Food

We have been travelling this past month with Ellen’s sister Tish. In addition to enduring a lot of “windshield” time which can be very boring in the midwest, we have had some wonderful and some not-so-wonderful meals along the roads and routes of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

When we went to Bloomington, Illinois, I’m sure that when we turned south at Joliet, the scenery immediately became and remained corn fields all the way to Bloomington. I was trying to imagine what a farmer would do to occupy his mind while driving a tractor down a field and creating a row of corn that would be several miles long. – that is ONE row… Think about fields that are miles long by miles wide.

When we stop to eat or when we go out to eat, I prefer to eat at restaurants that are not franchised or part of national chains. I prefer the surprises of a locally-operated restaurant to the predictable, same-menu-in-Bloomington-as-in-Benton Harbor that one gets with franchise/chain restaurants. I admit that it is a small, albeit feeble stance against fast food restaurants. My major motivation is the life style for which I have been singing praises, i.e., local is better, more flavorful, less expensive, etc. And it is fun getting to know the people responsible for our foods – be they the farmers or the chefs.

In addition to the surprises of stopping at a local restaurant and having a wonderful meal, we stopped at a number of local restaurants where they apparently chose to replace quality with quantity. We got off of an interstate to stop at a local restaurant. The service was very friendly but the menu choices included only fried, deep-fried or salads. I chose a salad. The waitress wheeled over a serving cart and then hefted a bowl that was larger than the bowl we use at home to serve salad to four people. I started looking around the room and saw that everyone else in the dining room was served similarly-sized portions. If I had been able to eat half of the salad, the remaining portion would not have fit in a Styrofoam take-away box. (It would have fit in a computer packaging box.)

At another restaurant, Ellen ordered “the town’s favorite” called “The Horseshoe.” It was a grilled chicken breast on a piece of “Texas toast” covered with crinkle fries and then vast quantities of a melted cheese product.  Luckily, Ellen was able to choose a vegetable as a side dish–though she could have had more fries or chips or a cream-of-something soup. (The restaurant also had a smaller portion called “The Ponyshoe.”) The cheese reminded me of a Bill Bryson observation: “In America, there are only two kinds of cheese:  White and yellow.” By the way, neither the horseshoe nor the ponyshoe resembled what we put on a horse’s hoof or throw at a stake or nail above the entryway.

In America, people often ask for take-away boxes for the uneaten portion of their meals. Waiters are never surprised at the request. (It would be a very surprising request in France.) In fact, waiters often suggest take-away boxes to those who are eating too slowly or who have stopped, leaving large portions of the meal on the plate. Weight Watchers encourages the practice – though in most cases, Weight Watchers would suggest making three or four meals out of the quantities delivered as one dinner. Given the size of the meals served and the “clean your plate” mentality that most of us grew up with, it is no wonder that America is the most obese nation in the world.

Now that I am officially old, I can understand the attraction of a restaurant where you go for lunch and take home dinner as a bonus:  Two for one!  Never mind that the food will be as boring the second time as it was the first time.

Why fuss? Take the bus!

One big difference between Lansing and Vaison la Romaine is the distance one must go to obtain goods and services. When one compares a town of 7,000 to a small city of 120,000, it is clear that Lansing is 17 times larger than Vaison. All other factors aside, that suggests that the goods and services available four blocks from our apartment in Vaison are likely to be 68 blocks away in Lansing.

In a country where the automobile is sacred – pretty much to the detriment of all other forms of public transportation – one must have a car to get around to cover the 68 blocks one has to go to get whatever. If you don’t have a car, you can walk, ride a bike or take a CATA bus. Today, for instance, Ellen was off delivering Meals on Wheels at the same time I needed to go to the dentist in the neighboring town of Holt. I couldn’t walk there – I would have been several days late for my appointment. I could have ridden my bicycle but decided that I did not want to be all sweaty while I sat in a vinyl coated dentist chair. I took the bus.

Lansing has an excellent bus system. You can get to most destinations easily and with a minimal amount of effort or cost. I left the child care center where I had spent the morning volunteering, walked three blocks, got the bus exactly on time and headed to “Bus Central” in downtown Lansing where I transferred to the Holt bus. Since the trip is about a half hour, I brought a book to read.

