Cockles and Pasta Recipe - Ile De Ré

What a splendid way to start the summer, escape Paris, head for the beach, get a tan and treat yourself to the most divine and rewarding seafood dish! My petit sejour on the Ile de Re was exactly that with fellow blogger and friend Ge.

I share with you here our delicious yet simple recipe for Coques aux Pates (Cockles with Pasta), and pay our thanks to Ge's sister who passed us the recipe.




Cockles with Pasta- For 2 persons

Ingredients;-

• 500g hand picked cockles (if you aren't near a beach you'll have to make do with your fishmonger)
• 2-3 garlic pieces
• 150g of fresh parsely
• lots of olive oil
• sea salt
• fresh ground pepper
• 250g Spaghetti

Method – as per Ge and I

Cockle preparation (picked from the beach):-

• We picked well over 2Kg of cockles from the beach at low tide which made about 500g of cockles after the de-shelling. Washed off residue sand and soaked them in seasalt and water overnight – repeated this 4 times to get rid of the sand in them.
• Rinsed the cockles once more and placed in a pot of boiling water enough just to cover the cockles. The cockle shells opened up with the heat – once all opened, heat turned off and strained. Ran cold water over them so that they were ready to be de-shelled.
• Picked out the cockle flesh – and discarded any which weren't open.

Sauce:-

• Roughly blended together garlic, parsley with the olive oil and salt & pepper to taste. Texture was bitty and not pasty.

Cooking:-

• Cooked pasta adding sea salt and olive oil into water – timing according to packet Split the pasta into 2 plates.
• Heated a frying pan and splashed a dose of olive oil in it before sliding the de-shelled cockles in.
• Then added in the sauce and stirred for 5 mins until the aromas filled the kitchen
• Added additional fresh pepper to the dish and garnished with sprigs of fresh parsley – like the pros do it.

The dish was soon wiped clean from the plates! We thank Ge's sister for the recipe!

Bon Appétit!

Ben Kweller rocks the Cigalle

It was hum more than a few weeks ago when I entered into the infamous Cigalle music hall in Montmartre to watch Ben Kweller. For those of you who do not know him, he is a young and very talented Texan musician and singer who writes all his lyrics that rock and rhythm to every beat. He also apparently played all the instruments for all the songs in his last album – “Ben Kweller”. The Cigalle hall is an intimate venue - we were standing up the whole time and being only 10-15 ft from the stage. Accompanied by his fellow band members he was truly an amazing performer with great live vocals belting out his new album “Changing Horses” and gracing us with some of his previous hits. Unlike the previous album, the songs and melodies on this one was more in the genre of country rock. I only wished there were many more of us in the audience –he deserved so many more thundering claps of appreciation.

Encore! Encore! Encore!

The T.A.G grafitti art show - Exclusive in Paris!

A bit on the wild side this time with the T.A.G exhibition at the Grand Palais. T.A.G refers to 'Tag and Graffiti' - the signature of the artist woven into their Graffiti art. The Graffiti movement which grew out of New York and other large US cities in the 60's, were driven by citizens who used the walls, metros, bridges in the fringe areas such as the Bronx to express their dissatisfaction and anarchism over society and establishments.
French architect Alain-Dominique Gallizia is the compiler of this unique collection inviting 300 hundred international graffiti artists (mostly French and American albeit) to work on the theme of 'love' and their tag on 2 rectangular canvases. The result is quite inspiring and interesting interpretations of such a tight brief. And furthermore these canvases are/were temporarily housed in an unfinished section of the Grand Palais of which its crude brick walls gave a truly authentic background to the graffiti artwork.

It could be coming soon near you...as M. Gallizia hopes to be able to tour the collection.

The World of Andy Warhol in Paris

No sight of the infamous Condensed Campbells Soup work of art at the Andy Warhol exhibition (Grand Palais)– it rests at the MOMA (New York). I hadn't realised that pop art pioneer Andy Warhol had gained so much fame (and fortune) during his lifetime...in fact he called himself a commercial artist, painted for money which of course increased his exclusivity factor. Having worked in journalism, fashion and music industry he became very well connected in the upper echelons of society. Turning his passion into a business, proving his extraordinary talent and not afraid of being `different' can only be admired. I was intrigued by the vibrancy of the bold and often clashing colors used to enhance certain features of the face, simple and striking. Seeing so many different heads in a few rooms was a bit overwhelming for the brain, especially once you begin to spot the celebrities (Deborah harry, Stallone, Diane Von Furstenberg...) and mentally morph them into what they look like today. We leave the exhibit through a corridor pasted with his apparently other 'well known' piece of art, the 'Cow print wallpaper' (photo).

Exhibition at the Grand Palais until July 13th, 2009 – not to be missed!

