Thursday, November 14, 2013

Dear Jane


Dear Jane,

I was so sorry you couldn't make it to dinner at my apartment last night. We missed you.

It’s been a long time since the bunch of us got together. Remember all those wine soaked, hilarious meals we used to share? We ate anything in sight as I recall. Chili and pasta, slabs of bread and butter, and those incredible chocolate-chocolate desserts? And white wine. How we loved our cheap white wine
Well, things have changed.

I know you have developed diabetes so I decided at first to serve steak and salad. Since you couldn't make it I switched to a wonderful Burgundy ham recipe I’ve been wanting to make. Then I remembered  ham was out of bounds for religious reasons.

Next I dug out that old chili recipe everyone liked. Well, Carole called and mentioned  she had become a vegetarian.

I considered vegetarian chili but scrapped that idea as just too full of beans.  Couldn't help thinking about the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles.

I thought everyone would remember my dad’s meatballs and spaghetti. The vegetarians could choose to eat the meatballs or not. A big salad and everyone would be happy. A baguette or two? With butter. Butter is good for you since trans fats have been exposed as the evil fat.

Sarah mentioned she was on a diet and all that fattening food would be too tempting.
So how about nice low calorie fish baked with olive oil and whole wheat breadcrumbs? Vegetarians will usually eat fish.

The breadcrumbs were out after I talked to Sue who is on a gluten free diet. In addition  Gail and Claudia are total vegans, which means no fish at all. I googled vegan recipes and was totally depressed so I decided to prepare brown rice with vegetables and cashews which would serve as a main dish as well a side vegetable.

Guess what? Cynthia has peanut allergies.

Teriyaki tofu any one? 

I thought it would be nice to at least have a great chocolaty dessert like we used to share. After all, dark chocolate is actually good for you. But not chocolate cake or chocolate ice cream. There’s that flour again. And sugar and fat.  

Maybe a Hershey bar. But not the milk chocolate kind.

Decaf coffee.  With a little soymilk on the side.

There was sugar free sparkling lemonade.

And white wine. Only a few of us drank it.

I was one of them.


Love, Paula

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Bonjour Pierre




I heard myself saying it. I knew better. I had told myself it would just lead to trouble, but out it came: “Bonjour Pierre” I heard myself chirp to our new doorman.
And there I was again, frozen, waiting for the inevitable, breaking out in a sweat.  Pierre did what I knew he would do, he responded to me in French.

And I couldn't come up with the next sentence.

Standing there in our building’s lobby I felt as though I was back in Paris, facing salesclerks, waiters, ticket sellers, small children, any type of French speaking life form. It was always the same scenario: I would serve a nice little phrase in French but I as sure as hell couldn't return the volley.

Once again, I am at the ticket line at the Opera Garnier, barely aware of how beautiful it is, as I wait my turn to purchase tickets to that night’s performance. It was a ballet, an American ballet, and I am practicing my question over and over.

I watch the sales girl, a darling, chic, little thing, smiling and speaking in turn to each of the ten people in front of me. I can hear and yes she speaks only French. My heart is in my mouth as I near the head of the line. I don't even ask about parlezing in Anglais, I get out my request. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle, Avez vous two I mean deux billets pour le performance ce soir?” And she’s off. Rattling away with a long explanation that contains only one word I truly comprehend: “Non!”  “OK , no, that's good,” I say to myself, “I got the no all right but she is adding something about vues and dix and per cent. I think she is saying partial views.” So I triumphantly turn to my husband to hiss  “only seats with partial views -10% sight line” - and he shakes his head no.  

I just might be off the hook and can leave and he says “Ask her about next Tuesday.”
And I am dead in the water again.

And what does the chic, petite Mademoiselle say? “S’il vous plait, you may tour the backstage libre for 10 euros.”

“Merci, thank you very much.” I got that, free for a fee. We can walk around by ourselves. No one will talk to us. In French or English. I love it.

I now could appreciate the Opera. It is belle époque to an extreme. I know someone has said it looks like a wedding cake and it does but a wedding cake only the French could dream up. The grand marble staircase and the rococo  reception hall are marvels of glass and candlelight reflected in myriad mirrors. And there really is an enormous chandelier to give you the feeling of phantoms lurking about. Couldn't find the underground caverns though and of course to Jim’s chagrin, I refused to ask.

On the way home we stopped at an epicerie displaying the most gorgeous strawberries I had ever seen and I bought  a few of les fraises, which were perfectly ripe and red and delicious looking and cost 18E - that’s about $23.00. Jim didn’t say a word except “Its up to you. They do look awfully good.”

Actually they were the very best strawberries either of us had ever tasted. I just wasn’t sure of the 23 bucks. But hey, we’re in Paris for a whole month and we have a really cute apartment in Montmartre and we have figured out how to work all the appliances except the TV and the elevator is just like the ones in French movies - all wrought iron and capable of holding two people max.

If it weren’t for the French thing this would be heaven. I don't care that it has been about 45 degrees inside as well as out. And that Parisian landlords do not turn on the heat in May no matter what. Hey, I like my coat and if not that the bath towels are large enough to serve as shawls.

I can take long soaky baths in the extremely French claw-footed tub, which is the warmest place in the apartment. But we have a postcard view of a flight of stairs leading to Sacre Coeur.

It would be perfect if I could just master this French thing. Jim keeps repeating at least once a day and to any American he can come up with,  “Usually when Paula and I travel I bear the burden of speaking the local languages, but, boy, am I enjoying this trip because Paula can do all the talking” Yeah sure. Like the 23 dollar strawberries.

