Le Grand Vefour....

Another day, another 3-star meal. Ho-hum. I started off with raviolis filled with egg yolk emulsion and foie gras (and yes, I don't care if the goose suffers... I'm not gonna become a vegetarian until my reincarnation as a cow). I think this may have been the most velvety dish I've ever eaten. My fish (lot) was tender, perfectly cooked like all European fish. (Do Americans just overcook fish?) It came with minced cucumbers and a cucumber emulsion that tarted up the fish and gave it a zing. We had a 2000 Sancerre to go along with the meal and it was perfect.

That morning we went to Carnavalet, the museum of Paris. Really, I went for two rooms, the first one a gorgeous ballroom painted by Jose Maria Sert, the other a jewelry store done (some might say overdone) in Belle Epoque style with a front counter surmounted by a huge metal peacock with light shining from the glass eyes of its tail.

The Sert decorates all the walls of a room and shows the queen of Sheba arriving at King Solomon's with an enormous entourage. There are rows of elephants carrying potted palms, philosophes riding ostrichback, and the queenherself, naked but being sheltered by slaves and courtiers as she sits on a huge seashell on the back of an enormous elephant. We'd gone to a gallery on the Left Bank the day before to see some Serts that were for sale. The ones we liked best had already been sold!

After lunch we took a leisurely stroll through the Tuileries to the Orangerie. When I went to see the Monet waterlilies, there was no one else there. Now, they've completely rebuilt the museum, and you have to wait in line and then see them not in an atmosphere of calm and relaxation, but in a cloud of excitement and crowd. Not as I remembered, but the paintings are still marvelous. The Guillaume collection that shares the museum remains as exciting as ever. I would pay money just to see the Soutines. He reminds me of so many painters, but all ones who came after his daring expressionism.

Goodbye to Paris now.