Paris 26 June 2016 : Caspar Institute

Out just after ten, and a bus through the busy Sunday center of Paris to Place Pigalle, and then up the hill -- many steps -- to the top of the Butte Montmartre, the highest knob in Paris, on top of which is built the tall, white, Basilica of the Sacred Heart, nicknamed Sacre Coeur.

We stood on the plaza for awhile, while the tourists swarmed and selfied, the pickpockets picked pockets, and the Africans tried to sell toy wooden trains. (I didn't see a single taker in either of these last two cases, but you know it had to be happening.)

In no hurry, we joined the stream of tourists (and faithful?) flowing into the church, to find ourselves (no surprise at 11:05) right at the start of a service. The organ and choir voices were ringing as only they can inside a tall resonant rock box. It seemed sensible to side with the faithful, find a pew, and stand.

The invocation began: a far-away little man whose voice boomed with the authority of the divinity (or a good PA system.) His words made sense to me: he was praying for Europe and for England, for strength to reimagine the Union, to excuse the immigrants for their poverty and dislocation and welcome them the way Christians ought.

Trip fatigue, the rightness of his words and its perfect correspondence to my thoughts about compassion and racism, the voice of God booming from the tall magnificence of the basilica, whatever: I started crying. Of course, Rochelle needed to know why, and trying to tell her, trying to translate the prayer, made me cry more. "Breathe," I keep telling myself.

Invocation over, we sat; I breathed and centered myself. A nun-angel read the prodigal son lesson. More singing, this time with the whole congregation raising their voices in response. The second lesson, Saint Paul on loving others as you would be loved. Okay, enough religion; we left our pew and walked around the basilica's periphery. The man in green vestments started his sermon.

No notes. I could see this man was speaking with passion from the heart, and expressing the anguish as well as the hope that most sentient Europeans must be feeling right now. He spoke about the clothing we should be wearing: the clothing of love. "We all have it," he said, "but too often we leave it in the closet when we go to work. We should be remembering that civilization is the work of Europeans, and civilized people help others in times of need. When we forget this, and act in accordance with the need to profit, we are living in the past and forgetting the lessons it has taught us."

Amongst the congregation, there were plenty of handkerchiefs, nose blowing, and red eyes. As a temporary Frenchman, I can't stop remembering 1870, 1914, 1938 and even if I wanted to, the presence of monuments and plaques scattered about everywhere would remind me; the choice of paintings displayed in the museums would remind me; even the poppies remind me.

Lest you forget, or never knew: the halcyon period of peace since 1945, during which the United Nations and European Union called themselves into existence for the simple purpose of ending European wars, is the longest period of peace in more than a thousand years. For newbs like us so-called Americans, that's unthinkably long ...and we might then remember that we are all immigrants. Even Donald Trump.

Another nun started a sung litany, more of the same thoughts: courage, patience, love, unity; after each, the congregation singing "Écoute nous, exauce-nous" which roughly translates "From your mouth to God's ears!"

Neither of us dry-eyed, and neither knowing quite why, we went and sat in the lovely little park behind Sacre Coeur and let our hearts resume their normal pace.

Chef Antoine Heerah and his sous chef

Because: lunch!

Sunday lunch is possibly the week's most important meal, and so I made reservations on Thursday at a place on the back side of Montmartre, Chamarré Montmartre, cited by Paris By Mouth as the most worthy, open-for-déjeuner-on-Sunday, place nearby. Cited as fusion food, French plus Mauritian (an island, and French outpost, east of Africa in the Indian Ocean), Chef Heerah's critics (acclaimers?) note his reliance on the market for his authenticity and freshness -- and that sounded right to us.

We arrived and were seated on a stage below the wide window of the kitchen: food theatre of a very different kind, with us eaters as the players and Chef Heerah as the audience! Well-schooled on French eating, fragile, emotional, and hungry, we were prepared to give an extraordinary performance.

