Art & Alchemy | Paris 2017

Friday, 10 November 2017 StarrLeave a comment

Previously on Paris 2017, we actually left the City of Lights to visit the Palace of Versailles, where we sauntered around the residences of the French royal family before eating one of our favorite French treats – crêpes! (Famous Breton-style ones!) But we had learned to adjust expectations after Versailles…

Many photos incoming, Yelp reviews for the below spots to come soon.

With our two all-day trips (to the Louvre and to Versailles) checked off, Ben an I had 2 more days on our Paris Pass to enjoy sightseeing on our own schedule. But first, more Breizh Cafe crêpes.

We didn’t make the mistake of under-ordering this time: a savory crepe for each of us and a sweet one to share!

Bellies happily full of Breton crepes, we headed off to the Musée de l’Orangerie. Originally built to house orange trees, this beautiful art gallery is now home to impressionist and post-impressionist paintings. Most famously, the Musée de l’Orangerie features Claude Monet’s Nymphéas series, the famous impressionist water lilies.

Musée de l’Orangerie fact: The oval-shaped rooms that house the Nymphéas were, in fact, specially designed by Monet and architect Camille Lefèvre to utilize natural light and the plain, curved walls for these paintings.

The highlight of this museum is Nymphéas and the very striking rooms that house them, but the Musée de l’Orangerie is also home to other great works.

I love paintings of Parisian landmarks like these

Around the world, female artists are not often featured in museums and Paris is no exception. The Musée de l’Orangerie features one female artist on their roster: Marie Laurencin

A miniature recreation of the office of the art collector whose collection was on display?

From there, we went to our next museum that Ben was super keen to visit: the Musée d’Orsay.

Musée d’Orsay fact: Built in a former train station, the Musée d’Orsay is home to the largest collection of impressionist and post-impressionist pieces in the world and is one of the largest art museums in all of Europe.

It’s a good thing we visited l’Orangerie before d’Orsay, because that collection is completely dwarfed by the volume and breadth of the collection at this gorgeous, gorgeous museum.

A piece featuring several of the artists featured in this museum!

We were able to see the Cézanne exhibit, which was a really cool, in-depth look at this impressionist painter and his life and his career. (I didn’t take photos because I wanted ot just enjoy the exhibit, but also I was starting to feel a little hangry at this point and I took that out on Paul Cézanne, I am sorry.)

What got me really excited was seeing pieces by my favorite artist, Edgar Degas. Here is just a sampling of the many works they had by the man responsible for my love of both impressionism and the visual aesthetic of ballet.

I was so excited to see *Little Dancer of Fourteen Years* again after seeing her at the National Gallery of Art

Degas fact: Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans actually has 28 copies, and you can see her at 14 art museums around the world. Ten of her are privately owned. She is the only sculpture that Degas ever showed and it garnered an intense amount of negative criticism. I actually really love Degas’ raw “unfinished” sculptures, maybe as much as I love his gorgeous paintings.

From d’Orsay, you can get a really fantastic view of Sacré-Cœur Basilica in the distance.

As the museum started to get ready for closing, Ben and I found ourselves really regretting not dedicating more time to this vast collection and beautiful building. We sped through Van Gogh…

… took in the building itself and a few sculptures…

… and found this ballroom that somehow put Versailles to shame?

And then, just like that, we were being asked by security to please get out.

I just wanted to share this painting of a cat with extremely long legs and I had no good segue for it, here it is

The sun was out for a rare moment, so we were grateful to be able to stroll along the Seine with blue skies overhead for once.

If we had a dollar for every wedding gown photoshoot we saw… we’d have a lot of dollars, lemme tell ya…

And then it was time for dinner!

For this trip, we didn’t want to be restricted to too many reservation times to worry about and potentially be late for, but we did make one reservation for a celebratory dinner at Auberge Nicolas Flamel.

Nicolas Flamel fact: YES, this is the same Nicolas Flamel that J.K. Rowling credits with creating the philosopher’s/sorceror’s stone. He is the only character in the Harry Potter universe that is based on a real person. The real Nicolas Flamel is associated with a pre-HP reputation as an alchemist. And yes, the restaurant offers a “Harry Potter” kids prix-fixe meal.

