Wow, a blog that combines cooking and Chabal - have I died and gone to heaven?

I lucked out today. Instead of my regular half-baguette, I skipped out of my local boulangerie with a three-quarter wedge of bread. Not so lucky was the woman behind me, who, for exactly the same order, left with a mere quarter (hehehe).

The half-baguette is a handy bit of knowledge you acquire on living in France, especially if you are living or just eating alone. Baguettes just don’t stay fresh if not eaten on the day, which I’ve learned the hard way, stubbornly and defiantly chewing on miserable pieces of stale, hard bread the next morning. Either buy yourself a toaster or ‘une demi-baguette’, and even better, if you’re that way inclined, buy one half in the morning, one half in the evening and enjoy fresh bread throughout the day.

This post may seem a little silly, perhaps insignificant – but how many stereotypes of the French revolve around toting a baguette?

I’ve come to realise that nothing surpasses the small pleasure of breaking into a baguette on the street, just a few metres from the boulangerie – and I’m not the only one to do it! I’ve seen many people walking along with one baguette end missing. Buying a baguette leads to a sensory excursion to break the mundanity of the walk home. You clasp the bread and feel its crispy fragility. You look the part of the Parisian. Then there’s the sound of the first eager rip. I even saw a woman sniffing her demi-baguette the other day, so it looks like we have the whole range covered!

During my time in Venice, I met two other lone travellers and we formed an inseparable trio for the duration of the visit. Even though we were under strict instructions from the owner of our youth hostel to follow his self-guided walking tour of Venice and visit the glass-blowing island of Murano, we got distracted after the first stage of the tour – the seaside resort island of Lido.

An old man on the vaporetto water bus across the Lagoon of Venice informed us that if we liked football, we should get ourselves to the Venice vs. Novara match at 2pm. We said that we’d consider it after our picnic lunch, during which we watched hundreds of men stream off the various vaporetti and head towards the local stadium. At first we were confused – “Mid-afternoon on a Thursday? These Italians must love their football!?!” – but then we realised that it was the All Saints’ Day public holiday.

Cutting a long story short, we went, and the atmosphere was electric. The most notable factor (well, for us anyway) was the constant drone of cheers. We were perched between the two Venice cheer squads, and those who had the nerve to barrack for Novara were at the opposing end. The interesting thing was that each cheer squad was orchestrated by a cheer leader who kept the group going with various instructions of what to say and when and how to clap.

My favourite cheer involved everyone spinning their team scarves above their heads, helicopter-style, which reminded me of a French song of group frivolity.

The first – and so far only – time I’ve heard Patrick Sébastien’s ‘Tourner Les Serviettes’ (‘To turn the serviettes’) was at a wedding reception near Bordeaux. It’s an energetic song with a techno beat that would make any Ukrainian village wedding participant green with envy. Basically, after hours of indulging, the DJ launches this track and everyone forgets the greasy smears from the magret de canard, and throwing care (and bread crumbs) to the wind, starts to twirl their napkins above their heads.


Not my personal shenanigans, but a similar endeavour…

When it began, I thought I had been instantly transported to a new planet somewhere in the outer realms of the universe.

Needless to say, it didn’t take long before I was standing on my chair too, turning my serviette as if there was no tomorrow!

Mmm… thank you for your wonderful Boeuf Bourguignon recipe. It was the success of my cooking attempts for the weekend - and the perfect welcome to the colder weather!

I’ve just spent a few days in Venice, rekindling my love affair with the city. From the number of passers-by either speaking French or wearing Quechua-brand sports equipment (a pretty reliable gauge of French nationality), I’d say I wasn’t the only one putting my school holidays to good use…

My rain jacket holds me in good stead in Paris (I’ve even devoted a previous post to it), but it was incongruously out of place in Venice – even during the downpour of the first evening! The Italian fashion seems to favour a waist-length puffy number, more often than not fur-trimmed, in black, cream or brown. Ai-ai-ai, life is tough for fashion victims!

