Sounds of the Luxembourg Garden at the British Museum

In April 2013, I was honored to have been asked to participate in a very special series of interviews called Paris – A Personal View. Des Coulam, whose passion is to record the sounds of Paris, is the creative genius behind the series. He recorded my observations of the Luxembourg Garden—my favorite place in Paris—as we took a leisurely walk through it.

Des Coulam and Monique Y. Wells
© Discover Paris!

Des fits Monique with a microphone
© Discover Paris!
I took Des to several of my preferred spots in the garden. Among them were the eastern terrace near the boat basin, where I showed Des an image of Loïs Mailou Jones’ 1948 painting of the Luxembourg Palace and the towers of Saint-Sulpice beyond, and the southernmost point of the parterre where I talked about Gaston Monnerville, brilliant legal mind and President of the French Senate. (A bust of Monnerville stands just outside the garden.)

Bust of Gaston Monnerville
© Discover Paris!
We ended at the gate nearest the rear of the Odéon Theater, where crocuses were in bloom.

Several days ago, Des wrote me to inform me that:

...the recording you made of your personal view of the Jardin de Luxembourg has now been ingested into the British Library Sound & Moving Image Archive in London. The catalogue reference is:

027A-C1540X0003XX-0100M0.WAV - Jardin de Luxembourg: A Personal View by Dr. Monique Y. Wells

Whilst the catalogue reference is available to everyone, the recording itself is only available for scientific, educational or other non-commercial purposes upon request to the British Library. The British Library only provide a listening service so the recording will not be made available for download.

So now your voice and your wonderful exposition of the Jardin de Luxembourg will be available for future generations to explore, to study and to enjoy. Bravo!

For those of you who are so inclined, I hope that you'll ask to listen to the audio when you visit the British Library. For those who'd like to enjoy the audio tour (and the beautiful photos that accompany it) from the comfort of your own home, click here!

Finally, I encourage all of you - whether residents or visitors - to take time to listen to the city at Des' Soundlandscapes' blog. You'll discover Paris from a fascinating new perspective!

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Paris' Culinary Black Women

Join Chef Amadeus and me for the second broadcast of our new Internet radio show Southern Passion Lounge in Paris and share our experiences of the best food, wine, and music in the City of Light. Click here to tune in today!

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In celebration of Women's History Month and in conjunction with the second broadcast of Southern Passion Lounge in Paris - the Internet radio show that brings you the best of food, wine, and music in Paris - today's blog post features several women of the African Diaspora who have left or are currently leaving their mark on the world of professional gastronomy in the French capital.

Agnes Moody

Graphic for 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris

At the age of 60, Agnes Moody ran the "Corn Kitchen," a principal feature at the U.S. Agriculture Department's building on the Champs de Mars during the 1900 Universal Exposition. The purpose of the exhibit was to promote the use of American corn and cornmeal for cooking and subsequently boost U.S. exports of the grain. Numerous papers across the U.S. touted Mrs. Moody's cooking skills and her popularity among visitors to the expo—as an example, the Virginian Pilot described her as the "presiding genius" at the kitchen and the Minneapolis Journal reported that she was "entertained and fed by royalty." Though she was cast in the role of an "Aunty," similar to Aunt Jemima, she was an accomplished woman who one of the charter members of the National Association of Colored Women, John Brown's Women's Relief Corps, and other organizations. She was awarded a gold medal by the U.S. Agriculture Department for her service.


Rougui Dia

Cover of Rougui Dia Biography

Rougui Dia is the 21st-century "Black Pearl" of Paris. Born of Senegalese parents in Paris' 12th arrondissement, she began preparing for a culinary career at age 15. Until January 2013, she was the head chef at Le 144, a restaurant operated by the venerated caviar house Petrossian. The dishes served during her tenure at Le 144 were not Russian or Armenian as you might deduce from the name of the caviar house, but rather were a union of the finest French cuisine with select elements from the Senegalese kitchen. Stimulating the palates of the restaurant's clientele with new taste sensations from Senegal was one of Dia’s primary goals. Dia will take over the kitchen of Le Vraymonde, the restaurant of the new Buddha Bar hotel that is scheduled to open during the first trimester of 2013 at 4, rue d’Anjou in the 8th arrondissement.


Babette de Rozières


Babette de Rozières
©Discover Paris!
Hailing from Guadeloupe, Babette de Rozières has enjoyed long-standing success as a restaurant owner, cookbook author, and culinary personality on French television. In the beginning, she worked in various posts in public television and radio and cooked part time at some of the most prestigious hotels in Paris. She purchased her first restaurant in 1978 and has never looked back. She has co-hosted various television shows since 1988 and won an international award for her first cookbook—a four-volume set on Antillean cooking—in 2004. Her latest endeavors include opening a new restaurant called La Case de Babette in les Yvelines (an administrative department in the greater Paris area) and writing her autobiography.


