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lundi 4 juin 2012

Marché du Mois: Marché Cours de Vincennes

While researching an article for ecosalon, my quest to find local producers brought me to the Marché Cours de Vincennes. This market is a favorite among my local foodie friends as it attracts more regional maraîchers than you will find in most Paris markets these days.

The market takes up a good bit of the Cours de Vincennes in the 12th arrondissement and local vendors are offset by a variety of Rungis-stocked food stands and vendors hawking cheap knives and other kitchen/household utensils.

However, the keen-eyed market goer will pick out a few local representatives, selling their seasonal, farm-grown produce in stands scattered about the market.

If you're looking to support Ile-de-France producers, Marché Cours de Vincennes provides the choice of a handfull of farmers that grow their produce within about a small radius of Paris.

The first local producer I visited was Earl Martinet, who was selling lush spinach and lettuce, all grown at his farm only 30 km away from Paris. Also on sale were seasonal root vegetables including radishes, green onions, and turnips.

Another local vendor was Bernard Groult, who was selling some early-season apples, along with rhubarb and pears. Groult's farm is also just under 40 km from Paris and is easy to find if you look out for the sign their stand proudly displays, attesting to the fact that their goods are Productions de l'Ile de France. Not far from Groult's stand you'll find Gaec de Villedeau, whose stand also sells produce grown in the vicinity of Paris.

In addition to local vendors, Marché Cours de Vincennes has a few organic stands which include artisinal honey and other preserves. There is also an artisinal goat cheese maker, whose selection is small but includes a delicious crottin de chêvre.

With so many local and artisinal alternatives, this marché makes it easy to avoid industrial food and pre-packaged produce.

I would highly recommend the Marché Cours de Vincennes as a destination for a locavore's treasure hunt- you'll be sure to not end up empty handed.

Marché Cours de Vincennes
Cours de Vincennes 75012
M° Picpus (line 6)
Hours:
Wednesday: 7h-14h30
Saturday- 7h-15h

Libellés : 75012, local, Marché of the Month, open Saturday, open Wednesday

vendredi 30 septembre 2011

Marché du Mois: Marché Couvert Beauvau

I love the Ledru-Rolling neighborhood and I try to make a habit of stopping by. I would advise any hungry visitor of this coin to grab a great croissant at Blé Sucré or to dine at Le Cotte Rôti while strolling this quartier.

Recently I got my hands dirty visiting my friend Terresa's community garden which is just a few blocks away from Ledru-Rolling and the place Aligre, where you'll find this month's marché.

The Marché Couvert Beauvau is the covered market that sits next to the outdoor Marché Aligre, which offers a wide variety of fruits, vegetables and flea market fare. If you're looking for a nice selection of produce, I'd hit up the outdoor market. But don't miss the discoveries that await undercover at Marché Beauvau.

First of all, the seemingly endless cheese counters, stocked with regional artisinal cheeses of all sorts. There is also a wide selection of lovely Italian hard cheeses, like pecorino and parmasean.

Meat lovers will also find their cut of meat at either of the boucheries at the marché and just in time for our late Summer weather, overheated shoppers can pick up some artisinal and all natural ice cream made by Terre Adélice.

My all time favorite find at Marché Beauvau, however, was -in typical drunkard fashion- the beer stand. Stocked with beers from around Europe and the world, this is a great spot to pick up Belgian brews and Germans quaffs of all different styles.

I'm lucky to have a Meilleurs Vins Bio boutique down the right down the street and I'm even luckier that they stock my favorite brewed-in-Brussels beer Cantillon.

This spontaneously fermented beer is an aquired taste which quickly becomes an addiction. Les Meilleurs Vins Bio carries the Gueuze Cantillon variety, but the beer stand at Marché Beauvau also carries their Kreik and Rosé de Grambinus, the raspberry flavored lambic.

All this talk of adult beverages is making me thirsty, and luckily one of my favorite watering holes in Paris is also located in the Aligre area. The Baron Rouge is a wine bar that makes one feel like a kid in a candy shop, it's extensive wine list contains no glasses over 3,50 euro, with most verres hovering around 2,50 euro.

The Baron Rouge is a great spot for an apero, and if you're feeling nippish you cna order an assiette of the fromage from the market next door as well as some charcuterie.

The Baron Rouge gets bustly so get there early because sitting space is limited and they close their doors shortly after the Summer sunset (16h on Sundays and 22h Tues-Sat). If you don't get enough wine sur place the bar has a to-go option: bottles and bulk wine!

Grab anyone of their bottles, many of which are biodynamic, or get a consigned bottle and choose a barrel. Sold by the liter, prices range from 2,80 - 3,60 euro for a reds, whites, and rosés. Just in case you missed it the first time- bulk wine straight from the barrell. To take home with you. That should be a regular part of your life, shouldn't it?

Marché Beauvau

Place d'Aligre 75012

m° Ledru-Rollin (line 8)

Hours:

8h-13h & 16h-19h30 Tue-Sat

8h-13h Sunday

Le Baron Rouge

1 rue Théophile-Roussel

75012

m° Ledru-Rollin (line 8)

Hours:

10h-15h & 17h-22h Tue-Fri.

