Blue Cheese, I saw you standing alone...
The breakfast room was jammed full of people this morning, so I put my food and coffee on a tray and took it upstairs. The second-floor breakfast area had other selections set up, with an attendant on hand. We managed to eat sufficiently and prepare for the day before a brief lecture.
In the meeting room, Thomas informed us of our plans and said Jenny would join us after lunch. We were walking over a few blocks to a large, open-air market. After the morning there, we would have lunch at a place called "the Red Baron."
For the afternoon, we would walk down through the Place de la Bastille over to the Marais to tour the Place des Vosges, the Maison de Sully, the Jewish Quarter, and the Carnavelet Museum before returning to the hotel. In the evening "Group A," which included the Robinsons and me, would walk over to a cooking school in a small, neighborhood restaurant for dinner and a food lecture.
Returning from a brief time in our rooms, we met Thomas in the lobby and headed out onto Faubourg St. Antoine and to the right for several blocks. Then we crossed to the other side and walked a few blocks farther to streets lined with merchandise of every description for sale at tables along the sidewalks. Having wound our way through these, we approached our morning destination, the Place d'Aligre, and soon merchandise gave way to food.
We approach the Place d'Aligre.
The girl in the corner and the young man walking behind her both have a decidedly French look and exemplify the young professionals that live in this part of Paris.
Musicians entertain at the Place d'Aligre.
That was a large, open square with vendors a wide variety of things: from paintings and statuary to food and clothes. Down another side street were more fresh produce and food than most of us had ever seen in our lives! Adjoining all this were specialized food stores of every type.
Welcome to the Place d'Aligre
From the moment we turned this corner, we were "blown away"!
Street leading to the Marché d'Aligre
The food displays seemed to go on forever!
How could anyone resist all this?
The carrots looked too beautiful to eat!
Quelles belles tomates différentes!
Basically, we looked around and mingled among merchants in a large, open square filled with displays or art work, crafts, and merchandise. Clothes and shoes were for sale, and some young men tried to interest us in their wares, but we simply steered clear and moved on.
Then we worked our way over to a long street where we turned left and were simply astounded
by the almost endless display of the most beautiful vegetables I'd ever seen in my life! Here were numerous varieties of tomatoes, some shaped like little pumpkins. The offerings had a French twist to them because there was such a large varitiety of greens, and the pièce de résistance was the huge display of mushrooms at the end of the street.
With so much fresh food available every day, it was no wonder people wanted to live in this area and shop here. For a restauranteur, the convenience of having this much quality produce nearby had to have been irresistible.
Beaucoup de champignons, n'est-ce pas?
Edible mushrooms of every size and type...
And flowers, too!
Seafood in abundance came right down the Seine from the Norman coast.
Il y avait beaucoup de fruits de mer.
Moi, j'adore les huîtres crus!
Then, along with "mushroom central," there were large, open, tablesfull of shrimp, oysters of several varieties, and other fresh seafood iced down and for sale. Across from this area and perpendicular to it were food shops with displays of fresh poultry, etc. Across from them were rotisseries loaded with racks of broiling chickens whose grease dripped onto potatoes below. On another rotisserie turned a large suckling pig--really a little past suckling.
Specialty food stores near the market.
De la polaille
Voilà un cochon rôti
It was a foodie's paradise! We walked through the specialty stores next, and I spotted a wonderful display case of cheeses of every description. Some of the cheeses were in big, beautiful rounds. Then I spotted the love of my life--Roquefort Cheese! Sometimes we Americans call it "blue cheese," but the sliced sections revealed cavities lined with a bluish-green mold. This mold is very desirable, really essential, to mark Roquefort cheese as the real thing.
"How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"--Charles de Gaulle
This was cheese heaven!
"Blue" cheese comes from sheep in the Roquefort region of southern France.
