Guy Martin at Grand Vefour. Photo Michel Langlot

Earlier this summer I investigated the culinary universe of Guy Martin, one of the most recognizable names of high gastronomy in Paris.

Chef of the irrepressibly romantic and stellar Grand Véfour by the garden of Palais Royal, the Guy Martin signature also appears on a number of other culinary offerings in Paris: the polished Sensing, the evocative Cristal Room Bacarrat, the cooking workshop Atelier Guy Martin, and the self-service sandwichie Miyou.

I lunched at all of these for the purposes of an article that will appear in France Revisited’s Food & Drink section in September. It isn’t that I’ve gone gaga over Guy—though I have indeed come to appreciate the smooth consistency of the man’s gastronomic reach—rather I wanted to examine his various signature offerings to see if I could find in this culinary branding some essential piece to the real Guy Martin.

Guy Martin is one of a handful of name-brand chefs that I could have selected for such an investigation, so before working on the final article I want to explain here why I chose him and introduce readers to various chefs encountered along the way who work within his universe.

Grand Vefour, interior

Selecting Guy Martin involved a combination of memory, editorial choice, and journalistic opportunism.

Memory. I’d eaten at Grand Véfour twice before this year, once about 15 years ago and once about 10 years ago. (Guy Martin has ruled the ovens there since 1993.) The sense of elegance and romance of those meals have stayed with me even though my dinner companions have been forgotten, or at least their elegance and romance have.

I don’t know why those two dining experiences have stayed with me in a way that other fine dining experiences have not. Perhaps it was simply the jewel-box setting of the late 18th-early 19th century—now timeless—restaurant that anchors the northern end of the garden of the Palais Royal. I can’t judge Le Grand Véfour critically now for what it was 10 years ago (it currently has 2 Michelin stars if that means anything to you), and 10 years ago I knew far less about gastronomy than I do now, so I’ll simply conclude that I remembered Le Grand Véfour because something about being there felt special.

Christian David, maitre d at Grand Vefour. Photo GLK

Editorial choice. Last year I contacted gastronomic portraitist Fabien Nègre about the possibility of my translating for readers of France Revisited one or more of his “Portaits de chef” appearing on the French site Restos.com. When he and Alain Newman, creator of Restos.com, agreed, I selected Guy Martin because of the vague memory of those long-ago meals. Fabien’s portrait, translated by me, can be read here.

Journalistic opportunism. Months later the chef learned of the text on this site in English and, though his contact with Fabien, invited the two of us to lunch. (More on that lunch in the upcoming article.) With that meal under my belt, I set on a series of lunchtime investigations to get to know Guy Martin’s other culinary businesses in Paris.

I ate at two of those—Sensing and Atelier Guy Martin—at a press lunch with a group of food bloggers. For the two others—Miyou and Cristal Room Baccarat—Fabien and I went on our own. I was invited to all of these by the establishments themselves. My intent in getting acquainted with these establishments was, as I’ve said, to gain a sense of the essential Guy Martin, not simply to take the critical snapshot for the purposes of a restaurant review.

The chefs. Enough has and will be said on this site about Guy Martin himself. For now I’d like to introduce you to other chefs, working under the Guy Martin banner, whom I interviewed along the way.

Remi Van Peteghem at Sensing. Photo GLK.

Sensing: Rémi Van Peteghem

Sensing is a peaceable and polished restaurant in the Montparnasse Quarter, it’s cuisine straightforward and refined. Since chefs tend to resemble their restaurants the way dogs resemble their owners, it was no surprise—nevertheless quite refreshing—to find that Rémi Van Peteghem, the 32-year-old chef of Sensing, came across as humble and gracious when he met with us after the meal.

If the strength (some say limitation) of French cuisine is its use of fresh seasonal products that reveal a taste of their essence, as well as of the earth, the sun, and the sea from they come, and that polished French cuisine is the culinary equivalent of the French garden—the graceful and geometric taming of nature—then Mr. Van Petegham’s work is a brilliant exemple of what such cooking is all about. His verbal and culinary articulation of polished French cuisine is clear, coolly passionate, and sincere. It’s like a pastel drawing that’s warm and skilled yet unpretentious. The same can be said for Sensing’s décor which aims for comfort rather than thrill. The atmosphere is all yours to create with your tablemates.

Decor and dish at Sensing. Photo GLK.

