Bonjour Paris -- day 4

I woke up to gorgeous Parisian spring weather, the sun warming my face and blue skies providing a suitable backdrop to the magnificent archicture. Today was Quartier Latin-day, and I walked down to my first stop the Maubert-Market. It was small and cozy, and definitely not as impressive as yesterday's market, but I still liked it. What can I say? I love the hustle and bustle, the chatter of the market-men and women and displays of fresh produce.

Second stop was the Pantheon. Ever since reading Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum' I've wanted to go to the Pantheon and today I seized the opportunity. What a magnificent space, full of contradictions. Built as a church, but it hasn't been used as a church for over a century, it is now the resting place of French heroes. It was so cold inside, and empty. That struck me most: it was empty. Without the normal trappings of a catholic church, and with only a few tombs filled in the crypt, it felt like this was too empty. Either they have too stringent criteria to be buried here, or there just aren't enough famous French...

Off next to get the ingredients for a picnic lunch. Eric Kayser's bakery is on the rue Monge, so I decided to take a slight detour through the rue Mouffetard. Of all the market streets I've seen so far, I was least impressed with this. Only the lower bottom end had some nice stores, the rest seem to be tourist trap-restaurants. On to Eric Kayser's and I wasn't disappointed! I bought a couple of croissants, some madeleines and a piece of chocolate-noisette cake. The boulangerie smelled fabulous and if I could've, I would've bought one of everything.

Since I'm a bibliophile, I headed over to the Librarie Gourmande to see if I could find anything that took my fancy. And boy did I! Unfortunately, all the books I liked were way outside my student budget, so no go. But I can highly recommend the store.

A quick stop at a local supermarket to pick up something to drink (not the vin au verre that are on the picture on the left... how cool is that? You can buy glasses of wine to have with your picnic lunch!) after which I was off to the Jardins des Luxembourgs for a picnic.

On the way there I was sidetracked a little bit by the Gilbert Joseph bookstore. I had a little browse and found two delightful pocket books, both in French: Paris Chocolat and Cuisiner comme un chef a Paris, detailing all the chocolate addresses in Paris (although I must say I'm missing some) and how to cook like a chef, including good places to get your foodstuffs (again, I'm missing some stuff here). For 6 euros each, I think they're a great deal (although you'd need to read some French to get the most out of them).

Last stop was La Grande Epicerie, (on the way I passed the Sadaharu Aoki patisserie, stepped in, and was amazed by the wonderfully tasty looking little works of art, but I really couldn't buy any more pattiserie today :-( ) to buy the ingredients for tonight's dinner. I don't know why, but I felt the sudden urge for chili con carne...

Practical details:
Eric Kayser
14 rue Monge
Paris
5th arrondissement
http://www.maison-kayser.com/

rue Mouffetard
5th arrondissement
Wikipedia entry

Librarie Gourmande
4 rue Dante
Paris
5th arrondissement
http://www.librarie-gourmande.fr

Sadaharu Aoki
35 rue Vaurigard
Paris
http://www.sadaharuaoki.com/

La Grande Epicerie
38 rue de Sevres
Paris
7th arrondissement
http://www.lagrandeepicerie.fr

Books:
Safia Amor/Laurent Chiapello, Paris Chocolat, 2005, Parigramme
Corinne Crolot, Cuisiner comme un chef a Paris, 2004, Parigramme
See the publisher's website for more details.