The unwitting experts in brunch

The Parisians in recent years have adopted the idea of "brunch" with enthusiasm, especially on Sundays.  Yes, they use the English word for it.  But in reality, I think they've had "brunch" ever since the croque madame and croque monsieur were invented.  According to Larousse Gastronomique, the croques' first recorded appearance on a Paris menu was in 1910.  Basically, a croque is a baked ham and cheese sandwich; the croque madame has a fried or poached egg added to it.  Some places add a little Bechamel sauce.

The park by the Tour Maubourg metro station and taxi stand.

In classic brasseries and cafés, you can order a croque at breakfast time, or anytime throughout the day.  It is often served with fries or a little side salad, or both.  It is meant to be an affordable, satisfying meal.

At mid-day, we were walking our default route along the Avenue de la Motte-Picquet and the Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg while Maria the Cleaner was working in the apartment.  Tom needed to eat, and he wanted to do so quickly so that he could return to the apartment promptly at 1PM to send work to his NYC publisher, just as those New Yorkers were beginning to arrive at the office.

Croque madame

The croque is not only an affordable meal, it is also a fairly rapid one.  We settled into leather chairs at a table in the window of Le Centenaire, a classic brasserie on the Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg.  Without even thinking much about it, I ordered a croque madame and Tom ordered the croque monsieur.  The jolly server took our order, and when we asked for a big bottle of sparkling water, he joked, "Ah, champagne, et croques!"

The croques came with fries and a bit of salad.  I ate all of the salad and very few of the fries.  Fries have to be excellent for me to want to consume those calories.  Those fries were merely good.

The croques were perfect.  The cheese was Gruyere, and the bread was pain de mie, or soft, square bread -- as is typical of a classic croque.

Croque monsieur

We didn't eat the croques in entirety.  Tom slipped part of his croque into a plastic bag to take home.  He did this to avoid the jolly server's scolding him for not eating it all.  He stuffed the plastic bag into his shopping bag.

The server didn't scold me for not eating all of my croque, but he did inquire about why I didn't eat the fries.  I simply replied, "C'est bon, mais c'est beaucoup" with a smile and a shrug (it is good, but it is a lot).  He pretended to frown.

After walking almost 5 miles, we arrived back at the apartment at 1PM, well nourished and fueled for a few hours of work at the computers.  Then we relaxed and eventually walked down to A La Tour Eiffel, the café where we first dined in Paris in 1998.  I don't remember what we ate in 1998, but last night Tom had bass and veggies with potatoes, and I had perch and veggies with rice.  I gave my rice to Tom, who loves rice because he grew up in South Carolina.  Rice is a childhood comfort food for him.  I do like rice, but I especially enjoy seeing Tom enthusiastically eating rice.

The young woman who served us was as nice as can be.  She loved hearing that we first dined there in 1998, and that it was our first dinner in Paris.  She was probably a toddler in 1998.

We were home in time to see a beautiful sunset sky from our balcony.  Here are some photos from the evening:

Bass filets with veggies, beurre blanc sauce, and mashed potatoes,
at Café A La Tour Eiffel on Rue du Commerce, across from
the church of St. John the Baptist of Grenelle.

Special of the day, perch with beurre blanc sauce, veggies, and rice.

Ah, that French bread . . . .

A La Tour Eiffel, a fine café in the heart of the Grenelle neighborhood.

Above and below -- sunset from the balcony, looking over Rue du Commerce.

It is summertime in the 6th

A strikingly handsome bust of the Swedish playwright August Strindberg appeared before us as we walked down Rue Mabillon toward the back of the Saint Sulpice church.  We'd not seen it before, even though it was installed in November 2017.  Strindberg is quoted on a plaque below the bust.  Tom was curious about that quote from Strindberg, referring to one of the murals by Eugene Delacroix inside the church.  Here's a translation:

"I often enter the church to strengthen myself in the contemplation of Jacob's struggle with the angel of Delacroix. And on leaving I remember the wrestler who stands despite his dislocated hip."

Mural by Eugene Delacroix, depicting Jacob's struggle with the angel.

I don't enter the church of Saint Sulpice to strengthen myself, but I treasure the opportunity to visit that place because I always have a sense of complete calm by the time I leave it.  I don't think I get quite the same feeling anyplace else that I've been.  I don't have to be there for very long; the feeling just washes over and through me.

