Sunday, 1/11/09

Cream dessert, each flavored with a different perfume:

Vincent, who is an Auvergnat, guided us through this dinner, which I started off with vin de rhubarb. It smelled a bit like rhubarb pie, but it didn’t taste much like my impression of rhubarb. Several others tried the Guignolet, a sweet plum or raisin wine with an almost overwhelming odor. Auvergne is a cold place, so people eat heartily there, and cabbage being a hearty sort of vegetable, it showed up plentifully in our meal. I had a cabbage soup with Roquefort, and the cheese dissolved quickly in the broth, cleverly giving it a richer texture and taste. The main course also contained cabbage, accompanying venison. I have discovered, unfortunately, that interesting red meats do not taste that interesting to my undistinguishing palate; the meat was fine, but not special. The waiter came by with a pot of spectacularly coherent potatoes with cheese and garlic, and showed us exactly how coherent it was by scooping up a big dollop and letting it work its way stickily back down into the pot—aligot, we learned, is a very standard dish in Auvergne. Cheese is a standard course in French cuisine, though I admit that it is a French tradition that I do not much mind having grown up without, much as I like cheese. My dessert was a cornet stuffed with orange confit and bitter, alcohol-flavored ice cream that counterbalanced the sweetness.

Vincent displaying a traditional wine and a poached pear with ice cream:

Proper French dinners are long, and this one lasted a bit over three hours. Afterwards, we took the métro to the Champs-Elysées to see it lit up for the night. It was heavenly. The trees lining the avenue, barren and forbidding by day, were lit by blue streams of festive lights by night. Rods of moving blue light dripped from the branches. Standing in the middle of the highway, where a little traffic island was saving us from swift death, we could see at one end the Wheel of Victory lit like a star, shining from the Place de la Concorde, and at the other end, the magically footlit Arc de Triomphe. In warmer weather, I could’ve sat there all night, watching the magical wealth of artificial light around us. I wonder how often Parisians remember the beauty that surrounds them, how often they stop taking it for granted, how often they think about the fact that for millions of tourists, Paris is but a brief escape from reality.

K.B.

The sign outside the restaurant: