Wednesday, 13 June, The great mouse hunt, L'Ami Jean, and Corot at the Marmottan

Written 17 June 2018

Wednesday morning, as I set out in search of my breakfast, I enountered this little poster, which had appeared overnight in the foyer of our entry from the courtyard (note that I held a piece of paper over the address when I took the photo, so as not to reveal the address). It says that the tenants' association has decided it's time to do something about the mice. Starting at 8:30 a.m. on 25 June, technicians will be starting on the top floor and work their way down, placing poisoned baits (from the description of its expected effects, probably poisoned with good old coumadin/warfarin) in all apartments. Please make it easy for them to get at the spaces under sinks, plumbing-access hatches, etc. If you won't be in at the time, please leave your keys with the super.

Ooo-kay . . . We haven't seen any mice or evidence of their presence, but others apparently have. So I dropped an e-mail to the rental agent explaining the situation and asking how to get in touch with the super (I think I've seen him a couple of times, rolling out trash barrels, but I don't know his name or number or where he hangs out; he's never in his little office). I mentioned as well that we'd had a couple of phone calls, one who left a message I didn't know how to access and one from a guy looking for the proprietor, and that I'd given him the rental agent's number.

To her credit, she immediately replied that she would drop by during the next day to take care of the phone message and to talk to the super. She did, the phone is now unplugged, and she assures us that she will take care of the mouse hunt and that we need do nothing about it. Nice lady.

So anyway, I went on and acquired my breakfast, which you can see at the right, among the litter of lists, notes, guidebooks, charging cords, and unwritten postcards—a quarter of a baguette, split so that I can butter it, a pain au chocolate, my chunk of salty Breton butter, a jar of Bonne Maman griotte jam, and a wedge of brebis cheese (Ossau Iraty, from the Basque country). Yum.

We had our big meal at lunch that day. We had planned all along to have at least one meal at L'Ami Jean, on the rue Malar, just off the Rue Saint-Dominique, one of our favorites. They've always been a little hard to deal with, though, because they steadfastly refused to have a website or to accept reservations other than by phone, which means that you have to call when they're open (i.e., in midmorning from the U.S.), which means that there's always an unholy din in the background as you try to spell your name for them. But we discovered a visit or two ago that, if you show up at what the French think is a ridiculously early hour, like 6:30 p.m., it will be just you and a few Asian tourists, so that's what we planned to do. Imagine my surprise at finding, when I Googled-mapped the restautrant to verify the nearest metro stop, that they now have a website, and that that website has (in addition to a lot of "Welcome to the new L'Ami Jean"; oh, no! Have they changed too?!) a "reserve now" button. But imagine my dismay at discovering that they didn't have a single dinner slot open, at any hour, on any remaining evening of our stay in France! Rats! I just had to reserve for lunch instead; fortunately, the food is the same.

Our plan for the day was to visit the Marmottan Museum, on the eastern edge of Paris, for the special Corot exhibition, and L'Ami Jean is on the way, so we chose Wednesday for our lunch. We were relieved to find that it's the same old grumpy-looking chef and the same head waiter. The decor has changed— no more real hams hanging over the bar, no more charicatures of long-time wait staff on the walls—and they have apparently abandonned (at least at lunchtime) the old, large, chaotic and totally incomprehensible menu in favor of the small, much simpler list of specials of the day, which is all we ever ordered from anyway. The prices have gone up a little, but are still an absolute steal.

David started with a fricasee of green and white asparagus with a poached egg, which he pronounced delicious. I think the little brown ribbons are frizzled leek.

I had the "salt pepper of foie gras, smoked eel, and zucchini," which I ate half of before remembering to take the photo. The smoked eel was just two little strips, which I ate first, and the foie gras was cold and dressed with a slightly sweet sauce and surrounded by three kinds of baby zucchini: straight green, straight yellow, and bulbous yellow. All were exceptionally firm and flavorful, not like the bland, watery zucchini we get in the U.S. It was sprinkled with shreds of raw onion, a few salad leaves, and a bunch of crispy buckwheat seeds. Very delicious.

