Dijon - Sans Moutarde

Last Saturday, on my trip to Burgundy, we arrived in Dijon at night, and ended up wandering around the streets in the rain. The former ducal palace is lit up at night, and the plaza in front of it had fountains with lights that change color and intensity. The next day we went up in the tower, which dates from the 15th century. The semicircular design of the plaza was by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of Versailles, in the 17th century. It was pretty foggy, so we couldn't see much past the buildings immediately around us, but it was a pretty nice tower, anyway.




A large part of the palace itself was made into a fine arts museum, of which the most famous room is the Salle des Gardes. There are three tombs with recumbent figures, John the Fearless with Margaret of Bavaria, and Philip the Bold, as well Burgundian tapestries and altarpieces.




When I visited there was an exhibition of movie costumes going on, dispersed throughout the museum. Most were gorgeous robes and dresses from French period films which I'd never seen, but they chose their most famous gallery for the display of a couple costumes from Harry Potter. Nice.



Dijon has many beautiful churches, the most famous of which is Eglise Notre Dame, only because it is right on the tourist circuit marked on the sidewalk by arrows and an owl logo. At the church, the marked path takes you to an owl sculpted into the side of the church, and the legend is that, upon touching this owl, one can make a wish and it will come true. Apparently, a lot of people have tried it, because that poor owl was pretty worn down.




Although Notre Dame is the most famous church in Dijon, it is not the main cathedral, which is the Cathedrale St.-Benigne. My camera died, so I don't have any photos, but the most interesting aspect of the church is actually what is now underground. There is ongoing archeological excavation of the site and a collection of artifacts, some paleolithic from the sources of the Seine in Burgundy. Because the original foundations of the abbey there date from 1000 AD, they are now underground due to the construction and accumulation of earth around it . The crypt of the cathedral is even older, and features a rotunda of three circles of pillars, echoing the tomb of Christ in Jerusalem, a type of rotunda of which only 8 are known in the world.

When you say Dijon, everybody thinks of mustard, but now I will always think of the treasures of Christian religious art there. I didn't have any really special food in Dijon, but I suppose a blog entry about traveling to Burgundy would not be complete without someone eating Escargots de Bourgogne, so I'll show you when I ate them (clumsily) in Paris. I didn't have any in Dijon because I wasn't hungry after my enormous lunch in Vezelay and spending the large part of the day sitting on a bus.




The best thing about eating escargot has to be the rich sauce of parsley and melted butter, which is probably a magic sauce that might make anything taste good. Although escargot are offered to tourists all over the place, I think it pays to go to a nice place because snails can turn tough when they're not cooked right, or maybe if they're not fresh. At Le Bousquet, on Avenue Bousquet, 7eme arrondisement near the Eiffel Tower, they were delicious.

Chablis and Vézelay

Besides being the wine capital of lower Burgundy, Chablis has its origins as a medieval village. There are even some houses remaining from the middle ages, and two round towers reconstructed in 1778 to replace those of the original fortifications around the city, built in the 1400's. The "Porte Noël":


During the 9th century, monks from St. Martin-des-Tours, fleeing the Norman invaders, brought their relics of St. Martin to Chablis, and they were eventually placed in the Eglise Saint Martin, which was then was reconstructed beginning in the 13th century. Above the door on the south side, you can see a cross decorated with fleur-de-lis and animals, and the door itself is covered with horseshoes and strap hinges from the 13th century. These were brought by pilgrims as offerings to St. Martin, at that time the patron saint of horsemen.

Our next stop was the gorgeous hilltop town of Vézelay. In the 12th century, it was a very important religious and commercial hub, as the starting point for one of the pilgrimage routes from France to Santiago de Compostela, in Spain. From the abbey at Vézelay, St Bernard preached the call for the Crusade, with King Louis VII among the parishioners. Later, King Philippe-Auguste and Richard the Lionhearted met here before going on the Third Crusade. So, it's very apparent that the town was a major religious center, and therefore fitting that the basilica at the summit was enormous and richly decorated. Of course, the Huguenots and the Revolution disposed of a lot of the beautiful carvings and sculptures, but what remained was carefully restored in the 19th century, especially the architecture and the interior doorways and pillars.


