THE PARIS LETTER: Barbecue in Paris?

A few months ago I was walking around near Bastille and I saw this place:

Yes, I know the picture quality is crap. I"m working on it.

 Blues Bar-B-Q? What the heck is this doing in Paris? I have to admit, I viewed this with some trepidation. It must have been not long after my burrito-with-swiss-cheese experience here. Or maybe my worst pregnant ordering mistake, the pineapple & velveeta quesadilla I had in Helsinki.

But I digress. Yes, I was skeptical that there could be any type of edible American BarBQ in Paris. I mean, wouldn't you be? But then my friend Patrick's office turned out to be literally next door, so we decided to go for lunch.

And you know what? It is not bad at all! The restaurant is run by an American woman, Diana, who was busy fielding tons of phone calls the day we showed up as dozens of Americans in Paris tried in vain to make reservations for the restaurant's Thanksgiving dinner the next day. I guess just about every other American here forgot about the holiday just like I did!

Diana and I chatted for a bit about cuts of meat here in France, one of my favorite topics ever since  tried to cook a brisket and found the cut didn't exist here. Blues BarBQ does a Texas style barbecued beef brisket, and Diana told me she has to order it several days ahead of time, get the entire chest of the cow delivered, and then butcher it herself to get the right cut! Apparently, the French DO use the cow chest - where the brisket comes from - but cut it in the opposite direction, and use it to make plat de cote, flat steaks that don't really exist in the US. Though the French do cook some cuts of meat for a long time (think Boeuf Bourguignon, etc), they're not big on the slow & low cooking of giant hunks of cow or pork that good BBQ is based on - in fact they find it quite strange - so this restaurant must be very exotic for them.

As you can see, it thoughtfully comes with a wet-nap.

I could write about cuts of meat all day, BUT back to the actual food. I had a pulled pork sandwich and a side of macaroni and cheese.

First of all, it was PERFECTLY proportioned, which is one thing I love about France in general - That I can go to a BBQ restaurant and leave satisfied but not stuffed to the brim, as I would in the US.

Second - I will not lie, the sandwich was a bit dry - but very flavorful! - and the mac & cheese a little bland - but very creamy! - and in short, I would totally go back. Honestly, this place is like a breath of fresh air amidst the foie gras, and the woman is butchering her own BRISKET for god's sake. She is committed to the right things.

I also heard her mention that she does a lot of catering for the American Embassy - and she will cater private parties as well. I haven't even trid their super meat platter yet...

BLUES BAR-B-Q
1 Rue Sedaine 75011 Paris
M: Bastille or Chemin Vert
+33 (0)1 48 06 79 53
Tues-Sat lunch and dinner, open till 10PM
Sunday lunch and dinner, open till 8PM
Closed Monday

From their sign:

Le Vrai Barbecue Americain - 
Nos Viandes Sont Fumées avec le Bois Hickory
 or:
Real American Barbecue
Our meats are Hickory Smoked

Our Best Paris Dinner Spot: Le Verre Vole

Wow, I almost don't want to post this because its really our favorite spot. This is very Parisian of me, actually - its hard to pry "les bonnes adresses" out of the folks in this town, they're always so worried that the place will be discovered and then they'll never get in again. Which I guess is a legitimate concern, we've all had places that we loved that became so popular we could no longer love them (Momofuku Ssam Bar comes to mind here...)

Matt loves Le Verre Vole!

BUT here's what a French person will do that an American probably wouldn't do - when asked point blank "Where did you get your hair cut?" or "Where did you find that amazing scarf?", or even - and of course - "Where did you buy this amazing baguette?", Parisians will have no qualms totally evading a straight answer if they don't want to tell you "Oh, around. Just some place in my neighborhood. Over that way (waving vaguely in a direction) - But you WILL NOT pry an actual address out of them if its a favorite they want to keep as their secret.

Whereas, an American would proudly tell you just where they got their haircut, and how much it cost, sometimes even before you ask.

So I'm torn about telling you about this place, because it is really something special and its CHEAP. But will I still be able to get a reservation once I've posted this? We shall see.

Delicious Orsin, or French sea urchin

LE VERRE VOLE
62 Rue de Lancry
75010 Paris
Open for lunch and dinner every day
+33 (0)1 48 03 17 34

Le Verre Vole is a wine bar specializing in natural wines, which they serve with a variety of seasonal small plates and a couple of nightly main dishes. Its small, sometimes cramped, and still very groovy, just on the edge of the Canal Saint Martin. And, all importantly, its open on Sunday nights, one of the hardest nights to find a decent place to eat in Paris. When it opened a few years back, it was THE place to be, though now trendier bistros have eclipsed it and its easier to book a table - it still does good business, but its not the center of attention it once was, which I personally am happy about.

Beet & Goat Cheese salad and Ceviche Salad

We usually load up on the appetizers (confusingly called entrées in French), which often include much seafood and organ meats in interesting combinations. Oh, yes - this isn't a good restaurant for you if you're a vegetarian or have other dietary restrictions. One of the best things on the menu by far is the boudin noir, or blood sausage, served with mashed potatoes and salad, and somewhere between a meatloaf and a paté. We get it just about every time we go, a French heart attack on a plate. If this doesn't sound good to you, maybe this isn't the restaurant for you (see, there's a chance it won't get super crowded after all!)

But, if you're an adventurous eater and enjoy trying wines from small, interesting French vineyards, this is a great place. The staff will recommend the wines based on your preferences, and its good if you speak a little French - though the staff can get by in English, you'll get more out of it if you've got a French speaker with you. The nice part about it is that you'll usually get out for around 50 Euros a person, including wine, and feel very well cared for and well fed.