After some disappointing eats, we were worried that this restaurant wouldn’t live up to the hype, but after walking past a lot of super trendy art show lines (people were lined up around the block for shows featuring risqué photos and abstract paintings), we enjoyed one of the best meals of the entire trip.

Nicolas Flamel fact: Auberge Nicolas Flamel is the oldest stone house in Paris, commissioned by Flamel and his wife Pernelle to offer food and lodging to workers. Their generosity was granted with just one requirement, which is still inscribed above the doors today:

‘We men and women laborers living at the porch of this house built in the year of grace 1407 are requested to say every day a paternoster and an ave maria, praying God that His grace forgive poor and dead sinners’

It was such a beautiful meal to end a beautiful day that I will always, always remember.
Because on that beautiful day, I got engaged.

While I would definitely highly highly recommend visiting the Musée d’Orsay, I would only suggest going out of your way for l’Orangerie if you are really intent on seeing the Nymphéas. The collection is significantly smaller otherwise, but Monet’s waterlilies are quite spectacular. It’s also a good stop if you don’t want to visit a really overwhelming art museum. Of course, if you have the Paris Pass, there’s no reason you can’t visit both!

Who are your favorite impressionist artists? I am really partial to impressionism largely because of Degas but also because of Monet’s gorgeous waterlilies. I’m not sure how I feel about post-impressionism, but it is growing on me!

Do you have a favorite art style/movement? I’m not sure I do. I like impressionism, but… it’s so hard to pick a favorite art movement as a whole and I’m not sure I consume enough art to make that call just yet.

And yes, I’ll tell you about how I got engaged really soon!

Gold & Galettes | Paris 2017

Tuesday, 7 November 2017Tuesday, 7 November 2017 Starr2 Comments

Previously on Paris 2017, we hustled around the Louvre and walked down the Champs-Elysees to alight the Arc du Triomphe, where we took in a breathtaking view of the City of Lights. We only had one sleep to let our feet recover before another day of abundant walking…

Ben and I woke Friday morning ready for another all-day excursion to the Château de Versailles, aka the Palace of Versailles. We fueled up by stopping by the little café next to our hotel, Les Petites Canailles, for some viennoiseries (aka croissants) (hmu Great British Bake Off fans) and coffee.

We were actually a bit nervous about getting to Versailles because it required us taking the RER (Réseau Express Régional, or Regional Express Network, a commuter line that extends out of Paris) rather than the metro that we were pretty comfortable taking.After a bit of a struggle trying to figure out if our Paris Pass included RER (the pass booklet said it did but we weren’t able to figure out how to make that work out) and narrowly missing our train because only one machine was dispensing tickets due to repairs on the others, we finally made it to Versailles!

Versailles tip: The RER line C will take you to Versailles Château Rive Gauche, so get yourself to a metro station that will let you transfer to RER line C (we went from St. Michel-Notre Dame, which may be the only station where line C stops?) and buy yourself a round trip ticket for 7,3€ (3,65€ each way). The ride takes about 40 minutes and Versailles is the last stop. From the train station, the walk to the palace is a little over 10 minutes over flat ground.

Unfortunately, it was yet another rainy day for us. (Again, we had rain every single day that we were in Paris.) While the sky was grey and tones were muted, it was still pretty dazzling to see how freaking glam and glitzy Versailles is. For all the European royal opulence that I’ve had the opportunity to see, it is still a sight to see every time, that all-gold-everything life.

Our ticket through the Paris Pass included the audio tour

Versailles tip: The audio tour is informative but fairly slow-paced. It forces you to slow down a bit to listen and learn, which can be good or bad depending on how you want to go through Versailles.

Galerie des Batailles aka Gallery of Battles

The Battle of Yorktown (The world turned upside down…) is a featured victory

The Mesdames’ Apartments, where Louis XV’s daughters lived

I loved hearing about the kinship between Victoire and Adelaide, sisters who outlived the rest of their siblings and never married

Both of us, Ben in particular, wanted to visit the gardens, but it started pouring when we left the palace and we were then told that our pass did not include tickets to the garden. While our pass did include tickets to Trianon, we weren’t really freely allowed to walk over since we had to bypass the gardens to get there. Feeling a bit defeated and, frankly, very damp, we decided to end our Versailles trip early and take the train back to Paris.

