French customs, Lifestyle

The Book Seat & Other Nifty Inventions

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I love nifty things so was delighted when Thoughtful gave me The Book Seat for my birthday. And he was even more delighted to tell me it’s an Australian invention! Perfect for reading while I’m having breakfast or lunch by myself! I can also use it to hold up a cookbook.

And while we’re in the kitchen, I’ve discovered that no matter how much you pay for a toaster, you still don’t get perfect toast each time – and I am very fussy about my toast! So I always make sure that the toaster has a large “stop” button so that you can make it pop up immediately if you suspect it’s getting too brown. The other day, I suddenly saw smouldering and the next minute little flames were jumping up because I’d overlapped two pieces. Unfortunately my toaster isn’t quite wide enough to take two pieces of my homemade bread side by side. So these toast tongs often come in handy!

I just love this little guy. One of the things that used to disappear and reappear regularly were my glasses. I only wear them to watch TV when I’ve taken out my contacts so you’d wonder why I can’t put them back in the case each time. I guess it’s just my natural messiness. Having such a nifty little guy to look after them is perfect. Now I can always find them. The little guy comes in all sorts of colours and I bought them in La Chaise Longue in rue Croix des Petits Champs.

Now study the spout on this teapot made by Spode in England that I inherited from my mother. It doesn’t drip. Unfortunately it only makes one cuppa and I’m definitely a multi-cuppa tea drinker.

Now take a look at this one from Gien in France.  You can see that the spout doesn’t have a sharp edge and it’s tilted in a different way. My experience with French teapots is that they all drip. I don’t understand why they don’t just copy the spouts on English teapots! One day, I decided I was going to solve the problem so looked up the Internet and found several drip stoppers, but none of them matched my teapot and certainly not the red Ladybug Tea Drip Catcher or the one that looks like a slice of orange with a hole in the middle.

But I was convinced that something suitable must exist somewhere so last Christmas when we went shopping in Rouen, I went into every likely shop. The shop assistants looked at me blankly. Then finally, a woman said, “They’re over here” and there they were, admittedly not the most attractive thing around, but still discreet enough (well, I’ll let you judge for yourself) to make my teapot usable again. We went back this Christmas to get some more and, would you believe it, we couldn’t find the shop again!

If you want to know more about why teapots drip, you can read all about it here.

So what are your favourite nifty inventions?

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France, French customs

No Laundry Rooms in Paris Apartments

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Me on my moped in 1975

One of the first things I discovered when I arrived in France was the very different attitude towards washing clothes. I rented a room in an apartment in Pau, in the south-west of France, with two other students and we shared a bathroom. The landlady lived in a separate part of the apartment and presumably had another bathroom. There was no washing machine and nowhere to hang clothes. So I set off to find a laundromat. There were plenty of laundries and dry cleaners, but it took me a long time to track down the only laundromat. I soon learned that the unmarried teachers at school took their washing home to their mothers every weekend. I had to use my moped to go to the laundromat and lost a favourite pair of trousers off the back one day! Yeah, I can hear you – why weren’t they in a bag?

When I finally had a place of my own in Paris, it actually had an airing cupboard, something I have rarely seen since. The concept of a laundry room as such, which exists in most places in Australia (well, the ones I’ve seen anyway), is unknown here where every square metre counts. Most people in apartments either use  contraptions above their bathtubs that you raise or lower or simply put collapsible clothes horses in their living room or bedroom. Bathrooms are rarely big enough to take them except for one that opens up on top of the bathtub and that you have to remove before your bath. One of my friends dries her clothes on the heated towel rack.

Whenever I go to Black Cat’s place, there is always someone’s washing on the clothes horse in the small area in front of one of the bedrooms and the bathroom that also contains the oven and microwave. Relationnel’s kids, who live in a separate flat down the road from us, hang theirs on a wall contraption in the kitchen ! There is absolutely nowhere else. Must have been a shock for our Australian exchange student  Brainy Pianist.

