On Crêpes and Groundhogs

Tonight I made crêpe batter for the very first time. Up until this point, I have shirked all crêpe-making duties, pleading ignorance. After all, my husband is much more qualified than I am. He grew up in Nantes, which is in Brittany (the Crêpe Capital of the World), and I grew up in Southern California. And while I feel very confident choosing a ripe avocado, when it comes to crêpes, I am daunted. Because in France, everyone has his or her special crêpe batter. Not that it’s all that hard to make, but everyone has a recipe that he or she has inherited from Tante Mimi, or Oncle Marcel, or, in our case, Mamie Georgette.

So it was with great trepidation that I embarked on my crêpe-making journey. I’m delighted to report that so far, I have come out of it unscathed, aside from a lightly grated knuckle, a casualty of the lemon zesting process. I say “so far” because we haven’t made them yet, and who knows what heinous crêpe making crime I will be accused of once the batter hits the pan.

Why am I making crêpes tonight, anyway? Because it is Chandeleur, of course. For reasons that are shrouded in the mists of time, February 2 is French National Crêpe Day. According to Wikipedia, Chandeleur is basically Candelmas, a Christian holiday that celebrates the presentation of Jesus at the temple. The road from Jesus to crêpes is tortured, however: Wikipedia puts forth a theory that Pope Gelasius I offered pilgrims crêpes when they came to celebrate the holiday in Rome. This seems a bit of a stretch and I prefer to believe it is linked to an earlier Celtic holiday that had to do with the “end” of winter, though how anyone in their right mind could believe that February 2 is the end of winter is a mystery to me. Then there’s another bit about bears coming out of their hibernation at this time, which was another subject of a pagan rite.

Which brings me to another fascinating and equally tortured link between this holiday and Punxsutawney Phil. It was only this evening that I realized Chandeleur was in fact, Groundhog Day. And if you look up explanations for Groundhog Day, you come up with the same Celtic festival, Imbolc. So by all rights, Phil and his colleagues should not come out of their burrows and look for their shadow—they should eat a crêpe.

But to get back the batter. It is Wednesday, and my husband doesn’t get home until 7:30, and it seems that the batter absolutely must rest for one hour before it goes into the pan. God forbid we should use tired batter. Hence, I must make the batter before he gets home.

Right now the batter is resting and I must admit, I’m jealous. It looks so calm and mellow that I’d like to jump in and swim around in it. This was my day “off” (kids don’t go to school on Wednesdays in France) when I get to take my son to soccer, make lunch for him and his squirrely friend, clean the house, fold the laundry, and do the shopping. But I am looking forward to our crêpes tonight. Perhaps we will even throw one on top of the armoire, which my father-in-law insists is traditional, but then he’s Gascon, and they have a tradition of telling tall tales. No other bona fide French person has ever confirmed the existence of this custom, so for all I know he is pulling my leg and chuckling about it with my mother-in-law. (“Can you believe it, Monique? She believed me!”)

Either way, the crêpes will be tasty. That much is sure. I’m looking forward to it. Really.

Parlons Cash

Should I be worried? My very French husband has recently become enthralled with Johnny Cash. So far, he’s not dressing in black, but he is listening to the music all the time, staring off into space and looking soulful. Mr. Cash’s work is virtually unknown in France, and no one even knew who he was until the excellent film, Walk the Line, came to Europe. That’s how my husband heard about him. Like me, he was surprised to find out that the actors actually sang on the soundtrack, and that they weren’t dubbed over with original recordings. Good as they were, he wanted to hear the originals, so he ran to his computer and started downloading ballads like “Sam Hall” and “Damn Your Eyes.” He likes that many of the songs tell simple, often sad stories about regular people; he says that in that way, Cash’s songs remind him of French singer-poets like Georges Brassens.

That made me think. I wonder how many people have ever compared Johnny Cash with Georges Brassens, for one. It also made me think about some of my own biases about country music. Here was someone who didn’t know anything about the genre (virtually unheard of over here), or have any political/ideological associations with the music or the people who generally listen to it—he was just responding to what he was listening to. My associations with Johnny Cash have to do with hazy memories of his old TV show, and cliché notions about the country music scene. Then my husband downloaded a few songs from Cash’s last albums, like “Hurt,” and “When the Man Comes Around,” which pretty much blew me away.

It’s surprising how much you can learn about your own country by living somewhere else, or by seeing it through someone else’s eyes. It’s like seeing a painting from a distance, where you don’t obsess so much about the details but take in the overall composition, the gestalt of the thing. Gets the hairy cobwebs out of one’s eyes. Of course, what you see isn’t always so great. But occasionally it’s a lot better than you thought it was. I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about the Johnny Cash obsession, even if my son and I are getting tired of hearing endless re-runs of “Ring of Fire.” Maybe its time to try Willie Nelson?

