We went out to lunch the other day to an excellent brasserie in Autun (Burgundy), which I’ll try to write about some time later this week, hopefully. The restaurant was pretty packed and for some reason, “the suits” were sitting on one side of the restaurant, everyone else scrunched over on the other side. Anyway, my adorable and funny sweetie suddenly bursts out, “That lady is TOTALLY American!!” (talking about a woman just exiting the restroom across the restaurant)

Me: “Why? How do you know?”

Him: “Because she has a kleenex over the doorknob because she doesn’t want to touch it directly……you know, like you.”

Me: “That doesn’t mean she’s American. That means she’s psychotically germophobic …like me. Hey, don’t generalize. Wait! They always do tests on doorknobs and they find POO on them! You don’t want to touch that in a restaurant, do you, then eat dinner?”

Him: “Ok, yeah, but you even wrote about American Germophobia, remember? Anyway, it’s an American thing. You can’t convince me otherwise.”

Me: “Oh yeah. I did write about that. Nevermind that, though.”

Me: “Omg. I just heard them talking and yes, that lady IS American.”

Him: “SEEE!?”

Leave it to outside-the-box thinking* French designer, Philippe Di Méo, to design tableware inspired by sex toys. The collection of erotic tableware called, Souper Fin (which is a play on words of “fine dining” and “super fine”), was designed in collaboration with renowned luxury companies Baccarat, Goyard, Cristofle and Orfèvrerie d’Anjou among others.




Souper Fin will be exhibited at L’Eclaireur (Paris) in July. Each item will be complemented with a specially created chef’s dish and recipe. (I guess so you know how to use some of the utensils!)

* Philippe Di Méo once designed perfumes based on sweat, tears and saliva.

Souper Fin

[via]

Tags: french, luxury, erotic, kinky, tableware, france, sex+toys, recipes, Philippe+Di+Méo, Reso

There’s an old comic strip by Gary Larson in “The Far Side” with two pictures. One shows a person receiving a harp with the caption, “Welcome to Heaven. Here’s your harp.” The other has a guy receiving an accordion with the text bubble saying, “Welcome to Hell. Here’s your accordion.” That is EXACTLY how I’ve felt about the merits of the accordion. However, there is a little tiny exception to my loathing of the accordion - accordions playing musette, which is a genre of French music from the 20s, 30s and 40s (being most popular in the 40s) - though it is a type of music I can only take in small doses. VERY small doses. It does have its own charm. Here’s a sample from youtube.

Sure, you can listen to musette walking along the fake cobble stones in the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, if you can stand it over the cacophony of slot machines (don’t forget to buy a croissant for $10) - but I GUESS it’s probably better to be sipping coffee and people watching at an outdoor cafe somewhere in France with musette in the background. Luckily Today, I hardly ever hear musette in France…until just about a week ago in Sarlat (Southwest France in Dordogne).

Surprisingly, the music seemed to all come together and make sense, and it was fun to listen to. Maybe it was the warm and welcoming atmosphere of a jazz club’s “cave” in a medieval village. Maybe it was the company of good friends and a happy public. Maybe it was because we were in France. I dunno. In any case, the evening was filled with “musetty-jazz” fusion. Not strictly musette, it was a small, mostly jazz combo with the centerpiece instrument being an accordion. Of course when we initially entered the club and I saw the accordion, my first thought was Welcome to Hell!!

I’m glad I was wrong.

Is musette making a comeback? Would it have worked outside a stone wall lined cavern in a medieval village in Dordgogne, France?

I wonder.

Related Posts: from Sarlat

Get some music at Amazon: Musette de France (3 CD Set)

As most people expected, Reporters without Borders did manage to get some attention during today’s Olympic torch relay in Paris protesting against China’s inhumane treatment of the people of Tibet. There was so much disruption everywhere that the last leg of the Paris torch relay was canceled.

Related: Photos from Paris Bloggers, Olympic Torch

Oui! We knew SOMETHING would happen.

