Happy Bastille Day

Posted: July 14, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , | Leave a comment

 

 

July 14th is officially known at the French National Day in France, but outside of France it is called Bastille Day.  As in all things French it is more complicated than our July 4th.  Here in America we celebrate the day of our independence from Brittan.  In France their national day celebrates the creation of the modern nation that came out of the French revolution.   Of course it took the French over 100 years after the storming of the Bastille to declare July 14th to be a national holiday.  I guess it is much easier to celebrate a holiday of freedom from another nation than it is to do so about freedom from your own countrymen.

 

Like all national summer holidays the day is about being outside and eating with your friends and family and let’s face it, having a paid holiday from work, something the French have perfected.  When I was nineteen I spent one perfect Bastille Day in Nantes with the French family I lived with.  I imagine I had a fresh summer fruit salad with succulent peaches and tart red raspberries.  This was followed by a crusty baguette spread with a healthy douse of ripe Brie cheese.  A platter of summer vegetables, both raw and grilled was passed with just a bit of young green olive oil and sea salt and cracked black pepper.  Terrines of pate and smoked chicken studded with pistachios and caper berries followed requiring more bread.  We finished up the picnic with a celebration gateau with strawberries and blueberries between the layers of white cake and fluffy whipped cream to represent the tricolor flag of the republic.  Of course wine and Champagne were served throughout the day and since I was nineteen I was still drinking then.

 

I am thankful that I do not have to celebrate here today because just the mere thought of all that fattening French food is dimpling my thighs as I write.  I know the French are better at portion control and stretching out their courses for hours means they really end up eating a judicious amount, but that was never something I adopted living there.

 

If you feel like having an excuse to raise a glass to the French, today’s the day.  They did help us gain independence from the Brits so perhaps they deserve a little recognition.  Since you have run out of time to make your own pate consider making some crepes with strawberries, blueberries and whipped cream.  They are not that decadent and you will have the French flag colors represented.  I feel like I have done my duty by just alerting you that today is Bastille Day.  I’ll have arugula and grilled chicken and pretend I still drink wine.

Post-Traumatic Cooking Disorder

Posted: December 10, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Diet- comedy | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

I know the Psychiatric community is all over PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but I think I have stumbled upon a more positive disorder I call Post Traumatic Cooking Disorder.  I have self-diagnosed this after years of flash backs about food and cooking.

 

Today while I was buying a head of cauliflower I had a vivid memory of the summer of 1980 I spent living in Nantes, France.  No Nazi’s were involved is my disorder, but I did spend a lot of time that summer walking past bombed out buildings that had sat half demolished for forty years on my way to and from school.

 

I was living in Nantes with a French family.   Marionique and Patrice were the parents of two little boys ages five and three.  Why they wanted a college girl to live with them I will never know.  I don’t remember much about them, probably because my French was so bad that I had a headache all the time from concentrating on trying to understand them.  I certainly know they hardly ever understood me.

 

My cauliflower flashback was from my first weekend with them.  I arrived in Nantes after spending a week in Paris with a group of 12 other American students I was going to school with.  We arrived in Nantes by train and were all met at the station by our new families.  Marionque picked me up and after many false starts at conversation I finally understood her to say, ‘I think we are going to have trouble.”

 

We arrived at her tiny house and after she showed me to my room she told me we were going to get back in the car and go to their summer place on the coast.  I was a little apprehensive because I was going to miss the fun my friends and I had planned for the weekend in Nantes and I was beginning to realize that my personality was dependant on being able to communicate humor, which I could not do in a language I hardly spoke.

 

I was right to be fearful because the “summer place” was the French equivalent of an airstream parked on a perch overlooking a violent Atlantic ocean.  The only thing I remember Marionque teaching me all summer was how to make a steamed head of cauliflower with ham slices and cheese sauce on top, but it was well worth it.

 

Once we arrived at their retreat Marionque and I walked into the little village to buy food.  She asked me to go to the meat counter and order “quatre tranches du jambon,” which I came to learn was four slices of ham.  I was certainly not used to ordering meat by the slice, but I have never forgotten that “tranche” means slice in French and I have never used it again in my life.  No wonder the French are thin when they order meat by the slice rather than by the pound.

 

We walked home with our basket of just enough food for dinner for five people, one cauliflower, four slices of ham, a small hunk of Gruyere like cheese and a small bottle of milk.  Marionque steamed the cauliflower until it was just tender and then draped the thin slices of ham over the top and poured the Mornay sauce she had prepared with the milk and cheese over the top.  I carefully watched her prepare it, helping where I could.

 

It was probably the most silent meal I had ever eaten but so delicious.  I was incredibly lonely being in the middle of nowhere with a strange family unable to communicate, but the food was so delicious and simple.  Now whenever I see a whole head of cauliflower I have a little tug-of-war internally from remembering my feeling of isolation and the divine taste of dinner at the same time.  I’m sure it is already a real disorder, but for now I will just all it PTCD, short for Post-Traumatic Cooking Disorder.