Author Archives: Sylvia

About Sylvia

Vini, vidi, Paris... I look forward to sharing the fun, flavours and fashion of living in Paris with two teen Parisiennes and Mr French. A true Californian in search of that certain je ne sais quoi, I came to Paris an over weight, under-shod vegetarian. I've since learned to shave my legs, wear a bra, and act like a grown up. A lot of work, but I'm loving it, and my teens are oh so thankful now that I am infinitely less embarrassing.

Gifts

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It’s the All Saint’s holiday here in Paris. Until Hollande and his gang came to power, this was a ten day school holiday, but the socialists are not the biggest fans of work, so they’ve now prolonged the vacation to last an entire two weeks. The locals claim this is a secular country, but with two week school breaks every six weeks, I am a serious sceptic. Our kids are out of school for AlL Saint’s Day, Christmas, the beginning of Lent and Easter. Not to mention the handful of long weeks dedicated to ascentions and assumptions. Meanwhile, important exams are held during Ramadan and Yom Kippur.

This year, though, the timing couldn’t be better. E has been at the University of Chicago for exactly five weeks now (not that I’m counting or anything) and it is the University family weekend, so M and are leaving in a jetplane, Chicago bound, then back to our roots in San Francisco. I have not been back in THREE years.

Going home means gift shopping and gift shopping is a challenge with everything so easily available in the US, even Sel de Camargue! The day before departure I braved the schizophrenic weather we have not been enjoying, determined to find gifts not available abroad.

Just a block from chez nous, I pass Puyricard, a very old school, traditional chocolatier from the South of France, who must have a terrible PR team, because this shop gets virtually no anglophone press, despite having excellent chocolate and surprisingly fair prices. I chose a bunch of bars, my personal favorite being the trés original Versinthe, and added some packages of their housemade pate de fruits, guimauves (marshmallows) and candied citrus peels. My friends are going to be getting fat!

Monoprix does some interesting partnerships with worthwhile designers. This season they’ve launched a collection by Antik Batik, so I scored big getting clothes for the little folk I’ll be seeing, while finding a few fun scarves for the women folk, before headong to men’s wear for a few more. This fall they have a gorgeous earthtone scarf with red trim, that looks particularly elegant.

My final stop was Marie Quatrehommes for an entire selection of raw milk cheeses because I’m a mère juive and take a bit too much pleasure out of feeding my brood.

Electric fairies

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Mr French is in China, but had been invited to a private evening at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris to see the Michel Werner collection. With reservations for two, I called my friend, Out and About in Paris and asked her to come along. Werner is a German art dealer who has amassed a considerable collection of about 800 works over 50 years, and he has just donated nearly 100 of them to the museum. The press has been raving about this show and I was excited to attend.

The title of the show is, “I sat beauty on my knees… and insulted it”. I am not an art critic and I don’t have a degree in Art History, but I do spend a good amount of my time in art galleries, museums and at exhibitions, so I have developed something of an opinion on the subject and one of the things I get really excited about is good curating.

I love observing how shows are put together and presented to the public. This show, for example is just downstairs from another exhibition, Art During the War. It is a very dark, depressing show that includes tortured illustrations from artists like Breton, Masson, and Ernest, along side war-effected paintings by Matisse and Picasso. In one room there are even works by prisoners, created while they were in the camps. Some survived, many were deported and died. The show brings up all kinds of questions, like why people were creating art when war was happening on the sidewalks below their studios. It is an ode to the human spirit. But it was also immeasurably depressing.

Then you go downstairs to the bright lights and bold colors of the beginning of the Werner show and the clash is so loud you can almost hear cymbals go off in your head. Early on there is a piece by Sigmar Polke which created a light breeze of comic relief, as the artist imitates silkscreen and when looking close up, they appear to be polka dots. When you see wrapping paper that has been signed by the artist Beuys, then framed and sold as art, it is easy to be disparaging after the show you’ve just witnessed upstairs and I came away feeling (among other things) that the curators had really missed the mark this season.

Since this was a soirée privée, we rushed through the rest of the exhibition and headed for a valeur sur, we headed for the champagne. The buffet was set up in the hall with the permanent collection. We soothed our disappointment over the exhibitions by enjoying true masterpieces by artists that included Delaunay, Leger and Braques while savouring bite sized treats of foie gras, lobster and truffles.

