Les Misérables

Last weekend, I skipped the country and discovered Luxembourg City: close enough to Paris for a weekend, yet far enough away to feel exotic. Most of my entourage raised an eyebrow when I announced my weekend plans, as apparently the going rap on Luxembourg is that it’s a) small b) boring and c) unsexy. Whatever. For those of you contemplating a visit to Luxembourg, it is none of those things. In addition to being gorgeous, G. and I found it to be plenty big (it’s the damn capital, people! 50 square kilometers—get with it!), plenty interesting, and ... well, it may not be sexy per se, but what do you want? It’s wedged between Germany, eastern France and Belgium; it can’t have everything. What it DOES have is money. Lots of money. And an entire army of invisible street sweepers who keep the place impeccably groomed. That, my friends, is one clean city. Even the fallen leaves look somehow artfully fallen. There is no “5-second rule” in Luxembourg; if you should let any food fall to the ground, you could probably pick it up whenever you felt like it and keep eating. No worries.

They also have really big cheese.

Oh sure, there is poverty in Luxembourg. We learned all about it at the city museum, currently featuring a temporary exhibit cleverly entitled “Poor Luxembourg.” Over the course of a really quite elaborate series of displays and installations, including full-scale models of a homeless camp and a “social” grocery store, we learned that “poverty” in the Grand Duchy is not so much a question of true financial insecurity, but rather of coping with limited access to social pleasures (fewer extracurricular activities for one’s children, for example). We also learned that the gross minimum wage is roughly €1,800 per month—by far the most generous of the EU. In other words, indigence is such an oddity in Luxembourg that it’s worthy of an entire museum exhibit.

France is not Luxembourg. France has plenty of poverty—as well as a fairly conspicuous homeless population. I would know; I was sat upon this week by one particularly conspicuous specimen. Sat. Upon. I was taking the métro home from work with a friend, when an extremely alcoolisé gentleman sporting rags and a half-consumed bottle of whiskey staggered onto our train, screaming what can only be translated as, “You bunch of #@*$!! I #$$& this &$*@ piece of #$$& world of @$#!! Go @#$% yourselves!” Everyone in the wagon stopped talking and stared at him, at which point the doors closed and the train took off. The sudden movement was obviously too much; in slow motion, he toppled backward ... right onto my friend and me, strategically seated as though we had intended to serve as a human safety net. It was nice.

Enter at your own risk.

Like the subway of your average metropolis, the Paris métro has quite a population of “residents.” Some drink themselves into oblivion; some peddle illicit merchandise; still others beg. Of the beggars, I count three categories: the passive, the proactive and the performing. The passive find a spot somewhere in the labyrinth of tunnels and stations and just camp there, with or without a puppy/child by their side, silently admonishing you to spare a dime. There is one such woman who hangs out at the station Opéra, at the foot of the stairway leading to the line 3 platform, just glaring at each and every person who walks by, her eyes boring right into you as you attempt to breeze past nonchalantly. I once fearfully offered her a few lunch vouchers—the fabulous tickets restaurant—and she actually turned out to be way nicer than I had imagined. I almost wanted to give her some marketing advice about the whole catching more flies with honey than with vinegar thing, but thought better of it. If I were homeless, would I take advice off some random commuter? Probably not.

The proactive métro dwellers go ahead and climb aboard the trains themselves, passing from wagon to wagon, shouting over the din about who they are and why they need your contribution. Some are polite; others are frighteningly belligerent. Consider this: back at home, my parents are harassed day and night by phone calls from perfect strangers soliciting money, but here in Paris, you can get the same treatment face à face! Who says urban living is impersonal?

Finally, there are the performers. Some dance; some sing; some play musical instruments. Some are quite good; others are so ear-splittingly bad I would pay them to just STOP ALREADY. And while I’m at it, I would also happily, happily pay them to cease and desist massacring such cherished oldies as “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “Hotel California,” anything by the Beatles, and the perennial favorite, “El Cóndor Pasa” (yes, I realize the tune predates Paul Simon. That’s no excuse to screw it up). There are also plenty of métro gypsies, but they enter more into the “nasty pickpocket” category than the “unfortunate homeless” one.

For the record, I do not have a heart of stone (plus I’m a Democrat; I’m like obligated to at least feign sympathy). Although, with the price of Paris’s monthly métro pass likely to increase to a whopping €78 over the next year, there comes a point when those of us who do use the public transportation system for ... transportation ... are perfectly justified in demanding, I don’t know, the right to not be sat upon by drunken homeless guys for example. I’m just saying.

