LETTER FROM PARIS #30 - not everything is roses.

My reputation as a cranky misanthrope is at stake. I spent years honing my image as a curmudgeon. At least that has always been the perception, and I don’t deny that I dined out on it. But for the past few weeks I seem to have been in a state of thrall. I dance merrily from one joyful experience to the next. Nothing in Paris seems to be wrong.

True, during my first week or so, I oozed some of my usual acidity, but I soon recovered enough equilibrium to see more of the sunny side. But things have taken a turn and I think I’d better get it off my chest right now, before I return to lyric albeit sometimes fulsome praise

The latest shock to my Francophilia came when I tasted what we had brought home from our “favourite” boulangerie. Shirley and I have been doing that most difficult of restraints: trying not to overindulge in treats. Yesterday we threw it all away in one mad, caloric tumble. All we wanted when we went in, was a baguette. We walked out with: two scrumptious looking millefeuilles, two flaky sugary palmiers, a confection slathered in slivered almonds, and a little bag of sugary beignets. Having overeaten at lunch, we limited ourselves to a munch or two of this forbidden pastry instead of dinner. (We are discovering that the French custom of having a larger lunch does indeed lead to much less indulgence at dinner, sometimes to the point of not having any.) Meanwhile, the millefeuille is supposed to flake apart in puff-pastry goodness. It didn’t. The crust was like a graham cracker. The beignets were like ordinary little buns dusted too lightly with sugar and the palmier – my very favourite sugary delight – simply less than ordinary.

What is happening? Are we getting accustomed to excellence and refusing to settle for less? Is the sheen wearing off?

There have been other levels where I have had to give my undying affection a downgrade. I was unforgivably late for a doctor’s appointment at Hopital Saint Louis. I got lost on the Metro. Arriving more than an hour late I found of course, the doctor had left. The best thing I could say about the nurse who dismissed my anguish was that she was haughtily indifferent. Suggested I wait downstairs. If she had checked she would have known that the doctor had not just gone for lunch. He had left for the day.

On the Metro a few days earlier, where politeness seems to overwhelm us, Shirley and I were in a crush to board an almost full car. She, because of her newly bad hip, walking with a cane, was simply crowded off to one side by a young man whose eagerness to board exceeded his concern about this slightly impaired lady. We did get on. I was angry. In French I said: “Did you not see the cane?” He gave me no response. Not a twitch. Not a murmur. He just stared straight ahead.

I gave this a lot of thought/. Should I be getting cranky in Paris? Shouldn’t I also remember the jolly waiter at Brasserie Neil who seemed startled that I was surprised that the label on my demi of red wine said – in Hebrew script – kosher for Passover? I didn’t realize until that moment that the place was packed for a huge brunch and that most of the patrons seemed to be Jewish.

How about that the pretty young woman who, with more than enough smiling patience, kept bringing shoes out for Shirley so she could finally make her decision. The girl could only, and did only – smile.

Maybe I’ll get the idea. Paris is Paris and while it is chic and clever and boisterously French, it can be rude and thoughtless. I think I’m over my cranky spell. And the roses are everywhere, growing with the speed of weeds, arching over the arbours on our boulevard. I can;t stop taking pictures.

This week – Normandy.

LETTERS FROM PARIS #30 please don't tell...

I call it “shopper’s catnip.” I found it expressed on a website about Rue de Commerce:
“A visitor to Paris might never find the Rue de Commerce. It’s in a residential area that’s not particularly remarkable…I stumbled on this shopping area when I was visiting a friend of mine," writes Lisa Anselmo in the "Bonjour Paris" website.’ Putting that on a website is like going on a national television talk show and saying to the host: “I’m going to tell you a secret.”

It’s not snobbery but there is, at least to some people, nothing more delicious than saying “I found this cute little place. No one goes there except the local people.” The same is always said about a restaurant that you “discovered” thanks to a cab driver who of course, never tells anyone else about a place where there are only locals and not a tourist in sight. Of course, it’s a clever fiction.

It was at least six years ago for us. In our pre-exchange days we were staying a tiny hotel near Les Invalides. We strolled around and “discovered” a wonderful restaurant. It looked like nothing from the outside, but inside – three floors of pretty good dining.

I re-discovered Rue de Commerce when I Goggled “commerce” just to find the restaurant. I have stopped reading Fodors and Frommers and Rick Steves. What I find I find. If it is jammed with gawkers, so be it. Café de Commerce is simply a good place to eat on a great little street to stroll. The maitre d' was downright pouty when I said we didn’t need English menus because he said, in French, “I speak both languages.”

We were surrounded by French speakers. Always a good omen for snobs. The lunch which began with a Salade Cesar, never to be mistaken for a Caesar salad, and went on for me with a quite good Grillade accompanied by fries and a pepper saucer. Shirley was not so lucky. She didn’t realize she had once again (she did it at Brasserie Lipp) ordered a pork shank. It is a cut that is usually densely fatted with a small meaty reward underneath. We accompanied it with a more than passable demi of the house Bordeaux. O.K. O.K. I’m “doing” food again. I’ll finish with the check – about 50 euro including a large bottle of fizzy water.

We enjoyed the ambience of the street so much, we’ll go back again. It’s a bit crowded on a Saturday but still everything is quite accessible. There are shops for everything, but nothing is so chic you have to check your makeup and hair before The “Commerce’ Metro stops right in the middle. At one end, according to the website, there is a wonderful Monoprix store that has everything from food to pharmacy. We missed it!

The beauty of it as that the street is it has style witout being piss-elegant, comfortable without being assertive, welcoming without being pushy. So much so that we hit a shoe store that seemed to be having a sale. Shirley bought three pair of quite lovely casual shoes (not for walking) for less that 150 euro! We sat for a while on a bench in Rue de Commerce square, reading our Ebooks and watching the people pass by. I spotted a little store that said “bijou.” We left with an exquisite kind of necklace with a cascade of what seem to be very glittery little beads. (Hey, I’m no jeweler!)

Is Rue de Commerce really enough off the beaten tourist track that you feel a little special? Perhaps. I did not see one person taking pictures - except me.

LETTER FROM PARIS @29 - an Italian treat

No, this is not about an opera. It is about Puglia, a little noted part of Italy east of Naples. It is about a saltimboca made by a female French chef. (Is there a gender spelling change?) It is about asking for alio y olio and having it understood and delivered as huile et ail. And you thought I had promised not to keep writing about food!

I keep harping on: some of the great food you often find in unexpected places. There are no celebrity chefs vying publicly for Michelin stars. There are no well-heeled investors creating gustatory Edens with white gloved serveurs.

This is not to say that there are not also some really bad things to eat. The other evening we went to the little kosher restaurant within Shirley’s bad leg walking distance. We took the plunge. What can go wrong with something on a bagel? Everything if they have no idea what a bagel should be. Luckily we ordered some hummus which was served with freshly toasted a slightly oiled pita. We should have stopped there. I won't bore you with the details, except that a bagel is supposed to have a chewy exterior and hole in the middle.

