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Thursday, August 2, 2018

Eating at Cafe Flo in Hampstead Heath (London, UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating at Café Flo in the Hampstead Heath Neighborhood (London, UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget – Ruth Pennington Paget

When Laurent came back from his first day of working with his English colleagues on a bone marrow transplant project for the European Community as a computer engineering consultant for hospitals throughout Europe, he said we were invited out to dinner at a nice place down the street. 

We walked down the street to a restaurant called Café Flo.  This restaurant featured French and cosmopolitan dishes such as sukiyaki from Japan (chicken kebabs with a sweet soy sauce coating) and souvlaki from Greece (lamb kebab with yogurt, cucumber, and green onion dipping sauce on the side).

I installed Florence in her stroller next to a wall and told her “Café Flo” is your resto, kiddo!”

Laurent’s colleague seemed more relaxed when he was not in a traffic jam on the Orbital.  Laurent’s work colleague ordered rosé wine to go with our meal.  Laurent liked rosé and asked if it could be chilled.

Laurent’s work colleague said that you could hardly get a cold beer in London let alone a bottle of wine.  As an entrée, Laurent and I ordered fish followed by a plat principal, main dish, of poussin diable – a spicy, broiled and flayed baby chicken for me and an English dish called bangers and mash for Laurent.

I regaled Laurent and his colleague with a travel dialog about Ruthie’s Walk around London Town.

As a dessert, I ordered lemon sorbet followed by a cappuccino.

I really thought my vacation was great.


By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Eating Great Breakfasts in London Town (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Eating Great Breakfasts in London Town (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


The restaurant was near Oxford Street, a real carrefour of consumerism.  I love stores that collect sales tax and keep the money in local coffers for neighborhood programs.

It was 3:30 pm.  I could see that I could order breakfast at any time of day in the UK with cake as a dessert.  4 or 5 hours of walking would work off the calories in that cake.

I installed Florence in a sturdy, wooden chair provided by the restaurant.  My big English breakfast included: two sunny side up eggs, three sausages, three strips of delicious bacon, two broiled tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms that oozed butter, French fries, toast and jelly, orange juice, and coffee with warm milk.

Florence was interested in all the people around us talking in all sorts of languages, wearing all kinds of colorful fashion, and a few women wearing hats with feathers.

I toured Charing Cross and went back to the hotel.  The rest felt good.  I was generally thrilled with my tour of London Town.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books




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Touring London Town (UK) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Touring London Town (England) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


Before we went on Laurent’s business trip to London (United Kingdom), I spent the week doing laundry and ironing clothes to get ready for the trip.  I wanted Florence to be cute in her stroller throne.  I would touch up our clothes in the hotel room once we arrived.

I was asked to come along on the trip, but I was tired.  Keeping a toddler in lovely, ironed duds was tiring me out, but I did not want to tour London Town with Florence, Laurent, or me wearing wrinkled clothing.

I ate a croissant for breakfast with a hot chocolate, and we all headed out to the airport.  I could still wear mini skirts eating breakfasts like this even though I had a toddler in tow.

Laurent’s British counterpart picked us up at Stanstead Airport outside London, built by the same man who designed the Pompidou Centre (Beaubourg) in Paris. 

We drove on the M20 Highway called “The Orbital.”  Pretty soon we hit a traffic jam.  We heard on the radio that a milik “lorry” (truck) had tipped over on the Orbital, causing a several kilometer traffic jam.

“I guess we’re on a real Milky Way,” I said.  Laurent’s business counterpart scowled, probably thinking “Second City in the Car” as he had to deal with a traffic jam in a stick shift car.

As soon as we could exit the freeway, we did and found ourselves surrounded by thick hedgerows on either side of a narrow road.  I love England for this easy coexistence of the modern and the rural.  I was expecting Robin Hood to pop out with the Sheriff of Nottingham chasing him at any moment.

My breakfast croissant was wearing off.  I wondered where this rural road would lead and if I could eat at the end of it.

Finally, we arrived on the North Side of London in Hampstead Heath.  We would be staying at the Posthouse Hotel with the closest Underground Station being the Belsize Park Northern Line.

I came to London to see London, so I walked down to the Belsize Station with Florence and got on the escalator with her.  The Underground is about 1 mile under the surface streets in London, but I made it down before developing vertigo by looking at ads on the walls.

