Buddy Pass

With apologies for not writing from the road, let me just say I didn't have a nanosecond!!! So backing up to the takeoff, let me catch up now that I'm back, with a highly self-indulgent post!

Delta Business Class Elite. I am escorted to my seat, handed a menu, a warm washcloth, and a little white dish of warm nuts. A tray of glasses, filled with orange juice or champagne, follows; what would I like to drink?

I sip a glass of Casillero del Diablo Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon…Puente Alto Vineyard, Chile, 2008. “One of Chile’s famous Cabernets, named for the famed ‘Devil’s Cellar’—the private collection of one of the founding fathers of Chilean wine, Don Melchor. This one Bordeaux-like, with dusty cedar and lead pencil scents and dark cassis fruit on the palate.”

I’m not sure I noted the ‘lead pencil scents’…

Delta’s Master Sommelier writes on today’s wines: “I’ve chosen a mix of classical and cutting-edge selections so you have some fun choices, all of them excellent. We tested every wine in-flight to make sure it tastes just as good at altitude as on the ground. Enjoy!”

I sip while perusing the menu: salmon française or filet of beef? Lasagna Pasta Bites or Roasted Beef and Gravlax? I don’t even know what gravlax is.

I opt for the Filet of Beef, with grain mustard sauce, sweet potato wedges, zucchini and yellow squash. But first, the appetizer: shrimp with lemon grass and marinated hearts of palm, with roasted beets and blue cheese.

This is my second time in business class, and I love the irony of saving money with a buddy pass, in order to get treated luxuriously. I marvel at the fact that I, flat broke, get to indulge in such luxuries. I have not put a knife to my throat, as the Scriptures advise, but totally appreciate this first class meal, in Business Elite. What a pleasant way to begin a journey. And what a contrast it will prove to be, once I am in Italy.

Mat is sitting next to me, and comments, “It seems positively vulgar now to think of watching a movie.” Our quality of life has been raised beyond the banality of airplane movies by the fine dining. Mat turns to reading, I to poetry...until we both nod off for our brief airplane doze that will pass for a night’s sleep. In a few hours, the adventure begins…

Buddy pass, I love you!!!

And since I didn't have the wits to get a photo of the decadence, here is one of a far more simple, but simply wonderful, treat in Italy: the winter tangerines...
 

Paris Mosque

Take the metro to Place Monge, cross the little square, and few side streets over you will find the mosque. You will come to its entrance, in front of which a woman is begging. On the other side, at 39, rue Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, you will find the entrance to the tea room, restaurant, and hammam, which, if you haven’t already experienced somewhere in the Arabic world, you need!!!

I met a friend there for lunch (see photos on Facebook), and we checked the prices and protocol for the hammam (meaning, how naked did we have to get?! We’ve gotten caught more than once in compromising situations in other European spas!!!)

As it turned out, the hammam prices proved prohibitive, but lunch was affordable and copious, with sparrows flying through the air, picking up crumbs. Couscous and tajine, with some mint tea, and we were stuffed and happy! No dessert, because they didn’t ask, and we were too full anyway, in spite of a tantalizing platter of baklava and other honey-gooey goodies passing around under our noses.

A stroll around the 5th and 6th arrondissements on the beautiful fall day did not negate talking about some of the hard issues my friend is up against, and how to survive emotionally in a spiritually barren landscape. I recognize the signs in all too many of my friends there, because I lived it too. There are no easy answers, just some good old heart-to-heart conversation, listening and empathizing, with the occasional kick in the butt! Working in France is often an isolating experience, and without connections and community, one is quickly overcome.

Back to her house for dinner with her husband, and more conversation on the arts. A flicker of light came back on in my friend’s eyes as we talked. One of her dreams is to write a novel, and she has been working on one for some time. I shared my happy news that I’m about to be published, after 7 years of work, and encouraged her to not give up. I left them both with a list of resources, both online and live, in Paris and not, in hopes that God would take it from there.

Take it he did! The next day, who should I happen to be sitting with, but a novelist, telling me of her writer’s group, and where and when they meet, and the upcoming November writing challenge they were going to participate in! I quickly scribbled down the info, asked if I could introduce her to my friend, and fired off an email on my return to the hotel. They are now connected, and I trust my friend will now have a community of writers to help her get out that novel that is in her, just waiting to get out.

I barely had time to digest my coucous…some answers to prayer move more quickly than others!!!

Northern Cuisine

Ok, I have to bring you up to date on the eating thing, but because eating in French is such a big deal, such an art form, such a delight, and I got to do a lot of it with my friends in the North.

Let’s start with the chicons—endives—a staple in the northern diet. They are nothing like the pitiful offerings you may see in your grocery store, for exorbitant prices. The northern version is a plump and hefty torpedo that goes fresh into salads (especially good with walnuts, blue cheese and a vinaigrette), or gets steamed into casseroles on a regular basis. Or you could try them baked in an oven, wrapped in ham and covered with grated emmental cheese, with a hollandaise sauce.

Then there’s the leeks, as plump and sweet as the American version is small and bitter. They usually accompany any fish dish, and I ate them almost daily when I lived here.

