I must have some sort of French disease or something because since arriving in the U.S. (east coast) a few days ago, I’ve been on a mission for pastries of the French kind. Homesick for France so soon? I guess so.

Luckily, I could get my fix at a nearby, real French patisserie (French Pastry Shop) in Nyack, New York, which is in the lower Hudson Valley, just about an hour’s drive away from the city. Patisserie Didier Dumas is topnotch, as they say in France. They actually don’t say that but if French people did say topnotch, they’d certainly say it about this place. We selected about a half dozen pastries and each of the different kinds of viennoiserie (except the palmiers). Everything was wonderful. We sampled all the luscious desserts, oohing and ahhing between bites. I particularly loved Didier Dumas’ version of one of my faves, the Paris Brest. His is not typical in shape, so instead of taking on the form of a round “wheel” (since the original inspiration of the Paris Brest’s shape came from a bike wheel in the race that would, a few years later, be called the Tour de France), it was a straight sandwich of cream puff filled with a layer of hazelnut cream and a layer of whipped cream above it. It’s so good that I must say that it was better than many a Paris Brest I’ve eaten in France.

Note: Sorry I didn’t take a photo of the Paris Brest; you can probably guess how that happened…

Patisserie Didier Dumas
163 Main Street
Nyack, 10960 New York
845-353-2031

June 29 marks the U.S. premiere of Michael Moore’s much anticipated film, Sicko. (It’s also the official ship date of iPhone, fyi. Anyway.) The film is a “comedy” about how 45 million Americans do not have health insurance. There’s nothing funny about that but Michael Moore is one of a few people who can make you laugh all the while being incredibly disgusted (at the system).

If there’s one thing that the U.S. has ass &*%^$@# backwards, it’s their health care system. (I know, there’s a LOT more than one thing but I had to choose for the sake of this post.) It should be a right, not a privilege to have health care coverage. When someone has to pay $5,000 to stay in a hospital per day, which doesn’t even include surgery, doctor visits or medicine, that just seems entirely ridiculous if not tragic – not to mention that many people just don’t have that kind of money at their fingertips.

Speaking of fingertips, in the movie trailer for Sicko, a guy has an accident where the tips of two of his fingers are sawed off. Firstly: ouch. But more importantly, the costs are excessive and preposterous. One finger would cost $60,000 for surgery and the other would cost $12,000, and the guy has no health insurance. Ironically, the more expensive one is the middle finger. So, he opted to fix the other finger, though I sadly have to say that many people wouldn’t even have the means to do anything at all, and would just be without fingertips.

How does all this relate to France? The U.S. is ranked number 37 in the world for health care systems, next to Slovenia. Should that be embarrassing for one of the richest and most powerful countries on earth? Answser: YES. So, who is ranked number 1? The oftentimes much maligned France. Just remember that, France bashers.

Oui mes amis, ranked number 1 and having the best health care system in the world is, none other than our beloved France. Not only is everyone entitled to and covered with health care in France, the costs (if any) are negligible. Of course, France has a huge debt partly because of this but nevermind. Compared to the U.S., health care fees in France seem ridiculous only because they are so low. For example, while it costs thousands of dollars for a hospital stay in the U.S., in France, I believe it costs 14 euros (just under 20 bucks) per day. AND! You get reimbursed for most of that (if not all of it).

I’m simplifying this a bit but in general, you never pay more than you can afford in France. This means that poor people do not usually pay anything at all. For extremely grave interventions and diseases, everyone is 100% covered.

Unfortunately, the American guy with chopped off fingertips could only have one of his fingers fixed but I wondered what the cost would have been if he just flew to France, and had everything taken care of here, in the land of extremely low health care prices. Including his flight, hospital stays, transportation, food and surgeries, I can say with relative confidence that in France he’d probably pay a third of what he’d have to pay chez L’Amérique – Quite possibly, considerably less. Bargain basement prices! Even though he isn’t covered by French health insurance, at least he’d have only spent a fraction of what he would have had to pay in the U.S. AND! – have both fingertips back!

