My day this and that

My day starts around 4 with an hour of mindless surfing. Time to address sketch letter envelopes.

I listen to Portrait of a Lady on BBC 4 Extra as I scribble names and addresses.

On a good day I leave early enough.

To drop letters at the post office. Yesterday I noticed a letter with NO stamp. Chris wrote me she got her Paris sketches in her mailbox with NO stamp on the envelope. Maybe the La Poste isn't so bad..
 

On to piscine Pontoise and in the water by 8 am. This is a very good day. The two ladies I eavesdrop on, now let me chat/bavardé with them. I understand every other word maybe. They talk politics. One is a professor of Russian, the other teaches French. Time goes faster when you bavardé dans la piscine.
 

Thursday is market day at Bastille - next on the to-do list after the pool. Arriving early around 9 am is the best possible time. No crowds. I discover a new stand. Purveyors from Picardie and a delicious bottle of fizzy nectar de rhubarbe.

I forgot to eat breakfast.
Why not a dozen oysters?

These are fresh from the La Rochelle area - Marennes Oléron fines, just opened and only 10€. This could become a weekly habit.

I'm a big fan of French radishes but they always wilt so quickly.

*Coco says I must not put them in the refrigerator. Instead put the leaves/stems in water like a bouquet. When I get married I'll be carrying radis. Coco's 1st cookbook of 68(!) in French, 500 tricks in the kitchen is full of excellent information like how to boil water among others.

Walking home I pass Dalloyau with the most original Easter eggs I've seen yet.  Giant strawberries and a carrot. Plus a chocolate pea pod with the peas inside filled with friture. Witty and adorable. Designed for vegetarians?

Marie asked me to shoot Meert's Easter windows.
 

Giant exquisite embossed eggs, one of them with gold leaf.
What's inside?

The realistic eggs on the right are full of praline made of ground hazelnuts caramelized with sugar, traditional at Easter. *Coco says you can find this ready to go at G.Detou - 58 Rue Tiquetonne, 75002.

Two modern sculpted chocolate hens at Meert.

At Easter the dopie, stupid chicken is de rigueur in Paris as shown in the windows of Maison Georges Larnicol's.

Any chicken with the least semblance of intelligence is thrown back into the vat of chocolate. That's just the way it is.

And the stupidest chickens cost the most like at Patrick Roger. Another unfathomable French mystiere no one has figured out.
 

Pierre Hermé's windows are elegant and simple. All the chocolate is on the inside.

I'm a big fan of the children's shop (but really for adults IMHO), Amuzilo 34, rue Dauphine 75006
 

They've been around for 50 years! I bought the windup chickie (a piu piu) but the little mouse school  was calling my name. So much temptation in Paris and not all of it caloric Thank goodness.

On rue St-Dominique in the 7th an Easter window really for children.

Comptoirs Richard across the street at #145 has more delights.

This egg hunt in the 7th offers chocolate eggs by all the top chocolatiers: Hugo and Victor, Jean-Paul Hévin, Foucher, Puyricard, Dalloyau. How can I disguise myself as a kid and sign up?
 

The flower shops are showing off their best Spring flowers and the first strawberry fraisier cakes are starting to pop up. Yesterday was a lovely day from start to finish. 

Bonne Week-end PBers!