David LaChapelle - Edgy, Wicked Modern Art

I finally made it to the David LaChapelle exhibition at the Monnaie de Paris. What an artist! I learned of the ultra-unique photographer/artist through the friend who I went with and then realised from my web searches that I recognised a few of the pieces that had made the headlines such as the one where glitzy dressed Paris Hilton is being 'gently' held by 2 cops (Hi Bitch, Bye Bitch – see photo). My first impressions from scanning his works on the web were; shocking, controversy, taboo....and then after further reflection, ironic, clever and even beautiful. These same impressions carried over to the museum during my visit but I was triggered with a lot more emotional charge and my eyes were hungry for more. David LaChapelle – obviously expression through art is what he does well depicting controversial, decadent, materialist pop culture in the lives of both celebrities and the ordinary. The only shortfall was that there was only a small selection of his works at the exhibit.

Look out for my next Art visit...coming soon....

The French shuts down 'The Body' exhibition in Paris

French law has clamped down on this famous Body exhibition which has traveled the 4 corners of the world - I went to the one in London, twice in fact about 5 years ago and have seen it pass through Montreal and New York....so what is the problem? Yes I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about what my reactions would be before entering for the first time, but all in all it was educational and presented in an 'art gallery' format. I could not believe that Human rights groups claimed that the show denigrates the human body....and believe me the majority of the comments made on lemonde's article was pro the closure. I thinks it's a total shame, and apparently so do these people in the photo who are obviously going to be the last few to catch this show before the organisers get a hefty fine. Photo taken around midday on my way from my French lesson at Madeline.

I wonder what will be next to bite the dust!

Chocolate Art at Easter Time

This was the display of our favourite (at least mine) in our area yesterday(Easter Sunday)....see the beautiful chocolate? that was probably merely 1/3 of what they had left over. I should have taken a shot to the right past the entrance to show the 50+ people queue. So observation 1 - Parisians will walk a few blocks out in search of their local favourite 'pattiserie' and bakery...and I now understand why since I am doing it too. The quality of the baguette, cakes can be so much more refined than your nearest joint. 2nd observation...you think us British had the monopoly on Easter bunnies....come to France! For a couple of weeks now many of the 'pattiseries' have been displaying their works of chocolate art carefully wrapped in plastic film in preparation for the Easter weekend in the form of bells, chickens, rabbits, fish...and compilations of farmyard animals in their own chocolate pen...endless creativity.

Needless to say that I won't be touching chocolate with a barge pole for a while.

Happy Easter!

Public sanitation, more demonstrations and a swim...

Okay I know i've been slacking....but i've been gathering up some interesting tid bits to share with you.

I thought as my parents did that Paris (at least the streets around us) had a problem with it's street drainage system as we would often witness water gushing against the pavement and street as if there were a burst pipe somewhere. So after a few weeks I decided to ask Xavier why the local town hall isn't doing anything to fix these leaks to which he responded that nothing was broken. In fact it is their cleaning system, and since then I have noticed people dressed up in bright green outfits (usually in the morning) sweeping debris and bits of rubbish like cigarette butts and receipts into the sides into the gushing water....probably ending up in some dump? Of course to minimize larger pieces of debris getting stuck in some drain, there are also these bright green mini cars with 2 huge revolving brushes at the front, operated by another brightly green dressed person, skating along the pavements at various times during the day swallowing the bigger bits of unwanted filth. And if that wasn't enough the Mayor of Paris has recently launched an ad campaign to warn people of a 'new' fining scheme for people caught dumping in the streets from leaving unwanted household goods on the street to not picking up after your dog. There is a quite a shock factor to the ads i.e. on on you see a pile of dog litter on a beautiful sandy beach with the slogan 'Disgusting, also in Paris' To be honest I'm not sure how effective it has been - I'm still having to adjust my walking path to avoid random dog litter.

So yet another train of demonstrations are occurring whether it is against job losses owed to underperformance in these tight times or reduced funding for universities. But the question of why we are only seeing demonstrations at such publicly grand scale only in France and not every other recession affected country is interesting. Apparently in a country where the State is involved in many levels of the society and why the taxes are high as a result, the people expect a quick and painless solution...and they make sure that their message is clear to the State – it`s almost a right to demonstrate. In a poll running up to the General Day of Action there was around 67% support for the demonstrations, even people who didn't take a day off to strike (because they had to work?) were in favor of the strike. But things can get a bit over the top too, last week employees of 3M shut the Director of Manufacturing in his office overnight following the announcement of 110 employees being laid off this year. Released unharmed, but unrelentless in their ambition to negotiate a better severance deal on departure....more talks to follow. And closer to home a couple of weeks ago, one night we heard echoes of screams and shouts outside our building getting louder and louder around 11:30pm. We peeked out from behind our curtains to see what the calamity was about, it seemed like a hundred or so students had gathered for more than a quiet stroll around our neighbourhood and along the way, shouting slogans of some form, and tipping over the bottle bank on the street. They moved on but not the images of these irritated students. Apparently, the students strikes started back in November last year due to cuts in fundings for many universities and reforms in programs and soon leading to job losses for researchers. All the while students aren't attending classes but at least they are grooming themselves in politics.

