A whole lotta mussels...

So we were walking down the street, feeling kinda peckish, and keeping an eye out for a lunch spot. Then we come across this guy sitting at a cafe getting down on an order of mussles and fries. Looked way too good to pass up, so of course we dropped in. It turned out to be the special of the day—a heaping order of mussles steamed in white wine, garlic and shallots, accompanied by fried potatoes and your choice of beer or white wine. Johnnie and I went for the mussels and pints o'beer, while Samantha opted for a salad. Twas really good—check out the photo below. Took like an hour to eat all those mussels. I wasn't sure how it would all fit on the table, since the guy next to us was solo and his table was overflowing. But we ponied up and made room, just had to put the used-up shells on an empty chair nearby (in a pot of course). Now to find raw oysters somewhere...

Michael

Three cheers for Picard!

No, I'm not talking about the captain of the Enterprise... I'm talking about the awesome chain of stores in France that sells only FROZEN food! But like, the best frozen food ever. Someone told us that they are located in rich areas, where people know/want good food but are single and/or unable to cook. The stuff from Picard looked high quality (like Trader Joe's, but WAY more choices, like frozen sushi and foie gras and stuff like that) so we decided to try it. We were totally surprised at how good it was. It didn't have that frozen food taste that you always get back in the states. It tasted fresh. And the nice bottle of Burgundy didn't hurt at all. Will try and get undercover pics of the store itself (it's a trip, all white and clean and cold, like a BMW dealer that sells frozen food). For now, here's a photo of dinner. It was grilled chicken and an eggplant confit.

Michael

Technoparade Paris

When it comes to throwing a parade, the French do it like pretty much everybody else—floats, music, and crowds of people lining the parade route. Sounds pretty normal, right? Haha, not this parade. Not Technoparade. I'm talking about huge semi trucks covered in speakers and subwoofers, rolling down the street at 3 miles per hour. DJs and party people on top of each truck getting down with the get-down. And thousands of technopeople dancing, jumping, drinking, and generally acting full-out crazy. And this goes on for miles, and miles—and hours and hours. Seems like love of techno unites the French people, young and old. Check out the videos below...

Michael

Gypsy Jazz is Alive and Well in Paris

While it may be 56 years since the great Django Reinhardt passed away, and over a decade since Stephane Grappelli last graced the earth, the spirit of gypsy jazz music is alive and well in the city of lights. This fact was never more apparent to me that tonight, when we ventured into the Latin Quarter to see Rodolphe Raffalli perform at the Piano Vache. Raffalli is the genuine article, always dressed in an unassuming hunting cap, but armed only with an impossibly-small-soundholed Gitane guitar. While he may not have the dramatic flair—or Gypsy pedigree—of an Angelo Debarre, Raffalli astounded with a mix of technical prowess and mastery of the gypsy jazz style. He and his trio swung from standards like "Minor Swing" and "Caravan" to original tunes of their own, all without breaking stride. It was enough to make you sit back, throw back some red, and imagine it's 1939 all over again. Check out the video(s) below:

Taking the cat for a walk

Not sure if this lady is crazy or maybe it's just a Parisian thing... but that dog she's walking is a cat.


Michael

Effiel Tower: covering all the angles

Every trip to Paris deserves a good Effiel Tower photo (or seven). Here are my favorite ones so far:

Picnic at the tower

The tower gets all lit up after dark

Just happened to have that baguette with us... on the way to a picnic!

Michael

Note: Posts have been edited

Just a quick note, we've edited the posts so now our names have been signed at the end. That way, you all can know who's writing ;-)

Michael

Something always happens...

So if you know me well (this is Michael typing), you may be familiar with my history of travel mishaps and misadventures. You might know about the hurricane I was in (alone), the narrowly missing a flight home from Greece, and the cross-border hitchhike on an 18-wheeler. This time, things were supposed to be different—I'm traveling with Samantha, we stay in actual accomadations, and take our time getting around. So we decided to rent a car for our sidetrip to the Loire Valley. A sensible idea, since there are three traveling and we want to reach out-of-the-way places. So I went online and booked a car for the three days. Wanting to save money, I chose the cheapest option available—a three-door stick-shift hatchback that gets like 100km/gallon. Only one problem: I don't drive stick. (Actually, I owned a manual Civic a few years ago for four days before it got totaled, not my fault and a completely different story.)

