Restaurant Review: Lasserre Paris

I bet the snobbiest restaurant in Paris was booked to the max with Russian tourists for Valentine's Day. Restaurant Lasserre, just off Avenue Montaigne and near the Grand Palais, serves exceedingly expensive French Haute Cuisine involving foie gras, cepe mushrooms, things infused with truffles, and the requisite touch of caviar.

But the most exciting dish (in my adolescent sweet tooth's opinion) is the "Vacherin aux fruits exotiques" -- translation: "meringue cake filled with exotic fruits." Or you can have one of the adorable elderly male waiters wheel over an elegant silver cart and prepare you a Crêpes Suzette for two people.

As if the whole scene weren't nauseatingly Valentine's Day enough, the ceiling of the dining room literally opens up to reveal the beautiful night sky above you. I guess the words of Martha Stewart come to mind when I think of institutionalized displays of romance: it's a good thing. But I personally spent Valentine's Day with my two girlfriends, burning incense, cursing off men, and eating Italian amaretto cakes. But I'm sure Martha would say, "That's a good thing too."

A Screen Memory

My Canadian friend living in Paris usually dates people whom she meets through reputable connections, preferably at black tie functions. I was astonished to discover that she recently pulled a creeper move straight from my toolbox of 'meeting men' tricks.

She exchanged stolen glances with an attractive gentleman seated in the next box at the Comédie Française. When the curtain rose, she left her phone number dangling on a grocery receipt at the edge of her seat. He succeeded in noticing the strategically placed errant paper, and they exchanged text messages, and they met, and they dated. And they had long romantic lunches in cozy Parisian bistros -- and even longer strolls through idyllic Parisian parks.

But two months into the relationship he left his cell phone on the café table while he went to the toilettes, and it began to ring. She glanced at the caller ID to read the name "Poupée" (translation: "doll"; a.k.a. "baby doll"; aka "my baby doll"; a.k.a. "my other lover"; a.k.a. "my other girlfriend"; a.k.a. the owner of this iPhone is a Wanker of the Week).

Maybe true love is not found in random theatre boxes. But as Edith Wharton would tell you, the other woman definitely completes the scene.

Smarming

I cut right from India to the land of the colonizers themselves. During my weekend in London I took advantage of that dry British humor by passing my time with a gaggle of Etonian boys. My host resided alone in the drafty townhouse of his parents, studying law by day and drinking G&Ts by night. His parents visit him on occasion, bearing sausages from their hog farm.

On this particular evening of "drinks with a view to dinner" (in the words of my well-bred host), the dinner menu involved the most surprisingly to-die-for dessert that I've had in years. In Britain people use the slightly unappetizing word "pudding" to refer to any form of dessert. And this night's pudding involved a steamed sponge cake soaked in Treacle, accompanied by a whipped cream. There is something about Treacle that fails to disappoint. It is a golden syrup laced with lovely soporific effects. I slept soundly in the drawing room, visions of Aloysius dancing in my head.

Film Review: It's Complicated

The Nancy Meyers film, It's Complicated, is the story of a typical American family: a husband and wife have three beautiful children, they live happily ever after in the upper-class tranquility of Santa Barbara, and once the kids reach adolescence, the husband and wife are fed up of each other and go through a messy divorce ... then the husband remarries a high maintenance and physically fit thirty-year-old ... meanwhile, the middle-aged wife's baking career thrives (in the vein of the Ina Garten empire) and she spends her nights alone.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin play the estranged couple still forced to see each other on graduation and wedding days. But they manage to take another stab at it, as they find themselves having a passionate affair, thereby turning the whole familial dysfunction in a whole new direction. Steve Martin is splashed in for the amusing romp, which includes an unfortunate incident between a Skype camera and Alec Baldwin's 'bald win,' so to speak.

No matter how Technicolor and Hollywood it gets, It's Complicated rings at the truth of divorce: for a while it seems tragic to all parties involved, but once people move on, the family can never go back to those fond memories of childhood vacations and cozy movie nights. The love is still there -- it's just different.