The cheese is named for the small Roquefort area in the South of France where it comes from. It is made from the milk of particular breeds of sheep, and it is aged in nearby caves which are cool and provide the mold and the correct humidity. Nowadays, the mold is often sprinkled into the cheese curds or sprayed in from aerosol cans. I showed my French classes a film of the entire process. The shepherd caught each ewe by one hind leg with a special looped stick, milked the animal right there in the field, and then went to the next ewe. It also showed the caves where the aging took place. Now I was faced with handsome chunks of the final product!
After we exited the shops, Thomas gave us a break to explore the Marché d'Aligre and specified the time to meet back where we started. We strolled around, and I took some pictures. I thought I understood the time to meet, but after the Robinsons and I walked the market for a while, Laron stated a different, slightly later meeting time, and Jana and I, knowing he was entirely reliable, accepted what he said. So we went into a corner café, up to the bar, and ordered coffee. Laron went down to "les toilettes," and Jana and I visited and waited for our drinks.
The Robinsons and I stopped for coffee at the café on the corner behind the organ grinder.
In a few minutes, Thomas Randall popped in and announced to Jana and me that we'd missed our rendez-vous, the group was leaving for the Red Baron, and to finish up right away. Without a moment to spare, we started to pay for what we'd ordered--without receiving any of it. Laron returned from the bathroom, and we went outside, but all this leave-taking took ten or twelve minutes. In any event, when we walked into the intersection to join the group, no one we recognized was there!
Quickly we walked in the direction they'd taken and looked down several side streets as we worked our way over to Faubourg St. Antoine, but we did not see anyone from our group anywhere. We should have taken the first side street to the right, but it shot out at an odd angle and we saw none of our group there, so we stayed on the wider street that lay straight ahead of us.
At every intersection, we looked desperately for our tour, but we walked all the way up to Faubourg St. Antoine without seeing anyone. We searched for the Red Baron sign, but to no avail. Finally at St. Antoine, we looked up, down, and everywhere, but nothing and no one looked familiar. We'd lost our tour! Not only would we miss out on a lunch that was included, but we would miss an entire afternoon of guidance through the Marais, which I was really looking forward to.
I suppose we could have prevented this by exchanging cell phone numbers with Thomas, but it had not been done, and it was too late now. We spotted a small "Pharmacie" across the street, so we crossed over at the light, and Jana and I went in to ask about the restaurant.
Unfortunately, there was a long line of people waiting for attention, and the woman up front was courteously dealing with one customer at a time. Everyone had to wait his/her turn, so in a little while we gave up and went back outside.
Asking directions here would be one of our best decisions of the day!
After talking to Laron and seeing no sign of The Red Baron up and down the street or anyone we knew, I decided to return to the pharmacy and wait my turn to ask for information. Back inside I went, and when I walked up to the woman, I said, "Bonjour Madame, je suis un touriste américain qui est perdu. Je cherche The Red Baron Restaurant. Connaissez-vous The Red Baron?"
In a moment, her face lit up, and she exclaimed, "Oh, Le Baron Rouge! Oui, je sais où se trouve Le Baron Rouge!" I had not said the name in French because Thomas never did, but she then explained in French that we should go back across Faubourg St. Antoine and go left and east a few blocks till we came to a Laboratoire on the corner. Then she said, "Au coin da la rue, tournez à droite, et vous trouverez Le Baron Rouge." She then drew a map on a note pad and handed it to me.
I uttered a heartfelt "Merci beaucoup!" went outside to tell the Robinsons. We went back across the street and walked east till we found the Laboratoire on the corner, but when we looked to our right, at least three streets headed into the surrounding blocks. We took the middle one which was at a right angle to Faubourg St. Antoine; after all, we were Americans and accustomed to ninety-degree intersections. However, we did not find Le Baron Rouge anywhere.
Discouraged, we returned to the main street and walked down to the next corner, but even there, we saw no sign of the restaurant. Then I told Laron and Jana I thought we might have made a mistake going down the middle street--that the one to our immediate right cut a narrow diagonal through the area, and it might be what we were looking for. They agreed to wait for me while I went back and walked up the street in question.
