I’m not very ‘up’ on French stars, I’ve been known to have been sitting next to one once in a while, not even realising it, example Virginie Ledoyen…. but the other night, we were dining at Wepler in the Place de Clichy and we were seated right next to my favorite French actor of all time, Daniel Auteuil. He was smaller than I imagined, and looked very tired – although still very handsome, but it was a treat nonetheless and most importantly I recognised him immediately – I didn’t have to be told!!!
The film. We were invited last night to a special advanced screening of the Baz Luhrmann film by the Advance Organisation here in Paris. I’d say there were a few hundred aussies, along with guests, mostly french (1 quebecer) who turned up to a great independant movie cinema in the 18th to see the epic that’s going to be released here in Paris on December 24th.
I have to tell you I loved the film. I’ll admit that being amongst an audience full of expats is probably the best way to see the film, ideally placed to appreciate all the stereotypical anecdotes and the tongue in cheek humour, not to mention Kitsch (with a capital K) that is markedly Luhrmann. The audience laughed and chanted as Hugh Jackman played up the hunky bod scenes, and they even got the fact that Nicole ditziness was part of the character (although I’m not sure the french people in front of us did… I think they just thought she was acting badly). The clichés abound, and they were well balanced with humour. Hughs’ body is magnificent, the Australian country scenery has a starring role, and the digital imagery even though noticable had remarkable light, mirroring the fantastic light I miss so much from Australia. Part spoof, part epic, I can see the thread of Australia right through the film.
A documentary it definitely is not, but part Priscilla and part Moulin Rouge it definitely is. I felt right at home.
p.s. I’ve just realised Hugh Jackman is my age and went to Knox Grammar. I used to know lots of guys from Knox, how come I never met him when I was in highschool??
Ever seen this British TV comedy? Where the occupants of a tall high rise office building are at the mercy of 3 losers who work for IT out of the basement?
They answer the phone with “IT, have you tried the turning the power off and on?”
That’s exactly what happened with us. A little more complicated, because we’re in France, but essentially the same. We wait for the Technical Dept of Darty to get back to us. They told us to find the fuse box that correlates to the stove top. Turn it off. They tell us to wait and they’ll call back in 15 minutes, goodbye. They called back, 25 minutes later, asked us to turn the fuse back on. And voila! It works.
High tech or what….
You know when you’re trying to get ready to go away? Stuff is everywhere. You have lists all over the place. All the things you should have done over the last 6 months are poking their tongues out at you singing nahnah na nah na. And then, something else goes wrong that becomes the icing on the cake. I had my icing today. Our new stovetop (remember the problems we had at the end of September?) decided to pack it in. Just like that.
No warning. I boiled a kettle for hot water, I put my pot on the stove with a little oil in the bottom to sear and brown the beef for a slow roasted thai curry that I’ve been looking forward to all week. And wham. The logic of the LED just started going nuts and now it’s dead. And because we live in France where the customer service is reknown for being non-existant we are only at the start of this caper, we have a call in to Darty and then who knows what hoops we’ll have to jump through to get this sorted before we leave.
So, pizza for dinner (again!)….
It’s snowing… honest to god snowing, huge flacons, they melt before they hit the ground but they look like paper cut-outs of snowflakes they’re so big. I’m going to have to stay inside now… there goes the shopping list, the post office and the bank. I’ll put another episode of ‘Medium’ on the DVD and wait. The juxtoposition is I’ve been looking at holiday rental houses for next summer, you know, Provence, sunshine, swimming pool, big group of friends spending a week living outside amongst the lavender….
I don’t want to wish my life away, but August seems so far away.
Michelle was looking after my best interest. Sunday morning, 9am, we got up to do 40 minutes of Davinia exercises on a DVD before hitting Lavinia for the 15% off sale on wine & liquor(!). We finished the warm up, Michelle bent down to pick up her weights and bam, she shrieks, she’s bent over in a not very comfortable looking position, and continues to moan, and scream, and cry. She’s stuck. Her back gave out, in the same place as last summer, only tenfold, she can’t move. I stuff cushions under her for support and call SOS Médecins on 3624….
1 hour later the doctor arrives, sticks a needle in her ass, tells her she’s off work for a week, writes a doctors note and sends me out to the pharmacy to stock up on codeine, valium and a few other concoctions of pills (the french love prescribing pills). We manage to move her to the bed around 1pm administer the portable pharmacy and I race off to meet Di & Greg at Lavinia.
The rest of the afternoon Michelle slept, drugged up on her cocktail, in a fixed position flat on the bed. We fought about the ‘going to work’ debate, apparently she absolutely positively has to be there everyday between now and when we leave for Korea, but I won with the arguement saying that until she can make it to the toilet and back, not to mention into the shower and down our 3 flights of stairs there’s not much hope of that happening… she’s been reasonably quiet here at home today, but she’s still insisting on going to work tomorrow… we’ll see, by then I might be tired of making tea, administering pills and catering to her every whim.
In fact, I think I might help her down the stairs….
When your friend you spend the most time with is as knowledgeable about wine as my friend is, chances are you tend to take more interest in the subject, your taste becomes more refined and you are no longer satisfied with just any bottle, or any restaurant with a mediocre wine list, or any restaurant at all that has crappy wine glasses set out. It’s both a curse and a blessing.
