Leaving Paris left me just a little bit heartbroken. Yes, I was leaving my boyfriend in the beautiful city of light and croissants while I embarked on a grueling 20-hour journey back to the West Coast of the US. But it was more than just that. After spending July in Paris a year and a half before, I was infatuated, but satiated. Paris was a beautiful adventure I could put in a box and take out to admire when I was tired of the monotonous routine of my life in California. This time, though, it was entirely different. I felt like I was leaving my home, the place where I wanted to be most in the world. I was in love. It felt wrong to leave, and all throughout my body I felt an inertia that may have played a small part in my nearly-missed flight at Charles de Gaulle. As I was convincing the airport workers to let me on the flight, one of them said, "What, you don't want to stay in Paris?" and for a moment I considered just lugging my bags back to the RER and letting it twist and tunnel me back to the tiny suburb outside the city I had called home for the past few months. But of course, thoughts of finances and immigration officers popped into my head and instead I was whisked through checkpoints and deposited safely on the huge aircraft that would escort me across the Atlantic ocean, without one suitcase of course. So I made it back to America, piece by piece, and emerged into a bone-dry January that feels like it doesn't belong to a season. It doesn't have the swelling, lazy heat of summer, and it's certainly not the starkly cool and wet winters I'm used to here. It has neither the fresh, bursting, blooming feeling of spring or the pivotal, ripe smell of fall. It's just a seasonless haze that stifles the usually breathtaking beauty of the Bay Area. I miss Paris in the winter, Paris in the rain, Paris in the gloom. I miss the dark, naked trees that jut out against a white sky, stiff and cold as the statues that litter the city. I miss how everything is made of stone, and how buildings are aesthetic as well as functional. The quaint alleyways, the bookcases of buildings with their prim windows sheltered by delicate balconies, the arches and fountains and monuments that exist just because. I miss the cold, wet cobblestones, the winding alleyways, the street signs plastered to the wall as though they want you to come closer and see, come and find out where you're going. I miss the smell of fresh pastries on every corner, the sprawling cafés inviting you to sit down and stay a while. Paris in the winter feels like it has a wonderfully juicy secret and the only way to discover it is to venture out into the cold and wander the streets. I miss the feel and the personality of the entire city. It's so accessible, so right there, so easy to be in. There's so much to do. The sprawling hill of Montmartre, the cemeteries dotting the city like secret silent gardens, the busy churning Seine around Île de la Cité and Île Saint-Louis, the proud glamour of Saint Germain, the crooked streets spilling with falafel and cheese shops and clothing stores with headless mannequins in Le Marais. I miss how grand it all is, how incredibly, impressively, unapologetically grand Paris is. The things I missed about California - Mexican food, my favorite sushi place, the hills, the trees, the Golden Gate Bridge - are paling in comparison to what I love about Paris. Paris has given me one thing I know with absolute certainty I will do in my lifetime: return. Next time I'll do things the right way. Instead of drifting off into the horizon like a starry-eyed adventurer, I will plan and apply for a visa and perfect my French and find a source of income. I'll be back, Paris. I don't know when, but I know I will.
le métro
The Paris metro is the literal pulse of the city. The trains carry people through an organized mess of veins from one place to another, essential elements to the city’s function. Just like the nutrients and chemicals in our blood pumped through our veins and deposited where they are needed to sustain us, these people keep the city alive – for what is a city without people but an empty shell of material, a dead body devoid of life and movement and growth? Sometimes the passengers are unnecessary, adding frivolous pleasure or thankless harm to the parts of the city they touch. Sometimes they do nothing at all. And oftentimes they do something routine, normal, or even extraordinary to keep the city functioning as it should. Regardless, their very presence is significant because they keep the city in motion therefore alive; they stop it from stagnating and growing decrepit and weak.
I have always loved the Paris metro. There is an undeniable intimacy about it, although the passengers staunchly refuse to acknowledge it. They are trapped inside of a metal box with each other, close enough to hear each other cough and speak and even breathe, sometimes packed in so tight that everyone is touching everyone else and you are inhaling someone else’s exhale, back to chest, shoulder to shoulder, hands touching hands. But everyone stands stiff and cold in their own individual world, silent save for a few hushed murmurs of “pardon, excusez-moi”. The train could be packed to the point of bursting and they will still stand crushed into the corners reading their book, faces expressionless, in willful oblivion of the chaos around them.
The metro is a place for escaping reality and entering into the private world inside ones’ mind. Speaking is rare, and usually taken up in muted tones. The dominant sound is the creaking and groaning of the train barreling through the tunnels, weaving through the underbelly of Paris in broadly arcing turns only to emerge from the surface, hop over the Seine, and dive beneath again. The train screams when the breaks are applied, an obtrusive high-pitched cry that fades into a shallow hiss, punctuated by an intermediate moment filled with the stumbling of feet before the simultaneous orchestra of automatic doors thudding open. People push their way out of the clogged artery of the train, and new ones spill in to take their place. The constant slideshow of people continues, on and on at each stop, until you wonder how many individual humans you have been within ten feet of in the last twenty minutes.