I must have read the same 10 paragraphs a dozen times as I looked up every time we stopped to watch as new riders climbed into the bus. I love watching people. There have been times when Ellen has said “Close your mouth, Mark” as I sit in awe watching the threads and patches of the American fabric pass by me. The bus is about the same as when it was my transportation to MSU thirty years ago. There are the regulars – all of whom know the bus drivers and each other and seem to share a sort of mobile community as they move from location to location. There are the ubiquitous students going to Lansing Community College, Davenport, Cooley Law School, MSU or some other learning location. There are the infrequent riders (like me) who slow the line of would be riders by not knowing the procedures for bus entry ("You don’t have change for $20?") there are parents with young children and elderly (older than I) folks who have difficulty standing erect as the bus lurches forward. I think I have a good sense of balance, but I ended up getting a lot closer to a rider than she – or I – wanted as a result of a quick start.

On the way back from the dentist, I decided to get off the bus at the city market so that I could buy a baguette and get an espresso from Neva at Aggie Mae’s and then walk home.

Walking is a sensual experience in that it engages the senses in ways that car travel excludes. There are the sounds, the differences in temperature as you walk under a large tree, the smells (city restaurant grills, flowers, cedar mulch and a neighbor making stuffed peppers for dinner.) The biggest difference is having time to see the “sights.” Walking from the market, I went down the street that has most of the restaurants that serve the Monday-Friday denizens their lunch. In front of one shop was a sandwich board that had three lines: “Cherry Salad” “Panty Hose” and something on the third line that I frankly cannot remember because I was so intrigued with the questions: “What kind of restaurant sells cherry salad and panty hose? Who would be enticed to stop there and eat? I was guessing that most people would order “panty hose” to go when I looked at the front of the shop again only to discover that it was NOT a restaurant but “A General Store.” Thank goodness.

Tomorrow I will walk downtown again to have Brenda cut my hair. After getting my hair cut, maybe I will see if I can get panty hose on pita bread. To go, of course.

French food reduces homesickness

It has been a long month since our return. We have settled into our state-side routine plus ou moins (more or less). But the comfort of routine does not reduce homesickness. I miss our little apartment and the village in which it sits. I feel the same as our neighbor who wrote in an e-mail: ‘I look across the street at your apartment and wish you were there to turn on the lights.’ On the other hand, the deerhounds seem to be pleased that we have returned and the back of the house didn’t paint itself so there is plenty for me to do.

I still do most of the cooking but find that I don’t get as much help from the ingredients. The foods here don’t seem to have as much flavor as what I could buy in France.  We can get good wines from the Rhone valley but at about twice the price. In a parallel to Herbert Simon’s “satisficing,” we are living with adequate most of the time and good once in a while.

BUT WAIT!

Last week, we had an invitation to eat at Brian’s house. He and several of his classmates from Patricia Wells’ cooking school had planned a reunion at Brian’s house. Brian called it a “Best Friends Forever” (BFF) reunion. He had napkins with “BFF” at each place setting. I thought of the five of them making the menu and then buying the ingredients and then cooking the meal and I thought they should be called the “Fab Five.” The “Fab Five” of cuisine planned a French menu for 20 or so of Brian’s and Ken’s friends and we were fortunate enough to be on the list. (Three of the women were able to come to the reunion, the fourth – who couldn’t come – sent French cheese. Ken stepped up to fill in for her.)

Ellen helped to recreate the menu:

·   Aperitif course:  asparagus quiche and paté served on the terrace (under the umbrella and awnings as it was raining)

·   Appetizer:  avocado and grapefruit slices in pistachio oil

·   Entree:  Thin-sliced beef Vietnamese style (recipe from Patricia Wells' recent class in Vietnam)

·   Plat:  lavender-spiced chicken thighs, green beans, and compote of onions & tomatoes

·   Cheese course:  selections too numerous to list but including Comté, several goat cheeses and others Fed-Exed to Brian from the BFF who could not come at the last moment

·   Dessert:  A salty caramel ice cream

·   Coffee

-          Nice wines to go with every course, of course.

Every course was memorable in its own right and memorable in that each course reminded me of good foods eaten in France. And oh so tasty! By the time the evening ended, I had been so transported by the excellent French-inspired food that I was speaking French (or maybe it was too much French wine???)

