Bric à brac

Frenchy flotsam of the moment:

• The Times of London has a nifty slide show on 7 ways to wear a breton shirt.  I still think I wouldn't look good in horizontal stripes. See, if you're cubist, you can get away with that.

• In a scene straight out of classic French farce, a group of robbers tried to tunnel into a Paris bank on Easter Sunday.  They didn't succeed, but they sure did garner the admiration of Bomb Voyage in the process (and I totally just created a Wikia account for the sole purpose of editing the atrociously transcribed quote at the top of that page!).

• Elisabeth Badinter, a French philosopher clinging to the days when French feminism meant abhorring motherhood, has written a book that is raising tempers with everyone from La Leche League to The New York Times.  I'm not quite sure what exactly riled them - was it calling motherhood a form of oppression, or calling babies tyrants?  Or maybe it was attacking breastfeeding and cloth diapering.  In any case, the mommy bloggers are not pleased.

• In 1895 news, a French explorer is attempting to navigate the North Pole in a hot-air balloon.  Am I the only one who got mental images of Georges Seurat paintings, unicycles and World's Fairs when reading that story?  That's kind of like claiming you'll be the first female to ride the Orient Express alone.  Gasp!

• I've been wondering lately why French yogurt companies cannot seem to market their product in the U.S. without adulterating it with a ton of artificial sweeteners.  I was eating some Dannon yogurt the other day and noticed that the label had three different sweeteners, none of which was actually sugar.  It was so sickeningly sweet, I think I'll either switch to non fat to see if it makes s difference, or go to another brand entirely.  I heard that Yoplait has introduced a Greek-style yogurt that doesn't include their usual HCFS, so I'll have to give it a try and see if it's an improvement.

• I think I've found another alter-ego to add to the list.

Photo: Pablo Picasso, by Robert Doisneau.

Random Thoughts

Some random Frenchy-type thoughts that are floating around my brain:

• What is it about putting a francophone wrestler into an English-language movie that gives it that automatic air of adventure? The Princess Bride and Sherlock Holmes just wouldn't be the same without "a Leviathan Frenchman with fists like Bayonne hams" (thank you, Wendy Ide, for quite possibly the best quote in a movie review since Pauline Kael).

• Rillettes de Tours now have a specialized designation! The Indication Géographique Protégée means that this yummy pork product will be as protected as Champagne, Vouvray and Ste. Maure de Touraine. Seriously, this stuff is like crack...I could eat tubs and tubs of it (after scraping the fat, of course).

• Speaking of Champagne, have you signed the petition urging American producers of sparkling wines to stop calling them Champagne if they weren't produced in France? An ad on the back cover of my latest issue of The New Yorker urged me to do so, and of course I couldn't resist. The ad is correct: "Champagne only comes from Champagne, France."

• In confessional news, I generally dislike Melissa D'Arabian, the winner of the latest season of The Next Food Network Star (I was a huge Jeffrey fan), but I admit to having made "her" potato tarte recipe. It doesn't really count as her recipe, since she used her French mother-in-law's crust recipe, and that's half the dish! It was pretty delicious. I plan to try her chicken à l'orange at some point this winter.

• In a family game of Apples to Apples over the holiday, I was the judge and the word was "timeless". One family member submitted "the Eiffel Tower", which almost won, until my hubby trumped them all with "Joan of Arc". I knew I married that man for a reason! Way to play to the judge, honey. Je t'aime.

• Also notable over the holiday, my first attempt at choucroute garnie was a great success! I didn't take a photo (sadly), but it looked, smelled and tasted wonderful. The flavor profile was a new one to all of my assembled family, but everyone enjoyed it. For dessert, I made my famous tarte aux pommes à l'Alsacienne.

• I finally gave in and actually used Twitter for once, but only because Francophilia was running a contest for free French music. See the annoyances I will put up with just for Frenchiness?

• Lady Gaga wins the prize for best French lyrics in an English-language song for 2009. Je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche, indeed. (Nevermind that half those lyrics make no sense in neither French nor English.)

• As of next week, it will officially be 6 years since I left for my extended say in Touraine. I miss it immensely. I bought myself a primrose at the grocery store the other day just because it reminded me of the flower market in the center of town, the only spot of color in an otherwise dreary winter landscape.

Photo: tarte aux pommes de terres et lardons. Copyright MLG.

Random Musings

There have been some things I've been thinking about lately that don't really fit into my blog, but I feel the need to express them anyway.

1. I feel old--my little sister, who is 14, has been giving me lessons in "today's music". She keeps me on the up-and-up with what's going on for the MTV crowd these days. As we all know, it has gotten younger and younger, to the point where kids are barely out of diapers before they're watching the Spring Break debauchery every March. We watched the VMAs together the other night, and every story I told her began with "When I was your age..." and ended with, "...Gwen Stefani looked just the way she did in the 'Cool' video", "...Billy Joe Armstrong was 20 pounds heavier", and "...'classic rock' did not mean 'Nirvana'".

2. Why do I always get all the pain-in-the-butt phone customers? I seem to be a magnet for every hard-of-hearing man over 70, every woman holding a screaming child, and every compulsive ticket exchanger in the tri-state area. I don't understand it--somewhere, somehow, I did something bad, and now karma is back to bite me in the ass.

Today we had a woman who spent 30 minutes on the phone with one of our reps going over dates for a show which shall remain nameless. Actually, let's call it "The Really Big Christmas Show featuring the Glorified Strippers from NYC". She made my poor rep go over at least a dozen dates looking for that holy grail, "good seats". It wasn't until she had bought tickets and hung up that she decided to look at her date calendar, and--wonder of wonders--she had a conflict! That conflict landed smack in the middle of my desk and contributed to a very bad case of stress-induced acid reflux I was unfortunate enough to endure today. Thanks a lot, lady!

3. Why is it that I have been receiving enough Victoria's Secret catalogs to be able to wallpaper my entire house lately? I got two in one day last week--these catalogs have all the same stuff in them, and I know I'm not on the mailing list twice. Something's gotta give--my dear old dad, who is retired, gets the mail every day, and it's just plain embarassing for him.

The bigger problem is that I'd like to order some new things for Fall, but I know that as soon as I do, a big fat sale catalog will come in the mail and I'll be kicking myself for not waiting three more hours. I think I'll start a magazine drive and donate all these superfluous catalogs to needy engineering majors at the nearby universities. It's not the best substitute, but hey-- Playboy doesn't mail me free publications.

4. Speaking of Playboy, I'm totally obsessed with The Girls Next Door. Is this show a train wreck, or what?? I just can't stop watching. I'm mesmerized by Holly Madison--how can anyone look that perfect??? Of course, I know the answer: she's 90% plastic, but still. She makes it seem so glamorous to be dating an old fogey.

That episode with Barbi Benton was the best yet--talk about a cat fight! What I don't understand is how Hef could have gone from naturally good-looking, intelligent brunettes to I Can't Believe She's Not [really] Blonde. I have so many unanswered questions about this show: Does Hef pay for their boob jobs? Why did he downsize from 7 ladies to only 3? He sure didn't seem to have any trouble keeping up before. (pun not intentional) Is this Hef's real hair, or is it just a really bad rug? Is it just me, or does Kendra's generally annoying manner outweigh her sexiness?

I'll save the rest of my random musings for another time. That's all for now.