La Nourriture

Given my love of all things edible, I feel it's time to share some of my favourite foodie pics. I have a mountain to choose from, thanks to my predeliction for snapping everything I'm about to eat, and many more generally drool-worthy morsels.

And, instead of wishing you were here with me in person to share the deliciousness, be glad, be very glad that you are far, FAR away from the buttery, calorific minefield that is Paris. Sometimes vicarious is better....

Bon appetit!


I enjoy the general prettiness of the experience. The high-quality, silky-soft china, the quaintness of pouring tea. This is made on WILD strawberries. Outrageous.


Everything in this store is tiny. Tiny tarts, tiny cupcakes, tiny tables, tiny stools, tiny karafs of water. Such a glorious selection of tinies, it's tough to know where to start. Luckily at this particularly tiny pit stop I had two of my Aussie ladies with me, so we could trade mouthfuls.


Meet Kevin. He joined my sister and I for our romp together around Paris in February. Here we are at a serendipitous find. We were actually tracking a resto found in a magazine, but it didn't look any better than anything in Melbourne. But wouldn't you know it, this lovely modern-but-traditional boulangerie was on the corner. The drinks came with dense, fruity friands (little cakes often made on nut-flour instead of wheat flour) and the berries are always so fresh!


At some point home cooking really should be done. This is a jar of organic supermarket cassoulet, with sausage, beans and stewed meat. Sure it might not sound great to you as you chow down a fresh sushi roll, but over here cassoulet with lightly steamed asparagous is a light, healthy dinner.


I'm so tickled by the packaging in Europe, whether it's the paper bread bags, the sardine tins, the vegie papers (eg. asparagus feature above) or the fruit wrappers. This dude's gone to the trouble of tesselating his oranges. Awww. I bought some of the glossy blood oranges for their papers, but was warned to wash them well. Why? Because they papers (with too-cute drawings of a lady on them) are infused with insecticide. Who knew??

The unblemished perfection of youth

A burn, the size of a bankcard but the shape of Russia, now marks my inner wrist. The satin-smooth, milky-white skin is no more. Replaced with a scar. A sign of fallibility. A mark of life. These marks start becoming permanent. It’s not dirt, it won’t wash off. It’s not a scratch, it won’t heal over. It’s not a tan, it won’t fade away. Like the first hints of wrinkles that take longer to uncrease in the morning; from here on in the unblemished perfection of youth is no more.

Vanity is a strange beast. I shouldn’t be concerning myself with such a frivolity. Especially not as it happened in Paris. It’s a permanent reminder of the life I had, and loved, in the luminous city. Like a tattoo, but more original than the tricolour flag and more cryptic than the Eiffel Tower. I also consider it to be my brand of stupidity. I should have known better than to burn myself with hot oil while cooking. According to my brand, however, my very own scarlet letter, I did not. Yet if that is the only mark I carry, the only burden I bear upon leaving my Parisienne life behind, then I have gotten off lightly. For my heart, my heart remains unscathed. The city of love captured my attention, she even attracted my affection. Mais mon coeur, il est encore mein.

Printemps-Ete 2010 Part 1

So I know that the shows happened in September but I've been a little busy with my life in Paris to sit down and really take stock of the collections. But perhaps January, staring down the barrel of European Spring (and willing it to arrive with all my might!), is in fact a pertinent time to reflect on what's coming.

Printemps-ete 2010
La Petite Nicola's take on the collections shown at Paris.
Part One

Dior
Love the silk knicker-shorts, the defined and high waist, the dashes of purple, the corsetry and the lingerie-esque nature of pieces.

Chanel
Def a Lily Allen fan, well played. Like the palette, it's refined without being boring or prematurely aging the models. Again, loving the sheer. Especially like the sheer white dress/jacket that comes to mid-thigh with puff sleeves and baby ruffles to finish (Natalie Portman wears it on the latest cover of.....Elle?). Shoes are moche (ug-lee).

