Exploring the Wallace Collection: Visiting London's Hidden Spanish Art Collection with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring the Wallace Collection:  Visiting London’s Hidden Spanish Art Collection with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

After sampling garden-to-table fare at Cricketeers outside London the night before, I put Florence in her stroller throne and went to visit the Wallace Collection in downtown London.

The guard at the entrance told me that Florence was welcome, but her stroller was not.  I picked Florence up, bought a ticket, and carried her through the exhibit.

The Wallace Collection has a great array of suits of armor, but I knew my arms could only hold Florence for so long.  I headed for the one Spanish painting that really interested me in the collection: The Annunciation by Bartolomé Murillo.

Delicate beauty typifies Murillo’s Annunciation and his other religious works.  He uses only primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) in the earthly and heavenly spheres he paints here.  The orange color in the center of the painting unites both the earthly and heavenly spheres and draws viewers’ eyes to the angel’s finger pointing to the dove in heaven.

There was no mistaking this painting as an Italian one.  The angels in heaven are not sex-sated cupids, but adorable babies; you want to play with the babys’ toes and tell them to stop being silly, so they can pay attention to the important events happening below.

Murillo’s Madonna also wears simple clothing.  She has a sewing basket next to her.  Lilies refer to her virginity.  The dove in the heavenly sphere symbolizes the Holy Ghost.

Pagan (Greek and Roman) mythology was largely absent in Spanish Renaissance and Baroque art.

There are paintings by Velasquez and Franz Hals in the Wallace Collection as well, buy my arms were tired, so I reinstalled Florence in her stroller and went to Epping for tea with honey and lemon in it.

A great little outing for people with strong arms!!

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

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Exploring the Sables d'Olonne: Vacationing on France's Atlantic Coast with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring the Sables d’Olonne:  Vacationing on France’s Atlantic Coast with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

My husband Laurent, baby Florence, and I loved going to visit Laurent’s grandmother, who lived in the Atlantic Resort town of Les Sables d’Olonne that had a Casino, a huge cement walkway along the beach called the Ramblai, and a spa (‘thassolotherapy’ featuring hot salt water baths).

When we arrived, the four of us went to a restaurant called the Calypso.  Laurent and I started our meals with a dozen raw oysters each “to cleanse the glands.”

We then ate roast cod and salmon wrapped up in a slice of Vendéean ham.  We drank a house with the fish that Laurent’s grandmother called “pissote” – a local wine that does not travel well.

We had a sampler plate of desserts.  My favorite was “egg in snow.”  These fluffy beaten egg whites were topped off with caramel threads.  Laurent ate a fruit salad floating in a cognac glass full of banana liqueur.  I felt like I could make that dessert at home.

Of course, we took a big walk along the Ramblai and inhaled deep breaths of salty, ocean and admired the fine, white sand and kids playing in their go-carts on the beach.

That evening Laurent and I went to the “spectacle” at the Puy du Fou Château. 

The profits from the “spectacle” go to pay for things such as:

-research on popular traditions from the Vendée

-an equestrian school (a Middle Ages tournament is held as part of the ‘spectacle’)

-a newspaper

-a literary prize called “Terre de France” for a book about a French region

-a radio station

-a 150-seat bus for shows about the Vendée

There are 12,500 seats in the bleachers.  The Spectacle dealt with the War of the Vendée.

The Vendée was monarchist and religious during the French Revolution.  The Revolutionary government in Paris sent dragoon troops to walk through the countryside and kill men, women, and children for not obeying their agenda 100%.

This repression (some would say massacre) may be one of the reasons why Western France has more practicing Catholics than in other parts of France.

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

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Sampling English Village Pub Fare: Garden-to-Table Food at Cricketeers with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sampling English Village Pub Fare:  Dining on Garden-to-Table Food at Cricketeers outside London with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Laurent and I went out with his work colleagues to a village garden-to-table restaurant called the Cricketeers outside London, where we were staying.

