There it is. I have seen pictures of it on websites and in guidebooks. The familiar yellow sign with green lettering.

SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY.

I enter the bookstore and I’m greeted by “The Lost Generation.”

Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, Joyce. They are all there. Immortalized.

I bypass them, tilt my head and read the category subtitles: fiction a-z, history, geography. I wander with my head at an angle. Dozens and dozens of titles blur together. I pause when I see the drama section. I scan the shelves looking for Scottish writers but I can’t find any. I skim past Beckett and Ibsen and Miller.

I’m looking for something. I’m looking for something but I don’t know what it is.

I leave drama and enter poetry. A pink collection of love poems sits on a stand. I see blue books and green books, white, black, red, orange.

I reach a staircase and climb it. I click my fingers repeatedly, a sign that I am both tired and irritated.

Harry Potter greets me. I feel my love of children’s literature creep upon me. I stop to look at a beautiful edition of “Alice in Wonderland”; white with raspberry coloured flamingoes adorning it.

I follow the sound of music and find two teenage boys playing piano together in a room full of thick, dark hardbacks. They do not see me. I back away to avoid breaking their musical moment.

Another room with comfy seats. Readers sit quietly. I stand in the doorway and watch. It is a public room and, yet, I feel like I have entered a private space. I do not want to go in any further.

I see a wooden cubicle and approach it slowly. I duck my head and find myself inside a small booth with a broken typewriter. I press a few keys to hear the metallic noise. A childhood memory flickers.

Post it notes and little scraps of paper litter the inside of the booth. They are piled on top of each other, stuck overlapping on the wall; different handwriting scrawled in colored inks.

I read a torn note and a curious sensation hits me. I am surrounded by thoughts, memos and moments. The personal declarations of strangers.

I read another and another. Some are simple, often thanking Shakespeare and Company for their existence. Some are funny, commenting on the broken typewriter. Others share scattered sentiments: one thanks God for their purpose in life.

I have no idea how long I sit in the booth for. I feel strangely comforted here. In amongst the pockets of people, I have found my own little space.

I am about to leave when one, final note catches my eye:

Not all those that wander are lost.

A half laugh catches in my throat. There it is. Thank you Tolkien. Thank you stranger for leaving this.

I open my handbag and retrieve my diary. I rip out a small piece of paper. I write: From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring;

I leave my note on the desktop for the next wanderer to find.

© 2014, Morna Young

Morna Young is a playwright, actress and musician from Scotland. Her plays include Lost at Sea, Netting and Never Land. She won the New Playwright’s Award 2014 (Playwrights’ Studio, Scotland). For more about Morna Young see www.mornayoung.com.

The post Wanderer appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

By Janet Duignan

I didn’t think I would miss the snow last winter. Usually a sun lover, the mild weather here in the Dordogne was particularly disappointing because I was on the lookout for the return of a very special visitor to our garden from the previous year.

Since arriving in France nine years ago, I have thoroughly enjoyed the variety of species of birds that have visited us. During the unseasonable week of snow the previous February, it was obvious that the wild birds were suffering, especially those that were not adapted to take advantage of the variety of foods we left on the feeders. As the snow melted, a patch of grass appeared in our south-facing garden. And I was astonished to find, when I looked out of my window one cold morning, a large bird with an enormous beak pecking through the thawed but still hard ground for worms. It was a woodcock.

Not only had I never seen one before but the bird itself must have been driven to desperation to come out of the woods that give it its name and forage around in broad daylight as they usually feed in the evenings or at night and are carefully camouflaged to make them very hard to see in leaf matter. I kept quite still in order to spy on this unusual visitor; they have large eyes placed high on the sides of their heads giving them 360° vision. The beak is twice as long as their head, which is why the French name for the bird is bécasse or “big beak.” They are a bit bigger than wood pigeons and sound like a frog when they call, croaking followed by a sneeze.

Unlike some of my French neighbors who like to hunt, I knew that I would rather find out more about this beautiful bird than pick up a gun and shoot it for the pot. I can’t even keep chickens because, just as the Red Queen told Alice when she went through the looking glass, “It isn’t etiquette to cut anyone you’ve been introduced to.” The hunters use dogs specially trained for this type of game, with bells on their collars; they find and point to the birds before flushing them out. The French Woodcock Society (Club National des Bécassiers) specify a bag limit of 3 birds per hunter per day to a total of 50 per year. Its motto is “Hunt as much as possible while killing as few as possible” (Chasser le plus possible en tuant le moins possible).

Woodcocks have been hunted for food for centuries, with recipes appearing in medieval times. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame recreated a Ten Bird Roast for a medieval-themed feast. He starts with turkey and stuffs it with goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and, last but not least, woodcock.

Elizabeth Raffald, when writing The Experienced English Housekeeper in 1769, included a recipe for A Yorkshire Goose Pie which also involved a turkey, two ducks and six woodcocks. No bag limit in those days, then.