From iht:

“What was supposed to be a majestic procession for the Olympic torch through the French capital was disrupted Monday as thousands of people from around Europe, many with Tibetan flags, massed to protest the passage of the flame, forcing police officers to bring the torch onto a bus to try to protect it and causing the torch to be extinguished at least once.

A police spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with policy, said the torch went out “for technical reasons” unrelated to the protests, without offering further clarification. CNN reported that the torch was extinguished at least twice amid the melee, and The Associated Press said officials were forced to extinguish the flame three times amid security concerns.

Despite tremendous security, at least two activists got within almost an arm’s length of the flame before they were grabbed by police officers, The AP reported. Officers tackled numerous protesters to the ground and carried some away.

It was yet another unscripted moment in the passage of the Olympic flame, and the second time in two days that the torch relay had been disrupted in a European capital.

Some 3,000 police officers in Paris — on foot, horseback, roller blades, motorbikes and even boats in the river Seine — tried to prevent a repeat of the scenes in London on Sunday, when the torch’s progression through the streets turned into a tumult of scuffles. One man broke through a tight security cordon in the London protests and made a failed grab for the torch, and 35 people were arrested…”

Read the rest

From IHT:

“Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France and a longtime humanitarian, diplomatic and political activist on the international scene, says that whoever succeeds President George W. Bush in the White House may restore something of America’s battered image and standing overseas, but “the magic is over.”

In a wide-ranging conversation Tuesday with Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune at the Forum for New Diplomacy in Paris, Kouchner also held out the eventual hope of talking with Hamas, the Palestinian movement that controls the Gaza Strip but has been ostracized by the West and by its Palestinian rival, Fatah.

Asked whether the United States could repair the damage it has suffered to its reputation during the Bush presidency and especially since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Kouchner replied, “It will never be as…”

Read the full article

As an expat in France, I don’t get to vote in the municipal elections today but my sweetie does and so I was trying to figure out how it works here. It became very, VERY clear that it’s nothing like in the U.S. Firstly, our little city hall has an “aperitif” room where you can have a drink and eat some cake before or after voting. Later in the day they serve wine.

Me: So who’s running for mayor?

Him: Same guy.

Me: Anyone else?

Him: Well, not really. You know, the list.

Me: What list? What do you mean not really?

Him: He could get scratched off the list.

Me: What!? People can just scratch him off the list and he’s out?

Him: Yeah, well if more than 50% of the voters cross him out.

Me: You mean cross his name out…with a pen?

Him: Yes.

Me: But. Oh. Weird. And what about the list?

Him: Since we live in a tiny village, there’s only one list. We’re lucky anyone wants to run for anything. But in larger places, there would be many lists. For example, each list representing a political party. You’re in fact voting for a list of people: The mayor and his municipal counsel.

Me: Soooo. Our village has only one list. That just means they are sure to win. No other lists means no other candidates. Are the people on the list from one party?

Him: No. But only because the village is so small.

Me: Ok, this is strange. So, who’s on the list?

Him: The guy who wants to be re-elected mayor and all his friends.

Me: His friends? Why are his friends on the list?

Him: They want to be part of the municipal counsel.

Me: What if you don’t want some people to be on the counsel?

Him: You cross out their name. And if you want someone else to be on the counsel, after you cross out a name, you can add someone’s name on the list. Same with the person running for mayor. He would be at the top of the list.

Me: What?! You mean you can cross out the name of the guy running for mayor and put ANYONE else’s name???

Him: Sure, and also with counsel candidates.

Me: Ok, so, in fact, someone who isn’t running for mayor, can actually be elected mayor.

Him: Yes. But more than 50% of the voters have to write in his name.

Me: What if that person gets elected mayor and never wanted to be mayor?

Him: He’s mayor. I guess he’d have to resign and the rest of the list would come up with a mayor.

Me: That is so kooky.

More Franco-American Conversations

From Timesonline:

“Mark Boyle was a man with a dream. He was so convinced that a world without the evils of money is possible that he set out to walk from Britain to India without spending a penny in order to prove it.

But Mr Boyle, who hoped to reach Gandhi’s birthplace within two-and-a-half years, had reckoned without one sizeable stumbling block: the French.

