Victoria and I spent the last week being Americans in Paris, and I quite frankly like it better than being Parisian in Paris. I've recharged, eaten good food, and done a lot of shopping.
Victoria arrived in Paris on Friday in the afternoon and when she arrived, I promptly headed out for ballet, leaving Victoria to her own devices. (She bought toothpaste and Pringles and a pizza). We finished the night with a lot of quiche and champagne.
Saturday was our first of many shopping days. We headed out on Rue de Rennes, exploring the area and popping into little shops that we'd never heard of as well as all the ones we knew from stateside. We amassed quite a bit of merchandise before we hopped back on the metro and I dragged her to my Saturday afternoon ballet class.
Sunday, I left Victoria in the morning so I could go to my ballet class and she could recover more fully from her jet lag. After my class, we met at Place Monge in order to make it to La Comedie Saint Michel. We walked out of the metro station and straight into a street market. After buying samosas and Moroccan tajine, we started the trek to the theatre, which took longer and was more painful than we had previously anticipated. After traipsing around the area for a while, we picked up our tickets, which were classic tear tickets stamped with my name--a cool bonus that happens when you reserve tickets through TickeTac (which you need to get on if you're going to be spending time in Paris). We saw a production of Le Petit Prince that was intended for children and it was maybe one of the best plays I've ever seen. I laughed wildly, joyfully engaged with the actors when prompted, and literally cried at the end. At the curtain call, the actor playing le petit prince declared that that day was his 107th trip to earth, which was children's-theatre-actor-code for "I've been playing this role for 107 shows" which is incredible.
We walked from the comedie to le Jardin du Luxembourg and from there we found ourselves at Pierre Hermé, and we jumped at the chance to start our discovery of macarons in Paris (the famous Pierre Hermé vs. Ladurée debate/war). We returned home and ate four pastries--the lemon tart, coffee tart, ispahan rose pastry, and baba rum cake as well as picking from the box of 24 macarons. The rum cake was immediately our favorite.
Monday went without a lot of fuss or interesting events, but Tuesday I made reservations for lunch at Ladurée.
We met at the church just by the Saint-Germain-des-Prés metro stop and walked up the street to Ladurée, where we were seated in the mostly empty café before being swiftly moved to the little table bearing a card with my name on it (which I saved, of course, like everything else). Lunch at Ladurée is delicious, but if you go for two courses it is a lot of food. Victoria opted for the cauliflower soup and chicken club sandwich and I got the smoked salmon plate and the duck with artichokes. Victoria couldn't finish her sandwich. The waiter told her that she couldn't take it home in a box, but I guess after her dismayed look or the fact that there was 2/3 of a sandwich on her plate, he snuck us a box from the bakery and made her hid it in her purse.
After lunch, we walked into the bakery area, so that we could continue the Pierre Hermé vs Ladurée discovery. We went home with macarons, the Ladurée version of the ispahan rose pastry, and a rose Saint-Honoré cake. Here, we came to the conclusion that Ladurée macarons are superior (as is the packaging--Laudrée is just cuter, all in pastel etc., while Pierre Hermé seems to be designed so that men don't feel weird shopping for sweets there).
Wednesday we started our day rather late and headed out to the local pharmacy (well, one of them). After all of the Youtube videos and the Buzzfeed articles, we decided we needed to stock up on the cult beauty products. While I only walked out with two things, it was only the beginning. After the pharmacy run, we swung by the pizzeria and picked up a ham and egg pizza and a calzone.
We had reservations at Le Petit Medicis restaurant to have the foie gras and other lovely things that night, but in the middle of the day, we both realized how much we didn't want to do that. So instead we met up at a park after my class at 7pm and haunted the Bon Marché as it started to close up, just touching pretty things and looking at interesting books and expensive juices. After that, we didn't stop and go home; oh no. We went out to late night at the Louvre, where the Louvre closes at 9:45pm and stayed until the announcement came over the speakers that it was time to get out. The museum is very empty at night, and we ran around through the Napoleon apartments before almost getting locked in the basement when the metro station closed. After that, we ate the rest of the pizza and calzone, more quiche, and drank red wine. Quite frankly, I think the cheap food and the wine and homemade quiche and Louvre time made us happier than Le Petit Medicis would have.
Thursday was pretty great because my law class was cancelled and so we went out shopping--our favorite shops and then also more pharmacies, where we picked up the famous homeoplasmine, which is supposed to be a miracle product. I had to leave Victoria for two hours during my security class before we met up again because she said that she'd found some good white sneakers for me.
White sneakers for Megan was one of Victoria's quests apparently, for her week and she'd found the Bensimon store near Sciences Po, where we spent some time. I eventually got navy blue sneakers (sorry Victoria) before we walked back to the metro and headed home.
On Friday, I put all of my ballet gear into my purse and we ran off to the Louvre. We fortunately got there before the enormous, enormous crowds and we popped up there and discovered the Dutch paintings and a lot of iconography and a whole bunch of stuff that Victoria knew very well and I had literally never ever seen before. We finished our trip with a long stay on a marble bench in the Babylonian area of the museum, overlooking the statue garden. After grabbing sandwiches at the Louvre's Paul bakery, we headed off to the Opera area to discover Rue Saint-Honoré and popped into all interesting stores. I had told myself that I didn't need to get to ballet but at 6:18 I suddenly decided I did, and so I dragged Victoria back to the studio, tossed her the keys, and got back to the apartment at 10pm, promising Victoria I would make Shakshuka for her, but that was a long time to go before dinner, so she had bought a calzone, and when I got back I ate the rest of it. I however, still needed to get the baking bug out of my system, so we made a grapefruit meringue pie, right then and there. Victoria discovered the secret to stiff meringues (not the soupy stuff I've been dealing with) and it consists of no cornstarch, whipping the eggs like you're starting a fire with a stick, and adding the sugar very, very slowly. We made that, stayed awake enough to eat a slice, and then went to bed.
