The Skinniest Month

Les Tickets Resto

I may not have fully-functional health insurance, voice mail or a door to my office, but my employer is quite generous when it comes to lunch. Although it’s now giving way to salads and sandwiches, the tradition of a proper mid-day meal is practically enshrined in French working contracts. Accordingly, most employers contribute to lunch costs through vouchers exchangeable at virtually all simple venues. Known as tickets resto, or tickets restaurant, employer and employee split the costs of a monthly pack of 21 vouchers, each with a face value of 8 to 10 euros.

Through some combination of thrifty eating, relatively frequent travel outside of France and, I suspect, an oversupply of voucher packs at my office, I always seem to have a handful of extras. As a result I’ve discovered that while rules governing the use of vouchers are theoretically quite strict, they can often be employed for items far more frivolous—and enjoyable—than my frugal paninis and salads.

The first area of my extracurricular voucher use is evening, weekend and holiday meals. Some places won’t take vouchers on Sunday or les jours fêriês, and fancier bistros and brasseries don’t ever accept them. Nonetheless, my employer and I have jointly funded at least half a dozen pho outings, as well a string of lunches, ranging from couscous to steak frites, during G’s vacations here. The most outrageous—though perfectly legitimate—was a picnic meal of three different types of stupendous quiche from one of the city’s most upscale bakeries, completed with an architecturally-impressive chocolate dessert.

I’ve also discovered that both my local supermarket and the food halls at Paris’ department stores will usually accept vouchers for most items, even, on several splendid occasions, for alcohol. Leaving the Bon Marche with a half-bottle of Trimbach Gewürztraminer vendages tardives, one of the most luscious dessert wines made in Alsace, and an equal quantity of artisanal plum eaux de vie (a highly aromatic digestif), I felt as if I had done something vaguely illicit.

Prosaic only by comparison are the tins of line-caught fish in olive oil, 10 bars (and counting) of Pralus, my new favourite chocolate, herb-infused confitures for cheese and the goose that adorned our holiday table.

For the French, tickets resto are simply a fact of working life, a deserved contribution towards the daily plat du jour or sandwich. For me, while the economic logic doesn’t really work, they offer a powerful incentive, even on the worst of days, for showing up. Because who else besides the French are going to subsidise my wine and chocolate?

Ice Palace

With the exception of mobile phone outlets and wine shops, Paris has not really given way to chains. Small, owner-operated pharmacies, bakeries, tabacs (news and tobacco stands)—even clothing shops—are still the norm here, their societal place protected by governmental restrictions on sales and Sunday opening. Only in the area of frozen food is there an obvious monopoly.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its ubiquitousness, Picard is not easily recognisable as a food retailer. With its clinical white exterior and small, office-style windows, I initially thought that it was a chain of medical laboratories or dentists. When a colleague informed me that Picard sold food which was surgeles (frozen), I was only marginally intrigued. At best, I figured, I could pick up a few bags of peas.

Picard does sell peas—3 kinds, I believe, as well as some other predictable items: gourmet ice creams; flash-frozen berries and a wide range of potato products. It also offers many upmarket variations on the TV dinner, reputed to be good enough to fool discerning dinner guests. And there are some truly bizarre products for sale: who in France would buy frozen baguettes or croissants? (The demise of the traditional boulangerie has been predicted for some time, but I can think of at least 10 bakeries within a five minute walk of my local Picard. And unlike the transport workers, their employees never go en greve.)

Far more exciting is the choice of protein, taking in quails, wild Alaskan salmon, venison and super-premium Tarbais beans. Based on very limited sampling, the prices for these are reasonable, if not low, and quality is unimpeachable. A whole meal could be assembled sur place--including prepared sauces and vegetable accompaniments. But while many no doubt do so—or take the all-in-one option—Picard seems to encourage its customers to keep cooking. The chain's website includes no less than 121 fish recipes, ranging from the virtually pre-fab to the moderately involved (a warm fish terrine, for instance.)With over 600 stores across France, Picard has clearly been the beneficiary of declining interest in, knowledge of, and need for everyday cooking. But it can also be seen as a 21^st century version of the traiteur, a highly-respected and historic institution peddling ready-made meals to those possessing more money than time, or a good sense of their limitations in the kitchen.
Curiosity and good will, a quick look in my (sizable) freezer reveals only this: a bag of peas.

Le Macarons du Pierre Herme

Paris is beginning to gear up for fashion week, where, impervious to the falling leaves outside, summer dresses and sky-high sandals will be shown in Tuileries' tents. With its stratospheric prices, unrealistic silhouettes--what grown woman can wear hot pants?--and counter-seasonal calendar, it's easy to dismiss haute couture as irrelevant, or, at best, a self-indulgent exercise aimed at the cognoscente.

For at least a few years, macarons have been the patisserie of choice for the high-fashion crowd. (Their cameo in Sophia Coppola's frivolous but glamorous Marie Antoinette certainly didn't hurt.) It's an obvious selection: these little fripperies are bite-size, (largely) dairy and wheat free and easily adaptable to the changing whims of colour and flavour. For the high-status producers, Laduree and Pierre Herme, the hype surrounding their collections has become a talking piece for the chattering classes, much like the new Marc Jacobs line. Herme even presents a biannual runway show, where waiters parade the catwalk holding trays of his inventions.

Pretentious? Undoubtedly. As Herme himself proclaims on the cover of his brochure, "Tout le monde les adore macarons par Pierre Herme." Vogue has called him the Picasso of pastry. But Herme has earned his star turn. His macarons can make a grown man cry. Well, at least mine.

We started with a classic: caramel with fleur de sel, then moved onto the macaron pictured above, the Mogador, which pairs passion fruit with milk chocolate. It was very nearly perfect, but couldn't compare with the "Huile d'Olive a Vanille," a subtle stunner complete with tiny bits of olive suspended in a vanilla paste.

Suffice to say that while we never made it to the Musee Picasso, we were back in line at Pierre Herme later that week.