Let them drink milk

This weekend, G. and I ventured out of Paris to a place I had been meaning to visit for ages—the Château de Rambouillet. For all those of you who haven’t been, go. Go NOW. It’s fabulous and relatively easy to get to, even without a car (no I still haven’t gotten my license). It’s even on the route to Chartres! Que demande le peuple ?

In a nutshell, Rambouillet began life in the 14th century as a fortified manor, but quickly became a favorite royal hang-out thanks to its well-stocked forests and, later, its convenient proximity to Versailles. Louis XVI finally purchased the place in 1783 and enjoyed its charms until that messy incident in 1789. Rambouillet was later inhabited by Napoleon, then a series of French presidents, and today is open to the public—but remains ready to roll out the red carpet (literally) should the Prime Minister ever decide to host a pajama party.

Now, I’ve noticed over the past few years that there seems to be a disturbing trend developing among many of the châteaux near Paris: they have begun to serve the double purpose of historical site and modern art gallery. So you’ll be at a given château, visiting let’s say a 17th century ballroom, admiring the architecture and breathing in the ambiance, when suddenly you realize that there’s a 40-foot-wide red plastic cog suspended from the ceiling by human hair. Some people find the clash of ancient and modern to be stimulating; I find it to be one big, unwelcome non sequitur—plus it totally messes up the meditative state I happily slip into when contemplating art history. Thus, the presence of an oversized, dismembered, clay aardvark smack dab in the middle of Rambouillet’s otherwise superb Renaissance salle des marbres did not score any points with yours truly. As God is my witness, I do not GET postmodern art. Never have, never will. Back in my days as an art history major (and proud of it!), I coined the now-celebrated adage, If it sucks, it’s postmodern—which is as true now as it was then.

Definitely meets the criterion.

Much like the nearby Château de Versailles, Rambouillet offers outlying buildings well worth the detour. Among them is La Laiterie de la Reine (the Queen’s Dairy), commissioned by Louis XVI in order to placate Marie Antoinette, who purportedly found Rambouillet to be sub-par (“a gothic pile of sh**” I believe were her exact words). So he offered her a stately, neoclassical marble temple of sorts in which to ... drink milk. It seems the aristocracy of the period found great delight in communal dairy consumption and even developed an entire ritual around it, in this case involving Sèvres porcelain tasting bowls, intricately-sculpted Carrera marble friezes and an indoor waterfall. Classy, but odd. Odder still, the English garden surrounding La Laiterie features the remains of a man-made grotto, whose former purpose was none other than to provide a peaceful, pastoral setting in which to ... drink (more) milk. I gather the anti-dairy movement didn’t have many followers at the time.

All of this begs one question: what was the deal with Marie Antoinette’s farm fantasies? What would Freud say? The Château de Versailles had its own pseudo HAMLET for crying out loud. Apparently, she would escape from the pressures of court life by dressing up as a milk maid and hanging out in the hamlet, milking a cow that her servants had specifically prepared beforehand. That’s pretty normal behavior from a monarch, no? I can just imagine Michelle Obama, clad in a little jean-and-gingham ensemble, gamboling about on a toy farm out on the South Lawn....

The visit ended with the Chaumière aux Coquillages, a beautiful little “shell cottage” intricately adorned with frescoes and row upon shimmering row of inlaid seashells. Also, it has ox femurs projecting from the walls. Rather macabre, but intriguing. What, pray tell, are they doing there? More postmodernism perhaps? No—they’re keeping the place dry of course! Apparently, bone does a fantastic job of combating humidity. EUREKA! So really, all G. and I need to do to fix our bathroom ceiling is track down a few unused ox femurs. It may shock our future guests to find massive lengths of animal bone jutting out out of the ceiling when they go to use the facilities, but then again, I could always soothe their anxiety by proclaiming the whole thing to be cutting-edge installation art.

Back to business

I’m back!

After quite an absence from spouting witticisms into the void, I have at last returned to my trusty AZERTY keyboard and am ready to pick up where I left off. I seem to recall a rant involving a giant bottle of olive oil. Geez, it has been a long time.