Saturday was Victoria's last day in Paris and we decided to make it our last-minute shopping trip. We walked down Rue de Rennes again, then found ourselves by Pierre Hermé where we bought pastries (the rum cake included) and ate them in the Saint Sulplice church courtyard. After that, we made it to CityPharma (the discounts there are not quite worth the anxiety-inducing environment), which had been taken over by firefighters last time we were in the area. After abandoning our choices when confronted with the lines, we continued to Ladurée for macrons and more pastries. We ate sandwiches in a sidewalk café, bought more sneakers at Bensimon, and raided another pharmacy for all of the recommended products.
That evening I finally did make shakshuka and we ate it with pierogi and mangos and pie and washed it all down with a bottle of champagne that I accidentally spilled all over the kitchen.
And then that Sunday morning at 4am, Victoria hauled her suitcase, backpack, bag of macarons, and two pirozhi wrapped in foil out the door to the waiting airport shuttle.
This past week, I learned that Victoria sees Paris as I've finally realized I should see it and experiences the city like it should be experienced--shamelessly and with a brave smile and an eagerness to see everything. Who cares if you aren't wearing great street style? Who cares if your dress is too fancy? Who cares if you're speaking English loudly on the street or in a shop or in the Louvre? Show salespeople pictures of what you're looking for, grin widely, point at dresses you want to try on, touch expensive clothes in high-end stores. Who cares? It's Paris. Be brave and unashamed. I am trying my best to do this, but I've also realized that Paris is only like this when I'm with an old friend.
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Sunday, March 15, 2015
La Danse, les Spectacles, et les Tartes
Since the last blog post, my life has been a blur of boring academics, cooking and baking adventures, and a lot of ballet--both watched from a red velvet chair and done on a mylar dance floor.
During my spring break (which may have actually been winter break), I opted to stay in Paris, since
I hadn't done anything in Paris yet. I actually didn't do much anyway, even without classes, and instead I got a lot of rest and caught up on the readings for all of my classes. One afternoon, I did head over to the Louvre and walked through the Jardin des Tuileries, spending some time on a lawn chair by one of the little ponds, reading Arabic poetry. I got flack from some for not going into the Louvre, but I don't even care--it felt good to get outside and even better to crack open a book that I brought here and hadn't yet started reading.
On the Saturday before classes started again, I found myself at l'Église de la Madeleine, which is immense and impressive. I was there to listen to Mozart's requiem, which was performed there for the first time at the funeral of Chopin at his own request, even though women were not allowed to sing in church at the time (they just hid the soprano and alto sections behind black velvet curtains). I have heard the requiem before, but it was the "rock-iem", a reimagined version with a keyboardist and a drummer and an electric guitarist. It was truly moving to hear it performed classically with an orchestra in a building like that.
I have also now been to the Paris Opera. Along with several people from my program, I attended a production of Faust, which was good because I'd never seen it, but I did study it with Sr. O'Dea in high school and I still remember most of that entire class. Opera is a little too much for me, what with the staging and then the little screens above your seats with the libretto--I was just flickering in between watching and reading and also listening, because you can also just listen to opera with your eyes closed.
And yes, I've been cooking and baking a lot. I moved away from Russia with the medovik and pierogi and pirozhi, sustained myself off of one pot pastas for a while, and then transitioned to Shakshuka. It's a Tunisian/Israeli/etc in the region dish, with bell peppers and tomatoes and onions and eggs and it's delicious and now I'm living off of that. Pi day was also an adventure for me, because I decided to progress from the apple pies directly to lemon meringue. My first try was a little bitter and weepy, but today I found that I had two more lemons, so what could I do but make another pie? This one was excellent, in my own humble opinion, and I am going to need to restrain myself from eating the whole thing in one night.
This past week, my evenings have been monopolized by three trips to see the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre's Paris tour, featuring their prima ballerina, Irina Kolesnikova. Tuesday, I saw Swan lake--the second performance I've seen of it in Paris. It was incredible--the company is enthusiastic and talented and the costumes and scenery were just what I wanted from Swan Lake--vaguely medieval and extravagant. Irina was excellent, and while her extensions are clearly capable of grazing her ears, she does something that I've rarely seen ballerinas do--she limits their height in order to preserve the alignment of her hips and therefore the line she presents is very clean. That sounds a little nerdy/snobbish but I found it very lovely. Also, the corps was so in sync for the whole performance that it was a little unnerving. Thursday night, I saw La Bayadere and got all excited when the corps performed the sequences that we learned at Sun King Dance in Richmond during the summer! I've never seen La Bayadere before, and it's quite a different type of ballet than I've usually seen because there are multiple scenes where three characters are on stage but none of them really dance--if you want to see a ballet that really showcases why your dancer friends sometimes talk about mime classes, you should see La Bayadere. Also if you want to feel bad about yourself and your workout routine, go see La Bayadere, because the corps dancers will likely be wearing costumes that show off their midriffs, and all of them will probably have six pack abs that are clearly well defined while they are delicately twirling about the stage. Friday night was Romeo and Juliet, another mime-heavy ballet with tons of fencing and incredibly satisfying amounts of folk dancing. The scene changes were a little disorganized and I was seated next to someone who was upset that people were applauding the dancers, but it was still excellent.
