What the HECK does Jim do in Paris?

[JVJ (RIP)]

FWIW...
http://www.bpib.com/paris/2011-Spring/2011-4-part2.html

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[OtherEric]

Re:  Johnny Cash's last album:  I knew, I would have been happy to have told you if I had known you didn't know and did care!

Note to self:  I really need to write Rick Rubin a thank you letter for having had the insight to let Johnny Cash record those American Recording albums.  Taken as a whole they are some of my favorite music of all time.

[kusunoki]

Oh man. Seeing these pictures and reading of the adventures reminds me why Paris is my favorite place in the world. I only spent a month there, but it has since become my goal to try and spend as much time as possible there for the rest of my life.

Thanks, Jim!

[paw broon]

Bear in mind the ongoing and almost continuous run of strikes, not only in Paris but in la France entier.  My teacher at the French class, who is French, is just back from Grenoble and Nice and fell foul of a big railway strike called with only 1 day's notice.  She and her family are fed up with it. We've been stuck in Nice (gosh, what a terrible fate) because of a lightning strike at the airport. Mind, it isn't stopping us trying to have a week in Lille later in the year
Wonderful country, Paris is one of the great cities, culture, food, wine, comics - all can be of the highest quality but the strikes are worrying.

[JVJ (RIP)]

I do bear them in mind, paw,
and have found them at worst a mild inconvenience. Of course, I'm not trying to get to work every day and only once a trip do I have a plane to catch. Still, they seldom bring everything to a standstill, just remind everyone that there are real people doing those jobs and that needs to be recognized. And strikers here are NOT vilified as in the U.S., but tolerated and understood. It's a means of being heard, and LISTENED TO. It sounds a lot worse than it is.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[paw broon]

JVJ, not sure how it happens but we always seem to find differences(?) over our comments and I sometimes get the feeling that I'm getting a wee bit of a lecture, although I'm pretty sure that's not the case.  I'm sure the strikes and strikers are tolerated and understood, by some, perhaps many, but speaking as I do to a couple of French nationals, with families in France, and reading the odd copy of Le Figaro, it's also clear that a great many French citizens see the sheer amount of strikes as damaging to the country, both economically and in tourist terms.
Your point about workers is absolutely bang on and, if I might state the obvious, you're talking to someone who lives in a country which has a grand tradition of socialism, left of centre politics and a proud trade union history.  Yes, Labour got a right old tanking this week but the SNP, who won a majority in the Scottish parliament, are a left of centre party.
Without wishing in any way to vilify unions and strikers, we know, to our cost, in Britain, the damage uncontrolled, wildcat strikes can cause.  No matter that bankers and financiers are continuing in their bad habits, unions should show themselves to be better than them by putting forward properly thought out arguments and using political power to better their conditions.  Thanks to the bankers, there is no money for the pension rights that many Europeans wish to continue.  Remember, it was a democratic election that saw Sarkozy into power and it doesn't look as if the left in France have got it together at all.  Perhaps the unions should use their big sticks on the heads of politicians? Not literally of course.
Glad I got that off my chest. Now back to important stuff, what are you doing for dinner? Because we are going to have at home tonight, a selection of Italian cured meats and salami, grilled asparagus with grana, olive oil and sea salt, roast aubergine slices, olives, grilled peppers, salad, focaccia, all washed down with, what should be, a lovely Corsican rose.  Not that I want this in any way to be a competition but we do pretty well here, too. And there are so many restaurants and wine shops in Edinburgh that we still have to try. You have to get over here - only problem is the lack of appreciation of all things to do with comics. Flights from Paris to Scotland every day.

[JVJ (RIP)]

Never meant to even hint at a lecture, paw.
As I said, I don't have to get to work every day and can understand the disruption and inconvenience the strikes cause. My viewpoint is VERY much that of an outsider.

Having very recently witnessed the vilification of state unions in Ohio and Wisconsin (my sister being a professor at Wright State Univ. in Ohio), I think that expecting labor to exercise intellectual and political arguments is a tad naive. Elected officials tend to be a concentration of power, and labor, being composed of countless individuals with equally countless agendas, is almost never its equal.

