The Year Elsewhere

So I’ve been getting questions about food: two questions, in fact. One from each reader. (Oops, no wait, I have three. Grandma just won’t email me. Hi, Grandma!) Anyway, I love talking about food, so I figure this is one question I’ll actually acknowledge.

As I said before, I’m lucky that Mme is so nice and gives me four meals a week instead of the bare minimum three. False. It turns out that this was a big misunderstanding and that she thought my program was going to reimburse her for the extra meal. False again. If she gives me extra meals and chooses to charge (a practice which I fully support, by the way), it’s me who has to pay. I already knew that, which is what makes the entire situation even more frustrating. I have been repeatedly asking her if it’s alright that I’m getting an extra meal, and she keeps responding that really, it’s good, she wants to do it, but to be sure to tell my director (“Mme Sue”) that I’m getting that extra meal. And then I say, but why? Why does it matter if Mme Sue knows? and then she says because her paper says that she only has to give three dinners a week. And then she changes the subject. Finally, in a tizzy, she called up Sue to tell her directly that she has been giving me more meals, and Sue told her that the program doesn’t care, that she should take that up with me. Which she did, as soon as I walked in that night. Thank goodness Sue had prepared me.

ANYWAY…she still wants me to eat with her four times a week, but she wants me to pay 5€. It’s a really good price. If I went to a restaurant and I got this food for that price, it would instantly be my favorite restaurant. But the thing is, it’s not a restaurant. It’s…kind of like my home, in the tiniest way…so I politely turned her down on that proposition (“politely” in a foreign language means “I think I actually communicated clearly”) and told her that I really prefer to buy my own ingredients and cook. I like the experience way more than the product (except for cheesecake: what a lot of work, but it’s all worth it in the end. And pumpkin pie. I don’t think any culinary experience could top that product.). Which brings me to cooking, which was my mother’s question, and incidentally brings me to shopping for food, which was Marte’s question.

So I had the whole conversation with Mme about kitchen use and whether it would be alright to cook for the nights when I don’t eat with them. I don’t know what it is, but sometimes we do not communicate well. It’s a simple sentence in French: Est-ce que ce serait d’accord si j’utilisais la cuisine pendant les soirs où je ne dîne pas avec toi? (Would it be alright if I used the kitchen on the nights I don’t eat with you ?) It’s not perfect, sure, but I don’t think I mucked it up too badly. She looked at me and said, “That’s right, you eat here Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.” (This was before, obviously.) And I looked back at her and said, “Yes…but the other days…” And she looked at me and said, “Yes?...” (As an undisclosed wonderful person said when I was relaying this story, “Aha! That’s how the French stay so skinny! They don’t eat on the weekends.”) So I finally got the point across, and then she asked me what my friends here are doing, and I said that it depended on the family, and then she asked me if they paid, and I said that depended on the family too (the sad part is that I would probably pay her 5€ just to use the kitchen). And then she said that she didn’t think that would be necessary. I think I really threw her for a loop. I don’t think her previous students had ever asked her for that.

So I got to cook last weekend. It was a celebration. I went to the Géant Casino (the French Walmart, I’m ashamed to say) five minutes up the street and bought groceries on Friday night and came back to the house and stewed up some tomato with zucchini, shallot and spinach, and then added the concoction to couscous. It was a challenge though, I have to admit. Chopping vegetables without a cutting board: nigh on impossible. Mme was watching me cutting up the tomato in my hand, and she said, “I like watching you cook. You’re slow. You’re never stressed.” I tried to contradict her, but I was concentrating too hard. Then she left the kitchen to continue getting ready for her dinner party, and then I sliced my finger open. But only once, during the whole time. I’m like a pro. And then when I was ready to eat, she looked at my Tupperware container of couscous and vegetables and muttered, “I wish I were eating that.” Instead of the elaborate cheese tray she had prepared, and the tarts she had made during the day, and the cookies that she had laid out on the serving tray. I have to admit though, I’m glad I was eating it too. Then I asked if it would bother her if I put the leftovers in the fridge, and she told me no, but that I needed to wait until they were cold, or else they would break the fridge. Okay…

