THE PARIS LETTER: When the heck are things open around here?

Bear with me, because this may be a little bit of a rant. But - when are things open around here??

I've lived here for two years now, and I still don't know. Every week I seem to head out on an errand only to find the shop/market/office is closed, and I'll have to come back. The French system, even in Paris, still functions on a closed-on-Sunday/closed-for-lunch mentality that to an American feels completely alien and bizarre.

I will give you some examples of the pitfalls in my weekly shopping routine: I live next door to a big supermarket, Monoprix, which I think of as kind of a combination of Whole Foods and Target. Blessedly, they are open every day except Sunday. They don't, however, sell some things  - good bread and good cheese, for example, or olives, whole bean coffee, cilantro, whole wheat flour, peanut butter, or oatmeal - so these necessitate a trip to the nearby covered market, boulangerie, coffee roaster, and natural foods store. Additionally, I'll often throw in a trip to the butcher or fishmonger - though you can get meat and fish at Monoprix, they don't have a large selsction - and then, of course, the caviste for some interesting wine. And, as I've mentioned in a previous post, any over the counter drugs or prescriptions necessitate a trip to the Pharmacie.

Okay, so already that's a little complicated. Fortunately, all of these places are within a 15 minute walk of my house - though, tragically, not all are within the SAME 15 minute walk. The market is in one direction; the coffee shop, pharmacie, and natural foods store are in the opposite direction, the best butcher and fishmonger are in still a third direction...you get the idea. With the baby now, I do the majority of my shopping next door at Monoprix because I just do not have this kind of time.

Because its not just the endless shopping, its planning WHEN you can actually get things. The covered market, where I can get cheese, olives, cilantro and other specialty veggies, and good wine and beer, is not open on Mondays, and is closed Tuesday through Friday from 1PM to 4PM. It IS open on Sunday morning until 1PM, though generally a madhouse as the French shop for their Sunday lunch.

Every boulangerie has its own schedule of closures. Most are closed on Sunday and one other random day that must be memorized, though some are open on Sunday and then closed two other days. Of the three closest to me, one is closed Saturday and Sunday, one is open Sunday but closed Thursday, one is closed Sunday and Wednesday -you get the idea.

In addition, many stores that are open on Sunday morning are then closed all day on Monday, making Monday an unofficial third weekend day in Paris. Some of these stores ARE open Monday, but only after lunch, from 3PM-7PM, say.

And this doesn't include the various government offices that become part of your daily life in this welfare state. These function according to a complex system of national holidays that are completely different than the holidays in the US, and include Catholic holidays that Matt and I had to look up on Wikipedia  to understand: Ascension Day and Pentecost, for example. But really, these days are just like their equivalents in the US (Presidents Day and Columbus Day come to mind) - excuses for people to take a three-or-four day weekend. Often, if the holiday itself is on a Wednesday or Thursday, businesses will "faire le pont" or, literally, "make the bridge" - taking off the Thursday or Friday or both to give the workers a long weekend, where they can all go to their family country houses and snipe at their relatives. And many government offices have extremely abbreviated hours on a week with one of these holidays in it ...

Finally, the French school holiday calendar makes up for its relatively short summer break with periodic two week breaks during the school year, usually one in October and one in February/March. During these times, businesses could close down, people will be out of the office, and things will just generally slow down. Oh, and don't forget AUGUST, when everyone goes on vacation - some for the whole month, some just for two weeks - but not the same two weeks ....

Whew, okay, rant over. I have to stop now so I can get the shopping done in the twenty minutes everything will be open!

THE PARIS LETTER: How to Navigate the Pharmacie

I don't think I've written a post on la Pharmacie, which is amazing considering how much time I spend there. Our little Paris family is entering its second week of illness, a terrible cold that's been ping-ponging around the three members of our household, and thus the Pharmacie has been on my mind, and on my daily shopping route when I've been able to leave the house.

When I first moved to Paris, the Pharmacie was a very intimidating place for me. There are no American-style drugstores in France, where you can browse the aisles and the aspirin and laxatives are self-service. This means that all drugs, including aspirin, are kept behind the counter and must be requested from the pharmacist - challenging if you don't speak the language. Additionally, most of the basic medications have different names in France, and it can be very hard to navigate what you need for even the most routine symptoms. I still come home with a strange medication about once a week- at least they're relatively cheap.

I've grown to love my pharmacie, though, and now that the ladies there know me and Sophia, its a wonderful place to go - they're always very sweet to her, and give good basic medical advice. They're part of the people in my neighborhood, just like my cheese guys and my favorite butcher, and I trust them. HOWEVER, the last thing you want to do in a foreign country when you're sick is have a long conversation in another language, so I'm going to give you my tips on what I've learned:

DOLIPRANE (Dollypran) is your best bet for a basic pain reliever/fever reducer. My personal favorite is Doliprane 1000mg, or Doliprane "Mille". The pharmacist may ask if you want it "A Avaler (ah ahvahlay) or "Effervescent" - avaler means "to swallow" in French, so this is the pill form, and the other is fizzing water soluble disc, like Alka-Seltzer. You can also get Doliprane in 200mg and 500mg forms.

DOLIPRANE ENFANTS - This is children's Tylenol, and is sold as a pink liquid dispensed by a dropper - similar, I think, to how its done in the US. However, because this is Europe, the weight is in kilograms - so multiply your child's weight in pounds by 2 to get an approximation.

ASPIRIN: This is spelled ASPERINE and pronounced "aspayreen"; you will also sometimes see it as "Aspegic" pronounced "aspayjeek". And there's also often good old Advil, just like at home.

FERVEX - This is your Theraflu substitute, and I find its actually a bit milder - still works as a decongestant and puts me to sleep, but doesn't quite give you that "all the water has been drained from my body" feeling I get from Theraflu/Nyquil.

STREPSILS - These are cough/sore throat drops; they come in many flavors, and do actually have some medication in them.

HOMEOPATHIC REMEDIES: These are big in France, and you can find a full stock of them in most pharmacies. My husband thinks homeopathy is a farce and won't let us take them, but if they work for you, they are available all over the place in France.

You can also buy the following useful things at a pharmacie: tampons, condoms, contact lens solution, pregnancy tests, baby bottles and formula, and dental floss.

