The Paris of Asjha van den Akker

Asjha van den Akker is one of the best editors in the country. Think of a TV show that you found incredibly fun and witty, and there's a good chance Asjha was behind the (fun) controls. Asjha is the type to work hard, play hard, so after working her butt off for half a year, she elevates the blissful doing nothing to the highest level in their house in the southwest of France. Well, doing nothing, doing nothing, she and her husband Ed give writing courses, she writes a column and a book (Et voilà! Stories from the Dordogne, read it!) and it’s a big visiting relay. On the way to their house in France, one thing is certain: a pit stop in Paris.

Asjha, you were totally team Greece. Little island, little bed, little book. And then France peeked around the corner and you even bought a house there. What’s going on?
‘The French are arrogant frog eaters who don’t speak a word of English’ and ‘the French have elevated being grumpy towards tourists to an art form,’ I always said. But in 2010, Ed managed to get me to go to France. We visited big cities and small villages, slept at French people's homes, drove past kilometers of lavender and sunflowers, visited small shops and large department stores, and went from restaurant to restaurant and from cave to cave. And then I was sold. Two years later, we bought an old grocery store in a small village in the Dordogne.’

You didn’t really speak the language yet and still dared to fully immerse yourself in the community. How did you manage that?
‘I had the ‘misfortune’ that my husband already spoke good French, so for the first few years, I was just a quiet Willie. I took a French course, which was very necessary, but you learn the language best when you’re among the French. By now, I speak a decent bit of ‘tourist French’. I can manage just fine in a shop, a restaurant, and in the village square. And with a glass of wine, I talk just a little easier.

Last summer, I was at a doctor’s appointment. Due to Covid-19, I had to go there alone. After a few introductory questions, the doctor suddenly asked about my ‘poids’.

‘Pois?’ I repeated. Peas, I thought, why peas? Because I knew petit pois.
‘Votre poids’ the doctor said again. I fell silent and looked at him with wide eyes.
Then he pointed to the scale and said again: ‘Poids, votre poids!’ Your weight!
‘Ah, mon poids?! Ça, c’est un secret monsieur,’ I said.
Fortunately, he could laugh about it.’

Have you made a few cultural blunders (I’m now thinking of Emily in Paris asking for a ‘house tour’ when visiting her Parisian friend’s parents. Very normal in America but in France… Faux pas!)
‘No blunder, but I did get acquainted with the customs of the city.

We wanted to have a glass of wine at a large terrace, it was full, so we politely asked the waiter if he had space and if we could reserve otherwise. Reservation wasn’t possible, we had to wait, he said. Then he let a well-groomed older gentleman – type Adriaan van Dis – who had just walked up, take a seat at the vacated table. Making a fuss is pointless: regular customers and the Parisian always have priority over a couple of passing tourists. C’est comme ça.

Oh yes, and in the countryside, you never ask someone where they found those delicious mushrooms in the woods, that is not done. Every Frenchman keeps the finding place to themselves.’

But back to that Paris pit stop. Does it follow a fixed procedure?
‘Usually we go to Paris in the winter, then the city is completely in Christmas spirit. We are on our way to our house in the countryside to relax a bit for a few weeks by the wood stove with a book (and a good bottle of wine) and celebrate Christmas with friends. In Paris, we celebrate our birthdays (in November and December) and usually stay a few days. Ed reserves – after extremely thorough research – restaurant, wine bar, bistro, hotel, and such. I check out the shops, neighborhoods, and museums to visit.’

Which bingo card needs to be checked off before you can leave Paris again?
‘Ideally, a lunch in a bistro and a dinner in a restaurant where we haven’t been before (but Ed always books a lunch at bistro Lipp on Boulevard Saint-Germain and I don’t complain about that), at least one large department store, a stationery store for the new agenda, a pharmacy for a new tube of Homeoplasmine, a museum: preferably in the neighborhood where we are staying, one of the Muji’s and a special place we haven’t been to in a long time: Sacré-Cœur, Île de la Cité, Père-Lachaise…’

I can imagine that your voiture returns home in almost a vertical position with all the goodies you bring back from France. What’s the haul from Paris?
‘Before we leave for the Netherlands again, we shop ourselves silly in the countryside for canned duck, après-repast tea from La Tisanière, biscotte from La Chanteracoise (delicious with salted butter and a little bit of jam), olive oil from the market, coarse sea salt, espadrilles, Sophie the giraffe for pregnant friends, that kind of thing. But in Paris, I like to buy a bag, a nice vase, perfume (because it’s just nicer to buy there than in the Netherlands), a gift for myself or for friends, and a Breton shirt from Saint-James (because I only had seven of them).’

I know you like to walk. Is walking in Paris also your ideal mode of transport?
‘Absolutely. We prefer to have lunch and dinner within a good walking distance from the hotel. During those few days, we cross the Seine countless times to do something on the other side so that we can also walk off all those lunches and dinners. For really long distances, we take the metro.’

And where does the journey in Paris generally lead? What is your arrondissement du moment?
‘We know the 4th arrondissement fairly well, Le Marais. Just like the 1st, where I bought my best friend her Chloé bag. In recent years, Ed and I like to go to Luxembourg (6th). Last winter we were in the 5th, the Panthéon, a bit of nostalgia because of the Quartier Latin. There is still so much to discover, it will fortunately take years before we really know Paris completely.’

Suppose civil laws like time, death, life, and money don’t matter. How would you spend the ideal day in Paris and with whom?
‘I would like to take Ed back to that very first time I was in Paris. And then Bernard Loiseau (who ended his life in 2003 by putting a shotgun in his mouth because he was afraid Michelin would take away one of his three stars) would cook a delicious dinner for us.’

With a playful wink to the column My Amsterdam in Het Parool:

Best restaurant:
‘Can’t choose.
Impossible choice.
Ask a mother to point out her favorite child…

But okay. If you like sitting in a small, narrow place where the waitresses have to be slim because otherwise they can’t maneuver between the tables, where the red walls are covered with beautiful old French advertising posters, where we have been the only tourists twice, where you always end up chatting with your table neighbors, where a rather loud but extremely cheerful chef runs the tiny kitchen and where you can only choose something delicious from a small menu… Then you must go to Chez Marcel. But please keep this under wraps.’

Out of Paris with pitch and feathers:
‘The ugly Chinese tombstones at Père-Lachaise: all monstrously large, ordinary, shiny black, with a lot of gold: a lot of money does not guarantee good taste.’

First time in Paris:
‘I was 19 years old and went to Paris with my friend Kitty, by train. We were supposed to spend two days in Paris and then hitchhike to Provence ‘because you had to have been there’. We ended up staying in Paris for three full weeks and explored the entire city – above and below ground – thoroughly. Our last French francs went on a shared croque monsieur and then we were broke. We hitchhiked home. That’s when my love for Paris began.‘

Most beautiful square in Paris:
‘Place de la Sorbonne, mainly because of the memory. That first time in Paris, I often sat there at the edge of the big fountain, looking for a bit of coolness in that warm city, but also hoping that people thought I was studying there.’

Still want:
‘An apartment in Paris.

But if that’s not possible, then I’d love to go in on Monday morning at nine o’clock, at that one entrance that only the insiders know, into the Louvre and then wander around all day. I don’t necessarily need to see the Mona Lisa (was quite disappointing the first time), but I would love to stroll among Rodin's sculptures again.’