In fact, when I entered the basilica, I was reminded a little of the feeling I had when going into the St. Peters in Vatican City, especially when I saw the huge doors from the narthex to the nave:


The tympanum of this doorway is really stunning, picturing Christ enthroned, with his apostles around him, and people of every sort being called, below Jesus and to the upper left and right, the overall message of the work being that the word of God is intended for the whole world.

The crypt houses a piece of a relic from Mary-Magdalene, although our guide emphasized to us that relics are more of a matter of faith than of the physical world.



That didn't stop someone from stealing another of the church's relics of Mary Magdalene, just three years ago. I guess that means the worshippers will have that much more faith.



I had a delicious and very reasonably priced (entree, plat, dessert; 13,5 € ) lunch at a restaurant in Vézelay called Les Glycines, which means The Wisterias. The terrace is indeed covered in wisterias, but they bloom in the spring, so it was just greenery for us. The portions were hearty, and the piece of local Charolais beef that I had was very flavorful and juicy, crowned with a rich, buttery 'Morvan-style' sauce. No one in my group had space in their stomach for the dessert of tarte aux pommes , so we took it to go. When we finally got around to eating it, we found unexpected delight in a creamy almond paste layer hiding under the apples. Yum! Yay for French food outside of Paris!

Last weekend, I went to Burgundy with the Club International des Jeunes a Paris, a non-profit organization that runs activities and excursions all the time, focussed on student-budget activities. We (50 or so of us) went by bus from Paris Saturday morning. As much as I didn't like having to sit in the bus for so long, I had a great time and saw an amazing amount in such a short time.
Our first stop was for a wine tasting in Chablis. I think I had never even tasted Chablis before, and I was very pleased with it's dry, herbal nature. Chablis comes in four appelations: Petit Chablis, grown on the peaks of the hills surround the Serein river valley, Chablis, grown further down the slopes and accounting for the majority of the production, Premier Cru Chablis, grown in areas with south and west exposure, and therefore more protected during the winter, and Grand Cru Chablis, grown on 100 hectares very close to the river, on its north bank. Chablis is made entirely from Chardonnay grapes, and aged in stainless steel barrels, and only very rarely for a short time in oak just for a hint of oakiness. I'm really tempted to go back to Chablis because the producers are located right in the town, and my interested was really piqued to visit them, especially for the Chablis wine festival this weekend.

Chablis is situated right on the river, where you can see the old wash-house (lavoir):



Our degustation was at the Cave des Connaisseurs:

Travaux Pratique Tarama and Tzatziki

My advisor in France, Ilias, is originally from Greece, and this week he did a 'lab demo' of how make two Greek specialties, tzatziki and tarama. The pictures are on my Flickr site, as a set called MMC Travaux Pratique.
The tzatziki was delicious, although I think they probably don't use fromage blanc in Greece -- I think tzatziki is usually made with plain yogurt. Ilias has issues with industrially manufactured yogurt, though, and he can tell you all sorts of reasons why it's not actually yogurt.
I still think tarama is a little weird. I don't remember seeing it when I was in Greece a few years ago. It's apparently basically cod fish eggs with mashed up bread, olive oil, and lemon juice. It makes a pretty good spread, but it's definitely salty.
The best part was eating with all of my labmates. We all work pretty independently in the lab and it was great to spend the time to have a big lunch together, even if there was no big holiday or occasion to celebrate.

Autumn - The Tuileries Garden is Still Pretty!

