A Textile Institution at the Foot of Sacre-Coeur

Parler Paris Nouvellettre^®
Your taste of life in Paris and France
ParlerParis.com
Wednesday, February 2, 2011 • Paris, France

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Dear Parler Paris Reader,

One of the things you will discover when furnishing a Paris apartment or other home in France is that the cost of linens by comparison to American sheets and towels is about double. They haven't yet had the shopping pleasure of such stores as "Bed, Bath and Beyond" or "Linens and Things" where you can purchase a duvet cover for as little as $29.99 or bath towels starting at $5 each in a zillion different colors.

At the BHV, their own house brand duvet cover for a double bed starts at 49€ (about $70) and their bath towels start at 17,50€ (about $25). Ikea offers linens at a bargain, but then that requires a trip to the suburbs and a way of getting all the heavy packages home which may be an expensive taxi ride.

So, if you're making a move here or setting up a home, you have a few money-saving solutions, including shipping the linens (just be careful that anything you ship won't get hung up in customs with duty to pay on your shipment!) or packing an extra suitcase filled with your favorite bargains (I can't tell you how many times I've tossed in a set of sheets or two before heading back to Paris!). (Keep in mind that bedding sizes vary. Be sure to check the American sizes in inches against the European sizes in centimeters. Here's a great site for reference: international-bedding-size-conversion-guide)

Personally, I chose to do none of the above to replenish the stock of linens for the rental apartments, Le Provençal and Le Saint-Tropez. Instead, I made a trip to one of my favorite spots in Paris -- the Marché Saint-Pierre at the foot of Montmartre where linens are at moderately bargain prices, but where the shopping is total eye-candy!

A costume-designer friend who knows every shop in the "quartier" agreed to join me for the little excursion after a typically French lunch at Le Ronsard Café (13 Place Saint-Pierre, 75018 Paris). From the café, there is a drop-dead perfect view of Sacre-Coeur and while the food is not something you'd 'write home about,' it provides a good taste and a full belly for a spree among the fabrics, trimmings and linens.

If you're in the market for fabrics for dressmaking or draperies along with all the "mercerie" (haberdashery) one could possibly dream of, these few streets surrounding the main store is sure to have everything you would need, plus a lot more. The Marché Saint-Pierre calls itself "an institution" with over 60 years of central presence in the world of textiles. And while that may be a bit of an overstatement, there is no doubt that an afternoon there will stir your creative juices.

Within less than an hour, I managed to purchase duvet covers and pillow cases in many different colors to match the respective decors plus a new bedspread amassing four bags weighing too much to carry home on my own. Thank goodness for Paris taxis for door-to-door service!

A la prochaine...

Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris

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P.S. The first edition of the Expat Expo will be held this weekend on the 4th, 5th and 6th of February 2011 at the Parc Floral in Paris. Expat Expo caters for all expatriates in France whether they are executives or managers, pensioners, students, property owners or investors, but also those who are preparing for a future expatriation. Visit http://www.expatexpo.fr/ for more information.

P.P.S. It's the year of the rabbit! Don't miss the Chinese New Year in Paris beginning tomorrow with lots of special events. For more information, visit http://www.paris.fr/

P.P.P.S. Don't forget our next Parler Paris Après Midi meeting is Tuesday, February 8, 2011 and every second tuesday of the month, 3 p.m. To 5 p.m. (Closed august)...then read about our new program beginning in March! For more information, visitparlerparis/apresmidi.html

Marketing and Making Your Parisian Mark

An Oyster Lunch After La Marché Bastille

Marketing and Making Your Parisian Mark

Parler Paris Nouvellettre^®
Your taste of life in Paris and France
ParlerParis.com
Monday, January 31, 2011 • Paris, France

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A Note from Tom Regan

Dear Parler Paris Reader,

My daughter told me not to miss the Andrée Putman Retrospective exhibition at the Hôtel de Ville, that I would ‘freak!’...and she was right. It took too many weeks before I found the time to sneak in an hour before closing at 5:45 p.m. on Friday afternoon while the line to enter in the freezing cold was its briefest.

Until a few years ago, I didn’t have a clue who she was. Then, at an event at the City Hall, one of the many galas celebrating “Paris, Capital de la Création,” she spoke and presented awards to young designers. A French friend attending with me was impressed by her presence, but to me she meant nothing.

Why hadn't I known about Ms. Putnam’s designs when I was developing a hunger for checkerboard and harlequin patterns? She was busy marketing modern classic designs via her company, Ecart International; inventing boutique hotels in major cities such as New York, Cologne and Paris; creating movie sets for Peter Greenaway; designing china dinnerware for the Air France Concorde and jewelry for Christofle. Her interiors include the Guerlain flagship store on the Champs-Elysées and private residences in Dublin, Miami, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Tel Aviv and Tangiers. Her recent project in Hong Kong with its 21 stories is appropriately named “The Putman” and she says of it and her most successful projects that they are “the perfect balance between discipline and revolt.”

