Milliers d'artéfacts désuets / Thousands of obsolete artifacts

Today, Eden, JP and I visited the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, a museum located next to the Louvre and dedicated to the decorative arts (ceramics, furniture, glassware, furnishings, etc.) from the Middle Ages to the present day.

My favorites include these 18th-century food-shaped food holders (you can see close-ups here):

The Art Nouveau room (click on "Visionnez la version plein écran" for a full-screen 360-degree view of the room!), in which this chandelier, table, and chairs appear:

And this Art Deco "chiffonnier" designed by André Groult for the 1925 Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (although I like to think that it was inspired by the French animated character, Barbapapa):

"Available radiant veneer stingray accentuates the effect of wavy lines and the location of the breast and belly." (Thanks to Félix Marcilhac, André Groult, décorateur-ensemblier du XXe siècle, Paris, Éditions de l’Amateur, 1997, p. 154-155. and Google Translate)

Continuing through the museum, we explored furniture designs of the 1940s and 50s and enjoyed a brief rest in the 1960s chair room...

...before moving on to an exciting exhibition in the galerie des jouets featuring one of my favorite childhood pastimes, Playmobil! If you're passing through Paris before May 9th, I highly recommend stopping by to see the fun displays filled with memorable firemen, castles, chevaliers, princesses, horses, farm animals, and more.

Finally, a haiku from Eden to sum up the exhibition:

Kids and plastic

equals

tons of fun!

Sisters are Friends

We're having so much fun, there's almost no time to post!

My Mom

She likes Paris. You should too.

This One's for Jacob

Fire engines! Four of them! Lined up in a pretty row! Whether you're 4 years old (Jacob) or almost 26 (Louis), this sight is cause for excitement.

That ladder doesn't look very tall - but then, neither are the buildings in Paris, most of which are legally limited to six or seven stories.

Ok, that's a more serious-looking ladder. But the truck itself still seems a little . . . stubby. Is it an optical illusion, or are these trucks specially designed to navigate the narrow Parisian streets?

You say "Vehicle de sécours et d'assistance aux victimes", I say "ambulance," let's call the whole thing off.

I have no idea why this is shaped so weirdly. Maybe this is the tactical fire-fighting SWAT team's fire truck?

Banana Cake Recipe

In honor of my mom's visit to Paris, and as a follow-up to our last post, here's a treat for you. Legend has it my maternal great-grandmother Lena came up with this recipe, which has become a family heirloom of sorts. People are always asking for the recipe, and since I've made it twice so far on this trip, it's multiply postable. Enjoy!

1 cup butter (two sticks, 226g)

1 1/2 cups sugar (~300g)

2 eggs

2 cups flour (240g)

1/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (three or four) mashed bananas (very ripe - I usually only use very brown bananas)

1/4 cup milk (60 mL) + 1 tbs white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream margarine with sugar. Add eggs. Sift together dry ingredients and add to mixture. Add mashed bananas (you can use more than 3 very ripe bananas if you like more flavor, and I do). Add sour milk (milk + vinegar) and vanilla extract. Bake well-blended ingredients in 2 greased and floured 9" cake pans or one 9x13" baking pan at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. If using pure convection, bake at 340 for 27 minutes.

Bittersweet Icing:

2/3 cups cocoa (160 mL)

4 tbls butter or margarine (57g)

1/2 cup sugar (98g)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup milk (80 mL)

Simmer on low, the ingredients are approximate and you can make it as sweet or as bitter as you like.

Yes.

Cooking Conversions

Cooking and baking American recipes in France requires all kinds of conversions, and not just the most obvious ones. In general, all volumes and weights need to be converted into metric - that much we knew before we got here. But what we didn't expect was that we'd also have to convert volumes into weights, and vice versa. That is, because of our limited selection of measuring cups, it's usually easier to figure out the weight of a volume than it is to measure out that volume. Example: one cup is 240 mL, and with 100, 50, 15, and 5 mL measuring scoops, that means two scoops of 100 mL, then approximating 40 mL in the 50 mL scoop, or trying to scoop slightly fewer than three full 15 mL scoops. So tedious! With our electronic scale, measurement is not only easier - it's also more precise.

