Cold Weather Rituals

When the temperatures turn cooler, I crave sweets. That makes September a dangerous month for me.

It has less to do with food, than it has to do with habit and fantasy. Some of my best childhood memories revolve around after-school snacks. I'd come home from school to find my mother outdoors, raking leaves or preparing her flower beds for cold weather and I'd drop my books and enjoy the brief moments of weekday freedom, by playing in the leaf piles or just hanging out. I'd work up an appetite.

"Let's go inside for cookies," my mother would say, and then we would linger in the sunny kitchen while I gave her the day's news, a glass of milk in hand.

In college, meeting friends for a late-afternoon coffee and pastry was a fall ritual. We gossiped, we commiserated, we dreamed over steaming cups and something sticky. I did not need a companion to enjoy this little ceremony. Often, walking home from class alone, I'd stop for something, a brioche, a muffin - anything that in some small way recreated those childhood moments. And then I'd walk home with a sense of anticipation.

I liked the idea of stopping off at a bakery. It was something my sweet-loving family always did, and I continued it, less for the taste of something suguary and more for the tradition. The notion. Just doing it added something to my day, to my life.

"We stopped for cinnamon buns" (or eclairs or coffee cake) was something I liked. Food was and still is and important part of everything in life. And, I liked sitting in a bakery-cum-coffee shop in the late afternoon and watcning the passing parade of oddballs who populate downtown Madison and any other big city.

In Paris, I've spent a fair amount of time sitting on a bench in Rue St. Antoine in the Marais. The windows of this Paul bakery inevitably draws me. Such beauty! Imagine one of these with your coffee today.

What are your end-of-the work or school-day rituals?

Marking the End of Summer: Memories of Picnics in Late August

Driving past a sports complex on the way to lunch today, I caught the delectable aroma of newly-mowed lawn. A summer smell, to be sure, but one we can enjoy for a few more weeks as summer makes a quiet exit.

It's been cool and gray here in northern Wisconsin, but today - a week away from the start of school - the pre-Labor Day heat wave took force. It was humid and hot but yet there were hints of things to come, a quickening of the pace of life, a sense of expectation in the air.

We need to mark this season with some ritual. I must find a new one this year, since I am no longer teaching college journalism.

There were a few years when I was in grade school, when my father would declare a picnic day to mark the end of summer. We would pile in the car about noon with blankets and baskets and suntan lotion and bug spray and then make our way to a park north of the city. Very often our picnic area was along the shore where this photo was shot.

We would set up camp and while hamburgers or hot dogs cooked, we kids played along the rocks and riprap that lined the shore. There were always potato chips and potato salad and fruit for dessert and perhaps chocolate cupcakes. In the afternoon, my father napped on a blanket in the shade, my mother read and we continued our play. Sometimes I just found a rock and sat there looking out at the freighters and ferries in the distance. I guess I was looking toward the future. As I grew older, I was restless, looking for a means of escape. I yearned to be on those boats, going somewhere. I still find the sight of boats in the distance mesmerizing.

We stayed at the park all day, building a bonfire around 7 p.m. We'd gather around it for a time, and my parents played trivia games with us. Then, we'd pack the old Ford and head toward home, with a mosquito bite or two and maybe a scratch and a keen sense of exhaustion.

I always slept well the night after one of those picnics, filled with fresh air from the day behind and anticipation for the new year ahead.

The Colors of Food

A while ago I realized that names of colors resonate with me, whether I am choosing clothing, paint or hair color.

I will, for example, choose curry over red-gold when it comes to fall jackets and aubergine over purple when choosing a a pair of leather gloves. Want to sell me a pair of brown shoes? Call them twig or raisin, but never brown.

And that nail polish I drool over? It's persimmon, not orange.

My leather coat is licorice. That paint on my walls? Breadcrust, not tan.

Oh, and when I want to cover the gray that is sneaking into my hair, it's hot cocoa or toasted chestnut.

The psychology of naming colors is not lost on me. If you want me to buy it, name it after something I can taste.

I have my weaknesses, but this is one I can live with. It is relatively harmless, after all, not nearly as bad as slurping milk shakes, stuffing my face with doughnuts, getting blotto every night or gambling. Or worse.

I loved the colors in this photo. They were not tampered with. I swear (another weakness I will admit to).

By the way, I love the pinky-tan color of shallots and the earth tones of small pottery vessels found in art galleries. This photo has an early fall feel to it, don't you think?

