The Accidental Parisian

An ever-more-purposeful Parisian

2010-08-26T14:02:00.008+02:00

You may wonder why I haven't been blogging in a few months.

Supposedly, I have been in Paris this summer. Supposedly, because that was the plan: I work in Cathedral Town, UK during the academic year, and outside of term I live in Paris, working on my writing and research. Easy, right? But it feels like I've hardly been in Paris at all: I went to two weddings, took a fantastic holiday in the US and attended a few conferences. My Paris time has flown by, much of it having been spent in my home office cursing the proofs for Book 2. (Finally! Done! Gaaah!) So, that's all happy stuff, but blogging has been pushed aside.

And then, there's the little issue of my job. I loved my work in Cathedral Town but then to my great surprise I got an interview, and then a position, at Regal College. It's a better job and a better commute to both London and Paris. This means that both academic research and marital life will be easier to juggle. The past year has been tough and now that our job anxieties have settled down, I actually feel like I could enjoy Paris. (I know, like, crazy or what?!) But in the meantime I'm moving. Again.

So, this leads us to our next project. Since MCM now has a permanent position in Paris, which he loves, and we've committed to taking the Eurostar train quite frequently, we're going to try to buy an apartment in Paris. We'll be targeting north-eastern Paris, both because of its affordability and its proximity to Gare du Nord, where the Eurostar arrives. Right now it takes a good hour to get to Gare du Nord from our apartment in the western suburbs, and that, frankly, sucks big time. It sucks enough that I am willing to DO YET ANOTHER MOVE. Because you all know that I need to move house EVERY SINGLE YEAR to keep my blood pressure up.

My plan is to gradually chronicle the experience here. It will be another primer in French bureaucracy, hopefully an entertaining introduction to the world of immobilier (French property), and a window into real Parisian apartment living. I've scanned Anglophone decoration and property magazines and websites and most of the 'authentic Parisian apartments' featured cost well over a million, of any particular reserve currency. Uh, that won't be us.

And then there's size. I'm sick of reading about (admittedly very groovy) places on Apartment Therapy and the like, with the owners cooing It was such a challenge to implement our major design plans within such a tiny space but we just love it and are so smug now blah blah blah... only to find out their idea of 'tiny' is three times as large as the 430 square feet in which MCM and I happily dwell at the moment.

And we're looking for a bit of a renovation project, too - the kind of place that is advertised as a rafraichir (needs updating). This is partly to add value, and to get the most space for our budget, and also because I really like to get my hands dirty. And keep my blood pressure high. I have to remind myself, though, that renovating a 4th floor walkup in Belleville won't be like driving to Lowe's in American suburbia and then returning home to park in your own driveway. Especially since we don't even have a car. Heck, I don't even have a licence. sniff sniff Does anyone smell disaster and chipped nails?

So, lots of excitement to come, and hopefully lots of amusing blog posts to follow in turn. Thanks to all of you who are still reading and following. Just for you, I'm also going to share some more piccies of what to wear to French weddings, in a post to follow shortly.

Bisous,
AP

Exhibition Review: Les Orientales

2010-05-12T16:58:00.004+02:00

This coming Saturday, 15 May is the Nuit des Musees across Europe, when dozens of museums will stay open late (many until midnight) and offer free admission. There is a list of the Paris museums participating, and special events on, on this website.

I love museums and they are the main reason I like living in cities; I don't know why I never blog about them. I went to tonnes of museums and studied a bit of art history as a teenager, but it wasn't until I was in grad school that the penny dropped and I realised that an exhibit is no different from an academic article or college student essay: an exhibition has a central argument and it structures its evidence to prove that thesis. Some are more successful than others. With that in mind, I'm going to give out grades for exhibitions I review here.

I was very keen to see the 'Les Orientales' exhibit at the Victor Hugo Museum, celebrating the 1829 publication of Hugo's collected poetry on an 'oriental' theme. Housed on the first floor of Hugo's former home, the small exhibition is spread over several rooms and contains a number of works from artists like Delacroix and Gericault, as well as manuscripts and illustrated books from Hugo himself and contemporary writers like Chateaubriand. If you love Delacroix, like I do, then you'll enjoy seeing some of these lesser-known pieces brought together.

But otherwise, I found the exhibition a bit disappointing. It was very strange that the word 'romanticism' never appeared in the exhibit (although it was used once in the programme). Orientalism itself was never probed as a concept, which would have been intriguing as it meant different things over the nineteenth century, and some again different today. One of the final rooms had a series of odalisque portraits that played on the idea of Eastern women in harems. These were great pieces, but they spanned over 50 years, with no contextualisation or reflection on the difference between a portrait of an Algerian woman in 1830 and one in 1885. I also found, ironically, many of the commentaries to be jargon-filled and inaccessible to most general visitors. Plus, the rooms were small and dimly lit and there seemed to be far too many people working there, so that even though there were probably only twenty other people there at the same time as us, we felt that we were constantly bumping into people.

Tickets to Les Orientales cost, if I remember correctly, 7 euro (I can't find the information anywhere on the website!). The rest of the house, being one of the municipal museums, is free. If you happen to be in Place des Vosges it's worth checking out to see the inside of one of the hotel particuliers on the square. But be warned that the museum presumes that you know Hugo's life, family history and artistic oeuvre very well, and contains very little information for the unacquainted. For example, a room full of family items (clothing, letters, etc) is labelled with their names, but never tells you who they are in relation to Hugo. I suppose I can't complain because it's a free museum, but I know how competitive it is to break into museum work and I've got to believe that someone could do a better presentation with the material here.

Maison de Victor Hugo
6, place des Vosges
75004 Paris
Metro: Saint Paul
Open 10am-6pm, Tuesday to Saturday
Free for the permanent exhibition (house)
Les Orientales exhibition runs until 4 July and costs 7 euro (I think)
Grade: B-. Shows potential and has strong evidence, but lacks structure and context. Needs to show critical engagement with theoretical terms. Presentation could be improved.

What to do on Sundays in Paris

2010-04-22T14:20:00.004+02:00

Sundays in Paris are still considered a day of rest, for religious reasons - that is, the French faith and belief in time off work. But if you live with neighbors in close proximity (and especially if you have parquet floors, like most Parisians) you'd better not spend your day off mowing the lawn, catching up on vacuuming, or installing some new shelves - that is, unless you want your neighbors thumping on the ceiling to subtly and oh-so-passive-aggressively point out that they don't like the noise you're making. (Thanks to Mazarine for that anecdote!) Some Parisians have even been forbidden by their neighbors from running their clothes dryers on Sundays.

You can also scratch off that other UK and US Sunday tradition, of reading a fat newspaper filled with cultural supplements, coupons and cartoons. Most French newspapers are relatively thin, and as I type, they're actually on strike. And if you need to do any shopping, you're not having a lazy sleep in - shops that are open on Sunday usually open in the morning (say, 9-1) rather than the afternoon. Exceptions include areas market 'tourist' - this includes the shopping mall in the basement of the Louvre and the 4 Temps, a big mall at the end of Metro line 1. Food shopping after 1pm is usually limited to gas stations and the corner shops, which are relatively pricey and may not have any fresh bread.

My recommendations instead? Church, of course - in French or in English (St Joseph's RCC, St Michael's Anglican, American Church in Paris, etc). MCM and I usually like to eat - heading to the market in the morning, buying supplies, and then cooking in the afternoon. We also usually try to counter the eating by getting out for a nice walk or a bike ride. You can now rent Velibs near pretty much every Parisian park, including the Bois de Boulogne and Vincennes.

Or, and here's my top suggestion, try one of the markets that are open in the afternoon. I like the covered, open-air book market in the bottom of the 15th arrondissement, which is open every weekend and specialises in used and antiquarian books.

Bring cash. Most books are in French although there are some in English. Some of the vendors are very specialised - like antiquarian books on French colonialism - and some carry jumbled bits of everything (Andrew Morton's biography of Monica Lewinsky, anyone? Or the Hachette Guide des Vins 1987?) There are sections dealing with children's books, cookbooks, fine art books, science fiction, and (gulp) erotic cartoons. If you're just looking for a pocket version of any French literary classic, you'll find it here for a euro.

When you're done, there's a little restaurant across the street, Les Tontons, which specialises in tartares, or there's a Poilane bakery. You can also take a nice walk in the Parc Georges Brassens, a pretty modern park that has lots of play areas for kids.

I heart Romain Duris

2010-04-14T21:58:00.005+02:00

I've already hinted at this, but one thing French that I really, really like is... Romain Duris. He's my first choice to play MCM in Accidental Parisian: The Movie. For those of you who are not acquainted with this acting talent, there is the very helpful www.romainduris.net, a Wikipedia page in English (nice photo!), and one in French, too (regrettable photo). He's a skilled and extremely versatile actor, and his hair has almost had a career of its own. He's 35 and has made as many films; here are a few of my favourites, for a virtual Duris film festival.

Duris first came to my attention in Chacun Cherche Son Chat (While the Cat's Away), a 1996 film about young people in the Bastille area of Paris, as it was beginning to transform from a populaire working-class Parisian neighbourhood to a hip, trendy, and ultimately expensive one. (Average apartment prices are now about 6,000 euro per square meter in Bastille - that's about $300,000 for a one-bed apartment). Duris plays a grungy, cheating drummer. That might not sound promising, but he brings great energy to the roll. You can see him wearing a goofy hat and looking scruffy 37 seconds into this very funny film trailer:

Next Duris highlight would be the 2002 L'Auberge Espagnole, in which he plays a cleancut French Erasmus student in Barcelona. MCM and I met thanks to the Erasmus programme, and this film captures the experience perfectly. The first minute of this clip is classic. A college friend took to calling MCM and I "Xavier and Wendy" in reference to the two characters... who end up getting together in the sequel, Les Poupees Russes. Here he is in a great scene with Audrey Tautou:

There's also a scene where he runs naked down a Parisian street, but that's a bit risque for this blog.

Duris's fantastic hair (nice still here) returned for his supporting roll as a painter/NGO worker who sleeps with Kate Hudson in Le Divorce. The hair got even crazier in Moliere. In his most recent film, which MCM and I saw last week, he plays a professional heartbreaker, L'Arnacoeur. It's a romantic comedy which would be totally goofy if not for Duris's energy and talent. He's got mid-length hair and a scruffy beard, AND he performs the Patrick Swayze dance sequence from Dirty Dancing. Lovely. The official film site is here, with photos and clips. Enjoy!

Restaurant Review: Chez Casimir: the best brunch in Paris?

2010-04-04T21:51:00.006+02:00

Hello loyal blog readers! I'm on a break from work in Cathedral City, UK, and spending some time with Mon Cher Mari in Paris. I've missed him, and I've missed you all, too.

MCM and I had a joyful reunion at what is perhaps the best brunch spot in Paris. I've mentioned the recent French obsession with le brunch (and if you're a Froggie reading this, you can learn to make brunch US-style here), and their own afternoon invention, le slunch (shudder). Anyway, brunch at Chez Casimir came highly recommended by Francois Simon, the restaurant critic for the Figaroscope, a weekly events listing magazine associated with the Figaro newspaper. We had dinner at Chez Michel, Casimir's sister (brother) restaurant, about 18 months ago, and it was great. Both are in a neighbourhood close to Gare du Nord - which is gentrifying, though not fast enough for my taste (walking there at night is still slightly creepy but the daytime is absolutely fine). However, it's perfect if you're just walking off the Eurostar or RER from the airport and you are hungry.

Casimir's brunch is at the extreme end of casual and it's a self-serve operation. There's a closet-like wine cellar at the back of the small dining room where you choose your own bottle of wine, with prices starting at just 11 euro a bottle. (We'll get some rubbery bracelets with a 'WWOMD' - What would Olivier Magny Do - message for those of you who need a little encouragement and spiritual reinforcement in the sommelier department). MCM and I chose a zesty little Quincy at 19 euro which was a nice match for the seafood.

Once you've got your wine, you start to eat. And eat. This is not a coffee-croissant-OJ kind of brunch. First, there is a salad buffet (marinated mozzarella, gravlax, cucumbers in yoghurt, a smoked fish and potato salad, heaped baskets of crusty bread, round of gooey cheese the size of a small tire) on a round wooden table in the centre of the room, crowned with a mound of butter the size of a stock pot. Plates from the kitchen (no choice) start arriving: two oysters each, then raw scallops in their shells drizzled with a vinaigrette, then a delicious wild mushroom and tarragon omelette dusted with shards of parmesan, then a tiny Staub casserole of brandade de morue (baccalao), then a slightly larger mini casserole of a light veal stew. Still hungry? Well, you could have more of the salads, or there's a dessert buffet: moelleux au chocolat, little caramel puddings, Breton prune cake, financiers, madeleines... oh, and some grapefruit, in case you're watching your weight. (Watching it go up... and up).

What do you pay for this feast? 25 euro per person. For Paris, for this amount and quality of food, that's incredible value for money. I have no idea how their business model works. They're not spending much on decoration (the room is plain, save for a hideous mural in which, alarmingly, one of the figures looks just like Arsene Wenger with a moustache) or service - there were only two people working the room. Best to reserve, and get there early (12.30 was early enough) - both because it will be calmer, and, to be honest, because there's a lot of cured fish on the menu. On that note, you should turn off both your iPhone and your internal Anthony-Bourdain-brunch-food-safety-conscience.

Chez Casimir
6 Rue de Belzunce
75010 Paris
Metro: Gare du Nord or Poisonnieres.
01 48 78 28 80

Food: Tasty and copious. Casimir does dinner, too, of course, but Saturday and Sunday brunch, called the 'Traou Mad', starts late morning and continues until late afternoon.

Atmosphere/decor: Decor is unreconstructed Parisian cafe from yesteryear (with creepy Wenger-as-Bacchus wall art). Browns, ochres, wooden tables, cheap raggedy checked napkins. Atmosphere was completely relaxed and surprisingly un-bobo. It's all about the food, baby. Kid-friendly, provided your kids can sit at a table without screaming and eat raw fish. They have a highchair.

Service: Non-invasive but friendly.

Value for money: Staggeringly good.

What to wear: Very casual, although it is still not the IHOP, so pass on the PJs. I did see a French couple wearing matching Bad people go to hell, good people go to Waikiki Beach black hooded sweatshirts. That's a Parisian first.

Good for: Brunch with fun, food-loving friends. (If you don't have any of those, invite me).

Not good for: Extremely picky eaters - they will eat, but it won't be amazing value without the oysters and the veal.

Handicapped access: One level, but it's a crowded room with tight corners. Phone ahead and ask to be seated in a convenient place.

I'm alive!

2009-10-28T21:23:00.005+01:00

Here's a long overdue post. Well, I'm now an Occasional and Purposeful Parisian rather than a true Accidental Parisian. I've moved to the UK but Mon Cher Mari is still in Paris, and we're trying to spend as many weekend together as possible - which is not many. I've only been back once since my move at the end of August. (It was a fantastic trip, except for a shockingly bad dining experience, which I will post about later).

I haven't forgotten all about you, loyal readers, or stopped thinking about material for the blog. It's just that the move was a bit of a nightmare (as various bits of my apartment just keep giving up and snapping off) and, while the new job is great, the hours are long and the learning curve has been steep. I do want to get back into blogging every two weeks or so. The best way to stay up-to-date? Become a blog follower, then you'll get an alert when I write a new post. It will save you the hassle of checking back.

I've decided that now that I don't live in Paris, I like it oh so much better. In fact, I think I really like it a lot. Given that my career options were so limited, I always felt trapped in Paris. I spent a lot of time freaking out, visualising my PhD turning stale like the baguettes, pining for an academic community, and struggling with obnoxious bureacrats. Since I spent my time in Paris underemployed and searching for a job, I was constantly worried about money and I always felt guilty about doing fun things, when I could have been finishing an article. Now that the career issue is a non-issue (well, at least for a year or two), I can go to Paris and just enjoy it. Here's a new set of lists:

Things I don't miss about living in Paris:
1. The rules, and the constant feeling that I was breaking one but not even enjoying it.
2. The dog poo. Everywhere.
3. The dogs. (Sorry, Mazarine - not your dog! He's a sweetie).
4. All the boring black clothing. Not so chic and edgy when everyone is wearing it, non?
5. The Prefecture. I shudder.
6. The arguing. I'll never understand when French people are really angry or not, but I think my blood pressure has gone down since I left France.
7. The defensiveness, territoriality, negativity and self-centeredness I would encounter in dealing with people in service positions.

Things I do miss about living in Paris:
1. MCM. This has been so difficult.
2. My local boulangerie-patisserie, Le Chant du Pain, home of the best pain au chocolat in Ile de France, possibly the world.
3. The wine.
4. The archictecture.
5. The quality of the light, and particularly the late afternoon light as it hits the stone buildings along the Seine.
6. Velib, and in particular whizzing through the wide, leafy boulevards of Neuilly in the summer, or sailing over the Pont d'Alma.
7. The restaurant selection. I absolutely love eating out, and I miss what I had in Paris, compared to what I have in Cathedral Town here. (That said, it ain't London...).

Things I really appreciate about being in the UK:
1. The banter and easy conversation I have with people - partly cultural, partly just because I speak the language so much better. Buying a pint of milk is a pleasant experience.
2. The prevailing relaxed, laid-back attitude.
3. The beer. Oh yeah!
4. The fact that you can go into a restaurant at 2.45pm and say, 'Sorry, any chance you're still serving lunch?' without giving the owner a coronary.
5. The fact that people who work in service positions actually see it as their job to help you.
6. The fact that I am treated like a real person, not just the wife of Monsieur.
7. Being part of a professional community.

Of creepy men and mosquitoes

2009-08-20T10:30:00.007+02:00

I am suffering from acute moving angst. I'm supposed to start my new job in the UK in ten days, and as of now I maybe have an apartment (they're having trouble getting a reference from my French landlord - well duh), I maybe have a moving company, I have an idea of when I want to fly out, but I am very worried that my work visa won't be ready in time. The visa folks have my passport, too, so no chance that I could go to UK, set up house and come back to France to pick it up. Nope. Sorry.

I'm also dreading going back to the visa processing centre to pick it up, since it's in a scummy suburban neighbourhood and I felt really uncomfortable going there before and taking abuse from the men who hang around the bus station. And this, dear readers, is one of my two major frustrations of France in the summer: creepy men. (I promise I will deal with the summery joys of Paris in a later post. Right now I'm cranky).

Creepy men were one of the reasons I was so unhappy when I first moved here. It's a seasonal issue: once the clocks change in October I can go about my business unharassed. But in the summer months I get catcalls, nasty comments, and vulgar gestures nearly every time I leave the house. It's humiliating and it makes me angry, and it touches on a much broader, very sensitive issue. Most of these men are not 'francais de souche,' or French in ethnic origin: they, or their parents or grandparents, are from the former French colonies in North Africa. As a colonial historian I understand all too well the issues facing this community: the way they fueled the economic growth of post-war France, but feel they reaped none of the benefits; the discrimination they face in hiring; the traumatic memories of the Algerian war; the way suburbs were poorly constructed and badly maintained, leading to ghettoisation. I'm also horrified by the language and arguments of the anti-immigration extreme right in France.

A few years ago French law was clarified to state that the 1905 law on secularisation (laicite) means that religious symbols should be banned in public institutions, like schools. This means, for example, that a teacher should not be wearing a crucifix. But the main reason it was controversial was that it also means that women and girls cannot wear the hijab, or Muslim veil.

Before moving to France I felt quite uncomfortable with this law. I felt that it was a violation of religious freedom, an unwarranted (racist?) attack on the Muslim community, a knee-jerk reaction to 9/11, and an infantilizing and neocolonial move: you, Muslim women, are oppressed and do not know it - you need our help to progress. We know what's best for you.

