Tag Archives: paris

News, Travel

Okay, Where’s Our Trip to Paris, Capital One?

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Does anyone know any of the people shown here? During the big snowstorm of January ’12, Capital One, they of the Viking hordes who demand to know what’s in your wallet, set up a surprise encounter down near the Convention Center on Pike. They “dropped” a wallet containing a Capital One card on the sidewalk, and waited for someone to come by and pick it up.

If you did, voilà, instant Parisian street scene. (That’s the real, existing crêperie they’ve taken over, yes?) “What is this?” asks one befuddled Seattleite. “You’re in France!” replies the not-entirely-convincingly-accented waiter. “I’m in France,” repeats the Seattleite. “Oui! Mais oui!” says the waiter. “Awesome,” says the Seattleite, nonchalantly, ready to go with it.

This is all to persuade us to tell you about Capital One’s Venture travel card–Double miles! No blackout dates!–as if it’s news of some kind, and as if they didn’t just spend a million more dollars than they had to instead of just advertising on The SunBreak, which anyone can do for $100 per month. Sheesh.

Anyway, we will pass along the “news” that you can still enter to win a dream vacation by cropping yourself into an iconic destination, and explaining why you ought to go. Your entry will be voted on, so think viral, and then count the days until March 9, 2012, when the contest ends and the winner-picking begins:

At the close of the travel contest on March 9, a panel of judges will review the top-50 highest scored submissions and narrow down the field to 10 finalists. Travel expert Randy Petersen, of www.flyertalk.com, will then select the grand prize winner. Other prizes will include a $1,000 travel voucher for the most viral entry of the contest and 25 noise canceling headphones given to the top new five viral entries submitted every week.

Arts & Entertainment, Music, Visual Arts

For Hot Girl-on-20s-Paris Action, Try The Last Nude

Novelist Ellis Avery reads from The Last Nude at Elliott Bay Book Company at 7 p.m. on Saturday, January 14, 2012.

Ellis Avery‘s The Last Nude is my first acquaintance with Avery’s writing, though The Teahouse Fire (2006) has found life in five other languages thus far. However, you don’t get named “The Best Writer You’ve Never Heard Of But Should Go Read Right Now” because everyone has, in fact, heard of you.

The Last Nude is likely to remedy that somewhat–NPR to the rescue. It’s an engaging hot-blooded-but-cold-eyed return to 1920s Paris–Further Reading at the book’s back suggests Janet Flanner, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and Sylvia Beach–from the perspective of a young model for the sexually omnivorous painter Tamara de Lempicka.

It’s a “historical novel.” History shows that Tamara de Lempicka did paint a young woman, Rafaela, that she met at the Bois de Boulogne, six portraits altogether over the next six months to a year. They slept together. The details of Rafaela’s life, though, are largely Avery’s invention. People just don’t follow around starving nude models, pestering them for their life stories, so Avery has filled in the blanks. I mention that because it becomes difficult to credit this Rafaela as a fictional personage, Avery has done her work so convincingly.

It was an inspired decision, in any event–seeing Paris through Rafaela’s eyes is to see the ’20s in a new light. It’s not just the fashions that aspiring couturière Rafaela describes, but the way she, the ur-teenage girl, keeps falling in love with views of the city and its inhabitants. Paris is the whole package:

The terrasse of the hotel was itself a miniature opera, with its jewel-colored drinks and its coffees, its wrapped squares of chocolate and cubes of sugar, its speakers of many languages, each one smoking expressively.

Ellis Avery (Photo: Matthew Powell)

In Avery’s telling, a teenage Rafaela is shipped off from the Bronx, under the wing of an Italian grandma, to return to the old country for a mostly arranged marriage. But fate intervenes, Paris beckons, Rafaela soon finds herself living by her wits and sex appeal, trying to scrounge up a salesgirl job in a boutique where pretty girls find wealthy princes to put them up in apartments. (Down and Out in Paris and London is not on the Further Reading list, but Avery recounts the brutality and banality of Rafaela’s scrabbling with Orwell’s sociological interest in the efforts of women to exist.)

