Mi Casa

First, a little about where I am living.

The street is called Valverde. From one end, the end from which I took the picture, it is quite lovely. The other end, however, is peppered with sex shops selling “love toys,” as advertised from the outside (among other things, no doubt). Also, there are a number of prostitutes on that end of the street. When I say “a number”, the number I see is along the order of 15 or 20.

[I would like to point out that this is really my first “experience” with prostitutes. I’ve seen one or two women that I’ve suspected of being prostitutes in Paris, and one or two “confirmed” prostitutes in Nantes. But needless to say, I never saw throngs of them, never up close and never every day. Any previous knowledge I had about prostitutes came from Hollywood movies. So I was shocked to find that they don’t all dress particularly provocatively, they don’t all wear a lot of make up, and the greater majority of them on my street stand in doorways mindlessly cracking open pumpkin seeds with their front teeth (chucking the casings on the pavement) and drinking fruit juice. Jackets, flip flops, pumpkin seeds and fruit juice? This isn’t at all what I had pictured]

The apartment itself is really like an upscale dorm—there are eight of us who live here, all in our 20’s. Each person has their own private bedroom, but we share a lounge area, kitchen and three full bathrooms. The entire place is immaculately clean, white and quiet. The décor is very VERY minimalist—there is little furniture and little decoration, and everything is white. The entire place is situated along one long narrow hallway, the lounge in the front, the rooms in the middle and the kitchen and bathroom at the end. The hallway has high white ceilings, halogen light, white walls, white wood floor. All of the sounds echo and resonate through this space, so everyone has taken to stepping lightly and to speaking in hushed tones. In fact, one of the girls here says that no one should stay more than two months in this apartment because it so resembles a mental institution that you will necessarily lose your mind to fit in to the surroundings. I don’t know if I necessarily agree, since I happen to love clean, quiet spaces. I won’t find out, of course, since I’ll be leaving after two months.

My immediate neighbor is quite peculiar. It seems he is Swedish and has been here since October. Perhaps he has gone mad months ago. No one knows what his name is. When I say “no one,” I am referring to a Mexican girl (Regina) and a Venezuelan girl (Maria) who are the two residents I am friendly with, and the only two who are very social. There used to be a beautiful Italian guy called Franco, who was social, but he’s gone back to Italy. He didn’t know the Swedish man’s name, either. General consensus is that he is very odd, our Swede. For one thing, he must have every season of Married With Children on DVD box set—before work in the morning, he watches an episode, and as soon as he comes home at night from work, I hear him nearly running down the hallway, fumbling with his keys, and turning it on the second he gets in the door. “love and marriage love and marriage…” The first few days I was here, when I wasn’t going out very much, I toyed with the notion that perhaps that was his cell phone ring since I heard it so often. But one evening while I was trying to sleep, I noticed that it came, in fact, about every 40 minutes and that he never spoke afterwards. And so in this way I ruled out the cell phone theory. He presumably watches the show all evening long, until about midnight, only breaking to make himself some dinner (as every time I come in or go out I hear the theme song or Al Bundy). Another, and final, detail about him: he eats microwaveable meatballs every night.

The room to the left of me is occupied by an Indian man from England (judging by his accent that I hear through the wall), whom I’ve seen only once. But I hear him most nights talking to his girlfriend over the internet (she’s in medical school in London and wants to drop out), and watching Bollywood movies.

Next to him is a young Mexican girl, according to Regina from a very small town, who spends the entire weekend making (and subsequently eating) corn tortillas from scratch with eggs and green chile sauce.

It’s quite an interesting bunch…

Complutense

My classes are at the Complutense University on the edge of Madrid. There are 90,000 students spread out throughout the different schools, making it the largest in Spain and more than twice as big as Michigan. The campus is large and sprawling, covered with trees and really hideous specimens of 1970’s architecture. My class building (see picture) reminds me quite a lot of Communist apartment buildings in Baku. The funny things is, despite all of that, the campus really isn’t ugly. In fact, I think it’s quite pretty. I can’t under-emphasize the trees—there are so many of them and they are so lovely. There are oaks and sycamore and many fir trees, the delicate kind that only grow in hot places. Also, they don’t have gardens or landscaping on campus (though there is a large botanical garden), but the untended to hills and green spaces are filled with wild grasses, poppies and some kind of purple flower/weed. The wild grasses shine gold under the hot sun…I wait for class to start on a little hill in front of my class building, and looking behind me into the grasses and pines you would think I was in the countryside. I took a picture of myself for you to see how pretty it is (please note the golden grasses : ).

There are only 6 people in my class, and 7 teachers. In fact, the ‘teachers’ are composed of 3 professors and 4 grad students getting their masters in education. The odd thing is that all of them come to class—we have four hours of class a day, in a row, and all of them sit behind us through each class. Well, they take turns teaching the classes, so only 6 of them sit behind us at a given time. The teachers are all very lively and kind, and all speak very fast, “becauseSpanishpeoplespeakfast,so[we]needtolearntounderstandthematthatspeed.”