We actually have a room in our apartment where we can hang our washing out of sight, but only because I divided our large bedroom into two using very high bookshelves to create a dressing room. You have to be careful about ventilation though, because hanging wet washing near clothes containing wool in a heated room can cause havok. The mites had got to Relationnel’s suits before we discovered our error. Now we put them away in plastic covers after they’ve been dry cleaned and he uses a cupboard in another room (my office!) the rest of the time. I have a very high clothes horse that can take three loads of washing and has clever bits on the side that each take 4 shirts.

But that is not a standard installation. When we go to gîtes (holiday houses in the country), I’m always amazed at the laundry facilities (or lack thereof). These are houses in which you could presumably have some kind of system to dry your clothes effectively. Sometimes there are (dirty) outside lines always in your line of vision but never clothes hoists. But you can’t really use them between October and May and then only when you’re absolutely sure it’s not going to rain before you get back from your day’s excursion (provided you remember to put a load on as soon as you get up).

A tancarville*

They usually give you a collapsible clothes horse, often a bit rickety from over-use, but I haven’t worked out yet what sort of clothes you’re supposed to put on them apart from socks, underwear (but not singlets) and children’s T-shirts. You certainly can’t put adults’ shirts on them (and there is rarely a rod in the bathroom to hang them on) and they aren’t wide enough to take a T-shirt properly. If you do resign yourself to bunching it up, you then eliminate all the rungs underneath. Some of the clothes horses have wings so that you can hang up shirts but once they’re up, there’s no way you can get around them.

Then there is the problem of sheets and towels. My solution is to dry the towels in the drier and schedule the sheets so that I can fold the top sheet in half and hang it over the rod in the bathroom (it’s just wide enough) in the morning so it’s dry by evening and put the fitted sheet over the clothes’ horse. When I used to wash the kids’ sheets (and clothes) as well, the schedule was very tight! I was so relieved when they finished school and got their own washing machine (I didn’t feel I could ask high school children to look after their own washing).

And I haven’t told you about the washing machines yet …

* Tancarville is a trademark for a type of clothes horse that came out at the time the Tancarville suspension bridge was built. 
 
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Australian customs, Food, French customs, Lifestyle

An Aussie in France Makes History!

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I believe that I reached a turning point in my history as an Aussie in France today. The butcher gave me exactly what I wanted. An entrecôte, well hung (the best meat is always a dark red colour and not bright red which means it’s too fresh), 600 grammes. It weighed in at 595 grammes and he didn’t even ask where Relationnel was. I would have forgiven him for that, mind you, because after my first attempts to buy meat in Rue Montorgueil , I stopped going by myself and now just mostly tag along with Relationnel because he’s French and the butcher gives him what he asks for.

It’s not that I don’t speak French. But I have just enough accent for people to know I’m not a local. I didn’t have this problem when I lived in the suburbs of Paris. At the market in Nogent sur Marne, I was known as “l’Anglaise” and they liked me and treated me like a normal customer. But after I moved into the centre of Paris, I was suddenly taken for a foreigner. It was most disconcerting particularly since I even have dual citizenship now.

Sometimes people ask me what language I dream in. I’m not sure that I really dream in any language but I guess it depends on what the dream’s about.  I’m a translator by trade and when you’re working with two languages all day, you don’t necessarily know which one you’re speaking, let alone dreaming. I can remember once being asked by the French tax department to come and fix up my VAT (GST)  cheque which contained an error. I went in and looked at the cheque for a few minutes but still couldn’t see what the problem was. They pointed out that the amount was written half in English and half in French!

When I chose to leave Australia and live in France, I didn’t really know what I was going to. I only knew what I was leaving. I’ve never looked back and never been homesick. That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss my family. I do, especially now that I have four nephews in Australia. But I love living in France. One of the things I like best is that you have greater freedom to be yourself when you live in another country and speak another language. You’re not bound by the same traditions and restrictions. To start off with, you don’t necessarily know that you’re doing something different.

I don’t mean that I want to be outrageous. I just want to be able to act spontaneously without having to worry about what other people say. Once I was in Townsville in the summer and was wearing a fuschia-coloured dress that I bought in France. I was told that it was not a summer colour and that I shouldn’t wear it! I was told in France that I could only serve rice or potatoes with fish and that rice was never served with red meat, only with veal.  In a meeting or a class in France, you’re supposed to put your hand up when you want to talk. None of this spontaneous discussion that goes on in Australia. But I’ve noticed in staff meetings now that some of my French colleagues are following my example.