No, this is about a discovery. An Italian restaurant about two blocks away. It is called “La Divina” which can very easily be a kind of restaurant hubris. But it wasn’t. The host, manager/owner – I don’t know – was born in France, the son of a Sicilian father and a Spanish mother. We chatted about everything. The night before he had entertained a man from Quebec who, he says, owns an alligator farm! He sells the hides and the meat. Go figure. I thought perhaps he was keeping up the chatter to distract me from the food. Not at all. First he presented my with a sumptuous red wine from Puglia. Exquisite. All the high points: nose, finish, legs – all the stuff wine snobs love.

Shirley’s saltimboca was served in a small casserole. It was as good as I have ever tasted. The veal was provimi. The cheese and ham were slightly crisp because it was finished in a broiler. (I didn’t see anything as elegant as a salamander.)
My alio y olio was utterly ravishing with just the right amount of basilio.

You may be in Paris on a “foodie” trip. Or like us, you enjoy good food but you won’t trek halfway across town just for the sake of it. You would have enjoyed it with us as “La Divina” on Rue Bayen on the way to the market.

But the real reason I am “selling” it is that it came in at 77 Euro. including the wine and lavish desserts. Not cheap, but certainly far below the almost 100 Euro for a salad, some fizzy water and d the best rice pudding ever dreamt of at L’Ami Chez Jean. But that was three stars. “Divina” deserves at least one except they don’t hand them out for simply being very good cooking traditional food. It had no glitz. It just tasted great.

LETTER FROM PARIS #28 - the "shrug" and more...

Pierre Trudeau introduced Canadians to “the shrug.” It probably didn’t surprise the Quebecois who traditionally and very Gallicly have expressed themselves with a variety of body movements. I’m not sure the world we inhabit, which still reflects Anglo reserve, has developed anything more than the wink, the nod and the evil middle digit.

The Italians of course, have perhaps the most highly developed and potentially insulting system of hand signals. You have to be careful what you do with your hands or mouth when you are in Italy. They are quick to anger. The Polynesians have their body language like the Maori “hakka” which is supposed to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. In Africa, they signal intent physically. Remember the incredible Zulu dance before the great battle against the British? It was a defining scene in the movie “Zulu.”

Enough of these pergrinations through old customs. I am no sociologist. I apologize for so much stage-setting but I wanted a fitting platform for my analysis of the famous French facial language. Trudeau did it, with his shrug, the slight narrowing of the eyes, and a dismissive puff of air from slightly pursed lips.

Shirley and I spend a lot of time watching the kinds of shows on French TV that we wouldn’t spend a second watching at home. It is part of our way to improve our fluency. (To date, I simply do not understand a word that comes pouring out at speed. Well – a few words.)

Last night on a game show there was a quite lovely female contestant with the biggest repertoire of French facial movement I have ever seen. To begin with, I have no idea what the program is supposed to be doing. I know it gives away a lot of cash and the contestant has to make guesses – none of which require a whit of intelligence that I can see. As she puzzled over her choice of which closed box held the best chance for a win, she gave us everything. The best, and I see it everywhere, is the pursing of the lips, followed immediately by a puffing of the cheeks, a little eye-rolling, and the slow expulsion of the air. (I am actually trying to get it down myself, staring at my image in the mirror while I try to look French.) She was so versatile. She also did the slight pop-pop-popping of the air she blew her cheeks up with.

My late dear friend Sandy was fluent in both the language and facial dramatics. She was best at describing her mother-in-law’s dismissal of everything that was not French. Sandy could do it all: the shrug, the puffing out, and the rolling of the eyes.

It is no wonder that the French have so dominated the arts. They go beyond yelling and gesturing. I am reminded of what is very American (and Canadian.) Ask a question and you get: “uuhm…aah…” to which my favourite Judge Judy always responds: “Um is not a word!”

Non verbal communication has always been something of an art. The French have it -hands doewn, or up, or turned out with the shrug, or whqatever. They are simply so skilled. I am in awe.

letter from paris #27 FAD? CHIC?

My wife and I were sitting in our favourite little-around-the-corner brasserie enjoying lunch. Outside the window were the diehards who, even on an unseaonsably steaming sunny May day, will tolerate the heat just so they can smoke before, during, and after dinner. The French, in spite of the government’s attempts to curb the habit, continue to puff away merrily. At home puffers stand on the sidewalk in front of their offices, and they dine al fresco if possible. But that's Toronto. In Paris - strangely, I don’t mind. Somehow they are, being French, entitled. I wonder though what happened to the lethal non-filtered Gauloise with the wonderfully dark smoke and the deadly, pungent scent.

Today I watched while they puffed. Two youngish men (anything under 50 looks “youngish” to me,) were lunching. One was clean-shaven. The other sporting the almost de rigeur look of a five day growth of beard. I don’t see it around our place at home, but we are in the downtown business district and I suppose the up-and-coming financiers don’t do the “ulta-masculine" unshaven look. In Paris, I see it everywhere. Contestants on TV game shows invariably have that stubble. News readers do not.

Where do fads begin? Where does it start? Was it really Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night” who appeared without an undershirt that led to the downfall of that piece of men’s apparel? Was it John F. Kennedy who appeared hatless who put an end to generations of fedora-wearing. In both those cases the ground-breaking fashion statements were made by celebrities. But the unshaven look? My best guess is that most men shaved every morning until Don Johnson appeared on “Miami Vice” with several days’ growth of beard. Interesting that Gable and Kennedy both went on to great heights. Don Johnson does keep working, but he is less than a marquee celebrity.

His gruff, manly, no-nonsense attitude was exemplified by his flouting the rules. It became chic to go with stubble. Personally, I find it rather silly, and I expect that women, especially in France, where they are two-cheek-kissed regularly, don't enjoy the scratch on their delicate skins. But wait a minute! It is altogether possible that the French men are on to something. Rubbing a bearded cheek against one that is smooth may be a new and exotic kind of foreplay. I have not asked the women of Paris whether it is so or not.

Paris style is Paris style. I especially enjoy the fact that nearly everyone, both men and women, "accesorize" with silk scarves. For many men they long-ago replaced ties. (Another lost or dying fashijn perhaps.)Last year's best-selling book "The Tipping Point" could probably make the point that at some juncture someone picked up the unshaven look and suddenly everyone was watching. Maybe an infusion of Paris is that tipping point. It is still the world’s fashion capital, in spite of New York’s pretension to the title, and Milan’s insistence that they are the trend setters. The five day growth is alive and well in the land of Dior and St. :Laurent and Chanel. Vive la everything!

LETTER FROM PARIS #26 - ever-green

In the name of “green” one of the world’s greatest city streets closed for three days.

The Champs Elysees, all the way from the Tuileries to the Arc De Triomphe closed for Sunday (when we attended,) Monday and Tuesday.

In place of the enormous streams of traffic there were thousands of trees, bushes, flowers, lawns and, because I didn’t “do” the entire length, I’m not sure what other kinds of farm flora and fauna were on display.

If you have trouble with crowds, do not visit “Nature Capitale.” I am no estimator of crowd sizes, but the number was in the hundreds of thousands. For all I know – half a million. It is right up there, perhaps exceeding the Pope on Easter Sunday blessing the crowds in front of St. Peter's, or the mobs that jam Times Square for New Year’s Eve.

What I gather is, it is a celebration of France’s most cherished industry: agriculture. They proclaim “L’agriculture est capitale pour les generations futures.” The event is there not only to celebrate everything that is grown or bred in France, but to encourage youth to become part of it.

