heinrich kuhn @ l'orangerie

Today was a very rainy Sunday, so I decided it would be best spent indoors. 

But after loafing around my apartment for most of the morning, I was feeling stir-crazy and needed to get out of the house. So I bundled myself up and headed out to see the Heinrich Kuhn exhibit at the Orangerie; when my mother was here last week, she had stumbled upon it and told me afterwards that she thought I would like it. 

She was right.

 Still Life with Oranges - Heinrich Kuhn, 1905

On the Hillside - Heinrich Kuhn, 1910

His photographs are marvelously beautiful, at least to my eyes.*

 I'd never heard of him before this, but I'm sort of in love now. I even bought the coffee table book of his photographs. It's exactly the type of art I'd love to hang on my own walls. 

Anyway, it was a perfect way to spend a piece of my otherwise soggy Sunday afternoon. 

Happy weekend.

*This shows a bit more.

view from pont alexandre III, 4pm.

Really, today was just stupidly beautiful.

bon voyage, maman!

For my mother's last night in Paris, we decided to go out for Italian food. I know, I know- Italian for a last night in France? But both of us were feeling a little bilious after a week of French food.

L'Altro is one of my favorite Italian restaurant in Paris. The food is simple and delicious and they have an upstairs dining room that allows for great spying on people-watching on the street below. I ordered caccio e peppe and enjoyed my last evening of having my mama in France.

It's always a bit sad to say goodbye at the end of a lovely visit, but a delicious bowl of pasta can work wonders on a despondent spirit.

L'Altro

16 rue Dragon

Paris 75006

portraits of lovers

Some portraits of famous loves from around the interwebs. 

Happy Friday.

Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks

Gertrude Stein & Alice B. Toklas

Zelda & F. Scott Fitzgerald

Wallis Simpson & Edward VIII

Jean-Paul Sartre & Simone de Beauvoir

Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera



Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn



Julia & Paul Child

Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall

Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward

RIchard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor

Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg

Yoko Ono & John Lennon

Angelica Huston & Jack Nicholson

Antonia Fraser & Harold Pinter

John Gregory Dunne & Joan Didion

i heart picnics

My parents came to France a few months ago as part of a wine tasting tour  with a group of friends. Everyone met up in Paris and together we took a bus to Beaune. 

I don't know a lot about wine. I mean, I know I like it, but I am really very ignorant about it. Still, it was an amazing trip and so much fun to visit Burgundy with people who really know a lot about the wines of the region.

We ate a lot of incredible food over the course of the trip, but one of the nicest meals we had as a family was when we decided to pick up a few things from the Saturday farmer's market and have a picnic.

The farmer's market in Beune was incredible. We brought our feast back to the hotel where they set us up on a little patio and we tucked into the spoils: melon, strawberries, cherries, a roasted chicken, dried salami, radishes, bread, cheese and some wonderful Burgundy.

I have always loved picnics. But it's not until recently that I realized you can have picnics anywhere- a field, your house, a hotel courtyard...really, it just means choosing an assortment of delicious foods you don't have to cook and then eating with friends and/or family. Preferably with wine.

Anyway, after a lot of restaurant dining this week with my mother, we decided last night that we'd rather stay in. 

So a dinner picnic in my apartment was the perfect choice. And because I live right off of rue Montorgueil (read this to get an idea of the magnificence) it is the work of mere minutes to pull together a picnic of astounding deliciousness.

We bought radishes, two kinds of cheese, a baguette, rabbit pate, cold whole shrimp, a cucumber and roquette salad, and dark chocolates. After our big (and long!) meal the night before at Chez Dumonet, it was lovely to have a relaxed evening at home.

le dome, revisited

One of my very first posts here, over a year ago, was about the restaurant
Le Dome.

It's one of those venerable old Parisian restaurants, famous for their seafood.

Last night, we went there for dinner.

This time of year is the best for shellfish, which is what I make a point of ordering when I come here. They also have wonderful fish soups. I came here a few years ago with one of my friends who lived just across the street from the restaurant and ordered an appetizer of the soupe de poisson. When you finished your portion, they would shimmer over and refresh your bowl. We were elated- soup refills! I don't even think we ordered main courses; we just gorged ourselves on warm, briny fish soup.

However, this time I was going big and ordering the Plateau de fruits de mer.

You need a lot of implements for the enormous tray they bring.

Oysters, mussels, clams, tiny shrimp, crab, winkles...

See, I told you it was enormous.

And though there were six of us at dinner, my mother and I polished this off pretty much by ourselves.

 

We are like-minded.

For our main course, we ordered the Bouillabaisse Marseillaise, which is for a minimum of two people. They come out with a huge platter of the cooked fish that goes into the soup and show it to you before dousing it in broth and ladling it into your bowls from a large turreen they keep warm on the table.

Bouillabaisse is emphatically not Parisian, but it was delicious, so who cares.

Still, it's the shellfish that have my heart. We are already scheming about how to fit in another oyster fest before my mother leaves on Saturday...

Le Dome
108 boulevard Montparnasse
Paris 75014

change of plans

Well, we meant to go to Fontainebleau yesterday.

But we ended up sleeping in and then breakfasted in a leisurely manner on toast, coffee, and Poilaine pastries while listening to Billie Holiday and didn't make it to the Gare de Lyon until after noon- too late, as it turned out, to catch a train to Fontainebleau. So we bagged the idea and decided to go to Montmartre instead.

We took the metro to Notre Dame de Lorette and then walked up rue de Martyrs. We stopped at Jiga, a darling candy store so Joleen could pick up sweets for her five-year old twins.

Then we went to Rose Bakery to see about some lunch, but there was (as always) a line out the door, and since patience does not run in my family, we left and went for brunch at the Hotel Amour.

Very charming.

After lunch, we started the trek up to Sacre Coeur.

That's my mama, with her little red umbrella.

Even though it was sort of wet and windy, it was still fantastic. The church really is so impressive, poised on top of the hill the way it is. And even though my mother studied in France when she was in college, she had never been to Montmartre before. She was duly impressed.

The area has character. Something cool around every corner.

One of my favorite things is the tiny vineyard on the Rue des Saules, the Clos Montmartre. It's the only remaining vineyard still left within Paris.

Then it was time to go- we'd made reservations to see the Monet exhibit at the Grand Palais. 

It was pretty amazing to see so many of Monet's paintings gathered together in one exhibit. The organization of the pieces was sort of confusing (not by date but by subject...kind of) but so many of the paintings were so breathtaking, that it seems rather small to quibble over the curation of the show.

Some of my very favorites were the series of paintings of the Parliament in London.

For a post-exposition dinner, I had made us reservations at the newly revamped Mini Palais, which is actually inside the Grand Palais. The decor was sleek and the food was delicious (I had a duck burger!), perfect after a long day on our feet. 

Finally, to top it all off, Jolene wanted to see the hotel George V, so after dinner we hopped in a cab and headed over. We sat in their beautiful lounge and listened to the piano. Jolene and I had champagne cocktails and my mother had an armagnac. Yes, it was heavenly.

Such a lovely Sunday. I love having my visitors in town!

Jiga
17, rue de Martyrs
75009 Paris

Hotel Amour
8, rue de Navarin
75009 Paris

Mini Palais
Grand Palais
Avenue Winston Churchill
75008 Paris

George V
31, avenue George V
75008 Paris