Pimp of the Week: Graydon Carter

Over the sea of Botoxed brows and candy-coiffed diners at a posh restaurant, I spotted the billowing plumage of none other than Graydon Carter. The Vanity Fair editor-in-chief exudes laid-back New England suavity, even though he is a political, literary, and cultural king of Manhattan. He also dabbles in restaurateurism and co-owns New York's cozy-clubby celebrity dining spot, the Waverly Inn, along with Midtown's old school Monkey Bar.

As Carter was exiting the restaurant, I dashed up to him like the desperate young pseudo-writer that I am and handed him my email address on a scrap of paper. All I could muster up to say was, "I'm a huge fan -- I'm a starving writer," but then I corrected myself, "Well, clearly I'm not quite starving, but you know..." I told him about the unpublished novel I wrote and let him go on his way. You never know when a humiliating experience will spin into gold. Perhaps Graydon Carter will be my Rumpelstiltskin.

40 Thieves & An Engagement!

On a recent trip to Venice, my sister and I found ourselves eating one of the most delicious meals of our lives at Osteria Ai 40 Ladroni, or The Forty Thieves. It is an exceptional restaurant not only for its to-die-for squid ink pasta dish but also for the fact that it's where my sister got married.

There was a charming and virile-looking Italian waiter serving us. And my sister is famous for her Strega-Nona-like love of pasta, so she turned to me midway through the meal and said, "This waiter is cute, right? And he could serve me the most delicious homemade pasta, and he lives in Venice, a beautiful city." Since her horoscope had recently informed her that she would meet the love of her life that day, one thing led to another ... and before we knew it, Maurizio (as he was called) was announcing to the packed room of Italian families: "I present to you my wife!" Everyone was clapping and laughing and drinking limoncello.

Enough with the emotionally unavailable men -- here's to Italian princes bearing plates of pasta and seafood delicacies. Though Maurizio doesn't have an email address, he promised to do some email writing to my sister by way of the restaurant's office. After all, unfulfilled love affairs are usually more romantic.

"an ungarnished colonial"

The excessively civilized Caffe Florian, overlooking the Plaza San Marco, is the Venetian equivalent to the eternally posh Café de Flore on Paris' Left Bank: there are waiters in white jackets and it is generally inadmissible to look or act like a tourist (though tourists inevitably abound).

Gauche Things to do in a Chic (Elitist) European Café:

1. Bringing a Starbuck's thermos and telling your waiter, "Fill it up!"

2. Wearing sweatpants, or any garment involving an elastic band.

3. Taking a picture of anything, especially your waiter's head as he is serving you.

4. Informing other diners that you find the décor a bit outdated -- and that you think the IHOP on Route 1 has a much more contemporary flair.

5. While en route to the WC, pilfering large quantities of wrapped house chocolates (customarily served as an accompaniment to the espresso drinks).

6. Exclaiming in horror, "10 Euros for a Coke!"

Wanker of the Week: Apicius Restaurant Encounter

While dining on frogs' legs at Apicius Restaurant, one of the most elegant and hidden-away culinary delights in Paris, a mysterious man caught my eye. He seemed bored at his table of stuffy, well-coiffed, Chanel-dipped elderly relatives. After an hour of exchanging glances, I made an exit for the ladies' room -- he brushed past me in the hallway and I slipped a piece of paper into his hand. It was a perfectly timed encounter between two creepers.

Moments later we were texting, and a few days later we were doing the standard email writing procedure: he is a banker, his family has a house in Paris, he thinks New York is a wonderful city, he is not one of those 'emotionally unavailable men,' he is enamored of my long hair, and OH, one more thing -- casually, at the end of the email he mentioned:

"What else ???? I'm married (no point in hiding that !!)."

So maybe I didn't find true love at Apicius, but I certainly found a Wanker of the Week (no point in hiding that !!), and the chocolate soufflé was delicious.

