San Sebastian

We've been slow to post about the four nights we spent in San Sebastian, probably because this is such an amazingly beautiful and fun city that it seems like you'd have to write a lot. But in fact, visiting San Sebastian for us was all about the simple things. Sometimes a complex take on simple things, as in the many complicated and artfully arranged bar snacks that are the signature food of the city ("pintxos," the Basque version of tapas). But mostly we walked around, enjoyed the sunshine and warmth, watched waves and boats and surfers on the Atlantic, ate good food and drank the local wine and cider. Someday we hope to go back and do it all over again. 

The city is built around a circular bay, protected on either side by big hills/cliffs as well as a small island in the middle, Santa Klara. On the eastern side, Monte Urgull, there are walking paths and seating areas you can climb up to. It's a great place to climb around and watch the sunset.

The main beach, Playa de la Concha, from above.

A boat on the bay at sunset.

Jeff likes sunsets. Having his picture taken, not so much.

Me climbing. Once we got higher up on these stairs, it became pretty apparent that this was no longer an official route to the top, but it worked anyway.

There's a giant statue of Jesus topping the old military fortifications on the top of the hill.

On the other side of the bay, there's a viewing area at the bottom :

(you can just barely see the big JC on Monte Urgull in the distance)

But you have to take a funicular to the top of Monte Igueldo. The funicular was inaugurated in 1912 and is therefore almost a hundred years old. They say they've updated the mechanics, that only the actual seating car is the same, so there's nothing to worry about, but you know...

I worry a little.

Here's the view from the top. Worth the ride.

There is also a "FunFair" at the top of Monte Igueldo, including an Olde Mill (or equivalent), a Casa Del Terror, bumper cars, and other things that I guess children like. Such as the world's scariest roller coaster, first constructed in 1925:

Updated since then, surely? Doesn't look like it.

Even if it didn't break, I would die from a heart attack on this thing. 

San Sebastian also has a good surfing beach, less protected and with better waves. 

It is also, I think, a good place for performance art. Or to stand and stare out at the sea and think about the vicissitudes of life. 

Not entirely sure which activity this lady was engaged in.

Or indeed if she was born a lady.

We have now been back in Paris for almost a week, and it's as rainy and grey as ever, but at least I feel assured that the sky is still blue and the sun still exists. In Spain, anyway.

Bayonne

Here is a video featuring some of the good times we had in Bayonne and Biarritz. 

Mostly Bayonne. It's a great town.

Bon Nadal!

The weather has obliged us by turning beautiful, so we have been getting our fill of sunshine and warmth here while France is apparently taking another walloping. Yesterday we went to the Park Güell, designed by Gaudí (the same architect who created most of the designs of the Sagrada Família) with amazing mosaics made of broken tiles and buildings that look like they belong in a Dr. Seuss book. Here we are at the highest point of the park:

(That's the Sagrada Família in the background behind Jeff)

Afterwards we went out and ate an absurd amount of seafood. As Midwesterners, we feel it is our duty to eat as many fishy and crawly things as possible when near the source, even though we are not sure how to do it elegantly or if some parts of it will kill us. We wished for the camera to document the giant mess of shells for you, but you can imagine.

Today we visited some of the many gardens on Montjuïc, a hill in the southwestern part of the city. Unfortunately the camera battery died, so we don't have much proof, but rest assured that the sun was shining gloriously, the sky was perfectly clear, the views of the city and the Mediterranean were amazing, and we had a great time.

We did get these photos in the awesome older botanical garden, which is built into this weird little gully on the hill. You will unfortunately have to rely on the internet for more pictures of this area.

In honor of Christmas Eve, there's a choral rendition of Christmas carols on TV, and right now a special message from the King (he looks very serious, I think he is talking about how much he likes Spain even if the economy's in the tank, or something like that), and we are having a big dinner. At the Boqueria Mercat off La Rambla, we got some gorgeous steaks and local "bloody milk cap" mushrooms (so-named because a red liquid seeps out when you cut them, not because they are poison), and Jeff is going to work his magic upon them pretty soon. Here's the before shot:

Tomorrow we're off to San Sebastian, so we'll be spending most of Christmas on a train, thinking about how much we miss you all, no doubt. Happy Christmas, joyeux noël, feliz navidad, bon nadal (catalan!), and much love to everybody.

Oven Appreciation

Do you love your oven? We love ours. Here it is, hanging out in the corner with the water heater, calmly cooking away while Jeff whips through the tiny kitchen area with a dish towel.



The apartment didn't have one when we moved in, so we bought this little 19-liter mini-four to supplement our two-burner stove after a couple of weeks. We didn't have terribly high expectations. But you know, it is amazing the things you (and by "you" I guess I mean "Jeff") can do with this glorified toaster oven.