I will be seeing the Paris Opera Ballet in Swan Lake next, and Victoria is coming to town in two weeks, which means I may finally explore Paris as a tourist, after having lived here for two months!
During my spring break (which may have actually been winter break), I opted to stay in Paris, since
I hadn't done anything in Paris yet. I actually didn't do much anyway, even without classes, and instead I got a lot of rest and caught up on the readings for all of my classes. One afternoon, I did head over to the Louvre and walked through the Jardin des Tuileries, spending some time on a lawn chair by one of the little ponds, reading Arabic poetry. I got flack from some for not going into the Louvre, but I don't even care--it felt good to get outside and even better to crack open a book that I brought here and hadn't yet started reading.
On the Saturday before classes started again, I found myself at l'Église de la Madeleine, which is immense and impressive. I was there to listen to Mozart's requiem, which was performed there for the first time at the funeral of Chopin at his own request, even though women were not allowed to sing in church at the time (they just hid the soprano and alto sections behind black velvet curtains). I have heard the requiem before, but it was the "rock-iem", a reimagined version with a keyboardist and a drummer and an electric guitarist. It was truly moving to hear it performed classically with an orchestra in a building like that.
I have also now been to the Paris Opera. Along with several people from my program, I attended a production of Faust, which was good because I'd never seen it, but I did study it with Sr. O'Dea in high school and I still remember most of that entire class. Opera is a little too much for me, what with the staging and then the little screens above your seats with the libretto--I was just flickering in between watching and reading and also listening, because you can also just listen to opera with your eyes closed.
And yes, I've been cooking and baking a lot. I moved away from Russia with the medovik and pierogi and pirozhi, sustained myself off of one pot pastas for a while, and then transitioned to Shakshuka. It's a Tunisian/Israeli/etc in the region dish, with bell peppers and tomatoes and onions and eggs and it's delicious and now I'm living off of that. Pi day was also an adventure for me, because I decided to progress from the apple pies directly to lemon meringue. My first try was a little bitter and weepy, but today I found that I had two more lemons, so what could I do but make another pie? This one was excellent, in my own humble opinion, and I am going to need to restrain myself from eating the whole thing in one night.
This past week, my evenings have been monopolized by three trips to see the St. Petersburg Ballet Theatre's Paris tour, featuring their prima ballerina, Irina Kolesnikova. Tuesday, I saw Swan lake--the second performance I've seen of it in Paris. It was incredible--the company is enthusiastic and talented and the costumes and scenery were just what I wanted from Swan Lake--vaguely medieval and extravagant. Irina was excellent, and while her extensions are clearly capable of grazing her ears, she does something that I've rarely seen ballerinas do--she limits their height in order to preserve the alignment of her hips and therefore the line she presents is very clean. That sounds a little nerdy/snobbish but I found it very lovely. Also, the corps was so in sync for the whole performance that it was a little unnerving. Thursday night, I saw La Bayadere and got all excited when the corps performed the sequences that we learned at Sun King Dance in Richmond during the summer! I've never seen La Bayadere before, and it's quite a different type of ballet than I've usually seen because there are multiple scenes where three characters are on stage but none of them really dance--if you want to see a ballet that really showcases why your dancer friends sometimes talk about mime classes, you should see La Bayadere. Also if you want to feel bad about yourself and your workout routine, go see La Bayadere, because the corps dancers will likely be wearing costumes that show off their midriffs, and all of them will probably have six pack abs that are clearly well defined while they are delicately twirling about the stage. Friday night was Romeo and Juliet, another mime-heavy ballet with tons of fencing and incredibly satisfying amounts of folk dancing. The scene changes were a little disorganized and I was seated next to someone who was upset that people were applauding the dancers, but it was still excellent.
I will be seeing the Paris Opera Ballet in Swan Lake next, and Victoria is coming to town in two weeks, which means I may finally explore Paris as a tourist, after having lived here for two months!
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Un mois à Paris
I have been Parisienne for a month now and I still can't say how I feel about it. It's been a rush of classes and metro rides and ballet and baking, mostly.
One of the best things so far is that I found the site Ticketac, which lets me search through all theatre events, comedy shows, ballets, concerts, etc. in Paris. Obviously I went totally wild with the discounted tickets. After all, this is my first time living in a cultural capital of the world, and with all of the theatres and available sights, I bought myself tickets to twelve shows this semester.
The first show I went to see was La Scala Theatre's production of Giselle. It was at Palais de Congres on the edge of Paris, and when I arrived, the section I had paid for was roped off and I was led to a much nicer area, due to underselling. The ballet was incredible, and after two viewings, I am about ready to declare Giselle to be my favorite ballet. It has a village scene, which means you get energetic dancing, and intense emotion, and then the most visually striking image of the corps in white veils. How could I not love that?
The second production was the Imperial Ice Stars in Swan Lake on Ice, which was just about as visually striking, technically stunning, and unbearably cheesy as you probably imagine. There was wirework, circles of flames, and swordfighting, but it was dizzying even to just watch the performers spin, sometimes with three people spinning on one blade. How do they even do that?
My third venture to a theatre was with St. Petersburg's Eifman Ballet. I didn't know much about the company aside from its location and the fact that it has just recently built a new academy building, but their performance of the night was a modern piece based on the Fitzgerald novel Tender is the Night and I decided to go for it. It was a striking performance--the first modern ballet piece I've seen that incorporated a storyline, and it did it so well.
