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.

Oh, How I Miss...

The requisite afternoon cafe and pastry.

At my favorite patisserie that we saw, where Jonathan discovered canneles,

And where this lovely lady greeted us in front.

Don't know why I like this so much: instructions in a bakery window.

Paris Street Art

Everyone is better turned-out in Paris, even the little porkpie'd stencil men.

Illustration from a reworked Little Red Riding Hood.

Jonathan blending in with locals.

Another children's book illustration in an art book shop on Quai de Valmy.

Le Love.

Paris Markets

We're back! I have so much to show you. First...


My absolute favorite part of Paris was the markets. Our apartment in le Marais was just a few blocks away from a major greenmarket. Sunday morning there reminded me that the world hasn't changed all that much: A fruitseller shooing away a little boy who was running his hand over all the oranges and ruddy-faced fishmongers chatting with basket-weilding old ladies.


Unlike our city farmer's markets, which feel quaint but inaccessible for a regular shopping trip, these rows and rows of stalls definitely seemed like the place to get fixings for Sunday supper as well as a bit of old-fashioned people-watching.


Maybe it's all an act, and the French folk all return home and pop open foil-lined TV dinners, but it just seemed inevitable that they would all be as inspired as we were to construct our own little Belgian still life (we couldn't get enough of those strange paintings at the Louvres).


Indeed, we spent a good part of our last day wandering the stalls, and we even put together a little charcuterie picnic for the plane. When they came around with airplane pasta, we just shook our heads and gestured to our parcels wrapped in butcher paper.