I’m not sure if it is, for the hundreds of thousand pushing through crowds, a stimulation to direct their interest toward all forms of farming. husbandry, and forestry. Or were the crowds there to gape and take pictures and share the event. I do know that the French, and the government, take their agricultural and forestry industry very seriously. You only have to look back at how any uprising by farmers can bring the whole country to a stop.

But I wasn’t there for the politics of agronomy, or to see if French youth is really interested. The fact is that it was like the biggest midway you’ve ever seen. I was told by Henri not to miss it. We tired after a couple of hours in the unforgiving sun and tottered back to the shelter of our apartment.

I took only one precaution: knowing how the Champs Elysees teems with tourists who are magnets for the shadier members of the local population, I did not carry a bag. I put a couple of credit cards and some cash into a bag I hang around my neck and hide under my T-shirt. I looked around me but saw no one suspicious. I saw notbeggars or thieves or pickpockets. I heard no police sirens and saw no confusion.
What I did enjoy seeing, in a kind of perverse way, were the crowds at MacDonald's.

Really - what I saw is what I felt – delight, just to be there, pushing and shoving through the crowds.

LETTERS FROM PARIS #24 -..and I'm glad I did.

I promised myself I would not spend time going on and on about restaurants in Paris. Some of my readers complain when I do my personal “reviews.” I am going to break my promise. What I write here will not be in the popular and well-read style of the New York Time Travel section, where the exhaustive and often fulsomely flattering column is followed by “where to eat” and: where to stay.”

It was a Michelin three star explosion of hospitality.I had written earlier that we couldn’ t find Chez L’Ami Jean (I got the name wrong.) We found it and I cannot begin to help you understand why finding it turned out to be a sublime experience.

We began with a bottle of chilled Macon white, the lowest price on the menu at 26 Euro, but extremely good and honey-yellow in colour. It was followed with a “Salade Printemps” a warm spring salad which predictably was full of vegetables. Presented in a modest plate it was redolent with spring: peas, carrots, lima beans, scallions, tomatoes, and an abundance of clever herbs. We enjoyed it thoroughly but only as a prelude. It was what we had come for: the rice pudding. Presented in a large bowl was a snowy-white mixture of rice and I think heavy cream, and sweetening, and flavour even my sophiosticated palate could nlot determine. To add to the rice was a mixture of roasted nuts and a small ramekin of crème fraiche. It is no wonder that Chez L"Ami Jean has three stars. It was packed. We were lucky, without a reservation, to get a table.

Bonus: seated next to us was a very attractive blond woman with her granddaughter. The “granny” elegant and with just enough subdued Florentine gold around her neck and on her wrists, was from New York. Her granddaughter from Boston. They did not look like “jet set,” but they were in London and took the chunnel to Paris just for lunch at this restaurant. She is a former educator heavily involved in theatre. Warm, friendly, forthcoming, and quite natural. I forgave her the conservative array of gold (at more than $1100 an ounce!)

We walked together as far as Rue Universite where she would go to a taxi stand to catch a cab back to Gare du Nord, and thence to London in time for dinner. We proceeded toward what we thought would be a stop at UNESCO, near the Ecole Militaire. We didn’t make it. Hut sun. Fine wine. Rice pudding. We headed home.


One more item: when we arrived at the RER (the Paris commuter train that shares routes with the Metro,) I turned to a young woman in a small boutique in the station and asked: “Which way to track A?” Her response was: “Bonjour” I didn’t get it. I asked again. She smiled sweetly and repeated:“bonjour.” I caught on. I smiled and said “bonjour.” She responded – “en haut” pointing to a flight of stairs. We had some time before our train, so I went back downstairs and apologized for being rude. She was disarmingly sweet; “Ce n'est pas grave.” It’s not serious. She smiled. I smiled. I had forgotten I guess, that you didn’t just hurl a question without first saying “boujour.” Going into a shop you don't simply walk to the rack of clothes and start hammering questions. You being with a polite “bonjour.”

Do you love it, or what?

LETTER FROM PARIS #22 this and that

I am torn between the subject of the Parisian dog, and its exemplary behaviour and the opposite, the less than exemplary behaviour of some Parisians and people everywhere.

My son-in-law has a dog which has totally enraptured him. When he comes home it is almost the first thing he runs to, with cooing and kissing like you have never seen before, except in Paris. Don’t get me wrong: I like dogs. I am not a dog “lover.” There is a difference. The former allows that the animal is an acceptable part of any household provided it is remembered that it is after all, just a dog. The latter does what the “Dog Whisperer” Cesar Millan deplores: elevates the animal to human status and tries to interact with it as if it shared all human emotions. I may be very wrong. While Rick’s treasure, a member of that yappiest of breeds, a Yorkie mixed with Shitzsu, is largely uncontrollable, his counterpart in Paris is an absolute model of decorum. I don’t know what the Parisians do or say to their animals, but it seems to work. A few days ago in that lovely little brasserie behind the apartment we stopped for lunch. Next to us was an elderly woman (look who’s calling someone “elderly”) with her little Yorkshire terrier sitting quietly beside her. It didn’t squirm. It didn’t whine or bark, it didn’t demand \attention. Only when a man who I think the dog knew, came by to pet him, did the little thing b become animated. But there was no out-of-control behaviour. The man left, The dog settled down. It didn’t do what you’d expect: demand to share the food his mistress was putting away. Two days ago on the Metro, another of those breeds sat quietly, completely motionless, under his master’s seat without even enquiring glances at other people. Do the Parisians overdo it? Last year on the Metro a woman was sitting with a I admit, a cute little Jack Russell. A woman sitting across from her stood up and walked over to the dog. After a brief conversation with its owner, she started to caress the dog, even to kiss it. Here in the building where we stay, the concierge has a large dog with light reddish fur (not a chow) that appears to be some kind of Malemute or Samoyed. (I’m no expert on breeds.) The owner says he wins prizes. He lies there without stirring. He doesn’t seem to feel threatened so he does not threaten. Down the street in front of a restaurant is a large black lab that lies there quietly without leaping up to sniff at every passerby. So it’s not I think, that people here don’t anthropomorphize, which confuses the dogs into believing they are people, but somehow they manage to love the animal and at the same time make it understand its true place in the galaxy of living beings. The subject of sidewalk poop is irrelevant.

For the opposite kind of behaviour, the anti-social kind: I am starting to think that there must be a syndrome of some kind attached to the need to decorate. Returning from my piano practice the other day I thought "there must be a Metro station closer than the four block walk I have been taking.” Sure enough, not more than a chip shot from the studio was another “Metropolitan.” I looked up to determine what line it was. The sign showed this: “Ligne heart, Stephanie.” Some young swain had pasted a heart over the number and pasted a well-prepared stick-on label saying the station name was Stephanie. This was a more sophisticated version of the spray-painted love messages some people seem compelled to put on the rock faces of granite along the highways in Muskoka. It leads me to another whole consideration: what is this mania for decoration and self-decoration all about? The mindless decoration of the body by tattooing, and the thoughtless painting called “tagging” that you see everywhere, and of course, not only in Paris. I know, you will be asking would I be tolerant of the ritual body-marking so common among some Africans and among Polynesians.?I have decided (Psychologists beware when I declare that I have "decided”) that only the insecure need to present themselves constantly and to remind themselves and others, that they are people is behind it all.

