What's for Dinner?

I figured it has been a while since I’ve offered a food-centered blog, and since “What’s for dinner” is on my mind, it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to offer some thoughts about.

Even if it still doesn’t feel like summer here, I’m hell bent on cooking like it is. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve whipped up gazpacho (while we were housesitting since they had a blender and we don’t), tabbouleh (a new recipe that “cooks” the couscous with lemon juice), tzatziki, couscous, and tomato salads. And for dessert: a big watermelon, of course.

In a nod to the actual (as opposed to hoped-for) weather that rarely breaks 65 degrees, I’ve also made vegetable soup, which is normally a fall dish, and it was the soup that never ended. I seriously think it lasted a week or more—it just kept getting stretched and stretched with new broth and/or veggies, and somehow kept tasting ok.

This last weekend, we headed to one of our favorite markets: Joinville. It is more on the edge of the city and the prices are much cheaper than our beloved (but pricey) nearby rue Mouffetard market. At the Joinville market there is always a lot of shouting by the vendors of “one euro, one euro”, which is my litmus test of a good market. Basically, if everyone is quiet, it’s a lot more peaceful, probably more relaxing, but you pay for that. I like knowing the vendors really want my business.

So, for 20 euros, this is what we procured:

-½ a watermelon

- 2 kilos of peaches

- 4 avocados

- 1 head of good lettuce (iceberg thankfully doesn’t exist in France)

- 1 kilo tomatoes

- 1 small melon

- Bundles of mint, parsley, basil and coriander

- 4 onions

- 4 eggplants

- 4 enormous bent cucumbers

- 3 heads of garlic

- 1 red pepper

- 1 green pepper

- 2 sweet peppers

- 2 hot peppers

- 4 lemons

Clearly, this is more than enough veggies for Josh and me for the week and I relish the challenge of using every last bit of it. So here, here is what is on my menu for the week with said ingredients.

For dinner tonight, it’s couscous with red peppers, onions, sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers along with tzatziki and a bit of lamb. I also bought these little tiny marinated hot peppers stuffed with feta that are simply fab.

For this week, I’m envisioning recreating a Portuguese garlic and bread soup I loved in Lisbon (that’s where some of those three heads of garlic mentioned above are going) or a French soup called aigo bouido, which uses at least 16 cloves of garlic and isn’t harsh at all. The eggplant will be a main course at least one night. I’m contemplating making an eggplant souflee, but I might decide that its too advanced. As a backup, I’m thinking stuffed eggplant might supplant the usual roasted eggplant stacks that I’ve already served Josh a couple of times. I have to admit, I’m fond of those eggplant stacks—they’re my own twist on my friend Becky’s wonderful eggplant recipe that she would make for me when we lived together in Virginia many moons ago.

Every night, there will be roasted veggies and a few salads that both include and exclude lettuce. There will also be fruit—we each had 4 slices of watermelon last night—no room in our small fridge so we have to move fast!

Bread continues to be an issue in August. What we are finding is mostly adequate, but soon enough, our baker will return. Fortunately, Josh picked out one of his best cheese selections since we arrived at the cheese shop this week.. I especially love the fresh goat cheese with fig, the aged Gouda (which almost tastes like Parmesan), and this creamy goat cheese that tastes a bit like butter. There are also a few others, but those are the memorable ones to me.

With the summer slow season, I’ve also used this time to dive into some new food experimentation. With the weather providing me some inspiration, I’ve made French onion soup that I think was one of my best dishes ever and the Beef Bourguignon was tasty, but I just can’t have a recipe that requires constant tending for five hours. It joins the ranks of “Dishes too needy to make”, which has at least one other member: risotto.

Our foray into Middle Eastern cooking was inspired by a tasty lunch with two friends of Bobi’s: Sheryl and Sheldon. Upon return, Sheldon send me an electronic version of a Syrian cookbook and I’ve both read it and used it for inspiration.

Another source of inspiration: my mother. My vegetable soup resulted from a “911” call to my mother in which I said, “What should I make for dinner? I’ve got no vision!”

Speaking of vision, I really couldn’t live in Paris without my borrowed Julia Child cookbooks. I use them weekly. They explain what French cuts of meat mean (who knew “faux filet” was sort of like a strip steak?) and for general French baking techniques (how many eggs *do* I need for a quiche?). I also think Barefoot Contessa’s French cookbook is pretty solid and has been a helpful addition to my Parisian library.

Dessert also deserves at least a small note. It’s sadly the part of dinner I’m really the least interested in, much to Josh’s dismay. I think I can now make a respectable tart, but I gotta tell you, my heart isn’t in it. A good dessert to me is one that can be whipped up as an afterthought. Normally, we just skip dessert—we don’t need it and I don’t think of it, but lately, I’ve found that a few spoonfuls of this wonderful artisan honey (Sea lavender, which tastes like taffy made from honey) has been the perfect ending to my dinner.

