panda and Magdalena and Fab. Manel, Sophie, Tania. Flojo and Chris and Philippe and Karen. Rebekah, Simon, Olive, Rémi. Gigi, Lili, Benjamine, Jeanne. Louis qui est Lui, Bastien qui est Spider, Paul qui est Pol qui est Tige. Of course Paris is Maud and Hector and Klem and Gabriel.
Paris is an afternoon siesta after an overnight flight, drifting in and out of sweet sleep while Gab plays a languid Spanish something that floats on the blue sky above Belleville. “C’est un peu le bonheur ici,” I said, because it was true. Later, we were lounging about, and the sky outside was white like the apartment walls, almost-white on off-white and the sunlight streaming in white-white, like starting anew.
Paris is hanging on tight on the back of Gab’s scooter as we scoot around the city, if this is not Paris I don’t know what is. The scooter is called Shadow, and Shadow needs a little tune-up, because at the moment he goes somewhat faster than a bicycle and groans uphill. “Faut pas être trop pressé,” Gab says, which is fine by me, because it is summer in Paris and I am in no hurry to get anywhere. We weave in between cars and putt along the Seine, we lean around corners and rattle about on cobblestone streets. Sometimes we stop for a crêpe jambon-fromage and sometimes we carry a bag of pastries from the swank Aoki Sadaharu on Boulevard Port Royal. Sometimes we are reflected in shop windows as we zip past, a silver helmet and a rose-print skirt and a big cheesy grin but I can’t help it. And the scooter ride around Paris is something, but the scooter ride around Paris at night after the dance, when the air is cool and quiet, when you turn your head to see the deep yellow city lights pulling away behind you, well there is a feeling somewhere inside you, and that feeling may well be l-o-v-e.
Paris is a picnic in the Jardin de Tuileries with Maud and Hector, after a stop into Ladurée for fancy-pants sandwiches and macarons de luxe. I tried to tell the story about the wide-mouthed frog, and—who knew?—the story exists in French. Hector saw me one histoire de la grenouille à grande bouche and upped me le clown qui s’est réveillé et qui se sentait tout drôle.
Paris is trying to bake a cheesecake and a chocolate tart, converting all measurements from American to French, and I am afraid I am turning into a two-trick pony with these baked goods, but what can you do when your fan club puts in a request. Where condensed milk as I have known it comes in a little can, in Paris the condensed milk comes in a tube that you can suck on. I am not making this up, this is a true story. I tried to squeeze out a little taste onto my fingertip, delicate-like, you know, like a jeune fille bien élevée, but Hector said the right way was to put the whole thing to my mouth and suck. When in Paris....
Paris is knowing where I’m going, rue de l’Atlas to rue du Buisson Saint-Louis, hang a left on rue Saint Maur, hang a right on rue du Faubourg du Temple, et le Monoprix nous y voilà for wine and yoghurt. This is what else I know: In Belleville, the corner in front of Wing Seng smells like durian. No one will share the durian with you, so it is best to leave it alone, but rambutans are innocuous and just five euros a kilo to satiate a craving. On rue Saint Maur, stop for a pain suisse and a bar of chocolate at the first boulangerie, not the second. In the Marais, the Muji shop is just down the street from the falafel joint; the falafel joint is just down the street from the park in which to eat a falafel sandwich in the shade; the park is just down the street from Le Palais des thés; and in Le Palais des thés, they have tea for the sampling, cold and light on a hot day.
Paris is out and out and out, and then hot and tired but out some more, but then Paris is also coming back in, and being quiet with a book, sometimes, or a movie, sometimes. If you are lucky, Paris is walking about in the cool after an afternoon storm, and then coming home at night to find a surprise companion for a mousse au chocolat and a DVD rental.
Chez Gab on ne dort pas avant trois heures, and mostly Paris is going to bed around four, or staying up talking till the sky starts to lighten again and the birds chirp hello. We rested one on top of the other, and the moon made her way from left to right in the sky, low and round and bright. Paris, then, is waking at half past noon, because why not.