Venice provides the opportunity for some great photos though. The Byzantine influence on the architecture provides some great instances of Oriental aesthetics, and there are a lot of picturesque clotheslines – just like down the Adriatic Coast in Croatia! One woman decided to wash her sheets… “Good idea!” a chorus of tourists chimed, “especially when hung against cream and terracotta-coloured walls!” I counted eight cameras simultaneously whipped out on completion of the hanging. Nine, including mine, except being alone I didn’t have the option of posing in front of them like many others did!

One of the numerous breaks in my rigorous wandering routine happened to be in Piazza San Marco, where I decided to chance the “no picnicking, no sitting” rules. I was captivated by some idiot woman trying to attract some of the masses of pigeons to her empty outstretched hands. I couldn’t believe it, these are the most overfed pigeons in the world – why would they be inclined to be curious? Spend a euro and get some birdseed if you want that photo! Luckily a German couple noticed her plight and shared their seed. Thank goodness, we’d all be there for a while otherwise…

It’s not often that one gets to sleep the night in a castle. I feel like I’m a character from a childhood TV show, where they spend the night in a department store… only replace the “department store” with “museum.” I honestly feel like I’m living in one of the regal display rooms of the Hermitage… but ok, alright, castle is a slight exaggeration. Perhaps ye-olde country retreat would suffice.

For all those who haven’t been slavishly following my blog, waiting on the next posting with bated breath, I’ll just recap. I’m working as an au pair in Paris, and the grandparents live in the aforementioned Jane Austen-esque manor, just outside of Paris in untainted natural seclusion. It’s in a tiny village oblivious to the external suburban sprawl, and this property an oasis oblivious even to the tiny village.

When I first came here, it was during the warm extended daylight of summer. Now the air is crisp and all the russet leaves are falling, carpeting the immaculate green lawns and interspersing with the mushrooms in the woodlands. Of an afternoon, the sun sets on the surrounding manors, elevated on a surrounding hill and basking in the golden light, the peaks of their turrets visible above the autumnal tree line. On the other side, the spire of the local church is visible – and audible too, as the bells toll regularly, ringing out to mark the various hours and occasions.

There are perhaps thirty rooms spread across three levels, and the floor plan is long and narrow. The façade is dominated by squares of sandstone and the panels of French-shuttered windows. Whilst the majority of the building dates from the nineteenth century, there is one tower remaining from the 1650 original.

Pick a room, any room, and there are dark oils of the life of the aristocracy, watercolour tributes to hunting (the one in my room reads ‘Northampton Grand National Steeple Chase, 1840’ and I can’t help wondering if someone brought the poster back as a souvenir), and tapestries glorifying some sort of romanticised pre-revolutionary peasantry. I think this is the only time in my life that I’ve eaten “game” (it was wild boar, by the way).

I’ve just attended my first Parisian fashion show! It was a rather unique foray into the world of fashion, and this impression wasn’t just created by the fact that there were hordes of children climbing and squirming on the stage beforehand.

No, it was somewhat exceptional as all the displayed garments were created with chocolate.

In a spectacle where brown was undoubtedly the new black, and edible the prevailing factor, model after model swirled past, occasionally throwing more foil-wrapped snacks to the crowd. The standard issue little black dress was converted to a shade of rich brown and decked out with some sort of peacock contraption trailing behind. All chocolate. The hostess-with-the-mostess waltzed by, in ruffles of dark and white chocolate, adorned with hundreds of chocolate forks. And who says that the design needed to be excessive? A simple approach to eye candy is often the most effective, and that was definitely the case for the first costumes, a sweet take on the Queen’s Royal Guards, as modelled by five lithe cabaret dancers from Le Crazy Horse de Paris. At first I was a little confused – how can it be a marvel of edible design when all they are wearing is chocolate buttons on their nipples? – But then on closer inspection, I realised that all the belts, buckles, stirrups and “bearskin” helmets were actually made from chocolate.