I say, if you want respect, stop cluttering up our mail boxes and the sides of railcars.

Well, it’s better that than home invasion.

LETTER FROM PARIS #21 - is it intimacy?

Growing up in an essentially reserved, Anglo/Wasp culture one is not accustomed to PDA.* or maybe it’s age, with its failure to tolerate and unwillingness to change. I am looking desperately for the one word (I know it’s there) to describe being conflicted, at sixes-and-sevens, or confused.

I have for years had some difficulty with the level of PDA I see in so many European cities. I haven’t been back to staid and stolid London since it stopped being staid and stolid so I can’t make a judgement. But in Lisbon, in Paris, in Rome in Florence – there seem to be so many people who are not at all disturbed by public eyes. They spend a lot of time hugging and kissing and general body massaging. As I say, I have some trouble with it; trouble partly because of my background, and partly because I can’t reconcile myself to it. I do know that it is very Canadian, when someone sees a lot of public “making out” to call out “Get a room.” Not polite but it camouflages the embarrassment.

So I continue to have trouble understanding, in spite of the slogan is “Paris is for lovers” why so many people in so many public places, take the slogan literally. But today, riding on the metro, I had a “eureka”moment. Sitting a seat near me was a man talking earnestly to a woman whose back was to me. As he talked, he reached for her hand and emphasized what he was saying by seeming to squeeze the hand, all the time looking intently into her face. Then he got up and left. She stayed behind. There is a lot to read into that scenario. The one thing that suddenly occurred to me is that the French, in Paris at least, do not seem to be threatened by intimacy. I am very relieved. It is not me being prudish. It is them being demonstrative. And they are. They kiss when they meet. Lovers (or maybe just “lusters”) engage in various forms of public foreplay. There is a lot of kissing and looking deeply into the eyes and holding hands over a table in a restaurant.

It is much more than what Americans and Canadians refer to as “touchy-feely.” And it is very French. It is not disdain for the decorum of public behaviour. It is natural and easy. When we meet Michele and Henri, Shirley and I both kiss and are kissed (the two-cheek greeting) Henri does hot kiss me, but his handshake is warm, and when he becomes excited I feel his hand reaching to me and touching. The fact is that I do have at least one male friend who always greets me with a kiss. I always kiss my son when we meet. Yet I wonder, especially with the man who is a friend, if people nearby are making judgments about our sexual orientation. But that’s in Canada. In Paris it would not be so.

So perhaps time has let me learn another thing about the Parisian sense of themselves.. They may be, as I have written earlier, conflicted about their lives, their history. their politics, and Muslim women wearing the full veil. They are not, apparently, at all conflicted about intimacy. What they read as natural and desirable, there are still many of my fellow countrymen who think it is promiscuous. I’m not one of them – anymore.

*Public Display of Affection.

LETTER FROM PARIS #20 - an epic castle and apologies.

Somehow the expression “: neat but not gaudy” sticks in my mind as I look at Chateau Chantilly. (I seem to remember Mrs. Feitelbaum in “Dunt Esk”* a book by New York sports writer Milt Gross saying it.) It describes perfectly the quality of this pile of somber stone. When the sun is exactly right, “magic hour” for cinematographers, it takes on a golden quality, its Gothic/Romanesque (is that possible) towers casting long shadow.

If Versailles is Paris and Louis XIV by Disney, then Chantilly is strength and character, by A Renaissance warrior. I don’t know if the comparison works. You’d have to see it for yourself. But referring back to Mrs. Feitelbaum’s description, Versailles has a kind of opulent and obvious gaudiness to it, sometimes to me, bordering on tacky. And yes, the Hall of mirrors is a spectacle not to be missed. Notwithstanding that caveat, there is a real fairy-tale castle look that Chantilly has that Versailles does not. You can see grandeur and pomp, but not so "in your face” as Versailles.

The biggest prize is to wander the galleries, especially when you wander them with a hawk-eyed Henri, who is intolerant of bad art and worshipful of the good. And the good and the great are there at Chantilly, masterpieces from Poisson, Ingres, Van Dyke,Raphael, Delacroix and many more. To my taste, and to Henri’s, they are displayed as art used to be displayed before the 20th century and it’s side-by-side no crowding gallery we have today. The paintings are hung from floor almost to ceiling which is how it always used to be.(and what it is at our apartment) What sets each piece of art apart is its inherent quality and not the gallery’s attempt to isolate it from everything else. We have become accustomed to galleries where almost nothing appears above or below a piece and there is more room than enough between them laterally, so that you walk farther and get tired sooner.

Chantilly is not The Louvre, and there are times I think when the Louvre wishes it were not The Louvre. I say that despite my own personal delight with the one great room housing only huge Rubens works – and not crowded floor to ceiling.

The gardens are very French – all beautiful lawns and exquisite topiary reflected in lake-size pools that glitter in the sunshine. Promenade-like pathways run straight and long. A special place. Even the visitors seemed nicer, or am I getting used to them?

It was above all, for us, a day in the sun (which had not shone in two weeks) with Michele and Henri, two of the most obliging people I have ever known. Henri continues to spew opinions and ideas in rapid French, in spite of my efforts to get him to slow down to my meager comprehension speed. He challenges because he will discuss anything and everything. He is a very skilled and successful industrial designer and his paintings, which I say tend to be representational, although somewhat abstract. He insists they are not that at all but are full of symbolism.

Because he can do tricks with computer-enhancement he made one frameable shot of me bending over a flower at Giverny. I was trying to get a close-up of a flower. Henri processed the picture but added two women, one (originally painted lying down like an Odalisque) he stood up. The other, peeking behind the scene, a young woman by Munch. The result is a picture of me in a reverent position praying to an image that could be Mary Magdalene. The Odalisque tilted so she is standing up with hands together in a kind of beneficent pose. It does not look rigged.

His home (I wish I could figure out “attachments” to this letter), is all interior designed by Henri. Vivid enameled (or maybe acrylic) stripes are scattered about, His own designed lamps, large glass globes fastened inside metal tube circles, nesting tables of steel and glass, and a wonderful tom cat that never comes in the house but wanders stealthily around the property looking for prey and stopping only to meow for food and recognition.

Best are our conversations which are mandatory if you are a Frenchman and you believe in confrontation and controversy. We did politics all the way back to Maurice Thorez and Jacques Duclos, the French communists and their co-existence with the Nazis, until those untrustworthy devils flouted the non-aggression treaty and invaded the Soviet Union so the French Reds had to do a quick and embarrassing about face. We even went back to Leon Blum’s non-intervention Pact which allowed Hitler and Mussolini free rein in their support of Franco’s overthrow of Spanish democracy.

Arguments too about what the Americans call “entitlements’ and Henri’s apparent agreement with Sarkozy that the French have been pampered and must learn to work harder. We even argued about Henry of Navarre (Henry IV) and his greatness and tolerance as king and the failure of his son Louis XIII to emulate his father. Henri didn’t think the inept Louis was Henri’s son. With this kind of elevated controversy, how could I possibly hold my own in a language that still has me stumbling in frustration? I switch to English insisting to Henri that I can handle it better. He allows it but in a few seconds he has returned to his machine-gun French.

