The Sweet Life in Paris

by David Lebovitz

  ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

  Pour 6 tablespoons (95 ml) water in a small bowl and sprinkle the gelatin over the top.

  In a small, heavy-duty saucepan fitted with a candy thermometer, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and 1/3 cup (80 ml) cold water and set over moderate heat.

  While the syrup is cooking, put the egg whites in the bowl of a standing electric mixer with the whip attachment in place.

  When the sugar syrup reaches about 225°F (108°C), begin whipping the whites slowly with the salt.

  As the temperature of the syrup climbs, beat the whites on medium-high speed until they’re fluffy and begin to hold their shape.

  When the syrup reaches 250°F (122°C), remove from heat and scrape in the gelatin. Stir until it’s completely dissolved, then whisk in the cocoa.

  Increase the mixer speed to high and pour the syrup into the egg whites in a slow but steady stream. Avoid pouring the syrup on the whip or it will fling and cling to the sides rather than go into the meringue.

  While the syrup is whipping, spread half of the coconut evenly over the bottom of an 8-inch (20-cm) square pan, leaving no bare spots.

  Stop the mixer briefly and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, then add the vanilla and continue to whip the marshmallow mixture until it’s thickened and the side of the mixer bowl no longer feels warm. The mixture will still be a bit runny, like chocolate pudding, but will firm up as it sits.

  Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top as best you can. Sprinkle the remaining coconut over the top. Let cool at least 4 hours or overnight, uncovered.

  To unmold, run a knife around the edge of the pan and turn the marshmallow square out onto a large cutting board or baking sheet. Use scissors or a pizza cutter to cut it into 36 squares. Toss the marshmallows with the excess coconut that fell off when you unmolded the large square, dredging the sides to coat them completely. Shake each marshmallow to remove excess coconut, then arrange on a serving plate.

  STORAGE: The marshmallows can be stored in a container for up to five days at room temperature.

  VARIATION: If you use a 9-inch (23-cm) square pan, increase the total amount of grated coconut to 1½ cups (120g).

  NOTE: Unsweetened coconut is available in natural foods stores. Sweetened coconut can be used, although the marshmallows will, of course, be sweeter. If you have only large-shred coconut, it’s best to pulse it in a food processor or blender until the pieces are smaller.

  LE BRONZAGE

  I was minding my own business on a quiet, sunny morning, walking though the seventh arrondissement on the way to meet some friends for coffee and a croissant. Most of the neighborhood is relatively deserted, as the people who live there tend to reside in posh, expensive apartments and don’t hang around on the sidewalks much. As usual, there was no one around, and although I find that neighborhood a little boring, I was enjoying the peace and quiet of being away from the hectic buzz of the Bastille.

  As I approached a corner, my moment of bliss was broken when I heard a muffled thud. Then it was followed by another, then another. Thump … thump … thump … Soon the thuds were so close together they began to sound like a stampede. I could feel the sidewalk shaking so violently I became more than a little concerned about what was around the bend, which was for sure on a collision course with me.

  As I rounded the corner, I saw what all the fuss was about. President Nicolas Sarkozy was heading right for me, followed by a trampling pack of photographers who completely encircled him, madly clicking away while he wore his customary glare as he barrelled through them. He had recently won the election, and the press was finding him and his personal life just as fascinating—even more so—than his political leanings.

  Although Sarkozy was accused of a number of things, from being anti-Semitic and a racist, to having a violent temper and a penchant for serial monogamy, he had one addiction that no one seemed to want to talk about: tanning.

  As I stood transfixed, just a couple of feet away from him, Monsieur Sarko’s diminutive size didn’t shock me. Nor did his famously fierce expression. It was the color of his skin, which was like none I’d ever seen before. His face had a glowing orange tint, the exact same shade as the flesh of a lush, ripe cantaloupe.

  Flip through the television channels in France any evening of the week and you’re bound to land on some round-table program where topics are discussed by notables in the news and entertainment industry. But there’s no need to adjust the saturation mode on your télécommande; each guest seems to be brighter, and more tangerine-tinted, than the next. I don’t know how those people can even speak without cracking through all that heavy-duty makeup they have caked on.

