Cockroaches of the Sea

Ugh, what a mess we are over here at the ranch. B admirably fought off my vicious übervirus for nearly two months, no small feat given our four foot square apartment and our luxurious two star hotels in Portugal:  “Hey!  Is that your foot or the shower head?!”  But he has finally succumbed to the beast. Our home has turned into a contest as to who can cough the loudest. He’s trying his best, but his weakling four-day-old cold is absolutely no match for my mature demon. Having completely exhausted my supply of mucus and lung tissue, I’ve begun coughing up lost elementary school biology papers, pieces of swallowed gum, and lead paint I chipped off a desk and ate when I was seven years old. I’m digging deep, dear reader.

I must be a seriously miserable sick person to live with. I spend most of my time surfing the web, looking for alternative diagnoses, and coming to the conclusion that my swollen lymph nodes actually indicate that I have tuberculosis and spleen cancer. I inherited this charming case of hypochondria from my mother, who once concluded from an errant lab result and an afternoon spent on Web MD that she had early onset Alzheimer’s, which she announced to me right before we attended a production of Madame Butterfly. Fortunately, you are allowed to sob through the opera. Needless to say, she didn’t have Alzheimer’s, nor do I have tuberculosis or spleen cancer. The internet is an ugly place for people of our disposition. Let’s just say that B has begun to lose his patience with sentences that begin with “According to Wikipedia, gallbladder failure begins with a faint sense of doom…”

Yet despite our cacophony of coughs and my rabid internet-fueled death fears, we had a pretty lovely Valentine’s Day, if you happen to care. I know you didn’t ask about my Valentine’s Day, and barf to hearing about other people’s romantic holidays, am I right? But one particularly cool thing transpired, namely that B bought and killed his first live lobster! I guess sometime in the past six months I said that the most romantic thing I could think of was someone making me lobster bisque from scratch. I don’t even remember saying it—I have a brain like a sieve for anything other than pop song lyrics—but B remembered my weird little request and filed it away, likely on an Excel spreadsheet that he maintains for this very purpose.  On Monday, he left work and tracked down this amazing creature:

I was still teaching rather late into the evening, a rather brutal graduate class I’ve been assigned in the school of education in which my students are twice my age and seem to arbitrarily resent about half of the things I tell them about the English language. Still, a steady stream of text messages from home kept me duly entertained:

Success!  That fishmonger on Rivoli had a lively selection.  What a beautiful boy!

He’s watching me chop the vegetables for the bisque!  A great kitchen companion!

Can I touch it!?  YES! [If this doesn’t ring a bell, scurry over here immediately and promptly make your own day.]

Goodbye my lobster friend!

OMG escape attempt!  Thwarted!

OMG, he actually changed colors!!  Why didn’t we charge the camera!  Can I use the photobooth on your computer??

OMG, HE is a SHE!  EGG SACK!

I came home to Sade and Stevie Wonder on the stereo, a perfect bouquet of orange tulips, a box of fancy chocolates, and fragments of lobster shell mysteriously shellacked to the walls of our kitchen.  The bisque itself was a labor-intensive, resounding success.  I often describe things as “sex on toast” (no idea where I got that one), but this was even better. It was like sex on a fresh blini. Always a stickler for the correct word, B explained that it less of a bisque and more of a chowder, as he decided to submerge a half-lobster’s worth of meat in each bowl upon serving (insert heaving sounds of joy here).  He cobbled together his masterpiece from a mixture of French and English recipes, so I’ll try and convince him to give me the recipe to post here. There really is nothing like the slaying of a live animal to really let your lover know you care.

Galão Galão, or, How to See Lisbon and Porto When You Are Too Sick to Stand

Hello dear reader! I suppose you might be wondering where I’ve been. Well, I returned from the US to Paris, finished out my second-to-last semester of teaching, and went to Portugal with B for a week and a half.  I’ve done most of this while nursing one of the ugliest and clingiest colds on either side of the Atlantic. In a dismal coincidence, I started getting pretty sick right before we left on our trip, and managed to make my first-ever visit to Portugal a veritable death march.  In the final few days of our trip, I developed some kind of crunchy noise in my right lung, which I’ve been delighted to find out is a mean case of bronchitis. So I know I’ve been a really bad internet boyfriend for the past month or so, but trust me, I’ve been pretty lousy company in real life too.

I’ve got loads to tell you about, including two schmancy meals at La Gazzetta and Spring for my and M’s respective birthdays.  As I’m full of phlegm, however, I’m going to leave that for later this weekend and instead give you a little bit of a rundown about our trip.