Sensing, 19 rue Bréa, 6th arrondissement. Metro Vavin or Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Tel. 01 43 27 08 80. Closed Sunday. Lunch menus: 2 courses, 25€, 3 courses 35€. The more expressive 55€ lunch menu and 75€ dinner menu includes drinks. Tasting menu of 95 euros (140 euros with wine pairing). Count 65-75€ à la carte + drinks.

Cristal Room Baccarat: David Angelot

David Angelot at Cristal Room Baccarat. Photo GLK.

Housed in a late-19th-century mansion that is now headquarters of the crystal-maker Baccarat, Cristal Room hit the gastro-touristic news big time when it opened several years ago. As a showplace (the building also houses the Baccarat showroom and museum), the restaurant gained a reputation as being more remarkable for the value of its Philippe Stark décor than the value of its cuisine.

Now a new chef has taken the reins beneath Guy Martin’s signature. In March 2010 Mr Martin, who “orchestrates” (Baccarat’s word) the kitchen here, appointed David Angelot as onsite, more or less independent chef. In a brief conversation after lunch, Mr. Angelot came across as ambitious and confident, a study contrasts with the first impression of modesty and serenity given by Mr. Van Peteghem at Sensing. It’s as though Guy Martin had meditated on the décor of each dining room then selected the personality that best corresponded to it, and the preparations followed in line with both the personality and the décor.

Cristal Room Baccarat

At the top of an eye-catching stairwell, Crital Room’s décor presents a unified mix of historical chic, designer kitsch, and Baccarat show-pieces: gilt-framed brick walls, noble portrait medallions, crystal chandeliers, pale pink couches, prominent stemware and candleholders.

Echoing this from the kitchen, Mr. Angelot’s cuisine is handsome, showy, and frank. The culinary playing fields on which trendiness and gastronomy attempt to coexist are heavily mined, and service will inevitably suffer from lack of traction, but Mr. Angelot and the staff do a good job of trying to find the balance between the two.

Case in point is the appetizer below which may look like some kind of sea creature but it was actually an entertaining appetizer that was a delight to dissect and eat. It’s called tranche d’aubergine snackée, (snacked slice of eggplant), in which the eggplant is a base for dried tomatoes, squid, tapenade, parmesan compote, tomato sorbet, and a bourage flower. It was wonderfully modern, tasty, and kitsch, like a fancy, edible hat, and while it isn’t the type of appetizer for which one earns stars, it was in deliciously in keeping with both the showiness of the dining room.

If you allow yourself to get into the spirit of the place and don’t take it all too seriously, a meal here won’t be flawless but it will be part of a very romantic day, especially if you’re staying a fine hotel within walking distance.

Cristal Room Baccarat, 11 place des Etats-Unis, 16th arrondissement. Metro Boissière or Iéna. Tel 01 40 22 11 10. Closed Sunday. Priced about the same as Sensing, slightly more à la carte.

Miyou: Thierry Molinengo

Thierry Molinengo

Thierry Molinengo’s talents shouldn’t be reduced to those on display at Miyou, but that’s where I met him when I went for lunch at this sandwich shop/lunch/snack-room in the upscale Bon Marché department store. Mr. Molinengo was there that afternoon trying out various recipes for Miyou. He invited me to try an apricot dessert wrap that was in test phase—and for the sake of Miyou I gladly agreed that it was probably better with strawberries. He was also working on a salmon millefeuille whose colors, he said, he hadn’t yet gotten right. In any case, it was clear that Mr. Molinengo was not simply here to see that the smoked salmon was fresh.

Mr. Moleningo appears to be a kind of roving right-hand man to Guy Martin. In addition to testing recipes and keeping an eye on Miyou, he can be found sous-cheffing at Grand Véfour or giving cooking classes to English-speaking groups at Atelier Guy Martin. It’s rather reassuring to know that someone of Mr. Molinegno’s stature spends time in the kitchen at Mr. Martin’s department store eatery.

Calling itself a luxury sandwich shop, Miyou opened on the second floor of the main building of the Bon Marché department stores in March 2010. Miyou prides itself on offering great freshness and a mix of savors, whether in salads, soups, and sandwiches (baguettes, wraps, and clubs) pre-prepared throughout the day or in burgers and hot dishes made to order.

Self-service sandwich-salad display and seating at Miyou.