I did manage to get us fed very well though. There are regular super markets where if you are really cagy you do not have to say much beyond “Bonjour and Combien est-il?” The cashier swings the register around to show you the price and so what if I have a purse load of change?  I use it in the metro. And the grandkids will want some as souvenirs.

I found a charcuterie at the bottom of our Rue Chappe that sells what sure looked to be fresh quiche. The thing about France is that you think you know all about food like quiche. But you don’t. This quiche Lorraine is like no other quiche either of us has tasted. It is crowded with chunks of savory ham, not little, bitty bacon bits. There is no cheese in the creamy filling and the crust is so good I know it’s more than just butter doing its thing.

This is top drawer eating. This is falling in love eating. And so is the salade d’asperges which turns out to be white asparagus, which I have tasted before and passed on as stringy. It is a whole new thing here. It has been peeled and is tender and delicious and of course the vinaigrette is a marvel. So what if the sweet man selling the stuff resorted to pointing and gesticulating as I asked for this and that. He picked the correct coins from my outstretched hand after I had failed to understand what he was saying about the cost. I don’t know if it was because I didn't get it or was too flabbergasted by the amount. Anyway it was bang up superb meal.

Of all the places in the world to get stuck on, why did I have to choose France? It was Gigi and Jackie Kennedy and Colette I was in love with them all. I studied French in high school and got A's but couldn't help but notice that the kids who had chosen Spanish were speaking to each other within a couple of months.  We in the French class watched a French movie in stone cold silence and waited till we were on the bus home to admit we hadn’t gotten a word. Except “alors.”

We were told we needed to go to France to really learn to speak the language. I wanted to go to Paris like those girls in books did. I would be an au pair or live in a garret and write poetry and learn French from some romantic Louis Jourdain type. But reality intervened and I put French on the backburner until I was into my 20th year of teaching and learned that travel sabbaticals were available. Well I went back to night school, took French courses and planned my dream all over again.

This time I would study French and the French library system to appease the granter of travel sabbaticals but try as I could there was no way I could afford to stay longer than three months, surely enough time to learn to speak French. I signed up to stay with a family in Paris where I would study at the France Langue a few hours each day.

When March 15, 1995 rolled around I boarded Air France. I couldn’t remember a word. I was so frazzled by the time I arrived at the apartment of Gilles and Anne Bonfils that they took pity on me and spoke to me in English. We never switched to French. They were wonderful and perhaps trop gentil. 

I took French everyday and visited libraries all over the place. I had a wonderful time but it was clear that was going to need a lot more time than three months to gain any sort of proficiency.

So now here I was in Paris another 20 years later in roughly the same spot. I had studied French on and off over those years but obviously wasn't exactly the top of the class.

There was an assumption that anyone who had spent three months in Paris spoke French. I stopped talking about it.

My desire to return to France proved stronger than my fear of communicating and at last Jim and I decided to do it big time. We would go for a month, rent an apartment and pretend we lived there. And of course, Jim said I would make it so much easier since I spoke French.

The pressure was on. I took another French course. Two to be exact, financed by my children as a 70th birthday gift. I found I could understand the teachers pretty well. And when I discovered Google Translate I thought I had it made. I would make up sentences I thought I might find useful, write them out and then check the Google version. Well, I said, this is just the ticket. But of course it was just serving again. I mean I became borderline proficient at asking questions but Google never answered them and there I was, always serving but never the returning a volley.

I figured out quickly on the first visit that the secret to finding nice French people is in being polite. All you have to do is say Bonjour and Merci. I am not kidding. Go into a shop and fail to say bonjour and you will be glared at. Try to buy a train ticket without a bonjour and you will get a lecture on civility – in good English. I also learned - which never helped with the fluency issue - that if I said my sentence in French the French person would smile and switch to English. I know I shouldn’t have been so grateful. I know people who are actually put out by this.  I guess I just don't want to suffer.

Anyway I found that buying cheese was fairly easy, as long you wanted to buy the little round ones. If you want a slice you had better figure out kilos. A kilo is roughly two pounds. But if you want a quarter pound, you need to know to say one-eighth kilo. Un huitieme d’un kilo. Pas mal.

Kilos gave me a lot of trouble. I became quite popular when I requested a petite piece de la pate de maison at that lovely charcuterie. I did read the sign 89E per kilo, but I figured I would get only a tiny slice.  Don't ask how much it turned out to be. Just know it was worth it.

About half way through our month I was staring at the phone waiting for the moment Le Table d’Eugene  would open in order to confirm our lunch reservations.   Jim called from the kitchen, “Why are you sitting by the phone? Eat a little breakfast before you call.”

I responded I couldn't, I was too sick to my stomach about the call. So he said, god bless him, “Stop worrying about this French thing. You are fine. Your French is what it is. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t so stop driving yourself crazy. If you don’t, you’ll miss out on too many croissants because if you don't come and eat this damned thing I just tromped down the hill to fetch, I will.”

So you know what? I ate the croissant, which wasn’t any better than the ones I buy here. The phone call went passably. I only said two three weird things before the French maître d guy switched to English.

After that I stopped going nuts and sort of let it go. I enjoyed Paris even more. Sometimes I understood and was understood, sometimes not.

So, “Bonjour Pierre,” my very kind new doorman, “Je parle un peu.”