There are a couple of good reasons to be in the 14eme around the Alesia metro stop. First, my lawyer friend Bill lives there - could not wait to see the new baby. Second, Hugo Desnoyer's boucherie is over around there. Which means that the charming small well done venue of Jeu de Quilles is right next door. And what do you know. It was open for lunch. And I was there at lunch time. Why not. I email Bill and tell him I will be a little late...
Tempting to order the Hugo foie gras, or some Hugo charcuterie, but these are large platters or portions for more than one person. I will stick with the menu of the day. As I am nul with the wine, as we know, I just asked the kind man to pick some for me to go with the melon/feta/prosciutto. It was that lovely white Beaujolais. Next, I chose the "paupiette de poulet fermier." A "paupiette" is nicely succulent, boneless - perhaps thigh - with some light seasoning on the inside, no distracting stuffing here as is sometimes the case for this preparation, or so it seems based on tonight's research.
Good call on that ordering. Except that, channelling my Dad I guess, I dribbled some of that rich sauce onto my white shirt.
It was as good as it looks. Again with the wine selection done for me: a light red Beaujolais, so good and perfectly paired with this dish I had to ask the name. I promptly forgot it.
But all the while, more and more people are coming in. Mostly families. A family of 4 up at the prime table near the kitchen. With their huge stroller with a new baby, plus the two little ones. Another table with two dads with their kids just above toddler age. The kiddos are eating some intense steak of some sort. The family by the kitchen. I was enchanted by them. The mom, completely focused on the kids, and her conversation with her husband. Promptly taking the baby out whenever it uttered a sound. But effortlessly it seemed. I observe all this on the heels of a great article, on point, that HiP Paris Blog did on French women/French mothers, parenting in France, and the role of family time in French culture. We think we are family-oriented, but I was reminded again today that we were really have nothing on the French. The article will address that.
And recalling that I always feels guilty about these trips, even though they are work-related trips, I still feel a little guilty. I'm getting better. It has been a rough year of mostly solo parenting - and not all of it great on my part.
We have much to learn from the French parenting style - including the no guilt-parenting paradigm, which is nevertheless still extremely family focused. This might suggest there is "balance" here -- a word I thought was wrongly used when we used it to deal with women lawyer issues ("work life balance") at big law firms. There is no such thing unless you are thinking of "balance" as not a static equilibrium but the ebb and flow of sometimes self comes first, sometimes work comes first, and sometimes family comes first. The balance just weighs in one direction more than another sometimes.
I was glad to pay a visit to a surrogate mom of sorts, the local pharmacist, to have her feel sorry for me and my horrific allergies: eyes burning red, nose running incessantly (which is no fun over lunch at Jeu de Quilles or walking down a major thoroughfare or walking up and down and up and down stairs in the metro stations...I did manage to hold on at lunch long enough with the runny nose and maintain some dignity to have dessert: a scoop of chocolate mousse, with sprinkles of a crumbled pistachio macaron, raspberry coulis, and a tiny hint of Chantilly whipped cream.)
The kind pharmacist was as sympathetic as I was hoping she would be: "Oh, yes,"
she said. "It is everywhere. Welcome to Paris." What she gave me worked like a charm. It worked so well that I was able to hit some gypsy jazz, or jazz "manouche" at a club/restaurant/bar just 5 minutes away it turns out, at the l'atelier Charonne.
Sound bites available on my Twitter feed. Eventually.
Does not look like I will make that guided tour of the Mosque of Paris tomorrow morning at 10h15, now just a few hours away.
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