At least there is no wastage when eating Woodcock as almost every part of the bird can be eaten, except for the gizzard, eyes, beak and feathers. It seems that they empty their bowels before flying, which means the bird can be roasted with the intestines still inside. When removed and added to the cooking juices with a small glass of Armagnac, a dash of lemon juice and seasoning and then flambéed, the resulting sauce was said to be so delicious that, in his Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine, published posthumously in 1873, Alexandre Dumas Père felt he had to write a warning. He said that, when serving a ragoût of roast woodcock, in a recipe called salmis de becassins des bernardins, it was essential to provide forks to prevent the guests devouring their sauce-covered fingers.

Another delicacy was the head split open in order to eat the brains.

Guy de Maupassant in his 1887 book of short stories Contes de la Bécasse (Woodcock Tales) tells of a dinner party game played with the head of a woodcock pinned to the cork of a good bottle of wine (once drunk). The head is spun around, a bit like Spin the Bottle, until it stops and the woodcock’s bill points to one of the diners, who is announced the winner. The prize is the privilege of eating all of the woodcock heads but at the cost of having to tell a story to the others while they sit by the fire smoking cigars and drinking brandy. The trick, as a good host, was to be careful how many good bottles of wine were served before getting to the game, to ensure the winner’s tongue was loosed enough to make him capable of telling a good story, without being too drunk.

Mordorée is another name for woodcock in French, so perhaps the ideal wine for these occasions would be the Châteauneuf-du-Pape “La Plume du Peintre,” an expensive special reserve with a 16.3% alcohol content from the Domaine de la Mordorée. Wine Advocate (N° 173, Oct. 2007) described it as a limited cuvée which “is meant to age for 40-50 years. From a specific site in one of the appellation’s most hallowed sectors (La Crau), this wine’s level of concentration, richness, extract, and harmony are almost beyond comprehension. With beautifully integrated acidity, tannin, and alcohol, it is a monster wine the likes of which are rarely seen today.”

La Plume du Peintre, the painter’s feather, is in fact the name of the little pin feathers. Only two of these are found on each Woodcock, on the leading edge of each wing. Shaped like the head of a spear, they are so fine that they are used by artists for very delicate work, for example by Renaissance painters to paint angels’ hair and Victorian artists who specialized in miniatures. Perhaps when Claude Monet painted his Partridge and Woodcock in 1872 he used the Plume du Peintre for the fiddly bits.

The impression I am left with, after researching the woodcock through history, literature, cuisine and art, is that I am just looking forward to the next snowy winter and the hope that I might once again see an unexpected visitor rummaging for worms in a small patch of thawed grass.

© 2014, Janet Duignan

Janet Duignan is a British writer and journalist living in Dordogne

The post In Dordogne: A Winter’s Woodcock Tale appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Some occasions are more challenging than others. Consider fashion standards for women visiting their near and dear in a maximum security prison. Their dress style depends on their relationship to the prisoner. Mothers and friends choose clothing that is practical—warm coats, pants and pullovers—because the prison visiting room is cold and dank.

For the young wife, a black lace dress with a very short skirt is the ultimate in prison chic. Young wives wear this kind of outfit to titillate their men. No, it’s not being mean. They know that in this maximum security prison, sex in the visiting room is tolerated. That’s why they also wear voluminous scarves, draped not tied in the fashion of chic Parisian women. These scarves will be used to turn the semi-private visiting booths into more private enclosures. The rule for everyone in the drab blue visiting room, from the guard on duty at one end to the other visitors in neighboring booths, is “don’t ask, don’t look.”

The sexy wives do not, however, wear shoes with spike heels. Those don’t make it through the metal detector. These wives know, as do all the other women, that stiletto heels contain hidden metal stiffening. They don’t want to attract attention by tripping the metal detector, especially if they are smuggling in contraband, drugs, or more innocently, chocolate chip cookies. Boat shoes or rubber sandals may not be very glamorous, but in a maximum security prison, fashion sometimes has to adjust.

© 2014, Donna Evleth

Alice Evleth is a long-time American expatriate living in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.

The post Maximum Security Fashion appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

By Daniele Thomas Easton

Every winter, during our sojourn by the French Riviera, away from the American northern inclemency, my American husband and I seem to embark on a quest for some Holy Grail, usually a gastronomic quest. This year, it is the elusive bagel that has captured our interest and energized us.

Sunday brunch is not the same, here or at home, without the traditional bagel, cream cheese, smoked salmon and the works! There is a sad reality, whatever your age or nationality: after splurging on croissants and brioches at breakfast time, one reaches a level of saturation and wants to revert to old habits, healthier or not.

