Welcome to All in the Detail... I am so glad
you are here!
If I have said it once (to you) I
have said it a dozen times (or more), I have a ‘thing’ for houses…. Right?
I have movies that I love BECAUSE OF THE HOUSE, for
example favorite movie homes, but not necessarily favorite movies, some of the
movies actually out right stink, but the setting – wow!
I have
Television Shows that I love BECAUSE OF THE HOUSE in the background, and ok, I
will admit it, I have people I love BECAUSE OF THE HOUSE in the background (if
I love their house – how could I NOT love them, right?)
Now with
a big thank you to Town & Country, we get
to take a back-stage pass tour of Ina Garten’s Paris apartment. It's earthy,
elegant, simple, and so Ina. Are you as excited as me?
The Paris Apartment
While the
apartment appears in the November 2008 Town & Country magazine, it still
radiates old-world charm with fresh touches to this day.
I have never
been to Paris and to be truthful, I have never had the desire to make it a
destination in my travels. However, after doing a bit of research on Ms.
Garten's Paris apartment and reading her interview regarding her love for Paris
with Fodor's Travel, my interest has been peaked!
Ina Garten fell in love with Paris decades ago when she and
Jeffrey visited as a young couple. They pitched a tent outside the city, she
made beef bourguignonne on a camping stove, and Jeffrey promised her that one
day they'd come back in style. Did they ever. In 2000, they bought a
pied-a-terre on the top floor of a Haussmann building in the 7th
Arrondissement, and they have been retreating there a few times a year ever
since. Ina says that every time they arrive, she feels as lucky to be in Paris
as she did on that first camping trip.
Cooking in Paris is different from cooking at home,
Ina explains. The pork is fattier, for example, and gelatin comes in sheets
instead of powder. She did not have to adjust to the produce, though — it's
reliably perfect.
Ina brought favorite cooking tools from home,
including All-Clad pots and pans, Lux kitchen timers and her KitchenAid.
Living on the top floor is great for views, but not so
great when you need to carry a La Cornue range up the stairs. The job required
four men. Ina says it took a while to get used to the range. "A stove is
like a musical instrument. You have to get a feel for it."
At first glance, Ina's floors look like tile, but the
pattern is actually painted on chevron wood floor planks.
Now,
listening to Ms. Garten chat on about Paris would make anyone desire a trip to
the French paradise!
An interview about Paris
with Ina Garten by Fodor’s Travel Guide
"I never had a day in Paris that I didn't
like," says Ina Garten, the personality behind the bestselling Barefoot
Contessa cookbook series and popular Food Network show. The "easy
entertaining" guru is so enamored with Paris that she bought an apartment
there five years ago and has since tasted her way through France's capital
city, producing a cookbook -- Barefoot in Paris -- along the way.
While the book covers French cooking at home, the
intrepid travel editors at Fodor's pined for the story behind the recipes --
the insider scoop on where to eat and what to buy. From organic produce markets
to bargain cookware shops, here's Barefoot Contessa's guide to Paris.
Fodor's Travel: What do you love about Paris?
Ina Garten: When I used to go there just on vacation for a week,
I'd always go to the street markets and I wished I had an oven, so I could just
take a chicken home and roast it. As Adam Gopnik said in one of his books,
"Everyday things in Paris are wonderful." It's walking down a
tree-lined street; going to the parks, the street markets, and the places to
buy bread; sitting out at a café; going to the museums; or just taking a walk
along the Seine. It's just an incredible city.
What street markets do you like to visit?
The one in front of my apartment on Boulevard Raspail.
It's called Le Marché Biologique. Three times a week I go to the Boulevard
Raspail market. It goes from Cherche-Midi to Rue de Rennes. Biologique means
organic. On Sundays, it's an organic market. There's a guy who makes potato pancakes.
They have all the produce and cheese and everything you can imagine in a
market, including an American guy who makes muffins.
Where do you live in Paris?
I live on the border of the 6th and 7th
arrondissement, between three things that I think are the best things in Paris:
the bread bakery Poilâne (8 rue du Cherche-Midi), the cheese shop Fromagerie
Barthélemy (51 rue de Grenelle), and Bon Marché (38 rue de Sèvres), a huge
specialty food store that's amazing. I'm also near Marianne Robic (39 rue de Babylone),
a great flower shop. It's great because there's everything you could possibly
want for giving a dinner party within a few blocks, and I love to give dinner
parties in Paris.
Are there any hotels that you would recommend?
I'm a pushover for Le Bristol, which
is just a deeply wonderful hotel. It's very French. I think Americans think of
French service as very haughty, but really good French service is very warm.
And I think that's what the Bristol is. It's one of the best hotels in the
world. The restaurant there [Le Bristol Restaurant] is fabulous. For lunch, on
a nice day, they serve lunch in the courtyard. It's just dreamy.
What are some of your favorite things to do during the
day?
Spend an afternoon at the flea market (Marché aux
Pouces, Porte de Clignancourt). Take a taxi there in the middle of the day,
have lunch at Le Soleil (109 avenue Michelet, 93 Saint-Ouen). It's a very
earthy French restaurant, very good. And it's right in the flea market. While
you're there, go to Muriel Grateau - pictured above (37 rue de Beaune), a discount outlet at the
flea market that has markdown tableware, mostly dishes and glasses.
Go to the Louvre. Go to the Museé Des Arts Décoratifs
(107, rue de Rivoli) and then have lunch at Café Marly out in the
sun. It's on the terrace of the Louvre. Walk down Rue de Rivoli to Galignani
(224 rue de Rivoli), an English and French bookstore. And then take your new
book to the Tuileries and sit down in one of those chairs and read.
Or have a picnic. Stop in to Gerard Mulot (76, rue de
Seine), a specialty food store right down the street from the Luxembourg
gardens. Get a picnic and take it into the Luxembourg gardens. For shopping,
there's a cookware store called E. Dehillerin that has every
imaginable piece of French cookware.
For cocktails and evenings out, what would you
recommend?
Au Bon Accueil, near
the Eiffel Tower. You go to dinner and after you walk out of the restaurant,
you're at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. It's just fabulous. And you just go
walk down the Seine after that.
Or for a Parisian café experience, Café de Flore is
really quintessential. My idea of the perfect meal in Paris is an omelet and a
glass of champagne at Flore. To just sit outside at 10 o'clock at night is
wonderful. You can just do that and go home satisfied.
Any suggestions for travelers who don't speak French?
Most people in Paris speak some English. I speak
enough French so that I could get by easily. But I think it's changed
dramatically in the past 20 years. Before, if people did speak English, they
wouldn't speak English to you. Now it's not really a problem. I find that
French people really are welcoming. My experience there has been lovely.
What about side trips from Paris? Any spectacular
itineraries to recommend?
Rent a car and go to Reims. That's where all the
champagne is made. It's a wow -- a total wow. And then you stay over, right up
the street, there's a hotel called Les Crayères -- it's
one of the most luxurious châteaus I've ever stayed in. You drive there on the
super highway and you drive back through champagne country. It's glorious.
Now wouldn't that make anyone want to take a side trip to Paris?
Especially, if Ina is going to be your tour guide!
