Flashback Friday

Come on spring. We know you're just around the corner.

💐 

Floral Friday

 

Waiting to be joined by a special friend at Café La Palette.

Café contact

 

 

Walking up to the old zinc bar in Café La Palette.

 

***

 

I hardly noticed the older gentleman who'd shuffled up next to me at the cafe’s zinc bar and now stood at my side. The morning hummed with the scent of roasted coffee beans and the faintest air of magic. So far, we were the only ones at the counter, each absorbed in our own tiny espresso cup. 

 

"Excusez-moi Madame. Pourriez-vous me passer le sucre?” he murmured, leaning in slightly closer. I slid the sugar bowl his way, and he smiled. That was the moment I realized I was peering into the eyes of Marcello Mastroianni, yes that Marcello, a man whose films I adored with a fervor reserved for truffles and rainy afternoons. Here was the dashing Italian heart-throb, the on (and off)-screen suitor to some of the world’s most famous and beautiful actresses, all charm and elegance. Curiously he'd always reminded me a little of my own dear father. And now, this man whose cheeks bore a scruffy shadow, his long coat draped like a weary traveler’s cloak, wearing a hat and neckscarf giving him the air of having just wandered off the pages of a storybook - I remember thinking he fell short of being short - was looking at me with a twinkle in his eye: he recognized that I’d recognized him. And that was enough. Nothing more was said, nothing needed to be said. Not that long after I was to learn that he lived a short distance from Café La Palette and sadly, had passed away. - BPJ

 

MARCELLO MASTROIANNI

1924 - 1996

 

***

 

Even the most miserable life is better than a sheltered existence in an organized society where everything is calculated and perfected. - Steiner to Mastroanni in "La Dolce Vita"

 

 

 

 

Mirror Monday

 A beautiful mirror at Café La Palette on the Left Bank.

 

Throwback Thursday

 

Warmer days on the lively sidewalk terrace of La Palette café.

 

View from inside

At Café La Palette, my go-to café when I lived nearby.

La Palette

A beautiful morning deserves a beautiful setting.

Above: coffee at my old neighborhood café in Saint-Germain-des-Prés

See post "First café"

An ordinary morning

  Monday, April 15, 2019... A quick stop for an early café. 

 

It started like any other day.

Notre Dame Cathedral: "The fire began at 6:50 p.m...."

 

Some called it an omen. 

 

 

First café

 On my first move to Paris the Café La Palette was just three doors away and to this day I still consider it *my* café, especially on weekends. Today, as others we know from the quartier join us, by 11 a.m. our table for two might become two or three tables pushed together. - BPJ

Above: photograph of Francis Ford Coppola who has an apartment nearby and is an "habitué" when he's in Paris, hangs above a mirror in the front room

Petit déj' en terrasse

Flaky croissants, jus d'orange freshly pressé and a grand crème get this day off to a great start.