It was about a month ago that the lights started going up, undeterred by a holiday in the latter part of November to get in the way of the Christmas festivities.
First it was the grand department stores. Dani and I went to gawk at the windows at le Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville (BHV) and later at le Bon Marché.
Around the same time, the lights went up on my street, because of course it wouldn’t be the holidays without the Eiffel Tower.
When my friend (and former husband) Dwain was visiting over Thanksgiving, on a lark we decided to check out the Christmas market at the Tuileries Gardens. So many sausages! So much tartiflette! We did share a sausage, which was delicious! I was a bit scared of the enormous pans of tartiflette, which if I remember correctly involves potatoes, cheese, cream, and bacon, so we didn’t try that.
And Dani and I also went to go see the light displays at the Domaine de Saint-Cloud, which were quite spectacular. We went a few days after the weather turned decidedly cold, so I had gone out to get a wool overcoat and was wearing that along with a wool jacket, a wool sweater, leather gloves, and two pairs of socks. Which pretty much worked to keep me from freezing until got to the very end. 🙂
And a couple weeks ago, I came down to the lobby to find the concierge putting up a Christmas tree, which lent a lovely bit of festiveness.
In other news, there’s a square a few blocks from my apartment called the Place de Catalogne that the city is working on transforming into an “urban forest.” I like to swing by there because there’s a lovely view of the Eiffel Tower (which is much better in person than in the photos, of course), and I also get to see what progress they’re making on the forest. And a week ago I discovered, in what had just been a big mound full of weeds, cranes lifting dormant trees into place. Very exciting!
I’ll be very interested to see next summer how the urban forest turns out!
In the US, a concierge is typically a friendly person at an upscale hotel who will help you get dinner reservations, theater tickets, whatever it is.
The French concept of a concierge is a bit different. In France, the concierge for an apartment building is the person who maintains the common spaces, distributes mail, receives packages, and generally keeps an eye on the place. And they usually have an apartment on the ground floor.
On the day I first got the keys to the apartment, I also met the building’s concierge, Madame Amalia, a small friendly older woman with glasses and blonde hair in curls. She has a key to my apartment (and all the apartments) in case of emergency and also to be able to drop off packages if I’m not here when they arrive.
In the first week, I went out to the back courtyard (which sounds glamorous — it’s not, it’s just a small space with the trash and recycling bins and a few bikes — but I don’t know what else to call it) to take out the recycling. The back door to Madame’s apartment opens onto the courtyard, and hearing me tossing things into the bin, she popped out. “No glass!” It seems that glass for recycling goes into the big bins a block down street, not in the household recycling bins. Good to know!
And then a week or so in, I was cleaning the bathroom and had opened the window to be able to clean the glass on the outside. A few minutes later, my doorbell rang, and I opened the door to find Madame Amalia. She said she had been outside the building and noticed that my bathroom window was open and the light was on. Apparently this struck her as unusual, and so she came up to investigate. I explained that I was cleaning the bathroom, and that was that.
While Madame was at the door, my cat Gertrude poked her head out. “Oh, you have a cat!” Madame’s face broke into a smile. She has a cat herself, she said, and asked if mine was a boy cat or a girl cat and what her name was. As she was leaving, she said she would be happy to look after Gertrude if I’m out of town, and I thanked her very much for the offer. I will likely take her up on it. 🙂
A couple days later, I was on my way out, and in the lobby, I ran into the bartender from Chez Cesar et Paulo, the Portuguese bar across the street that I had gone to a few times. I was unsurprisingly surprised to see him there in my building, but we said bonjour and each went on our merry way.
The next day, the owner of my apartment was in town and came by to take care of some things. I recounted the lobby incident to him, and he said, “Ah yes, he is married to the daughter of Madame la Concierge.” It’s a small world!
Earlier this week, I heard one of the other patrons refer to the bartender as Monsieur Cesar, so that would seem to suggest that he is in fact the owner as well. While I was getting a beer one evening, apparently in reference to the lobby encounter, he also mentioned that Madame la Concierge is his mother-in-law. I asked if he and his wife also live in the building, but he said that no, they live in the suburbs.
So it’s taking a little getting used to not to be quite as anonymous as I’ve always felt in American cities. And I think that might be a good thing.
So two weeks ago, on November 1, I got the keys to my new apartment. So exciting! There were a bunch of keys, but my favorite is this one…
Fortunately it’s for my cave (my storage unit down in the basement) rather than for my apartment. That would be awkward to have to carry around all the time — it’s about six inches long!
