After a weekend in Amsterdam, we left Brad and April and boarded a train for Paris.

Man, the Seine was muddy while we were there!

For most of my life, there have been three things I’ve wanted to do in Paris:

1) Order and drink grapefruit juice.
2) See the catacombs.
3) Visit Shakespeare & Company bookstore.

If #1 seems odd, consider the translation of “grapefruit juice” and tell me it’s not the greatest phrase in the world, in any language: le jus de pamplemousse. Don’t think that my rather unassuming list means I haven’t been yearning to visit Paris; in fact, I took several years of French in high school and college and have always been fascinated by the Parisian art and literary scenes from the turn of the 20th century. I didn’t have a huge list of things I wanted to do because I’m not into most traditionally touristy things and what I’ve always wanted to do was simply be in Paris.

Well, I took hundreds of pictures while being in Paris, far too many for a single post. I’ve been trying to decide how to divide them up and I think I’m going to do three posts on Paris: 1) food + attractions, 2) animals, 3) art/photography. They will each probably be ridiculously long. The first may well be the longest, so let’s get on with it.

My very first impression of Paris was highly favorable – despite getting lost trying to get from the metro to our hotel. In fact, although I think Mark wanted to murder me if I walked up and down the block one more time, that was part of my good impression, because not one but two different people stopped to ask me if I needed directions. And people say the French are rude! They are not; they are kind! The second individual didn’t speak English and I have to email my French tutor to tell her our lesson on directions helped because I was able to follow her French well enough to finally find the hotel!

We were starving once we settled in, so I consulted the Vegan in Paris e-book I had purchased before the trip for a vegan-friendly restaurant in our arrondissement and found that Tien Hiang (14, rue Bichat; 10th arrondissement; Goncourt or République metro) was a mere 3 blocks away.

I ordered the “chicken” in spicy sauce:

Mark ordered the sweet & sour “fish”:

Both were soooo good! If we lived in Paris, we’d be at this place all the time! In fact, we returned later for our last lunch in the city and I ordered the caramelized “chicken” clay pot:

… and Mark ordered the stuffed tofu clay pot:

Again, absolutely delicious! It can get a little loud in the restaurant when it’s crowded, but I can’t tell you how happy I was despite the din at 10:30 on Monday night when we strolled in for dinner…especially when the food was scrumptious.

Malheursement, my SECOND impression of Paris was NOT favorable. In fact, there were tears and an “I hate Paris!”. How can that be? Who in the hell hates Paris? Well, here is the best foreign travel advice I can give you: check for any public/national/bank holidays in your destination country BEFORE your trip – ideally when planning it. ESPECIALLY if you are a) vegan, b) prone to headaches and illness when your blood sugar drops, and/or c) not staying in an apartment with a kitchen.

Tuesday, May 8 was our first full day in Paris and little did I know it was VE (Victory in Europe) Day, a public holiday celebrating Europe’s exit from WWII. The first bad surprise was arriving at the Catacombs to find a handwritten note on the door stating they were closed for the day. Lord I wish they had explained further! Had I only known what was going on, we could have avoided a breakdown. Instead, we walked around looking for other things to do and eventually got hungry, which led to a very long and terrible succession of walking into restaurants and finding them closed. The weird thing is many of them were unlocked and occupied by the proprietor, but fermé nonetheless. The ones that were open had no vegan food. The hungrier I got, the more personally I began taking these rejections. You might think I am stupid for not suspecting earlier that there was some other explanation than “Paris hates me”, but you must understand that I’ve heard that it is not all that unusual for French businesses to randomly close for the day. I had just never thought the trend was that widespread. And also, once my blood sugar dips to a certain level, I can’t think straight and it’s a horrible downward spiral. Finally we gave up on dinner and I found a literally life-saving baguette (I was ready to throw myself under an autobus) and began to feel a bit better…until Mark discovered thon (tuna) in the packaged salads we’d bought in the 8 à Huit…which was listed in the ingredients, which I’d read at least 10 times and managed to miss (again, I can’t think, at least in French, when hungry). Breakdown ensued. It wasn’t until the next day when properly fed that I started wondering if the prior day had been a holiday. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKE. (Interestingly, we managed to hit a different public holiday – Ascension Day – our first full day back in the Netherlands, but it was far less traumatic as we knew about it in advance AND were staying in an apartment with a kitchen.)

After the miracle baguette had worked to calm me down a bit, I was determined to salvage something from the day and decided there was no way Paris would be able to prevent me from looking at the Eiffel Tower. So that’s what we did, and I felt a million times better afterwards. Je t’aime, la Tour Eiffel.