So I retraced my steps, headed up the narrow side street, and down a few blocks, I spotted the Baron Rouge in the distance! Returning to the main drag, I motioned to the Robinsons to come this way. Soon we were walking up the street together and came to the Baron Rouge!
This was the sign we'd been looking for!
Here we found our tour and still had time to each lunch.
It was a wine bar that served food. There was plenty of cheese and sausage and bread to eat and wine and water to drink, so we "bellied up to the bar" and had lunch. We were happy to be here!!
.
Jana and Thomas state their preferences.
The chalkboard menu gave customers plenty of choices.
Thomas and the group seemed very glad to see us. We simply joined him at the bar and let him tell us about the available food and wine. Most of what was laid out was bread, cheese, pickles, and sausage slices, and this all went down well with wine and water. What a relief it was to have found the right place! I had no idea why the French would name a restaurant for a German flying ace, and by now I didn't care.
Near the end of our lunch hour at the Red Baron, Jenny Burdon appeared, and she and Thomas began to discuss our next moves. We would walk to the Marais and tour it on foot. The specific museum we would go through was the Carnavalet, but we would visit the Place des Vosges, the Maison de Sully, and sites of Holocaust importance in what had been the densely-populated Jewish Quarter of Paris. I know the Villa Beaumarchais was in the Marais and that I walked through the area with the Robinsons, but this visit would be conducted by a very knowledgeable guide, and she was about to earn her money again!
So our group walked back to Faubourg St. Antoine and headed west to the Place de la Bastille. Then we went around the traffic circle and stayed on St. Antoine; soon we were at the Place des Vosges. Fortunately, compared to the morning the Robinsons and I were there, the weather today was mild and sunny. That would make a huge difference, and we basked in the glory of a second wonderful afternoon in the City of Light!
Once more to the Place des Vosges
They're using the scaffolding to refurbish the building, not tear it down.
The Place des Vosges was finished in 1612. With dramatic roofs and bull's-eye windows, it exemplifies the best in French architecture and a love of symmetry and balance that goes back to the Romans and Greeks. Not only did the French have sense enough to build this in the first place, but they have maintained and modernized the buildings without destroying them and starting over. France is the world's leading tourist destination. (Thirty-two million people from around the world visited Paris in 2014. We were happy to be among them.) Would it be so loved if it had not preserved its architectural heritage? I doubt it! (Small apartments here sell for over a million bucks.)
He was living here when he wrote "Les Miserables."
Weather makes a huge difference in Paris, and it was splendide to be at this beautiful, historic area under these conditions! French firemen were jogging the perimeter while we were here as more evidence of the importance the French now place on physical fitness. I even enjoyed seeing the trees around the square slightly grown-out and untrimmed. It was like seeing Mother Nature's resisting the hand of man.
Again, I was pleased to be where one of my favorite authors had lived, and it was nice to see well designed buildings preserved after hundreds of years for posterity not only to look at but for Parisians to live in to this very day. The French have done a superb job of preserving architecture while still incorporating modern amenities into it. Plumbing, electricity, heating and air conditioning had been added without destroying the charm of Paris. We could learn something from this.
As I've written, the Places des Vosges was built by Henri IV (not to be confused with English monarchs) before he died, so his finance minister, the Duke of Sully, bought a large house nearby to be close to the action. Next, we would walk over to the Hôtel de Sully and examine the exterior. The French word hôtel has evolved over the centuries and has a contemporary meaning similar to our own--a place for tourists to stay. However, the meaning was once broader and usually referred to a large, urban residence or building. A hôtel en particulier belonged to one person. Jenny had much to say about the house. Sully bought it in 1634.
Courtyard by the Hôtel de Sully
In front of the house of Henri IV's finance minister, Maxmilien de Béthune, duc de Sully
Hotel de Chalons 1625
De Luxembourg 1659
Entrance to the Carnavalet Museum
Jenny shows us Proust's cork-lined room and his belongings.