What gave us the idea – erroneous – that the search would be easy this year was the discovery of a center city eatery baptized “Bagel History,” Avenue Notre-Dame, a few footsteps from the cathedral. Comforted by this ecumenical neighborhood, we stopped by to purchase a few bagels that were offered on the menu. Non, we could only order and consume their ready-prepared feasts with appealing names like The Manhattan, The Central Park, The Hudson River and, yes, The Nissart (meaning “from Nice” in the local dialect), with tuna, olives, tomato, hard boiled eggs, cucumber, red pepper… and vinaigrette.

We managed to extort, after many compliments on their innovative menu, the name of the supplier of bagels, a new bakery in town, BREAD. No rampant linguistic Americanism, BREAD is the acronym of Boulangerie Responsable et Amitié Durable, a fair-trade establishment where bread is made with organic ingredients, in an artisanal manner, sourdough et al.

Early one Saturday, I woke up and walked to BREAD to make sure I would get the four bagels I had ordered the day before. Although BREAD only sells bagels to restaurants, the owners have a soft spot for foreigners with a yearning for home food and accept orders placed by individuals! The salesperson was sorry… priority had been given to a last minute’s order of 10 bagels by a regular client, a promising new chef.

There is no law against lackadaisical bakers in Nice! One has to bite the bullet, if not the bagel, and accept fatality. We negotiated for a similar order for Sunday. Patience is a virtue. Back home early Sunday, a proud acquirer of a French version of the baker’s dozen (in this case a baker’s four: our original order plus one on the house as an apology), I prepared breakfast.

From the height of his food knowledge and his Brooklyn upbringing, my husband punctured my balloon: “This is no bagel, a bastardized version of baguette, brioche and bagel, maybe… But definitely no bagel!”

Well, the bagel was no real bagel, the cream cheese was no real cream cheese either—we use light ricotta cheese, even if Philadelphia cream cheese has made it here—but, all in all, brioche-like bagels aren’t bad. Four went that morning. And the fifth one, that evening, went pretty well with a creamy goat cheese and a glass of Haut-Beynac, 2010.

Bagel History, 27 avenue Notre-Dame, 06000 Nice. Tel.  04 93 92 39 05. Open Mon.-Sat. 8am-7pm.

BREAD Boulangerie Responsable, 44 boulevard Gambetta 06000 Nice. Tel. 04 89 98 67 24.

© 2013, Daniele Thomas Easton

Daniele Thomas Easton is the Director of France-Philadelphie, which provides consulting for French-American business and cultural projects. She is the former Honorary French Consul to Philadelphia (PA) and Wilmington (DE). When not wintering in Nice she and her husband live in Philadelphia. In 2007 she received France’s Legion of Honor.

Note: Photos above are not of BREAD bagels.

The post Noshing In Nice: Bread and the Bagel appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

By Max Kutner

Passover was one week away and I knew no one in the city. I had just moved to Paris from New York for a five-month séjour and, having always celebrated the holiday at home, I searched the Internet for community Seders. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe; I figured finding a way to celebrate the holiday wouldn’t be difficult. It wasn’t. Chabad popped up near the top of the list.

As a twenty-four-year-old Reform Jew, I knew little about the Chabad-Lubavitch movement of Orthodox Judaism, only that if you can’t find them they’ll find you. In Paris so far my only contact with the men of Chabad had been to ignore them when they approached me near the falafel stands on rue des Rosiers in the Marais. I didn’t know what to expect from the Seder. Would it go on for hours? Would it be entirely in Hebrew? Would men and women have to sit separately? Leaving my comfort zone was part of what I liked about getting to know Paris.

Chabad was easy enough to find—and it was right on the Champs-Elysées, at least the address was. The Arc de Triomphe was glowing a few blocks away and tourists sat at sidewalk cafés under heat lamps. The Chabad building was unmarked, hidden among the street’s bright lights and stores. I knocked on an enormous door and a man emerged to let me in. He lacked the coat, hat and beard that I thought all Chabad men wore, so I was unsure if I was in the right place. I nevertheless followed him down a long, dark hallway, worlds away, it seemed, from the bustling Champs-Élysées. The hallway ended at a courtyard, where a more traditionally dressed Chabad man greeted me.

“Chag Sameach,” came a voice from between the man’s hat and beard. “Happy Passover. Speak English?”

“Oui, mais je parle français aussi.” I answered.

I had seen too many Liam Neeson movies and thought for sure I was about to get taken so I wanted him to know that he couldn’t pull one over on me in French.

He pushed open the door behind him.

The lobby was more welcoming than the courtyard had been. I approached some English speakers, explored some Jewish geography and discovered that one of them grew up in the Long Island town next to mine.

When it was time for the Seder, we headed to a room that doubled as a banquet hall and chapel. There was a Torah ark along one wall and shelves holding prayer books along another. In the center of the room were four rectangular tables with ten chairs each. We were invited to take a seat.