At least the rain stopped as we walked back (without my umbrella, the wrong day to take it out of my bag) and we could walk through this lovely tree tunnel

When we got back to Paris, we were famished, having not really eaten lunch at Versailles. (Oops. In our defense, we did try to get lunch but the Angelina in Versailles actually ran out of lunch items!) So, we set out to try the super famous crêpes at Breizh Café (review), which had only just reopened after being renovated!

We really lucked out, as there was one teeny table next to an open window available when we arrived. (People had to wait thereafter, for quite a while!) We were able to enjoy the cool rainy air while still being served delicious Breton-style buckwheat galettes. Since Britanny is known for its galettes, oysters, and hard cider, but the weather was just a little too miserable for us to enjoy oysters, we nommed on crêpes and sipped cider. It was kind of exactly what we needed.

Dame Fruits Rouges: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, buttermilk ice cream, whipped cream

Lambaillaise: raw compté cheese, spinach, peas, fresh cilantro cream, turnip, duck breast

We walked in the drizzle back to our hotel but found ourselves really regretting not ordering more crêpes, so we ventured back out to eat more food and found ourselves at Au Passage (review) for some late night tapas.

They were supposedly out of duck breast so we were given pigeon instead

If I’m going to be honest, I don’t think Versailles is worth the hype, especially if you have been visiting other luxurious palaces/museums (e.g. the Louvre, the Summer Palace). To tell you the truth, I didn’t want to visit initially, but Ben’s parents told us it was a must-visit. I don’t agree. It’s nice to visit, and definitely interesting if you are interested in the royal family before the revolution, but it didn’t blow my mind and I would recommend skipping it in favor of visiting other places first if you have limited time in Paris.

The gardens may be worth it, as I’ve heard they are spectacular, but on a dreary rainy day, Versailles just doesn’t glimmer as much.

What do you think, would you want to visit Versailles?
What are your favorite royal residences?

What regional French food do you like? We really liked the Breton-style galettes, and were able to try other regional specialties at a French food festival later in our trip!

Whole30 Reflections

Tuesday, 24 October 2017Thursday, 16 April 2020 StarrLeave a comment

Surprise! I completed a Whole30 recently, very belatedly completing one of last year’s resolutions in doing so. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, so let me just start from the beginning.

Whole30 is a nutrition plan, aka a diet, that is intended to be a 30-day reset for your nutrition and digestion. The way I see it, the big picture goal of Whole30 isn’t necessarily weight loss. Rather, it’s for identifying if you have any digestive triggers that you may not have known about prior. For example, let’s say you frequently end meals with a stomachache, nothing major enough to have seen a doctor about and even minor enough that you just kind of accept that you eat too much or too fast and will have a bellyache afterwards. If you do Whole30, where you eliminate most major trigger food groups, and discover that you no longer have that feeling after you eat, you may have an adverse reaction, even if it’s minor, to one of the foods you eliminated. After the 30 days, you gradually reintroduce the foods group-by-group to see what elicits the bad reactions.

Yes, Whole30 is an elimination diet, first and foremost. The rules are about what you cannot have, and what you can’t have are:

Any added sugar. This means no cane sugar, of course, but also no stevia, honey, agave, maple syrup, Splenda, nada. The only sugar you can consume is whatever is naturally found in fruits and vegetables.
Any grains. This includes wheat, rice, corn, quinoa, etc. and anything that includes any grain products like cornstarch, etc.
Any legumes. No beans whatsoever, including soy, and no peanuts, and this includes soybean oil and peanut oil and any other products like soy lecithin (often used as a stabilizing agent).
Any dairy.
Any alcohol.
Carrageean, MSG, or sulfites.
Baked goods, junk food, or treats that are technically “compliant”. That means things like my 3-ingredient pancakes are out.

One final rule that wasn’t related to what you ate was no weighing yourself for the duration of the 30 days. The goal here isn’t weight loss.

