Hidden In France

The Francophile, the Francophobe and the Critic

Why should there even be such a thing as a Francophile?  Is to be assumed that when you’re not a Francophile you automatically at risk of being a Francophobe?

Non-fiction books about the French culture, those that put the French on a pedestal those who shoot them down are everywhere.  Peter Mayle started it.  Because a little controversy doesn't hurt some of the most popular books on French culture; French Women Don't Get Fat, Lunch in Paris, Bringing up Bébé, Sixty Million French Men Can't be Wrong sell like petits pains.

When you live in the United States long enough, as I have, people forget that you have not always been one of them. So I get quite the earful of mystifying French bashing, especially coming from people who’ve never set a foot in France and don’t intend to.  Once they learn I'm French, or hear my accent, the reaction is often, "You're not like them.'  Sometimes I'm the only French person they’ve ever met and I just don’t fit the description. I’m friendly. I’m not rude. I don’t act all superior and intellectual. I don’t wear a beret. I don’t speak like Maurice Chevalier. I don’t have bad teeth (okay i do, damn molars ...but shut). I take showers on a fairly regular basis. They’re delighted to know me, and relieved that there is at least one nice French woman out there.

For the most part I'm stoic and resigned about this. I try to educate people about France and the French, about Paris and I spend a whole lot of time explaining that all French people are not ambulatory clichés. I do criticize the French of course, but for the same reason I get to criticize the Jews: by being one.

Gone (for now) is the time of 'Freedom Fries', and of 'Boycott France' bumper stickers proudly displayed by ‘real Americans’. When the French government did not support the US in invading Iraq it became very much acceptable, at least temporarily, to openly unleash ones hatred of the French.  Hating the French is like hating the Jews. People don’t know what or why they hate, they just do. I continue to make the analogy, however unsavory,  because prejudice is a subtle and catchy thing. Of course it doesn't compare. The French have not (yet) been exterminated for their Frenchness. But I'm making the point that ignorance and prejudice, when combined with just the right amount of government sponsored propaganda against any culture and it’s open season.

It's Bullying 101, if you ask me.

A nonfiction book recently came out, which I have not read yet. The title is “Paris I Love You but You’re Bringing me Down.” By Rosecrans Baldwin. I’m understanding this is one couple’s experience with living in Paris for 18 months.  I’m not going to make a comment about a book I am yet to read. But I will make a comment about a review of that book I did read today on the New York Times, that made my jaw drop a few floors. This review was written by a book reviewer named Susannah Meadows.  Here I will quote an exerpt from the New york Times’ Arts section of Thursday May 31^st, 2012. You can read the entire review here.…  She writes “Mr Baldwin also gives the pompous city he adores the ribbing it deserves. “Every Parisian man wore a scarf,” he observes. Some even wore coats.”…

Aside the fact that the single quote chosen reveals precisely nothing about the book or the French, (What? Men in France wear scarves? … and coats? You mean just like every man in the world where the temperature might drop below 50? ) I was struck by the choice of adjectives. Paris a what city?  Pompous? Of all the adjectives you could use to describe Paris, this is the one she decided fitted best? Did the reviewer think no one would read her review? (Perhaps no one ever has in the past.) When did she decide that Paris was a pompous city? Is it really what the author of the book tried to express, or is this the reviewer personal opinion of Paris? And why would Paris deserve a ribbing?

I was curious and dug a bit to find that the reviewer had lived in France and also reviewed “bringing up bébé” and made copious disparaging remarks against Parisians there as well. 

It freaks me out just a little that in the eyes of some people, France, Paris, French people will never do anything right. I'm fine with the concept that everyone is entitled to their own prejudice. My problem is that in the U.S. it's culturally acceptable to make negative blanket statements against the French and France. Why? What other segment of population, what other country triggers and receives such unchecked, negative generalizations? How many cities and countries 'deserve ribbing'? There are none that come to mind, and that includes countries against which we’re actively at war. No decent Americans would delight, all in good humor, in casually dissing Africans, Asians, Armenians, or Italians, or the Swede, or the Dutch, or the Japanese. Not in polite conversation.  It would feel and be seen as morally reprehensible to express casual hatred of a population as a whole. But somehow, it is perfectly all right to express hatred and dislike of the French in books, conversations, articles, and in book reviews. It’s a fun sport. The French are bizarre, they are offensive. Their molars are a mess. We don’t understand them so don’t like them. Of course the peculiar fascination oscillates between both extremes. The French also get put on ridiculously undeserved pedestal as has been done lately in many non fiction books. French Women Don't Get Fat? Oh yes they do! Just look at my butt.

