Le Café D'Amélie Poulain

My first night in Paris, I met Matthias at Starbucks near The Opera. He took me home and I passed out for...well...I don't quite remember how long. My second night in Paris, Matthias took me to Les Caves Populaires, the local wine bar, and I met all of his closest friends. I was still pretty tired and experiencing some language shock when Amélie Beau walked up and french kissed me (you know, once on each cheek...) with a smile and a "ça va?" I couldn't resist the urge to chuckle a little. I still can't resist the urge to refer to her as Amélie Poulain when Matthias is the only one listening.
You see, there is basically only one French movie that Americans know. The title was shortened simply to "Amelie" for the U.S. release but the original was "Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amélie Poulain." I probably don't have to explain any further since it seems like everyone has seen this movie but lets pretend you haven't. So the movie is about a girl named Amélie (quelle surprise!) who works at a little café/tabac (a place where tabacco is sold) in Paris. Today, as my friends and I were walking down my favorite street in Montmartre, they started talking about Amélie Poulain. Our actual friend, Amelie was not with us so I assumed they must be referring to the film. When I gave them a puzzled look, Bélinda said
"The bar of Amélie, c'est en face."
"What!? it's behind where?"

So apparently I've been living like 5 minutes away from the actual café where they filmed Amélie! After perusing les soldes (the sales) we wandered down a few side streets until we found Les 2 Moulins. I was giddily excited and literally could not stop smiling for at least 5 minutes after we had arrived and sat down. To be fair, my French counterparts were pretty into the experience as well. There were some various Amélie related articles hanging behind the counter and on the far wall was a giant movie poster signed by Audrey Tatou, the actress who played Amélie. There were, however, two major discrepancies between the real place and the one in the movie.

1. In the movie, one of Amélie's coworkers is a hypochondriac who runs the tobacco counter at the entrance of the café. The actual café does not have a tobacco counter. They just added that in so the hypochondriac could have a job.
2. In the movie, there is a door in the back of the café that leads to a payphone and toilet. My first instinct was to grab Matthias and force him into the toilet to recreate a rather climatic scene from the film where two characters engage in some loud and earth shattering activities. To my dismay, the door in the back had the word "Cuisine" written on it. So it simply lead to the kitchen. When the door opened I could see in and I realized that there was no room for a real toilet.

With my dreams crushed I ordered a Mocha Menthe and NOT the Crème Brûlée D'Amélie Poulain. Luckily, as we filed out the front door after finishing our drinks, I looked up, and every wrong that had occurred was righted by the sight of our dear friend, Amélie Beau, standing outside with a smile. Nobody else got it (like that time when my plane landed in Australia and Kylie Minogue came on the radio after a short "Welcome to Australia" message) but I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

The Joy of Crème

The first time I tasted French milk I fell in love. You see, back in the states, I've been known to consume a sip of heavy creme here or a few ounces of half and half there. Whenever I'm at a restaurant with those little plastic creamers and jam, I can't resist chugging a few. I don't believe in ingesting any milk product with less fat content than "whole." Matthias refuses to even call that stuff milk. "oh, you mean that white water they drink?" While my desire for luscious fatty cream is simply a preference, for France, it's just the way things are done. You see, the French milk product classification is much simpler than the U.S.'s.

Americans have:
Heavy Whipping Cream (36%)
Whipping Cream (30%-36%)
Table Cream (18%-30%)
Half & Half (10%-18%)
Condensed Milk (7.5%-15%)
Whole Milk (3.25%-5%)
Reduced fat Milk (2%)
Lowfat Milk (1.5%-2%)
Skimmed Milk (0.1%)
Nonfat Milk (0%)

The French have:
Crème (36%)
Demi Écrémé (10%)
Écrémé (2%)

Obviously, we drink the demi écrémé (as most people in France do.) Drinking crème would make you sick and drinking écrémé is only for Parisian models trying to watch their weight. So I basically have half & half all the time. It's awesome. Especially when you get to enjoy it with a great big hunk of your roommate's delicious Charlotte au Chocolat.


