What could be better than a combination of a famous drink and a famous pub.
September 1987. Three weeks of autumn pleasure in Paris. When you throw yourself in the everyday life of the locals, when you have a weekly ticket for the bus, metro and suburban train. Every morning I took the train from Andrésy to Paris – and back in the evening. An everyday commuter, a working classs hero. A girl named after the goddess of spring and I met every evening after her work in a bistro across from the Gare Saint-Lazare station. And every day we made up our mind whether to go home to Andrésy or to wander around Paris. It was autumn. And Paris is the most beautiful in autumn. If you are not alone.
The French, famous sentimentalists. Once, when mademoiselle Spring was late, the waiter asked me, if the mademoiselle will not be here today? Okay, I don’t speak French, but I got it.
Well, three weeks have passed. And on the last evening before my return to my homeland, we went to Brasserie Lipp.
Brasserie Lipp has been a must-see address in Saint-Germain-des-Prés for over 140 years! Since its creation in 1880 by Léonard Lipp, the Brasserie has enjoyed a solid literary and political reputation. Over the years, it has welcomed the great names that have left their mark on French literature (Gide, Malraux, Proust, St Exupéry, Camus, Sartre…). And Hemingway ate potato salad here.
We sat on the sidewalk and drink what else than Kir Maison. We didn’t have the money for the Royal version.
The Kir is a French cocktail made with a measure of crème de cassis (blackcurrant liqueur) topped up with white wine. It used to be called blanc-cassis, but it is now named after Félix Kir (1876–1968), mayor of Dijon in Burgundy.
The story goes that the reinvention of blanc-cassis was necessitated by the German Army’s confiscation of all the local red Burgundy during the war. Faced with an excess of white wine, mayor Kir renovated a drink that used to be made primarily with the red. And the Kir Royal is made with champagne.
After two drinks, we left for the night train to Andrésy. We caught a bakery that was still open, bought a baguette and opened a can of caviar at home. With a glass of red wine…
And the next morning was The Last Tang… oops, Morning in Paris.