Another thing I like is that when there are differences, you ask yourself why. And that must surely help you gain a better understanding of people and life in general. It certainly makes you more tolerant and open-minded. Some traditions were developed for reasons that are still valid today, while others no longer make any sense. When you have the experience of two different cultures, you can choose the best of both worlds!

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French customs, Paris

Powerwalking in Winter Again

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I couldn’t believe it when I saw this guy. Here we have Brainy Pianist, experiencing his first winter in Paris, which hasn’t even been very cold this year – I even gave him some suitable Canadian headgear for Christmas to keep his ears warm when he takes the bus at 8 o’clock in the morning – and there we have this chap, in 5° and no shirt. But you’ll notice he does have a warm hat! Lots of people don’t like wearing them but they actually help to keep your entire body warm. Unfortunately I would have had to dash round very obviously in front of this guy to take a photo of his tattoos. Maybe they keep him warm too.

Here we have the shadowy Brainy Pianist, who wouldn’t want anyone to recognise him in that gear!

And here are the men in very masculine poses cleaning up my fountain in the Palais Royal Gardens. Now I have to tell you about the word “fountain”. I have this tendency to say “fontaine” in French but every time I say it, Relationnel corrects me. I’m supposed to say “jet d’eau” as in “jet of water”, because a “fontaine” is usually used for water spouting out of something like a fish’s mouth.

The birdman was out today in Tuileries Gardens. We used to have a very ancient bird lady in the Palais Royal but I haven’t seen her for a while. I personally wouldn’t like to have birds jumping on me leaving their souvenirs.

Today I power walked down the centre of the gardens because there weren’t so many people and, as a result, I got an excellent view of Yayoi Kusama’s Flowers that Bloom at Midnight, 2009. You must admit that it brightens up a winter’s day!

And, surprisingly, considering the temperature and the fact that it’s Monday, here’s the man who rents out the boats to the kids. He’s standing on the right because I think he saw me coming. He wasn’t having much success.

 

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Dieting, Lifestyle

How I lost 20 kilos after 50, for good – Part 1

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A pause from cycling May 2009

Now there is something important you need to know if you want to lose a lot of weight. The more weight you have put on, the more quickly you will continue to put it on. Where, in your slimmer days, you could eat overeat for a couple of days and nothing happened, once you are really overweight, you can be sure that the kilos will just pile on. The aim is to get back to the “point of equilibrium” at which little extras from time to time will make no difference and, if they do, you can quickly get back to your normal weight.

I knew I couldn’t just keep putting on weight indefinitely or I’d end up looking like a whale but I was repeatedly told that after 50, it was pointless even trying. I’d got used to having one or two glasses of wine at lunch time (Relationnel comes home every day) and two or three at night (remember, we’re wine buffs!) and lots of red meat, even though I’ve always been a big vegetable eater. Also, I work at home and a little snack is never far away. Even if I don’t stock up on snack foods, there is always something to eat even if it’s just a yoghurt or a piece of bread. When we went away for a long weekends, we would take foie gras with us to accompany our champagne every night then eat a whole côte de boeuf cooked on the open hearth between us with potatoes and crème fraîche and fresh chives.

Sydney July 2009

I was having more and more sleeping problems so I ended up going to see a sleep doctor. She gave me one those sleep analysis machines to take home because she suspected me of having sleep apnea. Well, I did. I was absolutely furious, particularly when I looked up the Internet and saw that there were three remedies – a noisy ventilating machine to make sure you don’t stop breathing (guaranteed to send your partner into another room), a very sexy apparatus to wear in your mouth (now that won’t keep your partner in the bed either) and losing a large amount of weight (more conducive to keeping your partner in the bed). I rang the doctor and told her, rather belligerently, I must admit, that I would rather die from sleep apnea than go on a machine. She told me to make another appointment.

The first thing I did when I arrived was to tell her I’d eliminated the sexy mouth thing as well. That only left the possibility of weight loss. Looking me very skeptically, she said I would need to lose 7 or 8 kilos and to come back when I’d lost 4. Summer was coming up, she said, and it’d be easier. Yeah, just when I was going off to Australia for five weeks. Definitely easier …

August 2009, my most embarrassing photo!