Stretching Leftovers: Salmon Spread with Capers and Dill

Friday night we had baked salmon and a rare treat: Baked potato with sour cream, the low-fat version of course.

I love potatoes, but have pretty much given them up during the past six months. Salmon, however, is a regular Friday dish at our house.

This time we had some left over. We decided to do a finger-food supper Saturday night, making deviled eggs and toasted and buttered baguette slices and eating them with our own fresh cherry tomatoes.

I made a delicious salmon spread and used it as a topper for cucumbers from my sister's garden.

Salmon Spread with Capers and Dill

1 cup leftover salmon
a few squeezes of fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons light cream cheese
2 tablespoons light mayonnaise or Miracle Whip
2 teaspoons minced onion
1 tablespoon capers, minced
pinch dill
pinch sea salt

I used my KitchenAid chopper to turn the salmon into a fine paste, mixed in the lemon, cream cheese, mayonnaise, minced onion and capers. I tasted as I blended, using a lot of spoons and forks, and adding dill and sea salt to bring out the salmon taste and ensure a certain amount of zip.

The spread was also good on thin slices of baguette that were toasted and buttered.

Postcard from Northern Wisconsin: Egrets in a Pond at Morning

We took the long way to breakfast this morning, tooling along backroads and side roads and roads that hug the shore.

Our first stop was a nearby pond. For the past few days it has been home to about eight egrets. Most summers you will see one or two there, along with mallards and wood ducks and Canada geese. But this summer is a banner sesason for egrets locally. I wanted to catch them in digital form.

The birds kindly allowed us each a few shots before flying off to the far end of the pond.

Then we got back into the car and made our way east to the place near the harbor with wonderful farmer's omelets, overflowing with onions, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, ham and cheddar cheese - the best omelets I've had this side of the Atlantic.

I wanted the share this enchanting late summer scene with you.

Good Things Come in Jars

I have a weakness for so-called gourmet sections of gift shops and grocery stores. It is possibly linked to my taste for French convenience foods: I am powerless to resist.

I bought this wonderful roasted pepper bruschetta (jar at right) a week of so ago and you can see we've emptied it already. I cut thin slices of baguette, added a bit of Smart Balance and toasted them in my toaster oven. I topped the toasted slices with bruschetta and then Parmesan cheese and slipped them under the broiler for about 40 seconds.

The red pepper relish (left) was $3 cheaper and much sweeter. "A breakfast spread," my husband declared. He was right. I am thinking onion bagels or whole-wheat English muffins. I'd spread with them cream cheese first to temper the sweetness.

I demolished a jar of cornichons in Paris. I ate them with everything. I failed to bring a jar back with me, so I tried this smaller and pricier jar at home. A bit sweeter but still spicy. Maybe this brand will grow on me.

(We always bring jars of this and that home when we travel. We cushion them with bubble wrap, further cocoon them in plastic bags, wrap them in my husband's clean socks and stick them in the sock section of our Pullman case. So far, everything has made it back to Wisconsin in one piece.)

The jar below contained grapefruit marmalade, a gift from my New Zealand friend Fiona, who often posts comments here. Thanks, Fi! This was great - and unusual. I paired it with ricotta or cream cheese, sprinkled with bit of brown sugar, and spread it on English muffins or bran muffins. I even used it as a topping for ice cream but found that adding a bit of sugar was essential.

My penchant for buying jars of things dates back to my early 20s when I befriended a lovely and lonely older woman named Gayle who owned a gourmet shop in my home town. I loved to visit her little shop late in the afternoon. We would talk about this and that, and Gayle's brief career as a model and her marriage that failed and her engagement that ended. She had a quiet, classic style - dark dresses with pearls - and an aura of big city-ness that I tried hard to emulate. We lost touch and a few years later she died.

Like the others who have influenced my life and culinary habits, Gayle lives on when I make saffron rice or brew of cup of a certain brand of tea she liked.

She, too, is part of my French kitchen.

Prudence in Paris

I cannot tell you how much I wanted this raspberry confection in the window at LeNotre near the Bastille one dreary morning in May.

I craved it. I could taste it. I wanted to consume it. It was almost a sexual thing.

Eating it - posessing it - would have brightened my day considerably.

But it was 40 euros, and it was a big. I should have bought a smaller dessert, which was about 7 euros. But even that is hard for me to do, as my frugality gene rears its practical head regularly when we are on the road.

The way I see it, you never know when you will need every extra penny you have. So: No frivolous purchases.