There’s naturally much competition for lunchtime and snacktime attention in this area, notably from the luxury grocery store and purveyor of freshly prepared food at the Grand Epicerie, in the building next door, as well as in the cafés and bakeries in the area. So Miyou cannot stand out on the basis of sandwiches and luxury mineral water alone. Nevertheless, the freshness and lightness of the offerings, the airy setting, and the amiable presence of manager Antoun Khater ensures an easy-going lunch or mid-afternoon snack stop for those looking to rest their weary shopping feet.

The more basic sandwiches here are priced only slightly higher than what one would find in a local bakery. When one adds a salad or dessert and something to drink the cost is in keeping with lunch at a local café, about 18€.

Miyou, 3rd level of the Bon Marché department store, 24 rue de Sèvres, 7th arrondissement. Metro Sèvres Babylone. Open 11am-7pm. Closed Sun. Wifi connection.

Atelier Guy Martin
The photo below was taken on the day I joined a dozen food bloggers for a lunchtime cooking class at the cooking workshop Atelier Guy Martin. Since I was one of the chefs of the day (I cut an onion and a tomato, stirred a sauces, and filled a soufflé cup), I’m proud to stand alongside the real chefs of the Atelier, left to right, Louis Tocheport, head pastry chef; Laurent Mosset, sous-chef of the Atelier; Antony Courteille, executive chef of the Atelier.

Chefs at Atelier Guy Martin. Photo T. Perois.

Atelier Guy Martin, 35 rue Miromesnil, 8th arrondissement. Metro Miromesnil. Tel. 01 42 66 33 33.

So how do these five establishes—Grand Véfour, Sensing, Cristal Room Baccarat, Miyou, and Atelier Guy Martin—fit together? What’s their essence? Give me another month to digest these investigations and stay tuned for the full article in September.

In 1996 I was awarded FrancePress’s Prix d’Excellence for my guide to France published by Fielding Worldwide. I didn’t know about the award until my brother Jon told me. He’d learned from a patient who’d brought to his office a copy of the magazine in which the prize was announced.

Though few others noticed the award, it has nevertheless allowed me ever since to call myself—and better yet to have others call me—an award-winning travel writer.

But 1996 was a long time ago and that Fielding book had a short shelf life, so for a while there being referred to as an award-winning writer felt like I was trying to get mileage from winning honorary mention in a 9th-grade essay contest.

Imagine then my pride and relief when last year I received a second award for travel writing, making me not only a double award-winning writer but a recent award-winning writer.

I am therefore proud, relieved, and honored to show you my new award for travel writing: the New Jersey Native Garden Award.

My first award referred to my work as “informative and entertaining,” which may seem to have more gravity than the “charming and delightful” of this second award. Nevertheless these new adjectives are a welcome addition to my resume.

This latest award refers to the Arbor Day piece that I posted on this page one year ago. You can read it by clicking here.

In reading it you will discover all the hope and pleasure that went into my planting a sprig of silky dogwood last April. The certificate announcing the award was accompanied by a letter from Ginger Young, president of the West Trenton Garden Club, in which she wrote, “I hope the Silky Dogwood is doing well… Mine is about 4’ high now.”

Well, it turns out my sprig was gone before the award arrived.

I’m pretty sure the guy on the lawnmower seen over my shoulder in the photo below was to blame. He claimed he never saw it, which sounds like evidence to me.

That picture was taken yesterday, Arbor Day 2010. Like last year at this time I was in West Trenton, New Jersey visiting family and it was a beautiful spring day. This year I wanted to honor the day while also doing something to halt erosion of the lake on my brother’s property. So, having planted 10 junipers along water’s edge earlier in the week, I planted 10 more yesterday.

While shoveling holes I may or may not have cut the wire to that lamp post beside me in the picture. I can’t tell because no one seems to know where the switch is anymore.

I don’t expect to receive an award for this year’s Arbor Day piece, however I do expect the junipers, at least some of them, to last longer than the silky dogwood. And what does a juniper need with recognition as long as it has a place to grow.

Links:
Arbor Day
West Trenton Garden Club
The Garden Club of New Jersey
The National Garden Clubs, Inc. Nuture the Earth, Plant Natives, Plant Organically Project

An article of mine about Champagne appears as the Jan/Feb cover story in Travelworld Magazine. Click on the image below to see it on the full screen and then flip through the magazine pages as you wish. Cheers!

You remember Jordan Zell, don’t you, the France Revisited Guest Blogger from Israel who came to Paris in June seeking inspiration for his songwriting?

