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Posts from the ‘Around France’ Category

Dec 1

4 Comments

No. 63: le boucher (the butcher)

One thing I love about celebrating Thanksgiving in France is the fact that I can’t make my own turkey because my petit four (small oven) is too petite for monsieur Tom Turkey to fit a few legs in, let alone his whole body.

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So for the past two years, I simply head to my favorite boucher, Olivier Kermorvant, on rue de Grenelle, and order a turkey a week before the big day. Et voilà, on feast day, he expertly roasts it for me, and I send Superman to pick it up. Easy-peasy! Talk about taking the stress out of a busy day. I am spoiled.

Nov 30

5 Comments

No. 62: American Christmas or French Thanksgiving

The French have reluctantly taken on a few of our American holidays and traditions…Halloween, bachelorette or hen parties, and lavish weddings, for example. Luckily, Thanksgiving is still a mystery to them. As it should be, given that the history of the holiday is exclusively tied to America.

They don’t have a good handle on what it is all about (and I might add, neither do our dear British allies…).

As I set out on my annual scavenger hunt to find all the necessary ingredients for our feast, I watched several shop keepers have their “AHA moments”, when I told them I needed so-and-so for le jour de grâces.

I even tried: le jour de l’action de grâce.

After repeating it several times, a smile would spread across their faces, and they would say, “Madame, vouliez-vous dire Noël américain?”

“No, kind sir, I don’t mean American Christmas! I mean Thanksgiving.”

“Humph. Noël américain.”

So this year, I decided to celebrate American Christmas in a very French Thanksgiving-ish way. I chose to host a wine tasting Thanksgiving chez nous. Complete with foie gras and strange French farce (stuffing).

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foie gras
farce (meatloaf-like stuffing)

My precious friend and wine expert Hélène chose a yummy menu of four wines (two white and two reds) and a bubbly magnum of champagne to sample over the course of the evening. Who knew wine could taste of grass and honey, dirt and mold, black berries and grapefruit. It was a hoot and a delicious way to remember to be grateful for the wonderful group of international friends we have in Paris…

…and to enlighten a few of our French friends on the finer points of American Christmas Thanksgiving.

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Vocabulaire

le jour de grâces / le jour de l’action de grâce: Thanksgiving

“Madame, vouliez-vous  dire Noël américain?”: “Madam, do you mean American Christmas?”

Noël américain: American Christmas.

 

Autre Vocabulaire (curtesy of Laura K. Lawless, www.French.about.com)

autumn, fall   l’automne

colony   une colonie

family   la famille

feast   un festin, un banquet

football   le football américain

grateful (adj)   reconnaissant 

harvest   la récolte

horn of plenty   la corne d’abondance

native (adj)   indigène

(Native American) Indians    les Indiens (d’Amérique)

November   novembre

parade   une parade

Pilgrims   les pèlerins

settler   un colonisateur

to share   partager

thanks   les remerciements

Thursday   jeudi

tradition   une tradition

traditional (adj)   traditionnel

treaty   un pacte

tribe   une tribu

Some traditional dishes served on Thanksgiving:

food   la nourriture

bread   le pain

corn   le maïs 

cranberry   la canneberge

gravy   la sauce au jus de viande

mashed potatoes   la purée

pumpkin pie   la tarte à la citrouille

stuffing   la farce

sweet potato   la patate douce

turkey   la dinde 

yam   un igname

 

Nov 26

4 Comments

No. 60: Châtaignes grillées on an open fire…….

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It’s chestnut time of the year in France, and I love roasted chestnuts. In French they are called both châtaignes and marrons…I haven’t figured out the difference between them, or when to use which word. Most signs around Paris say “marrons chauds”, but a French chef friend of mine always says “châtiaignes”. Which ever it is, they are all over town these days…at the top of every metro stop, by all the major tourist attractions, and even on the bridges.

At 1-2€ for a newspaper cone filled to the brim, it’s the perfect healthy snack for a cold day.

Nov 24

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No. 57-58: l’Opéra (gâteau) & l’Opéra (Palais Garnier)

I am crazy for the opéra, both the one with the colorful Chagall ceiling and the one with six layers of divine chocolate and coffee cream.

I started buying l’opéra when we first came to Paris because it was the easiest thing to pronounce (and read) at the pâtisserie. Thank goodness for bad handwriting and a language with strings of silent letters, without which I may have never ordered this yummy chocolate prize.

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There are several different theories about who invented l’opéra cake and where it was first served. But whether it made its debut in 1890 at the Paris Opéra itself (filled with coffee to keep the audience awake) or in the early 1900s under another name (the Clichy cake), or did not arrive on the pastry stage until the pastry chef at Dalloyau introduced it in the 1950s (honoring a ballerina or the Garnier itself), I’m just glad that some brilliant chef pâtissier came up with this  tasty cake recipe.

The gâteau opéra is a great piece of theatre—a work in six acts, you might say. The play begins with three thin layers of sponge cake soaked in a heady coffee syrup and in between those scenes, a layer of espresso-flavored buttercream, followed by a layer of bittersweet chocolate ganache and concluding with a topping of chocolate glaze. Et enfin, l’opéra is always crowned with some subtle jewel, usually a bit of gold leaf, often toasted almonds, and sometimes the word opéra is delicately penned across the glaze.

My other great love is the real opéra, le Palais Garnier (Garnier Opera House) in Paris. Built on the orders of Napoleon III and carried out by Baron Haussmann as part of the “great Parisian reconstruction”, the opera house is one of the greatest legacies of Napoleon’s reign. Unfortunately for Napoleon, his empire fell before he ever got to ride up in his carriage or had the chance to use his personally designed box seats.