For example:

you can roast some pork belly!

or a guinea hen!

you can take your leftover meats and make a shepherd's pie! (or a parmentier if you want to be French about it)

(Jeff wafts furtively)

It also works well for the kind of easy fruit desserts that I like to throw together. This is a buckle with raspberries and pear.

you can, in fact, make an entire Thanksgiving dinner! Which Jeff did. It was rather amazing. I had to work all day so I didn't even help. Turkey leg, stuffing, green bean casserole, dressing, and potiron (pumpkin) pie all made in our little oven. Mashed potatoes and gravy also pictured.

Here it is on a plate:

And here I am trying to be good and not pick at it until Jeff finishes taking pictures:

Especially when it's cold out (which it is, in both Paris and Minneapolis), doesn't your oven maybe deserve an affectionate little pat?

Beaujolais Nouveau

It's the third Thursday of November, so we figured we ought to grab a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau. Sure, it's a marketing ploy and lots of wine people won't touch the stuff, but I think it's fun to play along with the yearly tradition. For this bottle, we walked down to Spring Boutique and Le Garde-Robe Restaurant on Rue de l'Arbre Sec. The two shops, across the street from each other, teamed up to bring Jean-Claude Lapalu in from Beaujolais along with a giant oak barrel of his wine. For €8 Jean-Claude personally funneled his wine into a bottle, corked it, stuck a label on it and handed it to us, all while sitting on the sidewalk enjoying a few glasses himself. The wine in the photo lived about an hour in the bottle before being opened. It's good - light and young and full of red currant and cherry loveliness.

We picked up a rotisserie chicken and potatoes on the way home.

Lia approved.

Avignon

Here are some pictures from our short trip to Avignon during fall break. This is the city in Provence where the popes were based for a few hundred years when things in Rome got a little too hot for them. While in residence, the popes fortified the city and built themselves a pretty impressive palace, and everything is fairly well-preserved as far as I can tell. If you imagine a cross between a stereotypical medieval city and Southdale mall, you will have a pretty good idea of what Avignon is like today.

Our original plan involved renting bikes and riding them to the Pont du Gard, the very famous Roman bridge and aqueduct about 25 kilometers away. When we arrived, however, the famous Mistral wind rendered that not such a great idea. So we wandered around the city, got a bunch of stuff at the market, and had a picnic at the Rocher des Doms park right above the Palais des Papes. By luck, we got together with a friend from the University of Minnesota who is working in Montpellier this year. And we went for a good long walk outside Villeneuve-lès-Avignon on the other side of the Rhone river. Here are some pictures of these exciting events.

 

 I should say Avignon is well preserved with the exception of the famous bridge, which people got tired of rebuilding in the seventeenth century or so. I guess there is a well-known nursery rhyme about dancing on the bridge of Avignon, though neither Jeff nor I had heard of it. 

Lunch! terrine, cheese, olives, tart, baguette, wine.

 Flattering shot of me with Provençal tart.

 The olives were definitely good. Jeff thought they were fabulous. 

I ate two and almost liked them, which is high praise considering how I generally feel about olives.

You get a great view of the countryside from the Rocher des Doms. You can get an idea of that and of what the wind was like from these little videos Jeff took. I later read that due to the Mistral, most trees in this area grow leaning towards the south.

 That second video shows part of the Palais des Papes. This is the biggest gothic castle still standing. Here are some more photos of it.

This is the Fort Saint André near Villeneuve, seen from our walk near the river. 

It was built by king Philippe le Bel towards the end of the 13th century to help keep the popes in line.

Walking around the countryside near Villeneuve. It was nice to get outside of an urban setting for a while, and even the big parks in Paris are full of people most of the time.

So that's the news for the moment; today we are reading books in the apartment and listening to the rain on the roof.

Everyday life

It has been a quiet week here on rue Oberkampf. Elsewhere, as you may have read and seen in various news outlets, things have not been quiet; a few hundred teenagers decided to change the face of what had been, up to that point, a very peaceful series of massive protests. Of course, it's the kids breaking windows who get attention from the media, so you might have thought all of France was in shambles, but for us, it's been normal. Our apartment is about a fifteen minute walk to my work, so I don't have to deal with subways and trains that might have been crowded or delayed, and I don't have a car in need of gas (problems for some of my coworkers, though). Some of my students took the day off to attend protests. But that's all the disturbance we've experienced.


Weekdays when I work are fairly routine: I get up and go off to teach, Jeff does whatever he does when I'm gone (I think he plays guitar, works on learning French, plots world takeover, etc.), and then meets me at school. Sometimes we get a coffee, sometimes we go for a walk, sometimes we go window-shopping. Eventually we get hungry and decide we need to find food, and depending on how ambitious Jeff's plans are, we either go to Lémo (humorously pronounced lame-o) the organic grocery store, or we run the gamut of butcher shop, fruits and vegetables, bakery, etc. The fruit and vegetable guy recognizes us and realizes that he can talk me into "un petit peu" (a little bit) of pretty much anything, and usually throws something extra in the bag,  so he is particularly fun.

Then Jeff works his cooking magic while I catch up on the news of the world, but I like to let Jeff talk about that since it's his thing. I've cooked maybe three times since I've been here (other than toast and such).