To sum up, I have just gotten married. In the US. Hence the long silence (I took a month of vacation ... kindly paid for by French employment law!). And while preparations for this Grand Event have kept me both highly occupied and highly on-edge for the greater part of the past 12 months, in the end it was a resounding success. In fact, it was such a success that I almost want to change career paths (again) and go into wedding planning. Yes it was totally stressful, but also quite a lot of fun. We did everything ourselves, meaning personal creativity + local suppliers + many pairs of helpful hands to bring it all together. And it really was the sweetest, most magical day I could ever have imagined.

And then suddenly it was over and we were heading to the Bahamas on our honeymoon. That’s how it generally works, no? For months and months you pour your whole heart into planning to marry, then all of a sudden the wedding comes and goes and before you have any time to process the whole thing you’re in another time zone. In the space of a few hours we passed from 4,000 feet in the mountains of San Diego to a sprawling white beach beneath nodding coconut palms in the middle of the Caribbean, feeling almost obligated to forget everything and RELAX! NOW! Which we did—in spectacular fashion—so I’m not complaining! I just find it psychologically bizarre that weddings work this way.

And now, a few weeks later, we are officially over our jet lag and more or less back to living our “normal” Parisian lives. I must say that so far I’m finding married life to be quite similar to fiancéed life, although something definitely does feel different. It’s a bit as though we’ve been initiated into a secret society, like we have a special wink-wink complicity that wasn’t there before. In the métro I find myself discreetly eyeing the left hands of my fellow passengers—and generally discovering precious few signs of membership in this particular secret society. Does no one get married around here anymore? (Answer: no.) So while I may no longer be “The Bride,” and thus no longer the center of attention (alas!), at least I AM part of this cool—and increasingly exclusive—married people’s club.

But that aside, G. and I are actually having a rather rough time of this post-wedding period. I especially am having a rough time of it. Which isn’t so surprising, really. I mean, for a full year this wedding constituted a real Project toward which I could direct nearly all my creative energy; an event brimming with symbolism and emotion, set in my hometown and uniting my loved ones from North America with my loved ones from Europe, my family with G.’s family, in the definitive fusion of the American me and the French-ish me.... In its wake, how could everyday life not seem somewhat pale? On the upside, I have total faith that these post-nuptial blues (that’s their official name—look it up) will disappear with time, much in the manner of the “day after Christmas” blues. But in all honesty, I hadn’t planned on how hard the adjustment would be; that’s the one thing I neglected to include in all those wedding lists, charts and spreadsheets.

And just to add insult to injury, since the Big Day has passed, the myriad wedding-related on-line newsletters to which I subscribed over the past year have spontaneously transformed themselves into newly-wed newsletters. So now when I sign in to my email account, I find it inundated with home decoration ideas, helpful hints on enjoying married life, and of course, everything related to maternity. While I find this unsolicited advice both invasive and anxiety-inducing (OMG am I supposed to have a POST-wedding to-do list? Quick! Where's my organizer?!?), I can’t help but wonder what would happen if I didn’t unsubscribe myself immediately. Would “my” newsletters just keep automatically evolving throughout my whole life? Would I receive pregnancy newsletters, then parenting newsletters, middle age newsletters, retirement newsletters...? “Personality quiz: what kind of mid-life crisis are you?” “Tips on planning the ultimate retirement party!” “Why drafting a will has never been easier!” The worst part is, this stuff probably really exists—or will someday. I think I’ll unsubscribe after all.

So to boil it all down, the wedding of the century (mine, obviously) is over and I’ve come to a big “NOW WHAT?” moment. I feel a bit as though I’m still sitting inside the movie theater after the credits have rolled. My colleagues like to joke that from here on out it’s giving foot massages, ironing shirts and whipping up complicated gourmet dinners that will be keeping me busy. But no, seriously—what is one supposed to do post-marriage and pre-pitter-patter-of-little-Franco-American-feet? I think I need a hobby. Or a dog. Or at least a new purse. Sigh.

 

The Terminal

So you know that remark I made a few months back about how I thought that my heretofore bad luck in the travel department might be changing? I, um, take it back.

I’ve just returned from two lovely weeks of vacation in the US, and while the trip itself was everything I had hoped it would be, the travel to and from was anything but. Now, as I have stated in the past, I have this thing with horrific airport scenarios. I miss my flight, my luggage disappears for days on end, weather leaves me sleeping on a bench in a deserted terminal.... One would think that such nightmares would leave me stronger, wiser—much in the way of a seasoned war general. By all rights, I should be the General Patton of air travel.