So, that’s all from Rue Broca this week. It seems right to sign off with a Julia Child quote, “Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music."

Yep, I wouldn’t recommend coming to any concert I’m singing in, or bothering to see any picture I’ve painted, but I would suggest trying to make it to any dinner party at the Gibsons.

sPg

August and Artesian Wells

Since we have arrived, Parisians have been “warning” us about August. They told us how everyone leaves, no shops are open, how it’s possible to walk down the middle of large streets because there are no cars out driving. They then usually continue to tell us of their August vacation plans, which interestingly enough usually seem to involve a trip to the States.

As August drew closer and closer, when we were asked where we were going for the month, we said “Nowhere” and tried to explain that essentially taking a vacation from a vacation was absurd and frankly, we were intent on staying in Paris and enjoying the city.

After we agreed to dog sit for some friends who live across town in the 15^th arrondissement, Josh and I joked that we could now say, “We decided to holiday in the 15^th”. But somehow, I don’t think the Parisians would get our joke.

A usual response by Parisians to our reluctance to travel during this time is to look at us with honest pity and suggest, ‘Well, perhaps you can get away for a day or two.” It’s funny—there seems to be more understanding of my poor French than of our decision to stay put.

And then August arrived. For a few days, we were skeptical of this true emptying out of Paris. We still saw people and they weren’t all tourists, but something happened yesterday—everyone seems to have really disappeared.

As we were walking Chaco the dog across town in a neighborhood a bit more upscale than ours, it was a literal ghost town. We walked for 20-30 minutes before we saw an open café or bakery—something that can usually be counted on every block or two. As I went out to get groceries for dinner yesterday, I knew I would have to walk a while to find an open bakery and even then, I couldn’t be sure I would be thrilled by the bread.

Of course, not everyone leaves. One newspaper said 60% of Parisians leave, but what they forgot to mention is that the remaining 40% are especially unhappy about being left to deal with tourists and obviously insane Parisians who don’t choose to exercise their right of vacation.

The customer service we’ve experienced in Paris, which up until now has been truly welcoming and open, has dipped quiet a bit in the last week. From the bakery to the café, if they are open, someone will eventually help you, but not usually with a smile.

But for us, this is our time to be true tourists again. Each week we pick a new part of Paris to explore and we spend a full day being tourists. We’ve seen some really neat things. My favorites have been the Chateau de Vincennes (a castle built in the 13^th Century by Charles V at the edge of Paris)--and the Basilica of Saint Denis (a church where all the French kings are buried, from Clovis, the first real king of the Franks, crowned in the year 481, to the guillotined Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

We also visited a park that was once a large Citroen car factory and is now full of trees and fountains. Josh took a hot air balloon ride while we were there (I chickened out since I wasn’t sure I thought I would like the heights). We’ve also had a lot of ice cream (even if our favorite ice cream shop is closed for the entire month, we’ve managed to find a few other vendors), seen a few movies (including the Simpsons and Harry Potter, with French subtitles) and even spent a few hours here and there sitting down in a café reading.

One of the more random things we’ve ever visited is a true artesian well right in Paris. The well has been known for over 100 years and people come from throughout the city and the suburbs to fill water bottles since the mineral water from the well is said to have restorative powers. You know you have time on your hands when you trek 30 minutes for water, and even consider it fun!

In general, we don’t really think of ourselves as tourists any more, but for August, I’m happily changing our status from “temporary expat” to “long-term tourist”. And heck, with our temporary tourist designation, I don’t even feel badly for not being able to speak French very well and wearing tennis shoes out sometimes. Just for emphasis, today I am wearing a t-shirt I dare only to wear in August. It says, “Everyone loves an American girl.”

Parisian life for everyone will speed up in a few weeks. We will begin to work normalish hours again and we hear that the “rentree,” or return to work and school after vacation, is a big event. Several people are promising to check in to say hello after “the return”, but until then, I’ve got a picnic to pack and a guided tour to catch.

sPg

France and Fantasy Island

Greetings everyone,

[Just a quick plug for some new photos, check out the Paris People and Paris Artsy pix at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/ for photos from the end of Sara’s brother’s visit, our friends Anne and Corey’s visit, and Sara’s and my trip to Alsace.]

Now onto the blog…

I know, I know, everyone likes Sara’s blog entries more than mine. Hers are natural, mine are didactic (and use words like “didactic”). Hers put people at ease, mine make people feel “creepy.” Hers provide a disarming peek into daily French life, mine provide an alarming peek into my disturbing thought process.

OK, so maybe I’m exaggerating the dichotomy (there I go again…) for fun. But just in case Sara’s got ahold of a winning formula that maybe I can imitate, I figured I’d take a stab at a blog entry, Sara-style. Sara supports this, she knows I’m just teasing, and that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. It’s more of a tribute than a spoof. Okay, maybe 50/50.