I know... I'm making way too much of a short review. I'm too reactive. (Too French?) But think about it, when this sort of thing happens over and over again, to your own people, and your ears are constantly ringing with ignorant, denigrating remarks big and small, you grow a bit weary.

When we travel to any other countries we expect to be surprised, we absorb the customs with eager curiosity and an open mind. We delight, in fact, in the differences. Why not apply this to France?  I would reassess the French bashing. It reveals much more about the person who indulges in it than it reveals about the country it bashes.

I’m grumpy when I have to defend my country of birth. It’s just a country, with lots of different people in it, snooty ones, simple ones, generous ones, ignorant ones, the full spectrum of humanity, just like here. The only difference is that they all wear berets. 

 (all pictures of that pompous city of mine are by me.)

Flower paintings by Lulie Wallace

When I work on my novel for hours it begins to feel as though it is more real than real life. As though all that's around me feels like a fiction. That gets kinda weird. (schizophrenic weird?) I was in the rain, in Paris, and came to realizing I was in fact in Southern California and that the strange noise I was hearing was a humming bird dive-bombing next to my window. This is by the way an ugly-ass sentence, sure sign that I need a break.

When I need to come up for air I spend a few minutes in the world of blogs (also not real, I should be reminded.)

Via this amazing blog (can't ever pronounce it, can't spell it)  I just discovered the art of Lulie Wallace, the artist who did the cover of this month's House of Fifty.  I thought I should take a few minutes to share all this beauty and energy:

 

 

Oh Gaaad it's so beautiful!  I have a weakness for flower paintings and these are just a small miracle. I want them ALL! 

April in Paris.

Once in Paris, I braved the unkind elements and never stopped for a minute.  I took tons of pictures, walked perhaps 6 hours a day, only stopping at every other boulangerie for chouquettes, and to do research at various museums and libraries for the historical parts of my novel. 

Beside being wet and cold, my main peeve with my time in Paris was to continuously look for bathrooms. It's an OCD thing. If I begin to think I might need to go it turns obsessional.

The only places to go to the bathroom in Paris are the cafes. But when you go the bathroom in a cafe you end up drinking something, and an hour later you have to repeat the process: obsess. pee. drink. repeat.

That first day I stopped to pee at Parisian cafes so many times I believe in hindsight that I was doing the human equivalent of marking my territory.

The following days I bypassed the problem entirely by avoiding tea and only drinking espresso (less liquids.) So I pretty much spent a week running on espresso and chouquettes. I had tons on manic energy, it was great!

I believe I decoded the whole French Women Don't Get Fat thing.  It's really a simple alchemy: walk 6 hours a day+ freeze your butt off + drink espresso + eat chouquettes + pee = look fit and skinny and show fangs like a true Parisienne. 

* about those pictures:  The rain does have its advantages. No harsh lights and contrasts, and no tourists.

These pictures were taken around my beloved Eiffel Tower.  This was Day Two. I started at Métro Passy. Bought chouquettes (twice) in my old neighborhood. Then I walked toward Trocadéro and down to the gardens that surrounds the Eiffel Tower. The marroniers were in full bloom, it felt like such a gift to be in Paris at the peak of blooming season for wisteria, clematis AND Horse Chestunut trees. When I got to the tower, it was grey and pouring rain, and then, suddenly, as though she was recognizing me and brightening at the sight of me, her old friend, the clouds parted, blue sky peaked through and the sun shone brightly (though not for long).

I was so thankful and happy to be there. So happy to be taking my time. I walked all around the Eiffel tower at my pace. No husband eager to run to the next thing.  No kid tired of walking. I was in heaven.

How not to dress in Paris

A sure sign that you've lost your blogging mojo is when you can't even remember your blog's access password. 

So I went to Paris and it was fabulous. But before I show you all my pretty pictures, I thought I would share with you the most important bit I learned on my trip. And that is: how not to dress for Paris.