So far, we've been able to book a few days in advance and been just fine...

I believe this was homemade headcheese....delicious...

The Best Cheap Lunch in Paris

Yep that's me on the left there.

Paris aficionados will already know that the best way to eat for cheap in this city is to do it at lunch - lunch is still the main meal of the day for many French people, and cafes in this city specialize in lunch formules, or set menus, usually for under 15 euros. For this you'll usually get several courses - an appetizer, main dish, and often a choice of dessert or a glass of wine. I've actually been taking myself out to lunch lately on Wednesdays, when Sophia has a babysitter, and plan  to do some good lunchtime food reporting in future posts.

But, when I first came to Paris in college, I was stunned by how expensive the food was here, and just had no idea how I would make it on a student budget. Then I discovered L'As du Fallafel on Rue des Rosiers in the Marais, and my life was forever changed. It still wins my best cheap lunch in Paris award, and its one of my favorite things to recommend to visitors.

L'As du Fallafel means "The Ace of Falafel", and its on a street where its got a lot of competition - in fact, its sort of the street of falafel stands - but I've never gone anywhere else. Rue des Rosiers is also the food center of the Marais's Jewish roots - just down the road is Sacha Finkelstejn, an honest to god Jewish deli where you can get a pastrami sandwich, as well as several Kosher butchers. You won't be able to miss the place because of the long ling outside, which usually moves fast. Ask the order guy for a fallafel with everything, including sauce piquante, and you'll get a pita stuffed with falafel, tahini, about five kinds of vegetables, including roasted eggplant and lightly pickled cabbage and celery root, and topped off with harissa, all for 5 euros. It'll come at you like this:

Though it looks like this guy skipped the harissa -mistake!

Don't worry, they give you a fork and napkins. BUT this is a mobile eating experience - you can sit down indoors at L'As du Fallafel, but its much better - and cheaper - as a takeaway. The only trick is to find a place to sit and eat it.

It requires a little patience, but there are two pretty little parks about a five minute walk away. Continue down Rue des Rosiers away from the Centre Pompidou until you get to Rue Pavee, your next possible left. Take Rue Pavee to the Rue des Francs Bourgeois; here, you can either make a right and there will be a little garden on your right about halfway down the block, or you can contine on Rue Pavee another block, as it become Rue Payenne, and eat in the Square Cain behind the Musee de Carnavalet.

Happy eating - one fallafel should set you up for a good day of sightseeing. Don't forget  to buy yourself something to drink, that sauce is piquante!

And, if you want to see what better food writers than I have to say about the place, check out Mark Bittman's review in the New York Times.

L'As du Fallafel
32, rue des Rosiers
75004 Paris
Metro: Saint-Paul
Closed Saturdays (its the Sabbath, yo!)

The Kings of Pastry: "Be a Man, this is the MOF!"

Recently Matt and I watched the documentary KINGS OF PASTRY, where we learned all about what it means to be a Meilleur Ouvrier de France. Sometimes I'll walk by a cheese shop or a patisserie, and outside it will proclaim "Meilleur Ouvrier de France" outside, which mean "Best Craftsman in France", but I figured this was just a marketing ploy, kind of like every pizza shop on 6th Avenue proclaiming itself Best Pizza in New York.

But no! Meilleur Ouvrier de France is a real thing, a real serious thing they give out to craftsmen in everything from pastry to hairstyling to wickerwork to - yes - taxidermy. The medal ceremony takes place at the Sorbonne in the presence of the President of France. And, at least as a Meilleur Ouvrier in pastry, you get to wear three stripes in the color of the French flag on your chef's jacket, and if you're caught doing this and you haven't won the competition, you can be jailed for fraud.

So it is serious business. And, like everything in France, serious business means serious acronyms, so it's not Meilleur Ouvrier de France, its MOF (pronouced to rhyme with "cough").  KINGS OF PASTRY follows three different pastry chefs, all of whom are vying for the title, and must go through a grueling three day competition where they have to make everything from candy to wedding cakes to sugar sculpture. Here's a pic of what I mean:

Yes, that is all made of sugar!

 Let me just say, I never thought a movie about pastry could be so dramatic. There's rage, tears, and macho attitude:  "Be a man, this is the MOF!" says one judge to a competitor who is about to cry over his broken sugar sculpture. And after seeing what these guys go through to make the sculptures, I was about to cry as well.

There's also a lot of structural engineering involved in pastry design. One of  the chefs explains how he makes his domed, multilayer wedding cake by drawing a cross-section and filling in the layers for us  "...Praline, then mousse, now raspberry, more mousse and then here at the end ... the crunchy". They have to put the outer layer in a blast freezer for the cake to hold its shape. Once I saw all the engineering involved, I understood the machismo a little better ... What guy doesn't want a blast freezer, really?

After watching the film, we realized that we had a MOF right in our neighborhood, Arnaud Larher - he's actually one of the winners in this film, though not one of the chefs  they followed. So of course, we had to try out his pastry. And they were delicious -really, MOF pastry is a cut above.

This is a Mosaique cake with basil and lime.

Arnaud Larher
53, rue Caulaincourt, 75018 Paris
Tel. +33 (0)1 42 57 68 08
Fax +33 (0)1 42 57 68 22
Métro: Lamarck-Caulaincourt
Hours: Mon. to Sat. 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.to 7:30 p.m.; Sun. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Jour du Macaron

Readers, I'm going to shock you. Until just weeks ago, I had NEVER had a Parisian macaron.

