From Paris to London (III): undersea travels, cheese and sweet wine

Many people know there is a submarine tunnel that bridges Paris and London, few people I know have actually merged into the darkness of the earth to come out again in the light of the surface. Here is the website for the booking: Eurostar

Already Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) planned to excavate a dugout to reach an elusive bartender, for his unsuitable thirst. Because of the available technologies, the plan was abandoned and the enterprise to the cold ice-cream of Russia brought to a sad end a glorious moment for continental Europe. Despite his arrogance and his final defeats, in Italy Napoleon is praised as an hero and he is the last Emperor we addressed with his baptism name.

Napoleon on the imperial throne by Ingres

The day after the flamboyant wedding, still dizzy by the cling of toasts and by the night's raids in the metro, my French days regrettably expired, so that I had to leave behind myself the majestic splendor of Paris, for the more put-together charm of London. It is incredible how two so close towns developed such different souls. Paris, the home of French Revolution, seems a city made by giants. London, the place that hosts one of the more ancient monarchies of the world, is a practical city, thought for commerce and adapted to tourism. Perhaps for this metaphysical reason the tunnel under the Channel is so peculiar: it has to bridge two mind-dimensions.

LeRoy Neiman: even the Beatles may look like workaholic yuppies.

Moreover, that's possibly why London is a city which encourages evasion, as in Peter Pan with flying skills, in Sherlock Holmes with opium, in Dickens with countryside trips. On the other side, Paris, though drenched in danger, works as a magnet for people coming from all over the fair nation: Paris sucks your energies and your wealth out, and spits what remains of you like Pinocchio's whale, such as in L'education sentimentale by Flaubert or Les illusions perdues by Balzac.

When fairy powder makes your flee-dreams come true.

Luckily the shark whale is not hominivorous (a men eater),
he prefers krill and plankton.

What I found fascinating was the duty free: the train that runs under the sea is treated as an airplane. Your suitcases are scanned and your physical body as well. I was lucky to spend only 50€, because of the low season: we were in early december. This unexpected duty-free consented me to find luxury food-goods: a truly finest selection for gourmets. A couple of affluent and eccentric British citizens in a totally unconcerned manner spent a sensible fortune. I felt luckier having an allocated budged. I came out with two gems: a cœur Neufchâtel (pronounced as if the f was silent), an fromage artisanl from Haute-Normandie. It has the typical shape of a heart and it is a product provided with the Appellation d'origine contrôllée, which means it has a specific certification of reliability, as for Parmigiano in comparison with the unfair Parmesan. The second choice was a fine bottle of a sweet dessert wine, whose indication allowed the drinker to spouse it with cheeses as well: it was a Sauternes of the winemaker Calvet, as sort of guarantee in itself.

My host could not restrain himself: he is a cheese lover
and more importantly an unstoppable cheese eater:
the soft heart of the heart, pardon the word pun, as beyond
my descriptive ability.

Porcini mushrooms are very cheeky and they asked
to be immortalized next the Sauternes. An excellent risotto
completed our dinner, along with a mixed salad.

My voyage under the sea level was intense and quick. The tunnel is darker than oblivion, but the train in extremely comfortable. I was actually wishing to find a porthole in the tunnel structure to observe the abyss, but I guess it would have been seriously too dangerous. Another astonishing surprise was the high quality of the train cafe. I had some pain perdu with cheese inside...unbelievable:

While eating it all the sorrow of life were washed away like timid waves
onto the face of a sea-rock. The recipe is very easy, the result so intense!

Finally, we came out again to see the stars, E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle (Dante, Inferno, XXXIV, 139).

In London, I rejoiced two incredible friends of mine. Harriet who is from London: we met during my Erasmus in Edinburgh and then she came to Bologna as an Erasmus as well. It was shocking when, after almost two years, our friendship had to find a new balance, based on distance. Fabriz, her boyfriend, comes from the hatred Modena (jokes) and despite he is an engineer, he also has an exceptionally versatile and humanist side: he is very attentive to nuances of life and languages, he is phenomenally sarcastic, and he wishes to pinch the typical British calm with it. While waiting for Harriet at St Pancras international station, I found a pink piano, that someone was playing particularly well, and above all a stationary shop that I recommend to all paper lovers: Paperchase

The following day, the only full day in London, it was Sunday, so we strolled around, particularly going to Hampstead park, a huge estate full of wild life (huge squirrels), swans, woods and promenades paths: it would be difficult (and somehow against privacy) to evoke back all the topics we went through, nonetheless I recall I learned a new word "daunting".