Well, this fall, freshly inspired and with new songs in his repertoire, Jordan has taken the next step in his career and has been playing in bars in Jerusalem. He’s been performing his own songs and various covers accompanied by talented guitarist and assistant arranger Yuri Stolov.

One of the songs they’ve been playing is “On a Train from Paris to Rome,” which Jordan was working on in Paris and for which I wrote the lyrics. One of these days we’ll get around to making a real video for it, but in the meantime you can watch and listen to a recent practice performance of the song at the Putin Bar in Jerusalem.

I’m actually not a big fan of this version since I find its ending is a bit of a downer (Jordan disagrees), Yuri’s fingering sometimes makes it sound as though the train is headed to Spain (Yuri disagrees), and the sound quality, though decent for bar, isn’t great, especially regarding the lyrics, which I’m sure you’ll all want to listen to very attentively. Also, you can’t see Jordan’s face from behind his shadow-mask. But I’m just the lyricist.

So here it is, Jordan Zell and Yuri Stolov playing “On a Train from Paris to Rome,” a travel song by Jordan Zell (music) and yours truly (lyrics), take 1.

A blogload of thanks to the many readers who wrote to tell me how much you loved France Revisited’s number one musical hit of the season “She Walked Along the River, a.k.a. The T-Shirt Song”! (If you haven’t yet heard the song you can do on this site by clicking here or on Youtube by clicking here.)

Okay, it may be a stretch to say that you “loved” the song. Rather, there were three general categories of comment.

1. The “I didn’t know you sing” comment. My response: Neither did I.

2. The “You and Jordan [Zell] should write more songs together” comment. My response: We are. We’ve written five already–his music, my lyrics–and if you’re in Jerusalem on Sept. 16 you can hear some of them during Jordan’s solo concert.

3. The “I liked the song until the f-word at the end” comment. My response: I sometimes feel a little bad about the use of the f-word, but in writing the song it felt like a natural ending to the story told in the song, so there you have it. (My deepest thanks to the ambitous reader who told me I could never get the song on the radio with the f- bomb in it. And my deepest sympathy to the high school teacher who told me that she can no longer recommend France Revisited to her students.)

Some of the above categories of comment came through the post office accompanied by a t-shirt, so I want to especially thank those dedicated readers by the following photos of their generous gift.

With thanks to the reader who went to London, here I am in your t-shirt in front of the statue of Henri IV on Ile de la Cité:

With thanks to the reader who had a t-shirt specially printed in honor of the fact that “The T-Shirt Song” was recorded in Israel, here I am in your t-shirt below the Pont Neuf:

With thanks to the reader in Paris who understood the cynicism and humor of “The T-Shirt Song” as soon as he heard it, here I am in front the Paris Police Headquarters.

With further thanks to all astute readers with a sense of humor, here I am sitting by the river in a second “I love rien” t-shirt:  

I look forward to any gifts I might receive once we’ve completed our France Revisited music video about prostitution in Paris.

I’ll eventually post in the Near Paris section of France Revisited a review of “An Hour from Paris,” Annabel Simms’ eye-opening guide to lesser known towns and villages within an easy train ride of Paris. Before getting down to the actual review, I decided to choose a chapter from the book in order to follow one of the book’s walking tours. So yesterday, on a whim, I took the suburb train RER A line 30-minutes northwest to the Seine-side town of Poissy in order to follow Ms. Simms’ footsteps there and in the neighboring villages of Villennes and Médard, which are also described in the “Poissy” chapter.

I picked Poissy from the 20 destinations in the book because I’d never been there and because even Ms. Simms is cautious about it, calling Poissy “a modest place, familiar to most Parisians only as the name of a terminus on the RER line service the northwestern suburbs.” I figured that if the author could design a worthwhile walking tour out of a place that apparently held such little promise then “An Hour from Paris” must be full of discovery.

“An Hour From Paris” is an intensely practical guide that one is unlikely to read front to back. But I’d enjoyed reading it that way for its quirky mix of practical information, GPS-like directions, and odd asides that seem ever so gently, and in a British way, to say “I was here.”

Here, for example, is one of my favorite passages from a description of the village of Andrésy: “… continue along the river as far as the Rue de Trélan. There is a little jetty with an electric bell to the right which you press to summon the small speedboat opposite…There is a little riverside garden in which you can eat outside in the summer (where I saw a red squirrel) and the tiled floor, lace curtains framing the river and the old-fashioned oak furniture make for a cosy retreat inside.” I just love that red squirrel that scampered into the text.