But what a day. Every visitor should have a host who is caring, knowledgeable, creative, and challenging. It’s the best way to see a country. Not to mention a delightful al fresco lunch prepared by Michele, with an appetizer of white asparagus and a Bearnaise sauce, followed by roast shoulder of lamb in a scrumptious sauce, with roast tomatoes on the side and an accompaniment of saffron rice. (Real saffron, not tumeric.) Followed by a variety of cheese with crusty baguette, then a dessert of clafouti made with bright tart cherries.The accompaniment was a Chablis to begin and a chateau bottled Bordeaux with our “plat.”

Now the apology. Here goes: in news there has always been a slogan which says (I don’t remember the exact words) “Get it fast. Get it first. Get it right!” In this era of scattergun journalism and sometimes not even the illusion of truth, the most important thing is to get it first. It used to be called a scoop. Do you wonder why every newspaper has a section called “corrections?” The only media member I know that never apologizes for getting it wrong - deliberately – is Fox News. It used to be that the Wall Street Journal editorial page played it fast and loose with fact to make a political point. The editor was a kind of Henry Luce, the fabled owner of Time who brazenly had stories re-written to conform to his political opinions

Here comes my correction and the apology. Oh yes, Henri presented me with a printed and bound copy of all my recent blogs, including Letters from Paris. He asked me to autograph them. I told him about my comment on street unrest and how the police in Paris handled it, compared to the police in Montreal. Having seen two emergency vehicles parked less than 50 metres from where some Korean steel workers were staging a quiet demonstration, and having seen so many shuttered stores, I leaped confidently to the conclusion that everyone was expecting a riot. Henri grinned. “They were closed to take a long weekend. Friday was Ascension.” Pouf. The wind came out of me.

To add to my journalistic misery, two emails (and many more silent protesters I believe) told me that I was wrong about the police behaviour during the street vandalism following the Canadiens beating the Penguins. In fact they did arrest many people. I got my “information” from first and early reports, probably by someone who wanted a headline and wanted to be first. Our own dear Rachel was in Montreal and saw only the joy of hockey fans celebrating their beloved Habitants’ victory.

My foray into reporting was neither neat, not gaudy. Sorry.

*I have searched fruitlesly for a copy of the book. I think a boyhood friend of mine “borrowed” it. I hope he’s happy.

LETTER FROM PARIS #19 - is everybody happy?

Ted Lewis asked the question in song. It was his signature. The urge to have everyone be happy sounds fine in song. Remember Melina Mercouri in “Never on Sunday” and how she wanted everything to have a happy ending? For her, Medea had a happy ending! In Paris, everyone should be happy. Why not? You live and you work and you play in one of the most wonderful environments.

Back to reality. Just as Manhattan is a place where everyone seems to be having fun, or working to become rich, successful and make the A list (as in "If you can make it here you can make it anywhere) there are others, lots of them.. The Manhattan mythology forgets that there are how many(?) – six million or so living on the island of Manhattan and the great majority of them are just working people, working poor, or on public assistance.

Today one of my favourite boulangeries was closed. It's Friday and that’s when the world is out shopping for the weekend. In the Labon market neighbourhood, just around the corner from where we are living – the “Marche” is closed, and the fruit and vegetable stores are closed. I am puzzled at how many of the steel gates that protect the stores are down. Maybe I am missing something. Is there is some kind of holiday? But the other great boulangerie around the corner is open and business in booming.

I remeber walking by a building a few days ago and there was a sign protesting the treatment of Korean steel workers. Today the number of picketers had grown larger. There were even more signs. What sealed it was that there was an ambulance and a pompier vehicle parked close by. They are expecting trouble. The merchants have a choice: stay open for the Friday afternoon business and risk damage if there is a “disturbance, or take no chances and close up.

The French, and the Italian and the British for that matter, make a kind of dark humour about how things slow down or close whenever there is a strike or a demonstration. (Incidentally no one is making jokes about the carnage in Greece.) A few days ago there was a large meeting of people waving signs in a small park in the centre of the city. Immgrants have been protesting about how people seeking refugee status are being treated. Nearby were dozens of police and vans. They are ready.

I wonder how the French police would have handled the inevitable vandalism and looting by “sports fans” after Montreal defeated Pittsburgh. The Montreal cops made, as I read, no arrests! I think the French police would err on the side of caution. The police vans will be full. There might be violence.

Many years ago I was in a taxi on my way to a taping session at a studio in London. Our way was blocked by an enormous parade of protestors from Coventry and I think at least one other Midlands city. It was all about the cutbacks in the auto industry. They needn’t have bothered. That industry died anyway, the victim of its own incompetence. That’s another story. I had to get to the studio and they were blocking us. The cab driver leaned on his horn, defying both thre protestors and the police, barged into the parade. His taxi was whacked by a man carrying a protest sign. The cabbie turned belligerent. He stopped. He was ready to get out and make an issue with several thousand angry auto workers. I dissuaded him, and so did a nearby bobby.

In Europe, parades and demonstrations and work stoppages are part of the scenery. It goes I guess with their idea of justice. I cannot help but wonder how the authorities in Toronto think they can keep the protesters doing their protesting miles from the Convention Centre hosting the G20. It was supposed to be in Bellwoods Park, but the locals there objected so it was moved.

I don’t think that could happen in Paris. Strike, demonstrations, protests – they are all part of the way of life.

So – is everybody happy? Only the tourists --and me.

LETTER FROM PARIS #18 in retrospect

You know you’ve been around by the social references you make, like remembering the once best-selling: “Europe on Five Dollars a Day. Saying: “I remember it “like it was only yesterday” is a trap. And since I promised in the beginning that this could also be a forum for the retired and the soon-to-be, here goes.

Our first trip to Paris was about 30 years ago. We were not especially flushed so we looked for bargain hotels and less expensive dining, and certainly never a limousine-driven guided tour of the Châteaux of the Loire. It turned out that all the ugly rumours about Paris being terribly expensive, were canards circulated by jealous competitors. Or at least that’s what I thought. So I decided I would write a piece about Paris and how you could “do” the city on a budget. Somewhere along the way I lost my way. The “article”turned into a rambling narrative more the length of a novelette than an article. I was borne aloft by the magic of the place and even more, by the idiosyncrasies of the Parisians. (At least that’s how they seemed to me.)

So what follows is a memory of some of what I wrote then, contrasted by what I see today. Time for Paris has passed. Years for me have also passed. Here goes.

There were at least two pages on how I see pedestrians in Paris and how I compare them to other cities I knew. Montreal, where if you stand at a corner waiting for the light to change, people know you’re from Ontario. New York, where people simply barge and scurry across. Even today, with special pedestrian police at the intersections trying to persuade people to wait, they scurry across. But in Paris they jaywalk with a kind of sangfroid, a kind of insouciance, a kind of arrogance. My memory from 30 years ago: we are standing in front of Les Deux Magots (where millions of tourists stand) looking across the street in the general direction of Brasserie Lipp. An elegant women steps off the curb with that oh-so-Parisian air of invincibility. Wham! The next thing I see she is flying in the air. A Mercedes has hit her. She stands up and inspects the torn nylon stocking. She walks toward the car. At the same time the driver emerges. Before he can say anything she belts him one – right in the kisser. Wham! She dusts herself off, and proceeds to finish crossing the road. I felt like applauding. It was street theatre at its best.

