I missed him every Sunday I was away.

Sundays have always been our day to slow down.

A day to spend all morning in bed, make a big breakfast, go for a long walk and cook dinner together.

I find it hard to relax sometimes.  My mind is always racing with what my next move should be.  But with him I can sit still.  I can sit over lunch for hours. I can eat with a knife and fork and savor each bite rather than grab something on the go.

This morning I made a big batch of crepes for my boyfriend and I and we lay on the sofa watching an old movie before seizing the day.

The Olympics start next week and the streets are filled with people, but with the Superbowl on all day we knew it would be a good day for a stroll.

So we took the small ferry over to Granville Island to spend the day.  We roamed through the food stalls in the busy market place, stopped to hear the busker singing in French as the seagulls flew around him and explored the island before stopping for lunch.

It’s nice to hear myself laugh again.  I’m sleeping more, eating more, and socializing more than I have in a long time.  My work starts tomorrow but I feel more relaxed then I have in months.

I have clean laundry hanging in the living room and freshly baked oatmeal cookies filling the apartment with their warm smell.

Sometimes the simplest days can make everything feel so good.

Showing off my Olympic mittens

From the ferry boat going over to Granville Island

The market

B.C apples

French singing busker

Admiring the flowers

Pastries at my favourite French bakery La Baguette et l’Echalote


The best hat shop in town

Looking through the beautiful cookware

Lunch at Sandbar

My beautiful salad

In Paris there’s a land filled with fur coats and diamond rings, 30 euro cocktails and pretty things.

Yesterday I left my nook of sex shops, charming little streets and eclectic drinking holes in Montmartre to explore the grand rue Saint-Honoré.

Because I have little money to spare, I have taken to seeing the stores in Paris as galleries.

I look, touch and feed my senses without needing to buy a thing.  I console myself by knowing one day I’ll return with enough euros in my pocket to splurge on lingerie at Chantal Thomas and a drink at the Ritz.

For now it is enough to watch the women in fur coats smoking cigarettes as they rush down the streets, enter the boudoir of a lingerie store Fifi Chachnil just to admire the fifties style undergarments and stare into Jimmy Choo with big eyes in my winter worn boots.

It is a feast for the eyes, and for dessert I choose to walk over to the Jardin des Tuileries, where the sun is setting, the air is crisp, the men are playing boules and the light is just right.

I haven’t started listening to Christmas carols or baking sugar cookies yet.

But we have bought a mini Christmas tree and a bright red poinsettia to brighten up our dining room.

And while everything is still a little sleepy in the South of France, I know that the Christmas markets are being set up in and that the lights are being strung all over Paris.

In two weeks I’ll be heading up to the gorgeous city to eat croissants, sip espressos, visit museums and walk around the city wearing warm scarves with one of my best friends who is visiting from home.

A couple days away from Christmas she’ll fly back to Alberta to be with her family and I’ll come back down South to be with mine.

I want to show her the best of Paris and for us to enjoy all the seasonal festivities so I did a little research to see what was going on.

I’ve been in Paris during the holidays before and I love admiring the festive cakes in the patisseries windows, visiting the Christmas markets smelling of hot spiced wine and roasted chestnuts, and watching Parisians let go and strap on skates at the public rinks.

The stores are too busy for me, especially Galeries Lafayette and the other major department stores, and I find more pleasure in strolling, admiring decorations and popping into cafes for warm drinks.

Over the past few years Christmas has become less about gifts and more about embracing winter, those I love, and celebrating a year well lived.  I can’t think of anywhere better to do this than the city that has brought me alive so many times throughout my life.

If anyone is thinking of visiting Paris this December, here are a few fun things to do while exploring the city:

CHRISTMAS MARKETS

• La Defense - is in the city region and perhaps one of the most impressive markets.

• Les Halles - this is another famous traditional market in the city centre. There is a wonderful array of gifts from chocolates to more unusual art and craft items.

• De la Cour de Rome - It is located in front of the Saint Lazare train station. Dates to be confimed, please check before travelling.

• Saint-Germains-des-Pres

• Montparnasse - this market is situated near the shopping centre in Maine Montparnasse. Dates to be confimed, please check before travelling.

• Place Saint-Sulpice - the market here has a merry-go-round inviting you to take a twirl on a colourful manèges de Noël of wooden horses.

HOLIDAY LIGHTS AND DECORATIONS

• Champs Elysées
  The Champs-Elysées are decorated with light-drenched trees stretching all the way from the Place de l’Etoile and the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.

• Paris Department Stores
Generally starting at the end of November and throughout the January sale season.
Galeries Lafayette, Printemps and surrounding stores on Boulevard Haussmann, 9th arrondissement.
Metro: Havre-Caumartin
RER: Auber

• Notre Dame Cathedral
  Each Christmas season the gothic cathedral hosts an enormous, lavishly decorated tree on its main plaza.

OUTDOOR SKATING

• Hôtel de Ville

This is the bigger of the two with another smaller space for kids and beginners. There’s also a large play area with activities for children and a giant teepee!

