When Daniel Boulud opened Bar Boulud in 2008 it was unique—and still is—for putting the emphasis on an array of charcuterie unlike at any other restaurant, where you might get a plate of pâté or slices of sausage as a preamble to the main courses. At Bar Boulud the options are far more varied and seasonal and could serve as an  entire meal at lunch or dinner.
         Charcuterie in France depends largely on pork, and every small town has a charcuterie shop, a large town many, each with their regional specialties. The hams and stuffed pig’s trotter are famous in Ardennes, just as Brittany is for its pâtés, rillettes, andouille de Guèrmené, Solgne for potted game and Périgord for its foie gras. Boulud’s own town, Lyon, is well known for its  jambonneau, tȇte de cochon rolled with pistachios and a large sausage called “Jesus.”  
        Daniel Guzman (left), who started, as many in the industry, as a dishwasher, attended culinary school in Philadelphia and eventually became sous-chef at Boulud’s flagship Restaurant Daniel, is now executive chef at Bar Boulud. 
         You can order a small board of charcuterie for $32 or a large one for $54, which will include items like pâté de campagne, pâté en croûte, tangy jambon persillé, terrine of venison, velvety chicken liver mousse, saucisson sec,  jambon de Paris and creamy foie gras torchon (also offered à la carte from $15-$24). All come with gherkins, mustard and toasted sourdough. All the charcuterie is made specially for Boulud’s restaurants by Arthur Dehaine.
         The menu also has an appetizer section ranging from a Mediterranean  mezze of spicy Moroccan hummus, babaganoush and taramosalata ($20) and excellent octopus with tri-color beans and a sunflower seed parsley pesto ($21). BB being French, there are, of course, snails in parsley butter ($19).
         The French onion soup ($18) is so rich with sweet onions and melted cheese, it, too, could make a fine lunch with a glass of red wine. The Alsatian flatbread flambé with bacon, cheese and onion ($19) was indeed flat in thickness but also in flavor.
         Among the main courses I most applaud are the juicy black sea bass with morels, leeks and sauce Bercy ($34), and the seared scallops with Adirondack potatoes, chorizo and sauce Maltaise ($29 or $40) were as sweet as any I’ve had this year and perfectly, lightly cooked. Red wine is the base for coq au vin ($34), which is heartier than one made with white wine, slowly braised with bacon lardons, mushrooms and pearl onions that suffuse the bird (right) . It’s also a very good price for a dish like this. Pommes frites, as you’d expect, were  perfected here long ago ($12). Now that it’s warm weather, cassoulet is not on the menu but it’s won awards for the best in New York. You’ll have to wait for fall.
         There is a cheese course offered (three for $18, five for $17), and seven desserts, prepared by Courtney Bratton, who first joined Boulud’s Dinex Group in Palm Beach, and now does pastries for both Bar Boulud and Boulud Sud (his Mediterranean restaurant right next door).
         Her desserts are classics, including the buttery gâteau Basque with almonds, kirshwasser custard and crème anglaise ($15), a kind of French devil’s food cake called gâteau aux mures with blackberry mousse and red wine Chantilly cream ($16) and cheese cake diplomate with raspberry-strawberry compote and strawberry hibiscus sorbet ($16).
         The design of the restaurant, across from Lincoln Center, is a long arched room with booths to one side, a bar and eating counter to the other and a good-looking outdoor shed now in full swing. Because of the shape of the ceiling, sound bounces around and it can get loud, but after nine o’clock it’s much less so and the outdoor tables are quite comfortable for conversation.
      Restaurants like Bar Boulud abound in France, but we in New York are lucky to have this friendly reminder of what French bonhomie means when you sit down to eat—a place as lively and congenial as it is unusually delicious. And now, with spring turning to summer, to dine there outside, looking over at the lights of Lincoln Center, it has the feel of a good bistro on Paris’s Place de l’Opéra.

Open for lunch Mon.-Fri., dinner nightly, brunch Sat. & Sun.

      Katie’s contact, Sara Garrison, was apparently one of those “good people” Max Finger said had been researching the Magdalene Laundries on her own, and she came highly recommended by Katie’s Fordham professor.  
         They met at Trinity College in the Old Library’s Long Room, which housed more than 200,000 of the library’s oldest books. The Room’s vast gallery bookcases rose to a double-vaulted ceiling, and the smell of the leather-bound books, many of them peeling, was intensely pleasing to Katie. Busts of great philosophers and writers were arrayed throughout.
         Katie waited a few minutes at the gallery where Sara Garrison told her to meet, under a bust of Jonathan Swift, who had received his Doctor of Divinity at the school. His cold marble stare seemed to regard all around him with skepticism or perhaps disdain, and Katie turned away from his gaze.
         A few minutes more passed, then a large figure came walking in a rolling gait towards Katie. Sara Garrison introduced herself and plopped a stack of folders on the desk. She appeared to be about fifty, tall and rotund, with a double chin that took up her entire neck. Tortoise shell glasses were perched in her graying hair, which matched the color of her eyes.
         “So, I assume we can use first names, Katie,” said the woman in a low library voice. “I’d have met you for lunch or tea, but it’s better where we’re not likely to be interrupted. Damn few students even come in here.”
         Garrison removed her bulky brown overcoat to reveal an ivory-colored Irish knit sweater over sweat pants.
         “So you want to know all about the Magdalene Laundries for a . . . newspaper article?”