Tampons: tampon periodique (not to be confused with just "Tampon" which is an ink stamp in french...)
Condoms: preservatifs (yes, this one can get embarassing if you're talking about, say, preservatives in food....not the same thing)
Contact Lens Solution: solution nettoyante pour lentilles
Pregnancy Test:  Test de Grossesse
Baby bottle:  Biberon
Formula: Lait Artificiel
Dental Floss: Fil dentaire

Additionally, a pharmacist can often refer you to a doctor, and call an ambulance if things are really serious. They are a great first stop if you're feeling bad in France, and many speak some English, at least in Paris. 

French Pharmacies also sell high end skin and hair products, which I've been gradually exploring and which can be great deals and gifts to stock up on when you're visiting the city - more on this in another post.

THE PARIS LETTER: The Experimental Cocktail Club

Boy, I have been boozing it up this month. All that free babysitting provided by my visiting mom has allowed me to continue my search for the perfect Paris martini, and this time Matt joined in the fun.

From the Time Out France review, since our cameras wouldn't work in the dark

Do you ever wish you could bring the feel of Williamsburg, Brooklyn to your Paris life? If you're visiting from the US, probably not, but Matt and I sometimes long for a Paris/New York mashup, and we've definitely found it in this cocktail bar, The Experimental Cocktail Club.

Located just north of Les Halles, in an area of narrow cobblestone streets that always makes me feel like I'm walking through medieval Paris, The Experimental Cocktail Club is appropriately discreet but thankfully has no secret entrance, just a black facade with some subtle lettering. Once you enter, its a a great combination of New York speakeasy - complete with a piano in the  corner - and Parisian charm, chandeliers and exposed beams on the walls and ceiling. Matt immediately started speculating about what had been in the space before, as he noticed a patched hole in the ceiling that had clearly once been a staircase.

We arrived at 7PM on a Saturday night, which in my mind is perfect cocktail hour. But then, I'm married and have a baby, so I'm not the most exciting person you'll meet. For us, it was great - the place was nearly empty, yet it was still late enough to feel like a romantic beginning to our date. By the time we left around 830, though, it was standing-room-only packed, so keep that in mind as you plan your trip.

The cocktail list is complicated, as expected, but - hooray! - they did make an honest-to-god, not-too-much-vermouth gin martini with olives that was really good, though served in a crystal goblet rather than a martini glass. Which I think is like a hipster choice rather than a Parisian misstep.

Since I was feeling under the weather, I got a slightly less strong drink that was similar to a whiskey sour but with Japanese whiskey, lime juice, and yuzu - very delicious, though I can't tell you the name because the Club, well, it doesn't publish its menu. I CAN tell you that you will be paying 12 Euros a cocktail - so, you know, New York prices. But trust me - go early and you won't be disappointed.


THE EXPERIMENTAL COCKTAIL CLUB
37 rue Saint Saveur
75002 Paris
01 45 08 88 89
M: Sentier, Etienne Marcel
M-Th 7PM-2AM; Friday/Saturday 7PM-5AM 

THE PARIS LETTER: Vivant Table

My mother is visiting us from California, and as she's a big time foodie, this always means we get a chance to eat at some great Paris restaurants. Normally, with the baby and the making reservations and the booking a babysitter, we just never get it together to go to the hot tables in town. But thanks to my mom, we were able to go to one of the hottest last night: Vivant Table in the 10th.

How hot was this restaurant? Well, first of all, it's one of those Paris restaurants that is only open Monday through Friday - I don't know how this is a viable business option in Paris, but many of the most interesting restos are able to close both weekend days and be just fine. Next, the only reservation we could get was  Tuesday night at 7PM. This is EXTREMELY early for a Parisian to be dining, since as I may have mentioned most weeknight dinners happen at 8:30 sharp, and weekends can go even later. It's not Spain, but still, 7PM is a time most people are either still in the office, or just picking the kids up, or maybe sitting down at a cafe for an apero - but not having a four course meal.

Next, nearly everyone else in this small bistro was busy taking expert photographs of their food, with flash. They were all food bloggers! And though I am technically blogging about food now, I was too embarrassed to whip out my iPhone and photograph my meal. Which I probably shouldn't be, but seriously, the guy behind me was making spots appear in my side vision as he tried to capture his pork chop on film.

So instead, I will try to describe what we had WITHOUT expert photos, which I know is a liability, but go with me on this.

THE PARIS LETTER: David Lynch's NightClub

So I finally did it. I went to Silencio, the Paris nightclub designed by David Lynch.

I realize I'm a little late to the party - it opened up last summer. But in my defense, I think I was 6 months pregnant when it opened. And it's definitely not a place you want to go if you're pregnant, unless you're naked and using the pregnancy as some kind of performance art.

The club is in the middle of Paris, near the Bourse, or the old Stock Exchange. You descend several flights of black metal stairs, adorned with pictures of depressed naked women and lonely suburban houses to really give it the Lynch-y feel, and finally you end up in this cabaret-slash-bomb shelter which really is kind of awesome. When I arrived - this was for a friend's going away party - there was a concert going on in one room, in which a beautiful woman with streaky eye-makeup was screaming/singing like Trent Reznor while a shirtless dude with long hair manned a Powerbook and played some beats behind her. They were apparently "friends of Bjorn", and were like an Icelandic version of a band you might see in Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY (one of my favorite films in college, no joke).
 
More tales of Lynch-y antics, including  this blog's first ever NSFW picture, after the jump

THE PARIS LETTER: The Sad Truth about Martinis in Paris

Well, while I'm on my food and drink kick this week - it must be some residual Thanksgiving-ness percolating through me - I'll go forth and discuss something you CAN'T get here, or I should say something I definitely haven't found here, and that is a good martini.

Oh Martini, where have you gone?

Oh, Martini, why are you so delicious, yet so challenging?

Really, what is weird to French people I think is that you'd want that much cold alcohol all at once. I do have some French film business friends who are constantly drinking vodka on ice at Cannes and staying up all night, but they're sort of considered wild and crazy.

Whereas this used to be my Friday night after work drink in New York City.