In the class there is one Russian (Valeria, 27, who never wears a bra, has permed, peroxide blond hair—dyed dark brown at the roots—whose fluorescent clothes were all purchased one size too small, and whose “life’s dream” is to own a pink Porsche), one Italian boy named GianPaolo (23, who was looking for a ‘girlfriend’ from the beginning and who has quickly taken to making out with Valeria in front of the classroom), Meital (who is 34, Israeli and very sweet, and whose name means “dew.” I’ve been spending quite a lot of time with her and her husband, who is here working on some kind of Masters degree in International law. Both of them are lawyers), Liv (a 26 year-old red-headed Norwegian nurse with dreadlocks and body-piercings), and finally Lala (an 18 year old girl from Baku who arrogantly declared on the first day that she speaks 5 languages fluently, among which English is her very best non-native language, but who can neither speak nor understand English. Example:

Me: “So Lala—do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Lala: (blink blink blink) “you do? Family is good.”
Me: “umm….so you do have siblings?”
Lala: “Yes, I want to have many child. My father is of 7 child.”
Me: “oh, I guess class is starting. It’s nice talking to you.”

Another striking feature about Lala: she has large, lovely wide-set eyes and a very large space between her eyes and eyebrows—she paints this space in the colors and shape of a peacock’s tail-feathers.

Madrid

There are a number of things which surprise me about Madrid. Firstly, I had never actually seen a picture of it before landing here. So the hilly-ness of the city and its many trees surprise me, as I imagined it to be situated in a desert-like red bowl of dust, concave and treeless. In fact, there are many, many trees (more in the center than in Paris by far), lots of hills and there has been no red dust. Secondly, I always assumed that Paris was one of the European capitals that spoke the least English, despite its huge tourism industry. Now I have found a European capital that speaks even less English than Paris. My assumption that many people would speak French was also rebuffed by tourism office workers, waiters and store clerks who snorted and/or giggled when I asked those who didn’t understand me if they spoke French.

There are old men with Picasso-like brown leathery skin who surprise me, as they whistle down the street from their bicycles so that people will bring their knives for sharpening between the stones on his handle-bar. And there are short, large-bellied men playing classical Spanish music on harps and accordions in the street who surprise me.

There is more of certain kinds of noise here than in Paris: more guitarists with lovely voices and lively fingers singing Spanish love songs, louder conversations, more laughter, more groups of people (adults mainly) singing and clapping together on the street as they remember a song, more birds singing (and singing louder—I think they have some different birds here…). So far, I have heard less honking and much much less “Vous êtes malade ou quoi?!”.

The biggest surprise of all is the huge park in the city, El Retiro. What shocks me most about it is that it exists at all. What I mean to say is that I particularly love gardens and parks. I have books on exquisite gardens of the world, and have read many more. Further, I have even taken a semester long landscape architecture class in which we spent several weeks studying the impact of urban green spaces on their urban area and population. In all of those readings and studies, many parks and gardens around the world were mentioned. But never ONCE was this one mentioned. Not only is this one more beautiful than any I’ve ever seen (including Central Park, the Luxembourg Gardens, Golden Gate Park), but it is definitely the most used and loved of those that I have seen. Each time I go, at any time of the day, any day of the week, holiday or non-holiday, the massive park is packed with people. The reason, aside from the beauty, is that they have so much going on inside: they have cafés, food stands, potato chip, pumpkin seed, candy and nut-vendors, ice-cream stands, fortune tellers, palm readers, acrobats, south-american guitarists singing love songs, Spanish kids doing choreographed hip-hop dances (for money), Chinese people drawings names in Chinese characters, balloon animal makers dressed up as Mickey Mouse, toy stands, soccer greens, basketball hoops, rollerblading, bicycling, picnic tables, concerts….And of course, perhaps best of all, is the man-made lake in the center of the park, on which you can rent a paddle boat (see picture). There is also a Conservatory (for flowers, though it’s used as an art exhibit space now) in the woods of the park made entirely of crystal. The sun shines through the panes and beams rainbows across the grass, onto the leaves of the surrounding trees…

Finally, Madrid mornings smell different from Paris mornings—I smell more coffee and hot oil than freshly baking bread (PS I really don’t like churros, nor do I like churros y chocolate).

Duck Duck...Pigeon!

Imagine a sunny day in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, in a café echoing with old Celine Dion songs, and a creepy, too short (even seated, his near-dwarfism is apparent), dark-eyed Gaulois watching me type.

In my line of view there is a young American girl, at most three years older than me, sitting on a stool with her young Italian husband. She has a big diamond wedding ring on her finger. Something about her has seemed familiar to me since she sat in front of me about an hour ago. [Oh, and incidentally, the bit about the diamond ring has nothing to do with this story at all, other than the fact that it is particularly remarkable on her young hands. It also doesn’t really jive with her pumas, sevens and tank top. Or no…maybe it’s the floppy knot of hair that makes her ring look out of place…I don’t know; en tous cas, il y a pour moi quelque chose qui cloche.]

Occasionally I have been eavesdropping and glancing at this couple, to glean little bits of information about who they are. A few moments ago they began talking about bird watching.

She brought it up.

