A blog about food and cooking by Chris Norris

Paris Day 3

Paris Day 3
19 November 2007

We had big plans to eat at Alain Ducasse at the Plaza Athenee last night, which were dashed by the absolute inability to get any transportation across town. Taxis? Non. Metro? Non. Private Driver? Oui, only 450 US DOLLARS! Our only other choice? Walk an hour and a half each way. Forget it. Life’s too short for this! If the trains aren’t running, we aren’t either. Tapas, French style, two blocks from the hotel. Allez! Prix de transport? ZÉRO. And, including a great Spanish vin rouge, out the door for less than a hundred euros. Try that at Alain Ducasse!

While I was stewing about the state of Parisian transportation and its impact on my high end eating plans, Laura asked if I had read “the article” yet. “The article” is a story she tore out of Vogue while flying somewhere over the Atlantic, chronicling the experiences of a woman married to a prima donna home chef. While I struggle to get the connection, I pointed out to her that critiquing home cooking is easy because everyone has some experience. It’s like trying to build HDTVs (something else I have some experience with). Since everyone has some experience with a TV, but possibly not much more than changing channels, they somehow become qualified to comment and evaluate on how a company should go about designing and building TVs. When I was actively pursuing my aviation hobby, there wasn’t anyone commenting on my prima donna piloting skills. Nor were there articles about prima donna woodturners laying on my desk during my “wood period”. When I pointed out to my lovely wife that perhaps I’m just misunderstood by the Jack-in-the-Box crowd, she in turn pointed out that I’ve had to apologize for my “kitchen behavior” more than once. Always one to carefully pick my battles, I changed the subject.

I distracted her by describing my latest invention: a kitchen timer, with capacitive touch-sensing keys with no moving parts, and designed for fast easy use in a busy, busy kitchen. I even told her about the state machine behind the timer that I designed at 3am when I couldn’t sleep last night. “You’re a Geek”, she said.

Yesterday was the Musee Louvre. Today is the Tour Eiffel and, based on how much walking we can tolerate, the Arc de Triomphe. There just happens to be a Joel Rubuchon restaurant near Musee d’Orsay, which one can arguably claim is “on the way back” from today’s ‘check mark’ destinations. Maybe a “small plates” lunch awaits us?

– Chris



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