Honestly, we really didn’t love Portugal. It certainly didn’t help that I was particularly ill most of the time and B got a wicked case of food poisoning in the last leg of our trip. While the weather was sunny and crisp, so I can’t complain about rain, I certainly think that it might be a better summer tourist destination. One of our biggest gripes was with the food. I know these are fighting words to some people, and I want to acknowledge that we don’t speak a lick of Portuguese and were largely beholden to recommendations from our friends and our guidebook (Lonely Planet, though I’m thinking of leaving them for never updating their goddamn listings) and the internets at large. In the past, that kind of research has been more than enough for us to be two happily fed campers, but it felt like we couldn’t score a hit in Portugal, no matter how hard we tried.  We tried all the things we were supposed to at places where they were supposed to be good.  In Lisbon, we ate  bacalhau espiritual (salt-cod soufflé), porco a alentejana (garlicy pork cooked with clams and lots of lard),  spit-roasted frango (chicken) with piri-piri on the side, caldeirada rica (spicy fish stew), pastéis de nata (custard tarts), and lulas recheadas (stuffed squid). We sipped ginjinha (sweet cherry liqueur) at the place where it was invented. In Porto, I sampled sardinhas fritas (battered and deep-fried sardines) and arroz de tomate (tomato risotto) while B dug in to a giant bowl of tripas á moda do Porto (Porto-style tripe), a cassolet-type dish of pigs feet, white beans, tripe, chicken, sausages, and vegetables cooked with lots of cumin.

All this is to say, well, we tried. We found the sweets often verged on cloyingly so, and the reliance upon pork fat for everything (including most desserts) made a lot of things heavier than I might have liked. I obviously don’t have the same palate for salt as the Portuguese, and found most of the soups and rice dishes I sampled to be overwhelmingly salty. I don’t say all this to trash an entire national culinary tradition, which I suspect is varied and interesting and flat-out delectable in the right circumstances. But we had pretty bad luck, and it was disheartening at points. By the end it seemed like all we were consuming was sour drip coffee and grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.

Rather than dwell on the negative, however, I want to share with you the best moments of our trip (some food-related!).  This won’t be nearly as comprehensive as our last vacation entries (I don’t think anyone could or should plan a trip to Lisbon and Porto from my recommendations). But if you’re going anyway, here’s what we particularly liked.

In Lisbon, our favorite day was spent seeing the major sites. The Sé, Castelo de São Jorge, and museum at Igreja de São Vicente de Fora are the things that every tourist does in Lisbon for a reason – they are truly amazing.  The views from the Castelo de São Jorge can’t be beat, but my favorite view was from the very top of Igreja de São Vicente de Fora, where we were miraculously alone at sunset.  Despite the occasional miseries we went through on our vacation (just wait until I tell you all the different places B barfed in Porto!), we did see some pretty memorable (and romantic) sunsets in Lisbon.  Another great sunset spot (though hardly the “best kept secret” Lonely Planet described it as) is at Noobai Café (Miradouro de Santa Catarina).  Get there an hour before sunset like we did to snag a table, then watch the Wayfarer-clad Portuguese hipsters give you the evil eye when they arrive too late in the game for the money shot.

We also really dug the Convento do Carmo and the Museu Arqueológico.  With a clear blue sky, the skeletal arches of the nave (which was never fully rebuilt after the Lisbon earthquake) is pretty phenomenal.

For the weirdoes like yours truly out there, the museum has without a doubt the most terrifying mummified bodies I’ve ever seen: two 16th century Peruvian children curled up in little balls. They didn’t allow pictures, but I’m still having nightmares.

We took an afternoon and went to the Oceánario, which I’d also really recommend doing. The second-largest aquarium in Europe and a distinctly conservation-oriented space, the Oceánario is really is an amazing facility.  They grow their own coral reefs there! I suspect that it will be even more amazing when they finish the ear-shatteringly loud renovations they were working on during our visit. Come to think of it, a lot of the bad taste in my mouth about Lisbon comes from the fact that I swear I could hear jackhammers at every single moment. The price of beauty, I guess.

Anyway, the main draw of the aquarium is the central tank, which is staggeringly large and filled with a remarkable diversity of species (remarkable, I suppose, because I can’t believe that nobody gets eaten). Every exhibit returns the visitor to another view of the central tank to reinforce the idea of one ocean (I think), so you’ll have plenty of time to observe the animals for an extended period of time as they move through this enormous space. It’s worth the price of admission alone.

As for eating, we did enjoy the much-hyped pastéis de belém, served warm from the oven at Antiga Confeitaria de Belém (you’ll find it, don’t worry).

At 80 cents a pop, they are quite a bargain.  Well, you also have to factor in a 5 euro tram ride to and from Belém into that bargain, but there are touristy things to do in Belém if you feel well enough to do things other than lie immobile on park benches and cough (I didn’t).

We also had a few totally decent meals during our time in Lisbon. Bonjardim (Travessa de Santa Antão 11, Lisboa), purveyor of succulent and flavorful rotisserie chickens and fries really floated our boat, though the piri-piri hygiene thing there is a bit weird. It was probably only because I was deathly ill that this even occurred to me. We also enjoyed a rather schmancy lunch at New York Times-recommended Aqui Há Peixe (Rua da Trindad 18A, Lisboa), where we were able to sample local oysters, salty-spicy fish stew, and grilled squid and red snapper. Was the food pretty good? Yeah. Would a restaurant serving that food and charging 80 euros for lunch last for one week in Paris? Nope.  Maybe the antibiotics are making me more honest than usual.

