Monthly Archives: April 2012

Mayday, mayday

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Tomorrow is May Day and it is going to be a big political day here in Paris, with the party-who-shall-not-be-named throwing their annual fiesta at the foot of the Jeanne d’Arc statue on the rue de Rivoli. Poor Joan. Really, it was not enough that the English burned her at the stake, she had to be adopted as a symbol by the nationalist party? Did anyone ask her thoughts on the subject? I’ll be avoiding that area, as I do every year.

Not to be out done, the Presidential candidates have decided to throw some parties of their own, with Hollande (the candidate, not the country) calling for members of his party to join the unions as they walk from Denfert Rochereau to storm the Bastille. Although I presume his campaign manger will be staying home nursing a hangover, after the party he attended this weekend with Daniel Strauss-Kahn. Seriously? The week before the elections and Hollande’s men are already flirting with the world’s sleaziest flirt? Sarkozy, who seems to be arriving a bit late to the whole game, intends to take over the Trocadero, or perhaps the Champs de Mars; he wasn’t sure the last I checked Le Monde. ALthough, facing France’s military academy, L’Ecole Militaire shows there is a lot of conflict in the air.

Personally, I’d rather be visits museum, but they close for May Day. I’d rather go shopping, but the stores close, too. If the weather was nice, I’d go for a hike, but its not looking like the weather is going to be nice. Au secours…. damsel in distress!!!

The secret garden

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For a brief time, my daughters were adopted by a French grandmother. Mamie is a kind,  beautiful, incredibly elegant lady with a large flock of her own grandchildren, as well as a part time job raising funds and awareness for kidney disease, but she somehow found time for my girls and me, too. Mamie’s hair is always in a perfectly impeccable chignon, she wears stockings and once apologised for being under-dressed because she had on a pair of slacks. In the rare moments that she is not working or taking care of the grandchildren, Mamie goes to the theater and book lectures.

When Mamie would take the girls for the weekend she would give them intellectual exercises, teach them card games and cook traditional French dishes like baked endives. My kids didn’t love everything, but that knew instinctively that you don’t mess with Mamie. You finish what is on your plate, forget that computers or cellphones exist, say please, thank you and non, merci madame. Against all logic, they absolutely adored hanging out with her, and somehow managed to choke down those endives.

One evening after the girls’ father left, Mamie showed up at my door, telling me I needed a break and that I should get out of the flat. NOW. This very moment. She handed me a coat and sent me on my way with strict orders to eat something.

Later that evening, back at home with the girls safely asleep, Mamie and I had a chat.

“It is really shocking that he left. He was so in love with you, but you know, its kind of your fault a bit, too.” she informed me.

I continued to listen as she explained the concept of le jardin secret, the French woman’s secret garden. At around the age of 40, women are well advised to take a lover. You never share this with your friends, your family, or anyone has have ever breathed. Not even those who are now 6 feet under. It is your garden. Your secret garden.

Since that chat, I have had a few years to talk about it with my parisiennes and read about it in ELLE and eavesdrop on the subject in cafés. The theory is that having a secret gives you confidence, which draws people to you (people like your husband, for example). The French also believe that falling in love is the ultimate diet, so having a lover is great for the figure. And it is safe to assume that when one has a lover, she pays more attention to her looks and her wardrobe. To be brief, a woman in love looks hot.

I don’t know about your average Frenchman, but I am confident that Mr French would much rather send me to a fat farm, offer me a day at a spa and invite me on a shopping spree. This strikes me as a ridiculously complicated way to re-attract your man and perhaps there is something seriously wrong with my sense of adventure, but personally, I’d rather bring out the mink-lined handcuffs to spicy up my marriage.

The husbands, Mamie assured me, remain totally oblivious, but are unconsciously drawn closer to their wives at an age when their eyes tend to stray, looking for some young blood to make themselves feel younger. Does this ensure his fidelity? No way. If the women have a secret garden, surely they are hoeing in somebody else’s yard. The idea is that, while he may stray, he won’t stray far. And if he does leave, well, at least you will have had an adventure of your own. I am going to have to take her word on this. It is not something I can imagine for myself, but I get a girlish pleasure knowing that the very traditional, deceptively up-tight ladies I see strolling my quartier are, like Mamie, very likely to have had a secret garden adventure of their own.

