My Vegan Parisian Adventure

And a Happy New Year

2012-01-16T05:44:00.000-08:00

I purchased the tickets to Biarritz on a whim; the hopeless optimist in me envisioned sunshine and gentle sea breezes framed by towering Belle Epoque mansions--a vignette interspersed with deliciously romantic meals at quaint restaurants, and the sort of relaxation that can only manifest in the absence of communication devices.

I really should have known better about the weather.

We arrived in this small town of roughly 30,000 on the 29th of December--a tough date if you want to experience that blissful combination of sunshine and warmth anywhere in Northern Europe. It was cold and drizzly as we embarked from the train station, but the air had a not-unpleasant humid crispness to it that reminded me of San Francisco. It felt homey and cozy, the way France tends to during the holiday season, helped along visually by twinkling lights that garland the streets, casting their festive glow and encouraging good cheer.

Our hotel, the one-time home of a Romanian count, sat in the middle of a verdant garden blooming with hydrangea, orange trees (dripping with fruit), and tall grass, out of which a rotund ginger-colored cat named Bobby would occasionally pop up to surprise Fanny. Our funky but comfortable second-floor room offered a view overlooking the back garden, and came equipped with that most important of hotel-room features, the well-functioning radiator.

It didn't take long to get to know Biarritz; it's a walkable place with a compact downtown that becomes increasingly touristy as you inch toward the sea. Towering over the north end of the main beach is the famous casino, where a decidedly non-vegan dessert of a praline millefeuille or sorbet-and-cookie combo costs €22. Can any dessert, vegan or not, ever taste that good? Doubt it.

On Day 2 of our getaway, I proved that hasty assumption false. Dessert can, actually, taste that good.

That morning, we hopped a local bus headed for Bayonne, eight kilometers north of Biarritz. Here, we hoped to get a taste of the town specialty: chocolate. When the Jews were expelled from Portugal during the Inquisition back in the 15th century, many of them settled in this corner of l'Hexagone, bringing cacao with them. (Good move!) Today, seven artisan chocolatiers attempt to outdo each other crafting comestible treasures like chocolate truffles, chocolate bars, chocolate cookies and pastries, and foamy little cups of rich, hot chocolate, making tourists swoon.

The proprietor at our hotel recommended Chocolat Cazenave, which advertises itself as a salon du the. We found it by accident while poking around the cobbley pedestrian zone that makes up the bulk of Bayonne's charming centre ville. The menu looked promising; besides fancy teas and house-made sorbets, they offered two kinds of chocolate chaude--one made a l'eau (with water), and another au lait (with milk). The server promised that the former was entirely dairy-free, and though I wasn't delighted by the prospect of paying €6 for a tiny tasse of the stuff, I was delighted by the prospect of trying a local treat that happens to be vegan. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say it was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted.

Try to imagine the very best chocolate bon bon you've ever had the pleasure of stuffing into your mouth melted down into a thick, drinkable elixir. Now double the chocolatey goodness of that taste and warm it up, add vanilla and the eensiest touch of cinnamon, then serve it in a miniature porcelain cup that leaves you thirsty for a second helping. Now multiply that overall sensation by, oh, 1000. That begins to hint at the dreaminess of this taste experience.

For Day 3, I had my sights set on Spain. San Sebastian is just 40 kilometers or so south of Biarritz. Getting there is as easy as hopping a local train to the border, then walking across the parking lot of the French gare over to the Spanish gare--which is really just a modern, metro-style suburban station--purchase tickets from the coin-operated kiosque, et voila! Easy-peasy, and no pesky agents to give us merde about the dog (though we brought her pet passport just in case).

It was just as drizzly and cold south of the border as it was to the north of it, but it didn't dampen our spirits de tout. You can see that San Sebastian is pretty even beneath gray skies, with its decorative Art Nouveau architecture, painted balconies, and palm-tree hemmed shoreline. I immediately took to the Spanish cafe scene, which combines food (tapas, or pinxtos, as they're known locally), drink (wine and cider, mostly), and socializing (whole families). These cheerful meeting places dot the narrow streets of the old city, and nearly all of them have a little window with a counter on the outside where you can order your drink and tapas and eat standing in the fresh air if you want to.

We stopped in to sample the wares at a few different bars, but for folks who don't eat ham, ham, or ham, there wasn't a whole lot to choose from. I really would have liked to sample the bruschetta-type things marked with a sign reading "picante," but they had to go ruin the potential gustatory experience by slapping a dead sea creature on top. Thank goodness for rioja. Delicious and cheap, this vino tinto was my gateway to the Spanish pinxtos experience.

We ended up eating at a cafe with several vegan options on its menu: crispy onion rings, seitan burgers, and piping-hot fries, among them. Not the most authentically Spanish dining possibilities, but the greasy meal hit the spot.

Our fourth and final day was the first day of the new year. A pleasant change of habit was ringing in 2012 without a Champagne hangover (we never even got around to popping the bottle of Spanish sparkling wine we'd purchased in San Sebastian), and nicer still to awaken that Sunday morning to bright blue skies and warm rays of sunshine. This is what we've been waiting for! It felt 60ish, Fahrenheit-wise, and it was blissful. I'm sure the Polar Bears thought so, too; these crazy nutjobs--called Les Ours Blancs in French--make it their annual habit to take a running plunge into the ocean on New Year's Day. The only part of this insane tradition that looked even remotely alluring was the Champagne drinking the bears were partaking in out at sea.

All that fresh, salt-infused air and time away from the computer allowed my brain to decompress and revitalize in a way I didn't know I even needed. Ever since, I've been mulling over another pipe dream. This one involves moving somewhere south-ish, perhaps near the Spanish border--definitely near the sea--where the wine is cheap and plentiful and the locals are friendly and open-minded. There I am, working behind the counter at a little tapas bar, where all the offerings are ham-free (and egg-, fish-, and dairy-free), greeting newcomers like long-lost friends. After a day serving up good cheer, I stroll through the laughter-filled streets to the soft-sand beach, where I swim and swim and swim, watching the sun slowly sink into the sea.

Day of the Dead, December Edition

2011-12-22T04:11:00.000-08:00

For as long as I can remember, I've loved graveyards. Not in a creepy, let's-wear-black-lipstick-and-conjure-the-dead sort of way, but in a "Hey, it's verdant and peaceful here, and aren't these headstones interesting from a historical perspective?" sort of way. Over the years, I've picnicked in graveyards, French-kissed in graveyards, played impromptu games of hide-and-go-seek in graveyards, and shed tears over weather-worn words etched into the tombstones of strangers in graveyards. There's an odd sort of comfort and inspiration to be found in these places of final repose, and without fail, I find myself visiting them wherever I happen to be in the world.

Last weekend's bright, crisp, and not-too-cold conditions were ideal for a fresh-air outing, so we set off on a walk a couple of kilometers north, past the Parisian border and through the town of Clichy, then onward across the Seine as it twists through the suburbs to Asnieres-sur-Seine. Here, I was pretty sure, we'd find the pet cemetery I'd spotted on an Ile-de-France map months before. Sure enough, just across the Pont de Clichy, to the left, a grand, Art Nouveau entryway constructed of a luminescent blond stone led us to Le Cimitiere des Chiens.

Passing through the fanciful iron gates, we were greeted by a young man in a wooden kiosk whose crooked, graying teeth seemed perfectly suited to someone who works in a cemetery. The €3.50 entry fee took us by surprise, as did the fellow's generous gift of free entry when he learned we didn't have any cash. He welcomed us in, handed over a visitor's map, and issued a gentle warning to Fanny to be mindful of the cats who make the graveyard their home.

If I hadn't been so busy marveling at the hundreds of headstones decorated with loving, heartbreaking sentiments and sniffle-inducing portraits of pets passed, I'd have thoroughly examined the map and discovered that the famous French film star Rin Tin Tin is buried here, as is celebrated 19e century journalist/feminist Marguerite Durand's horse. Instead, I found myself caught up in the heart-melting stories rendered in cold stone. There's Sophie, the little ebony poodle, whose human mom refers to her as "the child I never had."

And then there's Bunga, the bunny you could just tell had the world's softest fur, and who clearly had a special bond with his (her?) human.

I liked Barry's headstone, too, because it made me consider the naming choices we make for our animals. Why do some get human(ish) names, and others get called Bunga?

These epitaphs and their accompanying photos reminded me of all the animals I have loved and lost in my life: Mitzi, the old cat with the shriveled ear and wire in her leg, adopted when we first moved to San Francisco, now buried in the backyard of our old apartment on Golden Gate Avenue; Josephina, the ultra-sensitive 8-year-old Chinese Crested I brought home out of pity, knowing most people weren't going to gravitate toward the middle-aged dog with the hairless body covered in pimples; Ratty, the neglected rodent my friend Anthony rescued from a rotten roommate, so anti-social that he literally bit every hand that fed him; and Fidget, another SF/SPCA adoptee, whose hackles sprang to life, porcupine style, at the sight of most other dogs, but who loved her humans unconditionally. I miss them all so much, and cherish those memories. Always will.

That, I think, is what makes a graveyard not a lonely, dark, and cold place, but a place that radiates comfort and warmth; it's the memories they harbor, and the feelings that are resurrected when we loved ones come to visit. Sometimes those feelings are sad ones, but just as often they are happy, funny, uplifting ones.

In the springtime, I'll make a trip back here. I'll pack a picnic lunch, and maybe even some cat treats for the resident felines. Then I'll unhinge the floodgates of memory, and let my thoughts linger on the fun times, and especially on all that love I've been lucky enough to share with so many furry and not-so-furry critters over the years. And, if Fanny's game, we'll even play hide-and-go-seek among the headstones.

Saying Sari

2011-11-16T02:02:00.000-08:00

Scenes from a bus stop

Gomathi and I met exactly two weeks ago during a sudden, violent rain storm in Vadapalani, a western suburb of Chennai, India. With a quick wave of her hand, she invited me to take shelter beneath the canopy of her giant beige umbrella. I gratefully responded by leaping to join her and offering up my most gracious smile. Together, we two strangers braved the tropical mid-morning downpour, standing silent amid the raucous rat-a-tat-tat of raindrops and ear-piercing cacophony of car horns.

When our smoke-belching bus finally rumbled up, Gomathi motioned for me to follow close behind her; I took her lead as she wedged through the other damp bodies boarding the bus and found us a spot to sit near the back. Within five minutes--with her limited English and my non-existent Tamil--I learned that she was 38 years old, married, and making her thrice-weekly trip to the big city to visit a fertility specialist. She and her husband, Ravi, wanted to add to their family, and after six years of trying to procreate the old-fashioned way, they decided to give high technology a whirl.

Interesting, I thought to myself. She goes to the the same fertility clinic my friends had been encouraging me to visit! What are the odds of that?

As we sped southward down the ECR toward Mahaballipuram (me) and Thirukkalukundram (her), we shared bananas and swapped as much information as possible between two people who don't speak the same language. Toward the end of the journey, she said something I understood completely: "Come stay at my house!" My first thought was, OK: I've decided to take some risks on this trip--to try new things and be adventurous. So, why not? But then I remembered: the deadline.

"Oh, I'd love to. That's so nice of you to offer! But I can't. I have a writing deadline, and I need to send this story off to my editor before the end of the day tomorrow. Can I take a raincheck?!"

It seemed we'd reached an understanding, but as she spoke with her husband by phone, I heard her say "American" and "Mahaballipuram" and something that sounded a lot like "come pick us up." At my stop, she exited the bus with me and bought each of us a fresh green coconut from a roadside vendor. A few moments later, a fancy Toyota SUV with tinted windows pulled up, her husband at the wheel.

"Get in!" prompted Gomathi.

Apparently, we had successfully communicated, because as Ravi headed down the road toward their village, she spoke rapidly in Tamil and suddenly the car was pointed in the opposite direction, heading toward the town I'd be calling home for the next few days. Along the way, we stopped at a restaurant and ate uttapam and sambar together. They insisted on paying.

"Are you sure you don't want to come stay with us? There's plenty of room," said Ravi.

I mustered up my most bummed-out facial expression and apologized for bringing my work on vacation with me, but explained that a deadline was a deadline.

"Well, you're always welcome at our house. Call anytime, whether it's later today, tomorrow, or next week. We'd love to have you over."

Wow! This was sort of overwhelming in a really wonderful way.

We said our goodbyes and I headed off, little black bag in hand, to find a guesthouse--hopefully one situated near an internet cafe where I could, actually, get some work done. I promised Gomathi and Ravi I'd visit, and I meant it. We decided on Sunday, two days away. I'd make the 17 kilometer journey south to Thirukkalukundram, and they'd meet me at the bus stand.

Instead of a bus, I took a rickety three-wheel rickshaw, and it was the right choice. For the next half-hour, the driver regaled me with stories about his busty ex-wife, how he's still angry with her for leaving, and how he longs for the days when he could nestle his head on her big ol' chest.

Tell me more!

Melting (in a good way) in the steamy backseat of a standard-issue yellow rickshaw

Pulling into the dusty temple town, the rickshaw driver offered up his cell phone to call Gomathi. Within five minutes, I was cushioned in the front seat of Ravi's SUV, headed toward their home for our much-anticipated lunch date. As we pulled up in front of their two-story house on a quiet street, A teenage girl ran out to greet us, calling out, "Hello, Daddy! Hello, Auntie!"

Auntie--OK. That's me. But Daddy? Wasn't Gomathi getting treated by a fertility doctor because she couldn't have kids? I'd wrongly assumed they were childless, but turns out 14-year-old Illakiyaa was desperate for a sibling--the main purpose for those thrice-weekly journeys to Chennai--but Ravi and Gomathi were definitely not childless.

Ravi, Gomathi, and Illakiyaa welcome me to their home and surprise me by being three instead of two!

