Home Sweet Home

Posted on March 18, 2012 by admin

Thursday morning, March 15th, dawned in Germany with a cover of dense fog. Immediately, I became concerned about whether any flights would take off. As the morning matured, the sun burned the fog off and a bright sunny day – no coats required – took the stage.  We headed down to the mezzanine level of the AFI for coffee and an egg croissant.

Show time for the flight back to BWI had been moved forward to 12:50, and, on a lark, we headed over to sign up for any space availability on the flight.  They did not have our paperwork in the computer – luckily we had a printed copy to give them – and we were approved to wait for a space available slot.
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Train Ride Through the Country

Posted on March 14, 2012 by admin

After squaring the apartment away and packing up a lunch for the train, we checked out of our Paris apartment. Mike had purchased a baguette from Maison Collet this morning, so he took left over rotisserie chicken, sliced tomato, and emmenthal cheese and cut the two ends into reasonable portion. We had two oranges left over, so we packed them for our trip.

We walked to the Turbigo-Sebastopol bus stop and hopped the 47 bus to Gare de l’Est. The very interesting thing about trains in France, except the Eurostar, of course, is that they never publicize the platform until about 15 minutes before the train is scheduled to leave.

TGV high-speed train from Paris to Kaiserslautern Germany

TGV

Deboarding Tip: When they make the announcement that your stop is coming up, get up and collect your belongings, and make your way to the door. Once the train doors open, other passengers will start getting on and you’ll never get off before the doors close!

The SNCF-TGV train moved rather quickly through the French countryside, but seemed to slow down considerably in Germany. We opened our sandwiches, ate an orange, and shared a bottle of water. The ride was smooth and we arrived at our station about 7 minutes late at 3:45 PM.

Our home for the night

Our home for the night

Bruce and Tom were kind enough to meet us at the station and drive us to Ramstein. They are staying nearby, but they were unable to get a reservation at the Air Force Inn. Mike had received an e-mail before we left the apartment, that our reservation for one night was confirmed. We checked into our room. Very nice.

We checked out the base exchange mall and food options at the food court. Check out time is 11:00 AM tomorrow and then the wait starts to catch a flight back to the US.

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Visit Sainte Chapelle On A Sunny Day

Posted on March 13, 2012 by admin

Ste-Chapelle's upper chapel on a sunny day

Mike woke early to send an e-mail about a room in Germany for tomorrow night. I pulled out the clothes I would wear today and traveling tomorrow and decided to try to pack everything else. I was sure I was going to have to expand my suitcase, but everything did fit without expanding – especially after I shed a few items.

The answer about the room – not now but check later.  By now it was approaching lunchtime, you know we do travel on our stomachs! We strolled down rue Montorgueil to find a table in the sun on the terrace to eat.  The one we tried yesterday was full, so we checked across the way at the Esplanade St Eustache and grabbed the last spot.

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Taking It Easy on A Sunny Day

Posted on March 12, 2012 by admin

The French Weather Service promised a spectacular day and it was! Bright blue skies and temperatures above 63, meant switching to a vest and leaving the jacket at home.  Since the bakery was closed yesterday (actually we couldn’t find it), we decided to head back over to the Left Bank and see if we could pick up our morning croissant there. You’ll remember from yesterday that the bakery we sought was supposedly the one that provides baguettes and croissants (the BEST!) to the Presidential Palace. We found 18-20 rue Jean-Nicot, and it wasn’t there anymore. The lesson in that is that despite a 2012 Guidebook’s recommendation, be prepared for an adventure – what you’re looking for may – or may not – be there. If it were really that good, why would it be out of business? Maybe, Carla banned carbs at the palace!

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Musée et Poulet

Posted on March 11, 2012 by admin

Up early today for a trip across town to the Musée Marmottan Monet for the Berthe Morisot exhibit.  The museum opens at 10 but they have been working on the M1 so its closed on Sunday morning so we decided to take the bus, but the trip took longer than expected.

We arrived at the museum and no line; so no problem, you see we wanted to make sure when we left the museum we could get to the market at La Motte Picquet on the Bd. du Grenelle to insure a chicken for a late lunch at the apartment.