• Montparnasse

• Le Salon Saveurs

A twice-yearly food show, held at the Espace Champerret in the 17th. There are stalls upon stalls of delicious products, meet food artisans from all over France, and fill up on food gifts for your friends and yourself. You’ll find Christmas delicacies like foie gras, oysters, truffles, glazed chesnuts, chocolate, champagne.

There’s something fun about grocery shopping in France.

Most grocery stores at home in Canada make me nauseous.  Poor produce, bad lighting and frozen dinners are mood killers for me.

I usually end up spending my paychecks at gourmet grocery stores and Whole Foods where apples sit in buckets, bushy heads of lettuce lie colorfully beside each other, and samples of chocolate are at my disposal, because I think it’s better for my mental health.

In Paris I usually avoid the grocery stores altogether and do all of my shopping in specialty shops.  But this ain’t Paris.  Down in the South of France we buy plenty from the markets, but we also stock up on necessities weekly at the mother of all grocery stores: E.LEclerc.

L’Eclerc is like a grocery store on steroids.  Whenever my mom or dad say “I’m going to L’Eclerc, want to come?”  I can’t resist.  So when my dad said he needed to pick up a few things today, I threw on my jacket and joined him.

The store is giant, and even if I don’t need anything I like to go to admire the vast selection of the good, the amusing, the bad and the ugly.

The good includes a chocolate and yoghurt section that go further than the eye can see:

As well as a few things you don’t usually see at home, like an excellent selection of pre-maid pie doughs, a wine selection that would please any connoisseur, and milk that doesn’t need to be refrigerated…

And since the French are known for their gourmet attitude towards food, event their frozen food has a certain je ne sais pas quoi…

Even if they might make their local patissier cry with purchases like this…

And believe they can stay forever young with Vichy’s new anti-ageing water…

After trying to figure out what Drainocoach water would  do to my body, we packed up and headed to my true idea of paradise.

While I get my kicks at the supermarket- there’s not a lot to do around here- my favorite place to buy groceries is just down the road.  Behold Vegetarn, the best fruit and vegetable store in town…

I love them because of their fresh fruit and vegetable selection…

And because they actually encouraged me to take photos of their Christmas displays…

After grocery shopping my dad unleashed his own inner French gourmet and whipped up a quiche using pre-made dough, pungent cheese, saucisson and zucchini…

Bon appetit!

This afternoon I wandered home from Montmartre and allowed myself to get lost.

I followed my instincts through small streets and walked where the sun shone brightest.

When I saw an old passage before me I couldn’t help but walk through. I found myself in the passage de Jouffroy, where I found an incredible tea shop, an old toy store and la Cure Gourmande.

La Cure Gourmande glows inside and out and is filled wall to wall with fresh cookies, different types of caramel, nougat and hard candy. The child in me screamed with joy and I gladly accepted a small raspberry pastry offered to me from a tin box by the saleswoman.

The passages in Paris always seem to trigger memories from my childhood. I visited many times when I was young, and still hold on to vague memories of old train stations, marbled floors, shops selling beautiful nightgowns and dipping my croissants into steaming cups of hot chocolate.

The passages remind me of old Paris. They remind me of the Paris I’m always searching for, beyond the postcard stands and bateaux mouches, these covered arcades are like old memories you try hard not to forget.

They were designed by town planners in the nineteenth  century so that pedestrians could avoid traffic, mud and horse-drawn vehicles. Many have been renovated and restored, but they are still hard to miss.

As I left the passage Jouffroy I found myself stumbling into more and more passages. Some were full of shops and people while others were quiet and somber, with beautiful glass ceilings and stained glass decoration.  Most shops were closed due to it being Sunday, but the tea rooms were full and the bars mostly busy.

Since these sneaky passages are so easy to miss, I put together a map that takes you on a walk through all of them, just in case you’re not lucky enough to stumble upon one like I did.
Afficher Paris passageways sur une carte plus grande

The other day my mother sent me an email.

She said ‘I’m thinking of coming to Paris.‘

I replied ‘I think Paris could always use another sexy lady!  And there’s room in my bed…‘

The next evening she arrived at my restaurant and I served her some wine and antipasto, while patiently waited until one in the morning until I had finished work.

We have both been a little lost, a little stressed out, and she sensed we needed each other.  She was right.  I have not been well.  These days I can’t sleep, I am constantly sick to my stomach, my body feels weak and my mind is never at ease.  The combination of working almost every night, the pressure my book, my debt piling up and my heart ache growing stronger has my mind racing a million miles a minute.

I am trying to live in the moment but I can’t help but worry about everything.  It’s something I do very well.  My mom is pretty good at it too.  So we’re here for each other, sharing moules et frites, visiting the Georges Pompidou art exhibits, shopping at Galleries Lafayettes (I got my Lonchamp!), wandering through the Marais, drinking Pastis and talking it all out.  She has filled my fridge with groceries and is helping me plot out the next few months.