Things change once de Lempicka enters the picture in her green Bugatti. One day Rafaela is scheming for the funds for a salesgirl’s dress, the next she’s a muse. Things heat up:

My lower lip, throbbing as it dried in the warm air, was having none of it. Tamara was sitting so close I could almost feel the vibration of the charcoal on her tablet jarring me in soft waves. Unconsciously, I close my mouth and let it fall open again, just to repeat the pleasure of Tamara’s finger–my own tongue–across my lip. Suddenly I felt the air thicken.

Then they heat up a little more. Paris when it sizzles, indeed.

It’s Rafaela’s introduction not simply to sleeping with another woman, but to being seen publicly with her, as well. This requires a trip to Sylvia Beach’s bookstore, where more famous names pop out of the woodwork (Hemingway appears as an alternate-reality Ernest, a wounded war correspondent who hasn’t reinvented fiction).

If it seems a bit much, so do the actual Left Bank memoirs; the expatriate social circle just wasn’t that large, and everyone gossiped about everyone else. The plot from here on out reminded me a bit of The Moderns, revolving as it does around the businesses of painting and art collecting and social standings. There are parties and intrigues that keep you turning pages too late at night. It’s thrilling, but Paris has yet another face to show Rafaela, after the ball is over.

After 250 pages–strewn with terrific aperçus like describing a fashion house’s directrice as  “a black-clad picket of indignation”–Avery gives de Lempicka the last word, writing from her old age in Cuernavaca where she is working on her last painting. As was true in real life, it’s a copy of an earlier portrait of Rafaela. An inexpungeable experience, Avery suggests. Artistic vision is ruthless to artists as well their models.

Eats, Food, Restaurant, Travel

Passport to Pleasure: Paris in (Food) Pictures

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With just four nights planned in Paris, this food lover was fascinated by the endless eating possibilities. It had been years since I last visited the city, and back then I was on a “student” budget—not that there’s anything wrong with eating baguettes and cheese all day long.

How would I allocate my limited number of meal slots to all the restaurants on my list? And what about all the patisseries, boulangeries, fromageries and more I wanted to visit?

I knew what I had to do. I took a map with outlines of the arrondissements and penciled in potential places to eat, then mapped out what made sense to do each day. Paris is a perfect place for walking, so my partner and I would stroll eatery to eatery, filling in the time between meals with geographically convenient visits to shops, parks, museums, and whatever else struck our fancy.

Yes, a couple of times we hit food comas, but given our ambitious eating itinerary, especially coming off the magnificent meals in Belgium, that wasn’t surprising.

I now present to you Paris in the form of food porn, and a couple of extras. With limited narrative, I hope these pictures tell thousands of words and make you hunger for a visit to the City of Light.

So with more of a personal voice than usual, but mostly with pictures, we head to Paris, where we stamp this week’s Passport to Pleasure—a hedonistic quest for great food and good times for two, from nibbles to naughtiness.

MARKETS

Our first move after taking the Thalys to Paris’ Gare du Nord and dropping our bags in our hotel room was to scramble to the Sunday afternoon Organic Market. Still savoring memories of the roasted chicken we ate in Gent, we sampled some here. The Belgians beat the French in this go-around, but it was still delicious, and there was plenty of other food to be found, including fresh-made galette d’oignon pomme de terre (onion potato pancakes).

The daily markets are colorful and well worth visiting. One of our favorites turned out to be an unexpected discovery, which a local at Ble Sucre (see below) urged us to visit. That neighborhood (near Bastille) is a favorite and one in which I’d like to spend more time in the future.

FALAFEL

After the market, there was stomach space for a falafel. And where better than the legendary L’As du Fallafel in the Marais district? Just look for the lines. The pre-paid ordering while in line seals the commitment, and the falafel is well worth the wait.

FROZEN TREATS

After lining up for falafel, we walked to Ile Saint Louis to line up for ice cream at Berthillon. I remembered savoring cassis sorbet here so long ago, but it was sold out this visit, so I settled for a perfect pear sorbet instead, along with dark chocolate ice cream and seasonal strawberry sorbet.

A different day, a stop at Christian Constant meant a chance to sample the very fine mandarin-ginger sorbet en route to Luxembourg Gardens.

BOULANGERIES

Breakfast is a meal not to be missed in Paris. Breads and pastries and such are simply amazing. I had to figure out a focus, and it turned out to be croissants.