My husband and I often split desserts. We want a taste, not the whole thing. This saves us both money and calories, not to mention carbs, fat, salt and other things that are bad for you but good tasting.

Life is unfair.

We restrained ourselves, shooting photos instead.

I'm not sure if I am entirely happy being so darned prudent and frugal.

Tomatoes, Nonprofits and Ratatouille Soup

In the nonprofit world, you often get by with very little or you create something from nothing or from bits and pieces.

You make use of everything.

I am pretty good at that, at finding creative uses for odd bits of this and that. As I've noted here in the past, when that practice is applied to the kitchen, it makes for some interesting meals. Some are good, some are just odd.

My ratatouille soup was good.

Last weekend I roasted a chicken stuffed with onion, garlic, rosemary and thyme. I poured stewed tomatoes over it. I often make my own stewed tomatoes, following no particular recipe. This year, there seems to be a bumper crop, and family and coworkers are keeping me well stocked.

We ate the chicken with a side dish of ratatouille. Later that day, I made chicken stock from the leftovers, added more stewed tomatoes, and cut my ratatouille into smaller pieces. There was a bit of white meat left, and that went into the soup pot, too.

It was easy, it was fast and it made use of everything that was left over. There was enough to keep me fed all week and enough to freeze. It was accompanied by slices of French bread toasted with a basil-and-tomato-infused specialty cheese.

The Quality of Light — and the Strength of Imagination

Before you actually travel to Paris, you may have been there.

You might have imagined, as I did, quays wrapped in light evening fog or gritty neighborhoods of cheap shops and trinket stores. You might have yearned to see Paris come alive in the morning with delivery trucks blocking narrow streets and outdoor vendors already hawking their edibles in street markets.

I did. I imagined all this, based on photos and stories and books. And then I experienced it all first hand.

I was never disappointed. Paris fails to disappoint, time after time.

Much of my early vision of Paris was fashioned by magazine ads for such perfumes as "L'Air du Temps" and "L'Heure Bleu," which inevitably featured pale photographs of the Seine and Notre Dame or Pont Neuf. My teen-aged imagination took flight, and a vision of Paris was formed.

It was palpable. I could smell it and taste it, too.

Eventually, I saw it for myself. And I photographed it.

I love the photo above for the way it captures the watercolor quality of the light over Ile St. Louis and Ile de la Cité at 6 p.m. Our feet were aching, and we stopped to rest on precarious seats above Quay d'Orleans.

It is an ordinary picture of an ordinary moment. And yet because it met my expectations, I wanted to savor it.

And so I did.

Those of you who post here know exactly what I mean. You've experienced this too, if not in Paris, then somewhere else.

Where and when did you have your "Yes, this is it" moment?

A Still Life by an Open Window

I am always intrigued with the composition of food in photographs and paintings.

This fascination goes back to childhood, when I spent winter Sunday afternoons armed with a bag of oranges and my parents' coffee table books, which usually focused on travel and history.

One book of black-and-white photos combined both, and in it was a feature on Colonial Williamsburg. There was a photo of fresh on a windowsill warmed by the lambent late-afternoon sun that always intrigued me.

They were root vegetables, I believe, and it seemed to me that they were waiting to be prepared for some deep and rich and earthy-tasting supper dish.

Poring over these books gave me a taste for home decorating or “shelter” books, especially those involving kitchens. I am always interested in the choice of food props. Bread, onions and artichokes? Berries, cheese and lemonade? Who decides? How do they decide? Do they look at kitchen color and come up with a contrast?

I remember looking hungrily at a fall table decorated with bittersweet. Atop the table were pewter tankards, probably filled with hard cider, a loaf of rustic bread, a hunk or two of cheese, and a bowl of apples.

It seemed like a fine fall meal to me.

When I was 16 years old, we piled into the car with Grandma Annie on an October afternoon and visited my grandfather’s sister, Annie’s sister-in-law, who lived on an 1870s-era farmstead 30 miles into the country.

Before we left, Frances prepared an impromptu meal of ham, cheese, rolls, applesauce and cold milk. This humble meal has remained a favorite of mine on busy fall weekends.

In Paris, we had a kitchen window that looked out on an airshaft. Just before 5:30 p.m., the light was right for food photography. I shot this photo of a baguette and some aromatic Pont L’Eveque cheese with a bottle of wine after a long afternoon in the Marais. I like the way the shadows add depth to the food.

It tasted wonderful, too.

A Paris Lunch: Warm Pepper Salad

You eat well in Paris on 200 euros day. Very well. Breakfast will be your cheapest meal, followed by a good lunch and dinner. You can probably work in a snack, too.

