Notes and images from the last day

We finally saw the sun on our last day, and it was quite mild, too. Other than organizing our stuff and packing up, we had two fun events planned for the day. The first was lunch with new friends, JoAnn & Llyod, whom I know through an email group. In the olden days, I guess one would say pen pals! Anyway, we had a lovely lunch with lively conversation at the Bistrot La Bruyère in our 'hood (thanks M and Mme Laidback, if you're reading this.) We started with duck carpaccio and smoked salmon, and moved on to beef confit and daurade, the latter two pictured below. While the beef was supposed to be cooked through (confit) it was a little dried out. Other than that, everything else was very good. And at 2 courses for 19 Euros, it was a good deal. We would absolutely return.

Here's the somewhat blurry selfie we took in front of the restaurant before we went our separate ways.

After lunch, we had no plans until 5:30, so we wandered around our old stomping grounds on Rue Lepic, stopping into Chez Julien for a glass of wine. Eventually, we found ourselves at the "I love you wall" again. This selfie came out better.

We booked the Grands Crus wine tasting at O Chateau at 5:30, where we met up with Tim and Teresa. This was a lot of fun! It's not cheap, but we tasted some wonderful, higher-end wines, had some tasty nibbles including foie gras, and had the pleasure of a knowledgeable AND entertaining sommelier. There were only 11 of us, so plenty of "hands on" including Q&A throughout. A very enjoyable evening. Here's me with Teresa and Tim, clearly captivated by our sommelier.

It was still early so we went over to the Experimental Cocktail Club, which was on all of our lists (or at least it was at the top of Teresa's and mine!). Neat place. It was pretty crowded, considering it was early, so we made it a pretty quick stop. Delicious cocktails. We'd go back on a week night, or earlier, for sure. Next we wandered over to Rue Montorgeuil, which was also decorated for the holidays. We ended the night at a place we chose only for its terrasse called Cafe du Centre. The food was fine, but nothing you'd run back for - and it was all about being outside on a nice evening with wonderful company. Actually, it was so hot on the terrace, we had to ask the waiter to turn off one of the heaters! It was a great way to end our stay in Paris.

 

Always a lot of laughs when we go out with Teresa and Tim.

 

 

It was really an amazing trip - hope you enjoyed coming along! A la prochaine ('til next time.).

 

Awesome trip

We're at the airport, half asleep. I know I've said this before, but I promise I'll do it this time: I'll post a few final pics when I get home since I have a day to relax before heading back to work. Plus it'll be much easier on the PC.

So our last day was another perfect one. More on that after we get back, but here's an iconic Paris shot to hold you over.



Place de la Bastille

Thanksgiving - the aftermath

Happy (and satisfied) Thanksgiving diners:

Tom and I took a walk on the Champs-Élysées after dinner. It's not our favorite place in Paris, but we had to see the Christmas lights.

There's a market, which mostly sells junk made in China, although I'm sure there are some lovely things in some of those stalls. We just weren't in the mood to shop. But strolling along with some vin chaud on a mild night in Paris with people from all over the world (and not too crowded) was a wonderful thing. The American Christmas music made me sad (and not in a good way!) but once you glimpse the Arch de Triomphe or the Place de la Concorde in the distance, you are immediately brought back to Paris.

Thanksgiving - the feast

All ingredients from the market. The sides: roasted purple & fingerling potatoes with shallots, garlic & thyme, roasted mélange of mushrooms, and sautéed spinach with garlic, shallots & lemon zest.

Tim carving the beast:

And the presentation of the main course: pork stuffed with prunes with apricots, carrots, preserved lemon and herbs in a white wine sauce. Everything was delicious!

Thanksgiving - the prep

But we need a Kir Royale break after all that shopping:

"Aerial" view of Teresa and me in the kitchen:

Aren't these the prettiest, funkiest mushrooms you've ever seen?

Thanksgiving - hunting & gathering

The next few posts are all about our day yesterday, broken down since that seems to work best for the temperamental blogger.

So first, we shopped for ingredients at the Bastille market:

Tim and I taking a break to smile for the camera:

And some fish we didn't buy - maybe another day....

Café culture

Sitting at Le Progrès in Le Marais looking through my notes:

And the view from that perch:

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'll post more later - heading out soon to go to the market for Thanksgiving dinner fixins - but we wanted to wish our families and friends a very happy Thanksgiving. Yesterday was a perfect Parisian day: lazy morning, wandering around, outdoor café for people-watching, the Nutcracker at the Opera house (not the one you're thinking of, the "newer" one), and a late dinner with friends. That's a lot to be thankful for! Stay tuned for more....

A little Chicago in Paris

Last night, the four of us went to see a translated and adapted Camus play performed by Chicago's Trap Door Theatre called "Regarding the Just." It was...interesting. I just asked Tom to describe it: "It's as if the revolutionary cell was an interactive rock band." That works for me. Here's some info on it.

Before the play, we had some cocktails and snacks at Le Mary Celeste. A fresh, crisp kale salad with fruits and nuts, boudin noir with foie gras, tongue & grilled cheese sandwich, and tataki - sort of a Japanese version of carpaccio, but better with chili oil, nuts & veggies. The food pictures did not come out well, so here's the cocktail menu. Everything we sampled was great.

After the play, we went to a neat wine bar (I'm working on getting the name) where we shared a very refreshing bottle of Pouilly Fumé. It was a great evening!

And before I forget, we had a lovely late lunch at a neighborhood find called Clairière. 20 Euro for 2 courses: grilled vegetable plate & chèvre salad followed by daurade & steak tartare, washed down with a nice, little 13 Euro Corbières.