Gomathi's across-the-street neighbors. Daughter Illakiyaa warned me that if we didn't make our hellos and goodbyes snappy, they'd start singing for us

The extended family, 15-and-younger edition

Their home was more like a compound; behind the main house were two smaller houses, and in total, 21 people share the entire space. The family consisted of sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, mothers, and a whole mess of children. I met them all, and failed miserably trying to first pronounce, then remember, their names, which were each polysyllabic and crammed with vowels that crashed together at unfamiliar angles. After introductions, I was invited to sit and watch their big-screen TV and eat sweets, which I've learned is the customary pre-meal starter. Next came a tour of the house, then a tour of the neighborhood, followed by a meal, which we shared while sitting cross-legged on the floor. In the Indian family-dining tradition, Gomathi waited until her husband finished eating, at which time she took his plate, finished what was left there, then, at last, served herself a fresh portion.

I wouldn't make a very good traditional Indian housewife, I thought, watching Gomathi scoop Ravi's leftovers into her mouth. Nope.

The final phase of the afternoon was spent upstairs in the bedroom that Illakiyaa, Gomathi, and Ravi all share (no wonder she can't get pregnant!), where mother and daughter stripped me of all my Western accoutrements and transformed me--physically, anyway--into a traditional Indian housewife.

Down came the hair, off came the dress, out came the earrings, and on went the necklace, sari, and jasmine garland tucked into my hair. Against my fervent protestations, they insisted I accept their gift, generously cooing and oohing about how nice I looked in my new outfit. I didn't have the heart to tell them I'd likely never be able to properly wrap that sari again, or that even if I did, that I really hadn't anyplace appropriate to wear it. But as they bid me farewell, they made me promise to return, and I knew then that, actually, there would be opportunities for me to give that sari another go.

I look forward to them.

Illakiyaa and her American Auntie, who wonders if she'll ever be able to wrap herself properly in that sari again

Family Values

2011-10-15T04:39:00.000-07:00

I had a friend who used to say to me, "You and me, we're family. Whatever happens, we'll always be family."

Back then, I thought I knew what "family" meant; that peculiar little word was a stand-in for all kinds of ideas, including "comfort," "security," "permanence," and especially "love." Not surprisingly, that relationship went sour, and unlike "real" family, who generally remain family forever whether you like it or not, this person has evaporated into the ether, and it's unlikely we'll ever meet again.

At roughly the same time the relationship with my family-facsimile was reaching its conclusion, a strange new, actual family member materialized from virtually nowhere. Turns out that, in addition to having a real-life younger brother, I also have a real-life older sister.

Our father, who art in heaven (or wherever you go when you die)

My mother was 20 and my father was 50 when I was born. The man who supplied half of my DNA had been married once before to a much younger woman, and that marriage produced a first daughter. She grew up in Southern California, not far from where I spent a good chunk of my childhood. She is the same age as my own mother.

We met in a fated fashion literally days before my move to Paris. For the last 20 years, we'd been living within 10 miles of each other, she in Marin county, where she and her husband, both psychologists, cohabitate with an old dog in a beautifully manicured home, and I in San Francisco, in a well-worn but lovable old Western Addition apartment shared with a dog and human partner.

Separated by decades and oceans, but sisters just the same.

After a brief email exchange followed by a phone call, then a face-to-face meeting, we packed in as much socializing and getting-to-know-each-othering as possible in the span of a few days, which was all I had to spare before cramming everything into a giant "to-go" container and setting off on our overseas adventure. Our time together was spent poring over old photos and artwork (our father was a painter), comparing personal histories, staring at each other's faces searching for resemblances, and trying to define the idea of "family" within the context of our newly formed shared experience.

Portrait of an artist as a young man

My sister and her husband came to Paris last week. It had been 15 years since their last visit here, and my sense was that they wanted to fall under the City of Light's fabled romantic spell a deux. Their temporary home was a fifth-floor walk-up in the thick of the Marais. Over seven days we shared several meals together, in restaurants and at our home in the dingy northwest of Paris, where we attempted to fortify our long-distance connection over Indian and Ethiopian food, and seal it tightly for safekeeping.

Yes, I dragged everyone to Chettinadu for my beloved thali

This relationship, like so many others that have been formed and broken over the years, feels tentative. Will our freshly soldered bond remain intact simply because we share some DNA and a mutual love of art and travel? Is our connection not susceptible to the same sorts of fissures, fractures, and even deaths that the standard-issue friendships are prone to?

What does "family" mean to you, and who falls under that sheltered definition?

Monsoon Wedding

2011-10-14T03:57:00.000-07:00

In two short weeks, I'll be embarking on a long, 14-hour plane journey from Paris to Chennai, India. I'm delighted and terrified. Delighted because I'm going for a special occassion: a wedding. And not just any wedding, but a Hindu wedding; the groom is my favorite waiter at my favorite Paris restaurant. I (half-) jokingly say that if we ever move, what I'll miss most about Paris are the thalis at Chenninadu.

The terror part comes into play when I think about the sort of stamina one needs to travel in India. I'm not sure I'm as mentally or emotionally resilient as I was the last time I visited nearly 10 years ago. France is, for all its senseless, seemingly endless bureaucratic rigmarole and language- and culture-oriented challenges, a tame slice of Wonder bread in comparison to the colorful chaos of the subcontinent.

India used to be one of my favorite places to travel. I took my first trip in 1995 and it changed my life completely. Simply surviving the Air India flight seemed an accomplishment worth celebrating, but looking back, the entire experience was rather like going to boot camp or passing some other sort of endurance test. Yes! I conquered Delhi--it did NOT conquer me! And that little bus crash in Goa? I came out unscathed, right? In Varanasi, I did a slow slip-and-slide into the filthy (albeit holy) Ganges, but, by golly, I pulled myself out again, didn't I? And how about that langur monkey in Pushkar? Luckily, he didn't try to yank my hair out. ("That one's really got it out for me," I heard the woman in the room next say shakily, after said monkey reached a long arm out to give her tresses a good tug.) When that first trip was over, my self-esteem had blossomed like a lotus flower.

Dirty, beautiful, mysterious, delicious, warm, crowded, exhilarating--after five (?--I've lost count) visits, I can say with conviction that India is the most exciting country I've ever experienced. I now know to expect welcoming, smiling people, the possibility of wild animals sneaking into my bathroom at night (rodents, monkeys, lizard-beasts and anteater-type creatures have moseyed through my quarters in years past), and most surely a sore throat or lung-ache if I am to spend any time in one of the big cities.

Z--the nicest guy in the 10e and a happy groom-to-be

The last time we spoke with Z at the restaurant, he told us about his two-year plan, which begins with a wedding and ends with a baby. Sandwiched in between is an immigration-and-education process for his soon-to-be wife. After discussing Operation Baby 2013, Z asked a rather pointed question:

"Why don't you have children?"

"Well, we tried once, and it didn't work out, and we never really made a conscious effort after that. And besides, we're too old now," I said, not wanting to fully elaborate on the level of heartache a miscarriage can cause, or the fact that Jeff has never been keen on bringing kids into the world, or my fears of being a horrible parent.

"Oh, c'mon--technology can help you out!" replied Z. "I have relatives who've gone the high-tech route, and now they have children. There's hope for you!"

"Yeah, I don't know," I responded sheepishly.

"Nonsense! I'm going to talk to my cousin about getting you an appointment to see a fertility specialist when you're in Chennai."

Oh, god. Really? And why am I not saying "no" and instead, nodding my head "OK"?

Outside Chettindu the morning of la Fete du Ganesh

Two days ago, Z called me. He's arranged an appointment for me to see a doctor on the 5th of November in Chennai, smack in the middle of the northeast monsoon season. I'm still surprised by my lack of courage--courage to decline his kind offer when there was still time to back out without much fuss, and courage to tell him I was really hoping to be on train headed to Kerala on that day. Could it be, deep down, that a child is something I'm still open to considering?

Well, if anything, I suppose the journalist in me is curious to see how the medical system has improved (or hasn't) since getting horribly feverish and verge-of-death-y in Rishikesh one year. Seeking pain relief and comfort, I crawled my way into a pay-what-you-can clinic where a doctor looked at me briefly and determined I had "allergies" before sending me on my way with a Tylenol facsimile. I'm guessing this next experience will be an improvement. Photos and first-hand reporting to follow!

Cade, Cats, and Camaraderie

2011-09-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

One lesson learned while living in France is that nothing is permanent. From simple things like the weather (why, oh, why won't it stay sunny and warm for more than 48 hours at a stretch?) to more complex matters that include personal relationships, everything, apparently, is transient. Get used to it. (No! Well, OK; I'm trying.) If anything, accepting this truth has been good for cultivating coping mechanisms for those all-too-frequent existential crises. Which is why it's fitting that, just as I'm beginning to feel settled here, the friends I consider to be more than merely good ones are hatching their escape plans.

They're each planning to leave France for different reasons; Lee, a dog-walking client turned entertainment-outing friend, is in the fortunate position of being a stay-at-home husband of sorts to his partner, Nick. They're both Australian, both very intelligent, and possibly because we're all products of 1980s upbringings, our life experiences overlap on multiple levels. This makes for good conversation punctuated by Kylie Minogue jokes and explosive laughter. The fact that Lee's a vegetarian doesn't hurt, either. But Lee and Nick are set to move back to Australia soon, after Nick's current work contract expires. They have no desire to return to Sydney, but it's looking more and more like they'll be leaving before year's end.

Susa is another friend who's shipping off to potentially greener shores. She's already made one huge move from Finland to France, where she's lived for the last nine years, but early next month, she and her French husband are moving to Quebec City, Canada. Sight unseen. On a whim. What kookiness! What bravery! Don't leave! So, when Susa invited me to spend one last bonding weekend with her in the sunny south of France (at her belle-mere's roomy house on a hill in a quiet suburb, with easy access to the Mediterranean and my own bedroom), there was only one way I could possibly respond: Hell, yes! When do we leave?

Chez Bernard, on a quiet hill 10 minutes from the super salty Mediterranean sea

Bright, cheery, and likely very delicious beans at the Saturday marche in Toulon

Outdoor sculpture on a rocky Mediterranean outcropping

Cicada-shaped sweets in a chocolatier's window

Falafel, frites, and friends at the harbor (and yachts)

Why yes, that does say "Jeggings." What a relief to know it's the same in French and in English.

La Finnoise et le Francais

Just what, exactly, do "dicksongs" sound like, I wonder?

A corner saint, illuminated

Toulon architecture

Big-eyed kitty kitty

Big-ass croissants (those are standard issue pastries on the right)

What better place to realize the need to work on my posture than at the brilliantly blue Mediterranean?

A pale princess with swirly kookoo eyes

I want to stay here forever and ever and ever, swimming and sunning. Really.

Still-life with oranges.

Another cinematic sunset at la plage

Now, Susa--as you might notice--is a very slender girl. She's got her issues and she's working through them, but it's a process and to ensure success, she's taking her time. I, on the other hand, am a manic eating machine, known to Hoover up anything and everything that didn't originate in the animal kingdom. Toulon was a good place to exercise my glutton muscles. Why? In a word, cade.

I didn't know that Toulon has its own version of that Nicoise delicacy known as socca. In Toulon, they call it cade. In other parts of the Mediterranean, it's called farinada, and in Tuscany, it goes by cecina. By any name, this omelety sort of snack food has its origins in Italy, and historically was the food of the peasant class. Today, it's a still a cheap and delicious staple one could easily build each and every meal around, and fortunate for me, the ingredients are both vegan and unbelievably simple: Chick-pea flour, water, olive oil and salt.

At the Saturday open-air market in central Toulon, I happily stumbled upon a stand selling cade for €1.30 a serving. Like the socca I first tried in Nice with my friend Jen last February when doing research for my book, cade is cooked in a large, circular pan, and served with just a dusting of pepper or cumin powder. The major difference between the two treats is that socca is crepe-thin, while cade is the thickness of a waffle or very thick pancake.

Special, indeed

As I sprinkled pepper over my cade, madame said "Hey! Leave some for the other clients!" Mean.

Gone in 30 seconds

Not long after discovering one edible treasure, I veered straight into another as we strolled a pedestrian promenade toward la gare, from whence I'd soon board a train back home to Paris. I'd hoped to find something to nibble on for the nearly-four-hour trip back, and rarely do my snack-tracking senses fail me in times of need. All it took this time was the word "Ital" on a shop sign and within, like, two nanoseconds, my it-might-be-vegan alarm bells were clanging on code-red heightened-alert mode. The shop's proprietor stood in the doorway talking to two customers, noticed me eyeballing the menu, and says, more or less, "Sorry, this is a vegetarian restaurant. We only have vegetarian food."

Uh, and why so apologetic?

"C'est merveilleux!"

He looked a little surprised. I asked if he could make me something without cheese. He said of course. I said get down on it, s'il vous plait. He said coming right up. The results were divine.

Pretty basic: Tomato, lettuce, and faux meat on a tortilla, which was then grilled, panini-style, to crispy perfection.

No more apologies, Paco

Wasabi snacks procured at a gargantuan Auchan supermarket. This was "dessert" after the ital sandwich.

My seatmate's kitty companion. Not a peep from this travel-wise critter in nearly four hours of train travel!

Back home in Paris, it's wet and gray, with an added dose of drama courtesy of a twilight show featuring flashy lightning bolts and rumbling thunderclaps. At least it's not cold. If I close my eyes, I can still taste the salty, aqua-blue Mediterranean water on my tongue, and feel the sun burning into my skin as I float on my back in the cool water. Heaven. And that delicious aroma wafting out of my oven? Another reminder of summer's last seaside hurrah: Cade. If the home-made stuff tastes half as good as it smells, I'll post photos and a recipe, tout de suite.

French (music festivals) For Beginners

2011-08-27T02:56:00.000-07:00

It's been years (and years, and years) since my last foray into the world of outdoor music festivals. They always seem like a good idea in theory--lots of new bands to scope out, an opportunity to spend hours in the sunshine, a chance to see what all the cool kids are wearing. In practice, however, they tend to be overly crowded, full of intoxicated nimwits, and a veritable desert in the vegan comestibles department. So, when my Aussie friend and fellow herbivore Lee invited me to Rock en Seine, I was reluctant to accept the proposed all-day fun-fest challenge. But that was before discovering Big Audio Dynamite was playing. A chance to see a guitar hero from my youth shredding it up middle-age style? Count me in!

