Another location that seems intriguing is Maison Souquet. Its two red lights at the door, welcoming guests is a nod to the buildings past life as a “House of Pleasure” and make it feel like the perfect place to relax and discuss… whatever. Caroleen offered to go check it out with me. At 20 euro per cocktail, I’m pretty sure I’ll be picking up the tab. Maybe I will check it out alone. Or maybe I’ll continue the search for a more affordable venue.
Le Clou and the GCA both have upstairs rooms for privatization and both owners love me, but while they may be serviceable, both seem more suitable for football events and the patrons of the downstairs restaurants would be traipsing through to use the toilettes. Not quite the atmosphere I am looking for. The back room of Le Cépage? Certainly close to home and more affordable but a far cry from the Hermes family living room or a 1920’s brothel. You get what you pay for.
USA Today says there are 40,000 restaurants in the twenty arrondissements that make up the City of Paris. I will just have to keep looking. Without Caroleen.
An Accidental Salon
It started with a text.
“Elliott, where is the best place for grilled squid in Paris?”
Elliott is the go to man if you want to know anything about food or wine in Paris. Never a man of few words he quickly responds, “Very interesting question. And I have an answer that very few would probably think of. .. A bit odd but there is a Croatian resto by Ternes. Au Petit Paris in the rue Rennequin. Great flame grilled squid. Not to mention meat and vegetables. And fantastic Croatian wines. If you want to go, let us know. Haven’t been in a few months.”
That’s how a text turned into my second dinner as part of Elliott’s ragtag group of expats. Ragtag is probably not a good descriptor of this group. Elliott clearly curates his groups with the same talent and care that he curates his wine pairings. Tonight’s group, at six smaller than the Chinese New Year event at Maison Dong, included Elliott and his wife Joan. I am still trying to figure out how that coupling happened. One day I’ll figure out how to ask. She’s a head taller than him, lean as a whip and rarely utters a word. He’s as gregarious as the day is long, holding court at every opportunity. I suppose that his monsieur je-sais-tout savoir will get old to me after awhile, but for now, I have a lot to learn and appreciate his verbosity. I suspect that still waters run deep and that there is a lot Joan could teach me as well. It just may take a while to get there.
Siobhan is a quiet Irish girl who has been in Paris for three years. She doesn’t contribute much to the conversation but this is the second dinner we have sat side by side and she feels companionable. I think un verre one on one might reap an interesting friendship. I will follow up on that.
Joao is a Brazilian entrepreneur and business owner of indeterminate age living in Paris. I like him a lot. He has an amiable manner and a great smile. Further investigation finds he is wicked smart but in a not pretentious way. At Maison Dong he passed me his iPhone and said “Let’s be friends”, shorthand for let’s connect on Facebook. In one short week my Facebook account has somehow spammed his. He’s nonplussed.
“What shall I do?” I ask
“Change your password.”
“I don’t know my password” I admit sheepishly.
“Click forgot my password”
“But it’s connected to an email account I no longer used and I don’t know that password”
Joao shakes his head and rolls his eyes. He figures out he may continue to get spam from me.
Joao has told me about a language school that he attended for four months. He thinks it has helped him a lot. Besides, it was fun and he met interesting people. He thinks that two hours each day was just the right amount of time. I say I think I may check it out (since I don’t seem to be jumping into bed with Philippe in a big hurry).
Joao has agreed to join Magalie and I for a jazz dinner to talk about Brazil. Magalie thinks she’d like to go live there for a year. Joao thinks she’s nuts and is eager to talk her out of it. I’m doing my part to facilitate the spread of Paris friendships.
Rounding out the group at Au Petit Paris, and over forty five minutes late (Joan made her a plate and poured her wine before the fish course arrived) is Mariia, a pretty and obviously incredibly smart Russian girl. Mariia is a delicate Ruski doll with blond hair pulled back in a knot and the palest skin I have ever seen. She uses her hands a lot when she talks, her slender fingers emphasizing her words.