Specifically…”

More

Since last week’s early release of the new movie (Bienvenue chez les ch’tis) about the particular group of northern French people, Les Ch’tis  seem to be the new black in France even before its official opening yesterday. We went to the movies at Cité Europe in Calais (the north) where there are 12 movie theatres. Four were dedicated to Bienvenue chez les ch’tis. All four were sold out and jam packed so we went to see Cloverfield.

Anyway. On to pastries. The tarte au ch’uc / sugar tart, is a typical Ch’ti pastry and so is pronounced “tarte au ch’uc” (shuke). These are not very easy to find unless you’re in the north. We spotted them at a bakery in Amiens where we visited last Friday. It’s basically a pastry crust with no filling but with sugar on top, as far as I can tell, but very tasty. If you ever meet a Ch’ti, he’ll reminisce for days about them…in addition to another Ch’ti specialty: beer soup.

Related: French Pastries

This photo is from a “fancy” bakery’s window display in Wimereux, a dingy yet upscale beach town in the north of France - because cookies are starting to pop up here and there. It’s disorienting. Why? While these are cute, they aren’t necessarily enticing and who would choose cookies over French pastries…which RULE?

Not knocking cookies. It’s just that I can just make any ole cookie at home, and we are in France afterall and France has amazing pastries! Why buy a cookie when you can get a Paris Brest or Mille feuille or Tarte au n’importe quoi or Mousse au chocolat or lots of other mouth watering delicate pastries? Cookies, no matter how tasty, just seem so basic. I guess they’re la tendance / the trend - and trendy things seem better. But they aren’t. Necessarily.

Related: French Pastries 101

From EUROC:

“Another unforeseen outcome of France’s smoking ban. That blue haze of cigarette smoke didn’t just add to the atmosphere of the nightclubs of Paris - it kept them smelling good, too.

For what is a nightclub, if not a place where hundreds of people gather, dance and get sweaty into the early hours? When half those punters were puffing away, the smell of smoke covered a multitude of sinners: Now the fanatically clean government has blown all traces of smoke away, clubgoers have discovered the inevitable outcome of all that hot and heavy action: Paris’s nightclubs stink like locker rooms.

Charles Bremner reports that a few nightclub owners have complained off the record that clients, and in particular women, are staying away. Of course, no-one wants to go on the record as owning a smelly nightclub, so the story isn’t over the French papers yet.

Short of fumigating the clubs every morning, what can be done? Are we about to see a new trend for strong perfumes to mask the smell - or are clubbers going to return to the days where ladies would carry perfumed bouquets to mask the smell of plague?

And before you think we’re having a go at the unwashed French, our correspondent in Britain tells us that if anything…”

continue reading

Me: Sweetie, why do French doctors make you take off your clothes even if you’re there for something like a foot problem? Or say, you have a sore throat or something like that.

Him: I dunno.

Me: Like, if I break my finger, why on earth would I need to take off my clothes?

Him. Must just be routine. They need to listen to your heart or something so you have to take off your clothes.

Me: AND they don’t even give you a paper gown or anything! It gets cold, you know.

Him: Well maybe they don’t want to get their stethoscope dirty on clothes.

Me: Pfff. They don’t need to make you take EVERYTHING off. They can loosen your shirt and reach the steth in there. WHY DON’T THEY?

Me: Plus some people’s skin is dirtier than their clothes.

Him: Calm down. What’s the big deal? Maybe it’s a French thing, haha.

Me: It’s weird! It’s pervy and it’s unnecessary nakedness!!

Him: I guess French docs are pervs.

Me: I’m never getting sick again.

More Franco-American Conversations

[For Chris C]

From UPI:

“PELLEVOISIN, France, Jan. 20 (UPI) — Residents of a French village may turn down a $2 million bequest because they find conditions attached to it are unreasonable.

Helene Louart, who many village residents did not even realize was wealthy, left the money to the 900-person village of Pellevoisin in her will, The Sunday Observer reported. But before the local government can get a single franc, it would have to rename the Avenue de la Republique after Louart, hang her favorite paintings in the mayor’s office and sell her house only to people from Paris.

