Deniro Made Me An Offer I Cannot Refuse

PARIS, FR – Quite possibly my best photograph yet. I captured this on the Kodachrome recipe that I borrowed from the Fuji X Weekly blog (thank you, Ritchie Roesch). After having spent 1 year obsessed with the Portra 400 recipe (thank you, Ritchie Roesch), I had a sudden falling out with the recipe when I realized that my photography was experiencing the same phenomenon that the Mike Thurston’s and Ashton Hall’s of the world must face. They all just start to look the same. For roughly 4 months (June to September), I did not pick up my Fujifilm X100V, except on the special occasion where I was joined by my surprisingly compatible Jewish and Arab friends to visit the Las Pailas waterfall in Penonome.

Anyway, that is irrelevant. My recent trip to Paris was an A-tier experience. Close to zero complaints, except for the first 12 hours and the last 12 hours. Our plane landed at 7AM. My sister made the mistake of booking an Airbnb with a check-in at 12PM, which meant we got mad-dogged by French people at the BO&MIE Café on 359 Rue Saint-Martin for 4 hours. I don’t blame them. We were hogging up the limited space in the Café with our luggage and my professionally sized tennis bag, which I used exactly once in my 10-day trip to Paris. Still worth it. More than the experience, I value the bragging rights that come with being able to say I played tennis on the Roland Garros training grounds.

I am messing up the timeline with my digressions but let us rewind back to Day 1. We had the 2nd best Italian food I have ever had in my life at Bianca Trattoria, where we got the fried calamari (7/10), mushroom ravioli (8/10), eggplants in marinara (8.5/10) and ended the \night with the greatest panna cotta (9/10) I will likely ever taste. The next few days comprised of very good falafels at “La’s Du Falafel”, very good croissants at an orange boulangerie, very good raisin breads at the same orange boulangerie, very good pastel de nata at “Manteigaria”, and very good hot chocolate at “Carette”. A more accurate name for the very good hot chocolate would be bar of chocolate that has been melted.

The best food of our trip came at time when we could not physically fit more food into our stomachs. In fact, I considered walking 45 minutes to “Fulvio’s” just to increase my appetite and make some space for the best Italian food I have ever had in my life. We walked in and asked 70-year-old Fulvio if he remembered us from 2 years ago, when we had first discovered this gem of a restaurant that would change the trajectory of our lives. He diplomatically said no, but I am very glad he was honest. We proceeded to indulge in a truffle and mushroom pasta, as well as a pumpkin risotto that was spectacular. As we exited Fulvio’s, we promised him we would return with the same cadence (2 years from now).

The photograph you see was captured on one of our last days in Paris. We embarked on a ferry that gave us a tour of some of the most iconic landmarks of Paris while navigating the Seine River – that one river that got half of the swimmers in the Olympics sick. The most interesting part of the tour was the narrowest apartment in Paris, which is 1.5 meters wide, but apparently still considered prime real estate. In the exact moment I pressed the shutter on my camera, in Voldemort-like fashion, De Niro’s voice said to me “I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.” Hence was born this masterpiece that I will be hanging on my bedroom wall as soon as Arrocha drops another printing offer.