So once I had the keys, I needed to actually buy all the stuff I’d been shopping around for. Kitchen stuff — cookware, kitchen utensils, plates, silverware, glasses — along with bedding, stuff for the living room, all the stuff!
Over the next few days, I felt like a bit of a pack animal, heading out on the Metro to stores, buying a bunch of stuff, loading it into my bags, and then toting it all to the new apartment on the Metro. And then hopping back on the Metro to a new set of stores to do it all over again.
And then once I got the stuff, there was the unpacking and figuring out where to stick stuff. And then finally, once I’d gotten all that stuff, bringing my two suitcases and my cat over from the Airbnb. A lot of work, and now that it’s mostly done, I’m feeling comfortable in the new home.
And Gertrude seems to be too…
In between all of that, there’s been art and castles and friends. And exploring the new neighborhood.
One of the fun discoveries has been that this area also has the little pocket produce markets like the neighborhood in the 11th did. They tend to focus on local or organic or “anti-waste” (“anti-gaspi”) produce and other goods. And they’re very cute, even if the carrots are still covered in dirt. Here are a couple…
And then of course there’s a bakery one block from the apartment. This one happens to be Alsatian, specializing in breads and pastries from the region of France right up against the German border. Which means they have things like pretzels and struessels and kugelhopfs, along with all sorts of other more typically French pastries.
And there’s always a line out the door, even in the rain…
This is the kugelhopf I just couldn’t resist a few days ago…
It turned out to be a bread like a brioche, studded with currants and almonds, soaked in syrup, and rolled in sugar. Heavenly!
The last week or so has been really good — and fairly different from when I’ve visited on vacation.
For one thing, since I signed the lease for my apartment, I’ve spent a fair amount of time shopping for stuff to appoint the apartment. I started with the big department stores. Each has two to three buildings with women’s, men’s, household and food sections.
I made it to four of the five. Whew! It was amazing and a little exhausting. I won’t bore you with the housewares and the clothing, but at Le Bon Marché (yes, perhaps ironically for those of you in Seattle), they have a food market called La Grande Épicerie de Paris. Just, wow!
On one floor, they have a huge food market. There is a seafood counter where you can order a dozen oysters or a seafood platter and eat it alongside a glass of wine right there. And then to one side, they have the dairy section. The butter case was eight feet long. At least.
I thought that was amazing. Until I came across the foie gras case. There was an entire case devoted almost entirely to foie gras (along with a few things you might serve with foie gras, like preserved fruits). Which I thought was incredible, until I discovered that the case next to it was also devoted to foie gras. And the case next to that as well. Yes, three refrigerator cases dedicated to foie gras. Here’s just one of them…
Definitely not for everyday shopping, but for that special occasion, it’s good to know I’ve got options!
And of course, there’s been a bunch of art this week, including the Modigliani at the Musee de l’Orangerie with Dani (okay, the photos below are from other stuff at the Orangerie, not the Modigliani), the Paris+ Art Basel art fair, and the Mark Rothko exhibit at the Louis Vuitton Foundation with my new friend Josh. On my vacations, I’ve always gone to see the art, but being able to see several exhibitions in one week, with more in the week to come (Van Gogh at the Musee d’Orsay tomorrow and Viviane Sassen or Gertrude Stein + Pablo Picasso this weekend, or maybe both), is just amazing.
And then there was the Mark Rothko exhibition at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, which I went to with my new friend Josh, whose husband is not a fan of modern art. Simply spectacular. I hadn’t ever really noticed Rothko before, but seeing his work in person and being able to see the progression of his work was really amazing. I’m including a bunch of photos, but like much abstract expressionist art, these are pieces that it makes such a difference to see in person, both for the scale and for the detail.
And of course afterward Josh and I went for aperitif afterward and ended up talking for a good couple hours.
In terms of food, I’ve been focusing on the shops in the neighborhood, buying savoy cabbage, shallots, leeks, cremini mushrooms, celery root, potatoes, and kuri squash (which the French call potimarron, or pumpkin), along with hand-chopped sausage and ham in parslied aspic, and soft-boiled egg in aspic (oeuf en gelee). I had hoped to be able to make a gratin of kuri squash, but the oven in my Airbnb doesn’t seem to work, so I’ve been making soups from the vegetables instead. Can’t wait to get into the new apartment next week!
And then I’ve also been doing some hikes. Earlier this week I hiked the Coulee Verte, which is a trail along an old railway line from the Chateau de Vincennes to the Bastille.
This afternoon I went for a hike in the Domaine national de Saint-Cloud, which lies just southwest of Paris — I took the metro to get there — and which was once upon a time the site of a royal palace, though the palace itself was burned in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War.