The exhibit was to run From 8 March to 1 July 2012, the Musée Marmottan presents the first major retrospective of the work of Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) to be held in Paris for almost half a century. One hundred and fifty paintings, pastels, watercolors and drawings in red chalk and charcoal, from museums and private collections all over the world,

retrace the career of the Impressionist movement’s best-known woman painter. Works selected for the exhibition cover the whole of Berthe Morisot’s artistic career, from her earliest works c. 1860, to her untimely death at the age of 54, in 1895. Continue reading →

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Brocante & Shopping on Saturday

Posted on March 10, 2012 by admin

One of the vendors at St-Paul-Village Brocante Market

We had seen signs and posters all around Paris about the upcoming brocante market in St-Paul Village, just south of the St-Paul metro stop on rue de Rivoli, where it changes to rue St-Antoine scheduled for Saturday and Sunday 10 and 11 March.  We decided to walk over to the market to check out what it might have. The market was small, but many of the regular St. Paul merchants had opened their ateliers and shops, so there were many things to see.

 

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Mike’s Macron Class

Posted on March 10, 2012 by admin

Well it Tuesday (March 6th, 2012) and time for another cooking class this one on French Macarons.

First a bit of History.

The Macaron cookie was born in Italy, introduced by the chef of Catherine de Medicis in 1533 at the time of her marriage to the Duc d’Orleans who became king of France in 1547 as Henry II. The term “macaron” has the same origin as that the word “macaroni” — both mean “fine dough”.

The first Macarons were simple cookies, made of almond powder, sugar and egg whites. Many towns throughout France have their own prized tale surrounding this delicacy. In Nancy, the granddaughter of Catherine de Medici was supposedly saved from starvation by eating Macarons. In Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the macaron of Chef Adam regaled Louis XIV and Marie-Therese at their wedding celebration in 1660.

Only at the beginning of the 20th century did the Macaron become a “double-decker” affair. Pierre Desfontaines, the grandson of Louis Ernest Laduree (Laduree pastry and salon de the, rue Royale in Paris) had the idea to fill them with a “chocolate panache” and to stick them together.

Since then, French Macaron cookies have been nationally acclaimed in France and remain the best-selling cookie in pastry retail stores. Continue reading →

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Missed us?

Posted on March 9, 2012 by admin

I’m sure you have been wondering where we have been, well at least we would like to think so.

The long and the short of it is that we were actually and earnestly apartment shopping.  Without going into the the long and sordid details we looked at about 11 apartments all over the city.  We had set a minimum square meter limit of 40 and a maximum of 70.

Unfortunately we were unable to find anything in our budget.  We found two units that could have worked: the first needs a great deal of renovation and the second, while close to fitting our requirements, still required some physical changes and the cost of either would have tipped the budget over $1,000,000.  And, that’s before furnishings required to make it habitable. So rather that place ourselves under financial duress, we have called it quits.  We decided that our ship has left the dock, we are either too old, too financially conservative, or our desire for ownership just is not strong enough.

The good news is there are still many beautiful apartments here in Paris for us to continue to lease for our extended stays.  A million-dollars will allow us to rent a high-end apartment for 5-weeks for the next 83 years! Maybe even buy the new iPad!

Now what?

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Kitchen Supplies and Cooking in Paris

Posted on March 6, 2012 by admin

Each time we come to Paris we visit the kitchen suppliers who are huddled in the Las Halles area of Paris.  Le Halles used to be the “Belly of Paris” a term made famous by Emile Lola in his book titled Belly of Paris. Unfortunately the “belly” no longer exists in it’s former form and the suppliers of meat, fish and vegetables have moved outside Paris to Rungis. The Rungis wholesale market officially opened on 3 march 1969, and has been growing ever since.
There are tours of the market, however, this person, tried as he may, has never been able to successfully book a reasonable priced tour of the market.  So if you are up to it try booking a tour; they range form an affordable 89€ to 300€.

The good news is the kitchen shops have remained in Les Halles and no trip to Paris for a foodie would be complete without a visit to one or all of the shops.

(See list of US Suppliers at the end of this post)

 

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Lunch with Bruce and Tom

Posted on March 5, 2012 by admin

Mike had arranged a call with an international financing firm in the morning, but the call never materialized, so we set off to meet Bruce and Tom at Gare de l’Est.  They had arrived yesterday afternoon at Ramstein and were taking the train into Paris to catch the Eurostar out of Gare du Nord for London. Their train was on time – well one minute late; but that’s pretty close to on-time.

We took them to one of the restaurants we scouted out previously just two blocks from Gare de l’Est, le Renouveau.  We decided on omelettes with green salad, a carafe of water, and a bottle of Cotes du Rhone. Thanks, Tom, for buying lunch! We chatted and visited for a couple of hours and then escorted them the 600 meters from one train station to the other and directed them to the access to the Eurostar.  They arrived at Gare du Nord in plenty of time, or so we thought! However, they ended up waiting for the 16:13 train.

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