encore Paris, plus real life

Good­ness, since we arrived home from Paris a week ago today, we have cer­tain­ly hit the ground run­ning.  There has been a cold, rainy day out in Green­wich for me — on a boat on the Thames, wet wind whistling — with my bell-ring­ing friend Alas­tair and his love­ly grand­chil­dren… And a bril­liant bell-ring­ing ses­sion on Sat­ur­day, and the reward that after­noon of a fab­u­lous­ly unusu­al lunch out in Chi­na­town with my friend Sam at  St John Hotel, the lat­est out­post of the St John empire presided over by Fer­gus Hen­der­son, the famous “nose to tail” restaurateur.

I had a pork and pigeon ter­rine to start (lus­cious­ly rich, with cor­ni­chons and a dense chewy bread), and Sam a mal­lard and but­ter­nut squash sal­ad.  Then my main course was a rab­bit fil­let wrapped around rab­bit liv­ers, in a but­tery bed of car­rots and Savoy cab­bage, lus­cious.  Sam’s main course of skate and brown shrimp arrived very late and was there­fore on the house!  The delay gave him a chance to share my rab­bit, so all was well.  We can most def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend St John: love­ly friend­ly wait­staff and a pret­ty, sim­ple white inte­ri­or.  Sam came home with me for a good long gos­sip and John’s bril­liant slow-roast­ed pork shoul­der with a lemon-gar­lic-rose­mary rub.  Bril­liant!  And thank you as always for the pho­to, Avery.

John’s Slow-Roast­ed Pork Shoulder

(serves at least 8)

1 3‑kilo pork shoul­der, boned, rolled and tied

1 head gar­lic, cloves sep­a­rat­ed and peeled

1/2 lemon, cut in two pieces

5 rose­mary branch­es, just leaves

5 thyme branch­es, just leaves

sea salt and fresh black pep­per, LOTS

olive oil (as nec­es­sary for prop­er con­sis­ten­cy, per­haps 1/4 ‑1/3 cup)

Place all the mari­nade ingre­di­ents in a small food proces­sor and blitz until the lemon pieces are very small and the mix­ture is smooth.  Rub over pork joint.  Place in a foil-lined bak­ing dish and wrap foil around the joint to make as air­tight a tent as you can.  Roast at 300F/180C for five hours.  Uncov­er and roast at 425F/220C for 30 min­utes, then remove from oven and allow to rest for 20 min­utes.  Pour off cook­ing juices, mean­while, and pour through a gravy sep­a­ra­tor into a saucepan.  Whisk a bit of flour and cream into the juices and sim­mer to make a savoury gravy.  Carve pork in thin slices.

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Then, because it pays to have friends in high places, we spent Sun­day in Oxford with our friend Jo who is a bril­liant guide at the incom­pa­ra­ble Bodleian Library.

What could be more inspir­ing for Avery’s uni­ver­si­ty plans than to tour this 17th cen­tu­ry land­mark, where books were orig­i­nal­ly chained to lecterns and every­one stud­ied the­ol­o­gy.  An over­whelm­ing sense of his­to­ry, and of course most impor­tant for me, it’s where Lord Peter Wim­sey filled his head with quotations.

Avery exer­cised her new pas­sion: pho­tog­ra­phy.  She is real­ly gifted.

Gor­geous archi­tec­ture abounded…

You could­n’t look in any direc­tion with­out see­ing some beau­ti­ful detail.

Final­ly of course, the half-term hol­i­day was end­ed and real life reared its ugly head, name­ly at my Lost Prop­er­ty cup­board at school.  What belong­ings HAVEN’T these girls lost?

I labored cheer­ful­ly and came home to carve pump­kins with John and await Avery and her friends for a mut­ed, teenage Hal­loween.  No more cos­tumes or trick-or-treat­ing for them, just a cozy evening togeth­er with piz­za, lots of can­dy and a whole slate of Amer­i­can Hal­loween movies: Char­lie Brown, of course, and Avery’s favorite “Cas­tle” episodes.  I felt a lit­tle melan­choly at being yet again in Eng­land on Hal­loween, where lit­tle dressed-up fig­ures ring­ing the door­bell are few and far between.  Still, it was Halloween.