Since that departure I am planning to go back to London and visit my friends unsuccessfully, but perhaps this July I shall succeed. In the meanwhile I keep looking the pictures I took, sighing

A Mondrian-esque tree

The skyline fo the City

Eating time: voracious and plump. Shouldn't you be hibernating?

VIP squirrels: time to run away from photos

Why not? More cheese! And cherry tomatoes
on La maison du monde saucer, bought in Bologna,
but you can find it here

AND MY WEDDING CAPTAL TRIP CAN BE DECLARED CONCLUDED. 

Paris at night (II)

Paris at night, between Prevert and Eluard et Les Marmites volantes

Found on the ground in Edinburgh: a pleasent omen!

It takes time to recollect ideas about Paris. Paris is indeed a beautiful city, even despite the horrendous and puerile tourism that in the last forty years has made European capitals richer, but depriving monuments and works of art of those specific qualities called surprise, uniqueness, typicality. When I first strolled in Paris, having Hugo, Maupassant and Balzac whispering in my head, I did not allowed myself to take silly pictures, save one perhaps, taken at the base of the Tour Eiffel when its lights suddenly gleamed in the chill evening. The iron monument was like a sward of fire daunting the skies. If I wish to see pictures of Paris, I can scroll some of the one thousand Facebook albums that pollute the ether (along with those of Barcelona, London and Venice). I usually prefer more intimate shots, such as tiny details, experimented dishes, momentary impressions.

What always makes a great deal of difference are the people: the friends, the family, the lover. Under this perspective, Paris has been magic especially for the wedding that gathered together strangers, foreigners, and friends in a melange quite difficult to describe. It came to my mind a notorious poem of Jacques Prevert. I am particularly keen on this poem, since a girl I fancied in high school made me discover this poet. Afterwards, we ended up sharing no form of human relationship, but I like to keep these memories, because it would be unreal and unfair to reject all trophies of a shipwreck. This poem is beguiling cause with only three matches the poet is able to enclose the mysterious fascination of Paris and his romantic time with a woman in a short time. So Paris merely becomes the chance that makes love possible, the night represents occasion we have to size: the city is an empty container of dreams. It is up to us to remind what we think we had seen at the light of fading matches. Hence memory reworks the clay of experience to give back a more coherent picture.

Jaques Prevert and his inseparable cigarette

Paris at night Trois allumettes, une à une allumées dans la nuit La première pour voir ton visage tout entier La seconde pour voir tes yeux La dernière pour voir ta bouche Et l'obscurité toute entière pour me rappeler tout cela En te serrant dans mes bras.

English translation Three matches one by one struck in the night The first to see your face in its entirety The second to see your eyes The last to see your mouth And the darkness all around to remind me of all these As I hold you in my arms.

Bride and groom were a new dawn when you would have expected a sunset. Possibly it was from the times of Elenoire d’Aquitaine that such a beautiful woman was married with a prestigious foreigner. The groom was indeed not the king of England, BUT his ancestors include some brave and revolutionary admirals who sympathised for Napoleon: unfortunately I have to keep secret his name but i can show a painting. Moreover, the wedding witnesses gave touching speeches, especially Fabrizio the only gentlemen I know able to keep alive within himself tradition and innovation!

