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…

The Mother of All Visits

Yes, it’s the much-awaited blog on my mother’s much-awaited visit.

But first, a quick vignette: don’t you just hate it when you and your spouse are minding your own business, walking along the Seine from the Orsay to the Louvre around 10:30PM, attempting to take advantage of the once-annual-open-til-midnight museum festival, when a band of approximately a dozen drunken young Frenchmen, dressed as various superheroes, go loudly toddling by you, and you end up debating Middle Eastern politics (you in French, he in English) with a quite rotund and overstuffed Captain America? Yeah, me too!

Anyway, now back to The Mother of All Visits.

You may have read in the papers in the past day or two that this year’s hurricane season is expected to be intense. You’ve got that right. This year’s first hurricane has unexpectedly already come ashore…right here in Paris. Hurricane Bobi, that is…

Now, a year after our wedding, it is probably safe for Sara and me to reveal that in the lead-up to the wedding, we would sometimes refer to our mothers as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. No disrespect was meant—we were just making the point that they’re both true forces of nature, and that you stand in their way at your own risk.

So, how do you host a hurricane? Well, as Sara has already detailed in the blog, Char and Henry’s visit was more of a tempest in a teapot, stress-free, and a good time was had by all.

But, could lightning strike twice? (OK, I’ll drop the meteorological crap…) Could there be a low-impact visit from our high-powered parentals?

Long story short, yes. My mom’s visit was made a bit more, or less, complicated by the fact that she has visited each of the three previous years (1992/3, 1994/5, and 1998/9) that I’ve lived here. So, gone was the pressure to squeeze in visits to all the “biggie” destinations like the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre—Mom’s already seen them.

But gone also was the E-Z trip planning that comes with welcoming a first-time visitor. After three years of living in Paris, I have what past visitors lovingly refer to as “The Death March” down to a science, so that about 75% of Paris’ must-see sights get “hit” during a leisurely full-day forced jaunt across the City of Lights. A second day might involve hitting sites that would be the pieces de resistance in any other city, but which pass as also-rans here in Paris. All along we’d be discovering delicious French street food, a tasty treat at any price, but downright perfect given its low cost, strong euro or not. But my mom’s seen all this stuff, and tasted all these goodies, at least 2-3 times each.

The good news is that my mom had low-key needs at a time that Sara and I wanted to take it easy. It was a perfect fit—we slept in most days, turned in early, split our meals between restaurants and Sara’s ever-more-excellent cooking, and of course shopped, shopped, shopped.

We visited zero museums but five markets (artists’ markets at Bastille and Montparnasse, a temporary flea market in the 14th and the permanent one by Clignancourt, plus Sara’s and my beloved food market on the rue Mouffetard). We didn’t stand in line at any tourist attractions, but we did stand in several lines that had a cash register at the other end. We tackled the not-yet-in-Fodor’s Sara-and-Josh engagement tour (“here’s where I got down on one knee, here’s the hotel with the better-than-a-postcard view where we stayed on the engagement trip,” etc.) And we ended the eight-day trip having had more ice creams (three) than pre-10AM wakeup calls (zero), which is all you can really ask, frankly. After all, could we really have expected anything but an enjoyable visit when my mom’s accommodations were at…the Hotel Sunny?

Hail to Le Chef

Hello everyone,

I’m back, and I’m blogging. Pardon the delay, we’re in full visitor and travel season…

LET'S GET...PRESIDENTIAL
By popular (or unpopular, depending on what you think of requestor NN) demand, I’m going to share some thoughts about the recent French presidential election. You may have already read something about it. I’ve been surprised at how much coverage the election received—it was the top story on washingtonpost.com virtually all day the day of the election.

MEET THE BIGGIES
The two primary candidates in the election, center left Segolene Royal and center right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, represented a sea change from past presidential contenders. First, they are a generation younger than most previous candidates. But second, they had a reasonable chance of winning the election despite the fact they had never previously run for President. This is unprecedented in France, where candidates often run several time before finally winning. (Francois Mitterrand ran in 1965 and 1974 before winning in 1981 and 1988, and Jacques Chirac ran in 1981 and 1988 before winning in 1995 and 2002). The latter practice clearly flies in the face of the flavor-of-the-month, eating-our-young system in the US, where once you lose one election, you’re tainted goods forever. Admittedly, Nixon ran, lost, then reappeared for a later victory (maybe that’s the exception that proves the rule…) Can you imagine Walter Mondale, Robert Dole, or John Kerry running three times before finally winning?!?

