More Paris - the Brocante

I've been saving these pictures because this was both J's and my favorite part of the trip. The Clignancourt Brocante (which I think just means "bric-a-brac") is like if all of, say, the Garment District consisted entirely of semi-permanent stalls, each of which having a very specific focus. Such as my favorite category, old kitchen stuff.

I think J took this one. He knows much more about photographizing.

And, the bestest thing that I was so delighted to find out even exists: glass French rolling pins.


Yeah. They are glass because it's pretty, and also because you can fill the rollers with hot water and cork the ends, so they become hot and make the dough easier to roll out. I want the white one in the top row with the little flower details.




Makes me wish I were focused enough to be a collector of some really specific, too-beautiful to be truly useful item. I can see it happening with the rolling pins, or maybe with the copper gelatin molds that were everywhere. They'd look so pretty all on one wall.

We also became a little obsessed by vintage French postcards like this one:

from merci-facteur

We loved that they just wrote one little line on the back. It seems that just getting a picture in the mail was the special thing. The cancelled stamps on the picture side make them even prettier.

One thing they really get right at these flea markets is the food. At the end of the lane at Clignancourt, we found the perfect, bustling, amber light-filled bistro we had been searching for the whole week.

Everything was perfect: brusque waitress who dropped everything, a bottle of perfectly adequate wine, and chicken and vegetables in a Staub pot. I still can't get over the simple, hot wonderfulness of this lunch.

I want to feel all the time like I felt walking out of this place: tipsy, warm, and so happy.


At the other market we stumbled into (snuck might be a better verb... we were supposed to pay 8 euros to get in), there was a corner with hot chocolate brewing in some Charlie and the Chocolate Factory contraption, and an oyster stand directly across from that.


I'm so glad J insisted on getting a half dozen. We sat on a bridge over the canal and sipped Muscadet out of plastic cups.