A REPORT FROM THE KITCHEN

This has been a brief and unadventurous Paris visit, gastronomically speaking. I have cooked dorade royale [a nice white fish], paupiettes provencales [prepared by the local boulangerie], and a very nice mushroom and ham omelet. I even tried lieu noir, which turned out to be Pollock, and not anything special. Tomorrow evening I shall prepare my signature hazelnut encrusted rabbit, always a success. But no boeuf bourguignonne, no cuisses de canard, not even some coquilles St. Jacques. We had a lovely meal at Rotisserie du Beaujolais, enlivened by the presence of the resident cat, Beaujolais, to whom we fed tiny bits of our shoulder of lamb en brochette [for two]. This evening, we shall walk to the 6th arrondissement for a dinner at a restaurant recommended by one of the many people who have stayed in our apartment -- Restaurant Allard. The menu looked enticing when we walked by several days ago. For lunch, we tried a charming little tea room called The Tea Caddy which sits opposite l'eglise St. Julien le Pauvre and the oldest tree in Paris, propped up but still alive in Square Viviani, just next to Shakespeare and Company [a famous English language bookstore that I first visited in 1955, when it was called Le Mistral.]

Although the internet brings every corner of the world to me instantly, still coming here distances me from America, and the moral ugliness and willful ignorance that seems to dominate it. When I return next Wednesday, I shall have to find some way to write about what I see without utterly despairing.