My tablemates included Sam, a middle-aged man from Los Angeles who worked in “investments and gold” and looked like my former therapist. There was Asher, a seventeen-year-old from Pittsburgh who was taking a break from living on a kibbutz to travel Europe. There was the thirty-something Long Islander from the lobby and his wife. They had recently moved to Paris from Brooklyn. And then there was our table leader, a member of Chabad, who was probably younger than I was, although he seemed to have a few centuries on me.

It wasn’t clear when the Seder actually started. Aside from major songs and prayers, each table moved at its own pace. I struggled to follow along with the mix of French, English, and Hebrew. Chairs squeaked as the Orthodox participants rocked back and forth. At one point we had to pour drops of wine into a bowl to commemorate the Ten Plagues. Growing up, I had always dipped my pinky in wine and dabbed ten drops on a plate, so the pouring was unfamiliar to me. I poured one drop too many and my table leader gasped.

I considered an early departure, but all that praying had worked up my appetite and I had no Passover food in my apartment.

Dinner was served: salmon with mashed potatoes, diced beets and carrots. Thinking this was the whole meal I licked my plate clean and ate whatever matzo remained on the table. Then, to my surprise, out came a second dish of meat and more potatoes. The food tasted fine in the moment, but soon after I felt like an Eleventh Plague had hit me, my punishment for spilling that extra drop of wine.

It was late by the time we finished dessert, and the Seder showed no signs of wrapping up. The Rabbi told stories in what was to me incomprehensible French. Dirty dishes cluttered the wine-soaked table. There was no break in the action for me to say “merci” and “aurevoir,” so I made a quiet exodus. Rejoining the crowded Champs-Élysées, I felt like a free man. It’s what Moses would have wanted.

I had moved to Paris for new experiences like this. But that Seder just made me miss my family in New York. I missed my brother, with whom I used to perform scenes from the movie The Prince of Egypt for Seder guests. I missed my mom, who had gender neutralized the words in our sixty-year-old Haggadot. I missed my dad, who leads our Seders and adamantly says “Four Sons” despite my mom’s “Four Children” annotations. I missed singing “Dayenu” around the piano, grandma’s matzo ball soup and watching The Ten Commandments on ABC. It was the only time we still gathered around the TV as a family.

What made this night different from all other nights in Paris? I missed New York which, even if just for one night, seemed like a land of milk and honey.

© 2013, Max Kutner

Max Kutner is a New York-based nonfiction writer and documentary filmmaker. His work has appeared in Belleville Park Pages and The Columbia Journalist and on Thought Catalog, Buzzfeed and io9. His films have screened at festivals in the United States. For more about his work visit maxwellkutner.com.

The post Passover in Paris and the 11th Plague appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

By Melinda Mayor

“Wait ’til you taste it.”

I slip on an oven mitt and take out the tray. My mouth is watering at the smell, and I’ve eaten two (okay, three) already today. I only put them in the oven long enough to warm them up a bit. I slide the tray’s contents onto a plate. Excitedly, I turn around, only to find my husband checking the mail.

“Don’t you want to try them?”

“What? Oh yeah, sure.”

I cannot comprehend this indifference when it comes to something so important, so delicious. He picks up one of the two on his plate and casually takes a bite. It takes every drop of willpower I possess not to leap onto the plate and scarf down the remaining one. He chews. I wait.

“Well?”

“It’s good,” he says unconvincingly.

“You don’t like it?”

“I said I like it.”

“It didn’t sound like you like it.”

“I said I like it!” A pause. “But it’s kind of…”

“Oily, right? I mean, it’s supposed to be oily, all our food is about the oil and the temple and blah-dee-blah-blah, but it’s…saltier, don’t you think? I was really thirsty after I ate a couple this afternoon.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right.”

I smile at him. “Nothing compares to yours, but what could I do? You were at work, and I needed latkes. He raises his eyebrows at me. “Yes,” I say icily. “I NEEDED them.” I hold his gaze with all the wide-eyed melodrama of an afternoon soap, and we both laugh.

My gentile husband cooks latkes. It’s one of the many things he didn’t do before meeting me, along with lighting Hanukkah candles and saying, “Oy” (though he argues with me about that last one). I told him how much I loved latkes—who doesn’t?—and he looked up a recipe online. The first time he made potato pancakes they turned out more pancake than potato. But now he’s a pro. When he selfishly goes to work, however, I have to make other arrangements: The latkes I just heated up were from the deli on rue des Rosiers in the Marais. That’s where I fail as a Jewish mother: I ask my kids, “Are you sure you had enough to eat?” but I don’t know how to cook. Well, I can make an egg. But who wants eggs all the time?

Getting latkes from the Jewish deli is a schlep worth making, especially if you get a pastrami sandwich to go with them (I also enjoy the turkey). In addition to the Jewish food on rue des Rosiers, the Marais is also known for its gay and Chinese communities, respectively. This means Jews can easily go for their typical Christmas dinner—Chinese food—while taking in the well groomed, smartly dressed men strolling by.