The next day, we had plans to make lunch at Amadou’s house, so we all (meaning, most of us), went to the Saturday market to get provisions. I love the market; it's taken the prized position of the coffee shop/scone experience of Salem. For those who know me in Oregon, that's a big step of committment. But it's a great way to start the weekend, and to get picnic fixings for lunch. View image
View image

It turns out that Amadou doesn’t know how to cook, although he proudly showed me the jar of vegetarian spaghetti sauce he had bought when we all went over. So he opened up his professionally-equipped kitchen to us, and we stormed it. We had been dreaming about the meal all week. We all get fed really well with our families, but there’s something to be said for having something in mind to eat, and then eating it. We decided that everyone should be in charge of a particular part of the meal, which wouldn’t really be that expensive. Lindsey took salad (she stole it from me, actually), Jen took the side dish, Susan took the bread and the cheese, and I took dessert, and that left the main course (ie meat) for Casey and Matt to split (to be honest, we kind of dictated). Except then Casey decided not to come, and Matt decided that he would much rather bring pains aux chocolat, avocados, and shrimp, which doesn’t usually work for a main course.

It all worked out though. Lindsey made a salad with mêche lettuce, apples, and craisins, and she and Susan collaborated to make a raspberry vinaigrette. Jen made roasted vegetables, with carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and onions. It was the first time we’d had roasted vegetables since…well, probably since last winter. Mention “légumes rôtis” here and people look at you like you’re stupid a.) because of your accent, b.) because that’s probably not a good translation, and c.) because they don’t do that here. Mme makes boiled potatoes occasionally, but the others hadn’t even had potatoes here until Jen made them. View image

Then Susan toasted some wheat bread from the market, along with chèvre so fresh and soft, it was just like cream cheese, and Amadou let us use his favorite: Gruyère swiss from a specific vendeur at the market. This cheese is seriously the best I think I’ve tasted; it at least ties with Cougar Gold. Matt sautéed some shrimp, and served the avocados (and the pains aux chocolat). Amadou presented us with a rôtisserie chicken. We all ate our fill. Then the men watched some “football” while the girls did the dishes and prepared the dessert. I decided to make a compôte of apples and pears to be served with petit Breton beurre cookies that I had found at the market, 12 for 2€, which isn’t even that much, given the sudden economic downturn. We served it with some coffeeAnd all was good. And although Amadou swears he can’t cook, he can peel fruit like none other. Wow.

Willamette, you have prepared some good cooks. You should consider starting a culinary academy. Chefs always need some liberal arts training.

So I hope that answers the questions.

Posted by Caitlin O'Neil at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This post is in no way even remotely done, but I'm getting sick of it, so here it is:

It wasn’t love at first sight. It was more formal, more platonic. Kind of like meeting the son of one of your mother’s friends and then reaffirming that you really prefer hanging out with your own friends. I might be a bit biased though, since one of the first things I saw when walking to our hostel was a man kicking his dog to make him get off of the sidewalk, and the hollow sound of that boot hitting those ribs is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget, no matter how hard I try.

But I’m getting way ahead of myself. The adventure didn’t start there. The adventure started back in Angers, with Lindsey, Susan, and me trekking through town with all of our gear (Susan with running shoes tied to the outside of her backpack, thumping away with each stride, juxtaposing furiously against her chic leather valise in hand), trying to find the TGV station where we were supposed to meet everyone. This was made even more difficult by the fact that none of us had returned home before 2h30 the previous night. We had attended the Soirée Internationale at school, where are all of the international students create little showcase presentations of their countries. The United States chose to present a faux(I hope)-drunken rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” while deliberately mocking the stereotype that Americans make a lot of noise in a very obnoxious manner, thereby reaffirming the stereotype. I’d rather not think about it. This is just another one of those experiences that has taught me that I should get involved if I want to have a say in something. I keep learning this lesson, and then, evidently, forgetting it. I just didn’t think that something like this would happen. Did it occur to no one that this might not be a positive way to present the already volatile image of our country? Oh well. I’ve decided that I would rather be Japanese, if I just had to base my preference off of the presentations of the Soirée Internationale. They had some very awesome breakdancers, a full half of whom were female. I wonder if they could teach me how to do it.

