After weeks of laboring through one inscrutable page per sitting, I finally finished my French Patti Smith book and was ready to move on to something kinder and gentler on my French reading disposition. While in a convenience store at Charles de Gaulle on the way back from France, I realized that the airport would be the best spot to find exactly what I was looking for: super easy and formulaic chick lit whose thread I could not possibly lose even in a foreign language. Continue reading
I’ve heard a lot of superlatives about Paris – that it’s the most romantic city in the world, the most beautiful, the city of light. But I think its most-fitting top billing is tastiest.
Why? Because I got a contact high every time I passed a bakery. Because the freshly made mayonnaise at a hole-in-the-wall cafe was so far beyond what’s eaten in America that the two deserve different names. Because a 3:00am omelette at a randomly selected bistro was the best I’ve ever had. Because my first bite of entrecôte with bearnaise sauce propelled me to break my 3-day French-only streak with an awestruck, “Are you fucking kidding me?” directed at no one in particular, since I was alone.
And that’s only Paris. In Alsace, they took meat and potatoes to a whole new expletive-inducing level. In fact, except for one unfortunate breakfast, everything I ate in France was better than 90% of what I’ve eaten in America.
Granted, I am one for hyperbole. But even if you take me with a grain of salt (which, incidentally, was also more delicious in France), there’s no denying that the French have a very special way with food.
So without further ado, here’s everything I ate in France:
First row: (Alsacienne) baeckeoffe; smoked duck and goat cheese salad; camembert with pine nuts and honey; best-tasting omelette and fries; charcuterie and cheese plate. Second row: confit de canard; choucroute garnie – note the thing that looks like a layer cake but is actually the fattiest, most delicious chunk of ham ever sliced; the (weak link) omelette; smoked salmon; steak with potatoes and pesto. Third row: gluten-free croque monsieur made by philippe; coquilles st. jacques; picnic lunch bought at the only open store in a tiny alsacienne village; steak and vegetables; pot au feu (after the soup was consumed). Fourth row: smoked salmon and goat cheese salad; breakfast of cheese and jam and nutella; potatoes and lardons and extra fat; entrecôte with bearnaise sauce; chef salad. Fifth row: Homemade jams; adorable baby radishes; three glutinous things that, full disclosure, I watched my dining partners eat but did not actually eat in France (two tarte flambees and a croque monsieur).
And that brings us to… DESSERT!!!
First row: creme brulee; gluten-free canelé and madeleines from Helmut Newcake; pavlova; delightfully decorated ice cream; Laduree macarons; a chocolate-covered meringue on top of mocha-flavored buttercream – I think this type of pastry might be called a merveilleux (and it certainly was); chocolate pot au creme, caramel pot au creme, pistachio creme brulee and caramel creme brulee (aka best breakfast ever); cherry, straciatella and chestnut ice cream; rose-flavored sorbet and coffee ice cream, because we couldn’t find rose-flavored ice cream anywhere; a gluten-free madeleine; creme caramel; some sort of ice cream cake; gluten-free chocolate cake and gluten-free chocolate cookies, made by Philippe; chocolate mousse; a gluten-free religieuse from Helmut Newcake; and gluten-free tarte tatin, also made by Philippe.
The only thing on my wish-list that I didn’t end up eating and really wish I had is raclette. It sounds like God’s gift to cheese and potato lovers, but the specialty restaurant we tried to go to in Paris was all booked up and we ran out of time to find an alternative. I guess this gives me a reason to go back…
The rule I had set for myself in France was to spend no more than one cumulative hour speaking or being spoken to in English during the first eight days before my English-speaking friend arrived for the final weekend. I ended up playing a little fast and loose with that rule but on the balance I would say I spent 90% of my time living and breathing French.
It was the first time since I learned to talk that I relied upon a language other than English for longer than a few hours. I hadn’t anticipated how emotional it would be. In fact, it felt sort of like going through the seven stages of grief, sped up:
Shock: On the first day my sleep-deprived mind went blank and I was basically mute.
Denial: On the second day I literally stamped my feet and had a temper tantrum (though at least it was in French!).
Bargaining: On the third day I tried to convince Philippe to speak to me in English, even if I wasn’t allowed to speak it myself. Thankfully he resisted my whining.
Guilt: On the fourth day I started missing my three year-old niece and by the fifth day it had gotten so bad that I had no choice but to Skype with her, which of course I had to do in English.
Anger: On the sixth day I used my French to mock the French language and all of its busted rules. Why on earth would a civilized people so unnecessarily complicate things by assigning genders to objects? WHY??? And why would anyone with any mathematical logic whatsoever call the number “98” four-twenty-ten-eight instead of ninety-eight?
