Tag: france

Postcard from Montpellier, France: Fishing for where to eat

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A postage stamp featuring a detailed illustration of a pike fish, labeled 'Esoc lucius' and 'Brochet', with a green background showcasing aquatic vegetation, and marked with a value of '5,00'.

Above: Red mullet stuffed with diced celery root atop zuccchini puree at IKAL.

The first stop of our spring trip was Montpellier in the southwest of France, and we had no trouble scoring the seafood we craved. Here’s an alphabetical list of spots we sampled for you.

Spaces under the arcades of the 18th-century Saint-Clement aqueduct are known for their vibrant food market, but we were not wandering around picturesque streets in search of produce to cook. The neighborhood’s Bistrot des Arceaux welcomed us with dishes prepared in what the owners refer to as “a modern home kitchen.” Artistic plating is not the kitchen’s specialty, but it knows how to turn out a plateful of flavor.

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Postcard from Paris, France: Artistic response to animal artifacts

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A vintage postage stamp from France featuring an illustration of a deer, labeled 'Le Cerf', with a natural landscape background and text indicating 'Histoire Naturelle de Buffon'.

Above: Artist Edi Dubien’s addition of a tutu to a stuffed wild boar in the collection of Musee de la Chasse et de la Nature dramatically alters its perceived character.

My word was ignored, it could be heard without hearing it, it could disturb…. I make my characters speak, it’s the wounded childhood that I evoke, this ‘thing’ that comes out of my drawings is a cry, it’s a cry for life.”

Artist Edi Dubien

Your assignment, should you accept it, is to consider an entire museum stretching through the rooms of two historical mansions in Paris as your canvas. You are expected to interact with the immense collection housed within – one that includes paintings of hunting scenes, sculpture and a crowd of mounted deer racks and taxidermized animals of all sizes.

A contemporary artist’s dream commission. The Museum of Hunting and Nature extends the invitation for solo exhibitions to selected artists annually. Founded in 1967 by Jacqueline and Francois Sommer, the museum has broadened its focus from its core collection concentrating on hunting to the relationship between man and animal.

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Postcard from Paris, France: Linear parks rejuvenate neighborhoods

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playing boule along ourcq canal in paris
A vintage French postage stamp depicting a man playing jeu de boules, with spectators in the background. The stamp features blue illustrations and text stating 'JEU DE BOULES' and 'RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE'.

Above: Adjudicating outcome of an afternoon boules game along the Ourcq Canal.

Paris had to be more than a manicured museum preserved for the affluent beneath the Eiffel Tower and the Pantheon’s dome.”

“A City Reinvented: Paris Is Now Greater Paris,” Roger Cohen, New York Times, August 31, 2025

When we returned this past spring, our prior trip to Paris had been forty years earlier. Obviously, things have changed. We found ourselves afoot exploring areas of the city regarded as neither appealing nor safe for boulevardiers back then, areas such as an abandoned railroad line that runs across the 12th Arrondissement from the Bastille to the Bois de Boulogne.

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