By the way, it appears Blogger and iPad work better together with shorter posts and fewer pictures, so apologies for the choppiness.

La Défense

La Défense is home to one of the largest concentrations of office buildings in the Paris metro. It sits in the Western suburbs and building started there in the 50s. According to Wiki, there are 1,500 HQ offices there with 15 of the top 50 in the world.

The tour was fantastic! A real estate geek's dream. We were able to get into one newer building and one older building, which provided a great contrast in style, function and form. Here are just a few of many pictures:

Yesterday I went to work

But don't feel bad. I scored us a personalized tour of La Défense through my company. While it's not on your typical tourist itinerary, given my business, I have always wanted to go there. And since we both love architecture, Tom was more than happy to join in the "work." But before the tour, another colleague had asked to meet with me, so while I did that, Tom wandered.

A familiar sight:

And a not so familiar sight:

Late night dinner after late night at the museum

Since we had a late lunch, we decided to have a late, light(ish) dinner at home. We teamed up to get dinner on the table quickly, but didn't sit down to eat until 10:30! (I hope Wally & Rita are reading this.) Tom is great with action shots of me in the kitchen.

We made an omelette aux fines herbes with truffle cheese (purchased at the Salon Sunday), and an endive salad with blue cheese and lardon vinaigrette (I said light-ISH!!) The eggs were spectacular - and incidentally, the French don't refrigerate their eggs (I hope my sister, Sue, is reading this ;-))

Blogger & iPad don't like each other!

And yes, I know there's an app, but even that doesn't work well. I just lost about an hours' worth of work! I think it doesn't like long posts, so I'll just do a little at a time.

Last night, we had tickets for an 8:30 pm time slot at the Luxembourg museum for a special exhibit. They stay open until 10 on Mondays and wow - highly recommend late night at a museum as we just about had the place to ourselves. The exhibit was about the French art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, and while we had seen many of the paintings before (all Impressionist), there were a few new to us; plus with good exhibits, it's always interesting to see how they group things together and how it's all laid out. No pictures allowed! If you want to see it, it travels to London and Philly after this.

We had a lovely walk there (about 3.5 km) and snapped a couple pictures. We don't know what this building is, but it shows that you don't have to be in the main tourist areas to see how lovely Paris is at night.

That's not to diss touristy places, of course:

Old friends in Paris

Well they're not old - you know what I mean. So seeing Tim & Teresa walking up the Rue Richer was such a treat! We've talked about going to Paris together for years and here we were! The restaurant we planned for lunch, Le Richer, doesn't take reservations and had about a half-hour wait so we went to a bar à vins called Le Sardignac - nice place, nice service, nice wine.

Lunch was excellent. We sat down about 1:40 and didn't leave until just after 4:00. Life is good, really really good. No pictures, if you can believe it, but we enjoyed mackerel, a soft-poached egg in a yummy sauce, steak tartare, a mushroomy, brothy dish with foie gras, daurade, duck, and beef cheeks - and a nice little bottle of Minervois. Great lunch & great company - always a lot of laughs. Anyway, here's their Facebook page since my descriptions didn't do it justice (yummy sauce? Sorry that's all I got!)

Did I mention we slept until 10:30?!?! It was wonderful. Anyway, don't have tons of pics,  but I loved the angle on this view of Gare du Nord (train station which takes you to London, among other places) as we rounded a corner.

And this is the nearby (very near) Rue des Martyrs dressed up for the holidays (stupidly early decorating is not just a U.S. thing):

Wrapping up the first day **

As much as we've done this trip many times, we never know how jet lag will hit us. But generally speaking: no naps, fresh air (no museums for crying out loud), early dinner, and early(ish) to bed work for us - unless......we're in Barcelona (see link to 2013 blog.)

** I'm editing this after the fact because I forgot to mention one of our favorite jet lag activities: a classical music concert. Since it was Sunday, we headed to the American Church for their Atelier series, where we heard a beautiful flute and guitar concert.

 

So here was our dinner tonight: bleu from the Auvergne (but not bleu d'auvergne, seriously - can't remember the name); a tiny bit of pata negra (roughly translated to ham 😉 ); baguette from a ....gasp... not famous boulangerie, but still fantastic; and a lovely persimmon and succulent foie gras courtesy of our kind hosts. Madiran from a cavist open on Sunday (almost worthy of a marriage proposal) completed our first Parisian night.

We made it!

The flight was uneventful, but delayed by almost an hour. The pilot managed to make up most of that so we were only 10 minutes late. Yes!!

So we had bought tickets to the Salon des Saveurs; cheap enough so we wouldn't feel bad if we scrapped it for jet lag purposes. We ended up going, albeit later than we planned. It was packed like most food shows, but we sampled several products and purchased some goodies for our early dinner tonight. Another good reason for going is a lot of shops are closed on Sundays.

OK, heading out for some air, but here's a lovely Parisian scene to kick this trip off:

At the airport

I think I've had an airport post on just about every blog. But no champagne flights at the United Club! But it's hard to complain about comfy chairs and free drinks. We both had TSA-pre-check (which I have most of the time through Global Entry) and I must say it does NOT get old.

So I think we'll try the first selfie of the trip. Here goes. Never mind - didn't work, but the nice woman across from us took it.

4 Days & Counting

By the way, it's not that I hate turkey. But I'm happy having it and all the fixins once a year at Christmas. We've yet to work out the Thanksgiving menu with our friends, but we know it's not turkey. And we know we will be shopping at some of the wonderful Parisian markets, so you know it will be goooood.

Testing out the new iPad

That's right -we just joined the 21st century. Hopefully all the blog stuff works well, but please bear with us if it doesn't.