So yeah, it’s been a good week, and one that’s been a bit different from when I’ve stayed in Paris before. In a good way!
A few years ago, my friend Przem mentioned that art is such a topic of conversation in Paris that he would talk about the latest art exhibitions with his concierge.
So on Friday, after signing the lease for my new apartment, my new landlord’s mother (who turns out to have been a neuroradiology doctor!), on the way over to the bank so I could do the wire transfer for the deposit and first month’s rent (which didn’t end up happening because, you know, France, we don’t do wire transfers after noon), mentioned that she had been to the current exhibitions of Van Gogh and Modigliani and offered her thoughts on them. So, confirmed, Parisians will talk about art where Americans will talk about the weather.
On Saturday, my friend Dani and I had planned to go see the Viviane Sassen (Dutch art and fashion photographer who grew up in Africa) exhibit at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie. Somehow both of us had missed that it didn’t start until this coming Wednesday.
Not to worry! We quickly narrowed our alternatives to the Van Gogh exhibit at the Musee d’Orsay or the Modigliani exhibit at the Musee de l’Orangerie. We “settled” on the Modigliani.
We decided to get off the Metro a stop early and wander through the Tuilerie Gardens on the way and discovered by happenstance a number of wonderful sculptures that are part of the Art Basel contemporary art exhibition going on this week, including two by Zanele Muholi, a South African non-binary photographer whose work I’d been blown away by at the Seattle Art Museum a few years ago.
So then Dani and I made it to the Orangerie. It’s always so lovely to find those pieces that you really groove on that you weren’t expecting, like these…
Sam Francis “In Lovely Blueness (No 1)”
And then we also loved the pieces by Hermann Nitsch, which seemed to take the Jackson Pollock approach of embracing the materiality of paint, but in a totally different way.
And then we got into the actual Modigliani exhibit, which focused on his friendship with his art dealer, Paul Guillaume. Which was amazing, and I don’t seem to have taken any photos. 😭
And then of course we went back upstairs to see the Monet water lilies, which are on permanent display.
Honestly these are paintings you really have to see in person. There is something about the willow trees and the lilies and the water and the sky reflected in the water that is just so mesmerizing.
So of course Dani and I will have to actually go see the Viviane Sassen exhibit once it actually opens.
And we also both madly want to go to the Agnes Varda retrospective that’s running from now till January, I think. She was a film director from the French Nouvelle Vague (“New Wave”) in the 1960s, very pioneering. I only know her from a lovely documentary from a few years ago called “Visages Villages” (“Faces Places”), and so I’m very keen to see her actual work.
And then there’s a Mark Rothko exhibit that’s opening this week at the Louis Vuitton Foundation that my new friend Josh and I are planning to go to this coming Saturday.
And there’s a Julia Margaret Cameron exhibit at the Musee du Jeu de Paume that I also want to go to. She pioneered a more atmospheric approach to photography with portraits of, among many others, the Alice from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” but also Alfred Lord Tennyson and Charles Darwin.
And in between all of that, there’s the Paris+ Art Basil 2023 exhibition that Dani and I got a taste of on Saturday.
So it’s kind of a good thing I don’t have a job, because I don’t think it would be possible to fit all the art in any other way.
And yeah, there might be just a little bit too much art in Paris.
In an hour I’ll head over to the Pernety neighborhood in the 14th arrondissement to sign the lease on my new apartment. I’m super excited!
The apartment hunt had been going much better in the past week. I was able to get viewings for five apartments in the 10th, 11th, 12th and 14th arrondissements and submitted my rental dossier for all of them.
Tuesday evening I received an offer for one of the apartments I had visited in the 14th, which is the cute, relaxed and friendly neighborhood in the south end of Paris that I had liked so much a week or two ago.
And so Wednesday I accepted the offer. The plan is for me to get the key Nov. 1. Can’t wait!
The apartment is on the 5th floor American (the French call it the 4th floor since the ground floor is zero), and it has the classic 19th century decor with the high ceilings, the moldings and the parquet floor. It has a full kitchen and two bedrooms and gets lots of light from all the windows.
It overlooks a small square with a few restaurants and cafes and is just a short walk from two or three shopping streets with produce markets, wine shops, butchers, cheese shops, fish markets and little restaurants.
So I think it will be a lovely place to live!
And then my friend Sebastian has been visiting the last couple days. We met 25 years or so ago when I was living at the gay commune in southern Oregon. He had just gotten back to Paris from Italy where he was doing a photography residency, and now he’s on his way back home to Asheville, NC. It was wonderful to have a chance to catch up and hang out! We went to an exhibit at the Centre Pompidou called “Over the Rainbow,” which was about queer art and activism over the course of the 20th century. Wonderful stuff!