Well, okay, I guess that's not strictly true since I had some frozen ones from Picard once at someone's house, but I'm not going to count that. I had never hit the big spots for this most famous of French cookies - Laduree and Pierre Herme. So when the Jour du Macaron rolled around this year, I knew it was time.

Actually, this Jour du Macaron thing was all new to me. Organized by Pierre Herme, the "bad boy of French pastry" (what does that mean? I'll get to it), this is a relatively new charity event that each year donates to a different cause by giving away macarons for a voluntary donation. Yes, give a penny, get a macaron. Stores all over town do it, and of course it works out great for them as well, since once you have one macaron you are basically hooked.

Yes, these are the crack cocaine of cookies, as may have been reported to you already. I kind of couldn't believe how good they were. I had spent a lot of time dismissing them in my mind as a kind of dainty, girly because of the way they look - but they are freaking delicious and don't need to be girly at all.

The king of making the macaron a thing of robust, masculine deliciousness is Pierre Herme, who on occasion puts foie gras in his macarons - which is actually AMAZING.The chocolate foie gras macaron was so good I got an extra six of them, then went back the next week for MORE, only to find it was a special flavor he did only for Jour du Macaron. Rats.

But as Pierre Herme is the pioneer of the "creative" macaron, there are lots of other interesting flavors, including Jasmine, Mandarin Orange/Olive Oil, Earl Grey Tea, Rosewater, and Lychee. And they are all AMAZING. I am jumping on the Pierre Herme bandwagon. Thank god he's got several Paris locations.

THE PARIS LETTER: Sunday Afternoon Snack

Oh, Paris letter, how have I been writing you for so long without mentioning one of my favorite subjects, CHEESE? 

Those of you who have been following this letter for the last year know that in fact many of my culinary adventures in France have to do with finding NON-FRENCH food - I've looked for burritos and bagels, made traditional Thanksgiving dinner and served chocolate mole to dubious Parisians. What can I say? I like variety on my plate.  

However, there are a few areas where France just excels, period. One of these is bread. And the another is cheese. They are just consistently better here than in the US of A. Yes, we have some very good homegrown cheeses and you can get a great diversity of breads. But look at that picture, people! That's our Sunday afternoon snack! And we can get that kind of good-lookin' snack easily in our neighborhood, no trucking out to Murray's Cheese or Acme Bread. Yes, there's a huge variety when it comes to cheese and bread here, and you can get a super shitty baguette and some boring emmental just about anywhere here as well.

But again, I refer you to the picture above. Let's discuss....

THE PARIS LETTER: Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer...

Ahhh, its August. Doesn't it FEEL like August? Things are slowing down, everyone's on vacation, at the same time September's out there looming - This usually leads me into a frenzy of trying to get things done for work before its time, but this year I'm trying to use the August time to get the house ready for the baby and other more appropriate things. Also - adn some of you will know what I mean by this - I started to read George R.R.Martin's GAME OF THRONES series, so if you've emailed me and you don't hear from me this week, just know that I'm buried in a 5 book fantasy cycle and can't return any emails until I come up for air.

THE PARIS LETTER: The Big Announcement

Hello all -

Yes, just in time for Mother's Day, we've got a big announcement to make - I'm PREGNANT. Otherwise known as - with child, knocked up, expecting, with bun in oven. I'm finally out of the first trimester, so we are letting more people know (though truth be told, some of you know already - I'm looking at you, Mom. Now you can start telling the neighbors...:) I just had my first sonogram this week, and the baby is moving around and waving its arms and legs, which is incredible considering he/she is still only about 3 inches long. I'm due around Thanksgiving, and Matt and I are both really happy and excited.

Also, I'm so happy to get to finally announce this in the letter, because there are so many funny stories to tell you that have come up in the last few months that I've been HIDING. Being pregnant for the first time is strange enough, and doing it in a foreign country brings with it all sorts of other new things that basically are hilarious - well, now they are. At the time, some not so much. But NOW - hilarious. A warning - as with lots of talk about pregnancy and such, there will be some personal stuff coming up. No, not that personal! But I will be talking about birthing centers and pregnancy tests and whatnot. Avert your eyes if you want.

THE PARIS LETTER: London

Hello from sunny Paris, where we are lying in bed and eating baguettes -

Yes, it is a LAZY sunday today, while we wait for our friend Dave to arrive on his stopover from Portland to Malawi. Some people have really exotic lives, you know?

I spent most of the week in London shopping attending the London Book Fair, an annual glitzy and glamorous international publishing conference. No, really its like a trade show for books, held in a big conference center, where agents and publishers from all over the world come to make rights deals - and a bunch of other stuff happens, like I think book buyers from libraries and bookstores might also be there? And then all the residual publishing businesses like printers, e-book retailers, merchandisers, etc. But I really spend most of my time on the international rights deals side of things, which means in the IRC, or international rights center. This is a huge open floor that looks either like an open plan office or a series of poker tables in a giant casino, where agents and publishers have half hour meetings all day to sell and promote their titles.

