Bread and Chocolate
© Thomas Wilson Shawcross 5 May 2005
This morning, after my usual breakfast of coffee and bacon (the kind with the good sodium), I heard something vaguely reminiscent of the sound made by a Parisian subway train. I had not heard that sound since I was working in Paris, in 2000. I am baffled as to how the traffic passing beneath the balcony of my apartment in Delray Beach, FL could have sounded like riding on Le Metropolitan, but the experience started me down a nostalgic path of memories of living in Paris.
I stayed at several hotels in Paris, but most of the time I resided at Hotel Clarion St. James & Albany on Rue de Rivoli in the 1st Arrondissement of Paris. The hotel is a listed historic landmark. It had been built in 1672 as the private residence of the Duc de Noailles. In 1779, Queen Marie-Antoinette dropped by to schmooze with the Marquis de La Fayette (son-in-law of the then-current Duke), who had recently returned after helping the American Colonialists fight the Revolutionary War. There is a plaque in the hotel that commemorates this reception.
It is a small hotel now, four stars, about 200 rooms, and it is conveniently located across the street (Rue de Rivoli) from the Garden of the Tuileries, which borders the Seine River. Within a short walking distance are the Musée du Louvre, the Place de la Concorde, and the Musée d’Orsay.
If one has done any reading at all about Paris, one knows that these are nice places. I enjoyed visiting all of them, especially the Musée d’Orsay.
But, there must be something wrong with me. These are not the places I think of when I think about the time when I lived in Paris. I think about the more mundane things: Bread and Chocolate. The Laundromat.
Bread and Chocolate
It is funny how we can form mental images of other lifestyles. In 1974, when I was living in Evansville, Indiana, a foreign film titled “Bread and Chocolate “ made its debut. Oh, not in Evansville, of course, Evansville didn’t screen any foreign films. So, I never saw the movie, I only read about it. I liked the title – it sounded good enough to eat – and I suddenly envisioned millions of lucky Europeans walking about with pockets stuffed with chocolate snacks and loaves of French bread. Just now, I checked Wikipedia and discovered that the movie is about an Italian expatriate in Switzerland. Oh well, close enough.
Anyway, I had decided that it would be very French to buy some bread and some chocolate and have them for my dinner occasionally. Not that I had observed any French people doing this, but surely they did this often behind closed chateau doors. Those naughty French!
It had taken me some time to find the grocery stores in Paris, but by now I knew where they were. Oddly, a favorite location for them is in the bottom floors of the local department stores.
One of the interesting things about shopping in other countries is that the store shelves typically contain many unfamiliar brands. There were several such brands of chocolate available. I was attracted by one that had a nice elephant as its logo:
Dark chocolate with almonds – one of the many varieties of Côte d’Or
Ahhh . . . Belgian chocolate! Here I was, a boy from Missouri, buying Belgian chocolates in Paris! I was becoming as European as the next guy! Later, I was somewhat chagrined to learn that Côte d’Or Belgian chocolate was part of Kraft General Foods of Philip Morris. I was still an American. Oh well. It is a very nice chocolate, nonetheless. I also bought some nice fromage, a Boursin spreadable cheese, flavored with herbs, garlic, and pepper. On the street, I stopped at a bakery and bought a long loaf of French bread.
Rated strictly from a taste standpoint, bread and chocolate along with some Boursin cheese and a nice red wine make for a great dinner! These items, for the most part, were not pictured on the food pyramid charts I saw when I was a student at Concord Elementary School, so I cannot speak to their overall dietary impact. But, they make for a nice easy-to-fix dinner, and I always look for that in my cuisine. Plus, they made me feel intercontinental and more than a bit mysterious . . .
The Laundromat
I was not so intercontinental and mysterious that I couldn’t still launder my own clothes, of course. The hotel wanted to charge a jambe and a bras to dry-clean a pair of socks. I could have expensed this, but I didn’t feel right about doing that. So, on weekends I would visit the local Laundromat and have café au lait and soft-boiled eggs and croissants with jam while I waited for my laundry to cycle through. To be clear, this was not a combination Laundromat and Café, but the two businesses were located about forty feet from each other. If I wished, I could watch my clothes tumble dry as I sat at one of the outside tables of the café. In truth, I found doing just that to be inexpressibly boring, but I would glance over there from time to time. It was much more fun to simply enjoy my breakfast and watch the people passing by. So I did. I would pretend that I was sitting at that café in Paris where, sooner or later, everyone in the world passes by. Actually, I think that café is on the Champs-Elysées, and I have been there, but they want a jambe and a bras for a café au lait, so I don’t go there anymore!