Alas, no. Not only do I seem to attract highly regrettable travel mishaps, but my subconscious stubbornly refuses to learn from its mistakes, thus leading to multiple repeats of said travel mishaps. Let’s take the example of G. and my return flight from San Diego to Paris on August 21, which set a new record in my already outstanding history of trips that could best be summed up by an emphatic “Oh, fuuuuuuuuuuuu....”

Let me first say that in hindsight, we were kind of asking for it. Our two-week holiday was actually composed of two separate round-trip tickets: one from Paris to Boston, where we spent the first few days, and the other from Boston to San Diego, where we spent the rest. Both legs involved a layover: Reykjavik for the first, Houston for the second. And yes, I realize that I once said I would never go to Iceland, but can’t the occasional blatant lie be considered a péché mignon? Anyway, at least I now know that the cold, cratered surface of the moon is not limited to the moon itself.

Now, in the case of our return flight, we had to do all of that again, only in reverse and all in the same day. That is to say, San Diego to Dallas (no, not Houston this time, just for a wee bit of extra fun); Dallas to Boston; Boston to Reykjavik; Reykjavik to Paris. And as if that weren’t enough, the next morning G. was due back at the airport bright and early in order to fly to Crete for an additional week with his family. Got all that? Do you think we were already screwed even before heading to the airport?

Up at the crack (and I mean the CRACK) of dawn, we got to San Diego Lindbergh Field more or less on time, checked in, paid the $25 x 2 baggage fee (damn you, American Airlines!) and thought we were all set. No one was in the security line and we still had a good 30 minutes prior to boarding. Sensing the all-too-familiar lump of separation anxiety rising in my throat, I thought that a quick coffee with my parents before flying back to my home halfway around the world would be perfectly reasonable. *Wry smile*

Coffee consumed, we returned to the security line, which now had the equivalent of three airplanes worth of people waiting in it. And by the time that my foggy brain realized just how much trouble we were in, it was too late. Why? Because as I always manage to forget, major US airlines aren’t nice. They don’t want to hear your excuses; it’s not their problem. Either you are at the gate RIGHT when it opens, or you’re up that well-known creek without a paddle. And as we were at the gate 10 minutes after it opened, that was the end for us. (Little matter that there was a good quarter of an hour remaining before the indicated departure time and the plane was parked. Right. There.)

And here is where I clamber onto my pro-European soap box and say that with all due respect, this policy is bullsh*t. In all of my travels, which are never any better organized in Europe than they are in the US, not once have I been faced with a closed gate 15 minutes early and a smug airline rep telling me that she has been paging me repeatedly for the last half hour (riiiiiight) and that now it is just too damn bad. Never. And don’t you dare go citing tight schedules and TSA regulations because I’m not buying it. Iceland Air lets people still board freaking 10 minutes after its official departure time and do you know what comes of it? Nothing, nothing at all (score one for Iceland).

But this wasn’t Iceland Air we were dealing with, but American f-ing Airlines. And from that moment, G. and I were faced with two possibilities:

• Worst case scenario: we remain “stuck” in the US, unable to find room on any other flights because everything is booked, pay an absolute fortune in new ticket fees, hotels, absent days from work, etc., and G. misses out on a week of vacation with his family in Crete, to which he had been looking forward for months and months. And I bear the guilt of it forever.

• Best case scenario: we catch a magical string of standby flights and make it to Boston just in time to catch the original flight to Paris as planned; G. goes to Crete; I am cleared of all charges.

So there we were, standing white-faced and panic-stricken before a closed gate. In AA’s defense, the representative did take pity on me once she had accepted the fact that I had not intentionally caused us to “miss” the flight (or maybe she was just embarrassed by my sobbing like a little girl). As such, she was willing to give the two of us stand-by tickets for the next one to Dallas and from there to Boston, which if all went well, would theoretically still allow us to make the connecting Paris flight by the skin of our collective Franco-American teeth. But that depended on there being enough room on both standby flights and on both flights being totally on time. Meanwhile, our bags had left without us (remind me again about those TSA regulations...?). As to where they would land, no one knew for sure. Boston if we were lucky, Dallas if we weren’t (just ask JFK).

As it turned out, the first standby to Dallas was full, so we had to wait for the second. The second one let us on, but the Boston leg announced forty-five minutes of delay, thus immediately killing any and all chances of making the Paris connection. We did all we could to avoid despair: called Iceland Air (closed), tried to buy new tickets (sold out), interrogated various airline reps (95% unhelpful), prayed. A LOT.