After the festivities, I took my date upstairs to see Raoul Dufy’s La Fée Electrique. Commissioned by the artist for the 1937 Paris World’s Fair, this masterpiece created to decorate a hall. You enter into the art, surround yourself in 62 metres dedicated to the celebration of electricity, with paintings that rise10 metres to the ceiling, and as you step forward the light and energy illuminate your very being.

Babette

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Flowers for BabetteA few months ago I was walking up the street and I spotted Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu making a film. Not much later, I saw the film on the silver screen, as part of the celebration for the 150 years of the Bon Marche. Its fun to watch and Catherine truly is the ultimate icon, but at one point she says,

“I don’t like Parisiennes. They’re not nice…. too stressed out. Non, I don’t like Parisiennes.”

Just steps from the Bon Marche, where Catherine makes this bold statement, there is a provençal haven reserved almost exclusively for women. With a chalky blue tiled floor, cornflower walls, dried hydrangias in large vases and old pharmacy bottles on the shelves, stepping into Graine de Beauté feels like stepping out of Paris and back in time.

Translating to “the beauty mark” this salon, specializing in 100% natural hair colors blended specifically for each client, is full of chic Parisiennes; playwrights, business women, full time moms, actresses, politicians all sit quietly side by side. No one is yapping away on their cellphones, or disturbing their neighbor as we each savour the peaceful moment, serenely sipping tea that arrives in an iron Japanese tea pot, happy to de-stress.

Martine comes to work in a black fitted top and an elegant pencil skirt, looking stunning as she prepares to mix magic on to your hair. The whole operation is run by Babette, the very definition of elegance, a trim woman with rich, black hair, who glides between clients, answering the phone and grabbing the occasional handful of raw almonds or hazelnuts from the two jars that stand near the entrance.

The reason that no one takes out their cellphones is Babette. Like a strict school teacher, she is able to make it clear this will not be tolerated before the question is even asked. She dispenses more than beauty advice; she reads scalps and gives valuable life lessons as she guides women to look their very best and take care of themselves from the inside out. Her clients adore her.

A few weeks ago Babette was diagnosed with cancer. She has had the lump removed and the prognosis is good. As she recuperates it is clear how very much her clients and employees are under her spell. The staff is working double time so they can satisfy her clients, while customers offer to blow dry their own hair, and even more exceptionally, walk out of the salon with wet hair.

Seeing a Parisienne on the streets with wet hair is about as common as seeing a teen without a cellphone. Nobody asks these women to chip in and not everyone is willing to head out to the office with frizz in their future, but seeing everyone take the initiative yesterday made me wish Mlle Deneuve would pop in and see just how very wonderful Parisiennes can be.

Graine de Beauté / 60 Rue du Cherche-Midi, 6e / 0145 44 25 13

Its my treat

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Halloween isn’t exactly a holiday in France, but this week I enjoyed a particularly mouthwatering treat, just the same. Mr French and I went to see Les Saveurs du Palais with Catherine Frot, a good film with some truly fantastic food porn. The movie is loosely based on the true (miss)adventures of a woman chef at the Elysée Palace. It seems that the president of the time, a certain Jacques, was not satisfied with having one head chef. he wanted two. One for official dinners and one for his private meals which created some jealousy and the film shows French male chauvinism at its finest. They say admitting a problem is the first step to solving it. One can only hope that this may be true in France…

After the movie we were hungry and following the film we’d just seen, good food was not going to cut it. We needed something beyond ordinary.

Mr French, being a resourceful guy, looked at his watched, noticed that it was a tad early (19h40) for dinner and suggested we check out Chicha and Simone’s Italian wine bar, Oenosteria.

I met Chicha and Simone when our children were in elementary school together and they owned a fabulous restaurant known for its carpaccio. Casa Bini is still known for their thinly sliced raw beef that draws the likes of Salma Hayek to their Tuscan haunt, but today they’ve added seafood to their expertise, hiring chefs from Southern Italy who are masters with all things fish. If that is not enough they return to their native Tuscany regularly to stock up on prime ingredients; artisanal cheeses, deli meats, olive oils and truffles.

Our children are now grown, and their restaurant kingdom has, too with Primo Piano at the Bon Marché (above the Grand Epicerie) and they chic-ly relaxed wine bar where we were headed, the Oenosteria.