Anyway, point being, we were really tired because we went out on the town after the Soirée ended a little after ten. So Lindsey and I were trudging after Susan, hoping that she knew where she was going. Turns out, she kind of did. Almost. She stopped to ask directions of a real “treasure” though. A drunk guy hanging out in front of a parking garage. He was very nice and very honest about the fact that he’d had a bit (read: a lot) too much to drink at 13h30 on a Saturday. He kept tugging on his nose, which I learned signals drunkenness in France, evidently because your nose is red, like someone’s been pulling on it? I guess. But he led us to the station, which happened to be across the street from where we had stopped to ask him. So we thanked him and headed in. And got our tickets and our train and our seats and our destination. Not that interesting. It was fast.

And then we reached Paris, where we had to transfer from our train to a metro line to get to our hostel. Which surpassed all expectations. I mean, they even provided towels, and a free breakfast every morning. Well, “free” in the sense that it was included in the cost of the room, but still, it was a good breakfast. Yogurt with honey, a baguette with chocolate-hazelnut spread, and a pseudo-mocha of hot chocolate and coffee mixed together. That’s what I had, at least. Everyone differed a bit.
After getting to the hostel on Saturday night a little after five, we took a half hour to freshen up before heading out to l’Arc de Triomphe. Jen figured out the metro system, and the rest of us followed dutifully, reminded multiple times by Amadou to watch out for our bags and ourselves. It was on this metro ride that I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. You’re zipping along on one of the above-ground portions of the metro, you glance away from the person you’re talking to, and VLAN! there’s the hunk of metal that you’ve waited your whole life to see. And then you squeak “Eiffel Tower!” just before the metro goes into another station for another stop, and everyone wants to kill you because no one can see it anymore. But then the metro starts again, and Summer sees the tower and gets way more excited than you would have thought possible.

And then you finally reach the end of line 6, stop Charles de Gaulle-Etoile, you stumble from your seat to make it off before the siren sounds and the doors bounce shut again. You fix your eyes on the purposeful stride of Susan and then seek out the more manageable pace of Lindsey’s purple sweater as Susan zooms on ahead as is her manner. You climb the stairs, breathe in the air of outside, and realize that l’Arc de Triomphe is ENORMOUS!

They never told me it was SO HUGE. And we managed to catch it right in the middle of evening rush hour. The place is basically a roundabout, but on an entirely different scale than I’ve ever seen: 12 streets, most with six or more lanes each, converging on the arch, teeming with traffic entering and exiting without stopping, weaving around others to get to the exit they need, no one really sure who has the right of way except for obviously THEY THEMSELVES. You don’t cross the street to get to the arch.

Instead, you descend underground once again and follow a tunnel that leads to it, and then once again you surface, but this time you’re under the arch, and you realize that they also never told you how intricate it is. And then you go up to the top of it, and once again, you marvel at the fact that you never understood how big it is, as you gaze upon la Tour Eiffel, l’Obelisque, and off in the distance, on the one conspicuous hill of Paris, Sacré Coeur shining rose in the sunset.

So that was the first night. We slept quite well.

Day 2: L’Hôtel des Invalides, le Musée de l’Armée, la Cinémathèque française, Le Voleur de bicyclette

As Matt so aptly put it, you can’t really understand divine-right rulers until you see l’Hôtel des Invalides. It’s so gaudy. Gorgeous, but absolutely gaudy. After exploring that for a while, we visited the museum that explains every aspect of the influence of Charles de Gaulle on France. We were pretty cute, all of us wandering through the darkened halls with our headphones and our receptors, listening to our individual guided tours. It was a little unnerving when I kept wandering out of the “sphere of influence” of a particular emission generator, and the voice in my hear would change abruptly to a new subject. It wasn’t that bad though, since through a strange twist of fate, I was listening to the French tour, and was understanding almost nothing. I had actually given myself permission to use the English version, since I knew Charles de Gaulle was someone to know in French history and really wanted to understand what he had done. But my English version wasn’t working, so I switched it for French, which worked like a charm, except for the fact that I couldn’t understand anything, so I’m just going to look de Gaulle up on Wikipedia or something.

