A Recipe for Homemade Yoghurt

Recipe for Homemade Yoghurt

Ingredients

1 gallon (16 cups) milk

4 oz (1/2 cup) unflavored yoghurt as starter (containing live cultures) at room temperature.

A good cooking thermometer

Cheesecloth - not the basic from grocery store, which the weave is too loose -- a tighter weave is needed (look for one labeled ‘ultra fine’ or called ‘butter muslin’)

Yield = About 10 cups yoghurt

A note on the Milk: Any milk will work in making yoghurt (pasteurized, unpasteurized, homogenized, unhomogenized, low-fat, 2%, whole, raw, etc.). Some people use low-fat or non-fat milk. We try always to use organic, raw milk. Making things like yoghurt at home is partly about knowing what‘s in your food and with raw milk, pretty much what you are getting is only milk: uncooked, unprocessed, unadulterated. We have also used goat milk, which makes a nice yoghurt as well.

Step One: Pasteurize:

Heat the milk in a heavy sauce pan or pot to just below boiling about 180-185º F, to kill off the other bacteria in the milk. (Some recipes call for you to actually boil the milk, but that will change the flavor. Still other recipes say that a temperature of 170ºF is enough. I split the difference. It seems to work fine.) Then cool it back down to 110º to 120ºF. If you want to cool the milk down faster, you can put the pot in a bath of water. If you use a water bath to cool down the milk, I recommend keeping the bath water at about 100ºF; if the water is cool, I found that the milk cools down almost too quickly.

Step Two: Inoculate:

Inoculate your milk with the starter yoghurt. To do this, put the room-temperature starter yoghurt into a small bowl and mix in about 2 cups of the still-warm milk. Do not mix in the milk until it has cooled to below 120ºF as you can kill the live cultures in the starter yoghurt. After the milk and yoghurt have been mixed, stir that yoghurt/milk mixture back into the pot of milk.

A comment on starter yoghurt: you will want to choose as your starter a yoghurt you like, as your finished yoghurt will taste quite a bit like your starter yoghurt. The starter yoghurt contains the bacteria that trigger the fermentation process which turns the milk into yoghurt. There are several types of bacteria - Stoneyfield Farm yogurt claims six "active cultures" (including L. Acidophilus, Bifidus, L. Casei and L. Reuteri), while Fage's package only claims two: Streptococcus Thermophillus and Lactobacillus Bulgaricus. In my experience batches started with Stoneyfield yoghurt fermented faster, from four to five hours. The Fage yogurt will take significantly longer to ferment to a firm consistency - six to eight hours. The taste of your finished yoghurt will vary depending on the starter yoghurt (as well as other factors, see below). The two starters we have tried, Fage and Stoneyfield Farm yielded noticeably different yoghurts (the Fage was much tarter and thicker; the Stoneyfield Farm rather mild).

Step Three: Incubate:

Gently poor the warm mixture of starter yoghurt and milk into your chosen container and then set it aside. The live yoghurt bacteria are a bit sensitive and do not like to be bumped about. So set the milk in an area that will not be jiggled or shaken while it is incubating. You will want to keep the milk at between 100ºF and 120ºF while it is incubating to keep the bacteria alive and growing. The time needed for the yoghurt to set will depend largely on the temperature at which you keep it while incubating. If it is kept at a constant 110ºF, the time will be about 4-6 hours. If you are keeping it at closer to 100ºF, it will take closer to 10-12 hours (also, as noted above, the different bacteria in the starter yoghurt can change the incubation time).

Let the yoghurt stand incubating until it is the consistency of a delicate custard (not heavy pudding).