Paris is the Friday market in Belleville, people pushing, trolleys and bags and baskets, melons and tomatoes and beans, cheeses and meats and fish, dresses, shoes, things. Gab walked me to the métro after, and he said, “So maybe some cherries? And maybe some figs?” and when I got back he’d gotten both, we like Gab a lot. Sunday morning some of us had a bowl of fresh figs and honey yoghurt, and a teacup of strong coffee, with La vie devant soi propped on our knees, we like Sunday mornings a lot.
Paris is picking out all kinds of treats at Gérard Mulot—a pear tart, a pistachio-grapefruit tart, a good generous helping of peach tart—and then Paris is a thé de pétasses downstairs at the Buisson. We talk about girls, Maud and Gigi and me, but we also talk about boys. And we talk about London, and we talk about Paris, and there will be visits here and visits there, we like Gigi a lot. We also like the Buisson a lot, for when there is not a thé de pétasses, there may be an apéro de connards, or chouquettes and croissants for breakfast, or a late-night petit suisse with pear jam, or a sandwich and fries from the Tunisian place round the corner on a rainy afternoon.
Paris is my own personal amazement that I speak French, and Paris is the triumph of hanging up the phone after a Whole French Conversation, without the aid of gestures or pantomimes or any kind of nonverbal cue, a Whole French Phone Conversation in which I understand everything, even a boy locking his shirt in the attic, which seems like something got lost in the translation, but which in fact is exactly what he said.
Paris is chez Gab, chez Maud, chez Benjamine, chez Philippe. Friday night, boulevard de Choisy smells of roast pork. Up seven flights at Philippe’s, sourires et fous rires, we noshed while the saffron curtains billowed in the wind. The storm came down, then, and the sky far in the distance was purple with thick rain.
Leaving Paris Sunday afternoon made us stomachaches and bad moods, even if we were heading for the country, and even if the country is brown butterflies and giant heads of lettuce in the sprawling garden, and maybe sixteen teapots in the kitchen cupboard, and volcano stones in the big room. There is more to say about the country, of course, but it is hours now since I started this post, and I have been in my pyjamas all day, mais enfin ce sont les vacances quoi.
Labels: Travel: France
posted by stellou at 1:53 AM
18 Comments:
salut les meufs du Talcan!
J'ai pu lire que la moitié de ton post (parce que je me sens tout drôle...) mais j'y retourne demain. (Peut être que d'ici là le cantal m'aura dépassé!)
excuse me, are you amelie?
You have got to start the travel writing Ms. Stellou.
You are so throwing a baking party and baking for all your Singapore friends when you get here!!!
(Yes, that merited 3 exclamation points.)
And I second Saffron's point. Hurry up and write it already!
as you would say, "Lucky." tell maud i said hello!
Argh.
I miss it all, terribly so.
hé hector: saluuuut !!, tu nous manques, pour de vrai...well...maybe tu manques plus à quelqu'une parmi nous qu'aux autres...mais quand même. :-p on t'envoie des bisouxxx, dartagneau y inclut. ça va à paname ?
+ + +
hallo my cc: can you hear the accordion music now?? eh, turn off your head! eh, YAH, scooters are best, truly, and i have a dimple also, but i think there will be no "funny" treasure hunts around sacre coeur. hngh!
+ + +
hullo saffron: aw, thanks, nicey. if i blushed, i'd blush. :-p it's true, travel writing could be a fun thing. the good thing about travel writing is traveling. for work! amazing. it'd be like, i will sit here, and eat a cherry clafouti, and then have a little espresso, and then go lie about in the garden and read an issue of french "elle" from last summer, and get paid for it all. bwah hahaha.
+ + +
tym: eh, auntie, YAH, see how lah. i will try to cook in singapore, but it has never happened before. strange but true. i really don't know my way around the kitchen in the singapore house. but how hard can it be, really. ahhh...famous last words. eh, yah, but TOTALLY you are invited. also, uncle. uncle is invited.
also, eh, hello, what do you call this? i am writing! i am writing!!! cheh!
+ + +
laureeny! it is true, everything is lucky here, especially me. and especially right now, because i am hungry, and fortuitously, miraculously, we have just returned from a little trip into town for food. we have cheese, grommit, CHEESE!
also, in response to hello, maud says: "i want to say that i like her and she's nice, and i wish she could come here once." oh, everybody is just NICE and LUCKY, is all. maybe you can make it so your flight to moldova stops in france? ho ho.