YSL
Leather halter neck dress? Ew. Even the models look terrible in their over-sized collars, excess fabric and strange lines. (As for those errant strawberries!) One or two outfits really work, but they're more classic in their look (long pencil skirts with high waists, refined shape and the pleating work kept to a minimum.) According to the show notes, Pilati sought "...an aesthetic paradigm of new minimalism." Riiiiiight.....

Louis Vuitton
Moche, moche, moche, moche, moche. Those afros, those hideous shoes (they look like the escaped from a Doctor Zeuss book), the apallingly liberal use of lime green. And those shorts that ended an inch above the knee- all the models needed were bicycles and they could have ridden back twenty years onto the film set of "My Girl." I often split fashion into one of two groups- aspirational and inspirational. Aspirational is a look we try and mimic, we wish we looked like that. Inspirational is for the zanier stuff that needs diffusing before seeing the harsh light of day; fashion concentrate. But Marc is making me think I need a third cateogry: tragic. As in, a tragic waste of time, energy and money.

Balenciago par Nicholas Ghesquiere
Strange. Strange in the way the original mod-con looks of the 60's must have been strange. And with a similar feel, in fact. Splashes of fluro green, orange and pink on a collection largely in gunmetal grey and shades of indigoblack. The slashed leather miniskirt look isn't for everyone. Not are the slashed tops, for that matter. But to be honest I'm just relieved not to be looking at Marc's carwreck anymore.

Lanvin
Clever lighting made for a dramatic show. It's like Elbaz succeeds at what YSL wanted to do. Swathes of fabric draped, pulled, tucked and pinned into dresses. Oversized, wavy ruffles used to accentuate the hips or shoulders and everywhere I look I see nipped in waists. Heaven. Even the sequin-encrusted jump suits have a lifespan beyond the catwalk. And definitely the most successful use of lime green yet. (Perhaps the secret lies in only using the colour ONCE!)

Valentino
The shoes! O the celestial confection that is their SHOES. The poofs of tulle, wisps of lace, whorls of silk. Despite their whimsy, the stilletos seem to ground the outfits- I think this is the solidness of their black contrasted with the beige palette. This is broken only by shades of grey, including a lilac-grey (that could, in all honesty, probably have been left at home that day) and of course black. I'm enjoying the attention to detail, like the lace used to make the inner pants pockets of a sheer organza jumpsuit. Their break from red is marked: it is an anti-crimson collection. There would certainly not have been any tacking some on at the end.

Miu Miu
I'm just not so sure about the cut outs. Or the lines. The patterns are cute, but I'd expect to see them in a Liberty collection, used in a more classic manner. The collection looks confused, and not in a cheeky, contrasts kind of way.

Givenchy
Sharp, graphic, stripes, ruffles and zigzags. I see some wearability peeking through the OTTness. But what on EARTH was Tisci THINKING with those pencil hats? The girls look like Derwents. That or the KKK stripped bare.

Balmain
Black, khaki, bronzes (both in fabrics and detailing), leather. The texture of Decarnin's collection is distictively different to the tulled-softness of most others. HIs is shiney, hard, tough. Sleek women with 'tude. And boots, lots of laced up tall ankle boots.

Alexander McQueen
What the avatars of Cameron's film would have been wearing if it weren't computer generated. Surreal, etheral in an under-the-sea way. Strong shoulders, little waists and tall, TALL platforms.

Chloe
Relaxed, slouchy, white/beige palette. Pay a fortune, look like a bag lady. Except for the thick-strapped sandals. They're channeling Jesus.

Comme des Garcons
They're wearing fairyfloss on their head. Which might not have been such a bad thing, if it were all traditional pink-flavour. But no, there is lime, violet and a particularly brassy mango shade. I'll be generous and place her collection in the "inspirational" category. Although Kawakubo's particular brand of fashion concentrate probably needs distilling a few times over before it BEGINS to make sense.

Celine
Frankly Philo should have stayed at Chloe- I'm not sure her move was worth the loss. Strange high-waisted a line mini skirts (in leather?) and bizarre leather tee-shirts. Here, the exclusive use of beige, black and white and the clunky shoes are bor-RING.