We particularly enjoyed a dinner at O Barrigas (Travessa da Queimada 31, Lisboa) in the Barrio Alto. Aside from the very Clarence-friendly name of “the bellies,” we especially liked their house specialty, a bacalhau espiritual that combined salted cod, bread, and carrots (and probably a healthy amount of pork fat) into a baked, soufflé-like dish. It was salty and fatty and totally satisfying. Also yummy was a veal stew served with the omnipresent fries of Portugal. We were the only people there the night we ate, which is really too bad, because it is a pretty great little restaurant. So go there, internets, should you find yourself in Portugal.

The biggest plug I want to make is for Pois Café (Rua de São João da Praça 93, Lisboa), quite possibly one of the most darling little joints I’ve been to in a long time. Run by Austrians (all hail the cakes!), this place is somehow everything you really want a great café to be: kitschey, eclectic, and comfy, with great food and coffee. And a liquor license! Seriously, the sandwiches we ate there for lunch might have been the best thing we ate on our trip. No joke.

They have Wifi and encourage people to sit and read. It’s lovely, and I’d be all over it like a fat kid on fried chicken if I lived in Lisbon. Depressingly, I just visited their website, only to discover that it is FOR SALE. The optimist in me hopes that one savvy Keeping the Bear Garden in the Background reader buys the place and keeps it wonderful. The pessimist in me says owner-changes (when the original is a gem) never work out very well, so get there while it’s still hot peeps.

I also loved shopping in Libson.  After scouring a dozen or so sapatarias, we scored B some pretty serious Fernando Silva leather shoes at about the third of the cost of what we would have paid in Paris.  We loved visiting the 80-year-old Conserveira de Lisboa, a veritable canned-fish lover’s dream with the walls lined with beautifully packaged tins of sardines, salted cod, cockles, tuna, and cephalapods in every possible sauce and preparation. They wrap your purchases in printed brown paper and tie it with a string, and while I know that this kind of thing is really for the tourists nowadays, it still feels pretty old-world and special.  It will feel less special, however, when you arrive for your flight leaving Portugal and discover that they will not allow you to carry canned food items on to the plane, meaning that you have to pay an additional 25 euros to check your suitcase, making those six cans of sardines that you purchased the most expensive cans of fish in the history of time.  The EasyJet woman smiled and shook her head when I showed her my neat little package.  “It’s always the sardines,” she said.  It’s always the sardines.

The other place that you should go an do some conspicuous consuming is the gorgeous A Vida Portuguesa stores in both Lisbon and Porto (Rua Anchieta 11 Lisboa).  I had read an article in the New York Times The Moment blog about this amazing place, but this store really does take the idea of a well-edited shop to a whole new level. Everything in the store is manufactured in Portugal, often by small companies that have been making beautiful products for generations.  They have everything from toothpaste to metal polish to cans of olive oil, all in amazing, vintage-looking packages.  They also carry a great selection of children’s’ toys, vintage postcards, and beautiful home textiles.  I died over the handmade Emilio Braga notebooks and the Caldas da Rainha and Faianças Artísticas Bordalo Pinheiro ceramics.

While I showed a fair amount of restraint in the Lisbon store, the discovery that our hotel was next door to the Porto store broke my willpower.  We ended up carting back a big bag of paper products, pencils, two amazing mugs, and the sugar bowl of my dreams, which looks like an oyster.  Depending on how good your Portuguese is (snort), you can shop online for many of their products.

Things were bleak enough by the time we intended to take the train to Porto that we actually shopped for flights directly back to Paris from Lisbon. Note to fellow travellers:  traveling on bargain airlines like EasyJet means that when you call to ask if you can change your ticket, they laugh and hang up on you. It had begun to rain in Lisbon and the gods of the weather internets were saying that it was going to be even worse in Porto.

We were surprised, then, to find Porto to be a sunny, lovely town full of bookshops and bobos and picturesque abandoned buildings.  Look, I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t still sick as a dog and somewhat miserable a lot of the time.  I’m also not going to lie and say that the food was any better in Porto (though we had resigned ourselves to eating more toasted ham and cheese sandwiches, which are actually quite good across Portugal).  But we liked Porto about a thousand times more than Lisbon.  It’s full of young people and quirky shops and lovely parks.  While Lisbon felt to us like a place we would only want to visit, Porto felt like a place we could actually live.

The wheels did fall off the bus a bit when after dining at A Tasquinha (Rua do Carmo 23, Porto), B came down with a pretty vicious case of food poisoning.  He had ordered the tripe, an act that I joking observed his gastrointestinal system probably regarded as cannibalism.

Inspired perhaps by the walking-death impression I’d be doing the whole trip, B put on a brave face and we went sightseeing. I’m a bit of an architecture junkie (as most dilettantes are), so I wanted to see Rem Koolhaas’ Casa da Música.  Pretty underwhelming in person, and it appears that the main function of this 100 million euro project is as a skate park for the local youth.  Grumble, grumble, where’s my Metamucil?