In terms of baking, I have ventured tentatively away from apple pies and chocolate cakes and quiches with a sudden, vibrant burst of enthusiasm for Russian cuisine. After sitting for two hours in an 8am Russian history bonus class, I felt the need to attempt to make pierogis, which eventually resulted in me boiling and mashing potatoes with ricotta, mixing it with beef, and then making so many pierogis that they didn't all fit in the available tupperware in this apartment. I froze two containers and am already making plans for the next batch.
The Russian honey cake, my first four layer cake, came the day after the pierogi experiment. It promised to be light and not too sweet, which I found intriguing, since I have recently discovered that chocolate cake is too rich for me now. I mixed up the dough and separated it into four bowls, since the recipe was for a four layer cake. I arranged my layers and while they baked, I made the buttercream--thickened with flour. I don't have any sort of electronic mixers, so my buttercream was made with whisks and wooden spoons and an increased risk for carpal tunnel. After assembly, I stuck the cake in the fridge, only to cut into it the next morning for breakfast, where I found that my very first layer cake ever was a total success and didn't taste too bad either. This weekend I plan on trying it again and making it a little bit more traditional (read: upwards of 8 layers).
A couple days after that, I tried my hand at fried cheese pancakes, Syrniki. Despite adding more flour than was called for when the dough turned out to be too sticky and burning myself on the melted butter I was using for frying, they ended up a tasty, puffed success. After setting them on a clean plate, I made a batch of (unfortunately flattened but still delicious) Russian tea cakes with chopped nuts. Now I have all of this Russian food and I don't think Kathy is going to help me eat any of it.
I've also made chicken pot pie from scratch but it was ugly.
When I don't go to see the ballet, I go to ballet classes, which have basically turned what I thought was going to be a boring semester full of largely theoretical coursework into something fully enjoyable. I've found my second home at Elephant Paname, an arts center with five studios, just a block from the Opera Palais Garnier. There are classes Sundays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and if I am not at a production, I go. The studios are beautiful--the main one has a full windowed ceiling and they are all mylar-floored. The teachers are supportive and the students are welcoming. For Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I will have to check out other studios, but so far I am very happy with Elephant Paname.
One of the best things so far is that I found the site Ticketac, which lets me search through all theatre events, comedy shows, ballets, concerts, etc. in Paris. Obviously I went totally wild with the discounted tickets. After all, this is my first time living in a cultural capital of the world, and with all of the theatres and available sights, I bought myself tickets to twelve shows this semester.
The first show I went to see was La Scala Theatre's production of Giselle. It was at Palais de Congres on the edge of Paris, and when I arrived, the section I had paid for was roped off and I was led to a much nicer area, due to underselling. The ballet was incredible, and after two viewings, I am about ready to declare Giselle to be my favorite ballet. It has a village scene, which means you get energetic dancing, and intense emotion, and then the most visually striking image of the corps in white veils. How could I not love that?
The second production was the Imperial Ice Stars in Swan Lake on Ice, which was just about as visually striking, technically stunning, and unbearably cheesy as you probably imagine. There was wirework, circles of flames, and swordfighting, but it was dizzying even to just watch the performers spin, sometimes with three people spinning on one blade. How do they even do that?
My third venture to a theatre was with St. Petersburg's Eifman Ballet. I didn't know much about the company aside from its location and the fact that it has just recently built a new academy building, but their performance of the night was a modern piece based on the Fitzgerald novel Tender is the Night and I decided to go for it. It was a striking performance--the first modern ballet piece I've seen that incorporated a storyline, and it did it so well.
In terms of baking, I have ventured tentatively away from apple pies and chocolate cakes and quiches with a sudden, vibrant burst of enthusiasm for Russian cuisine. After sitting for two hours in an 8am Russian history bonus class, I felt the need to attempt to make pierogis, which eventually resulted in me boiling and mashing potatoes with ricotta, mixing it with beef, and then making so many pierogis that they didn't all fit in the available tupperware in this apartment. I froze two containers and am already making plans for the next batch.
The Russian honey cake, my first four layer cake, came the day after the pierogi experiment. It promised to be light and not too sweet, which I found intriguing, since I have recently discovered that chocolate cake is too rich for me now. I mixed up the dough and separated it into four bowls, since the recipe was for a four layer cake. I arranged my layers and while they baked, I made the buttercream--thickened with flour. I don't have any sort of electronic mixers, so my buttercream was made with whisks and wooden spoons and an increased risk for carpal tunnel. After assembly, I stuck the cake in the fridge, only to cut into it the next morning for breakfast, where I found that my very first layer cake ever was a total success and didn't taste too bad either. This weekend I plan on trying it again and making it a little bit more traditional (read: upwards of 8 layers).
A couple days after that, I tried my hand at fried cheese pancakes, Syrniki. Despite adding more flour than was called for when the dough turned out to be too sticky and burning myself on the melted butter I was using for frying, they ended up a tasty, puffed success. After setting them on a clean plate, I made a batch of (unfortunately flattened but still delicious) Russian tea cakes with chopped nuts. Now I have all of this Russian food and I don't think Kathy is going to help me eat any of it.
I've also made chicken pot pie from scratch but it was ugly.
When I don't go to see the ballet, I go to ballet classes, which have basically turned what I thought was going to be a boring semester full of largely theoretical coursework into something fully enjoyable. I've found my second home at Elephant Paname, an arts center with five studios, just a block from the Opera Palais Garnier. There are classes Sundays, Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and if I am not at a production, I go. The studios are beautiful--the main one has a full windowed ceiling and they are all mylar-floored. The teachers are supportive and the students are welcoming. For Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, I will have to check out other studios, but so far I am very happy with Elephant Paname.