Here are a few things that might happen when you order a martini in Paris - all true stories by the way!

1. You ask for a martini with olives and are brought a glass of sweet vermouth with olives in it.
What? Isn't that what you asked for? It says "Martini" right on the bottle. Right next to 'Rossi". What's the problem?

2. Having learned from this experience, you ask the next bartender if he knows how to make a martini, and he says, "Sure, I've got lots of Martinis. Red martini, white martini, what would you like?" You quickly realize he means vermouth - again. Oh dear. You try to explain how to make a Martini New York-ais: Very cold gin, just a little vermouth, some olives. Oh, like James Bond! he says. Yes. like James Bond, if James Bond's bartender had to go to another part of the hotel for glassware and liquor and came back twenty minutes later with your drink. That was about 50% vermouth but to it's credit definitely had some gin in it. And the glass was big.

If you like Martini Coladas...

3. Go to LE GLASS, a  hip cocktail bar in your neighborhood that was recently written up on a cocktail blog. Find out that it serves draft beer and cocktails that come from those alcoholic-slushie machines you find in New Orleans. 

Get worried when you see that the only Martini-like drink on the menu is something called the Martinez, which includes gin, vermouth, MARASCHINO and ORANGE BITTERS, and seems to come a PRESSION which means on tap which means - a martini from one of these alcoholic slushie machines??? What is this world coming to?

But then you explain you just want a simple martini to the bartender and she seems to get it, and gives you a reasonable version, in the correct glass with olives.

But still with way too much vermouth.

Stay tuned, I'm still on the hunt. I'm headed to someplace called THE EXPERIMENTAL COCKTAIL CLUB next.

THE PARIS LETTER: Barbecue in Paris?

A few months ago I was walking around near Bastille and I saw this place:

Yes, I know the picture quality is crap. I"m working on it.

 Blues Bar-B-Q? What the heck is this doing in Paris? I have to admit, I viewed this with some trepidation. It must have been not long after my burrito-with-swiss-cheese experience here. Or maybe my worst pregnant ordering mistake, the pineapple & velveeta quesadilla I had in Helsinki.

But I digress. Yes, I was skeptical that there could be any type of edible American BarBQ in Paris. I mean, wouldn't you be? But then my friend Patrick's office turned out to be literally next door, so we decided to go for lunch.

And you know what? It is not bad at all! The restaurant is run by an American woman, Diana, who was busy fielding tons of phone calls the day we showed up as dozens of Americans in Paris tried in vain to make reservations for the restaurant's Thanksgiving dinner the next day. I guess just about every other American here forgot about the holiday just like I did!

Diana and I chatted for a bit about cuts of meat here in France, one of my favorite topics ever since  tried to cook a brisket and found the cut didn't exist here. Blues BarBQ does a Texas style barbecued beef brisket, and Diana told me she has to order it several days ahead of time, get the entire chest of the cow delivered, and then butcher it herself to get the right cut! Apparently, the French DO use the cow chest - where the brisket comes from - but cut it in the opposite direction, and use it to make plat de cote, flat steaks that don't really exist in the US. Though the French do cook some cuts of meat for a long time (think Boeuf Bourguignon, etc), they're not big on the slow & low cooking of giant hunks of cow or pork that good BBQ is based on - in fact they find it quite strange - so this restaurant must be very exotic for them.

As you can see, it thoughtfully comes with a wet-nap.

I could write about cuts of meat all day, BUT back to the actual food. I had a pulled pork sandwich and a side of macaroni and cheese.

First of all, it was PERFECTLY proportioned, which is one thing I love about France in general - That I can go to a BBQ restaurant and leave satisfied but not stuffed to the brim, as I would in the US.

Second - I will not lie, the sandwich was a bit dry - but very flavorful! - and the mac & cheese a little bland - but very creamy! - and in short, I would totally go back. Honestly, this place is like a breath of fresh air amidst the foie gras, and the woman is butchering her own BRISKET for god's sake. She is committed to the right things.

I also heard her mention that she does a lot of catering for the American Embassy - and she will cater private parties as well. I haven't even trid their super meat platter yet...

BLUES BAR-B-Q
1 Rue Sedaine 75011 Paris
M: Bastille or Chemin Vert
+33 (0)1 48 06 79 53
Tues-Sat lunch and dinner, open till 10PM
Sunday lunch and dinner, open till 8PM
Closed Monday

From their sign:

Le Vrai Barbecue Americain - 
Nos Viandes Sont Fumées avec le Bois Hickory
 or:
Real American Barbecue
Our meats are Hickory Smoked

THE PARIS LETTER: Finally, American beer in Paris!

Not available in Paris ... until now!

I don't know if I've written about this before, but you can't get American beer in Paris. Like absolutely you can't get it. Not in a can, not in a bottle, not on draft, not in the supermarket, not in a bar, nowhere. There's one beer store here that occasionally has a few Sierra Nevadas that they sell for 4 Euros each, but that's it, and I'm sure those came over in someone's luggage.

But wait! What's that I see in hip South Pigalle? Could it be Brooklyn Lager ON TAP? Indeed it is, gentle reader, and you could have knocked me over with a pint glass because how is this happening??

Well, all I can tell you is that it IS happening, at a bar called LE GLASS that is some kind of only-in-France mashup of hip cocktail lounge and American college bar - in that it is ALL BLACK and has no sign, but then when you walk in they have numerous American beers and you can order pitchers, onion rings, and hot dogs. Except everyone is wearing black and speaking French. Only in Paris, but there's good beer, so who cares?

LE GLASS is the offspring of the same people who run Candelaria, the Mexican cocktail bar/taco stand in the Marais where I once got very drunk on margaritas. They just opened up Le Glass in September, and I didn't even know about the ABOT (American Beer on Tap) until I walked in - I later learned they're the only bar in all of Paris to offer it. Yay for it being walking distance from my house!

LE GLASS
7 Rue Frochot 75009 Paris
M: Pigalle
Open daily from 7PM-2AM
Too cool to have a phone.

THE PARIS LETTER: A Nora Moment

Last night, I had what I'm calling a Nora Moment. This is after Nora in Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE, and yes, I was a theater major in college.

