A Surprise Trip to Paris for a Friend

A friend who posts here sometimes has been whisked off to Paris by her family for a special birthday.

She has written us a message full of excitement and discovery, and we - her widespread circle of friends who use the Internet to keep in touch - are delighted. And a bit envious.

Paris - the heart of Paris - hits you in surprising ways. On a sunny spring day, it is like a huge carnival, with something lively and exciting in every corner.( I thought it was appropriate that the museum of Paris is called Carnavalet. It has become one of our favorite places in the city.)

Paris when it drizzles is no less enchanting. (It drizzled so much last trip that I had to reach into my photo archives for a picture of Notre Dame from April 2005.) But Paris under gray skies is always oddly familiar to me. As a child, dreaming of a city I had yet to visit, I perceived there were parts of the city that were crowded and gritty and even a bit tawdry. I have found them and embraced them. They are at their best - their grittiest - on overcast, even sodden days.

Have a wonderful time, A! I will be thinking of you!

Our Tables, Ourselves

In Paris we ate at a small table – probably from IKEA – in front of a window overlooking a busy street in the 7th Arrondissement.

We lingered over our meals – like the one above, which was cobbled together with odds and ends – and speculated about the passing parade in the street below us. Children on their way to and from school, led by nannies or parents; office workers on motorbikes and bicycles; tourists clutching maps and water bottles, their eyes fixed on that Parisian homing device, the Eiffel Tower; and young women trotting expertly across the cobblestones in very high heels – we speculated on their stories as we sipped modestly priced wines from Provence and raved over the freshness of our ingredients.

The food and the company creates the memories, but the tables at which the memories are made play a role, too.

The circa 1910 cherry dining set that belonged to my Grandma Annie recently left its home in Frenchtown for the first time in 90 years. Ornately carved, with eight chairs and several buffets, it is now stashed away in my mother’s garage, covered with blankets to insulate it from the cold Wisconsin winters until that time my sister and her family have ample space for it. For a time, the dining set was used by the young family who bougth the house four years ago and who have brought it into its third century. But now they've got a dining set of their own, and Annie's has returned to her family.

It would fit in my dining room, which is the largest room in my home. But, laden with memories as it is, it is not my style. My husband, who chose the Prairie-inspired table and chairs we’ve used for 18 years, would find it ugly.

Besides, my sister has a daughter who will learn about Grandma Annie as her mother sets the elegant tables she devises for special dinners and holidays.

Those will be precious lessons. I have precious memories, too, of a time when Annie was in the prime of her life, surrounded by friends and family for long protracted Sunday dinners of roasted chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and conversation. She was an attentive and gracious hostess, her salt-and-pepper hair neatly waved, pearls at her neck, her cheeks faintly rouged, her small lips breaking into an easy smile.

Annie's table contrasted with that of my father’s mother, Grandma Laura. That table was blond and spare of design, as different from Annie’s elaborate table as Laura was from Annie.

While Annie was round, Laura was slender. Annie baked and read women’s magazines. Laura smoked and favored movie magazines. Annie was warm and welcoming; Laura was witty and articulate, with a biting sarcasm that could cut your down to size in a moment.

I am like Annie during the work day. If you are invited to my home for a meal, you will meet her. But at the end of a long week, I am pure Laura. Without the cigarettes.

My table has its own memories, of heart-to-heart talks with my teen-aged stepdaughter, of candlelit dinners with my husband, of special meals with friends and family.

Annie’s table was a gathering place for four generations. When not in use, it was covered with an ecru lace cloth. Mine is left bare, with a woven runner and an art glass bowl in jewel tones as its centerpiece. It is always covered with junk mail or magazines, it seems. Keeping it clear is an ongoing chore.

Can tables be metaphors for our inner beings? I wonder…

On Strike In Paris

A while back when I asked my husband what he liked best about our May visit to Paris, he replied, "Riding the buses."

Today, workers in Paris' public transport system are on strike. (Strikes usually last only 24 hours in France, another idea the French got right, in my opinion.)

Transit workers don't like Sarkozy's plans for reforming pensions. Who can blame them?

But this blog is not about politics.

Today it's about Paris buses. I agree with my husband. Although we've ventured down into the metro to buy carnets, we prefer the buses. If you are a newcomer to Paris, riding a bus helps you get your bearings. It orients you to the maze of streets. It sets your internal compass.

We took more than 52 bus rides on our last trip to Paris. Our favorites are the No. 69 and 63, which lumber across the center of Paris, but the photo above was taken from the No. 42, another favorite. (The light in that photo looks autumnal to me.) One of my favorite rides is also the No. 62, which cuts a tidy swath across the bottom of Paris.

I have found Paris bus drivers to be polite and courteous. For the most part, so are the passengers. I love the LED readouts that tell you how long it will take to get to the end of the line, and I like the recorded voice that indicates the next stop.

My little town long ago lost its bus service. When I moved to Madison, I lived downtown near a bus stop and often left my windows ajar so I could hear the big Grummans of the Madison Metro fleet belch and lurch their way across the isthmus.

I did my grocery shopping by bus, a wearisome task, let me tell you. Today I have a vehicle that does everything but take the bags from the cart and stash them away.

Still, I miss those buses. . .

Mince Onions, Not Words

For more years than I care to admit, minced onions have been a staple in my pantry. I panic when I run out, as I do with instant coffee.

I use the latter to make brewed coffee stronger and thicker. I use minced onions almost daily, in everything from rice to egg and tuna salad. I have added them to squash, along with brown sugar and cinnamon. My palate tells me they provide balance.

I do not recall my parents or my grandmothers using minced onions. I was introduced to them by my first college roommate, Vivienne. I began using them in omelets, which Vivi and I made nearly daily, and in a cold rice salad she taught me to prepare. Today, even when I add grapes or raisins or pineapple to a cold chicken salad, I also add minced onions.

They add bite to my cole slaw, along with minced green pepper. I've added them to soup, when fresh onions didn't do the trick. (I often use them with fresh onions.) If I want onion bagels (my favorite), but all I can find is plain, I add minced onions to butter, slather the onion, and toast it open faced.

As you can see, they are one of the first things I buy in Paris. This jar survived the trip without being opened, so I brought it home.

What product must you always have on hand?

Yes, Nice Does Matter

I was delighted the other day when Mary aka Breadchick from The Sour Dough, a fellow blogger and Yooper (that is, someone from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or the U.P.) named me in her Nice Matters Awards.

Mary is one of the many bloggers I've met online who is just plain nice. Courtesy, politeness, support and encouragement matter in the blog world as they do in our everyday lives.

My father always said, "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar." And he was always charming, whatever else he was or wasn't.

He was also very polite. I used to hear him ordering food and supplies by phone. He sounded almost humble, he was so polite.

He also used to say, "If you can't say anything good about someone, don't say anything at all." I never, never heard him badmouth anyone.

I have not always lived up to those standards. But I do try.

I have been lucky though. I have met all of you, and you have been patient with me over the past few months. You have visited me, even though I often do not have time to repay the visits.

So, in my mind, you are all pretty nice.

But there are several of you who have been with me for more than a year now, really offering advice and encouragement. So, while I salute all my blog friends, I especially mention the following food bloggers, who have visited my site frequently and posted, even when I was missing in action:

The lovely and thoughtful Jan from The Traveling Food Lady

The gracious and kind Christine from Christine Cooks

Another upbeat and witty midwesterner, Katie from Thyme for Cooking

A fine fellow food writer with a charitable heart, Lydia from The Perfect Pantry

The creative and always cheerful Tanna from My Kitchen In Half Cups

Now there are many others who have been helpful, friendly, caring. Erica, Kalyn, Laura, TerryB, Terri, Cyn, CF, Lucy, Judy, Toni, Kristen, Julie, Andrea, and the many newcomers who have surfaced in the last six months. Not to mention my non-cyber friends who visit here (you know who you are). But these five have gone the distance with me.

