First, I’d like to say it’s cold in Paris right now. Very cold.

This weekend we went to have a look at the green booksellers’ stands along the Seine. “Bouquinistes” have been selling old books, magazines, posters, etc. along the riverbanks for centuries and since 1991 the “boxes” have been classed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For the last several months, the City has been repainting those in need. Now, several prototypes are on display for possible replacement of hundreds of traditional boxes currently lining the Seine. There are somewhere between 900 and 1,000 boxes and about 230 booksellers concerned. The prototypes, designed by Matériaupôle Paris Seine Amont, are exposed near the Hotel de Ville.

The idea is to “modernize” the boxes and make everyday outdoor life for the “bouquinistes” easier. In the near future, the stands may be equipped with heating systems and protection against rain. (Did I mention it’s cold in Paris right now? Very cold?). The plan is also to have them specially treated against graffiti.

So, for the past few weeks, the specialists (the booksellers themselves) have been able to test out these new boxes, and passers-by have been able to ogle them. What do you think???

(old box 54)

(new prototypes)

I did mention it was cold, so here’s how we’ve been keeping warm: buckwheat “galettes” and sweet crepes.

It all started Thursday evening. February 2 is traditionally a religious celebration, the presentation of Christ at the Temple of Jerusalem, but if you ask any French kid what “Chandeleur” is, they’ll tell you it’s the day you eat crepes. Thus, Joy made crepe batter – lots of crepe batter.

This is actually why I was glad it was so cold this weekend. I had lots of crepe batter to store, but our fridge (as I’ve probably mentioned at some point) is rather small. There was no fitting it all in (not with the half butternut squash, lettuce spinner, champagne bottle, tahini, almond butter, milk, hummus experiment…etc…etc… already in there). The magic solution was storing it in the cupboard under the windowsill – believe it or not, this sport was colder than the actual fridge!

Here are two recipes: one for savory Buckwheat “galettes” (as made in Brittany) and one for dessert crepes (this is an updated version since my last crepe post). What made the real difference in the sweet crepes was my French grandmother’s secret: crème fraîche.

To make them smell wonderful, I added some fleur d’oranger (orange blossom water found in the baking isle of French grocery stores) and some vanilla extract.

The other secret is to let the batter sit overnight (or in our case, a couple of days).

Buckwheat Galettes Ingredients

250 grams buckwheat flour

Pinch of salt

1 egg

Cold water (about ½ liter)

Buckwheat Galettes Recipe:

1. Pour flour and salt into a large mixing bowl.

2. In a small bowl, beat the egg.

3. Add the egg and a little water to the flour. Continue adding water and mixing until you have a batter. Thick ribbons should form when you lift the whisk.

4. Let sit for at least a couple hours then cook over a hot griddle.

5. Decorate with your favorite ingredients.

Some suggestions:

- Swiss cheese, mushrooms (pre-cooked with garlic and olive oil) and a fried egg

- Goat cheese, walnuts and arugula

- Parmesan, sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts

- Raclette cheese and potatoes (pre-cooked)

(photo by Sébastien)

Dessert Crepes Ingredients

250 grams flour

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon butter

About ½ liter milk

2-3 soup spoons fleur d’oranger

1 soup spoon vanilla

Heaping soup spoon crème fraîche

Dessert Crepes Recipe:

1. Melt butter.

2. In a large bowl, mix flour, salt and sugar.

3. In a small bowl, beat the eggs.

4. Add the eggs, butter and some milk to the dry ingredients. Slowly add more milk and mix until you get thick ribbons of batter when you lift the whisk.

5. Add the remaining ingredients and let sit at least two hours (overnight really makes a difference!).

6. Cook on a hot skillet and decorate with your favorite ingredients.

Suggestions:

- Homemade chocolate sauce (melt dark chocolate with some milk and/or crème fraîche)

- Apricot jam

- Salted butter and sugar

- Fresh bananas, kiwi, strawberries…

Most baked goods (like cookies) taste best right out of the oven. Carrot cake, however, always seems to get better over a few days.

I wanted to try my hands at making a healthy cake (or is it more of a bread?) that I could eat either for breakfast or as a mid-day energy snack. I wanted this cake to look and taste healthy, yet still be addictive.

