Pan European Cuisine

I am sure that this is exactly what Jean Monnet, architect of the European Union, had in mind when he was doing his post World War II brainstorming.  No?

Who comes up with this stuff anyway? When I showed this photo to my kids, they reminded me that we had seen a restaurant called Paris Fried Chicken while riding the elevated portion of line 2 through the northern part of Paris.  Since trekking out there is not on my agenda at the moment, you can have your own little virtual visit here: http://whereisjon.com/2009/03/paris-fried-chicken/

And for the record, I did not try the Euro fried variety.  It was closed when I walked by, resolving any need to indulge.

Memories of War

Algeria's a place that's never been very high on my radar screen, that is, until recently when all the turmoil began in the Arab world.  After the dramatic events in Tunisia and, more recently, Egypt, all the pundits are trying to figure out which country will go next and how on earth it will all play out. 

France has a complicated relationship with its former colonies, and some of the wounds are recent enough to still be somewhat raw.  This austere modern monument, the work of Gérard Collin-Thiébaut, is dedicated to the memory of some 25,000 French and pro-French Algerian soldiers who died during the Algerian War of Independence between 1954 and 1962.  Their names scroll electronically in alphabetical order down the first column.  The second column is essentially the supporting text, the type you would normally find inscribed at the base of a more traditional monument.  And the third column is interactive (via a kiosk just off to the side) allowing  you to look for a particular name from the list of thousands that scroll through the first column.  This monument lies on the left bank of the Seine, close to the Musée du Quai Branly.  It was erected in 2002 and regrettably has been defaced multiple times perhaps by vandals or perhaps by those with a political agenda.  

While the clean lines of this monument are aesthetically pleasing, let's all hope for a future in which there is less need for such memorials.  Let freedom ring in peace.

Play by the Rules

The French may not be as litigious as Americans (who in my opinion have gone somewhere off the deep end in their penchant to sue) but that doesn't mean that there aren't rules for what to do when and who exactly is responsible for any mayhem that may result when those rules are not respected.  If you look closely, you will find a sign like this one in every park and garden owned by the city of Paris.  Most of the time, it's right there by the entrance.

If you read the fine print, most of the rules are pretty much common sense: no fires or barbecues, don't pick the flowers or climb the trees, and restrict activities to the areas designated for their use.  But there are also a few that made me sit up and take notice.  For example, you can fly kites in fields as long as they go no higher than 50 meters, and sales of animals are forbidden.  Fine by me.   If you feel the need to practice your French or if you've got some crazy scheme in mind and just want to be sure that you're on the right side of the law, you can check it out here.



The Flâneur

I always tell my children never to say they hate someone or something, the preferred alternative being to say, "it's not my favorite." Hate is really much too strong a word to describe their feelings about classmates, teachers, and certain things that appear before them at the dinner table.  As far as hating intolerance, injustice, environmental degradation, war, and cleaning the bathroom, I'm good with that.

My point is that I'll try to set a good example for them and tell you that The Flâneur by Edmund White was not my favorite.  I decided recently that I'd better go ahead and read some of the books about Paris that folks keep asking me if I've read.  So off to the library I went, list in hand.  I was kind of relieved to find that The Flâneur is a slim volume, a good thing after the 400 plus pages about Catherine de Medici.

But I only got to page 3 before I was chafing at the pretentiousness of the whole thing.   I stuck with it and happily found some redeemable sections on the French author Colette, the experience of African Americans in Paris, and the history of anti-semitism in France.  And since I don't know anything about French views on homosexuality either now or in the past, I have to give him his due on that.  But the rest is nothing but his proclamations about the real Paris (an issue worthy of a post all in itself), plenty of name dropping, and general superciliousness.

Well, you may be thinking, it's a memoir.  Shouldn't you expect it to be self absorbed?  Fair enough except....the name of this book is not My Life as a Flâneur, but The Flâneur.  And while there are personal anecdotes here, White works pretty hard to gussy them up to be more prescriptive (how one should think about and experience Paris) than reflective (what happened to me and what I take away from that.)  

I do agree with White's statement that "Paris, land of novelty and distraction, is the great city of the flâneur -- that aimless stroller who loses himself in the crowd, who has no destination, and goes where caprice or curiousity directs his or her steps.'  I'm just happy that he doesn't get to come along with me for the ride.

High Water No More

Loyal readers may remember my post about the high level of the Seine at the end of December.  Well, the other day, I was back in the vicinity of the Pont de l'Alma where the statue of the Zouave stands, the one that is used as a gauge of the river's level, and discovered that his feet are nice and dry,

Just for comparison, here was the situation in December:

And here's the state of affairs this week:

It's still hard to imagine those terrible days in 1910 when he was up to his neck.  If you care to know more, look for Paris Under Water by Jeffrey Jackson at your local bookstore or library.  Jackson, an American historian, tells an interesting tale about the causes and consequences of the flood, and mixes in many interesting anecdotes, both heart renching and heart warming.



Scary

I'll admit it.  I am a complete chicken about certain things in life, especially those involving potential body sacrifice, such as sky diving, scuba diving, bungee jumping, and fast drivers on mountain roads that lack guardrails.   Now other things that some folks find equally scary -- like speaking before a group of 300 people -- don't phase me in the least.

Since coming to Paris, however, I've found a whole new class of scary situations, for example, clothing boutiques that have only about ten items displayed on hangars and several pint sized Parisiennes just waiting to see what my very American sized body might fit into.  Or realizing mid sentence that I have no idea the correct gender of the noun I'm about to use and I've only got a 50 percent chance of getting it right.

Recently, I set out to make a German chocolate cake for my husband's birthday and the recipe in the Joy of Cooking called for sweetened chocolate.   I didn't think twice, set out for the supermarket to stock up on flour, sugar, eggs, and chocolate, only to be confronted with this:

Now that is scary. 

When I melted the chocolate, it was clear from the gloppy mess, that I had picked the wrong type.  No problem, I beat that chocolate into submission, whipped it into the cake, and voila!  It came out just fine.

Even though I still have no idea what I should be looking for when it comes to "sweetened chocolate", I suppose I learned how to conquer my fears.  Should I take up sky diving next?

Catherine de Medici

What would you get if you combined equal parts Joan Crawford, Nancy Reagan, Imelda Marcos, and any woman who ever commanded a European empire (think Elizabeth I of England, Maria Theresa of Austria, or Russia's Catherine the Great)?  Well, you might have someone very like Catherine de Medici, who despite being the daughter of Italian merchants, was the driving force behind the politics of France in the 16th century.  Virtually ignored by her husband Henri II while he devoted his energies to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, Catherine nonetheless managed to bear him 10 children.  Each was more hapless than the last --- she saw three of her sons become kings of France although none go down in the history books for being anything other than sickly and inept.  She was ruthless with her enemies and careless in her plotting.  Her plans to execute a handful of top French Protestants spiralled out of control to become the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre which after six days resulted in somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 deaths.  She was devoted to her husband, cruel to her children, obsessed with finery, and dabbled in the occult.  Really, how much more fascinating can you get?

Leonie Frieda's biography helped me better understand Catherine de Medici's place in French history and the disastrous fissures caused by the French wars of religion.  It's quite long and fairly detailed although she includes maps and family trees to help you keep all the Henris, Valois, Bourbons, and Guises sorted out.   And if you're looking for traces of the queen in current day Paris, you'll have to search.  The Tuileries palace is long gone as is the Hotel de la Reine which sat near the present day Bourse de la Commerce.  The only thing that remains of that palace is a single column which she and her astrologer used to track the planets and plot the future.