Her Italian husband laughed and declared that no one really did beerd watcheeng. She retorts:
-Hey! Don’t knock bird watching! It’s really serious for some people. When you come visit my grandparents in Michigan, you better not say anything like that in front of them. They spend hours bird watching.

What?!

-Yeah! There’ll be a bird going ‘tweet tweet’ outside and my grandma will be in the kitchen and go ‘oh hey, listen! There’s like a…chickadee outside’ Yeah, totally! They’re totally serious about it. So..yeah.

She pronounced these last words (so…yeah) with great conviction and with a look of having satisfactorily won an argument on her face.

So there you have it. I’m just thoroughly amused by this whole scene, nothing more nothing less. I’m also now wondering whether she seems so familiar to me because I’ve seen her before in Michigan, or whether because I somehow intuitively recognize her as being from Michigan.

Is that possible? Is there something especially michigan-y about Michiganders? Opinions welcome.


On a different bird topic, a couple of weeks ago, I was walking down a narrow street in Paris when 6 or 7 pigeons came swooping down through the middle of the street. I ducked a little, but gracefully, acting sort of like I was looking behind me. When I did, my gaze crossed that of a middle-aged man walking 20 paces or so behind me. He smiled a little at me, as in "I saw that ducking, but who ducks for pigeons? They have an innate sense of SPLAT!!!!!" One of the pigeons ran smack into his face, scratching his cheek.

"Voulez-vous un mouchoir, monsieur?"

"Non, merci," he grumbled, suddenly not smirking any more.

Good thing I ducked.

Photos from Avignon...

A few things:

One of the pictures of me was taken from halfway up the walkways along the walls of the Palais des Papes. The other was taken in a fantastic little tea salon in Avignon. It was just like me; an English style tea-service and décor served in a French style (with miniature home-made almond "financiers"), and middle-eastern music playing softly overhead.

The first bridge is the Pont d'Avignon. The second picture of a bridge, the large many arched one, is called "Pont du Gard." It is very old and Roman, but that's all I can tell you. It has it's own theme-park of sorts, not entirely unlike Niagara falls, but cleaner and more chic. Well, plus français, quoi.

The olive tree is from 908 AD, and has its very own plaque saying so. Isn't it beautiful? Though it is located along the footpath leading to the Pont du Gard, it is not originally from that spot--it was transplanted from Spain in 1985. Notice how many of the little leaves were captured as mere green blurs by my 7 megapixel digital camera. This should indicate one thing to you: Mistral.

All the other photos are probably self-explanatory, but if not, let me know : )

Paris retrospective

Yesterday I went to see a fantastic exhibit of Wily Ronis’ Paris photographs. It was all the better because, despite his 95 years of age at the time, he was very active in preparing the show. And so both his genius and his personality were imparted on the organization of the works.

At the exhibit there were two elderly Parisian women, each a head shorter than I am. As the photos were arranged chronologically, and as I had entered the exhibit just moments after them, I got to know the women a little as I followed them through the exhibit, photograph by photograph (I also got the know the tops of their heads quite well, which is a detail I will come back to). They stood before each picture for several minutes, faces craned upwards, tracing over the trees and the angles of buildings with their arthritic fingers. For these women, the process of viewing each picture was the same: identify the location in Paris at which the photograph was taken, then try to associate some personal memory with the location. In one instance, for example, there was a picture of a worker strike in the 1930’s. One of the women said to the other, “I remember I met you there that day, the day of the strike. You had your blue vest on!”
-Oh! The blue vest! Yes…oh, I loved that vest. Do you remember the buttons?
“Oh they were incomparable! I wanted a vest just like yours!”
-No one had a vest like that (shakes head slowly, lips pursed pridefully). That’s why it was so special (silence, punctuated by the other woman’s nodding).
Then, arm in arm, they hobbled on to the next picture to play their game of memories.

I was seeing the exhibit along with them, viewing them as much as I was viewing Ronis’ photographs. I was very touched by the notion of two Parisian ladies, presumably in their eighties (at least), going on an excursion together to a photography exhibit; I was touched by the way they helped support each other physically as they walked, and touched by how they supported each other by recalling or clarifying memories (“no, no, your hair was long then, and you had that sweetheart who lived in the 15th, remember?”). It was both beautiful and sweet to see the photographs through my eyes and theirs, but watching them also made me sad.

Their hair was teased and sprayed into what looked like helmets, with a roll of hair turning upward, running down the base of their necks from ear to ear. As I stared at the tops of their heads and listened to them reminisce, it occurred to me that their hairstyle might in fact be a helmet of sorts—-maybe it’s a psychological protection against the relentless coming of years. Maybe when they look in the mirror and see the hairstyle they had in the 60’s, when they were 30 or 40 years old, they feel only the weight of the first few decades of life on their backs, and not all 80 or 90 years of it…

Another thing that struck me about the exhibit was something that Ronis said about why it was that he ever took photographs, and why he took so many of people, often very ordinary, in Paris (and not of more grandiose things such as monuments or buildings):

“Bien sûr que j’aime l’architecture de Paris—c’est ma ville, elle est belle. Mais c’est les gens qui m’intéressent…ce qui m’intéressait c’était de voir mes frères et mes soeurs parisiens et comment ils vivaient…je retrouvais des gens avec qui j’aurais pu vivre, avec qui j’aurais pu converser, qui auraient pu être mes amis, mes voisins; des gens qui m’inspiraient de la sympathie.”