Eleanor of Aquitaine (XII century)

Napoleon's admiral in southern Italy, hung by Horatio Nelson 1799,
braking the agreement (picture below):

On the culinary side, I have to confess a great debacle, that will come clear in a while: the wedding buffet was sensational, simple and rich as few events in life can actually be. The food had been sumptuously chosen. It was a double homage paid to the groom who is Italian and to bride who is French. So the menu included tapenade on crostini, but mini feuilletés au pesto. Creudités de saison, what in Italy we usually call pinzimonio, and soupes de couleur en verrines. The main course was veau mijoté that is to say a veal stew, flavoured by cinnamon and pears, but there was also some barely cooked like a risotto with pulses or legumes and Parmigiano. Finally, a gâteau aux amandes et citron, a citrus salad, and a brownie concluded the wedding meal. Unfortuntely, I have a few original shots of the buffet...hunger moved my attention far from my rational control! If in the future it might happen that you come across les marmites volantes in Paris, feel free to write me back your impressions: http://www.marmitesvolantes.com/

warm sups in small cups	Tapenade of almonds and olives
morcels of goodness	pinzimonio

An original moment of my dish during the dinner

To sum up, because of the low light in the room, because I was very impatient to taste all of these delicatessens, ultimately because I wrongly thought official photographers would have immortalized the buffet as well, I wasn’t able to bring back home too many pictures of the original banquet. Here, for the readers of Apicious' Epigones, I wish to reproduce only a third of it. My sister is coming to visit me in Edinburgh and I’ll welcome her with croissants in the morning and this super-lunch tomorrow. I hope she will enjoy this little remake:

• Artichaut et poivron grillé en huile from Peckhams [just go and get them!
• Hamon Serrano direcly from Malaga, from where my sister was flying [the only intruder]
• Veau mijoté aux pommes Gala Pane et cannelle [tender, sweet, refined]
• Pain Français from Peter's Yard [French bread is ravishing]
• Gâteau aux amandes et citron bio [a Sardinian recipe] 

Platter of starters	Personal portion
The French stew with apples	The lemon and almonds cake

As always, I used organic eggs for the spongy cake with lemon and almonds. And these eggs reminded me of another French poet, a surrealist, one of the finest to be utterly precise. Paul Eluard has a stile, which can be compared with the impossible geometries of Escher.

The poet in his fourties	Maurits Cornelius Escher, Relativity (1953)

I find this poem seducing since it works as a Russian doll. From the tiniest initial detail of the anonymous street in Paris to the revolutionary ending of the bird that is capable to knock over the entire town, all is enclosed chained in a vortex of unstoppable dynamism, a sort of atomic effect:

Dans Paris Dans Paris il y a une rue; Dans cette rue il y a une maison; Dans cette maison il y a un escalier; Dans cet escalier il y a une chambre; Dans cette chambre il y a une table; Sur cette table il y a un tapis; Sur ce tapis il y a une cage; Dans cette cage il y a un nid; Dans ce nid il y a un œuf, Dans cet œuf il y a un oiseau. L'oiseau renversa l'œuf; L'œuf renversa le nid; Le nid renversa la cage; La cage renversa le tapis; Le tapis renversa la table; La table renversa la chambre; La chambre renversa l'escalier; L'escalier renversa la maison; la maison renversa la rue; la rue renversa la ville de Paris.

English Translation In Paris, there is a street; in that street, there is a house; in that house, there is a staircase; on that staircase, there is a room; in that room, there is a table; on that table, there is a cloth; on that cloth, there is a cage; in that cage, there is a nest; in that nest, there is an egg; in that egg, there is a bird; The bird knocked the egg over; the egg knocked the nest over; the nest knocked the cage over; the cage knocked the cloth over; the cloth knocked the table over; the table knocked the room over; the room knocked the staircase over; the staircase knocked the house over; the house knocked the street over; the street knocked the town of Paris over.

Paris is indeed a bit like that: there is that kind of never-ending fizzy dimension of the spirit, at least in the centre, that enables you to feel yourself enormous and small, part of the all though insignificant, lost though massive. All the Parisian guests at the wedding were indeed all splendid, even the guy who, once drunk attempted to kiss me on a cheek, despite the disapprobation peek of his girlfriend and my total embarrassment: it is not true at all that Parisians have their nose in the air. French people are great! They are close to the Italians but with a different skill in taking with irony themselves seriously. Seriously, vive la France, down with stereotypes!