Before Mariia arrived Elliott expounded on Yugoslavian restaurants in Europe in the last twenty five years and the evolution of the culture outside of the former Yugoslavian countries after the war. It seems that Munich and Montmartre were two big centers of Yugoslavian people with wonderful restaurants and markets. No more.
Elliott stands to introduce the first wine, a delicate Prosip from Dalmatia. I only remember because I took a picture of the bottle. Joao does the same, for his education. Elliott seems pleased. We feast on roasted peppers and a charcuterie platter that makes my arteries moan. A creamy, garlicky pepper, tomato spread is perfect on the basket of fresh baguette, a nod to Paris I suppose.
Out comes a tray of the grilled calamari that gave birth to the idea of the evening. I eat all the legs. And two bodies. Elliott stands to introduce the second wine; a blah blah blah, whose grapes were grown on the blah blah blah, with just the right exposure to the morning blah… I stop listening. I’m eating legs. Joao notices and gives me his last legs. I give him a body.
At some point Elliott and Mariia start talking about Russian and Romanian writers and how poetry was impossible to translate because it could never say the same thing at all. They speak of Nabokov beyond Lolita and how Edgar Allen Poe only truly became great when translated by Baudelaire. Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Turgenev all fall into place.
The meat platters arrive and Elliott jumps up to talk about the Alatan Plavac barrique (from Hvar). The two platters groan with abundance; lamb, beef, pork, chicken, bacon, cevapcici (a minced pork and beef mixture formed into scrumptious little sausages, Elliott’s self proclaimed “guilty pleasure”). All are interspersed with sliced onions, grilled eggplant and more meat. Elliott stands to tell us about the next wine and the conversation moves from literary to culinary.
Elliott: “I cook often at home. Always three courses with two different wines.”
Me: “Sometimes I make pancakes for dinner. And if it’s Friday, I may pair it with a Sidecar… or even two!”
Elliott: “ I make excellent pancakes! In fact, I was often asked to cook for my father and his important friends. Pancakes was the one time he actually complimented my cooking…” (Aha! A key to Elliott’s need to know everything!)
Me: “Sometimes I just have popcorn.”
We ask for another bottle of wine, this one the Grand Cru of the previous wine.
“But I always thought it was best to drink the good wines first and then to revert to the lesser wines” (I think I may have even mentioned two-buck Chuck).
“Nonsense! First of all, you don’t drink wine to get drunk. I refuse to include those people who insist on drinking so many apéros before dinner that they come to the meal drunk! Wine is to be savored! To enjoy! Few even comprehend the notion of terroir…”
D’accord.
The meal concludes. The bill is divided. Bises are exchanged.
Elliott says they have a car outside and would be happy to have the driver run me home after he drops them. Nice.
We pile into the car, Elliott in the front, Joan and I in the back. Elliott talks the driver’s ear off about the benefits of Chauffeur Priv vs Uber.
They get out at their apartment and the driver zips me home. “Il parle beaucoup!”, I say.
“Oui”
Later when I am in my bed thinking about the night I realize I have been to a modern day salon!
Today I texted Elliott: “I am proud to be one of Les Oiseaux d’Ellio
tt I am in the middle of writing a Ninon chapter and I realized that what you do is really a version of a modern day salon. I suggest this name. I would love to discuss Salon culture, both past and present soon.”
Elliott responds: “Thanks for the kind words! But sadly we are a poor reflection of the salon of the past. But if we can hold on to a little piece of it, that might be a nice thing to have done.”
Watch me!
Madam Monique
My plan was to choose an elderly woman who speaks no English and invite her to have coffee with me once or twice a week. The idea was hatched at a bus stop on Av Montaigne. It was raining and a well outfitted elderly woman began to talk to me about the newly designed bus stop structures. “they simply are not functional!” she said (in French). I knew I was not lingually equipped for this conversation so I pulled out my old tried and true “Je suis désolée. Je ne parle pas français.”