And then last night I went to the Palais Garnier to see three contemporary dance pieces by Marion Motin, Xie Xin, and Crystal Pite. All were amazing, and the one by Crystal Pite was just mind blowing.
Last week I was freaking out just a little bit about the apartment hunt. I was getting very few responses, and when I did, it was invariably no.
This week has been going a bit better. I’m getting responses, and there seems to be a bit more openness. I had viewings of two lovely apartments in the 14th arrondissement yesterday and today. Which is incidentally where the Republique des Hyper Voisins (the Republic of Super Neighbors) is located. It would be super cool to be able to take part in that!
At the place I visited today, the woman who showed me the apartment, her grandfather had actually built the building and had a sculpture studio there and also served as mayor of the 14th arrondissement. And it was a beautiful building. Amazing history!
Tomorrow I have two viewings scheduled, one in the 10th and one in the 12th, both near the Canal Saint-Martin. And then on Wednesday I have a viewing at an apartment on boulevard Voltaire in the 11th. So I’m hoping that one of them will work out.
Yesterday I walked up to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont and had lunch at a place called Rosa Bonheur, which translates more or less as Pink Happiness, but which is actually named after a French painter from the 19th century. I had brought a sandwich from the bakery near my apartment, thinking that it was okay to bring your own food. It was only at the end of my lunch that I noticed the pink sign in the window that said, “Picnicking forbidden!” But fortunately no one had called me out on it. 😊
Foodwise I’ve been working on cleaning out the fridge. I have finally come to the end of the week of chanterelles, last night with a Frenchish take on the Italian eggs in purgatory, which is eggs poached in a mushroom and tomato sauce, and tonight pork tenderloin in a chanterelle cream sauce and carrots sauteed with leeks.
There are several super cute little hole-in-the-wall produce shops in the neighborhood I’m staying in, and I’ve been just jonesing to go in and buy some stuff. But I’ve been holding off until I finish the stuff I’ve got. Now that I’ve finished off the chanterelles, I just have shallots and carrots and part of a leek. Nothing terribly perishable. So I think I can venture into the local produce shops and get some stuff. Can’t wait!
And then my friend Kyle mentioned he was making chicken liver pate yesterday. So jealous! I’m so looking forward to having a real kitchen to be able to make pates and gratins and tartes and stuff!
So this week has been a lot about the apartment hunt. Chasing down apartments, checking out new areas of Paris, trying to figure out if it might make more sense to buy a place than rent. So, in a word, not super interesting or photogenic.
What’s been keeping me a bit sane, though, has been getting together with new friends. Last night, Dani and I had a lovely dinner at Le Potager du Marais, a vegan restaurant that I suggested since Dani is vegetarian. France can be challenging for vegetarians since restaurants do tend to be meat-forward, although fortunately the French are also very into their cheeses and eggs. The French obsession with dairy products, whether it’s cheese or cream or butter or yogurt, is just mind-blowing. I swear half the supermarket is dedicated to dairy products. I mean, of course, outside the wine section.
Today I went on a VR experience of the Notre Dame Cathedral with my new friends Trish and Denise. Since the fire in 2019, the cathedral has been closed as they work to rebuild it. So through the VR experience, it was very cool to see the neighborhood as it was when the cathedral was first built, hemmed in by half-timbered houses, and then see how they built the wooden structure supporting the roof originally and how they’re restoring it now. Looking forward to seeing the cathedral again IRL when they open it again next year (fingers crossed!).
Afterward, we went to a cafe for a glass or two of wine…
And one of the things that’s been a little rough about the apartment hunt is trying to figure out the lay of the landscape and get my bearings. Do I actually have any shot at renting an apartment, or should I shift my focus to buying a place? I’m so used to figuring this stuff out on my own, and I think this is one of those times when I might actually need to ask for help to figure this shit out.
A few days ago, my Seattle friend Libby shared a New York Times article about a Kehinde Wiley show that was opening in Paris. While she was aboard a fisheries research ship off the coast of Alaska. You may recall Kehinde Wiley as he painted Barack Obama’s official presidential portrait. Later that evening I spotted this.
Because in Paris, they publicize the shit out of art openings. Clearly the universe was sending me a sign.
So a day later, when my new friend Dani from Meetup suggested we check out a museum on Saturday, I lobbed the Kehinde Wiley show, and she was totally up for it.
The show is at the Musee du Quai Branly, which is right next to the Eiffel. So just to prove that I am like really truly actually in Paris, I took this selfie on the way there.