Restaurant Review: Cookies Cream in Berlin

Berlin is the new European hotspot for starving artists to commune, collaborate, and get crunk. But there is something so American about the post-Communist commercial build-up that makes Berlin look like Denver, Colorado. I searched high and low for its vibrant, seething underbelly of grittiness and avant-garde art.

Even though I was too tired to engage in Berlin's raging underground nightlife, I was able to enjoy its hidden-away culinary delights. One highbrow vegetarian restaurant, Cookies Cream, is concealed down an alleyway, amidst dumpsters and abandoned chandeliers. I had to go through the back door of the popular nightclub, Cookies, walk through the deserted coatroom, and mount the stairs to finally arrive at the oasis of non-carnivorous delights. The experience called to mind Manhattan's chic hot dog and cocktail joint du jour, PDT (Please Don't Tell), which can only be accessed through a phone booth inside the dive hot dog shop next door.

But at Cookies Cream in Berlin I feasted on vegetarian marvels such as "Elder pear barley with cream of pea and fennel salad," "Potato-Leek-Gratin with beetroot and marsalla foam," and I swear it was delicious (even if compared with meat-eaters' food). And dessert was delicious: caramelized sour cream tart with peanut ice cream (divine) and gingerbread mousse with marinated blackberries. Plus, there was a lesbian-gay night at the club downstairs, so the ambiance was filled with the cozy homosexual vibes that give such good energy.

The Showcases

I had a true Bavarian Christmas with my endlessly entertaining German cousins. They are my third cousins, so technically they are considered "kissing cousins," which is an expression that either denotes "distant cousins familiar enough to kiss" or "cousins that are distant enough in relation that it is not the end of the world to kiss them." Either way, the expression is gauche, and probably not the best holiday dinner-table conversation.

After we celebrated Christmas with a roast goose at an old-school Bavarian golf, polo, and hot-air-ballooning club, my cousins and I continued to the bar where many of the German guests had brought their dogs with them during after-dinner drinks. One older man and his wife, who seemed Russian in temperament, had two Chihauhaus in tow (very 'Paris Hilton' and un-German of them). When the couple exited the lounge, my cousin asked, "What kind of dog is that?" and the portly man responded, "A very expensive kind." When we commented on the tiny dog's pink diamond-encrusted collar, the owner responded, "Yes, the collar was more expensive than the dog."

I guess on Christmas some people have kissing cousins to keep them company, and some people have their blonde wives and very small dogs.

Coquelicot Boulangerie in Montmartre

In my Parisian boulangerie-hopping, I recently went to Coquelicot in Montmartre for a delicious and cozy brunch. It was the first snow this year, so my sister's croque monsieur was a perfect plate of French comfort food, made with ultra-crusty rustic bread, a hint of succulent Béchamel sauce inside, and a covering of earthy gruyere cheese. It was a Parisian's version of the morning-after eggs Benedict in Manhattan. And with our steaming bowls of café au lait, my sister and I could not have asked for more.

Coquelicot is not only my favorite purveyor of neighborhood baguettes but it is also a homey atmosphere where you can escape from the sometimes-brutal unfriendliness prevalent in the more elegant (but less authentic) neighborhoods of Paris.

Bride Kidnappings

The shopping experience at the Nespresso boutique in Paris, or in any city across the world, is comparable to a mind-numbingly mass-market-high-design Apple Store extravaganza (except that you can't reserve online with a 'Genius Bar' at the Nespresso store). It's partly a chaotic game of waiting in the excessively long lines, and partly an espresso-themed high museum of art.

I just find it absurd that all these Europeans insist upon making their daily coffee in these excessively well-designed little machines that only function with these nipple-like metallic capsules in all the colors of the rainbow. It's very wasteful, and it epitomizes a fundamental flaw of many French people: they are obsessed with having everything (especially if it's food-related) 'just their way' and custom-made for them if possible. But at the same time they are hyper-critical of the 'wasteful, consumeristic, fat, un-eco-conscious Americans.'