The first time I was on rue des Rosiers, I knew this was going to be something special. I was just visiting Paris then, and I was excited to be surrounded by “my people.” Surely I would feel at home in this foreign land once I was immersed in my natural habitat. I walked into a shop that sold everything from meats to pastries. As usual, I had trouble deciding what I wanted. And once I’d finally chosen from the vast array, I realized I could barely pronounce the words. I couldn’t even make a joke about how long I’d taken to decide. These weren’t my people. They were French.

The next time I was on rue des Rosiers I was pushing a baby in a stroller. We sat down at a restaurant and I ordered him his first latke. When it arrived, my excitement was palpable. I cut him off a piece, and he examined it for a while before finally putting it in his mouth. He loved it. Seeing my little mensch chow down on his potato pancake (more potato than pancake) warmed me almost as much as the food did. Later he broke out around his mouth in a reaction to the oil, and I broke out in guilt. Oily food and guilt: Maybe my Jewish mother instincts aren’t so off after all.

Now, in the kitchen, I eye the untouched latke left on my husband’s plate. I look at him, then back at the latke, then at him again. I broach the subject slowly, carefully: “So…are you going to eat that?”

His head is in the fridge, rifling through the vegetable drawer as he figures out what to make for dinner. “What?”

I sigh and roll my eyes. “I said, Are. You. Going. To. Eat. That.”

He glances over at the plate on the countertop. “Yeah, I’m saving it for later.”

I look at him incredulously. “I’m sorry, what is this ‘later’ that you speak of?”

He grins at me. “It’s called self-control.”

I have a look of utter confusion on my face. “I don’t understand you.”

He closes the fridge, shaking his head with a smile.

“Oy.”

The last time I was on rue des Rosiers we were celebrating Father’s Day. We went to the Jewish deli where I first got the latkes, and the four of us—me and him plus the four-year-old and the three-year-old—all indulged in giant deli sandwiches and, of course, latkes. It was a very Jewish meal, and I didn’t have to make it. The gentile husband was in his element. The kids whined slightly less than usual. And I knew who my people were.

© 2013, Melinda Mayor

Melinda Mayor is a writer-performer whose works include her one-woman show, “Jew! (A Musical),” various monologues and Meshugeneh Mama, her regular column for Message magazine. For more of her work see www.MelindaMayor.com.

For other work by Melinda Mayor on France Revisited see The Cranky Parent in Paris: Maman, Bébé and Unsolicited Advice.

The post Love and Latkes appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Aspiring 21st century novelist Gil Pender walks away perplexed but elated after a conversation with Ernest Hemingway at Restaurant Polidor in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Hemingway promises to show his novel to Gertrude Stein, and Pender is off to pick up the draft when he remembers that he never established a place to meet Hemingway on his next magical midnight excursion to the 1920s. Turning back to retrace his steps in the darkness of early morning, Le Polidor has vanished and Gil finds a sleepy green glow illuminating dormant machines in a laundromat where moments before Hemingway had been drinking wine and imparting truncated macho aphorisms.

At that moment I was still laughing at the caricature of Hemingway. He was so like the cartoonish image I had envisioned decades earlier within the penumbra of mid-20th century America when many English majors  suffered what Hemingway biographer A.E. Hotchner described as “an affliction common to our generation: Hemingway Awe.” But I laughed more when I recognized the laundromat as the one that is directly across the street from the Polidor on rue Monsieur le Prince. My laundry had tumbled in those machines a number of times. I suspect that, like me, other aging English majors continue to be charmed by the “lost generation” that Woody Allen eulogizes and laughs at in Midnight in Paris. And like me, they may still carry a notebook wherever they go—even to a laundromat.

The last time I did my laundry on rue Monsieur Le Prince it was early morning. My husband was off to a business meeting in Lille and I was alone on a rainy and chilly summer day in Paris. I looked forward to just walking and finding a comfortable spot to read and write. After depositing my laundry in a washing machine, I headed toward the Luxembourg Gardens. I was attired very casually since I couldn’t dress for the day until my laundry was done. I felt comfortably anonymous, and when I stepped under the awning of Le Rostand, I chose to sit outdoors even though all of the other customers were inside.

I took a table next to the door, furthest from the street and the rain. The waiter came and then went to get my café and I opened my notebook. I glanced toward the gardens just opposite and felt a wonderful sense of satisfaction.

I looked up when the waiter returned and saw that another woman was electing to sit outdoors, but in contrast to my well-worn zip-front and Velcro nylon rain jacket and Teva sandals, this woman wore an elegantly tailored fitted raincoat, an indigo silk scarf shimmering around her neck, and flesh-colored pumps. She carried an umbrella and a small buttery handbag.