As you know, in the end, despite the presence of charismatic centrist Francois Bayrou, the two “intended” candidates progressed to the second round, and in the end center-right candidate Nicolas Sarkozy won by a fairly large 53% to 47% victory. Why did Royal lose, why did Sarkozy win, and what does this mean for France?

ROYAL, WITH PLEASE!
Royal would seem to have many points in her favor. First, she’s beautiful, in a country where that matters. Second, she was a surprise, challenge candidate in an election cycle that seemed to favor change. (As a side note, two points that would seem to have disqualified her to be a candidate in the US--the fact that she’s not married to her longtime companion and the father of her children, and the fact that he just happens to be the head of the political party she represented in the election—seem to be perceived as irrelevant in France. Amazingly, as the election results were announced on live TV, Royal’s significant other sat in a TV studio and commented on his de facto wife’s loss, unable to comfort her, and without the media commenting on the absurdity of the situation.) However, in the end, Royal seems to have peaked too early, and to have relied too heavily on the novelty factor without backing it up with proven competence and a clear message. The most damning statistic is this—a post-election poll showed that while two-thirds of Sarkozy’s voters voted for him (as opposed to against Royal), fully two-thirds of Royal’s voters were voting against Sarkozy (as opposed to for Royal).

Two key questions on this front remain to be resolved: First, what is the fate of the Socialist party, which has lost three straight Presidential elections, including one loss in the first round and a wide margin of loss this time around? And second, have we seen the last of Segolene Royal? As indicated above, history would indicate she would run again, but her predecessor as Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, only ran twice before throwing in the towel, and my personal sense is that in this instant-gratification, mass-media age, France will no longer has the patience or the stomach to watch someone lose twice before winning.

SARKO, FASCO?
So, what about the victorious candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy? The son of Hungarian immigrants, he has the classic psychological pairing of an inferiority complex and a massive ego. He didn’t attend the same prestigious schools as most politicians, and he’s famously short in stature. On the flip side, he’s made no secret of the fact that he’s always wanted to be President of France. Napoleon, call your office…

I think the perception of lifelong presidential wannabes is based almost entirely on whether said individual belongs to your political party. For Democrats like me, Bill Clinton’s childhood interest in being president was charming, his photo with JFK inspirational, and his eventual victory a happy ending (no pun intended). Yet, when an politician we dislike has such a lofty goal, we often perceive it as hubris, or ice-cold career calculation. This same dual perception seems to repeat itself here in France.

Sarkozy is a man with a mission, a clear vision he won’t easily be dissuaded from pursuing. I admit my own hypocrisy of perception on this front—I see GW’s unwavering self-faith frightening, but I find newly-elected DC Mayor Adrian Fenty’s single-minded pursuit of his platform impressive.

Everyone agrees that Sarkozy is a gifted politician. In an election that, as stated above, was focused on a theme of change, he successfully spun himself as the best proponent of innovation. This despite the fact that his opponent was the change-personified, first-ever serious female presidential candidate, the fact that his own party has controlled the presidency and the National Assembly for years, and the fact that he himself served as a minister in this same government until a month before the election.

THIRD WAY, THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM?!?
Sarkozy is France’s Bill Clinton or Tony Blair, just fifteen years later—a young, charismatic go-getter in search of the “Third Way.” He claims to want to maintain France’s significant social advances while also capitalizing (pun intended) on the benefits of a more liberal economic approach. Many in France doubt his true allegiance to the social gains, which will be at the core of any changes that occur in France’s immediate political future. France is in an impossible situation—there is a near jihadist-level obsession with the protection of these social benefits, yet an increasingly large national agreement that reform of social programs is essential if France is to escape from decades of malaise and experience the same renaissance as many of its European brethren.

Is Sarkozy the man for this job? He can certainly claim a mandate—he won by approximately two million votes despite facing a groundbreaking and charismatic opponent, an extraordinarily weak endorsement from his predecessor and fellow political party member Jacques Chirac, a request by the head of the Far Right party to his voters (likely second-round Sarkozy voters) to abstain from voting in the second round, and a statement from kingmaker centrist Francois Bayrou that although he wouldn’t endorse a second-round candidate, he would not vote for Sarkozy).