THE PARIS LETTER: Bagels & Regret

Hello everyone -
It's a beautiful spring day here in Paris, almost impossible not to be outside - unless you're like me, with my terrible spring allergies...which apparently are even worse this year as I get used to the new European pollens. However, I did just hit the pharmacie and loaded up on medicines, so hopefully I'll be out there drinking at an outdoor cafe soon enough -

This week was a pretty quiet one, but Friday marked the beginning of French spring break, another 2 week school holiday that runs through Easter weekend - I'm off from the Sorbonne for those two weeks, and we have some good upcoming travel - I'll be in London this week at the London Book Fair, and happily catching up with some New York and London friends, and then Easter weekend Matt and I will be in Helsinki, Finland, and I'm sure we'll have lots to report from there -

BAGELS
Strangely, here in the land of the croissant, I've been craving a good bagel and cream cheese lately, and wow are they actually hard to find. I may have mentioned before that there's a bagel craze that's been sweeping Paris - I guess its been around for a few years at this point - and there are a few restaurants here that claim to be "New York style" bagel bars - But, there are very few places where you can find bagels to buy and eat at home. I made a pilgrimage the other day, walking all around the Marais looking for bagel shops (I had heard a rumor that there was a place in the Marais where you could buy frozen H&H bagels from New York, but it has since CLOSED, boo)

THE PARIS LETTER: French Top Chef and Venice Tips

Hello everyone -

So, today we will be talking about the curious and long-standing rivalry between the Brits and the French, as seen through the lens of the French version of the TV show TOP CHEF.

I know you have all probably read about how England and France hate each other, about hundreds of years of wars that occurred between these two countries, how Brittany & Normandy were occupied by thethe English for much of history, how deposed British royalty often made a home in Paris only to join up with the French to plot an invasion that inevitably failed, etc etc. Yes, these countries DO NOT like each other. It is VERY different than dislike/fascination that thethe French and Americans feel for one another. At the end of the day, French are both ANNOYED by thethe US and are FASCINATED by us - perhaps the way an uncle might be both annoyed by how much his nephew texts his friend on his iPad, but fascinated by how he manages to do all that new-fangled stuff on it. We are young upstarts, rude and uncouth but also innovators and full of energy, and this is both interesting and irritating to the French. However, with the Brits its more like deep seated sibling rivalry that is NEVER going away - both cultures have been around equally long, both enjoyed world dominance, both have significant cultural capitals - let's face it, they're basically EQUAL in terms of power, but they're still always gonna compete for who's the best in some kind of futile fight to the death.

THE PARIS LETTER: Butchers, Movie Theaters, and Residency Cards

Hello from my Parisian sickbed -

Yes its the dreaded winter head cold time - really more irritating than anything else. I came down with it a couple of days ago and I keep thinking I'm in better shape than I am - bleah. However, lots of fun stuff to talk about this week - butchers, movie theaters, and the joys of the Parisian prefecture de police!

1. LONG CONVERSATIONS WITH MY BUTCHER -

My local butcher during the holidays

This is what my friends have decided my book about my life in Paris should be called - and indeed, a lot of my food adventures here have become about finding, buying and cooking different cuts of meat, and having long hilarious conversation with French butchers, where we try to explain to each other what parts and cuts of the animal we are talking about. I've learned a lot about anatomy, and the words for various parts of the body in both French and English. I've also found myself doing research online about the differences between French and American butchering and cuts of meat. Things I didn't set out to learn, but which I think will actually set me in good stead for years to come.

THE PARIS LETTER: Some First Observations on French Film, TV, and Theater

Hello all -

For those of you who are new, welcome to the Paris Letter, my weekly letter about living here in France - As I was doing my Holiday cards this morning I added a few more people to the mailing - If you don't want to receive this, just shoot me an email, no problem.

Today's letter may be somewhat brief, because I"m having some kind of shoulder trauma which typing seems to make worse - I seem to be developing a chronic right shoulder problem, which some of you right-handed office workers may be familiar with - does anyone out there get frozen or painful shoulder stuff every couple of months on their dominant side? I am treating it with yoga and going ot get a massage in Madison,, but this seems to be something that flares up every few months now and I would love anyone's advice on treatment as it is ANNOYING.

ANYWAY, on to more interesting news about Paris, which is currently blanketed in slush and exhibiting classic "wintry mix" weather; the temperature is much milder than New York, and there's almost no accumulation, but I did order myself some rain boots from Zappo's today because I think it's finally time....

This week was very busy for Matt and I both as we tried to wrap everything up in time for our flight to Madison on Wednesday. We will be spending a week there with Matt's parents, and then flying to Bozeman and meeting up with Matt's brother and sister in law, and then all of us are heading to YELLOWSTONE for four days of skiing and snow. I simultaneously feel really settled in here in France and REALLY excited to be going back to the US for a visit. I am going to drink Sam Adams beer, eat a really good hamburger, go get a haircut and the aforementioned massage, buy jeans and shoes in my size and in dollars, not euros .... oh, so many fun things to do in America. Maybe I will even watch a FOOTBALL game.

I am also going to get my laptop fixed, with any luck, because it died on me this week and is now a big paperweight - thankfully, a paperweight that is under warranty

Okay so - this week, the first post not on Food but on Culture here in France! As I mentioned last week, I'm both starting to look for a film job here and also helping my cousin Hillary with her French production of Tony Kushner's A BRIGHT ROOM CALLED DAY - So I'm starting to get a small window into the cultural world in Paris - I basically feel totally overwhelmed by it right now, but here are a few things I've noticed that are interesting and different.

There is a lot of theater in Paris, but it seems like rather than our tradition of musicals, they have a lot of Boulevard Comedies, or farces that get produced commercially here. There's also a lot of highbrow theater, but this is done more frequently by state sponsored theaters - not unlike in the US, though there is apparently a real highbrow-lowbrow divide between the two and people don't necessarily move between them easily. There's a lot of advertising for theater in Metro, actually, and it seems like big business - thethe farces have names like "Bonjour, Ivresse" (Hello, drunkenness!) or "Mon Colocataire est une garce!" (my roommate is a man-baby!) or "Boire, Fumer, et Conduire Vite" (Drink, Smoke, and Drive Fast) - apparently many of them come up through big theater festivals like Edinburgh and Avignon and get booked into Paris for long runs. I feel like they're a bit like TONY N TINA'S WEDDING or THE DONKEY SHOW in New York, but can't quite find an equivalent - imagine if all of Broadway were for comedy rather than musicals, and you'll get the idea.