For those of you who don't know the play, A DOLL'S HOUSE is a classic work about women's liberation that was first performed in 1879. In it, the aforementioned heroine goes from being a secure if somewhat infantilized wife and mother to walking out on her husband and children forever.  When asked by her husband how she can abandon her most sacred duties of being a wife and mother, she famously replies: "I have another duty, which is equally sacred: my duty to myself."

Needless to say, this play was extremely explosive when it came out, and continues to provoke strong reactions in people, largely because Nora's choice at the end is so absolute and goes so deep. Even in our post-feminist age, when I think about the play I can't imagine doing what Nora does in the end, ever.

But. I have had a few Nora moments.

A Nora Moment is a moment when, as a wife and mother, you just want to get the hell away from your husband and child and be by yourself, possibly forever. A Nora moment is when you feel like you spent all day thinking and doing for others - and even though those others are the people you love the most in the world, you just don't remember who you are anymore, or what you want from life. But you desperately WANT to remember, and you know you were doing something before all this happened. A Nora moment is, I imagine, very similar to a Room of One's Own moment, though I've never read that book - I'm just going from the title.

I had one of these last night. Sophia is teething in a major way, and keeps waking up screaming even after big doses of Doliprane (French children's Tylenol). Matt is sick and also might be out of town for part of the upcoming week, the day care is having an emergency closure tomorrow, and I spent the day inside cooking - which I used to love and find very relaxing, but I just overdid it yesterday and ended up feeling like all I do is cook, wash dishes, and do laundry. And then at three in the morning Matt was very grumpy post-Sophia wake up, and said some grumpy things to me. And I was like: Get Me Out of Here! WHEN will I actually have an unbroken stretch of time to THINK!

I have a friend here who was on bedrest for the last three months of her pregnancy, and when her daughter was six months old, she took herself on an overnight to Chartres. Alone. I remember when she told me this, I was surprised! But as she explained it - I just needed one night to myself, morning when I could wake up when I wanted and have breakfast already waiting for me.

I have to say, though I didn't need this when Sophia was 6 months, I think I may need it now.  Stay tuned - I talked this over with Matt and he said he would take Sophia so I could go away for the weekend by myself. "As long as you come back!" he said. Which of course I would. I love my little family. But sometimes you need a break in order to be true to yourself.

THE PARIS LETTER: A Trip to Brussels

Why yes, that is a giant Brussels sprout

We were looking for an easy and cheap trip to take from Paris with the baby, and we settled on Brussels, just 90 minutes away by train. Brussels is a totally lovely city, and another nice thing about it is that the pressure is off - there are no can't-miss sights.

Normally, this wouldn't be a recommendation for a vacation; as my New York friend Liz put it - "I feel like you're advocating I take a vacation to Philly". But sometimes its just nice to be in a new place, and to make your own schedule. There's no Louvre or Eiffel Tower, just some pretty walks, good food, and even better beer. And French fries. And the European Parliament. You know, some typical weekend stuff.

We arrived at Brussels Midi station around 11:30, and were able to walk to our hotel in about 20 minutes. The impetus for the trip was really that I had a free hotel night from Hotels.com, so we stayed at the Vintage Hotel, a funny little boutique hotel where all the furniture is very Sixties.

On a side note, I'm working on making the photos better on this site. Really I am. I need to start by not taking them with my Blackberry. Or maybe I should just not even have a Blackberry. Seriously.

The hotel was right near the Louise metro, though we ended up never taking any public transit and just walking everywhere - its that kind of town, though with a few more hills than Paris. Matt and I enjoy exploring new cities on foot, and this often leads to some awesome discoveries and some long trudges through boring parts of town. Here are some highlights from our walks, after the jump:

THE PARIS LETTER: Maison des Petits, CentQuatre

Way better than hanging out in our tiny pad

It rains a lot here. In fact, Paris's dirty little secret is that it's weather is exactly like London's. Or Seattle's. It never gets too cold or too hot, but it is gray. Graaaaay. And rainy. We've already had two months, June and October, where it rained for at least half the time. And while I'm very happy to have skipped out of New York before Hurricane Sandy, or any number of severe blizzards and blistering heatwaves, I can tell you that rain rain rain day after day is no fun either.

Especially when you've got a child. And a 450 square foot apartment.

So that is why this week's endorsement goes to Paris's many free indoor playspaces, which I've been exploring this fall. Today's playspace: Maison des Petits at CentQuatre.

CentQuatre, or 104, is a huge public arts space in what used to be Paris's premiere crematorium and coffin factory. Yes, that's right. Just like Parc de la Villette repurposed Paris's slaughterhouses, CentQuatre has turned this factory for death into art. So French, right?

Anyway, it is GREAT -  a huge space where you can go hear a concert, see an art installation, have lunch at Les Grands Tables de CentQuatre (or at the fun Camion a Pizza, a pizza truck with a woodburning oven).

And, if you have children between the ages of 0 and 5, you can take them to the Maison des Petits:

This is basically a giant playspace, with areas for toys, fingerpainting, books and music, plus a little space for babies who aren't walking yet, coffee and tea for parents, and an all important changing room. Though at least one parent is expected to stay with their children at all times, there is a staff on duty that runs things, helps kids get toys, and breaks up any conflicts, so you can sit in the corner and read a book if you want, or chat with other parents.

For me, its both a great way to get Sophia out of the house on a rainy day, and for her its really stimulating to be around the other kids , and - of course - all the new toys -

On the weekends and on Wednesdays (when maternelle, the French preschool, is not in session) there can be a bit of a wait, but CentQuatre is so lively that the wait is never boring - one afternoon we got to play with huge boxes of Legos provided by a charitable organization while we listened to a rock band tune up for a concert that night (Sophia found the thumping bass particularly exciting), and another day we found ourselves in the middle of a breakdancing festival, so we got to watch various dancers do amazing tricks.

Each time, the wait was not much more than 20 minutes, and if you come right when they open there's usually no wait at all. And, did I mention it's free? Paris tourists with little ones, this is also an option for you, though be prepared to speak some French and blend in, as this is more designed for Parisian families -

Here's some details for all you cooped up parents out there:

LE CENTQUATRE

LA MAISON DES PETITS
LE 104
104 Rue d'Aubervilliers, 75019 Paris
01 53 35 51 21
Metro: Stalingrad or Riquet
Tuesday-Friday  3-6PM
Saturday/Sunday 2-7PM 
Closed Monday
 

THE PARIS LETTER: Trapped by Socialist Childcare

Hey everyone!