From my careful analysis, a Sara-style blog entry requires three things:
1.) a compound title for the blog entry, X and Y, or to put it in Mad Libs format, [noun] and [noun]
2.) a pithy but satisfying moral in the conclusion, beginning (in spirit, if not literally) with the clause “Well, I guess that just goes to show that…”
3.) gratuitous fruit and vegetable references

Well, without any further ado, here’s my shot a Sara-style blog:

FRANCE AND FANTASY ISLAND
I don’t know if you’re like me, but I grew up on re-runs of 1970s and 1980s TV shows. Some of my favorites were “The Love Boat,” “Fantasy Island,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “The A-Team.” These shows were great, because they had some characters that returned each week, there were also new faces each with their own new plotlines each week. These new characters generally were in just one episode, stating their life problem at the beginning of the show, and usually having it resolved by the end of the show.

In “The Love Boat” and “Fantasy Island,” the folks with the problems were a bit more proactive, actually going to the trouble of showing up on the Boat/Island. On “The Incredible Hulk” and on “The A-Team,” our wandering heroes would show up in town and discover the locals’ life problems that way. (I’ve never seen the show, and it’s more recent than the others, but I think “Touched by an Angel” is in this camp too.)

Well, the other day, as I was putting away some zucchini and plums, it occurred to me that we definitely have the makings for the same kind of “problem solver” TV show right here in Paris. Our show would be “Love Boat” / “Fantasy Island” style, though, since our help-seekers come to us, in the form of visitors. Is stress affecting your health? Did you just suffer through a tough break-up? Do you need to get out of your small town pronto? Do you want to finally see if all those insults about the French are really true? Need a romantic getaway? Want to get engaged? Want to celebrate a birthday or an anniversary? Just need to eat, drink, sleep, read, shop, and/or walk an enormous amount? These are all reasons for which people plan to visit us, have visited us, or conceivably could visit us.

You can almost imagine Sara and myself on the gangplank of the Boat or the dock of the Island, greeting our guests Stubing/Roarke-style, shaking hands with our new arrivals as they show up, and hearing their tales of woe. Then, at the end of the episode, we’d be back in our same places, receiving thanks for making everything better. Sara and I would have to film the scenes in the dark and dreary “arrivals” area of Charles De Gaulle Airport, which is unfortunate, but I think it could work. (Of course, we would have to eat lots of mushrooms and other things rich in Vitamin D to make up for the lack of sun.)

[Silly blast from the past, a bad joke from elementary school: What kind of M&Ms does Tattoo like? “The plain, the plain!” Did you know, by the way, that Herve Villechaize was French? And close but no cigar, but “The Love Boat” theme just came up on my iPod?]

When we see how much joy our visitors get from their visits here, and how it goes such a long way towards helping them put their priorities in order, it reminds us just how lucky we are to be here. Being here is not just a gift for us, it is also a gift for our visitors—how many would not have come to Paris if we hadn’t provided them with a convenient excuse/deadline?

For our visitors, the week or two they spend with us are the highlight of their year. We get 52 of those weeks, and even though we realize how spoiled we are, it’s still a very humbling prospect. (Don’t worry, we don’t really have the God complex, we just figure any help or fun folks get out of their visits here is pure gravy!)

Well, I guess that just goes to show that life is like a box of chocolates, or in our case, the two euro grab-bag produce bins at the market—you never know what you’re going to get.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t really pull off a fully Sara-style blog entry. David Letterman says, “There’s no off position on the genius switch.” I suppose there’s also no off position on the Josh wordy/lecturing/sarcastic/vignette switch either. But I guess that just goes to show up…oh, never mind.

Josh

Louis Vuitton and Bastille Day

Summer seems to have truly arrived in Paris—the weather is now warm and sunny for the first time since April (literally). The Parisians seem to talk only of their August vacations (yes, they seem to go away for the entire month), and promise to call after “the rentree” in early September. But as summer has rolled in, so have a few stories from Bastille Day and Anne and Corey’s visit.

The Keiths and Louis
Anne and Corey’s visit concluded our first round of visitors. I think we’ve gotten pretty good at hosting and our guests have all been fantastic. Recent changes: Due to complaints from the peanut gallery (AKA my parents), Josh’s “Death March” of Paris has been modified and now only includes about one third the tour that Jess so graciously endured with a smile. We now have a few more dining spots that we actually know. I would say my cooking has improved but I’m still mildly sulking over the duck that didn’t quite turn out as I would have preferred over dinner with Anne and CK.

Understandably, our visitors have their own agendas, which gives Josh and me a chance to see things we might have missed on our own. In one recent case, we got an unexpected look at one of Paris’s luxury icons. In the quest for a wallet for Kristi Keith (Corey’s mom), we found ourselves accompanying Anne and CK to Louis Vuitton. Josh and I were definitely not dressed appropriately, but since it was pretty clear we weren’t the purchasers, we were mostly invisible.