Portrait of Marcel Proust
(Some critics consider him the greatest writer who ever lived.)
The cork that lined the room came in rectangular pieces.
Nice ceiling and walls!
What I will I have been showing and will continue to report is what we saw in the Marais and the order in which we saw it. Something Rick Steves mentioned in his book and which the Robinsons and I missed on our Saturday walk was a girls' school where Jewish children were rounded up one morning and taken away to extermination camps. In a few moments, we would pass by that school. Later in the afternoon, we would see another such school. Knowing this had happened is one thing, but seeing exactly where it happened, and being in the neighborhood those children had lived in brought it home to me as few other things could have.
Smitty trans--To the memory of the students from this school deported from 1942 to 1944 because they were born Jews, innocent victims of Nazi barbarity with the active complicity of the Vichy government. They were exterminated in death camps. LET US NEVER FORGET THEM.
This beautiful, castle-like building in the Marais simply appealed to me, so I shot a picture.
Then we came upon the Paris Holocaust Museum called the Memorial de la Shoah Paris. The front gates were locked, but we stopped to take pictures, and security guards came to the iron fence and asked us not to gather there. So we soon left, but it seemed strange to me to have a "museum" that was locked and to which the general public was not welcome. I suppose admission had to be arranged ahead of time, and the staff had to know who we were. In any event, these people were on guard and very wary.
This is simply an inside-out view that we never had. The tall old building to the left housed another school from which children were taken away. Pictures of it will follow.
We walked a few more steps to the next corner to another old hôtel en particulier. Later, it was used as a school, and the sign on the outside tells the story of the Jewish children who attended it. I'll let the signs speak for themselves.
De Luxembourg 1659
Street sign--4th Arrondissement--Alley of the Just--In homage to the just individuals who saved the Jews from the Ocupation
Plaque--"Arrested by the police of the Vichy Government, accomplice of the Nazi occupier, more than 11,000 children were deported from France from 1942-1944 and assassinated in Auschwitz because they were born Jews. More than 500 children lived in the 4th Arrondissement, among them the students of this school."
I was not surprised that these significant locations bore plaques. What did surprise me was the pointed criticism of the French authorities at the time of the Occupation for cooperating in the deportation of the Jews. This riveted our attention.
Jenny and Thomas led us next to the Carnavalet Museum. It was the large, private home of Madame de Sévigné, a prominent writer and hostess of a literary salon. Mme. de Sévigné also wrote a famous collection of letters known for their wit and clarity. Her house was purchased by the City of Paris as a museum in 1866, and it now includes a neighboring "hôtel" to accommodate its collections. We found this to be a lovely place full of Parisian arts, furnishings, and one very important literary surprise for me.
When I was a student at UT, one French Literature assignment was to read the first of seven volumes of Marcel Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu (In Search of Lost Time). I did that and found it very interesting; the professor told us that Proust suffered from asthma as a youngster and that his doctors advised that he spend most of his time in a "cork-lined room." So his wealthy parents built a cork-lined study/bedroom for him that was supposed to ease his asthma. Whether or not the room helped Proust's asthma, it was famous, and little did I suspect that it had been placed in the Carnavalet Museum as a display. When we came upon it, I was very surprised. Now reading and experience really were coming together!
Front courtyard--Le Musée Carnavalet
Rather than being paved over, these crushed-rock walkways allowed rain to penetrate and water the hedges and flowers.
(Some critics consider him the greatest writer who ever lived.)
Display of room décor at the Carnavalet
By now, it was getting late, so Jenny bade us farewell and went home. The Robinsons and I were supposed to go with "Group A" to the cooking school for dinner tonight. We were to report for that at 7:00, so we needed to return to the Patio St. Antoine and prepare for it. We had walked here in the morning, but for our return, we went over to the Bastille Metro Station, and Thomas gave us passes to use to take Line 1 back to Reuilly-Diderot. Soon, we were walking back down Rue Claude Tillier to go to the hotel. I spotted a small laundromat and determined to use it in the near future. Things were getting desperate in the underwear department, and our flight home was only three days away.