The new Slate piece is up, just in time for the election. This one is about childcare policies in France and how they've made it easier for Matt and I to both pursue our professional goals and be there for our daughter - The comments are amazing and already eliciting the kind of discussion I'd hoped for when I came up with the piece.

Please go give it a read, comment, like it on Facebook, yell at me about Socialism, whatever you want -

President Hollande visiting a creche at the Elysee Palace

THE PARIS LETTER: The Problem with Dr.Seuss

One thing that happens a lot when you're an American learning to speak French is that you unwittingly make some kind of sexual joke without realizing it, and French people laugh at you. This is because just about every word in the French language is a double entendre, no surprise there. Some of my favorite examples:

The word for "line" is "queue" but intead of pronoucing this like the letter Q, as you would in England, you pronounce it "keuh" (I guess - its still hard for me). The word that sounds like the letter Q is "Cul" which is slang for "ass". So often I'd be asking some people outside the boulangerie Is this the ass? instead of Is this the line? Super awesome.

The word for "lower" is baisser, but the slang word for "to fuck" is baiser. Got that? Bahsay - lower; Bayzay - fuck. Yes, I've messed that one up so much that I try never to ask anyone to lower anything for me ever.

This brings me, interestingly enough, to Dr.Seuss, that children's classic author that basically does not exist in France. In large part, this is because its nearly impossible to translate his awesome rhymes into French - Usually, you end up with a literal translation:

Yes, that's Green Eggs and Ham in its literal French translation. They make a good effort to translate the book into rhyming French, but its just hard - for lots of reason, but mostly because these need to be easy readers,  so you can't really reach far for a synonym.

BUT, another, perhaps lesser known reason why Dr.Seuss isn't read much in France - The name Seuss sounds the same as "Suce" which means "suck" which .... yes you guessed it....is slang for blowjob.

So one American friend of mine was telling her French husband about getting some Dr.Seuss books for their daughter, and her husband turned to her, horrified.

"Our daughter is not reading anything by someone named 'Seuss'!" he said.

Interestingly enough, there's a company here in Paris that specializes in digging holes in streets - for electrical work, etc - that call their trucks "Les Suceuses de Ouest". Yes, that means "the suckers of the West" but also....well, you get the idea. And the trucks are all PINK and have women's names. I believe one of them is even called Monica if you can believe that.

Yes! That's their ad! Its a winking elephant and the caption says "Janine, Monica, Linda and the others are ready to help you out whenever you want." Oy. 

Here's a pic of one of them on my street recently. The French, still not super up to date on the whole women's rights thing...
 

Our Best Paris Dinner Spot: Le Verre Vole

Wow, I almost don't want to post this because its really our favorite spot. This is very Parisian of me, actually - its hard to pry "les bonnes adresses" out of the folks in this town, they're always so worried that the place will be discovered and then they'll never get in again. Which I guess is a legitimate concern, we've all had places that we loved that became so popular we could no longer love them (Momofuku Ssam Bar comes to mind here...)

Matt loves Le Verre Vole!

BUT here's what a French person will do that an American probably wouldn't do - when asked point blank "Where did you get your hair cut?" or "Where did you find that amazing scarf?", or even - and of course - "Where did you buy this amazing baguette?", Parisians will have no qualms totally evading a straight answer if they don't want to tell you "Oh, around. Just some place in my neighborhood. Over that way (waving vaguely in a direction) - But you WILL NOT pry an actual address out of them if its a favorite they want to keep as their secret.

Whereas, an American would proudly tell you just where they got their haircut, and how much it cost, sometimes even before you ask.

So I'm torn about telling you about this place, because it is really something special and its CHEAP. But will I still be able to get a reservation once I've posted this? We shall see.

Delicious Orsin, or French sea urchin

LE VERRE VOLE
62 Rue de Lancry
75010 Paris
Open for lunch and dinner every day
+33 (0)1 48 03 17 34

Le Verre Vole is a wine bar specializing in natural wines, which they serve with a variety of seasonal small plates and a couple of nightly main dishes. Its small, sometimes cramped, and still very groovy, just on the edge of the Canal Saint Martin. And, all importantly, its open on Sunday nights, one of the hardest nights to find a decent place to eat in Paris. When it opened a few years back, it was THE place to be, though now trendier bistros have eclipsed it and its easier to book a table - it still does good business, but its not the center of attention it once was, which I personally am happy about.

Beet & Goat Cheese salad and Ceviche Salad

We usually load up on the appetizers (confusingly called entrées in French), which often include much seafood and organ meats in interesting combinations. Oh, yes - this isn't a good restaurant for you if you're a vegetarian or have other dietary restrictions. One of the best things on the menu by far is the boudin noir, or blood sausage, served with mashed potatoes and salad, and somewhere between a meatloaf and a paté. We get it just about every time we go, a French heart attack on a plate. If this doesn't sound good to you, maybe this isn't the restaurant for you (see, there's a chance it won't get super crowded after all!)

But, if you're an adventurous eater and enjoy trying wines from small, interesting French vineyards, this is a great place. The staff will recommend the wines based on your preferences, and its good if you speak a little French - though the staff can get by in English, you'll get more out of it if you've got a French speaker with you. The nice part about it is that you'll usually get out for around 50 Euros a person, including wine, and feel very well cared for and well fed.

So far, we've been able to book a few days in advance and been just fine...

I believe this was homemade headcheese....delicious...

THE PARIS LETTER: What We Ate In Paris, Takeout Edition

Ah, Paris - I love you, but you have got to get a handle on your food delivery. How can a city with such amazing food be so shitty at delivering it to your apartment?

One of the great joys of the week we spent in New York this summer was ordering a different kind of takeout food every night. One night Indian, one night sushi, one night Thai food, all delicious, inexpensive, and to the door of our fourth floor walkup in less than an hour. Often also available for order online. The ability to order a variety of delicious food fast actually may be one of my favorite things about New York.