Before coming to Paris, I lived in central New England for six years (btw, I think we are missing a term in our language -- grad school is really a separate category from 'living' as most people know it.) There, autumn was signalled by road-side farmstands selling pumpkins, a visit to the u-pick apple orchard (for hot mulled cider and freshly made cider-donuts), and the changing of the colors of the leaves into a brilliant array of red-yellow-gold, colors seemingly designed to warm the soul as the temperatures dropped. I moved there from southern California, so it was quite fresh and enjoyable the first year, but the second year was associated with foreboding about the bitter cold of winter. In the end, I think I took it for granted, or maybe even resented the 'leaf-peepers' jamming the expressway coming and going between Vermont and New York. But now, unbelievably, I miss my grad school home. My fiancé's parents, visiting him in upstate NY and planning on doing some leaf-peeping themselves, asked me on the phone how the change of seasons was here. All I could think of was that, a couple weeks ago, I got hit on the head by a falling chestnut pod while sitting in the park. It did seem to me that Paris is just not that pretty right now. Then I thought: That can't be right!

That thought merited a Sunday afternoon detour to the Tuileries Garden. Of course, the Tuileries garden is still pretty, even in autumn, when most green stuff is turning brown and dying.





So, I sat for a few minutes and watched ducks dodge sailboats in the fountain. I felt a kind of pleasant calm, sitting there, soaking up the warmth of the sun. Rather then worrying about the cold, damp, dark winter coming, I just drank in the happy glow of the Parisian Sunday afternoon, forgetting all about the foliage of New England.

Nuit Blanche

I didn't stay up all night, but I did wander around the Marais for a bit, to see what there was to see. Firstly, there were a lot of people. Secondly, we had to wait in line for each 'attraction.' (Perhaps the second is more of a corollary to the first) Fortunately, the lines moved along fairly quickly at each place, and everyone could have a good time. Most of them were art installations that didn't take more than 5 minutes to see. I went with a friend, Florence, first to a garden near the Hotel Carnavalet, where there was a large tent in which the artist had sand installed, and a live satellite image of a beach in Tahiti was projected onto the wall of the tent, with the sound of the waves and birds being broadcast on speakers, and I swear I could feel a little ocean breeze. Very relaxing.
Then we went to an installation by Carlos Garaicoa, who had made candles in the shape of various famous monuments and buildings, and as the night progressed, the monuments melted and disappeared. Behind the table of candles, live video close-ups were shown on a giant screen. The whole thing was set up in a church, so the collection of candles also played off the theme of religious ritual.



We also went to see a giant necklace dangling in a pool of water.



Finally we went for a cafe and, having lost most of our momentum, decided to call it quits for the night. I guess I'll leave the staying up all night to the young whipper-snappers. Here was the scene at Eglise Saint Merri, next to the Pompidou Center.

Recettes Faciles

For my birthday, my labmates bought me a gift, much to my surprise: a cookbook of basic French home cuisine, Recettes Faciles by Francoise Bernard. There aren't that many pictures, but there are hundreds of recipes ranging from boeuf bourguignon to veloute d'asperges by way of clafoutis and profiteroles au chocolat. The recipes are given alphabetically, but the indexing of the recipes is really useful -- there is an index by ingredient, one by course, indices for dishes that take only 15 minutes or 30 minutes to make, an index of economical dishes, seasonal meal suggestions, wine, food and cheese matching, etcetera. Maybe they're just simplified, easy recipes, but I think the high quality basic ingredients I can get in France by going to the open air market and the small local shops make even a simple dish absolutely satisfying. I'm quite pleased to give Francoise Bernard a seat on my shelf next to Marion Cunningham. Merci beaucoup, MMC!

Birthday Flower

I kept watering this struggling gerbera daisy on my balcony, hoping that it would flower again, and finally it did, reminding me that it has been one year since I received the plant as a birthday gift. Time sure does fly!



My coworkers did some serious damage to the carrot cakes I made for today, but there were still a few chunks left at the end of the day. I would normally have added pineapple and shredded coconut, and skipped the frosting, but I simplified my approach to emphasize the carrots instead. And by also using Philadephia cream cheese in the frosting, I felt like I was giving my colleagues, almost all of whom are French, the purest taste of Real American Food. The recipe I finally chose was from the Martha Stewart website. It was softer and and had a finer texture than the one I made last year (Mother Berta's from Epicurious.com) and I was attracted by the use of fresh ginger. It's October, time to think orange, and I see some ginger-spice sweet potatoes in my future...