The French ‘météo’ said the week would be warm and cold, rainy and sunny.  I’m a terrible packer to begin with but this was no help at all. I was clever to bring a hip trench coat, fitted and belted, bought for the occasion at the Gap (a wild fashion move for me.  When you’re used to target brand clothing, gap clothing makes you feel senselessly extravagant.)

Remember that line they say constantly in Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris: ‘Paris is so much more beautiful in the rain’ ? Well I can’t say if it is more beautiful.  But I can guarantee that it’s a great deal wetter. Over the course of 20 years in Southern California I must have acquired a romanticized vision of rain. I thought, no sweat. I can handle rain and a temperature in the 50s. I am a born Parisian after all.

Wrong! I cannot! Not with that kind of rain, and not with that kind of wind.

Within an hour of Day 1, my boots were drenched, my socks were wet, and I found out that my too long wide-legged jeans made for a terrific sponge. The fabric being stretchy (for comfort) my pants became heavier and heavier as I walked, and as it absorbed more gutter water. At the point of saturation they began an irrepressible downward motion. Soon it felt like my undies were being pull down with it something awful. So for the rest of the day, as I walked through Paris, I had to constantly pull my jeans up.  Not easy to do when you’re wearing a raincoat that’s tied at the waist. Well, easy enough but definitely not the French Chic I was going for. I was cold. I looked like a chien mouillé. I was miserable.

By day two, I was prepared. The jeans were painfully constricted into the boots, and I had layered every sweater I had brought under the tight- fitted raincoat. The choice being to be ridiculously sausaged or frozen solid, I chose what they call in France the ‘saucisse’ look.

Because they don’t make windshield wipers for eyeglasses, ( had forgotten all about glasses and rain!)  I bought a cheap umbrella at Monoprix. It was too cheap. It did not even last the week, what with being overturned by a new violent gust of wind every minute or so. My hair, which is used to the zero percent humidity of Southern California regressed to its primordial kink.

And here you have it; my attempt at looking dignified and fashionable in Paris, the wishful before and the unfortunately after.

Things got better, much better from there (though the weather continued to suck) and I'll post images in the next few days. If I can remember my password next time.

Launching my French Cookbook (part deux)

This has been quite the week-end let me tell yah.

I was launching my French cookbook. (This is a cookbook on French cooking I wrote and photographed to accompany my novel Hidden in Paris.) I wanted to launch the cookbook before I leave for Paris on Friday. Get it out of the way so I could move on to the next scary thing.

So, with cold sweat drenching my neck, I finally hit the ‘publish!’ button (once the book is on Amazon, you can’t really un-launch it) determined to spend every minute of the week-end promoting the book.

And then Pow! Murphy’s law being what it is, we get visitors for the week end, thus shifting my focus away from promoting the book to shopping, cooking, eating, cleaning and family drama.

So bla bla bla here it is: tadah! The Hidden in Paris cookbook.

But the funny thing is, the book didn’t seem to need me. I kept excusing myself and rushing to the computer to stare, astonished, as the numbers grew. This is 3 days later and the book has been downloaded over 4000 times! Now of course it was a free promo, but still, that’s a whole lot of kindles with my cookbook in ‘em :))

Now the free period has ended and the book is priced at 99 cents (at least for now).  As I type this my French cookbook is #2 in French cookbooks after Julia Child’s 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking', that behemoth of cookbook. It will not stay at this level for long, so I took a screen shot.  It’s the cookbook author’s equivalent to the teenage girl getting her photo taken standing next to Justin Bieber. 

 

Julia!!!! I love you!

What helped the book, I think, were two reviews that floored me by mysterious ladies who have written hundreds of cookbook reviews. 

I looked at all their reviews and gulped. Those ladies pass every new cookbook through the grinder, and let me tell you, they are merciless.

Let it be reminded here that I know very little about cookbook writing.  I improvised one on a whim, thought it would be great fun and easy.  Was terribly wrong on both counts. I worked very hard on my little French cookbook, and tried my hardest to make it as perfect as I knew how, yet If I had anticipated that such reviewers existed I would never have dared publish a cookbook and put myself on equal footing with real chefs. This is a case study in ‘ignorance is bliss.’

And yet I got very lucky:  One reviewer called the cookbook ‘lovely’ and the other ‘gorgeous and yummy.’ You can readt he reviews here. They gave it respectively four and five stars!... but mostly their expertise gave my cookbooks much needed street cred. Thank you ladies! 