The store, located prominently on the Champs Elysees, was interesting, extremely large and was so busy, they literally had bouncers at the door. The demographics were a little surprising to me—it was filled primarily with people seemingly from Asian countries. I actually would have guessed I was in Tokyo or Seoul, not France.

Josh and I were enjoying the store’s sites and commenting on next year’s fashion and I found several purses that I would never consider buying since I *know* I saw the same thing on M Street in Georgetown for $10. Anyways, just as Anne and Corey had found the wallet they wanted for Kristi, Josh’s “art” caused a bit of a scene. He reported in on his ‘trouble’ and our conversation went something like this:

Josh: “I had a bit of a run in with the security guard.”

Sara: “You did what? I told you they wouldn’t be keen about you taking pictures in here.”

Josh: “Well, the guy told me not to take the pictures so I nicely asked him to show me where this was written, where the sign was indicating that this was the case. Besides, he was kinda skinny, I could take him.”

Don’t worry, it all ended well—the wallet was procured, Josh did get a few forbidden photos and he even waved nicely to the irritated French Louis Vuitton bouncer on his way out. The guy probably knew Josh and I were just there with friends and wouldn’t be back too soon. Still, it would have been fun to go back, Pretty Woman style, dressed to the nines, carrying many shopping bags from pricey stores, and tell the guard he made a “big mistake.”

Bastille Day

Having missed the Fourth of July in Washington, normally one of my favorite holidays, we decided to vigorously participate in Bastille Day. We figured it would tell us more about the French and seemed like a good excuse for a day of excursions. We went to the parade, to a concert, saw the fireworks and ended our night at a firehouse party (which is apparently a tradition here). The weather was sunny, the Bastille Day events were great, plus we even took a walk through lots of Paris’ sites and enjoyed a nap in a park to boot.

Perhaps the most confounding part of the day for me though was the parade. It was super cool—lots of planes and helicopters and military equipment, but I couldn’t help but think as a lot of military personnel and equipment were rolling down the Champs-Elysees that it felt like recreating an invasion. I also kept thinking, “No wait, I thought only Russia and North Korea had parades like this. Do the French even care this much about the military?.” It was interesting and I wish my dad could have seen it since he would have really appreciated it.

Once again though, just as I thought I “understood” a bit more about France, it tosses me a curveball and a militaristic parade is certainly one big curveball for a seemingly anti-war (at least in recent times) country.

If France were a song, Josh and I have decided that the song that seems to best fit is “I’m Every Woman” or “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks (“I’m a bitch, I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother, I’m a sinner, I’m a saint…”).

The firehouse dance was a great way to wrap up a big day. Many firehouses across the country host events on the 13^th and 14^th and so we headed toward our local “pompiers”, which is just around the corner. We walked in, mostly expecting old time French music and gruffy French guys playing the accordion due to some of the things Josh had read, and were a bit surprised to see an outdoor dance party complete with fog machine and hundreds of people dancing to techno remixes of American 80’s music.

It was pretty wild. We were pretty tired by that point so stayed long enough for a glass of champagne (because Lord knows you wouldn’t have a party here without bubbly) and a bit of dancing, which is always fun here because while the French are quite cultured, they really are no better dancers than Josh and me.

So, this is July in Paris—all good stuff. Today, after a picnic with some friends, I learned how to play petanque—a bocci ball-esque game that is wildly popular in France. As I finish this, Josh and I just toasted over a chilly French rose (called Cote de Thongues—go figure) and I suppose life could be better, but some days, I’m simply not sure how.

sPg

Even More Vignettes

Greetings everyone, apologies for the prolonged absence from blogging. After much travel and many visitors (all enjoyable but a bit tiring), Sara and I are looking forward to a long summer of…not much. We’ll have good “quality time” together in July and August, enjoying the city and each other, until the next batch of visitors arrives in September.

I have another blog in progress that will be a bit more…coherent, but for now, here are some more vignettes I’ve been sitting on. As we all know, “vignette” is how a Russian mechanic would respond in the negative when asked if there’s a Vehicle Identification Number on file for a certain customer.

· More photos are available for viewing. You’ll see pictures from Andorra (People, Artsy, and Touristy), plus if you look at the three sets of Paris photos, you’ll see our most recent shots, including pictures from Sara’s brother David’s visit (the newest photos are always the first ones you see in each set): Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/ If you have any trouble accessing these, just let me know and I can easily fix it.

· Speaking of Andorra, given that we’re already essentially on vacation here in Paris, you have to wonder how we have the gall to take a vacation from our vacation to go someplace like Andorra. A vacation-within-a-vacation is like a ship in a bottle; you just have to wonder: how did it get in there?