Depression: On the seventh day I had to think through something important in English. I found myself braindead and unable to recall the simplest words. I felt like I had somehow lost my native language in the space of a week, yet come nowhere close to gaining a new one.
Acceptance / Hope: On the eighth day I scrolled through my list of all the new words I had learned (more than 200!) and realized that for the first time in the year since I revived my French practice, I could actually feel the progress. When you’re learning incrementally, inconsistently, and non-contextually, progress is only visible from a distance of months or even years. But with just one week of immersion, I noticeably reduced the amount of translation I did in my head, I started talking more quickly, and I felt more capable of conveying complex and abstract thoughts. I began to notice that French people could understand me (albeit with difficulty) and I could understand them (when their speaking speed didn’t panic me). Crazy! Miraculous! Proficiency no longer felt like an impossible dream, and it seemed likely that if I just keep at this, I will one day be a true French speaker.
So I think I got over some sort of hump in France. Not the final hump (fluency) or even the close-to-final hump (proficiency), but a hump nevertheless. It’s the same sort of hump I had to get over to learn clarinet, video editing, and driving a car. The one I never think I am anywhere near to cresting until the moment after I get to the other side, as if by magic. Looking back, it feels like everything has changed overnight and I finally have an innate understanding – if not yet a mastery – of the thing that felt so foreign and frustrating to me the day before.
I’ve heard this moment referred to as the “epiphany point,” which seems fitting for such a momentous occasion… one that took 22 years from my first French class to get to! I can only hope getting over the next hump doesn’t take quite so long.
(photo: Adam Foster)
Je suis arrivée à Paris le vendredi matin. Cette nuit-là je suis allée pour voir Stars. Je me sentais un peu bizarre, un peu fière et un peu choqué d’avoir effectivement fait mon plan fou.
Le lendemain, je me suis réveillée dans cet hôtel avec un design d’intérieur… distinctif…
…et une vue typiquement parisienne:
Je me suis promenée et j’ai vu des signes de Charlie partout.
J’ai mangé trois repas et deux desserts (au moins) chaque jour. (Je vais le prouver dans un prochain post…)
J’ai rencontré Philippe le mystérieux, avec qui j’avais eu les conversations du Skype pendant six mois pour apprendre le français (et pour lui d’apprendre l’anglais).
Nous sommes allés en Alsace et mangé encore plus. Choucroute garnie!!!!
Strasbourg.
Colmar.
Miniscule adorable village dont j’ai oublié le nom.
Pique-nique de voiture à miniscule adorable village. (Pas montré: ma faux baguette sans gluten.) J’heart Alsace.
Je n’ai parlé que le français pendant huit jours. Encore: JE N’AI PARLE QUE LE FRANCAIS PENDANT HUIT JOURS.
Je suis retournée à Paris et mon amie de Londres m’a rencontré pour le week-end. J’ai arreté avec ma règle de parler seulement en français et je suis revenue à l’anglais, mais encore et encore je parlais à elle en français par accident. C’était génial!
Nous sommes restées dans Le Marais dans une AirBnB appartement avec une vue parfaite.
Nous sommes allées à un restaurant où un serveur ressemblait exactement à Daniel Craig et un autre ressemblait exactement à Javier Bardem. Nous avons pensé que nous pourrions être dans Skyfall… jusqu’à ce que s’est passé, et nous avons réalisé que nous étions dans tout autre chose.
Nous nous sommes promenées, nous avons mangé encore plus.
Et il y avait une espace où nous avons mangé de brunch que j’aimais beaucoup: Le Comptoir General près de Canal St. Martin.
Nous sommes allées à l’Orangerie pour voir les Monets et au d’Orsay pour voir les Van Goghs.
Nous avons fait des achats aux soldes célèbres de janvier (et en fin, ce n’était que les alimentaires que nous avons acheté, pas la mode).
Le dimanche soir, mon amie a pris l’Eurostar pour retourner à Londres, et j’ai pris un avion à New York, où il a neigé un pied le lendemain.
Et cela, c’est ce que j’ai fait pendant mes vacances d’hiver. La fin. (Je me donne un A +.)
Because long after your return, you are filled with an awe-inspiring sense that the world is your oyster and ripe for the picking.
Got back from France last Sunday, with lots of stories to tell pictures of food to share. (More on that soon.) Walking around sunny, snow-covered Brooklyn today, nothing in my immediate frame of reference was different than usual. Yet I was overcome with a giddiness I haven’t felt since eighth grade when I started reading non-fiction and realized the entire universe was at my disposal through books.