When the waiter noticed her he almost clicked his heels. She greeted him by name and looked toward my table: I knew instantly that it was hers. When she took the table next to mine the bulge of my backpack in which I had carried the laundry seemed to groan with shame. As she sat, she put her purse on the table; our eyes met and she smiled. She knew I felt ill at ease. I murmured “Bonjour, Madame.”

The waiter took her order and then she rose to go indoors. She was about my age and I knew where she was headed. She was about to take her pocketbook with her when she changed her mind. No matter how nice the café, the toilettes is a limited space at best. She intimated with gesture and a knowing smile that I should keep an eye on it, and with some stumbling French I nodded in accord. How many times had these same silent messages been passed between me and female friends at home? I was amazed by her delicate sense of civility and at her graciousness in acceding to a sisterhood of trust. The rain came down harder as I waited for her return and I felt a compliment that almost moved me to tears.

The watched purse engendered conversation when she returned. She thanked me with a warm, sincere smile. I introduced myself as Elizabeth and she said she was Josette. There was no need to say I was an American. She told me in French that although she knew some English, she did not speak it because her mastery of it was flawed. At that moment I was grateful that this was the last leg of a three-week trip that had taken us through Provence and into the Dordogne; as always, language improves with immersion. I was happy to struggle with French and she was gracious. The waiter watched as we chatted.

Josette asked what brought me to France and I told her about our vacation in the south and the few days in Paris where my husband had business. She asked where I was from in the U.S. and I told her I lived outside of Philadelphia, not too far from New York City. She said she had lived briefly in New York and that was where she had practiced the English she had learned in school but never quite mastered. She said that she felt inadequate during that time and that it ruined any desire to stumble with English again. I encouraged her by citing my own joyful struggles with French, but I understood that this was a matter of principal and pride that was deeply woven into her being. In response to my question as to what took her to New York to live, she told me her husband worked for the government. She did not tell me his position and I refrained from asking, but she said that because of it, they had lived around the world for many years. When she spoke of “his work” I was acutely aware that we were close to the French Senate as well as the University of Paris. I also recalled how the waiter deferred to her.

For the next forty minutes I extracted from myself all the French I knew, and because of both her patience and steadfast avoidance of English, as we spoke of children and schools and travel, I learned a few new words and validated my long-held belief that great conversation is always possible when strangers look to each other with respect.

The richest part of our conversation was about Paris. When I told her how I had come to envision and love France and Paris as a young woman reading de Maupassant and Hugo and Flaubert and Fitzgerald and Hemingway, she nodded with understanding and said that Madame Bovary was a particular favorite of hers. It was one of mine, as well. She asked if I had been to the Pantheon to visit the tombs of Hugo and Zola. She said that to her Paris was very beautiful in a physical sense but that more importantly it was a reminder that mankind is capable of beauté et dignité.

When we first began talking I was dreading the moment when my laundry would be done and I would have to excuse myself from the conversation; I was certain that this was a woman who rarely washed her own clothes. My pride, bedraped by worn travel clothes and a backpack, was inflamed. In my mind I had conjured excuses: “Excusez- moi, mais j’ai un rendezvous” or perhaps “Excusez-moi, je dois quitter de rencontrer a un ami.” As the hands on my watch approached the time, however, I felt that I was at the end of a chance meeting with an elegant, perhaps important woman who had savored our forty-minute conversation on a rainy morning in Paris as much as I had. I knew that she appreciated my enthusiastic, often bumbling French and she complimented my accent a couple of times. More than that, however, we had spoken as women speak everywhere; we unfolded a bit of the panorama of our lives before each other, and in between words there were smiles, nods, and eyes that met in understanding—just as they had met when I realized I was sitting at her usual table and when she asked me to watch her lovely handbag.

When I knew I had to leave I said, “Excusez-moi. Je dois prendre mes vêtements à la laverie de la rue Monsieur Le Prince.”  We smiled, shook hands warmly, uttered each other’s name as we said au revoir, and I walked back to the laundromat in the gentle rain.

While my clothes were tossing in the dryer I took out my notebook and jotted down what I remembered about my early morning café at Le Rostand. I wanted to save the moment because I knew that if, like Woody Allen’s Gil, I retraced my steps, it would be gone.

© 2013, Elizabeth Esris

Other great travel stories and poetry by Elizabeth Esris can be found here.

The post Notes from the Laverie appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

An old couple lived in the apartment. I used to see them from time to time in the street. He was a robust looking man, but he had that old man’s shuffle that gets slower and slower with time. Eventually he needed a cane. Later still, the only times he went outside he was accompanied by his wife. Wiry, brown like a wren, she stuck close to his side, ready to prop him up, to help him over a rough spot or catch him if he fell. His face had a grim set to it; these carefully supervised walks were surely not a pleasure, more like a duty he knew he had to do to keep going.

Then I stopped seeing the old man out on the street. I saw him only between the roses of the stained glass window, sitting in an armchair, watching television. Early morning, mid-afternoon, night, each time I walked the dog, he was there, with the television always on.

