I'M OVER HERE...

I'm starting to post on my C / O journal, which is over here on my website. I shall be there intermittently, but with feeling.

Still mulling over starting a completely image free blog called TL;DR which would feature extremely long, rambling essays about say, a particular piece of clothing; where you can't get the gist unless you read it in its entirety. It would have so many commas. We'll stick with the above for now.

THIS KIND OF BLUE...

Some random film pictures I took on a walk in Paris, forgotten about since June. Featuring my kind of blue.

LAST DAYS OF SUMMER...

THE ROSE GARDEN ~ *FOR A...

I promised to take some photos of roses for my Venetian friend, who was lamenting that Venice is so *scorchio in summer, that the roses get scorched before they have a chance. London's roses have been outstanding this year; since May they've been tumbling over walls everywhere or reaching for the sky. To get a good hit of every type of rose, the best place I know is the rose garden at Greenwich Park. (They also have hydrangeas, my other fave.) It's also a pretty wonderful place to go and reflect, ponder, sit on a bench inhaling the heady perfume and that type of thing.

However, this year we've had such *scorchio temperatures ourselves that the roses are almost over there. Apparently they should be just coming into bloom now, but were out at the beginning of June and now think it's nearly winter, which apparently is a very bad sign.  For the roses, for the world, I don't know - the gardener who told me this didn't specify.

{SCORCHIO! Never gets old.}

CHASSIGNOLLES...

One night at the Auberge de Chassignolles  in a tiny, beautiful village in Auvergne, on the way to Ardeche. The weather en route from Paris was inclement to say the least, and we were starving by the time we unfolded ourselves from the car after a 7? 8? hour drive, complete with a running out of petrol in the middle of nowhere in driving rain/fog as it started to get dark nightmare scenario.

We were greeted with smiles, a proffered umbrella, a simple, perfect room. A reviving meal quite swiftly appeared: radishes, butter/salt and sardines to start - a bottle of Catherine and Pierre Breton's Nuits d'Ivresse (translation: drunken nights!) finally chosen after a lot of indecision. Beets with soft cheese, half a chicken with vegetables from the garden followed - and a break in the rain was our chance to do a quick tour of Chassignolles at dusk - actually maybe that was after the salad course and before the cheese (St. Nectaire, Bleu d'Auvergne and Cantal I think - we were in their 'hood) or between the cheese and dessert of raspberry tart.

The breakfast was as inviting as any I've seen. Homemade yoghurt, fruit, freshly squeezed juice, eggs, bread, homemade jams, coffee, tiny pots of flowers on the table.

Very reviving in between all the driving.

FED AND WATERED...

It is a well known fact among those close to me that I have an insatiable appetite... for restaurants in Paris. The rolling list keeps rolling and though I feed and water the demand, it is never satisfied.

How convenient then, that a very local, low key restaurant I go to all the time recently changed chefs and happened to employ two of the most happening ones in Paris: Shaun Kelly - former chef at Au Passage and Elenie Sapera, formerly of Bones.

At first, I was horrified at the thought of my little secret becoming not so and of the cobbled rue de Mont-Louis thronging with, I don't know, people who don't live in the furthest reaches of the 11th arrondissement, forming a bawdy, excitable congregation outside; making it impossible for me to slip in for a quiet dinner on a Wednesday night without being in the background of several people's Instagrams. I thought it would change, and I liked it just how it was. I felt almost Parisian feeling this.

But luckily, although the food has changed, it's much for the better and the charming and friendly servers remain, along with the calm and happy atmosphere. They also had the good sense to keep the famous Kate Mousse on the dessert menu - adding Eton Mess as a new option, which I'm told is a direct transplant from Au Passage. The opening hours are still maddeningly confusing/non existent at the weekend - maybe I hallucinated that one time we ate there on a Sunday evening. But the food, ah the food - somewhere I already liked very much raised its food game at least several notches? It couldn't really be a better result. Below, some photos from a recent dinner, where we sat at an outside table during l'heure bleue, which did not turn to night until at least 10.45pm.

The menu was printed on white paper - it was the hour that was blue

Octopus and black radish, bone marrow and fresh petit pois

Rilettes of rabbit and pork sandwich - basically a pulled pork burger.  

So then it was onto a special meal on a special day, at the almost impossible to reserve Septime. I did not make this reservation, but I'm told it involved stalking the online booking system to determine when the advance booking thingy clicked round. (FYI - 0.01 AM.) Septime is, of course, somewhere I had wanted to dine since it opened - named one of the top 50 restaurants in the world and one of the few on that list that has the exact vibe I'm looking for in a restaurant, which I can only describe as natural and luminous. Everything in the place glowed with a kind of healthy, radiant light. Bertrand Grébault looked way too young to be directing the kitchen staff, but direct it he did. We ordered so as to try everything on the menu and everything was sublime. The juicy octopus tail with rhubarb will remain in my memory for many years. (The hot trend in Paris is currently meat or fish paired with fruit apparently.)

Details like the tiny white flowers - maybe they were from some kind of bean? and a single nasturtium leaf were considered, but didn't feel pretentious. The candlelight, flowers, rough wooden tables and the enchanted garden behind the restaurant all added to the feeling of goodness and wellbeing. Can you tell I was very happy to be there? I surreptitiously 'stazzed our meal as it seemed rude not to just concentrate on the flavours:

I had cheese obviously

Sea bream, fromage frais, cucumber, those little white flowers; pink veal with bonito cream and capers

(Amazing) octopus with pepper, rhubarb and green beans

The courtyard garden behind Septime

But my brain, the never ending list... is now saying - we have to go to Clamato next.

SWIM...

This film was potentially so drowning in cliches that it should have totally annoyed me but it didn't! I don't think it has a UK release, but it was shown at the Birds Eye View Film Festival in April. Did anyone see it? Am I crazy to find it very well done, enjoyable and balanced and actually not annoying at all? (Some reviewers didn't agree.) Swim Little Fish Swim is showing now in Paris.