Junya Watanabe
Black and white. Graphic, mostly of the squared variety. The large square patterned blazers looks like the girls stole them from the Circus Oz costume rack, and possibly the checked brogues too. Apparently his theme was menswear for women. Sure, if by men you mean Bozo.

John Galliano
What a show! Blahnik once describe Galliano as a "funky little fashion troll" and looking at the colleciton (and at him afterwards) is seems apt. Colour, lace, feathers, clashing lines. At the same time as exhibiting a somewhat nutty collaboration of effects, Galliano never seems to forget that it is actual WOMEN (albeit of the model variety) who wear his clothes. We see their waists, or their chests, or their arms or legs shozn to their advantage. Fashion concentrate of the best kind.

Hermes
Classic with a sports twist. Cream and navy, contrast piping, tennis-style skirt pleats, bathing suits, forehead bands, socks.

Jean Paul Gaultier
It looks as though Gaultier spent too much time on the Hermes collection and had to pull together something at the last minute for his own. Which could explain why it looks like something the cat dragged in. Then ate. Then threw up. It's all about reusing his iconic lingerie in different ways but it just looks....regurgitated, rather than reinterpreted.

Stella McCartney
Electric blue, dark beige, grey, traditional denim, lace, corn yellow, turquoise blue and white. Sound mismatched? It looks mismatched. Vogue describes fashion as "the magic of simply slipping into an outfit and not having to think about it for the rest of the day." If you slipped on a piece of Stella not thinking about it for the rest of the day is exactly what you'd have to do, in order to avoid ripping it off and swapping your outfit with the homeless guy on the corner. Or at the very least having a strange "Did I trip and fall back to 1994?" moment.

Still to come: Kenzo, Karl Lagerfeld, Sonia Rykiel, Vivienne Westwood, Rick Owens, Dries Van Noten, Cacharel and more........

Restaurant Chartier and Chez Jeanette

I had read about Restaurant Chartier on my favourite site of all things Parisienne, "Do it in Paris." It featured in their cheap weekend guide. And it was PERFECT.

I ate leeks dripping in a white viniagrette, followed by steak tartare and fresh "steak frites", followed by a baba au rhum and creme chantilly for dessert. N began with a country terrine, same for main and an ile flottant for dessert. We shared a karaf of the house red.

The building was gorgeous, somewhat like an old railway station (I think it may well be just that) with incredibly high ceilings, ornate mirrors, so many tables and brass luggage racks above the tables to place your coats and bags on (when everyone wears a "doudoune", a doona jacket, coat storage becomes a serious business...). The order is written on your table cloth and the waiters are all in black with full length white aprons. The food is cheap and arrives promptly. (Ordering a raw meal helps, I'm sure. Although the ladies next to us received their cooked meals just as fast.)

And as I ate my steak tartare, lavishly soaked in worsterchire (please, spelling someone?) and drank my second (third?) glass of wine, in the oh-so-french surrounds I felt completely a laise. I was exactly where I needed to be at that very moment. My dessert, meanwhile, was quite an introduction to the French favourite, Baba au Rhum.

It's basically a large brioche, soaked in brown rum and served with a generous swirl of whipped cream. I had confirmed with the waiter that I did indeed like rum, and boy did he take that to heart. Every mouthful postively squelshed with rhum. And I loved it. Loved. It.

This was followed by a noisette (macchiato) on the way to our next stop, C's house for farewell champagne. Then, we accompagnied C and her South American friends to Chez Jeanette for second dinner. N and I shared a house specialty, the duck pie. And boy, was that worth eating a second dinner for. Rich but not overwhelming, crispy but not dry, the salad fresh but not undressed. This time the bistro was noisy and crowded- hence why the five of us squeezed into a booth-side table meant for two. But, being French, the staff were most understanding and fully supported our intimate dinner arrangement. (Melbourne waiters would not be so kind about stacking customers one on top of the other.) The walls were tiled and the walls mirrored. And yet again, as the choruses of 50's and 60's rock and roll music caught my ears, and the duck pie disappeared one forkful at a time, and my wine glass emptied and re-filled itself I thought: I am happy. At this very moment, I am completely happy. I wouldn't be anywhere else, with anyone else.

