60,000 Mile Ticket Moves to Frenchophile.com

Dear Reader,

I’m excited to announce that this blog has moved to a bigger, better site that celebrates all things French. At the new Frenchophile.com I’ll be posting about French culture, travel, food, wine, people, fashion, books and much more. I hope you’ll join us tout de suite!

~Darla

Hotel or Apartment? Paris vacation apartment laws may scare you

In just four short months I will be flying to Paris to spend June in the City of Lights.  This year, I’ll bring my teenage daughter Anna for ten days followed by ten days with NoLo E-hub (no longer estranged husband.)  Last summer when I left Paris, I had planned to rent the gorgeous apartment on St. Louis en L’isle—light streamed through the large windows opened onto the street while hard wood floors and high ceilings provided historic character.  Located in the heart of Paris—the location was ideal.  And our landlords, next door, attended to all the little issues that arose like the refrigerator door that wouldn’t close and the internet code that didn’t work.  I vowed to rent the apartment again this summer.

But since then I’ve had second thoughts.  Paris is making it more difficult for tourists renting apartments in the city—Paris officials want these apartments available for Parisians to rent year round.  According to an article in The New York Times, to legally offer short-term rentals, owners would need to have their residential properties reclassified as commercial sites, a complicated process that involves finding a commercial property in the same neighborhood that can be transformed into residential use.

“It isn’t difficult; it is impossible,” said Fabrice Luzu, a notary who has helped many international clients invest in city real estate. “The owner must apply for a special permit and there is very little chance he would obtain it.”
Without such a permit, any apartment classified as residential in a French city of more than 200,000 must be offered with a minimum one-year lease. The law, passed in 2005, has some exceptions for student housing.

I’m looking for a low stress answer to my Paris vacation and becoming entangled in the Paris apartment rental laws is not in the picture for me.  After investigating hotels on the Ile Saint Louis I found what seems to be a perfect match.  And the bonus of staying in a hotel is air conditioning, an elevator, car service from the airport and complimentary breakfast.

So as much as I’ll miss my Paris pied a terre, I’m looking forward to my pampered month in Paris at a hotel.

Every Day is Valentine’s Day in Paris

Padlock on Pont des Arts

NoLo and I were taking a cruise on the Seine, admiring the architecture along the banks when we came to the Pont des Arts and our guide pointed out hundreds of padlocks on the bridge. Lovers carve their initials on the padlocks and attach them to the side of the bridge, throwing the key in the Seine. Romantic! (The skeptic in me wondered, if you break up do you have a spare key to take down the lock or do you scratch out the old initials?)

Lovers on a Park Bench

Paris is synonymous with romance. The architectural beauty of the city, the park benches, the gardens and museums all inspire the mood for love. As I walked through the Jardin du Luxembourg one Sunday afternoon I passed lovers on a park bench passionately necking. How cute, I thought, a young couple in love—but as I approached I saw that these were not amorous youngsters but a gray-haired couple.

Rodin's The Kiss

Passion is unleashed in Paris’s museums where couples gaze dreamily at the cherubic paintings and nude sculptures. At the Rodin Museum, the sensuality and erotic nature of sculptures like The Lovers or The Kiss inspire imitators. (For an encore, watch the story of Rodin’s torrid love affair with Camille Claudel sold on DVD in the gift shop. Spoiler alert—downer ending.)

Of course, a fabulous meal with wine is romantic—and easy to come by in Paris. Sitting at a café along the Seine listening to an accordion player is romantic. A picnic in Les Tuileries is romantic. But to me the most romantic thing to do in Paris is to walk somewhere, anywhere, holding NoLo’s hand.

Pepe Le Pew

We were standing on Pont Marie, called the Lovers’ Bridge–legend has it that if you kiss under the Pont Marie and wish for eternal love, your wish will come true. As we stand watching the boats float by, two lovers walked up and swoon in an embrace. Not to be outdone, in a scene reminiscent of the corny romantic endeavors of Pepe Le Pew, NoLo swept me backwards into an embrace. We almost fell down. Then we laughed until we couldn’t catch our breath.