One morning I did a run to Julien for a regular croissant and an almond croissant, which some say is the sad cousin of the regular croissant. Mine got mashed up a bit; both were pretty good, but we’d soon find better.

Another morning, it was time for a croissant comparison. Within walking distance, we picked up croissants from Gerard Mulot, Poilane, and Pierre Herme. Gerard Mulot had a wide assortment of baked goods and more:

Poilane bakes beautiful breads in a wood-burning oven:

No photos allowed inside the legendary Pierre Herme:

Here are the Mulot, Poilane, and Herme croissants side-by-side (the Herme one is even larger than it looks):

And then a cross-section after some bites (some of the Herme crumb got pulled out):

Herme’s isaphan croissant, with rose and raspberry:

A look inside the isaphan croissant, which was fruitfully fun:

La Cafe de la Mairie, which allows you to bring baked goods to accompany your coffee if you take care in cleaning up afterward:

Of the three in the taste test, Herme’s croissant was the clear winner. Mulot’s croissant had nice buttery flavor and lots of layers, with a crisp, flaky crust. Poilane’s croissant was a bit bland for me, and the crust was too soft. The regular croissant from Herme was the most crisp and flaky, though at an almost fifty percent higher price than the other two (1.50 euros versus 1.05 euros), it certainly should have been the best.

PATISSERIES/CHOCOLATERIES

Nothing like some sweets between big meals, right? But when in Paris…

My partner likes mont blanc, and has had Angelina’s version in Tokyo, so we sampled a magnificent, modern take on it at Carl Marletti. (The mont blanc are the long, white blocks in the third photo, below.)

Per a recommendation from David Lebovitz, I had to try the chocolat chaud at Patisserie Viennoise. To say this place has old school charm wouldn’t be a lie, as it’s a favorite hangout for students from the nearby Sorbonne. The chocolate is quite bitter.

I was most anxious to try Jacques Genin. This shop is elegant, and while I was simply stuffing more calories into my body, it was a perfect place to relax between big meals. I was slightly trembling with excitement when I poured the drinking chocolate (missing the mug, though that’s partly because I was trying to shoot photos at the same time), which was super-smooth and rich and over-the-top in combination with my made-to-order millefeuille. A chocolate millefeuille was tempting, and I’ve heard good things about the caramel one, but I was pleased with my choice of vanilla. You can see the specks of vanilla bean in photo! (Also note that I got a sampling of Genin’s caramels, which are something special.)

A FEW MEALS

Crepes are a popular item throughout Paris, and very convenient street food. I wanted to try a higher-end crepe restaurant, and heard good things about Breizh Cafe. Pictured below is the savory Provencale crepe I enjoyed, featuring a sunny-side up egg, tomatoes, onion confit in cider, ham, anchovies, raw milk Gruyere cheese, and herbes de Provence. I especially loved the bowl of lait ribot (farmhouse buttermilk) I got with it.

La Regalade St. Honore would be the site of a delicious dinner one of the evenings. With three courses (there are numerous choices for each course) for 35 euros, this restaurant offers a good taste of quality French cuisine.

Upon ordering, you’ll get the passed-around country-style pate and bread, along with some cornichons. Eat what you’d like fairly quickly, as the pan gets picked up and passed to another table when your first course arrives.

Her starter: Tomato soup with lots of garlic and lemon olive oil, topped with crabmeat

My starter: A jar with a poached organic chicken egg, spinach, asparagus, and tomato confit

Her entree: Grilled daurade with spinach, tomato confit, pine nuts, cilantro, capers, chopped cornichons, and lemon olive oil, along with emulsions of cilantro and ginger

My entree: Pork belly with green Puy lentils and sausage, with the skin very crisp and the dish fatty (in a good way)

Her dessert: Fresh rhubarb and strawberries with white cheese and vanilla mascarpone

My dessert: Rice pudding cooked in milk and vanilla (“grandmother’s style”), served with milky caramel (I’d worry about anyone who can eat the whole serving)

In a city with stellar cuisine, there had to be one meal full of offal. Le Ribouldingue in the Latin Quarter would be the place. With lots of snacking to follow, we opted for the two-course lunch. It was fantastic, and one of our favorite meals in Paris.