(Of course I adore the architecture of Paris—it’s my city. It’s beautiful. But it’s the people who interest me…what interested me was to see my Parisian brothers and sisters and how they lived…I found people with whom I could have lived, with whom I could have had conversations, who could have been my friends, neighbors; people who aroused sympathy in me)

I believe this to be true. It is for me, in any event. I take pictures of people window shopping, or men laughing in the park, and I note the kind of the light that falls on their faces. I think I do this in order to preserve and to appropriate moments of other people’s lives in which I crave some kind of participation. Maybe I want to feel like the mother and daughter gazing into the windows of stores and to feel the joy that makes the men in the park laugh. All of this is to say that it occurred to me yesterday that my taking of pictures, and my scribbling of notes, is about living moments of other people’s lives, and joining my experience with theirs. It makes me feel larger—-more than "one," anyway.

The women in the picture at the top are not the women I was speaking about--they are two other women I found sitting in a park, chatting about the birds.

sur le pont d'avignon

You all might have noticed that my brain is wired in such a way that one word, phrase or object will instantly call up a song. For instance, when I hear the words “Last night” I either think to myself, or, more often than not, sing, “Last night I watched him sleeping, once more the nightmare came…” from Miss Saigon. Or, even more ridiculously, when I hear “Marseille,” I think “Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé…”
[Four years ago, when I was spending the weekend with some French friends in Normandy, I was in the kitchen (which was open to the living room) while my friend’s mother talked to her cousin about his recent move to Marseille in the living room. As I was pouring myself a glass of water, I thoughtlessly began to sing the Marseillaise. And though I had been singing quietly, conversation in the next room ceased. Raucous laughter followed a brief pause (for the sake of clarity, I was not involved in the raucous laughter).
“Oh!!!!!!I (gasp for air between bouts of intensive giggling) knew (HAHAHAHAHA) you (ha….ha…HAHAHA) looooooooved France, but I (gasp….ha. ha. HAHAHA) didn’t realize you loved it (heh) that much!!!!!!! Our little American who hums the Marseillaise in the kitchen!”]

That being said, you all might imagine my first reaction to Stéphane’s invitation to Avignon….

Yes. That’s right: “Sur le pont d’Avignon, on y danse, on y danse…” This time, though, Stéphane and I laughed together, which was decidedly more pleasant. Anyway, you can only imagine my delight at actually having found myself “sur” the pont d’avignon. It was lovely and exciting for me; the above picture was taken on the bridge. I was too timid to actually pretend to be dancing in circles for my photo, though the thought did cross my mind. But then, just when I was contemplating being that silly, I saw a Chinese girl about my age striking a sort of jazzercise pose for her picture. It was at that point that I thought perhaps I would not dance on the bridge. My apologies to all disappointed parties.

Other than the famous "Pont," I visited the Pope’s Palace (or…“papal” palace?), strolled through the adorable but cold and empty streets, learned why people talk so much about “The Mistral” and otherwise had a wonderful time. First of all, knowing nothing about Catholicism and knowing almost nothing about old European history, I was not aware that the seat of the Catholic Church was in Avignon for over a hundred years, beginning the 1300’s. And so, much to my surprise, there is a fairly ornate, medieval Vatican of sorts in the southern part of France. Also surprising (and funny, especially) is that on the medieval frescoes in the papal chambers are naked women bathing. Maybe they had different definitions of papal chastity back then…? Unfortunately, no photos were allowed inside the palace, so you will all have to come see for yourselves what I am talking about.

Now. The Mistral: before I encountered it in real life, my reaction to the mention of the allegedly cold and bitter wind that blows through the south of France on occasion was the following: I am from Michigan—don’t you think I know what glacial winds are? Apparently, I did not know. No no no. I definitely did not know. The much talked about Mistral turns out to be a wind that approximates those nasty Canadian polar winds that sometime knock around Michigan in the dead of winter, but the Mistral is colder, stronger and sneakier. The Mistral swirls and slaps, whistles and squeals across the corners and roofs of houses, and you can hear the gales coming from afar from the groaning and snapping of the trees. You’ll say “oh, but we have that in Michigan.” Yes, we do, but the Mistral is worse. Soooooo much worse.

Needless to say, there are few tourists in Avignon this time of year. But despite the Mistral, the narrow, cobble-stoned streets; the sunny, sycamore-lined squares; and the not exceedingly expensive gourmet restaurants with exceedingly fresh, inventive fare, were all so charming that I can’t wait for the opportunity to go back one day for the festival in the summer time.