We went inside to see the interior, and B promptly announced that he had to find a restroom. We found an empty bar, and B rushed into the restroom while I waited on some strangely discordant looking furniture.  An orchestral concert was taking place in the main concert hall and they piped the music through the entire space, so I got to listen to Rossini, as did B while his body attempted to turn itself inside out.  He came out after a half hour, glowing and looking like he had seen God.

I suggested that we go back to the hotel room, but he insisted that we continue on our death march to Serralves, a wonderful contemporary arts space housed in a gorgeous park filled with art installations.

It’s very difficult to access via public transportation, however, as Porto’s slick new metro system does not reach to that part of the city. You can now imagine us walking along a peripheral freeway, me hacking out a lung or two, B green with nausea.  By the time we arrived at the park, we decided it would be best to sit down.  The map directed us to a teahouse in the park, where we discovered that fancy tea in Portugal is Lipton.  It mattered little, as we were really there so B could vomit again.

Discovering that the men’s restroom was far too abject to even barf in, B commandeered the ladies’ room for another round of “that offal was really awful.” When the staff discovered him, he pretended to be French. That’s another point of the US of A right there.  We then attempted to care about two exhibitions, one of political art and one a retrospective of letterist Gil J Wolman’s art.  Well, actually we looked for benches to collapse on and film displays to curl up in the dark.  But it’s a really amazing space, and certainly worth a visit should you find yourself healthy and in Porto.

My favorite day of the trip was when we took the train from Porto to Vila do Conde, a swish beach community with a gorgeous stretch of Atlantic coastline. It was obviously too cold to do much at the beach besides wander around and climb on the rocks, but we did this with great zeal.

A strange churro stand at the beach was pumping out old Fado music on a record player, lending a lilting soundtrack to our exploration.  Best of all, we were virtually alone on the beach, making this perhaps the most romantic moment of what might very well have been one of the least romantic vacations ever (there’s nothing like handing your lover a snot or puke stained kleenex “to hold” to put a damper on things). Actually, we took pretty good care of each other on the trip, and there is nothing quite like knowing that you still really like somebody even when you both feel like crap. So maybe it was kind of romantic after all.

Did I mention the bookstores in Porto?  Check out this beauty:

Meet Livraria Lello, an amazing 1906 Gothic revival bookshop that features this killer staircase. What I didn’t realize at first glance is that most of the “woodwork” is actually trompe l’oeil plaster, and the staircase itself is a solid cement structure (quite an engineering feat in 1906).  Even cooler, perhaps, was the fact that many of Porto’s bookshops put of displays of “revolutionary” literature as things began to escalate in Egypt:

It was kind of frustrating being out of touch with English-speaking news while such amazing things were happening, but it was great to see everyone rallying and getting excited. If you are anything like me, dear reader, I suspect you’ve been weeping to images of the crowds rejoicing in the streets the past two days.

Well, at any rate, that’s about all I’ve got to say about our somewhat disappointing Portuguese foray, friends. I’d like to hear all the things you love about Portugal and all the things I failed to eat that would have turned my spirits around. I can’t help but feel like we missed the boat a little bit, which is somewhat inevitable if you travel enough (and you make the budget-driven decision to travel even when you are sick). I’m sorry to have been such a lousy bloguese as of late. I’ve missed you guys and I promise I’ll see you soon.

 

Clarence is Hopelessly Besotted with Brother’s BBQ in Denver, Colorado

It’s Christmas Eve, people! Merry merry, if this holiday is something you observe. Many (most?) of my friends are secular Jews, so my mother’s insistence upon wishing everyone she sees a “Merry Christmas!” has been getting on my nerves. Between that and the bb gun that she is keeping next to our door as part of her interminable war on the woodpeckers in our neighborhood, things are getting positively Palinesque around here. I told her that and she quickly responded that Santa could always rescind my subscription to the New Yorker, so I better watch my smart-mouthed ass.

B and I are not spending the holidays together, which has been weirder than I imagined. I’ve gotten used having him around, narrating my every annoying thought to his patient ears. I’m beginning to realize just how patient he is, especially with regards to my many obsessions (Italian cinema, Mexican food, watching people lance giant boils on the internet, etc.). For Christmas, he sent me a handsome hardcover copy of Frederico Fellini’s Book of Dreams, a gorgeous reproduction of Fellini’s amazing dream journals published by Rizzoli in conjunction with Jeu de Paume’s Fellini retrospective last year. It was something I had declared I wanted more than anything in the world and then promptly forgotten about, so it was a grand surprise. My parents have been mighty patient with their temporary custody all of these strange fixations of mine, but my mom finally declared that she couldn’t eat any more Mexican food or watch one more episode of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Fair enough.