Sushi Shop Paris delivery - Lots of packaging style

Because, see, we are new parents. When we travel, we don't go out to eat anymore. We order takeout to our apartment or hotel room and scarf it down while the baby sleeps. And so a lot of times, our enjoyment of a place is linked to the quality of the food we can order to our hotel room.

Sadly, Paris ain't so great at this. The whole concept of delivery is still pretty new here. The two times we ordered in, once Indian and once Thai, both in our first year of living here, were both such disasters both in quality of food and delivery time (over an hour for unrecognizable cold food), we never did it again.

But again, we're new parents. And we are tired a lot. One night, when neither of us felt like cooking, Matt threw up his hands in frustration. You know what we never do here? he said - Just order a pizza for delivery. To which I said "But sweetie, that's because the only pizza that delivers in Paris is Dominos (True!).

The Starbucks of sushi!- though I do like the little bottles of soy sauce.

However, we decided not to give up! There must be some good takeout in this city somewhere, right?.

Here are some pics of our first attempt: delivery from SushiShop, what I like to call The Starbucks of Paris Sushi.

By which I mean, its fine. Totally acceptable. And, like Starbucks, there are many branches in Paris and they all seem to churn out the same level of quality. By which I mean, mediocre. But not BAD.

And this has become my standard for delivery sushi now: Reasonably tasty, reasonably fresh, reasonably priced. If you can pull that off here in Paris, I'm yours. And SushiShop allows ordering online as well. Like so many Paris sushi restaurants, you're really only going to get salmon and tuna, and maybe a little cooked shrimp. But seriously, after being starved for good sushi for two years, I'm cool with it.

Plus, of course because it's Parisian, the packaging was all sleek, chic and sexy. Personally, I'd go for more options and less sexy packaging - but that must be the New Yorker in me talking. She's still in there somewhere.

THE PARIS LETTER: New York's Best Werewolf-Themed Organic Wraps

I tried to incorporate WolfNights into another post about all the awesome takeout that we ordered in New York, but I realized that it really needs its own post. Its not every day you find a werewolf-themed organic wrap shop, especially one whose wraps are so tasty.

So here's the deal. If you're on the Lower East Side and in need of lunch, I recommend these guys. I was walking by on my way back from Soho, looking for a place to pick up some food for Matt and I, when I saw this place and knew I had to go in. Here, check out the website, I'll wait:

So beyond the fact that all the sandwiches have names like "The Howling", and beyond the fact that you can add a "Wolf Attack" to your sandwich for an extra charge, this place actually has good ideas. They make all the dough for the wraps and then cook your wrap tortilla thing to order on one of those domed cast-iron griddles -- Ahah! I've just looked it up and it's called a "saj" and is used for making Middle Eastern flat breads:

Or, also Werewolf Themed Sandwich Wraps. If you're on the Lower East Side, you know. Center of global fusion sandwich cuisine!

So here's what's in The Howling sandwich:

Chicken wrapped in date and pumpkin seed dough, with fried pickle, feta, melon, mint, and yogurt sauce.

Dude, that shit was GOOD. An initially strange combo but the mix of pickle/feta/chicken/melon was amazing. In general, everything at this place is incredibly creative and - at least in our admittedly small taste test of two sandwiches - delicious. And pretty cheap.

Oh, and a Wolf Attack is tater tots with melted cheese, jalepeno, grilled onions and Wolf meat sauce, whatever that is. Look, its the Lower East Side. There's a lotta drunk people around.

Wolfnights, 99 Rivington Street, New York, NY 10002 917-261-5266

UNDERWORLD: Meatballs with cashews and goat cheese. And tater tots, of course

THE PARIS LETTER: Where is my mind?

Oh god, you guys. How is it October already - and mid October at that?

Being a parent sucks sometimes. Time just slips away from you. I feel like I lost the entire month of September to a whirlwind of daycare/nanny share/illness/general administrative tasks and all those lovely plans I had for a productive fall got lost in a black hole. Or maybe I moved to a parallel universe where time is speeded up.

But I've decided not to wallow in this and just try to get on with things. Which may involve curbing my natural long-windedness in these posts in favor of actually getting them up. We'll see how that one goes.

Stay tuned! More European tips coming up -

So what's happening right now? Sophia is 11 months old, which boggles my mind. She's standing up on her own and trying to walk. Its been raining for the last two weeks and I've discovered Paris's fabulous public indoor play spaces, which I'll describe in an upcoming post. Also coming up - we try to replicate the fabulous takeout food experience we had in New York this summer here in Paris - with decidedly mixed results. I explain my new dinner-in-under-an-hour menu planning. Its like Rachel Ray but by way of France - and just way better. Oh, and we spent a lovely and relaxing weekend in Brussels with Sophia, a great city because you feel no pressure to see any famous sights. I've got a new piece coming up in Slate on childcare in France, packed with as many stats as I could fit into 1500 words and still be somewhat amusing. And we've got lots of news from the summer travels all over the USA, including my reviews of yoga studios in 6 different cities and tips on how to fly both internationally and domestically with a baby strapped to you. Stay tuned...

Guest Post: Are you ready for some football? English football, that is.

Massive Wembley Stadium

Hello, this is Matt - I've taken over this blog from Claire so that I can recount my trip to Wembley Stadium to see a real live Premier League football game. 

In April, Claire and I traveled to London where she attended the London Book Fair, while Sophia and I explored the city, its monuments, and its pubs.  April is also the month when English Football really gets hot. Top-tier european football clubs - with their international players, global television revenue, and foreign billionaire owners - compete in many different tournaments, often simultaneously.  Though the World Cup and the Euro Cup only occur every four years, as a British football fan, you've still got three mega-tournaments to look forward to every spring: the Premier League championship (the new, glossy and empty tournament invented in the 1990’s), the F.A. cup (the oldest but less rich English championship, most similar to the NCAA bracket where underdog small-market teams can eliminate the big ones), and if the team is good enough, the Champions League (cue triumphant Wagnerian brass filigree), the most important annual tournament for any European football club.

My friend Mark James, a lifelong Chelsea fan, had secured two tickets for us to see Chelsea play in the F.A. cup semifinals at Wembley Stadium.  As someone who loves soccer but had never observed English football in detail, this match was very educational. 