I boarded the train for the Charing Cross Station and exited at Trafalgar Square.  I carried Florence up the stairs in her baby stroller; this station did not have an escalator.  Mini skirts actually allow your legs to move, so you can do this. 

I straightened Florence up above ground and started strolling around the neighborhood with the cute baby in tow.

The “Look Right” and “Look Left” signs painted on the street curb corners prevented me from getting hit by cars a few times, because the British drive on a different side of the road than Americans do.

I pushed Florence in her stroller down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square past all of the touristy buildings.  I kept track of what I was passing by in my tour guide.

It was warm and the London citizens were lying on the grass in parks.  This behavior was typical for Americans, but atypical for the British I later learned.  The heat brought on this behavior.  It was unusually warm.

I let Florence walk around in St. James Park, which has lots of shade.  I did not want her to get sunburnt.  I admired Buckingham Palace, the Queen Victoria Monument, and Big Ben through the trees at the Park’s exit.

I spent a terrified, adrenaline rush for half an hour as I tried to cross the street to Green Park.  When I reached the other side, I pushed Florence along the Constitution Hill side of the Park, which runs parallel to the Palace Gardens.

Riding a horse in Green Park is probably de rigeur for nobility to do in this part of Royal London.  I pushed Florence through the pedestrian subway to Hyde Park.

I was getting a pretty good workout on one buttered croissant for breakfast.

I exited the Pedestrian Subway and saw a restaurant with several-layered cakes in the window with lots of frosting. 

“I am eating there,” I said to myself after dealing with tiny dessert portions in Paris.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Viewing Malevich's Paintings and Eating Indonesian Food in Amsterdam (Netherlands) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget




Viewing Malevich's Paintings and Eating Indonesian Food in Amsterdam (Netherlands) with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


Of course, the next day was my vacation day as well, so I was out the hotel door at 8 am to explore Amsterdam (Netherlands).

I visited the historical part of downtown by the Royal Palace and a little area called the Beguinage – the site of a former church of reformed Presbyterians called the Beguines.

From there, I walked from one end to the other of the main canals – the Singel, the Herengracht, and the Keizersgracht.  I made a few stops to buy coffee with cream.  Walking along canals to admire architecture is cold yet informative tourism for learning about architecture that is not usually introduced in university art history courses.

I walked along the Leiderstraat and found myself on Museumplein again.  I visited the Municipal Museum and enjoyed Malevich’s paintings such as “White Square on White.”  He reminded me of another Dutch painter named Mondrian, who did “security systems” paintings I thought for office decoration.

I went back on Leidestraat and found an Indonesian Restaurant.  I was going to see the Rembrandt collection at the Rijksmuseum, but my innocent sounding Rijstafel (Rice Table Lunch) took three hours to consume. 

Indonesian food is so spicy that you have to wipe away tears away as you eat it.  I loved every morsel, but I had to drink a lot of water to deal with the heat.  I planned to buy an Indonesian cookbook and learn to make this delicious food, but tone down the spices a bit.

After the dragon-hot meal, I just enjoyed walking around Amsterdam and buying coffee with cream and looking at stores and apartments.  I knew everyone at work would laugh at my wild weekend in Amsterdam with its liberal drug and prostitution laws.

The next day I wrote down some Amsterdam notes before returning to Paris:

-Windows – Building windows are so clean in Amsterdam that they glisten in the sun.  Glistening windows make brown brick buildings with red geraniums look very upscale no matter what kind of neighborhood they are in.

-Pulleys are located on rooftops of buildings to make moving furniture in and out of apartments easy.

-Amsterdam has great urban planning.  The city has a lot of trains, canals, and bikes for moving people and goods around quickly.

-I think the Netherlands is the largest market for bicycles outside the Peoples’ Republic of China.

-Fashion from the 1960s prevailed in Amsterdam in the 1990s.  (Blue jeans, T-shirts, and tennis shoes.)

-Amsterdam has many good bookstores including English ones.  The City of International Trade requires many multilingual lawyers, bankers, accountants, and salesmen.

If you plan to visit Amsterdam and visit its art museums, I would recommend reading Simon Schama’s  The Embarassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age and Rembrandt’s Eyes.  People of English descent should read about our ancestral trading and naval rivals.

By Ruth Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

Click here for:  Ruth Paget's Amazon Books




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