Now the book has been launched. The relatives have left.  My solo trip to Paris is upon me. Last night I dreamed that I stood on a bridge.  In the shallow water below where dozens of whales, big and small. And suddenly the whales started making huge, wet, flips out of the water and jumping over the bridge I was on. I had to duck as the massive beasts passed inches above my head.

Sigmund? Are you there Sigmund?

 

Hidden in Paris, the cookbook (part un)

Okay, so... Food.  I realize most of you who read this blog do not come here for food, food talk or food pictures.  So many blogs do food exclusively, and so much better than I would.

And yet, somehow, Paris, France, food, decor, girly things, novels.... those all seem to go together so well. 

My raspberry tartlets recipe, included in the Hidden in Paris cookbook

In my novel Hidden in Paris (for those of you who don't know, Hidden in Paris is my first novel, which I self- published just one year ago) my main character, Annie, uses food as a way to fill all kinds of holes in her soul. This is the way through which she experiences purpose. This is the way through which she integrates into French culture (she's American), and the way she expresses her generosity of spirit even though she can't help but have things come out all wrong in her speech and her actions.  Food is how she cares, and love, and heals.

I would say, looking back on it, the novel being written, published, sold, read and reviewed and all that good stuff, that Annie's experience eerily mirrors my own. Goodness gracious just how much of me is in this character? And to think we writers believe ourself to be in control of what we write :)

I used to believe in not talking about things for fear of jinxing them.  Now I adhere to a different school of thought that suggests you should talk about what you want to do, say it out loud and obnoxiously to the entire world so that you become accountable for it.  

What you're doing is making a promise to the Universe. And you do not bullshit the Universe!

So when I said I was going to write the cookbook of Hidden in Paris, I did not really mean it.  But the instant I said it, it became the truth I had to live up to.

As most of my endeavors (and tell me if you can relate) the work involved is not nearly as challenging as the fear of rejection and failure.  I could work alone in my little world and be perfectly content, but there is some sort of dark (or light?) force that both pushes me to go forward and holds me back.  When I will hit that 'publish' button on the cookbook, I will have braved all manners of fears and doubts.

So this is it, I'm releasing the cookbook of Hidden in Paris, (now I'm saying it Universe!  Bring it on!) with most of the recipes in the novel, and photographs produced by yours truly. 

I can vouch for each recipe. They are super delicious. Mostly French comfort food but simplified.  The kind of recipes a French mom (me) prepares for her family on any given night.  Nothing pretentious, just simple, tried and true, fattening, buttery, wholesome French staples.

In the cookbook are my own cooking tips and personal philosophy about food, (which I can sum up to three words: 'me like food'.) There are also funny bits and comments, pictures I took in Paris and Normandy, as well as excerpts from the novel.

The only thing I omitted is the copious cursing involved in teaching myself food photography.  Or photography, period. I still have everything to learn and have little pretense.  Some images came out better than others, that's all.  For me the learning curve was like that roller coaster you don't think you'll come back out of alive. The final result is beyond what I used to be able to do, so in that sense, I feel like pounding on my chest gorilla-style.

I'm trying to make it so that most of you will be able to download the cookbook for free, at least for a limited amount of time.  I'll keep you posted. (should be later today or tomorrow.)

 

A trip to Paris, and amazement

How about this for willpower?  No post in over a month?

This has been an amazingly productive and creative period. 

- My cookbook is done and soon available for download (i will keep you posted and if you have not done so yet, go to the left hand column and sign up for your free copy)

- I've completed 60% of a non fiction book and 70% of my next novel. Amazing.

-I've mustered the courage (well, not courage, really. I have my friends Lenora and Robin to thank for my so called courage) to go to Paris.  Better yet, I'm, amazingly, going solo for the first time since I left France over 25 years ago (flying there and back when my father passed away does not count) .

This going to Paris thing is not a vacation.  I'm going to do important research for my book.  I mean, my next novel is set in Paris and here I am, unable to accurately describe the taste and consistency of a Religieuse au chocolat, a baba au rhum or a chouquette?

I don't want to lose all credibility with my readers. ha. 

I also want to point out that I am able to finance that trip thanks to the sales of my novel, Hidden in Paris. And that is the most amazing thing of all.