Living in a Parisian suburb has changed my feelings about this law, in ways that I'm not fully at ease with. Last summer I saw one of the nasty creeps who had made a vulgar comment in the morning, strolling around with his veiled wife later in the afternoon. I'll never truly understand the complex reasons why some women choose to wear a hijab, but I knew there was a problem when my first instinct in responding to the harassment was to change the way I dress. Maybe I was showing too much skin - maybe I was provocative? Ridiculous, MCM replied. It's summer. You should be able to show your arms without being harassed. We debated whether these men were trying to embarrass or intimidate me into covering up - acting as morality police - or whether they were getting off on Western women while expecting their own to cover up. Either way, it sickens me.

I feel extremely uncomfortable with some of the conclusions you could draw from this. But I do believe strongly in gender equality, and I've come to the conclusion that you don't have equality when women are expected to cover all their skin and face harassment when they don't. What I still don't know is how to deal with the issue when I'm faced with it on the street.

The other serious frustration in summertime in Paris is much more straightforward. Mosquitoes, biting, buzzing and waking me up in the night. Honestly, French people: screens! In the windows! How can you not have screens? Dr Mmm, who is visiting Paris, commiserates with me - she also has that mosquito delicacy, pale Irish skin, and gets enormous welts from the bites. It's awful and if anyone else tells me to just get a citronella candle, I'll lose it.

Summertime rant over. Thank you.

Julia Child made me write this blog

2009-08-13T11:17:00.005+02:00

It's true. She appeared to me in a dream, held a wire whip to my head, and said, "Blog, woman, blog!"

Okay, it wasn't quite like that. But I thought it was time to pay homage to the great dame, now that the film Julie and Julia has been released in the States. The film stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child and Amy Adams as me. Oops. I mean as Julie Powell, the New York woman who blogged about cooking through Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. (My mother went to see the film and said, "I kept looking at Amy Adams and thinking she was you, sweetie!" So once I finish Accidental Parisian: The Novel and sell the film rights, we'll have to give Amy a call. Reese Witherspoon will undoubtedly be disappointed, but that's just life. Romain Duris will play my handsome French hubby).

Anyway... Julia Child really did inspire this blog. Here's the long story. I had been really frustrated and down on myself and on France for my first few months here. MCM and I went to my parents' house in Massachusetts for Christmas and had a great time - we really benefited from the break, the fun, the time with my very warm and exuberant family. We made a great day trip to Boston where we saw the fabulous Tara Donovan show at the ICA, which completely restored my hope in contemporary art (in my book, she is in league with Barbara Hepworth and Anish Kapoor). We then went to a lobster shack on the pier and had chowder, beer and lobster rolls. It was, in total, a wicked awesome day.

Waiting for the train home at South Station, I started browsing the little book stand and made an uncharacteristic splurge on two paperback books - two books which filled two big voids in my brain. I have a huge stack of publishers' catalogues in my office here; how ironic that I found these two most helpful books in my hometown, in a train station of all places. The first was Linda Colley's biography of Elizabeth Marsh, a masterly work of world history that really inspired me and helped me to make the finishing touches on my own book manuscript, with which I had become frustrated in the final edit.

The second was My Life in France, Julia Child's memoir written with her nephew shortly before her death. Here she was arriving in France after World War Two, a newlywed, unable to work, living on a tight budget, not knowing anyone, literally sticking out in the Paris streets as she was a good foot taller than many French women. She even laboured on an intensely-researched book, with the frustration, loneliness and sense of accomplishment that comes with it.

The parallels with my own life here were strong, except that Paris was considerably less cosmopolitan at the time - if I was feeling self-conscious in 2008, how would I have done fifty years earlier? But the point is, Julia embodied what I've come to see as a great quality in American women: enthusiastic determination to succeed, even if that means looking a bit goofy in the process. She threw herself into mastering, not just French cooking, but France itself. She made French friends. She threw fun parties. She got annoyed with French chauvinism.

The book made me decide it was time to pull myself up by my bootstraps, seize the day, and stop feeling sorry for myself. I decided that I would start a blog to vent, chronicle and reflect on what I was experiencing here. It's worked: I'm much happier now than when I started writing. So thank you, Julia Child.

***

In other cooking-related news, my sister D just sent MCM and me our birthday presents: his-and-hers aprons that she made herself! I'm absolutely thrilled because they are the most adorable thing I've ever seen. Here's me modelling my super girly one:

Love it! Unfortunately the photo's a bit dark so you can't see the lovely gathering on the top. You're a genius, D.

La Bretagne

2009-08-11T22:22:00.009+02:00

Brittany, or la Bretagne, or Breizh, is a western region of France, jutting out into the Atlantic. One of the few parts of France to have maintained the language spoken before French was introduced, it has a distinctive regional culture, an identification with other Celtic parts of Europe, and a small independence movement. It's a pretty region: very green, slightly undulating hills, stone houses with slate roofs and blue shutters, geraniums and hydrangeas growing enormous, and a ragged coastline fringed with small islands.

Brittany has produced two particularly noteworthy things: the creperie and, it would sometimes seem, half the population of Paris. MCM's family hails from Brittany. The French secretary and the one French teacher at my school are both Breton. In one of the companies where I teach, 5 of my 16 students are from southern Brittany. "Why does everyone in Paris seem to be really Breton, or at least from a Breton family?" I asked MCM. "I never meet that many people from Picardie, or the Auvergne, or Normandy." He didn't know the answer, but we think it boils down to a few things: Brittany is close enough to Paris, it's a largely agricultural region and thus a lot of people migrated for work, it can be reached in 2 hours by train from Paris, and it's a place people are proud to say they are from. Unlike poor Picardie.

In fact, Stuff Parisians Like could easily satirise how so many Parisians, I suspect, play up their Breton relations to emphasise how they are so not like those other Parisians. They are authentic. They are more pure than other Parisians. They have an exotic, Celtic, mariner side - even though they cannot pronounce Breizh and are allergic to oysters.

Brittany is also a place where many French people choose to take their holidays. It's relatively unknown to American tourists most visitors seem to be French, German or English. MCM and I recently spent the weekend at his parents' house. They retired to southern Brittany, a 4-5 hour trip from Paris. It's a pretty area and reminds me very much of the Irish coastline or my beloved Martha's Vineyard.

It also has the Irish weather which, in my (narrow) mind, is its great failing as a summer vacation destination. A typical summer day might be 64 degrees fahrenheit and partly sunny. Before we go for a walk on the beach MIL usually tries to convince us that we need scarves, sweaters and, on our last visit, a rain bonnet. I'm pretty sure that if I spent my whole summer there I would have seasonal affective disorder. But I know people who hate the heat - for example, an Irish couple with little kids, who like that they can go there, hang out at the beach and not fry.

Our visit coincided with the annual village summertime fair. This involved: a procession from the village to a large field where there were tents and food (lousy food, the ILs warned), a performance of Breton dancing in the traditional black velvet costumes...

AND, best of all, a display of antique and modern tractors, all souped up for the big event:

I'd recommend a visit to Brittany as it's a quintessential French experience. If you like walking, sailing, or looking at the ocean it's a very pleasant place to be; it's not a great destination for wild nightlife or sunbathing. Leave your black Parisan gear at home and pack your walking shoes, a navy striped nautical jersey and a primary-coloured raincoat to look like a local. We had a little wander around the pretty town of Auray, which would make a nice base for touring; unfortunately I forgot my camera that day, but their tourist office has some nice photos.

How we eat in France, Part 2

2009-08-03T00:31:00.004+02:00

MCM and I are just back from a visit to his parents' house in Brittany and, as promised, here's a report on what we ate.

My MIL is, in many ways, a very traditional French cook, particularly in her insistence on many separate courses and on the strong emphasis on lunch over dinner. She would probably be surprised to hear that, because she likes to try new recipes and many of the dishes she makes are innovative - meaning, chiefly, not from her region of France. For example, she considers Provencale food quite exotic. But the fact that she still makes multi-course meals on a regular basis, as was the norm 50 years ago, is rare, even for her baby boomer generation. (I don't know any French people my age who do this - comment if you do!)

Note: portions are not enormous - this will sound like a huge amount of food, but actually it wasn't. If lunch was big, we had a lighter dinner. Bread is always on the table and eaten with most courses. We drank wine with the meals (not breakfast!) but they use very small glasses, so the actual alcohol consumption was very low.

Friday lunch:
- Aperitif (white wine); little toast rounds spread with tapenade and pesto; cherry tomatoes (all eaten in the living room, with the nibble passed around on a plate)
- Starter: melon (small canteloupe-like, served in a wedge, eaten with a spoon)
- Main: small local white fish, whole with the head removed, served with wild rice and some steamed carrots and zucchini, lemon-butter sauce on top.
- Salad and cheese: green salad with simple vinaigrette, plate of 5 or 6 cheeses.
- Dessert: a raspberry charlotte (a molded cake made with purchased ladyfinger-type cookies, cream and berries).
- Coffee or tea.

Friday dinner:
- No aperitif
- No starter
- Main: a provencale tian (casserole of sliced eggplant, zucchini and tomatoes, with lots of herbes de provence)
- Salad and cheese (cheese plate leftover from lunch)
- Dessert: kouing amman (a Breton pastry with obscene amounts of butter, mmm) and/or leftover charlotte and/or a piece of fruit from the fruit bowl (brought to the table) and/or one of the blueberry muffins I brought. First time in my life I've seen a muffin eaten for dessert with a knife and fork! (See my scones post for context on this one).

Saturday breakfast:
- Coffee (drunk from a bowl with no handles)
- orange juice
- toast (leftover bread from Friday and some brioche)
- a selection of jams (she makes her own and artisan jams seem to be popular gifts amongst her friends who come to visit)
- fruit from fruit bowl (white peaches and apricots)

Saturday lunch:
- Aperitif: olive-goats cheese cake (quick bread) from Picard, in little slices; a glass of white Port; dried apple slices.
- Starter: a special local, summertime treat: langoustines (like mini lobsters), steamed and served cold with a homemade lemony mayonnaise
- Main: rouget (red mullet) steamed, served with a roasted pepper and olive side dish, boiled potatoes (served in their skins - everyone peels their own on their plate).
- Salad and cheese
- Leftover charlotte or fruit.

Saturday dinner:
- Dined out at a creperie, the tradition in Brittany: ate the buckwheat galettes , filled with ham, cheese and mushrooms
- Dessert was a crepe filled with cooked apples and the local caramel, which is made with salted butter

Sunday breakfast:
- Same as Saturday

Sunday lunch:
- Aperitif: little toast rounds spread with tapenade; cherry tomatoes; rataffia, a liqueur made in Champagne
- Starter: melon
- Main: pork ribs, marinated in honey and herbs and barbecued (exotic!), served with green beans
- Salad and cheese (still working on the same cheese plate)
- Dessert: mirabelle plum tart (made with store-bought puff pastry) or leftover charlotte
- Coffee. A bar of chocolate was produced to accompany coffee.

So, is it absolutely amazing?
It's very nice. MIL is a good cook and I feel privileged to get to experience a disappearing way of life. That said, I absolutely used to dread these meals when I first started dating MCM - they are quite long, my French was limited, I knew that I was not doing a lot of things "correctly", and I created some diplomatic incidents by not trying all the cheeses. I feel more at ease now, although I can't see myself ever doing this on a regular basis. It requires so much time and organisation (even with some purchased foods and the use of leftovers), plus I just don't find it necessary. I come from a family that puts very strong emphasis on large family meals together, but they are much less formal and they're not structured into so many courses. It's a bit like how, on our honeymoon, MCM and I loved going to restaurants every day, but by the end we were quite happy just to have a simple meal at home after all the fuss.

Lest you thought I was joking...

2009-07-30T20:53:00.005+02:00

A photo of the crappy little fridge:

Note the freezer "door," the cheapo rose, the full range of dairy products, and the jar of mustard that looks enormous. Don't worry, it's an optical illusion - but that little jar is still strong enough to take out a few rugby players. Not that I would ever use mustard for ill.

MCM naturally wanted to know why I was photographing the fridge, and I explained the post. "But did you mention all the great food I make for you?" he pouted. "Ohh! Just about to do that!" I lied. It's true - MCM made some delicious lamb and veggies tonight. But the point was not how good our food is, but whether or not our eating habits had changed dramatically since we moved here. The answer is that, surprisingly, they haven't.

How we eat in France, Part 1

2009-07-30T15:31:00.005+02:00

A few weeks ago, when we thought that MCM would be moving to England with me, he said, "We're going to really enjoy being back in the UK... cooking together... going to the market... trying new recipes."

If this were a TV sitcom ("a serie", as my French students like to say), you'd hear that tape-rewinding sound right now. Huh? Come again? Don't we live in France?

MCM and I have been keen cooks for a long time but our culinary skills have not improved here. We haven't radically frenchified the way we eat, such that we actually associate great homecooking with the UK. How weird is that? I've thought about why this is and here's what I came up with:

Culinary Bulwarks:
- We have a crappy little fridge with a tiny freezer compartment. This is the kind of fridge an American would buy for a dormitory.
- We have a crappy little oven - it's a combination convection oven, microwave and broiler/grill. When a French apartment says "unfurnished," it really means unfurnished. We're lucky we didn't have to supply our own crappy little fridge and kitchen cabinets.
- Paris has lots of great restaurants. Our former UK city didn't so we had much more incentive to cook.
- We used to entertain a lot, but here we don't have much space - our table only seats 4. We also don't have as many people to invite over.
- We've been alternately stressed/cheap/busy. Traditional French cuisine is based on great ingredients (often expensive), exquisite technique (time-consuming), and shopping almost everyday (are you serious?). As much as I love French food, I've often felt that it depends on someone, usually a woman, not working and having the time to do all that shopping and cooking.
- French cooking magazines tend to feature extremely elaborate foods, rather than nice ideas for weeknight meals. We're a bit lacking in inspiration for our normal life.
- MCM really appreciates French food but he is also very curious about other kinds of food and doesn't feel French food is the be all and end all. Plus, he was on a diet for a while...

Here's what we do differently since we've moved here:
- Lots more wine! Recently it's been a nice little rose that costs 2.80 a bottle. We probably drink wine every night, as it's so affordable, accessible and enjoyable.
- We buy bread every single day. We love the fresh baguettes and, because they are preservative-free, you can't stock up.
- We have always been the type to sit and eat dinner together, but we're more likely to have a simple French starter now: a slice of melon, a bowl of vegetable soup, etc. I like this, as a good way to unwind when you sit down and a way to get more vegetables.
- We eat a wider range of meats, including guinea fowl, veal and rabbit, which are cheaper and more widely available than in the US or UK.

This weekend we're going to visit MCM's parents. His mother is a very good traditional French cook and always makes multiple courses - even at lunchtime. (MCM's dad used to drive home from work for lunch before he retired). I'll be reporting back on what we eat to give you a sense of what this kind of eating is all about.

Myths about La Francaise in the Summer

2009-07-24T12:08:00.003+02:00

I need to blog faster, as soon as the urge hits me. I keep coming up with post ideas and then being beaten to it by someone else. Case in point: I've been meaning to write about topless bathing for a while now*, and then MCM noticed that The Guardian published this article just two days ago.

That's okay. I have lots more to say!

Most anglophone women seem to view La Francaise as an emaciated, effortless, elegant style icon, who brazenly bares all on the beach, in spite of a rather lackadaisacal attitude towards personal hygiene and grooming.

Wrong. Wrong again. Here, the Accidental Parisian debunks and updates some summertime myths about La Francaise:

1. French women all go topless on the beach: I was talking to two of my students recently about this - both of them women my age - and was surprised when they told me that their mothers always went topless when they were kids in the 80s, but neither of them would now. Why not? They shrugged. "I guess we're more conservative now," said one; "I just don't feel the need to," said the other. Hmm. Intriguing!

Le monokini is banned at my public pool, so I had to wait for my vacation on the Cote d'Azur to find out if there were true. My unscientific test results: going topless won't shock anyone, but very few under-35s do it. I quizzed MCM. What did he think? He shrugged. "I think women don't feel they need to. They know that they can, but they don't feel they have to in order to be noticed and to be sexy. Or maybe there are just lots of nice bathing suits available now." Would he mind if I did? "Of course not. It is your body and you are free." Yeah, but would he be a little bit embarrassed? "No, you're the most beautiful woman on the beach." (Awwww.)

I still haven't found a satisfactory answer to this cultural shift, but I'm quite sure that there has been a shift. Thoughts, comments and theories welcome!

2. French women are all really thin, even though they eat tons of cheese. French women come in all shapes and sizes, and many of them worry about, and struggle with, their weight, just like women in the rest of the developed world. They go about it quite differently, though. Pharmacies are stocked with dozens of weight loss tinctures, drinks and creams. French women's magazines recommend detoxing with asparagus and green tea and paying big money for spa treatments that claim to suck inches off thighs. Exercise? Whah dat? These magazine articles seem even funnier to me because French is written in the first person, present simple: "My first day, I eliminate. I eat asparagus and drink green tea. I offer myself an institute of beauty. Day 2. I prepare a tisane with three teaspoons of diuretic, purchased at my pharmacy. Day 3. I sweat. My hammam removes the toxins."

At one of the offices where I teach I ran into the snippy receptionist in the lunchroom. I was getting my coffee, she was decanting a brown liquid into an empty 1-liter bottle of Contrex. (Contrex is an appalling salted bottled water that is wildly popular, marketed as "ma partenaire minceur" - my slimming partner. Apparently the salt kills your appetite. Bring on the bloat). "Ooh, that's not something to drink, is it?" I asked. "Of course. It's for losing weight. It eliminates and cleanses," she replied, shocked, like I was a complete moron. Here's me thinking it was plant food. Now I know why she's always in a foul mood.

3. French women dress so well, all the time! Let me set the record straight. La Francaise is the queen of winter: black wool is her secret weapon, and she has no competition. But summer? Good gawd, it's awful. I was recently in London and the London summer uniform is: fitted, solid-coloured jersey, knee-length cotton print skirt, bead necklace, cute flats. Perfect! In Paris, women are either wearing their winter clothes (just less of them), or things that are better suited for a beach or nightclub.

I was recently wondering if I could get away with bare legs in an office (with brown cotton sleeveless shirtdress and wedge shoes). In some North American offices, you'd need hose. Well, any concerns vanished when I saw that the sales manager, a woman my age, was wearing a slinky halter minidress with glitzy sandals and a regular bra (with shoulder straps). A black lacy one. How do I know? Half of it was showing. I thought this was an aberration but I saw 2 other women sporting the same look while I was taking the bus home. Eek!

I am fascinated, in talking to French women my age, that they consider the right to dress sexily to be a fundamental one. In an office, I feel like I couldn't dress like that and be taken seriously - I also wouldn't feel comfortable. Talking to my students, they consider it their right to dress how they like in the workplace.

4. French women don't shave their armpits! This is just outdated: I haven't seen a single female hairy underarm in France in the last five years. Not one. If anything, French women are a bit obsessed with above-mentioned instituts de beaute and epilation. Waxing is fairly cheap here, too - a bikini wax costs about 10 euro.

*I never in my life thought I would write a sentence like that.

Big News: Paris Is Working

2009-07-23T14:43:00.003+02:00

Or, more specifically, MCM is going to be working, in Paris!

This is the wonderful news that we've been waiting for. After a really lousy year, professionally-speaking, MCM and I both have landed great jobs. Yes, they are in different countries, but I think this is great: I really didn't want MCM to move with me and be bored, lonely, frustrated and underemployed.

Employment and unemployment in France: a few general thoughts

Our past year has been completely shaped by the particularities of French working (and non-working) life. To recap, we moved here last summer when MCM got a job in a French company; I followed and hoped to continue my research, writing and academic job search from Paris. As it turned out, MCM hated that job, and he didn't get much love back, either: he learned in October that he would be laid off right before Christmas. At the time, I had no job and no work permit. MCM has been actively looking for a job since October and so, except for a bit of consultancy work he was able to drum up, it took him 9 months to find a new job. He's a bilingual professional with 3 degrees.

As soon as I got the work permit I found a job teaching business English. I've really enjoyed this: my colleagues are mostly young women from a full range of Anglophone countries, my boss is a professional with a good sense of humour, and I enjoy going into different French offices and meeting new people. It's been an interesting glimpse into French working culture. I just wish it paid better.

