My brain works

I've eaten seafood every day this week, which is quite a feat for someone that shies away from raw fish, doesn't eat shellfish (only mollusks, and only mussels at that), and may or may not be allergic to various species.

Monday was some calamari stew at the cafeteria (more on the cafeteria at a later date)

Tuesday was a salmon tartine from Kayser followed by salmon yakitori from a Japanese place for dinner

Wednesday was a hot salmon sandwich from Paul (I actually wanted their salmon salad but they were out)

Thursday I succeeded in getting the salmon salad at Paul...and then had some smoked salmon on miche Poilane for dinner.

Ok, so basically I just like salmon. A lot. And it seems abundant and common place here. Yay all those Omega 3's better be making me smarter...or something...

In other news, I found an apartment! It's in the Marais and uber cute and looks out onto a courtyard and has high ceilings and huge windows in the living room and lots of storage and a four range gas cooktop (thats a luxury in these here parts). You'll have to wait until I move in for more info and pics! Apartment lease signing is on Tuesday. And thanks to JP, who converted the amount I'm going to be paying in euros into dollars, I almost had a heart attack. And since there's a nice window ledge, I think I'll start myself a little windowbox herb garden (herbs are expensive and I never use the whole bundle and let half go to waste!). Oh...here's a pic from the real estate website.

Don't you love the closet?! I hope I'm not jinxing myself...

Cookies the size of my face

Like I said, there's very few things open on Sundays. However, you can always count on things being open in the Marais (for the most part). I dropped by Boulangerie Malineau while in the area and couldn't help but buy one of their many different sables (shortbread cookies aka lotsa butter).

I've read good things about their checkerboard sables, and how could you not want to try something so colorful?

I got the sable au chocolat pistache. The thing is huuuuuge. I can't decide if I actually liked it. All I know is that I couldn't stop eating it. As much as I say I eat everything in front of me (which is usually the case), if I don't like something, I won't eat it. Yet curiously, I kept eating this...I don't think sables are my thing but if I had to eat one, I'd pick this one. 

And yes, I went to Laduree and Malineau the same day. And ate those pastries, macarons and that cookie the same day. Go me. Salad next week.

Vday = me + Laduree

Valentine's day spent eating pastries and macarons might be the second best thing to spending it with your significant other. Oh, and today is also my one month anniversary of moving to Paris! 23 (11?) more months to go. 

10:30am is a very very very early time to have brunch. It's not even brunch time, it's breakfast time. And when you drank a little too much wine the night before and got back to your apartment past 4am...well, lets not discuss that, shall we. Although I'm glad I got up early; even though its cold enough to make you have the sniffles the second you go outside, today turned out to be one of the nicest days here since I arrived. The sun is shining! I can see the sky! Anyhow. I said "non, merci" to the 22EUR salads (eek!) but "d'accord" to the 18EUR breakfast. Plus the atmosphere was nice and the company was good. Le petit dejeuner (which came with tea and juice...and a wrapped stick of butter):

So apparently that didn't satisfy my need for sugar and carbs, so I decided why not get some macarons? I haven't had any since I've been here, I'm at a great place to get some (though not the best in my opinion) and I've been somewhat good last week. But of course the line is huge because (a) it's Laduree (b) it's Laduree on Champs Elysees (c) its Valentine's day and (d) it's one of the few places open in Sunday (you try finding yourself some baked goods on a Sunday in Paris...). No matter, it moves fast. 

I end up getting the figues et dates (eh, you figure out what that one is but I ate it before taking the pic), cafe (you can figure that one out too, I know you all are smarties), cassis-violette (blackcurrants and violets) and caramel a la fleur de sel (my favorite!). The cassis-violette had a little too much violette...it tasted like someone just sprayed some violet flavored perfume in my mouth. Blah. Anyhow, I ate them all. About 7 minutes after taking the picture. Oh, and to take the picture, I had to open up my curtains (you know, natural light is better for pictures) and pulled a little too hard...so hard the curtains came down, with the curtain rod. And since my ceilings are about 9 - 10 feet high, well, I guess I'll have to call the corporate apartment people because I don't have a ladder, now do I?

rawr.

Guess what's in the box.

Ok, granted you can read the side label. I got it at work today. And what was in that box? FLOWERS!!! JP got me flowers for vday. Granted, we actually never celebrate vday. But, the 17th is our 2.5 years, so we celebrate half years (yea, we still do, don't judge!). Whatever, these flowers are for celebrating whatever, whenever. So anyhow, look at this huge box! I think they actually shipped them from London. So he ordered in NYC, they put them together in London and Eurostar'ed (I assume) them over here today where I got them at the reception desk at my work in Paris. Wow, those flowers are globetrotters. Look at them so cute in their box!