First thing I noticed at the venue--the 300-year-old Parc de St. Cloud--was that the crowds filing in spanned the age spectrum from toddler to bald-old-man. Then I noticed all the food booths: Thai, Ethiopian, Senegalese, Mexican. What?! Then there were the drinking huts--calm little oases serving up affordable (by American festival standards) pints of beer (in reusable cups--none of that disposable crap), wine, tea, and juices. And the water: free! I could get used to these French music festivals.

The wine bar, where a big-ol' glass of Bordeaux cost €5. Totally worth it!

Mint tea and North African sweets stall.

This year's beer served in last year's (reusable) cup!

Liquid refreshment in hand, we went to check out the bands, catching just the last song of two different bands we wanted to see: Smith Westerns and Beat Mark. Around this time I noticed something else setting this French music festival apart from its American equivalent: the bands' start times. Weirdly, if a band was scheduled to go on at 5:30, it went on at 5:30. Huh? Once we got the hang of it, we actually saw full sets instead of single songs. The best bands of the day? Herman Dune, Cansei de Ser Sexy (CSS), and that beloved oldie but goodie, Big Audio Dynamite.

Brazilian wonderband, CSS.

Herman Dune: really, really good.

Tail end of Wolf Gang.

General Elektriks. They were OK.

I sat tight and listened keenly--then danced my arse off!

Bobbing one's head up and down for an hour our two really works up an appetite, so Lee and I went scouting for chow. First stop: the bio booth, for some slightly overpriced but delicious organic French fries. They also had a vegan wrap with veggies and quinoa inside, but I wanted something hot, so we scarfed our fries and worked our way over to the "world cuisine" section. I got pulled into Ethiopia's edible orbit, while Lee opted for his own African dining adventure in Senegal. The little veggie-filled pie thing Lee bought me didn't survive long enough for a photo, but if you ever have a chance to eat a savory Senegalese pie, I suggest going for it. FYI, the injera here was some of the tangiest, most delicious I've ever swallowed without chewing.

Bio booth. The €5 organic frites were good, but they should've cost €2.

Scary-ass huge pot of chili at the "Tex Mex" booth.

Should have gotten the veg pad thai!

Vegan Ethiopian offerings. It only needed a dash of salt; otherwise: perfect!

The Senegalese booth. Lee got veggies over rice and two savory pies, one of which he gave to me. In a word? Scrumptious.

Who eats foie gras at a music festival? Ickydoodles.

We spent the rest of the evening people-watching, dancing, dodging one of those huge inflated balls that always seem to make the rounds at big shows, and marveling at the clean bathrooms. We didn't stick around for the Foo Fighters, but we could hear "Learn to Fly" as we rode our Velib' bikes home in the dark.

Dude! Totally!

Cute hair, non?

The Statue of Liberty's long-lost French sister? Sophia would know!

The requisite outdoor concert Port-a-Potty shot.

Love when there's actually toilette papier in said Port-a-Potty.

Bon nuit a tous!

36 Hours in Brussels

2011-08-03T01:46:00.000-07:00

"Hey, look! It's ..."

"Bela Delosi."

"Uh, no. I was thinking of Salvador Dali, actually. And his name's not 'Bela Delosi'--it's 'Bela Lugosi.' Sheesh! I guess you weren't a Bauhaus fan, huh?"

"That moustache was drawn on afterward. That's not Dali."

And so went one of many squabbles hashed out over street art in colorful, graffiti-filled Brussels. In 36 hours, we squeezed in a lot more than simple, inane conversation. Over the course of a day and a half, we:

drank tangy, slightly vinegar-y Lambic ale at a bustling beer joint

got invited to a party by a Rockabilly-styled, vintage-store-owning Scottish transplant
admired 20th century sculpture in a public garden

communed with a banded pigeon

rode public Villo bikes to a grand park inhabited by wild parakeets

ate really lousy falafel sandwiches at a kebab place just before discovering a veg falafel place around the corner

wandered around slippery cobbled alleyways without falling even once
scored treasures at the flea market in the Ixelles district

munched mediocre frites with the one vegan sauce out of 20 they had available: ketchup
pricked up our ears for street musicians playing the accordion, saxophone, guitar, and flute

sat at outdoor cafes and listened as the world passed by in Flemish, English, and French
accidentally meandered through the local housing projects

laughed while watching screaming passengers spinning on a manic, twirling Ferris wheel
enjoyed a deliciously spicy Thai dinner, and washed it down with excellent house wine
gazed at the fanciful facades of many a Gothic church
discovered Dr. Bronner’s soap actually does exist in Europe (at Belgian natural food stores, anyway)
bumped into the crowd gathered around Manneken Pis, even though we tried to avoid it
bought the best vegan chocolate on the planet, aka Ritter Sport bar Marzipan
picked up dog poo, earning ourselves the imagined "good visitor" award from locals
pretend-ate poison berries

stared up at a gargantuan model of an iron atom

moseyed about Chinatown, stealing furtive glances at outdoor diners' plates as we passed

sipped overpriced carrot-apple-ginger melanges from a juice-bar chain
missed our chance to laze about in the hotel sauna
watched a light show projected against the ancient buildings in the main square

vowed to haunt the Magritte museum the next time we visit

marveled at king-sized loaves of bread for sale at the very few bakeries we encountered
cuddled cute cars

experienced documentary film-making failure at Laeken Park (see below)

Buried Treasure

2011-01-24T04:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we pedaled over to the Marche d'Aligre, my favorite outdoor market over in our old Faidherbe-Chaligny neighborhood. The objective was fruit, veggies, and tofu from the Chinese market that's tucked into a small shopping area behind the produce stands. The place was mobbed with people, as is normal on weekends, but we still managed to squeeze through the entire length of the market, getting run over by poussettes a couple of times, picking up our litchees, lemons, and six-for-a-euro pamplemousse.

A block away, on Boulevard Diderot, a neighborhood vide grenier was in full swing. "Vide" means "empty" and "grenier" is "attic," so what you find at these festive events is a hodgepodge of junk mixed with some serious treasures. I almost bought a super cute little orange Peugeot bicycle--it was too good to pass up at 25 euro--until we noticed it was a single speed. No! Who wants to huff-and-puff up the hills of Montmartre when you don't have to?

Jeff found a video game for a euro and bought it when I wasn't looking; I was too busy ogling an orangey-red "sculpture" in the shape of an exaggerated female torso. I hemmed and hawed--what the hell would I do with it once I got it home?--but the guy was willing to strike a bargain so I got it for 10 euro and 50 centimes in change.

While I dug through a pile of old garden gnomes, Jeff spotted a funny little outfit that looked like it was made for a monkey. It was actually deadstock doggy duds with its pricetag--in long-gone francs--still attached. For a euro, we couldn't pass it up, though later, Fanny clearly wished we had. At home, she looked noticeably reluctant--and a tad uncomfortable--when she saw that it was meant for her.

"Oh, c'mon. Look how warm and cozy you're going to be when it's snowing out there! It's going to be great! Ooh, you'll be so snuggly. You're going to love it!"

Once we got it on her and rolled up the cuffs a few times--this contraption was made for a dog with skyscraper legs--there was no amount of cajoling to convince her this wasn't actually punishment in the form of a straightjacket for naughty dogs, a league in which she does not belong (for the most part).

I think she looks pretty cute, but this is probably the first and last time she'll be seen in this outfit. Anyone want or need a onesie for their small-size, long-limbed pooch? Holler!

Double Tragedy

2011-01-20T23:30:00.000-08:00

Exactly one week ago, on a warm (50 F) and overcast Parisian winter day, Jeff and I left Chettinadu Mess, our Friday lunch spot, and headed back toward home in the hinterlands of the 17e arrondissement. We pedaled down the bike lane on Boulevard de Clichy, past giant pink megalith Tati and the Abbesses metro station, where tourists on their way to climb the steps of Montmartre to Sacre Coeur clog the sidewalk, staring down at maps while their pockets are most likely being picked from behind.

We rode further still, past the Moulin Rouge and the popular Irish bar Corcorans. At Place de Clichy, we pointed our handlebars north, cycling past the art house theater with the upstairs bistro selling 2.80 euro glasses of Cotes du Rhone that I still haven't tried, and then spun past my favorite fripperie, Guerrisol.

Pedaling closer to our apartment, the traffic grew thicker. Not unusual for a Friday really, when everyone and their grandmere makes a beeline for the peripherique to make their weekend getaway. Something was off about this traffic though. At the intersection of Avenue de Clichy and rue Cardinet, we could see a cop directing traffic, steering motorists away from a commotion further down the street. Was it a manifestation? A car accident? The journalist in me (or maybe just the nosy bit) wanted to know what the heck was going on down there.

Wheeling our bikes up onto the sidewalk, we moved through the pedestrian traffic toward the hubbub. We could see now that there were an awful lot of men in blue milling about, and that police tape blocked a rectangular swath of the street. Then we saw the bad news: a body in repose in the middle of the intersection, the distinct hump of two feet poking out from beneath an off-white sheet.

"Oh no. Somebody died," I said to Jeff.

Trying to piece together a likely scenario, I surveyed the scene for clues, my eyes settling on the king-size cement truck angled toward the body. A gruesome vignette danced about in my mind. Suddenly I didn't want to be a nosy lookyloo any more. I just wanted to cry.

"C'mon. Let's go."

For the rest of the day I semi-obsessed about the person who'd died there, just a five-minute walk from my front door. "I hope it wasn't that nice old man I was chatting with yesterday at G20," I told myself, remembering how bravely he'd stepped into that intersection, holding his cane up to stop traffic as we conversed our way through the crosswalk.

Saturday, we stopped at our local boulangerie for our daily dose of warm-from-the oven bread. I asked the guy behind the counter if he had any details on what happened the day before.

"Yes, someone was killed by a cement truck just over there."

"I thought so. God, that's terrible. Was it an old man?"

"No, no. It was a woman. She was about your age. How old are you?"

"I'm XX."

"Yeah, she was your age. XX." he said, adding three years onto my own age. "A mother with two children."

Two horrible thoughts ran through my mind simultaneously:

1. I hope to god it wasn't Sophie, a woman in the neighborhood I've become friends with. She's about my age and she has two kids.

2. Do I really look like I'm XX years old? Shit! No!

"Her name wasn't Sophie, was it?"

"No, no, I think it was Nadia."

"Oh no. Hey, do you really think I look like I'm XX years old?"

"No, no--I just meant she was around your age."

Nothing about this conversation was very cheerful. Just as I was about to melt into a pool of self-pity, Jeff walked in to remind me to get our carte de fidelite stamped. (We want that free baguette we're due after 10 stamps!)

"He just told me that bad news--it was a woman from the neighborhood with two children who died yesterday. He said she was XX years old--or, as he likes to say, MY AGE."

Jeff laughed. The guy behind the counter laughed, too. I didn't think it was so funny, but I laughed with them anyway. It's better to be old than dead, I told myself in consolation.

RIP, Nadia.

Faking it

2010-12-13T03:39:00.001-08:00

It was exciting to discover this new meat analog at what's sadly becoming a favorite hangout: Carrefour. While we haven't really been eating much in the way of fake foods since arriving on French soil nearly six months ago, the novelty of faux ground beef was too enticing to pass up.

Opening the package, I wasn't expecting this Hache Vegetal to bear such a startling resemblance to the Play-Doh of my youth. The best hope I had was that it would taste marginally better than the Play-Doh of my youth.

Even 20+ years ago when I still ate animals, I wasn't really into hamburger. Coming up with a way to prepare this mystery meat took a bit of effort, but I finally decided on meatballs, which I'd plop on top of that evening's spaghetti.

OK: so they aren't the prettiest meatballs ever. And why does my French stovetop (otherwise known as le hotplate) look so devastatingly mucky? Ack!

The finished product looks somewhat more appetizing than phases one, two and three. The taste: better than expected, and definitely much better than Play-Doh. The ingredients list printed on the Hache Vegetal packaging was relatively short--soy, tomato, onion, salt--and that's what I tasted. But maybe that was the sauce. In any case, when washed down with a glass of Bordeaux, everything--even Play-Doh inspired meat analogs--tastes divine.

My Date with David

2010-12-07T12:31:00.001-08:00

I'd been waiting for this day for, like, two months. David Sedaris, an author whose work never fails to make me laugh (or, at the very least, chuckle. Chuckle? This word suddenly seems awfully weird), was going to read from his new book at the Village Voice, an English-language bookshop over in the 6e, not too far from the Sorbonne.

"You better get there really early," my friend Jennifer cautioned. "I hear it's going to be packed."

It seemed silly to arrive too early, but I really wanted an audience with Mr. Sedaris. Actually--naively, perhaps--I planned to bravely ask if I could interview him for the guidebook I'm writing for Avalon Travel on moving to France, since he'd made that move himself. Arriving around 6:00 for the 7:00 appearance seemed like the right amount of time to guarantee me a spot at the author's table.

Scurrying out of the apartment toward the Metro, I dodged the fat snowflakes spilling down with cinematic bravado and rehearsed my "may I interview you?" script. The trip was uneventful, with just one train change and a single brief encounter with a fragrant homeless-looking man whose filthy, coal-miner's hands kept me mesmerized for several stops.

At the bookstore, I was surprised to see it wasn't too crowded; there were, perhaps, 12 people milling about downstairs. The rest were lounging and talking loudly in nasally American accents on the spiral staircase leading to the second-floor reading room. At the counter, I bought a copy of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk from the crabby bookseller and got in line at the foot of the staircase, on the off chance space freed up on the next level.

Every 30 seconds or so, the door opened and more Sedaris fans--all of whom seemed to have the same whiny East Coast accent--piled in, bitching en masse about the potential wait to see their literary hero. Another shop clerk, aka the staircase cop, announced that he would let 20 people upstairs--but just 20. The rest of us would have to watch Mr. Sedaris via a television monitor mounted to the wall downstairs.

Then the stampede began.

