Testing one’s mettle in the City of Light.
I ARRIVED AT THE GARE DE LYON ON THE NIGHT TRAIN FROM Milan at 7:22 a.m. Having treated myself to a first-class sleeper (the best travel money I have ever spent), I was in pretty good shape: well-rested, not wrinkled, and most importantly, not carsick. A porter helped me get my luggage to a locker and by 9:30, I had a hotel room nearby and was ready for my single day in the City of Light when it began to rain. After a long hot bath, it still was pouring but I was not to be daunted. I opened my red umbrella and hit the street, determined for adventure. I was one of the only people in sight but I hurried on, ignoring the water seeping into my red shoes and splashing against my legs.
I walked to the nearby Bastille in search of an interesting restaurant. I was longing for oysters, but more than that I wanted authenticity, a place without tourists where the waiter would not condescendingly address me in English as I struggled to speak my best French. Alas, I had left behind my Food Lover’s Guide to Paris and would have to rely solely on my good instincts, which were a little frayed after nearly three weeks on the road.
I walked for what seemed like hours, and after lingering in a lavish outdoor market a stone’s throw from the Seine, intuition served me well. I settled into a comfortable table in a small wine bar that had simply looked right. Soon, I was sipping champagne and nibbling walnuts while I slowly considered each menu item. If I had but one meal in Paris, I told myself, it would be grand. Three hours later the singularly most indulgent, decadent solo activity I have pursued concluded with a strong cup of café crème. Every minute had been divine.
How could such a simple blend of sugar, butter, eggs, flour, and a touch of lemon unleash the flood of memories that filled those volumes of prose we know as Remembrance of Things Past? For Proust, the memories began one wintry day when his mother sent out for “one of those squat, plump little cakes called petites madeleines which look as though they have been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell.” With his madeleines Proust drank an infusion of tilleul, a tea prepared from the dried blossoms of the linden tree. Proust continued: “I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that had happened to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses.”
—Patricia Wells, The Food Lover’s Guide to France
I followed my flute of champagne with the richest, densest slab of foie gras I have ever tasted, served with sweet butter and a basket of crispy toast and accompanied voluptuously by a 1988 Roumaud Sauternes, a truly rapturous combination. I ate slowly, relishing each bite and reading from a favorite book, Greil Marcus’s In the Fascist Bathroom (known in its American edition as Ranters and Crowd Pleasers). Throughout my travels this tome on punk music is the one book that held up to all of my culinary indulgences. Everything else paled in comparison to what I was eating and drinking but Marcus’s tight, intense essays formed the perfect literary counter-part to my gastronomic adventures, perhaps because he, too, eats with relish and enthusiasm. It helped that I knew that the final piece, a bizarre story called “I Am a Cliché,” had been at least partially inspired by a solo meal he’d had in Paris a few years earlier.
My foie gras was followed by an enormous portion of steak tartare, the most ethereal version I’ve encountered, if indeed you can apply the term ethereal to a mound of chopped raw beef and in my lexicon you can. An accompanying side dish of pommes à l’huile and tiny leaves of mâche in a delicate vinaigrette added both virtue and contrast, while a glass of 1990 Pierredon—a very pleasant Bordeaux—fit like the proverbial glove.
Nearly all French eateries, even the lowliest cafés and bars, offer a cheese course and here there was an interesting selection rarely if ever seen in America. A thick slice of Cantal, a tangy hard cheese from Auvergne garnished with white raisins soaked in Sauternes and a final glass of Bordeaux (St. Estephe Beau Site) alongside, brought the extravaganza to a delightful close.
I ate and read with languorous pleasure, recalling musical moments that resonated with Marcus’s. Seconds after I came across a reference to “Bette Davis Eyes” by Kim Carnes, the song began to play on the wine bar’s radio. The rain stopped, a bit of sun broke through the grey day and I wished the moment could last forever, so complete did life seem there in that tiny dark café.