My daughter was right. Don’t miss the exhibit!...on until February 26th and open every day except Sundays and holidays at the Hôtel de Ville de Paris. For more information, visit:paris.fr/

Saturday afternoon I set out to peruse the annual winter sales before they disappear and we go back to paying full retail price on everything. Things are well picked over by now and the “nouvelle collections” are starting to take over more retail space than the mark-downs. The first shop to step into was an immediate success purchasing...guess what(?)...one pair of black slacks and one black skirt...at almost half price. (If you read lastWednesday’s nouvellettre®, then you know that these two items fit to a tee into the perfect Paris wardrobe).

A zillion stores later, winding my way down rue de Rivoli, through the “BHV” for a bit of torture (packed with people!), then on to rues Vieille du Temple, des Francs Bourgeois and Turenne, not a single other item called out from the sale racks to be taken home. The only other items to make their way to my arms were two bags of tea from Palais des Thés: Noix de Coco (coconut) and Earl Grey. If you haven't already braved the crowds, know that the sales officially end February 15th.

It seems crazy considering the city’s largest open-air market is a 10-minute walk from my apartment, but I hadn't visited the Marché Bastille in literally years. Excursions to the market ended when I no longer had anyone for which to cook except for myself and occasional dinner guests. Then, I entirely gave up cooking for myself and even guests started to suffer from lack of invitations. The refrigerator got clean and neatly organized with just the essentials (less is more in Paris): bottle of champagne, bottle of white wine, jar of pickles, jar of mustard, can of coffee, bottle of milk, carton of fruit juice, a few eggs (old, I'm sure) and butter. I'm very proud of its minimalism as I eat in a restaurant or café virtually every meal now even though in another lifetime friends who regularly came to dinner once called me the “Pasta Queen.”

There were a few reasons to go to the market Sunday morning with friends. One was just for fun and act like a tourist, another was to purchase fresh oysters for Sunday lunch and a third was to purchase artichokes for a dinner I am actually going to attempt to make Wednesday night for a small group of very close friends. It’s been a tradition for 14 years to make marinated artichokes on February 2nd. This date has personal significance and artichokes are the symbolic vegetable. (I can see you rolling your eyes. To that I say, “Don’t ask. You don't want to know.”)

The Marché Bastille is THE open-air market of France. It’s the largest in Paris if not all of France with four aisles of stands from Place de la Bastille along boulevard Richard Lenoir to the Bréguet-Sabin Métro station. Don’t go there hungry, don’t go without a big marketing cart and don’t go if you don’t cook, because it may torture you to see the fabulous fresh and prepared foods without buying everything you see.

(This week my sister living in New Orleans sent photos of a recent meal she had just to torture me: Louisiana blue crabs, crawfish and shrimp boiled in Zataran’s spice mix. That wasn't nice of her, was it?)

There is one stand at the market that offers a dozen different kinds of herring! If you think you can't choose between one “primeur” (fresh produce) or another, just seek out the ones where there is a queue, because the regulars will know it’s either better or cheaper than the others. The fresh fish and seafood stands make me swoon, since I’ll eat anything that swims in the sea and the spice stands are not only beautiful to look at for their warm colors, but heavenly to just visit for their intoxicating scent. The merchants can often be quite entertaining – each may behave like a kind of ‘showman,’ proud of his/her wares and willing to stand out in the freezing cold or sizzling heat for hours to serve up goodies and “schmooze” with the customers. Plan on striking up lots of fun conversation with the merchants, as well as fellow-purchasers.

I bought six large purple artichokes. The merchant couldn't tell us what the difference was between the green and purple ones – so I’ll guess we'll find out if they are tastier or not Wednesday night. I also came home with a bag of raw almonds, a bag of tiny black Niçoise olives, a few lemons and a kilo of green beans...no where near as much as if I were to regularly cook!

When I returned home, "by sheer coincidence in my email in-box was a note from old friend, Tom Regan, with a 'greeting card' -- "Just got back from the market and had to take a photo of the beautiful fresh fruit that helps make Paris living so very special!" How apropos was that?!

The market is open Thursday from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and well worth a special trip. Just so you know, by Wednesday night, we will have eaten all that and the fridge will be perfectly clean again...until my daughter arrives Friday from New York, goes to the market and messes it all up again!A la prochaine...

A la prochaine...

Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris

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P.S. IMPORTANT NEWS: Since October of 2003, Parler Paris Après Midi has been an opportunity to meet with other Parler Paris readers, come for drinks, share information about what it takes to create a life here and to make friends. It's been fun and we've enjoyed every minute...but now we want to make Après Midi even more useful and fulfilling!

Beginning March 8, 2011 a guest speaker of note will come to talk about a topic of interest and then open the floor for questions and discussion!

There is no charge, except for what you drink or eat and La Pierre du Marais does request that at least one item is ordered (that's why we can do this at no cost!)

