My Moveable Feast-Bohemian Paris

Intricately painted building in Paris 5th district.

Inside of Papavero pizzeria, part of my moveable feast.

Reliving Hemingway’s Paris

Vivre a la boheme…

Several years before I went to France in 1992 for the first time, I imagined the famed metropole through the writing of Ernest Hemingway. The bohemian days of American expatriates in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s as exemplified in The Sun Also Rises, painted life in the city as an all day stroll from one bar to another cafe to another restaurant amidst discussions of art, gossip, literature, politics and love.

The many times I had visited Paris since reading Hemingway never manifested a vision of the city that in any way paralleled the bar and restaurant life I had pictured through Hemingway or Charles Aznavour’s famous song, La Boheme, about the bohemian life in Paris. Yes, I did see and frequent the bars and cafes of the city, but I didn’t interact in the bar hopping life.

Until October 2007…

In the book, A Moveable Feast, a fictional account of Hemingway’s own life in Paris amidst F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and Gertrude Stein, the writer described that Paris like this:

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for all of Paris is a moveable feast.”
Ernest Hemingway (1950)

I took my first real bite of this moveable party in October 2007.

I went to Paris on my way back from Ukraine, where I was an election observer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. I arranged to go to Paris for a few days before attending the Frankfurt Book Fair.

I was staying in the Fifth Arrondissement (neighborhood) of Paris. My hosts were very generous to drive me to Claude Monet’s garden and house in Giverny, outside of Paris. The gorgeous fall colors and brilliant flowers were dazzling. It had been raining the previous day, so I was quite lucky to see the garden in the sun. I had seen so many of Monet’s paintings of his famous water lillies and his garden that I had to see the real thing.

After returning from the splendid garden, I went for a short walk before dinner and walked into a bar for a panache (half-beer and half lemonade). A friendly young tan man greeted me and said, “Buona sera, io sono Fabrizio, Good Evening, my name is Fabrizio”.

Hmm, how did he know that I speak Italian?

Fabrizio owned Papavero, a pizzeria around the corner from the bar. Born in France to Italian parents from Puglia in Italy, he was the sole proprietor of Papavero (poppy). and introduced me to other regulars in the bar. Later that evening, I met up with Fabrizio again at the bar, and met another Italian friend of his from Milan and some Frenchmen who were celebrating the birth of a newborn. Having just ate dinner, I didn’t want to eat much. So, I just had a glass of wine and a piece of bread that I spread with a special butter with sea salt and chives. Delicious!

Then, we went to Connelly’s Pub, the Irish pub a block away, where I listened to live Irish music and then we went to Fabrizio’s restaurant, where I had a glass of Primitivo wine at Fabrizio’s restaurant and then returned to my friend’s house.

The next day, I walked to the Ile St. Louis island to meet my Bosnian friend Damir, whom I knew from my days in Sarajevo. On the way, I stopped at a boulagerie/pattiserie and bought a pain au raisin (raisin pastry). I melted when I took my first bite. BUTTER! I hadn’t tasted a real French pastry in seven years and had forgotten the taste of butter in a pastry.

Oh my! What have I been missing!

I rediscovered the sumptuous taste of melted butter and soft raisins. O mon dieu!

Why had it taken me seven years to come back to France? I’m quite a Francophile, what happened to me?

After strolling with Damir in the Marais (Jewish and gay neighborhood), we stopped at an outdoor cafe near the Centre Georges Pompidou and I had a mediocre crepe. It wasn’t authentic. Since when have the French put Indian curry in their chicken?

Damir left to go to his university and I walked on my own in the Marais and then met Chantal, my friend Brad’s former French tutor in Paris. She took me to a tea house, where I had an apple pie with salted butter.

Butter, where art thou my love? First I find you with sea salt and chives, then with raisins and now you are salted with apples. I am melting.

Before going to dinner at my host’s home, I stopped by the bar and found Fabrizio again. We went back to the Irish pub, where I had a cider. We met a black American jazz musician trying to make a career in music in Paris and a British expat living in Paris. The American musician told me that he had some friends in New York working in publishing and could introduce me to them. After the cider, Fabrizio invited me over to his restaurant, where he was going to have an “aperitif” (before dinner drink and appetizer) with his friends. We go over there and have some champagne. The guys at some ham and other meats.

This must be the moveable feast. I still had a dinner to go to!

Wow! More champagne at dinner. Then, wine, fish in a cream sauce and topped off with a chocolate Opera cake.

I may become the moveable feast that can’t move anymore if I continue like this! Good thing I am leaving tomorrow for Frankfurt!

On the following day, I stopped by Fabrizio’s restaurant to say goodbye and Fabrizio told me that just the night before, when I went back to my host’s house for dinner, his friend Gilles came by. Fabrizio told Gilles about me, my book and my trip to the Frankfurt Book Fair. Gilles knew several French publishers who were in Frankfurt for the book fair. If I had been at the restaurant, Gilles could have connected me to his friends.

My eyes opened and my jaw dropped.

“Can you introduce me to Gilles?” I asked.

Fabrizio took out his mobile phone and called and left a message for Gilles.

Shortly thereafter, Gilles called back and agreed to come by very soon to meet me. My hosts wanted to drive me to the airport very soon, but I decided that I’d prefer to meet Gilles and take the train to the airport. I went back to my host’s home, quickly finished packing my things and returned to the bar to meet Fabrizio and Gilles. When Gilles arrived, a young attractive blond and tan economics professor, we went over to Fabrizio’s restaurant, where Fabrizio served us some champagne.

While telling Gilles about my book, I broke a champagne glass.

Embarrassed, I apologized profusely to Fabrizio, who just laughed it off. Gilles said that he would call his friend in Frankfurt and give him my US mobile number to call me if he’s interested in my book.

I hurried back to my host’s, they drove me to the subway. I went alone to the Charles De Gaulle Airport in rush hour traffic to make it to my Frankfurt flight.

That same night, I was at my Argentine friend’s house in Frankfurt telling him about my trip to Ukraine and France and my mobile phone rang. It was 11:40pm. Who was calling me this late?

I ran to my phone and saw a +33 number. It must be the French publisher!

I answered the phone and the French publisher introduced himself and said he was interested in meeting with me.

Where are you now? he asks.

It’s almost midnight and he wants to meet me now?

I explained that I was at my friend’s house and would go to the fair the following day. We agreed to meet around 2pm at the fair.

Well, I never lived in Paris, but I seem to be carrying the feast of the city with me. Its magic followed me in Frankfurt!

I am the moveable feast, but I am trying not to eat too much butter and chocolate or I will not be moveable:)