I went home and mulled it over. I found a sleep hypnonsis tape (well, an mp3) on the Internet and thought I’d give it a try since she hadn’t helped me with my sleep problems. After a few weeks, I went back on the website and saw they had a couple of weight loss ones as well. I listened to them for about 6 months just for relaxation, alternating with the sleep ones and without making any attempt to diet. Meanwhile I put on a couple more kilos in Australia just for good measure.

Finally, in November, I felt I was ready to attack the diet and went to see a nutritionist recommended by a friend. I came out in tears. She was this naturally skinny Asian lady who didn’t smile once the whole time I was there. I was supposed to cut out red meat forever (you gotta be joking), eat ham for breakfast (I hate ham) and take all sorts of expensive supplements. She threw up her hands in horror when I said I ate prunes for breakfast. I didn’t go back but decided to apply the diet anyway (except for the ham, the red meat and the supplements) and look for another nutritionist.

Although I can’t prove it of course, I am absolutely convinced that the hypnosis tapes played a very important role in my successful weight loss. I don’t know what was in them because I always fell asleep after about 10 minutes but they obviously worked on my psyche so that one day I was ready to change my eating habits. So check out the internet – there are plenty of tapes up there (I can’t find the site where I got mine and they were in French anyway) and I’ll tell you about my second nutritionist next week!

The Natural Skinnies and Us
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 2
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 3
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 4
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 5
How I lost 20 kilos after 50 – for good: Part 6
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Food, France

Tarte Tatin with Quinces

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Last Christmas (not the one that’s just been), Black Cat and Leonardo gave us a voucher for a cooking class at L’Atelier des Chefs in Paris where we learnt to make foie gras a few years ago. We kept putting it off until it was nearly too late (the deadline was 31st December) but finally chose a class and booked it, only to be told two days beforehand that it was cancelled! We got an extension for a month and chose another class in January: foie gras maki, fillet of duck with butternut pumpkin purée and tarte tatin with quinces (this is a very popular and typical French upside-down cake usually made with apples).

Our class of seven people started off with the tarte tatin, peeling and slice the quinces which is a feat in itself they’re so hard.

 

Then we made the caramel. This is not something I’d ever done though Relationnel is quite an expert. You start with a large quantity of white sugar making a little hole in the middle if you’re using an induction cooker because the heat starts from the middle and radiates outwards.

Using high heat, you start melting the sugar. As soon as it starts to liquefy, you use a heat-proof spatula (called a “maryse” in French – I bought one at their handy shop before we left) to gradually incorporate the surrounding sugar.

When it’s completely liquid and a light caramelly colour, you turn down the heat. If it gets too dark, the caramel will become bitter.

Then you add the butter (this is not a low calorie dish), ginger and cinnamon.

Keep stirring all the time until the butter has melted. Add the slices of quince and leave them sitting in the caramel without mixing until the caramel becomes hot again. If you mix them too early, the caramel will go lumpy. Mix well and cook on low heat until the quinces are cooked.

 

In the meantime, you cut out a disk about a centimetre bigger than the case all round and prick it to stop the flaky pastry blowing up. We were using individual tart cases but you can use a larger one of course.

When the quinces are cooked, you put a layer into the tart case piling it up a bit, then cover with the pastry, turning it under on the sides to seal in the quinces. You can line the cases with greaseproof paper if you think the tart will stick.

Cook in an oven at 210° for about 20 minutes for small tarts, a little longer for a large one.  Remove from the oven. When the tarts are warm, you turn them out. We topped them with a salted butter caramel cream emulsion that I will not tell you how to make because you need a siphon and I’m sure you don’t want all those extra calories anyway! The trick was not to squirt it on the person sitting opposite you. You can just serve it with a bit of crème fraîche the way they usually do.

Quantities for 6 people
 
Castor sugar (fine graulated): 150 g
Quinces : 3
Powdered cinnamon: 10 g
Unsalted butter: 30 g
I sheet of flaky pastry
Fresh chopped ginger: 30 g
 
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France, French customs

Who’s Getting Married in France?