This week I went along to a dinner at il Vino, the restaurant here in Paris opened by Enrico Bernado, the winner of the 2004 title of Best Sommelier in the World. Bernardo has held the title for 3 years, and was ousted last year by a Swede, Andreas Larsson. The restaurant’s menu is in fact a wine list. There are a selection of wines that you can choose from, and then your meal is devised based on the wine you choose.
The idea is great, the wine list is fine, all the staff are sommeliers in their own right and can guide you with your choices and have great detailed knowledge on hand if you have the vaguest question. You start by notifying them of any allergies or aversions and the adventure begins from there. We were a table of 5, and we all decided the Menu “aveugle” (blind) would be fun. They paired 2 entrees, 1 main, 1 dessert with 4 different wines for which we were to discern.
Sadly we were disappointed with our lot. The sardine starter was ok, the swordfish was great, the duck main was ok, and the dessert of clementines on pastry was good. But 2 out of 4 plates is not what I’d call successful at a restaurant of this calibre. The biggest problem was the size of the portions which were miniscule. We all left hungry. The other major set-back was the wine served with the Swordfish entree was a Beaujolais Nouveau. It was quite good for a Beaujolais Nouveau, but to put a Beaujolais Nouveau on a tasting menu at €95 per person we thought was a bit cheap… there is no way it would have even entered our minds while we were blind tasting, that it could even be an option.
Nevermind. The staff were great, Enrico made himself available for photos, and while I don’t think I would repeat the experience I’m happy to have tried it.
I guess as I stated initially, our taste becomes more refined, we drink better and better wine at home, and we eat well which is not hard if you live in France and enjoy cooking. Going out for dinner, especially at these kind of prices should be a formidable experience. Il Vino fell a little short.
I think this is brilliant. Remember the old everyday phones of your childhood? Remember how you could tuck them up under your ear for hours and hours, chatting away to the cute boy down the street, or the long conversations with no-one special just on and on and on…. I love this idea. I want one.
For christmas there is this very sweet shop that does porcelain everything, hand-made everything, not too far from here. We found the loveliest little ____ dishes for Milene, not to mention all the other wonderful things we had to leave behind. And their business cards, embossed on a creamy white square card are gorgeous. Le Petit Atelier de Paris.
Just discovered this new hotel in Paris. Haven’t been there yet, it was in this months ELLE magazine which our neighbour Michel left on our doorstep Monday evening. He’s very cool like that, he gets loads of magazine subscriptions, Elle, AD, Allure, Maisons France, Elle Decoration, Vanity Fair etc and once he’s read them he passes them onto us…
Anyway, the hotel. Design by Phillippe Starck, architecture by Roland Castro and opened by Serge Trigano (president of Club Med) it’s located in the hip and trendy Saint-Blaise quartier in the heart of the 20th arrondisement, not so much just a hotel, but a whole EXPERIENCE…. I think we might head over there on the weekend and check out the baby-foot tables in the bar.
Starting at €79 a night, it’s a bargain.
It’s a race, on the third Thursday of November, millions of cases of Beaujolais Nouveau are shipped for distribution to Paris and around the world. Thats almost half the production of the region for the entire year. What started out as a local phenomonem of wine growers filling pitchers direct from the barrels with a wine made fast to drink while the better Beaujolais was taking a more leisurely course, was regulated first in 1938, and then again in 1951 when the local custom hit Paris, and finally in 1985 when the current date was set.
Beaujolais Nouveau is a triumph of marketing and promotion, mostly due to the efforts of Georges Dubeuf, the largest negociant in the region. Tasting wise, some people would have you believe that Beaujolais Nouveau is as about as close to white wine as a red wine can get. Due to the way it is made – the must is pressed after only three days – the astringent tannins normally found in red wines aren’t there, leaving an easy to drink, fruity wine. This, and the fact that it tastes best when chilled, makes for a festive wine to be gulped rather than sipped, enjoyed in high spirits rather than critiqued. Hence the ritual we undergo on the third Thursday of November.. where almost everyone can be found at some point, on a stool, in a bar, tasting this years crop.
It hasn’t the pedigree of some classic wines, but it’s fun, it’s a ritual and I’m happy to play my part.
And so, last night, under the guise of a ‘vernissage’ Anne & I plopped ourselves down to do a little tasting of the Beaujolais Nouveau at Vintage… and the two I tasted were not too bad at all.
Tonight we’re going to see Fred Pellerin at the Théâtre du Petit Saint Martin not far from here in the 10th. It will be good to sit back and listen to a ‘storyteller’ spin a story or 3 and forget all the rest of what’s going on around us. We heard Fred Pellerin on the radio this summer when we were in Quebec and we laughed, and laughed at his proposal to put a “lid” on Montreal to protect it from the suburbians (or was it the other round?). Anyway, I’m looking forward to it.
TV is my life at the moment. Movie after movie after movie. On tv that is. At the moment, or at least for the last 6 weeks or so I’ve been turning on the telly. Actually too often really. It’s on most of the time when I’m home alone, whether I watch it or not. I flick through the stations until I find something on in english, I may watch it, most probably not, it’s just noise in the background, an excuse to not do the things I should be out doing.
Funny thing is, when I’m out doing other stuff, I don’t miss it. There aren’t shows on tv that I have to watch. I don’t know the schedule except for Spooks on Thursday nights – although that’s more because it’s Michelle’s favorite show – but even then we usually miss it because we’re out most Thursdays.
No, it’s on all the time but it’s very rarely watched. Is that as bad as being on and watching it? I wonder…. am I helping to skew the statistics on TV watching in France?
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