Hat Lessons

Fall has arrived in Paris in a new way this week. The markets have traded tomatoes and reine claude plums for mushrooms and nuts. Oyster season has arrived and I am constantly tempted by the many varieties of oysters, mussels and scallops that all seem to beg a place at my table.

Fall has always been my favorite season and even without the stunning leaves of home, I am relishing this time before winter. As the nights get longer and the days are tempered by clouds and chill, I find myself settling into a more subdued rhythm, which feels right.

I have traded Halloween plans for Beaujolais Nouveau release night plans and have traded fall fest for plans for a small Thanksgiving dinner with Josh, Matt Carty and perhaps a French couple. I notice now that the street lights don’t turn off until after 8AM and I wonder how much darker it will continue to get.

The temperatures have also dropped here. Paris continues to be significantly chillier than D.C. and the temperatures are now chilly enough to justify a second look at all of the fabulous hats and scarves that the French have elevated to a national treasure.

In the last few weeks, I’ve found myself deciding on two hats. Josh thinks my new black and red hat makes me look like a Muppet or a member of 80s group Devo and he might be right, but I will admit to feeling happily carefree whenever I wear it.

I will also admit, however, that sometimes I worry that Josh and I are just diving off the fashion deep end and that we might return just a bit too weird, even for Adams Morgan. I suppose at least we had the good sense to find each other and not inflict our obvious fashion handicap on a spouse who couldn’t appreciate the artistic, if odd, flare to many of our “pieces” and maybe for at least a while we can claim [in a self-important tone], “Well, it worked in Paris.”

My other hat is a bit more subdued and I found it at the local Monoprix. As I tried it on, I had a French interaction that left me smiling and perhaps a bit more fashionable. I suppose if I had any true fashion sense, I might have been alarmed or insulted, but I was mostly grateful.

I was busy in the accessories aisle making sure my chosen hat would fit on my head, when another customer took a personal interest in my situation. I didn’t ask for her help, but she was clearly very concerned that I was not going to wear the hat correctly. I guess I seemed desperate enough or at least open enough to fashion advice that she then provided an on-the-spot hat tutorial in French on hat wearing. It was a bit rough going at times and she had to repeat a few things several times. She even went as far to place the hat on my head when I wasn’t quite understanding the words she was using. What I do know (after the several times she placed the hat on my head) is that wearing the hat tilted slightly to the right makes it “plus feminine” or “more feminine”.

I suppose I missed my chance to have some scarf help. Maybe next week, I’ll stumble through the scarf aisle and another French woman will take pity (or take charge) of my scarf wearing. But for now, I'm grateful that a kind French woman saved me from myself (at least partially) and even if I never wear hats exactly right, that the little hat lesson reminded me of how welcoming the French are, even to a cheerful American Fashion accident.

Happy Halloween and Happy Fall!

sPg

Beef Tongue and Smiles

“It is a true pleasure to peel a tongue.”

This comment was made at a lunch I was sharing with several women, after I told them about my most recent of kitchen endeavors—the cooking of an entire cow’s tongue.

Josh and I are adventurous eaters, but we didn’t just stumble on the idea of eating beef tongue. We were going to try our hand because Josh loved it as a child when his grandmother made it and we figured it was probably easier to locate and buy here than in the States. We timed our experiment to coincide with Bobi’s most recent visit and ordered it from our local butcher in time for a Monday lunch.

We picked it up and brought home a seemingly enormous piece of meat. We did our best to figure out what to do with this new and slightly alien-esque cut. To be honest, I could hardly even look at it until it was entirely cooked and carved, which is a rare reaction for me. I was proud of myself for even being willing to try it.

Using Grandma Dotty’s recipe, and with Josh taking the lead, we boiled it for several hours, peeled it and sliced it. In the end, it resembled a normal roast and it wasn’t too bad, even if the texture was a bit off for me.

All in all, the tongue experiment went as well as possible. But, even though I didn’t really like it that much, it was one of the best meals we’ve had because this one single meal has opened the doors to a new level of acceptance of us in Paris.

The tongue meal has perhaps made the most difference in our relationship with our butcher. At least a few times each week since we’ve arrived, I have gone to the same small butcher shop to order a few pork chops, a whole chicken, a steak or whatever it is that Josh and I were eating that evening. The two butchers there were always somewhere between polite and surly, but I knew not to take it personally. I was very happy with the quality and price, which was enough.

Well, since “the tongue”, I am a true regular and accepted member of the butcher’s customer base. I was shocked at how their demeanor changed immediately the first time I visited after we cooked the tongue. With entirely new smiles, the two butchers and the cashier all wanted to know what I thought. One butcher even came out from the back room to see what the American thought. I wisely thought that a little stretching of my enjoyment was OK here. I explained how it was “very interesting” and then listened intensely to the cooking tips they suggested for the next time around.