A few comments on incubation:

1. Since the maintaining the proper heat is all important, you will have to find a technique for this that works for you. Some people suggest putting the yoghurt into the oven with just the pilot light on (I tried that, but our oven only stays at about 88ºF -- too cool). If you have a newer oven with a very low setting, that could work as well. Others suggest letting the yoghurt set in a thermos, or wrap the pot in a towel or heating pad to keep it warm (if you have a yoghurt making machine, the problem is solved for you). We essentially got lucky. On one of my first batches, I put the milk into a big heavy, cast iron Le Creuset pot for the incubation. That worked wonderfully, as the cast iron held the heat of the warm milk. I have had the pot in the oven and on the counter at room temperature and the yoghurt has set beautifully in both locations (yet slightly faster in the oven).
2. I have experimented a little bit with different incubation temperatures. I have found with the starter yoghurt we use a starting incubation temperature of about 120ºF is ideal; yielding a creamy and full bodied flavor in the finished yoghurt. A starting incubation temperature of around 105ºF yielded a much tarter, less satisfying yoghurt. I am guessing that the reason for this is that the two different bacteria in my starter yoghurt reproduce the best at slightly different temperatures. This might explain why two really different tasting yoghurts (Fage and Alta Dena) can have the same two bacteria).

Note: the longer you let the yoghurt incubate, the more tart and thicker it will become. Unless you let the incubation temperature fall much below 100ºF, at which point the bacteria will stop reproducing and become dormant.

Step Four: Drain:

Although not really necessary, draining the whey out of the finished yoghurt makes a big difference in texture. Some recipes do not call for draining, but we found that the draining takes the yoghurt from a pourable, sort of lumpy texture, to one that is smooth and thick. It’s a taste thing. Also, if you do not drain, the whey left in the yoghurt may separate and you may need to stir your yoghurt a bit before eating.

To drain, line a colander with the cheesecloth, set over a pot or bowl deep enough to hold at least 4 cups of whey. Pour or scrape the yoghurt into the colander and drain until it has lost about a third its volume in whey -- about 3 to 4 hours.

Turn out the yoghurt into a large bowl and stir or beat it as smooth as possible with a wooden spoon (an electric mixer works quite well also). Store in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. I like to put the finished yoghurt into individual serving mason jars, so we can just grab one for breakfast.

Note: The longer you drain the yoghurt the stiffer and thicker it becomes. 3 to 4 hours of draining will yield a yoghurt that is very much as thick as a Greek yoghurt. But if you drain it longer still, 7-8 hours, you get a very thick yoghurt, close to yoghurt cheese. And if you drain the yoghurt for 12 hours, you actually get yoghurt cheese, which makes a very nice spread for bread or crackers.

Once your yoghurt is done, you can eat it plain or flavor it. I have used different sweeteners; honey and agave nectar worked well. I have also flavored the yoghurt with vanilla and different jams. All make for a nice change of pace from the plain yoghurt; but to be honest, plain is still our favorite -- mixed with some Grape-Nuts, it is a great breakfast.

Some More Basic Yoghurt Info

Yogurt Cultures & Their Properties:

I have found that the following are the basic bacteria found in most commercial yoghurts.

Lactobacillus bulgaricus - Tangy & Creamy

Steptococcus thermophilus - Tangy & Creamy

L. acidophilus - Sweet

L. delbrueckii - Mild taste

Bifidobacterium - Sweet

S. bulgaricus

S. lactis

L. casei

L. rhamnosus

Here is a list of which cultures are in some Commercial Yoghurts:

Fage = L. bulgaricus & S. thermopyilus.

Alta Dena = L. Bulgaricus & S. Thermopyilus

Dannon = L. Acidophilus

La Natura (Italian) = Bifidobacterium & L. Acidophilus

Horizon = All of above + L. casei

Stoneyfield Farm = L. bulgaricus, S. thermopyilus, L. acidophilus, bifidus, L. casei, and L. rhamnosus.

A Miracle in Lourdes

Lourdes became a destination of pilgrimages in the mid 19th century after a 14 year old girl, Bernadette Soubirous, had a series of visions of the Virgin Mary in a cave just out side of town (and I mean just outside, it can't be more than a few hundred meters from where the town actually ended back then; it's well in the town now).  And after a, no doubt, exhaustive study into the validity of her visions, the Catholic Church declared them truly miraculous and the poor girl was promptly made the patron saint of all sick people.  Bernadette spent the rest of her life hiding in a convent about 100 miles away and died at the age of 34.