Suddenly, I was no longer at the front of the line, but somehow at the back. From somewhere high on the spiral staircase, a large leather bag tumbled down two steps and overturned, dislodging a bucketful of "Advil--no really, it's just Advil," which landed on shoes and in hair before skittering across the floor in a hundred different directions.

"Dix-huit, dix-neuf, vignt," counted the staircase cop, making a chopping motion between me and the guy standing in front of me. "Sorry," he said, not sounding very. "We're at capacity now. We're not allowing any people more upstairs."

While debating whether or not to hang around, David Sedaris walked through the door, looking much shorter, older, and schlubbier than I'd imagined.

"Oh, hoai, Day-vid," some fat old lady in red glasses called out. "So nice ta see ya."

After greeting a handful of what appeared to be old friends from his New York City days, Mr. Sedaris suggested that he should sign books downstairs until his reading at 7:00. A small table was quickly erected, upon which a bottle of water and a Sharpie were placed, and the signing began. I was fourth in line.

"I'm going to ask Mr. Sedaris if we can have our picture taken together," I said to the young woman in line behind me. "Would you be willing to snap the photo if he agrees?"

Of course, came her reply. Yes!

Just then, a woman being eaten alive by a hideous fur coat many sizes too big for her shuffled over to the table and attempted to take a photo with her iPhone. That was all it took for Nice David Sedaris to morph into Scary David Sedaris.

"Um, excuse me, but I really don't like having my picture taken," he spat out bitchily, a sarcastic grimace stretching across his face. "No, really, I don't." He stared at her for a second or two, his forced smile inching a bit wider for mean-queen emphasis. The woman turned and walked away.

"Nevermind," I said to the girl behind me, shoving my own camera back into my bag.

From the conversations taking place ahead of me, I learned a few things about David Sedaris:

-- he shops at Monoprix
-- he rides the Metro
-- he no longer lives in France

Dammit!

Apparently, he and Hugh, his boyfriend, skipped off to England. Fine. I was too nervous after seeing a glimpse of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Sedaris that I didn't really want to ask him for any interviews, anyway.

"Hi! What's your name?" he asked as I moved gingerly in his direction.

"Who did you come here with?"

"What are you doing when you leave here tonight?"

"Who should we throw forks and knives at?"

Huh?

Before I understood that this last question in some way related to what he was about to ink into the book--in which case I'd have responded "animal killers!" or "rude Americans!"--I stood there just trying to process the random juxtaposition of his words. Apparently, I took too long.

"Vagrants. We'll throw forks and knives at vagrants!"

"Um, OK! Actually, I sat across from a vagrant on the Metro tonight. Can you smell him on me?"

"No, I can't, but do you ever wonder how long it would take before any one of us got that smelly? I mean, what if they locked us all in here right now--how long would it take to build up that sort of body odor?"

"Well," I replied, trying to sound like an expert on the subject, "some of us are more productive when it comes to manufacturing bodily smells. Me, I'd give myself about a day and a half."

"A day and a half? Really?"

"No, not really."

And we carried on like that for a few seconds more before I thanked him and went on my merry way, opting not to stick around and battle the crowd forming around the monitor for a glimpse of a man I'd just had a rather intimate conversation with.

Back inside the Metro station, my heart sank as I saw Vagrant Guy--the same fellow with the long, dirt-encrusted fingernails--pacing around maniacally on the platform. I wasn't in the mood for him right now. Walking back and forth before me in a puff of cigarette smoke, it was as if he somehow knew what had been inscribed inside my new book.

"Please don't look at me. Please go away!" I shouted inside of my head, looking down at my feet and resisting the urge sneak glances at the fully exposed bottom perched above his untethered jeans.

At last, the train arrived, and I saw Vagrant Guy enter one car ahead of mine. Phew. Cocooning myself in the safety of the sweet(ish)-smelling throngs, I cracked open my new book and chuckled all the way to Porte de Clichy.

Sweet (Tooth) Denial

2010-10-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

I've always claimed to be that rarest of human specimens: she who does not possess a sweet tooth.

"I can totally live without dessert for the rest of my life," I'd boast to anyone who'd care to listen. "Just don't try to take my salted nuts or potato chips away. That's the stuff that makes life worth living." (OK: that and the wine.)

Well, turns out that I'm full of baloney.

While it's true I've never had a thing for marshmallows, Gummi Bears or Jujyfruits, I must admit to having a thing for chocolate, and for anything that's sort of simultaneously sweet and salty, like peanut-butter cups or salted caramels--both of which are rarely-to-never vegan.

Yesterday, with an hour to kill between dog-walking assignments, I decided to wander into Carrefour, deep in the heart of the bourgeois and ever-so-boring 16e.

The place is deceptively ginormous; moving through the chocolate aisle alone took 20 minutes. As I trolled the aisles, eyes bulging at the sheer quantity of choices in every food category, I proceeded to fill my basket with all kinds of goodies: bags of salty corn-nuts from the "Middle East" aisle, hefty bunches of those delectable Muscat grapes I've become addicted to, and giant jars of yummy lupini beans I first fell in love with in Italy last summer.

Finally, toward the end of my shopping excursion, I found the "bio" aisle, dedicated to all things organic. Here, I discovered something that made my heart skip a beat: dairy-free chocolate with, of all things, caramelized quinoa inside. Sold! (And what is it with the French and quinoa? They even sell quinoa milk at Naturalia.)

When I got home, I decided to study the packaging one last time before tearing into it. Definitely no milk, butter, eggs, or meat. But what I didn't see the first time was that this chocolate I so desperately wanted to sink my teeth into does contain decidedly non-vegan honey. Dammit!

I nibbled a square anyway, the buzz of a million stunned and dying honeybees providing the background noise inside my head. It was dark and delicious, but not worth the psychic discomfort.

While I continue exploring the mysterious world of French chocolate bars, my sweet tooth can safely indulge in two predictable favorites, hazelnuttylicious Chocolinette, and cheapo brand Belle France Caramel Popcorn. (The latter of which tastes divine when mixed with salted peanuts.)

Rainbow Bright

2010-10-21T03:37:00.000-07:00

It happened so fast.

One second I was upright on my bicycle, cruising down the bike lane on a gray Friday in Montmartre, happy and sated from a delicious meal at Chettinadu. The next, I was face down in the street, spitting blood and checking for missing teeth and broken bones, while strangers disentangled me from my bike and stuffed tissues and bottled water into my bleeding hands.

It's one of those cyclist's hazards that I have a habit of falling victim to every few years. Sometimes, it's the other guy's fault; a car cuts you off or a pedestrian steps off the curb without looking. But sometimes, it's no one's fault but your own. That was the case in this situation. A guy on a Velib bike had just passed me, but he didn't get close enough to propel me over the handlebars and mouth-first into the ground. I managed that all on my own.

There's nothing quite as excruciating as the pain of having people stare at you for all the wrong reasons. I got quite a few double-takes while out and about with flesh-colored bandages holding my face in place. And never, ever, have I had more people stop to ask me for directions, or inquire about the dog I was walking, or smile at me expecting the same in return (which I could not offer) as I have this week. Je ne comprends pas!

It's been nearly a week since my wipeout, and wounds are healing, and the bandage on my face has finally come off. Looking forward to laughing again, whistling again, and saying words that begin with "B" again.

p.s. That's not a wine stain on my lips for once! That's the bruising that comes with knocking your mouth into the pavement :0(

Dejeuner Drama

2010-10-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, after making the trip across town to return library books at the Faidherbe-Chaligny branch (Paris isn't like San Francisco; you have to return your checked-out items to the exact location where you borrowed them), we made a trip to our favorite daily market, Marche d'Aligre, then rode over to Boulevard Beaumarchais to finally give Loving Hut a try. For those of you who don't know about Loving Hut, it's a global chain of vegan restaurants run by the Supreme Master Ching Hai folks. The name they chose is kind of awful, but the food is actually rather delicious.

We walked in and were told we could sit wherever we wanted. It was cold outside, but the front of the restaurant had lots of direct sun streaming through the windows, so I did like any cat-in-a-last-life would do and chose the sun-shiniest, warmest seat. (Jeff wore his sunglasses indoors throughout the meal.)

The cheerful waitress came and took our order, and right about the time our food arrived, three well-dressed teenage-ish boys came through the door and walked straight to the back of the restaurant. One of them was carrying a piece of paper slipped inside a plastic sheath. I didn't see what it said, but I'm sure it was something along the lines of "Would you please take pity on me and give me some free money? I REALLY need another pair of these designer shoes I'm wearing." I was glad they didn't visit our table. After all those years in San Francisco, I've definitely maxed out my compassion for panhandlers.

A moment later, the cheerful waitress, sounding less so, could be heard telling paperboy to move along on his merry way. "You can't do this in the restaurant," she insisted, before escorting him to the door. I watched him exit, a dejected look on his face, and walk westward before disappearing around a corner. A moment later, the other two young men followed in the same direction.

After this somewhat peculiar kerfuffle, we carried on chatting and eating our scrumptious meals--Jeff got the Feuillete aux legumes and I chose the Galette aux champignons (that's mine in the foreground above)--before the calm was again pierced by a rather loud and jarring voice, in English again, exclaiming, "Yes, I definitely saw a wallet in his hand. Oh, I should have said something!"

In a not-unusual scam conducted in cities around the world, the young man with the paper had spotted a wallet on the table of a man eating lunch, and as he approached, he set his "Please give me free money" sign over the wallet, and when the man declined, he simply lifted his paper--with wallet beneath--and walked on.

The "victim," a rather handsome, middle-aged Frenchman sporting a dapper suit and a surprisingly OK-looking sun-bleached bob, didn't seem too worried about it. He left, then the police came, then I put on my nosy hat and had a chat with the loud Canadian woman who saw the whole drama go down.

After getting the scoop, I went to the counter to check out the goods for sale, discovering several different varieties of vegan cheese, loads of Tartex, and some books, including Colleen Patrick- Goudreau's The Joy of Vegan Baking. As I paid for my dairy-free smoked cheddar, blond bob man came back in. Standing beside him at the counter, I looked up at him with the most sympathetic face I could muster and said "Je suis tres desolee. Quelle dommage."

He just winked at me and smiled as if to simply say "C'est la vie."

Marché Surprise

2010-10-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

I got these at the Marché d'Aligre today.

You might be pondering the same question I did the first time I saw them: What the hell are they?

Underneath all that somewhat disarming browny-green organic matter you'll find fresh noisettes, otherwise known as hazelnuts.

If you've never tried a fresh hazelnut, you must. Like fresh dates and almonds, they barely resemble their traditionally consumed dried counterparts in flavor or texture. They're still crunchy, but more akin to a carrot's crunch than a peanut's.

I've wanted to try these ever since they started appearing at produce markets around town a few weeks ago, along with the très autumnal chestnuts and chanterelles, but the 10-euro-a-kilo pricetag always put this notorious tightwad off. At Marche d'Aligre, they're only 4 euro a kilo. I like that price better.

Vegan Food Porn (kind of)

2010-10-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

Try to look beyond the non-planet-friendly Styrofoam packaging and visualize instead undressing and then tasting the first burrito (that's mine on the left!) I've eaten since those two awful numbers consumed at SFO (didn't notice the cheese until after the first bite) and Dulles (they didn't bother to warm the tortilla) on the way to Paris back in June. These, from Paris' only taqueria, El Nopal, were stuffed with refried black beans, rice, guacamole, nopales, and probably some other things that my taste buds didn't even register because I snarfled everything down too fast. They need to work on their hot sauce, but otherwise, El Nopal get three stars. (And please note how I've resisted the temptation to add "olé!" to the end of this post. Merci.)

Living the Dream Cliché

2010-10-05T04:55:00.000-07:00

I never thought of my life as clichéd in any way--it's been far too awkward, bumpy, and uncharted to truly fit that designation--but that hasn't stopped several people from pointing out that my path, which has led me back to France to fulfill a strong desire to live "differently," is actually a stale and hackneyed idea boasting absolutely nothing novel about it.

Humph.

"If I'd moved to China instead of France, my life wouldn't feel so clichéd," said a friend who really had her heart set on a future in non-hackneyed Asia. That was before her heart really became set on a guy who just happened to live in Paris, and two years later, she's grown somewhat accustomed to life as a walking, talking stereotype.

I don't see her or her life that way, though.

I mean, I see where she and the others are coming from. France is sort of an obvious choice, right? Just watch one of those wistful and dreamy 1950s musicals set in Gay Paree; is there anyplace more romantic, more beautiful, more wonderful for a starry-eyed American girl (woman? old lady?) to reinvigorate her life? And am I the first one to want to give it a whirl? Uhm, no.

Paris is definitely not as adventurous as a move to, say Kabul. Or Kinshasa. Or even Kiev, for that matter. But it's also not San Francisco, or New York, or Los Angeles, which is where--I think--most Americans' minds go when we think of "fulfilling the big-city dream." And besides, I've proven my ballsy spirit with months of travel in India, Cambodia, and Indonesia. (And I'm still aching to cross Sri Lanka and Algeria off my must-visit list.)

Frankly, I'm just grateful that I didn't end up "settling down" in Loomis or Penn Valley. That's not living the dream, is it? Well, for some, it is, and they're entitled to that dream. In fact, you can have it all to yourself! I'm happy to share my dream with thousands and thousands of others. Rough And Ready, California, is all yours!

France, however, is steeped in clichés. And it should be--the French invented the word, after all. It's from "clicher," a typographer's term that relates to moveable type, otherwise known as "stereotype." And while I might fit into the cliché category, the others who share that spot with me are really much more interesting. Take striped shirts, for instance.

Ever since Jean Seberg (American in Paris!) hawked copies of the International Herald Tribune in that form-fitting striped T-Shirt in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, the French sailor look has gone iconic. Every few years Vogue does a "France inspired" spread that features some pretty young think done up like Leslie Caron or Audrey Hepburn, a stripey shirt on her back and a copy of the Herald Tribune tucked beneath her arm. This cliché is one I like a lot. I hope France keeps it up so I can feel good about adding to my striped-shirt collection.