· Also, here’s a progress update on Sara’s and my prolific walking: Sara’s just over, and I’m just under, 2.5 million steps since we got here in January. We’re both well over 1,100 miles walked in that same time.

· Sara and I had a brush with celebrity the other day. We were meeting up with two of my mom’s friends in the lobby of the tony Plaza Athenee hotel, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw an older man with curly bleached hair and white sunglasses slip out of a hidden elevator and through a side door. It was unmistakably Michel Polnareff, arguably France’s best-known singer currently (http://www.rfimusique.com/siteen/biographie/biographie_6058.asp). He was famous in the 1960s and 1970s, then exiled himself to Los Angeles for decades, making only periodic appearances, before staging a comeback this year. A few days later, Sara and I joined over 600,000 people who saw Polnareff play by the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day. He’s really a cult figure, it’s a bit like Elvis coming back to perform after decades of…exile.

· Not much more than a year into our marriage, Sara and I continue to learn things about each other. Here’s my latest upsetting discovery: in our six months in France, Sara’s used up a kilo of fresh sea salt, several liters of various vinegars and olive oils, cases of sparkling water, bottles of Martini rouge…and approximately one half of one tube of toothpaste. And to think, I kiss that mouth! (Sara points out in the way of explanation that she does brush twice daily, just using very little toothpaste...)

· A few musical items: first, during our recent Alsatian trip, Sara and I were sitting in the first car of train, awaiting our departure. The conductor got on the train and walked into the cabin, all while very clearly whistling… “The Final Countdown.” Perhaps that’s not surprising, since it’s appropriately by…Europe.

· Second, during a recent cab trip, I saw that my driver had one and only one CD in his musical collection…Shalamar!

· Third, a forgotten and overdue musical vignette and iPod update: while watching a Good Friday procession just blocks from Notre Dame, Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer” came on the iPod. Even I felt sacrilegious. And later that day, when the “Golden Girls” theme came on the iPod, I just felt…icky.

· Not far from our apartment, there is an enormous, truck-sized vending machine that sells everything from milk to sandwiches to vibrating condoms (you may remember there was once one of these machines in Adams Morgan). The other day, I bought a camembert cheese from the machine (mainly because I could). I also bought a can of lychee juice, only noticing later that it was “Cock Brand” lychee juice. I’m guessing it’s a translation error.

· When I got the camembert home and opened it, I saw this funny “we’re not in the US anymore, are we?” disclaimer on the wrapper: “The fat percentage listed on our cheeses is now calculated taking into account their water content, as is the case for other milk products…Only its labeling has changed, to better inform you and permit you to more easily manage your diet. This means that your President camembert, which was formerly listed as containing 45% fat will now list 20%, without changing recipes or ingredients.” In other words, they were apologizing for having to “downgrade” their cheese from being 45% fat to just 20% fat. You can bet that in America, someone would have figured out the “water content” game a long time ago, and would have been selling the camembert as “diet,” due to the new “just” 20% fat content!

To close, a few recommendations:

- We may have found a new house wine, called Fitou. See if you can find it, it should be available in the US.

- For two enjoyable and hysterically funny French rap videos (by a guy named Kamini who’s the one black resident in a small rural town), check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPJ-xRaw2l8 for and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gV5rsO2u_o

- For a funny video of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, possibly drunk after a meeting with Vladimir Putin at the G8, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzPEH-Ea3DI&mode=related&search=

Hope all's well,

Josh

Polish Politics and Pagan Festivals

Taking a Hoosier-born, self-declared Polish prince to one of the tiniest countries on the planet is always a bit of a dicey idea. As we left Paris for our short trip to Andorra by way of Girona, Spain, I was hoping that locals wouldn’t mistake my younger, 6 foot 4 inch brother David as either a giant (like he is in Paris) or as a diplomatic mission from the “Kingdom of Indiana” because none of us speak Catalan (the language spoken in Andorra, northeastern Spain, and southwestern France).

Side note: It’s possible that you’ve never heard of Andorra, since I hadn’t until a week before we set foot in the country. In case you are like me, here are some top level glimpses of Andorra. Andorra is a small mountainous nation in the Pyrenees between Spain and France that is one sixth the size of Rhode Island. There are no airports or train stations in Andorra, you can only get there by traversing windy roads. Andorrans have the highest life expectancy in the world. and the country was once actually almost taken over by a clever Russian man who called himself Boris I. Other than that, the country is governed jointly by a bishop from Spain and the president of France. There—that’s Andorra in a nutshell.

The locals didn’t seem to stare too much, and in the end, David even built a few intra- Europe ties. One afternoon he was wearing a classy T-Shirt (a gift from Josh, see photo) with the phrase “Poland is for Wieners” and he was stopped in an elevator by a local who wanted to discuss Polish politics. The man asked David his opinion on Poland’s status within the EU. It was a fairly brief conversation and I think it’s fair to say the local didn’t quite get the nuance of the shirt, thankfully.

