On March 13 I flew from White Plains, NY to Detroit in order to meet up with my Mom for our flight to Paris. White Plains is only about 30 minutes from where I live & work and it’s much easier to go there rather then schlep to Newark or JFK. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I hate driving more than 20 minutes or so at a time and since I never want to take anyone to Newark or JFK, I will never ask anyone to take me there. End of that story.

The flight to Paris was fairly uneventful. Northwest runs an A330 on the DTW-CDG route and the seats all have their own entertainment systems, which is half nice and half annoying, because if you’re not wearing headphones you can hear what everyone else is watching/listening to. I didn’t sleep very well on the flight but I snapped back together once we arrived in Paris. We quickly cleared passport control and made our way in to the city via ‘Les Cars Air France’ a.k.a. the Air France Bus from CDG to the Arc de Triomphe. We dilly-dallied around the hotel for 45 minutes until our room was ready, then we dropped off our things and headed out for the day.
Walk, walk, walk. First stop? Lunch! Granterroirs was on our list of places to try and since it was in the general direction of where we wanted to go for the day, we did! Granterroirs is a restaurant/gourmet food shop and they sell a wide variety of gourmet ingredients from all over France.

It was cozy and very busy when we arrived but there was a small table for two just waiting for us. Mom had caballaud with vegetables (carrot, zucchini, perhaps summer squash) in a phyllo pouch with a beurre blanc sauce and salad. I had deliciously marinated salmon (raw, essentially like thickly sliced gravlax but not salty) drizzled with hazelnut oil and a nice green salad. With a little Polaine bread on the side, it was a wonderful start to the afternoon.

In our jet-lagged state, we knew we wouldn’t be up for anything intellectually challenging so we designated our first day as a shopping day. After lunch, we meandered over to Printemps to pick up some of the things we’d planned on buying, like fancy French face cream and new Longchamp totes. La, la, la I love Printemps. We spent a couple of hours there and then took a nice long walk back to the Champs Elysees.

We stopped at Paul to pick up a pain aux raisins for Mom and a cafe creme and croissant for me. We back to the hotel to enjoy our treats, relax a bit before dinner, and plan for the next day. Relaxing was very relaxing indeed and we decided we were too pooped and not hungry enough to go anywhere major for dinner. We decided to have a picnic in the room, so we headed down the champs a bit to get sandwiches at Pomme de Pain. The last stop of the night was Laduree. The late hour meant there was a limited selection of pastries and macarons to choose from and we settled on a tarte tatin and three small macarons: cassis violette, cafe, and caramel au beurre sale.

I’ve been back for a week now (sad) and I’ve recovered but I haven’t yet unpacked for the most part. I really need to do laundry. I’ve started to put my trip photos up on flickr, but I’m not nearly done editing and I’ve realized that if I try to write the trip into one post, it’s going to be exhausting for me to write and for you to read. I’ll try to break it up over the next few days.

This weekend was very fun. On Saturday afternoon we worked on our taxes (not fun) but then went out for a nice dinner at The Dressing Room in Westport. I’m one of those people who has a hard time switching orders once they’ve latched on to something good and I’m afraid there’s no exception this time. We’ve dined at The Dressing Room three times and each time I’ve ordered the pan roasted trout, but this time it was accompanied by baby bok choy instead of roasted brussels sprouts. Sunday morning we headed into NYC early to meet Kate and Alex for brunch at Enid’s. I had huevos rancheros for breakfast because who doesn’t love eggs and beans in the morning? After that and about four cups of coffee, we were ready to meet the day. Kate and Alex showed us around Brooklyn for a while, then they headed off to run errands and we made our way back to Manhattan. We lollygag’d around Union Square for a bit. The weather was clear but cold and there was a lot of people out and about. We listened to a fun impromptu show by The Crooners and watched the dogs in the dog run for a good twenty minutes. Then we headed up to Madison Square Park to meet Eric and Tanvi for some Shake Shack action. Eric, Jeremie, and I had been there before but this was Tanvi’s first visit. We waited in line for a little over an hour before we placed our order, which isn’t too bad as Shake Shack lines go. We were all pretty darn cold by the time we got our food but Shake Shack is so tasty it was ok.

That’s all for now. Paris is coming.

I’m having trouble figuring out exactly how to write this because there’s so much to say. That’s my fault for not updating in about six weeks. I’ve been trying not to use the computer too much at home since I’m on it all day at work but I need to make some time for regular updates. I promise I’ll try once I get back from my next trip! I’m off to Paris on Tuesday and I’m very excited. Here’s a few works and lots of pictures.

Since the last update I’ve been to Ann Arbor once (hello, Zingermans) and to Grand Rapids twice (hello Mom & Dad). I celebrated my birthday in Grand Rapids

29th birthday

with the most fantastic cake

strawberry glace from the Grand Plaza hotel

Last weekend was Jeremie’s birthday and we celebrated with a nice dinner at home with

seven layer cake. I did not bake it.

Jeremie’s sister, Adena, visited us for the weekend and we had a very relaxing time. On Sunday before Adena headed back to school, we baked hamentaschen.

apricot and strawberry. yum!

I used my Auntie Na’s dough recipe and they turned out great. It’s a very sticky dough and the hamentaschen stay together well and are very tender. Just how I like them.

Time to get some sleep. I’ll take lots of pictures in Paris and I’ll have much to tell you in a week!