I said I was surprised how expensive it was since it was about the same price as a pork roast, but agreed when they said it was a good deal when you considered that you could it all of it and there was little waste.

They even went on to talk about pigs' feet and pigs' ears, which were also being featured at the butcher shop that day. Since I have eaten pigs' feet in the Bahamas, I could even offer some thoughts and I think they were surprised to see an American woman who knows five words of French, know anything about untraditional cuts of meat.

The second revelation of my new reputation at the butcher came the next time I went to pick up a few slices of ham for a picnic. All smiles and “Ca Va’s?” were exchanged. I got the ham and went to pay. Realizing that I didn’t have enough in cash, I wanted to pay with a debit card and the woman at the counter (who has only nominally acknowledged me the 60 or so times we’ve interacted since January), smiled and said, “Why don’t you pay tomorrow?”

I picked up my jaw from the ground and said, “Its OK?” She said, “Its normal.” She then wrote down my last name and said, “Comme Mel Gibson, oui?” Rather than getting into any Mel Gibson's ideological thoughts I said, “A bit, but I prefer my husband to him.” And off I went, with a receipt and the promise to bring six euros back tomorrow.

But beyond the butcher, the tongue paid dividends at Iris’s table. I was helping Iris, her two sisters and a long time friend (all of whom were two generations my senior), cook for a birthday party. We were eating lunch before we launched into the work and somehow I had a feeling the tongue would be a good conversation piece. I can also keep up with French easier if the topic is food, so I offered that I cooked it.

Could I have even guessed there were so many different opinions and genuine appreciation for this often unloved piece of meat?

After a heated conversation, I promised to use tarragon and tomatoes the next time I cooked it and attempted to explain that Josh preferred pickled tongue. But what really mattered is that I now felt included in a real way. I felt included by a group of French cooks and by a group of women who had seen a lot in their lives. I felt so included that when I was later told that my potato peeling technique wasted too much potato and my meatballs needed to be much tighter, I knew this was advice to the apprentice in the kitchen and was to be respected.

Photo: In front of Iris' house.

So, I suppose that tongue will cross my table again. Josh loves it and so does Bobi. I know that “Grandma Dotty’s” tongue recipe is something I need to know how to cook so that food memory is never lost, even if I never love the taste. Perhaps I can even manage to look at it the next time. But I think I can safely say, even with these wonderful conversation gifts from my French tongue experience, I will never, ever know the joy and true pleasure of peeling a tongue--that little joy will always belong to Josh alone.

sPg

Bootscraper, bootscraper, scrape me a boot...

As promised in a previous blog entry, here’s another in my new series of “favorite things,” the small stuff in Paris that I love, and that means so much more to me than its literal role or purpose.

Getting ready to write up today’s “favorite things” entry, I remembered a literary reference I'd almost forgotten about that indirectly captures a bit of what these things mean for me. It was a scene from Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past,” in which he first as a child discovers the taste of tea-soaked Madeleine cookies, then, decades later, rediscovers the taste plus the flood of memories that come back to him based on the earlier sensory experience (anyone who has seen the Disney movie "Ratatouille" will recognize this same kind of situation from the final scene with the restaurant critic).

“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.” (see the full text at http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/proust.html)

None of my “favorite things are quite that visceral, but whenever I see one, I do flash back to the first time I saw it, and how and why it resonated with me that first time.

So, to transition, sometimes a boot scraper is not just a boot scraper.

FAVORITE THING #2: BOOT SCRAPERS

Sometimes outside of churches, residential, or commercial buildings, just above ground level, you will see a flat, u-shaped piece of metal, edge up, with both ends attached to the wall or in a small recess. It took me a while to notice these in the first place, and even longer to figure out why they’re there. Now that I’ve gotten to the bottom of the mystery, I love to spring it on visitors.

Basically, for much of Paris’ existence, its roads literally ran with mud, filth, and human/animal waste. You can imagine what happened when peoples’ shoes, encrusted with this junk, crossed your portal into your home, business, or church. Not pretty. But by installing this one piece of cheap and easy metal, you at least give people a chance to lessen the impact the state of their footwear will end up having wherever they tread.

I don’t think much of anyone continues to use the boot scrapers (with the possible exception of those with the misfortune of stepping in dog poop), but I think it’s great fun to see them still in place, a tiny but resonant reminder of how life was lived in Paris centuries earlier.

In the coming weeks, stay tuned for more "favorite things" blogs, a rant about Jim Morrison, a photo essay on my commute to work, and a theory of Sara's and mine regarding how the Devil helps make Paris so great...

A bientot,

Josh