My beauty regime in Paris is somewhat basic. I’m taking the jolie-laide approach, like Charlotte Gainsbourg.
In October we didn’t have hot water for five days because we tripped the fuse and didn’t know how to fix it. Luckily the messy hair look is de rigeur in Paris. I mentioned to Murray I might not highlight my hair while we lived here. “You dye your hair?” he said.
“Mommy! They put fish in the mashed potatoes!” cries Charlotte, incredulous, at the school gate. I explain to her gently that it’s called cod brandade, and it’s quite delicious.
Charlotte, 7, is still getting used to her canteen lunches, which, according to the menu posted on the gate last Thursday, can include roasted lamb with puréed celeriac followed by a cheese course.
We live in a building with a gardienne; sort of like a concierge, except that our building has 12 apartments, not 120. We sometimes wonder what she does all day. She lives in a dimly lit room off the lobby and sometimes pokes her head out, shivers, and then goes back inside. At first, assuming she was like a concierge, I rang her bell and asked her to take our keys so that a repairman could get in. She refused, and only after a lengthy debate reluctantly took them. Paris-style, the repairman was a no-show anyway.
11:10 a.m. Invitation in hand (it’s too big to fit in my vintage YSL clutch) I jump into my Uber and head in the direction of the Tuileries garden. We pull up at the Westin Hotel (not an ordinary Westin, this one has golden lampposts flanking its grand doors) for the Spring/Summer ’17 show of Ziad Nakad, a Lebanese-born couturier popular in the Middle East.
We take the Metro everywhere, especially in winter, as it’s the fastest way to get around. Nothing bad has happened to us yet, but we’ve seen a lot of things. None of us has been pickpocketed: in fact, the closest we got was an guy in a hoodie telling Murray not to carry his cell phone in his back pocket or someone would “piqué” it.
Ping! The message hits our BeHomm home exchange profile just before Christmas. Would we like a week in a 7-bedroom villa in Ibiza in exchange for our house in Palm Springs? A flurry of emails later we all decide it’s a great fit. Renu and Bas are a Dutch fashion stylist and DJ couple with a daughter exactly Charlotte’s age. Normally they run Villa Amore as a boho-chic boutique hotel during the party season, but they’d be with family in Amsterdam, and we’d have it all to ourselves. Cheap flights booked on lastminute.com, we were there within a week.
The French ring in the New Year with La Revéillon, or The Awakening, a huge feast that goes into a “nuit blanche,” – till sunrise. We decide it’s a tradition we’ll adopt, well, at least the feast part.
Early on the morning of December 31st, the four of us set out on foot, in the near zero temperatures with a flutter of snow, to shop. Destination: Marché President Wilson. While it’s not our closest market (that would be Batingnol near the Place de Clichy, the only 100 per cent organic market in Paris, and the only place you will find apples with spots on them). President Wilson, on the other hand, is the supermodel of food markets. Her roses are stacked high and perfectly, her seafood glistens, and her poultry comes with its elegant white head plumage intact.
I wanted to remember our year in Paris without one person missing from the photos (namely me, holder of iphone). Plus the Vancouver Sun had commissioned me to write a feature on Christmas in Paris (to be published December 24) so we needed some shots of everyone together, enjoying the sights and lights of Paris like we do every day.
While I am devouring a gorgeous plate of dorado with sautéed “mangetouts,” the glorious name for the peas in their pods that means “eat all,” I complain that French women seem to eat enormous lunches and totter around on heels without ever exercising. Not true, S says. She tells me about the dance studio she goes to in the Opera district, called Elephant Paname. I take a quick note on my phone, then we order the chocolate cake...
The Anglification of French in Paris has lead to more than a few “malentendues” (misunderstandings). Last weekend I was making chit chat with the sales rep at a free Champagne tasting at our local wine store. As I sipped through three vintages of Perrier-Jouet on the sidewalk, I tried to tell him that I went to a party in San Francisco where they served magnums of vintage Krug Champagne with Doritos and spicy chicken wings. “Les ailes de poulet?” I tried. He looked confused. “Oh,” he finally exclaimed, “les wings!” And then, “Why not foie gras?”
I am amazed by how many couture stores there are in Paris. In one day, I might pass three Hermès locations. The flagship on Rue de Faubourg St. Honoré has a block long line up in the mornings, so they play music and have valet parking. There is always a queue at Louis Vuitton on the Champs Elysées. But are people buying, or are they shopping tourists?
