The upside to visiting Paris with a first-timer: The excuse to retread paths well worn.
There is the Angelina chocolat chaud yet undrunk, the freshly baked Poilane pains undiscovered.
The sister, she has come to Paris with guidebooks well-marked and images of Amelie’s Montmartre flitting through her head. But first, the basics must be covered; important stops must be made.
There is a deep belief in these parts that the dead may be dead — but that little detail shouldn’t get in the way of serving them a good meal.
And so in Singaporean wet markets, alongside stalls selling vegetables and plump pigs’ trotters, you’ll find little places that hawk food of a different kind. Shelves will be filled with boxes of paper dumplings, chicken feet and other dimsum treats — the idea is to burn them as offerings so your deceased loved ones will get them on the Other Side.
I hadn’t seen one of these in a while, mostly because when I’m in these markets I tend to race over to stalls that sell food that I can actually eat.
Like, now. Not when I’m in the Big Upstairs shamelessly flirting with River Phoenix.