So at the end of the day they are hypocrites drinking espresso and throwing tin capsules into the Seine River, while hoping to compensate for their political obscurity, by drinking coffee in their antique apartments out of extremely overpriced and mass-produced espresso machines, just like every other idiot-bourgeois Tom, Dick, and Harry in Hong Kong, Hawaii, or New Hampshire.

"Chicken Cooked In Coca-Cola"

In a surprise birthday party for a ravishing French-Italian woman, the sangria and champagne cocktails flowed, her husband presented her with some lovely diamond-sapphire jewels, and her two pretty pre-pubescent children looked on at the spectacle. For the Spanish-themed soirée I wore a bolero-inspired sweater and red tights, so it was a bit of Almodovar in Paris. We ate delicious tapas (sardines, octopus, peppers, meatballs, and manchego abounded), and then there was the requisite dancing portion of the night.

I put my red tights to the test and did a few jump splits. The more middle-aged women were aghast, and perhaps a bit put-off by my limber dancing habits. But when I exited the party, the hostess/birthday girl was delighted: she thanked me for "l'ambiance."

For a good social atmosphere, it is necessary that everyone let loose and open up a bit. I just hope that by the time I turn 30-something, my husband and kids will be there watching me eat meringue-filled raspberry-chocolate cake and observing as my friends do ridiculous things on the dance floor.

Fancy Pants!

Apparently in France Halloween has been canceled. A principal at a grade school in Provence was put off by the concept of children sporting "fancy dress in the classroom," especially "when inspired by some ridiculous foreign novelty."

Luckily for me I spent Halloween at a soirée in Normandy in a picturesque town famous for its namesake cheese. In the courtly confines of a spooky Tudor mansion, I gallivanted with a group of Frenchies who were quite cozy with the prospect of getting decked out and disguised; there was a robed man in a Venetian mask dressed as a character from Eyes Wide Shut, Jack the Ripper, the inevitable sexpot sorcière, and a 'Mother Christmas' who drank a bit too much champagne and was less than merry the following morning.

No matter what the snobby traditional French school mistresses say, Halloween translates easily to foreign cultures: masks + cocktails + wigs = garden of earthly delights.

"I'd rather buy jewelry!"

A friend of mine decided to detox from a year of college drinking by spending his year after university living the life of a monk. He took a position as a history teacher at a secluded boarding school in the mountains of Switzerland, far from anything but lovely landscape and a lot of homemade cheese. He awakes at six o'clock every morning for a refreshing run in the alpine air with the basketball team, and the purity of his day only increases from there.

For a change of pace, he had a jaunt in Paris, and due to his modest monastic salary, he decided that CouchSurfing.org would be the most economical of accommodations. This website connects desperate travelers with random hosts all over the world who offer their couches for free, in the hopes of meeting new people and spreading good karma. Sounds officially creepy to me.

He ended up staying with a 35-year-old Parisian guy who did not have a couch. Apparently the bed was not big enough for the two of them, because in the dark of the night my friend awoke to an unpleasant surprise: his French host was treating him to an unsolicited 'Foot Job.' He spent the remainder of the night in his sleeping bag and returned to Switzerland with a renewed respect for Swiss cheese.

A Grab Bag

My friend arrived in Paris ready for a romance of epic proportions. Unlike the typical American who arrives in Paris and conscientiously avoids baguette and butter (out of an irrational fear of carbohydrates and cholesterol), she was ready to have her pain au chocolat, and eat it too.

She quickly met the perfect candidate to sweep her off her feet: a handsome, worldly celebrity, whom she knew during her childhood. He attempted to turn on the charm, invited her to his pimped-out penthouse overlooking the Bastille, and flooded her with tritely alluring text messages like, "You've certainly become a beautiful young woman..."

