Not much Tuesday! Catch
up at home.
We did meet our landlord though, which was a good
experience. We'd emailed the rental
manager to let her know that the coffee maker leaked, and to take her up on her
offer to loan us a computer printer for the duration of our stay. She replied that our landlord, Richard, would
stop by with both items. He did. He's close to our age. And like most French men (and unlike this
American), he had a very full head of hair!
Dropped off the printer and coffee maker, petted Emmy, and was on his
way. We were a bit surprised that he
didn't seem to make any effort to check on how we were treating his place. Trusting fellow. Cheerful too.
From Maxine -- dinner
Tuesday night was something of a specialty restaurant. A place called Pomze, a French version of a
farm-to-table restaurant with a gimmick.
The name is a play on the French word for apple and most dishes had some
kind of apple in the recipe. The
restaurant also specializes in hard ciders (usually apple but also pear) which
they match with the food. We had the
cider pairing with different ciders for each menu item and it was amazing how
different the ciders tasted and how well they complemented the food. The food was beautiful to look at (should
have taken pictures) and delicious. I
(Maxine) went with a seafood starter with razor clams and crab. It was arranged on the plate to look like a
tree with the rectangular shell of the razor clam as the trunk. Tom had melted Brie with an apple sauce that
tasted as rich as it sounds. The main
courses were a little more conventional – shrimp in a curry sauce for me and
steak with chanterelles for Tom. For
dessert, I tried Normandy cheeses while Tom had an apple filled chocolate cake
with chestnut ice cream (doesn’t that sound like fall?). The food was good and the ciders were an
interesting addition. Probably only a do
once but we did enjoy it. Pomze.com
Wednesday we needed to do some shopping so we headed over to
the 10 minutes away, mid-sized market (the small one is 2x the size of a 7-11,
this one is the size of a very small grocery store). The small outdoor markets are one of the things
we truly love about Paris. The cynic in
me, having read that most street markets are not run by farmers, looks at them
as simply grocery distribution the old fashioned way. BUT, the care they put into the
displays. The choices that look so
tempting. And the cheese, always the
cheese... So, our shopping was first to
the street market on Rue Poncelet, then Monoprix (the chain store), then back
to the street market.
At the street market, the guy selling Maxine figs didn't have
0.01E change so he tossed in an orange...
At the cheese store, the cheesemonger (I've seen "that" word
in print!) and I made a joke about how I got the sack of cheeses and Maxine had
to pay.
As an aside... One of
the things we've read that a longer term visitor should strive to do is get
known by the local merchants and thus treated as someone who will come back and
buy again. I've accidentally stumbled
into a way to cement that relationship.
They most certainly identify us as Americans as soon as we go in. But, my conversation with the cheesemonger was
about the French word for "to pay".
Enlisting his help with my French education will, I hope, pay off.
Busy afternoon! After
lunch at home we decided to explore the Canal St. Martin area. It's one of those up and coming, cheaper
rent, artsy areas. Several interesting
shops, but not an area we'll bother to return to. The real trick for the afternoon was that
Emmy came with us. On her leash she
walked through the metro station (easily a 1/4 mile walk), then hopped into her
travel bag for the train ride itself.
Not a problem. In fact, no one
gave us the slightest "look" over the fact that we were walking our
dog through this underground station.
And during our time at the Canal, we stopped for a hot chocolate and
tea. At the door to the restaurant I
asked if Emmy was permitted inside and the answer was "of
course". I've got a picture of what
that was like from her perspective.
Dinner at home. Pasta
and some wine. And chanterelle mushrooms
fried with garlic and olive oil, a dish Maxine created for this meal!
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