And the French really do love their poodles, too. And other sorts of chiens, petit et grand. Homeless people here, too, love their dogs. I'd previously mentioned seeing a fluffy, chow-like dog in my old 11th arrondissement neighborhood who I thought had been turned out on the street while his "parents' went on their summer holiday. Turns out he belongs to the homeless boozers who live in the square across from Nathalie's office on rue de la Roquette. He seems semi-well taken care of.

If I have to be a stereotype, I'm glad it's here, in this funky corner of Paris that I call home.

And now, I'm going to go chow a baguette.

Animal Rights (and Wrongs)

2010-07-26T06:58:00.000-07:00

The woolly black dog sniffing the lamp post at Place Leon Blum didn't look underfed, but he did look orphaned: no visible tags, and no visible human. (You often see dogs walking off-leash in this corner of the world, however.)

"Is that your dog, by chance?" I asked the newsagent next to the Metro entrance.

"Where?" he asked, before coming out of his little stall to stand alongside me, his gaze following my finger pointing in the direction of chow-ish looking dog moseying about all by his lonesome.

"That guy there. He seems to be all alone."

"Tsk tsk tsk," said the newsagent fellow. "The french people, when they go on vacation, they just turn their dogs out on the street."

"No, it can't be so!"

"Oui, oui. It's a right shame."

"Unbelievable."

This was the third time in a month that I felt utterly and completely powerless to act on my natural impulse to help an animal in need. I did not know who to call (even if I did have a cell phone, which I still do not), nor whether I should try to wrangle the furball (suppose he did have a person, and I just couldn't see him/her), and then what to do with him if I were to wrangle him.

(The previous animal situations included one where a dog was trotting aimlessly though traffic; I asked someone what to do about it and he said to take the dog to the Commissariat. Yet, when I took that baby pigeon I found on the sidewalk to the Commissariat, I discovered they're actually pretty useless when it comes to animal crises.)

Reluctantly, I descended the steps to the Metro station and just wallowed in that heart-wrenching, gut-aching feeling of helplessness and failure. Waiting on the platform for a train to take me to yet another apartment viewing, I noticed the giant advertisement depicting two dogs, one healthy and cute, lovingly cuddled by two smiling children; the other is but a mere skeleton lying dead or near death, alone on a table:

"For him, love. For me, death. Abandoning kills 100,000 animals per year."

I'd seen the poster (the latest issued from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation) several times before, but didn't have the context to fully understand what the campaign was about, or why it was relevant right this minute. Now, I understand. And now, I've got another job for myself: figure out what the hell to do the next time I see a dog (or cat, or pigeon) toute seule on the streets. It's hard to believe that the french, who have a reputation as a dog-loving bunch of people, would treat their animal companions so poorly when they are no longer convenient. C'est dommage.

In good animal news, tomorrow Spain votes on whether to make bull-fighting illegal in Catalonia, and it's actually looking as if for once, luck might fall in favor of the animals. One can hope.

My Magic Purple Friend (or Not)

2010-07-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

My first thought upon waking yesterday morning was (Jen, if you're reading this, close your eyes now) "Let's listen to some Prince."

No, I have no idea why.

So, I put some Prince on the stereo (aka my computer) and proceeded to get in a really good mood. (Try listening to "America" and not feeling all pepped up. Except you, Jen.)

For our morning walk, Fanny and I headed out the door in the direction of Tom and Nathalie's place on Boulevard Richard Lenoir, to feed the fish and water the pretty flowers on the balcony with the fabulous view of Sacre Coeur. As we rounded the corner onto Voltaire, there he was! Prince! Who may or may not be vegan! OK, so it was only a poster on a news-agent's kiosk, but still.

Another block down the street, I passed a typical Parisian boulangerie, albeit one with outdoor seating, where a handful of people were enjoying their petit dejeuner of coffee and croissants. I looked up, and there on the awning it read, "Les Delices du Prince" (The delights of the prince).

Hmm. Coincidence or .... ??

I guess it mustn't have been "or ... " because I kept looking for more magic purple Prince symbols, but didn't see any.

The view from Tom and Nathalie's balcony

Home is ...

2010-07-21T05:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was set to meet Jean Louis, the present tenant at 2, rue Gustave Rouanet, and his landlord, Patrick, and together we were going to sit down, sign some papers, and voila! I would be granted a new place to call home for the next year, and possibly longer. Just before hopping on my funky green borrowed bicycle and heading north along the Canal St. Martin, I hopped on the slightly less funky internet to see what I could discover about this Gustave Rouanet fellow. I thought maybe there’d be something portentous there; you know, maybe he was the guy who started Paris’ first vegetarian society or something. (He was actually a lefty upstart and writer of scathing anti-establishment articles in the socialist press.) Armed with my newfound knowledge, I’d know for sure that the place was meant to be for me (or not).

Well, I found something altogether quite different when I went snooping around cyberspace, and it wasn’t “good”-different. Turns out that last month, at 4 in the morning, a young couple in their early twenties arrived at this very apartment building after a night partying with friends, and as they went to open the front gate, the two were stabbed by a “North African looking guy with bleached-blond hair.” (I have yet to see even one such fellow with bleached-blond hair; maybe they all dyed their heads en masse after reading this story in hopes of circumventing hair-related profiling.) The 21-year-old girl died. The boyfriend is still in the hospital.

Reading this story kind of put a damper on the whole oh-my-god-I’m-excited-about-my-new-apartment thing, but I went ahead and cycled over to the backside of Sacre Coeur to make good on our agreed rendezvous. When I arrived, Patrick and Jean-Louis showed me the bike parking room. It would have easily held all of Jeff’s bikes. Sigh.

“Say! Before I came here today I did a bit of internet research and found out there was a murder here recently. You didn’t mention that when I asked you if the neighborhood was safe.”

“Bof—it never even occurred to me,” said Jean Louis. “It was a crime of passion. A jealous ex-boyfriend. It could have happened anywhere.”

I totally got it. And he was right: it could have happened anywhere. But it didn’t happen anywhere. It happened right here in my new building! Together we piled into the elevator, a space which becomes very intimate very quickly when you are three adults and it’s 95 degrees outside. Entering the apartment, the living room suddenly felt very small. How would I possibly fit my couch, sideboard, coffee table, and chairs in here? Inspecting the closets one more time, I gauged the space and made a mental comparison to our Golden Gate wardrobe and thought, “No way. This is never going to hold all of our clothes.”

I shared my concerns with Patrick and with Jean Louis, who suggested I give it some thought and get back to him. I told him I thought that was a great idea. As I left, my mind was already made up, but I went downstairs and decided to query some of the building’s residents anyway, to get their impressions of the neighborhood, its degree of safety, and anything else folks would be willing to share.

The first two people I bumped into were a middle aged woman and an old man in the foyer. The old guy has lived in the building for 34 years. “It’s a great building, great neighbors, and a nice neighborhood,” he insisted. The woman, his personal grocery-shopper, agreed. “That murder was highly unusual for this neighborhood, and for Paris in general,” she said. Stopping into the concierge’s office, he, too, echoed their sentiments. “No, no, this is perfectly safe place. When do you move in?”

Well, the answer to that is: never. Boo hoo.

So: where is home? Back to the ol’ drawing board.

March of the Pregnants

2010-07-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

There’s a certain Parisian fashion that hasn’t gone out of style in the five years I’ve been away: being pregnant. But it’s all about the timing. You don’t want to be hugely pregnant in the fall or winter. You want to become pregnant in those cold months, then try to forecast B-Day for sometime during the summer, which allows one to tack one’s maternity (and paternity) leave onto the head or tail of one’s annual vacation, turning four weeks into a leisurely eight or more (lots more, according to that NYT piece).

I thought it was a fluke when I first began noticing the armies of big-bellied moms-to-be marching the hot summery streets all those years ago, but I’ll never forget August 1, 2004: the day our apartment building suddenly erupted in a chorus of newborn infants’ cries blasting in from all directions. I began asking around and discovered that this is, indeed, a very deliberate family-planning strategy. They take baby making so seriously here that there’s even a dedicated lane at the Bastille Monoprix for pregnant women (though they’ve got to share with folks in wheelchairs). I wonder if anyone has jutted their stomach in a feigned pregnancy to try bypassing a long line?

For all the pregnant women walking around Paris (I easily cross paths with 10 or more a day), there is an equal number of anorexic men and women (yes, the manorexics are just as ubiquitous as those of the female persuasion) tipping the scales (or not, really) in the other direction. It’s startling at first; you want to just butt into their lives with a gentle “Honey, please: Eat before you die. Let’s go get you some smoked almonds.” But you don’t, because you don’t know their story. Maybe it’s not anorexia. Maybe it’s cancer. Maybe it’s a severe food allergy. Maybe they’re vegan and just returned from a month in Argentina. Whatever the case may be, it’s none of our business, and none of us should judge those proverbial books by their covers. I say this rather smugly and Aurelia-knows-best-y only because of a recent experience involving a new friend who happens to be very thin. She’s been on the receiving end of a lot of unsolicited commentary about her weight, and the harsh judgement has really worked a number on her spirit. I will not make that mistake again.

I wasn’t able to stealthily snap photos of either pregnant women or anorexics this week, so I’m posting some images of recent restaurant meals instead. Bon appetit!

The Big Question

2010-07-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Whenever I leave my camera at home, there is, inevitably, a moment I happen upon that will never, ever be repeated, and one that I would really have liked to capture in digital form for future amusement and memory recall. Like today, for instance.

As I moseyed up rue de la Roquette, a police van with siren blaring blasted up the skinny one-way street, stopping suddenly on the corner just a half-block ahead. Walking closer to the van, I could see through the tinted windows a man in a crisp, button-down shirt handcuffed in the back, three officers sitting across from and beside him. Just then, another officer came running out of the boulangerie on the corner bearing a siren-worthy baguette, a sheath of paper twisted around the middle. All that fuss for a stick of bread? Honestly! Or how about the woman at Starbucks (I returned again today; I hope this doesn’t become habit), awkwardly eating her chocolate-chip muffin with a spoon? Just shove the damn thing in your mouth, lady. That’s the way we do it in America! And hey: Starbucks sells pancakes—yes, regular old flapjacks—in little stacks, right alongside the muffins and scones in the glass case at the counter. What’s that all about?

Yesterday, coming home from the Bibliotheque Parmentier, I walked toward the Mairie de l’Onzieme, lured by the sound of live music—drums and tambourine, mostly. As I rounded the corner to the square in front of the Mairie, I saw it was another wedding taking place (each arrondissement has its own town hall, which is a popular place to get married, just like San Francisco’s City Hall). This time, the nuptials were of the North African variety. Four men in red tunics, matching pants, and pillbox hats pounded on their drums and shook their tambourines, while a crowd of smiling men and women formed a dancing circle around the bride and groom, who were each dressed in traditional western wedding wear. Women in hijabs took turns ululating, and the men held their hands above their heads, snapping their fingers. It was a beautiful scene that prompted spontaneous tears--joyful ones. Today as I passed the same spot, I noticed butterfly-sized confetti shaped like hearts littering the square like leaves from a fairytale arbre d’amour. It warmed my heart. Maybe love is the answer, but, then, what is the question?

Far From the 8th

2010-07-15T04:57:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite films, Paris, Je T'Aime, is comprised of 18 different stories, one of which is particularly poignant; it's titled "Loin du 16e" ("Far from the 16th") and tells the story of a young spanish-speaking immigrant woman who leaves her working-class apartment -- and her infant daughter, to whom she sings a sad little lullaby before depositing her in daycare -- in the gray Paris suburbs and takes a gruelingly long train ride to her job in the ritzy, bourgeois 16th arrondissement. There, in the home of a wealthy family, she cares for their infant daughter, to whom she sings sad little lullabies. I relate to this story whenever I report for work in the chi-chi 8th to care for Junior (aka "Junes" or "Joonynoots"), the spoiled springer spaniel whose young, soft-spoken and extremely goodlooking Greek dad is clearly a millionaire, and then some.

While I walk this friendly, old (he's 12) beast up the Champs Elysee and around the grassy park areas sandwiching the Seine, trying to yank him away from every dead pigeon, dirty napkin, random fish head, and pile of human excrement (he loves the stuff) he drags the two of us toward, my terrificly well-behaved little Fanny sits home in her tiny, temporary 11th arrondissement abode, dreaming of the Snausages and Pupperonis she rarely-to-never gets to eat (she's supposed to be vegan, too). Well, I make up for the neglect with praise when I get home, telling her what a good girl she is for not being equipped with coprophagic tendencies, and for not nearly yanking my arm off whenever she smells something tasty hiding in the bushes.

Saturday is my last day caring for Junes. His regular dog walker comes back from vacation then. I think I'll be ready for a vacation of my own come Saturday. (Or at least a massage for my over-yanked shoulder. There are lots of Chinese massage places in Paris, so I think I might have to spring for one, since I'll have the cash in hand to indulge.)

Signs

2010-07-10T06:18:00.000-07:00

It's been a rather depressing week. We still haven't found a permanent place to live (according to the NYT, there's a housing shortage here; I'd read just the opposite in the French press not too long ago), and we spent approximately 10 hours over two hot, frustrating days attempting to get our visa/carte de sejour malarkey sorted out at the prefecture de police in the 14th, enduring streams of vomit deposited at our feet courtesy of a little girl who drank too much milk for breakfast (I can't blame her; I'd have barfed too), and having "adults" ruthelessly cut in line ahead of us after we'd waited hours and hours, only to discover that we were in the wrong place altogether. Nothing--as I'd conveniently forgotten in the last five years that I haven't lived here--comes easy in France. Everything is a bureaucratic climb of the Mt. Everest variety. I've wanted to give up scads of times, but we're hanging in there.