 

Because of this, Lourdes is a very odd town indeed.  When I was there, I stayed in a  little room at a hotel a few blocks from the train station, just off Avenue Gen. Baron Maransin.  Up by the hotel the town looks quite normal, in a 1950s-ugly-architecture-pizzerias-and-cheap-brasseries sort of way. The main square of town looks quite a bit like any normal French town, in my limited experience, with a fountain, a market, and the skyline dominated by a medieval castle on the hill in the center of town.  Nothing much to write home about, except perhaps the unusual number of hospitals (understandable due to the patronage of St. Bernadette).  But once one drops down onto the Boulevard Remi Sempe, which runs at the lowest level through the town, Lourdes becomes something else entirely.  The little street is completely crowded with souvenir shops of a religious bent, hotels, hotels with souvenir shops in the lobby, restaurants, and restaurants that do a side business as souvenir shops.  "Tacky" might not be a word that can fully describe what one finds in the lower depths of Lourdes.

 

But I am sure you can just imagine all the odd and awful things being sold.  Of course there was the normal range of crap: lighters, key chains, coffee cups, wallets, soccer jerseys, watches, medallions and crosses.  But some of the stuff tended more toward the obscure; clearly quite a bit of Catholicism remains a mystery to me and I stood and tried to understand the religious significance of: cuckoo clocks, little sno-globes with St. Bernadette standing in a blizzard, egg cups, shot glasses (get drunk with St. Bernadette?), ash trays and bottle openers (ruin your body with St. Bernadette and then she will heal you?), breath mints (I kid you not: "The Holy Water Lozenge." Of course I bought some of those!), hookah pipes (what the? and was that a little bong I saw in the corner?), a Menorah (granted the Menorah was in the shop called "Jerusalem in Lourdes" that also sold little rocks from Jerusalem and water from the river Jordan), pre-blessed wedding wine, chocolates (I guess chocolates really are for every occasion), and pill boxes (there certainly were a lot of ill people stumbling about so pill boxes just makes good sense).  And every shop was selling Swiss Army knives for some reason (granted they do have little crosses on them).  Oh, one interesting item to note: the man in the shop where I bought  the holy mints only had one arm. (It seems I have fallen into a Fellini film)

 

Walking into one anonymously awful shop, a little stuffed beaver (why?) announced my arrival with an off key wolf whistle, which I must say was more than a bit creepy, especially since I was ogling the pleasant looking sales clerk at the time (God is watching!).  There were also lots and lots of rosary beads on sale, in every shop.  Rosary beads of every shape, size and composition, from the awful miniature plastic 4-bead strings, with beads the size of stunted peas, to the awful plastic jumbo-sized-2-meter long strings with beads the size of my thumb (if perhaps my thumb was wildly swollen from being whacked with a large hammer) -- I guess there are different sizes of sins that call for different sizes of rosary beads.

 

At the "Palais du Rosaire" I browsed the wonderful collection of bottles that one could fill with holy water from the "La Grotte" (is this from where the word "grotty" is derived?).  The bottles came in all sizes, from thimble sized, through shot-glass sized and the half liter "hiking canteen" sized (they even had little straps so one could carry them comfortably on a long hike), up to the large two liter sized "gallon jug."  There was a cute little bottle shaped like a saintly looking Bernadette (of course) with her head doubling as the cap of the bottle (the bottle was all white, her head blue, I guess to keep one from trying to unscrew the wrong part of her anatomy).  There was a soccer ball shaped bottle for the football enthusiasts. I noticed as I walked down the street closer and closer to the Grotto, the prices of the souvenirs in the shops went up dramatically with every step I took (I guess the shop keepers were counting on the pilgrims being in a religious delirium and not able to walk back up the street 10 feet to buy the same thing at a 30% discount).

 

The main street, only about 300 meters long, was crowded with pilgrims, people from all over the world, if the over-heard languages is any guide.  I heard: French, Italian, Spanish, German, English, Korean, Russian, and several unidentified languages (one might have been Swahili perhaps?).  There were also women in sarongs with that little third eye in the middle of their forehead (now I am no theologian, but isn't that third eye thingy a completely different religion, altogether?).  Of course there is also an impressive number of invalids in wheel chairs and little rickshaw like contraptions, and more nuns than one could shake a papal miter at.  The crowd seems to be mostly pilgrims (90% or so) with a few tourists thrown in,  What is with the religious boy scouts?  They were everywhere, dressed in shorts and red scouting shirts, replete with merit badges and scarves.

