Easter Flea

Six days a week there's an excellent food market at the Place d'Aligre in the 12th arrondissement, but on Mondays they're closed.  Last Monday however was a holiday, Lundi Pâques, and the Place was hosting a brocante rather than vegetables and cheeses.

A brocante is a moving flea market, usually organized by one of the brocante associations which charge the vendors for a spot.  They can be upscale or not, primarily junk or full of treasures; one never knows.  Well, that's not exactly true since you can sometimes tell by the neighborhood.  In upscale arrondissements they skew a bit higher and vice versa.  The 12th is working class for the most part, but getting hipper, so a score was possible.

Sometimes it takes a connaisseur (Digression: this word looked odd to me as I typed and I looked it up.  This is the correct spelling in French and comes from the word 'connaitre' : to know.  In English this French word is spelled connoisseur...why?  It may come from Middle-French connoistre.  End of digression.) to tell the difference between worthless plastic and collectible Bakelite; I am not that person.

I did like the clown however.

And our friend Margot helped us by trying out the lawn furniture that looked exactly like what Great-Aunt Tillie had on the front lawn back in the day.

The sky threatened rain most of the afternoon and the vendors kept shifting the merchandise to try to protect it from the occasional drizzle.

This was a particular problem for the booksellers, but they didn't seem to concerned based on the disorganized mess they had spread out on the makeshift tables.

Having managed to avoid temptation at the brocante we decided to give in to it at the nearby wine bar, Le Baron Rouge.

The list of available wines covered a not inconsiderable wall and for those of their customers who wanted to take some wine home, they offered plastic billycans to fill at prices like E3.50 per liter.  How can you refuse a deal like that?  We're planning to come back someday when they have oysters being shucked out front to go with the wine.

Noshing Around Town

Daniel Rose's Spring restaurant was the surprise hit of 2006.  A tiny 16 seat restarant in a populaire part of town run by a American who did it all himself, cooking, serving, cleaning, taking reservations, whch immediately became very hard to get; who would have believed it?

Last year he decided to expand a bit, to 28 seats (!) and to move closer to the center of Paris.  It being Paris, he ran into permit trouble when they found a bit of one of the original city walls in the basement; plans on hold for a while, he decided to open a store up the street from the new location, an épicerie also called Spring, at 52 rue de l'Arbre Sec.  Last night was the grand opening, timed to coincide with the release of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau.

And what an opening!  The narrow store was filled to the brim and overflowing with foodies, winies, and anyone else curious enough to have wangled an invitation, although truth to tell, anyone could have dropped in and no one would have been the wiser.  Winemaker Jeannot Montanet of Domaine de la Cadette in Burgundy was offering his delicious wines along with hunks of jambon persillé while chatting charmingly in French and English with all comers.  Catherine Breton of Domaine Breton in Bourgeuil was doing the same, while "hot dogs" of boudin blanc were served with onions confit in red wine.  Jeannot, it turns out, will likely be in Berkeley in April when he will be visiting his importer, Kermit Lynch.  A small world story once again, since we buy nearly all our wine from Kermit Lynch.

By the time the overflow had spread out into the street and across to mingle with another party, we had met lots of interesting people, including a few of my favorite bloggers, drunk a lot of excellent wine and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, except for the incident of the sapeurs pompiers (firemen) who pulled up in their red truck to help someone who had apparently been taken ill across the street.  And all this just across the river, within 10 minutes walk.  I love Paris.

Daniel's new restaurant is back on track and will be opening in a few months, but in the meanwhile we've discovered a miracle in our backyard.  I say discovered advisedly; in fact it's been the buzz among foodies in Paris for several weeks.  Next door to le Comptoir du Relais, a restaurant we love but which has become a bit too expensive to visit as frequently as we'd like, the chef Yves Camdeborde has opened l'Avant Comptoir, a tiny space with a crêperie in front and an incredible, affordable and comfortable bar à hors d'oeuvres.  

     

I can't think of anything better than walking in and ordering a glass of good wine at an incredibly low price to accompany a board of premium ham from a well-known charcutier, served at the old-fashioned zinc counter laden with containers of cornichons, pickled chanterelles, pickled cherries, Bordier butter, and bread for the taking.  And for the best little amuse bouche you've ever had, an order of ham croquettes that absolutely melt in your mouth.  And all this for 20 Euros.  For two.

You can see why this is where we've been hanging our hats several times a week, after marketing, before a movie, on the way to an event.  I want to live there, allowing Thomas, the super-nice guy behind the bar, to feed me an unending stream of wonderful things, but the place is so small that I would soon be too big to fit through the door.  Of course then I could always order the crêpes through the window from outside.