I love paris in the ... anytime

I loved Paris. It was everything I had expected and more. Everyone had told me how they loved Paris and how I would too and they were absolutely right. From the minute I got there I fell in love with the place. It definitely helped that we were staying in the most amazing apartment in Paris.

I came across this apartment years ago through the daughter of Nicole, the woman who owns it. I met her daughter here in Sydney and she told me about the apartment. I checked it out on the net and for years I have thought it would be excellent to go and stay in the apartment and now we have. There is something very special about this place and I’m not talking about it perfect location near Montmartre. There is a feeling about this place. I don’t know if it’s an aura or feng shui or what but it makes you feel good just being there. It might have something to do with the tree growing in the middle of the apartment or maybe it’s all the light from the glass wall. I don’t know but I do know that it made me fell good just being there. So thank you to Nicole for letting us stay there.

Again I did intend to cook in the apartment while we stayed for the week but apart from the typical French breakfasts we enjoyed in the courtyard every morning, I only cooked one day and that was the first day we arrived. We were shattered from getting up at 4:30 to catch a flight to Paris so I said I would cook instead of going out. J was happy with this suggestion as he had been carrying around a few food purchases I had made in Lucca a couple of weeks back. Thank god this man packs light as he usually ends up carrying as much of my stuff back as he does his own.

There was pasta, olive oil and some mushroom & truffle sauce. All I needed was some ham and mushrooms and I could whip up a great little Italian meal in minutes. Or so I thought. While J was sleeping on the couch I snuck out and did my first reconnaissance mission of the local area – in other words I checked out what food shops were close by. I found an excellent boulangerie and picked up my first of many baguettes. Further along I came across a little market which was perfect for picking up the essentials. Of course while I was perusing the cheese section, as you do, I noticed that they had Boursin for sale. While I was growing up there was an ad on TV for years for Boursin that used the slogan 'Du Pain, Du Vin, Du Boursin'. J loves this cheese and has been known to repeat this slogan many times. So while in France it had to be done. I had ‘du pain’ already so now all I needed was the Boursin and a bottle of ‘du vin’. Whoever thought up this slogan knew what they were talking about because there is nothing better for lunch then fresh crispy baguette smothered with Boursin and a glass of red wine.

Anyway, back to the dinner. Well, my one and only attempt at dinner during this holiday was a disaster. It didn’t help that we now had such high standards after many, many good meals out. I didn’t even take a picture of the finished meal because all it looked like was a big bowl of pasta. The problem was that in my enthusiasm to elevate J of some of my purchases I decided to use ALL of the pasta. Whata-a-mistaka-ta-maka. There was too much pasta and so the mushrooms and lardons got lost and the sauce did not flavour the pasta enough. Oh well, I made the effort, just not a very good effort. Thank god we had devoured Du Pain, Du Vin et Du Boursin earlier.