Margaret Pilgrim

The world is shrinking and we should probably get used to it. Some half dozen years ago we visited a very small village (read: no gas station, no tourist shop, no general store, larders dependent on weekly market some very long 10 km away). We spent several days in this village in order to enjoy its only claim to fame, the annual lavender fair. We stayed in the French version of a B&B, enjoyed several excellent dinners there, prepared by a Japanese cook as well as the more linguistic Japanese pastry chef. Understand that this was not a Michelin recognized place, but a very humble inn. Meals, as I remember, cost around $20. for 4 courses, wine included. The food was traditional French Haute Provence. That Ducasse would recognize talent regardless of its origin should be no surprise.

Maybe I am misunderstanding the request. If a 'working dinner' is one where a group is slipping away for a bite to eat, then Belden is a go. But is this groups wants to discuss ideas or a project or even the weather, the noise level at the Belden restaurants will be disastrous. You are lucky if you can interact with your waiter, much less the person across the table from you. IMH experience.

First, do not feel like the Lone Ranger! There is something about a rapid fire telephone recording that terrifies even the most courageous of us. Can you call your hotel and ask them to reserve for you, or are you staying in an apartment? If the latter, I might try to contact the apartment owner/manager and ask if they would be willing to do this service for you. Yes, it is beyond the call of duty, but I have no doubt that the manager of the last apartment we rented from would have done this in a heartbeat. Many of them advertise that they are "here to help you with any problems relating to your stay..." Good luck.

re Mariage Freres If it is 'tourist only', then they certainly understand how to treat tourists. I have found the staff at our Grand Augustins shop to be consistently willing to listen and teach, and patient beyond one's expectation. Their product is excellent and the price is commensurate. I like this place a lot. Someday I will allot both time and money to actually sitting down and taking tea here. In the meantime, I am content to spend the equivalent of the national debt in order to take home a year's afternoons of their fine brews.

Once again, "hear" is the operative word. I have no doubt that I share a dining room with Americans all the time. So long as I can't determine a table's nationality or language, it's all good. My niggle is with groups whose projected conversation dominates the dining room space, reducing the sense of 'place' for other diners.

One mid-range restaurant that continues to get good marks for its list is an old favorite of ours: Le Villaret 19, rue Ternaux Paris 11 Telephone: 01 43 57 75 56 and 01 43 57 89 76. Various recent diners have had differing thoughts on the food, which I have always thought not at all bad, but just about universal reports on the wine list have been excellent.

That's funny. We have felt more comfortable with Asian tourists than American because they seem to do their homework better and are often ahead of our information curve.

Felice's insiders' view is interesting. I think that what she writes is very true. It also helps me to sort and refine my feelings as a diner. I recall our early meals at an upstart restaurant several years ago. Exceptional food, darling service, lots of smoke but who cared; stunningly memorable evenings. The servers spoke almost no English and treated us with bemused respect, wondering, I suppose, how we found its outer location. We let them know our how pleased we were, and they responded with warm hospitality. Our last visit saw a change in waitstaff, much spiffier now, and much more into speaking English. The attitude had drifted from our being exotic to 'here come more Americans'. There was nothing you could point your finger at that caused either our discomfit or dissatisfaction, but the joy of our early visits had evaporated. The food may or may not have been less good as the chef's initial offerings, but, taken as part of the evening as a whole, it failed to delight. When I think back to many if not most of our most joyous dining experiences, they have been in dining rooms where as Americans we were intriguing curiosities. These include several places in Paris and in the country where we are warmly welcomed as regular returning visitors, but still oddments.

Of course, Pete, what you say is true. If you and I and everyone who is not native to the neighborhood speaks so quietly that none of us can discern the national identity of the other, then I have no beef. Or, to use your phrasing, if one is not a complete ass, orders his meal in French, and is otherwise affable, how would that person even enter my radar? It is not my fear or loathing of loud and overbearing nationals of whatever country, because Americans are not the only heavy handed tourists, it is, as I wrote, the dilution of whatever culture we visit. We visit in order to experience something real, not what the host culture thinks that we want to experience. I certainly hope that you will continue to visit Paris and elsewhere. If you pm us beforehand, it will probably be easier for us to meet, because I'm sure that neither your speech nor your behavior will identify you.

I think, Pete, that his point is that most people venture from home in order to sample something different from what they can experience in their own communities. Having gone to the trouble and expense of seeking out these 'foreign' experiences, it can be unnerving to find that the language spoken at the next table and, indeed, that of the waiter and the menu, are your own. When, in addition, the cooking is tweeked to meet foreign palates rather than native, and when unusual local specialties appear less and less often on the ardoise, yes, I too feel a shiver coming on. Fortunately, there are enough restaurants in Paris and throughout France to satisfy all of our tastes. I am quite sure that many Americans would not enjoy the kinds of places we regularly patronize, and I am also well aware and resigned to the fact that when I choose a place with Michelin credits, that I will dine among my countrymen. It is saddening when a favorite is overrun with 'tourists', as we are calling them, but, as I said, there are enough choices to please each of us. As is always good advice, it's good to "know before you go".

Let me assume that your wait person will be a man. IMH experience, French men usually fall all over their shoelaces to be gallant to a woman who is alone. Let them know that you appreciate their guidance and that you enjoy being taken care of. Enjoy yourself. Dining in Paris alone certainly beats not dining in Paris!