Following whatever you want to call what I had just done—my indulgence, my feast, my folly—I walked for several hours, not with any particular purpose but simply to absorb through my pores as much of Paris as I could. A well-known destination—the Louvre, say, or the glittering activity of the Champs-Elysées—seemed pointless with such limited time, particularly since my meal had lasted until late in the afternoon. I also knew that I had a hidden agenda—secretly, I was hoping that if I walked enough I might be hungry again before day’s end.
After relaxing briefly in my hotel room, I set out again, this time crossing the Seine and thinking I might walk to Notre Dame. But adventures unfolded quickly and among other things, I found myself assisting an old woman across the street. She had been leaning against the traffic signal in the center of the road, unable to go on. An hour later, I had gotten her to the train station and comfortably situated in a wheelchair, with a porter to escort her onto the train to Lourdes and its healing waters, where she would seek relief from the various afflictions of age. She was from Florida and had made many trips to Europe by herself. As I walked back to the street, I wondered how she made it on her own, if someone like me came to her rescue in other places.
It was now close to 11:00 p.m., and everything was drawing to a close, my day in Paris, my extended European adventures, my energy, and my appetite. I walked purposefully towards my hotel, the sensible thing to do. But across from the Gare de Lyon, seafood restaurants still bustled with the night’s lingering customers. Oysters of every sort and size beckoned from mounds of ice. What the hell, I said, and walked in.
Ten minutes later, I was seated at a window table before a towering platter of ice and oysters, a half bottle of a crisp, flinty Sancerre chilling next to me. I ate the oysters ever so slowly and after the first two, closed my book and looked out onto the Parisian streets. The contrast to my earlier meal was significant. Then everything had been so dark and rich, so nearly sexual in its voluptuousness, that each bite filled me with guilty pleasure. Now, it was all lean and bright and spare and I felt myself growing lighter as I lingered over each oyster. I am sure I glowed with contentment.
The streets were crowded and as I watched the couples in love, the old men, the women walking small dogs, a woman caught my eye. She and a friend stopped and surveyed the scene: me in front of my icy tray of oyster shells, with rosy cheeks and a glass of wine in hand. They gave me an enthusiastic nod, a smile, a thumbs-up salute, and as they walked away I felt as if my whole day had just been blessed.
Michele Anna Jordan is the author of thirteen books about food and wine, including San Francisco Seafood, The New Cook’s Tour of Sonoma, Salt & Pepper, and California Home Cooking. She writes for a variety of national publications and hosts two radio shows on KRCB-FM. She has won numerous awards for both cooking and writing, including a 1997 James Beard Award, and makes her home in Sonoma County.
Paris can be many things for lovers, but for me, it will always be the place where my kid sister fell head-over-heels—for chocolate.
Emily was sweet 17 and I, her guide, was a worldly 24 when we arrived that summer in Paris. The first morning in our little hotel near the Luxembourg Gardens, we woke to a rap-rap-rapping and a voice singsonging “Bonjour.” Emily opened the door and brought in the breakfast tray that I had ordered the night before: a baguette with fruity jam, strong milky café au lait for me, and for Emily, the drink that would change her life. When she lifted the white china bowl to her lips and took her first sip of that steamy, creamy chocolat chaud, she knew that she had found true love.
Emily had tasted hot chocolate before, of course. Even at her tender age, she was well on her way to becoming a confirmed chocoholic. But somehow, in Paris, the chocolate was richer, unexpectedly different, like the gangly boy next door you’ve known all your life, who suddenly catches your eye and he’s become a strikingly handsome man.
Every night, my sister curled up in her bed and talked about her new amour, its smells, its look, its feel in her mouth, shivering with anticipation about her next encounter. She bounded out of bed when she heard the morning tap on our door, scooping her bowl off the tray with both hands. She held it up to her nose to let the warm, moist sweetness circle her face. “Ah,” she sighed. “Chocolate....”
I’ve been back to Paris several times now. I’ve walked with my husband along the Seine. We’ve sipped red wine by night and savored buttery croissants as the morning sun peeked across our bed. Emily is grownup now, too, a sophisticated New Yorker with a husband of her own. But I know she still remembers that tender early love. And as the matchmaker who paired her with that special first amour, I will always remember Paris as the City of Chocolate.
—Carolyn B. Heller, “The City of Chocolate”