Scenes from Christmas

12:30—Guests arrive. Apéro: lots of crunchies and a glass of Lillet

1:00—Lunch starts. Huge chunks of foie gras. Two glasses of Sauternes.

1:30—Smoked salmon. One glass of Sancerre. I’m getting full.

2:00—Main course: magret de canard, sautéed potatoes, and green beans. Two glasses of Pomerol. My head is spinning.

2:30—Salad and cheese. I eat salad but I can’t even look at the cheese. I try to take interest in the table conversation without contributing anything, for fear of laughing hysterically. I try not to nod off.

3:15—My mother-in-law tries to get people to sing. I run to the kitchen and do dishes.

3:50—Dessert: chocolate and chestnut bûche. Champagne. One glass, I think, but I can’t remember.

Sometime after 4:00—Coffee and chocolate. Coffee has no effect. I go back in to the kitchen and dry glasses with my mother-in-law’s friends. Start telling jokes no one wants to hear.

Later—Some guests leave “early.” Others stay and my inlaws put on a DVD. I can’t bear watching yet another movie with Gerard Depardieu. I finish my husband’s Armagnac.

Even later—I’m hiding in my father-in-law’s study. My son is playing Adibou on the computer and I’ve discovered my father-in-law’s massage armchair. If all goes well, no one will notice I’m gone until the movie is over…but then it will be time for dinner…

SOS Healthcare

I remember the first time in happened: my roommate was sick as a dog and the doorbell rang. “It’s the doctor,” she wheezed.

“The who?”

“The doctor.”

“What does he want?” I wondered.

“He’s coming to see me. I’m sick!”

Suddenly, I realized what was happening. Her doctor was making a house call. My jaw dropped. She was sick, but she wasn’t dying, after all. Not that that would make a difference in my country. Back home, if you are dying, you take an ambulance. House calls have gone the way of the Model T. House calls belong to another era, a mystical time when you could get a root beer float at the drug store counter. They are the butt of jokes, an example of something that is so impossible to obtain, you might as well wish you could fly.

When I opened the door for the doctor, my mind flashed on the last time I was sick as a dog and still living in New York. First I had to beg the doctor’s secretary for an appointment the next day. Then I had to drag myself out of bed and take a taxi to the doctor’s office. Then I had to wait for an hour and a half in his office. When I finally got in to see him, he seemed irked. Apparently I was wasting his time because it was “only” the flu. He spent about 10 minutes with me and I left on the verge of tears. I then paid something like $150 for this rewarding experience.

At this moment, the US Congress is gearing up for a fight against the president’s very mild health care reform that would attempt to cure only the most blatantly unhealthy aspects of our health care system, and is a far cry from a single payer system like the one in France. For those who fear “socialized” health care, here is another first-hand report on what a single payer system is “really like.” If house calls aren’t enough to make your hair stand on end, get this:

The other night, my 8-year-old son woke up at 11pm with severe abdominal pain. When it didn’t go away, my husband called SOS Médecins, a public service that sends a doctor to your house in emergencies. True, we had to wait 3 hours for him to show up, but when he did he was pleasant and professional and the whole thing cost 55 euros, which will be reimbursed by the public health system. (By the way, my son was fine – it was just gas, I’m embarrassed to report).

Yes, these are the kinds of things that can happen when the government gives in to those lefty big government types. Tomorrow it could happen to you. You too might get excellent health services delivered right to your door. Anything is possible.

Beans!

In other posts, I’ve discussed the Parisian Coffee Paradox: in a city filled with lovely cafés, it is hard to find a great cup of coffee. More specifically, you can find good coffee, but it’s nothing like the excellent espressos of Italy. Basically, the city seems to lack coffee weenies. People get excited about cafés, but not café—it’s hard to get anyone worked up about beans or blends. Or at least that’s what I thought until I wandered into the Brulerie des Ternes on rue des Petits Champs. Due to my diminished olfactory state, I can’t tell you about the delicious aromas filling the tiny boutique, but I’ll be they are fab. I can tell you that the place seemed to be crawling with something I’ve never seen before: French coffee weenies. They were all hovering around the bar, drinking tiny cups of darkest brown coffee nectar and buying bean blends with Italian sounding names. One guy was inquiring after fill-it-yourself coffee pods, which according to the woman behind the bar, are so easy to use a child could do it. “You don’t know my daughter,” he responded.