With an open kitchen and fully stocked fridges, this is an Italian food lover’s delight. On the menu are sliced meat platters, cheese plates, seasonal salads and a few other treats like the porchetta with grilled porcini cap that Mr French ordered. The porchini was rich and meaty, while the porchetta was moist and had the lovely aroma of sage. Being true to my funghi leanings, I had the cèpes salad; a mountain of crispy, nutty raw cèpes slices served on a pillow of arugula. Parmesan coated the dish like tinsel on a Christmas tree and as it arrived at our table I was filled with childish glee.

The food was so good that it swept us away; we were on holiday in Italy, glasses around us clinking, hands flying in every direction, it was a delightful escape. It didn’t hurt that three of the 8 tables hosted Italians who were prattling away in the mother tongue. I was so swept away that I didn’t order their traditional tiramisu for dessert, but instead opted for their perfectly crisp, delicately flavored biscotti served with a glass of vino santo. Truly divine. Salute!!!

Casa Bini / 36 rue Grégoire de Tours, 6e / 01 46 34 05 60

Oenosteria / 40 rue Grégoire de Tours, 6e

Primo Piano / au Bon Marché, 1st floor

Raphaël at the Louvre

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Paris Fashion Week is over and I am officially on the mend, so its back to work and real life. Sometimes real life for me includes being Mr French’s date at corporate events. In my past life these were dull, boring affairs, so torturous it could make a girl want to rip her hair out. But in Paris, they often turn out to be fantastic soirées that I am thrilled to attend, even if I’ll be surrounded by lawyers of chicken farmers. Case in point, last week’s sneak preview of the Raphaël exhibit at the Louvre.

Mr French joined me under the pyramid, directly from the office, rain drops dashing off his raincoat. A quick bise and he asked if I knew who Raphaël was. Insulted, I started rattling off the (very) little that I did know.

“Yes, but did you know he was also one of the Ninja turtles. They were Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphaello and… zut, I’ve forgotten the last one.” I was ready for the champagne that just happened to be coming our way on a silver platter.

As much as I love art and can go into near ecstasies talking about a 24 hour long film that watches time go by, I am not a major fan of religious art. A bit too much gore and angst for my personal taste, and they all end up dead in the most gruesome ways. Makes me worry about the human condition and why we are so obsessed with a violent end.

Most art of this genre was commissioned work, so there is rarely any personal statement attached and not a lot of emotion going on. Which makes sense, because the emotion should be coming from the viewers’ religious faith, but it doesn’t do a lot for me, faith-less soul that I am.

I do love color and light, and Raphaël was a master at both. His paintings are pretty and there is often a random servant girl or disgruntled princess in the background, adding a dash of whimsy.

One more flûte and I was ready to enter the exhibit. There were docents to greet us and educate us in every gallery. Our first docent talked about Raphaël’s background and I was absolutely floored when she informed us that he had been greatly influenced by the other Ninja’s; Leo and Mic. She pointed out how he copied da Vinci’s triangle layout and the way Michelangelo interpreted movement. “Yes, but who was the 4th turtle?” Mr French hissed in my ear.

look at those toes

I’m not sure I was supposed to be fixating on this, but either 16th century Italian women had fingers on their feet, or Raphaël wasn’t so great at depicting the human form. From the classical oil paintings, we moved on to a room with some truly fantastic sketches and then another room with extraordinary tapestries. I really loved the tapestries, even if they were only based on sketches by the artist, and not actually created by the artist. Actually, Raphaël was a busy guy, with several ateliers and lots of students, doing everything from religious art to architectural drawings for buildings, so a lot of the work in this exhibition is not by Raphaël. I can only imagine his production had email existed.

There was one painting of Saint John the Bapstist that I really flipped for, but it was by Michelangelo and it was in the show to demonstrate how much Raphaël copied was inspired by the other masters of his time. You see a lot of it throughout the collection.

The final gallery focused on portraits. At last, great art with intriguing stories of arranged marriages and brothers that pulled the strings. The room was so inspirational that it inspired Mr French to lean over and whisper in my ear, “Donatello”. It was time to leave and get some more champagne.

Raphael is at the Louvre until January 14, 2013

Manic Monday

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As you’re reading this I am Chicago, visiting the eldest in her new digs at the University of Chicago. But last week was a rare, gloriously sunny day in Paris, so I decided to do the French thing and I went on strike. I was protesting the indoors and refused to go in any building until the sun had set. But it didn’t start out that way.

