A new decade....

Not just a new year!... A brand new decade!

I have been flying a lot lately and busy with restaurant work in between trips.... I unfortunately have not had much time to write anything, but I promise I will very soon...

Happy new year to all.... May this new decade be better and less painful than the last one.... may we see the end to suffering, disease and hunger throughout the world and finally enter an era of harmony between people.....

Falalalala etc....

By God, By Golly, it's time for.......

a meaningful Christmas!!!

Happy holidays to all....

--Emmanuel

Paris sous la neige...

Snow covered Paris!!!

Arrived in Paris yesterday morning in the middle of a snow storm.... The weather is gray, gloomy, humid and the wind goes right through the bones.... People are bundled up and it seems Paris has been invaded by Eskimos...

The whole country has been placed under a winter storm alert and it snowed so much that some people got stuck in their cars overnight on the highways while trying to commute back home....

Unbelievable....

Le jardin des Tuileries


In front of the Église Saint Eustache

Good news!!!

Tonight the Salt Lake City police called me to inform me that my vehicle had been recovered and was "drivable"....

I called my neighbor immediately and had him drive me over to Murray, about 15 miles south from my house, where my car had been found... It had been abandoned on the remote corner of an empty commuter parking lot, right between the train tracks and the highway. I was really relieved to find that it had not been stripped and that the wheels were still on.

The person who stole my truck turned out to be a complete moron and left his bag inside the cabin, complete with some of his personals, his driver's license and some of his sister's things.... Also left in the truck were a few stolen power tools... The truck has been slightly damaged on the front end and the cabin has been trashed.... There were cigarette butts everywhere and cigarette burns here and there...The cops took a bunch of pictures of the truck inside and out and then turned it back over to me...

All things considered I am a lucky bastard and am very thankful for it all.... my truck was found, is structurally intact in essence and will be drivable after a few repairs....

Everything turns out to be good!

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels?

Or evil, worthless sons of bitches... that's more like it....

Just came back from France the other day... while I was gone, my neighbor Kevin was working on a few of my truck's problems...

Someone had the nerves to come steal my truck that night from his driveway, right by his bedroom window, just a few yards from my house....

I was so very pissed off the entire week end that I could barely speak or act rationally..... Stayed locked inside my house....

Now that came back down to earth and the urge to shoot someone is gone, I have to go back to my everyday life and try to get a new vehicle as soon as possible....

I am still beyond pissed.... and feel utterly violated and dispossessed....

My friend Eric is so right, so spot-on.... so many people out there looking for a handout.... so many losers and second-handers.... Salt Lake City is unfortunately no exception with all its crystal meth crazed white trash and cholos....

It's appalling, plain and simply.........

Great things to to with turkey livers....

Turkey livers are great.... especially when they come from birds that grew up on a local, all natural farms.... I like them pan seared, deglazed with sherry vinegar and thrown on bitter greens such as frisée and Arugula...

Or pan seared with sea salt, pepper and fresh sage, then served hot on fresh arugula with just a little bit of olive oil.... nothing else

The problem is, not everyone around me seems to agree with me when it comes to liver... Seems like people in this country have been traumatized with a bad serving of chopped liver and onions at some point of their youth..... can't blame them, really...

One cool thing to do with livers however is to make a quick liver pâté... I made one the other night, instead of wasting the livers in a classical turkey gravy (our thanksgiving gravy was made with turkey roast drippings to start with.... no livers needed), using only fresh shallots, garlic, thyme and sage, Apple Jack and of course, the infamous livers..... It was a quick 30 minute ordeal and the result is quite impressive to be honest.... Eric tried it on mini grilled tartines with caramelized quince and.... a 16year old scotch, of all things!!!!

A peaty scotch and a liver pâté tartine.... Who would have thought???

And how cool is that???

Photo By Eric... Made at home!!!!