If Sarkozy is to succeed at reforming France, he will have to do so in a “Nixon-in-China” going against expectations mode. If he fails, he will face what the French refer to as a “third round” of the election—in the streets, with protests and riots that could make the disturbances of two summers’ back look minor in comparison.

MISCELLANEOUS

* Turnout in both rounds of France’s election was approximately 85%. Can you imagine? Even American Idol doesn’t get that kind of voter turnout number, let alone for a presidential election.

* Funny Newspaper Correction, from the International Herald Tribune: “Because of an editing error, Nicolas Sarkozy was misquoted in some Monday editions. In his victory speech Sunday night after the French presidential election, he said he loved France as one loves a dear being. There was no reference to a dear master.”

Ice Cubes and Turkish Toilets

I was standing in line for the bathrooms at the Luxemburg Gardens with my parents today after a lovely picnic and after hearing another comment about the lack of ice in France, I said, “That’s it, I’m blogging about you!”

My mother of course laughed and said, “Wow Henry, she’s really threatening us now!” The threat is especially empty for my father who is convinced that the “computer room” in their home is nothing more than a room without a TV worth watching, but still, I feel I need to follow through on my “threat”.

Let me first be entirely clear—it is a real treat to have two weeks to spend in Paris with my parents. I am lucky to have parents who I honestly consider friends and we are having a good time. My parents are also rolling with a lot of new things and doing so with a smile, or at least a nod.

This trip also continues a reasonably long history of the Plutas traveling together. As a family, we’ve left our mark on Cancun, Ecuador, Hutalco, the American West, Florida, Washington DC, plus many other US states. I am quite sure the locals are still talking about those crazy Plutas and I have no doubt that the French (and Josh for that matter) will also be talking about this “invasion” long after May 10th.

Now secondly, let me also be entirely clear about the fact that Hoosiers in Paris is just inherently a risky proposition. I knew that Paris was different from Washington, but I’ve been reminded often how REALLY different Paris is from Chesterton.

Here are just a few things that have been brought to our attention as being “different” in Paris. [and for non-midwesterners, “different” is often code for “not what I prefer”]
1. Beer, water and Coke are served chilled, but never iced
2. Our fridge is not big enough to even have a freezer with an ice cube tray
3. Coffee is strong and served in cups that “are tiny”
4. Bathrooms are rumored to have a “Turkish Toilet” in the men’s room, which seems to be causing an extreme reaction from my father (despite the fact that we haven’t actually seen one yet)
5. There are a lot of people here, all of whom speak French
6. The cars here are really, really tiny
7. Josh and I walk an extreme amount here
8. There is not enough ice in France (yes, we really talk that much about ice)

I will readily admit that their observations are right, but we are nonetheless attempting a crash course in “French Culture”

The first few days were a maze of introductions to customs, signs, and language differences. I think we can all agree through that steak-frites are a bridge across cultures and that for one shining moment, the Plutas loved France because of their ability to find a decent steak and a tasty drink for under ten euros.

History has been a saving grace. There aren’t many places on earth where you can still see a house built in 1407 within walking distance of a piece of the city wall that dates back to 1200, and for some reason, this kind of “extreme history” resonates with my parents.

My parents have also helped me learn even more about the history of France, through a few tours we have taken together, and because of the pre-trip research they did on the French Revolution. It has been really fun to share these moments of history with my mom and dad, even if we did have to find a McDonalds afterwards so we could talk about the history lessons over an iced cold coke.

We’ve also settled in a bit. They have a wonderful little studio apartment right off of my favorite market street. They too are staring to enjoy a daily coffee, even if it’s a café crème and not an espresso. I think they are coming to at least understand part of our Parisian life, even if two weeks of it will be as much as they care to enjoy.

Also in a sign of the apocalypse, my father has even started to learn French. In a constant quest for the perfect sandwich, he insisted on having Josh teach him the word for “olive oil”. It’s the only French word he knows, and he uses it a lot more often than you could possibly imagine. I can still hear Josh teaching him, in mixed French and English, to just say “Wheel dough leave.”