It started with me heading to the ‘burbs to hear a talk with the author of “Inside Apple”. I don’t really know the outskirts of Paris, so I was relying on my iPhone which got me helplessly lost. How ironic is that??, My maps app got me lost, so I missed a lecture on Apple!!!  Following the map had taken me through some creepy underpasses near the periph’ so going back I decided I’d walk towards the center of town and cross over ‘somewhere else’. A set of big, wide cement staircases led between some office buildings towards the center of town.

I started climbing up through this wide open space when I surprised 2 men in their city worker uniforms who were clearly NOT working for the city at that moment. They were working on each other. One guy was on his knees, the other had his pants wide open. I didn’t really want to see more so I sped on up, only to find myself in the middle of an isolated forest. It was a dead end.

I headed back down, coughing loudly and stomping my feet and somewhat relieved to see one of the guys coming back up the stairs towards me. But kind of freaked out, too. Booking back down, I was thrilled when I reached the creepy underpasses and even happier when I got to the nice, open bridge that crosses the périphérique. Bright sunshin with barges and rowing teams passing below, things were looking brighter when I heard the clash of metal and screeching brakes and turned just in time to see a car come careenin directly towards me, on the sidewalk, stopping just 6 cm from my knee cap!!

I was having a bad day, and it was only 11am. Since most fatal accidents happen within the home, I decided to grab my laptop and head next door to the corner café where I could enjoy the UVs and prevent anymore mischief from coming my way.

Friday@Flore

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I’m starting this week with the classic Paris shot. Please accept this as my apology for not being able to offer the real deal, because instead of heading the Café de Flore right now, I am sitting on an airplane with M, headed to Chicago to see our much-missed E for Family Weekend at the University of Chicago. there is no French term for Family Weekend. The idea is so foreign that I have to translate it, and then explain the concept, and they still nod at me vacantly.

Through the past six months I have collected more than photos. I have met charming people, like this lovely German couple who met in Paris as students 20 years ago. They were back for the first time, having left a young son at home so they can celebrate their anniversary.

Others don’t wait twenty years, at all. Others come daily, some even at the exact same time, settling into the same spot, sharpening their crayons and drawing their own conclusions of life @Flore.

 

And not everyone leaves the kids at home. this precious group was traveling en famille, Dad patiently watching the kinder while Mom did a little book shopping at L’Ecume des Pages (excellent bookstore next to the Flore and open until midnight, wahoo!!!)

And then there are those who are out and about exploring the boulevard with man’s best friend, les chiens that even the French understand is (wo)man’s best friend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

French food for real folk

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Its mushroom season, and I am a girl with a thing for fungi. Truffles, chanterelles, morels, girolles, it all make my head go into a spin and my mouth start watering. Right now the markets have baskets over flowing with cèpes, the large fat mushrooms (sometimes crawling with worms) that look something like a porcini and are simply heavenly.

Sunday Mr French went out for a baguette for our lunch and came back with an entire kilo of the little beasties for our dinner. I was over the moon, not only would be I be having one of my favorite treats, but I would be offer dinner duty. I knew this because I have been banned from being anywhere near the spore bearing plants and an open flame. Something about my energy instantly turns them into a rubber mush, disappointing everyone, especially me. Mr French has tried to teach me how to prepare them, but I simply can not seem to learn. And maybe I don’t want to, because it is kind of nice being served your favorite dish from time to time.

This week I was granted kitchen access on the condition the camera stay in my hands at all times and I touch nothing related to food. So this is how you prepare a poêlée de cèpes bourgignon. The bourgignon part is important, because that means you get to serve it with wine. Carefully select a kilo of the beauties (any ‘shroom will do, doesn’t really have to be cèpes). Wash them lightly and brush off the dirt. If they’re large, cut them in 1/4. Then dice up an onion, 2 cloves of garlic and a bunch of flat leafed celery. Sautée the onion and garlic in a pan until almost golden. Set aside.

 

In another pan, sautée the mushrooms at high heat. This is important because they give off a ton of water. In fact, that is where I ruin the dish. I forget to drain the pan from time to time, removing any excess liquid. If you do this into a small bowl you can then save the ‘shroom juice for a risotto some other night. But if that’s complicated, but be sure to drain regularly. Just as the mushrooms look done, toss them in the pan with the onion and garlic. Heat through and sprinkle with the parsley.

