The Bounty of the Spring Market

Spring seems to be coming to Paris in fits and starts this year.  Last weekend, we had two glorious, warm, sunny days, which brought everyone outdoors in shirtsleeves and bare legs.  After a long, gray, cool, wet winter, it seemed like spring had finally arrived.  I boarded the Eurostar for London, stayed in the UK for four days, and arrived back to Paris on Wednesday, and winter had come back.  It has been windy and cold and rainy for the last few days, not unlike the weather we've had almost relentlessly for the last few months.

Although I am very anxious for the warm weather to return, other signs of spring continue apace.  I suppose my favorite is the markets.  We have had a few weeks of beautiful asparagus and petit pois.  I have been grabbing up the fava beans when I see them because I know they won't be around forever.  Even though blood oranges make their appearance in the depth of winter, they are still around and I'm still enjoying them.  

Shannon, Derek, and Jack came back to Paris with me from the UK and stayed for a short visit.  On Thursday, Shannon and I visited the Marche Port Royal, an easy 8-minute walk from our apartment.  We were on a mission:  find the best and freshest things to assemble into a dinner that evening.  We walked all the way to the far end of the marche to assess the offerings.  Then, as we walked back, we made our choices.  The cod fillets looked perfect, so we decided to plan the meal around those.  We picked up tiny new potatoes and small artichokes and mild green olives that we could pre-roast and then use as a bed for cooking the cod.  For a salad, the red endive, pencil-thin asparagus, breakfast radishes, and petit pois all looked wonderful and would work well together.  We picked up lemons for the dressing.  We grabbed a large bunch of rhubarb to make a crisp, and some small, sweet strawberries that we could serve with it.  We could not resist the cheese stand, too, and picked up a nicely runny chabichou, a very stinky livarot, and a bleu.  We would serve those as a cheese course before dessert.  

We headed back to the apartment to put everything away.  I needed to get some work done and had zoom meetings until 6:30, so I gave Shannon a key so that she could let herself back in and get started on the cooking before I was finished up.  She was off to the Jardin des Plantes with Derek and Jack.  

Part way through my 5:30 zoom meeting, I smelled something delicious coming from the floor below.  Shannon had arrived and had already put the rhubarb crisp in the oven, apparently.  Other smells wafted up to my office over the course of my meeting.  At 6:30, I came down to see the bulk of the hard work finished and a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge.  I was able to lend a hand with some of the preparations, though, and got to work making the salad dressing, assembling the cheese board, slicing the baguette, setting the table.  

By 7:30, we were all sitting down to dinner, chatting about life in Paris, the Red Sox' prospects, Jack's school, and other topics, watching the sun set out the window, and enjoying a delicious feast from the bounty of the spring market.