The metro also has a voice, an omnipresent one that fills the train before each stop with a clipped, polite announcement of the station name. Anvers. Pigalle. Montparnasse. Barbes Rouchechoart. Chatelet. Miromesnil. Sometimes it is a soothing woman, and sometimes a prim-sounding man. There is music too, a five-note twinkling melody that comes over the loudspeakers in the stations, followed by a rapid fire French announcement that is drowned out by the crush of people’s footsteps and the swish of their coats as they push past each other. Everyone hurries to the metro, because everyone is always late in France, and because waiting three minutes for the next train is simply unbearable. Getting to your train is sometimes a short walk down a flight of stairs, and sometimes it is a long and arduous journey through what feels like miles of urine-soaked concrete-and-tile tunnels. You are swept into the crowd of people being herded through the passageways, some branching off in other directions, walking at different speeds so there is an uneven swell and current to the crowd. It’s quite like a funnel, where the mouth is the entrance to the station and as the people get deeper and deeper within they are sorted into different tubes until they reach the proper train, to be delivered at their destination where they are spit out and crawl back up to the surface where they put their mark on the city for one more day.
beef rump roast
When we were in London for Christmas, we were lucky enough (thanks to airbnb) to have our own kitchen equipped with basic spices, seasonings, appliances and utensils in order to cook Christmas dinner since everything would be closed or extremely expensive. We were also fortunate that the apartment's owner was a fan of reading and had an entire cookbook section of his bookshelf, including Jamie Oliver's "Ministry of Food," which included a host of traditional British recipes. We decided to go with a classic roast, a common Sunday and holiday meal in England. This recipe is an adaptation of Jamie Oliver's perfect roast beef; it is perfect for a simple but impressive dinner, and then almost better the next day with some horseradish as a cold roast beef sandwich.
Beef Rump Roast
{serves 4}
ingredients
beef rump, around 1.5 lbs
2 medium onions, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
6 yukon gold/red bliss potatoes, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
1 whole bulb garlic
1 bunch fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1 stalk fresh rosemary
olive oil
coarse salt
ground black pepper
red wine
method
Take the beef out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Set oven to 475F. Spread all the chopped veggies, herbs, and garlic cloves (not peeled) in a baking dish. Drizzle beef with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper before placing it over the vegetables in the dish. Add a splash of red wine to the dish - this will keep the beef moist and add flavor. Put the beef in the oven and immediately turn down the heat to 400F. Cook for 50 minutes to an hour, depending on how rare you like it, and basting at 30 minutes. Serve over roasted vegetables - and you might as well finish off that bottle you opened too!
résolutions
I have always had mixed feelings on the "New Years Resolution." A couple years ago, people started asking me what my New Years resolution was. I hadn't really thought about it - I didn't know that was a real thing. I just thought it was something gyms used to seduce new members. To me, January 1st has sort of the same feeling as your birthday: you are technically a year older, but what big changes could 24 hours (or even 1 hour) bring? You never actually feel older or different (unless of course you're turning 21 and you've been awarded certain new and wonderful privileges). I never saw the point in making a New Years resolution because if I wanted to change something, I could do it any time I wanted. But I've slowly come around to them. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea that so many people are at least putting their minds in a place of betterment. I'm a huge believer in the law of attraction and the idea that the landscape of your thoughts holds an immeasurable power on the physical world around you. Not like Mathilda or anything, just that if you put your mind towards something in a positive way, the outcome will be positive. This is not some sort of magic, it's just that your determination to see something work out disallows you to view the results as anything but positive. So you view any outcome as the way it was meant to be. I think this is the thing that New Years resolutions, for me, should achieve. The vague, overarching, life-changing resolutions (work out more, eat healthier, cook more) don't exactly excite me. I would never be able to achieve something so lacking in structure. And how would I know when it's achieved? Even something like "work out every other day" or "learn a new recipe every week" wouldn't work for me, because I know myself well enough to know I would simply stop doing them. So for my resolutions, I've chosen ten tasks that I want to accomplish in 2014. All of these things are actionable, progress me towards an overall goal, and most importantly, are fun. So cheers to 2014, and doing more things you love. If I were making a vague, arbitrary, overarching resolution, that would be it, by the way.
1. Take a cooking class
2. Improve my French
3. Travel to a new country
4. Write a story
5. Go on a road trip
6. Learn how to garden
7. Find a yoga studio I like
8. Send more handwritten cards
9. Go camping
10. Check off some of the books on my to-read list
ça va!