And you know what? While the first three strategies yielded nothing, that last one did. In the end, we made it onto the Boston standby; the pilot somehow got us to the gate only 8 minutes late and not 45; our bags really had arrived on an earlier flight and were simply waiting for us to grab them in the baggage claim area; we caught an airport shuttle to the international terminal almost immediately, and by racing down the hallway we made it to the Paris check-in just minutes before it closed, where the rep at the counter murmured under her breath, “Just in time.” We gave her our bags, ran through security and MADE THE FLIGHT. Sinking into our seats and breathing the biggest sigh of relief of our lives, we immediately bought two glasses of wine and toasted to real-life miracles. Now if that wasn’t a personal intervention by God Himself, I’ll eat my hat. I’ll eat everyone’s hats. It was actually quite humbling, because as holy priorities go, I’m sure we weren’t anywhere near the top.

Lesson learned: when in the US, NEVER %#@! AROUND WITH BOARDING TIMES. G. was so traumatized by the experience that he actually took a taxi to the airport the next morning for his Crete flight just to play it safe (G. never takes taxis)! He texted me later to say that he was in fact early for the flight and didn’t know how to deal with it. And I am back to my Paris life, so thankful to even be here that I will say nothing about next week’s scheduled public sector strikes. I mean, I could be sleeping on a bench in the Dallas/Boston/Lunar airport right now, waiting for a miracle. But the miracle came right when we needed it the most, as miracles tend to do. No air travel for this girl until December, and even then I think I’ll show up to the airport a full day early. That is if I can even find an acceptable airline. Between AA’s shenanigans, Continental’s frequent last-minute cancellations and United’s well-known penchant for breaking guitars, what’s an expat to do?

Survivante

Well, I survived the ski trip. But I think I have only the brevity of my séjour to thank for that! For as I predicted, I proved beyond any possible doubt that when I say “I’m awful at skiing,” it is not what the French would dub “2nd degree” (tongue-in-cheek) humor. I have bruises in places I didn’t know could be bruised, muscle aches in muscles I didn’t know I had. Taking the stairs at this point is pure agony, but I did it. I skied the Alps. Or more accurately, I slid down the Alps on my face.

My introduction to le ski was brief but intense, all the more so for having gone with G.’s family—both nombreuse and particularly, how shall I say, exuberant. Being virtually the only girl in the pack, I had to make do with a decidedly masculine, “sink or swim” approach to a choice selection of activities: snow hiking, cross-country skiing and some bizarre form of postmodern sledding involving thin, plastic contraptions vaguely resembling over-sized shovel heads. Zooming down the snowy forest trails we went on these things, narrowly avoiding violent collision with tree trunks and terrified children. Whatever happened to good old-fashioned inner tubes?

And as for the cross-country, that too was lost in translation. Somewhere in my life I had managed to develop the obviously erroneous impression that this alternative form of skiing was “easy”—in the sense that it didn’t involve big gnarly descents—but oh ho ho! Whatever was I thinking? The uphill segments were just fine: no falling over, just a bit of slipping and sliding. But alas, what goes up must come down, and those segments were most assuredly not just fine. Thank God I sprained both of my ankles back in high school, because that endowed them with an elasticity that kept me from doing any serious harm to myself when I fell over … and over … and over … and over, on down the hill, twisting them in all directions because cross-country skis stay on no matter what. Who on earth invented this sadistic, ridiculously hard-to-learn sport? The jury is going to have to seriously deliberate before delivering a verdict on any hope for a possible Katrin Goes Skiing, the Sequel.

At least I was able to experience the singular beauty of the snow-adorned Alps and the extreme pleasure of returning to a Paris several degrees warmer than the one I had left. Rainy, of course, but definitely warmer. Dare we speculate that spring is somewhere nearby? I for one certainly want to. Not that spending my evenings cuddling with the radiator isn’t fun and all, but I have fond memories of days gone by when I could actually sit outside, on the balcony, and not even shiver! Ha ha! Or were those but the wild imaginings of my sun-deprived brain? Paris weather often brings back memories of reading Ray Bradbury’s short story “All Summer in a Day,” although the comparison is not entirely fair on my part; I should also point out that Parisian weather patterns are perfectly capable of swinging 180° in the other direction, resulting in record-breaking heat waves and extreme fan shortages such as that of 2003. Great year for French wine, incidentally. Rungis food market, on the other hand, will never be the same.