Your ideal day is completely logical. Ours follows different lines: Up and out before 7am if we are going to an early venue, if not laze in until perhaps 8 or 9am, call for breakfast in our room. Return for coffee if we chose the earlier option, if not, head out for shopping and chores. Either have a light lunch out or return to our room to raid our larder: pate, cold cuts, cheese, fruit, wine. Out again to investigate new territory or to greet old friends, back for a snack and nap. Dinner is our evening entertainment. What can I tell you? At our age, by 10pm we don't have a lot of dance left.

A "stove with a view" is the "call of the wild" for food-oriented people. My husband and I finally succumbed after Thanksgiving and took an apartment in Paris for a week, sandwiched between two several day stays at our favorite hotel, where we got over a little jetlag, filled in a few restaurant reservations, and finally relaxed before flying home. While we enjoyed the wines we bought at the Vignorons Independent expo, and cassoulet and choucroute and andouillette from the Salon Saveurs, we found that cooking-in became our fulltime occupation. Faced with all of the opportunities in Paris, it seemed as if we did nothing but forage for food! It was emotionally exhausting, especially when the two of us had opposite visions of what we wanted to buy and eat: me, fabulous liver, him, the eye-catching dish in the traiteur window. But I would go from shop to shop for perfect liver, and he found little in the windows that looked as good as it did in memory. We returned to our hotel with great relief, where we only had to pick up the phone in the morning to receive, 5 minutes later, our breakfast and the Internation Herald Tribune. He has just commented that he would like to do it again sometime. I believe that the next time we would definitely intersperce more dinners out. Also, we learned that the quality and size of the mattress is absolutely as important as quality and size of the cassoulet!

In complete agreement with the above recommendations, I would add the several from this site that couple natural wine and passionate cellarpeople.

ann, you should be designated a "National Treasure"! Many thanks for this extraordinarily valuable link. That said, it will take most of us considerable time to deconstruct this wealth of information. I'm starting now.... (any interpretations from other readers is more than welcome...)

I have found that often delight is not in the 'where' but the 'what'. To phrase it differently, what was your order? In Brittany? On Montparnasse? Do you, or others, know of current Paris outlets who do this particular, i.e., your, crepe well?

I have used several recipes that called for this procedure. All of them contained spice, such as persimmon bread, banana bread, etc. Perhaps the spice has something to do with it?

Are you thinking of Cacao et Chocolat , 36 rue Vieille du Temple Paris 75004 33-01-42-71-50-06 This is a mini-chain, i.e., they have a shop on rue Buci, 6e, also. Definitely bright yellow and blue with good truffles.

I warmly remember not a few hours spent in a hole-in-the-wall bar called Hogo Fogo . We were at least 20 years older than either servers or other imbibers, but the service was warm, servers hip, small plates delicious although cheaper than dirt, drinks and pot wine honest. This, in the depths of a chill winter, remains a lovely refuge that we remember warmly. Near Old Town Square Hogo Fogo Salvátorská 4

It may also have been your egg whites. I have been told that the pros prefer 'old' egg whites as opposed to fresh ones. You can keep egg whites in the refrigerator (clean jar, tight lid) for a surprisingly long time. You might start collecting them as your recipe calls for yolks, and try a batch with some with a little 'age'.

I think we have discussed this before. Wine bars, particularly, will, I believe, always cork up your unfinished bottle. Whether you have the nerve or presence to ask a bistrot to do the same depends on you. Where you take these unfinished bottles is also up to you; my husband and I always have several bottles working in our hotel room: a doux for him, a red for me. I haven't a clue 'whether or not it is done', but we have never had anyone give us anything that approaches either the "shrug" or the "raised eyebrow". Nor have the desk people at our hotel shown anything more than a keen interest in what we have selected. But, then, occasionally they have shared from our excesses!

We spend a fair amount of time in the village of Barjac. It is located north of Ales, about an hour northwest of the Avignon TGV. From Barjac we have driven the Ardeche Gorges, to Uzes, Ales, Nimes. We have even driven back across the Rhone to Paradou (south of St. Remy) for lunch at the Bistrot. Barjac is a sweet village with several butchers, boulangers, wine cave, several very reasonable restaurants. Both practical and chic shops; fabulous hardware store. Friday market is lively. Boules daily. Music fests often. Here is a cute place. Here is another that is in the center of the village. This place is also in the heart of the village. It is hard to tell how complete the cooking facilities are in these gites/apartments, but you could email for more detailed information.

Of course this is true. But I read the original question as needing to know the basic requirements for being (comfortably) seated in a 3star. Passing is the grand prize; being admitted qualifies as a legitimate blue ribbon!

10 days is a very short soak period for green olives. In fact, we have a couple of trees (mission variety), usually leave the olives on the trees until they reach the "rosy" shade. Even then, we let them leach for a month before brining them. I'd keep the faith and let them soak longer before going on to the brine. This year because of inclement weather, we had almost no crop. My husband put up a small batch the dry method: slitting each olive with a razor blade, being careful not to pierce to the pit, layering the olives in rock salt in a plastic pail, stirring them up daily for about 3 weeks, tasting one from time to time. He just finished them by rincing, drying and putting them in a container with EVOO. They're very good.

Cigalechanta, can you describe Chez Bru in more detail for us. We, if fact, looked for it this spring when we wanted a light meal, but could find only the Bistro which we had already visited, leaving us to believe that "Chez Bru" was merely the endearment for the main restaurant. Did we miss something?