 

It's a pretty odd and surreal place, but once you get to the gates of Porte de St. Michel, the entrance of the Esplanade of the Processions, the Basilica and the Grotto itself, it becomes something else entirely.  Inside those gates, it is hard to make fun of the people.  It's sort of depressing.  Not depressing because the people believe so strongly in St. Bernadette and the miracles she offers.  That's ok. Everyone has to believe in something.  Even those who believe in nothing, believe strongly in that nothing (and thus nothing becomes something (I guess the only ones who don't really believe in anything are those perpetual wafflers, the agnostics)).  But what is so depressing is the sheer and overwhelming concentration of desperation found around the Grotto.  It is hard to imagine that there are so many people in the world who are so utterly hopeless that there will spend all their money and travel half way around the globe to seek some consolation (well I guess not that hard to imagine that they exist, but hard to imagine them all in the same place).  

 

A Basilica has been built on the hill above the grotto, where regular masses are held.  There are of course several hospitals on the grounds and a industrial sized confessional complex.  But the main attraction is the fabled Grotto.

 

Just before one gets to the grotto, there is a long arc of water fountains supplied with holy water coming directly from the Grotto.  People line up to drink, wash, and fill up bottles with the water.  I found the water quite refreshing, cool and crisp, a hint of a mineral aftertaste, like water from a mountain stream.  All in all quite nice.  Good water.

 

Then: The Grotto.  There was a fast moving queue, but it was interesting to note that people in wheel chairs and rickshaws get to cut to the front of the line.  The Grotto is not really a cave, more like a deep overhang on the cliff face.  The rock walls inside are smooth from people's hands rubbing against it (like mine).  And it is indeed is a nice little hide-away, a stream running through it;  I can understand why shy Bernadette spent some of her teenaged angst time here -- but I wonder what really happened here on those lonely spring nights: what did she see?  Outside the Grotto people sit in rows, quietly contemplating the statue of the Virgin Mary, strategically placed in the cliff face where Bernadette first saw her hovering.

 

After the Grotto is the candleria, ciegeria?  Candle place?  Where one can light a candle and say a prayer.  There is a booth where candles can be obtained:  a slim 2 foot candle for the bargain price of 2.50; a bigger 2 foot candle for 5.50, a beefy 3 footer for 10; and of course there is a 2 kg monster for 20, and the gargantuan 20 kg, 6 footer for 150.  But what is wonderful about the Catholic Church is that all these prices are just "suggested donations."  There is no one there to take the money, just a little slot to drop the cash in (Scientologists take note!)

 

Above where people light the candles a little sign reads: "The flame continues your prayer."  But what happens if the candle goes out, does the prayer also die?  With this thought I try to relight as many of the candles that have gone out as I can while standing there, feeling a bit like an alter boy (although I wouldn't really know, never having been an alter boy, but as I imagine an alter boy must feel).  Lighting my candle, I try to think good thoughts about friends, family and hope my candle does not blow out soon.

 

Between the candleria and the baths (yes one can bathe in the water from the Grotto) is a large bathroom.  Inside I found a distraught retarded boy/man who kept walking from stall to stall trying to find one that actually held a toilet, and not just one of those awful holes in the ground (that the French xenophobically call "Turkish toilets" --  as if the Turks have anything to do with them), but every stall was the same, toilet-less.  He pointed inside for me to look at the abomination that was wrought within.  At the opening of each new door, he looked more and more disturbed.  As I peed, he waited by the one last closed stall door, waiting for it to become vacant, hoping beyond hope for a small miracle. I finished quickly and I hoped his guardian or family member would come in to help him.

 

I next turned toward the bath: thinking maybe I would rinse off my sins and the grit and grim of the road, but alas, I could not stay to purge as the holy water I had drunk was starting to take effect: and I like the retarded boy in the bathrooms I like to have a real toilet to perch upon.  So I hurried back to the hotel.  The Holy Water has an effect after all.

