Everyone should visit the Vanves Flea Market and the Montmartre Cemetery in Paris. They’re both outside. They don’t have to cost anything, but in the case of the market, if they cost something it’s a deal. And they both make you think about past French lives.
Tom Stockton first told me about Vanves; he told me that was where I might find antique French bed linens. Antique bedsheets weigh about 6 kilos each and make you feel as if you’re sleeping in a castle, because they were made for people sleeping in castles. I went to Vanves yesterday morning in search of cafe au lait bowls and said sheets. The cafe au lait bowls were cher. Charming, but cher, and there weren’t many of them. On the other hand, someone in France seems to be cleaning out all the 18th century castle linen closets because the Vanves market was loaded with heavy, linen sheets. You know how flea markets go through phases? Suddenly old rusty watering cans are everywhere? Well, in the case of Vanves, it’s gorgeous linens. Needless to say, my suitcase now exceeds the carry-on limit.
But, you can’t go to places like this and not wonder about the lives that once needed these sheets, these cafe au lait bowls, all the beautiful printing materials that were at Vanve yesterday. So, you can’t help but wonder about French kitchens and linen closets in 1885, for example, how people were living their lives then.
Of course any cemetery inspires the same reflections, but visiting the Montmartre Cemetary is like name-dropping and reflecting at the same time. And your jaunt through history isn’t linear - there’s Emile Zola and around the corner is that ever-a-player, ballet dancer Vladimir Nijinsky.
There’s Hector Berlioz. Up a few family tombs is Escoffier. - oh. sigh. - There’s the first French man I ever fell in love with - dark, firy, puckish, brilliant. Francois Truffaut. Seeing the graves of the famous doesn’t diminish any irrational affections. Those aren’t my roses on Truffaut’s grave, but I liked them.
Montmartre, a gray quiet in the middle of Paris (Yes, those people were still feeding the cats there, who are also famous.) is a wonderful pause from the museums and the shopping. It’s a few acres of lichen and stone covering a density of powerful, brilliant humanity; it demands reflection if not awe.
My dinner tonight - my last Paris dinner - was 6 Utah Beach oysters and a glass of Grave sec, at a delightfully classic brasserie called the Cafe du Commerce, on the Rue du Commerce, depuis 1921.
In honor of that, I’m including another Alice B. Toklas recipe, this time her Oysters Rockefeller.
Alice B. Toklas Oysters Rockefeller
1/2 cup chopped parsley
1/4 cup finely chopped raw spinach
1/8 cup finely chopped tarragon
1/8 cup finely chopped chervil
18 cup finely chopped basil
1/8 cup finely chopped chives.
Oysters- opened
sand or rock salt
bread crumbs, seasoned with salt and pepper
butter
Preheat oven to 450 F. Fill an oven-proof platter with salt or sand, and rest the oysters in it so they don’t wobble.
Chop all the herbs, and mix together in a bowl. Put a heaping 2 tablespoons of the herbs on each oyster. Sprinkle with bread crumbs and dot with butter. Bake about 5 minutes or until hot.