Usually, I grate the carrots so small you can hardly tell they’re there. This time, I was going for a hearty texture, so I used a bigger grate. This also let me see the colorful combination of veggies I put in the cake – for I didn’t just use any old carrots! No, in addition to an orange one, I also used one purple carrot (according to this site, all carrots were purple up through the Middle Ages!) and one parsnip.

I didn’t use much sugar in this recipe. For one, I was going for healthy. For two, carrots are naturally sweet. They were once used to sweeten desserts in medieval Europe (sugar wasn’t readily available). While I didn’t altogether get rid of it, there’s much less sugar in this recipe than in any others I know. Also, I used “cassonade” (raw, unprocessed) sugar.

For the salt, I used “Diamant de sel du Cachemire” or pink-colored diamond salt from Kashmir that we found at G. Detou here in Paris. This had to be crushed with a mortar and pestle.

For the frosting, I used the French cheese “St Môret” in place of cream cheese (but either would work). I whipped it with a little bit of agave syrup and fresh lemon juice to taste.

The two longest steps were opening the fresh walnuts – a slightly tedious task, but worth it – and waiting for the cake to cook – about an hour.

Did you know that February 3 is National Carrot Cake Day in the US? I hold carrot cake in pretty high esteem – glad to know I’m not the only one!

Shopping List

1 cup chopped walnuts

2 carrots and 1 parsnip (about 3 ½ cups when shredded)

2 cups whole grain spelt flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

4 eggs

½ cup raw sugar

¾ cup olive oil

For the frosting:

250 grams soft cheese

Agave syrup

Fresh lemon juice

Recipe:

1. Prepare nuts and carrots.

2. Mix dry and wet ingredients separately.

3. Add wet ingredients to dry.

4. Add carrots and nuts.

5. Line a cake mold with parchment paper and bake at 180C or 350F for about 1 hour (a knife should come out pretty clean).

6. Let cool and frost (see above).

Keep covered in the fridge and enjoy over several days.

Before I get to the chocolate cake part, let me talk about the BEST MACARONS IN PARIS. Promise you they’re linked…

Last year for my sister’s 25th birthday, my mom and I trekked all over the city collecting macarons. The first part of our goal was to surprise the birthday girl with 25 (yes, an ambitious number) of these fancy (and easily squished) cookies. Our second goal was to find the very best in Paris.

We were successful in our quest and ended up in Montmartre (the best place to surprise someone with a plate-full of macarons) with four different names. Of course, we didn’t tell my sister or my husband which macarons came from where. Here was the verdict:

4. Random corner boulangerie (so-so compared to the others)

3. Ladurée (well-known and delicious, but on the sweeter side and not as original as the winner)

2. La Maison du Chocolat (pretty close to heaven)

…According to us, the very best macarons in Paris are from….

Pierre Hermé

(My favorite was olive oil and vanilla)

What’s the connection to the cake? Well, it’s already been a year since this macaron hunt (oh, yes, and we’ve been back to Pierre Hermé since!) and last weekend my sister celebrated another birthday. Since the weather’s been so nice (well, until yesterday), we had a picnic and I wanted to surprise her with a cake. I always bring my staple moeulleux au chocolat and wanted something more original. It’s hard to beat a pile of macarons! That was my inspiration, though – almonds. They are one of the essential ingredients in French macarons. So, I altered my recipe a bit and came up with a cake I was quite happy with. More moist than ever.

In this recipe, I used salted butter and a bit less sugar.

Shopping List

1 1/2 sticks (170 grams) salted butter

8.8 ounces (250 grams) bittersweet chocolate

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar

4 eggs

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon (50 grams) white flour

1 cup (125 grams) ground almonds

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

2. Slowly begin melting butter over low heat.

3. Separate eggs.

4. Put sugar in mixing bowl, add egg yolks and mix.

5. Begin melting chocolate in double-broiler.

6. Add butter to sugar/egg-yolk mixture and mix.

7. Combine flour, salt and ground almonds, then add to the rest of the batter and mix.

8. Add melted chocolate and mix.

9. Beat egg whites until they are stiff and carefully fold into batter.

10. Butter a round baking pan and pour in mixture.

11. Cook until the edges begin to dry and break away from the pan (10 or more minutes). The inside should remain moist and stick to a knife when tested.  Keep an eye on it and don’t overcook!

If you’re still in a cooking mood, try your hand at macarons. This is a fabulous book: Mad About Macarons! by Jill Colonna.

