Today was all about catching up – on each other’s lives, on correspondence, writing, photos and on SLEEP.
In the morning, Gretchen and I worked on various things and chatted about this and that and tried to make ourselves think the milk in our cafe au laits hadn’t gone bad but it really did have an off flavor so we went down to the market to exchange it, which they wouldn’t do. Bought new, made new cafe au laits and as long as we were passing by Carton, the boulangerie, we picked up a croissant and a brioche, and a baguette for dinner.
While Mark was rousting himself to shower and get ready for our 1:00 lunch at Ze Kitchen Gallery, Gretchen and I took a walk through the Passage Dauphine, turned right on Rue Magazin, walked to the end of the block by several galleries and crossed to the Seine. We walked a couple of blocks along the river, by the bouqinistes (book stalls), and headed back to the apartment to get Mark.
Lunch at ZKG met every expectation we had built from previous visits there. The food tasted and looked wonderful, the service was excellent and Mark picked a very nice bottle of Pouilly Fume that accompanied our food very well. Conversation with Mark and Gretchen was so enjoyable.
On our way back to the apartment we stopped in at Dilettante, a really nice little Champagne shop a couple blocks from the apartment. The young saleswoman was very helpful and knowledgeable and she suggested what turned out to be a really tasty bottle from chardonnay grapes. Bea, Gretchen’s daughter, was coming for dinner and she recently got engaged to her longtime boyfriend, Joe, so we did want to celebrate with something interesting.
We dropped off the champagne and then walked over to the Monoprix to pick up some fish and veggies for dinner. It’s a very odd place – one would have no idea there were groceries in the basement. You have to walk through the undies to get to the groceries. Highly amusing.
Mark cooked a really, really good cabillaut (cod) in a lemon cream sauce and served it with baby roasted potatoes and the wonderful little skinny green beans. Bea arrived around 8:30 and we had yet another wonderful meal with some good conversation at 24 Rue Dauphine. There was just enough of the fig/prosciutto tart left from the previous night that we were each able to have another small piece. Yum.
Hither, Yon and Skies 