I texted Clotilde Sunday to say "ohmigod!" and to tell her my favorite line of the article: "Her pesto is of pistachio." So mellifluous!
For Chicago readers: Clotilde will be in town for a signing of her new cookbook the weekend of May 19th. And it just so happens I’ll be in town too, which means I’ll of course be at the event. Precise information can be found on Clotilde’s site.
Americans have this thing: when they order something exotic at a restaurant they love to regale their friends with it afterwards. I, my friends, am no exception to this rule.
Readers of La Coquette may wonder if I have eaten cow's tongue? Why yes, I have! Readers of La Coquette may wonder if I have eaten Boudin Noir? Damn straight, sirs! Readers of La Coquette may wonder if I have eaten tripe? Whoah….easy there, lil' Readers of La Coquette. That shit's offal. (Ba-da-bump.)
I think Americans like to talk about eating unusual body parts--(and by unusual, I mean of course, "unusual")--because it makes them feel gutsy and noble at the same time, appealing equally to their sense of adventure and the part of them that feels guilty about wasting things. Maybe I'm projecting. Maybe some Americans think it's really fascinating to eat the foot of a pig, but if you think about it? It's no different from any other part of him. I put my feet up and file my nails at the thought of eating pig foot, really.
This is what I thought at least, until my uncle Roger and aunt Marie-Line came to town recently and took Jeanne and I to La Coupole. My uncle ordered Pied de Cochon. This is the conversation that transpired:
Jeanne : That there is a pig foot all right.
Me : Quite a…. hoof he's got.
Marie-Line : And such a delicate little ankle.
Roger : It's a good looking foot!
Poor piggy, all he ever wanted was to splash his little leg in the mud and now, here it was, on a porcelain plate.
My uncle did not offer me a bite, not because he is impolite, but because offering bites, this is not something that is done so much in France. But if he had, I would have said "Of course!" And it would have been delicious. Like the tender and juicy shredded pork we used to buy in plastic tubs at the grocery store back home. Mmmhmmm, now that's what I'm talking about.
On Wednesday, you could have gone to the Colette 10 Years anniversary party,* or you could have read magazines and eaten microwaved quiche over at my place. (Or like my friend Rory, you could have done both.) Colette is amazing after all, but we had fun. Just saying.
Also, I serve Bague de Kenza for dessert. (And I play The Cure, too!)
*By the way, I’m always looking for excuses to link to the Colette site, designed by the good people at Spill. I really have a thing for those robots.
We had phoned to reserve only the week before, and so were squeezed in at 7:30 pm, early for France. We were the first table to arrive. All I remember was the hushed, cavernous room covered in thick, gray carpeting, and being excited, but unsettled too. Since no one was dining yet, Jeanne and I were offered a tour upstairs.
There was an army of men that seemed to exist to take care of us. They were constantly swooshing in. Jeanne tried to hand me her menu to set aside and swoosh, someone grabbed it. We raise our heads with a question and swoosh, someone’s there to answer it. I stand to use the bathroom, and well, you get the picture, I’ve got my own personal escort to see me to the toilet. This went on all night.
And let’s be honest, I was uncomfortable at first. Fine, intimidated. And help me Julia Roberts, there’s a fish fork?
But then, slowly, the Taillevent waiters revealed their true selves, the person behind the swooshing.
And they were jokers, those guys.
You never knew where they were lurking, or how many of them were watching you at one time (it felt like there were hundreds, but reports estimate it was closer to 20 or 30), but once they were out in the open, teasing you about your choice of wine, you almost wanted to pat a chair, hand them a glass and say, “No really, tell me about you.”
Yeah, Taillevent. Worth every penny. Especially when your Aunt Pat and Uncle Skip* are providing the piggy bank.
I tend to fall in line with the conventional wisdom (or at least, the wisdom of David Rakoff), that it is so irritating when waiters present the menu as if it were scripture, kneeling conspiratorially by your table and murmuring, “Chef has prepared an AMAZING snapper tonight.” That chummy, yet reverent tone seems to have the exact opposite of its desired effect, making me not say, “I want to be friends with you,” but “Who are you?”
