Upon my return from France, I decided to whip up a little something I ate while there in order to ease my best friend's suffering as she sat through vacation photos.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
• 1 cup whole milk
• Pinch of ground nutmeg
• 1 bay leaf

• 4 slices firm white sandwich bread
• 4 ounces thinly sliced Black Forest ham
• 4 ounces sliced Gruyère cheese
• 1 tablespoon melted butter
• 1/4 cup grated Gruyère cheese
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh chives

Preparation

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in small saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and stir 1 minute. Gradually whisk in milk. Add nutmeg and bay leaf. Increase heat to medium-high and boil until sauce thickens, whisking constantly, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Preheat broiler. Place 2 bread slices on work surface. Top each with half of ham and sliced Gruyère. Top with remaining bread. Heat heavy large skillet over low heat. Brush sandwiches with 1 tablespoon melted butter. Add to skillet and cook until deep golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to small baking sheet. Spoon sauce, then grated cheese over sandwiches. Broil until cheese begins to brown, about 2 minutes.

While most stolen art news touches on Nazi purloined oeuvres, the news broke that a thief or thieves stole five paintings early this morning from the Paris Museum of Modern Art. The security system was disabled, and only one masked figure was caught on camera, which suggests a certain level of professionalism. The best part of the story, however, is the reaction of Pierre Cornette de Saint-Cyr, director of a neighbouring modern art museum, Palais de Tokyo:

“You cannot do anything with these paintings. All countries in the world are aware, and no collector is stupid enough to buy a painting that, one, he can't show to other collectors, and two, risks sending him to prison. In general, you find these paintings. These five paintings are un-sellable, so thieves, sirs, you are imbeciles, now return them.”

Ha! Love his attitude. And not five minutes after I learned that most museums acquire 90% of their art from donors. Hope this makes M de Saint-Cyr some friends! Also, I hope the thief just keeps the works for himself like that guy who stole the Mona Lisa.

1. Go to the Louvre. Skip the most famous pieces, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo - or, if you must, run past them just so you can say you were in the same room as them. (Watch this video to see how it should be done in maximum, floor-sliding style.) Instead, go to the Dutch and Flemish paintings to see works of Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Ruysdael, and others. Particularly impressive is the Medici room, a series of 21 paintings by Rubens depicting the life of Marie de Medici, the wife of the French king Henri IV, and mother of Louis XIII. Spend as much time there as you can stand, and then go out into the Tuileries and sit down for an ice cream cone, and then a glass of wine and a sandwich at one of the outdoor cafes.

2. Go to the Shakespeare  & Company bookstore, just over the bridge from Notre Dame Cathedral, on the left bank. Go up to the second floor, grab a book from the shelves, and find a chair or couch in a quiet corner to read it. (This is not only tolerated, but encouraged - in fact, most of the books on the second floor are not even for sale.)

3. Go to a cemetery. Pere Lachaise is the famous one, with Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, Piaf, Proust and Chopin; but the Montmartre and Montparnasse ones also have loads of famous dead people (including Hector Berlioz, Francois Truffaut, and Louise Weber, aka the can-can dancer "La Goulue" in Montmartre; Sartre, de Beauvoir, de Maupassant and Susan Sontag in Montparnasse). Just make sure you have a good map of the cemetery and the notable graves in it before you go. They are not neatly, geometrically arranged places; there are acres and acres of tombs and gravestones, many of them old, faded and mossy, often hidden behind large sepulchres of long-forgotten aristocratic French families, and few pathways through them.

Yasmina Reza's play "Art" is now running at the Bluma Appel Theatre in Toronto, until April 10th. Here's the Globe and Mail review. And here's an interview with one of the leads, Colin Mochrie.

We discussed Reza in this blog last year.

It's October, you guys! We made it. Time to get out your Scene cards and Bytowne memberships because it's gonna get good. 

Hollywood Fare

If you are in need of sup-bar agitainment, Michael Moore's latest, Capitalism: A Love Story should fit the bill. If you prefer the latest addition in the hor-com genre, go with Zombieland.  While "be your own hero" seems to be the only message of Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It, it's pretty good as far as messages go (with the added benefit of not looking like a message movie). If comedy's more your thing, go with Ricky Gervais' latest, The Invention of Lying. Is there a reason Mr. Gervais hasn't really broken out here yet?

A recent issue of the New Yorker contains a profile of the French playwright, novelist, and memoirist Yasmina Reza. Unfortunately, the article isn't available online, but even the abstract makes her seem like a fascinating person: an award-winning playwright since her twenties, lives in a "writerly apartment in an old building on the Left Bank," and dedicated her latest book, a profile of Nicolas Sarkozy during the 2007 presidential election campaign, to a mysterious man she calls "G."

She also defies any sort of categorization of herself, her work, and others: "human beings can't be reduced," she says.

 Reza's biggest success to date was her 1995 play "Art," about three wealthy, middle-aged male friends who discuss a work of contemporary, abstract art, and end up in a brawl. The play has been translated into over 30 languages, and its British production won a Laurence Olivier Award for Comedy - Reza said, "I thought I had written a tragedy." It's Broadway production (starring Alan Alda, Victor Garber, and Alfred Molina) won a Tony Award for Best Play; and it won two Moliere Awards in France.