Perhaps the most controversial requirement is that a chunk of the money be spent on a housing project for the poor — a prospect many residents say would change the character of the town.

The long list of conditions led one resident to say the gift is really a form of revenge on the village, but more sympathetic townspeople said they believe Louart really intended to help the poor.”

From Reuters:

“Americans may eat it if they want, but the agriculture minister of France said on Thursday that if offered a dish of cloned meat, he’d have to say “non.”

Asked if he would eat cloned foods, Michel Barnier told a radio interviewer: “No. You ask me a direct question, I reply no. There is no question of it for now.”

“I think there are ethical problems and problems of social acceptability and we are not going to start copying the American model,” he said in the interview with RMC radio.

The agriculture chief of Europe’s biggest agricultural foods producer, and arguably the world’s most food-conscious country, was speaking after Europe’s food safety agency and the main U.S. health agency declared cloned food products safe to eat.

Confirmation this week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that food from cloned animals and their offspring is as safe as other food means meat and milk from cloned offspring will enter the food supply before long.

Europe’s top food safety agency also declared this month that cloned food products are safe to eat but has yet to give the green light to marketing cloned food products to consumers.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has opened a consultation process with member states and industry until February 25 before giving its final opinion in May.

Barnier said France would push for a reformed agricultural policy across the bloc which would favor traditional methods of farming and would reject cloning.“

Sometimes it’s just cool to be different. In this case, French sculptor Etienne Meneau has designed a wine decanter that eerily mimicks blood-filled veins (or stick figures!) when filled with a fruity Merlot or cranberry juice, for that matter. Both Decanter N°2 and N°4 (with more veins) are made of borosilicate glass, which is better known as Pyrex.

They’re limited editions, priced at €2000 each.

Get one now

[via apartment therapy]

From the Guardian:

“It is one of Paris’s most celebrated monuments, a neoclassical masterpiece that has cast its shadow across the city for more than two centuries.
But it is unlikely that the Panthéon, or any other building in France’s capital, will have played host to a more bizarre sequence of events than those revealed in a court last week.Four members of an underground “cultural guerrilla” movement known as the Untergunther, whose purpose is to restore France’s cultural heritage, were cleared on Friday of breaking into the 18th-century monument in a plot worthy of Dan Brown or Umberto Eco.

For a year from September 2005, under the nose of the Panthéon’s unsuspecting security officials, a group of intrepid “illegal restorers” set up a secret workshop and lounge in a cavity under the building’s famous dome. Under the supervision of group member Jean-Baptiste Viot, a professional clockmaker, they pieced apart and repaired the antique clock that had been left to rust in the building since the 1960s. Only when their clandestine revamp of the elaborate timepiece had been completed did they reveal themselves.

“When we had finished the repairs, we had a big debate on whether we should…”

Read the full article

Every year about this time Pierre Hermé comes out with his very own limited edition designer Bûche de Noël, the infamous, notorious, luscious yuletide pièce de résistance Christmas log cake. Last year he’d teamed up with Swarovski and created a to-die for creamy white log with a crystal star as the finishing touch. They made only 180 cakes each costing 78 euros.

This year, he’s come up with something completely different: a Christmas log made with lady fingers with roasted almonds and marscapone topped with shavings of black truffles from the Périgord. OK. That could be interesting. Anyway, it goes for 245 euros /$361 (serves 8).

Order one?

I kind of like those shoes. But French authorities don’t!

Un faux pas qui vous coûtera cher. En France la loi prévoit jusqu’a 300,000 euros d’amende et 3 ans d’emprisonnement. La contrefaçon est un vrai fléau.

Translation: Stepping out of line will cost you a lot. In France by law, you risk paying up to 300,000 euros ($438,780) and 3 years in prison. Counterfeiting is a real plague.

Following the Canadian ad, I’m thinking that snark must be la tendance en publicité (the advertising trend) with France dishing it out to England (so what else is new) this time around. The Eurostar is the fast train from Paris to cities north (Calais, Ashford, London and Lille).

“Londres sur un coup de tête” means (Go to) London on the spur of the moment, but it also means (Go to) London for a head-butt.