The good news this week is that A. I finally got Velib to work (thanks to Sacha--my teenage Franco-American step-nephew-in-law, or some such approximation), who called Velib on our behalf, and discovered that it might just be a matter of wiping the puce on our carte bleu really clean before swiping it through the kiosk), so now we two are completely mobile. It feels great to be on bikes a deux again! Good news B: I got a job! It's a part-time gig, but it's something. Yes: I am, perhaps, Paris' newest professional dog walker. Thanks, Phil, for giving me the job! (My first client is a springer spaniel-type dog named Junior, whose dad lives in a fancy building on Avenue Montaigne, right there next to Chanel, Hermes, and Versace.) Maybe this job is a sign that yes, I really am supposed to be here. Or not. I'm still mulling that one over.

When I'm feeling totally bummed out like I've been for the past 10 days or so, I look around this good-looking, historically rich and interesting city and tell myself that it's not so bad, even if we are living out of suitcases in a place without WiFi. I could be feeling depressed in, say, Lodi or Auburn. Now that's a depressing thought. One of the little things that keeps spirits afloat (besides the daily doses of baguette in the tradition graine style) is the French tendency toward erecting signs and placards for anything and everything. Some of these signs make no sense, like the one below from yesterday's trip to the Parc de la Villette that seems to be saying "no flowers, please." (The one above seems to suggest that holding your child's hand is a criminal activity.) Though I understood perfectly the sign I randomly glanced up to when stopped at a light on the rue de Rivoli today, which announced that "Leo Tolstoy lived here in 1857." Now I'm thinking about Anna Karenina and getting all depressed again. Time for a new topic. Ideas welcomed!

One Really Great Thing About Paris

2010-07-09T12:12:00.001-07:00

Would you look at that price tag? Mind you, this is the big jar. That's less than half the price -- even with the euro-to-dollars conversion -- that I'd pay at Rainbow. I think this might be the only thing that's less expensive in France than the US (besides fresh fruit and vegetables), but if it had to be something, I'm glad it's Marmite.

When you find a fledgling pigeon on the streets of Paris, you …

2010-06-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

a. put her in a box and bring it to the police commissariat, hoping they’ll help
b. put her in a box and bring her to Miao Wiao, hoping they can point you in the right direction
c. listen to Miao Wiao’s advice and take her to a “great animal place” a long metro ride away
d. Take her to a vet who suggest feeding her biscuits soaked in milk, exactly what internet sources suggest NOT doing
e. bring her home, feed and water her, and hope she sprouts functioning tail feathers overnight

(answer below!)

Up the rue de la Roquette, between our temporary apartment and the Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise (where, among others, Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde, and Edith Piaf are interred for all eternity), there’s a little gated park that seems always to be empty. It’s a pretty park, like so many others in Paris; there are bright green lawns surrounded by two-foot-high green fences, a circular fountain with benches on three sides, trees, flowers, and a general air of tranquility. At least it seems so from the outside, where I’m always standing , looking in. This park, also like nearly every other park in Paris, is a dog-free zone. So Fanny and I stand outside, admiring the beauty from a distance.

It’s a sad little sight watching Fanny as she catches a whiff of that heavenly greenery, probably wondering why the hell we’re not actually going in. It’s a bit like looking over the prison wall and seeing Shangri-la or some other verdant paradise; so close but yet so very, very far.

Just outside this park is a “pigeonnaire.” I didn’t know that’s what it was called until I studied the sign. It explains that this bird palace was erected as a joint project between the city of Paris and the SPA as a creative solution to the city’s pigeon “problem.” The Pigeonnaire sits on a single metal post roughly 8 feet high; the structure itself is a tall, three story affair with little curved doorways and pigeon-sized decks on each level. Here, the birds gather to nest, preen, and, presumably, stay out of humans’ hair. What a nice, clever idea I thought to myself. San Francisco should be so smart; they’d never think of something so humane, so dignified. Hmf! I’m glad I said goodbye to that draconian place.

A mere hour after marveling at Paris’ animal-friendly ingenuity, I was standing in the local police station, bearing a box containing one scuttling, pooping, fledgling pigeon. The commissariat was not the place to go searching for assistance. Inside, a group of about 5 or 6 twentysomething flics surrounded me, interrogating me about all sorts of things that had nothing to do with this bird. “Where are you from? Do you understand what I’m saying? Where do you live?” After wasting five minutes of my time, they suggested I just put the bird back on the sidewalk where I found it.

“But there are all sorts of dogs out there who might eat her.”
“Ah, well, that’s just nature for you.”
“No. That’s not ‘nature.’ Domestic dogs are not ‘nature.’”

I left in tears, with the one nice flic in the bunch calling out “Desolee, madame” after me. Next stop: a nearby pet-supplies store. I figured they might have some ideas. The nice young man behind the counter suggested I bring the pigeon to some place that didn’t sound good once he mentioned “puppies and kittens for sale,” but he was certain that they’d take this little critter in and care for it. After a wild and wonky metro journey that included getting stopped briefly by metro flics for squeezing through a turnstile instead of using my ticket, I arrived at this awful pet store. The young retards running the place were of no help at all.

I decided then to just take the bird home and figure it all out once I got there, but with my eye on the lookout for a vet’s office along the way. We didn’t pass one. At home, I gave the pigeon a comfy towel to make herself at home on, before cajoling her to drink some water, which she finally did do. After some internet research, I realized I really should have just left her where I found her; she was probably learning to fly from the ground up, and her mother was probably nearby with food ready to be delivered. How many times during the course of my tenure at the SF/SPCA did I counsel people on this very subject, and how could I have neglected to heed my own advice? I think the moral of this story is “Don’t call people ‘retards’.”

I Need a Place to Live (dammit!) aka An Outsider's Lament

2010-06-28T11:06:00.000-07:00

Susa and Leesa are a couple of Paris-based bloggers I had the good fortune of meeting yesterday at a trendy cafe on the other side of town, near the Tour Eiffel. Susa blogs about fashion, and is as lovely and interesting as she is thin. Leesa, who looked so familiar that I thought we might have met before, blogs about life in France -- and about the scrupmtious sweet things she loves to make, buy, and bake. I met them through Owen (that's him on the left), who also blogs about life in France, and who was in town this weekend to catch up with some of his old friends, some of whom now work for Green Day as tour managers/wranglers. (They put on a great show, by the way.)

One thing I didn't really have a handle on before meeting Susa and Leesa is that bloggers tend to be an insular group; their social networks consist of, while not exactly entirely, but in good part, other bloggers. Even though I don't consider myself a blogger, I guess--by virtue of me sitting here at Le 2001 Billard Club typing this entry--I'm a blogger, too, albeit a totally unknown one. I feel like an outsider in this unique, 21st century subculture, but hey: what else is new?

Today I returned to the Century 21 office on Rue Voltaire (across the street from a hair-do place called "Salon Volt-Hair") anxious to give little miss Sylvie my dossier; I was there Friday, lured by a photo in the window of an apartment for rent that was right up my alley: affordable, old (built in 1900), with wood floors, firerplaces, and pretty windows, and literally two buildings down from where I'm staying now. To rent the place (it's first-come, first-served), I needed to bring an "attestation de hebergement" explaining my current living situation, ID, my visa paperwork, and my "RIB," which is basically my debit number so rent can be withdrawn directly from my bank account.

I got there good and early, hoping to be the first person to view the new-on-the-rental-market place. When I arrived, I was greeted by little miss Sylvie, who asked if I had my paperwork in order. I reached into my bag and proudly withdrew my dossier, which she looked through before asking where my last three paystubs were. Aha! Owen warned me this would happen. Apparently, they forget to tell you when laws are changed, rules amended, or, in this case, when dossier-requirements are updated. "My last three pay stubs? The paper you gave me didn't mention that."

"Well, we need that."

Hmm.

If Owen were in my place, he's have called Sylvie out on that little oversight. I didn't think I had it in me to do it, but it was either that or start crying.

"I just moved here a week ago," I said. "How am I supposed to provide you with three pay stubs? I have a working visa, but I haven't had time to find a job yet."

"Well, that's just too bad," she said, more or less. Then we sat and stared at each other for a while. The word "awkward" seems appropriate to describe those moments. Finally, I said something along the lines of "Surely you've had other people like me here wanting to rent apartments. Is there anything else that can be done? Can't I put up more money or something?"

Finally, she said she'd see what she could do, then made copies of a couple of the documents before telling me she'd call me tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath, but I have to be hopeful. I have no other choice.

I got a rare email from Jeff yesterday; he's still cycling around the south and says he might return to Paris as early as Wednesday. I could use a friend right now, so I hope Wednesday is the day. A clap of thunder just rumbled through the hot Paris evening, timed almost perfectly to the growling of my stomach. Back to the little apartment for salad, baguette, and a spot of Monoprix ratatouille.

The People in Paris

2010-06-25T10:04:00.000-07:00

Michel and I cross paths at the billiards hall sandwiched between a popular outdoor café and a government nursery, down a little dead-end alley across from where I’m staying. Neither Michel nor I has WiFi at home, so we come here to get connected; he to online poker, me to email and apartment-hunting sites.

Michel and I talk a lot now. When we first swapped this-is-my-life stories, he proudly offered me photos of his smiling, blue-eyed grandson, and explained that he’s estranged from the baby's father, his own son. Why? I asked. I'm Jewish, he replied, and my son refused to have the baby circumcised. “I’m not religious at all,” Michel insisted in kilometer-a-minute french. “But this is tradition that goes back to my father, and his father, and his father, and so on. It breaks my heart to know he’s breaking that tradition.”

I kept my own opinions about religion, tradition, and circumcision to myself.

“Will you ever make peace with your son?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

Yesterday, San Francisco-based friends Diep and Jim came to town after a visit in London, before heading off to Amsterdam and Berlin. We spent the hot, sun-drenched day hopscotching from one tourist attraction to the next: Pere Lachaise, the Marais, Notre Dame. We split up at 5:00 with the plan to rendezvous later for a boat ride on the Seine.

I left the apartment at 9:45 and pedaled off toward Pont Neuf. It was probably 80 degrees. Riding along the left bank of the river, I passed a group of tango dancers gliding around before a live band, mobs of teenagers straddling bottles of Champagne, families picnicking beneath a pink sky, and lots and lots of tourists strolling and speaking loudly in English, Italian, and Spanish.

At 10:15, the three of us were sitting aboard an open-air boat, staring at the cityscape from a totally novel perspective. The moon was full. Everyone was smiling. The Eiffel tower was as beautiful as I've ever seen it. It was, to use a cliche, "magical."

p.s. The best part of the evening might've been the part where I didn't get run over on my ride back to the Bastille. It's the little victories.

Cold Feet

2010-06-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

This was supposed to be an entry on getting cold feet about the France move, but I lost my enthusiasm in the middle of writing and decided to scratch it.

Things I'll Miss, Part Deux

2010-05-19T18:23:00.000-07:00

Each night on my way home from school over the last year and a half, I'd pass this rust-gobbled gas guzzler parked over on 38th Avenue at Judah. And every single night, without fail, I'd get a good laugh as I'd pedal past.

Sophisticated humor? Absolutely not. But something about this van's silly embellishments appeals to my sophomoric side. I doubt very much I'm going to see anything as funny/retarded as this in Paris, but you never know.

I'll miss you, Vangina. Thanks for the good times!

CESEDA L315-1

2010-05-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it! We've got our CESEDA L315-1 visas in hand, finally!

What, exactly, this means, I'm not sure though; the nice fellow at the French consulate said the Paris prefectures have been acting odd lately, denying people their actual residency cards once they arrive.

"Hold on a minute here," I said to Monsieur Calvet. "We're packing up our entire lives and moving to France and you're saying we may not have a legal right to reside or work there?!"

"Fingers crossed," he said, gesturing with two hands and four fingers in a manner that did not instill confidence. "Call me if there is any problem, but you should be OK."

Well, fuck it. We're still going.

To celebrate, we went to Bruno's for Coral's going-away party. Coral, who just turned 20, is the daughter of one of our oldest and dearest friends, Candace. We've known Coral since she was in her mother's womb, and have loved her to bits since we first held her tiny body in our arms all those years ago.

When Coral was nine, we took her to France with us for vacation. We had a lot of fun doing really goofy things, like spending all day at Disneyland Paris just to ride a total of three rides. (But the It's A Small World ride was worth all that standing in line, just for the look on that kid's face.)

Now, Coral is making her first trip back to Europe to accomplish two specific goals: 1. To get some chef's training at a French culinary academy, and 2. To spend some time working on an organic farm as part of the WWOOF program. She'll be gone three months, and we'll be meeting up with her in Paris in July before she heads back home.

Bruno's, by the way, has a very vegan-friendly bar menu: fried okra, french fries, and hushpuppies, for starters, and pints of beer are only $3 during happy hour.

p.s. The red beret was our bon voyage gift to Coral; I'd told her I had something silly for her, and she was sure it was going to be a bottle of that mustard salad dressing we ate at every picnic during that long-ago vacation. I wish I'd thought of that!

Triple Blech

2010-04-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

One of the things I'm most looking forward to about this France move-- on a very base level--is the access I'll have to one of my favorite foods, Tartex. They used to sell this wonderful, weirdly meaty vegan spread at Rainbow, but they haven't carried it for about five years now. Every now and again, Claudia will surprise me with a can procured at some random health-food store on one of her travels, and I've recently discovered they sell cans of the herb flavor at Golden Era, of all places. but before that, I could only get my fix in Europe.

About this time last year, I made a trip to Vietnam, and on my last day in Ho Chi Minh City, I made my standard grocery-store excursion to load up on small edible trinkets for friends. Browsing the canned food aisle, I discoverd these tins of vegan pate. How bad could it be? I bought three at about $.30 each, and figured I'd give them away to my vegan-pate-loving compadres. First, though, I'd have to taste the stuff to A. make sure it wasn't horrible, and B. To determine whether it was good enough to hoard all to myself.

The first can I opened was a grave disappointment. It stunk, literally and figuratively, and not in a "faux meat" sort of way; just in a "something's wrong here" sort of way. Still, I had to taste it. Bad move. The flavor was sort of bitter, backed with a metallic bite and a hint of, perhaps, botulism. It was also kind of gritty/grainy, while simultaneously too fluffy. Jettisoned into the garbage, toute de suite.