After Amadou had rounded all of us up from out wanderings, we rushed back to the hostel, grabbed lunch, changed to slightly nicer clothes, and headed back out to visit the film museum, since the class that we’re taking with Amadou is about cinema as a medium for exploring transnational identities and relations in the banlieue, the French equivalent in some sense of inner-city. After that, we went to a bistro to wait for our 19h00 showing of Le Voleur de bicyclette, an Italian film from the fifties that was subtitled in French.

And after that, we searched for a restaurant in the St. Germain area (where I had my first view of la Cathèdrale de Notre Dame de Paris, lit on its island and by a passing Batobus), somewhere special for Summer’s birthday. I don’t know if we ever stumbled on something special, but she managed to make it so by ordering escargots for the first time and discovering tarte aux pommes, her new favorite. In relation to snails, she gave a positive review, stating that “they don’t taste the way you would think a snail would.” Not sure what that would be, but whatever.

After dinner (which ended at 23h00), some people wanted to go out to celebrate Summer’s birthday, but others were ready to get back and to sleep. However, we couldn’t figure out the metro system and ended up going the wrong direction for a bit before correcting ourselves. Thank goodness for Jen, is all I can say, sinus infection and all. Our little adventure eventually culminated in a homeless man on a corner leading us to the next Metro station where we could make our transfer to the correct line. It only took us an hour to get home. We could definitely have walked it faster.

Day 3: Latin Quarter, le Louvre, la Tour Eiffel

The Latin Quarter didn’t actually end up happening, since we couldn’t find anyone who could show us around to the important parts, but we walked through it on our way to the Louvre, which again, is way bigger than you think it would be.

Day 4: Orsay, Branly, Montmartre

Day 5: Notre Dame, Shakespeare and Company, Montmartre, Angers again

There we go. Sorry I skimped on the last days. I'll try to do play catch-up later, but I doubt it'll happen. Hope you all have a wonderful day/night, depending on whatever time zone you find yourself in.

Posted by Caitlin O'Neil at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In no particular order:

Things that I miss from the U.S.

1.) Having a clue of what’s going on at any given time: I don’t consider myself an intuitive person by any means, but at home, I at least have the advantage of reading between the lines about half of the time. The other half, I’m lost. Here, I’m lost all the time. Mme told me that her daughter, Patricia, would be throwing a fête at the house this Saturday night just for fun, but what I didn’t pick up on, I guess, is that the entire family would be coming home for it. I woke up on the morning of the fête, and there was someone living in the empty room across from mine. Two someones. Her son, Christophe, and his girlfriend, Claire, who’s my new best friend because she told Christophe to slow down when he was talking to me. She understands my needs.
Also, I really need to vacuum my room. Do I just take the vacuum and go to it? Do I ask permission to use the vacuum? Will they think it’s weird that I’m asking for their blessing to do housework? Will they think it’s weirder if I just hijack their equipment? If I ask, will I have to suffer a tutorial, about how I need to press the button to turn it on and press it again to turn it off, like I had to for the porch light? If I don’t ask, will I blow up the house?
Only one way to find out.

2.) Raiding the refrigerator (likewise, Having a refrigerator): The time has come that our host families now give us every breakfast, but only three dinners a week. I’m incredibly lucky in that Mme is alone during the week and has no desire to eat alone, so I get dinner Monday through Thursday. However, once her husband comes home on Friday afternoon through Monday morning, I’m out of luck. (I really like her husband. I’m kind of bummed that I never get to eat with him now, but I understand. He’s definitely not a vegetarian, so making meals for the two of us together would increase the difficulty exponentially.) Anyway, a fridge would come in handy over the weekend for storing yogurts or leftovers or other healthy items. But I don’t know if I’m allowed any kitchen/fridge privileges, and I feel that it’s a little awkward to ask (see Thing I Miss #1), given how little the fridge is.