Update on the grande dame with a facelift

My dear friend Gian Carlo just sent me an email with the following quiz:

"From 1925 to 1936,an automobile manufacturer use the Tour Eiffel as a giant billboard,
putting his name in giant, luminous letters on the four sides of the monument.
Who was it? ...Citroen.....Renault....Peugeot...????"

A very good question indeed.... It was Monsieur André Citroën who, in 1925 had the "luminous" idea to advertize his automobiles by using the Eiffel tower as a humongous billboard....

The Citroën factories were located barely one kilometer from there, on the same side of the river seine... The place is now called the Parc André Citroën...

Nevermind the kick ass light show..... the light display in 1925 must have been downright stunning!

Thank you GC!!!!

Thanksgiving Madness

Once again it is insanely late at night (or very early morning) and here I am facing my computer again in order to create a post that actually makes sense.... We have been very busy with my flight attendant schedule and the restaurant lately, and Eric has been literally submerged trying to face the daunting amount of work caused by our new projects....

I have been blogging lately, however but for the benefit of the Paris Bistro.... Yep, Eric and I turned our elusive Paris Bistro newsletter into a much more exciting, fun-to-create, communication tool.... Check out the Paris Bistro Blog here.... We have been cooking, shooting pictures, harvesting the very last of our garden herbs, taking more pictures, blogging...... Feedback is always much appreciated! Always feel free to comment or become a blog's follower....

Flying to Paris tomorrow and will have a bit of down time... I will be posting from there...

Time for a hot date with my bed... It is going to be a short night again!

A 120 Year Old Grande Dame with a facelift

The Eiffel Tower just celebrated its 120 years old this year....

To celebrate the event, the "Grande Dame" is being given a new "facelift", a massive paint job as well as an updated lighting system...

In addition, every night between between now until Christmas, the most visited monument in the world is putting on a light show at the top of every hour, from 8PM to 11PM.
Check it out!



Quite a show indeed....

Paris to Honolulu to Paris in less than a week

Not too much to write about today.... Just got back from Paris and am dead tired after a LONG, endless flight.... going to check out shortly!

As if it was not tiring enough, I am flying to Honolulu HI tomorrow, returning thursday morning and yet flying back to Paris on Friday!!!!

Damn! I must be crazy!

Honolulu is definitely NOT my favorite place in the Pacific for a plethora of reasons and we stay in Waikiki, in one butt ugly tower hotel with a parking lot view.... quite exotic indeed!!!! Yet I must confess however that it beats staying in equally crappy hotels in Detroit, Hartford and the likes.... I have plenty of admin work for the restaurant and besides, I can go around wearing shorts to watch trashy Japanese and white middle class America max up their over-the-limit credit cards at cheesy souvenir malls and graze "en masse" at Ihop and Red Lobster!!!! HAHAHA!!!!

Feel the glamour......

Quick update while I am waiting for my flight briefing on Tuesday morning: It is snowing outside for the first time of the year... the weather outside is ungodly, the traffic on the highway is an utter mess.... Am I going to miss Utah for the next 48 hours? NAAAHH!

Happy Birthday Eric!!!!

Today is your special day. This coming up year is your special year with lots of exciting projects coming to fruition!

I am very proud, grateful and privileged to know that you call me your best friend....

From the bottom of my heart I wish you the very best...

With much Love and Admiration.....

Eman

Then and now...

The other day, Eric took me to the Utah State Archives where we both had the privilege to attend a lecture on the development of our neighborhood (the SLC East bench) between 1860 and the 1930's. The lecture was presented by retired paleontologist/"citizen historian" Laurie Bryant, who happens to be a neighbor of Eric's....

It was most fascinating and wonderful to find out about how our neighborhood was build around natural springs at first, then grew thanks in part to a water canal stretching from the Jordan River to the City Creek (close by downtown) and also the electric power. It was exciting to find out which houses were constructed first and which ones are still standing today. It was amazing to find out that a streetcar line was running on 1500 south, right in front of the Paris Bistro

Street Car in Salt lake City ca. 1912

Included in Laurie's presentation was a gem of a photograph.... The Folland Drugs and the East Bench Market Building as it was back in 1937 and still stands today. It houses, you guessed it..... the Paris Bistro.... Eric and I were utterly blown away....