In any case, my skiing ordeal is over; here I am, back in Paris, snuggled up on the couch with a cocktail in hand, jazz in the background, and the extended edition DVD of Lord of the Rings to savor as I will. And I have to say, this beats any ski trip I can think of.

On winter recreation

In but a few short days I will be going skiing. Yes, I, Katrin Holt, have decided to blatantly put life and limb at risk. Why? Because love means making certain compromises—and in this particular case that means agreeing to extreme physical discomfort and a generous dose of ridicule because I’m the significant other of a Frenchman and in the winter, the French go skiing. With their significant others.

There are many sports at which I am bad. Volleyball was never my fort, nor was tennis. I never did manage the 7-minute mile back in junior high, despite the dubious pleasure of weekly opportunities. I’m lousy at basketball, never played water polo and the hand-eye coordination of softball was never my thing. But while my skills in these areas may be less than stellar, at no sport am I more pathetic than I am at skiing.

At this point in my diatribe (oft-repeated, especially around this time of the year), my interlocutor generally protests with something along the lines of, “But you said you’re from the mountains. How can you not know how to ski?” As if mountains were all the same, all across the world, each and every one of them outfitted for rock climbing in the summer and alpine skiing in the winter. Yes, I’m from the mountains, and no, my mountains aren’t known for skiing. Hiking, sure; apple pies, absolutely. But no skiing. It’s more a sledding kind of place. Sledding is fun; sledding is easy; sledding I like.

So no, I’ve never learned how to ski. And honestly, this ineptitude has never been the source of any significant sense of inferiority. On the contrary, the very concept of donning multiple layers of puffy, multi-colored ski clothes, strapping what appear to be 10-pound moon boots to my feet, and going sliding off on those precarious-looking contraptions popularly known as skis, risking a broken neck in the name of “fun” and coming home at the end of the day cold, wet and nursing a bruised body and ego, has somehow never succeeded in eliciting any form of enthusiasm from me. And yet, much of the world, including 99% of the French, sees things differently. How many times have I heard the praises of skiing sung? The beauty of the mountains; the thrill of the descent; the gratification of those particular muscle aches; the gustatory bliss of a piping hot fondue savoyarde or raclette at the end of the day. I could go on....

But I won’t. Let me just say that the skiing world and I have always had our differences. Even before ever attempting it, I already knew that it wasn’t my bag. Yes, I once took a shot at a quick bout of skiing, back in my wayward youth, at a site aptly named “Purgatory.” We only stayed for a day, the majority of which I spent falling over, careening into innocent fellow skiers and bouncing down gargantuan “kiddie” slopes like a human snowball much in the fashion of vintage Goofy cartoons, leaving random skis and poles dotting the hillside behind me. In the end, I sought refuge in a pseudo log cabin café, where I basically hid until day’s end, sipping hot chocolate and watching tiny children tearing the hell out of the slopes as though it were easy AND fun.

In light of my lack of affinity for winter sports, I long ago mastered the fine art of avoiding any form of participation in the masochistic post-Christmas French tradition of “le ski.” However, G. caught on to my heretofore-successful maneuvering and has somehow managed to finagle me into joining his ski-loving family this year for “just” a long weekend. We’re going to “zee Alps,” where I would just like to point out in passing that skiing deaths—deaths!—occur every single year.

But no matter. I shan’t be called a wuss. I shall go. I shall leave frozen Paris and travel to the even more frozen Alps, where I shall don the silliest ski clothes that I can get my hands on and spend every day acquiring the aches and pains required to earn my evening dose of raclette. Have I mentioned that I abhor raclette, right along with every other traditional Savoyard dish involving potatoes and/or bread and stinky, indigestible melted cheese? But never mind! I’ll go, and if I hate it (which I undoubtedly will), then I won’t go back again next year. That is the other half of the compromise.

And so, dear readers, if you never hear from me again, know that I at least left this earth in a spirit of adventure and diplomacy, risking my fragile ego and my (relatively) young life in the name of Franco-American relations. I should be awarded immediate French citizenship just for this. And if I do survive, you can expect a full report on this totally bizarre ritual fashion of rendering the already bleak winter just that much more unpleasant. Wish me luck!

Sonny Bono: I bet he agrees with me.

Say cheese!

This entry is the second installment in a 3-part series on the crown jewels of French cuisine. Last week, we covered the wide world of Parisian bread; next week, we seriously get into the vino. But today it’s all about the cheese.