The Rainbow Connection

I can remember not only the exact age I was on the occasions when I’ve seen rainbows in the United States, but also where I was when I saw them. For example, the most perfect one I have yet to see in my life was in the following Midwestern conditions: on a highway between Ann Arbor and Grosse Ile, I stopped with Maria, my mom and Anna in a Meijer parking lot to observe a perfect double rainbow. The land there is so flat, and the trees had been cleared away in such great number, that the rainbow carried on along its double arcs unobstructed from one end to the other. Furthermore, the massive expanse of sky and parking lot was all so gray that it rendered the colors of the rainbow much more vivid. I think when I am 90 years old I will still carry with me the vision of this rainbow over the Meijer parking lot.

The point is, though, I can remember with this much specificity the details of my American rainbow viewing because there have been so few of occasions. However, each time I am in France, I see rainbows, and many. The last three times have been from inside a car. First it is raining heavily then the sun comes beaming through from another direction. I frantically crane my head this way and that and clamor around the car to see if there are rainbows forming opposite the sun. And each time, there are.

“ooh! A rainbow! Look!” (that’s me)

“Haven’t you ever seen a rainbow before?” (standard response of the French people in whose company I have found myself each time I’ve seen a rainbow here).

“Yes, but not very many.” (click click—I take a picture)

“Oh, I see…well, we get them all the time. They’re pretty common, actually.”

This is a near exact transcription of the exchange between me and Stéphane on our way to Avignon this weekend. For nearly the entire duration of the 6 hour drive, there was simultaneous sun and rain...6 hours driving toward into rainbows...And therefore I took many pictures : )

Does anyone know why, from a meteorological perspective, there are more rainbows in France than in Michigan? I'd be very happy to know.

The Paris Season

I had the loveliest day today; I met Shana for lunch at a café bakery called “Bread and Roses”—it was more modern than your average Parisian café, but perfect in every detail. It’s one block from the Luxembourg Gardens; from the tables, looking toward the street, you can see the leaves of the magnolia trees growing over the top of the wrought iron garden gates. The café occupies the corner space of an elegant Haussmanian building, but the bakery owners have replaced the old windows with nearly floor to ceiling glass. The windows were impeccably clean, and the row of five small, square oak tables were lined up against it, one chair facing in toward the bakery case and the orderly wall of preserves and oils, the other chair facing the street. Because the windows were so large, immaculate and free of any beams or panes, I had the wonderful sensation of still being a part of the first spring day, a part of the quiet elegance of the street corner, though I was inside. The young women servers, black-clad, were extremely professional, polite and smiling. The café is non-smoking, serves organic juices and illy coffee. It is bright and quiet inside. Instead of being the kind of silence that stifles, it was meditative and delicious. So was the food.

The Cordon Bleu has taught me so much about culinary perfectionism, and has in that sense spoiled me. Where I would have been satisfied, even impressed, with most meals and pastries in Paris before I began my classes here, I am no longer. When I am served in a café, or I pass by the windows of bakeries and pastry shops, I hear the voices of the Cordon Bleu chefs in my head; “There’s too much sauce…and it’s too thick…and poured on so indelicately!…that choux pastry of that éclair is too brown—they overworked the dough…oh!…look how those strawberries are sliced! So thick! So uneven!”

That being said, I could find not a single fault with the presentation or the taste of my lunch; every delicate tendril of roquette, mâche and radicchio was fresh and crisp, were torn into small, even-sized morsels, and were all evenly coated with a thin layer of the most irreproachable lemon vinaigrette I’ve ever had. Delicious. Pictures will follow, though I don’t know when, because we took them with Shana’s camera. I will post them when she gives them to me.

Afterwards, once Shana was in class, I went strolling through the city for hours, just because I could. I stood on bridges and in the middle of streets and took pictures of monuments, and the sky, and was in such a meditative trance following my lovely lunch that I didn’t even mind looking so much like a tourist.

In the afternoon, in the 7th, I passed a man in a wheelchair. His pant legs hung down from the seat of the chair, both empty and pinned closed at the cuffs. Across his lap he had a cardboard box full of flowers. He was selling nosegays of violets for 2 euros. So I bought one from him. “You’ve made me very happy,” he said. “No, you’ve made me very happy,” I said. And I strolled down the street, a nosegay of violets in my hand, cheerfully imagining that I was a Victorian lady, in Paris for the season : )

Baking back log!

I will add details later, but here are the things that I have made recently:

tête de brioche
pain aux raisins
brioche nanterre, inside view (yum. Or, "miam miam")
charlotte aux poires (home-made lady fingers outside, pear mousse--pear pieces, pear puree and pear liqueur)
mogador (x3) (layer of chocolate génoise--imbibed with raspberry brandy sirop--thin layer of raspberry compote, chocolate mousse and raspberry glaze)
pithivier (x2) (huge croissant filled with almond cream--both made by me from scratch!--and painstakingly decorated with a knife)

I think I've uploaded the photos in reverse order, which you might have noticed on your own anyway.

Had I not been sick,

I would have made a little family of choux pastry deserts like these, including éclairs. I don't despair, though, because I wasn't sick for the demonstration, so I'm quite sure I will be able to make them again sans problème for éclair lovers who are nice to me : )

Those white things are people standing in front of me as I try to take the picture. I don't have a better one.