Never being ones to miss an opportunity to celebrate an obscure holiday, or frankly anything obscure, we were thrilled to hear that our visit would coincide with the celebration of the Feast of St. Joan in Andorra. The holiday was billed as a celebration of independence for the Catalan people (which seemed a bit confusing given that there is no Catalan nation per say, but I may have missed something), but we were excited to hear about the tradition of fireworks, bonfires and dancing.

It didn’t quite take shape as we thought. There were a lot of fireworks, but not the official variety--most of them set off by teens sporting mullets, M-80’s and lighters. That was not my most favorite part of the country.

At midnight, a crowd had started to gather (no small feat when the entire country only has 70,000 people) and so we waited to see if the big bonfire-ready pile of wood was actually going to be lit as some symbolic moment.

We were not disappointed. There was a parade with witches, devils dressed in white fireproof capes carrying fireworks on spools, drums and men dressed in black with fire on a chain. As Josh said, “I think that this might actually be the dictionary definition of a pagan festival,” I think David and I were wondering if we shouldn’t immediately break out some holy water. But everyone seemed friendly and still smaller than David, so we figured it was all probably OK, so we joined in the parade to the bonfire pit.

After marching through the streets, the band of witches and fire people danced around the big pre-bonfire and then a teenager who had some sort of beauty pageant-esque banner lit the fire. With fireworks still going off very close, we decided we had seen all of what we needed for the moment and headed off for a late night dinner at a tapas restaurant, which was not particularly noteworthy except that it was decorated with actual hams with their hoofs still attached hung from the ceiling.

In stark contrast to the fireworks and parades was the time at the spa. The spa, which was more Ikea-esque in its functionality rather than Elizabeth Arden in its luxury, was the perfect way to spend several hours. I was happy that not all of the women were size 0s (I guess there weren’t many Parisian women there) and I suspect that we’ve definitely convinced David that vacations are even better with real r&r built in. I think we might have relaxed so much we forgot to breathe at times.

And now, David has returned back to the States and we have been left chairing the “Dave for French President” fan club. It was a heck of a visit and I even think we might consider launching a small-scale invasion of another country in years to come.

sPg

Photos Galore

Greetings everyone,


This isn't a real blog post (stay tuned for one each from Sara and myself), this is just a heads up about some new and newly-organized photos on our Flickr site.


This photo update doesn't include our very latest pix (Sara's brother's visit, our trip to Andorra, etc.), but those will be up soon as well.


As for the photos that are here, they're in five categories:




















"Best of Paris"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600216028298/

These are the best of the artsy and scenic photos taken between January and roughly May. They include (just to pique your curiosity) Napoleon, cucumbers, a big orange dog, the French election, the moon with an arm through his eye, and Easter Vigil. The newest photos are at the top, the older ones are at the bottom. The title of this category is a bit wrong, since there are some non-Paris photos here (including the one at left, from London). You should be able to see this category online whether or not you have a Flickr account.
















"Best of Paris People"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600215618739/
These are the best "people pictures" taken from January to May (newest pix first), mostly in Paris, but not entirely. They include the visits of my mom, Sara's parents, Jess, and Norm and Amanda. They also include pictures of Sara's "little friend" Angie from French class, my beloved former host mother Iris, Sara's French teacher Elodie, my friend Beth and her mega-cute kids, and way more of Sara and me than you ever hoped to see. You DO need a Flickr account to see these, so if you can't get to them, let me know and I'll send you an invitation.

"Best of Pre-2007"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600308969413/


These are my best pictures from the years leading up to this year. Many are scans from paper photos, so the quality isn't perfect, but still pretty good. These include earlier Paris pix, but also Adams Morgan, Argentina, Los Angeles, the Bahamas, and others. You don't need a Flickr account to see these.




















"Best of Portugal"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600215589239/
"Best of Portugal People"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7531775@N04/sets/72157600215978738/

These are the pictures from Sara's and my wonderful trip to Portugal with friends Jamie and Carey back in April. The first batch are the artsy or touristy pix, the second batch at the people pix. You don't need a Flickr account to see the first batch, but you DO to see the second batch, so if you have trouble, send me an e-mail and I'll tell you how to get access to them.

Hope you like them!
Josh

Greek Feet and Spas

It will be a true miracle if I am fit for normal company after my brother’s visit. I had forgotten what a wacky dude he is, and sharing 300 square feet with two boys for two weeks is surely ill-advised. But, once I got over the initial onslaught of Beavis and Butthead-esque jokes, I quickly started to have a really great time.

On day two, while we were eating olives, he was drinking a beer, and I was sipping wine, David said, “Come on, when was the last time we spent this much time together?” I guessed 1997…or 1994…we weren’t sure, but I’m glad to have this chance to get to know David better and to share some European Adventures with him, though I think we are both a little curious about how this “family time” will go.