And a little gem of the day....I finally dived into the Josephine Baker pool today (pool on the Seine) – it was pretty awesome to see the regular Seine lapping its waves against the glass walls, beneath the sun piercing through the glass rooftop!

Stay positive!

Surfing in Paris!

What magnificent views of Paris one can get on a bike. A couple of weekends ago we debuted our Montreal Ecovelos in the city and headed along the banks of the Seine from Bibliothèque Francois Mitterrand to reach Les Jardins de Tulleries to meet some friends from London. It's wonderful to absorb so many of the grand Paris postcard sites in the matter of minutes at your own pace; Bastille, Ile de cité, Notredame.... The weather was pleasant with a bit of chill but it was surprisingly easy to get around – they even shut off one of the main underpasses along the way, next to the river from cars to allow bikers, strollers, pedestrians and roller skaters to take part in a promenade on a Sunday!

And so I have already discovered a good running route about 5-6km similar to the bike route, leaving from the steps of Bibliothèque Francois Mitterrand after a warm up and then continuing on the banks right next to the Bateaux Mouches (tourist barges with restaurants) reaching the Pont Sully to make my turn around passing through the Jardin de Plantes and the Piscine de Josephine Baker (swimming pook on the Seine which actually uses the river water for their pool – disinfected and filtered I'm told.) on my return. With a bit of sun pressing me on and Paris in the background makes a run all the more rewarding. In fact it reminds me a bit of when we used to run along the Thames from Pimlico back in the day.

Oh yes our Parisian apartment is finally equipped with Internet just as the State implements the Hadopi law – no more illegal downloading of films, music etc in France – apparently violators will be warned by letter and if they persist they will have their internet line suspended whilst still having to pay the fees. I wonder if this will really reverse the decline in media sales. At any rate I am happy to be connected once again!

Happy Surfing!

Can't live without the Internet and Paris tourist guide

I'm really feeling the pinch without immediate access to Internet - yes I'm at the library again to post my latest news. God knows when France Telecom or Orange decides to activate the modem we received 3 weeks ago. So I am limited to the small screen of the iphone which has been my saving grace as a window to the world and I really noticed my internet dependency when my Iphone froze. For 2 days I couldn't check my mails.....ah panic....okay I exaggerate I used Xavier's phone. So wasn't it just typical to wait 30 minutes on line to Orange/Apple to speak to some customer service to be told that they couldn't do anything if we weren't in front of our computer and Itunes! Plus we are paying for the call....have a nice day! Thankfully I have now gotten a copy of the Apple Iphone manual in French which I'm not kidding has 164 pages – DIY customer service!

So quoi de neuf (what's new?)...my parents and my sister visited Paris for the first time last week and I had to give them a few warnings at the beginning which consisted of keeping their eyes peeled on the ground to avoid stepping in dog shit, not crossing the road even if there is a green man before checking that the cars aren't going to run them over and of course the tiny lift in my building (it only fits 3 people and is not the smallest I've ever been in). Oh and they understand why there aren't many 'nice' cars in Paris by the way people manage to bump their cars into spaces which are barely the length of their cars. But having said all that they had a great time...we spent 5 hours in the Louvre - yes it's possible to get your money's worth there, we eventually saw the Eiffel Tower sparkle at nightfall, we marveled at Haussmanian buildings (everywhere) and we ate baguette sandwiches! My mum was impressed with Tang Freres and the Asian neighbourhood - we even managed to get pig's blood (boudin) and cow's tripe/inners for our Chinese hot pot.

So we 'nearly' have all the fixtures up in our place, but there are still a few things we need to sort and chuck out to make 'space' (the holy word). It's amazing the amount of things one accumulates over the years - we need to get down to business and be brutal about our belongings or articles which we can depart from.

Okay, back to job research now at the library - shhhhhh!

Convenience but what service!

Yes we are now in the 13th arrondissement in betweeen the superb Chinese area and Place d'Italie. I've already discovered a Chinese supermarket which sells a huge variety of frozen Chinese dim sum though they are in competition for freezer space with the deluze frozen food from Picard which is only 3 mins walk away! The library yes only 5 min walk away offers free internet access - yippee because getting the phone, internet etc installed at the appartment will probably be yet another long saga.