Completed in 1875, the Garnier was the place to see and to be seen. The sweeping staircases were designed so that two finely dressed nineteenth century women could make their grandiose entrances in their grandiose gowns at the same time. Aside from the velvety red theatre, there is a grand foyer that resembles the hall of mirrors at Versailles and is often used by Hollywood when they can’t secure the real deal. If you are a fan of Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera this is the place for you; the opera house, rumors of haunting, and a vault lake, inspired his story. Marc Chagall’s vibrant ceiling playfully dancing around an 8-ton chandelier is one of my favorite bits of “decoration” is this wildly over-the-top French treasure.

Looking through my pictures this morning of my two beloved opéras, I came up with another theory of why the opera cake was created. I think the two actually resemble one another. Layer after luxurious layer. What do you think?

 

…if you are going to have l'Opéra, you've also got to have la symphonie…my latest yummy find...

…if you are going to have l’Opéra, you’ve also got to have la symphonie…my latest yummy find…

Vocabulaire:

chef pâtissier: pastry chef

et enfin…and finally

gâteau opéra: opera cake

 

Nov 22

No. 55: Macaron Cakes!

Sloshing home from school today in the rain. I spied these:

Really, what is not to love about a cake-sized macaron?

Nov 21

8 Comments

No. 54: un p’tit… / une p’tite…

hopper.com

hopper.com

Now that I’m more in tune with the French (literally, I can finally understand a lot of what the French are saying to me…hurrah!), I keep hearing “un p’tit / une p’tite so and so”… Short, of course for un petit/ une petite.

While I, with my VERY literal grasp on français, find it an adorable habit to make nouns smaller than they actually are by prefacing them with the word “petite”, mes amies françaises have a slightly different take on it.

They seem to be of two minds, or perhaps I should say, they can see both a positive side and a negative side to their compatriots’ linguistic addiction to le p’tit mot “petit(e)”.

On the positive side, when used among close friends, or people you’d like to be close friends with, the word petite, indicates a “closeness” and not  a smaller size. For example, when you invite a few good friends to “une p’tite soirée” (a party), you are implying that it will be a warm gathering among close friends. Un p’tit café  with a friend implies an intimate catching up over coffee (not a tiny cup of Joe), where as an invitation to have un café with an acquaintance or colleague, is more in line with the business end of things.

Among friends you could share une p’tite bière, (beer), une p’tite blanquette de veau, (veal stew), un petit dîner (dinner), or un p’tit verre (a glass of wine). You could go for un p’tit ciné (a trip to the movies), on une p’tite ballade (walk), and, of course, un p’tit week-end, which the French adore. None of these things are necessarily reduced in size or length.

As a form of politeness you could ask your prof une p’tite question, or the cashier at the grocery store might ask for un p’tit signiture for your credit card bill. Both of which imply a certain reticence for disturbing you with a request.

But according to my French friends, the addition of the word petite also has a negative implication. They say that the word petite can be used to negate something that was actually a very pleasurable experience… lowering the bar and the value of a really enjoyable moment. Much as the French will almost always reply, when ask about their opinion of something, that it was: “pas mal” (not bad), rather than daring to articulate that is was pretty darn great, the word petite can take the wind from your sails, and imply that the glass is definitely half empty, and nowhere near full. That’s when un p’tit dîner detours from being a lovely dinner among friends, to a dinner that was pretty boring and hardly worth the time, or at least that’s what you want others to believe.

Mais moi, je préfère to go with the literal and positive translation. I like to imagine that when I’m invited to un p’tit restau (restaurant) that I will be dining in a tiny cozy café with my closest friends, drinking small beers and small glasses of wine and sharing tiny plates of food while laughing large and reveling in vast quantities of friendship.

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Vocabulaire

le p’tit mot “petit(e)”: the small word “petite”

Mais moi, je préfère..: But me, I prefer…

mes amies françaises: my French friends

Nov 20

No. 53: Beaune, Bourgogne

Beaune (pronounced somewhere between “bon” and “bone”) is about 20 mile south of Dijon in Bourgogne (Burgundy) and is the informal capital of the Côte d’Or wine region. It’s raison d’être both historically and nowadays truly seems to be wine. It’s a great place to make wine, buy wine, taste wine and of course, drink wine.

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Luckily we arrived as the tourists had already gone home for the season and were able to enjoy the ancient feel of times-gone-by in this well-preserved walled town. Its windy cobbled streets and friendly squares sprinkled with cafés make it a splendid spot to ponder the rich historical and architectural heritage of the area, while sampling the region’s wine. And the wine is indeed quite fine. I have a French friend (born in Bourgogne, bien sûr) who has told me several times that Beaune is “the” best place in all of France for wine tasting. Surrounded by some of the world’s most celebrated wine villages, I would say, she definitely has a point.

In addition to being located smack dab in the middle of Burgundy wine country, Beaune also houses a marvelous Hôtel-Dieu, which dates back to 1443! Burgundy’s Philippe le Bon and his wife created this medieval charity hospital for the poor after the end of the 100 Years War. Although it is a bit dowdy and unassuming from the outside, once you step inside the courtyard you will delight in the intricate and colorfully tilled roofs, the lacy dressings and the inordinate number of weathervanes. It is a super interesting visit , one which I highly recommend.

If you are traveling without a car, it’s very easy to get to Beaune by train—only 30 minutes from Dijon, and quite simple to organize a wine tour once there.

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Vocabulaire

bien sûr: of course, naturally

Hôtel-Dieu: religious hospital, charitable hospital  

raison d’être: purpose, reason for being

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