I remember too that I was struck with how many cars had dents and scratches. (I don’t see it today.) Having seen the Place de la Concorde and commenting that there was very little “concorde” because driving that traffic circle was a Parisian version of a blood sport. I write that I was astonished at the number of high end car dealerships there were on the Champs Elysees. I wrote that “driving a brand new car in Paris traffic is like wearing an Italian silk suit to do mud wrestling.” (Well, I thought it was clever at the time.”)

The rudeness: I remember commenting that with few exceptions, people, especially service people, were polite and helpful. It was around that time that President de Gaulle had started a campaign to make the city more tourist-friendly and to persuade arrogant waiters to drop their arrogance. It seemed to be working. There was, for us, one notable exception. Remember, I said we were trying to prove you could “do” Paris on a budget. Shirley said “Just once, could we go to someplace a little more elegant. How about Bofinger?” I agreed. We took the Metro to Place de La Bastille. Before hitting Bofinger, I wanted a picture of Shirley standing in front of a statue of someone famous. As she posed. I asked her to step back. A little farther. A little farther. I got the picture, but she had stepped back into a pile of the special gift Parisian dogs have for tourists. Because the French meticulously hose down the streets, there was enough water in the gutter for her to clean up. That was before Jacques Chirac, soon to become mayor (then President) decreed that the law was going to crack down on indifferent dog owners. It seems to have worked. I actually see Parisians doing “stoop and scoop: but not always. There’s a little less poop, but Fido is still king.

Back to Bofinger. It was only lunch so prices can’t be that bad. A tall, haughty-looking waiter handed me a menu. I asked: “What is this “saucisson?”” I knew what a sausage was, but it didn’t look right. The waiter, displaying the disdain that so exemplified French waiters, said “tripe,” and walked away. I made my choice. When he returned I said “Ris de Veau.” He gave me the most patronizing sneer “Veal kidney Monsieur” came out like “You American prick!” I told him I knew what Ris de Veau was but it was too late. Which led my to a conversation with the people sitting next to us, a couple who, it turns out, spoke only French. I asked why there were so many people in France who thought anyone from somewhere else was a barbarian. (In fact, look up the meaning for “barbare.”) They responded very politely and with apparent contrition that it was not that way at all. Then they returned to their enormous lunch treat of a heaping platter of seafood. (Not uncommon in many Paris restaurants.)

We struggled. We loved it. Somewhere I lost the big book of maps I bought from a sidewalk vendor. I overlook having asked for a “grande” when I ordered a beer and being very stubborn, sat there and finished it. It looked like the equivalent of a six pack!

Why, after all this, do we continue to return. It is because of “all this” that we do. We share something undefineable to outsiders, a sometimes preposterous love of the city. It is where flaws become virtues, and the virtuous become seduced.

LETTER FROM PARIS #17 - just a fad? - and more

How long has it been since those cute little aluminum scooters with the very small wheels were all the rage? I remember my grandsons having them, and unless my memory is totally corroded, it was at least ten years ago. I don’t spend a lot of time around local schoolyards, so I have no idea if there are kids still using them. My immediate sense is that they were long ago replaced by skate boards. But, skate boards are noisy and you can do tricks like trying to kill yourself riding along a railing.

I know they’re still being used because, flouting the local law (or at least the condominium law) I hear the unmistakable sounds of them being ridden on the tile plaza in front of our building.

Gone? I thought so. But in Paris they are ubiquitous. Every kid, even the smallest, seems to have one. Adults have them. I see ordinarily dignified young matrons tearing along the sidewalk in them. They are a lot more people-friendly than the skate boards, which seem to part of juvenile mayhem. I know, I’m idealizing, because the kids in Paris are probably no different from the kids in Toronto or Timmins or Calgary. If you have kids or know kids who are still using those scooters, I’d enjoy knowing.

Now, at the risk of bottoming out again with my reflections on tourists – an observation from the sidewalk in front of the restaurant “Petit Chatelet” which is on the quay across from Notre Dame. It has no stars, Michelin or otherwise. What it does have though. Is a menu that seems to scare off potential customers? I do it. Everyone does it. We scan menu in front of restaurants. We pretend that we are checking out the selection. In fact, most of us are checking the prices, often turning away looking for greener (or less green in another sense) fields.

Perhaps the prime visitor destination is the area around Notre Dame and the beginning of Boulevard St. Michel. There are huge restaurants, most of them designed for people-watching. The word “brasserie” seems to be the most attractive. (I always wonder how many people know that “brasserie” means brewery.) The food is usually acceptable and the prices are, by Paris standards, pretty acceptable.

The night before, we went to a heart-stopping performance Chopin. Tonight it was to be Beethoven and Chopin by the same young pianist Jean-Christopher Millot, We stopped for dinner. Everything was jammed, except for Le Petit Chatelet. It seems to be deserted. There were a few people inside and no one on the sidewalk. It was raining, but there was plenty of shelter under a spacious awning. Because part of the pleasure (as with any sidewalk eatery) is people-watching, we sat outside. Our host was a charming man who seemed to be enthusiastic about every choice we made – from the wine, a quite surprisingly good Bordeaux, to the plats, a filet for me and veal for Shirley. I asked if the steak came with frites. He tried not to seem offended when he said “No, only Dauphinoise.” (And one other which I don’t remember.) Both our meals, although they were not Michelin star-worthy, we really very good. But the interesting part was to watch the travelers (notice the avoidance of the other “T” word?”) look behind us and check out the menu, mutter to each other, and depart. I suspect it had to do with the prices, a little bit higher than the crowded brasserie down the street.

I have a travel axiom: if you visit a place that is a “hot” destination – don’t expect bargains. Don’t; plan a trip to Paris (or New York) unless you are prepared to spend money. Besides, it always ruins a vacation where you have spent thousands already paying for air fare and hotel, to start skimping on dinner.

In fact, the entire meal, including the bottle of wine, came to just over 100 Euro. Remember, the price is “service compris” so whatever you add is a nominal amount and only if the service has been especially good. In Paris we find that service is unpredictable. In this case it was quick and cordial. Just yesterday we stopped for brunch at a large café in our arrondissment, called:"Indiana" (is it to make Americans feel at home?) After 15 minutes of being ignored, we went next door to "Del Papa" and had a splendid Italian lunch with impeccable service.

Shirley and I remember George S. Kaufman, whose impatience with waiters was; legendary. (How wonderful those round table get-togethers at the Algonquin must have been – with Kaufman, Benchley, Parker and all the rest of those literary heroes.) I remember Kaufman’s famous obituary for a waiter. On the tombstone was, according to Kaufman, an inscription that read “God finally caught his eye.”

The best was yet to come. Our newfound friend concert; producer Bernard Carrier had
Invited us to be his guests at a concert the preceding night. It was so good we came back again (paying this time) for another wonderful evening with Jean Christophe Millot.