1). On degrees, diplomas and formation: In the US, or even the UK, there are good universities and better universities, and they set their own admissions criteria, whether they are public or private. In France, all universities are public and are required by law to accept any students who pass the final high school exam, the Baccalaureate (le Bac). As a result, universities are not prestigious: only les grandes ecoles are (these include Sciences Po, for international relations, and HEC, a business school). University fees are nominal and students get social benefits, so some young people register as students without much intention of taking classes. It's a huge way of hiding unemployment.

2). What you do with your degree: Career paths are much more rigid in France than in the US. An American who majored in history and had a good GPA has virtually unlimited career options (provided she's done some internships or interesting jobs along the way). A French history graduate? Well, you take the concours (examination) to become a history teacher - this measures your subject knowledge, not your ability to teach. If you pass, you are guaranteed a job for life in your departement as soon as it becomes available; you'll make about $22,000 per year starting out. If you fail? You take it again. And again. And you maybe do some substitute or part-time teaching to make some money, or you enroll as a student again. You can't just work in a bank (need a finance degree), become a journalist (need a degree from journalism school), or work in a museum (need a museum degree).

I recently met a French girl who was waiting for her Bac results. She planned on doing a college degree in Writing Tourism Guides. She proudly told me there were very few programmes in France like it. When degrees are so specialised and you usually need a specific degree for a specific job, you can see why it's difficult to find a job here.

3). On unemployment: If you're going to lose your job, France is the place to be. There are two main kinds of contract in France: a CDD (contrat de duree determinee, or fixed-term contract, usually 6mo to 2 years) and CDI (contrat de duree indeterminee, or permanent contract). If you are hired as a CDD you can only have that CDD renewed once: after that your employer must terminate the contract or offer you a CDI. Many jobs start on a conditional CDD and are turned into CDIs after.

If your CDD is not renewed you are entitled to unemployment benefits, which I believe are calculated as 10% of the total amount you made over the length of your contract, paid over several months - it works out to monthly payments of about 60-70% of your previous salary. You get this regardless of how much money you have or made. You are also covered by the Securite Sociale, the state health care system, and you're entitled to certain reductions (like free museum entry).

This system is an enormous relief if you lose your job. Of course, if it were easier to find a job you wouldn't need this kind of safety net. I've also met some people who feel entitled to do exactly what they trained for - and would consider, for example, getting a job working at Starbucks to be humiliating and beneath them. Coming from the American work-is-healthy, work-gives-respect mentality, I had no problem teaching adults English when I'm trained to teach at a university; I was happy just to be working, and this both confused and impressed my students who were aware of it. Heck, when I was a waitress I worked with single moms pursuing nursing degrees part-time, and dishwashers who had trained as lawyers back in Brazil - if you want to talk about making sacrifices, start with them. But, given the specialisation of degrees and the availability of benefits, you can see why some French would be horrified that anyone with a PhD would be a waitress. After all, I didn't go to hotel school to train to do that...

4). On being cadre: My students often ask me how to translate 'cadre': you can't. It roughly translates as 'professional class' or 'white collar', but it's not a useful distinction to Americans. To a French person, it's a prestigious professional category that includes managers, doctors, lawyers, etc. I still haven't figured out the point of it, beyond pride and social status, but I get the impression it's easier to get a mortgage if you're cadre. As far as I know teachers and nurses are not cadre in France, though correct me if I'm wrong. (A nurse in France is more like being a nursing assistant in the US, in terms of the training and what you're allowed to do).

5). Salaries and benefits: Salaries are generally lower in France than in the US. Public health care comes standards and public charges are taking out of your paycheck at a rate of about 20%. These aren't income tax, though, which is additional but can be arranged to be paid per month based on an estimate of the previous year's income. (Still with me?) I don't have a clue what the tax brackets are in France: all I know is that MCM ran a simulation for us and we probably don't owe anything. Like in the US, there is room for error and it's a anxiety-producing topic.

6). The hiring process: appears, to me, often opaque and unprofessional. MCM also interviewed for a French job where he was offered the job over a boozy lunch, then the job was advertised, then he had an interview, then things dragged on, then the director decided to go on vacation the week he was supposed to make a decision... It was with a mix of bitterness and satisfaction that he withdrew from the search yesterday. The whole thing dragged on for months and was extremely frustrating for us - MCM was supposedly the frontrunner, but they were in no hurry to make a decision. Hey, you don't really 'need' a job if you can get unemployment benefits, so what's the big rush?

7). Productivity and vacation: French working life is not geared towards making the most money; it's more about having a decent work-life balance. My French students swear up and down that the French are the most productive workers in the world. In a game I played with some students where they had to rank bare necessities in life, one of my students put an annual holiday as her #1 choice, ahead of a winter coat and a refrigerator, and all of them put it in the top 8. French workers with CDIs get about 5-6 weeks of vacation per year and they are required to use them. (So they tell me). Nice work if you can get it!

Thoughts, comments and corrections are welcome.

Vacation on the Cote d'Azur

2009-07-14T16:05:00.014+02:00

MCM and I have just returned from a short vacation on the French Riviera. It was a much-needed, much-appreciated little break, as you can see from the photo above. (Taken by MCM as I was putting my hair in a ponytail - I don't usually go to the beach and stand around posing like that).

We took the train from Paris (I love trains!) and stayed in the twin town of Juan-les-Pins/Antibes. I wasn't really sure what to expect - I drove through Antibes once in 1996, but had never stayed there before and wasn't sure about its jet set reputation. It's actually a place of contrasts: the waterfront has huge, modern, luxury yachts, but there's also a charming old town with lovely stonework:

On the other hand, parts of A/JLP are seriously tacky, even run-down, and the entire place seems devoid of any kind of intelligent urban planning. As a result, our cute little studio apartment, 500m (1/4 mile) from the water as the seagull flies, was a 15 minute walk to the beach over a rather grotty railroad crossing. 'This isn't very romantic,' MCM remarked, as I was gingerly stepping along in heels on our way out for an anniversary dinner. Oh well.

Another, striking contrast is between the densely settled areas and the natural beauties of the area. It was stunning to swim in the Mediterranean - clear, cool and calm - with the views of both urban and untouched coastline and the Maritime Alpes in the background.

Beaches are a bit controversial in the South of France (which, according to MCM, is not to be confused with the North of France, an entirely different country). In theory, there is no such thing as a private beach in France: beaches belong to The State and no hotel, restaurant or individual can claim otherwise. Somehow, the centralised message never got to PACA (Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur). Explain that, Eugen Weber! Anyway, most of the 'public' beaches on the map we received from the tourist office turned out to be covered in loungers which you have to rent, usually for 10-20 euro per day. We caved in on one day when we arrived after walking for a few hours and found that all the available 'free' beach was taken. We rented 2 loungers from a municipally-run beach-lounger-cartel, at 5 euro each for a half day, thus soothing our champagne socialist consciences a little bit.

Here's a shot of the tiny, crowded beach, as taken from the loungers:

I'll have to write another entire post on beaches. Actually, I could probably dash off a master's thesis on the topic: I would title it Top-less? A Bourdieusian deconstruction of the myth of the French woman on the beach and a hermeneutics of le monokini.

We found the once we got away from the beaches, we felt like we had the place to ourselves. Compare the beach scene with this gorgeous coastal walk, just five minutes away from the crowds and the craziness:

We took one day out to explore nearby Nice. Like Barcelona, Nice is brash and fun, with beaches, some great architecture, seafood, its own regional language and a young population. Like Barcelona, it also lacks for cleanliness, smells of dog pee on hot stone, and occasionally feels a bit dangerous. Anyway, we had a good day - went to the Chagall Museum, ate too much at lunch, walked for hours around the city and beach, and got this shot of the Vieux Port:

All in all, a very nice little vacation.

Wedding Primer Part Deux

2009-07-05T13:12:00.002+02:00

I have access to statistics on how many people visit my blog and the keywords they use to find it, and I'm absolutely astounded at the number of people who come here because they are looking for information about French weddings - and more specifically, what they should wear. So, let me respond to some of the questions and queries that are coming my way:

Wearing black: Yes, it is okay. You can wear black to a French wedding! I repeat, you can wear black. Black is okay.

Short vs. long dresses - what says the AP?: Unless you're working the maxi dress look, short is fine. French women of all ages wear dresses that fall to just above the knee.

Can you wear flip flops to a French wedding? No.

Really? But I like flip flops. No.

Oh. But I want to be comfortable. Flip flops are comfy. I'm not going to engage any further. Get some proper shoes, woman.

But what if the flip flops have rhinestones? I've called the fashion police. They're coming to escort you away from the blog.

Do I need to bring/send a gift if I am only attending the vin d'honneur? I would say it depends on your relationship to the couple. If you just live in the village, probably not. If you're a work colleague or distant friend, a small gift from the registry would be a nice touch, say under 30 euro. A nice bottle of wine or champagne, sent to their house, would also be appreciated.

How do I address the mayor? Monsieur le Maire or Madame la Maire. Or just Monsieur (Name) or Madame (Name).

How do you pronounce verrine? Veh-reen, with stronger emphasis on the second syllable.

Should I bring my gift or send it? No set policy, as in the US or UK, but it's just more convenient for the couple and their family if you send it. If you bring it to the wedding no one will mind.

There are about thirty people listed on the invitation and no reply card. How do I RSVP? It's not always clear. French invitations often have grandparents and parents listed - this is a traditional convention. I would suggest that you send a nice card to either the bride's address or her parent's address. 'Monsieur MCM Parisian et Madame Accidental Parisian seront presents au mariage de X et Y, avec plaisir' would do the trick, I think.

I still think it's unfair that you say I can't wear flip flops. Security?

Cafe Panique photos

2009-07-05T11:51:00.002+02:00

Finally, some photos...

Rue des Messageries
Cafe Panique sign
Lime mousse served post-dessert

Chocolate-orange tart
Carambar tiramisu
Lamb with spring vegetables
Veal with sage, ham and tagliatelle
Foie gras served two ways, with mango coulis

Restaurant Review: Cafe Panique

2009-07-04T22:45:00.007+02:00

After much research, MCM and I settled on Cafe Panique for my birthday dinner. We really, really enjoyed it. (I'll try to get some photos up soon, too!)

Cafe Panique is near the Poisonniere metro, in a slightly gritty-but-hip neighbourhood (but undoubtedly a gentrifying one, if not in the short term, then in the longer term). We know it well because MCM used to work close by, although he never would have noticed Cafe Panique unless we had come across reviews: it's on a residential street - in fact, it shares a front door with some residents! You do feel a bit smug and local walking into this smart restaurant, tucked away from the tourist action - so much so, that you don't mind sharing the place with a number of other tourists-in-the-know. It's a small dining room with a vaulted ceiling, open kitchen and small mezzanine level seating area. When we booked we were warned not to arrive too early, as the staff (of 4) would still be eating!

It was a very warm night and, like most places in Paris, Cafe Panique does not have air-conditioning, but our charming waiter (a student in finance who spent a semester in Chicago!) kept our carafe d'eau filled. MCM and I started with a bubbly aperitif, were served a complimentary shot of cold vegetable soup, and then each had the foie gras starter. MCM followed that with a veal dish, stuffed with sage and parma ham, served with fresh tagliatelle - a real success. I had lamb and spring vegetables, which supposedly had a thyme jus. This was the only disappointing dish we ordered - although the ingredients were all top, the dish was lacking a sauce or flavour to pull it together. We also thought the foie gras could have been deveined better. Oh well. Dessert was a chocolate-orange tart for me - correct - and a tiramisu for MCM - yuuuuuum.

The starched tablecloths, silver settings, and soft jazz music could make this place a bit austere, but the service was warm and the kitchen has a sense of humour: a Carambar wrapper was perched on top of the tiramisu like a little flag. (Carambar is a classic/nostalgic French candy). We enjoyed watching the chefs work in their small open kitchen - and they watched us, too. As I raised my fork to take my first bite of the foie gras starter, I looked up and saw head chef Odile Guyader watching me, expectantly, with a raised eyebrow. I tasted. I liked it. She knew that I would.

Cafe Panique
12 rue des Messageries
Paris 75010

Food: Modern, clever, but not too clever. Based on good ingredients and good technique. Tasty.

Atmosphere/decor: Light and fresh, a nice blend of modern and traditional. White tablecloths, simple placesettings. Abstract art on walls. Funky (purposely) mismatched chairs. No AC!

Service: Charming.

Value for money: Quite good, given the quality of the products. A three-course menu is 33 euro - starter, main, cheese or dessert. A main and a starter or dessert would be 32, so you might as well get the third course! Wines start in low 20s for a bottle, though most are around 30. We liked that they offered a Vouvray fine bulles at 6 euro a glass as an aperitif. Normally a coupe de champagne costs 8-12 euro a glass in Paris, so we thought this showed an effort to provide good value.

What to wear: Whatever. Most people were casual (jeans, even shorts), but in the smart decor you wouldn't feel out of place more dressed up. In the interest of full disclosure I should note that I looked totally hot. Of course.

Good for: A romantic meal; a meal with a small group of friends; a meal to impress your in-laws.

Not good for: Vegetarians, children, people with loud and annoying laughs, extremely picky eaters (menu is not very long and typical ingredients include lamb, foie gras, goats' cheese...).

Handicapped access: Toilets are to the side of the kitchen - it would be very hard to maneouvre a wheelchair through there. There is a mezzanine with some seating but otherwise no need to use stairs.

Housekeeping, and some questions for you

2009-06-26T19:57:00.005+02:00

Let me begin by saying: The Blog Will Not Die, Long Live the Blog.

Yes, I know that I'm supposedly moving, but not for two months, and anyway I see no reason to kill the blog. I still have so much to tell you all - about my civic training day, the kamikaze pigeon that hit me on the head, the melon we've been eating, and the way Parisian women wear scarves in the summer time. Plus, if my prayers to Saint Genevieve (patron saint and protector of Paris and former resident of our very own `hood) are working, she is interceding on our behalf with some of MCM's potential employers. He has 2 interviews next week. In Paris. Both for fabulous jobs. Aieee!

So favoritise me, bookmark me, follow me, send me virtual thoughts and flowers... I'm not going anywhere!

Except on a little vacation. Next week the Accidental Parisian will turn vingt-huit ans and the week after MCM turns 3. Three-and-0, that is. Three days later, we'll be celebrating our first wedding anniversary. For these milestone events, MCM and I are hopping down to the south of France for a few days of sunshine, sea and seafood.

This is where I need your help, dear readers! I am looking for recommendations for restaurants in or near Antibes. Ideally, I'd like some place somewhat with outdoor seating, yummy and traditional food, romantic vibe, not outrageously expensive. (I've been reading southern French food blogs and found one about a retired couple who likes to go out for 300 euro lunches. Hello!)

We're also accepting recommendations for my birthday meal in Paris. Current ideas are Bistro Paul Bert (12th arrondissement), Je The Me (15th), Le Violon d'Ingres (7th). Thoughts?

A moving condundrum

2009-06-15T18:13:00.002+02:00

Here we go again....

So, I'm moving to England at the end of the summer. What else is new? I've moved house - and often country - every single summer since 1992. I'm an old hand at it now. I should just be glad that the body of water between me and the new location is relatively small. And that pain au chocolat are just a one-hour flight away.

The question remains, still, about whether MCM will be joining me or not. He had a great interview today for a job in Paris; unfortunately, it turns out to be only a short-term position to cover someone's maternity leave. "That's okay," he said over the phone, calling to report after the interview, "I could stay in Paris for a few more months and join you after." Right, that's true. But consider these facts:

1. My new employer is paying for my move. Thank goddess!
2. We have furniture which we don't want to sell or give away (along with enough books to open our own school or bookshop).
3. Apartments in the UK can be furnished, unfurnished or semi-furnished.
4. Apartments in Paris are rarely furnished.
5. If MCM were to get this job, he could end up finding another job in Paris after. Or not.
6. If we moved all our stuff to England, MCM could rent a vacation or short-term furnished apartment in Paris for a little while. But if he ended up staying in Paris after, we'd have to get new furniture for a new apartment for him.
7. If MCM stayed in Paris with all of our stuff and then didn't get a job after, we'd have missed out on the chance for my new employer to pay for our (expensive) move.
8. MCM might not get this job. He might get another, permanent job in Paris instead. Or not. Or both. Or whatever.
9. I can't remember if I took my vitamin or not this morning. Maybe I should switch to the gingko biloba formula.

I know that I am making wild hypotheses based on lots of what-ifs and maybe-who-knowses. It just goes to show that a little bit of logic and analytical research methods can be a dangerous thing.

Or maybe it's France rubbing off on me... I recently went to attend my *mandatory* French Civic Training day - required of all resident permit holders. I showed up at 9am on the appointed day to find that I had been given the wrong date. There was no course that day, the confused (but very kind) staff told me; my letter was wrong, and it was not my mistake. Okay, I understand. I wrote to the office in charge of scheduling to explain the mix up. They have now replied to me, warning me that I was not present at the training day, reminding me that it is obligatory, and assigning me another date. I'm now writing to them to explain that I was not trained because there was no training. I'm tempted to write that, out of respect for French culture and traditions, I actually was present through my absence, or that I attended what Baudrillard might call a simulacra of a training day (an exact replica for which the original no longer exists), or that I was on holiday, or that I was on strike, or that hell is other people. C'est normale. C'est tout a fait normale. What do you think?

Wine Post #3

2009-06-07T21:11:00.006+02:00

Wine, wine, wine... My baby sister recently came to visit and, as she is not really a baby at all, but a new college graduate, we decided to take a trip to the Loire and sample the region's finest offerings: the beautiful Abbaye de Fontevraud, the chateau of Chenonceau, and, of course, the Loire wine. Very grown-up stuff befitting a woman in possession of a Bachelors of Science degree, I say.

We had brought along the Hachette wine guide, an annual bible of wine produced in France, rated and described. (I was reading this before bed for a while, but I was having really weird dreams. Fruity ones, with cherry noses, great legs and full bouquets.) Anyway, the plan was to just phone some vineyards in the book and ask if we could stop by for a taste. Eagle-eyed MCM was rereading the Loire guidebook before breakfast (while waiting for Baby and I to dry our hair - serious stuff, you know) and realised that, by marvellous coincidence, our trip coincided with the Vouvray wine festival. We decided that we would check it out on Sunday morning before proceeding to visit a chateau in the afternoon.

That's right. In the morning. This was either brilliance or madness: who goes to a wine festival at 10.30am? It must have been brilliance because we had an absolutely fantastic day, completely forgot about the chateau, and left at 4pm.

Vouvray is located near Tours, in a region known for its troglodyte dwellings: houses, garages and wine caves that are built into the local rock. The festival was held in a huge cave that snaked through the rock, and there were 19 winemakers exhibiting, offering tastes and selling their wine. Entrance was free but you paid 3 euro for a wine glass, which you used to taste the wines and then took home with you; nearly all the wines cost 5-8 euro for a bottle. Definitely a bargain.

Baby, like me, is an expert list-taker and noted down the name, style and year of each wine we tasted. And we tasted... weeeeel... about thirty-five wines. It was fabulous! I loved being able to ask the winemaker questions and the atmosphere was very friendly and not at all snobby. We told the winemakers that we had come to learn and discover new things, and they were all very happy to answer our questions. Baby was initially hesistant: "I don't know anything about wines! I won't be able to tell the difference!" Let me tell you, by noon she was musing about the merits of the 2006 over the 2007 vintage. It goes to show that you learn about wine by tasting it and it's really easy to learn to distinguish both quality and your own personal preferences.

Vouvray makes exclusively white wines from the Chenin grape. There are 4 styles: sec (dry, i.e. not sweet), demi-sec (sweeter), moelleux (quite sweet), and what is variously called petillant, cremant or fines bulles (sparkling). The dominant taste in the dryer wines was fresh green apple; the more mature and the sweeter wines are more floral (like honeysuckle) and honeyed. (Think that's all wine jargon hooohaa? Try one of these next to an oaky chardonnay or lemony sauvignon blanc, and you'll taste the difference). You serve them all quite chilled - say 8-10C/46-52F. Most of the wines have a sweet, inviting aroma, taste fruity but fresh, and pair well with food - not too complicated that they overpower the food, not so light that they taste watery. They're lovely as a pre-dinner drink (aperitif), with fish or shellfish, with light east Asian foods, or with poultry with light creamy sauces. The moelleux wines could be drunk with dessert.