Though, they also love musicals - I may have mentioned that MAMMA MIA! just opened here in it's French version on an open ended run - however, there's just not the same musical tradition here, so they have to import them, largely.

Paris, like London, is the center of film, TV, and theater for the country (as opposed to in the US, where it's split between NY and LA), so actors here move relatively easily between these media. In my cousin Hillary's play, there is an actress who is also in a TV show here called UN VILLAGE FRANCAIS, about a French town during the German occupation in World War II, and she is able to do the show and the play fairly easily. Television seasons here are discreet, usually 6 to 12 episodes, leaving actors free part of the year to act in plays or make films. My understanding is that TV stations here didn't have shows with "seasons" the way that we do, but would have miniseries on a project by project basis, without necessarily even having clear timeslots (for example, an episode could be 60 mins, 90 mins, or 2 hours) - However, now that they import a large part of their television from the US ( HOUSE is very popular here, as is LAW & ORDER, which is called NEW YORK: POLICE JUDICIARE), they've had to adopt more US methodology and formats in order to get all the timeslots to work.

Still, things remain fairly individual and project-by-project, in a way that would feel very strange to anyone who's worked in the TV machine of LA. A friend here is a writer on RIS (the French version of CSI, it stands for Recherches et Investigations Scientifiques) , and they don't have a traditional writers room the way the would in a US TV series - instead, the producers contract with individual writers for each episode, and work with them to develop an outline and make sure the script is in line with the series - So it's sort of halfway between what would happen on a film here and what would happen with a TV series .There's no real "showrunner" or team of writers, but there's an executive at the studio who is making sure that continuity of character and tone are upheld.

Film is much more diverse here, in part because of France's famous system of subsidy - part of the price of each movie ticket sold in France goes back into a general fund to subsidize French cinema, and this allows small films and auteur driven works to flourish more than in the United States. There's lots more to say on this, but I'll tell you one interesting thing I learned this week in a meeting with an exec at SND, the film arm of French cable channel M6 - In France, Hollywood action blockbuster is definitely a part of thethe market share, but its not as great here as it is in other European countries. Why this anomaly? In part, it has to do with how French films are marketed. In France, you're not allowed to show trailers of films on TV - so Hollywood's global tentpoles, which largely rely on special effects that can translate to people without words, can't really sell their best stuff to people in their homes. They have to rely on posters to sell film, and this doesn't do justice to action sequences thethe way a trailer would. By contrast, small French films advertise also with posters, but their stars have the time and ability to go on numerous French culture & television shows to promote their movie, something American movie stars can't do, as they do not live here and can't speak French. Thus, its likely that this weekend thethe movie SKYLINE, an alien invasion action film, will probaly open similarly to UN BALCON SUR MER (A BALCONY ON THE SEA), a tiny French drama with a big name French actor in it. Needless to say, in the US these opening weekend numbers would usually be quite far apart, with SKYLINE trouncing the drama, which at this point would probably even have a hard time getting released.

However, you'll all be happy to hear that MEET THE LITTLE FOCKERS is advertising here and ready to open! Here its called "MON BEAU PERE ET NOUS" (my Father in Law and Us), since the whole term "Fockers" doesn't really translate in French in the same way :)

Okay I'm signing off here -For those of you who are feeling French food deprived, I'm attaching a picture from this morning at our local butcher - they've now hung Christmas geese and turkeys from the rafters - sort of festive, in a meaty kind of way.

I hope everyone has a fantastic holiday, and keep me posted on what you're all up to !

xo CTL

THE PARIS LETTER: Smugglers!

Hello everyone -

Okay, lots to cover this week - but we'll begin with the tale of Matt and me as amateur smugglers. Smugglers....of Christmas gifts!

I have some time on my hands right now, since I'm not working, so I took on a complicated Christmas shopping project. I thought - what can I get people that will really be from Paris, that they won't be able to get in the US? And thus my career as a smuggler began.

THE PARIS LETTER: Thanksgiving is a Difficult Holiday to Explain to Non-Americans

Hello everyone -

The Turkeys are here! Who knew??

For those of you following along, you'll be happy to hear that it's NOT raining this Sunday, though the temperature in Paris has dropped this week and we even got some snow flurries on Friday.They didn't stick around, but it was kind of a magical moment as my friend Emily and I were just passing the Louvre on our bikes when the snow started. Pretty gorgeous, though thankfully we were on our way to get our hair cut and could park the bikes and watch the snow from the salon window.

We managed to have a record 12 people for our expat Thanksgiving dinner, using up all the place settings/silverware/serving plates of not just our household but also many from my neighbors as well. It was our first time cooking Thanksgiving and let me tell you, it is a challenging meal! There were no major mishaps thankfully, and no mental breakdowns, but definitely trying to get hot food out of our tiny kitchen to twelve people made me feel like an ill-prepared line cook... But the party lasted until 2:30 AM, and one really nice thing about it was that everyone talked to everyone else, even though most of the people didn't know each other necessarily - 

Okay, first UPDATES from Last week. Our Tonka Bean discussion prompted a friend with a background in science to respond that it might NOT be such a good idea to infuse vodka with something that also harms your liver. This gave Matt pause, and he spent several hours looking up the scientific literature on Coumarin, the chemical that's present in Tonka Beans. He quickly decided that our vodka was in fact TOXIC, containing enough coumarin to be used as rat poison. Then there was some back and forth about whether rat livers work differently than human livers in terms of processing this chemical, which it seems like they might, but we still decided perhaps it might be better NOT to serve it at Thanksgiving. Though it did make an appearance as a discussion piece for sure - The duck confit, thankfully, was not toxic at all and came out quite well.