Her appetizer: Pig ear galette

My appetizer: Lamb testicles “en persillade”

Her entree: Beef tripe “au vin blanc”

My entree: Veal kidney, served with gratin Dauphinois

Offal, eventually followed by snacks of pastries and chocolate, is mighty filling, but we still had a magnificent meal ahead of us that day: dinner at L’Abeille in the new Shangri-La hotel. Named in homage to Napoleon’s favorite emblem, the bee, the restaurant offers a luxurious dining experience in the former palatial home of Prince Roland Bonaparte. The intimate dining room seats 40, and French doors open to the hotel’s private garden. (That garden comes in handy as a place to take a break after massive amounts of food–and maybe some alcohol.) We enjoyed the plush feel and prepared for what we knew would be spectacular service.

Amuse bouche: Beetroot cracker with mustard ice cream; cucumber jelly with fresh almond; tomato, mozzarella, and pesto tart; strawberry and foie gras macaron; and almond puree with crab meat and vanilla

Bread service comes with 100 year-old olive oil from the south of France

Stunning salad service

Duck foie gras duo: terrine with rhubarb chutney, and with strawberries cooked with balsamic vinegar

Asparagus 1: With caramelized crumbs of walnuts from Perigord

Asparagus 2: With walnut oil mayonnaise, walnut tuile with Jabugo ham, and black smoked tea foam

Wild salmon sauvage from Adour with grilled almonds and Bigarade lemon condiment

Roasted milk-fed Iberian pork rack with wild garlic, crispy farm-raised pork belly, and grilled sliced cucumber

A couple of cheeses (all we could manage from the massive selection) for each of us, including this Liverot and Comte

Mango, lime, and coconut sorbet

Pineapple roasted with rum, vanilla mousse “millefeuille,” and licorice ice cream (in the background: pina colada with pineapple sorbet)

Coffee comes with mignardises

A MUCH-NEEDED (SEX) BREAK

In one of the strolls between meals, en route to the amazing Centre Pompidou (where you’ll find your fair share of sensuous and erotic art), we stumbled upon the 1969 sex shop, found appropriately enough at 69 rue Saint Martin. This is a gorgeous store with lingerie, sex toys, books, DVDs, lubricants, and the like. Very tasteful and very much worth a visit, perhaps providing inspiration to burn off some of those calories.

A FINAL FLURRY: A PERFECT EATING DAY IN PARIS

Breakfast at Ble Sucre

Herme may have won the croissant battle the day before, but we saved the best for last on our final day in Paris: Ble Sucre. This patisserie/boulangerie may not get as much press as other places, but trusted Seattle friends recommended it with endless raves. Ble Sucre would turn out to be a real neighborhood find. The croissant was our favorite of the trip, flaky and flavorful, and the seasonal strawberry and vanilla mousse tart a delicious accompaniment. Intoxicated by what we saw (and reckless with two big meals ahead), we enjoyed a kouign amman and would eventually sample bread, cookies, and other baked treats.

The pastry chef, Fabrice Le Bourdat, is quite the character: a soft-spoken, humorous, kind, and generous man who likes to hire Japanese people (admiring their work ethic and quality) to work with him. I had fun doing an English-to-Japanese-to-French (and back) interview with Le Bourdat, though I can only wonder what got lost in translation. Certainly not the warmth of the exchange.

Lunch at Le Cinq

Le Cinq is legendary, and I feel lucky to have experienced it. Located in the ornate Four Seasons Hotel George V, the restaurant has earned two Michelin stars for 12 consecutive years. Much like the experience at the newer Shangri-La the night before, I felt the grandeur immediately upon entering the hotel, and felt regal upon being escorted to the dining room.

Far from the tight quarters of places like Breizh Cafe and La Regalade Saint Honore, Le Cinq offers lots of space between tables, though we still managed to banter a bit with the two men at the next table (who were there before our arrival at 1pm, and were still enjoying a lot of wine when we left close to 5pm).

The service was simply impeccable. Our sommelier was intensely descriptive with each wine pairing, our server patient and kind, and others on the floor at once helpful and humorous. Together as a team, they anticipated every move and need without ever feeling intrusive. If ever I felt it appropriate to wear a jacket and tie at a restaurant, it was here, and while there’s certainly a formality to Le Cinq, I also felt a welcome bit of whimsy.