I’ll discuss the quirks of the text further in the actual review to appear next month. I’m using today’s blog not to review but to illustrate the visit outlined by Ms. Simms that I more or less faithfully followed—quite easily, I should add, thanks to the book’s excellent maps and the author’s unwavering eye for detail. I did not, however, enter the various museums that she mentioned along the way, though I did stop to photograph the cat, above left, near the entrance to Poissy’s Toy Museum (where I saw a magpie). The fact that the museum is across the street from a major prison for hardened criminals tells you that you are indeed well of the beaten track in these parts.

The spire of Collégiale Notre Dame, the church were King Louis IX was baptized in 1214 (remnants of the baptismal font are there), appears in the photo above with the cat. Here below is a colorful Renaissance “Entombment of Christ” found in that church.

I made a detour from Ms. Simms’ outline to buy a sandwich in town then returned to her trail to visit the Villa Savoye, photo right, designed by Le Corbusier in 1929. To the contemporary eye the villa resembles a generic office building near a strip mall, but when it was completed in the early 1930s it was a wondrous example of chic avant-garde eurotrash that few people would have wanted to live in. It’s in a little park across the street from a low-income housing project.

I already knew how detail-oriented Ms. Simms is from reading the book, but I realized when following her route that in addition to wanting to say “I was here” she also wants to encourage readers to look for details, whether, when heading downstream to Villennes, you’re standing on a bridge overlooking a branch of the Seine (below left) or “strolling down a private, peaceful and pretty, [that] leads past houses whose gardens stretch to the water’s edge” (below right)

or admiring a hedge of firethorns in full bloom (having asked a local what they are then looked up the translation back home)

or sitting in front of “the striking 11th-century church.”

A mile further upstream, at Médan, there’s another church, and a small private chateau, and the house that Zola bought in 1878 and where he lived “for about eight months of the year until his death 24 years later.”

You can then “make a nostalgic detour to reach the river by turning left” and have a seat by the river at Plaisirs d’Eté, “the only source of food and drink in Médan [which] is open sporadically, depending on the whim of the owners, a retired couple.” I don’t know if I’d call the detour nostalgic, but it was certainly delightful, especially since the retired couple’s whim to open coincided with my own to go.

An enjoyable day of discovery indeed! I’m looking forward to following in Ms. Simms’ footsteps in other town and villages where I’d never thought of setting foot.

Click here for my complete review of Annabel Simms’ “An Hour From Paris.”

Stay informed and entertained by all new posts on France Revisited, the magazine for savvy readers and curious travelers, by receiving the free France Revisited Newsletter. Click here to sign up.

During my backpacking days in the early 80s, I developed a fondness for the bustle of European train stations, the excitement of currency change, the stock-broker-like fascination for the names up on the big board, the grandchild-like fascination with the old ladies in southern Europe who would watch your luggage for a small fee as you explored the city or went searching for a place to bed down, and the mild-to-pronounced seediness of the station neighborhood.

Each major station was different in that it represented that city or region or country yet clearly was connected with other places, people, and culture. Not only was the train station of Berlin or Paris or Belgrade or Rome specific in its own right, but the atmosphere of each lent itself to imagining stations, and all that went with them, elsewhere: Brussels, Amsterdam, Vienna, Rome, Prague, etc. Everywhere I went the grand station announced: You have arrived—and tomorrow you can be someplace totally different.

The early 80s was, in a sense, the tail end of post-war train travel, particularly in France where the arrival of the first line of the TGV, the high-speed train, opened between Paris and Lyon in 1981. Extensions and new lines from Paris would follow: south to Nice, Montpellier, Bordeux; west to Brittany, north to the Chunnel, and, since 2007, east to Champagne, Lorraine, Alsace, and Germany.

Paris is unique in Europe in that it sustains four train stations for long-distance regional and international traffic—Nord North, Est/East, Lyon, and Montparnasse—and two for less distant regional traffic—St. Lazare and Austerlitz.

With each new tentacle of the TGV the corresponding train station in Paris has been renovated and modernized. The renovation of Gare de l’Est, the East Station, is the most recent of these.

Hall within west entrance of Gare de l'Est. Photo GLK.

