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...

Fish soup!

Now, here is one appetizing post...

We at the Paris Bistro make the best fish soup in the city, bar none.... Period. We started serving a "bouillabaisse style" fish stew a few months ago and the dish has proven a HUGE success.... It is a great way to accommodate odd pieces of fish that are too small to be sold as is.

Our fish stew a wonderful dish to be enjoyed anytime of the year, be it on a warm summer evening with rosé wine on our patio, or on a blustery, frigid winter night while watching the snow fall outside the window... The soup itself is a classical dish served in France by itself with cheese and garlic rubbed croutons, which one tops with rouille sauce and dunks in the soup... Ours is used as a stock to poach little pieces of fish, fresh mussels, clams, shrimp, scallops and sliced fingerling potatoes.

The other day, Eric asked me to train our chefs on making the soup.... I thought it would be a great idea to bring my camera and document the whole process in the blog....

We use fish bones (usually halibut), diced vegetables including lots of fennel, white wine, pastis (yes, pastis) orange and lemon zests, saffron... It is a lengthy process for the soup must cook for a couple of hours before being put through a food mill, then strained again before being served. Since we do not have a manual food mill and we make big batches of soup, we use a big "burr mixer" and blend the pureed soup in a high velocity blender to give it a smooth, unctuous consistency.

Click here to see pictures of the whole process.

From Paris France to The Paris Utah on a duck (confit)

I did not get a chance to write about an unfortunate and painful eating experience I had while in Paris the other day, and by God I think I ought to remedy this omission.

After coming back to my hotel from the Grenelle market the other day, I decided to go and treat myself to lunch at Bouillon Chartier, one of the very last Parisian Belle Époque brasseries.... The decor is stunning, the opinions about the food are all over the place, and the service reputably "Parisian".

After a short métro ride, I found myself in front of Chartier's doors, where two very jovial hosts quickly ushered me in... Although the place is very vast, I was shown to a "two top", a table for two which already occupied by a stern looking gentleman who seemed to be well underway with his lunch... When I tried to protest to the host and asked for a table by myself, he smirked at me and said "ici Monsieur, on partage tout!!!" (In this place, Sir, one shares everything).My table "companion" looked as though he had just buried his entire family and the last thing I wanted was to include him in my lunch adventure Not wanting to start an unpleasant debate about breathing room and vital space however, I took my seat and started to look at the menu on the table.

What followed is quite possibly one of the most awful lunches I have EVER had in Paris. Not only was the food barely edible, it was just slammed on the plates with no effort in presentation whatsoever, the service was pushy, distant, obnoxious and borderline rude: "C'est tout ce que vous prenez Monsieur?" (is that ALL you're having Monsieur?). I soon realized that Chartier, although being a venerable Parisian institution, prefers to fill up with tourists and curious walk in customers rather than with faithful, local, neighborhood customers.... It is so much easier to abuse those who will be sure never to return!!!

The high note of my lunch was going to be an allegedly homemade duck confit, garnished with duck fat roasted potatoes. Since we too at the Paris make and serve our own , albeit with Puy French green lentils, I was very excited and looking forward to compare the two, apples to apples. Just like the service and the rest of the courses, the duck was an absolute abortion, dry and mutilated, topped with melted compound garlic/parsley butter. My potatoes had apparently spent the whole morning hanging out in the kitchen and were cold in the center.... I could not finish eating what was on my plate..... I quickly finished my baby carafe of rosé however, settled my bill and got out of this place as fast as I could.

As I was riding back to my hotel I could not help to think how sad it is that a place like this allows bad food and service to keep its customers from coming back for seconds.... then again, what do I know???? Maybe the Parisian restaurateurs have not heard that there is a recession out there....

I came back to Utah the following day, and of course needed to go back to work at The Paris. My dad came to visit and stayed a few days with us, and the night before he left to go back home, I organized a little apéritif which was meant to be a succession of small plates, mini foie gras tartines, cheeses and heirloom tomatoes from our garden. Giancarlo graced the house with his presence. Eric arrived a bit later and surprised us with duck confits from the restaurant... Although we were at my house and the food had been packed in to-go containers, we quickly reheated the duck and presented it on plates..... The confits were a smash hit, more especialy with my Dad, who normally does not eat them and had not had one in Eons,after having an unfortunate duck experience like mine at Chartier. In any case he had not enjoyed a confit since he came to this country about a decade ago.... The meat was wonderfully cooked, crispy on the outside and yet succulent, juicy and so tender on the inside. Every bite was a little piece of taste wonder; the crisped duck flavor of course, but also the sea salt, the thyme, the wonderful earthy taste of French green lentils from Le Puy, studded with tiny dices of carrots and beets. No cold, greasy potato sadness here, but a few slices of amazingly fragrant Cherokee Purple Heirloom tomatoes from our garden and a refreshing sprig of watercress.




Now, check out the pictures and tell me which duck you would rather eat and where.... The one in Paris at Chartier, or the one from The Paris, Utah???? Paris France with a plethora of obnoxious servers, a lousy service, a 19.6% sales tax and a forced 15% service charge, or at home, surrounded by friends and family? I think I just will let the pictures speak for themselves.....

After spending a fantastic evening and savoring every morsel of duck in my plate I must once conclude that even reheated at my house, the food we produce at the Paris utterly blows away that of the competition anytime, on any given day and despite the jabs of idiotic, self proclaimed Salt Lake City food critics and other "connoisseurs" who claim that everything in Paris is so much better..... If only they traveled and ate there as much as I and Eric do.....

A quick Parisian escape...