After that horrible day and once I figured out the explanation for my sorrows, my opinion of Paris again swung way back to the favorable side. We were very well-fed for the rest of our stay there and had a great time.

I don’t know the name of the Moroccan place we found in the Latin Quarter one lunchtime, which is a shame because the service was great. They gave us free kir, and even gave us a third one when we spilled one. But the BEST part was when we saw a cat stroll by the door and I did my customary shrieking of “kitty!” and the waiter went and retrieved the cat and handed him to us to cuddle while we waited for our food. Now THAT is the kind of service I like! Possibly not the type of service some people appreciate, but we thought it was the greatest thing ever. The veggie couscous we ordered was tasty too!

I didn’t have enough hands to take a picture of my WAY overloaded falafel – I couldn’t put it down once I loaded it up – but another meal near the Latin Quarter was at Maoz, and it was awesome. I put sauerkraut on my falafel! And beets! It was fantastic. I also put so much other stuff on it I had a hard time finding the falafels when I went to eat it!

You may think we never left the Latin Quarter by now, which is not true, although it did become our go-to location for finding safe food. While wandering around one day we found Le Grenier de Notre Dame, Paris’ “oldest vegetarian restaurant”, but it was before their opening time. We decided to return for our last night in Paris, though, for a romantic dinner. We were seated upstairs and the ambiance was nice:

I’d read somewhere the service was spotty in this place, but we didn’t have a problem at all. We were there quite early, though, before they got busy. I thought it was charming and enjoyed being there. The food was good, although I’m not sure I would say it was great. I felt like both of our dishes were things I could have made at home, which is what prevents me from saying it was great. (Or maybe I’m just a great cook!) I did enjoy the meal and would return. Vegan items were clearly marked on the menu.

Mark had the “assiette berbere” (assiette is plate), which from the name I thought would be a bit spicier, but it was pretty tasty if not exactly what I was expecting.

I had the cassoulet – probably the closest I got to traditional French cuisine at any point. It was served extremely hot and of course I loved the dish it came in. It was pretty tasty, although again, I think I could have made it at home pretty easily. Now you are probably going to think I’m crazy, but my favorite part about it was how the edges, where the tomato sauce had dried out a bit from baking, tasted like the edges in some frozen meals. I eat frozen meals fairly rarely these days, but my mom used to buy me a lot of them when I was in college and the best part was always the edges where the tomato sauce (if involved) got all dark and chewy. I don’t mean to insult Le Grenier by saying the best part of my meal was it tasted like a frozen meal…other than that tiny characteristic it had nothing in common with a frozen meal, I swear! The cassoulet included veggies, beans, tofu, and seitan. I also particularly liked the seitan.

This is getting very long. I think I’m going to break it up into four parts instead of three. I’ll write up a post on my #2 and #3 above, as well as a small pictorial musing on just “being” in Paris, in the next day or two, and for now just conclude with another reason you’ll think I’m crazy. (Yes, I did #1 as well and there is even a picture, but it’s not very attractive.) The catacombs and Shakespeare & Company and the Eiffel Tower were all they were cracked up to be and more (though that Seine was awfully muddy), but do you know what was thing that surprised me by being what made me fall hard for Paris? The métro. Not travelling on it, really, which was generally very crowded, but the idea of it. I have a slight obsession with underground tunnels (hence the catacomb obsession, see #2 above), and I LOVE that very unlike the DC metro system, EVERYTHING in Paris is near one, two, or three metro stops. But what I really, really, really love about the Paris métro – the surprising bit – are the signs. If I could marry a métro sign it would be this one (St Michel):

Or its twin (Blanche):

Anvers even has a marvelous map outside!

They don’t all have the art deco flowers, but the variety just makes me love them all the more. The industrial-looking Pigalle:

I forgot to record which one this is (if you know, please leave a comment!).

Goncourt has an extra-special place in my heart for being the one right by our hotel.

Seriously, when I think of Paris now, I think of those metro signs and I know that I love Paris because Paris loves beauty. Look at the typical DC metro sign (and they ALL look like this):

Now, which city do you think I belong in? Well, most of you don’t know me outside the blog, but I assure you, it’s the city with the metro signs that are works of art.

Oh, Paris. We had a rocky start but a beautiful finish. I love you and your lights and your metro signs.

