Entries about rue cler

All the days I have spent wandering around aimlessly in Paris, I never knew there was a name for it. I am apparently a flaneuse: a woman who wanders in Paris with no particular destination in mind. Edmund White wrote a book about this called The Flaneur. Who knew? Although to be accurate, I've been wandering to different market destinations. But those walks generally take me off course to, well...wherever they take me.

My latest exploration took me near the Eiffel Tower to the American Library in Paris where I got a library card and applied for a fellowship to a writer's workshop. Only twelve will be accepted and I barely made the deadline, so I'm not holding out much hope. But since I was in the neighborhood, I strolled over to the market street Rue Cler. Technically speaking, I don't consider this a market since there are standing shops that exist all the time. But Rue Cler is well known and well documented as being one of the best food streets in Paris, along with Rue de Mouffetard and my all-time favorite, Rue Lepic. I confess that as I wandered, I kept an eye out for Ina Garten. She is in Paris filming her show and where else would Ina hang out, but in a market, right?

Rue Cler is everything I've heard it was. I spent over an hour ogling the fromagerie, les fleurs, the wine shops, the produce stands, and the gorgeous, enormous heads-on shrimp. The smell of carbohydrates permeated the air from the boulangerie. Who doesn't love the smell of carbohydrates in the morning?

But the shop that pulled me in and pulled my wallet out was Juesselin. I had to remind myself I didn't have to buy everything I saw all at once. I can return. So I limited my purchase to les haricots verts, les champignons, un melange des vegetables and some kind of veal meatballs. With my baguette in my bag topping off my purchases, I returned home satisfied I had finally found a market worthy of its reputation. Even if I didn't spot Ina and Jeffrey.