Why did I do this?
Even I was a little bit shocked that I was doing the Whole30, if I’m going to be honest. My reasons were not for weight loss or even to identify trigger foods. My reasons were two-fold:

In the weeks leading up to our vacation, Ben and I were eating out a lot. Way too much time would pass between cooked meals, and I was simply spending a lot of money (and time) eating out. I wanted to force myself to cook more of my meals.
When we finally were on vacation, I wasn’t eating particularly healthily. Carbs on carbs on delicious carbs, but not a particular abundance of fruits and vegetables. I wanted to force myself to reduce my carb intake and eat healthier.

There are easier ways to get myself to eat healthier and eat out less, but I know what it takes for me to form habits, so I require some pretty severe changes to implement better habits.

Here are a few things I learned and felt during my Whole30:

I really like free food. Similar to other times that I’ve abstained from entire foods or food groups, one of the hardest parts of saying no to foods is when the foods are offered for free. It’s that inner college kid wanting to eat all that the world is offering to me without my having to hurt my wallet for it. The problem with this is that free food is rarely healthy. I said no to doughnuts, cake, chocolates, cookies, so many baked goods… I also said no to happy hour offerings like fries and tater tots and wings. (There was a reason I had to give up fried foods for Lent last year…) I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have cultivated a life where I have access to so much free food until I was turning it down.

I am weirdly satisfied by smelling the foods I can’t have… This weirded out my coworkers a lot but when they would offer me food I couldn’t eat, I would take a deep inhale and then move on. It seemed torturous to them, but I really did just like the smell. At one point, I purchased doughnuts myself to celebrate the autumnal equinox and I ate none of those doughnuts, I just breathed them in. But that brings me to my next point…

I may have set myself up for a weird mindset regarding my willpower. Exercises like this remind me that I have more willpower than I think I do, when it comes to food. Think about all the food I smelled and didn’t eat! (Once when Ben was sick, I made a McDonald’s run for him and had to smell that deliciousness in my car… I almost broke that day, to be honest.) But am I going to be that moron in the future who will go “Well, I know that I am capable of not eating this cake, but why put myself through more torture I’m going to eat all this cake”? I hope not!

Chinese restaurant obligations… really ruined me. You are not supposed to cheat on Whole30, as with any diet, but if you do, you are supposed to start over from day 1. I didn’t do this, so technically my Whole30 was ruined about halfway through and I did something more akin to two separate Whole15s. But I was celebrating with family at our favorite Chinese restaurant, a place where everything is cooked with soy and sugar and starch and rice, and I was heavily socially obligated to eat certain dishes as it was me that we were celebrating. I abstained where I could, for example, not eating any rice or noodles, but those meals were definitely not compliant.

I love cooking at home. I really really love cooking. I think I might love cooking more than I love eating the food I cook. There were nights when I would come home and just cook and cook and cook for hours and by the end of it, I was barely hungry. I felt so satisfied just cooking and cleaning up.

Compliant stuff can get so expensive. One thing I really dislike about Whole30 is they have this real about no pancakes and foods that are technically compliant but not in the “spirit” of Whole30, but the recipes and ingredients that the Whole30 folks endorse are often substituting veggies for pasta and doing things like using coconut aminos, which is soy sauce made from coconut nectar?? I don’t know how that’s so different from making pancakes with bananas and eggs, to be honest, but it is a great way to get people to purchase very expensive products. “Make your own almond milk!” they would say, but are you kidding me. Even making my own mayonnaise at home got cumbersome the few times I did it. I wanted to make my own ranch dressing, but I gave up when my mayo split and went to buy some compliant ranch. I felt like a quitter and didn’t feel like I was getting any particular benefits doing this.

I didn’t experience any of the extreme feelings that people online talked about. I did a lot of research prior to this Whole30, in addition to when I attempted Whole30 at the beginning of 2016. I expected to experience sugar withdrawal the first few days and then some kind of “tiger blood” sensation about halfway to three-quarters of the way through.
But I felt nothing. I didn’t feel better than before or worse than before. I still got migraines, I still had fatigue.

I didn’t feel any difference except in my goals to eat at home more and eat healthier. I really didn’t feel any of the health benefits that are purported with Whole30. I just felt like a lot of my time was going to preparing food and I was saying no to a lot of food I would have otherwise eaten. Otherwise… my life was the same, which was disappointing.

