Cafe Pinson 2 Takes Flight

Press night at Cafe Pinson 2, from the outside looking in

Pinson means "finch" en francais, so when I say another organic, plant-based restaurant has gotten its wings, I almost mean it literally. Cafe Pinson 1 opened just about a year ago in the Northern Marais and was successful enough that the team behind the 99-percent vegan cafe invested in a second location.

The ardoise

The new spot--which oozes a more rustic and homey vibe that its predecessor--sits on rue du Faubourg Poissoniere in an area fast becoming a vegan vortex; within a five-block radius, there are roughly six veg(etari)an dining spots to choose from, offering everything from meatless burgers to organic raw food. 

On a dark and damp Wednesday night, I set out to meet up with good friend Terresa from La Cucina di Terresa for the cafe's inaugural press event. Terresa was already engaged in friendly banter with co-owner Damian when I arrived, but soon we were ensconsed on a comfy settee where we sipped, nibbled, and schmoozed our way to a better understanding of the Cafe Pinson experience.

The best chef in Paris, Terresa Murphy, lifts un verre of bio bubbly

The crudite tray, wtih curried dipping sauce

More crudite. When are those sweet potato dumplings coming around?!

Little verrines of creamy vegetable soup were also passed round.

I spotted--and resisted temptation to dig into--a jar of pickled asparagus on a shelf.

Natural wines are an exciting addition to the menu, which also includes such tempting delicacies as beet and parsnip veloute; potato and spinach cakes with kale pesto; pumpkin-mushroom risotto; and lemon tiramisu. Detox juices and retox swills (hello, coffee!) are also on tap.

Cafe Pinson co-founder Agathe giving Parisian "smile."

The DJ was almost upstaged by the vegetable platter.

Bibliophilia

While prepping for the class I'm teaching next week, I thought it would be helpful to students to have access to some tangible vegetarian-oriented resources. Over the years, I've collected scads of books on vegan food, animal rights, veg travel, etc.--though I've given most away, so it's no longer the carefully curated "vegan library" I once possessed. Thankfully, my friend Mary Margaret, who is the food editor at Vegetarian Times, recently gave me a gazillion veg cookbooks she was ready to part with. I'm thinking I'll loan those to whoever is interested, or simply let them leaf through the stack after class.

I thought it also might be helpful to tout our local bibliotheques (aka libraries), so students know that we have a cool, diverse, polylingual resource at our disposal as Paris residents--and it's free! This past Wednesday, I pedaled up to the Bibliotheque Batignolles and went on the prowl for books with a veg focus, and found three; two cookbooks (one of which I brought home) and one guide: Paris Vegetarien.

When this pocket-size, 110-page paperback came out last year, I was kind of bummed; I'd been working on a vegan Paris guide of my own and even pitched the book's publishers, Parigramme, a similar title. (No response, and no surprise. Non-response-as-NO is how the French roll.) But when I saw it sitting on the library shelf, shiny and new and barely touched (if ever), I tossed my resentment and that smidgen of jealousy to the wayside and carried it to the counter.

What a great book--even if I didn't get to write it!

In bed later that night, surrounded by reading material and one interested little dog, I leafed through the book expecting nothing new and was pleasantly surprised. Inside were indeed oodles of places I was utterly and completely familiar with, but there were also a solid handful of listings that were totally not familiar, and therefore totally exciting. And good timing, too; ever since finding a breathmint (not mine) in the spinach curry at my favorite Sunday lunch spot, I've been looking for new restaurants to try.

With Paris Vegetarien, I've got some good weekend possibilities lined up. For instance, Mille et Une Beautes. If the place sounds/looks like a beauty salon, that's because it is. A beauty salon that serves vegetarian lunch! Weird, right? But wait! There's another retail/resto melange serving veg fare: Carmen Ragosta. It's a clothing boutique-slash-Italian restaurant. Brilliant mix. (Only it's probably best to try on clothes before trying out the pasta.)

The most exciting entries I discovered might be the bits focused on the Paris suburb of Montreuil; apparently, there's a vegan boulanger at the Wednesday market there, and at Casa Poblano, a non-profit arts association, there's a little cafe serving veg (and non-veg) food that's run by our old friend Falko. Falko was the guy behind Oscar Cafe, the Tuesday night vegan supper club we looked forward to each week when we lived in Paris back in 2004-2005.

Writers aren't thanked enough for the good work they do (IMOHO), so this is my thank-you to Alcyone Wemaere, wherever you are, for researching and writing a useful guide for novices and experienced vegan Parisians alike. To quote the title of one of my vegan cookbooks, "I am grateful"!

Vivez Nature

I met another Aurelia at a veg event recently. She's a fellow vegan parisian who loves animals and cycling. (How many of us are there?!) Aurelia's day job is at an farmed animal-rights group, and on evenings and weekends, she sits on the board of the French vegetarian society, serving as their media liaison, among other things.

Last week we met at a little bar in Montmartre to talk shop, and Aurelia told me about an upcoming event in Paris called Vivez Nature. It's billed as a "Salon d'Agriculture Biologique" (organic agriculture expo) and sounded a lot like a smaller version of Expo West, a giant trade show I used to attend when I worked at VegNews. So, this past Sunday--a gloriously warm and sunny Indian summer day--I pedaled over to La Villette see how the French do this sort of thing.

It started off with an exciting bang: The first booth I laid eyes on was Sea Shepherd's. Cool! Next was an organization dedicated to educating the world about the environmental hazards of palm oil cultivation. I had a great conversation with a woman at that booth and came away thinking "I'll never eat Earth Balance again--for the gibbons!" It's depressing to think about how deforestation for selective crop growing effects primates and other animal (and plant) species throughout Borneo and the rest of Indonesia. Heartbreaking, but worth investigating.

After this somewhat interesting start, things slowed down to a boring crawl. The animal rights booths gave way to a bland series of essential oil vendors, soap stalls, and book booths selling hundreds of titles on various esoteric subjects, all seemingly written by the same author (?), among them "Urinotherapie." (I don't really even want to know what that is.)

Things became mildly interesting again when we got to the food aisle; here we found superfood chocolate, vegan cookies, natural wines, and organic breads made from non-GMO grains. Like every other event I've been to where free samples were being handed out, the masses descended upon the poor folks doing the distributing like famished zombies, spawning copy-cat behavior in everyone within grabbing distance.

I finally caught up with Aurelia at the Association Vegetarienne de France booth. She was mobbed, too. A wonderful sight to see is a mass of French people crowded around a booth offering information on veganism, animal rights, and environmental issues.

This isn't an event I'd pay to attend, but I'm glad I went, if only to have tasted this delicious palm oil-free, eggless noisette flour cookie made with vegan chocolate chips. Miam!