All the wines we tasted were good; of the 35, there were only 1 or 2 that I didn't enjoy. But here were our favourites:

In general - 2008 - A better year than 2007. Vouvray grapes are picked really late - in October - and need a nice warm September in order to fully ripen. The weather was lousy in 2007 but 2008 was just right.

Fabrice and Laurent Maillet - these guys have won lots of praise from Hachette and they deserve it. Their sparkling brut wine, at 8 euro a bottle, was great and would be a perfect Champagne substitute for those on a budget, provided you like fruitier (rather than dry or citrusy) Champagnes.

Alain and Christophe Le Capitaine - Ahoy! We really liked their demi-sec - very balanced. They import to the US under the name L'Aumone. They are still recovering from a trip to Boston to meet their importer, where they went to Au Bon Pain. "Normally this name is very comforting and reassuring to us French, but we were very mistaken," Le Capitaine told me sadly.

La Grande Taille - As well as producing a lovely and very food-friendly demi-sec, Messieurs Bonzon and Boitelle cheerfully answered my inane questions for about twenty minutes. Lovely people, lovely wine.

The moral of the story is, go to a wine festival if you're visiting France. It's a fantastic cultural experience and a lot of fun. The Vouvray fest happens three times a year and is highly recommended. Sante, mes amis!

Au revoir, Paris!?

2009-06-07T20:47:00.005+02:00

Big news here: I'm leaving Paris in two months.

After spending a few years playing that fool's game known as searching for an academic job in the humanities, I've done it. I've got a lectureship in the south of England (in the US, this would be called an assistant professorship). I've dealt with job rejection for so long that I'd actually forgotten that getting that job was a possible outcome. I'm still slightly in shock!

This actually happened two weeks ago but right after I had my dad visiting, then my sister visiting, and then a visit from a very nasty stomach virus. Plus, there's been work to be done immediately, designing syllabi to get my courses listed for the autumn semester and making preliminary enquiries about moving. I've been swamped.

I have mixed feelings about all of this. Professionally, it's fabulous. I've finally found what I have been looking for. I'll be taking a huge step up the career ladder. I'll be putting my degrees and talents to work. I'll be moving closer to many friends who I miss dearly. I'll be moving back to an English-speaking country, and in some ways that feels like going back to an even playing field.

But... but what? After ten months of struggle, I feel like I am finally getting the hang of Paris and I have the satisfaction of knowing that I've done it mostly by myself. So where's my prize? It's as if I've been allowed to look but not touch: I've been so consumed with bureacracy, trying to publish and research independently, applying for jobs all over the place, and worrying about money that I haven't been living it up. Now I'm ready to, and it's time to go. It's a bit like climbing a mountain, getting almost to the top, and then being told that you have to descend before you can see the amazing view.

In other words: I'm sad to leave Paris.

There is a small catch, though. We don't know yet if MCM will be joining me or not. He's freelance at the moment and will probably come - although, for his professional prospects, the new city is terrible. But there is a small chance that he is going to get his dream job in Paris. It's all very hush-hush and I'm almost afraid to think about it, as it brings up so much vulnerability and emotion; we just can't take much more drama.

If MCM stays in Paris then we would try to see each other most weekends (there are direct flights), and I would spend much of my (very generous) summer break writing in Paris. It would be tough but it would be temporary, and I'd rather we both have wonderful jobs than he be lonely and miserable in a new city. After all, I know just what that's like. And we've spent time apart before: I calculated that one year when we were both doing a lot of research and family travel, we spent nearly five months apart. We can do it.

There's also the fact that Paris will always be here and I'll always feel, I think, that I have staked my claim: that now, I've got some kind of knowledge of this city that no one can take away from me. (That sounds dangerously like I might break into song...)

So, final point: the fate of the blog. I'd like to continue, but as you can see I'm not able to post as much as I'd like to. We'll see. If I end up spending weekends in Paris there will be many more tales to tell and things to taste, and I'll keep sharing it here.

On yer bike!

2009-05-18T10:22:00.002+02:00

Once upon a time the Accidental Parisian lived in a small city in northern Northern Europe and used to zip around town on her trusty little Claud Butler hybrid bicycle (with rattan basket). She battled strong winds off the North Sea, high humidity and helmet hair, but she also benefited from slow, considerate drivers, a good cycle path network and the fact that none of her colleagues were really that fashion-conscious. (Okay, one major exception - Rubber Girl, if you're reading this, forgive me).

Ahh, but Paris is a totally different can of sardines in a light tomato sauce. On the one hand, you have the new, wonderful and exciting Velib network for public bicycle rental. There are hundreds of station dotted around the city and you either buy a annual membership for 29 euro or pay 1 euro per day. It's not perfect; my friend Fifteen says the bikes are very good but heavy for climbing hills, and poor Mazarine can never find a parking space to return a bike in her neighbourhood. The Velib are for adults only, and they don't have child seats. On the whole, Velib has been a huge success and is now being extended to the close Paris suburbs, "la petite couronne" (the little crown around Paris). A Velib station is being installed about a 10 minute walk from my house and there will be one about a 2 minute walk by the end of July. Hooray!

On the other hand, Paris has aggressive drivers and an incomplete cycle network. France has a rather confusing "priorite a droite" rule, meaning that drivers entering from the right have the priority, unless otherwise indicated. This is true even when you are on a main road - the side street on the right has the priority. This is also true in rotaries (roundabouts): people entering the rotary have priority - that means you may have to stop in the middle of the rotary to let people in.

Anyway, I've really wanted to cycle in Paris but have been anxious. MCM is fearless and has been cycling to work for the past few months, so we decided to go out last weekend: I would follow him and he would show me the best routes. We went to the Louvre, which took about an hour each way; approximately 1/3 of our trip was on designated cycle paths, 1/3 on very busy roads and 1/3 on quiet side streets.

How was it? Challenging but great. The cycle paths are wonderful: it is absolute bliss to be pedaling along the banks of the Seine on a spring day. It was also pretty amazing to think, Wow. I am riding my bicycle up the Champs Elysees and around the Arc de Triomphe. We parked in the Tuileries gardens and went for a coffee and browse around the Louvre (we're members so it's a free visit), and it was just a wonderful afternoon out.

I did have one little problem, which is that my basket dislodged itself from the back of my bike as I was headed downhill on the cobblestoned Boulevard Haussman. Not fun. Fortunately, no one was behind me and I was able to retrieve my lock and handbag and pull over. I spotted a dumpster on the side walk, pulled up to it and fished out some broken venetian blinds. Using the Swiss Army knife on my keychain (Christmas present from my Aunt Maria and Uncle Mark circa 2001 - probably the most useful Christmas gift ever!), I cut free a length of string from the blinds and McGuyvered my bike basket back on. Spanish tourists looked on in amazement - who knew Parisiennes were so resourceful, so ghetto?

AP's Tips for Cycling in Paris:

1. If you have not cycled since you were a kid, or you have never cycled in traffic before, the Concorde is not the place to start. Stick to cycle paths or practice in one of the big parks first (like Bois de Boulogne or Bois de Vincennes). Ditto if you are not in good shape - you need to be to accelerate when a traffic light turns green. Cycling is fun, but cycling in traffic is serious business.

2. Stay right but don't ride too close to parked cars (a driver or passenger might open the door without looking and hit you). Watch for cars entering from the right.

3. Be cautious but confident. If you are too hesitant you'll actually confuse drivers. Use hand signals to turn and make them obvious. In traffic, I found that the drivers were actually pretty respectful, or trying to be: a lot of them were doing the "hover and swerve", where they tail you very slowly, waiting for the left-hand lane to become free so that they can pass you quite wide. That's not necessary and it's annoying to have a car following that close behind you, but their intentions are good.

4. Safety: I looked like a moron with my helmet and fluorescent vest, but they're important for riding in traffic. The vest cost me a few euro and it makes me much more visible. It folds up tiny and goes in my purse when I am done. If you're visiting Paris and plan to cycle, bring your helmet from home.

5. You're not allowed to cycle on sidewalks. However, some Paris sidewalks are extremely wide - like Avenue de la Grande Armee, or most of the sidewalks in Neuilly-sur-Seine. If there are very few pedestrians and you cycle slowly, you might be okay. But be respectful and don't whizz past the Neuilly grannies out for their Sunday afternoon stroll.

6. Stay single-file on the cycle paths and stay on the right-hand side. Don't ride 3 or 4 abreast and block all the other cyclists. Yeah, I know it's your vacation and you want to all be together, but be respectful.

7. Don't talk on your phone or listen to music while cycling in traffic. I saw a woman swerving down Boulevard St Germain on a Velib while talking on her iPhone and I thought, Darwin, is this evolution?

8. Don't drink and ride!

And for pedestrians...

1. Stay off the cycle paths! They are usually built next to sidewalks. The sidewalk is for pedestrians and the cycle path is for bicycle. Got it? Granted, there are a few confusing spots - on Boulevard de Rochechouart, the hedges and park benches can make it difficult to see that you are crossing a cycle path.

2. That means keeping your children, tricycles and dogs off the path, too. Above all, do not let little Fido or Fifi wander across the path on a taut leash, unless you want someone to cycle into the leash and somersault through the air, taking man's best friend with them.

Happy cycling, everyone!

French Wedding Primer

2009-05-17T21:12:00.011+02:00

As spring turns to summer and the setting sun casts a rosy glow over Paris, our American heroine munches contentedly on the rest of the carrot cake she made for her French in-laws (7 of them!), and naturally her thoughts turn to weddings.

Not just any weddings, mind you. French weddings.

I've had requests for information about what to wear, say and do at a French wedding and decided to compile a little dossier as the big season begins.

Let me begin by saying two things.

1). I love weddings. I'm a bit biased, because my wedding was probably the happiest day ever in the history of the world. Trust me, I'm a historian.

2). A French wedding is not a sprint, but a marathon. You'll want to spend a good bit of time preparing. The day will be extremely long and tiring, your feet will be killing you at the end and your dodgy knee might act up. You will alternately bond with the strangers around you and/or kick them. At the very end, you may find yourself being sick or limping around wearing a silver cape that someone threw on you. Most importantly, you will finish dazzled and thrilled, and will delight in sharing photos and tales with friends for years to come.

Very generally speaking, the French wedding industry is not as developed or vast as the American or British one. French brides I've spoken to are at once in awe and shocked at the amount of detail and money that goes into an average American affair. A larger percentage of the budget will be allocated towards food and drink, with much less emphasis on things like limos, bridesmaid dresses, favours and formal invitations. Surprisingly, you might find that the French wedding you attend is less formal that one in the US, even if the venue is extremely grand. The French weddings I've been to, while lovely and highly enjoyable, suprised me by the lack of interest in these details - some of it refreshing, some of it disappointing ("You splurged on a huge poofy dress but didn't get your roots done?").

Invitations typically arrive 2-3 months before a wedding and wedding websites are becoming more common. Some French couples have a formal engagement ceremony called a fiancailles. The couple might exchange rings - this is why you occasionally see French men wearing two wedding bands. This is often just for immediate family, but you might be invited to one.

A typical wedding-day timeline:

- Many French weddings begin midday and finish in the early hours of the next morning. Your invitation may specify that you are only invited to certain parts.

- In France, only the town/city hall (mairie) can perform legal marriages - unlike in the UK, Ireland or the US, where members of the clergy legalize marriages by signing a license. Everyone who gets married in France does so at the mairie, and has, if they wish, a religious ceremony after. The mariage civil oftens takes place in the morning of the wedding, but could take place a few weeks or days before the "real" wedding. Don't be offended if you aren't invited to the mariage civil: some mairies are quite small... and some are quite ugly, too. You're not missing much.

- Religious ceremonies: most people who profess a religion in France are Roman Catholics and most churches are centuries old, so you're in for a treat. Even if it's warm outside, you should probably bring a shawl or jacket for this part, because 12th century stone churches stay quite cool inside. A Roman Catholic wedding typically lasts an hour and features readings, music, an exchange of vows and a homily from the priest. (Tacky alert: there may be a collection so have some change or a 5 euro note handy. The guests pay for the church).

- After the final ceremony, be it civil or religious, there is always a vin d'honneur: a cocktail reception where champagne is served. The vin d'honneur is open to anyone who has attended the ceremony - in theory, that could mean locals in the village or work colleagues who aren't invited to the dinner. It can be held in a space next to the mairie or church, or it can be at the chateau where the reception is being held. (Note that chateau means castle, but don't be overwhelmed: it is also used to mean "place where reception is being held." It may be more like a nice 19th century home or manor house).

The vin d'honneur may last 2-3 hours, so pace yourself (remember: champagne = bubbles = alcohol moving quickly to your head!) and make sure to nibble. Right now verrines are all the rage in France: appetisers served in tiny glasses. If anyone can figure out how to maneouvre salmon tartare out of a plastic shot glass with a 2-inch plastic fork while holding a coupe de champagne, please enlighten me.

- Le diner: usually a sit-down affair, occasionally a buffet. Again, pacing is important. I went to a wedding where the mass was at 2pm, the vin d'honneur began at 4pm, we were seated for dinner at 8pm and we finished eating a little after midnight. The pros: the food is probably going to be great, with 5 or 6 courses and wines to match each one. The cons: even if you're sitting with people you know and like, 4 hours is a bit tough-going. Which is why there are....

- Les jeux! To faire une petite pause between courses, sometimes games are organised. These could be musical chairs, hide-and-seek, duck-duck-goose... very, very funny, until someone gets hurt...!

- Le disco! This may begin at midnight or later; there may or may not be a first dance from the couple. French people are, in my experience, not good dancers, but after 9 hours, 6 courses and a few bottles of wine, I'm no Ginger Rodgers, either. This is also the moment where that high-cultured French facade crumbles and they reveal that they, too, like insipid pop music. Party on.

- Stop the music! It's time for la piece montee: the wedding cake, really a pastry and not a cake. This is a tower of chou pastry puffs filled with cream, held together with caramel and installed on a nougatine base. Absolutely delicious. A conic shape is traditional, but I've also seen more "creative" bakers do windmills, lighthouses, and... uh, what is that?

- Will it ever end? Who knows. I'm not aware of a cue for when to leave a wedding. Back in the day, the bride and groom left first; now it seems they are usually the last to leave. You can leave when the meal is completely finished, which may be well after midnight. Just make sure to say goodbye to the couple and their parents before you go.

- Note the possible absence of the following: the speeches, the first dances, the receiving line, the Achy-Breaky-Heart.

What about gifts?

Wedding registries are becoming more popular in France. The Galeries Lafayette department store chain is probably the leading one, and you can buy from their website (which, until very recently, had hilariously bad photos of the gifts, maybe from when they sent an intern around the store to take photos on his phone?).

Cash is also acceptable, or a check sent in the post. If you are (rightly) nervous about leaving an envelope of cash on a gift table, give it to one of the parents.

And finally... What to wear?

Whatever you want. That's what French people seem to do.

Okay, snark over. Study your invitation: are you attending the wedding of a couple named Segolene de France de Paris and Stanislaus Sarkozy-Bettencourt-Royal, held at Notre Dame with a reception at Le Crillon? Then beg, borrow or steal a metallic pastel Prada dress with matching jacket and hat (over 40s) or Chloe dress (under 40s).

Otherwise, don't panic. I am convinced that France is moving towards a single transferable dress code. The French don't go out in pajamas, old sweats and flip flops, but nor do they really dress up. It's the tyranny of smart casual. People wear the same clothes to work, to dinner, to the market and to the boulangerie in the morning. At one summer wedding I attended a lot of the women were wearing linen shift dresses with flat sandals - nice but not dressy. Dresses and pantsuits are fine; jeans are not, and anything you could wear to the prom would be OTT. It is perfectly acceptable to wear black - in fact, all of the French women who came to my wedding wore black, except for my mother-in-law, who wore white.

Exception to the smart casual rule: one of my informants tells me that hats are having a big moment, so if you go weak for a brim this could be your big chance to bust out.

Last thoughts: think about how you are getting home and plan ahead for a taxi or designated driver. I ended up walking home from a wedding once at 4am, not having considered how that cute little village wouldn't have cute little taxis just idling outside the reception.

Have a great time, and come back and tell me all about it!

Being beautiful, in France

2009-05-06T17:46:00.006+02:00

I'm quite used to getting unsolicited advice from French people about how I should look and dress; it's what makes the holidays so much fun! But in the past two days I've had two rather bizarre incidents that I thought I'd relate to my dear readers.

Yesterday morning I left my house for work and my sixth sense for public transportation kicked in. I think my bus is at the bus stop, I thought. I bet if I run, I can make it. (The bus stop is at the end of the street and around the corner, so by the time I can see it, it's too late). So I started to run up the street, quite fast, in my dress, trenchcoat and ballet flats, carrying a big bag of students files. You know, as you do. Totally normal. Not worth noting. Well, maybe for an American.

Have you ever seen a French woman run? I have. Once, in Parc Monceau. She was wearing a turtleneck and cargo pants. It was about 70 degrees fahrenheit. This whole "exercise" thing hasn't really caught on with French women, and as they say on that website with the silly cat pictures, teh kitteh is doin it rong! lol lol lol

My sixth sense is finely honed, for in fact the bus had been at the bus stop and was now stopped at the red light. The driver opened the door when he saw me booking it up the street. I hopped on and said, in French, "thank you!" The driver smiled broadly. "No, thank you!" he replied. Eh? "I just love that. I love to see a woman who runs!"

I laughed. What else can you do? I think I made his day. Power to the Yank who isn't afraid to leg it.

Today I got up the nerve to go to the hairdresser - my third time in France. The first time was great, because the hairdresser was a monoglot Portuguese speaker and I was spared small talk. The second time was not great. Today I tried a new salon in my town. This hairdresser, like the other two, was competent but a bit rough. I got thwacked with the brush a few times. She chastised me for me dry hair (a result, I'm pretty sure, of Paris's very hard water), recommended un soin (a deep-conditioner - and a racket), and trimmed my shoulder-length hair in record time. I was satisfied.

But I was also tired and having a "bad French day," struggling with both speaking and listening comprehension. So when she told me to sit back down , I didn't really know what was going on. She and the nice man who took my coat started asking me what I was wearing for makeup. Eyeshadow? Pah. Can't see it. Too pale! Concealer? Gasp! Not enough, apparently! And didn't I mind the redness in my cheeks? They could fix that for me, they cooed. Don't worry. C'est offert, madame. (It's free). Nice man produced a bunch of cotton balls and started rubbing my face. What the hell?

(Do I look like I want advice? Is this a French woman thing, or is it my bad luck? I went into a shop to buy sunscreen recently and the shop assistant looked at me, started nodding vigorously, and said, "Don't worry, madame, I understand your problem. Freckles. We have a product for you. We can fix that." Whah?)

So, without really agreeing to it, I got a free relooking from the nice man. It took longer than the haircut. Hairdresser and one of her turbanned clients peeked in from smoking behind the shop to offer encouragement. Mais regarde! Baaah t'es belle maitenant! Oh mais c'est tres bien!

Am I belle? Well, I think I resemble this famous and celebrated French person! I've resisted the urge to scrub it all off - I want to see what MCM thinks when he gets home. It's at least good for a laugh.

PS. Happy birthday, Mum!

Je suis tres scones

2009-04-25T10:04:00.005+02:00

Here's an unexpected way to impress the French: make them British or American sweets.

Le crumble, les scones, le cheesecake, les cookies, les muffins and les brownies are all the rage in France. (To sound French you have to pronounce the words with a lilting stress on the last syllable). I learned this a few years ago when my mother-in-law asked me for a baked cheesecake recipe; my mother, herself diplomee in French patisserie from Cordon Bleu, passed on my grandmother's recipe but puzzled at why a French person would want to make an American dessert. Weren't the French self-proclaimed (and maybe even self-important?) masters of desserts, the finest desserts in the world?