I didn’t do the gradual reintroduction. I took it easy the first 2 days but then tossed caution to the wind and ate as I liked.

I’m glad I did this because I enjoy preparing my own food so much, and I am glad I don’t need to use grains and sugars as crutches when I cook. I still make a lot of compliant meals for myself and for my family, but it’s nice to know I don’t have to.

Also, I’ll be sharing some recipes I loved making while I was on Whole30 really soon after I finish travel recaps, so stick around for those! I didn’t take photos of the food I made while I was on Whole30, but I did make an effort to make my food look good so that I would enjoy eating it more.

Would I recommend Whole30? ONLY if you suspect that maybe a food isn’t sitting quite well with your gut. Honestly, though, it was a huge inconvenience and I don’t understand how people felt such a big change and I felt… nothing. I think eliminating some of these food groups isn’t bad but Whole30 was really restrictive and it felt needless. I am also not actually a huge fan of some aspects of the community, so I did my Whole30 alone and on the down-low.

Do you have any food sensitivities that you’ve discovered? I know I have an issue with large amounts of lactose (so while I’ve never had whole milk, I probably shouldn’t start drinking it…) (I don’t like milk anyway so I’m not upset about it) but other than that I’m not really sure. I think if I eat a ton of carbs I get bloat-y, but I think everyone does?

Have you tried any diets and liked them? I don’t know that I like diets, but I like exercising some willpower over myself and trying new recipes. I really like the feeling of accomplishment and achievement when I deny myself delicious things, as masochistic as that sounds.

Pour L’Art et Les Vues | Paris 2017

Friday, 20 October 2017Thursday, 19 October 2017 StarrLeave a comment

Previously, on Paris 2017, we arrived fresh off a red-eye flight from New York, settled into our hotel in Le Marais, and went straight to eating before exploring our neighborhood. The real exploration, though, was about to begin…

Warning: A lot of photos incoming!

While planning the previous day, we decided that our first full day in Paris would be dedicated to the most famous and oldest art museum in the world: Le Louvre. We’d spend as much time as possible in the museum, not worry about seeing any “famous” pieces that we weren’t personally interested in (no Mona Lisa for us!), and just taking it all in, nice and steady.

That morning, we decided to walk to the Louvre and get breakfast on our way. It is a longer walk, with a grey and drizzly sky overhead. (Spoiler alert: It rained every single day that we were in Paris. Paris is beautiful in the rain but I don’t know how many places are beautiful when the sky can’t commit to really raining… Still, it was hard to be upset!) After getting a great head start on our steps, we stopped by La Couleur des Blés for coffee (thank you, time difference) and pastries. I later learned that this is a really popular shop, but there was only one man in the teeny tiny shop when we stopped by. We walked away with some croissants and a little hot coffee for Ben.

Etiquette tip: When you enter a shop, make sure to greet whoever is working with a “Bonjour!” Also, make sure to say “Merci” on your way out; saying hello and thank you are very important and it’s considered rude not to.

Ordering tip: Ordering “un café” is not the same as a regular drip coffee in the United States. It’s more like ordering an espresso, and it will come in a teeny cup. Asking for a “café alongée” will get you an Americano: espresso with hot water added.

From the boulangerie, we walked about 2 blocks to the Louvre and parked ourselves on some benches to dig into our croissants. (The only problem with them was that we didn’t have more of them!) And then it was time.

Louvre courtyard — Our view from breakfast
Not pictured: Crumbs all over my face and coat

Because we purchased the Paris Pass before our trip, we were able to wait in the shorter line for pass holders and didn’t have to wait in an additional line to purchase tickets to the museum. Time and time again, the Paris Pass proved to be a real timesaver for us, even without considering the value of the tickets that we would have otherwise purchased without it. After descending down the escalator below the famous glass pyramids….

… we arrived. Please enjoy some of my favorite photos from our visit interspersed with fun facts about the Louvre.

Nintendo Audioguide — The Louvre’s audioguide is provided on Nintendo 3DS XLs. You can also download the free museum app.