Yes, I'm going to make you scroll! From left: Rochelle's amuse bouche, a super-light aspargus mousse with basil-infused oil and two slices of Basque sausage. Mine: two highest grade oysters in lemon infused oil with raw onion and cucumber. Not just butter, butter and seaweed for the fresh brown bread (not shown). Next, our entrees: Rochelle's gaspacho (French spelling) with tomato, peas, chioggia beets and peach (?) sorbet with a half-tempuraed baby zucchini; my reduction of classic French fish soup, even with the traditional roux (aioli) with bits of lobster and a little piece of fish. We shared the centerpiece, lightly seared white tuna on a bed of wakame (seaweed) decorated with microgreens and peas. That should have been enough.

Our attentive waiter, who had been playing with his English and our French, brought us the fish knives. Here came our plats: Rochelle's was a nice chunk of delicate white turbot perfectly cooked and dressed with raw thin slices of chioggia beet and peapods. Mine was two (or three) different little fillets with two sauces, a pimento pepper sauce and a spicy tomato, with crunchy little bits of tempura batter for crunch. "There can't be any more," said Rochelle in disbelief.

Our waiter swept out plats away, including our silverware, and brought me a meat knife and fork (Yup, they have fish forks and meat forks.) And then out came three beautiful little beef filets from Chef's special butcher, who raises his own... you get the picture... in beautiful brown sauce and a cloud of mashed onions. "You can't possibly finish..." said Rochelle, but we did.

And then dessert, a heavenly parfait (parfait is the word for perfect in French, so: a perfect parfait) of tropical fruits including kumquat, mango, candied orange peel, punctuated with tangy lemon sorbet and vanilla-laced whipped cream ...with an almond cookie on top.

And here's the pay-off: as I write this, after our usual evening salad, at no time did I feel over-fed or uncomfortably stuffed. The helpings were sensitively "tasting menu sized" so a normal human could enjoy without feeling like Mr Creosote.

Here endeth the food porn.

But we did need to walk a meal like that off ... so we hiked up over the mount-top, down the touristy stairs, and over to Pigalle to await our bus to the other side of Paris and the Garden of Plants, the French learning Garden that's been there since 1793.

While waiting, we watched a gaggle of younglings ditzing around (in American accented English.) Cuter than speckled pups, four girls and two slender young boys, poised as only teen-aged dancers can be, I thought. On the bus, they sat around us, and we overheard that they were drowning in Paris without enough French. They'd tried to find Sacre Coeur and failed (“You keep going up,” I told them when they said they wanted to come back and try again later. “Oh,” they replied.) What stop for the Louvre? When we looked puzzled, they said, “our teacher said to just look at the Pyramid, then go spend time in the Pompidou.” Good advice; smart teacher! The classic tourist question, “Where are you from?” Dancers from Philadelphia, here for three weeks, two weeks dancing at the Centre Nationale de la Danse, mecca for balletomanes. (Got that right, I thought.) “And today is our only day off!” Unlike most thumb-obsessed teens, they wanted to know why we were in Paris, and we mentioned it was our last day. “Oh, that's so sad!” No, it's time, we assured them. We talked some more, and then listened as they discussed selfies they'd taken, who they'd sent them to, where to go after the Pompidou, the critique they had received from “the Master” – not holding their hands just so, I guess. They got off at the right stop after thanking us for our help ...and here's the surprise, wishing us a good return home – remembering something they'd heard ten minutes before about people 50+ years older! “Restores my faith in the younger generation,” offered Rochelle.

About eight stops later, we got off and entered le Jardin des Plantes.

"It smells good in here," says Rochelle after we're barely in the gates ... and later, "What a nice place to come to spend Sunday, if you lived here..." as many families obviously were doing. It's big enough that it doesn't feel at all crowded. Fascinated by the tradition -- the King's Garden when there were still kings, and now the people's and a teaching adjunct to the Sorbonne next door, we explored the giant hot houses that inspired Rousseau (whose consciousness, suitably amplified, as was the wont of his generation of poets and painters, was able to perceive lions and tigers and natives amongst the tropical fronds. I could see 'em; can you?)