What I was trying to explain about French strikes, at least the ones I've faced since I've been here a dozen times, is that they ARE tolerated - for the most part. Parisians don't honk madly at protestors impeding their progress down a street. They SEEM to wait for the event to pass. Metro strikes DON'T close down transportation, but rather slow it down, so it doesn't SEEM to be intolerable - i.e. a sign outside a Metro station will say "4 trains out of 10". Garbage strikers seem to pick up the garbage and leave the RECYCLABLES - and since Parisians SEEM to recycle far more than they discard, the "garbage" piles up quite photographically without undue odors. There is an "art" to Parisian strikes that I find quite interesting, but, as I said, I don't have to endure the prolonged and bitter ones - I can simply go to my "other" home.

Your dinner sounds delicious. I especially love asparagus, grilled peppers, and aubergine - in fact I just discovered an aubergine gratineé at a restaurant here I've been frequenting for several years. Yum. I will confess that I have never developed a taste for rosé wines, but c'est la vie. People seem to do quite well with their cuisines everywhere, I've observed.

As you say, no competition intended, but one must eat. Lunch today was with Fred Manzano of Editions Deesse and Michel Maillot (of John Buscema checklist fame) at a restaurant in Place Maubert where I had sauteed fois gras and boeuf tartare and we shared a bottle of Haut Cotes du Beaune (red Burgundy). Dinner was with Karen's sister Kathleen (Karen fighting off an upper respiratory infection) at a restaurant near our apartment, where I had an entree of tempura gambas (shrimp) with a "secret" mustard sauce, magret de canard main course, and we shared a bottle of a vin du pays that was a Chardonnay with a trace of residual sugar - a first for me.

Yesterday was a Stanley Kubrick exhibition at La Cinematheque Francais accompanied by Jean-Claude Mezieres after which we had salade Parisienne (lettuce, ham and cheese) for lunch and tomorrow is a luncheon with the daughter of Esteban Maroto where I am told the menu will be "rice, vegetables, chicken, salad, cheese, good bread and lemon sorbet!" Alas, Karen is probably going to miss that, too.

Now if only Karen would recover and we could experience some of the grand old (1959, 1966, 1969) Burgundies we've dug up on this trip. I'm listening to her cough almost uncontrollably as I type this and it's 11 pm. How she will ever sleep and get better is worrisome.

Should you ever take one of those flights from Scotland to Paris, you will discover that I am NOT a lecturer and I hope you will call me on any "tone" in my posts that suggest such a thing. Now I have to go help Karen calm her cough and hope we both can get some sleep.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Yoc]

I hope Karen starts to feel better soon Jim.
Enjoy your meal.  

[paw broon]

Nice one, JVJ and I hope Karen (if she will permit me to be so familiar) recovers soon.  I'm impressed with your culinary endeavours but, as Linda and I grow older, we find we don't, or can't, eat as much and it's a great shame because I'm intrigued by some of the wonderful cooking you mention.  I've never been a big fan of foie gras, though.  And, as for rose wines, well, we tend to drink them more in spring and summer and with some meals, or on their own, they can be excellent.  Problem is that in Britain, people got the bad habit of having cheap Spanish or Portuguese rose wines, in much the same way as the nation seemed to take to Liebfraumilch.  We got into the habit of rose because for many years we holidayed in France once or twice a year, usually in the south, in the countryside and we first discovered Rhone rose - picture lightbulb goin on in head - then many more.  For most meals at the weekend at home, though, we will have Italian reds, so much good wine.  So this evening it's a warm chicken and avocado salad with asparagus, our own French dressing and crusty bread, followed by Nether Stowey Reserve Cheddar with a bottle of pugliese Negroamaro.  Wines from Puglia can be seriously good.  You know a lot about wine - a good thing.
I'm also intrigued by the "secret" mustard sauce.
Your tempura gambas sound a bit fusion and dead tasty but shouldn't it be crevettes?  I love tempura.
We don't enjoy flying so when we set off for Lille, we're going by train - Edinburgh to London, good excuse for a couple of nights there and a visit to a couple of my favourite comic shops, then Euorstar to Lille.
In late June we're going to Netherlands, a few days in Amsterdam (all that lovely Dutch food and beer and those amazing nieuw hareng (don't think I've spelled that correctly) for the culture and comic shops, then a week in Hoorn on the Zuider Zee.  Got to choose a restaurant for my birthday next week.  Difficult - too much choice.