Melba Allen


Melba Allen
Image from The Wine Profilers Web site
Melba Allen left the US for Europe after her studies at the University of Houston and fell in love with the wine and food culture in France. Obtaining a diploma from the prestigious Université-du-vin, Suze la Rousse in the Rhone Valley and certificates from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust Program of London, she began buying and selling wines internationally, judging wine tasting competitions, and writing on-line articles for magazines such as Elle and Vin & Cuisine. She currently trains wine professionals for restaurants and wine shops, lectures on Wine Science and Business and Wine Tourism at the Institut Européen de Management International (IEMI) in Paris, and is the communications coordinator for The Wine Profilers—a program to help wine lovers better understand the choices they make when selecting a wine.


Sharon Leslie Morgan


Sharon Leslie Morgan
Image courtesy of Sharon Leslie Morgan
Chicago-born Sharon Leslie Morgan made her cooking debut in Paris when she and former Haynes' barman Bennie Luke teamed up in 1999 to create a weekly event called "Soul on Sunday" at Haynes' restaurant (now closed). The concept began as a brunch, but evolved into a late-afternoon-and-evening diner-spectacle (dinner show). There was prearranged entertainment, but weekly open-mike sessions added variety to the program. When "Soul on Sunday" came to an end, Morgan and Luke began looking for another venue to provide down-home food and lively entertainment to African Americans in Paris. They opened Bojangles Restaurant and Bar at 47, rue Rodier in the 9th arrondissement on January 3, 2001. On opening night there was not a vacant seat to be found. Live jazz piano, trumpet, and singing heightened the enjoyment of the copious portions of spicy pumpkin soup, grilled T-bone steak, Caribbean-style fried fish, and side dishes that were served. Bojangles was a center for great food and fun until it closed in 2003. Memories live on through the open Facebook group called Bojangles Paris Online.


Alberta Wright


Alberta Wright
Image from Jezebel's Web site
Charleston, South Carolina-native Alberta Wright is one of a few African Americans who dared to open a restaurant in Paris. She operated a branch of her New York eatery Jezebel (now closed) in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area from 1990-1994. Also called Jezebel's, it was one of the chic places to dine in Paris during its heyday. Celebrities such as Madonna, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Yves St.-Laurent, and Valentino gave parties there. Wright (whose nickname is Jezebel) opened the restaurant on a whim, and soon discovered how difficult the Paris market could be. Read a full account of her experience here.


Monique Y. Wells


Monique Y. Wells
Photo by Kim Powell
As the author of Food for the Soul, a cookbook sponsored for publication in French by master chef Alain Ducasse, I have continually sought to include gourmet activities in the Discover Paris! repertoire of walks and services. In November 2003, we organized the first Afro-centric culinary excursion in Paris, focusing on foods and beverages that comprise the traditional French meal and featuring African-American culinary professionals who lived and worked in France at the time. Discover Paris! co-hosted Paris - A Culinary Delight with EthnoTravel.com, a company dedicated to promoting multicultural travel. I led the excursion to explore cheese, bread, and coffee; Melba Allen (mentioned above) shared her expertise about wine and provided a tasting at a local vineyard; and Chef Klancy Miller led the group on a pastry and chocolate walk. African-American chef Percy Taylor welcomed the group for a special dinner at his restaurant Percy's Place (now closed), complete with musical entertainment. A few months later, Allen, Miller, and I were featured on Al Roker's Food Network television show Recipe for Success.

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A Five-Star Review for Black Paris Profiles

A couple of people have contacted me to say that they've tried to post their comments about the new release of Black Paris Profiles on Amazon.com and found that the system has not accepted them. If this has happened to you, send me an e-mail message to let me know. I'll be pleased to post them here!

************ 5-star review by Marian Hayes (Yeye Lynvonne)

Marian Hayes
Photo courtesy of Marian Hayes

Black Paris Profiles by Monique Y. Wells, is, for a media person like me, a Press Pass to some of Paris's most prolific artists in all fields and genres. Twenty-four stories told within ninety-four pages , most sharing the same pattern—visiting Paris and fulfilling a soul's craving to return. Wells has showcased a unique mix of American Blacks experiencing what it means to go beyond the fifty states.

Extremely multi-talented, these New Millennium Blacks appear to be Renaissance people channeling the likes of da Vinci in their capacity to master skills in the fields of photography, film making, and visual arts, all the while navigating the world of French culture. Page after page, reading the lives of these expatriates is like hearing a siren's song, beckoning all to join the Soirée!