There is nothing but coffee and sugar in this store, no cookies, no biscuits, no fluorescent-colored bottled water. The coffee is French roasted, as in locally roasted in France, somewhere nearby I’ll bet, and it is really really good. I got a “carte de fidelité,” which means if I drink enough coffee there I’ll get a free bag of beans ground to my specifications, but in true French style, there is no address or website on the card. But I believe that it was 30 rue des Petits Champs, and there are other outlets where you may or may not be able to drink a cup at 10 rue Poncelet, 28 rue de la Annonciation, and one more on the bottom of rue Moufftard.

Frostbite Bites Back

Today the French prime minister blamed Metéo France for…the weather. François Fillon declared that the French national meteorological service only predicted 3 centimeters of snow, and there were 11, and that is why the roads were a disaster on December 8 and 9 and millions of motorists were either stranded or stuck in traffic in the Paris area. In other words, it’s not the government’s fault. It’s not even God’s fault. It’s Metéo France’s fault.

In France, after a natural—usually meteorological—disaster like flooding, avalanches and heat waves, there is a period of concern and dismay when everyone gathers together in a united front against the slings and arrows of fate, and then…everyone blames the government. The government is held accountable for the weather. Why didn’t anyone predict what was going to happen? Why weren’t they prepared? Why weren’t they there to protect people?

My guess is that the government is sick of being the bad guy in these cases, and has decided to beat everyone to the punch and stick it on the weather service. Naturally, Metéo France countered with its own press release and frostily disputed Fillon’s claim. According to them, they predicted 3 to 10 centimeters of snow, and Fillon is quibbling over 1 centimeter. In fact, the region was on “Alert Orange” for snow since Tuesday.

I’m hoping this will make everyone think a little harder about improving mass transit in the suburbs. While everyone was stuck in their cars for hours on the road, the trains were running, more or less. Something to consider.

Silence is Golden

Today I make a solemn vow: I will no longer get into discussions about the US with my French or other non-American friends. Naturally, I will continue to bitch and moan about various things that are going on back home with friends from the Old Country. But I can no longer stand taking on the highly implausible role of Defender of Old Glory.

For reasons that are beyond my analytical capacities, it seems that many extraordinary, intelligent, and wonderful people over here can only relate to America as a media concept. It is as if the US is not simply across the ocean, but on a different planet. This probably sounds cranky, and it is, but after 10 years of this, I’m tired. I thought it would end with Obama’s election, but no. People still seem to think that life is somehow totally different in America, as if the laws of physics, not to mention common humanity, just don’t apply there.

I suppose I could blame it all on Desperate Housewives. Or Friends. Or any of the dozens of American television series that Europeans tend to confuse with documentaries. “That’s fiction,” I try to point out. “It’s escapist, even for us. Listen, I was a single woman in New York for many years and I can guarantee you, Sex in the City is Fantasy Land.” But they don’t want to believe me. My own French husband was brutally disappointed the first time he came with to New York City (in winter) and most women were wearing…down parkas and sensible shoes.

It all started the other night when the husband of a dear friend informed me that the Deepwater disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was a result of an American penchant for bad risk management. Apparently, he once took a bus from Newark Airport to Manhattan and was traumatized by the sorry state of the Lincoln Tunnel. He is convinced there will be some terrible disaster there before the decade is out. From this experience he deduced that we are a wildly reckless people and that something like the BP disaster was bound to happen. I admit, this was after several rounds of pastis. But still! “Are you implying,” I slurred, “that the Gulf spill is the fault of the American people?” In short, yes he was. The shady dealings on the part of BP and the regulatory agencies involved democratically elected politicians, ergo, it’s the voter’s fault. “That’s cruel!” I gasped. “People on the Louisiana coast are losing their livelihoods, the environment is destroyed, people are suffering.” Then I heard myself say: “Don’t Americans have the right to suffer?!”

I should have stopped there, but I went on to embarrass myself for the umpteenth time, leaving my friend’s place feeling like an idiot. What made me do it? I’m hardly a flag-waving patriot. I griped about the US all the time when I lived there. But I didn’t leave because I hated the place, I just needed to explore my obsession with France and ended up living here. I still love my country, warts and all, and feel the need to defend it from unkind assaults. It’s weird how that happens when you are overseas. I remember seeing Jane Fonda on a French talk show years ago. Knowing that she leans to the left, the host and guests felt free to air their grievances about the US and its inhabitants. At first she laughed politely, but after a while, Jane—yes, Hanoi Jane—got her dander up and started defending the American people. She said something to the effect of “hey, wait a minute, you can criticize the government, but please keep in mind that Americans are generally nice people and don’t mean anyone any harm.” Thanks, Jane.

And so I have decided to stop. From here on, when these kinds of conversations erupt, I will simply nod my head and try to look as vapid as Carrie on Sex in the City. My lips are sealed.