Next came requests from recipes for le crumble. I told my MIL that I didn't really use a recipe: if I had apples or pears on hand and wanted to make a quick dessert, I would chop and toss them with sugar and cinnamon and bake with a Streusel-esque flour-butter-sugar-oatmeal topping. I also tried to explain that I was more partial to the New England cobbler than the English crumble, but I think the distinction was lost in my (clumsy) translation. Anyway, I can't figure out why the French love our Anglophone treats. They still think that British food is horrendous but have always held British teatime sweets in high esteem. I tried to explain to my students that London actually has fantastic food now, especially with the rise of gastropubs, but they fell over themselves laughing because they thought gastro was short for "gastro-intestinal", not "gastronomic."

I realised that this could be my secret weapon. To me, French culture, especially culinary culture, seems dominated by notions of what is correct: this is the word used to describe things done well, appropriately, correctly. When you are dealing with well-known, well-loved classic dishes that have been made in the same way for centuries, you know if they are correct or not correct. I used to panic about what to say and do when I visited France with MCM before we lived here. He would reassure me and tell me to just be myself and I would respond that he knew very well that France didn't work that way. It didn't matter that I was an educated, well-travelled and cultured person: I would only be judged by the standards of France and, in general, I felt that I was not correcte and meeting with disapproval. It didn't matter that I had a PhD, because I didn't have a Bac! (French national exam that confers high school diploma - a post in its own right). If I rested my bread on my plate instead of on the table, I had poor manners. As I live here longer and my French is better and more confident, I am coming to terms with this. It's a personal challenge: perhaps because I attended a Catholic primary school and study nineteenth-century culture, I love rules and order and I don't like to unwittingly break social codes. (Although I just split an infinitive - I am a rebel deep inside!). But I also recognise that, like in any other culture, French cultural confidence can veer towards chauvinism and I shouldn't to take it too seriously or feel self-conscious.

So, I decided that instead of attempting to make French desserts for French people or trying to conform to codes where I risked not being judged correcte, I would be exotic. I would bring brownies to social functions, make a crumble for dessert for the in-laws, or send blueberry muffins with MCM when he went to visit his parents. The reactions have been very positive. Ahh! J'adore ces petits muffins! It works for me on several levels - I love these desserts and they are easy to make, too.

This reached comic heights when MCM and I were invited to a brunch at one of his colleague's home. Brunch itself is, of course, a North American import - and very trendy with the French. In my experience it is more breakfast than lunch in France: pastries, fruit, sliced ham and cheese, juice, coffee. No bloody maries, either; I got looks of horror and fascination when I suggested that alcohol was served at an American brunch. I recently saw a cookbook on sale at my local Monoprix supermarket for le slunch, a horrific term that has apparently been invented by an enterprising French foodwriter to combine supper and lunch. It's almost as bad as le fooding, a trendy French word that supposedly combines food and feeling. Gag. I need another post how the French are plundering and abusing my beautiful native language. (In fairness, we've done the same to theirs...)

Anyway, I made a bold move and brought homemade orange-cranberry scones to the brunch. I adapted them from this Martha Stewart recipe, adding the grated zest of an orange and substituting whole milk for half-and-half. The French girls gobbled them up! There were squeals of excitement and one of them pronounced confidently, "Oh, tu sais, moi, j'adore les scones. Moi je suis tres scones." I've since told this story to my students and they think it is hilarious. "Je suis tres scones" translates, very approximately into American teen-speak, as "Omigawd, scones are just like, soooo me. I am so into scones."

I actually felt a bit embarrassed that everyone was eating my scones and not the other treats the hostess had purchased (yes, purchased). One guest, an Italian woman, actually announced that she would take the 2 leftover scones home with her. I think there were 2 left because no one wanted to take the last one and risk getting scratched. Meow!

So, if you're invited to a French person's house, stand tall, be proud, bring Toll House cookies and don't rest your bread on the edge of your plate.

Budget Bistro Update: Restaurant Reviews, Le P'tit Canon and La Bastide d'Opio

2009-04-19T23:08:00.005+02:00

It's the end of the weekend and I feel like I'm ready for another one. Where does the time go? I still haven't answered all my emails, finished cleaning the kitchen, or launched my consultancy business. Or completed Book 2. But I've got priorities and one of those is saving you, dear readers, from overpriced Parisian bistros serving flabby frites.

Restaurant Review: Le P'tit Canon

This is the restaurant we selected for Best Man and Miss Mousse's Parisian visit two weeks ago and I think it was a great choice. In the trendy but actually residential Batignolles neighbourhood (17th arrondissement - not on the tourist track at all but where "real" Parisians live), this is a small bistro with a traditional ambiance: zinc bar, cozy dark woodwork, vinicultural decor and... everyone's favourite... red-checkered tablecloths! Food is mostly traditional but well done: cassoulet, confit de canard, some steaks, sausages with white beans, and a signature steak tartare. We only know about this place because we met a lovely couple who live in the neighbourhood and invited us there. After our meal MCM and I went home and immediately turned on the computer to look at rental apartments in the neighbourhood. (Negatory: we'd be looking at a 40% increase in rent to have the same amount of space as we have here on the border of Paris. Oh well - maybe once I launch that consultancy).

As far as I'm concerned (and it's my blog, so ha!), I think this is a perfect bistro. It's not a Michelin-starred restaurant, that's for sure, but so what? I'm not very impressed by so-called "best" restaurants: most inventive food, maybe, but "best" for me is the restaurant that best suits my mood. As a matter of fact, my favourite dining experience in the whole world involves eating lobster from a plastic takeout dish at a picnic table while watching the summer sun set over Menemsha, Martha's Vineyard. Fine dining? Hardly. But fabulous.

Le P'tit Canon, 36, rue Legendre, Paris 75017
Food: Unpretentious, hearty bistro classics done very well.
Atmosphere/decor: Cozy and traditional.
Service: Warm, friendly, efficient. Bartender is completely bilingual.
Value for money: Very good. Starters and desserts were 5-7 euro; main courses were mostly 11-14 (a bit more for the day's special). Affordable wines. Count on 20-30 per person.
What to wear: casual. Jeans are fine.
Good for: dinner with old friends; adults of all ages - bring your parents or your great auntie; when you want a meltingly soft confit de canard with very garlicky potatoes and a crisp green salad, washed down with a light and easy red. Mmm.
Not good for: Food snobs - it's good but it's not fancy. Vegetarians.
Handicapped access: Toilets are a tight squeeze, but no steps.

Restaurant Review: La Bastide d'Opio

About a month ago MCM and I had dinner with a lovely old friend who was having a relaxing girls' weekend in Paris with her mum. I suggested we meet for drinks at La Garde-Robe and then have dinner at La Bastide d'Opio. This is partly because her mum is a fish-eating vegetarian, and I knew this place would have options.

One lesson learned: if your visiting friend might be pregnant, don't bring her to a wine bar that serves unpasteurised cheese, cured meats and, uhh, wine. I had no idea, but I still felt like an idiot when she told us her exciting news. Congratulations - get this woman some tap water so we can toast!

La Bastide d'Opio is a Provencale place in the 6th arrondissement, south of the market in St Germain des Pres. It's located in a street crowded with little restaurants of widely varying quality - and a few of them are, I know for a fact, tourist traps. So, if you find yourself in the area and hungry, this is a safe bet. It is also, by the way, a special place for MCM and me: we dined here on our first trip to Paris together, in May 2002, and had a long, lovely, last lunch: kir and tapenade toasts, then rabbit with olives for me, my first taste of bunny, which I love, finished with an orange creme brulee. Then MCM brought me to CDG Airport, where we parted for 7 1/2 months and I cried through passport control. (The passport agent just stared at me and handed my passport back silently, looking a bit freaked out: obviously they don't get training in emotional women).

Back in 2009, main courses included a lamb "crumble" for me (really a gratin - the French flirtation with crumble needs its own post), a delicate sea bass dish for Granny-to-be, and juicy chicken with herbes de provence for our friend. The flavours were strong and well-balanced. Desserts were tasty and straightforward. I suspected that my moelleux was from Picard: now I do love Picard's moelleux, but it doesn't belong in a restaurant. Service was brisk but not unfriendly and the restaurant is a bit noisy; we were tucked happily into a cozy corner, but the middle of the room would have been too lively for us.

La Bastide d'Opio
Food: Straightforward Provencale cooking.
Atmosphere/decor: Traditional, rustic, bustling.
Service: Efficient. Maybe too efficient. It's a small place in a high-rent area - they probably need to turn their tables to make money. We did, however, have to ask for water quite a few times.
Value for money: Good. Choices of menus at 23 or 27 euro in the evening. Wine available by the pitcher.
What to wear: casual.
Good for: vegetarians; affordable and tasty eating in a touristy, often pricey area.
Not good for: a romantic dinner (too hectic).
Handicapped access: Toilets on first floor (up a flight of stairs).

So, these are my thoughts. What about you? Got thoughts? Let me know. I've had half a dozen emails from people saying, "But ahh! Commenting is too hard!" These have all been from college-educated, intelligent adult women - women who understand tax codes, or teach children how to read, or speak several languages, or who are published authors. Commenting on my blog is much, much easier than doing any of these things! Just click on the "comments" button and follow the instructions. If you accidentally send a comment you don't want, I can delete it for you. You can post anonymously or by using a nifty nickname, like me... and Mel Gibson.

Chime!

2009-04-17T10:11:00.007+02:00

The past ten days have been surprisingly busy and I've missed my blog. MCM and I had a lovely Easter, complete with lots of chocolate cloches. (Instead of the Easter bunny, French kids learn that huge church bells - cloches - leave Rome on Easter Sunday and fly out over the world, clanging and chiming and dropping chocolates. If only.) I metroed into town on Sunday morning and met Mazarine for Mass in the posh St Germain des Pres neighbourhood. We went to St Sulpice, an 18th century church that has become famous for featuring in the Da Vinci Code. On the side walls there are small signs that say "That silly book is wrong and full of lies and there is absolutely nothing weird about this place, so don't believe it, okay?" (I'm paraphrasing slightly).

St Sulpice is also famous for its enormous organ, and thus the 10.30am Organ Mass seemed like a lovely idea. But I'd forgotten that St Sulpice, though beautiful, is a dark, looming church built of greying stone, the altar weighed down with thick gold candlesticks and heavy ornamentation. Then BAAAAAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAAAMMM.... the organ. I recalled the delicate negotiations I had last year with the primo uomo organist at the church where MCM and I got married: he really wanted to play the organ through our nuptial mass, and I wanted piano: organ, I argued, wasn't right for a fresh, light, happy occasion in the summer. We ended up having to compromise - organ for processional and recessional, piano for the rest.

"This is like funeral music," Mazarine whispered. And it was, all through the Mass, altogether more Lenten than Paschal. Plus, it's very difficult to sing along to an organ. Especially in Latin, and there was a lot of Latin. Or French. French is not sung the way it is spoken - the endings of words are pronounced (Ha! I thought when I first learned that, So you admit that they are there!) and I'm always suprised by where the singer puts the stress on the words.

One hour and fifteen minutes later we filed out into the Parisian sunshine. "This is the kind of Mass that Catholics are embarrassed to show Protestants," I said to Mazarine. "Really? I've never been to a Catholic Mass that wasn't like that," she replied. Oh, the horror! And people wonder why Mass attendance is down in France; the experience, for me at least, was one of tradition without passion. I usually find Easter joyful and uplifting; this was ponderous and left me feeling a bit empty. That might just be me. Oh well.

We got American tourists (a family from California toting a bag of Pierre Herme goodies, a blonde college student in a pink Lily Pulitzer skirt) to take pictures of us in our Easter dresses in front of the fountains outside St Sulpice. After we strolled down to Cafe Flore, one of the famous "literary" cafes in St Germain. Neither of us had ever been there before - it seemed too touristy, too obvious. We sat outside in the lovely enclosed terrace and, I am amazed to report, their coffee is really, really good. Pricey (10 euro for two coffees), but excellent. Such a famous place could easily scrimp on quality, but they don't. I also got the faintest of sunburns on my exposed collarbone. I felt great.

MCM made a lovely lunch, featuring a roast leg of lamb and gratin dauphinois, followed by a strawberry tart with vanilla pastry cream. Wow, I love my husband. I had thought about choosing a Puisseguin St Emilion (Bordeaux) wine to go with the lamb, but my local wine guy had talked me out of it and told me that I needed a stronger Bordeaux wine - a Medoc. Yikes. I think my instincts had been right on this one. The Medoc was great - heavy, tannic, complex, a bit musty - but overwhelming. It was demanding: drinking this wine and trying to eat at the same time was totally freaking out my tastebuds. It mellowed after it had been open and breathing for a while but it was still too strong for our delicate spring lamb. I drank it anyway (yes, what a sacrifice).

Beyond Rapport Qualite-Prix

2009-04-06T13:31:00.004+02:00

I am struggling to find a restaurant for tomorrow night.

Our old friends Miss Mousse and Best Man are visiting and, quite naturally, they'd like to dine out one night at an affordable French restaurant. Easy, you'd think - Paris is heaving with bistros! But where to begin? I've had quite a few bad meals in Paris. When bistros stick to simple, classic dishes*, it's not difficult to tell the good from the bad (mostly determined by the quality of the meat. I am also on a personal crusade against limp frites, having been let down too many times).

As I've noted before, many of the Parisian bistros serving more inventive, exciting food offer three course meals at 31-34 euro per person. These restaurants score very high in what the French call le rapport qualite-prix: the relationship between quality and price, or value for money. (Thanks to Dr Mmm for explaining this to me when I arrived in Paris).

Three courses of fantastic food for 31 euro, in Paris, is certainly great value for money. But what if you just don't want to, or can't, pay the prix, if you don't want to spend 80-100 euro on an evening meal for 2, delicious though it may be? Mazarine and I were discussing how awkward this can be with visitors, too: you want to advise people on where they can have great food, but you can't forget that a meal that costs more than $100 for two is, in most parts of the USA, a very special meal indeed. At the lower end of the price range, the RQP is more elusive. If you're a budget diner who loves to cook, you may feel doubly cheated by a disappointing meal, considering that you could have made it much better yourself.

Of course, we have to be realistic. Paris is a big city and it's expensive. Repeat visitors may also need to adjust their memories for inflation: yes, you may have found a great steak frites for 9 euro the last time you were here, but when was that? 2001? Have prices gone up since then where you live, too? Thought so.

One of the best restaurant bargains in Paris is undoubtedly a couscous, served at one of the many North African Restaurants in Paris. MCM and I recently went to Le Bec Fin, supposedly one of Paris's best, where we ordered Couscous Super Royal for 2 and had more than we could possibly eat, and wine, for 35 euro. Our meal had a variety of barbecued meats (lamb, chicken and spicy merguez sausages), a tomato-based sauce full of vegetables (turnip, zucchini, peppers, carrots) the semolina couscous itself, and garnishes of harissa, golden raisins and chickpeas. Absolutely delicious, an important part of the French culinary and cultural landscape, and highly recommended if you are visiting Paris and dining out for a few nights.

But, in terms of bistro food, the search continues. I'll update you on my results, and I also welcome comments on affordable bistros in Paris and the surrounding suburbs. If you know of a good place with a pleasant atmosphere where you can get hearty, honest bistro food, and where two people can have a filling meal with wine for, say, 60 euro for two, please let me know.

*The Bistro main course classics that you'll find on most bistro menus (served with fries, sauteed potatoes or a salad):
Steaks: une bavette (a chewy cut - from the word "baver," to drool!), une pave, un rumsteak, un onglet, une tartare (that's the raw one - don't knock it till you've tried it!)
Confit de canard
Andouilette, a tripe sausage. (The most revolting and stinky dish in the world, IMHO, but MCM loves it).
Salmon, usually simply broiled, often with an oseille (sorrel) sauce

I'm someone's client.

2009-03-28T21:53:00.004+01:00

I arrived at my apartment building this morning (returning from the boulangerie with a big bag of croissants) at the same time as my postal carrier. She's very friendly and I said hello and let her into the hallway, where there are mailboxes for the eight apartments in the building. "Actually, I think I have something for you," she said. For me? "Yes, this package. You're Madame Accidental Parisian, no?" Yes, I am. But how did she know that? She laughed. "Ah, but we have met before, Madame! I have an excellent memory for faces." Yes, I said, but didn't she deliver mail to hundreds of apartments? "Ahh, Madame," she smiled, "but my clients are my clients."

I was delighted: this is the first time that someone has actually recognised me as belonging in the place where I live. And it's no surprise that this came from my postal carrier: I learned many years ago that they know everything. Think about it: just from sorting your mail they probably know where you bank, where you shop and spend your money, approximately when your birthday is, what holidays you celebrate, and where your friends and family go on vacation. In my case, when I was home visiting my parents from college, I got chatting with their postal carrier and she asked me which daughter I was: the one who was going to college in the fall or the one who had been in Ireland?

In any case, MCM tells me that we were lucky to get the package at all, since there is a strike on in our regional postal sorting office. Mais oui, bien sur. There you have it, folks: the two faces of French public services.

Restaurant Review: Cafe Constant

2009-03-23T09:23:00.003+01:00

MCM and I finally went out to celebrate the completion of Book 1, and we had an obscenely good meal at Cafe Constant, Rue St. Dominique (Ecole Militaire Metro).

Cafe Constant is one of a number of restaurants owned by chef Christian Constant in the very posh 7th arrondissement of Paris. We briefly considered Les Cocottes de Christian Constant on the same street, but opted for the more traditional Cafe. Our little nosy around revealed that Les Cocottes serves cocottes, of course - warming meals served in individual, mini Staub casserole dishes - but has a slick, modern interior, all chrome counters, angular bar stools and lime green trim. We wanted something a bit cozier.

Both restaurants do not take reservations, which is extremely rare for Paris. This is not a city where you just roll up someplace on a Saturday night and enquire about a table; if you come to Paris always, always book ahead, even if you phone up just a few hours beforehand. Heck, I've even phoned about half an hour beforehand and said, in most polite and apologetic tones, that I knew it was terribly late, but was there any chance that they had had a cancellation? And I got a table - the fact is, there probably had been a table free, but many Parisian restaurants are tiny and understaffed, and they appreciate much more knowing in advance. (The universal exception if a restaurant doesn't take reservations: if you are in a big group. I used to work at a restaurant that didn't take reservations, but we sure wanted to know if a group of 8 was going to show up in the middle of Saturday service, because that could throw everything off.)

This is the funny thing about Cafe Constant. Because it's small, serves fantastic food and doesn't take reservations, you must heed the advice of your guidebook (and it's in every guidebook, mine included) and show up early. In Paris, early means before 8pm. MCM and I arrived at 7pm - ravenous after a day of walking, shopping and talking - and it was half full: 2 tables of American families (couple plus 2 teenage kids each), 1 elderly French couple du quartier, 2 American women in their 30s. With the arrival of 6 more Americans (2 couples, 30ish; 2 well-heeled female study abroad students), the downstairs was full, and by 7.45 the small upstairs was, too. The elderly couple were replaced by two men, one of whom I am pretty sure is a French film actor.

Therein lies the problem. If you want to get a table, it means getting there early and being surrounded by American accents. There's nothing wrong with American accents (I usually have one myself!), but the American tourists are surely looking for a Parisian experience, and feel a bit foolish to be surrounded by their compatriots. It's obviously not a rare thing, because one of the waiters spoke near-fluent English and they had an English-language menu chalkboard. MCM and I spoke French the whole time, and I think our neighbours were none the wiser about my origins; in fact, I almost felt I was being observed as Exhibit A: French woman eating in cafe! Let's see how she does it!. The study abroad student next to me even politely asked about my dessert in French. I wanted to give her a medal.