Friday, January 16, 2015
L'arrivée
I arrived in Paris two days ago at 7 in the morning, landing in Charles de Gaulle airport. I've spent a lot of time in CDG, but I've never actually stepped out of the airport (it's always the connection hub for Nantes and Rabat), and the other three times I was in Paris, I arrived by train or car. After explaining to the surprised program manager that my big suitcase was in Nantes and I was not going to be living out of a carry-on, I was tucked away on a shuttlebus and ferried through Paris morning traffic from the airport to the 13th. After about an hour commute, I got to the apartment and was met by two American Comforts of Home workers, who kindly introduced me to the apartment.
I paid the extra deposit for a single and I ended up with one roommate, Kathy, and we also ended up with an apartment meant for four people. Alongside two enormous bedrooms, we have a dining nook, a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room with too much extra space. Since I showed up first, I got pick of the two bedrooms, and chose the dark one with the large closet.
I slipped downstairs after unpacking so that I could hop over to the tiny grocery store just to the side of our apartment building. I bought the basics, namely tea and puff pastry, and then tried to get back into the building. I got past the front door easily enough, but right when I'd arrived, the Comforts of Home staff had switched out the key I'd been given at the airport for one in a brown envelope. It turned out to be the key to the old lock, and after struggling with the key for about twenty minutes, I finally called the staff. Quite frankly, I'm glad I had this issue so early in the visit. Also, Comforts of Home arrived almost immediately and helped me back in and were so sweet that I didn't even mind.
Our welcome program at Sciences Po started today, and instead of allowing us time to adjust to Paris and explore the city, they herded us into a lecture hall and managed to find thirty dozen different ways to say "we're so happy to have you here at Sciences Po" and spat business hours and email addresses at us without offering corresponding papers. We finally made it through a frankly useless tour with a guide whose words barely left her mouth and sprinted off to Monoprix to stock up on supplies. One electric kettle, a collection of green teas, a hairdryer, two laundry baskets, and a whole bunch of food later, we walked out and braved the metro.
With the mushrooms, ham bits, eggs, creme fraiche, and a sheet of puff pastry, I tossed together a little quiche in our new pie/cake pan and Kathy boiled up some ravioli and we felt especially grown up and plan on continuing our cooking adventures.
Paris so far has been limited to an odd tour and a lecture hall, but I know that after a few weekends I'll discover a few gems.
I paid the extra deposit for a single and I ended up with one roommate, Kathy, and we also ended up with an apartment meant for four people. Alongside two enormous bedrooms, we have a dining nook, a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room with too much extra space. Since I showed up first, I got pick of the two bedrooms, and chose the dark one with the large closet.
I slipped downstairs after unpacking so that I could hop over to the tiny grocery store just to the side of our apartment building. I bought the basics, namely tea and puff pastry, and then tried to get back into the building. I got past the front door easily enough, but right when I'd arrived, the Comforts of Home staff had switched out the key I'd been given at the airport for one in a brown envelope. It turned out to be the key to the old lock, and after struggling with the key for about twenty minutes, I finally called the staff. Quite frankly, I'm glad I had this issue so early in the visit. Also, Comforts of Home arrived almost immediately and helped me back in and were so sweet that I didn't even mind.
Our welcome program at Sciences Po started today, and instead of allowing us time to adjust to Paris and explore the city, they herded us into a lecture hall and managed to find thirty dozen different ways to say "we're so happy to have you here at Sciences Po" and spat business hours and email addresses at us without offering corresponding papers. We finally made it through a frankly useless tour with a guide whose words barely left her mouth and sprinted off to Monoprix to stock up on supplies. One electric kettle, a collection of green teas, a hairdryer, two laundry baskets, and a whole bunch of food later, we walked out and braved the metro.
With the mushrooms, ham bits, eggs, creme fraiche, and a sheet of puff pastry, I tossed together a little quiche in our new pie/cake pan and Kathy boiled up some ravioli and we felt especially grown up and plan on continuing our cooking adventures.
Paris so far has been limited to an odd tour and a lecture hall, but I know that after a few weekends I'll discover a few gems.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Un week-end à Paris
I spent the weekend in Paris.
It was supposed to be a sort of quiet adventure and I was supposed to find the Sciences Po campus and talk a lot with Ashley, who would be meeting me there after a flight from Madrid. It half-turned out that way.
The week before, I received the most casual Facebook message from Jennifer:
"Coming to visit you and Ash in Paris"
So we haphazardly planned to meet but didn't come to a real conclusion, but despite the vague nature of our plans, I made a dark chocolate fudge red wine cake and an apple tarte tatin and when Friday rolled around, I packed my backpack, wrapped the baked goods in foil, and got on a TGV to Paris. I navigated the Paris metro in the very basic way--by riding lines to the end and transferring at large hubs. The hostel that I'd booked for myself and Ashley was close to the Bastille stop, and I passed the opera house and an enormous pillar of a monument before I reached the side street of the hostel. I'd booked a room for two so that we could sleep when wanted and also make as much noise laughing and watching TV or what have you as well as eliminate most of the creepy factor that scares me away from hostels. I checked in and sat on the top bunk for about an hour before Ashley appeared. I stuffed apple pie down her throat, hugged her, and then we headed back out to explore.
