[Back from the market]

Saturday mornings are always something of a dilemma for me, or actually a trilemma, which I thought wasn’t an actual word until I looked it up. I can either sleep in, go to the pool for a swim, or go to the Batignolles market — each of the three activities fulfilling an equally important need. It is the third option that won the competition last Saturday morning, and I set out in the glorious morning sun, with my faithful Trader Joe’s tote bag and my dreams of strawberries.

A couple of hours later I returned, a little out of breath from lugging my purchases up the stairs, but happy to unload them onto the counter, admire my bounty… and realize just how much stuff I had bought. I tend to get a little carried away at the market and often buy, um, a tad more than we really need, turning the next few days into a frantic eat-it-while-it’s-fresh vegetable bonanza. There are worse dietary compulsions I’m sure.

So without further ado, I give you…

– Two betteraves cuites au feu de bois — beetroots roasted over woodfire. I like to buy beetroot that way, it saves me the trouble of cooking it myself (I tried it once and still have nightmares about the never-ending bleeding), and the woodfire gives it a pleasant smoky flavor that you wouldn’t get through regular oven-roasting (unless yours is a woodfire oven, but I’m not so lucky).

– A bunch of young carrots. I asked to keep the stalks and leaves so I can add them to the vegetable stock I will make one day with the vegetable paring I stash away in the freezer (yeah, right).

– A bouquet of borage (bourrache in French), not having the faintest idea what to do with it but thinking it looked pretty in a weird, otherworldly way. The salesgirl suggested I sprinkle some of the flowers on a salad, or use it to make herbal tea. “Ah bah oui, c’est sudorifère la bourrache!“, interjected the somewhat scruffy guy who was waiting behind me. (“Yes, borage is a sudorific!”) Um. Thank you. Most helpful.

I haven’t yet done anything with my borage because well, neither the flowers nor the leaves taste like much of anything, and the stalks are stingy and unpleasant to the touch. I have put the bouquet in a small vase though, and I am quite content to just look at it.

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Consider the baguette.

Or rather, consider the tartine de baguette, a popular breakfast item in which a piece of baguette — preferably fresh and bought moments before, still warm, from the corner boulangerie, but if nobody really feels up to going out before breakfast day-old baguette will do fine, “freshened up” on top of the toaster — is sliced in two, each half spread with your choice of butter and/or jam and/or honey (the combination of butter and jam and honey is unheard of but might be worth a try).

Now, let me stress the important part of that last paragraph: sliced in two. Therein lies my problem. See, the two sides of the baguette were not created equal.

On the top side we have the crust, goldie blond (not for nothing do the French say blond comme les blés, blond as wheat), optionally dusted with flour, ravishing to the tastebuds and texturally diverse, with crunchy peaks and soft creases. In one word: delectable.

On the underside, we have the lesser twin, the one that’s always been less bright and less attractive, the one the parents have always sworn they loved just the same, with just a little too much insistence. That side of the baguette is flat, and it draws its colors in shades of beige and grey. It is drier and harder — if you’re not careful it will scrape the roof of your mouth — and if the bread is a bit too cooked (even though you asked for une baguette pas trop cuite), it will have a slightly charred taste.

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The first day of May in France is La Fête du Travail (Labor Day). It is a holiday, which is nice, except when it’s a Sunday and then you feel slighted. Anyway.

May 1 is also La Fête du Muguet, and the tradition is to give the ones you love a little bouquet of lily-of-the-valley, for good luck and to celebrate the arrival of spring. Originally the idea was to take the kids into the forest and lose them pick your own muguet together. Of course, in the city you will more likely buy it from the florist’s, or better yet, from one of the countless stands that sprout up overnight on every street corner and every road in France, most of them doing this as a fundraiser for one cause or another. Some years you really feel sorry for them, sitting in the cold and rain and hardly selling anything, but this year they are in luck, as the last couple of days have been a fabulous sneak preview of summer, all bright skies and super-warm temps.

On another note, the new issue of the New York Times “T” magazine comes out today, and includes a piece I have written for them about cook-dating, a new cooking-class-cum-dating-service that has been invented here in Paris. The article is called Love at first bite and it is available online (second piece from the top).

On a Saturday morning, you go to the pool for your weekly swim. As you come out, limbs pleasantly weary and hair still wet, you reflect that it would be nice to buy a baguette for lunch. So, instead of making a right and walking directly home — you are fortunate enough to live just a block from a clean and quiet swimming-pool — you go left and make a detour by the boulangerie to buy a warm and crusty Renaissance baguette (their signature traditional baguette).

As you walk back up the street, you pass the fish stall, and the thought pops: bulots! That will be great for lunch.

Bulots — also called buccin, ran, coucou or cuter still, calicoco — are whelks, those pretty snail-like shellfish that you eat cooked, after delicately removing the little opening cap and pulling the chewy body out, optionally using a special metal pick. In Paris they can be purchased, already cooked, from any poissonnerie — and each fish stall cooks them to its own recipe. Relatively cheap, super nutritious (they are full of vitamins and minerals) but more importantly, delightfully tasty and fun to eat.

You step in to enquire whether they have any, and the poissonnier says yes — in fact he has just finished cooking the daily batch and they are still warm. You buy a generous portion for two that he gets from the back.

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