They don’t do that here. They are unsentimental, for instance, about their astounding Coquilles Saint-Jacques. They let the Coquilles Saint-Jacques speak for itself. I like that. I find that Coquilles Saint-Jacques, if given the chance, usually have a lot of interesting things to bring to the table.
Rémoulade de tourteau à l’aneth
(Sauce fleurette citronnée)
Langoustines roties
(Barigoule d’artichauts poivrade)
Coquilles Saint-Jacques dorées
(au cresson)
Canard colvert roti
(aux épices)
Ossau Iraty
(Confiture de cerises noires)
Croustillant de poires au fenouil
Feuille à feuille au chocolat et aux marrons
And now there’s just one loose thread to tie up, and that is the fact that my purse had its own chair.
It’s one of those facts that doesn’t need a whole lot of “blah blah blah” (to use a phrase that is currently enjoying great trendiness in France).
All you need to know is that one second I set my purse by my feet, as I’ve done countless other times in restaurants, and the next second, said purse was plucked off the ground and swooshed into a stool so it could have a better view of the crab soup.
At the end of the meal, everyone commented on what a lovely companion she had been.
As for the fish fork, my purse was of absolutely no help.
*My Aunt Pat and Uncle Skip, currently visiting France, are fantastic. And fun. And tried to get me to take a train with them to Dijon when I was plied with champagne at Taillevent, but in the cold sober light of the next morning I canceled because I had too much work, and wrote "be more spontaneous" on the very top of my to-do list.
I was walking home from my bank and decided to swing by the market at Place Maubert, to my favorite vegetable stand where they call out to passerby in a festive manner.
But oh, how their temper can turn! I order a half kilo of mirabelles, and the vendor waves a short finger in my face saying, "NON! Il n'y a PLUS. FINI pour la saison. Faut prendre CA maintenant."
And I smile a small smile (he wouldn't approve of anything bigger), and take a half kilo of Reine-Claude plums (his suggestion) instead.
Meet Monsieur Le Produce Guy, one of the few people that can bark orders at me (my hairdresser, Valerie, also okay), and it doesn't make me want to headbutt him in the chest.
Last October, my French friend Nathan joined my gym in Paris and I was pleased to be present during his first session at my gym, which also had the distinction of being his first time working out at ANY gym EVER. In the period just before he joined, Nathan sent me more than one email saying “I cannot believe I ham joining a sports club!! You know!!?” In my head, his emails have a French accent.
There are certain elliptical machines, the old school models, mostly, where a person can ellipticize any which way he chooses--backwards, forwards, hokey pokey style--and everything works out just fine. But on the newer machines, going backwards makes your arms SHOOT forward and your torso bend down at the exact moment your knees POP up, producing a spectacular effect for onlookers, not unlike witnessing an African tribal dancer or an agitated chicken. I’ll never forget witnessing Nathan’s spidery limbs flail like a possessed marionette, as well as the look of naked panic in his eyes when he asked if he was doing this properly, to which I replied, “You look great!"
I was walking home on the rue de Vaugirard around 10 pm after Chicken Dance Spectacular #2, my second workout with Nathan, when I got a call from my sister. My sister commented that it was late, too late for me to be ANYWHERE buying ANYTHING, so how was it possible that I was not at my apartment drinking and eating like a proper French person?
“Oh well, Nathan and I swung by McDonald’s after the gym,” I told her.
Sometimes it just happens now that I have lived in France for a bit, I’ll find myself saying something like, “I just swung by McDonald’s after the gym” or “Really? You think paté smells like cat food?” in a throwaway manner to a fellow American and then records scratch and the room goes silent and I clear my throat to the sounds of crickets chirping.
“You did WHAT?”
“I went to McDonald’s with Nathan after the gym. Oh Aimee, it’s not like in the US--it’s really good quality and plus, the portions are smaller here,” I explained.
This is the part where those who have spent some time in France chuckle to themselves for two reasons:
1. Learning that the French enjoy McDonald’s is a shocking rite of passage for expats, as memorable as learning that the Mona Lisa is approximately the size of a postage stamp and that President Mitterand had two families (one by wife, one by mistress) and everyone really was just fine with that, really.