Once we sat down at the table, Laurent and I started our meal with a simple and delicious bowl of potato and leek soup to warm our bodies in the damp countryside.

After that, Laurent ate a sole meunière with lemon that was so fresh that it still tasted of the sea according to Laurent.  I ate a pink-fleshed sea trout stuffed with shrimp and capers.

The capers gave the stuffing a little tang to the fish, which appealed to my love for slightly sour foods.  We drank a crisp German Riesling with this meal.

The vegetables are what impressed everyone.  They were served on platters to pass, and reminded me of the way Chinese restaurants in the US serve dishes “family style.”

The green beans were firm without being soggy.  Sautéed baby corn ears, zucchini, and green and red peppers made up my favorite dish and reminded me of dishes from the Southwestern US.

I liked the potato cubes that came out of the kitchen with hot butter and melted cheese on them, too.  The steamed cauliflower in tomato sauce and the baby snow peas in butter also gave me many ideas for cooking at home.

The entire meal had been so good that we just had to have dessert.  Laurent ate a chocolate terrine.  I ordered a fruit salad that came with a cup-sized pitcher of cream that I poured over the fruit salad.

I knew I would burn off the calories on my 5- to 6-hour walks around London.

By Ruth Paget, Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France


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Exploring Ghent: Visiting the Spiritual Homeland of Flemish Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring Ghent: Visiting the Spiritual Homeland of Flemish Belgium with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

The suburbs and most of the countryside around Brussels, Belgium are Flemish while downtown Brussels is French. 

Belgium is a bilingual country:  Flemish is a variant of Dutch spoken in the suburbs and countryside while French is mostly spoken in Brussels and in Wallonia in southern Belgium, a coal mining area.

On one of my trips to Belgium, my buddy Eileen and I went to the spiritual capital of Flemish Belgium in the town of Ghent.

Like Brouges (Belgium), Ghent has many old brick buildings, pretty canals, lace shops, and churches that would be major attractions in smaller towns.

We ate at a restaurant that also served as a bakery and served as a kosher food products store called Bloch on Veldstraat.  The waitress, who spoke English, told us that the restaurant has been there for almost 100 years.

We ordered Shepherd’s Pie.  It was made with a browned crust of mashed potatoes and savory beef and onion filling.

We visited St. Baaf’s Cathedral downtown and admired the Mystic Lamb Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck.  Flanders is Catholic like French Belgium and has much artwork to admire in its churches.

The English guide to the Cathedral is enthusiastically translated as follows:

“Thank the Lord for the profusion of beauty in your life” and I did just that as we headed back to Brussels on the train. 

(In 2018, I still want Google to develop Google Art Project to make museum collections overseas and in the US available to Americans, who may not have the money or physical ability to visit these collections.)

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

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Exploring Bruges: Visiting Belgium's Venice with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Exploring Bruges: Visiting Belgium’s Venice with Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

I loved being able to take the train to Brussels, Belgium from the Gare du Nord in Paris (France) to visit my Detroit buddy Eileen, who worked for the European Union after finishing her master’s degree at the London School of Economics.

Eileen took a vacation day, so we could visit the picture-perfect town of Bruges.  Bruges is full of canals with swans.  We rolled Florence around in her baby stroller looking for restaurants and just enjoying being outside for the day.

Bruges is a beautiful, distant suburb of Brussels for upper management, who could do consulting work at home.

We eventually decided on a restaurant.  Eileen and I both had a savory, tomato soup and Italian omelets called fritattas.  We were feeling pretty good, because we drank Duvel (Flemish for ‘Devil’) and Geuze wheat beers with our garlic toast and omelets.

We walked around Bruges for another three hours.  The Eglise Nôtre had a beautiful Madonna and Child sculpture in it by Michelangelo that was a surprise find for us.

The swans on the canals enchanted me as did the lace makers on the curving, cobbled streets, who set up shop next to chocolate stores.  I felt like I was walking through a wonderland.

We ate Leonidas chocolates on the way home and counted swans on the canals on the way out of town.

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

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