So if you’ve read this far, you’ll see what this all comes down to: Why Travel to France? Perhaps some American citizens should consider coming to France for health care. Don’t worry about language issues. You will surely find English speakers. Forget the hotels and just stay in the hospital. At 20 bucks per night, it’s a steal. Surgeries are cheaper and the meals are probably better than airline food.

Links: Michael Moore on Letterman, Sicko, Michael Moore

^{Reality Does Not Exist}

Roussillon Wine Fair – Perpignan
June 30, 2007 – 6pm to 10pm
I’m not sure why the festival of Roussillon’s Wines isn’t being held in Rousillon but anyway. Celebrate Roussillon’s best wines and regional delicacies held on the Place de La Republique in Perpignan. More info

Paris Gay Pride – Paris
June 30, 2007 – Noon
Though the parade route is schedule to go from the Republique to Beaubourg via the Marais, final confirmation of the route is not usually given until the last minute, so this could change. Once it starts, however, it’s hard to miss! More info

Les Tombees de la Nuit – Rennes
July 3 – 8, 2007
When night falls in Rennes during this short week, the town comes alive and becomes a stage for musicians, poets and storytellers. A true renaissance faire except in a REAL medieval village. More info

Tour de France 2007 – France
July 7 – 29, 2007
Strangely the Tour is kicking off from London but moves to France on July 9th when étape 2 goes from Canterbury to Dunkerque. Try to pick one or more of the 18 stages of the Tour and root for your favorite team. I’ll try to catch stage 5 from Chablis to Autun. More info

Festival des Goudots Gourmands (Food Lovers’ Festival) – Aurillac
July 6 – 8, 2007
Always on the must-see list for the foodie people. Local foodfare, food preparation competitions, bread market, and more tasty treats. More info

Rayons Frais Festival – Tours
July 6 – 8, 2007
Although “rayons frais” means fresh food aisle, this festival is more about food for the soul: art and photography installations, concerts, performances, conferences and more. More info

and a bee

Why not. Find romance in on a bottle of French wine. Soif de Coeur (A Thirst for Romance) offers wine with a possibility of finding your soulmate. Just buy a bottle of Soif de Coeur, gluggedy glug glug, peel off the bottle label and find a code and instructions on how to begin your soulmate search on their website. Just imagine, buy a 3 euro ($4) bottle of red, white or rosé wine, and who knows…maybe you’ll get a date!

I don’t think you necessarily need to buy any wine to participate in their online dating service, but I’m not sure. Maybe you do and the $4 you spend on a bottle is actually the dating service fee. Bargain! I really want to make fun of this; it’s so asking for it, but I’m trying to reduce the amount of invective I produce, so let’s just hope this is a good thing.

Soif de Coeur

Tagline:

Get to know more about Paris.
CondorTravel Travel Agency

I love how this ad hits the mark about traveling to Paris. In my head I hear something like this from gobs of tourists, “Ok, we’ve seen the Eiffel Tower, NOW what are we going to do?” This could also be a spot-on analogous ad for traveling around France outside of the capital – as some, actually MILLIONS of people don’t even realize there’s an amazing world outside of Paris…

Advertising Agency: Quorum Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi, Peru – Creative Director: Shatz, Art Director: Ricardo Toyohama, Copywriter: Martin Santivañez

From FT.com:

“Members of the new French cabinet have been told to stop using their BlackBerries because of fears that the US could intercept state secrets…

Although the ministry is thought to have long taken heed of an earlier ban on the use of BlackBerries, members of other government departments are said to have been still secretly using the devices.”

Please. Never underestimate the power of American espionage. I’m sure the U.S. intercepts everything from “state secrets” to everyone’s dirty laundry, blackberry or no blackberry.

Read the full article here

Over the years I’ve been (rightly) accused of being a bathroom freak. Maybe it’s just “freak.” Anyway. I don’t disagree with any of my accusers as I’ve learned to embrace this characteristic rather than overcome it. Hey, I’m not ashamed of wanting clean public bathrooms, which is too often and sadly a rare phenomenon in France.