Lemon bars are one of my very favorite desserts – they always have been.

The next time I tasted lemon bars as good as these, was six years ago in California. I was playing bride’s maid in a friend’s wedding, and was thus a lucky witness to all that goes on behind the scenes in the days before such a big event. There were many things to be done – pick up the dress and hide it away, cut out place cards, catch up on old memories, stack cumbersome boxes as UPS dropped them off, find thread to stitch girls into their dresses… you get the idea. In order to keep us going, we ladies required regular nibbles – including the Maid of Honor’s lemon bars (homemade from freshly picked Meyer lemons).

I kept the recipe and made it many times – with success! They always turned out because I followed the directions. Problems arose, however, when I got a scale and began weighing ingredients (like butter) in grams. Despite careful calculations, my lemon bars were no longer turning out the way I wanted – something had gotten lost in translation.

Finally, this weekend, I succeeded in making my best lemon bars yet. The main secret was going for more butter than less and doubling the top layer (filling) on the original recipe. I also used a rectangular cake pan (like for making a loaf), so ended up with a much thicker crust. In other words, these are very “gourmand” lemon bars.

Instead of powdered sugar, I used “cassonade” (except for the sprinkles on top). This is a type of crystal-like brown sugar that is easily found in French groceries stores. It’s a staple in our house.

Most important: DO NOT OVERCOOK THE TOP LAYER!!!

Shopping List

For the crust:

125 grams softened butter (that’s a standard small “stick” in France)

¼ cup cassonade sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 cup flour

For the filling:

4 eggs

½ cup sugar

4 tablespoons flour

6 tablespoons lemon juice

Recipe:

1. For the crust, beat all the ingredients together and bake for about 20 minutes (180C/350F). You’ll put this back in the oven, so don’t worry about it being undercooked.

2. Set aside and let cool while preparing…

3. …the filling. Mix all the ingredients and pour over the crust.

4. Bake for about 20 minutes. Don’t overcook or it will become chewy and lose the moisture. The filling should just barely be solid when you take it out. If you touch it, you fingertip should leave a mark.

5. Let cool and cut into squares. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

We haven’t broken into the “gâteau des rois” yet, but I’m feeling lucky today and think I just might be the one to get the piece with the “fève” hidden in it.

It’s a French tradition to celebrate Epiphany (today) with a special cake that has a surprise tucked inside (usually a miniature porcelain figurine). Whoever gets the special piece is royalty for the day. There are two kinds of cakes: the “galette des rois” and the “gâteau des rois”. The former is the most popular in Paris and I’ve even heard it referred to as the “galette Parisienne” in other parts of France (most often in a slightly condescending, “that’s not nearly as good as ours” kind of way). It’s made of puffed pastry and typically filled with “frangipane” (an almond and cream filling). The other one is often called the “couronne bordelaise”. It’s like a brioche (the best has a hint of orange in it) and is shaped like a giant bagel. This one’s actually kind of hard to find in Paris, but given all the bakeries, I’ve managed! If you ask someone from Paris, they’ll tell you the “galette” is the best. Guess what someone from Bordeaux would tell you, where the “couronne” (crown) is sold more than everywhere?

Why am I feeling like a queen today? Because I just passed the written part of the infamous French driving test! I’ve already mentioned it, but that was all the way back in May – in May! I’d heard all about it and skirted the issue for several years. When I finally decided to sign up, I didn’t know it would really be that big of a commitment. Well, here I am, halfway there!

That reminds me of a pleasant thought I had when walking into the apartment earlier this afternoon: “becoming French” has just kind of crept up on me. Peering around, I noticed that my life is surrounded by the most random clues that I’m living somewhere between two worlds (the familiar and the unfamiliar), and that little by little I’m becoming “one of them”. When I first came to France, I tried to be “Parisian.” Scarf, bag, shoes, haircut…. Now I laugh at those college juniors! Best way to spot a foreigner: they’re sporting all the “French” touches at the same time. All through grad school, I continued making my efforts: only speak in French (yes, even when I’m tired), only read in French, only eat French food, read about French history, meet French people…French, French, French….France, France, France.

