How we eat in France, Part 2

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.

Cafe Panique photos

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

Wine Post #3

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!

French Wedding Primer

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!

Book 1 is Done!

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...?