This appeared to be the standard starter: tempura shrimp and squid, with a spritzing of lemon oil

Breads were superb, trumped only by the high quality olive oil and butters to accompany them

It was tempting to eat all of this incredible nori butter…no bread necessary!

Amuse bouche: green pea jelly, smoked eel horseradish cream with black sesame and lime, and duck foie gras royale grapefruit mousse

Her starter: Red Mediterranean tuna belly with caviar tartar and green apple jelly

My starter: Veal tartar with seaweed marmalade

Morel bouillon with morel-stuffed morels, foie gras, white asparagus, and gold (one of the most amazingly delicious dishes of the whole trip)

Her entree: Wild turbot with shellfish in white wine and Noirmoutier potatoes with salicornia, with foam of green apple and wasabi on the side

My entree: Lamb chops and sweetbreads roasted in parsley vinaigrette with peppermint (left) and lamb shoulder with fresh harissa vegetable tagine and coriander (right)

Cheese trolley, challenging the stomach space

Ewe ice cream with olive oil, vanilla, kumquat and olive

Her dessert: At this point, a serious food coma had us saying “bring whatever sounds good,” and I believe this was a red fruit cocktail with hibiscus jelly topped with strawberry champagne sorbet–or something like that

My dessert: In the same food coma, I received what I believe were wild strawberries with vanilla meringue, along with tonka cocoa beans with rhubarb

There would then be coffee and a trolley of mignardises, which made us laugh aloud. The server simply put an assortment of them on two plates, then placed the contents directly into boxes, tossing in lots of extra caramels to fill each box. And so ended our feast.

Dinner at Le Chateaubriand

How could we possibly eat dinner after breakfast at Ble Sucre and lunch at Le Cinq? Well, when it’s your last night and last meal in Paris for the foreseeable future, you stuff yourself like a goose being raised for foie gras.

Besides, dinner would be at Le Chateaubriand, currently ranked number nine in the world in the annual S.Pellegrino World’s Best Restaurant Awards, and top in France. Securing a reservation was itself a challenge, given language barriers and the restaurant’s reputation in not answering the phone or doing call-backs.

My partner was reluctant to go, asking if she could order just a soup or salad. Not possible, as Le Chateaubriand has a fixed price menu.

It was so good that she ate everything, as did I–even if we didn’t know exactly what was on our plates. We couldn’t completely understand the French menu, and the language barrier and noise made it hard to comprehend the server. In this case, the close proximity of the tables was an asset, as neighbors just inches away helped us with translation.

What a whimsical meal. It may have been our favorite in Paris, though it’s still hard to say given the strength of the overall eating itinerary. Le Chateaubriand was certainly the climax to an amazing day and an amazing stay in Europe.

Chef in the kitchen

Gougeres with gruyere and black sesame to start

First amuse bouche (if counting the gougeres as bread): Turbot ceviche infused with lime, raspberry and coriander, I believe

Another amuse bouche: Radishes with salmon and nori powder

Third amuse bouche: Duck broth with apple and celery

Fourth and final amuse bouche: Smoked mozzarella with cucumber and anise

Vegetables dipped in squid ink with garlic flowers and lard of Colonnata

Lemon sole with shadscale and hazelnut butter

Sous vide local chicken with asparagus and almonds

Transitioning to dessert: Strawberries with little peas

Cherry sabayon

An interesting mignardise: Pickled rhubarb with candied fennel

A LA PROCHAINE, PARIS

With stomachs and memories full, it was time to go from Paris to Seattle, hopeful of visiting again…

News, Travel

Polite Seattleites, I Give You…the French Wedge

These people are in line but they're not happy about it

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

Here I am again on The Sunbreak, a Seattle news site, talking about Europe. I’m not sure what I’m doing here, but Mr. MvB has been outrageously supportive given my complete irrelevance to his site. I like to think I provide a perspective of life outside the U.S., which, by the way, I’m enjoying watching self-destruct from afar. We return home in five months so that should be just enough time for the whole thing to really go to hell. Looking forward to viewing the carnage in person.

In this installment of “Why is this woman still talking about Europe,” I’m going to discuss the French and their aversion to standing in lines. I have so many stories of being trampled in lines in Paris–this may be a three-part series, four if you’re lucky.