Second can? Same deal.

A year later, I decided to give the third can the opportunity for redemption. It failed. If this is even possible, it looked, smelled, and tasted worse than the other two cans combined.

Moral of this story: Um ... don't buy vegan pate in Vietnam.

Banksy Goes Native (American)

2010-04-23T16:01:00.000-07:00

The SF Chronicle is reporting that a new mural in the Mission is the work of everyone's favorite super-famous/underground street artist, Banksy. Both this one, another in Chinatown, and especially the third one spotted in the Mission have all the Banksy hallmarks (irony and solid artistic technique, in particular), but the one above Amnesia is a bit sloppy, what with all that mucky red paint all around. Could it be the work of Banksy copycats, or are they the real deal? Keep your eyes peeled for this man!

No Elephants Were Harmed in the Making of this Movie?

2010-04-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I took in a matinee today at my tied-for-second-favorite theater in San Francisco, the Embarcadero Cinema. They always run the newest foreign films, plus they offer nutritional yeast for the popcorn and sell veggie dogs at the concession stand. (My first favorite theater is The Clay, for the nutritional yeast, the single screen, intimate Art Deco lobby, and great location. The other tied-for-second theater is The Balboa, because they let you in free on your birthday AND have veggie dogs.)

The flick* we went to see was called "Exit Through The Gift Shop," which I just figured out as I type this must be a reference to a scene wherein the film's primary subject, a guy named Thierry Guetta, gets busted at Disneyland for being at the scene of an art crime (Banksy did a little Guantanamo-themed thing at Thunder Mountain and Thierry documented it). He ends up getting ruthlessly interrogated by Disney cops, then getting released after he stealthily deletes the evidence. I'm guessing they must have told him to, um, Exit Through The Gift Shop. That makes sense, doesn't it?!

OK: so this film was advertised as a "Banksy documentary," but it was really more about this other guy Thierry, a frenchie who lives in LA and got himself all mixed up in the renegade street-art scene by way of his cousin, the Paris-based arteest known as Space Invader. Anyone who's been to Paris in the last decade has seen his work (it's glued onto buildings, monuments, and streets throughout Paris), and from this film I learned a lot more about this crafty feller and some of his creative cohorts around the globe.

I recommend this movie, but I have to give a disclaimer, which is that for animal people (and just plain smart, sensitive people in general), there's a disturbing scene in which an elephant is delivered in the back of a crappy U-Haul-type truck to Banksy's 2006 LA art opening. That was bad enough, but then they painted the poor beast fuchsia ("with children's finger paint") and stenciled her with fleur de lys before turning her into a living art installation. It was very disturbing.

After seeing some of Banksy's work, I really thought he might've been hip (and sensitive) to issues relating to animal exploitation within the broader framework of contemporary social issues, but apparently not. Why is it that seemingly smart, talented people in tune with complex human-oriented concerns can miss (or dismiss) those connections that are so obvious?

P.S. At film's end, as the credits rolled, a message telling us that "No Elephants Were Harmed in the Making of this Film" appeared. I didn't feel any better about it.

P.P.S. I didn't take the Space Invaders photo pictured here, but the person who did deserves credit, which you'll find here)

* In France, slang for "cop" is "flic." If you're in Paris doing some guerrilla street art and hear someone shout, "les flics!" you better make a run for it!

The 'hood

2010-04-11T22:18:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, in spite of the terrible weather, we stuck with our plan to meet up with Adam and Cheryl on Angel Island for an overnight bike/camp excursion.

Well, we kind of stuck to the plan; we decided to go for the day and not the night. It started spitting rain as soon as we pedaled off down the street, and was in full pissing mode by the time we reached the Pier 41 ferry terminal, where we bought our tickets and got in line behind seven zillion Italian tourists who were all gorgeous and, unlike the two of us, dressed in chic weather-appropriate clothing.

Settling into our seats for the short ride to Tiburon, I watched Jeff's visage morph from flesh-colored to an alien green. "How you feelin'?" I asked. "Not well," he replied, before heading out onto the deck to stare at the wet horizon for a while.

When we arrived at Tiburon, the ferry to Angel Island was nowhere to be found; we sought cover from the elements beneath a too-narrow awning, hoping with crossed fingers that a boat would show. Just then two cyclists rolled up, and one looked awfully familiar. Turns out it was our friend Adam's twin brother David, and his girlfriend Dominique, who'd come down from Santa Rosa and were also headed to the island for the day.

Finally, a couple of adults and two kids popped out of nowhere and said they were expecting us. "There's your ferry!" they said, pointing to a tiny little speck of a boat. Five minutes later we were docked at the Angel Island ferry landing, and not long after that, the six of us shared a lovely picnic of fruit, bread, Tartex, beer, and--because it was Easter--some chocolate eggs.

A week later, it's as wet as ever. (The drought has got to be officially over.) Instead of the usual morning stroll to the dog park, we made a beeline toward Mojo for coffee and a quick stop at the local farmer's market. We didn't get far--the corner of McAllister and Divisadero, to be exact--before we were sidelined.

A local character, a thirty-something blind fellow who always knows you're coming and is fearless when it comes to asking strangers for favors--turned toward us as we waited for the light to change and asked if we were going to the corner store. We said no, but asked if he needed something. He replied yes; could we get him one jar of mayonnaise and another of relish? Sure. Why not? The fellow reached in his pocket and waved a bill at us, saying, "This is a five, right?" and Jeff reached for his arm, steering him toward the store's door, suggesting he might like to avoid the rain by standing inside. He seemed reluctant to get too close to the door, though.

After collecting the condiments, we stood at the counter and told Rami that we actually wanted a bag this time (we normally bring our own). He looked baffled, and we told him it was because we were shopping for the blind guy, who didn't have his own a bag. "Yeah," said Rami, "that guy's not allowed in here." Really? Why not? We wanted to know. "Because he's an asshole."

Blind guys can be assholes, too? I hadn't really stopped to consider that.

God, I'm going to miss this neighborhood.

Work (it)

2010-03-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

There are oodles of French expat websites listing jobs compatible for somewhat bilingual foreigner-type people like me, and several times a week I poke around at the classified ads to see if there's anything that looks particularly well-suited to me or Jeff. I'm partial to FUSAC, since we had such good luck finding everything from Christmas ornaments to an apartment on this site, but I've also recently discovered Bonjour Paris, which is where I found a job that I thought would be perfect for Jeff. Turns out I was right!

The advertisement called for a bilingual bike tour guide/mechanic to lead (mostly) North American tourists on a trip that parallels the Tour de France. Jeff had all the necessary skills and experience, though he's not exactly what you'd call "fluent" in French. I helped him write a truthful-but-persuasive cover letter, and after two interviews, he got the good news directly from the tour-company owner that he'd been hired. Hooray for Jeff! It's only a temporary assignment, but it's nice that Jeff gets a working holiday doing something he's passionate about, and who knows? The experience could lead to something more lasting.

Between working for friends Billy and Jill on a WorldFest-related project, doing a bit of freelance PR stuff for Allison's Gourmet, and trying to survive the school semester, I've managed to squeeze in a little bit of extracurricular fun. Last night I braved the rain to join Anthony for opening night of mutual friend and former Nevada City-er D'Arcy Drollinger's new play, Scalpel! Back in August I'd gone to the Brava Theater to see the very first live read-through, and never imagined the finished product would come to life in such an amazing way. The music, set design, "special" effects, hair and makeup were each awe-inspiring. Campy and fun. Hurry and see it before it closes on April 17!

I met so many interesting, talented, inspiring people last night, but above all, I enjoyed getting to know Frank S., who juggles work as both a curator at SFMOMA and as a college literature professor. Funny, nice, and totally brilliant, Frank shared some very thoughtful advice about making the most of grad school (before getting his Ph.D, he did an MA in English Lit, too), and even offered up some networking connections in France. Thanks, Anthony, for the introduction, and for having such lovely friends!

Lucky Pierre

2010-03-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

I finally received a letter from SFSU's creative writing department; I'd applied to their MA program back in December, hoping to transfer from English Lit into something better aligned with my primary interest, which has always been writing (rather than reading, as it turns out).

I've decided not to open this particular piece of correspondence, however; my future has been decided, and as it turns out, it doesn't include finishing up any MA degree at SFSU. If I was accepted, well, that'll be sad, since I'm moving in a few short months, and if I didn't get in, well, that's a sad little story of its own, for all sorts of obvious reasons.

For now, it's all about focus: focus on finishing out this semester, on solidifying plans, spending time with loved ones, and on manifesting something meaningful--something that makes life worth living.

A week or two ago, in my 20th Century American Poetry class, we read an essay by Frank O'Hara, a mid-century poet whose work I really love, especially for its humor, which is sometimes very, very dark. In this essay, "Personism: A Manifesto," I learned a new euphemism: "Lucky Pierre." I'd never heard it before, but it's a fun way to say "menage a trois."

Rarely do I have the opportunity to squeeze menage-a-anything into everyday conversation, but the idea came up again when we heard back from Simon, our former landlord in Paris.

He is, in fact, using our one-time dwelling as his office, and has offered the place up to us over the summer if we need a short-term rental. He also let us know that Pamela's piece in Marie Claire about their "Lucky Pierre" experience might actually be made into a film. He figures Kermit the Frog is the best bet to play him on the big screen. (I'll cast my vote for George Clooney, if they try to Americanize it, or Clive Owen if they go English.)

Yesterday we met with Eli and Tracy, who we were introduced to by Lynn, my former boss at The SF/SPCA. They're looking to move out of their moldy place in the Outer Sunset and closer to Berkeley, where they'll soon be opening their chocolate factory. (They make the most amazing chocolate bars under the name "Bisou," which means "kiss" en francais; these bars are fair-trade, vegan, made with just three ingredients, and totally delish.)

It looks like E & T will be subletting for at least the first year we're gone, while we figure out if our move will be permanent. We weren't really sure whether or not we wanted to go the sublet route, but they plied us with chocolate, and we're weak like that.

Hooray for Healthcare!

2010-03-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

Not too many people know this, but five years ago when we were conducting our first living-in-France experiment, Jeff and I decided we'd give parenthood a go. It was part biological clock, part romanticism; have you ever seen French children? They're the cutest things ever, AND they're well-behaved. I wanted to be part of that. Jeff ... well, not so much, but he agreed to give it a try. Close to the end of my first trimester, we decided to tell our families, and many joyous long-distance phone-calls were made. About a week later, I had a miscarriage. Big bummer.

I hadn't planned to go to the hospital--I thought it could wait 'til morning when I'd visit my private doc--but after describing the symptoms to my belle soeur Nathalie, who lives in Paris and is a medical professional, she suggested we meet at Hopital St. Antoine, a public hospital just two blocks from our place.

We three arrived at about 10 0'clock at night and went straight to the emergency room. There might have been one other person waiting there, but the doctors saw me almost immediately. After a thorough exam, they confirmed the bad news, and suggested I stay overnight. I told them I lived nearby and that I'd prefer to come back the next day. They said "pas de probleme" and made an appointment for me to return the following morning.

When I arrived, they ushered me into a private room, tucked me into bed, and gave me some medication and an IV. I was there for the better part of the day, and throughout my time there, someone or another would come in to make sure I was OK, bring me water, and generally extend a bit of kindness in my direction. After my experience at General Hospital in San Francisco the year before, my stay at Hopital St. Antoine seemed positively magical. When I checked out, they promised to send me a bill, but forewarned that because I didn't have insurance, it was going to be pretty expensive. Very, very expensive. They were sorry. I was worried. When the bill arrived two days later, I was indeed shocked at the amount: 88 Euro.

I don't know if the health care reform bill Obama just signed into law will translate into hospital bills that are truly affordable for Americans, but even if it's just a symbolic gesture to prove he's serious about making change while he's in office, it's a step in the right direction. Hopefully, though, neither I nor anyone reading this will have any reason to experience the newly revamped American medical system (or the old French one, for that matter) any time soon.

Full Circle

2010-03-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

The call from the French consulate came yesterday around 2:00 pm: my Competénces and Talents proposal was approved. Two three-year working visas coming right up!

When Scott came to pick me up around 5:30 to go to the opening of his friends Rob and Amy's boutique in the Marina, I was definitely ready for a glass of Champagne. Thankfully there was an endless supply flowing at Conifer, where we met up with several other of Scott's friends, including Wendy from the band TITS (Technicolor Inner Trol Syndrome; no, I don't know what that means, either).

We three talked grad school--Wendy just got accepted into the music composition program at Mills--and I discovered she did her undergrad at SFSU in the creative writing department. With no mention of Paris at all, she said her favorite class ever was an English seminar on expatriate writers in Paris during the 1920s. Damn, how I wish that class had been offered this semester! She's going to dig up her syllabus if I can't get it directly from the professor, Loretta Stec. It fits in with one of the tourism-related business plans I've got up my sleeve.

Around 7:00 we took off in the direction of the De Young Museum, where we'd planned to see rockabilly band Red Meat. We arrived just as the band hit the stage, and I was surprised to see how many cowboy hats there were bobbing about in the crowd. (I didn't know what kind of music the band played at this point; I'd only been told the singer's name was "Smelly Kelly," and thus assumed it would be punk.) Surveying the sea of hatted heads, I turned to my left and standing beside me was Ethan, whom I'd not seen since May of 2004--in Paris. The strangeness of it all!

La Petite Triomphe

2010-03-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Under very few circumstances would it ever seem appropriate to spend nearly $20 on a glass of Champagne or $7 on a cornet of very mediocre fries, but yesterday's quasi-success at the French consulate necessitated some irrational celebratory gesture, and so frites et bubbly it was.

Cafe de la Presse is just a one-minute walk from the French consulate, and if you keep your eyes pointed toward the cafe's tables and chairs, you might think for a minute that you're actually in Paris. We find out in a week's time whether or not we'll be getting an authentic experience, complete with better fries and cheaper wine. Some vegan aioli would be nice, too.