So - On to the meat of this letter, the difficulty of explaining the Thanksgiving holiday to non-Americans. As many of you know, Thanksgiving is just another day here in France, people going about their business, shops open, etc. In fact, most of the stores are already decorated for Christmas, with Joyeux Noel signs and whatnot. There's no bridge holiday for the French - they can basically start advertising for Christmas in early November. Also, though turkey (called "dinde" in French) is seen at the butcher shop, I'd never seen it whole - you'll see turkey breast, but not much else. So I assumed it would be impossible to get a whole turkey here - but NO, I was shocked to see the following sign at my local butcher last weekend: "Les Dindes de Thanksgiving sont arrivees!" (the Thanksgiving Turkeys have arrived!) What?! Are there French people secretly celebrating Thanksgiving out there? Can there really be that many American expats in Paris?

But then I learned from our local caviste (wine seller) that turkey is a traditional Christmas meal in France, though served with chestnuts and not cranberry sauce. This was part of a very funny discussion as Emily, Victor, and I tried to buy wine for the meal

"Ah, Thanksgiving." the caviste said, "That's on October 31st, when you have turkey with corn and chutney, right?" I explained that it was actually in November and that yes, we had a kind of cranberry chutney. 'But don't you also stuff the bird with corn?" he asked. I was totally puzzled but just said "Oh, you can stuff it with lots of things, I'm doing a bread stuffing."

He was mock-incensed that we weren't cooking a turkey (we did 2 chickens instead). I told him I had thought we wouldn't be able to get a whole turkey here. "Mais si!" he said, again incensed that I thought France might not have a certain ingredient. He did the same thing with cranberries, which are pronounced (as far as I can tell) "cranberries" with a french accent. I said they didn't have them in France and he said "Yes, of course we do!", though thethe only place I've seen them is in the imported cans of cranberry sauce at Le Grand Epicerie de Paris. BUT I learned a valuable lesson - never imply to a Frenchman that he might not have the same variety of ingredients as the rest of the world. Even if true, he will deny it vehemently.

Another difficulty with explaining the holiday involves its origins and its non-religious context. I feel like "religious" means very different things to Europeans - witness the following exchange with a Swiss-German woman in my French class. She asked why I wouldn't be in class following week, and I said I'd be hosting people for Thanksgiving. She said "Thanksgiving! I know about Thanksgiving - with thethe turkey!' Yes, I said, it's a holiday that many Americans enjoy because its not religious, and just gets to be a time of family and food. "But it IS religious" she said, "Don't you thank god before every meal? And weren't the Pilgrims all religious?" Yes, I said, but its not a specifically Christian holiday. "But it IS" she insisted - and seemed very skeptical that we could have a secular holiday. And that's when my ability to speak French ran out. How could I explain to her that while the people we celebrate this holiday for were religious, the holiday itself doesn't involve churchgoing, or that in America saying Grace before a meal doesn't make a holiday religious?

Well, this woman was a 70 year old Swiss German, so there may not have been much I could do to convince her (How's that for being ethnically judgmental? Well, she WAS very Germanic, though, I promise). But I think for many Western Europeans, much of America seems to have fallen into a Christian fundamentalist cult. Heck, I feel that way sometimes. What I try to say to French people now is that America is a huge and hugely diverse country, and that there are few Americans who would feel comfortable in every part of it. I think being from New York is really saving me here, because they at least know what that city is, but I worry that if I were from anywhere else they would secretly believe that I was here on my Mormon mission and might one day try to convert them ...

I'm going to close by attaching this editorial that Art Buchwald wrote for the Washington Post a few years ago that attempts to explain Thanksgiving - or MerciDonnant - to French people. Enjoy!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/23/AR2005112302056.html

Keep your responses coming, I really love getting mail from everyone -

xo Claire

THE PARIS LETTER: Gyms, Tonka Beans, Confit de Canard

Bonjour mes amis!

I hate to say it, but its raining AGAIN this Sunday - that's three in a row, for those of you who are counting. Some of you have expressed dismay at the amount of rain there seems to be here - do not worry, we did actually have a sunny day yesterday, beautiful crisp fall weather that prompted my neighbor, Mr.Attal, to tell me when I met him going down the stairs 'Il faut profiter tout suite, ca va changer" - translation: you better get out there and enjoy this right away, because it ain't gonna last. Yes, it is getting colder, and in general is pretty chilly here compared to New York - although apparently the weather, while damp, won't ever get as bitterly cold or snowy as the East Coast, which is a bonus.

However, the general dampness here prompted me this week to buy a CLOTHES DRYER, a major purchase that the French are usually very skeptical of - they prefer to hang their clothes on drying racks, and for some reason seem to view a dryer as a suspicious and unneccessary luxury - I confronted my friend Marco, who used to live in our apartment, about this when he was over trying to explain all the places I could hang the clothes in our 450sq ft apartment (hang them from the ceiling,toss them over the heaters, etc) so I wouldn't need to buy a dryer. He said "No, no, my mother has a dryer and in fact I find it very convenient - I just figure when I retire, that will be my time to get a dryer." - Well, despite seeming very American-consumerist, I decided my time to get a dryer is NOW, and I could not be more excited to have properly dry jeans in this weather.