10h-22h Saturday

10h-16h Sunday

Libellés : 75012, artisanal, Bulk, Marché of the Month, open Friday, open Saturday, open Sunday, open Thursday, open Tuesday, open Wednesday, organic booze

samedi 23 juillet 2011

A Tale of Two Community Gardens

The past few weeks have been full of community garden discoveries for me. Not only did I become a new member of my local community garden, Les Jardins du Ruisseau, but I also had the pleasure of accepting invitations to visit two friends in the different community gardens they are involved in.

These shared gardens, scattered all over the city, prove that urban agriculture is more than just a budding movement in the capital, but a flourishing opportunity for city dwellers to get their hands dirty and enjoy the fruits of their labour.

My first stop was Terresa's shared garden in the 12th arrondisement. Tucked away next to a small park where locals have their dejeuner, Terresa packs an impressive amount of agriculture into two tiny (and tidy) plots of land. While most members' interaction with this garden consist of taking advantage of the lovely bucolic setting while dining under the grapevine-covered awning that is the centerpiece of the organic sprawl, Terresa actively tends to the terre.

At Terresa's garden, a handful of dedicated urban gardeners succeed in cultivating a hearty yield of locally grown produce, which include strawberries, raspberries, courgettes, tomatoes, greens, beets, carrots, turnips, and a wide variety of herbs among many other seasonal crops.

I may have been a guest in Terresa's garden, but I was eager to put in a day's work. Upon arriving at the garden's gate, Terresa presented me with the itinerary for the day. We took a tour of the garden and the two plots Terresa tends to. I was convinced that our day's duties could hardly be as time consuming as Terresa made them sound. However, an hour later and only half way done with thinning out panais sprouts and replacing hay with coffee grounds as a preventative measure against unwelcome pests, I realized how much work really goes in to keeping a garden alive.

As we tended to the to-do list of garden chores, Terresa would periodically excuse herself to check on the fish pond that is tucked in the corner of the garden. She had been soothing the single coy fish in the pond since our arrival, assuring it that she would stay until his water had been refreshed. Moving the hose and checking the water quality from time to time, it was clear how invested Terresa is in the life thriving in the garden.

While working the land is inextricably linked with the creation and support of new life, and Terresa is a befitting representation of the gardener/nurturer (she prefaces the use of the term "mauvaise herbe" by explaining that no herbe is mauvaise- we just simply find ourselves more interested in certain herbes depending on the circumstances), my green-thumbed guide didn't shy away from showing me the darker side of gardening. Turns out that when it comes to fending off garden pests, coffe grounds are fine but bootsoles are better.

The anti-pesticide approach to gardening includes a lot of nasty smelling DIY antidotes including nettle-based sprays and decomposed slug corpse concoctions, however the most straightforward approach consists of seeking the little buggers out and squishing them underfoot before they can get to your lush leaves of kale or chard.

The world of urban gardening, just like any other natural setting, is dog-eat-dog. I didn't have the stomach for the slug and snailocide that followed, but Terresa had long abondonded any sympathies with the bitty beasts that had ravaged her crops for too long. She bravely exterminated the little clan of creepy crawlers that had camped out near her crops while I sought solice near the coy pond.

But I couldn't dwell on the carnage for long because instants later I was Keds-deep in composte tea, sprinkling the nutrient rich residue from Terresa's composte pile over the plots of land that we had meticulously minded, thinning out the sprouts and weeding out the herbes that we weren't interested in cultivating at the moment. All said and done, I was proud of our day's work and was elated with the unexpected pleasure of having dirty finger nails and compost smelling clothes which resulted in an earthy smell that I didn't mind bringing along with me on the metro.

Terresa sent me home with a lovely bouquet of horseradish, bay leaves, lavender, and a baby carrot, but before we parted ways we were visited by a member of the garden. Terressa asked him why he didn't have a plot of land of his own and he explained to us that he was an agriculteur not a gardener. "What's the difference?" we asked him. "An agriculteur grows things, a gardener makes works of art" he replied.

We looked around the hodgepodge of plants and flowers, squeezed into a small space in the shadow of the Bastille and a bustling city. A mess of sprouts and blossoms, the garden was sort of a crossroads of agriculture and gardening, if we accepted the gentleman's definition.

"This is a work of art?" Terresa asked him, gesturing to her bit of land. "Well," he responded slowly, hedging diplomatically, "not every work of art is a masterpiece". Maybe it wasn't a masterpiece to all, but after spending the day kneeling in the dirt, our work felt like no less than a chef d'oeuvre to me.

Q: What's better than discovering a secret garden tucked away next to a charming church built around a living tree? A: Being given a tour of said garden by a lovely Mademoiselle who will eagerly share her knowledge of roses and English Litterature with you.

I had the best of both worlds when I found myself in the fortunate position of visiting Florence's community garden in the 15th arrondisement. The garden is a project headed by the Russian Orthodox community who use the garden as a spot to meet after church and hold community events.

