Food trucks at the NYPL

Top marks to Milk Truck for the grilled cheese sandwich!!

The daily rotation at the NY Public Library, 40th and Fifth Ave.  An autumn event that goes along with a library exhibit on the history of the NYC lunch hour (there's an Automat!).

Tried a chicken parm sub -- meh.  Will try the pizza next time.

Lots of options--meat (chicken, brisket, carne asada, pulled pork), carbs (burrito, taco, rice), sauce (5 kinds of BBQ sauce) and various sides. I had brisket over rice with Mexican BBQ sauce, slaw and guac. Then I needed a nap.

.

Awesome lobster roll (big chunks of lobster w/homemade lemon mayo) but pricey ($16)

Pork and chives dumplings! A solid B+ (pretty darn good considering it's from a truck)

Israeli falafel sandwich in a pita with tahini sauce and hot peppers.  Almost as good as the falafel I had in Paris!

Bolinas- August 2012

Two weeks in Bolinas as part of a house-swap from last summer...    Bolinas is just south of Stinson Beach in Marin County. The house is on a bluff overlooking Bolinas Bay and the Pacific Ocean.   

J. came for labor day weekend.  We had a family gathering on Sunday for M's birthday. Below: tidepooling at Agate Beach, about 15 minute walk from house.

 on Monday J and I drove out to the Pt. Reyes Lighthouse, reputedly the foggiest point on the Pacific coast.

Below:  The cheese at Cowgirl Creamery in Pt. Reyes Station; and the 2 mile walk to Tomales Bay. Egrets and hawks everywhere.

 Agate beach, when the sun is out.

Au revoir

Paris is much farther north than New York, and it's June, too, so it's light until after 10:00 pm.  We went for a walk to the Champs du Mars (10 minute walk from our apartment)  to have a last look at the Eiffel Tower. The park was filled with people, waiting for the lights to come on.  Bonus was the sparkling light show. 

Giverny

Our last day here, an afternoon in Giverny, 45 minutes by train, to Claude Monet's home and garden, and where he built the famous lily pond and Japanese bridge.  He lived here for about 40 years, from the 1880s until he died in 1926.  The sun was out (first time all week) so it was perfect.

The gardens go on forever. There are 100,000 perennials and 100,000 annuals also planted every year.  The style is not manicured yet carefully controlled and groomed to look "natural." There are gardeners everywhere, with clippers and wheelbarrows and pots.

li

Oriental lillies growing along the banks of the stream leading to lily pond

Purple and white lupine flowers on bank of lily pond

peonies and ??

poppies

 The farmhouse is decorated with impressionist paintings especially in the salon, but most surfaces in the house -- the bedrooms, dining room, hallways, stairway walls, etc. -- are covered with Japanese drawings and paintings (see dining room photos below)

(we think the paintings are reproductions, or done by others "in the style of")

view of rose bushes from second floor window

Epernay et Reims

Day trip to Epernay and Reims in the champagne region. Rental car was a chartreuse colored Citroen (J: "mais ce coleur -- mon Dieu!").  About 100 km from Paris. Epernay is home of Moet and Chandon, founded 1743, largest producer of champagne in the world.  We learned how champagne is made (second fermentation, how they get the sediment out, etc etc).  We also learned that their cellars where wine is aged run 28 km on three levels and that Japan is the largest importer of Dom Perignon. Of course the tour ended with a tasting--we had a glass each of the brut and the rose.

vineyards of Champagne

The cellars of Moet et Chandon. Each "cave" has some 2000 bottles.

When the monk discovered champagne (made accidentally) he said "I am drinking the stars"

We had lunch at a local place with wood-fired pizza, though definitely not a joint -- Epernay's bourgeois ladies lunch there.  Then,  a lovely drive through vineyards and across a small mountain to Reims (Rheims), site of 800 year old cathedral (construction started in 1211 and took 200 years to complete). It was badly damaged during World War I by German artillery; the stained glasses was redone in the 1920s-30s.  But some are much later, including a tri-panel of Biblical allegories and figures by Marc Chagall (1971)  The informational panel stated that Chagall was devout but managed to not say he was Jewish (the phrase used was "in the Hasaidic tradition").  Two  new sets of abstract tri-panels (2011) by Imi Knoebel celebrated the cathedral's 800th anniversary, and I think they chose the German artist as a gesture of reconciliation.

stained glass, 2011 (Knoebel)

stained glass, 1971 (Chagall)

stained glass, c. 1930

scary gargoyles ward off evil

our little green Citroen--possibly also wards off evil

Paris (Harry's NY Bar)

Night out:  Cocktails at Harry's Bar, on the right bank near the Opera.  An old institution, built from a bar from NYC that was dismantled and shipped over here in 1911.  Swinging saloon doors and a c. 1900  tin ceiling.  Then taken over by a Scots named Harry.  An American expat hangout for years (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein; Gershwin wrote An American in Paris at the piano bar). The only place in Paris where J. could get a decent Manhattan.  There are American college pennants on the wall. Columbia's must have been one of the originals.  Then back to Le Dome du Marais for a great dinner, lobster ravioli for starter; I had John Dory and J. had  monkfish, and a chocolate cake for dessert. They had lights on the dome, changing colors as we dined.

Paris (Louvre, Les Puces)

Sunday we went to the Louvre in the afternoon and saw a great exhibit on Leonardo di Vinci's last painting (and ultimately left unfinished when he died), Saint Anne, the product of twenty years of thinking and work about anatomy, bodily dynamics, and light and shadow.  And of course the standards (Mona Lisa; Winged Victory; though we could not find the Venus of Milo).

For dinner we went to Le Train Bleu, a restaurant in the Gare de Lyon.  It's named after the famed Train Bleu, the night train that ran from Calais to Nice from the 1920s until the TGV cut the time by more than half. All first class and heavily decorated in blue and gold, hence the name.  Like its namesake the restaurant is done in over-the-top style of the Belle Epoch.  It's on the mezzanine and one can watch the trains come and go from the windows on one side.  We sat on the other side and watched night fall on the square outside. Notice the brass hat rack running behind the banquettes.  The food (duck) was not as spectacular as the setting, but it was a lot of fun, made more so by after-dinner calvados!

Yesterday we spent the day at the huge Marché aux Puce (flea market) at the northern edge of Paris. We had read that it was open Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, so we went on Monday thinking there'd be less of a crowd.  True enough, but many stalls were not open.  A lot of furniture (from 18 century to art deco to MCM), a surprising amount of orientalist stuff, silverware, swords and guns, and a ton of junk.  It was a bit disappointing but we still left with some stuff -- a linen nightdress, some gifts for sons and mothers.  On Sunday we also visited a brocante (another word for a flea market) on Ave. de Saxe in our neighborhood, and picked up a few items. Smaller but somehow more satisfying.