“Oh!” she said, “are you English? It’s raining cats and dogs! Cats and Dogs! What exactly does that mean? I always thought the English liked cats and dogs.”
“Well, I’m American. But that’s a good question!” I since have looked it up and it seems it comes from olde-English when the animals may have been on top of the thatched roof and it rained so hard that the animals would fall through the thatches and into the houses.
“I haven’t spoken English since I was in school!” Her mastery of the language was excellent given that her last experience was clearly a long while ago.
The bus came and we both got on, sitting in different places. I was leaving in a couple of days, but I wished I could have invited her to tea, and arranged to practice my French with her on a regular basis. The seed was planted.
Since that day, the idea has been refined. I have half a dozen friends who I could have coffee, or drinks with, some who even say “let’s speak French today!” But our conversations quickly revert to English, primarily because of my inability to have any sort of meaningful conversation in French. I can order a meal. I can (sort of) of have a conversation in an Uber car between my home and any reasonable Paris destination. “J’habite à Paris maintenant. Je suis de la Californie. Depuis six mois. (OK I like lie? a little bit, it’s easier to say than to try to explain that I came a lot and now I’m here to stay). Je suis écrivain. J’écris un roman. Oui, j’aime la neige.” A real, meaningful conversation always means switching to English.
So, the primary requirement for my enseignant was that she spoke no English. There would be no back-tracking.
I popped into Cépage for a bowl of soup, careful to sit in a seat where Caroleen would not want to sit. (She is very particular about sitting only in the seat at the end of the second row of banquettes, just before the serious diners, next to the only outlet, but where you could arguably justify occupying the table as long as your café crème paid the rent).
Madame Monique sat at the table next to mine. Of course at that time I did not know yet that she was Madame Monique.
As I’ve mentioned before, a whole host of elderly patronize Cépage on a daily basis. They are known as the Montmartois, the elderly who eat their hot meal of the day, chat with their friends, keep abreast of the neighborhood gossip. Some sit together. Some alone.
Madame Monique is a mumbler. She carries on an ongoing dialog with nobody. After awhile the conversation started to include me, and occasionally the good looking gentleman on the other side of her. (Where did HE come from?!)
I think at first she was talking about her fish dish and wondering why they had not given her any sauce on the side.
“Madame,” I asked, “parlez vous anglais?”
“Non” she responded regretfully.
“Bon!” I said enthusiastically. “J’ai besoin de quelqu’un pour pratiquer mon français!”
I went on to ask her, in what I thought was a reasonable rendition of French if she would like to meet with me a couple of times each week to help me with my French.
She seemed to love the idea. She would meet me at 1:00, actual days unclear and we would work for one hour and she would be mon enseignante.
From there I was able to determine that Madame was born in Paris in 1936. During the war, her family moved to Poland. Her husband had passed and she had never had children. She did have a niece (une medecine. Each time she said niece it was followed by la medicine), who lives in the second arrondissement and is of course very busy.
During the course of determining our agreement to meet, Madame tore a page from her little notebook and wrote her first and last name, her address, her digi code, and her telephone number. She said she lived just “deux minutes à pied”.
Madame finished her meal, paid her bill and we agreed to meet demain at 1:00 for one hour.
Just five minutes after she left she flew back into Cépage and plopped down next to me, much closer than she was previously sitting. She unleashed a rapid-fire dialogue. From the best I could tell, it was all French, she could not come tomorrow. She had forgotten that she had to be at home because there was a leak in the plumbing in the apartment above her which was dripping into the apartment below. IF she was not there, it’s likely that the people in the apartment below her would try to fix the blame on her. They were extremely méchants (evil) and she is an old woman and he is trying to force her to sell her apartment because she has a bigger balcony than he does. There was much gesticulating at the Century 21 office across the street, leaving me a bit concerned that in fact her apartment might indeed already be on the market!