Oh, and PS: NOT MY TART

For anyone interested, this apple tart is being sold in fancy neighborhood bakery in Rue Cler. To compare with my amateur tart for which the chef berated me, please see my archives : )

Le Saint Valentin

Cupid comes to Paris, too, despite all of the French men I heard saying that it is a strictly American holiday not "really celebrated in France." Nonsense; there were Valentine's knicknacks for sale everywhere.

The tall, English garden roses are from Stéphane. The more crimson ones are from my mums : ) I have only one vase, so they had to cohabitate.

Pear tart!

We made this about two weeks ago: it's called "tarte meringuée aux poires caramélisées." Otherwise, meringue tart with caramelized pears. The crust on the bottom is a crisp, almond-flour based crust. Filling the tart are, as the name suggests, caramelized pears. But there are also black currants! Surprise! On top is meringue made with ground almonds, finished with slivered almonds and powdered sugar. I'd have to say that this tart was my favorite of any cake or tart we've made so far, because the pears and the almonds complement each other so nicely. And for once, the flavor of the dessert is not based on butter and the cream! Hooray! A close second would be the apple tart we made early on.

Following this cake we made what is called "Moka." Moka consists of two layers of génoise--which is essentially a French sponge cake--imbibed with espresso rum syrup, and frosted in a thin layer of moka buttercream. It is a very classic French cake, so classic that you won't necessarily find them in most pastry shops these days. Traditionally, the decoration is very simple on this cake: just miniature rosettes piped all the way around the edge, and some kind of decoration in the middle. I piped a kind of delicate star medallion in the center, with a chocolate covered coffee bean in the very middle of the medallion. The chef was very complimentary.

But, as usual, we had no way to transport the cake. The box that they provide us with does not, has not once, fit anything we make. Usually this means everyone has to wrap their confections in plastic or aluminum foil. But having spent an hour on piping the little miniature roses evenly around the entire cake alone, to say nothing of hand beating the meringue used for the batter, I wasn't about to smash it down with plastic. Also, we aren't allowed to bring cameras into the kitchen, so I wanted to transport it home as carefully as I could in order to take a picture of my achievement (to put on my blog of course!). But how? I had to take a 25 minute metro ride, including a train change...With my cake on its golden round, balanced on the palm of my hand, I walked into the pastry shop across the street from the school. The pastry chef behind the counter made a disapproving smile and shook her finger at me. "You come into my pastry shop with someone else's cake? Oh, I'm only teasing. We don't sell that kind here anyway. Where did you buy that by the way? That's lovely." I explained that I had just made it myself, but had no way to transport it home in the subway...and could I buy a cake box? "Buy a cake box? No! If you made that cake, you deserve one for free!" And so she took my cake, carefully wrapped it in the box. I walked down the steps of the metro quite jauntily, so proud of my cake.

I guess I was too proud:

As the buzz sounded to indicate the impending closing of the doors, a man came running down the steps toward the train, swinging himself with all of his force into the car, losing his balance once inside and falling on my cake with his elbow. "Oh! Désolé, mademoiselle!" (Oh! Sorry, miss!). There was NO way I was going to say "oh, it's okay!" as I normally would have. After all, it wasn't technically his fault--it was....inertia. Instead all I could do was open the top of the box to assess the damage: rosettes gone.

And so there is no picture of the génoise tragedy.

Odds and Ends

As it turns out, I believe that my doctor from the American Hospital was in fact a doctor of debauchery, and not of doting grandfatherly-ness. I think this because after that whole back-patting "I'm-going-to-take-care-of-you-missy-don't-you-worry" nonsense, I haven't heard another word from him. To be more precise, he ordered blood tests and a throat culture, whose results were sent to me by mail. He had instructed me to call him two days after the tests were completed to get my results (and their interpretation) directly from him. Although I called his office as told, I was not able to talk to him. Instead his secretary took two messages, on two separate occasions, assuring me that he would call me back. But no! Nothing! I called again a third time after receiving my test results by mail, because I couldn't decipher them. Once again, he was unable to speak to me, but would I like to leave a message? No thank you, I would not. I've been assured by my two unanswered messages for the Doctor that my calls will not be returned. Could you, Madame the Secretary, give me any indications as to how to read these results? But of course not! You would have to speak to the doctor. Yes, I said, I would have liked that.

And so that was that. Happily, though, I seem to be better now, with the help of my mom who has come to take care of me.

I have some more pictures to post of me traipsing about the city (which I will do tomorrow perhaps), and will have a pastry update for the day after tomorrow. We will be making a very "fancy" pear tart : ) I can't wait! I wish you were all here to eat it. In the meantime, I've included above a photo of my apartment.

Découvrir le pot aux roses*

I went to class today because if I miss another one, the Cordon Bleu reserves the right to block me from attending the rest of my classes. So I made a cake called "Dacquoise", which consists of two almond meringue cake rounds, separated by a layer of praliné buttercream, decorated with a marzipan flower.