One thing that both of my folks will get on board with any day of the week is my infatuation with Denver’s best barbecue joint, Brother’s BBQ (locations around town, but the original location is at 568 Washington Street, Denver, CO 80203). Starting with one location in 1998, two brothers originally from England (!) have built a veritable barbecue empire in our fair city, one that while known for some yummy food, certainly doesn’t know much about barbecue. I know, I know, you’re probably thinking “what the hell do two BRITISH guys living in DENVER know about one of America’s greatest culinary traditions?!” Well, Chris and Nick O’Sullivan did their homework–traveling around the US and apprenticing at famous BBQ restaurants in various parts of the South. The result was a pretty fantastic understanding of various regional specialties, all served under one roof in a town where you couldn’t get good barbecue fifteen years ago.

Now look, I know I’m no Jeffrey Steingarten (swoon!) when it comes to barbecue. I hope to remedy this next year, and B seems pretty gung-ho about indulging my grand fantasy of a barbecue road trip of the American South (I’ve got to plan these sorts of things to keep y’all entertained when I leave Paris). But in the meantime, I do think that Brother’s BBQ does a pretty fantastic job. I especially love their Memphis-style pulled pork shoulder sandwich (served with two sides for $9.25). They’ve got that spicy, vinegary sauce down pat, and their meat is always perfectly slow-cooked for 15 hours (says the young grasshopper). I haven’t yet tried their signature sandwich, The Brother:  a thin layer of smoked hot links, topped with pulled pork, coleslaw, tangy vinegar bbq sauce, fresh jalapeños (hi Denver!) and fried onions. But how could that not be delicious? My mouth is watering as I type.

Even better is their Thursday night rib special, where you can order up to a dozen St. Louis style dry-rubbed pork spare ribs or hickory-smoked beef ribs (sweet sauce, of course) at half price.  This means that a slab of 12 pork ribs goes from being $21.99 to $10.99, and a slab of 10 beef ribs jumps from $23.99 to $11.99. Pair that with some bargain microbrew beers (god I love Colorado) and you’ve got yourself an evening and a half. Their sides are top notch, especially their spicy, tangy barbecued beans (with pork, of course) and their mashed, skin-on red potatoes with gravy. Perhaps perversely (though necessarily in super health-conscious bobo Denver), they also cater to the vegetarian market with bbq tofu (I know, I know, but remember, they are better, more ethical people than you and I, dear reader), salads, and a fierce mac and cheese.

The decor reminds me of that show starring that neo-Nazi that cheated on Sandra Bullock when she was having a really nice day.  Yanno, fancy-motorcycle and collector license plate kitsch? It’s not my bag, per se, but it also goes a long way in getting the manliest men in the door. If the smell of smoked meat wafting through the parking lot wasn’t enough. Please go here, should you find yourself in the Mile High City. I know the real know-it-alls might have something to say on this subject (And please say it! Why doesn’t anyone ever comment except my favorite reader Hattie?!). I’ll remedy my lack of down-home barbecue knowledge in the coming years, but in the meantime, I’ll be chowing down at Brother’s.

Happy Holidays, dearest reader!  You are my very favorite present, even if I can’t shove you under a tree.

Even Clarence Can’t Eat the Whole Burrito: Jack n’ Grill in Denver, Colorado

I am back in my hometown for the holidays. I won’t spell out the name of my hometown explicitly so as to maintain some kind of pseudo-anonymity on this site (snort, and let’s be honest: real life familiarity with me goes a long way in liking this blog, am I right?).  But anyway, I’m from a town in the mountains near Denver, Colorado, and not one of the shitty ones. You do the math.

My would-be glorious reentry into American life has been somewhat tainted by my affliction with the head cold that will. never. end. Seriously, I was sick for nearly two weeks before leaving Paris, and am still a snotty, grizzled mess a week and a half into my Colorado respite. That’s right, I just described leaving Paris as a “respite.” Go ahead and throw a rock at my mountain-home-in-a-not-shitty-Denver-bedroom-community. I certainly would if I were in your position.

But the fact of the matter is I haven’t been back to the States in nearly a year and a half, and I was longing for a break from some things. Like being jammed onto the RER every morning and spending a half hour my face in some French guy’s smelly armpit.  Or having to walk everywhere in a blizzard, only to discover that the thing that I have trekked to isn’t open at two p.m. on a Tuesday. Perversely, I was even getting kind of sick of French food. Everything seemed suddenly somehow too complicated and fussy. All I wanted was a burrito or a hamburger, a big box store, and my mother’s entire enormous house in which to luxuriate and watch reality television, preferably whilst in my sweatpants, which are apparently acceptable restaurant attire in this (not shitty, I swear!) mountain community.

Also, I basically couldn’t wait—I mean, chomping-at-the-bit couldn’t wait—to eat at Jack n’ Grill (three locations in Denver, but I like to go to the original location at 2524 N. Federal Blvd. Denver CO 80211), for my money the best New Mexican food in Denver. And I’ll put my money where my mouth is on this particular bet. I’ve already been there twice in a week, and I’m plotting my next visit as we speak.