But it turns out that over the years he not only gleaned international fame but also got married and had a child. Luckily for this Wanker of the Week character, his wife is also a worldwide celebrity, so while she is on location in Texas taking care of their baby, he is free to be on location in France taking care of his own infantile issues.

Only White Marble

In Paris' famous Drouot district, art experts, collectors, crooks, and coutured ladies make for a delightful mix of characters. At a pre-auction lunch, I met the Parisian version of Hugh Hefner, an 80-year-old paintings expert who is famous for his African art collection and infamous for his affairs with women.

Over the years he has been married three times and had affairs with everyone from singer Edith Piaf, to French novelists, to the wives of Mexican presidents. Now he is settling down with a 24-year-old half-Senegali-half Cheyenne-Indian. He is obsessed by the stories of Colonel Custer and the American Civil War and claims that his new fiancee "has a beautiful scalp," which struck me as an odd choice of words.

In classic pimp form, he refused to finish eating his plate of codfish, declaring, "It has no taste!" and promptly ordered a clafouti instead.

"What A Dame."

In a dinner at the home of a rarefied 95-year-old British woman in the elegant Recoleta section of Buenos Aires, I was delighted by the sweet hobbling hostess' sense of festivity. Every Wednesday evening she whips together a four-course affair for a handful of guests.

As I guided her from sherry in the parlor to soup in the dining room, she exclaimed, "You'll have to help me walk—not because I am tight, but because I can barely see!" Then, over dessert she surveyed her guests: "I don't know about you, but my wine is a bit nasty!"

Dinner conversation rambled from mattress shopping, to cattle selling, to breathalyzer tests. In summertime in Argentina the police routinely stop drivers to test their blood alochol levels. But now that it is cold outside, this phenomenon peters out and all returns to semi-drunken normalcy.

Coffee For One

Salum has managed a local gourmet ice cream shop ever since he moved to America from Mozambique nine years ago. He lives above the ice cream store and has worked nonstop 365 days a year for the past 9 years. At 7am he reports to duty making the ice cream from scratch, at 4:30 in the afternoon he takes his two-hour break (during which time he goes for a ten-mile run so as "not to become lazy and waste time watching TV"), and then he returns to work for the night shift. He saved enough money during the past 9 years to finally return home to Mozambique and retire.

Recently he invited me back to the kitchen where he concocts the elegantly novel ice cream flavors like "Burnt Sugar," "Khulfi," and "Mexican Chocolate." He gave me a taste of the fresh mint for his newest summer recipe. Near the giant silver mixers and cartons of candies he had tacked a calendar to the wall where he marks the number of days until he gets to fly home to a life of sunshine, relaxing, running, swimming, and hopefully marrying the woman of his dreams.

His story makes me feel ashamed of my own laziness. Maybe I should be working furiously and saving up so that in 9 years I can start living the dream. But I think that living the dream is more of a perennial way of life than a climax to a story.

Oh No! I am lost again!

In Woody Allen's early-90s divorce epic, Scenes from a Mall, Allen plays a sell-out lawyer who deals sneakers to sports teams. He breaks the news of his multiple infidelities to his wife—on their 16th wedding anniversary—in a shopping mall—over frozen yogurt. In short, he is in true Wanker of the Week form. Bette Midler plays the wife, a sell-out celebrity shrink who recently published a book promoting 'the joys of marriage in an age of divorce.'

After outbursts of panic and violence regarding the division of assets, a series of margaritas brings the couple back together. But then the wife confesses that she too had an affair. The derogatory Los Angeles stereotypes abound: malls, Mexican drinks, sushi, frozen yogurt, Woody Allen's Mimbo-ish ponytail, and the way that, in the end, material goods (in the form of trendy and hideously 1990s outfits) bring the feuding husband and wife back together.

Today at the kiosks in the mall a salesman of vaguely Middle Eastern descent asked my mother, "Excuse me, ma'am...but where did you purchase your eyes?" It was the pick-up line of creeper-dead-sea-hand-cream-salesmen if I ever heard one.