As I beat and beat and beat "énergiquement," and by hand, the sugar and egg whites into a meringue, and as I stood for three hours in a small room that alternated over the course of the class from close to 85 degrees (with all of the ovens on) to 60 degrees (with the windows thrown open, the glacial northern winds blowing in), I began to feel quite sick. It is now several hours later. I feel fever returning, and my throat is, once again, sore and covered in white.

Perhaps I shouldn't have gone to class after all.

Having said that, I'm very taken with this cake. If this is the one that will throw me back into illness, it will have been well worth it. Aside from being perfectly delectable, the Dacquoise is very feminine and lacy looking, and making the marzipan flower reminded me, in the very very best of ways, of the numerous art kits Amy and I usd to play around with. It was so much fun! But take note, everyone: from now on, the marzipan flower will likely become a permanent fixture on my future cakes. I liked it that much.

I particularly enjoyed the feeling of mastering the recipe and techniques we used; cakes I can produce confidently (I am less sure about tartes and croissants). I was even congratulated by the chef at every step of my cake making for having:

1) the tidiest work-station
2) the most well-whippped and glossy meringue : )
3) the smoothest buttercream
4) the most inventive flower (I tried to make a camelia instead of the conventional rose)

The chef (Patrick, this time) came over to my station as I was finishing my flower and assembling the cake. As he peered over the marble, scrutinizing my pastry, I was quite scared he was going to yell at me for something, though I didn't know what. In preparation, I started offering suggestions like "is there too much powdered sugar? Are the rosettes poorly done? are the edges too uneven? Should I not have made a camelia?" I've noticed that if you recognize your error before the chef says something, the ensuing criticism is less explosive. But instead of making a critique, he looked up at me, expressionless, and softly said, "Mais...vous êtes une vraie artiste, madame." Those were the best words of the week, perhaps even of the month, and the ones I'll mull over when I'm feeling dejected.

Nobody's ever called me an artist before, though I can't think of anything I'd rather be called.

I've always wanted to "be an artist" of any kind. The people's lives I envy, the people whose lives I dream about having myself, are successful artists and creators. So though I've never felt like one, I've always wanted to be an artist.

And here the fiery chef has granted my wish.

*Découvrir le pot aux roses=to discover the secret. Literally, 'to discover the pot of roses'

PS Among other things, the blossoms of camelias are supposed to be, in reality, more flat.

Jazz and a teapot

Today I'm especially weak and light-headed, and I don't know why. I can barely stand up without falling over. But an hour ago I decided that I was tired of lying down, I was deafened by the silence of my room, and my eyes were watering from the gray, blinding light spilling through my bedroom window. It was then that I remembered the Chet Baker albums I had uploaded onto my computer in Michigan and the teapot I had bought after class two days ago.

After sipping on several cups of steaming Marco Polo tea, poured from my rustic, ivory-colored théière, and listening to an hour of Chet Baker, I feel less sad, fitful and alone. That combined with my resolution to write letters from bed, I'd say I almost feel cozy here in my apartment.

It's cold outside after all--18 degrees fahrenheit with windchill, 28 without. And the sky is heavy and gray. It's a Normandy coast gray, not a typical Parisian gray today. The Normandy variety of gray is darker, and feels closer to your head--the color is approaching graphite. Parisian gray is lighter usually, more reflective (in my eyes, anyway).

No matter, though; the essential thing is that Chet Baker adds warmth to the gray.

...I wonder if I would grow tired of Paris if I lived here permanently. Or maybe I would just grow to love it more and more. Somewhere in my thoughts it seems a pity that I couldn't have fallen in love with and lived in a more unconventionally loved city like...Kabul, for example.

I don't feel very original loving Paris, you see. According to the World Tourism Website, France has approximately 70% of the world's tourism traffic on its doorstep. So I love Paris along with everyone else in the world. But there's really no sense in my denying it, because it's obvious that I'm a Paris sort of person, and not a Kabul sort of person at all.

Being here, and being so happy here, makes me ask myself quite seriously, "Do I want this life?" When I try to think about what I want in the long term, I find myself trapped between essentially two life models:

1) Working long hours with little vacation or home-time (and potentially larger salary) in a job I might find fascinating, or

2) Working reasonable hours with lots of vacation and ample (but almost certainly not large) pay in a job which at times may be interesting, at others quite tedious.

In my opinion, many jobs in the U.S. fall into category 1, while many (let's say most) jobs in France fall into category 2. Although, what am I saying? Most jobs are probably tedious in the US, too. Anyway, sticking with the model for the time being, a perfect example of a category 2 job would be working for the United Nations in Paris. They have so much vacation time it's stunning. And they're quite well paid. Recently I met a man who works for the UN here. He says that the idealism with which he came to the UN was soon lost to the tedium and highly bureacratic nature of his job. Still, he likes working there because, after all, his life is very good and he feels he is doing something meaningful with his time at work nonetheless. I wonder what I would think about that kind of life? The only way to find out is to find out, of course.

On the underside of the cardboard lids of Stila eyeshadow there used to be famous quotes, like "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." I hardly ever used the eyeshadow, but I remember the quote for how simple and obvious it was. It was so simple and so obvious that I had never thought of my difficulty with decision-making in those terms. It isn't the journey itself that I find daunting--it's that first, single step. For example, where do I go and what do I do once my classes here have ended? I just need to make one step, to something else, but I find myself paralyzed by the need to make the "best" step, the most "correct" step.