                                                            

The Search for the Holy Grail

Bretagne, France.  A great part of the world, even besides the crêpes.  And the place to being a search for the Holy Grail. I drove down to Paimpont Forest (né Brocéliande) in a hunt for Merlin and the Holy Grail.  My quest started in the rather dull, modern town of Moron (actually Mauron –apparently the sister city of Newmarket England (but I think it should be the sister city of Taft, CA (né Moron))) in search for lunch, but I failed in that my first little mini quest, and had to make due with an apple (but it was a magical apple, so that was ok). 

Next stop was the Chateau de Comper, the mythical home of Viviane (the Lady of the Lake) and the childhood home of Lancelot.  Turning into the car park, just past a field with a cow baying at the moon (it really looked like it was baying at the moon, sitting on its haunches, head thrown back in classic wolf pose – perhaps it was just trying to stand up or perhaps these Breton cows are a special breed), I was greeted by a  woman in polyester Gwenevere costume, backpack on one shoulder, munching on a sandwich … clearly I had now entered the realm of King Arthur!

Inside the castle, a rather dull exhibition of Arthurian lore, mannequins dressed renaissance costume (?!) and bus loads of French school children all in capes and with magic wands running about the chateau casting spells on walls, potted plants and whatever else they happened to pass.  I guess it was some sort of Harry Potter convention (although, since this is France, they were Henri Podders).  I took a quick look into the lake out back (no ladies in evidence under the water) and got the hell out of there.

Next stop: Le Tombeau de Merlin and Le Fontaine de Jouvence.  After driving through some lovely woods and fields, imagining the crazed old Druid shaman, Merlin, sitting on a stump all hairy and ragged, gnawing on some half cooked chunk of meat, wondering when some sucker would come along who he could dupe into some steady business,  I came to the “Tomb of Merlin” … really a druid religious site, a little circle of stones covered with notes, flowers and prayers for Merlin.  While I was there contemplating the meeting of Merlin and the naïve young Arthur, three French guys, avec rottweiler, wandered up, wrote pithy little notes on scraps of paper, and tucked them into the rocks around the tomb.  Someone had actually left flowers for Merlin, a yellow rose, with a note saying “Merci Merlin” in a flowery feminine hand – I wonder what the old rogue did for her?

I followed the French guys and their dog back into the woods to the Fountain of Youth – a rather drab dirty little hole in the ground with some water trickling out – no reason why the Fountain of Youth should look especially flashy I guess.  Apparently this site was an ancient Druid fountain where at a nighttime ceremony the priests (or Merlin) would essentially baptize dirty little baby druids … but it is now surrounded by little cairns of rock left by escapees of the Renaissance Fairs from around the world in remembrance of something or another.  After the French guys has tromped back off into the woods, I knelt down and had a sip from the fountain … one cannot come all this distance to find the fountain of youth and not take a sip!  (and I guess catching some sort of bacterial infection and spending the rest of the day shitting myself will be the closest I come to regaining my infancy).  Then it started to rain.

Time for real lunch.  I made my way through the heart of Paimpont Forest to the village of Paimpont.  After a leisurely stroll down the main street (the only street if truth be told), looking at the souvenir shops mostly plastic swords and little gnomish figurines that could be found at any local Renaissance Fair, I found a likely looking little restaurant, “Le Bar de L'Abbaye,” with a nice terrace where I could sit quietly in the rain and have some lunch.  From the full menu, I opted against the “Salade de Viviane” (with tuna) and the “Salade de Morgan” (Salmon) for the “Salade de Merlin” (ham) – somewhere Merlin is no doubt howling in outrage that a stinking salad is named after him, and not a hearty meal of BBQ pork or something.  The salad was fine, but apparently in this part of France “sans sauce” means “smothered in oily salad dressing” … in Paris it means something else entirely.