There are at least 2 versions of this sculpture of Artemis (Diana) at the Louvre.

I have so many photos of the ornate ceilings and mouldings at the Louvre. Always remember to look up. (But take breaks or your neck will cramp up.)

Me in a Nook — After walking around this enormous museum, I frequently found solace in little nooks between gallery walls

Some of the art was delightfully weird…

Nous Sommes Arrivés! | Paris 2017

Tuesday, 17 October 2017Monday, 16 October 2017 Starr4 Comments

After a rough experience going through international departures at JFK, we were in the air on our way to Paris! It was a red-eye flight, aka we flew during sleeping hours, so we were pretty surprised to get fed during the flight? We had some food, saved some teeny bottles of wine for the hotel, and fell asleep like kids on Christmas Eve. Quick shout-out to Air France for one of the best airline customer service experiences I’ve ever had, by the way, when I was at JFK and also on the way back. I’m not really sure where the stereotype of the uptight, cold Frenchperson comes from because we really didn’t experience this.

We checked into Les Jardins du Marais (in-depth review), which was a great spot for us that we found at a really awesome deal. (I had been trying to find us a good AirBnB so that I could feel really homey and eat eggs and fruit with the massive amounts of pastry and bread I wanted to indulge in. And do laundry! But the hotel deal was too good to beat.) The quick and dirty of this hotel are:

Pros:
+ You get a free smartphone in your room that you can take with you out and about, with free data and free calls to the US (and a few other countries). This was a gamechanger.
+ Excellent location in the trendy Le Marais neighborhood and near several metro lines.
Cons:
– Trendy neighborhood + cool courtyard with a patio bar = lots of noise coming in through the windows, even on a Wednesday night.
– Super paper-thin walls that we could hear everything through – hanky-panky, zippers, toilet seats being lowered, everything…

So take that as you will! I’d definitely recommend it unless you are a light sleeper and/or plan to do anything above a whisper with people next door, because they will hear your loud farts and shower singing and more.

After getting settled into our room, and freaking the freak out over the smartphone situation (check out the company that provides them, handy, for more information about these and to see which hotels are carrying them), we walked down the block to grab lunch at Le Centenaire (review), because the two of us were absolutely famished. I was feeling so excited that I got beef tartare for the second time in my life and Ben got steak frites because it’s hard to say no to it when you’re starving, I was translating the menu for him quite slowly, and he wasn’t even sure what some of the menu items I described to him where let alone whether he wanted to eat them. So beef two ways for us it was! With plenty of French fries and baguette to carb-load us for the rest of the evening.

Beef tartare + frites — Feeling French and dangerous with beef tartare (+ fries)(+ salad, which means +health!)

Steak frites — Poor Ben was so hungry that he had a hard time denying the allure of classic steak frites

After lunch, we walked around the neighborhood a bit to get situated. There is a grocery store and a pharmacy, aka drugstore, and tons of little restaurants and cafes and bars. We got ourselves settled, spent some time planning our new few days in the hotel, and called Les Temps de Cerises (review) to save ourselves a table for dinner. The restaurant was crammed full of English-speaking diners and cozy and intimate on that chilly evening.

Duck with plantain — Duck breast with fried plantain

Millefeuille — Chocolate millefeuille with berries

We walked our way to the Seine and walked along the river bank taking in the night and all the young people sitting and drinking and talking and laughing at like 10-11PM on a Wednesday night. It was so nice and got us so excited to spend a week in the City of Lights.

What are the more “adventurous” French foods that you have eaten? (Or haven’t quite dared to yet?) I tried beef tartare for the first time just a few months ago and surprisingly loved it so I was excited to try it in France. I first tried snails as a Chinese dish and I love them in garlic butter because you basically only taste garlic butter yum.

What are some gamechangers and dealbreakers for your travel accommodations? Ben and I really really loved the in-room smartphones but it was really unsettling how much we could hear the couple next door. Zippers? Toilet flushes? And we slept terribly because of the hub-bub outside. I don’t know…

I am going to work really hard to get the other Paris recaps up in a timely manner! Can you believe we’re halfway through October already?? Are you ready for Halloween?? (I’m not!)