And I'm glad, that in someway, I was able to recognise and share the moment. Because too often those moments happen without me realising. But not tonight.

Mmmm, squelchy rhum brioche.....

Chantal Thomass

Bras, knickers, le string, slips, slippers, stockings...
I just had the most fabulous lingerie shopping experience. I am a big fan of bra shopping, and I have made wearing a correctly fitted bra one of my personal causes. I tell all the women in my life how important it is, and also that lingerie is about you, it's not about 'him'.

To that end, I have been looking forward to Paris lingerie shopping immensely. I have browsed through many of the renown boutiques, such as Chantal Thomass, Aubade, La Perla, Eres, Chantelle, Lejaby and some of the smaller ones too such as Princess Tam-Tam, Simone Perele and Etam. It wasn't until this week, however, that the stars suddenly aligned and I found myself with both the time and inclination, during shopping hours.

My standard shopping haunt...
I started at Printemps (with its late-night Thursday shopping, and its proximity to my house, Printemps is one of my favourite shopping locales). With a spare 20 minutes, I plucked some bras in my size from La Perla (is a 200euro bra really worth it?), Stella McCartney (the colours were so gorgeous I broke my rule of not even bothering with non-lingerie brands. For anyone above a B cup they are normally hopeless), Aubade (their ad campaign, 100 lessons in love, has got to be the world's sexiest). Being within a department store, instead of within the oftentimes impressive but overwhelming individual boutiques, makes me feel at ease and comfortable enough to hoist a quick selection off to the change room. (Which, in the case of Printemps lingerie dept., is a couple of unattended cubicles in the middle of the floor.) I didn't have much time and not wanting to hurry through my first French lingerie purchase, I left a tangled pile of bras and hangers behind me and continued on with my evening.


Le Bonne Marche
The next night I found myself at Le Bonne Marche, another of Paris's exclusive department stores. Unlike Printemps and Galleries Lafayette, however, Le Bonne Marche is not centered around catching the tourist dollar, but the French franc. This makes it a much more satisfying experience. To be in Art Deco surrounds, only French signage, a more compact layout and each area feels like a boutique unto itself, instead of just another section of a department store.

The lingerie change rooms at Le Bonne Marche ("Les Salons") are placed in a circle all facing into a large communal space with settees and warm lighting. Each "cabin" has a telephone, so that you can call for help and get it, no matter what your state of undress. This is on top of the helpful assistant who is manning the reception desk at the entrance to Les Salons.

Success!
I found the mature lady at the Chantal Thomass counter to be unexpectedly helpful. She virtually ignored me when I "made the rounds" and gathered up all the bras that caught my eye (only bras with nice bottoms- I love having sets!) This didn't bother me, however, because I felt free to poke around without being pressured. And yet perfect when I "appelled" her on the telephone for assistance, and she even disappeared into a back storeroom for me!

And thus, a gorgeous (yet substantial- no flimsy lace for my girls) leopard print number is now mine. If you go to her website you may just be able to identify the newest addition to my collection....

Risk of rain

Today I learnt that a 10% risk of rain is no guarantee that it won't rain. Is it likely? No. Possible? Entirely. Will your soft, cream, ballet flats get rain slushed? Absolutely.

Two and a half ways

I have so far discovered two and half ways to get free coffee in Paris.
(If it's from a friend it's not really free, because you take turn about and next time you're out having coffee and a tete-a-tete together, it will be your turn to pay for BOTH coffees.)

Halfly: the shop assistant forgets to charge you for it. But because you should (and my kind friend did) inform them of their error, you end up paying for it anyway. And even if you do not, you probably get a naughty karma mark chalked up to your name somewhere. That's why this is only half a way to get free coffee.