Before I get to the point (the food! the food!), there were a few things that Cafe Constant could improve on. Like the atmosphere, which does the hardworking staff and great food a disservice. The interior was traditional of cheap cafes - red banquettes, bare plastic tables, simple chairs. For a place that serves such beautiful food, a simple white paper tablecloth would be classier. Decor includes the Constant empire's cookbooks propped behind the banquettes and a few naif paintings of Provence; they could - they should - try a bit harder. The lighting is harsh and too bright, too; changing the bulbs would change the entire atmosphere.

The waitstaff were friendly and knowledgeable but run off their feet. That's true in most Parisian restaurants, but this was extreme: a bartender and three waiters for approximately 55 covers. No manager, expediter or busser. There seemed to be a big problem getting food out of the kitchen, and too often the bartender had to hop out from behind the zinc bar and fetch food or clear a plate. This place would be dramatically improved with an expediter, someone stationed at the kitchen and responsible for getting all the food out. It was a bit embarrassing when we got our food long before the American family next to us, even though they ordered first.

Okay, are you ready? Cafe Constant has 6-7 choices for each course. Fish and seafood choices were plentiful; I don't recall a vegetarian option. Entrees (starters/appetisers) were 11 euro; plats (main courses) were 15 euro, and desserts were 7 euro. There is no obligation to have 3 courses, but the servings are sized so that you can comfortably eat 3, so you might leave a bit hungry if you don't. Most places in Paris that serve creative, solid food in a casual atmosphere require that you order 3 courses and charge 31-34 euro, so this is in line. There were lots of wines available by the glass, which I like, as MCM and I are increasingly interested in pairing wines well and it's often hard to find a bottle to match ("A light red again, cheri?"). They also offer house wines by the pitcher or glass, which is a great value option. Some restaurants with comparable food prices only have wine by the bottle, usually in the 25+ euro range.

I started with foie gras with toast and a little salad; solid and good quality, although I would have really liked a little tangy jam or compote on the side. MCM had an amazing dish: three oysters (raw) topped with a salmon tartare - raw salmon diced with, I'm guessing, shallot and lemon. It was incredible: so fresh and zingy, a true appetiser in the sense that it whet the appetite and woke up the taste buds. We each had a glass of Quincy, a light, fruity sauvignon blanc-based wine from the Loire. It was a bit too citrusy for my starter but still enjoyable.

Then the mains. Oh wow. We couldn't decide between the lamb and the bar (sea bass) so we ordered one of each. We asked the bartender for wine recommendations and he assumed, unusually, that I was having the meat. "Do you like Bordeaux?" Yes, I said. He suggested a Montagne St Emilion, a deep, velvety, complex red wine. MCM was offered a very pleasant, golden Sancerre, which picked up the sweetness in the sea bass, which was served with truffle oil and a sweet potato puree. The sea bass was lovely - light, refined, complex but not overpowering. A bit small, but a fish option usually is.

But the lamb! Wow. I have no idea what they did to it; it was slices of a thick cut, served just pink as requested, with white beans and a thyme sauce. It was fantastic. It was earthy and rich, yet delicate; perfect for the season, when the sun has come out and we are dreaming of spring but there is still a chill in the air.
I wanted to lick my plate.

Dessert was fine - correct, as the French would say. I had profiteroles, two huge pastry puffs filled with vanilla ice cream and topped with an indecent amount of chocolate sauce, which the waiter poured for me from a little pitcher. MCM had the comparatively dainty chocolate quenelles, little mousse spoonfuls in a sauce.

As MCM noted as we left, walking back to the metro past Les Cocottes (now heaving with people), a place that is so popular with tourists could slack off on the food, but they didn't. All in all, a fantastic celebration meal. It was cheaper than we had expected - in part, I realised after we had left, because they had forgotten to add on two glasses of wine. See what I mean about needing more staff? I don't feel too bad, because we'll be back.

Cafe Constant
Food: Delicious.
Atmosphere/decor: Disappointing.
Service: A+ for effort, B- for execution.
Value for money: Very good, given the quality of the food. Extra credit for the affordable wine options. Count on 30-40 euro per person.
What to wear: casual or smart casual. MCM and I both wore "dressy" jeans.
Good for: small groups of friends, people who love food, people who want updated takes on French classics.
Not good for: vegetarians, little kids, people with enormous appetites or people who have trouble squeezing into banquettes.
Handicapped access: Toilets are up a narrow flight of stairs.

Radio Free Paris

2009-03-19T20:31:00.008+01:00

As a postscript to my Christmas music story, here's a good one. I often listen to the news on the radio while I'm in the kitchen. Today, France Inter, the public news station, is playing music instead of broadcasting news because of the strike. I'm not disappointed because it's playing a mix of great stuff: English-language music, French traditional chanson, and salsa. Why are they playing this stuff? Who knows. Wait. Or do I?

Here are the songs in English, to which I have been singing along, loudly. Could they actually have been chosen in reference to the strike? I wonder.

Elvis, Suspicious Minds (We're caught in a trap / I can't walk out / Because I love you too much baby / Why can't you see / What you're doing to me / When you don't believe a word I say? / We can't go on together / With suspicious minds / And we can't build our dreams / On suspicious minds).

Obviously, this describes the tortured relationship between Sarkozy and the strikers. Obviously. And the fact that France can't get out of this vicious cycle without a major effort to combat individualism and rebuild social capital. Well duh!

Next: a jazz version, artist unknown, of U2's Two Shots of Happy, One Shot of Sad (Walked together down a dead end street / We were mixing the bitter with the sweet / Don't try to figure out what we might of had / ... / Under pressure, but not bent out of shape / Surrounded, we always found an escape / ... / Guess I've been greedy, all of my life / Greedy with my children, my lovers, my wife / ... /I'm not complaining, baby I'm glad / You call it a compromise, well what's that / Two shots of happy, one shot of sad).

I think the swipe at Sarkozy's personal life is a bit of a low blow, but there you have it. Still, a fairly accurate description of how Sarko is quite fed up with the unions and but certainly knew that things would come to this.

Followed by: Elvis Costello, Everyday I write the book (Chapter One / We didn't really get along / Chapter Two / I think I fell in love with you / You said you'd stand by me / In the middle of Chapter Three / But you were up to your old tricks / In Chapters Four, Five and Six / And I'm giving you / A longing look / Everyday, everyday, everyday / Everyday I write the book / ... / All your compliments/ And your cutting remarks / Are captured here / In my quotation marks).

This one is particularly interesting for including a journalistic point of view. Mmm hmm. Indeed, could the French have revolted without the fourth estate?

More searing political analysis coming soon. Keep reading, comrades.

I love Paris in the springtime.

2009-03-19T19:46:00.008+01:00

Today was an absolutely delightful day. Yesterday, I had unruly, hyperactive students (adults!) who drove me to despair and I actually cried on the busride home; I was determined that today would be a better day. Today was a strike day in France. Yes, again. I lucked out, though: the metro was running normally, perhaps even smoother than normally because so many people stayed home.

Here's what made it great:
1). I gave a one-on-one English class to my favourite student this morning. I have such a crush on this woman. She's incredibly sophisticated and elegant, has lots of opinions and interests (a big plus when it's a conversation-based class), and was born with the French scarf-tying gene. How do they do it? If I wore scarves the way this woman does, I would look like a Girl Scout leader, or a clown, or maybe this chick.

2. After class I headed downtown and met Mazarine at a cafe. I was really early so I got off at the Concorde metro stop and had a leisurely stroll through the Tuileries gardens, along the Seine, and across to the Invalides. Paris is gorgeous in the spring, and today was perfect: about 60 degrees, feeling much warmer in the bright sun, and full of tourists. Tourists? But don't we despise tourists? Absolutely not. It lifted my spirits to observe these happy visitors wandering around, snapping photos, taking in the beauty of the city, and obviously enjoying themselves. In contrast, the Parisians looked relatively dour and grim, skittling along the sidewalks in their black wool coats. I was stopped by two American tourists, a couple in their early 60s, who wanted to know what the Invalides were. Is that where Napoleon is? They were from Nebraska and on their first trip to Paris, and they were so obviously delighted. It was a real joy to speak to them.

Mazarine and I went to a cafe near Invalides and ordered two glasses of Brouilly - yes, at 3.30pm. That made it taste even better. I was introduced to Brouilly by my friend Dr Mmm when she was visiting Paris last August. Dr Mmm is very, very good at Paris. She knows where to go, how to dress, what to do, what to order, and when things will be open. She has a sixth sense for Parisians and how they will behave. She also really likes Brouilly and I think she's spot on: it's a red wine that is both light and full-bodied at the same time. It's a Beaujolais wine made mostly from Gamay grapes; the taste is fruity, the colour is cranberry and slightly transparent. It is drunk young and often slightly chilled. It's not expensive and people who claim to "only drink white wine" would probably like it. It's not a wine to drink with a hearty winter meal, but it is a fantastic wine to drink on a sunny spring day, sitting outside in a cafe in the 7th arrondissement in Paris.

Mazarine insisted, for practice, on speaking French, and we discussed our futures. Both of us are in rather strange professional situations, unable to do exactly what we want, and simultaneously questionning exactly what it is we want anyway. I don't know if my career path is any clearer, but we had a great time and I realised that my French has gotten much better since I arrived here 7 months ago. About bloody time, too!

3. MCM called me to say that he had a wonderful day, too, and was approached about whether he would like a very, very cool job, should it become available in a few months. Walking home from the metro, I was in a great mood: I had a great day and I knew that MCM would be home for dinner - he's had a lot of evening work events recently. I decided to buy a little dessert, une millefeuille, along with my pave, a dense square loaf of white sourdough bread. Then I stopped in the florist - Special 7 Tulips for 1.90 Euro! The florist laughed as I daintily walked off with one arm full of bread and a little paper-wrapped cake, the other holding a small bouquet of purple tulips. I must have looked like an overgrown flower girl. Actually, since I was wearing my French-blue wool coat and black flats, I probably looked exactly like this famous Parisian.

How to Hammam

2009-03-11T19:33:00.007+01:00

Frantic work on Book 2 has kept me from blogging - and oh, how I have pined for my blog! Thanks to you faithful readers for checking in anyway. I'd like to send a special shout out to my public in India, Barbados, Poland and California. (Really!)

So, here's the story I've been itching to tell you: Mazarine and I recently celebrated the birth of Book 1 by cashing in a gift certificate I received for Christmas and visiting a hammam. A hammam is a North African-style sauna were French women (with apparent regularity) go to relax and unwind. And deslough. And pay to be naked and pummeled. Woo hoo!

The hammam I chose was in a gritty area of Paris, near the Gare du Nord (big train station). I've heard this neighbourhood referred to as "exciting," "popular", "up-and-coming," "the best place for African food in France," and "the former heroine capital of Western Europe, maybe after Dublin." Well, Dublin has cleaned up much better. I'm not a snob and I used to live in a neighbourhood that was purported to be "managed" by an international terrorist organisation, but this was yucky. Mazarine and I tried not to look too conspicuous as two petite American women walking around with Paris map books and a yoga mat. Oy.

Anyway, so we found the spa, the women-only "Les Bains d'Orient" (Edward Said turned in his grave as I typed that). We found the personnel, as MCM would say, "unpretentious." We confirmed our booking: two for hammam, with savon noir, a gommage, and a 10-minute massage, followed by relaxation with tea and a pastry.

If, like me, you're North American and uptight, I know what you're thinking: do you wear a bathing suit? Since the reception area pretty much opened up onto the hammam space, Mazarine and I, girl detectives that we are, quickly deduced that most people were walking around in just bathing suit bottoms or paper thongs (eww - presumably supplied by the management). We thought we would only draw more attention to ourselves in full coverage, and so opted to go the bikini bottom route. (By the way, I just wanted to point out that we are both gorgeous. I mean really, truly stunning. Got it? And at this point, I've seen it all.)

After flouncing around in our oversized bathrobes for a while, we figured out that we had to start with a shower, then go to the hammam low-heat steam room, hang out for a while and then move to the hotter room. Two observations: one, some people make yucky squelching sounds while getting comfortable on wet tiles; two, this is not really about luxury - for some people this is routine, like getting a haircut or going to the dentist.

After you've been in the sauna for a while you're supposed to rub your little dixie cup of savon noir all over you. Savon noir is a thick, date-coloured paste. I don't know what it does but supposedly it's, like, totally amazing for your skin. After sudsing up we left the sauna, had a quick shower, and submitted ourselves to the gommage, which I would translate as scrubbing. Mazarine and I each were instructed to lie face-down on a freshly-disinfected table and a staff member, using a rough oven-mitt type torture device, began to scrub. And scrub. Mazarine and I couldn't stop laughing: partly ticklish, partly to see the look on each other's faces. I was convinced this woman was drawing blood. When she had me turn over and saw the expression on my face, she started laughing. "C'est la premiere fois, madame?" Yes, yes, first time, hardy har har. Scrubscrubscrubscrubscrub.

At this point, I didn't think I would want to go back. But low and behold, after a shower and a massage with rose-scented oil, I was feeling pretty fabulous and my skin was lovely and soft. Mazarine and I retired to the salle de detente, where we were served mint tea and baklava.

If you're making a trip to Paris and you're looking for a luxurious relaxation experience, I wouldn't recommend this place. It's more populaire than pampering - it's a place for ordinary people where no one stands on occasion or makes a fuss about you. The staff teased us, mopped the floor around us, and forgot our pastries until I reminded them. But if you are looking for a relatively affordable, slightly silly experience, it's fun to check out. Our full-monty experience would normally cost 60 euro per person; on a budget, you could pay 15 euro for hammam entry, buy a little pot of savon noir, and bring your own scrubby mitt to gommer yourself or a friend. Mazarine and I ended up spending over three hours there without realising it.

Oh, one last thing: if you're going out afterwards, ask them not to massage your scalp, because otherwise you will end up with very, very greasy hair.

You'd better watch out...

2009-03-04T22:08:00.003+01:00

Just a quick note to report that my favourite radio in Paris, TSF Jazz, was playing a jazz version of Santa Claus is Coming to Town today (while I was making dinner, in fact).

I don't know what to think of this. As some of you may know, I take Christmas music very seriously and adhere to strict rules regarding its use and consumption: it must begin after Thanksgiving dinner, be played exclusively over the next six weeks, and stop when the tree is being taken down on or on the Epiphany, whichever is later. Santa Claus, being broadcast on national radio, during Lent, is an abomination.

I can reach three reasonable conclusions about this:
1. The radio station staff are uninformed about the rules regarding Christmas music.
2. The radio station staff do not realise that it is a song about Christmas.
3. The song is a kind of code message, signalling some kind of invasion/underground political event/alien attack.

We now return to our previously scheduled broadcast of Little Peter Cottontail.

March on, march on...

2009-03-03T21:19:00.004+01:00

I can't believe that it's already March. Today I had a good, full day, and it made me realise how I don't want to leave Paris, as I've only just started to find my way around. By find my way around, I really mean that I am just starting to know Paris the way I know London, where I have a mental map of the metro system, a sixth sense for where and when things are happening, and an instant list of places where I know I can get a good coffee/haircut/clean bathroom facility/winter coat.

Today one of my classes was cancelled and I am proud to say that I actually used my free afternoon on fun and useful work. I taught for four hours, then ate my baguette sandwich in a park near work, then hopped on the metro and tunneled over to the Pont Marie stop. I got out, donned beret and gloves, wished I had brought my sunglasses for the cold winter sun. I crossed the stone bridge over the Seine onto the Ile St Louis, passing creperies, antiques shops, and art galleries, and walked through the 5th arrondissement to a small library I frequent for research. There I spent a few hours quietly reading and researching for Book 2. I took a long way back to the metro, opting to go straight to my metro line rather than change lines, walking through the Jardins du Luxembourg and the laocooning cobbled streets of St Germain.

Small epiphanies: I like Paris more when I am getting writing and research done. And when I am walking a lot - I love to walk. And when it's sunny. Shocker!

***

Here's a little observation that I thought I'd share. Walking home from the metro, on the way to the boulangerie to buy my evening baguette, I passed by one of the many small shops that caters to the region's large North African population. This particular shop combined a halal butcher, a selection of fresh produce and a range of dried goods. This caught my eye near the front door: a display of pre-packaged microwave meals with the descriptions on the yellow cardboard package written in both French and Arabic. That's not strange, except that the meals were hachis parmentier: a French dish kind of like a shepherd's pie, with leftover meat shredded and topped with mashed potato.* So observe the process: France colonises North Africa. France leaves North Africa. North Africans move to France, open shops where they import and sell North African food. Said shop sells traditional French dish, (presumably) produced in North Africa and sent to France to be consumed by North African French. Hmm.

* Parmentier was a French napoleonic general and the term "parmentier" refers to a dish topped with potato and baked. For the record, when I leave this earth and head to the great big Paris in the sky, I could think of no greater honour than to have a potato dish named after me. My real name, of course: Parisian potatoes is not quite distinctive enough.

French Resident Permit Primer

2009-02-27T09:22:00.004+01:00

When I moved to France I was quite overwhelmed by the immigration process so I thought it might be useful for some of my readers to read about the process that MCM and I went through. Please note: none of this is intended as legal advice. Immigration is confusing because the laws change frequently and even bureaucrats may find it hard to keep up (and thus you might get contradictory advice). You might also have a particular situation that complicates the process. Follow the advice given by the French Consulate where you live, but don't be afraid to ask for clarification, written documentation, or to speak with someone else.

This is what I went through as an American passport-holder, recently married to a French citizen, without dependents or any previous marriages. The process might be very different for someone who is coming to France without a French spouse but on a work visa, for someone with a passport from a non-Visa Waiver Program country (the VWP program includes US, Canada, Western Europe, etc), or for someone who has complicated custody issues, for example.

The basic process was:
* Trailing spouse (TS) and French national (FN) must get an entry visa for spouse before entering France to live. (TS can, as far as I understood, visit France beforehand for up to 3 months, for example to look for an apartment, but not to undertake legal things like opening a bank account). You cannot get the entry visa before you are married. (There is a special, separate application if you are marrying in France).
* This entry visa is obtained on application at a French consulate in the country where TS legally resides (which, in my case, was not my country of citizenship). Both TS and FN must go in person, together, to get the visa.
* TS and FN enter France with entry visa. Within a certain period of time (3 weeks for me), TS must go to the local prefecture (city or regional hall) and apply for a residence permit, called a carte de sejour. TS may have to present the documents for the residence permit in order to get a date for an interview a few months later.
* At the interview TS will receive a temporary carte de sejour, which grants permission to work. The official carte de sejour, which is a passport-sized laminated card, will be available for pick-up three months later. You pay when you pick up the laminated card (current cost, subject to change: 270 euro).

Sounds simple? In a way, it is, especially when you hear of people spending one year and thousands of dollars on lawyers' fees in order to get green cards in the US. I found the system complicated because it was never outlined for me from start to finish (and I looked everywhere and asked everyone I could - I just couldn't get a straight answer). We would finish one step of the process and then be surprised to learn that there was another. If we had known from the beginning we would have been prepared. So, I'm warning you now! Here's a little bit about our experience...