Our goal is to provide a forum of discussion where we can all learn a lot about living in France as well as a way to make friends! And we hope you will find this more fun than ever!

The speakers will be announced in advance, so be sure to read Parler Paris to learn who!

BUT DON'T FORGET OUR NEXT MEETING IS...FEBRUARY 8, 2011 AND EVERY SECOND TUESDAY OF THE MONTH, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. (closed August)

For more information, visit parlerparis/apresmidi.html

Chasing Art and Other Paris Adventures

Sunday Dining at the Jacquemart-André Museum

Parler Paris...
Your taste of life in Paris and France
ParlerParis.com
Monday, October 20, 2008
Paris, France

The Queue at the Grand Palais, 11:15 a.m., a Two-Hour Wait Not Participating in the "chase" at the Jacquemart-André Museum Garden A Google Eye View on Rue Charlot and Rue de Bretagne

Dear Parler Paris Reader,

Chasing Paris Art

No one appreciates art more than the French. The minute an art exhibit opens (or much before), advance tickets get sold out and lines to enter form outside the museum doors. Sunday is of course, the worst day to worm your way in amongst the art-lovers, but if that's the only free day you have, then so be it...but one must be clever to enter.

Rule number one is to start out early in the a.m. While much of the city is recovering from Saturday night's revelry, or leisurely enjoying their traditional Sunday lunch, art aficionados are gearing up for rain or shine to catch a glimpse of a Picasso, Van Dyke or Walker Evans.

Knowing the queues could be around the block, we chose three exhibitions in order of popularity, each within a Métro ride away and set out on the 'chase.'

"Picasso et les Maîtres" at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (on till February 2, 2009) was top of the list, but so it was for hundreds of others, too. At 11:15 a.m., there was already almost a two-hour wait to see the works of the great masters from which Picasso drew inspiration and "the ways in which he twisted their ideas to suit his own creative endeavor."

Back on the Métro we hopped for only two stops to the Musée Jacquemart-André where the works of one of Europe's greatest ever portrait painters, Anthony Van Dyck, has been brought from collections all over the world to be exhibited. Luckily, the line wasn't quite out the door by 11:45 a.m., but we waited a good 15 minutes to get tickets and do a B-line for the Café Jacquemart-André for a Sunday lunch prior to visiting the museum.

The museum was at one time the private residence of "a pair of inveterate collectors who devoted their entire lives to building their artwork collection" -- Edouard André (banker) and Nélie Jacquemart (his wife). The café overlooking the garden is in the overwhelmingly splendid former Dining Room of the mansion, with Brussels tapestries and a Tiepolo ceiling. There is no more elegant setting for a very affordable and finely prepared luncheon fare. We were fortunate to get one of the last tables before the queue was out the door and into the garden.

No wonder, we call a goatee beard a "Van Dyck!" The portrait artist surely inspired the style, worn with elaborately curled mustaches and a tuft of hair on the chin. Only the women he portrayed escaped the facial hair! Many of the aristocratic men in his portraits wore long hair and beautiful pearl earrings...not too different from many of the denizens we encounter in Le Marais!

Exiting, having successfully chased and caught the art we were seeking, there were others, perhaps tired of the chase, just enjoying the garden and the midday sun on their faces...unbearded, but wearing earrings, nonetheless.

If you're into the 'chase,' then get ready for the biennial "Mois de la Photo" from November 2nd to December 1st, when the profile of photography and its status is raised "as an exciting art form." I'll save the Walker Evans exhibit at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (on until December 21st) for the next 'chase.

36 Hours in Paris

Thirty-six hours in Paris simply isn't enough. But, New York Times journalist Seth Sherwood tried -- exploring exclusively Le Marais over one weekend and reporting on his findings of what's hot and what's even hotter. No doubt, since moving here 11 years ago, by sheer chance, what was then a scruffy little enclave in the center of the city has turned into the chicest part of town. Quelle chance! (I'd rather be lucky than smart!)

Read all about it: 36 hours in Paris --

Ogling with Google

Ogle the earth using Google, particularly your favorite places like Paris. Reader Larry Levy went "gaga" when he discovered he could see his own apartment on rue Saint-Martin using Google Earth. It's almost as good as being there yourself. Here's what you do:

1. Go to http://earth.google.com/
2. Download and install the program.
3. Search for your favorite address on the planet.
4. Click on any little camera icon. A box with a photo of the area opens.
5. Click on "Show full screen." A fish eye enlarges.
6. Turn the "eye" so you can see 360 degrees, just as if you were there!

A la prochaine...

Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris

P.S. Get Out and Vote!

If you still have questions about how to vote absentee, can't decipher the forms or still need your ballot, contact the Democrats Abroad France Voting Assistance Officers:

Tony Paschall, Telephone: 01.45.85.20.77, vote@paschall.fr
Barbara Tucker, Telephone: 01.43.26.05.34, barbht19@aol.com