  The French adore le bronzage, natural or not, and at the end of every summer during la rentrée, when millions of Parisians flood back home, the city comes alive in an artist’s palette of cocoa-crisped cheeks and caramelized cleavages. And even though I’ve had interesting arguments with disbelieving Parisians who blow aside the notion that secondhand smoke is harmful, or that dragging a filthy rag from room to room is unhygienic, I’m proof that it’s entirely possible to get secondhand damage from UV rays right here in Paris. My retinas are still singed from the day I came across my doctor’s fifty-something receptionist sunbathing, bare-breasted, by the Seine one summer afternoon. God love her for being so brazen at her age, although the poor dear’s dark skin made her look like a rolled-up chocolate crêpe. And the icing on that crêpe wasn’t a mound of whipped cream, it’s the fact that she works for a dermatologist. (I’ll leave the cherries on top to your imagination.)

  But there’s no reason to limit melanoma, macular degeneration, skin cancer, and premature aging to summertime festivities. Since Paris is gray nearly 360 days of the year, there’s no problem getting yourself brûlé’d at l’espace bronzage, the tanning salons that are a fixture as ubiquitous in the city as the boulangeries.

  Actually, they outnumber them: a search though les Pages Jaunes (the Yellow Pages) lists 1,326 tanning salons, eclipsing the city’s 921 bread bakeries. Apparently bread’s not the only thing getting baked to a crisp here.

  I’ve been seduced by lots of loaves in Paris, but I can’t say the same about the tanning salons, which are manned by young people who are all several shades darker than the Africans up in the Goutte d’Or neighborhood. But there’s something about going into a booth with a warning out front that says what you’re about to do is likely to cause a fatal maladie that makes it less than appealing to me. The death penalty was abolished here in 1981, yet Paris is full of places where they’re happy to grill you to an early death.

  I stay out of the sun at all times, which makes me the whitest person in Paris—with the possible exception of the flour-covered young bakers working in the basement at Poilâne. Even more than my accent and pearly whites, my pallor pegs me as an étranger américain. But perhaps I’ll outlive a few of the people around here who have been giving me a hard time over the years, like the women at the préfecture to whom I have to report annually for my visa renewal, or the particularly hostile saleswoman who presides over the chocolates at A la Petite Fabrique, where she refuses to sell me any of their chocolates, for some unfathomable reason. Outside of the window is about as close as I’m going to get to their chocolates until she’s gone.

  I’ve thought about sending her an airplane ticket to somewhere warm and sunny so she can roast herself to a crisp. Or maybe someday she’ll find that working in a tanning salon is far more rewarding than safeguarding their chocolates from enthusiastic Americans.

  Frankly, I don’t care where she goes, as long as she goes somewhere else. I’m just terrified that I might run into her, and I can’t think of anything more frightening than coming across her outside of the shop.

  On second thought—yes, I can.

  CREPES AU CHOCOLAT, DEUX FOIS

  DOUBLE-CHOCOLATE CREPES

  MAKES 16 CREPES

  Crêpes are easy to make, and once you get the rhythm
down, it’s hard to stop. I always want to just keep going and going and going. The most important thing is not to be in too much of a hurry and to give them a good bronzage in the pan before flipping them over.

  Once cooked, they can be stacked and filled with any filling you want, or simply eaten warm on their own. Crêpes are the quintessential French snack, and they’re sold at stands all over Paris, often filled with a smear of Nutella (chocolate-hazelnut paste) or big chunks of melting chocolate. Either choice is good if you’re one of those people like me who just can’t get enough chocolate. (Which is true in my case, thanks to a certain nasty lady at my neighborhood chocolate shop.)