After all, what isn’t romantic in Paris? (okay, maybe the Catacombs, graveyards or sewer tours?)

Petit Fours Part II

I’ve frozen the cake as the chef on the video instructed. Now he tells us to take the cake from the freezer and “roll” off the brown crust. Ha! There is nothing rolling off the cake. The crust is stuck so I’m going to cut and frost the cakes, crust and all.

cutting the edges off the cake

First I cut the edges off the cake using a level as a guide. For some reason my family doesn’t own a yardstick, just a measuring tape with a cow’s head on it, so I use a level. After I cut the edges off, I cut the cakes, always cutting in front of the level.

The handy level

I place the square on a wire rack for frosting per the video instructions suspended over a baking pan to catch drips.

placing squares on a rack

Voila!

Now I make the frosting:
Petit Four Frosting Ingredients
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
• Food coloring (optional)

How to Make Petit Four Frosting
1. Add all ingredients except for the confectioner’s sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Boil without stirring until the mixture reaches 226 degrees and is the consistency of a thin syrup.
3. Remove from heat and cool to 100 degrees (slightly warmer than lukewarm).
4. Sift confectioner’s sugar over the syrup a little at a time, stirring to thoroughly combine after each addition.
5. The icing will have reached the proper consistency when it is just thick enough to coat a spoon.
6. Tint with food coloring, if desired
7. Use while warm; if it gets too thick, reheat in a double boiler until thin enough to pour.

The recipe says to cool the syrup to 100 degrees before adding sugar.

syrup

I cooled it until it was barely warm and even then I had to add twice the amount of confectioners sugar before it turned white and the right consistency.

fondant

Surprise! The hardest part of all is to ice the petit fours with the fondant (frosting.) You spoon the icing over the cakes completely coating them and letting the extra frosting drip down to a tray below. It’s harder than it sounds.
1. Pour the frosting over the cakes, moving slowly over each row, allowing the frosting to drip down the sides of the cakes.
2. You can scrape up the icing that accumulates in the pan, reheating it in a double boiler so that you can reuse it.

Frosted cakes

Allow frosted cakes to sit until they are dry, then remove the cakes from the rack, trimming any excess frosting away from the bottoms with a sharp knife. After the frosting dries, you can add a little holiday decoration—I added an impressionist sprig of holly.

Happy holidays!

Sweets of Paris

Mes Amis,

In just six months I return to Paris. In honor of this great city, I am making petit fours this holiday season to share with my cookie exchange friends. Each year for the past 15 years we have exchanged cookies during the holidays.

Full Disclosure: I have never made petit fours before. Actually, I have never made a cake from scratch before. But I’m up for the challenge and excited to bake these elegant little cakes. The recipe says you can used pound cake purchased from the store but that seems like cheating . Afterall, how hard can it be?

Professional petit fours

I found a recipe online.
• Petit Four Ingredients
o 2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
o 1 cup sugar
o 2 cups flour
o 2 teaspoons baking powder
o 1/2 cup milk
o 5 tablespoons melted butter
o Butter and flour for pan
• How to Make Petit Four Cakes
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Butter and flour a jelly roll pan.
3. Beat the eggs, yolks, and sugar until light and fluffy. This should take about 10 minutes with an electric mixer.
4. Sift the flour and baking powder over the egg mixture.
5. Add the milk.
6. Fold the flour and milk into the egg mixture gently.
7. Add the melted butter and combine until well blended.
8. Spread the batter in the pan, and bake for 12-15 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
9. Turn the cake out onto a cutting board, and cool completely.
10. Cut the cake into squares, rectangles or triangles.

OK first I assemble my ingredients.

My ingredients are neatly assembled

I start beating the eggs, yolks and sugar for ten minutes but the phone rings, it’s my friend Anne and when I pick up the phone I have an accident and drop the blender on the floor. I wash it off and now have lost track of time.

Blender on the floor, quelle disaster!

So I start over timing the blender ten minutes until the batter is “light and fluffy.” I’m not sure what light and fluffy looks like but when it sort of looks like meringue I stop beating.