As mentioned earlier in this blog, I do sometime "escape" my everyday restaurant reality and go to work as a flight attendant for a major airline company... I will let you guess which one since it appears "they" (the airline) tend to dislike it when their employees publish blogs.... The last one to get in trouble with upper management had the unfortunate idea to pose in a rather revealing outfit and then broadcast the photos on the internet...

Anyway, I just spent 2 days on a Paris layover... Arrived Saturday morning... After a bus ride to the hotel and a quick afternoon nap, I made my way outside of Paris, to visit the castle of Vaux le Vicomte, a superb 17th century estate that was built for Nicolas Fouquet, then the superintendent of finances of King Louis XIV... The chateau was the king's inspiration to build Versailles and the story behind it is most interesting. I visited many castles in my life, but this visit was quite special... It was a candlelight visit of the chateau, conducted after dusk. It was my first time ever visiting a historic landmark after dark, and seing the rooms in the same way its builders saw it back in the 1600's was intense, surreal and almost indiscrible.



After an endless return (I was exhausted) to my hotel and a good night's sleep, I woke up early and went to a local's street marché, a farmer's market. I spent hours there, browsing thru produce, meat and cheeses, watching local Parisians buy food, talk about politics, gossip about the neighbors. The vendors set up shop just underneath the Dupleix métro station, just 10 minutes walk from the Eiffel tower. Like our SLC farmer's market, one find a little bit of everything there, from food to clothing and huge crowds make it difficult to walk around.... Unlike the SLC farmer's market, there is no food court, no hippies, and certainly no bad, annoying musicians.... Anyway, it is a great way to spend a Sunday morning in a Parisian quartier (neighborhood)....



Check out pictures below....






Headed back home tomorrow.... got a busy week ahead... Dad & Leon's visit, a lot of work at the restaurant, and yes, another tomato canning day! Whoopee!!!!

More to follow soon!...

A day in tomato world

Eric et moi have always believed that a restaurant should offer food that is seasonal, local when possible (obviously, there is nothing locally grown in Utah from November to April). We have lived by that credo ever since the beginning.... Despite the farm-to-the-table / nose-to-tail claims of some newcomers who pose as food trendsetters, we have been faithful to our philosophy since our inception....

Yesterday we once again set out to put our principles in action....
Eric spent half the day in my back yard, cleaning tomato plants, fending off bad weeds and snails ( we do not EVER use chemicals), and finally harvesting oodles of San Marzano tomatoes.


This year, we decided to can tomato sauce rather than peeled whole tomatoes, since we invariably crush the latter to make a sauce anyway. The finished product is a very simple sauce putting the tomatoes at the center of the stage.... No "adornments", no masking flavors of oregano, onion or any other vegetable; and most certainly no sugar which would tame the precious San Marzano acidity we so value. Just the tomatoes, a hint of sliced Siberian purple garlic and Italian parsley from our friend John at Ranui Gardens, et voila!!!




Sounds amazingly simple, romantique, rustique, even pastoral, dare I write???

Well, it's anything but!!!!

Preparing, blanching and peeling 70 pounds of minuscule San Marzano tomatoes is not for the impatient and/or the meek.... It takes a lot of meticulous patience and half the day before even thinking of starting the sauce itself, let alone the canning process.....






The canning process took place in my back yard, on my portable stove, a 60,000 BTU behemoth, and the result yielded surprisingly few jars, only 24 quarts altogether for 70 pounds of tomatoes (see pictures) below

It was a long day, a lot of work, but in the end and with 2 more days like this we will have many jars for the long winter ahead, both for our homes and the restaurant....

Ah the sweet (local) bounty of summer!!!

Late (night) Introduction...

Bonsoir Y'all....

God only knows what possessed me tonight to get the ball rolling on a brand new blog.... It is ungodly late, I should be in bed and far away in lala-land... Instead of that, here I am in front of my computer, trying hard to write something that actually makes sense....

Maybe the best thing to do at this point is to start with introductions....

My name is Emmanuel... My beloved mother calls me Manu, my friends call me Eman....

I am a 40 something year old French guy living in Utah, the land of Zion. I came here about a century ago it seems.... Back then, culture, good food and good coffee were scarce.Things are better nowadays (Salt Lake recently experienced a renaissance era for day spas, salons and coffee shops of all kinds), but barely so. I did manage to stay here however because it is a beautiful state after all and life is quite affordable here. It is very close to civilization (L.A. , San Francisco, Seattle are only a short plane ride away), The snow is great indeed, and the landscapes of Utah are unique and breathtaking... Sadly however, one does not live on landscapes, snow and beauty alone.....

I live in Sugarhouse, which is a very nice and quaint area. I am a trained chef and have worked in restaurants longer than I care to remember. Shortly after moving to Utah, I met a young, flamboyant, downright loud and in-your-face restaurant owner named Eric Debonis... We became fast friends and I started to work for him right away. I did not know it then, but Eric became my best and most precious friend.

Here we are almost 16 years later, a little wiser, most definitely plumper (especially me) but better than ever and still kicking like it is going out of fashion. Eric owns The Paris Bistro, which in my book is the best restaurant anywhere in the state... I will come back to that later, for I will need a dedicated post for that purpose alone.

The reason I decided to start this blog is very simple.... I work at the restaurant an awful lot and travel to France on my "days off" (I also work as a flight attendant) ... I cannot think of a better way to keep in touch with my friends and family. I will try to post as often as I can, sharing travel stories, thoughts about out of town restaurants and destinations, but also bits and pieces about my everyday life, abroad, at home and at The Paris Bistro.

Anyway... it is getting even later at night and I needed to go to bed hours ago....

More to follow soon.....