Today is a typ­i­cal grey, misty Lon­don day, the first since I can remem­ber with no guests, no plans, no par­ties, no expo­sure to pub­lic trans­port, no hol­i­day atmos­phere.  It’s about time, just to be qui­et, to let a kit­ty lie heav­i­ly across my legs, to take stock of our busy lives.

And to try to remem­ber our Parisian hol­i­day!  It was Avery’s birth­day present.  Sun­day dawned with big plans.  Notre Dame!

We went espe­cial­ly on Sun­day morn­ing to hear the Gre­go­ri­an mass, and also the bells.  I can report that the bells sound­ed absolute­ly dire, off-key, rather unpleas­ant and for­get­table.  I was ter­ri­bly dis­ap­point­ed until we saw a dis­play in the church announc­ing their mas­sive and expen­sive plans to over­haul all the bells in the win­ter of this year.  I looked up at the bell tow­er and imag­ined them ren­o­vat­ed, chim­ing out over Paris as they did in Qua­si­mod­o’s day.

From there we crossed the pic­turesque Pont de l’Archeveche, nar­row­est of all the bridges span­ning the Seine, and home to one of the pecu­liar­ly Euro­pean pad­lock-love dis­plays.  Avery just adores these, first seen in Rome, then Venice, then Flo­rence.  Now Paris takes its place in Avery’s visu­al memory.

We hopped into a taxi and sped to the Boule­vard Ras­pail to vis­it the famous biologique, organ­ic, food mar­ket.  We queued for the famous fried pota­to-cheese galettes, well deserv­ing of their reputation!

Hot, savoury and deli­cious, they gave us enough ener­gy to peruse the long mar­ket offer­ing every food­stuff you can imag­ine.  I found it quite intim­i­dat­ing!  But beau­ti­ful and tempting.

I even­tu­al­ly made a deci­sion and bought a joint of fresh­ly-rotis­seried crack­ly pork, plus these toma­toes, a bag of spicy roquette, and two enor­mous artichauts, like exot­ic flow­ers when I pre­pared them!

We reluc­tant­ly (well, I) left the mar­ket and we walked to my beloved Musee Rodin, in whose shab­by and bril­liant archives I camped out for months and months 20 years ago, doing my research.  There we ful­filled a Face­book plan that warmed my heart: I met beau­ti­ful Lind­say, the daugh­ter of my singing teacher in Indi­anapo­lis when I was Avery’s age!

How unbe­liev­able to be with the new gen­er­a­tion, smack in the mid­dle between me and my daugh­ter, and she looks just like her moth­er!  I felt over­whelm­ing­ly nos­tal­gic, for the won­der­ful hours spent singing as Lind­say’s moth­er taught me the ins and outs of tech­nique, 30 years ago.

We toured the gar­dens and the house.  Avery took bril­liant images of the sculp­tures so dear to my heart.

And before you get depressed (as we did) at the peel­ing paint, scarred mar­ble steps and creak­ing floor­boards, I must assure you that the Musee is under­go­ing a mas­sive ren­o­va­tion this win­ter, as well as the Notre Dame bells!  It is an idea whose time has come.  But go now, before they close for their repairs.

We saun­tered out into the sun­shine to find lunch.  Sad­ly our des­ti­na­tion, Cafe Max (anoth­er haunt of my years in Paris) was closed.  So we end­ed up at a rather quixot­ic and bizarre restau­rant, Home in Paris.  A mas­sive buf­fet!  Typ­i­cal brunch items like creamy scram­bled eggs, sausages and bacon, plus salmon and sole en bro­chette, on bar­be­cue sticks, and tiny steak Tartares topped with quail’s eggs!  Grilled aubergines, pep­pers and cour­gettes, fine beans… and hard-boiled eggs stuffed with — are you sit­ting down? — truf­fled may­on­naise!   And the desserts… Avery was in heaven.

