Chez Ferdinand
Dinner last night in Paris. We shut down the restaurant - the last to leave. I travel through food. Through my memories. Through new experiences and old. Tastes that transport me to other places, other times. This was the taste of Paris in my 20s. And early 30s. Chez Fernand on Rue Christine. It was a few blocks from my apartment with my ex-husband in the 6eme arrondissement. It’s where we celebrated birthdays and took friends and family when they came to visit us. Where we went on Friday nights - on those nights where we walked home holding hands and saying how lucky we were to live in Paris. Hemingway wrote in his memoir about his time in Paris “If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” I took my sister @marvelousmissyhancock to dinner at Chez Fernand. “Escargot. You’re in Paris. You have to eat Escargot.” I said. Or maybe, it was her. “I’m in Paris. I must eat escargot.” Sopping up garlic butter with baguette. Then we shared an Os à moelle à la fleur de sel - bone marrow spread on slices de pain grillé. My sister said she’d eaten the goo before when making roast- scooping it out of the bone, not realizing what it was. Eating marrow makes me think of that quote by Thoreau. “I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.” he wrote before moving into the woods. I could have written that quote before moving to Europe.
Mom often said, “you sure know how to live” - said with wonder. She has been with us on this trip. When we visited the nearby Église de Saint Germain des Prés my sister and I put our hands together on the foot of the same statue mom rubbed for good luck when she visited me all those years ago. Our waiter came to us pouring more wine. Gigondas. He serves the Ravioles de cêpes avec sauce foie gras and I swear to you the angels started singing. We shared it and then shared again a lamb shank with pomme purée. We weren’t able to finish it because I wanted to leave room for sharing a moelleux au chocolat. “We don’t need dessert,” my sister said. “Yes we do.” I said as I ordered a digestive. Amaretto avec glacon.
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