The mailing list

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Our first apartment in Paris, once we finally immigrated here, was on the rue de Babylone, exactly across the street from the men’s wear department at the Bon Marché. Trés chic, n’est-ce pas?

Not that it meant anything to me. I was 20 lbs too heavy, did not own a bra and hadn’t shaved anything in decades. I was a granola eating, barely-recovered vegetarian, native Californian. The only shopping I got excited about was the organic farmer’s market on the boulevard Raspail every Sunday. I’d spend serious amounts of time explaining to the market vendors that, non, I really did not want an extra bag to separate my tomatoes from my asparagus, they could co-habitate quite happily for the 100 metres it would take to get to my front door, but the planet wouldn’t be in such great shape if everyone took a bag for each fruit they purchased. I’d get the gallic shrug and head home in my Birkenstocks.

Then one fine, blossom blooming, gorgeous spring day, the very first of the season, I opened the front door to our flat and I saw that nearly ever Parisenne, chic or otherwise, was carrying the same handbag. I am not exaggerating. Sequined bags going past to my right, sequined bags going by to my left, sequined bags going down into the Metro, sequined bags perched on the rattan café stools at my feet, sequined bags balanced on park benches directly across the street. Clearly, everyone had received a fashion alert in the night, telling them what to wear for the first warm day of the season, and I had not been on the mailing list! I felt so left out. But, like, really. I still feel the sting today. Why wasn’t I on the mailing list?

The bag was just a simple canvas tote, with sequin trim across the handles and around the base and it came in a multitude of colors. The funny thing is, until then I had never wanted to have something everyone else has and I don’t particularly like sequins, although they are starting to grow on me. I felt left out, just the same.

It didn’t take me long to learn (I lived across the street from the Bon Marché, after all) that the bag is a Vanessa Bruno, by the eponymous designer. It was the ‘it’ bag of the season and many seasons there after. In fact, you still see the same design everywhere, ten years later. One of the great things about the Vanessa Bruno tote is that it is relatively affordable for an ‘it’ bag, usually available for under 100€. It is very light, and easy to wear, making it a favorite with local high school students, their Moms, their Grandmothers and every other woman who has ever seen one.

Thanks to the Paris lifestyle, which requires walking kilometres and kilometres until your feet crumble and you must rush off for a pedicure, I lost those surplus kilos. Peer pressure from my Parisiennes had me waxing in a matter of months and I now have a lovely collection of French lingerie. I’ve taken my blinders off and allow myself to admire fine fashion, even spoiling myself with an occasional shopping trip during les soldes, but I never got a Vanessa Bruno tote. And I learned that there is no mailing list. There is Telerama, ELLE and Garance Doré, which local fashionistas follow like a diamond cutter sharpens his tools. And there are my Parisiennes who keep me on their list, which is all I really need.

Vanessa Bruno

 

La honte*

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a visual moment of silence

This week, I am ashamed to be French. This week, Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the Front National, a racist, anti-immigration, anti-Europe, far right political party received 18% of the popular vote in the presidential elections. This distressing news has captured the national headlines, with people decrying the fact that 1 in 5 French have racist tendencies. I estimate that it is probably worse than that, once you’ve removed the Jews, Muslims and immigrants from the calculations. You would remove these groups because that is what Le Pen would like to do, remove us from France, so it is very unlikely many of us actually voted for her. The party-who-must-not-be-named (I am avoiding using their name or initials for Google reasons) is the 3rd most important political party in France. Things were only slightly worse in 2002, when the party-who-must-not-be-named candidate was actually in the second round of voting, and was dangerously close to actually being elected the president of France.

For an interesting slice of life, we heard the result during dinner with E and two of her close friends. One whose father survived the Rwandan genocide, another whose mother educated herself out of the Marrakesh Medina. Both of these heros immigrated to France, both became doctors and both now have international careers, making this world a healthier place for the whole world.