Black Paris Profiles showcases the Black American French from the view of a 40-year expatriate to a bevy of hip-hop generation young (B)arisians. Reading BPP, at times, seemed like a page from the wave of Black artists who lit up the City of Lights in the Jazz age! My hopes rose higher and higher each time I read how accessible each Black profiled is to the internet. It was refreshing to have Mrs. Wells include the questions of publishing the old standard way or going electronic and D.I.Y. One thing for sure—Black Paris Profiles has fueled my desire to return to France and this time Paris will be, like the Blacks profiled, my beck and call.

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Black History Month at the American Library in Paris

For the past few years, the American Library in Paris has celebrated Black History Month with a month-long exhibit and an evening presentation on a unique aspect of African / Diaspora history.

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Join me at The American Library in Paris on

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

for my presentation entitled

Following the Flavors of the African Diaspora

Details at the end of this article!

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In 2009, the Library asked Cheryl Ann Bolden – artist and curator of the private traveling museum "Precious Cargo" – to present “Images of Blacks in Western Art.” It also mounted an exposition of the same name that was on view from January 26 through March 2, 2009.

Image from Cheryl Bolden’s 2009 Presentation*
Photo courtesy of the American Library in Paris
Bolden, who was a student at Sotheby's London and a research associate at the Cambridge University African Studies Center, spoke about Western artists’ portrayals of black people “as saints, sinners, heroes, and villains -- in a number and variety to astonish even scholars.” She explored the hidden meanings of these images and talked of how each lies open to the interpretation of the individual viewer.

The year 2010 brought Swoosh! Crack! Roar! - Celebrating the Negro Leagues and the All-American Girls Baseball League to the exhibit case at the Library. It was on view from February 2nd through March 20th in honor of Black History Month and Women’s History Month. On February 3rd; artist and author Kadir Nelson spoke about his first book entitled We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball. Nelson spent seven years researching, writing, and painting the history of the Negro Leagues Baseball for this book, in which he relates the story of the life of a Negro League ballplayer both on and off the field in the voice of an elder fictional "every player."

Book cover for We Are the Ship
During his presentation, Nelson poignantly and humorously shared the story of how he developed as an artist and the detailed process of creating the text and art for his book.

On February 9, 2010, I had the pleasure of presenting my signature lecture entitled “Black Paris and the Myth of a Colorblind France.” I provided an overview of over 200 years of African-American history in Paris with a focus on the 20th and 21st centuries, speaking of statesmen and solders as well as artists and entertainers. I then presented the story behind the myth of a colorblind France, followed by several images of contemporary Black Paris. The question and answer period at the end of the talk was quite lively!

In 2011, the Library mounted an exposition called Images of the African Diaspora in New York City Community Murals. Curated by Jane Weissmann, it hung from February 1st through March 30th. Weissman is co-author of the cultural history On the Wall: Four Decades of Community Murals in New York City. She created Images of the African Diaspora in New York City Community Murals in conjunction with the publication of On the Wall.

The exposition explored how African and Caribbean art, history, religion and myth have influenced mural themes and content. It focused on the National Black Arts Movement (often considered the cultural art of the Black Power Movement), the artistic philosophy of Ghanaian artist Kofi Antubam, and how the artists drew inspiration from Adinkra and African fertility symbols, Ndebele house painting, Egyptian rituals, and representations of Jesus and his disciples as Blacks.

Laura James, Behold How Good and Pleasant It Is...,
1992 Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York
photo: © Janet Braun-Reinitz

This year, I am honored to be the featured speaker for Black History Month in conjunction with the Library’s exposition entitled Following the Flavors of the African Diaspora. The exhibit encourages visitors to “discover the flavors of the African Diaspora, from Africa to South and Central America, the Caribbean islands, and North America and consider how food has expressed and continues to express identity among groups with African ancestry throughout the world.” It runs from February 7th through March 4th.

In my presentation on February 7th, I will discuss the common threads found among various foods and methods of food preparation in Africa and its Diaspora and their cultural significance among African Diaspora peoples. I will also tell the story of my personal discoveries about several of these food items as I wrote my cookbook Food for the Soul – A Texas Expatriate Nurtures Her Culinary Roots in Paris.

Illustration from Food for the Soul
© Christiann Anderson
Do come out and join me for this talk! Entry is free!

Following the Flavors of the African Diaspora
The American Library in Paris
Tuesday 7 February 2012 at 7:30 PM
10, rue du Général Camou
75007 Paris
Telephone: 01 53 59 12 60
Metro: Ecole Militaire (line 8), Alma-Marceau (line 9)
RER: Pont de l'Alma (line C)
Internet: http://www.americanlibraryinparis.org/

*Moses and His Ethiopian Wife
Jacob Jordens
c1650 Oil on canvas
Rubenshuis
Antwerp, Belgium

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An Overview of Paris Reflections: Walks through African-American Paris

I have recently been approached by several people with requests to purchase or to autograph copies of Paris Reflections: Walks through African-American Paris. I co-authored this book with Christiann Anderson to call attention to the rich history of African Americans in the French capital. The book features six abbreviated versions of walks that I have created for Discover Paris’ Entrée to Black Paris. Christiann provided the illustrations. The following is an overview of what you will find in Paris Reflections.