That’s right, last weekend a thousand sweet-tooth suckers and I succumbed to the exotic allure of an exhibition devoted to chocolate, and toddled along to the internationally-toured Salon du chocolat.

Ascending into this veritable Vegas of chocolate, one’s eyes were greeted by a rich, creamy blend of boring trades fair with Roald Dahl-esque chocolate factory. Enough of the sales pitch! Where are the free samples!?!

My personal smorgasbord read something along the lines of olive oil chocolate from Marseilles, bitter dark chocolate from São Tomé and Principe, repulsive lavender (followed by equally vile pink pepper) chocolate from I-don’t-ever-care-again-to-know-where, apricot chocolate, orange chocolate, Mexican hot chocolate, all chased down with Grand Marnier, sweet red wine and Baileys Irish Cream. Feeling a little ill, I calmed my sugar jitters with a more substantial chocolate-filled crepe, and some crunchy milk chocolate biscuits. On leaving, it couldn’t be helped – ‘just a little piece of Mars Bar for the road’ – but after the subliminal ecstasy of the other varieties (except for the lavender and the pink pepper), a good old Mars Bar just failed to hit the spot. At least it wasn’t deep-fried…

A few years ago, I was in Belize during election time. It was something quite different for me, with election slogans accompanied by steel drums, and the opposition party had a sausage sizzle on the beach, surrounded by the milky blue waters of the Caribbean. Quite the political party, I remember chuckling to myself…

Last weekend topped all that. I went to see a host of French and international bands (along with a crush of thousands of others, so it was hardly an intimate encounter) at La Fête de l’Humanité. Held in the outskirts of Paris at La Courneuve, the Fête de l’Huma (as it’s affectionately known) is an annual music festival organised by the Communist newspaper L’Humanité. This year the festival promised three-days of sensational music, with the leathery torso of Iggy Pop (+ Stooges) providing an intriguing headlining draw card.

I only, unfortunately, managed two late nights of it, because I had to work on both Friday and Saturday during the afternoons. A little over-indulgence on Saturday night, wrote off Sunday for me, and instead of the final sun-drenched day of the festival, I enjoyed the… umm… vistas of my bedroom. Ahem… it happens…

But aside from the music, the festival was something else. An installation of bars and restaurants on a phenomenally enormous site rendered a grid-like maze of white-tarpaulined havens of indulgence, frivolity and ruin. There were many times I had to stop and marvel at how “French” it all was, for in which other country could you find festival food venues offering 32€ menu packages, containing six courses, and paper-clothed tables with serviettes and wine glasses? Each regional communist party had a tent serving specialities of their region, which admittedly contributed directly to my downfall on Saturday night. More about that one later… with photos…

As a child, I used to fancy myself as some sort of a gumshoe girl detective, as if I could emulate Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden (I think for a whole year I even signed all my school assignments as “Trixie”… but the only thing with the whiff of mystery about that would have been for my teacher, who had to figure out who this “Trixie” was, and what exactly she had done to Bettina*)

But now, in France, I’ve found a case worthy of my perceived abilities of detection: where has all the fresh milk gone? Writing about French cheese really made me ponder this one, because I thought that in France there would be no question of the quality of taste over the quality of health. Look, I’ve got to make a contentious statement early on, set the stage and what not, but UHT sucks. I can’t think of any more eloquent way to put it.

I’ve got a contact in the milk industry here. I’ll investigate. But please leave your houses and don’t remain white-knuckled on your computer chair for the next 24 hours. Go enjoy a nice cuppa, splash it liberally with fresh milk, and I’ll be back with the answers to the hard-hitting questions soon…

* Actually growing up outside of a German-speaking country with a name like Bettina was always traumatic for me, so I would invent all sorts of nicknames, and long to have been called Rebecca or Rachael. For instance, throughout high school I was known as “Fred”, which would always result in hilarity and confusion whenever a friend called my home, spoke to my parents, and inevitably forgot what was my real name. (For the record, I like my name now).