I was mowed over left and right in lines when we first moved here. At first I would make excuses for the line-cutters like, “I bet that person is just in a hurry, probably late to some important meeting or they’ve learned their child is perched precariously on a ledge.” Three years later, I know it’s just the smell of weakness. If French people catch a whiff of it on you, you will become line-waiting roadkill because you are not worthy to stand in front of them.

Our family took a Paris Christmas light bus tour last year. When my son and I entered the shop to buy tickets, we walked smack into typical French “organization”–pandemonium, no line, just a big group of people pushing to get to the counter. It was a dreaded French Wedge.

There were some anglophone tourists darting about, looking panic-stricken and shouting back and forth, “What’s the SYSTEM? I don’t understand the SYSTEM!”

“Good luck people,” I thought to myself, “no way you’re making the tour if you stand around whining about a system in the middle of a French Wedge.” Then I plunged headfirst into the crowd and pushed like a seasoned professional to the front of the line with my little boy’s arms wrapped tightly around my waist. He knows the drill; when entering a French Wedge, grab mama and hang on, kind of like a baby koala but with more fear.

When it came time to get on the bus, another French Wedge formed outside the bus doors. The anglophones were very sweet, all lined up nicely on one side of the bus, but we Frenchies (I consider myself one of them now, in matters of line-waiting and enviable style only) crushed up together on the other side of the door. The anglophones looked bewildered as we steamrolled them out of the way; Americans and Canadians flew through the air yelling, “SYSTEM! There’s no SYSTEM!”

Of course there’s a system–it’s called “Smash the hell out of other people.” We got great seats on top of the bus, which was full of French people. The bottom level of the bus was full of crushed, wounded tourists applying cold compresses and band-aids.

Helmet Hair makes her move

My husband, Alex, and I recently went to a museum and stood in a lengthy line outside the most popular exhibit. This is where a lady I refer to as Helmet Hair pulled the most blatant line-cut I’ve ever seen. She just swung her foot around Alex’s body and stepped in front of him. Alex is useless in line-cutting situations because he starts sputtering indignantly but laughing at the same time, so all he accomplishes is confusing everybody about his feelings.

Then she did it to me. I whipped out my iPhone to record the elusive line-cutter at the very moment she was cutting–what a moment to capture in the Paris wilderness! Look closely because this is exactly how they do it;  they step right in front of you, but they will not look at you. They’ll look in the exact opposite direction of you, even if it means pivoting their head around 180 degrees so they’re staring directly out over their backs. Line-cutting Frenchies are like those owls with really twisty necks.

If you say something polite, you will be ignored. Your only options are to 1.) fistfight or 2.) take back your space. I chose to take back my space and stuck one of my feet in front of her feet. There wasn’t enough room for both my feet, so I straddled her for a minute and stared at her impressive helmet hair. Her head remained turned away from me, but I could tell from the stiffness of her body she knew I was making my move. It was ON.

We played footsie all the way up to the front of the line and I was winning, WINNING when I realized Alex had fallen behind by several more people. I could tell they’d cut in front of him because they were all intently staring at the ceiling and Alex was hopping around guffawing every few seconds. I lost focus. I turned to Alex and said, “What the hell are you doing all the way back there?” and WHOOSH…Helmet Head was past me and into the exhibit. I may have lived here three years now, but when it comes to the sport of lines, I’m still an amateur.

I could talk about this stuff all day but MvB gives me a word limit when discussing things on The Sunbreak not at all relevant to The Sunbreak. I look forward to returning home at the end of the year, where you’ll probably recognize me out and about. I’ll be the one steamrolling over everyone in line. It’s gonna be a cinch; the peaceful Pacific Northwesterners will never see me coming.

An "ice cream line" right here in Seattle, courtesy of our Flickr pool's zenobia_joy. You haven't lived 'til you've experienced this, Mindy.

 

Education, News, Travel

How the French Solved Summer Vacation

Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years with her husband and two kids. Her daily life does not include romantic walks along the Seine, champagne picnics on the Pont des Arts, or five-star gourmet dinners. For a realistic take on life in a fantasy place, visit her blog, An American Mom in Paris.

Summer à la Française. Note fleeing adult.

Americans recovering from their Fourth of July fireworks injuries are wondering what to do with their children for the rest of the summer. In France, we’re gearing up for Bastille Day fireworks injuries–we have drunk people playing with explosives in common–but after that, we know we can dump our kids at the centre de loisirs.