Our Friday evening consisted of a sort of lazy wandering up and down the street, scouting out stores and cafes to check out the next day and catching up on everything that had happened in our lives since she headed off to New Zealand and I went to Morocco. It was a lot to talk about and we bought sandwiches and a bottle of cider and talked some more back at the hostel.
The next day, we rolled out of bed and went shopping. After heading immediately to a sort of vintage pin-up shop at which we tried on all the dresses and chatted with the amiable storekeeper, we just sort of headed down the street and popped into every store that we took a liking to, all the while continuing to talk. We bought more sandwiches for lunch and after dropping our purchases off at the hostel, we decided to get on the metro and see more of central Paris, or what we always thought Paris was--the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, the Louvre.
We rode the metro to the Champs Elysees stop, fully expecting to wander down the street to the Louvre perhaps, or l'Arc de Triomphe, but instead when we emerged from the station, we looked past the statue of Charles de Gaulle and were greeted by an expansive, sparking, and crowded Christmas market.
We immediately got ourselves cups of hot wine, and then set out to take in as much of the market as we possibly could. There were jewelry stands, leather bound journals, all sorts of foods and candies and silly looking hoods from Canada and it was incredible. We reached the Louvre, turned around, and then went though the other side of the market, munching on crepes and merveilleux and marveling at everything we laid our eyes on.
The next morning, we found breakfast in a cafe close to the hostel: pain au chocolat, orange juice, a hot drink--and then proceeded to browse the bookstores that happened to be open on a Sunday before returning to the hostel to meet Jennifer.
We ate and then went straight back to the Champs Elysees metro stop, where we returned to the Christmas market and then to the Louvre.
I have only been to Paris once before, and it was for one day, and it was a Tuesday, and so the Louvre was closed. This time, however, it was definitely not closed, and the line was nearly non-existent, and so we went.
The Louvre is breathtaking, from the vaulted ceilings to the famous art pieces that you've studied in classes from middle school to university, to the sculptures that figure into the glossy coffee table books that you find at bookstores. Michelangelo's slaves, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo...we must have seen 10% of the museum before becoming achy and hungry. It will be a goal for me during the semester there to see the rest of the place. We returned to the Christmas market for dinner (baked potatoes and crepes and mushroom-chicken pastry), wine (I convinced them to try Chinon red, from the Loire valley), and more talking.
The weekend was a much needed pick-me-up--I got to see some of my favorite people, I got to explore the city that will be my hope for five months, and I experienced the beautiful Paris Christmas market. Also, I didn't touch a fork the whole weekend, sustaining myself on pastries and crepes and apple pie and chocolate cake and waffles and one cheeseburger.
It was supposed to be a sort of quiet adventure and I was supposed to find the Sciences Po campus and talk a lot with Ashley, who would be meeting me there after a flight from Madrid. It half-turned out that way.
The week before, I received the most casual Facebook message from Jennifer:
"Coming to visit you and Ash in Paris"
So we haphazardly planned to meet but didn't come to a real conclusion, but despite the vague nature of our plans, I made a dark chocolate fudge red wine cake and an apple tarte tatin and when Friday rolled around, I packed my backpack, wrapped the baked goods in foil, and got on a TGV to Paris. I navigated the Paris metro in the very basic way--by riding lines to the end and transferring at large hubs. The hostel that I'd booked for myself and Ashley was close to the Bastille stop, and I passed the opera house and an enormous pillar of a monument before I reached the side street of the hostel. I'd booked a room for two so that we could sleep when wanted and also make as much noise laughing and watching TV or what have you as well as eliminate most of the creepy factor that scares me away from hostels. I checked in and sat on the top bunk for about an hour before Ashley appeared. I stuffed apple pie down her throat, hugged her, and then we headed back out to explore.
Our Friday evening consisted of a sort of lazy wandering up and down the street, scouting out stores and cafes to check out the next day and catching up on everything that had happened in our lives since she headed off to New Zealand and I went to Morocco. It was a lot to talk about and we bought sandwiches and a bottle of cider and talked some more back at the hostel.
The next day, we rolled out of bed and went shopping. After heading immediately to a sort of vintage pin-up shop at which we tried on all the dresses and chatted with the amiable storekeeper, we just sort of headed down the street and popped into every store that we took a liking to, all the while continuing to talk. We bought more sandwiches for lunch and after dropping our purchases off at the hostel, we decided to get on the metro and see more of central Paris, or what we always thought Paris was--the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysees, the Louvre.
We rode the metro to the Champs Elysees stop, fully expecting to wander down the street to the Louvre perhaps, or l'Arc de Triomphe, but instead when we emerged from the station, we looked past the statue of Charles de Gaulle and were greeted by an expansive, sparking, and crowded Christmas market.
We immediately got ourselves cups of hot wine, and then set out to take in as much of the market as we possibly could. There were jewelry stands, leather bound journals, all sorts of foods and candies and silly looking hoods from Canada and it was incredible. We reached the Louvre, turned around, and then went though the other side of the market, munching on crepes and merveilleux and marveling at everything we laid our eyes on.
The next morning, we found breakfast in a cafe close to the hostel: pain au chocolat, orange juice, a hot drink--and then proceeded to browse the bookstores that happened to be open on a Sunday before returning to the hostel to meet Jennifer.
We ate and then went straight back to the Champs Elysees metro stop, where we returned to the Christmas market and then to the Louvre.
I have only been to Paris once before, and it was for one day, and it was a Tuesday, and so the Louvre was closed. This time, however, it was definitely not closed, and the line was nearly non-existent, and so we went.