Yep, the unofficial Mayor of Chesterton is here in Paris. We’re trying to get a state dinner set up, but we’re not sure that we have room in our schedule, even if the wine would no doubt be good. You know how busy visiting heads of state can be--just ask my brother. As he stood outside of the Louvre and I snapped a photo he declared that "it only made sense for the Polish Prince to visit a French palace." Yes, he really is that absurd.

We did an abbreviated version of “Paris Highlights” tour for the first two days and then skipped right to the good stuff. Yesterday, we saw Pere Lachese—the famous cemetery; today we saw the catacombs—the site of hundreds of thousands of bones from Paris throughout the years all artfully displayed 50 feet below ground. We stopped on the way home for a pastry though, so the day wasn’t entirely death-themed.

Josh told David that tbhe two themes of his visit will be “Shut up and eat it” and “Damn that’s old”. In the “Shut up and Eat it” category, we started with cheese, which is going remarkably well. He did object to one saying it smelled “like Greek Feet”, which may or may not be true (having never smelled such feet), but it was a cheese that was a little much even for Josh and me, so that was fair. We figure pate and other meat products are still on the To Do list.

In the “Damn that’s old” category, we’ve enjoyed showing David roman ruins, Notre Dame (which we assured him was actually build before the lovely football school in Indiana) and other historical sites. I think he’s honestly amazed by what he’s seen and when we’re not cracking jokes, I think we’re all learning a little bit more about Paris and each other.

Other highlights of the first few days of David’s tour:

1.) Determining if any French people (or vehicles) are actually bigger than David

2.) Josh taking David to the last public urinal, which is outside of a prison


3.) Drinking various beers at numerous cafes


4.) Catching up on the latest news from the Indiana electricians' union


5.) Snarfing Greek Sandwiches (which seem to have no resemblance to Greek Feet) on the street


6.) Sleeping until noon every day

1. 7.) Hearing David’s ongoing commentary on French women, which seems overwhelmingly positive

8.) Deciding whether we are going to visit a spa this weekend

I know the spa may not seem to fit, but I think it will be amusing, if not entirely relaxing. Our other Pluta Family European adventures will include a trip to Girona, Spain and Andorra—one of the smallest countries on earth, which is reachable only by bus from Spain or France. I agreed to the four-hour bus ride if I could go to the aforementioned spa, with David and Josh as escorts. If we don’t get deported, it will be fun.

When I asked David after dinner if we should have some quality conversation, he looked at me like I was a moron and said he had a book to read. I said just as well because I had some work to do and maybe in the end, 300 square feet is more than enough room, and we may even agree to do this again in another few years.

sPg

Barter and Raw Food

Life continues happily, yet mostly uneventfully in Paris, which is why I’ve been a bit quiet. But, true to form, there have been at least a few moments that have seemed blog worthy. Here are two glimpses of Paris that seemed worth sharing.

Will work for food—Josh and I have been fortunate enough to find just enough work for the lifestyle we would like here. We both work about 15 hours a week and that gives us plenty of free time and a few euros in our pocket. Over all, we are enjoying a fulfilling and simple life. So, you can imagine my surprise when Josh concluded a dinner at a great little crepe restaurant by (essentially) saying to the owner, “I’ll translate your menu into English and you can pay me in salted butter caramel.” If you can’t remember what that is, it’s perhaps Josh’s favorite Parisian food—caramel that has a perfectly delicious balance of salt in it. I guess all his flea market expenditures earlier in the day inspired this—or, perhaps he’ll do anything for a little salted butter caramel. And fear not, Josh’s new Parisian barter system doesn’t end with caramel, he’s also possibly doing some translation work for an association of scotch makers, drinkers, and aficionados. As Josh says, he would have spent money on either of those things anyways, so by not working for money but for caramel/scotch, he’s just avoiding the middle man.

Raw food diet—I thought the other day, “Oh goodness, it’s happened” and by “it”, I mean my adapting yet another newly-formed habit inspired by France that seems will be virtually impossible to re-create once we return to the States. My most recent and most troublesome France-only habitis my new found love of raw food, and more specifically, raw meat.

Maybe its primal, maybe this is just what happens to Midwesterners who love meat but can’t build a fire very well or maybe some things just really are different in France, but over one four day stretch, I ate just one single solitary meal that had any cooked food in it—the rest of the meals involved raw tuna, raw salmon, beef carpaccio, and steak tartare. Yes, I love them all and find that I crave them.

Having a stomach of steel, I’m not worried about any health effects and I also am betting that if a restaurant bothers to serve these things, they must trust the source of the meat. And really, I have a hard time believing that raw meat is actually the most dangerous food habit I could have when seemingly everything here is sold is some raw form: raw milk, unpasteurized cheese, etc, etc. Not a single French person has ever seemed alarmed when my raw meat habit gets brought up in conversation.

