"Paris en Rose"

An average daily allowance of métro, boulot, dodo isn't exactly a recipe for staying in love with Paris. Sure, you could manage a peek of the Eiffel Tower on your way to work on Line 6 every morning, but you're probably too busy finding a way to stand or sit, which doesn't involve unnecessary body contact with all the faune in the wagon, to be bothered by a web of steel. 

So what happened to the Paris you fell head over black stilettos for? The city where you had your first bite of chestnut puree and shopped for your first pair of knee-high boots. Did the magic one day die? Or can you still feel it sometimes, through other people's eyes? 

Juliette Binoche as Hannah. [Online image] 1995.

"La Campagnarde du Dimanche"

One in every eight Frenchwomen (and men) has a secondary residence*. So if you live in the Hexagone for a while, chances are that you'll be asked spend a weekend at one of these tucked-away homes in France's picturesque provinces. And whether you're invited out into the country, up to the mountains, or alongside the sea (some lucky families have all three, of course), you'll probably be expected to join your Parisian hosts in a game of let's-pretend-we're-locals. Sometimes this means sticking your stockinged feet into a pair of weather-beaten galoshes--only to see the real natives wearing their Sunday best. Or riding a rickety bicycle to the nearest open market--trying to ignore all the 75s on the license plates passing you by. Whatever the fly in the ointment, you'll probably be having too much fun playing make-believe to mind.

*Paris Insider's Guide 2004, p. 65.
Kirsten Dunst as Marie-Antoinette. [Online image] 1996.

Presidential Race

My husband and I each subscribe to a weekly magazine: he to Marianne, which is politically aggressive for French standards, and I to Time. When I saw this week's editions side-by-side on our coffee table, a picture of Obama on the French magazine cover caught my eye. Below it was a foreboding question that has been omnipresent in the French media since the summer: "Will he lose because he's black?" As though in reply, Time boasted its own passport-sized snapshot of Obama with the headline: "Race is not the key to the U.S. election." I'm sure most French people would think that this was just hypocritical American political correctness talking. Call it what you like. (Personally, I prefer "rosy naïveté.") But, for once, Americans are analyzing a current event with greater nuance than the French. And I must say, it feels good to have something to be proud of again (and, no, I don't mean lipstick and Naughty Monkeys).

Katherine Houghton as Joey Drayton. [Online image] 1967.

Paris Comfort

Before I moved to France five years ago, I went through my mom's recipe clippings. I needed to write them all down: spaghetti casserole (which I haven't eaten since 1985), butterscotch pudding, pumpkin bread. . . What was I going to do if I needed to make chocolate chip cookies one night? I couldn't just get some random recipe off the internet. I needed hers.  The one I grew up with. And her recipe for playdough couldn't hurt either. (You never know when a play date might show up at your Paris apartment.) And today, as I whip up a batch of my mom's Egyptian rice with vermicelli and hear the bits of pasta sizzling at the bottom of the pot and smell the richness of the butter (or margarine) even once I pour cups of water on top, I know why all those recipes were so important to me: because somehow they take me home again. And all the madeleines and linden tea in France can't hold a candle to that.

Cher as Loretta Castorini. [Online image] 1987.