La Vaissellerie

I decided to start outfitting my future kitchen early. There's a dishware store around the corner from me called La Vaissellerie (I think it literally means "the dishware store") that has a ton of white dinnerware and serving bowls and platters in a variety of shapes and sizes. Behold, my bounty:

4 bowls for soup / pasta, a serving bowl for pasta / couscous / whatever, 4 long platters (asparagus? skewers? caprese salad? MINI TACOS?!), 2 regular bowls (fruit? I dunno...), 2 square-ish bowls (salad?), a rectangular small serving dish, one of those 3-mini-dish sauce things and 2 oven-safe cocotte-looking dishes. I decided to actually utilize some with all the market produce I bought today:

And look at the girolles I got today for €5!

What better way could they have met their delicious fate than sauteed in lots of butter with shallots and sage, and finished with dill and chives? I also added a bit of 0% fromage frais mixed with dill and chives on the sides. French dairy is one of the handful of things I'll miss about France - its not that easy to find fromage blanc or fromage frais in the U.S. and if you do, its usually expensive. Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery sells it (along with other yummy dairy products) but that's the only one I know of and the price (and size) is nothing like the giant 1kg Danone Taillefine tubs I get (49 calories per 100g!).

Anyhow, below is how the girolles (super similar to chanterelles) came to be in my tummy.

Sauteed girolles with herbs

1 pound of chopped girolles/chanterelles (mixed wild mushrooms would probably work well too but note that mushrooms will loose about one-third to half their volume once cooked)
1 finely diced shallot
2 tbsp julienned sage leaves (approx. 5 - 6)
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp chopped dill
1 tbsp chopped chives
Olive oil
Salt

For the fromage blanc:
1/4 cup fromage blanc
3 tbsp chopped dill
1 tbsp chopped chives

Salt

Add a tablespoon of olive oil to a pan and saute shallots over medium-low heat. Once they start getting a little color, add the mushrooms and turn the heat up to medium. When they release a lot of water, add the sage (I'm warning you, LOTS of liquid...)

Stir occasionally until the water evaporates. Add some salt at some point.

Meanwhile, mix all the ingredients for the fromage blanc. There you have your sauce.

Once the water had evaporated, taste and add more salt if needed, along with the butter. Continue sauteing until the mushrooms start browning and shriveling up a little (I like my mushrooms dry so I guess its a personal preference).

Once plated, top with the dill and chives and serve with the fromage blanc on the side.

Outdoors at La Terrasse

Galeries Lafayette is a cluster during the soldes. There are lines to get into the Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Longchamp store-in-stores (curiously not at Prada though...). The area of refuge? The newly-opened summer-only restaurant on the 8th floor of the Galeries, La Terrasse. I read about it on my new favorite all-things-edible-in-Paris collaborative blog Paris by Mouth.

I didn't even know you could go to the roof here. It's a great free way to see the rooftops of Paris. There were even people camping out and eating sandwiches. Here's the view of the Invalides dome (that's where Napoleon's tomb is), which I attempted to line up with the dome of the Petit Palais. Kinda failed.

And here is the back of the Opera Garnier.

Surprisingly, the wait for the restaurant wasn't too long, considering the fact the chef is an alum of the three-stared Arpege (10 courses $540?! Guess I won't be going there anytime soon...). I ordered the heirloom tomato salad which came with olives (I ate around them), basil and micro-greens, dressed simply in olive oil. MMMM, tastes like summer.

I was planning on going solo but SM joined me. They ran out of the pasta with Parmesan and yuzu so he got the chicken meatballs with vermicelli noodles and veggies in a seafood broth with shrimp. I think he was happy.

While attempting to shop in the store, I stumbled up on the Pierre Herme boutique in the basement. I couldn't resist. Into my tummy went a chocolate (with cacao nibs) and strawberry-balsamic macaroon which trying on a dress in a dressing room (hence the awful lighting)

And at La Terrasse Pierre Herme made an appearance again in the form of a glorified ice cream sandwich named Satine - fromage blanc and orange coulis sorbet sandwiched by two passion fruit macarons. This disappeared. Fast.

Conclusion to the day? Right after lunch we met up with WD and went to watch Toy Story (VO and 3D!) at the Gaumont Capucines Opera around the corner. I shed tears. Lots of them.