3.) Natural California raisins (Golden or otherwise): If you look on the ingredient list of a box of raisins in the U.S., you’ll read “California raisins,” or something to that effect (and sunshine!). Here, it’s still “Raisins secs” (dry grapes), but there’s also the “agent d’enrobage,” which is always some sort of vegetable oil. It seems very not-French, adding fat to a fat-free item, but I guess that’s also the idea behind fruit tarts, so touché.

4.) Chocolate chips: Guittard Semisweet, how I long for thee. There’s something so different about little morsels of chocolate in comparison to a big hunk of chocolate. Although a plus to big hunks of chocolate is that they can contain little morsels of other things.

5.) Recommended serving sizes: They tell you how many Calories and nutrients are in 100g grams, but then it’s up to you to determine how many hundreds of grams are in the package, and to divide them up into what you believe is the best serving size for you. I’ve discovered that it’s easier to just eat the whole package, in some cases. Mostly in cookie (gâteaux) cases. There are some packages that explicitly state the recommendation, or contain individual packages of 100 grams (or whatever is recommended), but they aren’t very common. It’s possible that I’m missing something though, like “suggestion de presentation” has to do with quantity, not with aesthetics.

6.) Coffee shops: A whole restaurant devoted to coffee and tea. With a scone thrown in for good measure. The only scone I’ve seen here was at a grocery store, beside the prepackaged half-baked baguettes. But they really know how to do chocolats chauds here.

7.) Payless Shoesource: Taking a break from food nostalgia, it was nigh on impossible to find comfortable, affordable, classy, vegetarian black boots with zippered sides, not too much heel and only ankle high. Or maybe I’m just a tidge bit picky (take out the “affordable” and the “vegetarian,” and you have a vast array laid out before you). I finally found some that were all of the above except perhaps “affordable” at 39€90. Check them out: http://www.batashop.fr/fr/Femme/boots/Talonplat/produit/5016099.htm A month ago, I wouldn’t even have considered them at that price. Now, I told myself to think about it, after a month of lusting after plenty of leather boots that start around 90€. That night, the blister that I accrued in Paris (from my $7.00 Payless Airwalks that are too small (should have brought the Pumas)) woke me at 3h00 with what felt like flames burning from the inside out. I tried to ignore it, but it was impossible, so I got out of bed and spent a half hour to forty-five minutes doctoring it, soaking it and cleansing it with Cetaphil and applying a Bandaid (that’s how you know it’s serious) and finally went back to sleep around 4h30. I had lots of time to ponder those boots. Lindsey and I went back the next day, I hmmed and hawed about it some more, and then bought them after a long process of decision-making, involving going to another store to buy different socks to try them on. So, even though Payless got me into this situation, I still miss it, and how they offer decent quality for ridiculously low prices (although, have you noticed that the prices are getting less ridiculous? I have.).

8.) Walking on the sidewalk without worrying about getting run over: People drive on the sidewalks, or at least what I take for being a sidewalk. It’s probably just a slightly raised street that people happen to walk on.

9.) Certain people and another: You know. And being able to call those people spontaneously, without setting up a date and time, for which I’m invariably late. Let’s take a moment to ponder the cuteness of that other, shall we?
View image

Things I thought I would miss terribly, but I don’t

1.) Peanut butter: Nutella is dirt cheap here, especially the off-brand variety, and it comes in any quantity imaginable. The best part? It’s not even supposed to be refrigerated (see Thing I Miss #2).

2.) Driving: I miss the car, not the transport (see Unforeseen Love #1).

Things I love that were unforeseen

1.) Walking everywhere: Despite certain drawbacks (see Things I Miss #6), it’s great to walk everywhere, mostly because the fact that everyone walks or bikes means that everything worth doing is within easy reach. The mall is 10 minutes to the north, the little market is five minutes to the west, school is 20 minutes in whatever direction school is. For a longer walk, you can go to the other side of the river and walk along the lake where the swans live. Yeah, that’s right. We have swans, just past the castle.