The centre de loisirs, much like gourmet preschool lunch, is a brilliant benefit of high taxes. During school vacations–all school breaks, not just summer break–one or two schools in each arrondissement stay open. You can drop your kid at the school at 8:30 a.m. and people who have more energy than you will entertain them for (almost) free until 5:30 p.m., for however many days a week you need it,  be it for your job or just your mental well-being.

It sounds great, and it is. The only downside to the centre de loisirs is they are chaotic, Lord of the Flies-ish anarchist communities. All the children of the arrondissement funnel into one school, through one door, into a small entry hall crammed full of check-in tables and people waving paperwork. It’s claustrophobic and loud and nobody can move. Pushing happens.

Prior to the storming of the tower

The animateurs who run the centre already look exhausted on the first day. An animateur watched my son and his friend wrestle each other to the ground on Day One (they were screaming!) and said with a sigh, “Ohhh la la.” He was probably thinking about how long summer is.

The kids come home from the centre wrecked and crabby, but they also sleep in, sometimes for the first time ever. The first morning my husband and I woke up at a leisurely 7:30 a.m., we realized our son hadn’t jumped on our bed at the crack of dawn. Alarmed that something was terribly wrong with him, we tripped over each other in our hurry to get to his room, where we found him sleeping soundly. Then we hugged in the hallway and wept at the beauty of it. Thank you, really high taxes.

Last year, I didn’t know for the longest time what my son actually did at the centre.  I’d heard they did fun things but when I asked my son, I received answers like, “I was fighting and then I ran super fast and we was fighting and then I chased them and we was fighting.” Then he would grin and demand snacks.

He seemed happy enough so I figured he enjoyed all the fighting, but it was quite unsettling if that‘s really all he did all day. I pictured preschoolers cagefighting while animateurs cheered their favorite and threw bets down in a pile of euros on the ground. A disturbing mental image, but at least I was getting some time to myself.

A few weeks into the summer, my friend’s daughter began attending the centre de loisirs, too. Suddenly I was getting emails from her like, “Can you believe they went to the circus today?” and “Wow–top of the Eiffel Tower this afternoon!” Sometimes it was a boat tour on the Seine. Sometimes it was the wading pools at the Jardin du Luxembourg. It sounded like they were indeed well entertained but my son never mentioned any of it. Instead he talked at length about the giant mutant spider that crawled over the playground wall that he and his friends had to fight with their bare hands.

Depending on whose version you believe, the centre de loisirs is either a pint-sized fight club full of giant spiders or a whirlwind of exciting activities that’s a lot more fun than time with mom. (Hell no, I’m not taking him to the top of the Eiffel Tower–have you seen those lines?) Either way, the centre is a parent’s friend. The kids are happy and exhausted, the parents keep doing whatever they were doing during the school year, and then most people leave on vacation for the entire month of August.

It’s a good life but seriously, the taxes are really high.

Food, Restaurant, Travel

Postcard from Paris, from a Food Writer’s Perspective

From Brussels it was on to Paris for a four-day feeding frenzy. More specifics in the future, but for now a quick taste of what I like and dislike about the city.

Visits to bakeries, markets, and restaurants mean staring at the Metro map for travel planning. In contrast to our current single light rail line in Seattle, Paris offers a labyrinth of rail lines to navigate, reaching desired destinations of the various arrondisements.

From dashing out early morning to compare croissants at different boulangeries to donning a jacket and tie for lunch at the Four Seasons Hotel’s Le Cinq, the Metro is always there with its options. I love staring at the colorful map, connecting, for example, from lavender to brown just in time for a dinner reservation at Le Chateaubriand—which recently moved up to the number nine position in S.Pelligrino’s list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants.

On the annoying side, it seems that just about everyone in Paris smokes cigarettes. (Some wearing those ubiquitous scarves while scarfing down espressos, though fortunately restaurant interiors are now smoke-free.) This means frequently passing through smoke-filled doorways, and seeing butts along the boulevards.

Upside: It’s even easier to talk with someone at an adjoining table when the dining companion goes out for a smoke. Downside: Dealing with the smoke stinks. That’s one point that makes me happy to return to relatively smoke-free Seattle.