I also joined a gym this week, which is kind of a major milestone in gym-averse Paris. The gym I joined, Club Med, IS in fact affiliated with the 80s vacation resort brand, but is sort of like Parisian New York Sports Club - there are 17 of them around thethe city, and with my membership I can go to any of them - which is good, because the locations vary extremely in quality. Often you're stuck in an old building with no ventilation, no windows, low ceilings, maybe underground ... kind of depressing. However, there is one sort of near my house that thankfully feels like a real American gym, a giant room with high ceilings and windows, with lots of cardio and weight training machines - this took me a month to find. Gyms are slowly catching on here, because even though the French famously don't really believe in exercise, they also don't believe in being fat, EVER, and are terrible hypochondriacs - so eventually, the gym thing was gonna catch on, but it's still something French people seem to do in secret and don't talk about much, for most part. Though there were some guys at my gym who were clearly on thethe creatine, there in general wasn't as much of that grunting crazy body building dude that I seem to find all over New York, and I haven't yet seen any exercise-anorectic women (you know the ones, they seem to ALWAYS be at the gym, running on the treadmill, looking emaciated). For the most part, the French gym-goers seem somewhat bemused to be there.

One thing I will mention is that my first time at the gym I was really stunned at how hot all women's bodies were. People had warned me about this - Parisian women are fanatical about looking good, but in a "natural' way. You won't see any plastic surgery, but I was stunned in locker room that basically every woman had a flat stomach AND boobs, which I tend to think of as genetically impossible. It almost ruined my day, until my cousin Hillary (who has lived here for 5 years) helped calm me down by explaining that since gyms ARE so new here, really only thethethe very active people go to them, and they tend to look pretty damn good - all the other body types stay home or do more walking/biking exercise or something. Well, true or not, I am grabbing on to this as a lifeline because let me tell you, these women were INTIMIDATING, and that's coming from New York Equinox gyms, which are pretty hardcore. Maybe I'll start taking the most popular class, which is "Abdo-Fessiers-Cuisses", or "Abs-Butt-Thighs", which they offer about 5 times a day at each location.

There is a sort of 80s overtone to gym, very Richard Simmons aerobics-y, and sometimes complete with the outfits that you didn't know existed any more. My friend Blaire goes to a gym here called (yes) LadyFitness, and she swears she sees legwarmers and thong leotards all times. There's also something called Le Gym Suedoise, which is like a Swedish aerobics class where you do thethe Jane Fonda workout to ABBA....not kidding. Proving once again that the French are both super hip and SUPER out of it.

Okay, so enough GYMS, you guys probably want to hear more about out adventures in food, of which there were several this week. This began with my discovery of Tonka Beans at Lafayette Gourmet, the giant food market that's connected to the Galeries Lafayette department store - think of it as the Bloomingdales of food. Matt had read this article about Tonka beans, which I had never heard of and which are apparently illegal in the US, but which you can buy here and which the French are crazy for. They are made from the seed of a South American fruit, and are little black nuts/beans that smell like a combination of vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves- they're used in a lot of desserts here, and have the aromatic properties of truffles but are sweet instead of savory. Also, apparently, they contain the compound Coumarin, which in large quantities(like 100+ beans) can cause your liver to shut down. Tonka beans are classified as an illegal substance by the FDA, so naturally we had to have some.

We're not sure what we're going to DO with the Tonka Beans, but one idea Matt had, which we did yesterday and which worked SHOCKINGLY well, was to make Tonka Bean infused vodka. We just put 10 or 11 beans in the bottom of a bottle of vodka, and let them soak - and infusion happened very quickly; within 4 hours thethe vodka had turned a golden color and was extremely perfume-y. Matt put it in the freezer last night to slow the infusing, but as promised the beans definitely impart their flavor and aroma VERY quickly.

Thanksgiving is this week, so we've been starting to prep for that, and Matt had the idea that we should make our own version of the very traditionally French dish Confit de Canard, or Duck Confit. We'll be serving this with a roasted chicken or two, because whole turkeys aren't really sold here. Confit de Canard involves slowly cooking a duck in its own fat, and then using that fat to preserve the meat. Once you've preserved it, you can leave it in the fat for up to 3 months, and then pull it out and sear it when you're ready to serve. We discovered that you have to confit the meat at least a week beforehand, so I went out earlier this week in search of duck legs (easy to find) and duck fat, which I wasn't sure where to get. But thankfully, my local butcher had both - and also, upon hearing I would be making duck confit, started a spirited debate amongst staff about what I should do - salt thethe meat, don't salt the meat, how much fat to buy, etc. One guy, upon hearing that Matt had a recipe he wanted to use, said "Alors, si votre mari a une recette, il faut le laisse faire - ne pas perturber" - "Well, if your husband has a recipe, you must let him do it his way, don't bug him about it". How did he know so much about my marriage?

The confit-ing turned out to be super easy, and filled the house with a delicious duck fat smell. Now the legs are lying in the fridge in a congealed mass of their own fat, getting more and more tender, and again, I have to wonder how I"m changing as a person that this looks SUPER DELICIOUS to me...

That's all for this week, I've been loving getting your letters so please keep writing, and I will too - And I promise next week I will try to attach some pictures FINALLY, we've been having some camera issues.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

xo Claire

THE PARIS LETTER: Paris, Rabbits, and Mexican Food

Hi Everyone -

It's ANOTHER rainy Sunday here in Paris (Paris's secret is that it's actually just as rainy as London), and I'm taking a stab at writing another letter, maybe making this a weekly thing since people seemed to respond well to it last week. If for any reason you DON'T want to get these updates, just email me - I know we all get a lot of email.