What’s so great about this Jack n’ Grill, you may ask? There are plenty of places in Denver that you can get a burrito smothered in green chile. Silly rabbit. Lots of things are great and totally singular at Jack n’ Grill. For those of you that actually care about all things New Mexican (hi Max!), the family that runs the place (and I mean literally—I think everyone from the line cooks to the bartenders to the waitresses to the little kids running around the dining room is related here) is originally from Albuquerque and they take their chile seriously. They even sell roasted green chile from Hatch, New Mexico in the fall (a great stopgap if you can’t make it south for the real Hatch Chile Days).  Perhaps even more impressive than their pork green chile is their amazing vegetarian red chile, the likes of which you don’t find ever often in Denver (or many places outside of New Mexico and Arizona and my extended family’s kitchens, for that matter). And if you think I’m talking about chili con carne, as in tomato and bean-based TexMex soup, get your shit together and book a plane ticket to Albuquerque. Seriously!  I’ll tell you where to eat.

But if you are a genuine chile-head in Denver, Jack n’ Grill is just about the best thing ever. Their gigantic burritos are something to behold, and you can always order things “Christmas” (as in, half green, half red chile). Even Clarence is out of his league when confronted with a Jack n’ Grill burrito, which my father lovingly describes as a “feeder.”  As in, this burrito will feed you tonight, tomorrow morning, and maybe a snack tomorrow afternoon.

My personal favorite is the chile relleno burrito ($9):  two egg battered chile rellenos (wonton wrappers are for American Chinese restaurants and American Chinese restaurants alone, people) and refried beans wrapped in a giant flour tortilla and smothered with chile and cheese. Blasphemous as this may sound (believe me, I know!), it is just about the yummiest thing ever.  If the idea of making chile rellenos into a burrito makes you squeamish (I understand), go ahead and order the chile relleno plate ($11) and the burrito fixings will be replaced with pinto beans, calabacitas (roasted squash and peppers), and rice.  Look at me accommodating vegetarians on my site! You never thought you’d see the day, did you?

Or, if you are feeling a bit more carnivorous (always), grab the carne adovada plate ($12). Pork loin, slow-cooked in the house red chile until it is basically falling-apart tender, is served with fried potatoes, pinto beans, and rice. Or, order carne adovada in almost any other iteration – in a burrito, some tacos, or (my personal favorite) in a stuffed sopapilla ($11).  That’s right – imagine red chile-braised meat and pinto beans stuffed into a sopapilla that is then deep-fried and smothered in chile and cheese.  Rib-sticking, holy-shit goodness.  If that looks a little too indecent for you (go home!), you can also order a variety of gorditas, which are basically tiny sopapillas stuffed with the filling of your choice and served with chile for dipping.  My mama likes to do this for lunch, saving two for a tidy little take-out dinner.  I usually veer for the enormous feeder plates that make from some pretty excellent (if aesthetically unappealing) leftovers. Don’t worry, we always scrawl our names into the styrofoam carry-out containers so there is no confusion about whose is whose.  Hell hath no fury as this gal if anyone touches my leftover stuffed sopapilla.  For serious.

Jack n’ Grill hamburgers—legendary in their own right and lovingly named after members of the family whose photographs adorn the menus—are enormous and pretty life-altering if hamburgers are your thing.  I especially like the Anna burger ($8), a 10 ounce beef patty served on a (wait for it!) sopapilla with green chile and cheese. I dare you to eat more than half. Or, order a Jaxx burger ($8), served on a bun with guacamole, sour cream, bacon, green chile, and cheese.  Life doesn’t get much better than guacamole and bacon together.  Add some green chile and my brain just exploded.  Jack n’ Grill’s breakfasts (served all day, YES!) are also killer.  Huevos rancheros ($7) with that red chile! Smothered breakfast burritos ($8) stuffed with eggs, ham, fried potatoes, green chiles, and onions! How could you start the day any better?

All of this can be washed down with some of the biggest and most seriously delicious margaritas in Denver. Anyone still going to the Rio Grande downtown for such things deserves everything that comes to them in LoDo on a Friday night, which has officially become the urban planning equivalent of date rape.

Moreover, like I said before, not only is this a family-run place, but it’s owned by quite possibly the nicest family in the world. There does seem to me something distinctly American about this warm, relaxed, and totally democratic kind of restaurant, where waitresses call you sweetie and their kids play outside the kitchen.  I’ve missed this sort of thing, and can’t seem to get enough of it when I’m visiting my hometown. If you find yourself in Denver, please make this your must-eat. Your margarita is on me.

Save Me from What I Want: Shopping in Paris for Everything Else

Hi there!  What a slacker I’ve been about updating!  I’m currently hanging out in my mountain hometown in Colorado, getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon and seeing movies with my parents like three delinquent teenagers.  It’s been delightful.  I have so many things to tell you about, dear reader, including a pretty killer birthday dinner I had in Paris with my lovelies and a slew of down-home restaurants in Denver where I’ve been gleefully gorging.  Get ready for your cholesterol to hit an all time high when you see the pictures.