That silliness aside, it says that a one-way ticket is 35 euros, but you also have to pay additionally for a reservation when you take the Eurostar AND when you come back. Lastly! The retour (return) ticket is not always the same price as the aller.

And they say that Canadians are sooooooooooo nice. This ad’s from a French restaurant in Toronto, and with a tagline like: “French Food without the attitude,” I just wondered what that’s all aboot.

Rude, eh?

Phew! Now I no longer have to lose sleep wondering about why magnesium is a universal remedy for everything in France.

Over an 18-year period, French researchers determined that men with the highest blood levels of magnesium are 40 percent less likely to die of any cause than those with the lowest levels. Magnesium can make multivitamins too bulky, so add a 250 milligram (mg) pill to your daily regimen.

40 % less likely to die of any cause! That is amazing. ‘Cept. What about women?

[Thanks for the tip, Jon!]

Related: Vitamins in France , Guide to Better Vitamin Shopping

Him: LOL. Did you hear about the ride, “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland?

Me: No, what happened?

Him: Disneyland has to replace the boats to accommodate fat Americans. hahaha!

Me: Glad you’re having a good laugh about that - but that’s going to happen to Disneyland Paris, eventually. The rise in obesity isn’t just an American thing. It’s happening in France, too.

Him: I know - but it’s still funny about fat Americans.

Me: The French are getting a kick out of that, aren’t they?

Him: Probably. Lots of our friends think it’s funny. * giggle*

Remember how I said that everything except flower shops and cemeteries would be closed today, being Toussaint and all? I lied. There were all kinds of places open today, at least in the north. We went out to lunch in Calais, so some restaurants were open, then we went to Cité Europe, a fairly large shopping mall à l’Américaine, also in Calais; all stores were open! The cinema was open and the bowling alley was open, so off we went jouer au bowling (to go bowling). By the way, “bowling” in French is pronounced like BOO-ling, so I always imagine it’s some sort of kooky crazy bowling game with warped balls.

Out of a party of 5, 4 of us decided to play, and I didn’t expect to see any cultural differences in the game but things came up straight away:

1. The game goes by quicker - probably because people never stick with one ball; you simply grab any available ball at the rack, a veritable free for all. (You don’t have to wait for your ball to return!) Most of the racks were overflowing with balls at each lane, leaving none on the shelves.

2. It’s more difficult to bowl - I think this is because of #1 above: you don’t play with the same ball. That’s MY excuse, anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

3. Bowling Etiquette, WHAT Bowling Etiquette? This doesn’t seem to come into play in France. Bowlers next to you go onto the approach even if you’re already aiming and just about to take your shot (You know how you’d wait for the guy next to you to bowl first before you do? That’s what I’m talking about.) Bowlers use other bowlers bowling balls without asking permission (#1). That seems to works fine, however.

4. Lane Guards for Kids - I hadn’t gone bowling for a while so maybe these are everywhere now - but I previously hadn’t seen these lane guards for kids, so they don’t get any gutterballs. That’s ingenius. Now, if they only had those for us adults…

5. Patience - The whole arcade/bowling alley had a power failure so we couldn’t play for 10 to 15 minutes. We had to sit there in the dark. For some reason, I sort of assumed French people would get really riled and grumbly. But no! None of that! I would’ve thought they’d give everyone an extra game to play but they didn’t.

6. The YUCK Factor - Bowling shoes. Yes, that always grosses me out majorly because you have to wear those ugly, nasty shoes that 5 billion people have worn before you. That’s like in the U.S. too. Only. After we finished our game, I went to return the shoes and left them on the counter. The employee told me to just return them back into the shelf where I found them! Which means you’ve worn shoes that 5 billion people have worn before you AND the shoes were never sprayed… OMGOMG!

While we were out shopping and looking for our scary movies (which we couldn’t find), we missed the trick or treaters!!!!! I wanted to see French kids going door-to-door because everyone around here said they do - and I only halfway believed them. I wondered what they’d say at the door. According to my mummy-dearest-in-law, they say this…. drum roll…..

On veut des bonbons!  / We want candy!

That’s so pushy.