I have a hard time narrowing things down. This is tough.

So, what the heck. You are all nice.

Oh, yeah, what about the photo? I thought that was nice, too.

The Timeless Romance of Paris

It's a damp and rainy Saturday here in the Wisconsin hinterlands. A good time for puttering around the kitchen!

I've got a soy candle burning away on a side cupboard, infusing my kitchen with a deep spicy aroma. I'm ready to work.

I really planned to take a long walk today to immerse myself in the sights and smells of early fall. Although the older, less healthy trees are losing their leaves, most of our trees are still green. But that rich wine-y aroma of fall is in the air. And it could clear up. . .

We walked a lot in the rain in Paris, feeling a bit like the couple in that Gustave Caillebotte painting. Couples of all sorts are what you see on a walk in Paris, but I was especially intrigued with the older couples, those in their 60s or 70s who walked together in such practiced rhythym. I snapped a few discreet photos, but mostly I made up little stories in my head.

See those two crossing the Seine from the Right Bank to the 13th Arrondissement? Academics, she a bit younger than he. The social sciences, I think, not the humanities.

We saw a couple in the Jardin des Halles. They were Germans, I decided. A retired merchant and his wife, she an expert housekeeper who - in the words of Grandma Annie - wants everything "just so."

The couple strolling in the Jardin de Plantes (above) were the most stately. Surely he was someone important! She, too, I think. They both walked with purpose and confidence. Botanists, perhaps?

On Avenue Rapp, an older man helped his blind wife into a car, a small dog nipping at his heels. They, too, had a story, a love story.

The older couples touched me more than the younger ones. It was their history - their imagined history, in this case - that piqued my interest.

I could only speculate, of course. But oh, the stories I wove!

On a Country Road - Again - and then on an Island

These days, there is no trip more pleasant than one down a country road. Up along the shores of Lake Superior and the Canadian border, the colors are stunning and the air is brisk.

Farther south but still “up north,” the weather has been balmy these past few days, if a bit gray.

But that did not diminish the beauty of my recent drive north on business.

My trip was short, so I started it a full two hours later than last week’s journey. This time, I took an old county highway that twists and turns as it makes it way into the north woods.

We are on the cusp of summer and fall here still, so the wine-rich scent of fall does not yet linger. Only on cold nights does the smell of wood smoke permeate the air.

But the sights of a drive north are lovely as ever. I passed a trio of chickens in a farmhouse yard, saw a pair of great blue herons in a low meadow. A yellowed cornfield was black with Canada geese and crows, and more than once I waited for a pair of deer to cross the road.

The farms and fields at the south end of the road gradually morph into hunting camps and woodlands as the drive progresses. But now and then there are small settlements of shingled houses with pumpkins and cornstalks in the front yard and minivans in the driveway. Along the sides of the road are white-birch trees, their leaves turning golden, and clutches of bright scarlet sumac.

I was headed for an island on the border between Wisconsin and Michigan. The Michigan route is slightly shorter and less developed. Here the land seems timeless, despite proof of the 21st century.

Now and again, I passed through crossroads enclaves. There might be a handful of houses, a repair shop of some sort and always a tavern.

Finally I turned west toward Miscauno Island, taking three left turns to cross a single-lane bridge.

There it is, the 100-year old Four Seasons, a bit of luxury in the woods, white and elegant and sprawling. The place has a colorful history, a devastating fire the year my parents were born, years as a rustic retreat, and a more recent connection with dubious owners from the Chicago area. It is now a legitmate business with a good reputation.

(My father began his career here, and I have felt his presence, or perhaps imagined it.)

Once I checked into a long room overlooking the golf course, I set out with my camera to try to recreate the packet of photos he took in 1949.

But the place has changed in 58 years, and the land has changed, too. The building has evolved from a rustic lodge to a glittering resort.

Still, I was happy to have a few hours here to capture the loveliness of it, to hear the sounds of woodpeckers and other woodland creatures.

It was not edible, but it tasted sweet.