My sister likes that church, too.  Perhaps it is in our DNA.

We'd entered the side door on the southern façade and made our way past the sacristy and back to the chapel of the virgin where I sat quietly for a while.

Moving on along the north side of the nave, we quickly passed by a tour guide who was whispering to his group about the pieces of the church that played roles in The DaVinci Code.  We don't care about that.

We paused to admire a large number of wooden chairs that were efficiently and elaborately stacked in the north aisle.  We speculate that these are here because the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral is out of commission, and the church of Saint Sulpice -- which is almost as large as Notre Dame, and not far away -- is now accommodating the worshipers who would otherwise be at Notre Dame.

Heliodorus driven from the temple, by Eugene Delacroix -- a mural in the church of Saint Sulpice.

At last we made our way over to the Delacroix murals.  Tom particularly likes to examine these when we go to Saint Sulpice.

We exited the main doors and looked over the Place Saint Sulpice.  The square was amazingly quiet and uncrowded.  The fountain was flowing with water again, and it is in top form now -- as clean as can be.

An uncrowded Place Saint Sulpice.

The magnificent fountain in the Place Saint Sulpice.

At the southeast corner of the Square, we walked down to the Rue de Ferou, past a newly expanded ice cream parlor and tea room at the corner of Rue Canivet (photo below).  If we still stayed on the Rue Canivet in September, this would be a hazard for Tom, who loves ice cream.

We entered the Luxembourg Gardens through the gate on Rue de Vaugirard, by the Angelina tea room.  Almost immediately, I was horrified to see an ugly building that has been erected in that part of the park.  I read the signs, which assured me that the building is only temporary.  It houses a daycare center while the center's real home is being renovated.  There is almost no vacant land in the 6th arrondissement, so this is where the temporary building has to be, I suppose.

But the rest of the garden was as lovely as ever.  We wandered slowly, pausing to rest on a couple of the ubiquitous green metal chairs, and pausing again to look at a sculpture by Zadkine that we'd forgotten (photo below).

We walked past some of the "old queens," statues representing Queens of France (as well as Saint Genevieve and other influential women) that were created and installed in the gardens in the 19th century.

Bathilde, my 40th great grandmother.  She was sold into slavery when she was
a child.  Later, Clovis II asked to marry her.  Even later, when acting as queen regent,
she abolished the trading of Christians as slaves, and she tried to buy and free children from slavery.

My 36th great grandmother, Bertrade, who died on July 12, 783,
in Choisy, Haute-Savoie, Rhone-Alpes, France, at about age 63 -- my age now.

After walking alongside the Medici Fountain, which was lined with dozens of people in green metal chairs, we exited the park and walked down the Boulevard St. Michel, past the Place de la Sorbonne, and turned left on the Boulevard Saint Germain.

The side of the lovely Medici fountain.

Tom was ready for coffee and ice cream, so I suggested that we go to Les Editeurs -- a place where I once met a friend for a drink, but Tom had not yet seen.

Les Editeurs is a classic brasserie with one dining room that is lined with books, and the other area is decorated with colorful prints.  We sat out on the sidewalk, which was decidedly quieter and roomier than the crowded Danton brasserie across the street, facing the Carrefour de l'Odéon.

Bee hives in wooden boxes in the pavilion on the left
in the Luxembourg Gardens.

When we walked past it, Danton was full of tourists.  Tourists also crowded the sidewalks on the boulevards of the 6th.  I can see why Parisians feel overwhelmed by tourists in that part of town, just as we feel overwhelmed by tourists in south Florida in the winter and early spring.

In Paris, we don't see ourselves as tourists.  Paris is just where we live (and write) in the summer.  We agree with many Parisians, that it is easier to live in the 15th and 16th arrondissements because those places don't feel like Disneyland because they aren't loaded with tourists.

Tom had his Berthillon ice cream and espresso, we shared a bottle of sparkling water, and I had a glass of wine, as we admired the Carrefour de l'Odéon.  Here's a video of our view from our table:

As we paid the tab, I checked the fitness app; we'd met our 5-mile walking goal for the day.  So we took a taxi from the taxi stand around the corner and we were home in no time.