The carrot cake recipe is here. The only change I made was to substitute golden raisins for toasted pecans. Also, I didn't have 8-in round pans, so I ended up with one tube cake and one loaf-shaped cake. This is because I bake everything in the pans given to me out of the surplus of a coworker. In fact I'm not too cheap to buy pans, it's just that I have a ton of that stuff back in the US already, and it seems like a waste to buy more and more of the same when there many other beautiful and interesting kitchen items to make room for.

For the frosting, I combined a 200g package of cream cheese with 50g unsalted butter, both at room temperature, stirring with a whisk until they were creamy and homogeneous. Then I added a teaspoon (5mL) of vanilla extract and 2 cups (240g) of confectioner's sugar (sucre glace ou à saupoudrer). The frosting was a bit thin, so I put it in the fridge to firm up for about 10 minutes. Some recipes call for adding more sugar, but I didn't want to go that route. Due to my history of bringing in peanut butter blossom cookies and caramel swirl brownies, my colleagues start to get toothaches just from looking at my desserts, so I try to hold back on adding sugar, when I can.

I had some chopped toasted walnuts to sprinkle on top of the cake, but I forgot about them, in my extreme excitement.

When I bake in my "petit four", I always set the temperature 10 degrees (Celsius) hotter than specified in the recipe and I turn the pan half-way through the baking time, then again three quarters of the way through. Then I keep an eye on the browning towards the end in order to turn everything frequently enough to keep it even. I've learned one thing from unfortunate experience: never ever reach into a hot toaster oven bare-handed, even if you think you can keep from touching the top heating elements! Metal tongs are good to have for manipulating little ramekins, and may save you from charred knuckles!

Non aux BASM

On Saturday I went to Bastille to see the Pyramide de Chaussures, an annual demonstration, held all over France, against the use of land mines throughout the world. By adding a pair of shoes to the pile, you signify your solidarity with victims, and your support for the fight against a type of weapon that's frequently responsible for the murder and gross mutilation of innocent people.

As depressing as the situation is, it was a beautiful day and there was music and face painting, so the place took on a kind of carnival-type atmosphere.



People had the opportunity to try out life in a wheelchair, including a demonstration area where you could see what it's like to navigate tight doorways and corners, and up and down ramps, and even sports, like fencing from a wheelchair.



There was a brief demonstration of the process of clearing fields contaminated with land mines, which showed how painstaking and onerous the process is. The area is divided into strips about one meter across, which are inspected in small increments, first visually and then with a fine metal wand to make sure there are no trigger lines across the path. The inspector runs a metal detector over the ground, and upon finding something, he pushes on the ground gently with the wand to find any hard objects, which he uncovers manually by sweeping away the dirt. If the metal object is a mine, he marks it with an orange cone and comes back to wire it up for detonation at the end of the day.



In the case of cluster bomblets, like those which are currently estimated to number over a million in southern Lebanon, the inspector might use a pulley system to lower them out of tree branches from a safe distance, then mark the location and come back to wire it for detonation at the end of the day.




At the end of that Saturday, in each of 39 cities in France sponsoring Pyramides des Chaussures, all of the shoes were donated to the local charity organizations for distribution to the needy.
Here, you can find more information and sign a petition for a ban on land mines. And here you can find out about Handicap International's work with the disabled.

Good Morning, October!

The sunrise over Notre Dame and the Ile-St. Louis was gorgeous today. The fact that I could get up in time to catch it is yet another reminder of the changing seasons.





On Friday I made my first ever blog comments on Chocolate and Zucchini, a Parisian food blog, and La Petite Americaine, the blog of freshly expatriated young writer (both of which are now shown as links in the right-hand column). I posted my blog address there, only half-believing that people actually would click over to it. Judging from the recently installed site-meter, people are indeed looking at my blog, and I am totally flattered that anyone other than my family and friends would spend time reading my blog out of all of the gazillions of blogs. It makes me a little nervous, though. But anyway, I love living in Paris, and if sharing that makes someone's day a little sweeter or more interesting, I'm satisfied.