Ingredients:
16 servings

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped fine (use good quality chocolate)
3 tablespoons strong espresso
2 teaspoons dark rum
1 teaspoon olive oil
5 large eggs, separated
24 ladyfingers, split (preferably homemade)
1 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons dark rum
2 cups lightly sweetened whipped cream

Directions:
1. In a saucepan or double boiler melt the chocolate with the coffee, 2 tsp. rum, and oil. Stir until smooth; cool.
2. One by one add the yolks to the cold melted chocolate, beating with a wire whisk.
3. In a separate bowl, stiffly beat the whites.
4. Fold the whites into the chocolate.
5. Leave in a cool place to set.

To assemble the cake:
1. Pour the milk and remaining 2 tsp. rum into a bowl.
2.. One by one lightly dip the ladyfingers into the milk/rum and line the bottom and sides of a 8-cup (2 qt) springform pan. (Use 8-inch or 9-inch springform pan).
3. Fill with half the chocolate mousse. Cover with a layer of ladyfingers, then with the remaining mousse. Finish with another layer of ladyfingers.
4. Refrigerate the charlotte for 8 hours or overnight covered in plastic wrap.
5. After unmolding, decorate if desired with swirls of sweetened whipped cream.

Glace Sidewalks

Today is Wednesday which is the day that I go to the Farmer's Market to get our produce for the week. It's in Barbes which is an ethnic neighborhood not too far down the street from our apartment at Place de Clichy. Even though it's been snowing this week, I thought it would be nice to walk. Matthias and I headed out and I soon discovered that there is a substance much more sinister than snow on the streets of Paris. Glace or ice was coating the sidewalks and gutters. I never knew this about myself before this morning, but I have a terrible fear of slipping on ice and cracking my head open. That's all I could picture as we carefully walked along. Luckily, there were work crews out combating the icy streets with handfuls of salt to speed up the melting process. After the initial slipping, falling, dying fear, a new despair started to well up inside of me. Mon Dieu! they are wasting so much French sel de mer!

Lamp Posts

I hate the idea of doing touristy things. I live here, god damn it. I am no tourist. But it was inevitable. I had to walk to the center of Paris eventually. What's there? Well, there's this arch thing

and lamp posts like these

as well as lots and lots and lots of fur. Rich women, young women, old women, and non women (well, you know, men) all draped in layers of soft fuzzy death. I am the first one to complain about the frigid air in Paris during winter but looking around at all the dead animals brought out the Berkeley in me. It's not that cold lady. Wool works too.

Besides all the fur, the best way to describe the Champs Elysees (the main street that ends at The Arc) and the buildings that border it, including the Arc, the Louvre, and a slough of other structures is BIG. While you can barely fit one person on a typical Parisienne sidewalk, the Champe Elysees is wide enough for fifty. I don't think any streets are big enough for more than a single Smart Car on the outskirts of town but here in the center of things the streets are literally so wide that they just stop having designated lanes. It looks more like an IKEA parking lot than a thoroughfare. It's obvious that this area is meant to be impressive. I guess I was impressed by the crazy scale of things but it also left me wondering...is France trying to overcompensate for something?

My Paris

I've been creating a customized map of Paris for myself on google maps. I have posted a link to the right and will be updating it from time to time so check it out if you'd like to see the places that comprise my Paris.

Versailles

Back in high school I was cast as Louis XIV in “The Three Musketeers.” That was at the height of my French class obsession and I was really mad that I didn’t get to actually speak any French as the King of France. Needless to say, since that play I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for the guy. He liked ridiculous gold gilded stuff, spending way too much time and money on his over the top wardrobe, and getting lots of portraits painted of himself. I can relate. You can’t really be into Louis XIV without being kind of into Versailles. It’s the physical embodiment of Louis’ love of garishly lavish French excess. I spent a brief portion of my life being mildy obsessed with Marie Antoinette as well. My desire to watch the Sophia Coppola film was largely influenced by the fact that it was actually filmed at/in Versailles. So today as I walked through the hall of mirrors (gallerie des glaces) I couldn’t help but think “that lucky bitch.” Kirsten Dunst, that is. She got to hang out at Versialles and film a movie there. That whole cast and crew had an all access pass to this amazing Chateau.