Firstly: A complimentary Nespresso from one (or both) of the big department stores.

Nespresso are currently pushing their machines in a big way, and given that all coffee in Paris comes out of a machine not unlike an Nespresso machine, why not? (i.e At the push of a button. Coffee grinders are not part of the Paris soundtrack.) It really doesn't taste much...strike that....any different. And it comes with a chocolate square. What more could a girl want as she browses deluxe French homewares?


Secondly: Have one bought for you by a stranger.

I had just finished browsing an open-air photography exhibition on the left bank that was hosted by the Quai Branly Museum and was hanging out for an coffee and some people watching. Given my tourist-heavy location, however, I decided to check the prices on the outdoor menu. While scanning it for 'espresso' two guys sitting nearby admired my outfit. (Vocally. With full sentences. They didn't just leer.) One of them had a stroller with a sleeping child, and the other looked like a Ralph Lauren cut-out, so I figured how bad could they be? We continued chatting, they invited me to join them. Which, given my time-killing status, seemed like a logical enough thing to do.

Monsieur Dad had an accent that made me doubt my French speaking abilities, I had so much difficultly understanding his questions. (At the time, I felt silly having to always ask him to repeat himself. In retrospect, however, it's highly possible he also came away feeling silly, seeing as the blonde Australian girl seemed to only be capable of speaking to his friend.) Le other one, however, was cute, with square white teeth, sandy blonde hair AND easy to understand. When the waiter came over with the bill, I had a laugh that it was Monsieur Dad who footed the afternoon's entertainment for his friend. And with that, my phone buzzed, I bid my adieus to Monsieur Ralph Lauren and Monsieur Dad and dashed off into my waiting chariot, Le Metro.

As the leaves turn in Paris

Paris is a gorgeous city, and she brings out the amateur photographer in everyone. (Which is, of course, annoying as you're trying to go about your daily business of getting places and doing things. Camera dodging is a sport in some parts of Paris.) The sky is large, the buildings are old, and right now the leaves are turning from cool greens into golden yellows and browns. Paris does herself every favour, and it must surely be difficult to catch her from a bad angle. Here are a few of my shots from the end of September. I offer them to you only as tokens of my Parisienne affections; for I am no photographer and I am sure I don't do her justice.












P.S If you click on the images they become larger and sometimes clearer, especially this last one.

Paris fashion week

So for the first time since about high school I knew a guy who knew a guy....which got me a ticket to this show during Paris fashion week. I can't remember the name of the label, and the clothes were frankly some of the ugliest I've ever seen. All patterned, fluro, gold lame, flowers, plastic.....very 'student fashion', as my friend described it. Definitely trying too hard. However, I was most excited to be there and here are some of my shots from the night.

Is the Tour Eiffel over rated?

(Left: taken from the Tuilleries, looking through Place de la Concorde. Right: taken from the Champs de Mars)


I have heard it said that the Eiffel Tower is overrated. It's too touristy, the French don't like it, it's a glorified transmission tower, the restaurants are a rip-off, the lines are too long...you're much better off at the Tour Montparnasse. The view's just as good, the queues are shorter and it's not so cliched.

And it's fair enough that people may have these opinions. But on Sunday afternoon I decided I needed a 'Paris' moment, so I went to have coffee looking at the Tour Eiffel. It it felt lovely. Perhaps not an activity that made me feel like a veritable Parisienne, but a moment that made me feel I was very much in Paris.

So, I have included some of my photos of the Tour Eiffel, and also one looking back to Tour Montparnasse (the only skyscraper within the walls of Paris.) What would you rather look at over your coffee?

(Left: when trying to leave the Champs I was totally miffed at the construction fencing that didn't have a single gap anywhere in it for me to shimmy through to my metro stop. Instead, I had to turn around and walk half-way back down the Champs to the nearest gap in the fence. Lucky I did- this was the view I got turning around. It was a nice reminder to just enjoy my day. Right: That building in the distance in the middle of the trees is the Tour Montparnasse.)