Paris Eats - Oh Mon Cake!

In an effort to avoid the millions and millions of people taking advantage of les soldes on the rue de Rivoli, Copain and I took the rue Saint Honoré on our way to la Madeleine on Saturday (he got to pick up his new watch, a gift from his maman and papa for his 30th birthday). 

I'd heard of the rue Saint Honoré, but never really paid attention to whether I was taking that particular street or not (sometimes I wander without paying much attention).  Saturday, however, I was VERY aware that I was on the rue Saint Honoré - fur coats, designer It-bags, fancy cars - it was like the back street version of La Croisette - great for people watching even if you can't afford anything!

Just as I was starting to get a bit hungry, and just as I began planning my request to stop for a crêpe somewhere, I looked to my right and saw Oh Mon Cake! Did you just say cake? Um, yes, don't mind if I do! Thankfully, Copain was on board for a cake adventure, so we stopped in to try it out.

How cute is this place?

The minute I saw carrot cake in the window, I knew it had to be mine. Behold my (okay, our) carrot cake and latte:

Oh La La J'adore - Un Weekend Parfait...

Starts with this.

The Best Invention EVER: Le Café Gourmand

I feel like I've probably talked about the splendor of le café gourmand in the past, but I'm compelled to write about it again. For the café gourmand truly provides the best of both worlds...

Normally, when you go to a restaurant, you are either disappointed because you didn't get the amazing-smelling coffee or you are disappointed because you didn't get the amazing-looking dessert (or you ordered the moelleux au chocolat and wished you had ordered the clafoutis de cerises). No matter which way you go, you're bummed out.

Enter le café gourmand - it never disappoints because you always get some of everything! An espresso and a miniature version of each dessert...perfection.

My Anglo peeps and I decided to take a stroll in the 18th last week. We got off at metro Abesses and made our way to a funky café - we only had one criteria: the café HAD to serve café gourmand. Thankfully, we had no trouble finding one and promptly ordered 4! (We had a fun Frenchie along for the ride).

When our order arrived, we were surprised to find that our mini crème brulées were literally en train de bruler - on fire!  When we asked the waiter if it was normal, he took the opportunity to make fun of us...mais oui! c'est une crème...brulée!  He then went on to say that a crème brulée on fire is truly "la classe américaine", which took some explaining for us Anglos to get.  American class? ummm, ok...but isn't a crème brulée French? Thankfully, he went on to explain that la class américaine meant that something was  super cool, but in an ironic way.  I'll have to try using it in a sentence...

I tried to get a photo of our crème brulée en train de bruler but alas, the Iphone 3 wasn't up for the challenge:

Our café gourmand came with an espresso (but we requested a "noisette" - they add a little bit of milk!), a mini crème brulée and a mini panacotta with berries on top. Usually they come with a biscuit of some sort too, but we were happy with this. The crème brulée was ah-mazing. génial. fabuleuse.  la class américaine, quoi.

Next time you are out for dinner or need a snack, just remember: Go café gourmand, or Go home!

McCafé invades Paris

I'll admit it, I used to be a huge Starbucks fan.  Not only did I go there to study on a regular basis in college but I also worked there for the better part of a year and used to bring home pastries and a pound of coffee a week, much to my roomies' delight. We devoured the maple oat scones. (Unfortunately, my other roommate worked at Coldstones and brought home cake batter ice cream with sprinkles). Needless to say, we didn't lose any weight that year.

When I moved to France I missed Starbucks and walking around with a coffee in my hand like a real American. On my trips to Paris (the only city with Starbucks at the time), I would buy pounds of coffee and treat myself to lattes with extra foam. Thankfully, Copain indulged me and would sit in what he called Starbook while I got my fix. 

After six years en province I was forced to cut my Starbucks habit and got used to sitting on café terraces with a café crème and a yummy pastry, people watching and enjoying l'ambiance.  When we moved to Paris, I was excited to have Starbucks at my fingertips again, but it seemed ridiculously expensive, not to mention packed at all hours of the day. Ambiance de merde.  

I still go from time to time, but it's rare and usually ends in complete and utter irritation at the line, the management or the big ice chucks in my blended frappuccino.  It's a last resort kind of thing, plus, it's cheaper to share a big drink there than for both of us to get our own drink at a café. 

You can imagine my shock and surprise when I came across the Starbucks wannabe - McCafé- next to the Carousel du Louvre. I'm sure that this has happened in Amuuurica already, but this is the first McCafé that I've seen in Paris. And where is it located? Funny you may ask! Why, right across the street from Starbucks! 

I feel it's my American duty to test it out and report back being the past Starbucks fan that I was, but I'm pretty sure I'm just going to be annoyed at the American designer coffee industry. Syrups and Ventis and whipped cream, oh my! 

Is it the la fin du monde or is it just the next step in fast designer coffee? Another contender for the Starbucks empire?  Anybody already been?  Do tell - worth it or should it automatically go on the ish list, right next to Starbucks?

What Do You Get When You Cross an Aveyronnais with a Californienne?

I would be lying if I said that the Copain and I have don't have some very strong differences of opinion when it comes to money, how much money is spent and what money is spent on.

If you ask him, this is a genetic issue - one that cannot be controlled because his family is from l'Averyon. The Averyonnais people are very proud of their region known for some of the best food and richest terroir, however, along with being well known for their fierté of the region they have also been stereotyped as being the cheapest, tightest people on the planet. The French sum in up in one great word: radin.  A male Averyonnais is radin and a female Averonnaise is radine. It's very simple. **And please note that even the Averonnais call themselves radin - so please, do not think I'm taking liberties where liberties should not be taken.