If repetition is helpful in learning a lesson, Madame Monique is perfect. Ménchant. Balcon. Vielle dame. Ma nièce le médecin. All got a lot of repetition.
No, she could not meet me tomorrow but she seemed to agree to my suggestion that we meet on Monday at 1:00. Several times Monday at 1:00 for one hour was reinforced. Again, the little slip of paper with her name, her phone number, her address, her digicode, the deuxième étage, à gauche. D’accord! There was more about the ménchant person who wants to sell her apartment and the leak and the nièce le médécin. She is sitting so close to me we are pressing against each other. If she were a man, I’d be crying out “Me too!’
Finally Madame scurries off. I take a big breath and relax. Le beau monsieur smiles at me knowingly.
I have my enseignante. If today’s lesson is any example I believe that meeting with Madame Monique will in fact help me improve my conversational French. Today we talked about the difference between seule and seulement, including the genders. While this is something I already knew, I had in fact misused it while speaking with her. Her pedantic correction showed an attention to detail and clarity.
I am so grateful that there are three days between that exhausting discussion and Monday!
Monday rolls around. It’s arctic cold, -1 degree, -10 with the wind chill factor. I pop over to Cépage, fortunately about thirty steps outdoors between my door and the restaurant. I go early for lunch, a salad. I’m working on getting in my five fruits and vegetables. Does wine count?
One o’clock comes and goes. Every time the door opens and closes I look up. No Madame. At 1:45 I assume she isn’t coming. I have to admit that I have mixed emotions, part disappointment that I’m not moving forward with this stage of my life in Paris. Part relief. Did I choose someone who will need too much from me? Am I prepared to be someone for a lonely old woman to lean on?
I wrap myself up in scarf and puffy coat and head back to my apartment; fifteen steps to the front door, then another fifteen across the wind tunnel that is my courtyard, into my toasty apartment.
Tuesday, as I sit in GCA, three glasses of wine in, watching it snow outside and Philippe doing his lovely Philippe thing, it occurs to me: did Madame expect me at her apartment at 1:00 on Monday? Is that why she was so insistent that I understood her address, her digi-code, her deuxième étage, à gauche?
Did I stand Madame Monique up?
She Turned Them Gay
Caroleen asked me if she’s in my book. I shook my head. “Because I will read it you know.”
I guess I don’t need to worry. I suspect the last book she actually read was… well, maybe never. But F is likely to read it. He’s gotten me to download Emile Zola’s “L’Argent” in both French and English. For that matter, when I couldn’t remember the name of the Zola book about the unfaithful wife in the notions shop near the Seine she did offer up “Theresa Requin” with a dramatic shudder. I truly cannot imagine her reading it.
“Remember the photo I posted of me in the eighties?” She asked, referring to a photo she had posted on Instagram that week; big hair, big makeup, baby doll dress with oversized coat and shoulder pads the size of Mayfair. The hashtags were #EatonPlace #Belgravia #daysofwine #roses #parties #antiquing #friends #Kingsroad #drinks #soirees #Mayfair #writers #artists #poets #magic #love # beauty #fashion…
She slides her laptop toward me. “Should I add this paragraph?” It’s a massive list of names, most of which mean nothing to me but clearly meant to allude to nights spent partying with the likes of Twiggy, McCartney, Sting, Boy George and George Michaels, the last two who were actually in her paragraph.
“I don’t know. Sure. Why not?” I don’t know what she’s trying to accomplish, other than showing me how fab she used to be.
She still has big hair but it’s kind of in that wild, combed with your fingers and pinned back with some bobby pins and sunglasses plopped on top way. Her hair, by the way, smells like it could use a good wash and her black poncho is getting pillier by the day. However, “A French woman never goes out, even to the poubelle, if she’s not completely put together!”
“Ah, London!” I say. “Do you still go often?” After a month in Paris I’m dreaming of a trip on the Eurostar.
Ninon and Me at the Grand Comptoir Page 6