Done and Dusted

Returning the rental

Yes it’s true—I am officially a degreed boulanger from the esteemed Le Cordon Bleu! I may have passed by the skin of my teeth—which is pretty thin, but it is done! The usual suspects were on the exam—baguettes, croissants, the challah braiding—three ways— and finally, a country loaf. Easy peasy.

It all went off without a hitch except for the baguettes—our class must have collectively gotten some bad yeast because all of our baguettes were a little on the flat side and had no ears—the top part of the bread that splits and puffs up with extra crisp. Everyone in Group A was quite crestfallen —or crustfallen—depending on how you look at it—especially after sneaking down the hall to look at Group B’s springy and crispy baguettes—but we persevered. And my brioche braids—while not super elegant—passed the test. Very relieved.

Final Product

In celebration, my husband arrived the day of the exam, and we invited the whole class over for a potluck dinner and drinks at ours. I think I have told you that we have a very international class, and everyone brought something from their native country. We had Lebanese, Turkish, Indian, Spanish and Asian foods—and bonus—when you go to culinary school—people can cook! We ate like kings and it was a great evening. I will really miss these young people as they head on to Advanced Boulangerie and I head home. As a side note—Chef told us that in advanced class they actually grow their own starter and use it for all the sourdough breads going forward. I was really surprised, as I never see sourdough in France—or at least it is not labeled that way. Maybe another time I will get a chance to learn this new technique.

My class party

After our celebration night, Les and I decided to rent a car and drive into the countryside and stay at an old abbey that is now a hotel. Renting a car in Paris is a little bit of a trick as all rental agencies are housed in dingy parking garages and are not well signed. By the time we rode up and down in the dirty elevator of a nondescript parking garage for 15 minutes—we finally found the rental agency behind the stairwell, and got our car. The other thing about rental cars in Paris is that the agencies are only open a few hours a day—you are kind of on your own to figure out how to get the keys and find the car, as there is literally no one working after noon. And also, when you pick up the car you have to take all these photos of it to document any dents, dings or wheel scrapes, or they will assume you did it. Not sure who is inspecting the cars between rentals, but it seems like this should be their job.

In any event we finally got our car, negotiated the Paris traffic, and blazed a path to the French countryside. It was so fun and so liberating to have a car and be free to go where you want —not on public transportation! We drove south out of Paris and headed along some country roads—passing through many a small town until we reached our destination—L’Abbaye de Vaux Cernay. Wowsa! It was gorgeous! The abbey had been built by Cistercian monks in the 1100s—around the same time as Notre Dame—and it was in use as an abbey until the French Revolution when everyone was killed in the Reign of Terror and the state took it over. Hard to tell what they planned to do with it, as it is literally in the middle of nowhere, but at least they didn’t destroy it completely.

Today, it is a very luxurious hotel and spa and our room was wonderful. The ceilings were all groin vaulted and made entirely of stone, with enormous fireplaces everywhere.

The sitting area of our room!

There was not a whole lot to do there, and of course it rained the entire time, but the place was packed with people happy to sit by the fireplaces and play backgammon or other games, and while away the day. Super relaxing after LCB, and we did almost nothing except tour around in our little BMW, looking at all the chateaux in the area and eat a lot.

The abbey

The grounds

Pretty impressive

After a slow and relaxing two days at the Abbaye, we packed up and drove back to Paris and tried to turn in our rental car. Oh my. What a debacle. We were returning the car to the Louvre—I know that sounds ridiculous, but there is apparently a parking garage (never before seen by us) under the Louvre and it houses rental car agencies. Who knew? Anyway—in a burst of optimism—we planned our arrival to be within minutes of the hour that the car needed to be returned—thinking that we knew the way to the Louvre, and really, how hard could finding a giant parking garage be? Well—turns out—kinda hard.

We pulled up to the Louvre with five minutes to spare for drop off, and then—we drove around another hour looking for the garage—it was truly like the movie Vacation—Big Ben, Parliament— round and round we went. Past the Tuileries, up rue de Rivoli, through the middle of the Louvre where the pyramid is, and so on and so forth, over and over. For the life of us we could not find any entrance to a garage. And as you know in marital life—these situations get very tense very quickly with the driver (husband) blaming the navigator (wife) and the reverse.

I kept saying slow down and let me look for signs, while my husband kept yelling things like, you are not giving me any direction, and don’t you speak French? Ugh. It got ugly. Finally, we saw a tiny sign with a green P —for parking at the Louvre, and all we had to do to get to it was risk death by making an illegal left turn from the middle lane, head the wrong way into a tunnel with oncoming traffic roaring toward us, cut across two lanes of said traffic and make another left turn to enter the actual exit into the garage. All of which my husband was completely willing to do, just to get free of the car and maybe me. Meanwhile, I just shut my eyes, prayed my children would remember all my good advice, and braced myself for certain impact.

My husband, luckily kept his eyes open, ( I think) and exhibiting nerves of steel, floored the BMW, jumped the curb, and headed into the garage seconds before getting creamed by enraged French motorists heading straight for us. We had a moment of unintentional silence, and then we breathed a collective sigh of relief and let loose a little giggle at our success in the face of this adversity, only to then realize we had entered the delivery garage for the Louvre-not the civilian parking garage. We were surrounded by giant trucks unloading—I don’t know—priceless artifacts? It was slightly disconcerting, especially as no one paid us any never mind —either to help us or to tell us to get the heck out of the delivery zone.

Ultimately, in another relatively amazing driving exhibition by my husband—he reversed slowly out of the delivery area and made another quick left turn against the traffic, and into the proper garage where we safely returned the rental car—an hour late, but with no damage except to our frayed nerves. Per usual, the rental car agency was closed—at 1pm—for the rest of the day—but there was a box to drop off the keys, which we did, and headed home on foot, with our luggage merrily rolling along the cobblestones behind us. Lesson learned. When renting a car in France—be prepared to channel your inner Nascar driver, and maybe allot some extra time.

After our return from the country we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day by doing some home improvement. We woke up early and ambled down to southern Paris to another flea market I had heard about but not visited. It is way down in the 14th Arrondisement at the Port de Vanves. There was so much junk you wouldn’t believe! Vendors had set up tables all through this two street area that was blocked for pedestrian traffic only. There were old dishes and used tools and dolls with no heads— but amongst all the random stuff—there were some treasures to be found—like this incredible monkey lamp—that I got for 100 euros!

My husband thinks it’s ugly but I love it

We also found a little secretary, a chest of drawers, a rug and a painting—all for a few hundred euros and they delivered it all to us! This is my new favorite place to shop—I am going every weekend. Of course, it did start to snow a little while we were there, and we were freezing after an hour of walking around outside —forcing us to seek shelter in a local tabac—which was filthy dirty, but had decent coffee and central heating, so it all worked out.

Hanging with the locals

After getting all our treasures into the apartment, we moved everything around and now they look like they have been there forever.

Got this chest for next to nothing

By the way, it is still raining, or sometimes snowing in Paris, and the river is higher every day! Getting a little worried it might overflow its banks. There is currently a flood warning, so we are keeping a close eye.

The tide is high!