         Katie sensed the condescension and replied, “For a magazine, McClure’s, which specializes in investigative articles.”
         “I don’t know it, don’t read magazines much. But you come highly recommended by Ray Porter. One of the better Jebbies I’ve ever met. Are you here to do a story on the Laundries or the murders? I can’t help you with the latter.”
         “At first the story was going to be about the Laundries,” said Katie, “what happened there, what’s happened since, and then the murders started occurring. I’m here with an ex-police detective who’s helping with my research.”
         “How long have you got to do the story?”
         “It’s open for the time being. The more I find out, the longer my editor will give me.”
         “And they didn’t think to send an Irish-American reporter? Or one based here?”
         Katie was not about to begin listing her journalistic achievements, so she said only, “I like to think my editor believes I’ll do the best job.”
         “Fair enough. Where would you like to begin?”
         Katie ran through, as quickly as possible, what she knew of the Laundries’ history and what she knew of the burials of the bodies.  She also mentioned her contact with Richard Sipe, which caused Sara Garrison to push back in her chair.
         “You’ve spoken to Sipe?”
         Katie wasn’t sure how Garrison meant the question.
         “Yes, I flew out to California to see him.”
         “How is Richard?” said Garrison, seeming to soften.
         “He’s pretty well, still researching and writing.”
         “Richard’s a remarkable man. He has spent his life diggin’ into the darkest corners of human depravity, yet he somehow manages to keep a Christian view of the sinners. I’m afraid I’m not capable of that. Knowin’ what I know, seein’ what I’ve seen, I have nothin’ but bitter hatred for these monsters, both the nuns and the priests. I’d like to see every one of them buried alive.  It’s one thing for them to violate children but to do it through coercion, saying God approves, is unforgivable. Yet the Church always forgives, doesn’t it? Trouble is, so do the fuckin’ Irish police.”
         Katie nodded and said, “That’s pretty much the case in New York and a lot of other places from what I’m told.  I got on this story because of a priest in the Philippines who couldn’t stomach what he saw was going on over there.”
         “Well, I’m hopin’ these murders will jog the Dublin police out of their complacency.  They may actually have to look for the murderers or at least put up a good show.”
         “You mind if I record our conversation?”
         “Go right ahead.”
         “So, without getting into too much history, can you tell me how the Sisters of Charity became involved with the Magdalene Laundries?”
         Sara Garrison said, “I’ve brought you a lot of files about the history, so I’ll just tell you the general outline of what occurred. As you know the Sisters of Charity began in France, specifically to care for, or deal with, prostitutes.”
         “And what duties did they actually perform?” asked Katie.
         “Primarily they worked with what they called ‘women in need,’  counseling troubled teenage girls, day care for children, rehabilitation and nursin' care for the ill and elderly. They also taught in parish schools.
         “As with so many good intentions many of the sisters did fine, devoted work. They didn’t just stay in their locked cloisters and pray their bloody heads off. They were out in the streets and the hospitals and nurseries. The homeless boys went off to the workhouses, like Oliver Twist. But as cities grew, the Church realized they could put these girls and young women to work, doin' laundry for the parishes. They were useful to the Church, free labor, slaves through and through, with no means of escape.
         “For the families with a pregnant daughter, or a girl other people said was a slut, the idea that their daughters would be cared for by the good sisters was appealin’. Get them to do some good hard work.  And if a baby came, the Church could deal with that, too.”
         “You mean put them up for adoption.”
         “As much as possible. Y’know, the Irish have big families and few are happy to have another mouth to feed.”
         “So, you believe some of those babies were murdered?”
         “No question about it.  Sent to heaven early, out of this vale of tears! Of course, the mothers had no choice about it. The babies were taken away as soon as the girls entered the Laundries. Never saw their child again.”
         “Did this happen from the beginning?”
         “The bodies they turned up at Drumcundra, some of them went back a hundred years or more.”
         “So the Laundries were always brutal places for these women?”
         “I’m sure they were never pleasant. Those poor girls weren’t treated like debutantes. Only if the parents demanded their release did they have a chance. Women without any relatives might live their whole lives inside.”
         Katie was feeling herself becoming more and more emotionally involved in the story, her journalistic impartiality sinking away.
         “So, they didn’t start to close the Laundries till well after World War II?” she asked. “Father Porter said that automatic washing machines were one cause of putting them out of business.”
         “I’ve heard that and wouldn’t that be the bitterest of ironies? But their days were numbered anyhow. The time when the Church could keep those places secret was endin’ as Ireland became more progressive after Vatican II.”
         “Didn’t everybody know what was going on?”
         Garrison shook her head, “Sadly, no. I never heard of the Laundries while I was growin’ up. They were just not spoken about, like madhouses. Very few people have any idea what goes on in asylums and don’t want to know. But then the times caught up with the good sisters, and they started to close down the Laundries. There were two here in Dublin.”
         “I visited one of them, the one on Seán MacDermott Street, yesterday with my friend. Pretty grim place.”
         “Ah, there’s nothin’ left to see from the outside. The sisters abandoned it, left everythin’ inside the way it was, and have been tryin’ to sell off the property without luck. After people found out about the Laundries, they began to say the place was haunted.”
         “Was there a reason they put one of the Laundries in that location?”
         “Oh, a very good reason indeed,” said Garrison. “It was once the biggest red light district in Europe.”