If excellent cuisine isn’t enough, we have discovered that Neva Austin is now making a wonderful baguette and selling it at her bakery called “Aggie Mae” at the Lansing City Market. Ellen has said that the baguette is almost as good as those that come from “Emile Bec” – considered by us as one of the best bakeries in Vaison la Romaine.

If I can’t be in France, at least I can sometimes eat as though I was there!

The Sound of Silence

It was a beautiful Saturday, so I rode my bike to the City Market. Just as two Saturdays ago when I walked there, I was surprised that in the 15 or so blocks to the market, I saw very few people thus no voices, no cars, no motorbikes, no dogs. Just the breeze and me. I was struck by the silence. Downtown Lansing was pretty much uninhabited. Once at the market, I found a throng of people but it appears that most of them had arrived via automobile. We had a similar experience in PA when we visited Ellen’s brother and sister-in-law. Ever wonder why a relative by marriage has a “legal” designation (in-law) in America whereas the designation in French is “beautiful brother” or “beautiful sister” (beau-frère, belle-sœur)?Isn’t the French a whole lot friendlier?  After seeing the renovations that their son is making to his house, we decided to stop at a local restaurant or café for lunch. We stopped at or drove past five cafés before we found one that was open on a Saturday.  Conclusion: “downtown” small-city America is dying. It seems impossible for downtowns to compete with the large parking-lot destinations located in every direction – except downtown. This is not news. It just makes me wonder what it will take to rejuvenate our cities.

Contrast the “no one in sight” in Lansing with the village of Vaison la Romaine, where the downtown is open for business from 7:00 in the morning until the last café closes in the evening and filled with people throughout the day sitting in the cafés, walking or shopping for their daily baguette.

I love sitting on our veranda in Vaison and watching the day go by. Even though we do not live “downtown,” it is amazing to me how many people walk past our apartment building every day. cWhen I leave the apartment to go shopping or to go for a coffee or for a pichet de vin, I encounter people every step of the way.

I see Jacqueline who walks her dogs twice daily. There is the elderly woman who lives down the alley, and there is the mother of one of the kids at the crèche who has a shop. Once in “centre-ville,” there are folks everywhere. There are parents whom I have met when they come to the crèche to pick up their children. There are the merchants and shop keepers whom I see on a daily basis and who recognize me. There are the few “street people” – clean and quiet but always present. On sunny days, there are older men and women occupying every bench that has a southern exposure (and there are a lot of benches in town.)

One of the advantages of small-town Vaison la Romaine (population 7,000) vs. small-city Lansing (population 120,000) is that I see more people that know me or that I recognize or know in Vaison la Romaine than I do in Lansing. – and we have lived in Lansing almost 35 years!

Centre-ville Vaison is the destination of most residents. The stores are there and they provide the services and products that we need for daily life. When I walk through downtown Lansing, there are few businesses that could help me meet day-to-day living needs. There is a very good men’s store, a nut shop, a souvenir shop and a number of restaurants/cafés/bars several of which are not open on Saturday and most of which are closed Sunday.

Is a downtown vibrant because of the critical mass of people who live in the area or come to visit the shops or do people move to an area because of the products and services available (a.k.a., What came first, the chicken or the egg?) If I knew the answer, I could be a highly paid urban planning consultant. Maybe that was the role the pope played when he ordained the “market days” throughout Provence (Tuesday was ordained Vaison’s market day by the pope in the 16^th century.) The Tuesday market in Vaison remains one of the best markets in Provence.

Visitors

Just before leaving Vaison la Romaine, we got to spend a day with our long-time friends Margaret and Gary and their friends Ann and Andy. They had come to France to visit Provence and Paris. It is always a joy to see Margaret and Gary and meeting their friends made the day even better.  It was a rainy day so we spent most of the time indoors. After a lunch at the new café on Place Monfort called “Mama Mia Pizzeria” we spent the afternoon inside vineyard tasting rooms in Seguret (Domaine du Mourchon) and then to Gigondas (the Gigondas tasting room where one can sample any/all of the wines made in Gigondas). We went to another winery that Ellen had wanted to visit – Domaine des Escaravailles – where they make a wonderful Rasteau white wine, but it was closed for the May 1 holiday.