As Meg Ryan’s character says to Kevin Kline’s character in French Kiss (one of my all-time favorite movies, even if it is a bit … cheesy. Har har), “Did you know that there are 452 official government cheeses in this country? Don't you think that's incredible? To come up with 452 ways of classifying what is basically a bacterial process?”

It is incredible, all this French cheese. Not to bash my motherland or anything, but let’s face it: American cheese is a joke. I mean, I like sharp cheddar as much as the next guy, but let’s be honest: our cheese comes in two colors—orange and off-white—and we turn it into such oddities as string cheese, cottage cheese, hamburger cheese, low-fat and non-fat cheese, soy cheese, spray cheese, Velveeta and my personal favorite, Cheez Whiz (at which point it is no longer appropriate to refer to the product as “cheese” per se, but rather “cheez,” just to truly express the extent of the denaturalization to which it has been subjected). Sad, I tell you; sad, sad, sad.

Some will point out that America also makes delicious farm cheeses and that I’m being too harsh because Wisconsin and Vermont and even my own California all make great American cheese. Just look:

I have never understood this ad campaign. California makes incredible wine, grows delicious avocados and citrus and also produces some really tasty almonds. But I’m sorry; never have I been wowed by the cheese selection at any of the many, many, many Californian grocery stores that I have frequented.

France, on the other hand, will never be beat when it comes to cheese. Mmmmm. Walk into any French grocery store, no matter how small, and you’ll be offered a range of cheeses that commands respect. And those are just the grocery stores! Fromageries are a whole other category! I can actually smell the cheese just thinking about it. Oh wait, that’s because my boyfriend just opened the refrigerator. (Side note: I think I’ll start referring to him in this blog as “G.” so as to semi-preserve his anonymity while avoiding overuse of the sophomoric term “my boyfriend.”)

Yes, it’s true: French cheese is stinky. Delicious, mind you, but stinky. G. and I keep our cheese selection in a Tupperware container in the refrigerator, next to an open box of baking soda (sold only in pharmacies here, incidentally; perhaps to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands?). But do you think that has any real effect on the odor? Not really, no. However, the alternative—cheese elimination—is unthinkable, and so we ignore the odor. Or rather, I ignore the odor. Being French, G. probably thinks that that’s just how cheese smells. And if we’re being technical, he’s right; that is how cheese smells … when you haven’t pasteurized the hell out of it (eh-hem FDA). What is so scary about raw-milk cheese? The French have been eating it for centuries, and the last I heard, raw-milk cheese consumption has yet to have any impact on French mortality rates. So what’s the deal? On the flip side, you can of course get pasteurized cheese in France, too (Pasteur was French after all), but it only serves as a bland—albeit less stinky—alternative to real cheese.

As we celebrated Thanksgiving this past week, I think the following cheese and Thanksgiving-related story is appropriate: in 1999, I was living with a French family just outside of Paris while participating in my university’s foreign exchange program. At the end of November, my brother flew out from California to spend a few weeks with me and celebrate Thanksgiving à la française. Over the course of his stay, he had many opportunities to sample a wide array of French cheeses, all of which he just LOVED but, sadly, none of which he could find in the US upon his return. 

So two years ago for Christmas I thought I would surprise him with a real raw milk camembert. I lovingly selected it at the airport boutiques at Charles de Gaulle airport, had it double wrapped in tinfoil and put into a little container that I had brought along with me to mask its odor. The flight went just fine; I even put the bag in the overhead compartment so as to avoid any telltale scents from escaping. However, as is often the case, my connecting flight was canceled due to poor weather (which the airline naturally classified as an “act of God,” as if God Himself had wanted to teach me a lesson about smuggling unpasteurized dairy products into America). The result was that I had to spend the night in a hotel near the airport and take the first available flight the next morning. Did the hotel room have a refrigerator in it? No. 