Somehow, I figured it would all come back to me, and... it didn't. Here's what happened: After getting the keys, we went across the street where our car was parked. There was a taxi parked behind me, so we needed to back up—except I couldn't figure out how. People were coming by wanting to take our space, but I had to wave them off. And all this in the middle of Paris. Finally, I noticed a car waiting to take our spot, and guess who it was? A driving school car, with the student behind the wheel and the teacher in the passenger seat! I waved him over and explained our problem in English. He got out of his car ( a VW Golf just like ours!) and showed me the tricky way to engage reverse. All was well—almost. I kept stalling over and over trying to leave the parking spot, and finally we broke free and entered mid-day Paris traffic. Right away the GPS led us to one of those traffic circles (%^#$@%!!!) where we went around and around looking for the exit—and almost got smashed between a 911 and another VW. Yikes. Thankfully, we finally made it onto the highway and towards our destination. Five hours and countless traffic circles later I think I've got a handle on French traffic—for now anyway.

Check out the vid below, courtesy of my laughing bro Johnnie.


Michael

Bon Apétit

Yesterday was the much anticipated cooking class that I had signed up for. The menu was as follows:
Tartiflette with an arugula salad with vinaigrette
Magret du Canard with a soubisse, roasted figs and a wine reduction sauce
A cheese course
Crème Brulée and Chocolate Lava Cake...
I had so much fun making this meal and learned quite a bit. Even Michael used the kitchen torch to carmelize the sugar on his crème brulée.

The Tartiflette (scalloped potatoes layered with bacon then topped with cream and cheese and baked) Yes, you will see a pattern of cream and cheese and butter and cream and butter and cheese.... :)
Magret du Canard (Duck breast) with roasted figs, subisse (carmelized onions and aborio rice) and a wine reduction sauce. It sounds really fancy because they use the french names for everything. It was delicious if I don't say so myself.
After the main course we had a cheese course, as you can see. The cheeses ranged from soft and mild to one that had been aged for about 25 years. Michael said it was "a taste of the 80's".
Then, of course, we had dessert. This is my crème brulée. It was a lot of fun using the torch to brown the top. We finished making our meal early so we had time to make another dessert. This is it below.
I'm finishing up my crème brulée so that I can start on my chocolate lava cake! Besides all this lavish food we tasted about 4 wines. Such extravagance can only be justified in Paris :)
-Samantha

Some random interesting pics

Here are some random interesting pics. My brother Johnnie is arriving today from LAX so we should have some exciting adventures to write about in the next few days. For now, check these out...

Sammie and me in the Marais

Sammie looking lovely at the fruit stand

The Princess Bride—in French! There were four people in the theatre, two were us

Donald Dunk truck

Half a building (?!?!?)

Michael

Best drawing ever!

We recently visited the Marais, which is a very eclectic, fashionable, interesting neighborhood. Turns out it's also the traditional Jewish area, but the once-thriving quarter has now dwindled to just a few streets. We had the most amazing falafel ever—will have to go back and take pics.

Came across an interesting art gallery where they had this in the window. Hilarious!


Michael

Smallest car ever!

This has to be the smallest car ever. The pics don't do it justice because the other French cars in the shot are also tiny by comparison to American vehicles. But you could probably fit this in the passenger seat of most SUVs back home. Pretty much a covered moped!



Michael

Been a few days between posts...

We've been taking a break the last few days, mostly staying around the neighborhood. I worked remotely this week, which ended up going quite well. I would get up in the morning, get a croissant, and work until noon. Then we would go out and explore, go the market, etc. In the evening I would resume working until everything was done. Had some late nights this week but that's okay. Gonna make some more blog posts now...

Michael

Everything tastes better in Paris...

...and it's not just because of the wine. At least that's not the only reason. It's seems like food is just fresher here. You buy something at the supermarket or outdoor market and it's ready to be eaten right away. Must be because the french shop more often than we do...

So Samantha made our first home-made dinner a few nights ago. Our kitchen is small, but well-equipped with all the basic necessities. I just have to be careful not to get in the way. If one of us bends down in the kitchen, the other one falls down in the living room! Still, that hasn't stopped Sammie from cooking up a storm. We went to the outdoor market on Saturday and saw all kinds of fresh produce, meat, cheese, and other good stuff (promise to post some market pics in a few days). After walking down many aisles of tempting ingredients, we decided on fresh salmon with sauteed vegetables. The fishmonger chopped us a couple fillets, and we selected veggies from among the vendors. On the way home we picked up a nice bottle of Chateau La Grave Béchade, a dry white from the Côtes de Duras area.