We've put together a list of the some of the most useful conversions (most of which come from allrecipes.com):

1 cup = 240 mL

1 cup white flour = 120 g

1 stick butter (1/2 cup) = 113 g

1 cup granulated sugar = 196 g

1 cup brown sugar = 220 g

Tablespoon = cuillière à soupe

Teaspoon = cuillière à café

This website calculates based on whatever you plug in, rather than forcing you to do the math yourself: http://www.france-property-and-information.com/cooking_converter.htm

And finally, since our oven is marked in Celsius, we've had to look up the Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversions (since we're too lazy to do it in our heads). We're actually lucky our oven shows Celsius - many European ovens show a "gas mark" instead of a temperature. Crazy! Examples:

Fahrenheit            Celsius          Gas Mark
275                       135              1
300                       150              2
325                       165              3
350                       175              4
375                       190              5

And if all conversions and recipes fail, we can always make something "au pif" - by feel, by guesstimate, by eyeballing things. That usually works out just fine.

Awkward Family Photo?

This afternoon, Maggie, my mom, Cathy, and I met up with a Parisian branch of the extended family. My mom's first cousin, Harriet, married a Frenchman 36 years ago and has been in Paris pretty much ever since. We met Harriet and her husband, Jean-Louis, at the apartment of Jean-Louis' mother, Rachel.

At the end, we took the following awkward family photo, which I'm not embarrassed enough not to share with you.

Maggie, Louis, Harriet, Jean-Louis, Rachel, Joy/Mom (Not Pictured: Cathy)

It's "Pasty White" side of the family meets "Too Tan to Truly Count as French Residents". Beautiful.

This Week in Paris

Wowee wowee wow - most visitors ever!

Thursday, Eden (Maggie's sister) and JP (Eden's man) arrived. They're staying with us.

On NYE, we served quiche (mushroom, red onion, tomato, spinach) to not only Eden and JP but also Emi and Jules, who were just in town for a few day, and who did not stay with us. Emi lived with Eden and Maggie for more than a year through a Japan-US foreign exchange program, married Jules about a month ago, and now lives in England.

Emi, showing off a spice that Maggie's mom sent Eden and JP

Last but certainly not least, my mom (Joy) and my quasi-second mom Cathy arrived on New Year's Day, and we've been aggressively traipsing Paris, pillaging the city for its fine food and cultural/historical offerings.

Cathy and Mom at the Cathedral of Chartres, which we visited Saturday, and about which I'll post more soon.

Funtimes so far: another fabulous dinner at Fish La Boissonnerie and a decent dinner at Coq Ming (Belleville Chinese joint), Christmas decorations at Printemps and Galeries Lafayette, a visit to the Musée du Moyen Age, strolls around the Sorbonne, through the Tuileries, and in the Marais, a few choice bus rides, our daytrip to Chartres.

Funtimes to come: visits to St. Chapelle, the Conciergerie, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Musées d'Orsay and Rodin, tea and pastries at Ladurée, tea-shopping at Mariage Frères, crêpes somewhere not-food-poisining-inducing, ice cream and tarte tatin at Berthillon Glace, walks through Montmartre, the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, the Champs Elysées, and of course a trip up the Eiffel Tower.

It's going to (continue to) be a great week!

High Humidity

Paris is an incredibly humid place, as we've mentioned before. With the colder temperatures we experienced last week, not to mention the presence of visitors, it's been harder to open windows and air the place out. The result? Condensation! Moisture! MOLD!!!

What our bedroom window looks like most mornings. Yes, that is all on the inside.

On rare days, there's so much water on the window that it actually runs down to the floor in tiny rivulets . . .

We discovered some mold growing on the window last week, and swiftly cleaned it off. No respiratory ailments here, please!

The basic problem is one of circulation; there is none in this apartment. That's why we need to alternate opening windows in each room for a little bit every day. That's also why it's good to keep a fan running sometimes, even though it makes it feel colder. Finally, that's why we invested in a déshumidificateur (dehumidifier), which manages to keep water off the windows, but only if it runs all night.

This little guy can only dehumidify 17 square meters at a time, so unless we empty it once over the course of the night, it fills up after running 5 or 6 hours.

Thanks, trusty déshumidificateur! Here's looking forward to spring!

Hotel Kaiserstein

Hotel Kaiserstein* proudly welcomes Eden and JP, our current overnight guests, as well as Louis' mom and Cathy, dinner/sightseeing guests.

*Open 24/7 between September 1st, 2009, and May 31st, 2010, Hotel Kaiserstein is a cozy, family-run establishment welcoming travelers from all over the world. Sleeping up to four at a time, we offer fine tea and coffee, spirited tours of the city, and fancy-pants, homemade dinners. Our competitive rate (0$) includes a comfortable air mattress or convertible love seat, turn-down service, and the company of an inquisitive, affectionate, ultra-soft dog.

References available from the nine happy customers we've already served. Book now, as our calendar is rapidly filling up!

Hope to see you soon!