Encounters with egg cups / Le Marais

As with yesterday's entry, we will begin by having some laughs at my cultural ineptitude.

I should begin this story by saying that dinners at my host family's house are something of an enigma. I have never had a dinner with all three of them at once, for instance-- on the first night Louise and her dad ate with me, then one night I had dinner with just the dad, and on other nights it's been both parents. Also, the things they serve never seem like cohesive dinners: one night we had cold cuts and a bowl of celery coleslaw, another night we had broccoli cooked with bacon, and another night we had salmon lox on bread. Tonight might have been the strangest night yet, though, in terms of the dining debacle.

Louise popped her head in my room at around 8:15 (we normally eat late) to tell me that dinner was ready. I followed her into the kitchen to find that only one plate was set, and my host mom was apparently on her way out. More puzzling than the lack of dinner partners, though, was the dinner itself: a halved avocado drizzled with red wine vinegar, and two soft-boiled eggs sitting next to an egg cup at the side of the plate. Between the avocado and the eggs was a tiny bowl of sea salt, complete with miniature spoon.

What was I supposed to do with this meal? I assumed the avocados were meant to be eaten with a spoon, but the eggs were more of a mystery. I remember egg cups from when we lived in England-- people would crack the tops off the egg and dip rectangles of toast into the warm yolk. Somehow I thought that that probably wasn't the intention here, though. I decided that whatever my eventual course of action, it would be necessary to rid the top half of the egg of its shell.

But apparently that was wrong. Midway through my peeling act, Louise came in and gave me a very puzzled look, then went off in very rapid French in a tone that indicated I was doing something wrong. I understood that she was probably concerned that I assumed the eggs to be hard-boiled, and would bite into one and be sprayed by molten yolk. Finally I said to her, in English, "are you saying that the insides are still gooey?" "Ouais," she confirmed, with a smile.

She left for a minute and I decided it would be best if this whole dinner debate ended as quickly as possible. I scooped out most of one of the avocado halves, but had to forgo the second, and tried to separate out the remainder of the egg innards but ate several shell fragments in the process. My mom had also indicated I could partake of the fruit basket and yogurt, so I grabbed a kiwi and a container of yogurt and smuggled them back to the safety of my room. The small-scale adventures, I expect, will never end here.

While we're on the topic of amusing French food, consider the following snacks I bought today at Franprix (competitor to Monoprix):



From left to right, we've got: Barres (Chocolat Noir), a granola bar variety that I buy because it's the cheapest that the supermarchés carry, but also because they are tasty goodness; a breadstick-type snack product called Flutes, which are made with carbs, cheese, and butter, from what I can discern from the packaging, and probably pack about 1,000 calories per stick but it's totally worth it; fruit biscuits, also cheap; a doll that I bought at the Musée de la Poupée; sugared "cacahuetes," which may or may not be cashews since it sounds kind of similar; and finally some roast-chicken flavored ridged potato chips. How best to describe these chips... let me just say that if heaven has a vending machine, these chips will be in it. I am seriously considering sending a care package of French snack foods to my U.S. address, just because they're better than anything I've ever eaten.

Alright, now that I'm done singing the praises of pantry staples, I will take you on a whirlwind tour of Le Marais, a former swampland that is now home to a charming Renaissance-era neighborhood of Paris.

Here we are at the Hôtel de Sully, one of several hôtels particuliers (former private mansions) in Le Marais. We are standing in the stone-paved courtyard that would have served as a driveway for carriages bringing visitors to the mansion. The building is now owned by the state and contains offices for the Ministry of Culture and Communication.

A passageway leads to the gardens and former master/mistress's quarters of the Hôtel de Sully. The precise, well-cropped garden is typically French, according to Paul, and contrasts with the more natural, overgrown style associated with English country gardens.

The entrance to the Hôtel Carnavalet, another hôtel particulier that has been converted into a museum on the history of Paris.

Inside the carriage courtyard of the Hôtel Carnavalet is this amazing statue of Louis XIV. Paul pointed out the interesting contrast in Louis' attire: his hair is contemporary to the 17th/18th-century, but the artist has presented him in the wardrobe of a Roman warrior, presumably to suggest that his status equals that of the great men of Antiquity.

Here we are in front of another architectural marvel: l’Hôtel de Soubise. Although most of the building was erected in the early 1700s, it incorporates a portion of an earlier residence. The turrets visible in the upper left corner of the picture are the vestiges of the Hôtel de Clisson, a 1300s manor house that once occupied the site. Now it's used to house part of the French National Archives.

Before Paris underwent a city-wide initiative to clean and restore its historic buildings, all of the facades looked like this hôtel particulier. Paul told us that the black deposits are due to the pollution of diesel fuels; for some reason this building has escaped governmental pressure for a similar revamping. The wooden doors are decorated with twin Medusa heads to discourage unwelcome visitors.

So that's your architectural history lesson for today.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who's been leaving comments-- it's nice to know my lame jokes are being appreciated.