Tokyo or Bust

2010-03-14T22:46:00.000-07:00

Even when it's not Saturday night and the mariachi bands aren't aye-yay-yay-yaying in full swing, Puerto Alegre is noisy as all get-out. So is Lower-Haight beer*-swilling utopia Toronado. I think Chris decided to split his bon voyage party between the two places so he could show off his "teacher's voice." (It's booming.)

Chris, who earned his TESOL MA at SFSU (where I'm slogging through the English Literature MA program), has been teaching English as a second language at the Academy of Art for what seems like a really long time now, but he's leaving Thursday for Tokyo, where he'll teach 10 1.5 hour classes each week to students at a private university. He's got a one-year contract, a subsidized studio apartment, and a mile-long line of friends waiting to stay with him once he gets settled. Sounds good to me!

While Chris preps for Japan, I'm prepping for my visit to the French consulate tomorrow afternoon. It'll be the first big powwow (is "powwow" totally un-PC? And do I care if it is?) with the men and women who will, ultimately, decide whether my future includes another stint in Europe. I'm so exhausted from all the paperwork that I don't even care whether they accept my proposal or not.**

* After some sleuthing, I discovered that there is some truth to the Duvel/right-wing conspiracy theory; turns out that a Duvel logo found its way onto an anti-immigration flyer put out by racist Belgian political party Vlaams Belang, but this rebuttal (en francais) by the Duvel peeps denies support of VB, saying, essentially, that it's a harmful rumor and that they don't align themselves with any political party. Hmmm ...

** it's probably just the exhaustion speaking. But maybe not.

The Girl From Ipanema Empanada Enchilada

2010-03-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

We went to an event in the Mission on Monday night, and, as usual, left the house late and thus didn't have time to grab a burrito beforehand. We arrived at the venue just in time, grabbed a couple of chairs, then a couple of beers (didn't some famous literary type once say "beer is food"? Um, no.), and settled in for the entertainment portion of the evening.

The MC got up on stage and announced that the Girl From Empanada was in the house, and I couldn't help but love her for her clever name, but fell even deeper in love when I overheard her saying she had homemade vegan empanadas in addition to all the non-veg varieties. Stoked. We got two for a tenner, and they were delicious. It was too dark to see what was going on inside, but I tasted olives and raisins and other non-meaty things. Yum.

I had singer/animal advocate Astrud Gilberto's "The Girl from Ipanema" stuck in my head last night as I prepped dinner for our guests, Scott and Jenn. Enchiladas were on the menu again, so the song morphed into "The Girl from Enchilada." We didn't do an exact replica of our last dinner-party meal; this time we had fried plantains, black beans, and homemade vegan sour cream to accompany the main course. I'm still full. We won't be having enchiladas again for a long, long time.

All that food and drink activated our chatting mechanisms to the nth degree. Conversation zoomed from Scott and Jenn's recent trip to "Uncle Gary's" pad in Nevada City to Jenn's upcoming trip to Ireland, then careened over to eviction notices and alternate modes of housing, before zipping over to the FIFA World Cup games in South Africa and the recent opening of S & J's friends' new beer joint near Encuentro and Souley Vegan in Oakland's Jack London Square. This was about the time Scott shattered my world with the news that the family behind that finest of Belgian exports, Duvel (aka my favorite beer), are militant right-wingers who oppose nearly everything I hold dear. I'll have to investigate that; I'm just not ready to bid Duvel adieu quite yet.

Before saying nightnight to Scott and Jenn, we were able to fob off a few no-longer-needed-because-we're-moving items, including books and some ancient cassette tapes. There's lots more where that came from, so if you need anything (books, shoes, purses, plants, sunglasses, that sort of thing), holler.

Franco-Mexican Relations

2010-03-07T10:11:00.000-08:00

In an attempt to break our long spell of social hibernation and reconnect with friends we've not seen in a while, we invited Jeorgina and Jeff C. over for dinner last night. We hadn't seen them since November, when they treated us to a lovely homemade meal at their apartment on the other side of Alamo Square.

The menu was Mexican: Jeff R. made the soup and enchiladas (he's really perfected his recipe, and the secret is the green sauce, I think), I made the salsa and salad, and Double Rainbow made the chocolate sorbet. As we sat around the table eating, drinking, and being merry, conversation drifted from surfing (Jeff C. had a early-morning Sunday surf date in Santa Cruz) and tortillas (Jeorgina's grandma in Mexico is the town tortilla maker) to the way time flies (we realized J & J hadn't been to our apartment since our 2004 bon-voyage party) and plans for the future ("What's Jeff going to do in France?!").

Jeff proposed importing tortillas to France (there's definitely a deficiency of all things Latin American in Paris), and Jeorgina suggested maybe Jeff could vend them from a food cart, like the Sri Lankan fellows who sell roasted corn and chestnuts out of shopping carts on the streets of Paris. I followed that line of thinking to the masala dosa cart in Manhattan that I've heard so much about and would like very much to visit before we move, or, at least, before I die. God, I love masala dosas.

Before Jeff and Jeorgina left, we made sure to invite them to join us for the Easter weekend overnight bike-and-camp trip to Angel Island we have planned with mutual friends Adam and Cheryl. They've lived here nearly as long as we have and have never visited this awesome state park. It's about time, kiddos!

The Future is DIY

2010-03-05T19:38:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got a note from Owen, who lives in Toulouse and has a cool website for wanna-be frenchies like me called France Tales. We met him last summer at a party at Jeff's boss's place, and we've kept in touch since.

Owen relayed a bit of bad news (he and his lovely boyfriend recently broke up), and shared some sage advice about working in France: "Do it yourself or don't do it at all." In other words, work isn't easy to come by--even if you've landed yourself a fancy-schmancy work visa--and it's best to have your own gig going if you want to avoid ending up in one of those red-and-black tents that social-justice organization Les Enfants de Don Quichotte provides for the homeless in Paris.

My employment plan is definitely DIY, but Jeff's, well, we're not sure what his is just yet, though part of the long-term plan includes leading bicycle tours throughout Europe. Jeff just brought home the newest edition of Lonely Planet's Cycling France, and my hope is he'll study it, get motivated, and start plotting a course of action.

In any case, the worst-case scenario isn't so bad. I can definitely think of worse things than camping in Paris.

File Under "Looks Bad, Tastes Pretty Good"

2010-03-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

We polished off -- OK, no, make that I polished off -- the not-nearly-big-enough jar of vegan Nutella procured from a booth at the Paris Vegan Day event this past November, so when jonesing for chocolate today, I had to resort to the backup spread we found in a natural food store in the Pyrenées: EverNat.

It's not nearly as delish as Chocolinette -- probably because it's missing the vital hazelnut -- and lacks a certain (dare I say it?) creaminess, but hey, it fixed that chocolate craving. Mission accomplished.

Au Revoir, Voiture

2010-02-27T23:25:00.001-08:00

It's official: We're car-free!

Stephen, Jeff's Freewheel colleague/biking buddy, and his girlfriend Melissa drove off tonight in the trusty old Jeep Cherokee that ~~eats a giant hole in the ozone layer every time we start the engine~~ we've driven for nearly 10 years. It carried us faithfully up to Tahoe and back for scads of snowboarding adventures, saw me safely to Mexico and back on a solo road trip, and most recently, it survived another long-haul drive down I-5 to see family in southern California at Christmastime. How's that for reliability?

I hope Stephen and Melissa get another 10 years out of it; they ought to, since it barely had 100,000 miles on the odometer, and in spite of its slightly beat-up exterior, we kept up with regular maintenance and check-ups at the mechanic's.

Now, we just need to figure out what to do with all the other forms of transportation we've got lurking in the garage; between the two of us, Jeff and I have approximately 11 bicycles -- 13 if you count the two we have stored at the pretty stone house behind the old chappelle in Penboch, south-west of Vannes. One thing's for sure: they're not all coming with us. (Don't tell Jeff, though.)

(De)ménage à Trois

2010-02-25T12:56:00.000-08:00

The March 2010 issue of Marie Claire magazine has what looks to be a juicy feature inside written by one of my former Paris landlords.

She and her husband, both writers -- she a writer of books and magazine/newspaper features, and he the football columnist for a major UK paper -- ultimately found the sweet little apartment they'd purchased at 17 rue xx** a little too tight for two stay-at-home writers, and moved to something roomier in the neighborhood, putting their digs up for rent. Lucky for us!

We found their ad on FUSAC and, even though it was more money per month than we wanted to spend, we loved the location, the fireplaces, and the quintessential Parisian apartment configuration: double windows overlooking a central courtyard on one side, and an expanse of Mansard rooftops on the other. We fell in love and bit the bullet, living happily ever after on rue xx** for the rest of our French sojourn.

So, this story she has written is a first-person account of arranging -- and actively participating in -- a ménage à trois. This "gift" was requested (surprise!) by her husband to commemorate his 40th birthday. I haven't read the piece yet, but I will. I just need to get over my squeamishness first; there's something a little weird about reading the intimate details of two lives that intersect with your own. Or maybe not. I suppose I just need to read it and find out.

When we visited Paris this past November, every night was booked with either dinner plans at the homes of extended family, or trips out of town; otherwise we'd have looked up our former landlorsds. We'd asked them, before leaving their/our apartment, whether they'd consider renting to us again, and the answer was an enthusiastic "yes!" so we want to keep that connection going.

One night, before dinner with Nathalie, Sacha, and Lise at their Bastille apartment, we wandered the crooked streets of our old Faidherbe-Chaligny neighborood, passing by Cafe Pure, where we'd go for a glass of wine when we were feeling rich, and stopping in to check out the wares at cute vintage boutique En Ville.

Making an impromptu stop at our old address, we spied, from the downstairs courtyard, human activity in that particular third-floor apartment, but something looked off; the potted geraniums we'd left behind were no longer hanging from the balcony, and we could see -- sort of -- that the walls were bare. The mailbox did indeed bear one of their last names, so we assumed the apartment was perhaps being used for an office now, but there's only one way to find out for certain.

Add another item for our pre-deménage* à trois checklist: Check-in with the former landlords and see if there are any impending vacancies at 17 rue xx**.

* deménage = to move
** Nearly a year after publishing this post, the female half of our former landlords contacted me to request I not identify their street or names in this blog. Censorship is alive and well in the blogosphere!

Checklist Chekhov Check-off

2010-02-23T09:20:00.000-08:00

One of my new-ish favorite writers is Chekhov. In particular, I loved the story The Chorus Girl, for its heart-rending drama, and for all the unanswered questions it leaves: Why did Pasha give her jewelry away to a demanding stranger? Was she just swindled by the man she loved in a clever, duplicitous scheme? Is this chorus girl a complete idiot or just blinded by a fear-love combo? Like another Chekhov favorite, The Lady With The Dog, The Chorus Girl left me wondering what happened to the characters whose lives I'd become emotionally invested in once Chekhov put his pen down.

This move to France feels a bit Chekhovian in that we're going through the motions, getting things done, creating little dramas along the way, but it's the narrative we write when we board that plane and say goodbye to friends and family that's the big question mark. Remembering that is a good exercise for staying focused on the present, if anything.

Jen came over last night, toting unexpected presents from a recent trip to China (she's a fellow travel fanatic and frequent visitor to Asia; we took our own trip to Beijing together two years ago, and Tokyo this past October), and her enormous Canon for snapping photos for the visa applications we're submitting to the French consulate. (Our appointments are scheduled on the portentous Ides of March). We also planned to have dinner together, but photos first to avoid the dreaded purple-teeth syndrome that always seems to accompany a wine-fueled Italian-themed meal.

The picture-taking didn't take long, which meant we were able to get down to the very important task of eating sooner rather than later. Jeff made one of his delicious pasta sauces, I made the salad, Acme made the bread, and Trader Joe's made the fake meatballs. TJ's is probably the one American institution that I'll really miss in France. No more Tofurky deli slices and Italian sausages? Whatever will we do? Thank goodness for Monoprix, Naturalia, and Bio Coop.

The Countdown - 4 months, 7 days

2010-02-22T12:21:00.000-08:00

I've always had a thing for France. OK: by "thing," I mean "obsession," and by always, I mean since Mademoiselle Onesto's high school French IA class way back in the last millennium.

This thing/obsession/love affair with France grew between the daily chants of "je suis, tu es, il est, elle est nous sommes, vous etes, ils sont, elles sont" and those loud, silly Gallic pop song sing-alongs in the labo. It probably reached its climax at one of our class's Friday-night French-themed parties, where Anthony, LeeAnne and the rest of our geeky gang of would-be world travellers expressed our sophomore sophistication over decidedly non-vegan baguette-and-brie hors d'oeuvres, brave nibbles of garlicky escargots, and sips of de-alcoholized sparkling wine. It all felt very grown up, and a world away from the cowboys-and-jocks scene at NUHS.

I didn't get to France until I was in my twenties, but once I arrived I immediately understood what Gertrude Stein meant when she said "America is my country, but Paris is my hometown." Actually, I never really identified with the "America is my country" part, but Paris definitely feels like my idealized version of what a hometown could be.

For one wonderful year, from May 2004 to May 2005, Paris was my hometown. I hadn't planned on moving there necessarily, but a chance encounter in a crosswalk with a car going 40 MPH left me temporarily handicapped and forced the abandonment of a long-anticipated 6-month bike tour from Morocco to Finland. (I finally got to do an abbreviated version of this trip last June. More on that later.) Instead of a bicycling, I limped. But at least I limped someplace interesting. Now, I'm ready to go "home" for good.

It's a long process. Our pre-departure to-do list looks something like this:

~~Renew Passport~~ - done
Get photos taken for visa application - doing tonight
Apply for Compétences et Talents visa - in progress
Finalize business plan for visa application - in progress
~~Sell car~~ - done!
Decide what to do with our rent-controlled apartment - agonizing!
Decide what to do with our furniture and other household belongings - storage or sell?
Vaccinate Fanny and get her travel documents in order - to do
Find a place to live in Paris - rent or buy? where to stay when we first arrive? - to be determined
Buy plane tickets - to do

I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting, but (thankfully) I've got four months to work it out.