Fall in Aligre

I lived in Aligre for a few years. 

I grew pansies in the windowsill (you can grow pansies all winter outside in Paris) and had my first fish bowl, brimming with speckled goldfish. Sometimes at night, in their exuberance, they’d ride the water bubbles up and jump out of their home, taking their last breaths on the brick floor where I found them in the morning. 

If I opened the windows upon waking I could hear the din of the market setting up. Like a sleepy haze. Building. Brakes and axles groaning. The call of the sellers to each other unpacking their fruits and vegetables. Sometimes a woman would sell beets in front of my house and she would give me the greens because French people don’t eat those. 

The vegetable market cut straight through the place d’aligre which was a semi-circle attached to the square indoor market with its beautiful ironwork and tile roof. 

If you took a right onto the semi circle coming out of my house, there was a bulk pasta store on the plaza, which was special because someone’s grandfather raised canaries in it. The corners where the wall met the ceiling were lined with little cages of canaries that sang cheerfully, and a little stridently. Sometimes he’d put a pair outside to get fresh air and you could hear their song. 

A little further down past the ugly modern building with sad, empty balconies was the franprix. A cheap grocery store where I bought dark bread and edame, what the French call Gouda. And rose sometimes too. 

At the end of the entrance to the market was a wonderful shop, maybe tiurkish?, where I liked to buy olives and halva. They had wonderful bulk spices and the olives came in big buckets. They also sold incense and other cheeses. I liked the halva in yogurt. 

Heading back towards the center, I’d sit for an espresso and watch the people. Some read the newspaper. Stooped and lonely old men and women, kids playing fiercely, moms and dads full of their responsability and importance of raising children and being part of the working class. 

The bread near the coffee shop was delicious. Baguettes are wonderful. When you get a shop that makes their own baguettes and croissants you get a little slice of heaven, in a musty way. 

There was a wine shop that set up big empty barrels outside and shucked oysters with fresh slightly sparkling (petillant) white wine on Fridays. I remember walking by when the air was as crisp as the light streaming from the windows, and the smell of sea fish and musty wine lulls and beckons. That was one thing about Paris, it soothes. The aplomb of it. The confidence and calm and arrogance of having always been there. 

I recall one man who sold fruits and vegetables at the markets, his features thick and weather worn. His fingers knowing and strong. He had a knowing look- like most of the sellers in the market - kind but wary at the same time. He sold me a delicious bunch of small, tight purple iridescent grapes with seeds in them. And a bunch of fresh mint. 

There was also a covered portion of the market with cheese sellers, butchers, fish monger and even a specialized Portuguese salt cod seller. On weekends in the fall one of the butchers would roast a suckling pig in his rotisserie. I never actually tried it though. I loved to by fresh fish and especially the chilled but cooked sea snails that I dipped in a garlicky mayo. Also rabbit. Yum.