Today there is a For Sale sign on the apartment, on the window of a little study adjoining the living room with the stained glass. The armchair is empty. The round-the-clock television is dark and silent.

I mourn for this old man though all I knew of him was that he appreciated the beauty of a stained glass window in a neighborhood of anonymous clear glass panes.

I hope whoever buys the apartment will keep the stained glass window of the living room. There are so few beauty marks along my daily dog walk route.

© 2013, Alice Evleth

Alice Evleth is a long-time American expatriate living in the 6th arrondissement of Paris.

The post The Stained Glass Window, a Paris Vignette appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

by Melinda Mayor

Attention. Watch out. She’s coming this way.

There is a menacing air surrounding the shriveled-up old thing, but this isn’t immediately discernible due to the swaths of decayed fur and sagging support pantyhose. Swaying against her cane, she peers up from beneath her limp white coiffure and tsks at you. And then it comes:

“Oh la…”

Never have two words been more degrading. The disappointment positively drips from each syllable. She isn’t looking at you, however. She is staring down at your baby. The grand dame of the supermarket stage gasps.

“Il a froid!”

You are completely taken aback, especially if you’re American or Canadian and therefore caught with a smile on your face. Who is this creature with one foot in the grave to tell you that your baby is cold? But of course it is your fault, as it was you who decided to risk entering the local Monoprix in the company of a person less than two years of age. This is the price you pay not just for being a parent, but for daring to leave your Paris flat at all. Mon dieu!

Sadly, this scenario is not an infrequent one: Each day, countless English-speaking mothers face the same fate (the number of French mothers who experience this is unknown, because their babies are in nursery school). A little old lady limps along the yogurt aisle, seeking something soft to sink her brittle teeth into. She has the cough of a thousand lions roaring, only now the lions are old and decrepit, so it’s more of a death rattle. The throaty cough is phlegmy and weak after a steady diet of a pack of cigarettes a day followed by an evening glass of champagne. That was in her youth, when she was all high heels and expensive parfum. Now her shoes are orthopedic and the perfume is at least a double dose. She has even bypassed the stage of elegance, where French women of a certain age outdo their North American counterparts by an embarrassing degree. No sweatshirts bedazzled with fuzzy animals for them; these French grand-mères are civilized, pantsuited and lipsticked with soft silver hair that glints in the light of their favorite museums.

But this buzzard in beige is past all that. She and her cronies (what is the French word for “cronies,” you wonder) skulk in slow motion along the edges of grocery stores and pharmacies like the Grim Reaper himself, if Death needed a walker. Their bloodshot eyes are constantly peeled for babies, poor innocent defenseless bébés with monsters for mothers, monsters who dress their children in nothing but the most threadbare t-shirt and shorts over a diaper when the weather is murderously hot. Bundle that child up, madame! It is only 30° in the shade! The poor thing will freeze to death beneath all that sun cream! Oh la, indeed…

It never fails. From the posh confines of the 16th to the village-like streets of the 18th, the ancient ones descend, on the lookout for new mothers whose nerves are already at the breaking point. It took all day just to leave the house, and all maman can think about is the possibility of her precious angel’s diaper exploding in a catastrophe of epic proportions (and smells). She is a wreck, feeling out of sorts on these Parisian streets, looking nothing like the chic and manicured woman she aimed to be B.C. (Before Children). She wants so badly to fit into her pre-pregnancy clothes like all the French mothers seem to do so effortlessly. For now, she will consider it a success if she can just get to Monoprix, just get outside and walk among the living for a while. That’s all.

Even if your French is limited, you can fight off one of these wizened harpies with a deceptively calm tone. “Il est content, madame” can be enough to briefly wound her, especially if said in a condescending tone. When the old bat insists that your baby needs socks, a hat, a snowsuit in July, try a sickeningly sweet, “Merci beaucoup, madame, mais il fait beau aujourd’hui.” If she hasn’t hobbled off yet, feel free to throw the niceties out the window and tell her off in English or Urdu or whatever the hell language you damn well please. Your confidence is shaken enough on a daily basis without this elderly Wicked Witch of l’Ouest messing with you. Let her have it. Then make your way back to your Paris apartment, still a charming abode no matter how many pieces of clothing covered in bodily fluids are lying about. It won’t always be this way. Your baby will grow into this life and so will you, and these blurry days will be nothing but a distant memory.

And all that will be left of that old crank is her cane.

© 2013 Melinda Mayor

Melinda Mayor is a writer-performer whose works include her one-woman show, “Jew! (A Musical),” various monologues and Meshugeneh Mama, her regular column for Message magazine. For more of her work see www.MelindaMayor.com.

Also see The Cranky Host, The Cranky Urbanist, The Cranky Foreign Resident and The Cranky Pedestrian.