2.) Fresh baguettes and cheese: Mme buys a new baguette every couple of days, always from a different boulanger. When I told her that I’d heard that it was important to be faithful to one’s charcuteur and traiteur and boulanger and vendeur, she said no, that they all make things slightly differently, so people go to different ones for variety. However, she also classified herself as “atypique,” although not in reference to that. Actually, that was Hélène who said that, in relation to the whole family. “Nous sommes vraiment atypiques.” (Funny, since they seem so traditionally French to me.) I told her that I would fit right in. So, bread. It’s good. I like bread.

3.) Fresh fruit: Most notably, the grapes, which still have their seeds. I love that crunch. I try to explain about seedless fruits of America, and no one understands what I’m talking about. Really, it sounds ridiculous. “Seedless? Then how do they keep growing them?” “Bien…je ne sais pas.” I just ate a big bunch of Muscat grapes for snack, crunching down on every seed. Life doesn’t get much better than that. Also, I’m discovering new varieties of fruit left and right: Reine des Reinettes apples, little green plums that I think are Reine Claudettes, or something like that, pears that I can’t keep straight in my head, but are so ripe in the stores that you can’t even carry them home. It’s all you can do to keep them together until you pay for them. Ideally, you would just pick one up, slurp it down and then pay for it. But I think they frown on that, especially since you pay by weight. You would just have to be weighed upon entry and exit of the market. It’s the only way.

4.) Friends: Moving away from food once again. I was apprehensive about coming to Angers with such a small group because I thought we would be inseparable. And we are, but the miracle is that we all get along so well, even with the other AHA students who don’t come from Willamette. Summer’s from UofO, and she tagged along on our excursion to Paris, and it was as though we had all been friends forever instead of just meeting her for the first time a month ago. I mean, granted, there were tense moments in Paris just for the reason of being literally inseparable. We went everywhere together and then came back to the same room (more on that later in the Paris post). But here, we all have our own rooms, so we can at least decompress a little between encounters and sorties before venturing out again. Lindsey and I walked to and from school together almost every day of the month of intensives, and I never got sick of her. It must have been because of her wonderfully infectious and vivacious personality (she reads this occasionally, if you were wondering), coupled with our combined enthusiasm for France and being here (I’m so glad you decided to come to Angers, Lindsey. I can’t even imagine it without you now.).

So looking back on this entry, I guess it’s a little depressing that I seem to miss so much more than I don’t, but it’s not like I spend my days pining for the States. Really, I’m happy most moments that I’m here (except truly, it’s exhausting, this whole not-having-a-clue thing. Literally exhausting. I sleep so much.). And really, I wasn’t planning on missing a whole lot of concrete qualities from home (I guess you could say I was planning on loving everything), so there’s not much that I could write for that. It's just funny what you end up missing. Like free public toilets. I forgot to add that one. That's first on the list. Let's put that in bold. FREE PUBLIC TOILETS.

Posted by Caitlin O'Neil at 01:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I have a lot to say on this topic, but I don't have my notes with me or the time to fully explain in a truly verbose manner. I'll get to it. Lucky you.

One of the first views of la Tour Eiffel from the terasse of l'Arc de Triomphe upon arrival Saturday night.
View image

The streetlights on the way to l'Hôtel des Invalides on Sunday morning.
View image

The staircase of the Louvre. Don't ask me where. I got so lost.
View image

Shadows in Notre Dame de Paris.
View image

Shakespeare and Company, a bookstore across the street from Notre Dame. Anyone who has the resources available, please check and tell me if this is the bookstore that starts out Before Sunset. Mom, it's in my closet.
View image

Tha gelateria in Montmartre where we ate lunch on our last day before heading back to Angers. Caffé latté and nocciola...parfait.
View image

Posted by Caitlin O'Neil at 05:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)