Over the past week I’ve made periodic stops at Gare de l’Est to get a feel for the place. I’ve been there in the morning, in the afternoon (to interview the shop owner), during early evening rush hour, and during late evening downtime. The station is a 15-minute walk from my apartment. My initial intention was to go there once to write an article about a boutique in the station that sells products from the Lorraine region. But then I also decided to mention a shop outside the station, a caterer that sells Alsatian fare. And that turned into the broader investigation about Alsace and Lorraine in Paris that resulted into the article I posted yesterday in this sites Paris/Boutiques section.

Thursday night, leaving friends in the 18th arrondissement who had invited me over for dessert and digestif (one of those city invitations you get when you call a friend at 10pm and find out that he’s in the middle of dinner with another friend), I decided to walk home. It was 1:30am. It was a relatively mild evening, it had stopped raining, I had my coat on, and I had research to do.

On my way home I walk by Gare du Nord and checked out what brasseries were still busy at that hour and how safe the area felt at 2am (quite, it seemed to me that night). From there I wandered around the streets surrounding Gare de l’Est.

Once at home I realized that there was more to write about than I’d put in my boutique article. Among other things, I hadn’t mentioned a famous 40-foot long painting at Gare de l’Est (photo above). So I went back today for more research, which I’ll soon write up for an article in the Paris/Explorations section.

Like other stations, Gare de l’Est and its surroundings have surrendered to progress the excitement, seediness, and currency exchange of French train stations as I remember them from the early 80s. What it has now is history, and a smooth ride to Lorraine and Alsace, and, for me, an easy walk home.

East entrance to Gare de l'Est. Photo GLK.

Well, I’ve finally gotten word from one of my culinary spies in Philadelphia that Olivier Desaintmartin, owner of Caribou Cafe and Zinc, has finally corrected the spelling of the sign to the rest room at Zinc. It now reads Toilettes, as one would expect in a French restaurant owned by a Frenchman.

Actually, the spy in question is Olivier himself. Just goes to show the importance of investigative journalism in the fight for freedom, justice, and correct spelling. If France Revisited can get a man 3000 miles away to add an “s” to his toilette, just imagine the possibilities! (Admittedly, Olivier might have done it anyway, but he can go get his own blog.)

Now that this disturbing toilettes issue is out of the way I look forward, as a citizen, to revisiting Zinc on my next trip to Philadelphia in the spring. And as a member of the media I look foward to moving onto other important issues that affect us all.

No offense to writers who claim to get significant work done in Paris cafés, but that’s an urban legend as far as I can tell. Editing, maybe; a blog entry, I suppose; observational notes for future work, possibly; a flash poem, perhaps; mental notes that soon evaporate, definitely; inspirational pages spilled out in 5 minutes, why not? But writing as an extended activity of wording, sentences, paragraphs, construction, ideas, and story while the coffee gets cold or the beer warm. Nyet!

Entrance to les toilettes at Les Parigots.

Nevertheless, if I were to write in a café it would be a place like Les Parigots, a bistro/bar/café just off Place de la République. (Parigot is slang for Parisian.) There’s a back area with books on shelves that’s fairly calm but with enough distraction to remind a writer that he or she isn’t at home. The writer would also be well placed to watch food coming from the kitchen and clients going into the rest room, which could be just the spark needed to further some important work.

Here’s a picture of the door to the toilettes at Les Parigots. I took this picture as an inside joke (inside France Revisited, that is) referring to my article about French cuisine in Philadelphia. In that article I take Olivier Desaintmartin, the owner of Zinc, to task for spelling toilette like a Belgian. I wonder if he ever got the new French sign he promised?

I imagined this blog entry there while watching the waitress pick up two plates of hamburger-and-fries from the kitchen ledge, but I wrote it at home.

Les Parigots. 5 rue Château d’Eau, 10th arrondissement. 100 yards north of Place de la République, Metro République. Tel. 01 42 00 22 26.

I just caulked the windows in my living room/office so that I don’t have to type with gloves on.

With gloves that sentence reads as follows:

IO ujuts cqgulKEFD TQEHW qioasdddnows ioh ny sdl;aingvv toomoffaciw asto thath ia asdotnta; ahvae to aryttg wqthh fpobes pon,.

Actually, I sort of like the like the “fpobes pon,” at the end of that sentence, got a nice rhythm to it.

Meanwhile, the ice thickens on Canal Saint-Martin,

and city works don their gloves to put up a sign warning us from trying to walk on it.