patrimoine madness

sooooo, it was the patrimoine festival this weekend in france. That means lots of people running around seeing the insides of buildings that are normally closed off to the public. This year, the nardac and dacnar took on two very cool locales: the École Supérieur de la Cuisine Française and the Party Communist Headquarters.

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party communist headquarters
notable for the presentation of the original Marcel Duchamp Mona Lisa picture, donated to Louis Aragon, who then gave it to the Redheads.
also stunning inner underground dome, like a cross between gnome hovel and star wars parliamentary headquarters, that hosts the general meeting of the party. designed by amazing brazilian architect oscar niemeyer, guy who also designed very cool building in brasilia...google him for god's sakes. anyways, pictures speak more than words...

funnily enough, everyone had warned us about the insane line ups for the patrimoine events, but this one was breezy. no line-up and the building's main rooms were all open for viewing. Unfortunately the brutal concrete walls were obscured by several oversized corporate paintings. It would have been better if they had some pictures of leading commie heads when they came to visit, like Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov
or Konstantin Chernenko.

then headed to the west bank where the big school of cooking was having an open house with a FREE tasting menu. The special this year is the celebration of meat. Thus, after an hour and half lineup, 30 of us were thrust into a room where ris de veau was explained, followed by a large auditorium where we were served lamb chops and explained the process...then minced pig's feet mixed with kale and pine-nuts wrapped in crepine....then boeuf bourguignon.

Have to say that the lamb chops were spectacular. Traumatised a boy in front...he turned around just at the moment I viciously grabbed the rib by hand to dessicate it with my teeth. The boeuf bourguignon was the only disappointment...no carrots in the recipe, the sauce was a bit thin, and was really offended by pushy fat chinese boy who went for seconds, then thirds. As if that's why we go to a degustation!!!

all in all success...except was so fatigued by the day that slept for three hours in the evening...only to wake up hungry.