Raclette, a cheese you melt in a special apparatus and pour over potatoes, or cooked eggs or cold cuts, or whatever you want for that matter, is a convivial treat for friends to enjoy together, sort of like a fondue.

Coquilles St. Jacques—scallops in a cream sauce with basil, or a white wine sauce—yep, had that the other day too.

“Moules Frites” is THE northern signature dish: mussels and French fries, usually accompanied by a good local blond beer. The mussels arrive in a black pot, unless you get them gratinée, or some other way, and piles of shells are a local folkloric sight, especially during the Braderie, the local flea market, one of the largest in the world. It takes place the first weekend in September, when it is time to eat mussels again, after the summer months, when the mussels aren’t good.

Of course, incredibly good wines accompany all these dishes, and an apero is part of the social encounter.

A plate filled with a variety of cheeses arrives after the main course, followed by dessert, then coffee. I will be rolling onto the plane soon, happy as a clam, but probably fasting and dieting as I get home!

Oh, and there’s nothing like a square or two of Cote D’Or chocolate, eh Francophone friends?!

Chez Les Barrauds

Catherine was the first friend I made when I moved to the North of France in 1995. We met while attending a meeting of the French-American Club; after talking for a while, we exchanged phone numbers, and I wasn't quite sure if she would call, or if I should call, but before I had the time to think about it much, Catherine called. She had passed some years of study in the States, and retained a love for the American culture. Maybe I could help her keep up her English?

Apart from English, we shared a love of art, psychology, and faith. We began a Bible study together, and passed several years discussing the great questions of the faith.

In 1996, Catherine met Fred, and I got to know him too as a great tease, a connoisseur of wine and good food, and an adept businessman. They visited me in the US when I was home on furlough in 1997, to ask me to be a witness of their marriage, which took place in 1998. I was speechless at the honor, but happily accepted.

And in 1998, I traveled to the family vacation home in Charentes, near Bordeaux, discovering that region with great delight. The wedding truly was magical and romantic, among the vineyards that produce some of the great wines of the region, and a specialty called Pineau de Charentes. I felt like I was in a movie most of the day. And this was the day before digital cameras, when almost all my film was lost in a developing error. But the memories are untouchable.

Now Catherine and I continue to plunge into conversations about art, psychology and faith, often during a long walk around whatever neighborhood they happen to be living in at the time. Fred and I discuss politics, economics, wine and the French culture. The kids ask me questions in English, and we watch “Raiders of the Lost Ark”; I read them stories at night.

Life is simple, if hectic with five kids, and I am grateful there is no TV in the house, no grand airs. Just good old-fashioned friendship, around a good walk, or a table of good food, with good conversation. Le Bonheur, quoi?!

Fifteen years, one husband, and five children later, Catherine remains a loyal and astonishing friend. How many women do you know who can raise five children, work, not be on Facebook, and still find the time to communicate with me on a regular basis?! Merci Catherine! Je t’embrasse! Et Fred, ben, merci pour les bonnes bouffes, les bons vins et astuces sur la culture francais, et tes blaques :) Bonne continuation avec le troupeau!

Off to the North I go...

La Boum!

…French slang for PARTY!!!! Party in a quiet culture means you alert your neighbors to the noise level coming, which will probably go till dawn. Wedding celebrations are the quintessential ‘boums’—with the meal lasting well past midnight, and then the dancing begins…

The French wedding celebration of Patty Moore and Andrew Harris—the reason we’re all here—was no exception, although we did finish the meal before midnight, and the dancing didn’t go till dawn.

Saturday afternoon, a group of us women descended on the main dining hall, transforming it with amber dishes, purple napkins in the wine glasses, and flowers. Someone went out to collect fresh ivy, and Allison arrived with a box of tea lights, pillar candles and runners. We even hauled out the Christmas lights to blink on and off over the fireplace.

Raymond, our chef, worked for two days to delight us with stuffed tomatoes, escalopes de dinde (turkey breasts), in a white cream sauce (shallots sautéed with white wine is the secret, he divulged), green beans and egg noodles. The cheese course followed, with a blue, a goat cheese, and an emmenthaler. White wine accompanying…although we had a delicious Bordeaux that I stuck with, and the French baguettes flowed by the basketful. Gigantic “Iles flottantes”, everyone’s favorite dessert, was served. The ‘iles’—islands of meringue—were more like small icebergs, floating in a cream sauce. (Sorry for the duplication on photos--I'm having blogger issues!!)

French games, designed to embarrass...ahem, get to know better...the couple, interrupted our ooo’s and aah’s over the meal, and our "Bravo, Raymond!" (in several languages--French, English, Italian and German) as he introduced each course.

And then the clean up began, and then the lingering talk with coffee, tea, as so many of us haven’t seen each other in years. And as the baby boomers drooped a bit towards midnight, the younger generation moved downstairs to the improvised dance hall, complete with disco light, ping pong table and that table soccer game for which I forget the English name.

The ‘boum’ went up with a disco thump till I feel asleep, somewhere in the wee hours, reveling in the camaraderie, the French-ness of it all, and the knowledge that I had no specific time to get up the next day!

Patty and Andrew – c’etait genial!!!