But I didn't have that kind of money to spend. We were trying to keep our trip under $5000. By planning ahead and buying food items that complemented one another, my husband and I ate well on less than 20 euros a day. It helped that we rented an apartment with a small - aren't they all in Paris? - kitchen.

I improvised as well, as I do at home, pairing ingredients in new ways. One day after a morning of traipsing around the 13th arrondissement and taking buses across the south side of the city, I had peppers, onions and sausage on hand plus half a baguette.

I cut the sausage into bite size pieces. I sautéed it and the peppers and onions in minced garlic and olive oil, and topped them with a sauce of aoili and mayonnaise blended flavored with Provencal sauce from a jar. I buttered the bread and browned it in the skillet. The meal was served with a very reasonable rosé table wine from Provence.

The meal and a short power nap fortified us for another round of discoveries in the afternoon.

Improvised meals remain my favorites.

A Bit of Heaven on the Vine

Tomatoes and the wind down of summer are inextricably linked.

You can find tomatoes in profusion at most local farm markets. They abound in grocery stores, too. And of course, in backyard gardens.

I grow them on my deck in massive pots, along with thyme, rosemary, sage, chives and lemon balm. That way I can step outside and pluck them fresh just before a meal. These tomatoes are sweet as candy, but tart, too, making them a good foil for fresh or dried herbs and a dash of sea salt.

That's all you need, really, although you can find other ways to serve them.

The mere thought of fresh tomatoes comforts me. There was a time in my youth when life was tempestuous and runnning to my grandmother's for supper was my escape. Annie often served a plate of sliced tomatoes with her suppers, which were usually sandwiches and homemade soup.

After supper, we'd gather in her living room and enjoy the breeze coming from the south-facing screen door. Often neighbors would come knocking with bounty from their garden. They liked to visit with her: Annie was a pillar of the neighborhood, a staunch friend in need, a seasoned pollworker, and a longtime member of St. Anne's Society, the womens' group of the twin-steepled "French church." Her house, her home for all of her life, save for the first few years of marriage, was smack dab in the heart of Frenchtown.

All of this was a diversion for me when I was struggling with teen-aged angst. I concentrated on mundane things like Mrs. Kickbush's tomatoes while my heart was breaking. Such everyday matters provided focus. They grounded me.

Years later, on my own in the city, I yearned for the tastes of summer: Tomatoes, iced tea, lemonade, berries, corn on the cob. I stocked my larder with the foods that took me back to Annie's kitchen or garden and I sat in my tiny studio apartment imagining myself back home.

Today, finding comfort is easier. I have learned to cope with disappointment, crazy people and stress. I have a built-in support system in my husband and a dear friend who lives five blocks away.

I still like tomatoes.

More Memories of Annie's Kitchen and Blueberry-Nectarine Crisp

I wish I could take you back to the comfort of Grandma Annie's kitchen.

It was quite ordinary as kitchens go. A square room with no built-in cabinetry, it had a deep farmhouse sink and white appliances. There were three or four mismatched cabinets around the perimeter and a table in the middle, not a scarred wooden table, but a newer white enamel-and-chrome model with slats that pulled out to make it larger.

On cool, dreary days, the kitchen was redolent of vanilla and almond and buttery aromas and perhaps chopped fruit in an old stoneware bowl. Annie had no newfangled gadgets, only time-tested utensils of wood and stainless steel. She used an old meat grinder, the kind you clamp on a table or cupboard, and an old-fashioned potato masher.

Her conversation was not deep, for she was not on the outside a deep woman. But she posessed an inner core of steel and a firm convictions when it came to her Catholic faith and her unwavering sense of right and wrong. She was generous, always buying this or that for her grandchildren. I did not truly appreciate her until she was long gone.

Her kitchen remains, though four years ago the family home on Dunlap and Bellevue in the heart of old Frenchtown was sold to a couple who gutted much of it and made it stronger, bringing it into its third century. The kitchen was the first room finished and when I visited it while the remodeling was in progress, I could feel Annie's presence. It was a mid-fall evening and as I stood in the kitchen with Denise, its new mistress, I could sense Annie's approval.

"Yes," I could hear Annie say to me in the deepening dusk. "This feels right. It is still my kitchen."

How lucky that Denise and her family have the sense of goodness my Annie had! How lucky for us that Annie's house - the home Pépere bought about 1883 - is in such good hands. Its new occupants were already friends, now they are part of our extended family.