I decided to forgo dessert, the Germans at next table had a rather impressive looking towers of flaming ice cream (the “Flambé Merlin perhaps?) and I headed back out on the quest.  Next stop: La Fontaine de Barenton.  This Fountain was where the nephew of King Arthur, Yvain, supposedly defeated the dreaded Black Knight and married his widow (he then left her for a year, came back to find her a bit annoyed. He was thus banished. Then he met a lion (apparently lions wandered the Brocéliande back then), and with the lion’s help won back his wife).  It’s another lovely drive through the forest, passing through the quant hamlet of Folle-Pensée (Madness Cured – I kid you not) and then and a misty, rainy 30 min walk though some lovely fern filled woods to reach the fabled and magical Fontaine de Barenton, only to find that the bus load of Henri Podders had beaten me there (perhaps they really did have some magical powers).  The clutch of them was sitting in a ragged circle around the small stone wall that surrounded the spring; they were having an impromptu lesson on druid culture or some such from a teacher dressed as Gandalf, fake beard and all.  Le Fontaine de Barenton was supposed to be enchanted; as the story goes if one with strong magical powers (like Merlin, for instance) would take the water from the spring, say some incantations and then pour the water on the alter stone next to the well, they could create terrible storms.  From the look of the weather, I think a few of the Henri Podders had already been mucking about with that spring water. 

My last stop on the search for Merlin and the Holy Grail was the “Val Sans Retour” (Valley of no Return), which is nestled just outside the village of Tréhorenteuc (the name just glides off the tongue, doesn’t it?).  I had high hopes for this valley, with such a sinister sounding name, but clearly, since I am writing this, it is a bit of a misnomer.  However the valley is indeed dark and deep and vaguely sinister … the place where King Arthur’s bitchy half sister, Morgan, turned her unfaithful lovers into stones (the rock formations called the Faux-Amants ) and imprisoned others by bewitching them.  It seemed a reasonable good place for Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus’s uncle, to steal off with the cup from the last supper and hide it this the farthest frontier of the Roman Empire.  But where would he hide it in this deep spooky valley?  The mist lay heavy over the hills and the only sound was the distant cawing of some crows.  Perhaps under that flat rock?  I turned over the rock, just bugs.  Maybe under that ancient looking bush?  Nothing, but a likely spot for a pee. 

I gave up.  Yet another in a long line of failed pilgrims hunting for the grail.  Back to the hotel. Nothing worth hunting for ends without a large measure of anticlimax.

A Weekend Trip To Normandy

After driving out from Paris, my first stop was the famous tapestry of Bayeax (1,000 years old and tells the story of William the Conqueror).  It’s sort of interesting but 100s of British school children underfoot make it sort of hard to take.  The tapestry itself is 250 feet long, with little embroidered cartoons telling the tale, embroidered Latin footnotes help those who cannot understand the pictures (French and English signs outside the display case help those who cannot read Latin nor understand the pictures).  But honestly, it’s a big rug.  Hard to get too excited.

After, I drove up to Arromanches-les-Bains (to see the British prefab harbor of Mulberry Harbors – or what is left of it – quite amazing project – the Allies dragged these giant pontoons across the English Channel to create the man-made harbor) and Longues-sur-Mer (to see 152mm German guns that were part of the Atlantic Wall – they are still there – fascinating).  But I found Omaha and Utah Beaches a bit anti-climactic, as I have found all famous battle sites I have ever visited.  Most battles, apparently, take place on rather random ground which holds no inherent interest and thus years after the battle that ground reverts to its boring origins.  Omaha Beach just looks like a sort of normal holiday resort (Waterloo is just a field, as is Austerlitz, etc.)

The next day, I visited the north coast of Bretagne.  In a word: Fabulous.  Le Mont St. Michel is an amazing little island and St. Malo is a really cool walled city.

But the highlight of the day: a real traditional crepe.  It was all it was cracked up to be.  I had been told by a native Breton I met in Paris that he hated the Parisian crepes because they were always too thick.  I thought he was a bit daft, as crepes are pretty damned thin (they are crepes afterall). But having just had a real crepe, I can understand what he meant.  The thing was paper thin, if even that.  So thin that there is no way one could eat it in your hand.  It was folded delicately on a plate.  I had a traditional one of just butter and sugar, and it tasted not unlike ambrosia.  Really splendid.  If you ever get to St. Malo, you must stop at Ti Nevez Creperie at 12, rue Broussais .