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The posters are up for the Paris wedding fair. I think it’s amusing that it’s being held in Palais Brongniart which I thought was the precinct of the Paris stock exchange. One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is that wedding dresses are looking more and more like evening dresses, showing as much flesh as possible. My wedding dresses (note the plural) are definitely old hat. Not that French women are having weddings much these days, according to the statistics. It’s certainly the case of Black Cat’s friends. I asked her why. It seems that most couples don’t get married because it costs so much. Well, if you’re having your hens’ party in Madrid like one of her friends, I suppose it does!

So what are they doing instead? Well, they’re pacsing. The PACS (pacte civil de solidarité) is an agreement between two adults of the same or different sex to organise their community life. The current form dates from 2005 and is very similar to marriage except for certain rights (entitlement to a percentage of the other person’s retirement after death for example) and the fact that you don’t have to go through a divorce procedure if you want to end the contract. That in itself can be a bonus, but it hardly seems the ideal way to start your life as a couple!

You register the agreement with the court and can even have a ceremony similar to that of a registry marriage. Curiously, it is not same sex couples who are becoming pacsed the most but heterosexual couples. It seems that young people feel perfectly comfortable with just inviting their close friends along to their PACS ceremony but wouldn’t dream of not having all the second cousins and sixth-best friends to their wedding.

I don’t know if anything similar exists in the English-speaking countries.

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Food, Paris, Wine

3 Places for an Apéritif in Paris

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When Relationnel and I go for an apéritif in Paris, we like to do it in style. We’ll never stay in the Hôtel Meurice or the Hôtel du Louvre or the Lutétia (because we live here!), but we can have a taste of luxury in their beautiful bars and indoor gardens.

Nibbles on the word game table

The Hôtel du Louvre, just opposite the museum as you can imagine, has a very comfortable lounge bar, Le Defender, (but no indoor garden). The starting price for a glass of wine is 14 euros for a graves or a macon up to 23.50 for a chateauneuf du pape or 29.50 for a mersault 1er cru,  accompanied by a selection of nibbles including delicious cheese sticks that you dip in guacomole or toasted bread with olive tapenade and salmon rillettes. I love the four corner tables, which each have a different word puzzle in French.

Café gourmand at Le Defender, Hôtel du Louvre

They also serve an excellent café gourmand (coffee or tea with a selection of mini pastries) for 9.50 euros. There’s a jazz band four times a week as well.  Last time we went there with friends, the waiter gave us the wrong bill – for a pot of tea instead of a glass of chablis, a glass of champagne and two Americanos. We pointed out the error and when he came back with the second bill, told us that customers with our honesty were rare so one of the Americanos was on the house!

The Meurice is not far away, on Rue de Rivoli. The décor in Bar 228 is much more sophisticated and so is the wine list. Lots of cocktails, but I’m a wine drinker so I’ll tell you about that. There’s an excellent Laroche chablis, a Gitton sancerre, a haut medoc and a mercurey for 16 euros and a puligny monrachet and pessac léognan 2004 for 25 euros. Drinks are served with three sorts of nibbles. They also have a piano and bass player.

The Lutetia, on boulevard Raspail on the Left Bank, is legendary for its Belle Epoque Art Deco style. The prices are about the same as the Meurice and there are also interesting nibbles. Obviously one of the places to be seen. You’re supposed to see all sorts of famous people there but I’m afraid I never manage to recognise anyone! We went there recently with friends after seeing the somewhat disappointing Pompei exhibition at the Maillol Museum.

Have you got any to recommend?

Hôtel du Louvre, Bar Le Defendeur, Place André Malraux, 75001 Paris
Le Meurice, Bar 228, 228 rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris
Hôtel Lutetia, 45, boulevard Raspail , 75006 Paris
 
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French customs, Paris

Spring Windows in the Palais Royal

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It’s grey and miserable outside, even though it’s 13°, but with winter sales starting tomorrow, the spring windows have already appeared. I thought I’d try and cheer myself up by visiting some of the clothing shops in the Palais Royal.