Florence got involved with the project when she saw an annonce seeking help with the upkeep of the garden. She met with the elderly Russian man who had taken on the project tout seul and was happy to lend a helping hand. Having lived in Russia when younger, Florence was happy to be in contact with Russian culture and be able to brush up on the language (Florence is totally the type of worldy and cultivated person who knows how to speak Russian, and probably 4 out of 5 of any language you would ask her about.)

Hidden behind an unremarkable door in a neighborhood in the 15th, the garden is part of an enchanting courtyard that houses the wooden church which was constructed around a tree that predates the community's use of the space. The chiming of traditional Russian bells and the neighbor's habit of busting Beethoven in the apres-midi make this spot an ideal respite for those of any and all theological persuasions.

Surrounded by Hollyhocks, Hydrangeas, and roses of all colors I realized how much this garden reinforced the qualities that I love about Paris, most particularly that you never know when you will find beauty next and that behind every door hides the possibility of surprise.

Thanks so much to my two guides, Terresa and Florence, for sharing their time and plots of land with me! Next time we'll have to do it in my little urban wilderness. Rendez Vous aux Jardins du Ruisseau bientôt!

If any of my readers would like to share their urban gardening projects with me or the blog, I'd love to take a tour! Also, it's sprouting season and I think this Parisian rain is only helping our budding buddies, even if it's not doing much for our moods! If you, like me, had a green thumb bigger than your balcony/window box this year and would like to exchange or share your sprouts with other Parisian Paysannes, please don't hesitate to post and network on the Facebook page or leave a comment on the blog!!

Libellés : 75012, 75015, Community Gardens, compost, organic, Paris Paysanne, seasonal

lundi 7 mars 2011

Farinez-Vous: Move That Bakery!

It is a testament to the French's ability to keep you on your toes that this normally cerebral and rather reserved country does, at times, embrace the sappy and sentimental. When this occurs, maudlin Americans like me are happy to reap the benefits. An opprotunity to do so arises with the cheesy makeover and rennovation shows that are all the rage on France's less sophisticated television channels.

I'll be the first to admit that I cry while watching Ty Pennington's Extreme Home Makeover. There is certain humanizing and reassuring affect this reaction has on a person who regularly growls at noisy babies on the metro (I'm sorry Mommy friends, but it's true, the Line 13 makes me mean!). It's nice to be reminded that my capacity for sympathy and loving thy neighbor is still in tact, albeit a bit too buried under urban soul decay.

However, the true tragedy present in Ty's show is not the families and their stories of sickness, death, and disaster. The true tragedy is that this show exists at all. If you take a moment to wipe your bleary eyes and see the show for what it is, it is sorrowfully obvious that the real tragedy is the fact that Ty Pennington and his team are doing the job of the American government.

While donated goods from Sears and other giant corporations may seem like an appropriate way to solve a problem in a world where The U.S. and France offer monetary aid to Haiti (which finds ways of not getting there in its entireity) instead of arranging for reparations to make up for the colonialism and subsequent debt that has burdened the country for years. I argue that instead of a bus of interior designers from Los Angeles salvaging the remains of the only free clinic that existed in a hurricane-ravaged town, perhaps the American government should simply provide health care and hospitals that are accesible to the locals and kept up by their tax dollars.

The reason I'm ranting about the US government and Ty Peninnington on my "Life in Paris" blog is because France is not immune to the poor governing and politics that leave citizens to pick up the slack and help out their fellow man. That's where Farinez-Vous comes in. Parisian bakery, located in the 12th arrondisment, not only espouses an artisinal and locavore approach to the trade (their flour is milled in the nearby Normandy region and all their ingredients are seasonal) Farinez-Vous is also engaged in the type of social action that picks up where the French government pathetically drops off.

Farinez-Vous's goal is not only to make equitable and delicious baked goods, but also to "be a place conducive to solidarity and sustainable development." One way the bqkery engenders development is by hiring employees who are in a state of "conversion", or in other words people who lost there jobs and have found themselves in a country with an overwhelming unemployment rate and an unquenchable thrist for diplomas corresponding to every imaginable career choice.

At Farinez-Vous, professional or academic background is irrelevant, employees working here get to start from scratch and nurture, as their website explains, "two primary strengths: training in a rewarding job and real opportunities in terms of employment."

It is rare to find an employer who sees beyond age and background and offers the opportunity to grow and learn in a new trade and that's why Farinez-Vous gets my, "I-wish-our-country's-politics-didn't-make-your-existence-necessary-but-I'm-glad you-exist-all-the-same" medal of honor. If any of you know Ty Pennington, could you see if he'll come over and award it? I'll translate through my tears.

Farinez-Vous

9 bis rue Villiot

75012 Paris

Metro: Gare de Lyon (Lines 1 & 14)

Open: Monday-Friday; 8h-18h30

Libellés : 75012, artisanal, bio bakeries, organic, seasonal, solidarity

This Page

Paris Paysanne: The Blog

lundi 4 juin 2012

Marché du Mois: Marché Cours de Vincennes

vendredi 30 septembre 2011

Marché du Mois: Marché Couvert Beauvau

samedi 23 juillet 2011

A Tale of Two Community Gardens

lundi 7 mars 2011

Farinez-Vous: Move That Bakery!

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