2. Once you have learned that the French eat McDonald's and it is actually OK--you will not be tarred and feathered for doing so--you have entered a frightening new realm, a dangerous realm, a realm I have visited a few too many times called Cheeseburger Justification. Don’t pretend like you've never tried to justify the cheeseburger--YOU KNOW YOU HAVE.
Yes, the French have a love affair with McDonald's. My theory has long been that the food is better, the portions more dainty, the special mayonnaise for the fries more refined--otherwise how could the delicate French palette enjoy it? But you want to know what? I’m not sure if it is better. I just tell other Americans that because it seems to reassure them. And I like to see that look on their faces, when their faces go from a horrified manifestation of "IF THE FRENCH LOVE MCDONALD’S THAN GOOD GOD WHAT ELSE MIGHT BE TRUE?" to a more relaxed, “You know, I’ve always said those Egg McMuffins were pretty damn good.”
But I didn’t tell my sister how Nathan Workout #1 ended: in the consumption of kirs (me) and Coca Cola (Nathan) at a nearby café.
Behold, one of the reasons I love living in Paris. You can buy a pick and mix box* of macarons, go to the Café de la Mairie with a friend and share nibbles over coffee until you pass out. I also sometimes buy two or three (even just one--they don’t mind) at La Grande Epicerie and eat them in the park in front of The Bon Marché. (Or as I've started to call it--air quotes intentional--"Best Buy.")
*The flavors are not listed on the website; I am ruined.
Update: Thanks to Stefanie for listing the flavors in the comments!
Noticing that your morning coffee tastes off, you check your milk's expiration date and see that what you have purchased is not your normal half-fat milk, but lait ribot--fermented milk. (Which happens to have the same blue cap as my normal brand; merci Monoprix for placing them right next to each other.)
Even the 50% of my tastebuds that come from France, the part that say, "Psshaw, you call zat stinky cheese?," officially recoiled in disgust.
When you live abroad longer than a three-month school term, you pass the point of “I want to blend in.” You live here, you shop here. You acquire Converse sneakers, Et Vous jackets, and a furrow in your brow when the bus doesn’t come. Pretty soon, you’re approached by Germans in fanny packs asking directions to the Panthéon in guidebook french.
Of course, let's be honest--there are many things you might also do, things that broadcast HELLO, I AM NOT NATIVE. Wearing your gym clothes to the grocery store, or say, failing to starve your boobs away like a proper French girl.
But the point is, you walk like you know where you’re going and you wear something reasonably adult, and 87% of the time, you’re taken for a Parisian.
And if you’re like me, that’s when you want to be different. That's when you find yourself clinging to things you would never, ever cling to in the US.
Collegiate t-shirts at the gym. Jimmy Buffet and the Barenaked Ladies. Margaritas. You find yourself waxing poetic about Cheerios, Conan O’Brian, and good mexican food. Costco and parking lots. The Macy’s Day Parade. Target. You find yourself arguing in the wee hours of the morning why The Simpsons are, indeed brilliant.
“I just don’t sink eet’s so funny. Homer, pshhht. Eet’s crude, non?”
And after a year of the world's finest desserts--macaroons, gateaux moelleux au chocolat, tarte tatin--you just might find yourself getting damn nostalgic for an icing coated, make-your-teeth ache, good old fashioned american birthday cake.
You see, this Friday, there's going to be a joint party for me (my birthday is May 13th), Sophie, and Caro (their birthdays were yesterday, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LES FILLES). I’ve contacted one american caterer who no longer delivers to Paris. If I must resort to something delicious and french, fine, but I still thought I'd ask, can anyone recommend? You may suggest I make the cake myself. This would be a happy suggestion IF ONLY I HAD AN OVEN.
Also, while I’ve opened the advice lines, can someone please tell me why the Favela friggin Chic wont allow you to reserve a table in advance? Because I just can't do another Hotel Costes experience, I just can't.
For eating the last slice of Clotilde’s Tarte Asperge et Fraise. (Cucina Testa Rossa helped!)
My apologies to dear Alisa’s husband who, according to the comments over at Chocolate and Zucchini, didn’t get any.
(In case you’re wondering, I was responsible for the figs with candied ginger crème fraîche. If anyone asks, I slogged away in the kitchen for hours, m'kay?)
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