* Regarding weddings: French law changed a few months before our wedding. (I know better than to do this, but in the stress of wedding planning, job hunting and moving, I didn't check to see that the laws hadn't changed). It used to be that, if you are French, you could get married abroad and then get the French consulate to just translate your foreign marriage licence after the fact. Now, you must actually notify the French consulate in the place where the wedding is being held, before the wedding, and they must issue you a livret de famille (equivalent to a French marriage licence, but it is a small book, also used for recording births of any future children, etc). We didn't know we needed this until after we had an appointment for an entry visa, and we lost about a month and incurred the wrath of the French consulate in the American city where we had been married. There were some very stressful phone conversations with Consulate Lady saying, "But how could you! How could you disrespect the laws of France! Your consulate is here for you and you didn't even call!" Next time, we'll send a postcard...
* Had we known that we needed to do this, we would have gotten copies of our marriage licence before we left the US. Our state is in the process of digitizing and rewhatevering all its public records and you need to wait 6 months to order them by phone or internet. My long-suffering, ever-patient parents had to go and get a copy for me.
* Note that you cannot move to France and apply for an entry visa once you get there. Note also that you must be married to get the entry visa as a TS. So, you can't get married in the US, immediately go to some other country for your honeymoon, and then go directly to France. You would need to return to the US to get your entry visa. And you need an appointment for that. And...
* Getting information out of the French consulates regarding entry visas was near-on impossible. This was, without a doubt, the worst and most frustrating part of the whole process. I couldn't figure out if I was supposed to go to the US or the UK. The consulate in the US did not answer my emails or provide a phone number for visa enquiries. I finally figured that I should get the visa in the UK (my last country of residence), and then I spent 3 weeks phoning every morning from 9-12 to try to get an appointment. Finally, I wrote to them and they wrote me back with an email address. I sent an email and got an appointment for two weeks later. That's when I learned that I needed the livret de famille and I had to reschedule the appointment. I started calling the first week of August and had my appointment in the middle of October (I could have had it at the end of September had I not screwed up the livret de famille thingy).
* We got to the consulate in the UK at 7am for our 8.30am appointment and there were already about 200 people in front of us. Fortunately, they were nearly all from non-VWP countries and were just getting tourist visas. When the staff at the metal detector realised that MCM was French, they were ridiculously nice to us, shuffled us to a special desk, and we didn't have to wait at all. We were out of there at 9.45. That was a great feeling!
* I went to my regional prefecture, one of the busiest in France, and waited in line about an hour to get an interview date. The interview date was scheduled for January. I asked if there was anyway to have it earlier (no interview, no work permit!) and was told that they took "urgent" walk-ins most mornings, and to get there early. The FN must accompany the TS to the interview.
* It turns out that they only take 15 walk-ins each day, and that you have to get there at 7am at the latest for a chance. We made the mistake of arriving at 7.30am the first time and were turned away.
* We got it on the second try: arrived a little bit before 7am, were let into the building at 8.30, waited in another line inside, then took our seats and waited in a large hall on plastic chairs for about 4 hours. This was fairly unpleasant: unfortunately, a lot of the people who want to move to France come from countries with rather unenlightened ideas about women. We saw some really shocking behaviour from some men towards their wives.
* The actual interview took about ten minutes and the staff member was nice and polite. One of the documents I had to produce was a letter stating that I had married MCM out of my own free will and he did not, to the best of my knowledge, have other wives. (In the context of the waiting room, this made sense). We were successful and I got my recepisse de carte de sejour (a temporary card - like a formal receipt). We left around 12.45pm.
* Three months later I went and got my official carte de sejour, valid for one year beginning on the date that I had the interview. I was elated to get my card, until I realised that they had me down again as Mme Mari - not Mme Smith-Mari. I went back to the desk and explained that this was not my legal name, and that I came from a country where a married name is a legal name, not a "borrowed" name. She just shrugged and said, "That's the way we do it in France." Yeah. You just change peoples' legal names. Now that's a slippery slope - why not Francicize the rest of my name, too? I was still upset from the bank episode and didn't know what to do, so I just asked, "Am I allowed to use Smith-Mari as my name?" She shrugged again and said, "You can do whatever you want." Well, there you have it! MCM and I debated whether or not we should contest this, but worried that it would means months of waiting and additional fees, so we haven't. Hopefully we won't regret it down the line.
* In theory, renewing the carte will be quick and cost 70 euro. But by November, it all may have changed...

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't too lengthy or expensive a process, but it didn't feel like it at the time:

Total amount of time, from trying to get entry visa appointment to getting actual carte de sejour: about 6 1/2 months.
To getting the recipisse de carte de sejour, which allowed me to work: about 3 1/2 months.
Total cost of getting official forms, cartes, postage, etc, private insurance while you are not legally resident and therefore not allowed to be covered by the French system, plus making brief budget trip to a consulate: around 800 euro.
Lost income: 3 1/2 months.
Not having a clue what you are doing, panicking and worrying that you will be deported or never be allowed to work: priceless!
Getting that carte de sejour in your hands: utterly fabulous.

More learning experiences

2009-02-26T14:32:00.002+01:00

Some things that I have learned recently:

1). I can buy episodes of What Not to Wear on Itunes and watch them on my computer here. That probably sounds pathetic - move to France to watch American cable TV! - but MCM has had a lot of work events in the evening, and it's nice to have a little break. If we owned a TV I would watch something in French.

2). One of my students, a manager in his late twenties, believes that hiring discrimination is only right and natural. After all, he wouldn't want to hire someone who was different from him - in particular, it would be "impossible" for him to manage someone who was older than him. And he wouldn't want to hire a woman who might get pregnant. (This came up in the course of a discussion of French vs UK/USA resumes and CVs, and I explained that in the English-speaking world you should not list your date of birth, marital status, gender or nationality on your CV as you do in France). I am not suggesting that this is necessarily a widespread attitude in France, but it was a shocker nonetheless.

3). One of my other students discovered that the song Total Eclipse of the Heart has a number of phrasal verbs in it. (A phrasal verb is a two-part verb - usually verb+preposition - which has a distinct meaning from the verb on its own. Examples: throw vs. throw out, drop vs. drop off). He then performed the song for me, complete with hand motions.

4). We probably won't go out to celebrate the end of Book 1. MCM has been feeling weird for a number of days: it's probably nothing, but there's a chance he may have gallstones so he is having some x-rays done tomorrow.

5). There is a great service in France for home visits from doctors. When MCM got home after midnight last night with nausea, a sudden pain in his neck and a headache, I decided we should call the "SOS Medecin" hotline. The doctor arrived in under 10 minutes and decided that MCM did not have meningitis. (No, I didn't believe that he really had meningitis, but it's serious enough that you should rule it out. I was perhaps conditioned to react this way by Nurse Siobhan, the nurse at my high school, who was hypervigilant and routinely screened for meningitis and tropical diseases). The doctor's callout cost 77 euro, nearly all of which will be reimbursed by the Securite Sociale. The rest should be covered by our new mutuelle.

5). There will be serious delays on my bus line over the next few months due to construction. I may have to start cycling to work, as it just seems ridiculous to spend nearly an hour travelling 5 kilometers (3.1 miles).

Book 1 is Done!

2009-02-23T12:43:00.005+01:00

Book 1 is done! I finished on Saturday and mailed it out around 12.15 (the post office closes at 12.30), and am just filling out a few publicity forms to email to my publisher right now. In the end it was 358 pages and 4 1/2 years of my life. In a few months I should get proofs from the publisher - to approve the copyeditor's work and compile the index - and it should be published in 2009. I'd tell you what it is but, not only is this an anonymous blog, it's a specialised book that few of you would want to read anyway. I'm just being realistic, not modest, here.

At the moment I just feel tired and a bit stunned, when I suppose I should be more like... Hooray! Champagne all round! In fact, there has been no champagne yet. MCM was away for the weekend. On Saturday evening I went over Mazarine's place for a casual dinner and pretty much collapsed as soon as I got there (yes, I'm a blast); Mr Mazarine came to my rescue with a soothing glass of a fruity Roussillon wine, and we had a nice, fun, chilled out night. Just what I needed.

MCM thinks we need to plan a decent night out to celebrate, and I am trying to figure out where to try to book a table. We want someplace reasonably priced and delicious, and probably more hearty than refined. Cafe Panique sounds good and is right near MCM's office, but I wonder if it looks a bit austere for a celebration. Bistrot Paul Bert comes up on everyone's list of most wonderful places - including NYC-Parisian goddess Dorie Greenspan's website - but I've also read a lot of bad reviews from "ordinary" people who claim that it has lost its sparkle and standards have plummeted. We shall see. I really love the idea of a great big steak frites, a robust red wine, and a yummy dessert. There is, though, a chance that MCM will be away this coming weekend, too, in which case I will probably dine Chez Picard. Such is life.

But if you, on the other hand, have been struggling to find an excuse to drink champagne, let me humbly suggest that you drink to my book. Hey, glad I could help. (Try this - we love it. You won't find it in a wine shop so order directly from them by the case; it's a light, agrume [citrusy] champagne that's very nice as an aperitif.)

Finishing Book 1 (and please don't ask, "Then when will you finish Book 2?") has brought into focus some of the big existential questions I've been asking myself - and most people within earshot - about my life and career. In theory, I'm an academic: I have a terminal degree, a book in press with an academic publisher (wow! That's still sinking in), and I am actively applying for academic jobs. The problem is that I live in Paris. And I have had a major epiphany: I like Paris. In fact, I don't really want to leave. But there is very little chance of getting a serious academic job in France: it's a very closed shop, my subject is not taught in many places, and the jobs that do exist are not comparable in terms of pay, benefits and responsibilities, anyway. Over the past few months French university staff, faculty and students have been going on intermittant strikes over pay, teaching, facilities, whatever. I am pretty sure that I do not have a serious future in a French university - I might be able to get temporary or part-time work through some serious networking, but I don't think I could get something equivalent to a US assistant professorship or a UK lectureship.

I therefore have the following options:
1. Keep applying like a maniac for jobs outside of France, and if (big if) and when I get one, take it, knowing that I might be going it alone at first, if MCM has a job here and can't find anything in a new location. The pros and cons are quite obvious here.
2. Give up on the academic job search and choose to do something else. The problems are that I love academia, I don't know what else I want to do, and I'd feel like I might be wasting my education and/or talents. I considered other paths before I went to graduate school, and if I had wanted to be a diplomat/administrator/lawyer/NGO worker, I would have just done it then. But I am trying to be open-minded.
3. Be creative and try to carve out my own intellectual life involving part-time teaching (maybe at French universities), occasional lecturing, consultancy, and trying to write more accessible, commercial books. This sounds like the perfect compromise, but it comes with major drawbacks: no colleagues (which I really miss), no job security, and always having to hustle for work. Being self-employed sounds wonderful to people who've never tried it before - all that freedom! working at home in pajamas! - but in reality it also demands huge amounts of persistence, imagination and determination. It means never getting paid vacation and having little control over your long-term planning. You have to accept that you could work as hard as you can and still end up with nothing but a very strange tax return.

And one that is not an option:
4. Just put this all out of my mind and try again in a few years. Sorry! Unfortunately, academia doesn't work that way: it's hard enough to get a job when you're "in" the system; once you're out, it's nearly impossible. In order to get a job you need to publish like crazy, too, so if I would need to keep writing anyway. This might be my one and only shot at getting an academic job, and if I don't get one within the next year it's probably time to give up.

At the moment I am doing a combination of 1 and 3. I'm still applying for jobs but I'm also trying to be entrepreneurial. It makes it difficult to live in the moment and enjoy Paris now; I'm afraid I'll spend all my time here applying elsewhere and fretting, and then it will be time to leave and I won't have profited from Paris. At the same time, I don't want to make a decision that will negatively affect my career for the next 35 years, all because I wanted to have fun in Paris in 2009.

Fun. What is fun? I need to get me some of that. Where did that Champagne go...?

Pain au Chocolat "Situation"

2009-02-20T19:55:00.009+01:00

Folks, we've got a situation here. It involves my pain au chocolat supply.

It's vacation/holiday time in France. Due to the powerful ski lobby, schools are divided into three groups, each with a different two-week break; this is to ensure 6 weeks of business for the Alpine resorts. MCM thinks this is scandalous. I'm more concerned about this scandal: the boulangeries also take a two-week holiday! At the moment my favourite boulangerie is closed, and my second favourite is, too. The boulangeries that are left open are, in my professional opinion, completely inferior. Case in point: at right, here's a bag of croissants and pain au chocolat purchased recently from my favourite boulangerie.

Wow, those look good. How about a flakey close up? Ohh yeah....

Now let's have a look at the alternative pain au chocolat, purchased from a chain bakery in my neighbourhood:

Note how dense, almost bready it is, and the heavy-handed egg wash. Certainly edible, but definitely not at the standard to which I have become accustomed. This is no small matter: I am thisclose to finishing Book 1, and those pain au chocolat are much needed motivational rewards.

In unrelated news, two of our loveliest friends, who I will call The Piano Man and Miss Mousse, have booked a trip to visit us in April. We're absolutely delighted and, yes, we'll make sure they get lots of lovely pain au chocolat and croissants, not inferior substitutes.

On the Bus

2009-02-17T22:21:00.003+01:00

MCM has recently begun working in Paris proper and is really enjoying it; before he was, like me, working on the fringe of the city. I hesitate to say suburb, which translates as banlieue in French and suggests some pretty tough areas. This is because large housing projects were set up in the suburbs after World War II to house the workers in factories - many of them recent immigrants from former French colonies, particularly Algeria. Those communities remained when many expected to them to go "home," and feel marginalised and victimised by discrimination. This was most obvious a few years ago when rioting broke out in some of the suburbs, and immigration and assimilation are two of the hottest and most controversial topics in French society today.

It's a far cry from the suburbs I ride through on my bus to work as an English teacher: Neuilly-sur-Seine (where Nicholas Sarkozy used to be mayor) and Levallois-Perret. This is an entirely different side of the Parisian region: one that some might decry as not the "real" Paris, if real means working class. Neuilly and Levallois are ultra-bourgeois. The bourgeois aesthetic is quite close to that of the New England prepster, although without the whimsy and humour that you find in preppy clothing, for example. I get a kick out of the Neuilly people on my bus. In the mornings there is usually the same frazzled father who takes his daughter to kindergarten; he is sloppily dressed in very expensive clothes, his tie askance, a shirt button in the wrong whole, trying to juggle a small tupperware case of Cheerios and an Hermes briefcase. The Neuilly women wear quilted jackets and silk scarves and have thick, bobbed blond hair held back with oversized velvet headbands. In the afternoon, their children ride the bus with their North African nannies, who are much better at controlling the kids than the bourgeois mums themselves. I'm amused by the twin boys, who must be about four, who wear matching round tortoiseshell glasses and navy wool peacoats. Elderly women in brown fur coats board, some of them carrying their poodles on their "walk." I'm most struck by a young woman who rides the bus in the morning. She appears to be of Polynesian decent, and she has been reading (and is almost finished with) a gigantic tome on Henri IV. The peaceful look on her face as she reads reminds me of Gauguin's Tahitian paintings, and I find this to be a delightful synchronicity, observing her enjoying a biography of the seventeenth-century French king who, in his own time, promoted tolerance and social inclusion amongst the wars of religion.

Happy St Valentine's Day!

2009-02-15T11:44:00.002+01:00

Dessert chez the Accidental Parisian: chocolate, raspberries and a bit of love from Beaujolais. Enjoy!

Wine Post #2

2009-02-14T18:34:00.008+01:00

Last night MCM and I did indeed check out Le Garde-Robe, a wine bar that is mentioned in more than one of my most-trusted Parisian guidebooks (that's their business card on the right, although the website listed doesn't seem to work). Success! It's a cute little place within a few minutes' walk from the Louvre on the same street as O Chateau. The layout is straight forward: a small, rectangular room with a wall of wine on the left, a small bar with a few stools on the right, and four tables at the back. When we arrived, around 6.30pm, there were two guys at the bar and a table of four women. The atmosphere was relaxed, "but a bit bobo," MCM remarked. (Bobo is short for "bourgeois bohemian": French people who are wealthy but make a very self-conscious, often ridiculous, effort to seem bohemian). By the time we left it was full; if you want to sit at a table I'd advise you to call ahead and reserve. It's also not the kind of place where you can be shy because it's too small: you just have to walk in a give a big, friendly bonjour. MCM was tired and "feeling like a provincial", so this was left to me. If you're feeling wimpy, remind yourself: what would Julia have done?

Rather than picking one of the wines from the wall we each chose from the short list of those available from the glass, and took a seat at a wooden table in the back. I asked the sommelier/bartender for red wine without too much tannin and he suggested two - I ordered the Gravier for me and a Savoie for MCM. I've since learned an important lesson: if I am going to educate myself more about wine, and I certainly want to, I need to start carrying a little notebook to jot down what I try and what I like. I don't remember the exact names or appellations of either the wines we chose. We enjoyed both wines: they both had very pronounced noses but tasted more mellow, and were fruity without being sugary. The Savoie had a beautifully rich and fruity nose but it didn't fully carry through in the taste; that is, it had this amazingly complex smell, but the taste was not as rich and full as the smell was.

We opted for an assiette mixte with our wine: a wooden platter with some sliced charcuterie (sausages/ham), cheeses (a very tangy blue, a Tome de Savoie, a goat's cheese) and a hunk of baguette. The baguette was very good - was it a Kayser? The bill came to 23 euro: 12 for the assiette, 5 and 6 euro per glass of wine, respectively. In terms of value for money, there are certainly cheaper aperitifs to be had in Paris, but this was high in quality and high in ambiance. If I were a tourist looking to eat memorably on a budget I would happily opt for a long, lazy, filling and relatively inexpensive bistrot lunch, then finish my day with a drink and assiette in Le Garde-Robe. It's certainly the type of place that non-Parisians imagine in Paris. It's good to know that sometimes the fantasy exists in reality.

My, what big teeth you have!

2009-02-13T15:44:00.003+01:00

First of all, thanks to all of you for the messages of support. I feel a bit stupid complaining about my wisdom tooth when there are people with serious illnesses out there. Thanks to you, I felt license to whine while eating Nutella with a spoon.

This morning I went back to Dr Groovy to have my stitches removed. Having woken up with throbbing pain I was rather sceptical, but he is just so, so nice. Removing the stitches barely hurt, he told me I was healing perfectly, and he also gave me an anti-inflammatory. He told me that I should gradually get feeling back in my chin ("within three months." Greaaat). But I can eat whatever I want. I feel much better.

I asked him why I've had such a tough time of it (Mais, je ne suis pas fragile?) and he told me it's because I have very, very large teeth with very, very long roots - rebel roots that cavort with nerves and do dangerous things. In fact, he got quite giddy talking about my teeth:

Dr G: It's amazing. Your teeth are so big!
AP: You mean relative to the size of my mouth?
Dr G: No! Overall. That's what's so incredible! They are probably in the top 1% of all teeth, on all people.
AP: Are you serious?
Dr G: Usually the moment someone walks into my office, I can tell if they'll have big teeth. But with you, it is even more amazing. It is incomprehensible that someone your size should have such big teeth. The X-rays were such a shock. Amazing! We couldn't believe it!
AP: Ummm.... Thank you.

I feel strangely proud that my plus-size teeth brought my dentist such glee. He obviously relishes a challenge; he was, after all, wearing black leather pants with his orange dentist jacket.

Anyway, this whole tooth drama has, bizarrely, made me appreciate Paris more. I want to chew! To crunch! To feast on France! Having been restricted to mushy stuff for a week, I have a new desire to, well, stuff myself. MCM and I have two parties to attend tonight - one with my colleagues, one with his former colleagues - and I have planned a rendez-vous beforehand for a light dinner. The plan is to meet at the Louvre and walk to Le Garde Robe, a nearby wine bar I've been wanting to check out, have some wine, cheese and charcuterie (see a cheese and charcuterie shot here, on Chocolate and Zucchini), and then have a little stroll across the Seine. I will report back!

A New Regime

2009-02-11T21:24:00.004+01:00

What a yucky week. My groovy dentist completely lied when he promised me great drugs, no pain and a quick recovery. Five days after my wisdom tooth removal, I still have throbbing pain. I also have a bruise along my jaw that's turned the colour of Dijon mustard. Cute! At least my students have been very understanding, with some allowance for condolences directly translated from French. One of the students in my advanced group walked into class today, stared at me for a moment, blinked hard, and then said, "You are not alright. I see your face."

As a result, I've been subsisting mostly on yoghurt, pureed fruit, juice, milkshakes and apple sauce. I have discovered, to my delight, that while I can't yet handle crispy baguettes, I can nibble on brioche, a soft bread made with lots of eggs. MCM also prepared a vat of vichysoisse for me - a French creamy potato and leek soup that can be served warm or cold. He used this recipe from one of the all-time great French chefs, Paul Bocuse.