Goedemorgen! Mark and I are in Amsterdam! We’ve just returned to our friends’ place here after 10 days in France and we’ll be here a few more days before reluctantly heading back to the States (it was very difficult to leave Nice). Last night I made dinner for Brad and April to help thank them for their hospitality…and all the pancakes Brad’s been making us every morning. I’m always a bit out of my element in kitchens other than my own, but I managed to make an edible meal. It has a long name:

Lentils with Roasted Vegetables Seasoned with Various Flavored Salts Found in Provence
This made way too much food for 4 people because I can’t control myself

3 cups brown lentils
1 large or 3 small onions, sliced
1 enormous carrot, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
red wine, for deglazing
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
8 small-medium tomatoes on the vine, quartered
1 huge bay leaf
about 2-3 Tbsp of tomato paste (Holland has these tiny little cans half the size of a small can at home; I used all of one)
thyme or Italian seasoning
freshly-ground black pepper
flavored chunky salt(s): I used a large smoked variety, tomato & basil, and herbes de provence

First of all, I don’t know how common a practice this is, but the grocery store we went to in Amsterdam shrink-wrapped everything; they were worse than Trader Joe’s. So first I had to free all of the legumes – I mean vegetables; I’m still thinking in French.

Next I heated the oven to 200 degrees Celsius, or 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Or rather had Brad heat the oven because I couldn’t figure out how to work the crazy Dutch oven. And by Dutch oven here I mean an oven located in Holland, not what I usually mean by Dutch oven. Then I prepared the vegetables I wanted to roast. I quartered the tomatoes and tossed then with olive oil. Not shown, I also sliced the bell pepper and put them in this pan.

I chopped the eggplant into large-ish chunks and also tossed them with olive oil:

Both of these pans then went into the oven to roast. They were each probably in there for about half an hour.

Then I sliced the onions and diced the carrot:

I pressed some garlic:

I put some olive oil and a little regular salt in a large saute pan and heated them up, then added the onion slices:

I let them brown then added the garlic:

I added the carrots:

Deglaze with red wine as necessary and cook until the carrots begin to get soft.

I added the lentils – which in English are the real legumes of this meal – tomato sauce, and bay leaf, then covered with water. At home, I’d have used veggie broth. I let them come to a boil then lowered the heat, covered, and simmered.

Meanwhile I checked the roasting veggies. Here are the peppers and tomatoes.

I removed the tomatoes to a bowl, reserving their juices.

Then I dumped the juices and peppers into the lentils. I also seasoned them at this time with Italian seasoning (I’d probably have grabbed the thyme at home) and freshly-ground black pepper.

Here is some salt I picked up in a small store in Vieux Nice.

I sprinkled some of the tomato & basil salt on the tomatoes and set aside.

I put some of the smoked salt on the eggplant:

Meanwhile the lentils had finished cooking. (By the way, you’ll want to check them periodically and add more water or broth if necessary.) Remove the bay leaf.

I also boiled some haricots verts, which I salted with the herbes de provence sel. Not shown, I had cooked some basmati rice as well, and heated up some ciabatta I’d bought in the store.

And this was everything:

At the risk of making an over-long post, I’ll share a few other Amsterdam pictures as well. One of our first nights here, before we went on to Paris, Brad made us a delicious dinner of pasta with homemade tomato sauce, with perfectly breaded croquettes of eggplant and zucchini:

Brad and April moved to Amsterdam just before the New Year, leaving a succession of really nice houses in the States. I was jealous of them for being able to make the move (which was for a job), and even more jealous when I saw the very cool apartment they managed to get just outside the city. I especially love their kitchen:

Thanks to the kid sitting behind me, I didn’t sleep on our overnight flight here. Shortly after dropping my stuff off at their place, Brad and April whisked me to the daily Amsterdam market. One of the best stalls was the fresh hot nuts:

I also liked the spices, although I’m afraid they were later surpassed in awesomeness by the bulk spices in the Nice market.

I was shocked to find fresh tempeh in the market!

After later collecting Mark, who had stayed back to take a nap, we went to the American Book Center, an English-language bookstore I had read about earlier and which Brad and April recommended. I probably spent too much time in here and of course bought a couple of books. I highly recommend this place, and it’s quite large. This is part of the SF and fantasy sections on the second floor (or rather first floor, since we’re in Europe), while the non-genre literature section takes up the entire third (second) floor.

Just around the corner from ABC is an Indonesian restaurant Brad recommended, Kantjil & de Tijger, where I got this enormous plate of vegetarian food. The server was very friendly about making sure I got only individual dishes that didn’t have eggs.

Later we walked around the city at dusk:

The next day we did some more walking around this charming city. This shot is infrared:

If you love bikes, this is the city for you. The bridge over this canal, like all of the many bridges and all the streets, is completely lined with parked bikes. This is probably the most bike-friendly city in the world.

