plat du jour

Feast on the plat du jour during lunch and charcuterie boards for dinner while sampling bottles of poulsard.

The type of red that could be served in a carafe in a modest Paris hole-in-the-wall to wash down the inexpensive but delicious plât du jour.

Plenty of alluring plates of food for cold months are what the cooking teacher Susan Herrmann Loomis, who is based in France, provides in her new book, “Plat du Jour.”

A brisk dirty Martini, on the other hand, was just right paired with satisfyingly simple versions of shrimp cocktail and steak tartare, and helped wash away the memory of a summer plat du jour featuring undercooked soft-shell crabs.

One 11-euro plat du jour, a carafe of chilled Brouilly and a crème caramel later, I found the idea of rising to my feet — much less continuing my trek — less than appealing, especially with the ever-entertaining human pageant playing out before me on this busy corner in Belleville.