The lack of food is, however, making me bitter and grumpy. Walking down the street today in my "Parisian outerwear disguise" (long black puffy coat, black leather gloves, black beret, black leather boots) and a deep scowl on my face, I kind of felt like I blended in.

In the meantime, MCM has decided, perhaps in a belated New Year's sentiment, or perhaps because Paris has felt a bit spring-like in the past two days, that he needs to begin une regime. A diet. Yes, the French do diet. So far this has meant that he has been cycling across Paris to work (a bit scary but excellent exercise), refusing extra bread for dinner (oh, the sacrifice!), and hopping on the scale twice a day (not very encouraging yet). This is a scale that we only purchased so that we could weigh our luggage and avoid excess baggage charges on Ryanair. Which, by the way, my students think is a British company. When I told them it was Irish, they first didn't believe me, and then they argued with me that Irish and British were actually the same thing, maybe even the same place.

Maybe I need another milkshake.

Wine Post #1

2009-02-06T21:36:00.004+01:00

I am modestly titling this Wine Post #1, as I expect there will be others.

Those of you who are visiting Paris soon, listen up: you must go to a wine tasting at O Chateau. I was invited to attend one on Wednesday with members of my undergraduate alma mater's alumni club in France, and it was great. The tastings are located in a 17th century cave (that means cellar or, more specifically, wine cellar) on a small cobble-stoned side street between the Louvre and the Pont Neuf. The cave was used by the French kings' sommelier, back when the Louvre was a palace and not an art museum, and doubled as an underground, labyrinthine escape route for the king in times of crisis. I suppose it will hold special appeal to those of you with Dan Brown-type fantasies. Anyway, to get to the cave you pass through a used book store (be still, my beating historian's heart!), down a candlelit cobblestone alley, and descend a spiral iron staircase. The interior is a mix of 17th century and 21st century - exposed stone walls and low doorways, with leather banquettes, votives, a delightfully minimalist table setting, and some bawmp baw daw bawmp bawmp music piped in.

Olivier, our sommelier, talked us through 6 wines: to start, a rose Champagne from Epernay; a Sancerre, a very dry white made from sauvignon blanc grapes; a Burgundy chardonnay; a... ummm... I was drinking the wine, not spitting it out... a Crozes-Hermitage, made from Syrah grapes, which was very good but my least-favourite; a Pomerol, which is a red Burgundy; and my favorite, a Cotes du Rhone Villages. Our wines were accompanied by cheese platters, breads and Olivier's spirited delivery, which focused on the major French wine regions. He held his own against a few wine snobs in our group and congratulated us for arguing about wine with the passion of the French; for me, it was also like a trip back in time to my beloved alma mater, where classes were very participative and students were known for being, shall we say, jesuitical.

The class cost me 40 euro (there were 20+ of us so we may have had a special rate, I don't know), which I had thought was a tad pricey but turned our to be fabulous value for money, in terms of the atmosphere of the place, the quality and range of wines sampled, and our exuberant and passionate host. Highly, highly recommended - it will really make your trip!

Character Forming

2009-02-06T20:23:00.005+01:00

I've had a busier week than I anticipated and have not had the chance to blog. I went to a great wine tasting on Wednesday (it will get its own post in a few moments), where I made a potential new friend (you know how it is - I'm still administering the psychometric tests and checking her references) and found out about some potential work for the autumn. I really like my current job - teaching English to adults - but I would much prefer to have a job teaching my own subject in a university setting.

Today I had an experience that I am going to use to start a list entitled, "Things I have to do that are probably character-forming, but really, how much more character do I need?" Item number one: having oral surgery in a language you don't fully understand.

I've been having occasional pain in my jaw for the last 2-3 years and my British dentist attributed it to stress, reasoning that I was probably grinding and clenching my teeth. He even made me a £60 rubber mouthguard to wear at night. When, in November, one of my wisdom teeth began to emerge, painfully, I summoned the courage to go to a French dentist. He laughed at the rubber mouthguard and told me that the wisdom teeth, not stress, were responsible for the pain. Basically, I've been teething for the past few years, and the British dentist might as well have given me a rattle dipped in whiskey. Gaaah.

So, after a series of appointments, x-rays and an MRI, I had the first of two bottom wisdom teeth extracted this morning under local anaesthetic and a "relaxation" pill. The surgery itself was not too bad. I had quite a bit of pain this afternoon as the anaesthetic began to wear off. MCM collected me from the dentist office (in my relaxed state, I wouldn't have made it home alone) and has been preparing me cold, liquid, non-alcoholic meals. So much for the diet of coffee, wine and bread! Mazarine has offered to come by tomorrow for an afternoon of girly movies and smoothies.

My impression of French dentistry is that the level of care is quite good, and that if French people don't have good teeth, it's because they don't really believe in preventative care and only go to the dentist when they have a problem, at which point it's often too late. My dentist, for what it's worth, is a kind, young and pretty groovy guy. He wears bright orange scrub tops with jeans and cowboy boots and has a Louis Vuitton man-purse in the corner of his office. He's also good at explaining things. I got to keep the ginormous tooth, which I'll put under my pillow for la petite souris (the little mouse - French tooth fairy).

Speaking of health and characters... yesterday afternoon I spent a few hours searching for a mutuelle, the private health care that most French people buy to bridge the actual cost of health care and what is covered by La Secu, the national health service (usually 20-30% of actual costs are not covered). MCM had done most of the research but we couldn't do anything until we received my social security number, which happily arrived on Wednesday. I finally settled on a plan and ended up having to purchase it over the phone, which was pretty tedious for the insurance saleswoman (I had to give all our bank and personal details and social security numbers, and I struggle a bit with French numbers. For example, 92 is read as "four twenties and twelve). But, hey, I did it!

I felt a bit drained after the long conversation and decided to walk to the grocery store to get some dinner, taking my shopping trolley and a big bag of bottles to put in the glass recycling bank on the way. Somehow, though, halfway down the three flights of stairs in my building, I tripped and dropped the bag, sending bottles flying. I ran got my broom and, floor by floor, started cleaning up the mess. When I got to the bottom one of my neighbours came through the front door and I tried to apologise and explain the situation. This neighbour is an elderly, somewhat shrunken North African man, who wears a long, dark-green hooded robe, a crocheted prayer cap and leather slippers. I've heard him praying in his apartment before and I'd seen him shuffling around the entrance to the building, but we'd never spoken much before. (In general, the urban French like to keep their neigbours at a distance. When I moved here I asked French people if I should go around the building and introduce myself, and they were horrified).

Our conversation was somewhat limited by both of our accents (although maybe less so mine - he seemed to think I was another elderly neighbour's daughter), and the fact that he appears to be working with just one tooth. It went a bit like this:

Me: Oh, I am so sorry; I fell and dropped bottles; I am so sorry!
Neighbour: Mumble mumble mumble?
Me: Uhh, sorry? I... I had bottles... I was going to the recycling center?
Neighbour: Mumble mumble!
Me: Uhh...recycling?
Neighbour: Bwahahahah! Empty!
Me: Oh! Yes, yes! Empty bottles! Yes! Empty!

He then went into this apartment and emerged with a second dustpan and broom and proceeded to take over the cleanup. For a guy who normally walks with a cane, he was surprisingly agile and handy with a broom!

Accidental Parisian's Top Ten

2009-01-30T13:27:00.004+01:00

I just got my carte de sejour and am feeling pretty good about life. The feedback on this blog has suggested that I seem a bit negative, down, even cranky about my Parisian existence. That's not really the impression I mean to give, although I'm not going to pretend that life in France is one big party, either. (Although, my best friend in Paris - let's call her Mazarine - is a big party person, and has reminded me that we've had some good times together. Absolutely, and more on that later).

So, here's a list of my Top Ten - the things I really like about living here:

1. Croissants. More specifically, pain au chocolat, the ones from my local boulangerie Le Chant du Pain (yes, that really does mean "The Song of Bread." Can you imagine naming a bakery that in, well, anywhere outside of France?). I spend most of the week looking forward to my weekend pain au chocolat: either Saturday or Sunday morning either MCM or I run out to get fresh ones, still warm from the oven, while the other makes espresso and sets the table with our wedding china. Bliss!

2. My apartment. It's small - about 400 square feet - but has lots of natural light. It's a building from the 1920s and I love the original period details - the wooden floorboards, molding, and metal scrollwork outside the windows. (Picture this Caillebotte painting). Also, after having moved around so much, it's great to have a place that really feels ours, and to have our own furniture. Sure, it could be a tiny bit closer to the metro, and I wouldn't mind a bit more space for guests, but I'm happy.

3. Public transport (when it's not on strike). I think cars are fine for other people but I have no desire to own one myself. Occasionally MCM and I will rent one - to go somewhere on a weekend, or for moving - and we enjoy the freedom it gives, but we're very happy to return it when the rental ends. French public transport has its problems - the RER is dirty, the long-distance trains are expensive - but I appreciate having such a large, affordable network.

4. The architecture. I love 19th century Haussmanian buildings, in particular.

5. Wine. This deserves its own post, but do you know why French people seem so knowledgeable about wine? Because it's cheap and it's everywhere. If you lived in France, you'd know a lot about wine, too.

6. Houseguests. When you live in Paris, people want to visit you! Our closest friends are scattered around the world and we're really lucky that some of them want to vacation here.

7. Public health care. When it works, it's pretty good. I still am not really in the system and am paying out of pocket, but I will get reimbursed for most of it.

8. The climate. Even though I haven't really lived in New England since 1992, it's home, and I will always be biased towards 4 distinct seasons. Paris doesn't have the same extremes of weather, but it has a fairly cold winter and warm summer. It's also much dryer cold than I experienced in the UK in Ireland and I find that I don't actually feel as cold here.

9. The respect for food, and the knowledge that food vendors have about their products.

10. The churches. Paris has so many; each one is unique and many are beautiful. My favourite is La Madeleine, near Concorde. When I feel a bit lost in Paris, or a bit overwhelmed, I find it very refreshing to stop in one and recharge for a minute.

Choose my own adventure!

2009-01-29T16:03:00.005+01:00

Today marks 6 months that I have been living in France. Incidentally, it also marks 6 months of living without a television, but that's for another post.

MCM asked me this morning if we had any weekend plans and it dawned on me that, for the first time in months, we don't have any. We realised that this means we might do what is known as "having fun." For the past few years we've been operating under the general principle that we are not allowed to play and have fun until we have finished our homework (which has been, variously, finishing PhDs, finishing books, finishing job applications, finishing grant applications...). We have been surreptitiously sneaking bits of fun (see last Friday night), but we usually feel guilty about it. Where has this strategy left us? Down and out, in Paris, at home. Oh, and the books aren't finished, either.

So, dear readers, smack some sense into me. What would you like to do if you were in Paris this weekend?

Agenda

2009-01-27T21:30:00.003+01:00

Here's a sneak peak at some of the things happening over the next few days of my life:

- I will pick up my real, beautiful, laminated carte de sejour (residence permit) from the prefecture. This is very exciting. I am hoping it will be a bit quicker than getting the temporary one (6 hours, two of them before sunrise). I am also hoping that I will not have to witness the bizarre and misogynistic behaviour that I observed last time from some of my fellow would-be residents.

- Some of my students have cancelled their classes so I will go finally get to the library to do some research on Book #2.

- Afterwards I will go to a wine tasting. The great news is that I will also get a superb workout in: there is a general transportation strike planned for Thursday, and I plan on doing a lot of walking.

- I will write another job application for a position in the US, and ask deep existential questions about my life, my career, who I want to be, where I want to live, whether I am doing the right thing, if the fact that I enjoy my current part-time job for which I am over-educated is a sign that I am a peace with my ambitions or whether I have simply said a big fat bonjour to la paresse, whether I am really giving Paris enough of a try, whether in fact I am a snob because I would rather live in Paris than Pittsburgh, whether snobbism is inherently incompatible with progressive social justice, whether or not this is a run-on sentence and, if not, whether or not it can be diagrammed, and, most strikingly, whether all this vapid philosophising looks French on me?

Food for thought

2009-01-26T18:53:00.004+01:00

Alright, I know what you all really want to know. How's the food?

It's good. Sometimes it's great, and sometime's is lousy. It is very possible to have a terrible meal in a restaurant in Paris - in fact, I try to plan ahead as much as possible, as it's not always so easy to just wander around and find a nice little neighbourhood restaurant with tasty, reasonably-priced food. I read a lot of restaurant reviews and guides (this one, which was a birthday gift from my sister, is great) and try to reserve ahead, even though I get nervous about making phone calls in French.

Friday night MCM and I had a great night out. We had some errands to do in the city, afterwards went for a fun meal at Chartier, and had a quick wander through the Louvre on our way home. Chartier is a nineteenth-century worker's cantine turned restaurant. It's loud, chaotic, and cheap (most main courses are 8-11 euros, which is crazy for Paris at dinner time). We loved the art nouveau decor, which reminded us of our favourite places in Brussels, like this one and this one. And the food? Okay. MCM's pork terrine was tasty and classic; our profiteroles for dessert were textbook-perfect. Main courses were average - the frites could really be improved. They should be crispier!

I happened across an old article from a British newspaper on the state of French food in which the owners of a British-style bakery-cafe in Paris bemoan the state of French cooking. They complain that bistros are not inventive, turning out the same dishes again and again. (In fact, MCM and have discussed this before: we can predict a bistro menu with about 90% accuracy). While I agree with some of the points in the article, I think the cafe owners exaggerate a bit: French food is not in crisis. The French are, in general, picky consumers when it comes to food: MCM went to the market on Sunday and one of the vegetable-sellers was offering unsolicited apologies on the state of the lettuce, since he only buys Perpignan lettuce and Perpignan has been battered by recent storms.

I'll be curious to hear other opinions.

Have I gone native?

2009-01-22T21:36:00.002+01:00

In honour of the American Presidential Inauguration, I took this quiz on Elle.fr: Are you more Carla or Michelle? I was pretty smug - really, did I need to take a quiz to prove my affinity with the US's fabulous new First Lady? Do I not share her outlook on life, her ambitions, her preference for bold-coloured shift dresses? In fact, doesn't the Carla vs. Michelle divide really encapsulate the differences between women in the US and France?

I think you know where this is going. Result: Carla!

C is for Coffee

2009-01-21T21:02:00.004+01:00

And T is for tea. I recently made this exciting linguistic discovery: in French, caffeine is only found in coffee - cafe, that is. Tea (the) does not contain caffeine, but... theine!

How cool is that?

Keep the Change

2009-01-17T15:24:00.005+01:00

Yesterday MCM and I finally went to open a joint bank account. We had been in a bizarre Catch-22 situation for most of the autumn: I couldn't open an account without my residence permit, but without a bank account I couldn't go through a number of other administrative processes. Anyway...

We selected a major international bank that has a branch in our neighbourhood and scheduled an appointment. We decided in advance that MCM would do most of the talking. The bank employee was a woman in her thirties; she was brisk but seemed competent, and quickly began typing our personal details into the computer and running off photocopies of our passports and pay stubs. Throughout the meeting she addressed all of her questions to MCM - not surprisingly, since I wasn't speaking much anyway and I wasn't at my most coherent in answering the one question she directed at me. She occasionally referred to "Madame", jerking her head in my direction.

When she had finished setting up the account and gave us the documents to read and sign, I realised that she had given me the wrong name. When MCM and I got married last summer, we decided to hyphenate our names together: my "maiden" name followed by his "master" name. I have changed mine on my passport; MCM has not yet because it would have meant waiting ages for a new passport at a time when he was stuck in much bureaucracy and had upcoming travel.

This has been a source of confusion in France. Legally speaking, French women do not change their names when they marry. Their married names become common usage but it's not a legal change the way it is in the US or the UK. Although many French people have hyphenated names, I have difficulty explaining to people that my name was legally changed in the United States, and that the French cannot simply call me something else because my name falls outside their social conventions.

Thus, the following conversation with Bank Lady:
AP: Actually, my last name is not Mari. It is Smith-Mari.
BL: But Smith is your maiden name. You are Madame Mari, no?
AP: Yes, it's my maiden name, but my legal name is Smith-Mari. Not Mari. I don't have any kind of ID that has just Mari on it.
BL: But, you are married to Monsieur Mari.
AP: Yes, but I'm not French. I changed my name in the US.
BL: But we can't put Smith-Mari on the account. For a joint account it must be Monsieur's name on the account.
AP: But Monsieur is also changing his name to Smith-Mari.
MCM: Yes, this is true.
BL: What? Are you kidding? [Stares at MCM with her mouth hanging open]
MCM: No, I'm serious.
AP: [attempting humour] You see, we believe in equality for men.
BL: Well, I can put Smith-Mari down for Madame, but you probably can't get a card. It's too long. It won't fit. I'll have to speak to my colleagues. But the account must be in Monsieur's name.
AP: Okay, well, uhh, thank you. We appreciate that.
BL: Right, if you'll just sign here, at the bottom of the page.
AP: Of course... wait, don't I sign here, at the top of the page?
BL: Well... yes, actually! Sorry, my mistake. I always put the man's name first, but there I didn't.

Although I'll admit that I enjoy the status that comes with "Madame" - I'm certainly treated better than when I spent time in France as a "Mademoiselle" - it's very frustrating to feel that my public identity has been reduced entirely to "Wife of Monsieur." I fumed on the way home from the bank, blamed my clumsy French, blamed myself; MCM comforted me and blamed ingrained sexism in French society.

Was I too sensitive? Fully realising that I cannot change French society, I don't know how to get my head around this situation.

Introduction: I am not a Francophile.

2009-01-17T14:17:00.001+01:00

There. I've said. Go on, hate me. After all, doesn't every American woman dream of living in France? Isn't France like, ya know, that most amazing place, with its cafes, little dogs, the Eiffel Tower and fashionable women? Isn't Paris the most exciting and romantic city in the world? Don't you just looove croissants?

Well, I love croissants as much as the next woman. In fact, I have tried the 8 boulangeries within a ten minute walk of my apartment, and I have identified the best croissant maker in the quartier. Someday, I plan to have a heated argument with a French person who disagrees with me on this subject.

But France, like any other country, has its annoyances and problems - strikes, bureacracy and dog poo are on the top of my list. My move to Paris was not a long-awaited or well-planned one; in fact, my darling French husband (let's call him Mon Cher Mari, or MCM) had never desired to return to France after years of living abroad. Paris was too small, too insular, too expensive, he said; we would never both be able to find satisfying careers. Somehow, though, there were a number of personal shuffles, and MCM suddenly had a new job in Paris and I had nothing to hold me back from joining him. Friends and family were delighted for us (how exciting! you lucky things!), but I felt deflated, as I wondered how I would have any kind of professional life in France. (And, I should add, those who have followed the saga of my professional development understood my concerns and were very supportive). I was also determined: I told everyone that we would make the most of the move, that it was an exciting new phase in our lives, and that there was nothing we couldn't handle. After all, we have both lived in several countries in the English-speaking world. We were seasoned expats. The first few months would be unsettled, we acknowledged, but everything would be fabulous by Christmas. In fact, I was quite confident that by Christmas, my French would be fluent.

So, why I am starting this blog in January 2009? After six months, it feels like we've only scratched the surface. My French is fluent enough to get by, but not perfect and not improving very quickly. We haven't made many friends - and to be honest, we haven't made much effort to make many friends. MCM has been working 70 hour weeks (no, not 35, friends) and I've been trying to work from home and teach part-time. We do not yet feel comfortable, happy and settled in Paris. We need to take action, and I think writing about my experiences will help me to make sense of them and set goals for moving forward.

I hesitated about starting this blog. There are already so many blogs about the wonders of France, the clever ironies and quirks of French behaviour, and the joys of Parisian life. I know I might come off as a moaner. How dare you dis the French, you ungrateful brat!? Plus, the French can be so full of themselves. Should I really be indulging these people even more?

So, this blog is neither intended as a bitter rant nor a nostalgic ode to la belle France, although it may contain both at times. Rather, it's an exercise that I hope will prove cathartic for me and entertaining for you, dear reader. (And if you don't like it, well, go and read something else).

Bises,
The Accidental Parisian