bonne année et le plateau de fromages parfait
I rang in the New Year at a French dinner party overlooking the Seine, hosted by Tom's teammate's girlfriend. It was really an international party - a handful of French, a Brazilian, a couple Argentinians, a Dominican, and then us two Americans - but the experience and the food was one hundred percent authentic French. It really was one of the classiest, most wonderful dinner parties I've been to, especially considering the last four years of my life have been spent amidst college athletes and themed keg parties. For hors d'oeuvres we had guacamole, made by one of the Argentinians who is training to be a professional chef, with chips and an apéritif (pre-dinner drink) of mojitos served in a punch bowl. After about an hour of dancing around language barriers, we moved to the beautifully-set table for our first course: foie gras (what else?) served with toast, a small salad, and a sweet wine. Next came smoked salmon and a dill lemon bechamel sauce with a drier white, also served with a small salad. At this point we had to take a break to pop open some champagne and celebrate the New Year - yes, our dinner started at 10:30 and had progressed forward only two courses before 2014 began. But it was a wonderful way to enjoy company and food, decidedly better than the "American way" of loading your plate and stuffing your face. After the toast, we returned to our seats for roast goose with a beautiful red wine gravy and roasted vegetables, paired with a 2001 and a 2005 Bordeaux, courtesy of Tom's French teammate's father as a Christmas gift. The wine was one of the highlights of the meal, and of my wine-drinking life. Thanks to my wine-loving father, I've had my fair share of aged bottles, the best being a 1981 Opus One. But I didn't think I was going to get a chance to have aged French wine while still in Paris, and was infinitely grateful that Jeremie chose to share this beautiful bottle with a handful of foreigners he had known only a few months. Finally came the cheese plate, perhaps one of the most important courses in French dining. Eating cheese as dessert is one of my favorite French customs (and they're not missing out on the sweets since most of them have some sort of baked delicacy for breakfast, or with lunch). There was roquefort, camembert, mimolette, chevre, ossau iraty (sheep's milk cheese), delice de bourgogne (triple cream cheese), comté, and maybe one or two others. After this impressive display of French artisanal cheese traditions we took a coffee break, and then returned to drinking with a digestif of mint and vodka.
The French food tradition is one of finesse, enjoyment, and attention to detail and quality. France has a deep and storied history of artisanal food production, which makes your average home cook a bit more qualified than many from other countries. The standard is set so high for becoming a professional in France partly because their social history has provided them with a standard of excellence in the kitchen at home as a natural part of growing up. it is woven into their DNA. This amazing dinner party with such wonderfully prepared food, better than many restaurants I've eaten at in the States, was probably nothing too out of the ordinary for them on a holiday. The tradition of inviting friends over, cooking an extravagant meal for them, and then enjoying food and drink is one that I hope to bring back to the States with me. And the first thing I want to bring back is my increased knowledge of constructing cheese plates, so here I have written down a collection of simple notes on what I've learned from my fromage adventures while in Paris:
Constructing a Cheese Plate Worthy of France:
1. Logistics
Cheese plates should consist of 3-10 cheeses of different textures, types, and flavors, and served at room temperature.
2. Texture
A good mix of textures allows the flavors to distinguish themselves. The official cheese texture scale includes four categories: soft, semi-soft, semi-firm, and firm. Your spread should reflect this spectrum and include a graduation from soft to firm. Soft cheeses often have a rind and are spreadable, like Camembert or Brie. Semi-soft cheese can hold its form without a rind (though may still have the rind intact for flavor) but is still spreadable - Mozzarella, young Gouda, and your typical crumbly blue cheese are examples. Semi-firm cheeses are often aged and can stand without the support of a cracker or toast, such as Gruyère de comté, swiss, or raclette. And firm cheeses are those that are quite aged and may crumble when cut, often used for grating over foods - think parmesan, asiago, mimolette. Texture is easy - all you have to do is pick up the cheese in the store and give it a squeeze to see which category it falls under.
3. Flavor
Officially, there are 16 flavors of cheese. If you're really interested in becoming a cheese snob, this infographic by Sean Seidell gives a detailed look at the flavors and where common cheeses fall on the scale. And although I appreciate the existence of "pineapple" in cheese flavor descriptors, I don't quite know really what it is, so I'm going to stick with my dumbed-down version for the typical amateur cook and entertainer: sharp, sweet, strong, and mild. Including a flavor variety makes your cheese plate more interesting and also fills you up more so you don't overdo it. For a sharp cheese, a parmesan or mimolette would work. A sweet cheese would be something like brie, chevre, or a cream-based cheese. Strong cheeses include blue cheese or camembert, and mild cheeses include young gouda, swiss, and mozzarella.
4. Type
Different animals will mean slight but distinct flavor variations in cheese, which is why it is good to have a variety of cheeses from sheep, goats, and cows.
Pictured above is my almost ideal French cheese plate (although I would add mimolette to this one). The top left is Trou du Cru, a soft and very strong cow's milk cheese. Top right is Pur Brebis, a firm and sweet sheep's milk cheese. Below those is Morbier, a mild and semi-soft cow's milk cheese. To the right of that is the classic Crottin de Chevré, a mild and sweet goat cheese, and in the bottom left is Bleu d'Auvergne, a strong cow's milk cheese. Of course this plate is missing a sharp cheese, which I would have added with the mimolette, but it still has a generally good range of all the flavors, textures, and types. We served it after a dinner of cured pancetta, smoked salmon, foie gras, and salad along with sliced baguette toasts. Voilá! French cheese plate accomplished. When I return home, I'm going to be hunting the pile of imported cheeses at Whole Foods to find some mimolette, roquefort, comté, and chevre to mix in with my favorite Bay Area artisanal cheeses.