I have to be honest, as a Jew, an immigrant and an incurable globe-trotter, I have never really followed this party’s program in great detail. It was enough for me to know that they would not be getting my vote. I could not quote any of their proposals or cite any of the changes they’d make. But not long ago, someone I know well mentioned that she and many of her friends were considering voting for Le Pen. At first, I was in shock. It is tragic, but I eventually understood why she’d been led astray. She is French, middle class and relatively young. None of the candidates are speaking to her, yet she represents a large percentage of the population. Then you read the party-who-must-not-be-named’s proposals and they talk about cutting budget costs and protecting France and it sounds reasonable. In fact, it sometimes sounds like they are the only party offering a solution. Tragically, it is the wrong solution, but it is easy to see how people get taken in. In order to convince her otherwise, I went into research mode.

I learned from their site that the party-who-must-not-be-named wants France out of the Euro zone, to re-enforce its borders, and install a zero-tolerance policy towards crime. One of its key proposals would reduce the titres de séjours for visitors wishing to stay more than 3 months from 200,000 per year to 20,000. That means less foreign students, less foreign workers and less ex-pats. In a time of globalization, this all sounds like a pretty bad idea and it hides some of the more sinister aspects of their plan, like turning out all illegal immigrants and denying them medical care. I then went to SOS Racisme to see what the other side, my side, had to say. The party-who-must-not-be-named was founded by the current candidates father, a man who has been to court and condemned countless times for his racism. A man who is President of the party. Which does not seem to bother nearly 1/5th of my countrymen, but it certainly bothers me.

*shame

SOS Racisme

 

Rooms with a view

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This is the view that greets me as I open my eyes each morning. My very own guardian angel. She is here because I live in an 18th century convent. A modern Jewish girl living out of wedlock in an 18th century convent. Irony…

The Bug no longer notices our angels, but our view has captured her attention recently. Wednesday, April 4, she was at home studying for her mid-term exams when she heard a rather loud clanging bell. Peeking her head into my studio she asked what was going on. I followed the sound back to her window and looking out, I saw that it was the rémouleur. I had forgotten that this neighborhood had its very own knife sharpener. He passes by the first Wednesday of every month, ringing a large brass bell in his left hand to tell us that it is time to affûte our blades.

photo courtesy of the Rémouleur blog

The profession has existed since the middle ages and they still have a guild mentality, with a French blog of their very own, featuring images of rémouleurs, past and present, from across the globe. The French singer, André Claveau even wrote a whimsical song about these men and their work in 1952.

I thought this was incredibly charming when I first moved to France. Admittedly, it took me several first Wednesdays of the month and a keen sense of voyeurism before I understood what all the commotion was about. But once I go it, I was IN, running downstairs with a handful of kitchen knives at the first clang that signaled his arrival. We agreed upon a price, then he set down his cart, and started pedaling, putting the whetstone into motion. 15 minutes and 20 euros later he had basically destroyed my entire collection of high-tech cooking knives. It took several years with a proper rémouleur at the Sunday Richard Lenoir market to set things straight. Despite my disappointment, it still thrills me that this man passes by my street each month, as another man once did when my home was first built, and as men have done for the past 300 years.

Marché Richard Lenoir

 

Flower power

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Fresh-cut garden flowers are a Parisian institution. Odd in a city with very few private gardens, but congruent with all the farmers’ markets throughout the town. I love watching the pages of the calendar turn as each month brings its very own blooms. This month is April which means overwhelmingly fragrant blossoms of French Lilac perfume the streets and my home.

When I am very lucky, one of les filles, back in the city after a weekend at the family’s country home, will call from her apartment which is overflowing with flowers that grandmère insisted she cart home. Would I be a chérie and take some of the buds off her hands? They are gorgeous, but the perfume is a bit too much. Being a generous, accommodating gal, I am happy to help out.

If no there are no Parisiennes needing to pawn off their unwanted blooms, I head to the local market, where people from nearby suburbs, looking to get rich off of us city saps, harvest buckets full of these precious purple flowers and hawk them from the street corners. 5€ for a generous handful that keeps my home smelling like a day in the country. Really, who needs Calgon?