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The Sorbonne/Mouffetard walk provides a tour of the 5th arrondissment. You will see the illustrious University of Paris Sorbonne, learn a little about the ancient history of this area (it was settled by the Romans centuries ago), and visit one of Paris’ most celebrated shopping streets, rue Mouffetard. Against this backdrop, you will learn about several African Americans who have studied at the Sorbonne as well as see sites frequented by many of our writers and artists, including William Gardner Smith and Loïs Mailou Jones. You will also learn about the Nardal Sisters, black women from Martinique who were instrumental in the launching of the Négritude movement (a cause devoted to affirming black culture through literature) in France.

The walk through Saint-Germain-des-Près (6th arrondissement) is circular, meaning that you begin and end in the same place. The world famous trio of cafés, the Deux Magots, the Flore and the Brasserie Lipp mark the starting point, and the importance of café life for African Americans is emphasized. You will work your way past the magnificent place Saint-Sulpice to the edge of the beautiful Luxembourg Garden to see where a major hangout for African Americans writers of the post-World War II era still exists. A visit to the garden follows, then a walk past the theater where the great playwrights Alexandre Dumas and Victor Séjour saw their works performed. A stroll in a quarter where jazz was once king leads you back to the Café Flore and the end of the tour.

The Saint-Michel/Musée d’Orsay walk takes you through the upper part of the 6th and 7th arrondissements. Here, the word “upper” means the part of the district that is closest to the Seine. Art galleries are prominent in this area of the 6th, and you will see many where African Americans have exhibited their work. Additionally, you will be able to visit the shops of several dealers of African art and artifacts. Walking by the French Institute, you will learn of an African American who excelled as a Shakespearean actor in the nineteenth century. Moving on to the 7th arrondissement, you will find out more about many of our famous writers and painters while surveying the plethora of antique stores for which this quarter is known. You will end the walk at the Legion of Honor museum where you will learn of several African Americans who have received this prestigious award, and the Musée d’Orsay, which contains several works depicting people of color.

Plate 2. James Baldwin
© Christiann Anderson
The Montparnasse walk (lower 6th and 14th arrondissements) emphasizes the lives and work of artists. While parts of this walk take you to areas frequented by tourists, you will also go into neighborhoods that are “off-the-beaten-path”. Montparnasse has been steeped in artistic tradition since the early 1900s, and African-American artists such as Augusta Savage and Laura Wheeler Waring of the “Negro Colony” of the 1920s and 1930s and abstract artists Ed Clark and Beauford Delaney of the post-World War II era settled here in keeping with that tradition. You will see where they lived and worked, and visit the cafés that were as important to life in this district as the Deux Magots and the Flore were to life in Saint-Germain-des-Près. You will also see the famous Bobino Theater, where Josephine Baker made a triumphant comeback to the Paris stage and performed her last show ever, and the square that was dedicated in her honor.

Plate 4. The Funeral of Josephine Baker in Paris
© Christiann Anderson
Our Notre-Dame-de-Lorette/Opéra walk in the 9th arrondissement is another “off-the-beaten-path” walk that takes you to the area where African Americans first established a community in Paris after World War I. The night club scene is what made “Pig Alley” (a tortured pronunciation of Pigalle, the name of a street and a square found in the area) renowned in its day. Here you will learn about the players – Langston Hughes, Josephine Baker and Bricktop were among them – who turned this district into “the Harlem of Paris”. Leaving the Pigalle area and moving back toward an area more frequented by tourists, you will see the theater where Sidney Bechet inspired such a frenzy in his French audience that they rioted, and the opera house where W. E. B. DuBois and Countee Cullen enjoyed performances.

The final walk presented in Paris Reflections covers the most well known and popular area of Paris, that of the Louvre (1st arrondissement) and the Champs-Elysées (8th arrondissement). Here you will see Paris in all of its grand style: the Tuileries Garden, place de la Concorde, the twin facades of La Madeleine church and the Assemblée Nationale, and the grandest of avenues – the Champs-Elysées – capped by the splendid Arc de Triomphe. A wide variety of African American activity took place here, from a civil rights march in support of Dr. King’s March on Washington to a state funeral for Josephine Baker. Some of our artists’ best work has been exhibited and honored with awards at the Grand Palais just off the Champs-Elysées. More recently, an African American left his indelible mark on the Louvre when he remodeled part of its recently renovated Richelieu wing. You will learn of all these things and more on the Louvre/Arc de Triomphe walk.

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