We had 8th row seats!

The Best Cheap Lunch in Paris

Yep that's me on the left there.

Paris aficionados will already know that the best way to eat for cheap in this city is to do it at lunch - lunch is still the main meal of the day for many French people, and cafes in this city specialize in lunch formules, or set menus, usually for under 15 euros. For this you'll usually get several courses - an appetizer, main dish, and often a choice of dessert or a glass of wine. I've actually been taking myself out to lunch lately on Wednesdays, when Sophia has a babysitter, and plan  to do some good lunchtime food reporting in future posts.

But, when I first came to Paris in college, I was stunned by how expensive the food was here, and just had no idea how I would make it on a student budget. Then I discovered L'As du Fallafel on Rue des Rosiers in the Marais, and my life was forever changed. It still wins my best cheap lunch in Paris award, and its one of my favorite things to recommend to visitors.

L'As du Fallafel means "The Ace of Falafel", and its on a street where its got a lot of competition - in fact, its sort of the street of falafel stands - but I've never gone anywhere else. Rue des Rosiers is also the food center of the Marais's Jewish roots - just down the road is Sacha Finkelstejn, an honest to god Jewish deli where you can get a pastrami sandwich, as well as several Kosher butchers. You won't be able to miss the place because of the long ling outside, which usually moves fast. Ask the order guy for a fallafel with everything, including sauce piquante, and you'll get a pita stuffed with falafel, tahini, about five kinds of vegetables, including roasted eggplant and lightly pickled cabbage and celery root, and topped off with harissa, all for 5 euros. It'll come at you like this:

Though it looks like this guy skipped the harissa -mistake!

Don't worry, they give you a fork and napkins. BUT this is a mobile eating experience - you can sit down indoors at L'As du Fallafel, but its much better - and cheaper - as a takeaway. The only trick is to find a place to sit and eat it.

It requires a little patience, but there are two pretty little parks about a five minute walk away. Continue down Rue des Rosiers away from the Centre Pompidou until you get to Rue Pavee, your next possible left. Take Rue Pavee to the Rue des Francs Bourgeois; here, you can either make a right and there will be a little garden on your right about halfway down the block, or you can contine on Rue Pavee another block, as it become Rue Payenne, and eat in the Square Cain behind the Musee de Carnavalet.

Happy eating - one fallafel should set you up for a good day of sightseeing. Don't forget  to buy yourself something to drink, that sauce is piquante!

And, if you want to see what better food writers than I have to say about the place, check out Mark Bittman's review in the New York Times.

L'As du Fallafel
32, rue des Rosiers
75004 Paris
Metro: Saint-Paul
Closed Saturdays (its the Sabbath, yo!)

The Kings of Pastry: "Be a Man, this is the MOF!"

Recently Matt and I watched the documentary KINGS OF PASTRY, where we learned all about what it means to be a Meilleur Ouvrier de France. Sometimes I'll walk by a cheese shop or a patisserie, and outside it will proclaim "Meilleur Ouvrier de France" outside, which mean "Best Craftsman in France", but I figured this was just a marketing ploy, kind of like every pizza shop on 6th Avenue proclaiming itself Best Pizza in New York.

But no! Meilleur Ouvrier de France is a real thing, a real serious thing they give out to craftsmen in everything from pastry to hairstyling to wickerwork to - yes - taxidermy. The medal ceremony takes place at the Sorbonne in the presence of the President of France. And, at least as a Meilleur Ouvrier in pastry, you get to wear three stripes in the color of the French flag on your chef's jacket, and if you're caught doing this and you haven't won the competition, you can be jailed for fraud.

So it is serious business. And, like everything in France, serious business means serious acronyms, so it's not Meilleur Ouvrier de France, its MOF (pronouced to rhyme with "cough").  KINGS OF PASTRY follows three different pastry chefs, all of whom are vying for the title, and must go through a grueling three day competition where they have to make everything from candy to wedding cakes to sugar sculpture. Here's a pic of what I mean:

Yes, that is all made of sugar!

 Let me just say, I never thought a movie about pastry could be so dramatic. There's rage, tears, and macho attitude:  "Be a man, this is the MOF!" says one judge to a competitor who is about to cry over his broken sugar sculpture. And after seeing what these guys go through to make the sculptures, I was about to cry as well.

There's also a lot of structural engineering involved in pastry design. One of  the chefs explains how he makes his domed, multilayer wedding cake by drawing a cross-section and filling in the layers for us  "...Praline, then mousse, now raspberry, more mousse and then here at the end ... the crunchy". They have to put the outer layer in a blast freezer for the cake to hold its shape. Once I saw all the engineering involved, I understood the machismo a little better ... What guy doesn't want a blast freezer, really?

After watching the film, we realized that we had a MOF right in our neighborhood, Arnaud Larher - he's actually one of the winners in this film, though not one of the chefs  they followed. So of course, we had to try out his pastry. And they were delicious -really, MOF pastry is a cut above.

This is a Mosaique cake with basil and lime.

Arnaud Larher
53, rue Caulaincourt, 75018 Paris
Tel. +33 (0)1 42 57 68 08
Fax +33 (0)1 42 57 68 22
Métro: Lamarck-Caulaincourt
Hours: Mon. to Sat. 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.to 7:30 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Steamin' it up: The Hammam at the Mosque de Paris

I want to warn you all: full nudity is no longer allowed at the hammam at the Mosque of Paris. And my friend Maya and I learned this the hard way.

I don't know why we thought full nudity would be allowed. I mean, its in a mosque. But we had both gone there when we visited Paris in college and I think we remembered that you could do the full naked thing then. Or maybe we just thought that because we remembered it feeling awkward, and so we were probably naked?

I'm not sure.

But in any case, the Hammam at the Mosque de Paris is really an experience not to be missed when you come to Paris, if you like new experiences and inexpensive, relaxing spa treatments. Both of which I do.