Ah Vo Tay

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That is your French pronunciation lesson for today.  Ah Vo Tay is how to say a voté, I wanted you to hear this French expression from chez vous, because we voted in France today. And responsible citizens from across the country will hear this cry as they place their ballot in the voting urn and someone declares rather loudly, a voté”! It put shivers down my spine the first time I heard this when I was finally able to vote and it still thrills me to bits. Today was a particularly special day because I got to hear the official call twice; once for myself, and once as my 18 year daughter voted for the first time in her life.

In San Francisco, we’d vote from a neighbor’s garage, but every polling station I have been to in France has been inside of a public school. Despite the early Sunday morning desolation of Paris during the school holidays, there were lines at all three polling stations I visited (Mr French, my daughter and I were each assigned a different address) today. Upon arrival at the station, you present your Carte Electorale and an official ID. You are then handed an envelope (today’s was powdered blue)  and invited to collect the voting sheets. A voting sheet is an index card-sized document that bears one candidate’s name printed in large, bold letters. This year there were 10 candidates, but I only took 9 sheets, because I refuse to even touch Marine LePen’s ballot.

You are then invited into the isoloir. The isolation room. Sounds scary, but its just a simple voting booth with a wildly evocative name. Inside the isoloir, you pick your candidate’s ballot and slip it into your envelope. Outside the booth stands a large paper recycling bag for the rejects ballot, but I keep my voting chits because It feels more private. You then get back in line at the urn. When your turn arrives, they once again review your ID and confirm that you are on the list. The urn master then makes his declaration. Today he had a slight problem with my name and I stood there mutely as he announced;

Sylvia Jean Jeanne Jane Sabes a voté!

Bakkus

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Last night I was working, waiting for Mr French to get home from the office. The girls are on April holidays so just the adults are dining in this week. The children we live with are mine, so dinner responsibility is mine, as well, turning this week into a mini-holiday for moi. Only half the mouths to feed means only half the mouths to please.

20h30 the phone rings.
“I’m on my way home.” Mr French announces,  “What are we doing for dinner?”

It is late, I am starving and we’ve got another half an hour before Monsieur walks trough the door.

“Raviolis,” I improvise, “the truffle ones from the Maison de la Truffle that I got at Monoprix last week.”

“How about we go across the street to that wine bar they opened last week,” he proposes.

Now, I LOVE truffles. I go to great lengths every winter for my truffles, but I am faithful to my men, not my food. I start doing the happy dance… no kitchen duty for me tonight!!!

Bakkus, the new wine bar, (hey, that’s a pun… Bakkus, Bacchus, only took me three days to get it) reminds me of Semilla; exposed walls, lots of wine and a younger crown than we generally get in this part of Paris. One wall is lined with glass enclosed wine bottles, each bottle attached to some new-fangled digital contraption that serves the exact amount of wine requested by the server. Directly facing that wall is a large chalkboard listing the day’s offering, each dish divided into three; avocado/crab/green apple entrée, or cod/anchovy/green sauce main. Ordering made easy.

Keeping in sync with the über modern serving devices, the wine menu is on an iPad that has information for each wine offered. Which is not a bad idea, because Bakkus offers some heavy hitters and it is probably good to know exactly what you’re ordering before investing in a Montrachet or St Julien. There are friendlier, more reasonable wines available, and there are three different serving sizes, so you can even create your own flight.

The food arrived and it was lovely. Served on slate or white porcelain, the presentation is original without being fussy. The flavours are pure and textures play an important role. The meal was not perfect, the house-made artichoke purée had an unintentional, yet distinctly burnt taste and I think a few of the sides would do well with a bit more seasoning. My favorite dish of the evening was dessert. A thick, perfectly carmalised slice of pineapple clad in a yogurt sorbet beret and a sash of verbena syrup. Light, with a palette pleasing balance of sweet and acid. Mr French nearly applauded for his alarmingly green pear that had been poach in a mint syrup. Secretly, I am afraid that he was thrilled to have found an easy, local joint for those moments when he just can not take another night of my “cooking”.

Bakkus – 97 rue du Cherche Midi, no website, yet.

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