Unlike me. I was crammed into the place with thousands of Japanese/Italian/Australian/American tourists(the Italians were the rudest, just sayin'.) I could barely see where I was going, the majority of the castle was roped off and of the rooms you could enter, ¾ of the room itself was inaccessible. I know, I know, it was my own fault for going on the Saturday after New Year’s. I had initially decided to combat my impatient tendencies and hold off visiting Versailles until the weather got nicer. Much of the splendor is found our in the vast gardens and I wanted to enjoy a nice summer picnic next the bubbling fountains instead of freezing to death next to a frozen pond. But I had an excuse for going today. On our way back from Amsterdam I noticed a poster in the train station that wasn’t at any of the metros I had stopped at. It simply read “JEFF KOONS VERSAILLES.” Today was the last day of the show which I only found out about a week ago so it was now or never and I figured that if I was going to see Versailles at some point anyways, I might as well see it with some artwork that I had never witnessed in person thrown in the mix. I’m not the biggest Jeff Koons freak but when I saw those words together it just made too much sense to me. A contemporary pop artist, Koons was one of those guys that came up in my art classes at UC all the time. A lot of people loved to hate him, while others were hardcore fans. The artist’s esthetic is somewhere along the lines of garish kitsch. I think Louis XIV would have been a big fan. Apparently, so did some guys who have started a program to bring contemporary art into Versailles.

Matthias had never heard of Koons but was interested so he showed me the way to the Chateau, just beyond the western edge of Paris. There was no extra entrance fee to enter (just the regular 13.50euros which allows you access to one section of the castle only.) So I purchased deux billets and we were on our way. The pieces were scattered throughout the majority up the upper level rooms. These included ballrooms, the hall of mirrors, and the king and queens bedrooms. It was really creepy how well a few of the pieces seemed to fit into the scenery. In fact, in the queen’s bedroom, amongst the yards and yards of thick floral brocade and white fleathery plumes I couldn’t quite figure out where the Koons piece was, or if there was one at all. Then I spotted the vase:

And as we walked past the giant topiary “split rocker” I had a hard time imagining the space without it.

Although a bit more obvious, another one of my favorites was this inflatable lobster, hanging opposite an opulent crystal chandelier in a long ballroom.

I don't think many people were there for the Koons show and it was interesting to overhear the conversations regarding the work. There wasn't a whole lot of explanantion offered to the visitors as to why these strange objects were there. I'm really glad we got this chance to see the work and the place in the context of one another. I'm also looking forward to a less crowded, and warmer second trip in June.

p.s. I stole all of these images from google. I didn't think my camera would meet a very warm reception so I left it at home but next time I'll make sure to bring it along as even flash photography is permitted everywhere on the grounds.

The King(s) of New Year's Eve.

Le Galette Des Rois

Yesterday was Bon Annee or as my roommate Belinda likes to call it “Appy New Years!” Matthias’ friends decided to put together a dinner party for the occasion. It was a French dinner party, which meant a traditional five-course meal. My roommate bought an Appy New Years dress and Matthias tried to warn me about just how intense these events can get. I am paraphrasing, but it was something along the lines of: “We are going to eat for like four or five hours. We are going to eat a lot of food and drink a lot of Champagne. And then we are going to eat more.” I wasn’t all that worried except for the fact that I was going to be the only vegetarian in attendance. Like many other places, In France, vegetarianism can mean a lot of different things. Some French people say “Je suis vegetarien.” because they do not eat red meat. Fois Gras (the liver of ducks that have been force fed to death) is still fair play. Others believe that being a vegetarian simply means no land animals. They still feast on Christmas oysters without a flinch. I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian. If it has a nervous system, I say “Non, merci.” That means I still have the joy of lapping up thick creamy French milk and slathering kilos of salty French butter on my baguettes. I also enjoy the occasional orange hued French egg and I couldn’t pass a single day without…the cheese!