And then this is the entrance to the museum, or at least to the garden that surrounds the museum…
I mean I’ve been to Paris SO many times, and I had no idea about the Musee du Quai Branly. And it’s not like it’s in some remote corner of Paris. It’s freaking right next to the Eiffel Tower! And the building and the garden were really cool. Definitely recommend. Sorry I didn’t take photos of the museum itself and the gardens!
But here’s what I know you were really waiting for, the Kehinde Wiley. These are portraits of current and former presidents of African nations, and okay, they weren’t all floral like some of these, but these were the ones I really grooved on.
And so, why is that I have to come to Paris to see really cool art by an American artist? Actually, a lot of the contemporary art that I’ve seen in Paris is by American artists. Which goes back to the question…
Dani actually lived in Ghana for a couple years and has travelled to other countries on the continent and so was able to give some color commentary on a number of the presidents whose portraits we were looking at, which was awesome. The one in the upper left is the president of Ghana. And he has been president a few times. Each time, he steps down after his term hoping to be able to pass the torch. And then it hasn’t worked out well. And so he steps in again to make things better.
After the museum, Dani and I went to a Pakistani restaurant for lunch. It’s funny, when I’ve been here on vacation, I’ve been pretty militant about trying to eat as much French food as I can in the two weeks I have. But now that I’m here (hopefully) indefinitely, I feel maybe I can branch out a bit.
After lunch, we headed our separate ways. I took a bus to an area down along the southern edge of Paris near the Porte d’Orléans to check out a neighborhood where an apartment I’m interested in is located.
Yesterday I went to an area called the Batignolles to check out the neighborhood for another apartment. I’d never been to either area in all my fifteen visits, and I’d thought I knew Paris pretty well, but apparently not so much.
While I’d wanted to like the Batignolles neighborhood, I mean it had a wonderful food street with produce markets, cheese shops, butchers, fish markets, chocolate shops, etc., I just wasn’t quite feeling it.
But the neighborhood around the Porte d’Orléans was lovely. It had all the lovely food markets, and it also felt relaxed, and friendly.
I mean, just two examples. As I was walking around, there was a guy riding on his bike, and he suddenly skidded and fell over. The kid in the back started bawling (though fortunately had a helmet on). Instantly, without even a thought, all these people on the street started rushing over to do what they could to help. It was so touching.
And then later, when I stopped for a beer, when the server brought it to me, she asked how I was doing. I mean it was just an ordinary “Comment allez-vous?” but it’s not part of the ordinary interaction you usually have. And there was a genuineness in the question. It was very sweet.
So it was lovely today to discover new things about Paris, and to see a side that I hadn’t known about.
The past week has mainly been about The Hunt. For a permanent apartment. Which I won’t bore you too much with.
First there was compiling about 20-some-odd documents, then drafting a cover letter to the real estate agent (in French), then calling a bunch of real estate agents (like, on the phone!) to arrange viewings. Then submitting my letter and documents to the agent. And then one attempt at negotiations with owners through the real estate agent, which ended up falling through. So I’m a little exhausted from all that.
But I did make it back to the Bastille Market yesterday morning. Maybe I shouldn’t say “But…” — it was probably more of a needed respite from The Hunt. I might have gone a little crazy this time, though.
When I was at the market last week, I remember the chanterelle mushrooms looking so beautiful, so yesterday I looked through the stalls until I found some bright yellow ones. And then I got some figs because they were looking so good. And some carrots and green beans and a leek and cheese raviolis and grated parmesan. And then a duck breast and merguez sausage (in the paper wrappers).
So this is going to be the week of duck and chanterelles!!!
So last night I seared the duck breast, sliced it, and served it with a chanterelle-shallot cream sauce and a lovely Beaujolais wine. (I know you can’t really see the duck breast in the photo, but trust me, it’s in there!)
And tonight I boiled up the cheese raviolis and served them with, you guessed it, a chanterelle-shallot cream sauce and the Beaujolais. 🙂
And then a few lunches from the last few days… First up, the classic ham and butter sandwich with some grapes alongside the Canal Saint-Martin, a few blocks from my apartment.
And then a Salade Mediterranee by the Place de la Republique, apparently some riff on a Salade Niçoise.
And finally, my favorite French salad of all. It seems to have a different name in every restaurant, but always involves three types of duck — always the gizzards, and then usually thinly sliced breast and foie gras.
And then tonight for dessert, because I just remembered the figs as I was looking at the photo of this week’s market haul, I’m having figs drizzled with Ricard pastis liqueur and with a scoop of salted caramel ice cream.
A Simple Life in Paris 