a christmas box

Today, I got a Christmas box at work.

The contents of the box are as follows:

• Foie Gras de Canard entier du Perigord (duck liver paté)
• Rilletes de Lapin (shredded rabbit with herbs, salt and duck fat)
• Le Poulet aux queues d'ecrivisses (potted chicken with shrimp tails)
• Le lingot au foie d'oie (goose liver paté)
• Confit aux deux poivrons et paprika doux (marinated red and yellow peppers)
• La Specialite de piperade de canard confit au foie de canard (onions, peppers and tomatoes with duck thigh and liver)
• Pate de canard au foie de canard et aux cepes (duck liver paté with mushrooms)
• La terrine de caille au muscat de beaumes de Venise (quail paté)
• Truffes fantaisie (chocolate truffles)
• Les petites madeleines (madeleines in syrup)
• Chateau Lousteau Vieil 2007

A veritable cornucopia of Christmas delights. As long as you're not a vegetarian, that is.

I wonder how many ducks had to die to make this Christmas box? Not to mention chickens, geese, rabbits and quails. I am not complaining- I love me some foie gras- I just can't imagine how I could even begin to put a dent in the quantity of paté I now have in my larder. Oh, my.

basquiat

Today after work, I walked over to the Musee d'Art Moderne on Avenue President Wilson. It's not too far from my office and since it was actually sunny (!) and not freezing (!!), it was nice to get out and move around. The museum is open until 10pm on Thursdays and right now there's a retrospective on Basquiat.

That's the sign they have up in the metro advertising the show. It's a huge exhibit but it wasn't unbearably crowded, so I got to wander through at a relaxed pace. I eavesdropped on a lecture that was being given to a group of high schoolers by one of their professors for a while and then milled around picking out my favorites paintings.

Jean-Michel Basquiat  Arroz con Pollo (1981)

Jean-Michel Basquiat  Flexible (1984)

I still have to say that Francesco Clemente is my favorite of the neo-Expressionists (and really, one of my favorite artists in any category. To put it plainly, I love him.) but I was so impressed by this show. Seeing the paintings in the flesh made a difference because I could really see the layers of the paintings and it added a whole new dimension and level of complexity that I never would have noticed otherwise.  And to me, that's the best- when you go to a show and are surprised by how much better the art looks in person than in reproduction.

Anyway, a very pleasant post-work treat. Happy Thursday!

yule-tide spirit

Oh, how I wish I could put up my little Christmas tree. It doesn't really feel like Christmas until one has a tree in one's home. This is what mine looked like last year:

But right now it packed in a box, wallowing in dust bunnies under my bed because I'm not spending Christmas in Paris this year. Yes, I could drag it out and assemble it, but I'm afraid it would seem something of a charade- so it seems I'll just have to wait to get my tree fix.

I wish I could get more into the Christmas mood, but mostly I find myself feeling grouchy about the bad weather and resentful that it's keeping me cooped up. It snowed today and it was very pretty until about 5:30pm, when the snow switched to rain and the drifts on the streets and sidewalks turned the consistency of a horrible gray Slurpee. I miss being able to walk around, especially since that's my main only form of exercise, unless you count lifting a heavily laden fork to my mouth.

I guess it's funny that snow doesn't put me in a Christmasy mood, but c'mon- I grew up in San Diego! If you showed me a palm tree right now, I'd probably just die.

shades of gray

In looking over my recent posts, I've noticed that things have become rather gray around here.

I suppose that's partly due to the general atmosphere. Even though December 21st is the first official day of winter, it already feels very wintery here and all of Paris seems to be reflected in shades of gray.





It's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it sort of feels like living inside a Robert Doisneau photograph. And while there's a certain melancholy that comes with the changing of the seasons from fall to winter, it feels fitting that there is a period of quiet and muted colors.





It's funny because even though I took these pictures in color, they seem more true-to-life in black and white.





le croissant du jour

"When you reach for the stars, you may not quite get one, but you won't come up with a handful of mud either."

                                                      -Leo Burnett (1891-1971)

the double scarf

A couple of years ago, Scott Schuman at The Sartorialist put up a picture I really loved, showing a girl who had tied two $5 scarves together to form one big circle-scarf. It showed clever use of simple, inexpensive accessories, and ever since seeing that photograph, I've kept my eye out for cheap scarves in the a neutral shade so I could shamelessly steal borrow this idea for myself.

This week, I finally acheived success.

I was in H&M buying a 9€ men's tuxedo shirt when I saw two lonely gray scarves hanging on a rack by the registers. And at 6€ apiece, the price was just right.

Triumph!

dessert for breakfast

THAT, my friends, is a croissant aux amandes.

A thing of beauty, although this particular example is a little on the smooshed side. It came along for a ride on the metro with me this morning, so it really couldn't be helped.

A croissant aux amandes, in case you were wondering, is an ordinary croissant piped full of of almond cream, then baked and sprinkled with powdered sugar. And almonds, depending on where you buy them. I happen to buy mine from Eric Kayser and they do not have slivered almonds on top, but that's just as well in my opinion. Since a croissant aux amandes begins life as an already butter-filled pastry that is then filled with custard and covered in sugar, I don't really need the extra almonds.

I'm sure they're quite terrible for you and ruinously fattening and all that but, my, are they delicious. And sometimes- like after a long week of work, when the weather is terrible and you really just wanted to stay in bed all day - having dessert for breakfast can brighten the morning considerably.

Eric Kayser*
16 rue des Petits-Carreaux
Paris 75002

*Eric Kayser is a chain and there are about 10 in Paris, but this is the one I go to because it's closest to my apartment.