David's main course was rare grilled duck breast, which he found too large and maybe a little tough, though the bite he gave me was very good. It came with three kinds of roasted radishes and a roasted baby fennel. He wasn't thrilled with the radishes, and he didn't eat the fennel, which he usually scarfs down with enthusiasm, so I think maybe his appetite was a little off. He also had to avoid all those buckwheat seeds, which he can't digest.

My main course is, as far as I'm concerned, top contender for best dish of the trip. It was a veal cheek, braised and they glazed under the grill, and it was fabulous! It was meltingly tender, sprinkled with shreds of green onions, and paired with a little heap of braised snow peas, and wow was it good.

For dessert I always order the grandma-style rice pudding. They bring you a bowl with some butter-grilled almonds in the bottom, and they used to bring you a little pot of salty milk caramel and about a gallon of rice pudding, from which you dipped as much as you wanted and topped it with caramel. This time, the bowl came with the almonds and a quenelle of caramel in the bottom, and the waitress came around with the serving bowl and ladled two big scoops of rice pudding on top. Not a problem, as it was still more than I could finish. Really good stuff.

David had the special dessert of the day, which wasn't printed on the menu. It was a glob of lemon custard, sprinkled with passionfruit seeds and large chunks of crisp meringue, which he ate all of, so it must have been good.

Next up was Corot, so we strolled a block and a half down to the riverside, crossed the street, caught the #63 bus, and rode it all the way to the end of the line, which is just a couple of blocks from the our destination. The Marmottan specializes in impressionists and most particularly in Monet. The current temporary exhibition is about attempts by Corot, who was well known and typecast in his own time as a landscape painter, to master and incorporate the human face and form into his repertory, because some people said he couldn't.

The painting at the left here is about as much of a human form as he usually incorporated. People appeared in his paintings, but always far in the distance and not in much detail. The lady on the right, on the other hand (a portrait of his niece), starts to show what he could do when he put his mind to it.

Corot tended to paint women as melancholy or dreamy, as he did with the harvester taking a rest, at the left here, but he broke with that trend when he painted the eminently self-possessed "blond Gascon woman" at the right.

I, meanwhile, was saying to myself, "I know that blond. Why is she so familiar? Have we maybe seen her at the Louvre?" But a look at the label solved the mystery. She's on loan from the Smith College Museum of Art. We've known each other a long time!

I photographed a lot of the works on display, but I don't plan to include them here (let me know if you want to see them). Only two works were off limits to photography; both were from the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont.

After looking at all the Corot, we took a turn through the permanent collections, to visit old favorites. At the left here is Monet's "Impression, Rising Sun," which gave its name to the impressionist school. At the right is one of his water lilies.

The Marmottan is one of the few venues that have figured out how to hang Monet's work in a way that lets you stand far enough away to see what he was trying to do. What I can't understand is how Monet can achieve those effects when he had to stand so close to the canvas to apply the paint!

Written 18 June 2018

After making our way back to the apartment by metro and having our usual rest, we set out in search of a light supper, having had a heavy three-course lunch, and settled at Café République, near the place of that name. The place forms a large rectangular rotary, and skateboarders gather every evening to make use of the large flat area in the center. We could watch them zooming around from our table. A large taxi stand occupies one side, which is useful to know in case Uber ever fails us.

I was in the mood for onion soup, which I usually don't order in France because I can make perfectly good onion soup at home. But I ordered it this time, then looked around the menu for something small to have with it to round out the light meal. I finally settled on a "croque monsieur," the iconic toasted ham and cheese sandwich that has been so thoroughly beaten to death by places trying to attract tourists. David ordered the salad with duck-breast ham, toast, and foie gras.

I can't say I would recommend the place. The onion soup was perfectly okay, but the sandwich was dry and without any interest. I can get a better croque monsieur at Sage in Tallahassee. The salad accompanying it wasn't good at all. The spring mix had been too long in the bag, and some of the leaves were starting to rot at the edges. Looking over at David's plate, I saw that his greens were even worse, and we had to flag down a waiter because there was no dressing on his salad. He ate mostly the toppings and some of the healthier lettuce.

For dessert, David had a wedge of only okay tarte Tatin, and I had very good caramel and coffee ice cream. We won't be going back to that place.

To close the day, here's an evening shot of the column in the middle of the Place de la République. That's Marianne on top, the personification of France.