Sammie baked the salmon using nothing more than lemon, olive oil, garlic, pepper and salt. It was truly amazing. The flavor was so... salmon-y. And the wine was a perfect match. For dessert we had fresh figs and two cheeses from the local market. Check it out...

Michael

Nutella

We went to a market a few days ago that sells specialty items, kind of like a french Whole Foods. They had stuff from all over the world. You know you aren't in Kansas anymore when a Chimay ($5 back home) costs the same as a Corona! We also came across this—a huge giant Nutella. It was like 40 euros, and weighed over 15 pounds. You'd have to either make a LOT of crêpes or take a bath in that stuff to justify purchasing a jar that big... Actually, both sound tempting :-0

Michael

This little piggy went to the market...

So yesterday we ventured out with our re-usable grocery bags in hand, heading for the nearby outdoor market. I had been particularly been looking forward to this part of the adventure and I was not disappointed. There were tables set up for each vendor, ranging from meat and seafood to dairy products and fresh flowers (and everything in between). We walked around before committing to a purchase and finally settled on buying some fruit. The vendor was a short and stocky frenchman in his mid-fifties who addressed me as "señora". He was obviously very particular about the way business was conducted at his stall. He wouldn't allow anyone to touch his fruit, though he insisted on giving out samples. We asked for two figs and it was interesting to see him carefully choose them for us. I thought of getting some salmon for dinner and the first thing that struck me after being handed the paper-wrapped filets was that they felt different than the salmon from home.

Samantha

Ramen in Paris? Why not...

In a rather strange turn of events, we deviated from the normal "cuisine français" tonight and went for Japanese instead. There's a street near the Louvre that has tons of noodle shops and sushi joints, so we selected one that had been recommended by our guidebook. It was strange communicating with Japanese people in French... but they made some awesome miso ramen. It's actually printed on the menus and signs as "Lamen." No joke. I guess that makes sense in a strange way... No photos this time :-(

Michael

Holy crêpe!

So it had been a few days, and we still hadn't had any crêpes in Paris. Not that there was a shortage of choices—far from it. There are crêpe stands everywhere, but we wanted our first one to be special. After consulting a reputable blog on the subject, we ventured into the Latin Quarter in search of a certain crêperie. We found it—but there was a stack of pre-made crêpes sitting there waiting to be reheated. Not exactly what we had in mind. We gave up on that recommendation (you really can't trust bloggers), and decided to discover our own place. We came across a small snack stand that didn't seem to have a name, just a line of frenchies waiting for paninis and crêpes. If the place doesn't even have a name, and it's crowded, it must be good.

Our man was making fresh ones on the spot, filled with all sorts of savory (or sweet) goodness, depending on what you wanted. We ordered a jambon et fromage one (ham and cheese). With a flick of his wrist the batter hit the pan, and he deftly crafted a masterful crêpe for us. Sammie told him "Vous etes un artiste!", to which he graciously nodded as if to say "finally someone understands me."


Check out the video below. He was a one-man-gang, simultaneously cooking crêpes and paninis whilest taking money and making change. The results? Delicious. We went back later for dessert (a nutella one!).

Bonjour Paris!!

Warning: This blog entry might be a little cheesy.....but if you're French, just add a little bread, a little wine, and you've got yourself a meal! ....hey, you were warned :)

We arrived in Paris on Wednesday morning and have spent the last couple days soaking it all in. Although I had seen it before, the Tour Eiffel still took my breath away. The Notre Dame is just amazing, and the weather has been nice and chilly with a little rain scattered here and there. There have already been some gastronomical highlights that I would like to mention. First of all, we love AirFrance! Shortly into our flight we were served an aperitif (champagne), then we were served our meal and a bottle of wine, and after the meal they offered a digestif (congnac). It was amazing.

Our neighborhood is perfect for us. It is really close to a metro station and a wine shop, cheese shop, bakery and deli are all within a few minutes walk. It feels very authentic. We have been delighting in the light-as-air croissants....so soft...so buttery.... However, we have been earning our indulgences. We have been doing a lot of walking and more walking and more walking. It really is the best way to see the city though. For example, here are a few pictures from our first long walk. Enjoy.

Samantha