Once it’s been cracked open a bit, even when life goes back to normal there’s a magic to it. I’m seeing possibility everywhere, and it’s totally intoxicating. I love this feeling – let’s see how long I can make it last!
Ridiculously, I’ve had these lines repeating in my head since I booked my ticket to Paris:
That is all.
Last night I got a taste of how dumb it was to sign up for a Spring 2015 Spanish class on the heels of exclusively and intensely practicing French for a year. My Israeli cousin was in town with her four and a half year-old daughter. Even though I hadn’t spoken Hebrew in about a decade, I assumed it couldn’t be that hard to make conversation with a small child. I assumed wrong. Her vocabulary was way (way) bigger than mine, and every word that came out of my mouth was delayed by the process of first thinking it in French, then translating it back to English, then searching my brain like a Rolodex for the same word in Hebrew. And inexplicably, every time I wanted to say kayn (yes), si popped out instead.
Meanwhile, my cousin, who never spent more than a couple weeks at a time in an English-speaking country, is perfectly fluent in my mother tongue, because Israelis start learning English in second grade. When my brother, sister and I were little and used to visit our also-little cousins, we always returned to the States babbling in Hebrew. It was an equal playing field then – both sets of cousins picking up words from the other via immersion, both equally reliant on making ourselves understood through miming and the international language of child’s play. That kind of language acquisition is sometimes fun but more often frustrating, and I distinctly remember breathing a sigh of relief when the last of my cousins started second grade and the American kids could shift the weight of responsibility squarely onto the Israeli ones. From then on, English became the lingua franca between us. It wasn’t until many years later that I realized the unfortunate consequences of that youthful decision to throw in the towel. Namely, I’m limited in how close I can get with one full side of my family. And I feel like a child when everyone gets together and wants to speak Hebrew but begrudgingly defaults to English so I can follow along.
Everyone has their own method of self-motivation. For better or worse, shame and embarrassment is mine. Ranking lower than a kindergartner on the comprehensibility scale had me wondering whether it was not too late to somehow crowbar a year in an ulpan into my language learning plans.
But realistically, there’s only so much time for these things. And I’ve prioritized French and Spanish because the one is the foreign language I know best and the other is the foreign language that is most useful. Hebrew will have to wait. And after all, soon enough all my cousins’ kids will get to second grade…
[Photo: Richard Cawood]
It was our intern Kieu Anh’s last day at work today so we took her out to lunch, and she surprised us with parting gifts. (Isn’t that lovely? So unnecessary but so appreciated.) Throughout her internship I have repeatedly subjected Kieu Anh to impromptu French conversations, since I know she studied abroad in the south of France. She, in turn, knows I’m heading to Paris in a few weeks with the intention of spending 85% of my time eating, and she very thoughtfully gave me the perfect gift: “Edible French: Tasty Expressions and Cultural Bites.” It’s a colorful guide to French food-related idioms as well as a recipe book, and it’s beautifully illustrated with watercolors.
I actually mentioned wanting to read this very book a few weeks ago, but Kieu Anh had no idea since she didn’t even know about my blog til today. She’s just got a gift for good gifting!
Now I know what I’ll be reading on the plane… Thank you, Kieu Anh!
Pop quiz: What does it mean to say someone has “un coeur d’artichaut” (the heart of an artichoke)?
This is a map of my AirBnB Paris apartment “wishlist” – 32 places, and counting. I need a little help…
Advice welcome!
One (or, let’s face it, two) desserts per day:
Glacé fleur – the most delicious confection in the world. Here’s a handy guide to the best ice cream in Paris.
Creme caramel
Creme brûlée
Macarons
Chocolat pot au creme
Mousse au chocolat
Mousse aux noisettes
Flourless chocolate cake
Some sort of soufflé
Something from Chambelland and something from Helmut Newhouse, gluten-free bakeries
In addition my never-tasted but nevertheless-beloved choucroute garnie, I plan to dine on:
Raclette
Baekeoffe
Boeuf bourguignon
Brie and Camembert and Roquefort
Coquilles Saint-Jacques
Galettes
Oeufs en meurette
Coq au vin
Pot-au-feu
Confit de canard
Tartiflette
A French omelette (and by that I mean an omelette made in France)
Steak frites
Ratatouille
Brandade
Bouillabaisse
And last but not least, copious quantities du beurre, in any form or fashion.
I will accompany every single meal with a glass of Sancerre.
It’ll be hard work, but I’m up for the challenge.
talk foreign to me 