The Louvre is breathtaking, from the vaulted ceilings to the famous art pieces that you've studied in classes from middle school to university, to the sculptures that figure into the glossy coffee table books that you find at bookstores. Michelangelo's slaves, Winged Victory, Venus de Milo...we must have seen 10% of the museum before becoming achy and hungry. It will be a goal for me during the semester there to see the rest of the place. We returned to the Christmas market for dinner (baked potatoes and crepes and mushroom-chicken pastry), wine (I convinced them to try Chinon red, from the Loire valley), and more talking.
The weekend was a much needed pick-me-up--I got to see some of my favorite people, I got to explore the city that will be my hope for five months, and I experienced the beautiful Paris Christmas market. Also, I didn't touch a fork the whole weekend, sustaining myself on pastries and crepes and apple pie and chocolate cake and waffles and one cheeseburger.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Patisserie Megan
On Sunday the 14th, I Skyped Victoria and she told me to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I had not yet seen. I then watched it, watched it again, bought the soundtrack, and this is where the pastry craze that has seized my life began.
That next Tuesday, I had a free morning, so after heading to Monoprix and getting my hands on pastry bags and the relevant groceries, I started my pate-à-choux, the dough used to make little cream puffs. The dough was incredibly easy and the custard to fill the little puffs was even easier. I spent most of the morning in the kitchen, piping dough onto sheets, then piping cream into puffs, and then brought the leftovers to conversation club.
On my way home from conversation club, I bought two bars of flavored chocolate and a carton of eggs.
The next morning, I started working on two more batches of custards--Lindt chocolate orange bar and blueberry bar went into two different pots. You only need yolks for custard, so I whipped the whites and stuck them into the oven as meringues, which were flat and sad and burnt, but still sugar, so I ate them anyway.
After ballet on Wednesday, I made two batches of pate-à-choux and produced two enormous batches of puffs, glazed them in raspberry royal icing, and stuck them in the fridge. They lasted for an enormous amount of time and I brought them on the bus that weekend for my friends on the trip to the chateax de la Loire.
And after that, I just didn't stop with the pastries. The next week, I tried for choux pastries one more time and this time they puffed up, enormous and perfect and I filled them with the leftovers from the rest of the custard batches.
After spending some time on Pinterest, I decided to give puff pastry sheets a try, and after stocking up on three rolls and checking carefully on the Pinterest guides, I made little Danish pastries out of jam and kiri cheese, braiding the dough or just smushing the pockets of dough closed: apricot and cheese, cheese on its own, raspberry jam, strawberry jam, nutella with cinnamon...I had a pile of them. With the last sheet, I made a rose shaped apple tart--the usual French design with the thinly sliced apples and I glazed it with apricot.
Dany tasted it and then had another slice and then three little nutella braids and told me that I should leave my studies and start baking, and I think if a French woman tells you that your pastries are that good, you've accomplished something.
Today, I kept up with the puff pastry line, with a ham and goat cheese and kiri cheese and mustard puff pastry pie and a rose design apple and plum tart. I don't think I'm ever going to stop with this. There's something extremely satisfying about checking back on the oven and watching pastries puff up and brown under the egg wash and the apples and plums caramelize and then of course presenting it to friends and being all happy when they appreciate what you've made.
So once I move back into a dorm situation, come find me and I will probably have baked goods.
That next Tuesday, I had a free morning, so after heading to Monoprix and getting my hands on pastry bags and the relevant groceries, I started my pate-à-choux, the dough used to make little cream puffs. The dough was incredibly easy and the custard to fill the little puffs was even easier. I spent most of the morning in the kitchen, piping dough onto sheets, then piping cream into puffs, and then brought the leftovers to conversation club.
On my way home from conversation club, I bought two bars of flavored chocolate and a carton of eggs.
The next morning, I started working on two more batches of custards--Lindt chocolate orange bar and blueberry bar went into two different pots. You only need yolks for custard, so I whipped the whites and stuck them into the oven as meringues, which were flat and sad and burnt, but still sugar, so I ate them anyway.
After ballet on Wednesday, I made two batches of pate-à-choux and produced two enormous batches of puffs, glazed them in raspberry royal icing, and stuck them in the fridge. They lasted for an enormous amount of time and I brought them on the bus that weekend for my friends on the trip to the chateax de la Loire.
And after that, I just didn't stop with the pastries. The next week, I tried for choux pastries one more time and this time they puffed up, enormous and perfect and I filled them with the leftovers from the rest of the custard batches.
After spending some time on Pinterest, I decided to give puff pastry sheets a try, and after stocking up on three rolls and checking carefully on the Pinterest guides, I made little Danish pastries out of jam and kiri cheese, braiding the dough or just smushing the pockets of dough closed: apricot and cheese, cheese on its own, raspberry jam, strawberry jam, nutella with cinnamon...I had a pile of them. With the last sheet, I made a rose shaped apple tart--the usual French design with the thinly sliced apples and I glazed it with apricot.
Dany tasted it and then had another slice and then three little nutella braids and told me that I should leave my studies and start baking, and I think if a French woman tells you that your pastries are that good, you've accomplished something.
Today, I kept up with the puff pastry line, with a ham and goat cheese and kiri cheese and mustard puff pastry pie and a rose design apple and plum tart. I don't think I'm ever going to stop with this. There's something extremely satisfying about checking back on the oven and watching pastries puff up and brown under the egg wash and the apples and plums caramelize and then of course presenting it to friends and being all happy when they appreciate what you've made.