By the time my cheese and I finally touched down the following day, I was more than ready to hop into my brother’s truck and begin the 90-minute commute to our parents’ home in the mountains. However, after greetings and hugs, my brother’s first comment was something along the lines of, “WHAT is that smell?!” Terribly proud of myself, I answered, “I brought you a surprise!” His response: “You’re not putting that thing in my truck. I just cleaned it.” So we put the cheese in the truck bed with my suitcase and headed off. In the end, my family was touched that I had gone to such lengths to bring them this cheesy treat from across the Atlantic, but no one wanted to eat it. “It smells like sweaty feet!” was my mom’s first reaction. “Pheeeeew! Something's ripe in here!” was my dad’s (of course, by that time the cheese had been traveling for something like 42 hours. How would you smell?). Being the good sports that they are, though, they at least tried it. The verdict? The taste was great, but the odor was just too overpowering for their uninitiated noses. So in the end, we brought the cheese to the annual Christmas party thrown by some very dear friends of ours who know and celebrate France and its 452 glorious cheeses. They loved it. 

Give us this day

No series of reflections on life in France would be complete without exploring the gastronomical Sainte Trinité: bread, cheese and wine. All are near and dear to my heart, as attested to by the fact that I even devoted several years of my life to working with one of them. But that is a tale for another day. My next few posts will cover these three delights one by one. And while each is a topic that could easily transform itself into an entire book, the nature of the blog format requires that I be (relatively) succinct, which is not necessarily a bad thing considering the literary realm of edible Paris isn’t exactly what one might call unexplored. But food in the French capital sure is fun to write about, so here we go.

Bread: the staff of life. What would France be without its legendary loaves? There are some 35,000 boulangeries in France, over 1,200 of which are in Paris. Over the past 10 years, I’ve frequented all manner of these fine establishments and sampled countless examples of their creations. Some have been delicious; some have been perfectly mediocre; some have been flat-out bad. Some have been surprisingly cheap; some have been surprisingly expensive. Some have been over-rated and some under-rated, but few have ever left me indifferent.

Having had the privilege of growing up with the soul-nourishing scent of homemade bread often wafting through the house, I have an innate appreciation for the real deal. Chewy on the inside, crusty on the outside, aromatic and still warm from the oven.... Is there any food more wholesome, more comforting? You can certainly get that kind in Paris. You can also get the opposite, and more often than should be the case.

Appropriately enough, this point is best illustrated by the baguette, undoubtedly the quintessential French bread. Baguettes come in white, sourdough, whole wheat, pumpernickel, 6-grain, poppy seed or even more imaginative variations. They can range anywhere from golden, fragrant, lovingly baked and packed full of chewy goodness to tasteless, odorless, industrial impostors containing nothing but cottony fluff. There are two ways to distinguish a real, hand-made baguette from an inferior, mass-made one: either by its weight (a real baguette should have some sturdiness to it, otherwise it’s all crust) or by a close examination of its underside (if a criss-cross pattern resembling dental gauze has been baked into what should be perfectly smooth crust, then that poor baguette is about as authentic as a 50-buck Rolex and would best be left alone or fed to the pigeons, who have absolutely no qualms about swallowing such things).

Incidentally, this rule also provides a key to differentiating good French restaurants from poor ones; the sign of an establishment of quality lies in the contents of its breadbaskets. Restaurants worth frequenting all serve superior bread, period. I have never been to a good French restaurant that serves mediocre bread, just as I have never been to a mediocre one that serves decent bread. Restaurateurs who really care about what they do will go to the trouble of ensuring that their bread (generally baguette) is purchased from a good bakery, even if it means walking an extra 50 meters. C’est normal.

As a true lover of real French bread, I have always been shocked—and to a certain extent offended—by those willing to turn a blind eye to the quality of the baguette they buy on their way home. With so many boulangeries to choose from, what exactly is their excuse? It can neither be time, nor scarcity. Nor can it be price; a mere 50 cents separates the most expensive baguette from the least expensive one. What, then? Gustatory indifference? Can it be?

At one point, a friend of mine and I jokingly created the two-person “Baguette Brigade,” dedicated to promoting responsible baguette consumption and fighting inferior bread on a daily basis. When one of us would spot an unsuspecting consumer strolling blithely along holding an obviously industrial baguette (e.g. a baguette folded in half, carried under the arm as one would a newspaper—gasp!), she would immediately take action (primarily in the form of pointing and laughing). Good times.

In closing, take my advice: when in Paris, put all carb counting on hold and enjoy the bread! It’s real, it’s wholesome, and it’s fabulous. Only do your taste buds a favor and buy the real stuff. Avoid any and all depressing, flimsy, unsatisfying, industrial baguettes, for which there is absolutely NO excuse! If you need a bakery recommendation, email me and let me help. You don’t want to leave Paris with bad bread memories, and you really don’t want to risk a run-in with the Baguette Brigade.