Anyhow, so I carried that box back to my apartment. And my apartment has everything you could ever need and not need in terms of things that belong in the kitchen (a post on that later for sure). But no vase. How can you have 5 gratin dishes, 12 mugs but no vases? But then, I found this:

THE CANDLE HOLDER! Bye bye candle, HELLO GORGEOUS RED ROSES! woohoo. They're so pretty. MUCHAS GRACIAS JP!

Tarte tatin

I went to a place called l'Ebouillante (which I think translates to something like boil or scald or something, but definitely something to do with teapots and hot water) for some tea and pastry! After all, it's a weekend and I can be bad. I semi-adapted the rule the "S" rule of "no snacks, sweets or seconds, except on days that start with an 'S'"...I heard it was Michael Pollan's rule but apparently he quotes it from somewhere. So essentially, it means I only eat desserts (or try to only eat desserts, hah) on weekends. It's been raining here all day and I was definitely in the mood for something warm. I would've gotten hot chocolate (I love hot chocolate when it rains) but that might've been a little too much. So I got a pot of Earl Grey tea and a tarte tatin. I wish it wasn't so rainy because I can imagine this place being fantastic when its sunny outside; it's on a cobblestoned street behind a church and its terrace opens up as do the windows on the main floor and there's a few tables outside...would be great in the summer to sit outside, drink something and have something sweet!

Mmmmmm, warm caramelized apples (lots of butter and sugar...I have mentioned I like butter and sugar, have I not?), puff pastry and creme fraiche. The Frenchies are onto something here - warm caramelized apples and a cold and tangy creme fraiche is a fantastic pairing. Definitely offsets the sweetness of the tarte tatin and I always love the play of hot and cold together.

And I figured out how to work off the calories. The elevator in my building broke, so I've had to take the stairs since Friday. Ok, fine I'm only on the 2eme etage (that's 3rd floor for us Americans since the 1st floor is really the ground floor) its not that far up, but I'm a lazy bum. And then when I had to take the stairs up I started freaking out because my key wouldn't open the door to the stairs so I had no way of getting up to my apartment! But thats ok, I was just being stupid and didn't turn the key all the way. Then I realized it and couldn't get the key out...another dumb moment. Anyhow, I actually really like my stairs, they're so old school and made out of old wood.

Yea, I dunno what those chairs are doing down there either.

French fries fried in suet

I hate to be a downer and ruin the party (and all the positive reviews) that La Bourse ou La Vie has received but the meat just isn't that good. The steak was OK at best, and this is a restaurant that is supposedly prized and known for its steak frites. Yes, that is a huge hunk of steak covered in a peppery butter sauce.

I couldn't stop eating the fries (hah, I polished all of those off). I think this was the most amount of food I've eaten in one sitting since arriving in Paris. But unfortunately, the flavor of the meat (apparently grass-fed) was smothered by the overly rich, overly peppery sauce (yes, I know its steak au poivre but it was more like poivre avec steak). I mean, I appreciate butter, and pepper, but not in such huuuuuge quantities! I barely tasted the meat, but of course that didn't stop me from eating all of it. JL likes to say I'm like a goldfish, I eat all or almost all of whatever is in front of me. I don't know if that's what goldfish do, but that's pretty much what I do most of the time. Yea yea, I'm a fattie, fine.

The decor of this place is super whimsical (tacky perhaps? but in a charming way), with fake fruit glued to the lamp posts, and some piggies glued to the ceiling...

 

And as a word of advice, skip the dessert. It's overly homey and not worth it in my opinion. But go for the fries - those are worth it alone (they're fried in suet, or beef fat, yum!). And affordable wine, which they do a la ficelle (charge you for how much of a bottle you drink).

No big pistachios

Look at that. Two gorgeous colors - a deep rusty orange and a bright green. It tasted so good. What is it? And no that is not a big pistachio on top (unfortunately)

I already predicted that Eric Kayser would be my downfall and I was so right. The compotes there are delicious. This one was apricot, and had several entire apricot halves in it! The tangy-ness of the apricot melds so well with the almost cloying sweetness of the crumble on to, which provides the perfect texture variation (and color contrast!). I think this is my favorite of the three they have (strawberry rhubarb is too sour but the apple one is good...just not as good as this one!) I'm not sure what the crumble on top was, but taste wise, it was a little reminiscent of almond paste. Whatever, it was yum and I scarfed it own at my desk...too bad there are people called co-workers around, else I might have ended up licking the cup :)

It's strange that I can go a whole day eating almost next to nothing, and then some days I can't stop eating! Like today. Anyhow, dinner tonight was mussels in a white wine sauce with a side of grilled endives.

Oh fine, who am I kidding. I have an electric stove that is called a "hot plate" in the instruction manual that doesn't cook jack. And definitely impossible to grill anything. So I pretty much put the endives down into tiny bit of olive oil, spinkled some salt, let them pan-fry there for 7 - 8 min, then flipped them over and did the same thing. I WANT MY CAST IRON GRIDDLE and a stove I can actually use it on.