But first things first, I want to finish this damn shopping guide.  I’ll admit I’m doing this for one person and one person alone, my dear friend S who is currently in Paris.  He’s crashing at our apartment and finishing up some dissertation research at the Pompidou during the holidays.  If his last week in Paris this past spring was any indication, he is also going to be hitting the pavement and looking for a gift for his oh-so-ravishing girlfriend H. The poor kid probably spent a week walking the streets of Paris searching for a gift for her in the spring and ended up purchasing a candle.  Is there anything worse that the massively overdetermined gift?  The gift to which you want to attach a map of all of the miles you walked, the stores you scoured, the headaches you incurred, all out of your desire to buy your favorite person something perfect?

I’ll admit that S has his work cut out for him.  I wouldn’t want to buy a gift for H.  She’s one of those maddeningly pulled-together gals that manage to always make slightly quirky and off-kilter things look impossibly chic.  The kind of woman that makes those of us who wear a veritable uniform of American Apparel and Uniqlo separates feel, well, a bit sheepish. H isn’t alone of course – somehow I manage to attract a lot of überstylish friends, my besties M, MT, and J among them.  If I was a rich lady and could buy presents for everyone, I’d probably hit some of the following locations in Paris. I’ll move from the “what a lovely thought” ideas to the “wow you really shouldn’t have!” categories.

Soap!  Everybody knows about soap from Marseille! Before I headed back to the States, I went to La Maison du Savon de Marseille (17 rue de la Verrerie, 75004 Paris, Métro Hôtel de Ville) and seriously stocked up on their beautiful 200 gram bars of scented soap.  I especially like that some of their floral and herbal varieties are loaded up with actual dried plants (I find a winning combinations to include fleur de lavande, rose, anise, rosmarin, and herbes de provence).  Best yet, at 10 bars for 25€, you can seriously bang out some gifts. Feel free to select the perfumes of your choice and then tell the cashier which ones you want wrapped together – it’s gratis and they do a pretty job with ribbon and such.

Candy!  Everyone likes candy!  My favorite stop for sweet stuff is the beautiful Les Bonbons au Palais (19 rue Monge, 75005 Paris, Métro Jussieu). Georges the proprietor is a veritable expert on the artisanal sweets of France and he brings together an amazingly curated collection of treats in his gorgeous store, which is lined with memorabilia from his schoolboy days.  His fare, which includes a host of bizarre candied fruits, flavored marshmallows, and herbal hard candies, are housed in beautiful glass jars.  It’s worth a stop even if you don’t have a sweet tooth. One thing I will mention, however, is that Georges does not want you to touch his candy.  Seriously.  Don’t even let your finger graze the lid of a jar, or you will receive a sharp rebuke.  Instead, indicate to Georges what you are interested in and he will likely give you a sample.  He will also create a lovely gift bag of your selected treats, which are sold by weight and are (cough) expensive but worth the bones, as you aren’t going to be seeing many of these candies anywhere else in Paris (and certainly not aux États-Unis).

For intriguing home decor, head to De Bouche à Oreille (26 rue Roi de Sicile, 75004 Paris, Métro Hôtel de Ville).  While the space is filled with everything from ceramic phrenological heads and antique marionettes to a wide-variety of taxidermied animals and insects, there is also a great selection of candles, quirky picture frames, and beautiful glass and hammered tin Christmas ornaments (I stocked up on the latter for my mother this year).  They also sell handsome paperweights and vintage letter openers and magnifying glasses, a trio that might make a lovely gift for anyone who spends a lot of time at their desk.

For true paper junkies, a visit to rue Pont Louis Philippe is a must, with the handsome store Mélodies Graphiques (10 rue Pont Louis Philippe, 75004, Métro Pont Marie) at the top of my list.  I seriously can’t get B out of this store and avoid this block if we have anywhere we need to be at a particular time. The store has an incredible selection of hand-marbled paper, sold both by the sheet and covering handsome leather-bound journals.  There are also amazing handmade cards and stationary sets, fountain pens, and an assortment of seals (maybe a handsome H and some wax, S?).  While you are on the block, make sure to spend a moment gawking at the rare musical instruments at Orphée (8 rue Pont Louis Philippe, 75004, Métro Pont Marie).  Obviously, not everyone is searching for the perfect baroque bassoon, but this would be the location if you were looking for rare or antique musical instruments. A violinist of sorts myself, I get a tingly feeling in my fingers when I see the collection exquisitely crafted string instruments, many of which are from the 17th and 18th centuries.  Swoon.

For the vrai or would-be artist in your life, cross the Seine and visit the venerable Magasin Sennelier (3 Quai Voltaire, 75007 Paris, Métro Palais Royal). Oh man, is this place cool, even to someone like me that couldn’t render a figure to save her life (or a game of Pictionary).  Opened in 1887 by Gustave Sennelier, the store is four rickety floors jam-packed with every art supply under the sun, including a legendary selection of oil pastels, which were actually developed as a medium by Henri Sennelier (Gustave’s son) for Pablo Picasso.