I suppose this is the burden of choice and freedom.

There are no doubt many people in the world whose lives have been pre-determined by their social, financial, and ethnic condition who would love to be in my place. Strangely, my guilty luck does not help me move forward. It just makes me feel guilty.

That being said, I do have one idea for what to do after my classes. Next week I will call a number of chateaux in the Loire valley to see if I could work for the summer with their team of landscape preservationists. Those are the people who, aside from ensuring proper preservation of the grounds and buildings, organize the historical tours and literature for the chateaux. I'm hoping that at least one of these chateaux would like to take advantage of my bilingual status to allow them to give tours in English. I've checked, and many of the more historically rich locations either do not offer guided tours in English, or they offer precious few (one, once a week, for example). My top choice is Villandry.

So there's Saturday's verbose update.

(photo at top is of the grounds of Villandry, early January)

London weekend

I'm contemplating going to London for a weekend if I can find a reasonably priced plane/train ticket. In the event that I do find this, I would love to have some well-informed recommendations for where to go and what to do. In all likelihood, I will be there only two full days, a Saturday and Sunday. If you have any ideas on the most clean, comfortable and not-too-expensive hotels, best places for afternoon tea, cute boutiques or restaurants serving upscale Indian cuisine, please let me know. These are not the only things I am looking for, but they are at the top of my list.

Also, everyone who knows me well knows that I like flowery things and flowery places. Any indications about where to find the most flowery charming corners of London will be greatly appreciated : )

Sick again..or, rather, 'still'

Yesterday I started getting sick again--my throat began to feel very painful, and I began to feel feverish. I've grown skeptical of the intelligence and competency of the doctor I have been seeing, who doesn't really examine me, doesn't take my temperature, and who doesn't ask me many questions. I enter her office, she says, "what's wrong?" I desribe my symptoms, she says "open your mouth" (from across the desk) and then declares "Oh, yes. It's strep throat." So today I went to the American Hospital in Paris to see what I hoped would be an American doctor.

I hoped that I would feel reassured by the familiar American hospital setting, full of American doctors...As it turns out, a good majority of the doctors are French, as are the patients, and the hospital looks nothing like an American hospital. For that matter, it isn't run like an American hospital, either. You have to pay in advance for the services (in my case, medical exam and visit, blood test and throat culture), but you have to pay in cash.

"Cash?" I asked, stunned.

"Yes. But I see you've already been to a doctor here in Paris--I'm sure you payed in cash then, too?"

"I did. I just thought this would be different since it's a hospital, and it's called "The American" hospital. I thought it would be more like an American hospital."

"Eh non."

The ATM was empty and therefore out of service...because everyone in the hospital has to pay cash. And there was only one in the entire facility.

I was instructed at the welcome desk that there was an ATM not far away, only about 10 minutes away, in Neuilly. So with my fever and my aching throat and my eyes watering and my scarf wrapped around my head, I went: down the hill over the bridge across the main boulevard took a right at the light then passed the bus stop to turn right at the next light to finally find the ATM (which, incidentally, instantly displayed an Out of Order announcement after I used it. I wonder where the next closest one is...).

The doctor 50 or 60, very French and made me feel uncomfortable. I couldn't tell if it was because he was a little bit of a lecherous older man, or because I wasn't accustomed to be looked at in such a...kind, smiling way while being examined. I'm accustomed to the doctor looking more at his charts than at me, and am certainly not accustomed to being patted on the back and being told, softly "Ne vous en faites pas, mademoiselle. Je vais m'occuper de vous--tout ira mieux dans quelques jours. Oh, ma pauvre." (don't worry, miss. I'm going to take care of you--everything will be better in a couple of days. Oh, my poor thing).

Anyway, he has presribed me with yet another round of antibiotics (this being round three). He explained to me that infections in France are harder to treat than in the US (where, as it turned out, he worked for 14 years), because French doctors prescribe too liberally antibiotics to people who don't need them. When it comes time to treat a truly ill person, the "bactéries" have become very resistent to normal antibiotics. All of that was to say that he thinks I have had the same strep throat the whole time, but that it couldn't being eliminated by the "weaker" (his word) antibiotics. He says the other doctor should have known from the beginning. He also says he's convinced that it will work this time and that I will be in tip top shape by Monday.

If not...I'll be a disaster.

I'm going to bed now, but if you have medical opinions, or words of comfort, please don't hesitate to call. I'm not very happy today.

(photo is of american hospital)

IMPORTANT PHONE UPDATE!!!

Starting tomorrow, January 26th, you will apparently be able to leave messages on my house phone. If I don't answer, the voicemail will pick up (but I don't know after how many rings). The automated message will only be in French I've been told, so if you don't speak French, just know that it's a recording for a message. So please leave me a message after the operator stops speaking.

If you don't have my phone number, or my cell phone number, email me and I'll give it to you. I'd love to hear from everyone...