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cour marly: yeah...it is eminently missable, this place. are you in singapore? maybe you can go to, um, what's that french bistro place in or near greenwood, i know i am getting it wrong, but i think the street name has the word "green" in it, and the french bistro place is called, like, sébastien or something, and there's a fancy little grocery shoppe next to it. i seem to think it is down the street or around the corner or a sneeze away from the place that sells lana chocolate cake. oh, i guess that place is lana. hngh! no, but, at this place that may or may not be called sébastien, they have really tasty confit de canard. is all i'm trying to say.
stellou, the french bistro is Sebastien's (I live a few mins walk from there) and the little grocery section has relocated and evolved into a gourmet grocer/café proper at the other Les Amis satellite of shops on Watten Rise (beside Canelé pâtisserie).
But it's nawt the same...
clearly we need to embark on a pâtisserie tour of singapore with tym. wait. we're connected through tym, right? somehow?
i have tended to have rather bad luck with pâtisseries in singapore, but maybe this summer will be the summer of luck. somehow i have found that western-style desserts are lame in singapore--which is altogether fine, i guess, because why try to hunt down a tarte au chocolat if you have some kind of rainbow ice delight in front of you, attap chee y compris!
cour marly very shy one. Never before seen in person :)
I've just heard excellent things about Sebastien's breakfast/brunch offerings, including their homemade jams.
But speaking of Asian desserts, there is an unassuming Ah Chew's Desserts that we must try, Stellou --- nothing like cool refeshments to bat the hot weather away. And you've already heard me mention the Oreo shakes...
um, may i also partake of asian desserts? i am asian, and i like dessert.
cc and tym: EH COME ON MAN, i think no one needs to say anything else. quickly let us go, but i will nowt have the oreo shake because i know right now it is one of those things that tastes like heaven while you are drinking it and then after that it is only the bitter taste of je-regrette on your tongue and in your stomach.
eh, also, yumei, you might be glad to know that i am taking your baking suggestion quite seriously. come, let us tea chez moi. i'm thinking chocolate tart, cheesecake, banana bread, walnut cake, and then iced teas for that tropicale sensation.
*gasp*... the strawberry jam at Sebastiens is TODIEFOR! I always wonder if I can just go in, place an order of toast and stuff my face with the pot of jam that sits on every table!
tym - *ahem* people change you know... hrr..
WAH. that's a lot of baking, especially when you could arrange some kind of lana chocolate cake thing. does this mean i will finally get some of that chocolate tart you didn't bake me the last time you were here? i still have a scharffen berger bar for august. HNGH.
cour marly: eh, is this the kind of strawberry jam where there are big fat sloppy strawberries among the jammy jam? because, if so, COME ON MAN LET'S GO DONCH WASTE TIME. yumei, in or out???
cc, the thing is, it is all easy baking. i am not assembling a fiddly finicky crêpe mille-feuille here...
eh, but YAH, i was going to ask you if you wanted to be around for tea, because i remems when i was in sydders some time ago and i said, "CAN I THROW YOU A BABY SHOWER???" and you said: NO.
that number again: NO.
hngh!
so i thought maybe you might not want to be part of a Large Social Gathering. eh, but surely ren will come, and jacq, and everybody's favorite non-ij girl. if only colin goh were going to be in singaping, too!!!! ho ho ho.
but YAR chocolate tarts are urs. and can i just say, i sent mowmy home with NOT ONE BUT TWO bars of 62% scharffen-berger. nyup nyup.
I know what kind you're talking about, but these aren't so generous with the sloppy strawberries....at least not when I had them last year. Maybe I shall visit them this weekend for a quality check!
cour marly: Oh! Research trip! Lucky!! I was at Taka yesterday and was very tempted to buy a bottle of Fauchon mango-peach jam, but I couldn't find someone to pay. That's right, NO ONE WOULD TAKE MY MONEY. Customer service in Singapore is surprising lah! Maybe that's what they mean by "Surprising Singapore"...
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