If you’ve been very good all week, get your self a lovely automn fruit tart to finish your feast. Apples are in season, pears, too, but we went for figs this week…

 

mixed media

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Yesterday I left you just before describing the powerful work of the Catalan born, NYC based, multi-media artist Muntadas.

Muntadas started his career as a painter and discovered multi-media in the 1970‘s.  Unlike many photographers, he is not just recording the “decisive moment”, he is creating the moment.

Questioning art

This artist has something to say. So much to say that he often uses the images of words that come across his path, or adds the words himself, to create potent messages.

Like the words “Power Symbol” in the windows of a limousine, with the Brooklyn Bridge looming over the background, or the brightly quilted banners that read, “difference between dying and living” with black and white footage rolling nearby. Or the three words, “look”, “see”, and “perceive” highlighted under office lights.

I was particularly moved by a series of three films projected in a bare, white room. The wall to the left and the wall to the right show hands clapping loudly while the images on the central screen pass from an applauding crowd to scenes of war and nuclear reactors and back to the crowd then on to some more news footage. I stood there transfixed. Its a dark world we discover through Muntadas’ lens, but there is a sense of hope and the possibility of redemption that is often absent in art today.

And because my day had not been fantastic enough, just as I was ready to drag myself away, one of the PR gals pulled me to the side to say Muntadas was in the café giving a talk. I took a seat, front row center and sat there listening to his point of view on the art market and the creative process. At some point there was a lull and he asked what we had thought of his work, but this is Paris and the journalists were French, so no one dared offer their point of view. Not wanting to make a stir, I waited until after the talk to go up and share how powerful I’d found his work.

He was impressed, incredibly impressed. Not with my insightful revelations about his art, but with my accent. My accent!!!

“I am very interested in accents lately.” he shared with me, which seems a natural subject for a man who speaks no less than 5 languages fluently, comes from a region with two official languages and lives in a city where you can hear every accent on planet earth, with perhaps even an ET accent or two.

As we spoke, and I revealed that I was from San Francisco, he paused. “I think its time I did a piece on accents; Yes, I am definitely going to start an accent project.” I was thrilled to have brought a-muse-ment to the moment.

Sunshine!!!

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Exactly one week ago today, I had a wonderful day. To begin with, it was the first sunny day we’d had in weeks. I was ecstatic as I pulled on some long underwear and headed out the door. Long underwear? In October? Yes, I know that was probably overkill, but the lack of sunshine seems to have addled my brain.

Reading my twitter feed in the metro, somebody posted about a Mastercard campaign and the priceless Paris moment. Every idea I had involved food or chapamgne, both of which come with a price tag, so I was drawing a blank as I walked into the Tuileries Gardens and was greeted with a magical sight of white soaring mobiles in the pond. Free art in Paris with the surprise effect. Priceless.

I was in the gardens headed to the Jeu de Paume for the press opening of their new exhibits of Bravo and Muntadas. The crystal blue skies reflected my exceptionally bright mood, as I was thrilled to be attending my very first official art event as a blogger for Findingnoon, but I knew nothing about the photographers, or their work. A serious error of judgement due to pure snobbery; as a photographer, I don’t seem to appreciate photography.

Sabes, not at Jeu de Paume

Let me explain. I like art that is well beyond my abilities. Something I do not have the skill, imagination or vision to create. With photography exhibitions I’ll sometimes see work that is hauntingly close to my own. Which makes me grumpy.

The Jeu de Paume is the perfect space for an exhibit you’re not dying to see. Easy to navigate (its original use as an old-wave tennis court makes it a simple rectangle) and relatively small, it is an very approachable museum. And there are lockers so you don’t have traipse about with your winter wardrobe (wool coat, umbrella and scarf can weigh a girl down). Because it was a press event, we had the added luxury of being met with trays of viennoiseries from the Patisserie des Rêves. Mmmm… so much for my diet, the stuff was dreamy.

The Bravo exhibit is on the first floor. Nice standard photography with a great eye for geometry, which I appreciate. But nothing particularly ground breaking from my point of view. When explaining it to a friend I said that it reminded me of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Turns out these two cliché artists knew each other and it shows.

I hesitatingly trudged upstairs to see the rest of the exhibition. My intention was to take a few photos and run. Like all best plans, this one went astray, because the work I found upstairs was incredibly powerful and so interesting that even the guards were spending their time actually looking at the art, which is rare. Very rare. So rare that I need another post to share it all with you. See you tomorrow, at noon, on Findingnoon.

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