I mean, seriously, do you think that you are going to find a better art store in Paris than Cezanne did?  I didn’t think so.  As a feel-good bonus, the century-old business is still family-run.  I’d suggest buying a handsome palate or artist’s smock for the painter in your life.  Or, check out their beautiful selection of Japanese watercolors (Neon and metallic watercolors? Be still my heart!) and house-bound artist paper tablets for a variety of media.  B, a newly-formed calligraphy junkie, swears by Sennelier-brand inks, which happen to come in beautiful jars that are themselves worth showing off.  If you’re curious about the history of the store itself, here is a great piece from NPR’s Morning Edition on Sennelier’s relationship with the world of Parisian art making.

Everyone thinks of perfume when they think of Paris, but it’s trickier than ever to find something special and uniquely Parisian in a world full of Sephoras.  Never fear!  We here at Keeping the Bear Garden in the Background would never send you back to your girlfriend with a bottle of perfume she could buy at the local mall!  I’d instead recommend a trip to the Annick Goutal counter at Merci (111 boulevard Beaumarchais, 75003 Paris, Métro Saint-Sébastien-Froissart), a laboratory-style setup where you can pick and choose the perfect scent from an apothecary-worthy selection of glass beakers.

You also couldn’t go wrong with a piece of jewelry from one of Merci’s well-curated cases, or a featherweight scarf by Epice in the ladies’ clothing section to your right when you enter the store (I’m imagining here my little Marxist friend S freezing like a deer in headlights when he enters this “concept store”).

Or, if you want to dig a bit deeper into the history of Parisian perfume making, trek across town to the eighth arrondissement and visit the House of Creed (38 Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, 75008 Paris, Métro Georges V).  A family business since 1760, the Creeds have been supplying perfume to the royal houses of Europe (and commoner schlubs like me) for centuries.  Using a traditional infusion technique that has been abandoned by most commercial perfume manufacturers because it is so expensive and labor-intensive, Creed produces a wide variety of perfumes that smell like nothing else I’ve ever encountered.  I’m a positive slut for their Royal Scottish Lavender (for men, but who really cares about these things) and their unisex Virgin Island Water, which is effectively sex distilled in a bottle. I discovered Creed because MT showed up in Paris wearing Virgin Island Water and I literally couldn’t stop hugging her. It became totally inappropriate, and she told me to leave her alone and get my own damn bottle.

When in doubt, everyone wants (and looks excellent in) a classic striped marin shirt from Saint James (locations all over Paris).  I’ll save you the legwork: Saint James is only place in Paris where you can actually find the iconic Picasso shirt (which is solid white at the top and has three-quarter length sleeves, if historical veracity is your bag).  Their knits are exquisite, and their wool sweaters (while spendy) are the kind of thing that I can see both men and women wearing for decades.

Finally, for a great selection of oh-so-achingly-hip Parisian clothes, jewelry, and handbags, take the métro to Ledru-Rollin and head to the intersection of avenue Ledru-Rollin and rue de Charonne.  From there, you can pop in to Les Fleurs (6 passage Josset, 75011 Paris, Métro Ledru-Rollin), a clusterfuck of all things feminine and twee.  If you can avoid the brain-hemorrhage that inevitably results from this much pink in one small space, you will find that their bijoux are well-priced and their selection of Nat et Nin handbags are spot-on, making it a good stop for the younger women in your life.  On rue de Charonne, you can hit Sessun (30 rue de Charonne) for Liberty of London print fabric dresses and deceptively nice but surprisingly inexpensive leather bags.  I recently got stuck in a dress there and can never return from the sheer shame of this event, but their clothes are always pitch-perfect. Next door is French Trotters (also 30 rue de Charonne), a concept store that hosts an up-to-the minute selection of the coolest French brand of clothing and accessories, including buttery driving gloves and drool-worthy purses in brightly colored hues by Jerome Dreyfuss.  French Trotters also have an excellent children’s store down the block, if you are the type of person who doesn’t squirm at spending fifty bucks on a child’s dress.

Finally, Oxyde (28 rue de Charonne) has offbeat modern, but utterly wearable clothes and a yummy selection of Spring Court sneakers (the preferred brand of John Lennon and the comfiest shoes I’ve ever owned).  I especially covet the weird and Meret Oppenheim-esque fur-lined ones they have been hawking as of late.  Because whose toes don’t deserve rabbit fur?

So that’s it for my Paris shopping guide, dear reader, as this is all the conspicuous consumption I can muster for this month.  Ironically, I’ve been doing most of my Christmas shopping at the local Target, where I act like a slack jawed idiot marveling at the vast selection of American consumer goods I can’t get in France.  Be prepared, my Paris-denizen loves, everyone is unapologetically getting organic dryer sheets and habenero salsa as gifts this year.  As for the blarg, we’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled programming (food, kvetching, and more food) now.

To gift-hunting S, courage! Feel free to polish off our bourbon if it will take the edge off of all this shopping.