  2 cups (500 ml) whole milk

  3 tablespoons (25 g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

  3 tablespoons (45 g) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces, plus more for cooking the crêpes

  3 tablespoons sugar

  ¼ teaspoon coarse salt

  4 large eggs, at room temperature

  1 ¼ cups (175 g) flour

  1 cup (160 g) chocolate chips or coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate (or a jar of Nutella)

  Heat the milk, cocoa, butter, sugar, and salt in a small saucepan until the butter is melted.

  Put the eggs and flour in a blender and pour in the cocoa and milk mixture. Blend until smooth. Chill the batter for at least 1 hour.

  To cook the crêpes, remove the batter from the refrigerator and let come to room temperature.

  Heat a 10- to 12-inch (25- to 30-cm) nonstick skillet or crêpe pan over medium to high heat with a tiny bit of butter in it.

  Once the pan is hot, wipe the butter around with a paper towel. Give the batter a good stir and pour in ¼ cup (60 ml) of the batter. Quickly tilt the pan so the batter spreads and covers the bottom. Cook the crêpe for 45 seconds to 1 minute, until the edges are crispy, then slide a spatula under the bottom and flip it over. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of chocolate chips over the top or smear a tablespoon of Nutella over one quarter, and let cook for another minute.

  Fold the crêpe into quarters (once in half, then in half again), enclosing the chocolate, and serve immediately.

  STORAGE: These are best served hot off the griddle, like in Paris, and don’t hold well, so they should be eaten right away. You can keep them warm on a baking sheet in a low oven as you cook them up, if necessary. The batter can be made in advance and refrigerated overnight.

  PATE DE FOIE DE VOLAILLE AUX POMMES

  CHICKEN AND APPLE SPREAD

  MAKES 8 SERVINGS

  The word pâté doesn’t mean “terribly difficult, snooty French food.” It can refer to any meat-rich spread, which is everyday fare in France and not meant to be reserved for special occasions. You can easily make and enjoy pâté no matter where you live, and this recipe takes less than a half an hour to put together, so there’s no excuse not to give it a go. Especially true since I’ve replaced the slablike baratte of butter traditionally used in pâté with cooked apples, in case you’re concerned about how you’re going to look in, or out, of next summer’s swimsuit.

  3 tablespoons (45 g) butter salted or unsalted

  1 medium tart apple, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch (2-cm) dice

  3 shallots or 1 small onion, peeled and finely minced

  1 pound (450 g) chicken livers, cleaned of any veins or dark spots, rinsed, and blotted dry with a paper towel Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

  ¼ cup (60 ml) heavy cream

  ¼ cup (60 ml) Calvados, Cognac, or Armagnac

  Pinch of chile powder or ground nutmeg

  A few drops of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar

  Fleur de sel or flaky sea salt

  In a large skillet, melt half the butter over medium heat. Add the apple and cook for about 6 minutes, stirring only once or twice, until the apples are browned and completely soft. Scrape the apples into a bowl.

  Melt the rest of the butter in the same pan. Add the shallots and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly, until soft.

  Add the livers, season them with salt and pepper, and cook for about 3 minutes longer, until they’re firm on the outside but still quite pink within.

  Add the cream, then the liqueur, to the pan. (If you add the liqueur first, it can flame up.) Add the chile powder and continue to cook for about 3 minutes more, scraping the bottom of the pan to release any browned bits, until the pan liquids are slightly reduced. You’ll know the livers are done when a test liver cut in half is just cooked through and the pan juices are the consistency of thin gravy.

  Add the livers to the bowl of apples along with the liquid and all the appetizing brown bits left in the skillet. Let rest until no longer steaming hot.

  Puree the livers, apples, and any juices in a food processor until completely smooth. Taste, adding more chile powder and salt if desired and lemon juice to taste. The pâté will seem runny at this point, but will firm up as it chills. Scrape the pâté into a decorative serving bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for at least 4 hours or overnight.

  SERVING: Bring the pâté to room temperature. Smear the pâté on little toasts, sprinkle with a tiny bit of fleur de sel or other delicate sea salt, and serve as an hors d’oeuvre. Ice-cold rosé makes the perfect accompaniment, especially in the summer.