What am I talking about? I hate public toilets. Especially in France. So much so that it’s made me avoid most of them, which is quite possibly bad for my health. I don’t care. Most public toilets are even gorier than my worst nightmares. So, when I saw this website that rates toilets worldwide, I nearly peed in my pants. Ok, maybe I DID – a little.

The Bathroom Diaries scours the globe to rate the world’s toilets. You can now find out which bathrooms to avoid like the plague (quite possibly BECAUSE of the plague) and which ones are useable. Yay! Their database is pretty extensive and they claim to be the world’s largest database of restroom locations. I believe them. Call it blind faith.

To see restroom locations in France and in Paris by arrondissements (districts) and elsewhere, visit The Bathroom Diaries.

On a related note, this gadget is an extra “finger” to do your dirty work.

This kind of pain!

People seeking bottles, rejoice! Remember these adorable milk bottles? I received several emails and a few comments asking about them. It’s taken me this long since the original post on french milk bottles. Sorry I took forever! I’ve been trying to find out where they’re available, so finally, here it is. They are actually widely available.

The bottles come from the French company, Comptoir de Famille, and you will be able to find them all over France (190 boutiques) by doing a search: Click here to find a store in France.

Americans, you’ll be happy to know that they are also available in the US! Search for the nearest store in the US here.

Where else? Apparently Comptoir de Famille products are all over: Belgium, Germany, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

I recently bought a one-liter milk bottle and filled it with colorful peanut M&Ms, and the whole thing went into a picnic basket gift filled with goodies for our good friends who live nearby. When gift giving, we’ve been trying to choose things that are either edible and/or reuseable, and definitely try to avoid any big, plastic packaging – which is better for the environment!

I couldn’t resist posting this video of a giggly, drunk President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy giving a press conference at the G8. I suppose if I were a world leader, I’d drink heavily too. Somehow, this sort of makes him more like-able. Wait, what am I saying?! No, not “like-able” but human, albeit a drunk, slurring President of France Nicolas Sarkozy kind of human. Anyway, always remember one thing: he is STILL an evil politician.

Click here or on the photo to see the video (sorry, my embed function is messed up still)

Click here to see another funny version of it. (remix with Coluche)

Oftentimes you come to the logical realization that life is stranger than fiction, even stranger than the fiction from your most oddball, esoteric films.This farm is so strange that I have to believe it really exists – though, my first thought was that it’s a hoax.

Le Petit Singly is a farm that specializes in making cheese from women’s breast milk. Are you imagining the milking process? Admittedly, that imagery makes me come to the conclusion that it’s an absolutely bizarre and crazy world of cheesemaking in little ole Singly, France. But, no. I think the “donors” bring their milk to the farm, or something like that.

The cheese is produced exactly like it would be for cow’s milk and apparently tastes like it has hints of hazelnut. I still have my doubts about its existence, though. The farm says the cheese is rich in vitamins and nutrients but I don’t think these survive after being ultra-pasteurized. Also, they have an “AB” label, which is the official label for organic products. Does that mean that the women all grazed on organic?

Anyway, you can order breast milk cheese online from le Petit Singly, if you’re interested. Will this be the next trend in the foodie world? You know, something on the menu at Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry (or Per Se), El Bulli or your un-run-of-the-mill experimental haute cuisine. I can hear the waiter now, “Your next course, course 5 out of 13 courses, is a palette cleanser consisting of deep fried fois gras marbles coated in a crispy fig and pine nut crumble. The fois gras marbles are fried in extra virgin Argan oil that was infused with 6 very rare and different herbs found only around the area surrounding Mount Kilamanjaro. The fois gras marbles sit proudly on their foundation of 5 paper-thin slices of exclusive fromage duh Fwahnce (”cheese” is too ordinary) made from FRENCH mother’s milk. (”breast milk” sounds too scary and thus, not very posh.) In between each slice of fromage is a succulent layer of organic creme fraiche, Beluga caviar, French capers and candied pecans – and the whole ensemble is lightly splashed with aged, vintage balsamic vinegar. Oh, and by the way, you must eat this dish wearing these 3D glasses to experience the full visual and culinary effect combined. Bon Appetit.”