But anyway, assuming you want to hear more about Life in France, here we go -

It seems like no American can move to France without talking about food. A Lot. And, since most of you know that I am a big cook, I'll probably be no exception. However, I'm sort of an ambivalent French cook - I enjoy a lot about French food, but I also really like cooking food from around the world - Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, North African, Mexican, etc - So part of what I'll be writing about is all the cool food options here, but part of it will also be about my various food frustrations - while France has far better and more readily available ingredients, they just don't have the variety of different cuisines that we're used to having in the US. I need to note that these are fighting words for most Parisians, who will dismiss the idea and tell you that Paris is as diverse as any other city and that French food is the most diverse in the world. Do not argue with them (they will get really pissy about it), but also, don't believe it for a second.

Witness my experience at Mexi & Co, one of Paris's only Mexican restaurants. Now, I know I know, why was I trying to eat Mexican food in Paris, where it was probably going to be bad? Well, I needed to know what I was dealing with in case I ever got a serious burrito craving - and also, I had heard that Mexi and Co was the only place in town to buy staple mexican ingredients I was used to getting in the states - chipotles in a can, tortilla chips, corn tortillas, etc. This was correct - though the products were expensive - but lets discuss the burrito.

Now, here is how the burrito was described on the version of Parisian Yelp: Vous pouvez gouter un "Burrito", une galette avec fromage, haricots rouge, et le guacomole!
This sounds so weird in French, right? It basically translates as "You can taste a "burrito", a crepe (a galette is a savory crepe) with cheese, red beans and guacomole! -
The burrito came in a flour tortilla with a reasonable chicken/rice/beans combo inside, and salsa on the top with creme fraiche, which actually can be like sour cream. It was served with a weird little salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions, sort of like French salsa fresca, and guacamole that definitely came from some kind of tube, which is odd because avocados are pretty plentiful in Paris (they are imported largely from Israel and North Africa). But the real killer was the fact that the cheese in the burrito was shredded Emmental, what we know as Swiss cheese. Which destroyed the burrito taste for me - imagine delicious burrito flavors with swiss cheese melted on them. Sigh.

So, I thought - I will make mexican food at home! Which you can KIND OF do - they have black beans, cilantro, harissa that can stand in for chilis a bit - but the cheese turned out to be a problem. French supermarkets DO have an aisle of "ready to use" cheeses, like we have in most American supermarkets - bags of shredded cheese for pizzas, cubes and slices for melting onto sandwiches and burgers. But guess what 99% of that cheese is? Emmental! Yes! Swiss cheese is the only meltable cheese you can get! Or you can get pre-wrapped slices of "Burger Cheese", just like Kraft Singles - but No cheddar, no monterey jack, not even shredded mozzarella. Everything we made with cheese on it ended up tasting like a crepe.

Okay, so I haven't yet abandoned my dreams of Mexican food, but lets say it is a challenge here. But, on the flip side, I just bought a whole rabbit to cook today into a rabbit ragu. Yes, rabbit is a pretty common meat here, and France is the land of excellent butchers, which has been fun since I mostly spent my days in the US browsing the prewrapped meats in the Fairway cold room. Now, within a kilometer of my house there are at least five butchers, two of which are amazing, as well as three Poissonnieres, or fish markets. What this does require, however, is bringing your dictionary to the market, as many of the cuts of meat are different, and all the fish have different names - And there's no way, of course, to ask the fishmonger "Which of these is halibut?" in French because he will not call it halibut anyway and will just look at you in confusion. Also, you have to be ready to have a real conversation with the butcher, which can be intimidating if you don't know the language - I saw an American couple trying to get short ribs at the meat counter the other day and just looking stumped because they didn't know the phrase for "short ribs" in French and couldn't explain in french to the butcher what they needed the meat to be. I did in fact bring my dictionary to the fish market, and discovered that halibut is "Fletan" and cod is "Cabillaud", but everything is also slightly different because it comes from different parts of ocean than what we're used to in thethe US.

Wow, this didn't go where I was expecting it to go! I had this plan that I was going to explain different kinds of markets here, starting with Monoprix, which is thethe supermarket next to my house and which is sort of like a combination of Whole Foods and Kmart - in that it has a fish counter and decent vegetables, but also sells housewares, makeup and clothes (Matt bought two sweaters there when we first arrived) - But I'll save that for another letter. I thought I would close with some "Faux Amis", or French words and phrases that SOUND the same as English words, but mean something totally different - always a fun way to be tripped up here.

Some Faux Amis:

Attention - Doesn't mean "attention" quite, but more like " Watch Out" or "Pay Attention"

Juste - Means right or correct, but not "just" as in "I just did that" - when I first got here I kept saying "J'ai juste demenage ici",which I thought meant "I just moved here" but really means "I rightly and correctly moved here". Whoops.

Actuellement - Doesn't mean actually, means "right now" or "currently"

Avertissement - Not an advertisement, actually a Warning. An ad is a promotion or "publicite"

Finalement - Means more like "In the end" as opposed to "finally".

Rester - Means "to stay" as in "Je suis reste chez moi aujourd'hui", meaning "I stayed at home today", as opposed to I rested or took a nap or something.

Librairie - Bookstore

Raisin - Grape

Robe - Dress

I will sign off here, hope everyone has had a good week - More about food next week as we will be planning for American Thanksgiving in Paris, which Matt and I are hosting this year and will be an Expat Extravaganza. Liz Gately already smuggled cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie filling to me in her suitcase when she visited two weeks ago, so we are ready.

Lots of love, and would love to hear from you and how you are all doing!

xo Claire