On the drive out to Normandy I bought a few CDs from a Auto Route rest stop: Dalida (the chanteuse and comedienne) and Johnny Halliday.  And I must say I just don’t get it.  Either of them … pretty awful stuff.  I might have to donate them to the Rental Car gods as a sacrifice.  I can think of no reason for Dalida's fame, except for her great lungs (on display in the CD jacket photo).  I guess she might have been quite funny, and it occurs to me that her singing could be a big joke too (perhaps one that no one really understood -- they thought she was being serious).  Johnny Halliday is awful.  No other word to describe it.

For the drive back to Paris, I have bought another CD, a "Summer 2006" mix of what is hot this summer ... I am sure I will hate it (although it did have one promising song by a frog on it).

Paris Women, Redux

Paris Women, Redux: I am starting (well, not really starting, but continuing) to find all the women of Paris exquisite torture.  Every time I venture out of my apartment I know I will be tantalized, teased and tormented, without mercy.  It’s starting to get to me.  I might have to start spending more time inside as the weather continues to warm up.  Actually I am thinking of giving up on the whole “chercher la femme” stuff.  It’s too frustrating.

I saw the perfect bikini model (in French “mannequin”) walking back to my apartment this afternoon.  She was crossing in front of me as I made my way into the Boulangerie.  She was breathtaking … painfully lovely … about 25, 5’6”, long brown hair, curvy in all the right ways … and she even smiled shyly at me (perhaps she has some odd fetish for shy middle aged men?) … oh my … I tripped on the curb.  And then she was gone.  I will have to try to find her again. 

But why did I let her go?  And if I did find her again, what am I supposed to do?  Lob her over my shoulder and lug her home like some prehistoric Don Juan?  Or more likely, try to start a conversation with her? … “Alors!  Oh la la!  Vous êtes très jolie. Très … um … er … Vous voulez aller … er … coucher … non non …”   and then it would degenerate into grunts and unintentionally crude hand gestures.  A bit sad really. 

I always thought a well seasoned traveler always comes prepared.  Would one travel with a spare bikini model in one’s valise?

Paris Nightlife

Some notes on the “nightlife” of Paris.  I walked past the Moulin Rouge (The Red Windmill) along the Boulevard de Clinchy (nestled in with row after row of sex shops).  I have also located Crazy Horse, Lido, and Foliee Bérgere (if one wants a choice in entertainment, or conversely, if one wants to make a full night of it).  On the other end of the entertainment spectrum, I found where most of the … er … les femmes de travaille … shall we say … spend their time, up along rue St.-Denis.  A rather grim and hard looking bunch over all. 

For a special night out in Paris, a friend and I had dinner at this famous old restaurant in Les Halles (a central neighborhood of Paris) called Au Pied de Cochon (The Pigs Feet – there were little pig feet door knobs).  Lots of pig on the menu and of course, pigs’ feet.  We opted for pork chops and steak.  After dinner we went to a show at Crazy Horse.  It a nice show.  Although it is hard not to enjoy beautiful naked women dancing and jiggling about on stage.

After dinner, the taxi driver asked us if we were interested in a brothel.  We declined his offer to show us one.  Although in retrospect, it could have been an experience to spend an evening in a Parisian brothel.

 

Café life in Paris

Finding the perfect café in my neighborhood is a difficult task, but I have my eye on one at the end of the block, Café Rousseau, that looks quite nice from the outside (so many variables, some cafes are too crowded and cramped, some have really uncomfortable seats, others focus more on being brasseries or bistros, some just look like Starbucks and others are full of tourists (Café La Flore was full of tourists, but it does have a great quiet upstairs – although the prices!)).  A full exploration of the Café Rousseau will be needed, over tea will be on the agenda (tomorrow afternoon, after French class?).

A great discovery right around the corner from my apartment -- lovely little bakery, which is apparently quite famous, called Poilâne, Catherine Deneuve apparently shops there.  (I bought a yummy brioche).  I also went over to the 8th to an amazing food store called Fauchon.  It carries all sorts of caviars, foie gras, confiture, teas.  I contemplated a $400 an ounce caviar or a $300 a kilo pate, but got instead some blueberry jam and country pâté. Over the next week or so, I want to find a really good cheese shop (I have the name of a potential one in the 14th , called Androuet), a patisserie and chocolate shop (perhaps Tartine et Chocolat in the 7th?).