But I was disappointed. Just look at this one. I’m stunned that anyone should choose to dress their window using such ugly mutts. But then I’m not really a dog lover. I used to be. When I was a kid, we had a half-corgi (the other half jumped the fence as my mother used to say) called Taffy whom I adored. I used to take him for long walks after school and talk to him in French. Unfortunately he developed heart worm, which is often the way in the tropics. One afternoon, I came home from uni. My parents were sitting under the honeysuckle trellis in the back yard looking very forlorn. “Taffy has to be put down (what a euphemism!). We’re not up to it so you and DrummerBrother have to take him to the vet.” Oh great! Ever obedient, we carried him sorrowfully to the car. I cried the whole way there and the whole way back. Funny how neither DrummerBrother or I have ever had a pet while ActorBrother (who was probably off catching snakes) has always had a dog …

Well, enough about dogs. I then walked down the other end of the gallery to see what Stella McCartney had to show. I really don’t think her windows are any better. The clothes are not even very attractive. However, I love the effect caused by the reflection of the fences along the Palais Royal. It’s not until you take the photo that you can actually see them. Seriously, would you be tempted to buy that dress on the right? And how come the dummies don’t have heads? The one in the picture above is bald. I don’t think that’s particularly seductive either!

The other window isn’t that much better. I suppose it’s a little more colourful but that’s about all. This isn’t your bottom of the range stuff. We’re looking at 700 euros for a dress and 350 for a pair of trousers. It’s not as bad as Jérôme Huillier admittedly. I didn’t even bother taking photos of their window. It all looks completely synthetic to me. I should console myself with the fact that I’m not tempted to buy anything! Except one of those little black dresses in La Petite Robe Noire, but they’re completely out of my market.

I’ll wait until the sales frenzy dies down before I go and do a bit of shopping somewhere else.

 

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France, Lifestyle, Paris

Power Walking down to Concorde

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Just power walked down to Concorde and back through the Tuileries Gardens but grossly underestimated the temperature. The thermometer says 9.5° but I forgot about the wind factor. Next time, I’ll wear my cap with ear flaps (hoping I don’t meet anyone I know, Black Cat in particular) and my inferior Australian suede gloves (because I still haven’t got my new rabbit-fur ones from Italy). Or I could just use my exercise bike and watch a movie at the same time (if I can get the technology to work).

But if I did that, I’d miss the pianist on Place du Palais Royal and the guy with the giant bubble ring that all the kids love. I wouldn’t see the glass pyramids of the Louvre or the pink marble Carrousel Arch with its gold figures and green horses. I would miss the sun setting over the Eiffel Tower and the giant Ferris wheel looking so out-of-place with the Obelisk peaking out behind, mocking my fear of heights. I wouldn’t see the kids sailing their boats on the pond and looking like an Impressionist painting (except for their jeans and anoraks) nor hoping for a ride on the Olde Worlde carousel.

Neither would I be reminded on seeing the Orangerie that I haven’t been back since renovation to visit the wonderful oval rooms with Monet’s waterlilies (shame on me). I wouldn’t see the seagulls calling and screeching over the fountain. I wouldn’t have that stunning view of the Louvre spread out before me as I power walk my way back. I’d miss the man who hires out the sail boats pushing his boat-laden trolley home at the end of the day.

 I wouldn’t see the lovers kissing on benches (they don’t have cold ears) or the foreign tourists having their cheese and wine picnics (and ignoring the cold). I wouldn’t see Henry (and not the more strait-laced Thomas) Moore’s Reclining Figure at the foot of the Orangerie or the 18 Maillol statues down the other end. I would miss the open-mouthed fish at the bottom of the lamp posts next to the Decorative Arts Museum. Not to mention the giant monkey leaning out the window!

I wouldn’t be treated to the welcoming smell of roast chestnuts as I come out onto Rue de Rivoli. Neither would I go past the Comédie Française where Molière died in his chair or see the Night Revellers’ Kiosk. I wouldn’t see all the kids playing among the Buren columns and proudly wearing their crowns (they had the galette des rois today). I wouldn’t see all the people crowded into Miss Bibi’s tiny jewellery shop nor would I have the pleasure of feeling my ears get warmer as I walk up the stairs to my apartment.

But, more than anything else, I might forget just how lucky I am to actually live in the Palais Royal, right in the centre of the City of Light!

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from the Tropics to the City of Light