I hardly know where to begin with my Paris reports. We ate, and walked, and drank, and took long naps so we could go eat some more. We went to museums and parks and grocery stores and shoe stores. We sat in Notre Dame and listened to polyphony, danced to African pop music in the Place de la Bastille, watched the Montparnasse Tower put on a light show, saw the Eiffel Tower explode in fireworks, and sat in cafes at midnight. We were just in time to see the Friday evening roller blade procession, and tried out perfumes in the Salons du Palais Royal.
And, of course, we ate.
We tried Berthillon ice cream. Salted butter caramel for him, raspberry sorbet for me.
Macarons. So beautiful, yet so fraught with peril for someone with nut allergies. I mostly admired them from afar, but had a few bites of some that Jon taste-tested for me for hazelnut content. I did not need the Epi-pen (whew).
We drank several gallons of Badoit (my favorite mineral water, not available in the States), and did a comparison tasting of the finement and the intensément styles. Conclusion: finement is better with food, but intensément is excellent for a pick-me-up. Now we know.
We checked out the neighborhood patisseries. The one on Rue St. Paul did better croissants, but the one on St. Antoine made these dreamy little quiches. One was, surprisingly, full of pizza sauce. Even more surprisingly, I liked it.
Jon rediscovered flan bars, a favorite of his. He was also thrilled to discover little plastic tubs of sweetened semolina pudding in the Franprix store. The things you learn about people.
And we drank a lot of wine.
More Paris posts to come, but you can check out all of our photos on my Flickr page.
Food on the Brain 
Ooooo… I bet y’all are having some serious reentry issues.
Was that a house Rose’? Loire? and, did you say hi to the ghosts of Gertrude and Alice for me?
No idea about the rose – we asked for a carafe, they brought whatever they had on hand. I know one place had an Alsatian pinot noir rose.
We didn’t make it down to Montparnasse to see the house, but I thought about you and Gertrude.
Hey, you have to admit that the semolina pudding was really good! And in my defense, the stuff I fell in love with as a teen was fresh prepared. The stuff we bought in little plastic tubs just happened to be a lot easier than trying to convince someone we’d never met before to make some for us. It also provided a suitably atavistic response on my part. So there.
The icecream looks fantastic – and salted caramel too… makes me long for gelato con olie e sale (Icecream with olive oil and sea salt) … YUM