Tomorrow we head to Normandy, and my French teacher’s family will be taking a couple of days out of their lives to show us around (I had asked my French teacher for some ideas on what to visit in her home province in Normandy, and instead she drafted her whole family to host and facilitate our visit--so much for mean French people, huh?). I can only wonder if they actually know what is in store for them—they thought the last group of Americans visiting Normandy (in 1944) was a tough bunch. I’m sure it will be OK, though, as long as we can sit for at least a couple of hours with an iced cold beverage.

sPg

Culinary Lessons

I was told over a six-course French dinner last night that “Gastronomy is a religion in France”. Food, wine, cheese, bread and unhurried dinners continue to be regular parts of our experience and the one piece of French culture which many Parisians are inviting us to share with them, at their own kitchens and tables, which as anyone knows is the best place to learn about any country. It also is the only place where my limited vocabulary can keep up with conversation, so I’m extra grateful for the invitations.

This week I was invited to cook with Iris in her kitchen. Iris, in my mind, is the unpublished Julia Child and I would walk over fire for the chance to cook with her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to perform any extreme acts to receive the invitation, I just had to show up with a few ingredients that Iris requested: liquid cream and 200 grams of good grated cheese. I, of course, showed up with two different types of liquid cream fresh, and 400 grams of cheese—just to be safe.

The lessons (which doubled as a language lesson as well) had us making a homemade desert custard (which tasted good, but didn’t look quite as nice as we had hoped), gratin dauphinois (a classic French dish that is a bit like scalloped potatoes, but includes nutmeg), meatloaf (which included three types of meat ground fresh for me by the local butcher), and an apple tart (which is an Iris standard and I think I can finally replicate). It was a bilingual afternoon that also had two breaks—one for tea and one for wine.

One moment that speaks to the freshness of ingredients here was the making of the meatloaf and our collective checking of the spices. I was elbow deep in a kilo of ground meat while Iris was adding a bit of this and a bit of that and checking the seasoning by tasting the raw meat mixture (which is not something my mother does, so it was a bit shocking).

Then she told me to the same, and fool knows that it was NOT the time to explain you don't regularly eat mostly unrefrigerated raw meat mixed with a raw egg. So I tasted it, found it surprisingly good and decided that that salmonella was clearly an American problem, so we continued to talk about what else it needed.

That wasn’t the only time this week where I found myself eating something a bit unexpected in part for reasons of pride (more specifically not wanting to seem like the mostly mute American who only eats chicken nuggets) and for reasons of politeness. At last night’s dinner, which involved homemade pate, rabbit, and the strongest French cheese I have ever tasted, I was offered something by the host, I couldn’t quite tell what was going on because the meal was conducted entirely in French and it looked like I was being offered a large bean of some sort. I glanced over to Josh with our commonly used “Please translate” code and he explained “It’s the rabbit’s kidney”.

Everyone seemed happy to offer it to me, so of course, once again, I ate and thanked him profusely. It did taste surprisingly good, but I did find myself wondering—“Do rabbits only have one kidney? I also found myself feeling even less bad for serving rabbit sausage on Easter. Rabbits are clearly food here—bunnies are for cartoons—at least that’s how I justify that eating the kidney is a special treat.

And so the culinary adventures continue and I am already beginning to fret about how I will figure out how to make these recipes when we return stateside—and who will be an honored enough guest to be offered our rabbit kidney.

sPg

Milestones

Riddle me this: What do all of these numbers have in common? Or, more specifically, what is their relevance?


1169816
1262991
143368909

Time’s up, and as Alex Trebek would say Canadian-style on “Jeopardy!”, “Oooh, sewery!”

What the three numbers have in common is that they are all key milestones in our Paris existence.

The relevance of the first number is that it is the number of steps I’ve taken since I arrived in Paris in mid-January.

The relevance of the second number is that it is the number of steps Sara has taken.

And the relevance of the third number is that it is our phone number!

So, why do we know (or care) how many steps we’ve taken on Parisian paving stones? And why does a measly phone number get to join the august company of our million-plus step accomplishment? Read on, MacDuff…

Too often in the States, people judge their personal successes by maximizing salary earned, hours worked, dollars spent, and the like. By this account, our year is France ranks low indeed. We left those criteria behind when we stepped away from our jobs and flew away from US soil. We now work fewer hours in a week than we used to in a (bad) day, and we now relish a $10 meal whereas we would have taken a $100 dinner for granted a year ago. We’ve literally recalibrated our happiness, both the terms we use to measure it, and the scope of what seems reasonable on each scale.

