making sandwiches in a bed-sitter

Too long since the last update - no, I haven't been skipping meals, catching a stray "baguette tradition" only when I exit the underground fastnesses of the Bibliotheque Nationale - in fact, right near the area where I'm working, there's a fairly decent cafe where you can get a cup of coffee -


Coffee. Ok. Tangent. Coffee in Paris is, as friends told me it would be, not what it is in the bay area. While its true that the average 'cafe' which is basically a slightly taller and thinner espresso shot, is much better than the average cup of coffee in most places in America, Paris hasn't quite caught the specialty coffee bug the way America, especially the West coast and New York, have, and I'm craving a cup of something whose country of origin, bean, and roast type I'm told by an informative lable or barrista. No such luck. End of tangent.

- In fact, I've been eating rather well, but mostly at friends' houses. But this brings us to another topic. Given that most of us in student apartments in paris have not much more than a "coin culinaire" or kitchen nook, with one or two hotplate electric burners, a sink, and very little countertop space - I also have a microwave, which I don't use much - what's it like to cook? Fortunately there are books about this, including Michael Roberts' Parisian Home Cooking, and Katharine Whitehorn's classic Cooking in a Bedsitter. The latter, which is sitting on my table, has a cover illustration of culinary impliments hanging from the railing of a bed, intimating to the reader that he or she will learn how to prepare four courses while keeping the duvet cover neat at the same time. But its hard - one-pot meals are possible, soups and pastas and other such things, and of course Paris is full of the Picard chain of frozen-food stores (shudder to think, but some of the stuff there, like premade puff pastry, is useful) - but its still hard to find the space to chop everything and then store it until its time to go in the pot. Not to mention that I'm trying to do too many things at once here in Paris, leaving little time to cook, and making me forget that even back in Oakland, there wasn't much time to cook either.

What's currently saving me, is Tang Freres (yes, francophones, it should be Les Freres Tang) my local Asian grocer here in the 13th Arrondissement. Everything for the classic one-pot noodle or rice-based meals is there... and if they don't have much cheese or wine, well, that's everywhere else. And being in an Asian grocery made me feel strangely at home, ironic given that I never feel 100% at home in them, back in the states.

That's it for now - back to stir the pot.