What I have now come to call Copain's maladie (illness), manifests itself in a way I never thought possible coming from someone who grew up in the leading European country that is France - especially seeing as how he was not raised during times of famine, Communism or The Great Depression, but instead lead a privileged childhood complete with a city home, a country home and daily nutella on his 4pm snack.

But somehow, for reasons I cannot yet explain, the radin in Copain has slowly but surely taken over his life (and mine)  causing a diverse range of challenges over the past six years:

1. Despite the fact that we both hold down full time jobs and earn a respectable living, we have now lived through three winters without the use of our heaters 95% of the time. As I type this, my fingers are slowly but surely starting to freeze - Copain has just held his hands up to his mouth to breathe hot air on them in an attempt to warm them up. I ish you not.

Call me spoiled, but I appreciate a warm-ish ambiance when it is 3° C outside. I have now taken to wearing full pjs, slippers and a fleece robe at all times in the home.

2. Regardless of the fact that our summers in Cannes were hot, muggy and AC free (not Copain's fault), he obsessed over the constant "running of the refrigerator" that wasn't normale and therefore turned the dial for the cold setting to 2 - out of 6.  Goodbye yogurts.

June, July and August were spent in a constant refrigerator battle - 2 then 3, then I would go on a weekend trip with friends, come home and it was 2 again - then 3 when he went on a business trip - then 2 when I went out to dance class...etc. etc..

3. After a long-haul summer flight from California to Nice with a stopover in Frankfurt, Copain refused to take the air-conditioned 14 Euro, 1-hour Express bus to Cannes and instead took the AC free, 2-hour city bus for just 1 Euro.  I preferred to pay for comfort and he preferred to suffer for cheap. I took pleasure in treating myself to a quick trip home after a day of travel; Copain took pleasure in saving 13 Euros and yet still getting to the same destination no matter how uncomfortable or long.

Because this decision to take different modes of transportation began with a very heated discussion because I preferred to wait 20 minutes for the Express bus to arrive (knowing what comfort awaited me) and he wanted to jump on the city bus that was already pulled into the bus station and was departing in 2 minutes,  I took even greater pleasure in beating him home, especially since my neighbor helped me lug my 55 pound suitcase up to the fourth floor and Copain had to muscle his up all by himself.

I do realize that this may seem immature, bratty or even spoiled rotten on my part - logical and rational on his part - but all of that goes out the window with me after 10 hours of recycled air and plastic-covered air plane food.

4. Sometimes when I bake batch after batch of cupcakes (I only have one good pan), Copain runs back and forth from the oven to the electric meter, watching the dial turn faster and faster in absolute horror.

He has requested that I now only bake cakes.


Which now brings us to Paris...

5. Worried that our water heater was "running uncontrollably" and "overheating" our water, Copain decided to pull out the fuse for the water heater in our fuse box for long stretches of the day which resulted in not 1, not 2 but THREE cold showers for FCC - in the middle of minus-degree Parisian winter 2011.

Now, again, I understand that electricity is expensive in France - I sing it to the rooftops to the Americans I welcome in Paris. However, don't you think we could use just a little bit of all that energy we are saving by surviving nuclear winter without heat? Just a thought...

6. Again, riddled with worry about using hot water and therefore making the water heater run unnecessarily, Copain washes the dishes with cold water only. Not tepid water - FREEZING cold winter water. Despite my admiration for the ecological benefits of of this practice, I would also enjoy the germ-killing benefits of washing with hot water as well as the hand/skin/health-saving benefits of not going into hypothermia every time we eat dinner and therefore dirty a dish.

7. After receiving a 25 Euro amende for riding the Parisian metro without a valid ticket (in his defense, he is waiting for his Velib pass to arrive in the mail), Copain refuses to take a metro anywhere and instead walks - even if it means it will take 50 minutes to get home after a late night out and even if his girlfriend has to work early the next day.

I'm all about exercise (see my post about my new gym membership) but sometimes I JUST WANT TO GET HOME. quickly. and go to bed.

8. I have been lectured by Copain about the increased warmth we will experience in our apartment if we close the window shutters when it gets dark at night. Now I realize that the French are big on the closing of the shutters in general,  and I could understand the logic if we actually used our heaters, but really - does is matter when the heater hasn't been on all winter?

You are probably wondering how I manage - but this is what you do when the rest of the time you are showered with bisous and affection - reminding you that freezing winters and bad yogurts really aren't the end of the world.  Also, I have now come to discover that I can live without a heater (I've proved this over the past three French winters I have experienced and could probably now survive an Alaskan camping trip), I can live through cold showers (though I did empty his entire can of shaving cream into the sink for vengeance) and I can survive the hour-long hikes home (free gym membership) BUT I have my limits and the buck stops here -

I WILL NOT DRINK CHEAP COFFEE!!!!!!!!!  So when Copain brought home the value pack of cheapo- nasty- Maison du Café - I-only-paid-three-euros-for-a -5 -pack- coffee - I went straight down to my local Starbucks and spent three times as much for just one package- because mes amis, I may be able to revive a hypothermic dishwasher but I cannot live through a bad cup of joe.

Next up, my very profound blog post on cultural understanding, global competence and perhaps even some self-reflexion regarding the effects on my perspective due to growing up as an American in the suburbs of California with two working parents, summer vacations, a dog and weekly dance classes...

Or not.

Maybe I'll just stick to my original theory that Copain is the cheapy and I am clearly the normal one.