Light and fluffy

I add the flour but don’t have a sifter so I just dump it in. Someone in my family has taken my measuring spoons so I use a plain old teaspoon to measure the baking powder. Then I add the milk and butter but the batter looks like the texture of fudge. I watch a YouTube video by a professional baker for assistance.

The professional baker says this recipe makes a very dense cake batter—mine is the texture of fudge. So I must be o.k. I try to spread the batter onto the pre-floured jelly roll tray but there isn’t enough batter. I’ll be cutting off the edges so I guess this doesn’t really matter, I just spread it as far as it will go and cross my fingers. While the cake bakes I watch the YouTube video. Comments posted about the video complain that the chef touches the fondant (what I call frosting) but these are germaphobes. So what if I dropped the blender, I washed it thoroughly. I’m sure the chef washes his hands.

Beautiful cake

The next step is to turn the cake onto a cutting board and cool. But the YouTube chef says to freeze the cake to make it easier to cut. Stay tuned tomorrow when I return to cut my petit fours. (I tasted a sample piece of cake and so far…delicious!)

Au Bientot, Paris

Pont Marie

As I prepare to return home, I am packing my clothes which seem to have expanded, no longer fitting into my suitcase. Part of the problem is the Soldes, the sale in Paris that begins on June 26 and continues through August. Stores slash prices from 30-50 percent so it’s a great time for shopping. I bought a few souvenirs that amazingly are not fitting into my bag so I will need to buy a box at the post office for 40 E to ship back to the U.S.

As I pack, I’m taking stock of my favorite things in Paris:
The Sold Es
White Burgundy (chardonnay)
French Onion soup, Paysanne salad with quail eggs, roasted goat cheese on toast
Chilled Rose on a hot day
Flower shops that sell buckets of cabbage sized peonies
Bouquinistes along the Seine
Notre Dame Bells
Boats on The Seine
Pont Marie, the most romantic bridge in Paris where you can make a romantic wish and it is guaranteed to come true in the next year
Closerie de Lilas and Au Vieux Paris restaurants
The Orangerie and Musee Orsay
Lovers kissing everywhere
Ile Saint Louis
The petite chiens that remind me of Edward back home
Café society
Triple crème cheeses
Holding hands with NoLo E-hub
The Jardin Luxembourg and the Tuileries
Patisseries
Montmartre and Versaiiles
French children singing on their way to school
Shakespeare and Company

Farewell, Paris. Until next year!

A Perfect Paris Day

Shakespeare and Company

It’s nearly my last day in Paris so I am carefully choosing how to spend it. I stop by the neighborhood pattisserie to purchase provisions–une sandwiche avec jambon and Roquefort, pain aux raisins, and un botteille de l’eau.  Then a quick stop at Shakespeare and Company to pick up a copy of Julia Child’s My Life in France.  Next a walk to the Jardin du Luxembourg down Boulevard St. Michael.  At the garden I find a shady bench to have my picnic and read my new book.

Trees in Luxembourg Gardens

My peaceful state is interrupted about an hour later when a mother with two children decide to join my on my bench, of the hundreds of EMPTY benches in the park. Soon the baby cries, the toddler whines and off I go to watch children at the fountain.

Boats in the Fountain

The Luxembourg Garden is a magical place for children. Here a vendor rents little wooden boats to float in the fountain.  The children retrieve them with a long wooden stick—no high tech controls here.

Ponies in Paris

After the fountain I stop by to watch children ride the ponies.  The horses remind me of home in Wyoming.

Sweet Treats at Larduree

On the walk back to the apartment I stop at Larduree, the famous macaron shop that has a store on the Left Bank,  I proceed down Boulevard St. Germain and listen to a fantastic Dixieland Jazz band playing on a street corner.  I was so enthusiastic when I put money in their hat that I nearly fell into the band.

Rollerblades in Paris

Next I come to the intersection of Boul St. Germain and Boul Mich as it’s called and traffic is at a standstill.  It’s the rollerbladers of Paris once again, skating through Paris. NoLo E-hub and I love to rollerblade but this crowd skates FAST.  Oh my God, they fly through the streets—I’ll stick to the sidewalk thank you very much.

the apartment

When I return to the apartment,  I’m happy that I’ve had such a full day.