As I baked this dessert in my own kitchen tonight, I though again of Annie and the passage of time and the timeless chopping and peeling and mixing that is part of what we do in kitchens, what we have done for centuries. I wonder if Denise feels part of that. I must ask her next time we talk.

Blueberry-Nectarine Crisp

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup brown-sugar/Splenda mix
1 cup cold Smart Balance (in place of butter)
1 cup chopped pecans
4 cups fresh blueberries
5-6 fresh nectarines. cored and diced
1/2 cup fructose
3/4 cup cognac-white wine blend
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons cornstar]ch
dash cinnamon

Blend flour and sugar. Cut in butter or Smart Balance and pecans for a coarse mixture. Set aside.

Dice nectarines and combine with blueberries in large bowl. Blend Cognac-wine mix with cornstrach, vanilla and sugar until sugar dissolves. Pour over fruit and gently toss. Pour fruit into greased 9x9-inch baking pan. Top with crust mixture. Bake in preheated 375-degree oven on middle rack for about 40 minutes. Serve warm with French vanilla ice cream.

Note: My husband and I loved this recipe, which is adapted from one on Epicurious. My husband raved, saying it was a good balance of sweet and tart. Annie would have loved it.

Fall in the Air and Ratatouille in the Skillet

There comes a weekend night in late summer when the chill sets in and we close the windows for the first time since early June. We don forgotten sweaters or sweatshirts and throw a quilt on the bed. My husband tunes in the Green Bay Packers game and I settle down with the September issue of Vogue or a good mystery.

It's ratatouille time. Saturday night, I made a skillet version of my favorite dish. In the oven was a whole chicken stuffed with garlic, onion, rosemary and thyme. Rice from the Camargue was baking in a sauce of tomatoes and herbes de Provence. So I sliced my vegetables and sauteed them in a skillet.

Ratatouille in the Skillet

1 small eggplant
dash sea salt with herbes de Provence
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 small zuchinni
1 small summer squash
2-3 small peppers, red or green
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
1 small can diced tomatoes

Wash and slice, but do not peel the eggplant. Strive for uniform size pieces. Place in a bowl and sprinkle with sea salt and herbes. Cover and set aside for an hour or so until water drains from the eggplant.

Slice the zuchinni, squash and peppers, too. Sauté each, one at a time, in olive oil. Sauté only until eacg vegetable begins to turn golden brown. Set aside. Slice onions and mince garlic and do the same with these. Set aside. Finally, drain the eggplant and add it to the pan. Return onion, garlic, zuchinni, squash and peppers to the pan. Add diced tomatoes and allow the mixture to simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes. Season with additional herbes de Provence, sea salt and pepper, if you like.

My husband noticed that the tomatoes took on new flavors from the vegetables.

The entire meal, which was preceded by a simple salad of cherry tomatoes and lettuce, tasted of autumn on the rise and hinted of the Midi.

I often think of ratatouille as a transitional dish, one that is best savored as summer wanes and fall begins to show its burnished colors. It was the perfect meal on a dark and chilly August night.

Gooseberry-Blueberry Bars with Ice Cream

I’ve had few opportunities to bake recently, thanks to hot and busy days.

But now that our Wisconsin summer is gradually turning cooler, I’m thinking blueberry crisp or Grandma Annie’s blueberry pudding.

There was one day in mid-July that was cool enough to ponder baking something. I’d just been to one of the local farm markets where I found bag of gleaming gooseberries for a very reasonable price.

I paired them with leftover blueberries for a Gooseberry-Blueberry Bars.

1-cup flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter (I always use Smart Balance)
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1-cup fresh gooseberries
1-cup fresh blueberries
1-cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

Blend flour, powdered sugar and buts. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or fork until mixture resembles coarse meal. Press evenly into a 9-inch square pan. Bake for 15 minutes in 350-degree oven. In a saucepan, combine berries, sugar and cornstarch. Heat over medium-to-low heat until softened and thickened. Pour over crust. Cool thoroughly before serving with whipped cream or ice cream.

The blueberries temper the sometimes too-sweet gooseberries. To my palate, warm gooseberries taste like patchouli. Fresh gooseberries are often bland. I usually add a dash of vanilla to my fruit when I make this sort of thing, but this time I forgot to do that.

Note: This recipe was adapted from one I found at Oregon Fruit Products.


For a time, I had a gooseberry bush in my back garden. It never flourished, and after a few years, it died. But the few berries it produced were sweet and flavorful.

