Then and Now

Yesterday I went back to my old nabe/quartier the 19th for a number of reasons.

Where I live now is quite a step up...understatement.

My old stairway (52 steps that kept my derriere smaller).

My grand stairway has a 17th century history I can't begin to imagine and many more steps. I live on the 7th floor. Resolved: take the stairs more and the l’encenser less!

The old place was TEAL city.

My Brit landlady Rachel Khoo, of The Little Paris Kitchen fame showed me how to light the hob (a frightening mystery to me as an American).

"Now remember, if you go away 1-2 weeks, do turn off the gas" she warned me.

I didn't get up the nerve to 'light the hob' for THREE WHOLE MONTHS. I never 'turned off the gas' either. Fortunately I did not burn down the house

Once I got the hang of lighting the hob, it became my BBF. I adored that little cooker. So much better than the electric burners I have now.

Bear loved our work area.

I dragged an ‘objet trouvé’, a pink secretary chair found in the street, to the new digs. Bear 🐻 settled in nicely.

The old place had it's charms but I don't think I could have managed many tea parties there.

The new diggs are streamline. A place for everything and everything in it's place, if only I could remember where I put stuff. If you've ever lived on a yacht please advise.

My raison d'etre for visiting the 19th was to join piscine Pailleron.

This has to be the most gorgeous pool in a city with many divine pools. I grew attached to the 5 heated pools and local families attending. 

Now I have Art Déco 🏊🏽‍♀️ PONTOISE Piscine in - pas mal. 

I really miss Parc Butte de Chaumont just a few steps away.

So many wishes made here came true.

Lovely flowers 🌺 too.

Franprix next to my old apartment may be the ONLY place in all Paris to have chunky peanut butter (from Nicaragua no less). Believe me I have looked 👁️ 

I will never complain about living next to la Seine.

It's life-changing. An experience words can't describe. 

6:44 AM this morning the view out my window is pretty spectacular.

Big Merci to all who subscribed to the Paris Sketch Letters!

You've helped make my life in Paris unforgettable.

Talking about Teal Blue

Not just Easter bunnies are fond of Teal blue this season. 

For the past year I've been bumping into TEAL all over Paris.

The name of the color comes from the Common Teal duck

With it's patch of true blue placed uniquely by it's 👁️ 

The French are following suit with patches of blue.

Let the blue stay on the parrot says AirFrance...and patch your eyes with a dash of red shadow.

RIO 2 is about to open. Plenty of Teal blues on show.

Teal blue must be good for selling movies. Granted Noah is about the deep blue sea..

French banks love blue - the color of stability.

Teal Bleu is taking years off Johnny Hallyday in this movie poster...

Metro Miromesnil has a thing for Teal bleu chaise

Nothing to do with blue but FYI, when you check these maps for the correct exit to take, DO notice which way the little arrow of the stairway is pointing. I can't count how many times I've taken the right exit but walked the wrong direction down the wrong street.

Confisier Boissier has had an ongoing love affair with Teal even though they say blue food is a no-no.

Looks fine to me.

Bunny in a blue chemise/shirt dressed to deliver those oeufs/eggs.

My favorite chocolate shop in Paris A La Mere du Famille has TEAL tiles on the floor-miam maim

My last sublet was so full of TEAL BLEU I was spinning. 

Surely RACHEL K 💙 blue. Or so I thought...

TEAL bed spread, TEAL paper flower, TEAL towels, TEAL phone, you name it. The TEAL trash bag was my contribution 👍

When the time came to handover the 🔑 , I thought it would be amusing to give her a little bottle of TEAL blue nail polish.

Evidently she did not think so...

She told me, "Blue is not my color".

 

More blue food - crocs(jelly candy from Haribo) across the street at the bus station.

Blue pools at the gardens of Versailles. 

Monday was the BIG day for my visa appointment at the Prefecture. I first chose TEAL blue folders for my papers.

 Then decided it would be safer to use the staid, numbered divders from last year's visa presentation. I've been going through all kinds of self-inflicted Medieval tortures while gathering these official documents. I am not good with papers covered with numbers and in a foreign language. 

Who is? 

But I had a stroke of luck at the appointment. The first person was checking my papers to see if all was in order before she could send me on to the next checker, all the while conversing with my lawyer totally in French.

I happened to hear the word 'marriée?'

For some unknown reason I piped up, 

"JAMAIS!" (NEVER!)

The official thought this was hysterical and immediately gave me a new appointment 2 weeks later with a 'Prioritée' classification at an earlier time (9:30 am so I won’t have to wait 5 hours.)

Go figure.

The Little Paris Kitchen

Dimanche 10 Fevrier The Little Paris Kitchen

I'm so pleased Rachel Khoo's The Little Paris Kitchen:120 Simple but Classic French Recipes has finally come out in the US (last week). It's a delight you won't want to miss.

British Rachel lives in a tiny walkup studio in the 19th. She came to Paris in 2006 as an au pair for a French family, then went on to study patisserie at Le Cordon Bleu. She's written a number of French cookbooks and helped found La Cocotte.

What's dynamite about Rachel's cookbook is she takes French classics, simplifies them and gives them a witty surprising twist. To make sure every recipe worked and was divine, Rachel ran her own little restaurant in her studio twice a week (twice a month?). She ran a lottery for the invited lunch guest that became hotly sought after. I tried but was on the wrong side of the drink. The restaurant is no longer running but you can make your own bistro cusine with the LPK cookbook. Her lentilles salade was served up here last night - major yum.

Rachel cooked and catered all over the world so there's a touch of fusion in her recipes. 

Rachel's chocolate lava cakes are to die for. Her series on the BBC is loads of fun.

A little exerpt from LPK on the famous French gouter:

Snacking between meals is not really the done thing in France. Even French food adverts come with the slogan: '
Pour etre en form, evitez de grignoter dans la journee'
(To stay in shape, avoid snacking during the day'). 

However, le gouter is an exception. Similar to the British 'afternoon tea', it's a little less formal - No cream cheese with scones here. A simple sweet or savory snack around 4:30 PM let's the French 'avoir le peche' (have the peach or be in great form).

Le gouter Is not just for kids, though; adults need their afternoon pick me up too! I love all the recipes in this chapter, but a particular favorite snack has to be a simple pain au chocolat - not the flaky croissant type more usually eaten for breakfast but, quite simply a piece of bread (fresh crusty baguette works best) stuffed with a piece of good-quality chocolate (dark or milk, follow your tastebuds, it doesn't really matter). This is something I came across during my time as a nanny and it's probably not the healthiest snack, but then le gouter is also about indulging oneself a little. And the French are the absolute masters at that.

I met Rachel at Amy Thomas' croissant tasting and she's every bit as fresh, down to earth and fun as her recipes are and totally accessible.

I'm a big fan of her French cookbook on Pates Tartiner though I don't trust myself to make the sweet ones.

They'd never make it into the jar.

Take a look at Rachel's The Little Paris Kitchen on Amazon - you can page through. 

*Definitely watch her videos on Youtube made in her tiny Paris apartment (and my apartment for 6 months!) and stop by her blog. That's where I found out about illustrator  Andre Helle at 4 in the morning!