So yes, now one of my favorite café lunches is steak tartare—basically hand-ground raw steak that looks an awful lot like raw hamburger—and a salad. Even Josh has gotten into the idea. At a recent meal, he tried Carpaccio du tete de veau, roughly translated as “raw veal face”. When he ordered it, I said, “Josh, I’m so proud of you.” And then thought, “What the heck kind of screwed up compliment is that?!?”.

Rumor has it that there is a new Ethopian restaurant in Virginia that has two kinds of raw meat dishes that are worth having (this according to Eve Zibert—Washington Post Food critic). It seems promising. Maybe Josh will start learning Amharic and then he can offer to translate the menu in return for a serving or two of “gored gored”

sPg

RIP House Wine

[A lament, context explained below, to be sung to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie”]
Bye, bye, our beloved house wine
I dragged my suitcase to the wine place
But ‘twas gone, I yelled “Fie!”
Seems a euro doesn’t buy what it did at one time
At least our livers are breathing a sigh
Our livers are breathing a sigh…


Far be it from anyone to suggest that Sara and I are anything but goal-oriented. Soon after our arrival in Paris, we focused with a white-hot laser intensity and thoughtful, rigorous process on our number one priority. Not finding Sara a job, not getting us health insurance, and lord knows, not getting our phone hooked up.

Our real first goal—locating and selecting a wine that we both enjoyed and could afford to drink on a daily basis despite our limited budget.

I was our designated wine buyer, and I would return from frequent trips to the local Franprix market with a selection of red wines chosen mainly based on price. After a couple less-than-successful sorties, Sara suggested that my two euro ($2.70) price ceiling was a failure, and that in the future, I should plan on staying about three euros ($4.05).

On my next trip, I dutifully bought two bottles in the new price range, but I also mischievously bought a 1.8 euro ($2.35) bottle of a variety of wine (Saint Chinian) we’d previously enjoyed, but closer to the three euro price point. If I had a better poker face, I would have tried to pass the 1.8 euro bottle off as a three euro bottle. But instead, I just explained my rationale to Sara: “We like the three euro Saint Chinian, maybe we’ll like the 1.8 euro kind…)

The rest is history (figuratively), until sadly this week the rest was history (literally). The 1.8 euro Saint Chinian (and later the same winery’s Corbieres wine) became what Sara and I called “the House Wine,” imbibed daily with our solo meals and shared liberally with dinner guests. Even French dinner guests were impressed by the quality of the wine and its low price point. (The attached photo from months back was meant to show the chaos of laundry day but instead additionally captured an impromptu shot of a house wine bottle at dead center, demonstrating its ubiquity…)

Subsequently, we found the House Wine at Leader Price, a mini-Shoppers’ Food Warehouse-type store for just 1.25 euros. Given that this year we have plenty of free time but not much spare cash, it became a roughly monthly ritual for me to drag my wheeled carry-on suitcase the fifteen minutes to this store, load up with a dozen or so bottles of House Wine, then drag it home and we’d be stocked for a month.

After a couple of months of doing this, in a disconcerting portent, Sara and I noticed that the House Wine had disappeared from the shelves of the nearby Franprix market (where the House Wine was first discovered). We hoped for the best, but when I arrived at Leader Price for this month’s pilgrimage, the House Wine was gone.
Given the thousands of French wine producers, the dozens of wines they each produce, and the fact that production changes each year, it’s not that surprising that this wine seemingly vanished. It’s almost more surprising that we were able to keep finding it for nearly five months.

But the House Wine didn’t die in vain. We have since found out that Saint Chinian, Corbieres, and the other wines of Southwest France are currently some of the best values on the wine market. Known for decades as producing high quantities of low quality wine, the Southwest is now straightening up its act and trying to win back its good name. We learned this “back story” to our House Wine at a wine tasting class, and have since put it to work in buying good but inexpensive bottles of wine at the store and in restaurants. Our discovery was reinforced when, in a recent radio interview (http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-info/chroniques/expat/index.php?chro_diff_id=295000112&m=3), Bernard Portet, a French winemaker who was one of the first to see the potential of the Napa Valley in the 1960s, said, “The Languedoc [a southwestern French region] is the California of tomorrow.”

We can’t buy our exact bottle of House Wine any more, but what it taught us was how to pick similar wines from the same region that provide us with the same price/quality benefit of our old friend.

Whenever a French king would die, it would be proclaimed “Le roi est mort; vive le roi!” (The king is dead; long live the king!). This meant that the death of the one king triggered the debut of the reign of his successor, and that both were worth commemorating. So, all I can say now is “The House Wine is dead; long live the House Wine!” The King is dead, but we know where the royal family lives…