Let’s take this one step (waka waka waka) at a time: whenever I’m in Paris, I wear a pedometer so I can see just how damn much walking I do when I’m here. When I proposed to Sara, in Paris, in 2005, after a red letter walking day, I had my pedometer on. The fifteen or so miles we walked prior to popping the question became part of The Engagement Lore, and could probably inspire a torture/duress/not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity defense if she ever tries to get out of this marriage.

Now that we both live here, we have His and Hers Pedometers (a lousy name for a blog, or a rock band…). We love Paris, love walking, love walking in Paris, and love Excel, so we actually track our daily walking distances in a custom spreadsheet. In the past couple of weeks, Sara and I both went over both the 1,000,000 step and the 500 mile thresholds, and that’s a big deal. We’re cranking out, on average, about 6 miles a day, which is great, since we’re eating like the foodies that we are (it’s a common misconception that you have to spend a king’s ransom to eat like royalty in Paris). These are two ways we’re judging the success of our year here: what wonderful food discoveries have we made, and just how far do we have to walk to work off all that salted butter, country bread, stinky cheese, cheap wine, and Berthillon ice cream?

From a milestone that’s a pain in the foot to one that brings joy to your ears—I have to explain why our phone number is a momentous sign of victory. Prior to heading to France, we had been clued in to what are called “ADSL providers” here that provide bundled cable TV, high-speed internet, and telephone services. Big deal, you say, I have that here in the States. Nope, you don’t. Did I mention that all calls to the US and about 50 other countries are entirely free, wifi and a DVR is built into the system, you can check your voicemail messages via the internet or on your TV, you can watch TV on any computer in the house, and that the whole thing costs just $40/month?

Taking advantage of one of these deals seemed like a no-brainer, so upon our arrival, I signed us up for Free.fr service. We anxiously awaited the arrival of our magic modem box, I meticulously read the directions and reverentially assembled the technology before plugging the box in and…nothing. Like the caveman next to the monolith in 2001, I awaited the anticipated series of flashing lights (supposedly first a slow “caterpillar” around the LED screen, then a fast one, then a flashing rectangle, then a dropping line, before, finally, with a cloud of dust and a hearty Hi Ho Silver, the time of day appears and the box works).

Sadly, for several…weeks…the box stayed stuck on the %&*#@(*@ slow caterpillar, and again, like the caveman in 2001, I wanted to beat the living crap out of the box with an enormous femur.

After hours reading the manual, e-mailing their techs, participating in online chats, surfing customer newsgroups, etc., I was told that I had in fact signed up for the wrong program (doubtful) and therefore had to send my modem back by certified mail, pay to sign up for a phone line with the national phone company, and then have that new line cut off by re-signing up for Free, this time with the correct program.

Being addled of mind and threatened of wife, I went along with their scheme. Sara had made me promise in late January that I’d have our technological house in order, and a working phone line in place, by her birthday (March 21). I assured her I would, and that Valentine’s Day would be a more likely deadline.

Needless to say, it took the national phone company 2.5 weeks instead of the promised 2.5 days to install a basic phone line. And needless to say, once I signed up for the second time for Free and once I received my second magic modem box, I was still stuck on the %*&*@$# slow caterpillar.

So, then Free issued their final challenge: bring your magic modem box to another Free customer’s house and see what it does there, and then bring another customer’s magic modem box to your house and see what happens. I felt like Dorothy being told by the Wizard of Oz that no, her journey just to reach him wasn’t enough, she also had to go get the Wicked Witch’s broom as well.

And of course, since I had heard that every Free customer has a horror story of how and how long their setup dragged on, I realized that no one was going to want to unplug their finally-functioning magic modem box so I can run my Free-inspired cross-modem diagnostics. Fortunately, after posting flyers throughout our apartment building, one kindly neighbor took pity on me, and agreed to the test. My magic modem box worked at his place, and his didn’t work at our place, which meant that the phone line was the culprit all along. When I gleefully shared this news with Free in an e-mail and in one of our daily online chats, they…went radio-silent and refused to talk to me. But they finally decided to ask the phone company to check out my line again, and, lo and behold, just a few hours after they did, victory—the time showed up on the magic modem box’s screen.

