Practicing French

 Yes, that's right, I've been practicing my French, reviving high school French from 56 years ago, not that I was ever able to speak it or understand "Fast Spoken French".   At least now they have a term for it and admit that the French drop a lot of vowels, consonants and whole syllables.  Sort of like what operatic Italian does to normal (well, as can be) Italian.  Geraldine has several YouTube videos to get you prepared for what you won't understand once you get off the plane at CDG.

In preparation I have gone beyond the lessons of Comme une Francaise and have plunged into the 100% French of KTO Television Catholique.  No, I am not listening to masses but watching La Cuisine des Monasteres in which François Lespés goes from monastery to monastery in France, filming monks and nuns preparing fairly simple but nourishing dishes.  The dishes remind me of the vegetarian food we had on the Road Scholar retreat at the Buddhist center in Santa Cruz, where cooks really do have to use their imagination.  

And yes, most of the dishes in the monasteries are vegetarian except for the pork they slip in there sometimes, most often in the form of andouillette (pig's colon filled with pig intestines -- and some herbs, spices and wine, of course).  Don't be fooled when they call it Andouille de Vire or Andouille de Guémené and start thinking it's a regular sausage filled with ground meat.  The nuns and monks slice it quite thinly and it is quite pretty with its concentric circles.  But Will will discourage you from eating it.

The monks and nuns like their milk, butter and eggs which is understandable in monasteries that raise their own cows and hens or in places like Normandy or Brittany where they traditionally use a lot of dairy products.  But sometimes they go overboard, as in this Tourte Normande which lines a pie plate with a circle of puff pastry, then covers it with creme fraiche, then a layer of onions sautéed in butter, followed by a layer of thinly sliced apples sautéed in butter, then a layer of the andouillette.  Top that with several thick slices of Pont l'Eveque cheese and sprinkle on a persillade (parsley and lemon), beat an egg with some cream and pour that on top.  Then cover the tourte with a second round of puff pastry, brush it with an egg yolk and cook it for 45 minutes.

The monk follows the Tourte Normande with a Teurgoule which is a rice pudding using 200 grams each of sugar and rice, 2 liters of milk and that bakes for 4 hours.  It comes out looking like the Basque Burnt Cheesecake but I bet it tastes good.

I bet this is why the French women stay so thin.

Finally I just want to mention the Macédoine Polanaise  that a Polish nun serves with her pierogies.  Pretty much a  Russian salad.  Usually I think of Macedonia as a mixture of cut-up fruit but a macédoine des legumes is one of  vegetables in France.  Yes, all bound together with mayonnaise, the French sauce par excellence and Camila's favorite.

Books on Paris

 Yes, I got a bunch of Paris guide books out of the library but quickly came to the conclusion that I don't really care for guide books.  They are so boring because they never cover what I want to know or what I might like to see and they really don't provide a whole lot more than a description and an address.

So I took out some deeper books about Paris.  At the moment I am reading The Streets of Paris: A guide to the City of Light following in the footsteps of famous Parisians throughout history.  And I'm learning a lot of history I didn't know, so that's a really good thing, even if I can't remember what I read when I get to Paris.  Now I know that Henri IV was a Protestant from Navarre and that Louis IX was horrid if you were a Jew or Muslim, but a saint if you were the Catholic church.  I learned that Marie Curie was from Poland where she couldn't attend higher education and so came to Paris, that Simone Weil was a philosopher that I'd never heard of, and that Voltaire was probably a bastard.  The author of The Streets of Paris, Susan Cahill, also wrote Hidden Gardens of Paris which Juan is currently reading to find all the playgrounds for Louise.  Will the slides be too cold to slide down?

I've already completed The Only Street in Paris:  Life on the Rue des Martyrs, written by Elaine Sciolino, a former New York Times bureau chief in Paris.  That's also worth reading to give you a flavor of life in Paris and the individuals  who own the shops along this street that runs up to Montmartre.  You'll find out what happens when the fishmonger closes up shop, who's been running the transvestite club at the top of Rue des Martyrs for decades, who owns the bookshops and what a friperie is.  Each individual is unique with their own little quirks.  Naturally you also learn about whom the Rue des Martyres was named after, what Saint Denis carried up the hill (or was it down?), and where St. Ignatius de Loyola started his little band of Jesuits.  There's a story behind each location, something missing in typical guide books, which makes the book much more readable.

Coming up are two books by Eric Hazan:  The Invention of Paris:  A History in Footsteps; and A Walk Through Paris: A Radical Exploration.  Hopefully I'll get around to reading them and reviewing them!

Christmas in Paris 2022

 Yes, we did get to Sicily but the Coronavirus made sure that we spent much of our time commuting on the bus.  However, now we have reservations to go to Paris in December and we have to get ourselves prepared.

First, we'll need to bring flashlights because when we arrive on the 23rd, the sun only rises at 8:42 am and then it quickly sets at 4:57 pm.  Of course the advantage to that is the Christmas lights can shine that much longer.  Although I guess that's not much different from Pittsburgh with sunrise at 7:40 am and sunset at 4:57 pm, same as Paris.  And Boston is 7:11 am and 4:15 pm.  So it's the mornings when we'll want to rush out for our croissants that it will be darker.

I've been looking at Paris Discovery Guide's Christmas in Paris to make sure we don't miss anything special.  Of course we'll have to hit all the Marchés de Noël and do it quickly because we might only have 2 days: December 23rd and 24th, although they say some stay open until early January.  The market at the Tuileries is supposed to be the biggest and liveliest with carnival rides including a giant ferris wheel, in addition to an Artisan Village and lots of food such as mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, sausages, raclette, waffles and crepes.

They say the Christmas season is not the off-season, except for early December, and can get very crowded.  We only hope that the crowds are all French.  The Discovery Guide says that the most picturesque Christmas market is the Marché de Noel Notre Dame, which is open through December 26th.

Devour Tours (specializing in food naturally) lists their 6 best Christmas markets including

Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower has 60 stalls and an ice rink.  It also stays open into January.

Abbesses in Montmarte near the Sacré Coeur.  A small market but there's a carousel (remember in Amelie?).  Again open till January.

Village de Noël at La Défense which the Paris Insider's Guide says is the largest with over 350 stalls and adds:  "If you've never been to La Défense the market gives you a reason to go, especially in the evening when the towering buildings are illuminated. Plan to spend several hours — the variety and diversity of products sold is mind boggling."  It is open until the end of December.

I've never been to La Défense so I guess that means we WILL have to go:  "Getting there is easy, it's the last stop on Metro Line 1, under the Grande Arche."

Some of the markets in the Paris Insider's Guide run only for a short time so we will miss them.  They mention the Marché de Noël des Fééries d'Auteuil in the 16th Arrondissement which has "traditional Christmas figures from Provence called santons."  Unfortunately it will run from December 3-11 so we will miss it.  But maybe we can find santons elsewhere.

These lists will give us a start and if the Christmas Markets in Paris are anything like the ones here, we'll have our fill of them after two.