  STORAGE: Pâté will keep for three days, well wrapped, in the refrigerator. It can also be frozen for up to one month.

  OF COURSE!

  Finding anything in Paris can be a challenge, from the right printer cartridge (which is no longer being made, even though you just bought the printer two weeks ago) to a bath mat that doesn’t set you back eighty-five euros. Everyone in Paris has pretty much figured it out: we all save ourselves a lot of trouble, and Métro tickets, and head straight to the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville, le BHV, the sprawling grand magasin that spreads its bulk over one enormous city block of the Marais.

  You don’t shop there because you’re going to save any money—in fact, you’re going to do just the opposite—but because you know that within one massive block-long building, you’ll find whatever it is you’re looking for. In America, I used to spend whatever time it took in pursuit of a bargain. But in Paris, bargains don’t exist, so no one even bothers.

  I am certain the BHV has scouts who look far and wide, combing the world, in search of the least-helpful people they can find. Then they bring them back to Paris and set them loose on the sales floor. But the surly salespeople aren’t nearly as infuriating as the shoppers. If you think the bousculeurs on the streets are bad, they surely get their training wandering around the aisles of the BHV before the city of Paris releases them onto the streets. It’s so bad in there the store had to erect prison-like steel reinforcements at the base of each escalator to prevent people from cutting you off as you try to hop on the next escalator going down or up.

  My mode of action when I’m ready to enter the BHV is to go on the offensive immediately. Which is pretty easy, since the second I take my initial deep breath and reach for the door handle, I can see everyone inside redirecting themselves toward me and the door I’m going to open, expecting me to move out of their way once I do. Except by now, I’m onto them and let go of the door at the last possible moment, quickly cutting away to another door, watching them panic and scurry around once their plans are thwarted.

  Whatever cunning means I use to get inside, I enter with the assumption that no matter what it is I’m looking for, the BHV will have absolutely everything—except that one specific thing that I came to get.

  Like the shoelace I broke and had to find a replacement for, one that was 110 cm long. There I stood in the shoe-accessories department in the basement, facing an entire wall devoted entirely to shoelaces. Really! You’ve never seen that many shoelaces in your life, and it’s a sight to behold—leather or lanyard, woven or waxed, cotton or poly, round or flat, string or cloth; in white, brown, black, beige, tan, red, white, green, purple, and blue. Not only do they have every color and style, they have every size that e
xists, from 60 cm to 120 cm and everything in between, all carefully lined up on hooks pegged to the wall. Scanning the racks, I see 60 cm and 65 cm … and 70 cm … and 80 cm … yes, and 90 cm … and 100 cm … and 120 cm … all the way up to 150 cm. They have them all.

  Except one.

  Of course!

  If every salesperson isn’t busy avoiding customers or texting friends about what time he or she got home that morning, you might possibly be able to find someone to take an interest in you. And if you’re really lucky, that person might even want to help you find what you’re looking for.

  “Exeusez-moi, monsieur, avez-vous des lacets de 110 centimeters, s’ilvous plaît?” I inquire, optimistically.

  “Oui, monsieur. Au 5ème étage,” the salesclerk assures me.

  Scratching my head at the logic, I ask why one pair of shoelaces would be up on the fifth floor when every other conceivable size and type and shape in the known universe is on the wall in front of us.

  “It’s because the hiking shoes are on the fifth floor.”

  Of course! How stupid of me! Even though my laces are for regular shoes, not hiking shoes, I find myself nodding in agreement. I can’t explain it, but the logic around here is starting to make sense.

  “Mais oui, monsieur”! he says, hoping he’s done with me as he fumbles in his pocket for a cigarette and sidles toward the exit.

  I used to fall for the oldest trick in the book they use in French department stores, which is sending someone to another floor for whatever they’re looking for when it’s actually just one aisle over. Now I’ve wised up: I don’t budge unless I’m absolutely sure the item I want isn’t just around the corner, where it often is.