We’ll never know exactly who did exactly what to get the damn thing working, but in my head, I picture a clueless French tech walking into a control room, tripping on an unplugged plug (the kind that the operator on the Mayberry switchboard would use to connect Andy Griffith to someone on the phone), saying “huh,” then plugging it back into the jack it obviously fell out of .

But, long story short, after about ten weeks of trying, and sadly about a week beyond Sara’s birthday deadline, all systems were go. Not to go all the-late-Gerald-Ford on you, but our long international nightmare is over. So, if you want to call us, just dial 011 33 then our number, as listed above. We’ll call you right back, since, plus or minus ten weeks of abject misery and suffering, all calls are free.

Josh

PS: One or both of us will blog on this before too long, but for the “French people are NOT rude file,” two of Sara’s and my heroes are now the guy who let me cross-check our modems, and our next-door neighbor, who gave us her wifi password so that we could at least have internet access in time for Sara’s birthday, even if we didn’t have a working phone…

French Lessons

I have been seriously studying French now for twelve weeks, which is really the same as saying, “I’ve been attempting to communicate desperately and with limited success for 1,008 hours” (which equates roughly to the number of hours each day that I wish I could speak better French since I have arrived, leaving out some time for sleeping and conversations that would make more sense in English), or “I’ve been attempting to dig a hole the size of a Grand Canyon and I’ve been working hard, but this spoon just doesn’t make a good shovel.”

There is no way around it—French is hard, damn hard. I do continue to study with my teacher, named Eloudie, which has been a great help (she’s pictured her with my friend Angie who I take lessons with) and having a husband who is fluent is more of a gift than I can explain (As I write this, Josh is en route to the butcher to see if it is necessary for us to reserve a leg of lamb ahead of time for Easter, which is clearly beyond my vocabulary). [PS: “En route” is French, see, I can’t help myself!]

And I’ve made progress. I now can breathe when people talk to me on the street (I can’t usually answer them, but at least I’ve stopped turning blue) and I can now, honestly, conduct most basic things in French. I can buy a chicken, vegetables and ask simple questions without too much trouble. I mailed four letters all by myself last week, in fact. But, as they say, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, which is exactly what I am finding with my French.

Just last week, I was in two work-related meetings, which were conducted nearly entirely in French. I am proud to say I understood a solid 25% of the content, but imagine being in a work meeting, and only understanding one of every four words being spoken and being nearly completely unable to respond in kind. I was still able to add a few seemingly worthwhile comments, in English, but it’s a humbling moment—no question.

My colleagues are so generous with their patience and we all consider it a step in the right direction that I can at least say with confidence “A demain” (or “until tomorrow) or “A lundi” (or “I’ll see you Monday). They also aren’t shy about inviting me to meetings (I guess they aren’t worried I’ll say something out of line) and as a result I’m learning more than I would, even if I studied 10 hours a day. The French speakers who I interact with are also kind in their responses. I find most people usually say, “I’m so sorry, my English isn’t as good as I would like” to which I reply, “No, no! I understand you perfectly. I am so sorry I don’t speak French yet.”

It is also really true that 60% of communication is nonverbal. [side note: there are limits to what you *should* communicate nonverbally. At times, I have probably over expressed, “I understand you” hoping that I would figure out the words, but the verbal understanding never came and I had to out myself that I really didn’t know what was going on.] Still, skepticism, trust, joy, disdain, uncertainty and fondness are not spoken emotions. Even without words, it’s not hard to communicate basic things that really matter.

As I stumble and trip and gasp and laugh my way through French, though, I am more grateful than I can explain for the patience and encouragement I have felt from Josh, from my colleagues, from the butcher, from my teacher, from the café owner and from our French-speaking friends who do whatever they can to honestly include me as a temporary, but real, part of Paris.

It isn’t true that “They all speak English” as I was told, but “They do all speak human”. When words aren’t always an option, I speak human really well and the French speakers that I’ve met do too.

- sPg

More odd thoughts...

Time for some more vignettes. As you know, “vignette” is French for someplace you haven’t visited but hope to see some day. I’ll use it in a sentence: “I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, but I haven’t vignette.” Waka waka waka, as Fozzy Bear would say…

Today I’m going truly random on the vignettes, getting rid of some odds and ends, so brace yourselves.

PHOTOS

Starting soon, I'll be providing you with a "best of" format, so that you don't get buried in too many photos. But here's the last batch of the old style...