Eugene Delacroix, La liberté guidant le peuple

My further step has been London: the end of my marital trip. Aftr London I shall develop in detail some of the recipes I could only name: the olive tapenade, the apple stew and the lemon and almond cake.

to be continued...

A wedding in Paris (I): rules of Love

Weddings are serious matters (and somehow scary as well): a wed, etymologically speaking, is a promise. One aspect concerns ritualised tradition, the other is the personal interpretation each couple gives to it. Moreover, I have always seen marriages as a bet: you bet now that within thirty years nothing is going to change. I believe instead that each human being passes through a series of (r)evolutions which modify one’s approach to life: if you merry the bug it is not said you shall like the butterfly. Another thing that scares me is the idea of having an institution that has to seal a spiritual union: is the marriage aim whether prosperity, charity or profit? I am not entirely sure; I’m persuaded by the fact that marriage should be only a symbol of happiness. To marry and to be merry should merge together. Love is the only key to unlock the doors of anguish: love is an aimless donation of the Self.

Love and Psyche

On the contrary marriage, from maritare, means only to gain a maritus, that is to say a husband, since mas, maris, the root of maritus, means only male. This is linguistically sad: in our languages, though rich of nuances, marriage is basically linked to the idea of taking a dominant male, who has to substitute the father’s figure. The wealth of a newborn family is then called patrimony, from father/pater. If marriage were only a form of partnership, I would have accepted this overlapping feature – between interest and feelings - bluntly. The number of divorces in the West is actually pointing out that something is going wrong. I came to a feasible conclusion about this debacle.

Roman weddings: the statues faces are talking by themselves:
nowadays it is even worse, since we Italians lost the Empire,
all the rest have been silence.

Recently, I came across three different couples of dear friends: Isabel and John, Carol and David, and Mark and Cécile. They made me actually rethink part of my previous argument. I apologise if I cannot devote much space neither to Isabel and John nor to Carol and David, but it would be overpowering to speak satisfactorily about them as well. The core element of my observation is the following: dialogue is the only weapon with which men are able to manifest their feelings and emotions, since language is a sort of volatile yet cogent symbol. First, the mind and the heart speak a language of images, closer to dreams and fantasies. Secondly, each of us passes through a great deal of bigger and smaller traumas, this implies that each of us built up some defences to arm against what brought pain out. Thirdly, life choices might be driven by aims, yet love should ground itself on a more flexible basis. Forth, the other person’s presence shall lead us to express our best part.

Lady Catelyn Stark conversing with her husband Eddard Startk at Winterfell,
next to the Gods' tree (from Game of Thrones, season 1)

Each member of a couple has to work on what’s wrong inside his past to be born anew, polished, filtered, and light. Merely this purificatory path will lead both partners to be in a state of inner balance: they won’t need a complementary being who repairs their unsolvable leaks (due to losses, parental grudge, past defeats), but they actually wish a person to sail with. Being complementary (from completare, to integrate) implies we are not single entities, yet as individuals we cannot deny we are incomplete only when we are torn apart. Specular (from speculum, mirror) instead involves the idea of two separate being facing each other.

Specularity is not just mirroring himself,
yet mirroring the other within ourselves

Chemistry shall indeed provide that unconscious alchemy that brings out Love courage, yet only dialogue (and language) works as the medicament able to solve those misunderstandings and divergences that may rise. So, I noticed that both Mark and Cecilia have positively interwoven this level of communication, a dialectic bridge: there is no need nor space for incomprehension, bitterness and quarrel, every conversation is a maieutic and indomitable attempt to comprehend the other, to clarify the shadows, to follow and welcome reciprocal changing in Time, while accepting those features that won’t amend. Mark actually points out there are moments of tension and argue, obviously I believe him, but I also think they both keep open the channel of give-and-take understanding. These are the basis for lasting relationships, within or outside the boundaries of marriage.

Cosmic union of lovers: chemistry and stars

Mark and Cecilia bonds have been fastened under my eyes, silently and gently: at first by a close and torrential correspondence. Mark was on holiday in Edinburgh, as I casually was, and while walking on the beach of Portobello, he kept messaging with her, lost in a universe of cognitive assonances. I saw him ravished by a totalizing desire of fulfilment: his fight against windmills was over, his quest of knowledge found a Library of affection. 