We then went with them to the apartment that they had rented in Nyons where we got to drink some of the treasures that Gary and Andy had purchased at the wineries. Nyons is a lovely village situated beside a river and surrounded by mountains. It is the center of the olive oil industry in France. That evening, we went to a restaurant called “L’Arc en Ciel” (The Rainbow) in the arcade in Nyons and had a wonderful dinner. At the end of the evening we sadly had to leave our friends to finish packing and getting ready for our departure.

What a wonderful day with friends!

Just 10 days after seeing Margaret and Gary and meeting Ann and Andy, we picked up Vaison friends Phil and Margaret in Detroit. They had added a visit to Michigan to their vacation in the US and we got to spend a week with them showing them some of the sights of Michigan including a day tasting Michigan wines on the Mission Peninsula just north of Traverse City and a day at Mackinac Island. We also went to Greenfield Village in Dearborn. On the “no travel” days, we walked to the City Market, to the Michigan Historical Museum and the Capitol. On Monday, we took Phil and Margaret back to Detroit so they could begin their odyssey of returning to their home in Vaison la Romaine.

Hosting Margaret and Phil helped us make the transition from France to Lansing because we got to spend time with friends from Vaison la Romaine in our Lansing home. We were able to talk about the things we already missed about our lives in France and the facets of our Lansing life that we enjoy. Both topics helped define our perspectives on the duality of living here and there and loving aspects of both.

What a wonderful week with friends!

I guess whether it is “amitie” in French or “friendship” in English, the best part of being anywhere is the people who enrich our lives.

Soft Landing

I finally had my head turned to “re-entry” mode. We cleaned the apartment, stored some stuff with neighbors and went to Marseille to get started on our trip home.

Ellen had already confirmed that since we had purchased our tickets before November of 2009, we were still allowed two pieces of luggage each. We arrived at the check-in counter with our three bags, all of which were within weight requirements. As the flight assistant proceeded to put together our seating assignments, she got a puzzled look on her face and then called someone and then announced that our Paris – Detroit flight had been cancelled! – a decision made by Air France in February.

The Air France agent looked for alternatives, but all of them involved indirect routes and more time in the air and on the ground. She called her supervisor and he and she offered their apologies and promised to get it all together for us to leave on Wednesday. In the meantime, since Air France had not notified us of the change, the agent offered us a night at a luxury hotel near the airport. After a few hours of very attentive service, one can easily see the reason not everyone chooses “sleep cheap” lodging…

The flights on Wednesday were uneventful and Air France continues to maintain its reputation of serving good food on flights. We collected our bags, went through customs and got the MI Flyer to East Lansing where our friend Brian met us.

More important than uneventful flights or luxury hotels, our re-entry was softened by the actions of our neighbors. When we got home, we learned that the neighbors had planned a “Welcome home!” party which they had to move from Tuesday evening to Thursday evening because of our flight schedule changes.

Last evening, the neighbors arrived bearing food and wine and new babies and we spent several hours reconnecting with the very wonderful people who comprise our section of the Westside. Not only do we have the good fortune of living in a close and supportive environment of neighbors, the residents of the neighborhood have more of a world view than one usually attributes to Midwest America. They actually could find France on a map and are conversant on world politics. (On the other hand, our local newspaper did not include any stories on the elections in England on the day of the elections. There was a one-paragraph report the morning after voting.)

In Provence and in Midwest America, friends and friendships make all of the difference.

Bittersweet moments

The countdown has begun. We leave Vaison la Romaine in six days.

We leave Provence as EVERYTHING is in bloom and becoming green. The plane trees are green, the orchards are filled with blossoms and one can see the beginning of new growth on the grapevines. When we were out on Sunday, we saw the first of the red poppies. The temperature has been pleasant (warm but not hot) and the days are filled with sun and low humidity. We have been having our “apero” on our balcony watching the sun move west. Two evenings ago, we ate outside at our neighbor’s house. The days are long even though we are still two months from the solstice. Il fait beau, quoi! 

Leaving is bittersweet. We have made more friends here and have a very nice vie quotidienne. On the other hand, we have wonderful friends in the states, most of whom we have not seen since October. We will miss the long summer here but hope that summer 2010 in Lansing is as nice as last year…

Nonetheless, I will miss the people here – especially the friends we have made, the wonderful foods and wines, the children and the staff at the crèche, the “good energy,” and the beautiful vistas. I can rarely walk anywhere in town without seeing someone whom I know – someone from our French class, a parent of a child at the crèche, our favorite shop owner, etc. Life is good.