Today we visited Merci, a giant gallery of a store on the boulevard beaumarchais.  The store is 4 stories of glory, with a flower store, a used book shop, gorgeous bedding, a perfume bar, designer clothing, a kids boutique, colorful notebooks, a cafe and a canteen downstairs.

Furniture, clothing, and other pieces for the home are all donated by designers like YSL, Stella McCartney, Azzaro, Alexis Mabille and Marni. All of the proceeds from Merci go to a homeless charity in Madagascar. The store was started by Bernard and Marie-France Cohen, founders of Bonpoint, the beautiful kids clothing line.

The store is a pleasure to walk through and the prices are surprisingly fair.  I held back from buying gorgeous linen bed sheets and tableware I have no where to house, and promised myself I would come back to the cantine downstairs to sample some of the amazing looking salads on display.  Big white bowls of bean, couscous and arugula salad called my name and warm smells of fresh soup filled the entire building.

We almost caved for lunch, but I had promised my mom lunch at the Marche des Enfants Rouges, where the open-air food fair offers the choice of African Cajun cuisine, Moroccan tagines, beautifully plated Japanese dishes, organic hot potato pancakes with giant salads or traditional French fare.  We vouched for the cozy Japanese stand and I dug into some ginger tuna sashimi with rice while my mom went for the gingered pork.  It was pure comfort food and it was good to have an Asian fix.

Tonight I go back to work, and tomorrow we have the full day and evening to ourselves.  A trip to Montmartre and a Moroccan feast are on the menu.  She leaves Monday morning and I miss her already, it is good to have my maman by side.

Merci
One of the most beautiful stores I’ve visited in Paris. I’ll be back to admire the clothing, tableware, bed sheets, and to dig into a delicious salad in the canteen downstairs.
111 boulevard Beaumarchais
75003 Paris

Some mornings are heavy.

Heavy grey skies and heavy emotions made it hard to crawl out of bed this morning.  After a strong black coffee I created a walking route that included several specialty food shops that I knew would lift me up in no time.

First stop on my list: G Detou.  After reading David Lebovitz’s  description of the place I knew I had to go.  G Detou is a play on words meaning “I have everything“, and as David promised, they really do.

The small shop has everything a baker and cook can dream of, with shelves lined with bulk chocolate, flavored syrups, tea, sugar, honey, dried fruit, nuts and more.  My whole face and heart lifted once I entered the cozy space.  When I went to the counter to pay for my caramels and tea, I had to take my receipt to another counter, where a small older woman that stood behind glass like a bank teller took my visa, then gave me my receipt to take back to the other counter to receive my goods.  This strange exchange is common in France, where many butchers, fish stores and specialty food shops will have you get your receipt at one spot, pay at another and come back to pick up your purchases.

With the magic of G. Detou running through my bones, I took off down Rue Montergueil, where pastry shops, fruit stands, butchers and bakers all whispered my name.  I bought a calissou, a small almond paste cookie at  A La Mere de Famille. The small chocolate store that was founded in 1761 carries an air of old France, and truly won me over when the woman behind the counter allowed me to sample a flavored calissou of my choice.  A man in the shop suggested the prune flavor and I couldn’t refuse.  She warned me it tasted of Armagnac and I warned her I was Irish.  The taste was subtle and played a small song on my tongue before I promised her I’d be back every day to try the different flavors.  Wait until she finds out I wasn’t joking.

From a bountiful fruit vendor I bought big juicy medjool dates, a bag of almonds and some tropical dried fruit to fuel my walking.  The dates were large and decadent and I licked them off my fingers while exploring the street further.

After Montergueil I went on a quest for Pierre Marcolini, a chocolate shop by a world champion pastry chef who made Belgian chocolate a worldwide favourite.  He was one of the first to make square chocolate bars and flavor his cocoa beans which he selects and roasts himself, with thyme, tea, rose and orange blossom.  The store was immaculate and I stole a few samples of milk chocolate before I decided the Japanese streets of  Rue Saint-Augustin and Rue Saint-Anne by the Place d’Opera were more exciting.

After fulfilling my desires of exploring Japanese and Korean grocery stores I left empty handed and re-fuelled with an espresso.  It was here that I realized I forgot my phone at the apartment and wouldn’t get a call from my boss telling me what time to come in to work.

It was also here that I found a set of keys I didn’t recognize in my bag, and got the sinking feeling that I can’t keep moving around forever.  I love being here, but I’m starting to wonder how long I can live out of a suitcase before losing my mind, the love of my life, most of the things I own, and my love of travel.

I am living my dream but at times it is hard.  It is lonely, stressful, and a difficult balance to keep all the areas of my life in tune.  But like G Detout, I have everything: dreams, love, support, family, and my mind, which hasn’t left me just yet.

Rue Montergueil

Perfect rainy day style and buckets of flowers

G.Detout, the store that sells everything

Just a glimpse of what’s inside

Quenching my thirst in style with environmentally friendly packaging

Playing part in Operation Beautiful

A sneak peak at the care package you can win!  Contest closes Friday.