Greetings
on this warm and wet Paris morning.  Looks like we’ll have a lot of
rain on this visit but today, at least, it is light and drizzly, the
temperature is heading to 50, and the daft birds outside our window have a lot to
sing about.

So
do I, though my brain still has that peculiar cloudiness that comes from
wrenching yourself awake when the bedside clock says 7:00 a.m. but your
internal timekeeper says it’s the middle of the freaking night.

We
are about to take a damp stroll down to the Saturday morning market at the
Place Maubert where, with any luck, my favorite vendors from the south will be
there with their picholine olives and freshly baked fougasses.

Our
first 24 hours in my favorite city have been very tasty though they did not
include, as they usually do, any sweet treat from Gerard Mulot, since the lines
were too long when we went past.  The
macaroons will have to wait. Still, we
lingered at the side door where the sugary air is vented onto the street wrapping us in the smell of cotton candy.

We
did, however, hit our beloved pizza place for dinner, Pizzaria Da Pietro on rue
Mabillon. We got there too early – our
jet lagged tummies confused about dinner time — but the glimpse through the
window of flames leaping in the oven
lured us back an hour later. We had a
gorgeous assiette des legumes to start – grilled eggplant and zucchini,
artichoke heart, mushrooms, haricot verts, broccoli, cauliflower, and broad
beans, all dressed in olive oil on a bed
of lovely, bitter arugula. Great baguette
to soak up every pungent drop of oil. Then J had tagliatelle Bolognese and I had a pizza, avec aubergine et
champignons. It was perfect – crust
blistered, burned and chewy like I remember pizzas from my NY childhood. Not your Indiana pizza.  Profriteroles, fat with ice cream and
drenched with chocolate sauce, to finish. We needed to walk up all four flights to our room after that.

Other
delicious mouthfuls.

• Chips Saveur Moutarde!
  Do we have mustard flavored potato chips at home, and if not, why not? These are really great, with little flecks of mustard grains.
• Café au lait. I don’t drink coffee as a rule because caffeine makes me crazy, but I make an exception here, where being crazy is part of the fun.
• Hotel breakfast. Overpriced, to be sure, but I had a chewy grainy roll with some Normandy  butter  and abricots confiture, an oozy goat cheese, and a pain au chocolat.  As the commercial says, priceless.
• Badoit. This is my favorite mineral water – not too salty and just the right amount of fizz so I can drink it with meals. I have never seen it in the  US.  Again,  why not?

Well,
on with the raincoat and off to the market. À bientôt!

st