Non-workdays are more fun and vary more; since I last wrote, we have been to the museum in the Petit Palais, we have gone actual clothes-shopping, gone out for drinks with some of my fellow lecteurs, we have been investigating French pizza, and today we are planning to head over to the Musée de la Chasse (hunting) et Nature, which we have read is surprisingly great, full of taxidermy and weapons and paintings, all commemorating the great aristocratic pastime of shooting things.

However, our big plans right now are a long weekend in Avignon. It's Fall break for all schools in France, ending with the Toussaint (All Saint's Day, an official holiday here), so I have ten full days off. In the middle of them, though, is a band that we want to see. So we're just planning a quick jaunt down south for some sunshine and Roman ruins.

I just realized I haven't put any pictures in this post, which I usually would add for interest - maybe we'll get some up later. In any case, that's what's going on - the streets are not burning, things are quite ordinary, but some excitement of the positive variety is in the forecast.

A bunch of unrelated items about food.

Of visiting Americans with little knowledge of the French language, the one advantage I have is that I know a lot of words for animal parts and vegetables. When I don't know what something is, I buy it and we eat it. It's how I show my mastery over nature. Last week, while looking at duck bits, we found manchons de canard. Luckily, I had Lia to inform me that manchon means sleeve. So these are duck wings. They are good, but not great when stewed in red wine. I found them at the store the next day preserved in jars of fat as confit. Probably better that way. Probably even better on the menu of the chicken wing franchise Jeff D. and I would like to open here.

A much more rousing success was the dish below. Shoulder of lamb, braised with lemon, garlic, tomato and Banyuls- a fortified, sweet dessert wine from Catalan, kind of like ruby port. Best thing we've made since arriving in Paris.

Last weekend we visited La Grande Epicerie de Paris. It's a gigantic grocery store, with fresh and packaged goods from everywhere. I especially enjoyed the TexMex/Spain/Germany section. This is a great place to go if you want ketchup, peanut butter, fish sauce, maple syrup, English canned beans, horrible salsa, wild rice, rare artisanal Spanish ham, marshmallow fluff and you want it all at one beautiful store. Of course, you pay more. €3 for a shot glass-sized bottle of fish sauce is crazy when there are Asian markets selling liters of it for that price. Anyway, it's fun to see all the hard-to-find and luxury items in one place. If it were open all night you would find drunken tourists and ex-pats from all over the world satisfying their midnight food cravings together.

I have what I think of as a Midwesterner's relationship with seafood. I'm kind of ignorant and a little unsure what to do with most of it. It makes me anxious- I wash my hands more than usual when preparing it. How do I cook this? When is it done? Which part do I eat? How do I get to that part? Which part is poison? I just don't like being that neurotic at the dinner table. I figure France is a great place to get over this problem.

To start, we decided to hit the open-air market, buy a bunch of seafood and make a stew. It sounded so simple and then ended up being one of the most time consuming things I've ever cooked. Luckily, it was delicious and fun. We bought langoustines(little lobstery things from the North Sea), mussels and rouget(red mullet).

Langoustines and Mussels

Rouget fillets and their former home.

shells, fish racks, leeks and carrots

Lia particularly enjoyed the little langoustine claws.
Here she is eating them while impersonating a Vermeer painting.


The table.

Paris Food Excitement

The food here is amazing. This is an obvious statement I didn’t fully understand until I got here and started going to the markets. I feel like we have barely begun to investigate what’s available and yet I am already struck giddy with such frequency that I don’t know how people handle it on a daily basis.

“The rabbit still has its kidneys!” I exclaimed about an hour ago. I knew it came with heart, liver and head intact. These I saw at the butcher when he quickly morceaux-ed it for us. Unwrapping it at home I found the kidneys, still attached in their regular place. Even as a fairly intrepid home cook, I have little idea what to do with rabbit kidneys. I let the butcher keep the head, which I now regret on an emotional level, but rationally I have less of an idea what to do with the head than I do the kidneys. Here is a photo of our market haul tonight (in a style cribbed from Martha & Tom) We trekked to one of the few remaining wood-fired oven bakeries for the bread and pecan tart. Closer to home we hit the butcher and vegetable joints on rue Oberkampf. The yellow orbs are complimentary Mirabelle plums from the pleasant vegetable man. He also threw in the bouquet garni- fresh thyme and bay leaves. The wine is from Marché U, an annoyingly packed, basic market at which we buy dirt cheap yet still tasty wine. Here is a flattering photo of me eating all the tomatoes:

Last week we visited La Cocotte, a cookbook store not far from our apartment. It’s super cute, well stocked and knowledgeably staffed. We bought a pretty basic, comprehensive cookbook, Le Miamissime. The rabbit is my third attempt from the book. The first was the veal from the previous post. The second was the peas in this photo. Also included in this photo are a pork shoulder steak, some potatoes and a bunch of cream.

This weekend should be exciting. Friday night one of Lia's coworkers is throwing a party. I am excited to go and speak English. Saturday night is La Nuit Blanche, an all-night citywide art party, from what I can tell. I foresee lots of walking around and drinking rosé from the bottle.