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=483201174411907605/l=249866128/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

FRENCH POLITICS THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
The French presidential elections are in May, so the campaign is in full swing. The French Communist Party’s candidate is named Marie-George Buffet. First observation: I can’t decide if “Buffet” is the best or the worst possible name for a Communist Party leader. On one hand, the excessive face-stuffing at a buffet seems so…capitalist. But on the other hand, everyone has equal rights to whatever they require. Tough call.

Second observation: she looks strikingly similar to Anne Robinson, the host of that “Weakest Link” game show (“You are the weakest link…Goodbye!”) Don’t believe me? Check out http://www.mariegeorge2007.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Robinson Now, should Communists really be singling out weakest links? Unclear.

SPACE INVADERS
As the kids say, I want to give a “shout out” to Space Invaders. Not to the 80s-era video game, but to the 90s-era French graffiti/mosaic street art project. Basically, some guy got the idea to put up small tile mosaic reproductions of video game figures (mainly Space Invaders) on exterior walls originally all over Paris, but now in more than 30 cities worldwide. They’re innocuous, mostly under one foot square, and if you are not looking for them, you might never see one. But once you do start looking, you come across them everywhere. Some (CM…) doubt their existence, but the photo I’m including here, as well as www.space-invaders.com and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invader_%28artist%29 should be proof enough. The Space Invaders are one of my favorite things about Paris, so I just thought I’d mention them here. The artist has put up Space Invaders in LA and New York (one Invader at the World Trade Center was destroyed on 9-11-2001); I wish he’d make it to DC, but maybe the Homeland Security folks have kept him at bay so far…

QUOTE OF THE YEAR
“Washingtonians think their town resembles Paris,” she once scoffed. “If Paris passed gas, you’d have Washington.”
- from Henrietta Lumbroso, AKA Etty Allen, mother of former Senator George Allen
[I don’t agree, I just think it’s hilarious]

RANDOM MUSINGS
On Asian Culture : I prefer chai tea to tai chi
On Revolutionary Tactics: I’d rather stow thrones than throw stones

EXCELLENT BAND NAME(S)
During a recent discussion between Sara and me regarding why most every French café posts the cost for a “gherkin supplement” on its menu, we stumbled on an excellent band name: Hoarding Gherkins. Another excellent band name would be Gherkin Elevator, the wonderful French invention that allows lonely gherkins (aack! another great band name!) to be easily lifted out of their brine (check out the thing at the bottom of the jar at http://amora.pourtoutvousdire.com/framora/product/Product_Detail_Ptvd_Framora/0,,10264-1577,00.html). Apologies to Dave Barry, who created the whole “good name for a rock band” humor concept, see http://www.davebarry.com/rockbandlist.html

CLIPS FROM THE BEDROOM WALL
Here’s some funny stuff I’ve found in local French periodicals and that’s now highlighted on our bedroom wall 1.) A kit of fashion accessories for an Ipod, intended just for young girls, with the they-must-not-speak-English name “Thrustmaster”; 2.) An ad for a tanning salon featuring “before” and “after” images, not of a pale-then-tan individual, but instead depictions of a person’s social life before and after the tan (in the first, a geeky guy licks a computer screen, in the second a sexy lady licks the geek’s ear); 3.) An ad for a gourmet Italian food store that features a cityscape of a charming Italian village, and towering over it, Godzilla-like, the owner, in chef’s whites, inexplicably…Japanese.

FUNNY FRANCE INFO MOMENTS
I love to listen to France Info, the 24-hour radio news station (you can listen live online at http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-info/accueil/). It’s always quite interesting, but a couple of times recently, it’s also been funny. First, they ran an in-depth story on gambling addiction story which was immediately followed by…that day’s horse race results. Later that day, they reported that a single, easy-to-remember nationwide domestic violence hotline had been created…and would be staffed six days a week, and closed overnight. Only in France…

IPOD ANECDOTE OF THE WEEK
Another absurd Ipod moment—while walking down one of Paris’ most narrow streets, in the primarily Jewish Marais neighborhood, what came on my Ipod but…Ghostbusters. But given the neighborhood, I suppose it was really more “Goybusters.” “Who ya gonna call? Your mother!” [Fret not, I just called my mom tonight, in case any of you were concerned…]

QUOTE ABOUT OUR STREET
I keep forgetting to post this quote about our street in Paris. In the last paragraph, she’s referring to a beloved French children’s book, “Les Contes de la rue Broca.”