Below this are the two pictures next to one another... In the old picture, the part that boasts an awning is the part that later became our bar some 70 years later.... also with an awning! What is even more amazing is the fact that Eric designed the Paris Bistro without having ever seen this picture before.... Also look at the mailbox and the postman collecting the mail by the corner of the building. The mailbox also still stands there after all this time.... Unbelievable!

The Folland Drug Store and East bench Market ca. 1937

The Paris Bistro as it stands today... Check out the mailbox!

My new house!!! (well, kinda...)

Not really a new house, but a dining and living room full of beautiful Arts & Craft / Mission style furnishings bought over the past year at antique sales and stores, and finally put together by Eric and his wonderful sense of style....

Like mother like son, I have inherited a deep love for old furniture that have traveled though time being handed down from generation to generation.... While modern style might work for some, I find it has no soul and becomes broken and worthless as time passes by. Think about modern appointments of the seventies.....

Over the past couple of years, I have been following Eric to numerous antique shows and stores and became "infected" by his passion for beautiful, early 20th century american furniture. I knew nothing about the arts and crafts style and movement (I thought it was all about mormon scrap-booking and quilting at first)


He somehow managed to strongly coerce me into saving most of my earnings from the Paris Bistro and invest them into something more durable than a couple of evenings out. I have to admit that I am very glad I listened to him for my house now looks fantastic, and very much in tune with the style of my neighborhood, which boasts quite a few centenarian American bungalows....

Click here to view a slideshow of my new antiques furniture and my dining room. I am so proud and excited!!! My next purchase will be a chandelier to be installed above my dining room table and replace the current eyesore that hangs there now....

Autumn!!!!

I have been lazy lately....

Yes, I confess!!!! I have been busy, I have flown around quite a bit and been busy with the restaurant.... Canned more tomatoes, went to the market, did a lot of paperwork, spent some time in the kitchen.....

Eric has been busy with Tartine, our wine bar project next to The Paris, and also Sea Salt, our next Italian venture....

We have enjoyed a wonderfully warm weather up to last week.... On Monday September 28th it was 85ºF and I was going around wearing a T-shirt, shorts and no socks... When I woke up the following day, Fall had moved in overnight. It was raining cats and dogs, the wind was blowing and the temperature outside was an amazing 55ºF.

Over the next couple of days, the sun played hide and seek and Fall most definitely claimed its presence.... We saw a lot of rain and experienced much colder weather, especially at night... We sadly had to stop serving customers out on the patio at the Paris Bistro.

Eric came to my house one night, coiffed with a high powered headlamp, in an effort to salvage the last of the heirloom tomatoes. He harvested a whopping 70lbs. I must say he was very inspired to do so, for it almost froze that very night. Over the next couple of days, we cut the last of our basil. Last night was the hardest freeze to date.... My entire lawn was covered with white frost this morning....A view of 1500 South (Emerson Ave), where The Paris sits.

Fall is my favorite season.... especially here in Utah. Mother Nature displays an astonishing palette of gold, red, yellow and orange hues, and the mountains are simply superb...Check out these pictures (click here to view a collection of landscapes my friends and I have taken over the past couple of years).

Cuban Sandwiches!!!

Eric and I were watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservation" on the travel channel the other day. Anthony was in San Francisco and had a humongous Cuban sandwich with his buddy at a liquor store in the mission district.

We both got excited and Eric made us his interpretation of Cuban sandwiches.... We went to Caputo's Deli and bought some ham, some mortadella, then got some pork chops from the butcher's, then used tomatoes from our garden, red gypsy peppers and jalapeños from the farmer's market....

This may very well have been the best sandwich I have ever had.... no kidding!

Check out pictures below...