Gooseberry bushes, by the way, should not be planted near certain pine trees. The bushes are hosts to White Pine Blister Rust, which is devastating for five-needle pines.

What are you baking these days?

A Subtle Shift and a Waning Season

Watering my herb garden one recent evening, I realized how quickly the tail end of summer is coming upon us.

The angle of the sun had changed, ever so slightly. I grabbed my camera and captured the tall grasses near the old horse barn. My mother and I planted them 13 years ago on my birthday, along with false indigo, lavender and thyme. Today, the patch is filled with brown-eyed Susans and goldenrod, surprise visitors from some other garden or wild spot. They are welcome in my scruffy little back garden.

Did I mention the goldenrod was turning yellow? I hear crickets all day long and in the morning, I can hear the low rumble of traffic in the morning. It sounds different than it does in, say, May or June, and it is a sound I associate with this time of year, when the pace of life begins to pick up. I have no idea what causes it, perhaps someone reading this will tell me.

What this all means for me, year after year, is that I want to make ratatouille, stuffed peppers, and anything containing basil, thyme or rosemary. I make frequent visits to my herb garden and become heavy handed with dried herbes de Provence.

I forget about the lighter salads I crave in spring. Strawberries begin to bore me; so do grapes. Blueberries remain a favorite, but I start thinking about the tangy bite of apples, too.

I look ahead to crispy mornings and cooler nights and burnished woods and the lambent light of September, but part of me mourns the lost spring, that season of such hope. It will, God willing, come again.

For now, autumn awaits. And I am making ratatouille tomorrow night.

Financiers Pistache

Buying our first baguette on our last trip to Paris, I spied a tray of pistachio financiers and felt my willpower melt away. I have always loved the color and flavor of pistachios.

I bought two of them and carried them back to our cozy apartment. My husband raved.

And thus began my pistachio obsession, which actually began in January, but hit its peak in Paris. As did I.

For one thing, I liked asking for them. Fee-non-see-ays pee-stash may not roll trippingly off the tongue, but it is fun to say.

"Deux financiers pistache, s'il vous plait," I asked the lovely blond lady behind the counter.

To her, I sounded American. To me, I sounded French.

I felt like a real Parisian.

As we were searching for the city's hidden gems, we found Cafe Pistache. Since it was rather early in the day, the place was quiet, if not closed. It is near the Grand Colbert and the Passages Colbert and Viviene, near Le Palais Royale and the old round Bourse, a neighborhood teeming with life and traffic, especially at high noon. But I am enamored with the name, and hope to visit next trip, at least for a cafe creme.

A Place Tucked Away

There is nothing quite as intriguing as a place tucked away behind something else or deep within a neighborhood. Perhaps it is an unexpected find, like the glass studio my husband and I recently found in an old industrial district along the water, or the jazz club hidden behind a warehouse in a nearby town known for its belching smoke stacks and tough neighborhoods.

Whenever possible, we eschew main streets for alleys and twisting passages, at least when we have the good luck to be walking in Paris, or some other French city. It is an urban form of shunpiking and usually leads to charming surprises.

The tiny bistro above is just north of Notre Dame Cathedral on Ile de la Citie, just yards from the spot where Heloise met Abelard. We were on our way to meet Richard Nahem of Eye Prefer Paris that early evening in May and did not have time to stop.

"We'll come back," we promised ourselves, but we never did. We will - I hope - in 2008.

Another place tucked away is St. Paul Village, sandwiched between Rue St. Antoine and the Seine in the Marais. Passages and alleyways and courtyards are filled with shops, many of them purveyors of antiques of one sort or another, or objets d'art. High tourist season was not yet upon us, and many of the shops were still closed or just opening for the season. It reminded me of Door County in November, quiet but still alluring.

Since my husband and I are both film buffs, as well as Francophiles, we just had to search out "Le Grand Colbert," a restaurant tucked behind the Palais Royale and made famous in the movie "Something's Got to Give," with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson.

What is your favorite tucked-away find anywhere?

A Paris Morning and a Sense of Security

Walking to Rue Cler with our wheeled cart one morning, we passed a restaurant where the day's produce deliveries had been made and were stacked along the sidewalk. Potatoes, beans, leeks, onions, turnips and other vegetables were neatly piled outside the restaurant door.

"They wouldn't stay there long back home," we remarked. "They'd be gone in minutes."

It may be true that Parisians do not say bonjour to strangers on the street, as Americans might. But they have a sense of civility.