The sandy promenade of Portobello, Edinburgh, Scotland:
a few cosy inns and pubs face the fiord waters and deliver
succulent meals.

As soon as I met Cecilia, I felt their union profited by a blessed and holy nature. Mark’s description was poietic almost enacting Reality: through his words he crafted to me both his love and the Real beneath this feeling. Cecilia’s beauty is not only evident, but just, a reward for the eyes or a Schopenhauerian answer to sorrow: beauty, he said, it what relives us from pain hammering to the door! Indeed the sacred knot of their spiritual lives fastened after years of individual roaming, struggle, compromise, incomprehension and darkness. If it isn’t karma, what else can it be? 

Only recently I am trying to study the eventual implications of karma:
if in some cases I couldn't found evidence for it, in some other occasions
I couldn't work something else out, if not karma, what can it be?

How all this rambling speech may be of some relevance? Oh yes, a weeding in Paris, as the title has anticipated. I almost forgot Paris, Balzac and Hugo will pardon me for my distraction. Mark and Cecilia decided to tie their knot in Paris, in the XIX arrondissement. In France a city hall is not only a bureaucratic functional place, it carries out the same legacy the religious spiritual life held by the monarchy before the 1789 Revolution. 

Town hall of the XIX arrondissement: beautiful, symmetrical, dignified

Being part of this community means being part of the values of the nation. It was a moving feeling of belonging. What came after was a French toast dans la mairie (town hall): I need here only to recall three things, a huge river of excellent Champagne, pyramids of Macarons and oasis of Algerian Mignardises, shaped and flavoured with violet petals: it was a sort of sweet North African dream. The patisserie that provided this luxurious palate entertainment is called Le palais du sultan in 38, Rue d’Aubervilliers, 19^e arrondissement. The sweet mysteries of the sultan’s secret chambers were all there on the feat trays: if you are from Paris, or just passing by, have a quick drop there.

Line of easy-goint macarons: have a look here for the recipe

Mignardises with violets

Along with other guests, mainly close mutual friends, we let the afternoon s’écouler, flow by. Someone had a nap (concealed by the excess of Champagne), others a coffee near to the Metro station called Laumière (line 5), where a sign advertised Lavazza coffee inside. I still keep some sugar cubes from that experience! I have this peculiar tendency to store apparently useless objects. Nonetheless, they often help me catching up with Proustian memories still alive within me. Objects do not mean anything to me, yet they are vehicles to recover what’s gone forever, as the past that won’t come back.

Sugar cube: still well preserved!

This sugar helped me remembering the entire scene: Marco, a chilly Italian guest, was wearing a gray suit with waistcoat and a coil woollen scarf. Simone instead had a magnificent make-up, the pencil gave a vibrant effect to her dark eyes. Her short hair was combed in a sensual wave, “soft as sin”, as George R. R. Martin would have put it down. An orange pin gave a casual touch to her gray smock. Most of the people were not sure whether it was the fading Sun increasing her beauty, or vice versa. Her boyfriend – Fabriz - commented on the fact that it was expensive (and environmentally unfriendly) to wrap every single sugar cube like that. It is very typical of him to assess and measure things with an ancestral taste for waste and worthiness: then he concentrated on the speech for the bachelor, since he was one of the two witnesses, along with Piero Stones. Lucy was drinking warmed up Calvados, with a sort of Andalusian nonchalance, magnificent in her red mane, cheerful in her smiling words wittily addressed to Simone. Personally, I was talking to Michael (Matt Dillon's look-alike) about how exhausting is Paris when you know in advance how beautiful corners you’re going to neglect. He is an art historian with a passion for wilderness: from one side there is his artistic taste, circumscribed by golden gothic frames, on the other his passion for the open sea, the steep cliffs, the desolate heart of thick forests.

The rooster, one of France symbols

And finally we moved to Les marmittes volantes, the flying caldrons, yet this is the following post: there I shall try to reproduce the wedding menu and I'll explain how to find it. Good luck to me! 

The logo of this casual and cosy tavern

...to be continued...