Le Petit Singly, Breast Milk Cheese
Website in French: Le Petit Singly
Email: petitsingly@lycos.fr

[via the stranger]

Eze, France

The longer I live in France, the more I realize that all Pains aux raisins are NOT created equal here. Take for example, the Pains aux raisins in Burgundy. Oftentimes in France, you’ll come across many examples where a French region has adulterated changed a staple food of France, even naming it something different to suit its own tastes (and specialities) and to fight for their own regional culinary culture. And yes, btw, the Pain aux raisins IS a staple food of France. At least chez nous.

Burgundy is known for a few things: its wine, its food, usually consisting of lots of wine: Coq au vin, which is chicken in wine, Boeuf Bourgignon, which is beef cooked in wine, Pochouse, a dish with 4 kinds of fish cooked in wine, Andouillette au chablis, which are sausages cooked in wine, Oeufs en meurettes, an interesting spin on eggs that are poached in wine, Les Tripes au Rosé de Marsannay, which is tripe cooked in wine. Are we seeing a pattern here? I think I now know why the people here are so friendly and happy.

Anyway – probably most famous of all foods from Burgundy is Escargots, the little rubbery, slimey critters, or as I liked to call them: snails. Escargot is world renowned and world consumed (usually not cooked in wine but eaten with a garlic butter parsley sauce) and you will find them all over Burgundy. (Nevermind that most of the Burgundy snails are actually from Poland, Romania and Russia. You’ll see “transformé en France” when they don’t want to say where they came from originally, and want to make you believe they are the real Burgundian deal, slime notwithstanding.)

I know. I digress. Sorry.

So. Given all of that food trivia à la Bourgogne, the Burgundy Pains aux raisins, became Escargot aux raisins. And, much like the region’s signature culinary dishes, the Escargots aux raisins are heavy. In fact, much heavier than the light, airy, flakey on the top, soft and custardy in the middle Parisian Pain aux raisins. The Bourgogne version with its different and cutely appropriate moniker seems to have way more raisins, and is bigger, thicker and breadier, thus softer and having no crisp to it at all. Not knocking it because it is pure yum especially dunked in a bowl of steamy hot coffee for breakfast.

From the UK Times:

“For the French, it ranks as a national emergency. Their top chef is warning of a culinary apocalypse in which restaurants run out of decent ingredients.

It might not make it on to the agenda of the G8 summit, but a mixture of environmental degradation, economic success and spreading gourmandise has produced so much competition for the best products that they may soon run out, warns Pierre Gagnaire, one of the pioneers of modern, experimental cooking.

‘Today everyone wants roughly the same thing,’ said Gagnaire, who has restaurants in Paris, Hong Kong and London. ‘Supplies are getting scarce. I am deeply worried.’

Within a few years, warned the chef, it may no longer be possible to buy fish that is not ‘farmed’. Demand for wild fish will rise, driving up prices to the extent that it becomes unaffordable. Some restaurants may be forced to close down.

It is the same for certain vegetables and fruits whose habitats are being destroyed…”

Read full article

Garden Festivals across France will be celebrating gardens and will be focusing on water, which is this year’s theme. Take a stroll through wonderful gardens all over France, catch garden lectures, concerts, art exhibits, and learn all about water: how to display it, how to conserve it and how to use it wisely. Meet people who take care of public gardens, and more. 1700 public and private gardens will be open to the public (some for the very first time). Check the program listing for events in your area.

Garden Festivals (The Website is in French)

From Yahoo News:

“The Red Sea, Belize and the Cayman Islands are all scuba-diving hotspots, but what about Paris? As of Friday, would-be divers can take the plunge in the landlocked French capital, with a practice dip in a pool beneath the city’s most famous monument, the Eiffel Tower.

A dozen professional scuba instructors are offering one-on-one lessons in the heated, above-ground pool at the foot of the tower as part of an initiative to promote the sport among Parisians and visitors.

The lessons last about 30 minutes and include a how-to demonstration, safety lecture, as well as the swim. Wet-suits, scuba gear and a biodegradable towel are provided. The best part: it’s free.”

Read the full article

Dorne, France (Bourgogne)

[Visit Friday Ark for more animal photos]