“In Paris, I love the mystery of the Rue Broca because it is a street unlike any other…if you take a plan of Paris, you will see that the Rue Pascal and the Rue Broca run at right angles from the Boulevard Port-Royal. But if you take your car and to along the aforementioned boulevard hoping to find either street…you won’t find them! They both run from the Boulevard Arago to the Rue Claude-Bernard; thus, they ought to bisect the Boulevard Port-Royal.

In order to solve the mystery, return to Port Royal, but this time on foot. Start from the Gobelins Factory heading west and at a certain moment you will come alongside an empty space…Not far from here opens the mouth of a stairway. Descend the stairs: you are now on the Rue Pascal. Above you: the Boulevard Port-Royal. A little farther from the Gobelins, the same phenomenon occurs, but this time for the Rue Broca, which is a curved, narrow, tortuous, and sunken street not far away, but on another level, subterranean, in the open air and inhabited by people who, much like me (remember that I am an editor of tales), love their stories.

And I also love the story of Monsieur Pierre, the one about the giant, the sorcerer, Lustucru, and La Mere Michet, and about the voyaging doll and the fairs: the stories of the Rue Broca.”

- Paris Access, by Robert Saul Wurman (Second Edition, 1990)
Interview with Maria de Mase, Publisher (p. 200)

That’s all for now, stay tuned for something more thematic (it would be hard to be less thematic, I suppose…) next time…

Bordeaux and Cows

[Here are the two latest batches of photos:
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=41321172842757557/l=249642553/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB
http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=951201174410283660/l=249866127/g=14513899/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB ]

France just isn’t the country I thought it was and it seems just about every week there is something that takes my expectations and tosses them out the nearest “window”. This last week was no exception.

On a tip from our DC friend Meg, we decided to attend the French Agricultural Fair. I thought that this was my chance to make up for missing the Montgomery County Fair. The poster in the Paris metro had an enormous and very cute cow on it, but it was inside the city limits, so my expectations were low. But, it sounded like a great afternoon, one of the French Presidential Candidates was slated to visit on the day we were going and I heard there was a great food tent.

Well, I really underestimated the French this time. I should have known that any country that takes its food and wine so seriously would have to then take its agriculture seriously. As it turns out this event is so well attended, approximately 1:10 Frenchman will attend it!

First, the livestock—we visited the building with cows, sheep, goats, and pigs. Who would have guessed that the largest cow I’ve ever seen would be in Paris? (this is no small feat considering I did grow up in Indiana).

They had cows of every variety, each one seemingly more enormous than the previous. They also even had a special place for “the Poster cow”, so we saw him too. In a true Parisian twist, several of the larger cows were being sketched by art students.

The piglets were very cute, as usual, and the sausage stand a mere 25 feet from the pigs was a reminder of the circle of life. The goats and sheep weren’t particularly noteworthy, but I did enjoy the sheep dog who was rounding them up in the arena.

Admittedly though, we skipped the dog/chicken/horse building and the other 5 buildings of exhibits (gardening, tools, etc, etc, etc), to get to the good stuff aka—the food buildings. There was food from every region of France (which might as well be different countries in their own right gastronomically) and all of the French territories (say what you will about deciding French influence, but there are still a LOT of little places that speak French out there).

We enjoyed raw scallops and a special cake (that is pretty much butter, sugar and more butter) from Brittany, oysters from the coast, foie gras, boar sausage, caramel, cheese from all over, the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted that was a hand cranked coconut sorbet from the Tahiti area, banana rum (from Martinique) and wine from the Bordeaux region. Though I adore county fairs back in the States, I think the French version of the fair wins on the wine tasting area alone.

We did limit ourselves (so as to be able to make it through the rest of the fair), but it was really fun to chat wine with sellers who don’t even sell their wine in Paris (though we did ask often if they distributed to the states and /or Nebraska—though I’m not sure any of them had ever heard of Nebraska. CK/AK, we’re the Corkscrew Parisian scouting team. J)

We left happily full of all of France’s goodness (or at least as much as we could enjoy in 6 hours). Paris may be a city of cigarette smoking, café sitting, politics talking people, but they are a people who know really still connect with the country, if only at times for the food and I was happy to be counted among these Parisians for a wee bit.

sPg