Veg 2.0. Location Paris

This week I'm posting a new build of the all-new Vegetarian experience, Paris (thanks go to Tanya, MostlyNonsense, and Richard Gillmann (nwfolk)). Thanks, guys.

Here is Richard's list of vegetarian restaurants in the city. It's a work in progress, and he's looking for updates, says my friend Tanya.

By the by, I received an email from Bernard, who runs a campaign to eat well for the environment, one meal at a time! His suggestions, with some cool figures, are at PB&J . My favourite is falafel, hands down. We have great ones in Paris (see L'As du Falafel' in Richard's page above.) Maoz is good too but this one in the Marais is an experience all of its own. You'll see what I mean when you get there.

Bon app' !!!

happy new year

After EVERY LAST ONE of us won the 2006 Person of the Year accolade from Time magazine, it seems a good moment to round out the year with something suitably Web 2.0-ish.

Is it just me, then, or is the following not truly hilarious.

(It's by a guy who after getting co-opted into judging a prestigious book prize, decided to go easy on reading the contenders. That's what you get for asking a founder of Slate to be your judge. Way to go.)

"Next, you must put aside any fuddy-duddy notion of not judging a book by its cover, or at least by its title. Does this seem unfair? Well, imagine that you are sitting on the floor, surrounded by clouds of despair and mountains of Styrofoam packing popcorn. You tear open the next shipping envelope and out comes, A Certain Curve of Horn: The Hundred-Year Quest for the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola. Once again: No offense intended to the author of what may be a brilliant book. But the title seems designed to repel invaders rather than welcome visitors. If, with superhuman energy, you work up enough curiosity about the Giant Sable Antelope of Angola to at least open the book, the phrase "hundred-year quest" will kill it right off. (Rule: Unless it actually is about the Hundred Years' War, never mention any period of time longer than two hours in the title of a book over 150 pages.) And if your interest survives that second wave of defense, it will not, in its weakened state, have a chance against "curve of horn"—a great who-cares phrase made even greater by the modifier "certain," which implies that the differences among curves of horns of animals in Angola that this book is concerned with are not even large or easily noticeable. Expecting us to overcome all these barriers and read the book anyway: That is what's unfair."

writing for food

Friends are writing to me... they know who they are, so here's another turn at the mike.

I went to a college reunion a week ago, and ended up telling people about M F K Fisher. Why is she important? Well, unless you've read her amazing essay on eating in wartime (checking reference...) you might struggle here. Basically, I think the point of her writing is keeping things going, attention-wise, concerning what you're eating. There aren't many more important lessons than that, and nowhere do you get it, distilled with the style and grace of MFK. Plus she looks a treat, too.

I wonder if it would be possible to eat and live, and write about it too, MFK-style, but limiting yourself to non-animal stuff.

What I'm reading of MFK at the moment: The Art of Eating

Veggie falterings

My vegetarian resolve has taken a bit of a battering recently - from my own citta - mindstream - I freely confess.

So I reviewed a restaurant recently, and there was I think possibly one veggie thing on the menu. (I had some of the others, though kept myself to fish.) At the same time, the chef is definitely leaning in an Asian direction, and I think this can only be good for the vegetarian future of French cooking.

Meanwhile, in the halls of another top Paris chef, what promises to be very worth watching in the blogosphere:
Ms Glaze's culinary adventures in Paris

I'm about to add her to my favourites.

Chef

I interviewed a great chef today (always a pleasure). His team love him, he commands respect and can wax lyrical about that to which he brings his keen attention. His restaurant costs a quarter of what it used to, and I'm due to go soon. A good day in the office...

Doing without....

I was right, doing without does change your mind. ..

No shower or baths the last few days 'cos of building work, and we ran out of black tea all at once. Thank God for fantastic falafels and Indian food from the not-so-cheap but impressive restaurant-indien.com and their appetising .jsp pages. Our very nice curry came from Restaurant Dip and arrived about 10 minutes after the time we asked for.

Thanks for that :-)

Begging bowl

Interesting moment the other day: staying with some relatives, in London, who I'd forgotten to tell about the adventures of Culinary Mike, I sat down to be confronted by a plate of smoked salmon. So I made a decision: the Buddha didn't spurn the food that was placed in his begging bowl, even when the finger of the person offering it dropped into the bowl!

After not eating meat for a few weeks, I have to say I found the salmon not so appetising, which was interesting.

So, back to Paris: tonight was falafels from the amazing Ace of Falafel (L'As du Falafel)... in the Marais. Get the speciale with extra aubergines.