“Have you noticed?” I asked.  “Every­one here but us is FRENCH.”  It turns out the restau­rant is quite a des­ti­na­tion for the locals — so sim­ple to bring your moth­er who eats only veg­eta­bles, your child who eats none, your teenage son who eats every­thing and can nev­er get enough!  Lovely.

We stag­gered off down the avenue de la Motte Piquet, walk­ing and walk­ing and walk­ing until we reached…

Noth­ing pre­pares you for the sheer SCALE and mag­nif­i­cent design of the gor­geous Tour Eiffel.

Then we hopped onto a tour bateau and spent a stuffy half-hour inside, drift­ing down the Seine, until we came to our sens­es and stood out­side by the rail.  The Hotel de Ville, the Musee d’Or­say (closed for a strike!), the Jardins des Plantes, all passed by.  We were just hap­py to be together.

Home on feet that could bare­ly func­tion, we were so tired!  And then, Mon­day in Montmartre.

One of only two orig­i­nal Metro sta­tion entrances left in Paris!  But beware: there are over 100 steps up from the train!  Puff­ing and pant­i­ng, we head­ed toward lunch at the cafe made famous by the film “Amelie,” Les Deux Moulins.  Steak tartare, Avery’s beloved croque mon­sieur, feel­ing like total tourists!  Ah well, why not.

And up, up, UP to Sacre Coeur!  Avery’s pho­to, of course.  She has such an eye!

Avery looked through the tele­scope also made famous by Amelie, and we were all unfair­ly annoyed that the Eif­fel Tow­er could not be seen!

I was ter­ri­bly dis­ap­point­ed to find that the famous fruit and veg shop in the film was closed!

I hope this aber­ra­tion was mere­ly a mat­ter of its being a Mon­day?  Still, it was a long uphill walk for a closed shop.

We came home for a brief toes-up and then head­ed out for a bit of last-minute shop­ping, find­ing the per­fect cape for Avery’s win­ter coat.  And collapse!

Final­ly, our last morn­ing in Paris.  I awoke feel­ing rather ill, prob­a­bly the result of too much pate and cheese and total exhaus­tion, and was tempt­ed to slip back into bed and recov­er before our trip home.  “But we real­ly want to see the Oscar Wilde tomb in the Cim­i­tiere de Pere-Lachaise,” John remind­ed me, and we real­ly did.  So off we went, pick­ing up a love­ly lit­tle chyr­san­the­mum plant to give to dear Oscar, and troop­ing game­ly through the ceme­tery in search of our goal.

“Look up ahead!” I said, laugh­ing.  “Would­n’t it be hilar­i­ous if, after all this, that con­struc­tion site were…”

And it was.  Poor Oscar.  Poor us!

We groaned!  “I don’t believe it!  The ONLY grave in the entire ceme­tery under wraps, and it’s Oscar’s.”  Avery left a tra­di­tion­al trib­ute, anyway.

Ah well, at least we found him.  And dear Chopin!

Fred?  Real­ly?  That seems a lit­tle familiar.

We had to admit, then, that it was time to go home.  A quick lunch at our beloved apart­ment (thank you, Kath­leen and Joe!), pack­ing and clean­ing, and to the Eurostar, where I bought sev­er­al bril­liant lit­tle mus­tards in duty-free, Avery milled around the make­up coun­ters, I picked up a Paris Match with the first pho­tographs of the lit­tle Sarkozy daugh­ter, and we came home.

What glo­ri­ous adven­tures.  Over­whelm­ing, real­ly, bring­ing togeth­er mem­o­ries of the past, the joy of show­ing our child a love­ly time, the dra­ma of appre­ci­at­ing one of the world’s great­est cities.  Hap­py Birth­day, Avery!