A Hammam, for my American readers, is the Turkish version of a steam bath, which means its kind of a like a communal sauna except a wet, but not dry heat (I'm not sure why I think you'll be more familiar with a communal sauna here. Maybe its because I'm Scandinavian...) Anyway, its basically a series of rooms that are heated with steam to varying degrees of hot, super hot, and hard-to-breath hot, with pools of cool water you can splash on yourself when you get overheated, and cold cold showers you can dunk yourself in afterwards.Because this Hammam is in a mosque, it is super gorgeous:

The Hammam is segregated by day, four days a week for women and two for men, and one that's "family day". You can just get a straight admission  to the steam, where you can hang out for as long as you like (or dare) gradually getting more and more relaxed and noodle-like. But  you can also get, as a package with your admission, a gommage, which is a kind of industrial strength exfoliating treatment, and a rubdown from some grandmotherly turkish ladies in crisp white uniforms. The whole thing is about 50 Euros, which while not the cheapest of the cheap, is pretty good for a unique Paris spa experience.

But here's the thing. Like with a lot of things in Paris, no one is going to tell you how this works beforehand. Unlike in US spas - at least the ones I've been to - where they take a little time to orient you and sometimes even give you a little tour of the place, the Hammam must be such a regular thing for some people that they just assume you know what you're doing. Either that, or it's their entertainment to watch the newbies stumble about. So I will impart some tips on the experience, after the jump:

Jour du Macaron

Readers, I'm going to shock you. Until just weeks ago, I had NEVER had a Parisian macaron.

Well, okay, I guess that's not strictly true since I had some frozen ones from Picard once at someone's house, but I'm not going to count that. I had never hit the big spots for this most famous of French cookies - Laduree and Pierre Herme. So when the Jour du Macaron rolled around this year, I knew it was time.

Actually, this Jour du Macaron thing was all new to me. Organized by Pierre Herme, the "bad boy of French pastry" (what does that mean? I'll get to it), this is a relatively new charity event that each year donates to a different cause by giving away macarons for a voluntary donation. Yes, give a penny, get a macaron. Stores all over town do it, and of course it works out great for them as well, since once you have one macaron you are basically hooked.

Yes, these are the crack cocaine of cookies, as may have been reported to you already. I kind of couldn't believe how good they were. I had spent a lot of time dismissing them in my mind as a kind of dainty, girly because of the way they look - but they are freaking delicious and don't need to be girly at all.

The king of making the macaron a thing of robust, masculine deliciousness is Pierre Herme, who on occasion puts foie gras in his macarons - which is actually AMAZING.The chocolate foie gras macaron was so good I got an extra six of them, then went back the next week for MORE, only to find it was a special flavor he did only for Jour du Macaron. Rats.

But as Pierre Herme is the pioneer of the "creative" macaron, there are lots of other interesting flavors, including Jasmine, Mandarin Orange/Olive Oil, Earl Grey Tea, Rosewater, and Lychee. And they are all AMAZING. I am jumping on the Pierre Herme bandwagon. Thank god he's got several Paris locations.

Breastfeeding at the Musee D'Erotisme

Yes, so this thing happened. My friend Maya was here and we decided it might be fun to go to the Musee d' Erotisme. Its right in Pigalle, near the Moulin Rouge and coincidentally walking distance from my apartment, thus making it a good place to visit with baby since its both bizarre and conveniently located.

What separates the Musee d'Erotisme from other sex museums is that it's French. Which is to say, yes, there's porn, and its in the middle of Paris's red-light district, but its also got aspirations to be a serious intellectual thing. There's an impressive collection of fertility sculptures and symbols from many countries - in fact, I learned a thing or two - most of the fertility symbols were phallic, natch, but there were a few that were all about the great Earth mother and her birth canal, including these oil lamps from Tibet carved in the shape of a vulva with the flame right on your hoo-hoo. Right on, Tibet!

Godzilla plunders a co-ed while Maya looks on.

There was also a floor with a history of Parisian porn and prostitution, and an exhibit of naughty cartoons. These were pretty tame compared to the exhibit of French supernatural erotic movies, which involved a lot of vampire fellatio - I wasn't totally ready for that, but hey. Vampires, as you might expect, have HUGE dicks. 

But its challenging to take a baby to a museum, especially on a very hot day. They get fussy, hungry, what have you. So, about half an hour into our trip through the porn show, Sophia needed to be fed. So I took a seat in the only seating area, very comfortably facing a loop of silent film porno movies that were surprisingly graphic (one involving nuns and dogs, people! Nuns and dogs!), and starting nursing my child. I should also mention that we had taken a walk in the Bois de Boulogne beforehand, so I was wearing yoga pants and a tank top and was looking a little sweaty.

THE PARIS LETTER: Claire's Best Films of 2011

So, Saturday night Matt and I were invited to a French movie premiere – pretty good first date out after baby, right? Though really, what I should say is that Matt and I were invited and then FAILED TO ATTEND a French movie premiere, which is probably a more typical first date out after baby.

But I don’t want you to think this was from lack of trying. Even though I toyed with the thought of having our date be “sleeping in our bed while Matt’s parents look after Sophia”, which sounded like the best date ever to me, Matt vetoed my impulse to be a homebody and I actually put on contacts and makeup and we left the house. I was feeling pretty good about myself – so what if I still apparently look pregnant enough for men to offer me their seats on the metro?

Anyway, so the movie we were invited to was another one produced by my friend Eugenie’s husband Michael, a real rising star in the world of French cinema. Last year he produced Julie Delpy’s latest film LE SKYLAB, which I went to the premiere of in September, and now following on the heels of that, he’s got this high profile film called L’AMOUR DURE TROIS ANS, or Love Lasts Three Years, based on a book by Frederic Beigbeder. Never heard of him? Don’t worry, neither had I – though he is a HUGE deal here in France, kind of a literary bad boy along the lines of Jay McInerney, but with real writing chops. Plus, he DIRECTED this adaptation of his book himself, making the whole thing even more highly anticipated.

Now, I have been to many premieres in the US as part of my job, and they’re usually decently organized – you’ve got a red carpet/ press line area for the important people – the actors, the people who worked on the film, etc – and then another line for the industry peons like me, where we can quietly get into the theater and get checked on the RSVP list by some bored PR flak without being in the way.

Not so, apparently, at this French premiere – More on this, plus my top films of 2011, after the jump.