Because I do love music, and love, musicians even more, I was delighted to have a chance to chat with Jean Christophe. Apologizing for my lack of words and hoping I could make myself understood, I gave him my reactions. Because he speaks virtually no English, I had to use French, which is difficult if you want to get into the more abstract. I struggled. He understood. I said (in French) “Last knight was marvelous. Tonight was even better.” He nodded appreciatively. There was no sense that I had appointed myself critic and was making gratuitous comments. “Tonight you were much more confident. Your technique was smooth. You treated Beethoven like the romantic that he was. You; played the three sonatas as if they had been written by, or at least played by Mendelssohn.’ He smiled and bobbed hi head up and down. He told me I was exactly right. He knew it. He knew that he was very tired from traveling the previous night. There was no sense that this young man was at all offended. He may have known that I was standing in the front row calling out “Bravo.”

This week, although I am not usually a big fan of vocal music, we go a concert entitled “Pavarotti.” A young tenor will sing many of the master’s famous arias. After the concert we will take Bernard for dinner and have more conversation about music,

The secret reason is that I have been hunting everywhere for a; place to practice that is close to where we stay. A virtuoso I am not, but when you pay for weekly lessons, it is foolish to allow yourself to get rusty. I am “rusty” enough as it is.

LETTER #16 The French have a word for it.

I turned to the man sitting next to me in the Brasserie Neil and started a conversation. I had just been delivered a huge bowl of Tunisian goodies. Never missing a chance to open a chat I said “Est ce que vous voulez…?” It was just an ice breaker. He gave me the magazine “Pariscope.” He seems to have some involvement with musical events around Paris. Before I knew it he had invited me to a free concert in a small church that is behind Notre Dame. I discovered that it is only one of many free concerts that Parisians can enjoy. He promised to watch for me on Friday.

“Do the French have a word for serendipity,” I asked? He pondered. The closest he came was “ accident” or “chance” But with my limited French I could not begin to tell him that the word meant a special confluence of events and circumstances that offered an opportunity. It was just that kind of chance that let me open a conversation with him and with the woman who sat opposite him, I think she’s a principal with the magazine.

They left making us promise to attend the Friday evening concert. But I was not content. There was a woman sitting alone just behind us. She was ordering a “tarte aux fraises.” I said: “essayez le chocolat.” (which I think was correct.) She responded in English. Turns lout she is an Irish woman, very attractive I should add, who came to Paris years ago and has stayed. She rolled her eyes just a little when she confessed that love had brought her here. I am just guessing that the love didn’t pan out but she stayed anyway. In fact, Shirley, who is good at girl-talk, told me she is divorced.

We chatted at length. We exchanged phone numbers. We shall meet.

All this has a plus: the food. Again, surprises. I ordered “un plat” which was Tunisien. It started with an exquisite deep fried kind of flaky pastry, somewhere between a crepe and puff pastry. Hidden in the middle was a beautifully cooked egg. The waiter told me it was a “brique" (I’m guessing at the spelling, and perhaps I didn’t even hear properly.) It was wonderfully crisp and slightly slick from the oil it had been fried in.

It was worth the trip, a trip that began as a walk to a museum on Boulevard Haussman but was aborted because Shirley’s leg was troubling her. Again – serendipity. If not for her sore hip, we would not have ventured into this restaurant, would not have met the charming couple, would not have opened a friendship with a lady from Ireland, and would not have experienced “la brique.”

The meal itself, that huge portion I offered to share with the man sitting next to me, was a classic North African feast: chick peas, carrots, couscous, and a huge chunk of short rib. Not especially good, but filling. Who cares? We met more people. Every time I remember having been told that the French were reserved I discover otherwise.
Bien – there is indeed no place like Paris.

LETTER FROM PARIS #15 - endless discovery

I never thought I would “enjoy” a head-on meeting with a drunk at noon on a sunny Tuesday. A big man, red hair in a mop, unruly red beard, swinging a bottle of beer and making a threatening move directly at us.. He laughed, waved the bottle, and walked around us. A Senegalese man walking with his little daughter laughed – said he was alright and it was a little early to be drinking. That is Paris at its best, a drunk with a sense of humour and an African Francophone laughing along with him. I know – I’m idealizing.

We were walking back from another “discovery” – the markets on Rue Bayen. Meaning no disrespect for tourists and guide books, this two block long cornucopia of good things to eat, simply doesn’t find itself awash in gawkers – except the two of us.

My favourite, I am still after all - a tourist, has always been Rue Mouffetarde. The guide books place it very high on the list, right up there with Rue Clair. Well my friends, I think Rue Bayen has as much going for it as Rue Clair – except – except that it is not on the Left Bank.

As we walked I commented to Shirley: “If I really wanted to experience Paris; if I was really tired of the “uber-chic” of the Left Bank and the Marais – nothing would suit me better than our area in the 17th Arrondissment." Rue Bayen clinched it with its array of boulangeries, fromageries, poissoneries, and epiceries, plus restaurants of every kind.

I think things got a bit out of hand when I bought six peaches, six plums, a container of fresh strawberries and one of raspberries for the startling price of 29 euros! Maybe I was scammed. But if I was they did it with charm. Recalling the woman writing in the Globe and Mail about a barbecued chicken she bought at Bon Marche for around 25 Euro, I bought a chicken and a half kilo of potatoes Dauphine for just over 13 Euro. Everyone was helpful. Everyone coped with my French.

I’m sure I’m not the first visitor who has stumbled upon places the guide books fail to mention. Several years ago it was serendipity, not Frommer’s that led us to the Church of Ste. Clothilde where Cesar Franck had been the organist, and across the road to UNESCO where there was a stunning if modest sculpture garden with Giacometti and Calder and on the inside murals by Miro. We haven’t been back, but when we were there we were virtually the only ones.

Perhaps what I am trying to explain is that we do not “plan” our itinerary. We do not agonize over travel guides and internet sites trying to be sure we have not missed anything. We are and will continue to be “flanneurs.” We wander. We see what just happens to be there. Like the market on Rue Bayen. Please don’t miss it. In fact, there are enough hotels in the 17uth that you would have no trouble finding a good place to stay. Try it – you’ll like it.

LETTER FROM PARIS #14 finding a friend

Before we left for Paris a relative of mine who had lived here many years ago warned me that the French were very private people so it might be difficult for me to form a friendship. Without any kind of even casual “friendship” I won’t be able to realize one of the reasons for visiting: to improve our fluency, especially for me, in my ability to hear and understand. Boy do I need a French friend. Yes, we already have Henri and Michele, but they live in Chantilly and we see them infrequently.

Today – I may have struck it! The day began cold, cloudy and windy. After nearly three weeks of almost continuous sunshine and early summer temperatures, we were back to reality.

We had planned to do some grocery shopping and on the the way stop for lunch. The little brasserie on Lebon, just out our back door and where we had enjoyed lunch with Henri and Michele, was jammed. We walked less than a block and came to a place with the unpretentious name: “Tibs.” The sign said pizza and a bunch of other stuff. We looked at the menu and chose from among several listed as “gratins” I should have caught on when I saw that Shirley’s order of an “Atlantic” included “substitute de crevettes” which meant that they were not serving real shrimp. We’ve done it again. We have stumbled into a kosher restaurant, not 100 metres from out back door. (If you didn’t know – shellfish of any kind are not kosher.)We do not keep kosher in any way, but here we are, confronted by our heritage.