Jana seemed to be feeling ill, so what would happen next remained uncertain when I left the Robinsons to go to my room. Back there, I relaxed and cleaned up for the evening. Leaving camera behind, I walked to the elevator and went down to the Robinsons' room and knocked on their door. Laron came out and said Jana did not feel well enough to come with us, so we would be going to the dinner without her. That was disappointing, but soon, everyone going tonight gathered in the hallway, and Thomas led us out the front door, to the right, and back up Faubourg St. Antoine, the way we had gone this morning.
The location of the "cooking school" was not far from the Place d'Aligre, so we were ending this day almost where it began. This was a small, storefront restaurant where the owner and her assistant welcomed us at the front door. "Colette" let us look around at the stock of wine available for purchase and then invited us to take our seats at a long table, so Laron and I found our places focused our attention on the owner who proceeded to lecture and demonstrate various foods and preparation techniques from her end of the room--near the back where counters, refrigerators, and cooking devices were located.
Colette's accent told me she was not a Frenchwoman, but probably a Belgian who grew up speaking Flemish. Her English was very clear, but she did not have a French accent. This cooking school turned out to be more of a food lecture and cooking demonstration as we took on each separate course.
Another woman served the wine and food, so Colette could talk. The table was already set when we arrived--with dinnerware, cutlery, and bottles of water, but the assistant soon poured us glasses of a delicious red wine which she continued to resupply between courses throughout the evening.
The wine flowed well, but Thomas had explained earlier that the bathroom facilities here were limited and primitive at best and that we should not ask to go. For a two-hour meal, that was asking a lot of all of us, especially me, but I held up well until the end.
The courses were very good, and the main one was salmon. My only problem was waiting patiently to be served, because the assistant was spread pretty thin. Everyone enjoyed the evening, and there was general atmosphere of pleasure and bonhomie.
Some details come back. I remember that Colette said all her recipes were adapted to microwave cooking. She apparently used only microwave ovens in the preparation of everything we ate, which was delicious. This surprised me!
Another thing that recurs is the beauty, intricacy, and extreme age of the iron chandelier which hung over the table. Tiny points of light from the metal ends shined down upon us. When she came by, I asked Colette what sort of lighting this was, and she replied, "LED lights." I was impressed by this modern, energy-efficient use of a beautiful old fixture.
When I joked with Colette, she took the badinage in stride and seemed unflappable. Something else that comes back is that throughout the dinner, people would come to the locked front door of the place, peer in, read the private-seating notice, and leave with disappointed looks on their faces. This seemed to be a very popular neighborhood eaterie.
A wonderful time was had by all. Some stayed to buy wine, but when dinner was over, I was much in need of my hotel room, so Laron and I headed back a little ahead of the rest of the pack. Thanks to his guidance and support, I made it back to the Patio Saint Antoine and finally to my room, in the nick of time.
Bienvenue de retour à moi!
Fin
Hors d'Oeuvres:
1. I realize the French language spilled into this entry a great deal, but that's what happens when the last French teacher of GHS is blogging France. Usually the pictures illustrate the meaning of the words, so just put deux et deux ensemble, and go on.
2. During dinner that night, Laron turned to me and said out of the blue, "Gordon, you realize you're a character right out of Faulkner." I'm still thinking that one over.
3. On the subject of food, I want to mention something we did not do, and that is to eat falafel in the Marais. With limited time, we could not do everything. Experiences in France are never complete; there is always something else to see, do, and eat. The Marais is well known for several restaurants which serve a Middle-Eastern street food called falafel; it apparently tastes very good and is inexpensive.
Falafel pita
4. Associated trivia--with Marcel Proust, that is--Larry McMurtry displays his wicked sense of humor in "Duane's Depressed." One the best examples comes when Duane attends a meeting of The Proust Society of Wichita Falls.
