Some people fast today

But not me. As my friend Gina said last night, "I'm against religion trying to dictate what and when I can eat." Plus, who can abstain from eating while looking through pictures of yummy food from Paris? Oh, Paris. I want to go back to that time (three weeks ago) when I was in Paris and didn't have a cold.

So, Zack and I spent a lot of time in the "Jewish Quarter" in Paris. It doesn't seen especially Jewish at this point in time, but it's a cool place to be. Zack really liked the Centre Pompidou - a modern art museum.


But of course, I really just wanted some falafel. Every book I read, every friend I talked to (ok, really just Meredith, but I trust her) said that there was this one awesome falafel place in Paris and gosh darn it, I was going to go there. One day when we were close by, it starting pouring rain, so we made a break for it and ran for the door.


This place was a little different than the other places we went to. First of all, there were plastic plates and paper napkins.


But that just gave the food a chance to outshine the decor. We started with some eggplant in tomato sauce.


It was warm and spicy. I love eggplant. Zack refused to eat falafel (because he's crazy), so he had schwarma.


He liked it. It was kind of like meat stew in a pita. I had the falafel.


It was worth the trip! Crispy on the outside, warm and chewy on the inside - and about as big as my head. I could not finish it - despite my best efforts.

Seriously, this is a not to be missed experience. If you go to Paris - go to L'as Du Falafel.

Steak, fries and couscous

You can get really really hungry in Paris. You spend all day walking around, seeing cool sights, mangling French phrases and then you realize, hey, I need food. One of the places we spent a lot of time walking around in was the Jardin du Luxembourg (that's the Luxembourg garden in American).


We walked around here all day. We saw the little boats.


We took pictures.


And then we went to dinner (many hours later - after a nap. We napped a lot in Paris). The place that we went was Chez Omar.


I read about Chez Omar in David Lebovitz's book - The Sweet Life in Paris. He said it had the best steak frites in Paris, so that's where we went. Zack got this steak.


It's not a traditional grilled piece of meat, it's all tender with yummy sauce on it. It melted away in my mouth like butter. I kept eating it off of his plate. He didn't like that much. The fries were good too (or frites, I guess).


Nice and crispy, soft in the middle, warm all the way through - there's nothing like deep fried potato-y goodness.

Technically, Chez Omar is a Moroccan restaurant, so I figured I'd get some spicy lamb sausage and couscous.


That's about a quarter of my full portion. I could not eat this much food if I tried (especially because I kept eating Zack's food). It was good, but it wasn't steak and fries.

Don't touch that dial, folks, there's more Paris pics and food to come....

I love Paris in the fall

So in case you forgot, Zack and I got married and went to Paris. See, here is Zack pointing at the Notre Dame!


One of the nice things to do in Paris is to stroll along the river, stopping in little shops along the way. There are some little islands in the river Seine, like the Île Saint-Louis. We stopped at this shop:


Zack proposed to me with a bottle of olive oil and vinegar from this shop (one in NY, obviously). This is the original shop so I made Zack take a picture in front of it.

There is a famous ice cream shop on the Île Saint-Louis called Berthillon. The fact that it was a rainy day in no way deterred us from eating ice cream.


I mean look at it!


I had raspberry (that day - we totally went back again because it was so good). The ice cream was creamy and smooth. The flavors were very vivid - the fruit was especially delicious. Look how happy the ice cream makes me!


Ah, to be in Paris again....

Honeymoon in Paris!

Thanks to Paul, I have finally got my honeymoon pictures off of my camera and on to my computer! Hooray! And so, we start with a classic French dish - Croque Monsieur and a classic French location - the Moulin Rouge.


It may be a schmaltzy place to go, but that's what honeymoons are for. We wandered up the street (okay, to be fair, my Lonely Planet: Paris directed us there) and found a little cafe that happened to be the place where Amelie was filmed.


We sat outside, in a cloud of cigarette smoke, drinking espressos and fumbling over French words (I pronounce French atrociously - although it's not just French - I totally never learned how to sound out words correctly, which is ironic, because now I get paid to teach 1st graders how to do that - but I digress). We ordered Croque Monsieurs, which are basically fancy ham and cheese sandwiches.


They were so good. The French really pay attention to ingredients, so the "ham" is thin sliced with lots of flavor and the cheese - do I really have to even say it? The cheese in France is AMAZING pretty much wherever you go. I will never understand how "Swiss cheese" in France is delicious aged Gruyere or Emmenthal and in the US it is white mold with holes in it.

The salad that came with it was surprisingly good as well. The tomatoes were ripe and fresh and the greens were light and crisp. Writing about this is making my mouth water....more Paris food and pictures to come soon, I promise!

Argh!

So, I'm back from Paris! I took a lot of pictures of food for you! And I can't get them off my camera.....

Stay tuned.