The post The Cranky Parent: Maman, Bébé and Unsolicited Advice appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

By Justyna Gawąd

I am Polish, I live in France. I LOVE France and Frenchies, I do. But sometimes they “bother me enormously,” to quote from As Good As It Gets.

Paris
Paris is Paris. No comparisons with any other city in France or abroad. Paris is French and you better keep it in mind because everything French, by (French) definition, is better.

The language, the culture, the food, the fashion, the ANYTHING as long as it is French. So you NON-French show up and you do not speak even few words of French? You better brace yourself up because you will have to pay for it.

Restaurants are among their favorite playing fields… but they hold the rulebook and will let you know what’s good for you and for your budget. And if you can get lousy (with rude as an option) service and sticker shock, well it’s YOUR fault—tant pis (too bad). At the same time restaurants/brasseries where waiters voluntarily speak English are HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS. If you want to stay there and you don’t have bottomless royal diamond visa card, check prices before ordering! Example: you can pay for a cappuccino up to 8 Euros, while cappuccino’s French twin brother, the ‘café crème,’ costs less than half that. The difference between them? Something sprinkled on top… and your accent.

At lunch time you should eat lunch, not sip coffee or meditate over a glass of beer. EAT! If you want to contemplate the view and you have eaten before, kindly ask FOR PERMISSION to take a seat. Otherwise you could be literally kicked out of the restaurant.

Metro and RER – Luckily not too much to complain here, other than the fact that the French create directional signs that can be deciphered by only by the indigenous.  If you don’t have a super connection with your intuition then you better avoid changing metro lines or RER at the Chatelet/Les Halles station. Exits are easier to find, though you don’t know where you’ll end up. I was once stubborn enough to aim for a specific exit and after 30 minutes of circling dirty corridors I found something that could be used as a secret entrance to Ministry of Magic.

Outside of Paris
Ah, this is a completely different but equally French story.

Primo, you will learn to spend lots of your time eating. If you don’t have that habit, you’ll get it eventually. In the countryside, which by Parisians’ definition is anywhere beyond the capital (and, when their feeling generous, a couple of big cities), business life starts at 9:00 am, if you include the coffee, and more often at 10:00 am then lasts until noon. Here we take long aforementioned pause to eat and to digest in peace and quiet before restart work at 2:00 pm, again a big later if you exclude the coffee. Mind you, after 5:00 pm there is little point of trying to DO anything.

Children are off from school on Wednesdays so lots of working mothers don’t work that day. So if you’re banker or consultant of some kind is a mother then good luck trying to get an appointment that day. And since she’s isn’t available then no other person will be able to assist you, pas question, as the quality of service wouldn’t be as good.

As some businesses are open on Saturdays, they will be closed on Mondays. In fact apart from opened places of daily necessities, like drugstores, supermarkets and a few others, the quicker you can absorb the philosophy that you can’t much done on Saturday afternoons, Sundays and Mondays the better.

In May there are 5 long weekends, don’t ask how that’s possible.

Renting or Buying
You’re trying to rent or buy a house or an apartment? I hope you are very well organized.  As the French normally don’t call back, you will have to keep track of all phone numbers, properties you inquire about and the same properties being presented as different offers. If somebody calls you back two weeks after you had left a message on the answering machine, it is still considered as normal.

While visiting a property after at least one week (normally two) of preparations, phone calls, exchanging emails you have to have answers ready if you don’t want train tracks or a highway through the garden, cows in front yard, mold on walls or no access road to the property. “Why not??” the agent will say. “This property CORRESPONDS to your list of requirements! You wanted ‘quiet’, it is ‘quiet’!” If it didn’t cross your mind that you can have cows in the garden, well, blame YOUR imagination.

Once you do speak five words of French, no matter how badly, lots of doors and hearts will open for you. Let’s not dwell on the “why” and just simply focus on that fact.

If you don’t speak French, TRY avoiding speaking English. Again, let’s forget about any reasonable explanation. Use Latin, Hebrew or Esperanto, anything but English.

France is to be loved or hated, and when it’s loved, even by those who do not love you back, I’ll bet that you’ll leave this country infatuated with French ways of being, doing and living. At home you will buy a bottle of St Emilion, pronouncing the name PROPERLY and looking with pity at all those who prefer to drink Zinfandel.

© 2013, Justyna Gawąd

Justyna Gawąd is Polish and is happily married to a Frenchman. They are proud parents of one child, guardians of one dog and faithful servants of one cat. Three years ago they moved from Warsaw to the Anjou region of France, where, deep in the countryside, they have been trying to become peasants while also trying to run businesses. They have had an easier task of the former. They have recently started the process of buying a house. Once accomplished, Justyna plans to acquire a few horses.

Also see The Cranky Parent, The Cranky Host, The Cranky Urbanist and The Cranky Pedestrian.

The post The Cranky Foreign Resident: I Love the French, But Sometimes… appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.