Many years ago, when I first fell in love with Paris, I stayed in hotels and suffered through agonizingly mediocre dinners in nameless bistros, always longing for a kitchen of my own, to paraphrase Virginia Woolf.
When I finally realized that renting an apartment made more sense monetarily and culinarily, why then I invested in a string bag and gaping basket with a maw like a lion’s, just for “le shopping” that occupies many Parisians’ waking thoughts. But what I never reckoned with was the SIZE of the kitchens I encountered …
Now you know why French people shop every day …
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
That’s a good one, yes. I’ve used it before – if I recall, “Pork in the Style of the Butcher’s Wife” is terrific. Of course, it calls for gherkins …
One of my favorite French cookbooks is “Parisian Home Cooking” by Michael Roberts – wonderful recipes and photos of Parisians cooking in kitchens like this (well, maybe not the one at the top).
Jeremiah,
That’s a nice street – I miss that shop on the end that sold all those statues and stuff form monasteries. It was not there the last time I looked for it.
As I was looking at the pictures I was thinking “so that’s why they shop everyday” and then I saw the same comment after the last picture. It would be hard to move around in such a tiny kitchen. Americans are spoiled! : )
Every day! How about twice – that is what I did on Gregoire de Tours!!
The one “and mine…” looks like the Queen Mary compared to the others. Whenever in one of these Paris kitchens I would always remind myself of a sail boat I took in the Caribbean where the Martinique cook made chocolate souffles in a little coal stove which backed up with smoke every time the boat came about.
Ah yes, my love-hate relationship with kitchens in apartments I have used in Paris. One on Gregoire de Tours, Ile St Louis, and others. First you are horrified, then you make do, and then you realize the ingredients are so perfect you do not have to do much cooking, needing 2 burners and an oven.