So once I move back into a dorm situation, come find me and I will probably have baked goods.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Un gout du Maroc et un grand brunch à Nantes
I didn't end up writing a post on the fifth week, and that's mostly because nothing unusual happened on the fifth week. I went to classes without interruption from strikes. I chatted at conversation club hour. I ate a lot of bread.
On Friday the 10th, I went shopping with Sydney, because we sort of needed things and we also mostly wanted things. We poked our heads into Kiabi, which advertises "fashion at a small price." We found many small prices, and we also found sweatshirts supporting the fifty-two states of America. Whether this is a simple mistake or some sort of misguided campaign for the statehood of Puerto Rico and Washington DC, we aren't completely certain. H&M and Zara seem to be the same everywhere. We walked around a little more before Sydney brought up my earlier plans to find a bakery called Al Rayan. I'd told her that I was going to find it on Saturday, but since we had little else to do, we hopped on the tram, rode it just one stop, and found the bakery easily.
Al Rayan is a Middle-Eastern bakery. Every plate of pastries has a small sign stuck into it with the name of the pastry, its country of origin, and the name in Arabic script. I have been craving chebakia ever since I left Morocco, and I had some of them the night I left. Chebakia are fried twists of saffron dough, soaked in honey and coated in sesame seeds. I love them especially because I learned how to make them with Ouafae and Lima in Rabat and two-year-old Lina learned alongside me. I beelined past the marzipan fruits and the almond cookies and the honeycomb pancakes and pointed at the chebakia right when I laid eyes on them.
"I would like the chebakia," I told the proprietor. "I would like six of them."
I ate two of them right there and the other four were gone before Sunday.
That Sunday, Sydney, Audrey, and I met for brunch at Tabl'o Gourmand, which I mentioned in the scavenger hunt post. This time we headed for the other location, as we were worried that the large location in the center of town would be crowded. Therefore, we found ourselves at the slightly smaller location close to the IES center, a cozy cafe tucked into a side street. It was raining and it was also ten in the morning on a Sunday and we were essentially alone. We shared the basket of bread--still warm and soft and spread with violet jelly and cherry jam and Ovamaltine, the crunchy nutella, essentially. I decided to go all in for the Tabl'o Gourmand signature brunch, which came in waves.
First thing was a chocolate chip muffin and a coffee, followed by plain yogurt with honey, scrambled eggs with fried bacon, and then the brunch salad. At Tabl'o Gourmand, the brunch salad is a cup or so of salad surrounded by three different cured meats and three literal bricks of cheese. Warning: if you eat the whole Tabl'o brunch like I did, you might not eat anything else for the rest of the day.
After the brunch, Sydney reminded us that it was Fete de la Science in Nantes, which meant that the natural history museum was free. If a museum that you normally pay for is free, you should go see it. I really do love the natural history museum at Nantes--it is structured in levels, from geology to mammals and sea-creatures, and then birds and seashells on the loft level.
And so that weekend was much more exciting than the week that preceded it.
On Friday the 10th, I went shopping with Sydney, because we sort of needed things and we also mostly wanted things. We poked our heads into Kiabi, which advertises "fashion at a small price." We found many small prices, and we also found sweatshirts supporting the fifty-two states of America. Whether this is a simple mistake or some sort of misguided campaign for the statehood of Puerto Rico and Washington DC, we aren't completely certain. H&M and Zara seem to be the same everywhere. We walked around a little more before Sydney brought up my earlier plans to find a bakery called Al Rayan. I'd told her that I was going to find it on Saturday, but since we had little else to do, we hopped on the tram, rode it just one stop, and found the bakery easily.
Al Rayan is a Middle-Eastern bakery. Every plate of pastries has a small sign stuck into it with the name of the pastry, its country of origin, and the name in Arabic script. I have been craving chebakia ever since I left Morocco, and I had some of them the night I left. Chebakia are fried twists of saffron dough, soaked in honey and coated in sesame seeds. I love them especially because I learned how to make them with Ouafae and Lima in Rabat and two-year-old Lina learned alongside me. I beelined past the marzipan fruits and the almond cookies and the honeycomb pancakes and pointed at the chebakia right when I laid eyes on them.
"I would like the chebakia," I told the proprietor. "I would like six of them."
I ate two of them right there and the other four were gone before Sunday.
That Sunday, Sydney, Audrey, and I met for brunch at Tabl'o Gourmand, which I mentioned in the scavenger hunt post. This time we headed for the other location, as we were worried that the large location in the center of town would be crowded. Therefore, we found ourselves at the slightly smaller location close to the IES center, a cozy cafe tucked into a side street. It was raining and it was also ten in the morning on a Sunday and we were essentially alone. We shared the basket of bread--still warm and soft and spread with violet jelly and cherry jam and Ovamaltine, the crunchy nutella, essentially. I decided to go all in for the Tabl'o Gourmand signature brunch, which came in waves.
First thing was a chocolate chip muffin and a coffee, followed by plain yogurt with honey, scrambled eggs with fried bacon, and then the brunch salad. At Tabl'o Gourmand, the brunch salad is a cup or so of salad surrounded by three different cured meats and three literal bricks of cheese. Warning: if you eat the whole Tabl'o brunch like I did, you might not eat anything else for the rest of the day.
After the brunch, Sydney reminded us that it was Fete de la Science in Nantes, which meant that the natural history museum was free. If a museum that you normally pay for is free, you should go see it. I really do love the natural history museum at Nantes--it is structured in levels, from geology to mammals and sea-creatures, and then birds and seashells on the loft level.
And so that weekend was much more exciting than the week that preceded it.
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