We'd taken the metro to go over to the 6th earlier in the afternoon, when my knees and Tom's hip were still in fine form.  But after 5 miles of walking, we don't wish to suffer from going down all the steps to the metro platform underground.  We've learned that taking taxis to go home after walking is just a great way to extend our sightseeing time on street level.

Inside the brasserie called A La Tour Eiffel, 96 Rue du Commerce.

After resting in the apartment for a while, we dressed casually for dinner down the street at the brasserie called A La Tour Eiffel, across from the Saint John the Baptist church that was once the centerpiece of the town of Grenelle.  We had our first dinner in Paris at A La Tour Eiffel in August 1998.

This brasserie is handsome, has a reasonably priced menu, and serves a delicious beef carpaccio and fries (for Tom) and duck breast with mushroom sauce and asparagus (for me).

Here are more scenes from the day:

Display at A La Tour Eiffel.

Beef carpaccio (above) an duck breast with mushroom sauce (below)
at the brasserie called A La Tour Eiffel.

Old façade on Rue de Ferou.

Looking at Saint Sulpice from the Rue de Ferou.

The fountain in Place Saint Sulpice (above and below).

THANK FOR FOR RESPECTING  THE SILENCE in the church.  I can't emphasize this enough.

Detail in one of the Delacroix murals in Saint Sulpice.

Extra chairs stacked in the north aisle.

The chapel of the Virgin in Saint Sulpice.

Fasting and feasting in Paris

July 3, 2018 -- A few weeks ago, I started 12 hour fasting every day.  That is to say, I eat nothing for 12 hours, then I eat when I'm hungry in the next 12 hours. 

Combine that with a 6-hour time-zone change and bam!  I felt the burn of hunger fiercely yesterday by the time I was allowing myself to eat (about 11:30AM).  Tom was hungry, too.  The cleaning lady was cleaning the apartment, so we went to a neighborhood corner café, La Tour Eiffel.  This was the first place in Paris that we ever dined together, in August 1998.  We've been there many times since.

The café is in a picturesque spot at what was once the center of the village of Grenelle.  We entered, selected a table, and were served espresso and café au pot de lait within minutes.  Soon the server gave us the lunch menu, and we decided to have our main meal of the day there.

As we finished our coffees and decided what to order for lunch, rain began to fall gently on the streets outside.  Happily, we were sitting inside.

Beef Carpaccio at La Tour Eiffel on the Place Etienne Pernet.

Tom had a beautiful carpaccio of beef with crispy fries, and I had the pork filet mignon with an incredible rich sauce and savory mushrooms, accompanied by a light, fluffy purée of sweet potatoes.  We were so thirsty from travel and heat that we consumed a very large bottle of San Pellegrino water, no problem.

Ah, restored.  Absolutely restored, we felt.  That was an excellent lunch, in a calm café.

On our way to the café, we had noticed that the Place du Commerce park was re-named since last summer.  It is now known as Square Yvette-Chauviré.

This park, created in 1873, is of a classic French design, with mature, squared-off chestnut trees lining shaded walkways on each side.  In the middle is a narrow lawn, some flowerbeds, and a charming gazebo-bandstand.  Farther back in the park are ping-pong tables, a little playground for little ones, and a place to play boules.

Yvette Chauviré was an accomplished dancer -- a real prima ballerina; she lived in one of the apartments overlooking this park until she died last year at age 99.  She ended her ballerina days in 1972, and after that, she taught dance.

Mignon de porc with mushrooms, whipped sweet potatoes and lamb's lettuce.

[In case anyone is wondering about the 12-hour fast, let me explain.  I have a thyroid problem, and in spite of being under the care of endocrinologists for years, my metabolism still hasn't been right.  I read about intermittent fasting (IF) in Scientific American and another publication, and though it might be the answer for me.  This is not a diet; my eating habits are good (plenty of fruits and veggies, good portion control, avoiding white flour and white sugar, etc.) and I work out for 1 or 2 hours every day.  My endocrinologist says I have "the heart of an athlete."  The problem is metabolism.  So far, I've lost 4 pounds in 4 weeks, without dieting -- simply by changing the times that I eat/don't eat.  My hope is that IF is boosting my metabolism.]