A few nights before the dinner party, the women who were hosting came by my apartment for a visit and the discussion of being a vegetarian in France came up. That’s when I realized that they thought I was the fruits de mer (seafood) eating kind. Woops! I always feel bad about imposing on people with my special dietary needs and now I had imposed and confused and imposed again. C’est la vie. Luckily the hostesses didn’t seem to mind accommodating for me even further and interestingly enough, brought up the topic of onions in French cuisine. Apparently, one of their friends has an onion allergy and they seemed to be even more perplexed about the idea of preparing a French meal with no onions than about making a few dishes sans le meat. The party ended up being fantastic and the food went a little something like this:

As people were filtering in we drank a fruity spiked punch and nibbled on olives that Belinda and I had picked up earlier in the morning at our favorite marche (farmer’s market.) When I say “we nibbled” I mean, “I devoured.” There were several varieties all mixed in but I was mostly aiming for the basilique flavored ones. Yum.
After taking our places around the table we were served square puff pastries filled with sun-dried tomatoes and melted cheese. When I asked what to call it they told me it was "un briquet" or a brick….but I promise it was much more appetizing than the name implies. Our bricks were accompanied by salad with homemade vinaigrette (to further prove Matthias’ point that I mentioned earlier…nobody buys vinaigrette in France except for stupid Americans.)
White wine flowed like the Seine and my neighbor informed me that it was quite good. I thanked him for telling me because as I admitted to him, I don’t have very good taste in wine so it honestly helped to know.
Next up was the fish course. It was some thin sliced salmon on baguette rounds with a crème fraiche, I believe. I did not partake in the salmon but I was offered a second brick, which I declined in order to save room for…well, cheese.
After the fish came the meat accompanied by the red wine. There was a lovely dish of curried beef and rice. This may not sound very French but Paris is quite culturally diverse and full of really good ethnic cuisine so this wasn’t too out of the ordinary. I had a special bowl of curry reserved for me that was separated before the beef was added. It was delicious and I had coincidentally been craving curry all day.
The fourth course consisted of a platter of huge hunks of three different cheeses. Roquefort, which after putting in my mouth I exclaimed “this is the blue-est blue cheese I’ve ever tasted” comte, and some other creamy goo which I generously slopped onto a ripped off hunk of fresh baguette. I could have entire meals of French cheese. In fact, I often do. A lot of French meals also end with a cheese course. Even Matthias and I do this on a nightly basis with our frugal meal budget. We eat sliced cheese with jam (I’m obsessed with rhubarb which I generally only get a few times a year back in the States when my grandma prepares me my own special bowl and France is overflowing with rhubarb products, including my favorite jam) or honey and a yogurt because as Matthias says “It’s good for your tummy.”
This was not the end however. We still had dessert left! There were three delectable pastries to be had. One was kind of like a small dense muffin with a creamy center of nutella spread. The next was a canele, which is a small, looks like a bundt cake and has a custardy interior. Canele traditionally come from Matthias’ hometown of Bordeaux. He had mentioned them to me before but this was my first time tasting them and they were one of the best baked-goods I’ve ever put into my mouth. The last dessert was the galette des rois, or the King Cake. My roommate had been slaving over two of these all afternoon so luckily I had been filled in already on the history. The galette des rois is a special pastry served around the Epiphany (though in modern France, it is widely available and consumed from the Christmas season throughout January.) It is filled with an almond sugar paste and a small porcelain statue called a feve is baked into it. When the galette is served, the youngest person at the table chooses who gets the first slice. After each person is served, everyone digs in, hoping to find the feve in his or her slice. The person who does find the feve is named king (or queen) and gets to wear a paper crown for the remainder of the evening and has to choose their partner. Belinda announced beforehand that since we are very modern the person who found the feve could choose a partner of the same or opposing sex. I got chosen by the youngest person to receive the first slice of cake but unfortunately someone else got the feve. Since there were two galettes, we actually had two feves to find but nobody could get through their first pieces and the second galette was sliced but not consumed. Being somewhat influenced by the copious amounts of wine, I decided to search for the second feve without consuming and underhandedly stole the title of the second king.


These are the origami crowns that I made for the kings.


One of the feves (next to the tiny vanilla extract bottle.)

Midnight was nearly upon us and the Champagne bottles were opened and consumed. It was a bit strange to count down without the aid of a television set or large illuminated dropping ball but the fact that in France you get to kiss each person twice (once on each cheek) had its own sort of charm.

*please excuse the terribly unphotoshopped images.