Did I mention that we had to go back to Darty about 5 times to get my mobile phone (didn't bring my passport the first day and they had to retrieve the number from a different place the next day) and then I had to make sure that they would deliver all our home appliances in one go (why they would send the machines in two different delivery slots in the same day is beyond me). So of course I was the mad foreigner with such ineloquent French who kicked up a fuss and made a scene at the 'service clientele' desk. I still stayed in all day to wait for the appliances which finally came all together. Oh what was worse was Ikea - we paid for the delivery of our wardrobes and shelves and unbeknown to us the man with the white van declared that it wasn't his job to unload the furniture. I had a split second vision of me pushing the boxes into the street under the rain and screaming at him of course until he said in French 'but if you give me some tips'....daylight robbery but of course I had no choice but to surrender to him. Next task complaint letter to Ikea..hum in French!

Did I mention that you have to pay here to call any sort of customer service number in France; from planes, trains to banks - I don't think the term 'Customer Satisfaction' exists in France!

But I love my new area - everything seems so convenient!

More Wine anyone?

I think I'm getting the hang of the wine culture in Paris. Wine is almost as essential to water at the table at restaurants and during dinners at our friends and family. It will take me a while to distinguish the key tastes according to which wine, grape....but at least I now know that there is much more than a Bordeaux and a Burgandy. And so we were in for a treat today at our French class when an Australian classmate did his talk on wine, more specifically he brought to class a bottle of Bordeaux and a bottle of Australian Shiraz along with disposable glasses. What better way to learn about wine and the vocabulary of wine in French than by a tasting itself! Surprisingly I preferred the Shiraz but so did our French teacher.

So the saying goes as you raise your glasses you must look each other in the eyes otherwise you will have 7 years of hum...bad bedroom activity.

Santé

2 Train Strikes in 2 days?

Yesterday afternoon as I was going through Saint Lazare station(by metro phew) I heard the announcement declaring that all the RER (suburban trains) had stopped operating.....so only later did I find out that a train driver had been assaulted by a passenger and the rest of the crew stood up in arms in show of support. I doubt that there were many as lucky as Xavier's dad whose boss sent for a chauffeur to drive him back to Paris from Rouen.
So I think 'going on strike' might be contagious because today the same thing happened in Marseille - yet another aggression and another awful day for commuters. So can someone tell me what the point is? and how is penalising passengers punishing the one person who committed the assault?

Talking about commuting, rush hour in the metro reminds me so much of London. The Parisian commuters could do well in the Olympic speed walking competition the way they tactfully weave through the slower ones through the station concourse and up and down the steps. And not a sigh of annoyance as we were all shoved into the metro compartment, ribs against ribs during a morning rush hour.

Happy Commuting!

Paris Cold, Paris Soldes

The Christmas sales in Paris officially begun today at 8am - from my personal knowledge Auckland, Montreal and of course London began their sales back in Nov - what better way is there to get the ecomony going. But I'm told that the sales in France are regulated.....ah I see...No suprises then, when I arrived Printemps Mode around 11am it was buzzing with women, their high heeled boots and big shiny handbags ready to fend off their bargains. I decided not to join the battle, plus my credit levels are a bit low in the recent months. Maybe I'll wait till I see 80% off!

It was -9 today in the morning, it's been extraordinarily cold for Paris oh and France during the recent weeks. I find it quite interesting to see every Parisian either complain about the weather and for some unfortunate enough to fall on the icy pavements. I guess they should live in Quebec at least one winter to practice. Put on layers and get some boots with grip!

I did a trial Vinysa yoga class last night - I opted for the advanced level only because I wanted to be led by the main teacher of the studio. It got my heart pumping but boy was it hard - I mean doing handstand after not practicing it for hum 6 months? Maybe I'll go for the Intermediate class next time plus brush up on my sanskrit names so I don't end up having to copy the other students again.

And to improve mon francais I will begin French classes on Monday! Bon Soir à tous!

New Year, New City and New Blog

Dec 2008 seemed to have ended abruptly; we had our leaving party, said goodbye to our cartons before they were shipped, emptied out our lovely Montreal apartment, re-bid our fond farewells to our friends and off we were on a plane on the first of January to Paris. Bienvenue!


It's snowing in Montmartre where we are staying next to the infamous Moulin Rouge, in fact it's snowing like it's never snowed before in Paris, at least it's making the news. This is probably part of the acclimatisation plan from the -20 we had last week in Montreal. I will get out there today and see how the Parisians are coping with this weather phenomenon.


It's not like it's my first time in Paris but there are still a few things which shock me...like cars not stopping at zebra crossings, fare dodgers overtly leaping over the barriers in the Metro being ignored by the ticket seller as I do my best not to stare. On the other hand I've come to a city where the French language here is music to my ears, where it's the fashion capital of the world, where wine is drunken like water and where even frozen dishes(Picard) can be disguised as culinary masterpieces...etc etc


So it is the purpose of this blog that I share my experiences and news with you my friends! I also take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and healthy 2009!