The bigger surprise was the quality of the food delivered by a young man wearing a “kipah” (or yarmulke). We started with two succulent savouries – one that seemed to be a spicy tapenade but turned out to be egg plant, and another which was creamy with potato – accompanied by lightly toasted pitas. Great beginning. Then came the “gratins.” If you like mac and cheese with the cheese all brown and crusty, you will have loved these. We set to with zest.

During our meal a couple, I think in their late fifties, perhaps early 60s sat right next to us. Because I am determined to strike up a conversation no matter what – I began. “Les gratins sont merveilleux.” He seemed not to respond. His wife, whose back was to us, was totally removed. But when his order arrived it was pizza. I started again to chat. He responded. I told him the usual story about being here for three months and wanting to speak “la langue” better. That was all he needed. I did have to slow him down but we started chatting.

Turns out he is Jewish and wants to know what it is like for Jews in Canada and do we have a problem with Arabs? He went on that life was good, except in certain suburbs. Then wow – we got in way over my head. He wanted social and political and economic news about Canada, about our banks, about our reaction to Obama, and about more stuff than I had even remotely the right words for. He was really patient with me. He spoke slowly, although some of the language required a lot more than speaking slowly.

But I think I have found a friend. Guy Benedic gave me his cell phone number. I gave him my Toronto particulars, in case he came to visit. But he is my kind of guy: vociferous, articulate, questioning and determined. (His wife sat quiescently by through all this.)

I hope he will not be surprised when I phone him, after letting a respectable amount of time go by. I told him he could be my “prof.” He laughed. I’m hoping.

LETTER FROM PARIS #13

Sunday in The Park with Shirley – with apologies to Steven Sondheim.

I can’t hope in just three months to educe from Paris what Adam Gopnik did\in 5 years writing for the New Yorker.

Today at Parc Monceau, and it really could be the most beautiful park in Paris, I remembered Gopnik’s hilarious article about the French and physical fitness. He wrote that he went to a health club to work out. He asked for a towel. They were aghast! They didn’t do towels. Gopnik went on about how the French do not, evidently, perspire. He made a few facetious conclusions about their dedication to fitness.

Adam should have been sitting with Shirley and me today. We do a lot of resting. Seated on a bench we watched “les joggers” stream by, each displaying a different level of perspiration through T-shirts and sweatshirts. I would be very surprised if somewhere there was not a towel waiting.

The park: trees everywhere. Chestnuts in blossom. The usual with the white flowers, the others with a flower as bright as an azalea. Is it a chestnut? The flower has the same shape.

There are relics of ancient times. There is a pond with the weeping g willow and surrounding neo-classical pillars. But somehow it doesn’t look contrived. It is exactly right. I am taking pictures constantly. The foliage, the grassy swards, and the houses, It must be the high rent district. The houses surrounding the park are mansions, perhaps divided into apartment now.

The French have a way of keeping the grass green. It seems that they rotate the areas, leaving some open for picnickers, and others fenced off, then I suppose, opening the fenced areas and fencing the open areas. The grass is very green, very lush.

Two young girls come by, and in English, ask if we want a shot of the two of us. Of course. They’re from North Carolina so we stop and chat about our friend in Charlotte (where she lives) and our cousin in Asheville. We tell them about home exchange. Like most people – they are intrigued.


Shirley, still trudging along with her cane, endures a walk of a little more than a block. We stop at the first restaurant we see: Café de Dumas. We get the surprise of our lives – the food is wonderful. While I’m on the subject: the French, who are nearly all slim, stay that way, they say, because restaurant portions are modest. That’s part of the tradition. Has it changed? Have they joined America (and Canada) in “more is better?” So far we have had some very large, un-French portions. (I look around and it is not because we are tourists. French speakers are getting the same.) First on Rue Mouffetard, we had salads Nicoise that were almost larger than the table. Rachel and I stopped on the sidewalk across from the Church of The Trinity and had more of the same. It was so huge she took a picture! Already told I think - Relais de Venise served second helpings of steak frites. Today was no different. Shirley had a monstrous club sandwich. I had a Greek salad which must have had twenty olives, at least fifteen cubes of feta, three different kinds of lettuce, plus the usual bell peppers, capers, and red onions. Both were good, but the best was yet to come. Shirley had a chocolate fondant and dipped each incredible mouthful in a little ramekin of smooth, rich custard. Mine was a Carpaccio Ananas with a coulis of red fruits. The pineapple was sluiced paper thin and scattered on top were scrumptious currants. It was accompanied by a scoop of sinful coconut ice cream. We are still marveling.

It is not unusual to stumble on something that exceeds expectations. The place does not have any Michelin stars, and is unpretentious, on a corner at 34 Avenue de Villiers not far from Parc Monceau. It was family time. Everyone was French, including two little boys sitting with a very patient mother and occasionally in their excitement, kicking the back of my chair.

The whole thing, finished with a double espresso and a café grand came to just over 60 Euros. A little steep when all we were thinking about was lunch. But for taste, service, and presentation, worth every sou.

LETTER FROM PARIS #12

When I write about the French being “conflicted” I think what I am really trying to say is that they seem to have more national “angst” than most people. There always seems to be some dramatic or critical issue in their lives – something that not only animates them, but divides them into warring factions.

I am here during one of the most profound: the threat to French culture and to French identity and to the French idea of “egalite” – the issue over “La voile entiere” – the total veil. Is the Muslim choice for a woman to be completely veiled a threat to France? On what grounds do the French believe it is a threat to the constitution? On and on and on. Now they are proposing g a series of fines which can grow very large and include one year in jail! Wow.

There is another threat to the French identity, and this should sound familiar to all Canadians: the threat to the culture as the value of the language diminishes. Sarkozy has already complained about “monolingualism” in his reference to the French who are choosing English as their language of “convenience.” The story got more exposure in a New York Times piece: “Pardon My French.”

French is now spoken mostly by people who aren’t French. More than 60 percent of them are African. French speakers are more likely to be Haitians and Canadians, Algerians and Senegalese, immigrants from Africa and Southeast Asia and the Caribbean who have settled in France, bringing their native cultures with them.
Only 65 million of the 200 million who speak French are actually French.

So what, I say. There are far more people speaking Portuguese than the small number of people who are Portuguese. Brazil speaks the language (although someone told me it was not “pure” Portuguese but a mixture which included some Spanish) Angolese and Mozambiquans and Goans speak Portuguese. Why do the French feel so singled out? For heavens’ sake – more than 200 million Americans speak English and many of them are conflicted because of the rising tide of Latinos who insist on speaking Spanish. We are not immune. Quebec continues to fight for language rights. That’s fine. But, like the French, some want an exclusive society, which separates the newcomers to Quebec from those who are “pur laine.”

Here I am in the middle of it all and trying to become fluent in French. Is there someone in Canada right now saying” “He’s a traitor to English because he wants to learn French?”

I guess the only answer is that I love the French and their feisty disapproval of most things not French. We are off today for our first visit (unforgivable) to Parc Monceau. Some people say it is the most beautiful park in Paris. I can hardly wait. I only wish Rachel were still here to enjoy it with us.