Hotel Clarion St. James & Albany
As you, clever reader, have deduced by now, this story does not really have any point to make, it is simply a tool I am using to help me record some pleasant memories of Paris. Some of those memories involve the hotel where I stayed. It was a great location, on the Rue de Rivoli, near the Tuileries station of the subway, a.k.a. Le Metro. I know I have already mentioned the name of the street, but I wasn’t sure if you would remember it, and it plays a part in the anecdote I am about to relate:
One day, as I was riding Le Metro from where I had been working (in the La Defense area) to my hotel, my attention was attracted by some rather loud men. They were from Arkansas and had arrived in Paris the previous night. I know this and many other things about them because they made non-stop comparisons between Paris and Little Rock. Paris was losing.
Although accurate, their comparisons were casting France in an unfavorable light in comparison to Arkansas (well, think about it, doesn’t Little Rock have more barbeque restaurants than Paris?). They had their points, but I was wishing they weren’t making them so loudly. They naturally assumed that no one else in the crowded subway car spoke English, so they held nothing back in their frank comparisons. Actually, I suspect most French people do speak English, at least to some extent, and I was beginning to feel a bit embarrassed by these guys.
As we neared the Tuileries station, one of the men asked for the name of the street that they wanted to find.
“Rue de RAVIOLI!” shouted his helpful companion. Ravioli? It was Rivoli. Did they think they were in Italy? I tried scrunching down in my seat. As our train slowed along the Tuileries platform, one of the men pointed to a subway sign and shouted, “This is it! I remember that sign from this morning!” The sign said “Sortir.”
It was the exit sign. Every Metro station had a Sortir sign. Well, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. They were at the right stop in spite of themselves. I gave them a good head start before disembarking.
I needed a stiff shot of bread and chocolate.
Above: My room at the Clarion St. James & Albany hotel was decorated in the Louis Philippe style. The window looked out on a courtyard. C’est si bon.
This morning, after my usual breakfast of coffee and bacon (the kind with the good sodium), I heard something vaguely reminiscent of the sound made by a Parisian subway train. I had not heard that sound since I was working in Paris, in 2000. I am baffled as to how the traffic passing beneath the balcony of my apartment in Delray Beach, FL could have sounded like riding on Le Metropolitan, but the experience started me down a nostalgic path of memories of living in Paris.
I stayed at several hotels in Paris, but most of the time I resided at Hotel Clarion St. James & Albany on Rue de Rivoli in the 1st Arrondissement of Paris. The hotel is a listed historic landmark. It had been built in 1672 as the private residence of the Duc de Noailles. In 1779, Queen Marie-Antoinette dropped by to schmooze with the Marquis de La Fayette (son-in-law of the then-current Duke), who had recently returned after helping the American Colonialists fight the Revolutionary War. There is a plaque in the hotel that commemorates this reception.
It is a small hotel now, four stars, about 200 rooms, and it is conveniently located across the street (Rue de Rivoli) from the Garden of the Tuileries, which borders the Seine River. Within a short walking distance are the Musée du Louvre, the Place de la Concorde, and the Musée d’Orsay.
If one has done any reading at all about Paris, one knows that these are nice places. I enjoyed visiting all of them, especially the Musée d’Orsay.
But, there must be something wrong with me. These are not the places I think of when I think about the time when I lived in Paris. I think about the more mundane things: Bread and Chocolate. The Laundromat.
Bread and Chocolate
It is funny how we can form mental images of other lifestyles. In 1974, when I was living in Evansville, Indiana, a foreign film titled “Bread and Chocolate “ made its debut. Oh, not in Evansville, of course, Evansville didn’t screen any foreign films. So, I never saw the movie, I only read about it. I liked the title – it sounded good enough to eat – and I suddenly envisioned millions of lucky Europeans walking about with pockets stuffed with chocolate snacks and loaves of French bread. Just now, I checked Wikipedia and discovered that the movie is about an Italian expatriate in Switzerland. Oh well, close enough.
Anyway, I had decided that it would be very French to buy some bread and some chocolate and have them for my dinner occasionally. Not that I had observed any French people doing this, but surely they did this often behind closed chateau doors. Those naughty French!
