Paris comfort food: Soul food and cupcakes.

Soul food
When I started to write this entry, I was going to let you in on a well kept not so secret place called Chez Haynes, a restaurant serving soul food that could be found in the 9e arrondissement in Paris and was unofficially a place of reference for black Americans, American artists and singers, or simply Americans feeling homesick for things such as BBQ ribs or friend chicken in honey and corn bread. Unfortunately, this institution of American soul, southern US, American artists etc. closed its doors just over a month ago.

Googling Chez Haynes you could find its long and illustrious history (founded by African American Haynes, apparently with a varied career from wrestler, actor to sociologist! who made good in France….friend of many French artists, actors, politicians whose photos could be seen in the unpretentious restaurant with a small stage that used to feature, for example, visiting jazz singers who would sing accompanied just by a piano). But I think each person could also tell a story associated with Chez Haynes. Mine was marked especially by meeting a personage in one of my favourite films when I was younger: La Cage aux Folles. Personable, still recognizably La Cage, he no doubt contributed to pull people into the restaurant to its ambiance.
Chez Haynes was also the place where you might encounter unexpected rencontres. Hosting an American college friend (blond as blond can be blond) who is crazy about soul food, we decided to go to Chez Haynes. Having come to dessert (Real banana split like we get in the US), I turned to the people in the next table, a group of African American young men to come face to face literally with my ex boyfriend from days long gone by! He was visiting Paris and of course he did not know that I have been living in Paris (OK, the separation was not that amicable). We looked at each other unbelieving what we saw….it was a good, as we say in French, retrouvaille …. Any regrets have been erased by time so there was just joy in finding each other again (though his then boyfriend might not think so!).
Now, helas, Chez Haynes is no more….another Parisian institution that is gone contributing to the longing that many long term residents feel for old Paris.

Cupcakes
Having left the US, I sometimes have cravings for things that I have not thought of for ages amid the varied and delicious French food. To the uncomprehending look of my French friends, I long at times for Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast, Reese’s peanut butter, and Sara Lee’s strawberry cheesecake. Luckily, a new place in Paris has brought “home” cupcakes, a food that I associate with happier insouciant time in my life. The cosy place can be found in rue Rambuteau in le Marais. Here you can find cupcakes, cheesecake and typical American snack food.

And what cupcakes!!! Forget the cupcakes that you ate when you were a child which was just sugar sweet and not very beautiful to look and either chocolate or strawberry. Here you would find beautiful looking cupcakes and all kind of flavours that you probably never imagined before. My favourites include carrotcake cupcakes (great icing), rose (yes, the flavour of the flower…it is sooo good), or violet (again, the flower). The price of course matches the presentation and the taste of these heavenly cupcakes (and the cheesecake too! I love especially the chocolate
cheesecake) and has nothing to do with the price we pay in the corner shop for 4 cupcakes in a plastic container. But here, the French touch (in presentation and in flavour) has been successfully integrated into what can be considered an American product much like the pyramid is now an integral part of the Louvre! (Ok I am going over the top here, but I am on a sugar high here). The cupcakes thus are to be eaten and appreciated much like other delicacies in France…slowly, admiringly, and with a lot of memories (of childhood) and emotions that they may evoke in you! With a cup of espresso, you could almost say that you don’t care that your Paris lover has gone off who knows where again for the afternoon…

Note: The shop where you can get cupcakes, called Berko, is located in Paris' 4th arrodissement (Le Marais), rue Rambuteau, metro Rambuteau. Another store (Berko's) is also now open near metro Blanche (on rue Lepic just above the Moulin Rouge).