See?

And the first of several pictures of me and Pig I’ll undoubtedly be posting…

Up next: Paris!

Ugh, I have never gone this long without posting! I need to get back into the swing of it, or just start cooking more interesting things! I will try to be more consistent. Anyway, I nab fresh beans any time I see them, and I happened across some fresh black-eyed peas this weekend, so today I cooked up a spicy stew that seemed worth a post. Here’s what I did:

Black-eyed Pea Stew

1 leek, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 small or part of a large sweet potato, chopped
1 large tomato, chopped
1 jalapeno, minced
about 6 large cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1/2 tsp celery seed
10 oz fresh black-eyed peas
4 cups vegan broth or bouillon (I used “chicken” flavored bouillon)
2 tsp liquid smoke
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 Tbsp filé (optional, for thickening)
2 cups or more spinach (collard greens or chard would be even better but I was working with what I had on hand)

Chop the leek. I include some of the green bit so it doesn’t go to waste.

Mince the jalapeno.

Chop the tomato.

Mince or press the garlic and chop the carrot, bell pepper, and sweet potato.

Rinse and pick over the peas. You can also used dried black-eyed peas, which you don’t need to soak (though you can). Your cooking time will just be a bit longer.

Heat some oil in a Dutch oven, then add the leeks and celery seed. Cook for a few minutes.

Add the bell pepper, carrot, sweet potato, garlic, and jalapeno. Cook for another few minutes.

Add the broth or water and bouillon, tomatoes, black-eyed peas, liquid smoke, smoked paprika, and if you are using it, the filé. Bring to a boil and cook until the sweet potatoes and peas are soft.

Add the spinach and cook just for a minute or two (a little longer for collards or chard).

I didn’t have enough rice in the house, so I cooked some barley in some vegetable broth as an accompaniment.

Serve with a crusty bread!

I also served with avocado, because I serve everything with avocado. The avocados are shown atop the stew here, but I really smooshed them on pieces of bread to eat them. This was a nice, smoky, spicy, wholesome meal.

So, I spent part of my absence in LA, where I attended Fortinbras’ graduation. Yay for Fortinbras! The car rental place gave me a free upgrade to a Jeep Wrangler, which was a ton of fun and made me happy because I usually miss having a convertible when I’m there. Fort meant to take a picture of me in the Jeep because he said I very unexpectedly looked “perfect” driving it (he thought I’d be dwarfed by it as I’m so “tiny” and ordinarily drive a very tiny car), but we forgot. In fact, I lugged even more photography equipment than usual out there yet managed to take far fewer pictures than usual. It was more a trip to just be with friends, and Fort’s family, than sight-see, though, and it was really nice. One new thing we did do was drive down to San Diego, which is about two hours south of LA. This is La Jolla, which I learned on this trip is how you spell the place I formerly thought was spelled La Hoya!

This kind of looked like Greece to me, not that I’ve ever been to Greece.

We saw a gorgeous sunset there.

Okay. Time for a story. Lately it seems like all my trips end up taking on some sort of eerie literary significance. Have any of you read 1Q84? My story contains no spoilers, but it’s a little more interesting if you are familiar with it. I was driving a Jeep full of friends to La Jolla on an absolutely gorgeous day, sitting in typical southern California beach traffic, when from the passenger seat Fort exclaimed, “Some woman just got out of a cab into traffic and started walking down the highway!” To which I responded, “That’s the beginning of 1Q84!” Which it is; the book begins with a girl named Aomame, who is a passenger in a cab sitting in heavy traffic on a Japanese highway, getting out of the cab (with the encouragement of the cab driver) and walking across traffic to a nearby set of emergency stairs. Fort watched his woman walk away, and that was the end of that conversation.

We finally made it to the beach, just before sunset, and I took the pictures above. We stayed until the sun was completely set and the moon was high in the sky. I aimed my camera at the moon and snapped this picture:

That is NOT what I saw in the sky. What I saw in the sky was the bright white blob you see in the photograph. I did NOT see the second, green moon. If you have read 1Q84, you know why this picture is weird. In 1Q84, some people, including Aomame, become aware of a second, duller, greenish moon hanging in the sky a little lower than the regular moon. Most people don’t see the second moon. I have no explanation for the appearance of the green moon in the photograph. A second picture I took a short while later also contained the green moon. A picture from the exact same perspective taken by a friend did not contain the green moon. It must be some sort of lens flare – it looks like it may be a mirror image of the real moon – but it was strange it appeared just a couple of hours after another 1Q84-like event. Creepy, huh?!