It had taken me some time to find the grocery stores in Paris, but by now I knew where they were. Oddly, a favorite location for them is in the bottom floors of the local department stores.
One of the interesting things about shopping in other countries is that the store shelves typically contain many unfamiliar brands. There were several such brands of chocolate available. I was attracted by one that had a nice elephant as its logo:
Dark chocolate with almonds – one of the many varieties of Côte d’Or
Ahhh . . . Belgian chocolate! Here I was, a boy from Missouri, buying Belgian chocolates in Paris! I was becoming as European as the next guy! Later, I was somewhat chagrined to learn that Côte d’Or Belgian chocolate was part of Kraft General Foods of Philip Morris. I was still an American. Oh well. It is a very nice chocolate, nonetheless. I also bought some nice fromage, a Boursin spreadable cheese, flavored with herbs, garlic, and pepper. On the street, I stopped at a bakery and bought a long loaf of French bread.
Rated strictly from a taste standpoint, bread and chocolate along with some Boursin cheese and a nice red wine make for a great dinner! These items, for the most part, were not pictured on the food pyramid charts I saw when I was a student at Concord Elementary School, so I cannot speak to their overall dietary impact. But, they make for a nice easy-to-fix dinner, and I always look for that in my cuisine. Plus, they made me feel intercontinental and more than a bit mysterious . . .
The Laundromat
I was not so intercontinental and mysterious that I couldn’t still launder my own clothes, of course. The hotel wanted to charge a jambe and a bras to dry-clean a pair of socks. I could have expensed this, but I didn’t feel right about doing that. So, on weekends I would visit the local Laundromat and have café au lait and soft-boiled eggs and croissants with jam while I waited for my laundry to cycle through. To be clear, this was not a combination Laundromat and Café, but the two businesses were located about forty feet from each other. If I wished, I could watch my clothes tumble dry as I sat at one of the outside tables of the café. In truth, I found doing just that to be inexpressibly boring, but I would glance over there from time to time. It was much more fun to simply enjoy my breakfast and watch the people passing by. So I did. I would pretend that I was sitting at that café in Paris where, sooner or later, everyone in the world passes by. Actually, I think that café is on the Champs-Elysées, and I have been there, but they want a jambe and a bras for a café au lait, so I don’t go there anymore!
Hotel Clarion St. James & Albany
As you, clever reader, have deduced by now, this story does not really have any point to make, it is simply a tool I am using to help me record some pleasant memories of Paris. Some of those memories involve the hotel where I stayed. It was a great location, on the Rue de Rivoli, near the Tuileries station of the subway, a.k.a. Le Metro. I know I have already mentioned the name of the street, but I wasn’t sure if you would remember it, and it plays a part in the anecdote I am about to relate:
One day, as I was riding Le Metro from where I had been working (in the La Defense area) to my hotel, my attention was attracted by some rather loud men. They were from Arkansas and had arrived in Paris the previous night. I know this and many other things about them because they made non-stop comparisons between Paris and Little Rock. Paris was losing.
Although accurate, their comparisons were casting France in an unfavorable light in comparison to Arkansas (well, think about it, doesn’t Little Rock have more barbeque restaurants than Paris?). They had their points, but I was wishing they weren’t making them so loudly. They naturally assumed that no one else in the crowded subway car spoke English, so they held nothing back in their frank comparisons. Actually, I suspect most French people do speak English, at least to some extent, and I was beginning to feel a bit embarrassed by these guys.
As we neared the Tuileries station, one of the men asked for the name of the street that they wanted to find.
“Rue de RAVIOLI!” shouted his helpful companion. Ravioli? It was Rivoli. Did they think they were in Italy? I tried scrunching down in my seat. As our train slowed along the Tuileries platform, one of the men pointed to a subway sign and shouted, “This is it! I remember that sign from this morning!” The sign said “Sortir.”
It was the exit sign. Every Metro station had a Sortir sign. Well, sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. They were at the right stop in spite of themselves. I gave them a good head start before disembarking.
I needed a stiff shot of bread and chocolate.
Above: My room at the Clarion St. James & Albany hotel was decorated in the Louis Philippe style. The window looked out on a courtyard. C’est si bon.
posted by Tom Shawcross | 8:31 PM
1 Comments:
I would give a bras if not a jambe to write like that (I need both mes jambes for typing). The piece moves around so smoothly from Delray Beach to Evansville, to Paris, without the slightest jar to the reader, not even on Le Metro.
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