It is Saturday in Paris and the city is buzzing with activity and people in the streets. Mouffetard street is full of open restaurants, grocery stores, chocolate shops, cheese shops, wine shops, shoe shops, everything one would want. John is impressed with the prices as they are not as high as we expected. However according to Rick Steves this street is known for inexpensive cuisine and prices. John and I enjoyed a leisurly morning. John was worn out as I guess I was too from the day before activities. I was sort of raring to go as I wanted John to see some of Paris but he told me that what he wanted to do was just relax. And you know what, if that is what he wants to do, he should be able to do it. I am going to be here another 15 plus days and then some more when I return in November so I know I will see all I want to. However about 2:30 pm we did leave the apartment. The weather is beautiful. Sunny, with a slight breeze. We walked up Mouffetard street because John wanted to check out the sports bar and see if they were open. This is the place they claim they will show the American football games. It is about 5 blocks away from our apartment. It was closed but said on the door that they would be open later and on Sunday for sports. We passed the Hotel Comfort we had stayed at and went to the ATM so both of us could get euro's With the money in our pockets we walked on and went to one of the many little grocery stores. I need items for the apartment, like paper towels, mayo, milk, eggs, ham , mushrooms, tomato,salt and pepper. It took me some time to track down the items. yesterday when i had gone out to the grocery store I purchased what looked like two steaks. And so it was my intention that I make John a good dinner of his favorite foods and I needed some items. One item I could not find was the pepper. John likes pepper on food. We both looked up and down looking for it. You would expect it to be along side of the salt. but it was not. I looked in the french dicionary for the french name for pepper and again I could not find the french word. When I get home I am going to redo the dictionaries to include the words the current dictionary failled to include. Well after roaming around I did find it. It was with some other spices and on the top shelf. John had wanted me to ask the clerk but not knowing what the french call pepper I was afraid asking them would be a waste of time.It also was very buzy in the store so I did not want to bother the clerk. I knew it had to be somewhere. Here is your french word of the day. Poivre noir. So apparently pepper is poivre and this pepper I purchased is Black. It was sold in a little plastic bottle with a grinder attached. At the grocery stores I have been to, the customer does the bagging. The other customer's all have decorative sacks that they bring with them. My purse that did not have much in it carried some of the goods but we had to open some plastic bags to bag the rest. The bags are free but very thin. All of this according to John cost about 20 euros, which I think is cheap compared to what we got. Happily we walked down the street and found a wine store and John looked over the sale bottles and picked one. We continued down the street and saw a place that sold post cards. To our delight we saw that they also sold newspapers. And the good news is that about 4 different papers were in English. I was so happy I forgot to look at the post cards. John likes to read the newspaper everyday and his day is not complete if he does not have one to read.
I then told him despite the fact that I would make dinner, I told him I would like to stop at one of the cafe's for a bite to eat. So we did stop at a cafe' at the end of the street and I had a salad with smoked salmon, baby shrimp, artichokes and hearts of palm and of course lettuce and a little salad dressing. It was very nice and I had a perrier and John drank a Carlsbad and ate the hard boiled egg from my salad.
We made one more stop before we got to the apartment. It was to the fish market. At this time it was just about 5 and the fish market was just opening up. They must have been taking a nap. Anyway we wanted to look at what their lobster looked like and maybe have steak and lobster for dinner. They had one lobster on display and it was 44 euros per km? It was one of those lobsters that have claws and the body and the tail. not very big and this one was not alive. We were not impressed and so we walked away.
Now returning to the apartment is a big deal and for me a important experience that will serve me the next 14 days. In order to get into the little alley our apartment is located on you need to put in a code. To get out you need to push a certain button. So anyway the other times I had not tried the code because there had always been people coming and going. We put in the code and it worked. We then proceeded to the door E which is our door and put that code in. It worked. We climbed the 2 flights. I counted 22 steps. and put in the code for the lock box to get out the key. It worked.
It was now about 5:30 and I made John a chicken sandwich from the roasted chix we had the day before and the mayo I had just purchased. The mayo did not taste as good as Helman's or Krafts. What can I say I am beginning to realize that the USA does a pretty good job with their food products. John ate his sandwich and read the newspaper and I then took a nap. he did not comment on the fact the mayo tasted different and I did not mention it to him. If he is happy I am happy. I got up at 7:30 and began preparing dinner. And this is the part of the blog that I want to take time out to complain about the food in France. I can report that the fish they prepare is always delicious. The laganna I had the other day tasted like the laganne I had in Ireland. And that was barely the laganne as we know it. The beef I purchased looked and claimed to be tender cuts. It that is what they expect as tender cuts, that is the last time I am eating beef in France.It was very very tough! John has had several dinners which were suppose to be steak and all except one that was cooked at a American Holiday Inn was tough. We decided that they just do not have Black Angus Cows in France. As we drove though the countryside we saw lots of cows but not cattle. In defense of the French the Veal I had the other day was delicious, john loved the fillet of pork. Both were tender. At every breakfast we attended at the hotels they always had sliced ham, sort of like the deli ham. The french must be in love with Ham as that is the main sandwich on the menus that have sandwiches. They make ham with beurre( another french word you can learn. Beurre is butter) ham with cheese, ham with mozarella cheese and tomato,toasted ham and cheese. The other day when we were at the hotel near the airport they had cooked sausage . It was delicious but I do not see that as a offering of a sandwich. john ate some of the sausage too and like it. But it just seems that the French do not have a good way with the Beef. Except yesterday John had beef bourgonne which he said was good. Or might I add it could be that we have been to places that do not do a good job picking out beef or preparing it.
John wanted me to be sure to include this in my today's blog. He heard once that a famous actor flew to Paris just to have dinner at Maxims. He had been thinking about taking me there. I looked up the address and read the reviews. John had a great laugh at the very bad reviews. Look up Maxim's of Paris and read the reviews. All the reviews said great furniture, lousey service, mediocre food and a price tag that is like throwing your money out into the street. A meal for 2 with starters and an entre goes for , get this, $seven hundred dollars> Well john was happy i had checked and reported to me it was like dodging a bullet> i have to end this blog now as the cap key and number keys are not working > i must have touched the wrong button> oh by the way< with dinner i made potatos and mushrooms and tomatoes> for desert we had this sweet bread for toast and rasberry jam> those turned out very good>
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