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Edible Paris by Amy Patterson
We found an apartment in my old neighborhood, the Marais. After ma petite famille criss-crossed Paris on foot for a month, we all agreed that our location on the rue des Tournelles bordered on perfection. Despite our kitchen issues on the rue de “has everything you could ever wish for” our apartment was comfortable with the added bonus of doors opening out onto a terrace. Punching in our security code, we all felt distinctly Parisian disappearing from the street into our courtyard; for a month a little slice of the city was our own. The street is hemmed in by picnic-perfect Place des Vosges to the west and the boutique shopping artery rue des Francs Bourgeois to the north. To the east, a seat at a café, feather-light Lebanese falafels or the awe-inspiring market beckon on the roads that radiate from Place de la Bastille. Morning croissants aux amandes and a lunchtime baguette jambon beurre were secured just to the south at the boulangerie on rue Saint Antoine. Our street itself offered bistros that would become familiar and welcoming favorites. Serendipitously, my two friends in Paris each lived within a five minute radius à pied.
As in anywhere that I travel, cuisine is the ideal milieu to intimately explore a city. Autour de la table, we simultaneously taste a bite of the culture and contemplate our day. Months of delectable anticipation allowed us to plot out our culinary adventures. I scoured food blogs, referenced notes from past trips, jotted down advice from helpful Francophiles and refined it with the help of my equally-as-enamored-with-edibles friend Landi who has luckily been working in Paris for over two years.
Gage tracked our steps with the pedometer on his phone. We passed sixty miles (or should I say one hundred kilometers!) after our first week. Not one second thought of a heavenly Jacques Génin pistachio caramel, a scoop of Bertillon ice cream, or a Pierre Hermé macaron passing our lips sailed through our minds. I imagine that would be very un-French anyway.
A month all to quickly emptied the contents of its seemingly endless bucket and a lifetime of gastronomic experiences still await. We decided to embrace comforting French fare despite the mercury increasing as our departure loomed. We visited l’Ami Jean our first week and were still reminiscing a spot-on meal and warm attention from the chef and staff. We returned for lunch and were delighted once again with a table next to kitchen where Lily curiously watched the chef attend to each plate with passionate precision. We ordered a bottle of crisp white Burgundy and settled in for our treats. A dazzling entrée of sautéed chanterelles and an orzo tinted with squid ink topped with mi-cuit saumon arrived. The chef eyed Lily watching him prepare octopus; as we finished our first course a plate with a gently curled tender tentacle surrounded by smoky eggplant and blueberries arrived for our curious onlooker. We transitioned to a bottle of earthy red Bordeaux and our plats followed: succulent Veal Cheeks, 7-hour Beef Shoulder and Basque Chicken in its jus accompanied by sweet baby carrots and the creamiest potato mousseline. A generous help-yourself bowl of their signature rice pudding “grand-mere” made its appearance with little bowls of whipped salted caramel cream and candied pistachios. Sweet and salty; heaven and tears.
Masquerading my eyes with big sunglasses, we walked the age-old streets of Paris back to our apartment. The currents of melancholy and nostalgia and were swelling up to the surface. Vintage memories intermingled with freshly minted time with my family swam through my head. It was going to be difficult to leave this magnificent city, rhapsodized and chronicled by thousands of souls, yet again.