Then, I got married and the strangest thing happened. All of a sudden, France became more than an obsession; it became permanent. With that, oddly, I stopped trying – but, in a good way. It was then that I accepted that I was not French and no matter how hard I tried, never would be. I was a foreigner, integrated yes, but a foreigner all the same. I started saying things like, heck (I know, I really do say that some times), “I’m wearing my tennis shoes to the bakery.” It felt really good. I wasn’t rejecting France, I was just also accepting that other, more familiar, part of me.

Then, once I stopped trying, the creeping started coming in. I do things now I definitely didn’t do five years ago.

10 ways I’ve become just that much more “French”:

1. In winter, I leave vegetables (like broccoli and carrots) and other random items out on the kitchen counter instead of refrigerating them.

2. I scrape the mold off old cheese and eat what’s underneath.

3. I like my baguette with a good meal, and a good sauce.

4. I take a caddy to the farmers’ market.

5. I measure butter on a scale (in grams!)

6. I never leave the house without a scarf.

7. I always take my umbrella (that’s Paris, not France!)

8. I love an espresso after a good meal and have to have a hot drink in the mornings.

9. I read Le Figaro more than The New York Times.

10. I just passed the written!

]]> http://thetomatoknife.com/2011/01/queen-for-a-day/feed/ 2 http://thetomatoknife.com/2010/12/mini-quatre-quarts/ http://thetomatoknife.com/2010/12/mini-quatre-quarts/#comments Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:50:37 +0000 Joy Anna Becvarik http://thetomatoknife.com/?p=1549 A quatre-quart is a simple cake traditionally made with four different ingredients (eggs, sugar, flour and butter) in equal parts. Thus the name, “four-quarters”.

One thing I’ve learned about French cooking is that you have to have a scale. Unlike American recipes, European ones give ingredients in weight (i.e. grams for butter or kilos for potatoes). It certainly took me some getting used to, but now that I actually own a digital scale (and am no longer translating grams to ounces to tablespoons and then scooping butter out of the mold with a metal spoon), I’m enjoying how easy it is.

Thanks to weight, I recently made my first quatre-quarts, on a very small scale (no pun intended). The story goes, I was really in the mood for something yummy – and the idea of trying my hand at a quatre-quarts had been swirling in my head for a while. Problem: I looked in the fridge and only found one egg. What better challenge! If you really put in egg, sugar, flour and butter in equal amounts to make a quatre-quarts, why shouldn’t it work? It’d just have to be a small one.

And so, I weighed my egg (a whopping 51 grams without the shell) and then proceeded with the rest. Since I rarely follow a recipe to a T, I added a bit of baking powder (about 1/2 a teaspoon) and then some fresh lemon juice and vanilla extract.  I also put in less than a quarter of sugar (a random 38 grams). Haha – it actually worked. In about 45 minutes (tops) I got the world’s smallest quatre-quarts. Eaten just out of the oven, it was perfect. (P.S. I also covered it in a mini-bit of chocolate buttercream frosting, but I probably shouldn’t mention that.)

Recipe for Joy’s Quatre-Quarts:

Shopping List

Eggs

Sugar

Flour

Baking powder

Unsalted Butter

Lemon juice

Vanilla extract

What to do:

1. Weigh the egg(s) (no shell of course).

2. Weight the other main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter) to the same mass (except the sugar which can be a little less).

3. Begin melting the butter.

4. Mix the egg and sugar.

5. Add the butter.

6. Add the flour and baking powder (see above).

7. Add the the lemon juice and vanilla.

8. Bake in a prepared dish (bottom lined with wax paper and edges smeared with butter) at 190 degrees C for about 30 minutes.

For a normal-sized cake, use 3-4 eggs.

]]> http://thetomatoknife.com/2010/12/mini-quatre-quarts/feed/ 0 http://thetomatoknife.com/2010/09/berry-delight-recipe/ http://thetomatoknife.com/2010/09/berry-delight-recipe/#comments Wed, 15 Sep 2010 11:41:45 +0000 Joy Anna Becvarik http://thetomatoknife.com/?p=1477 It took me quite some time to find where to buy frozen berries in France. When I first arrived as a junior in college, I was an avid smoothie drinker – concocting one pretty much every day or so. Since I had other priorities that first year, I kind of let smoothie-drinking go by the wayside. When I moved back though (six years ago), finding appropriate ingredients, including frozen berries, became a major priority. I spent way too much time scanning the frozen food sections at an entire slew of grocery stores. I found all sorts of typical vegetables, like peas, spinach and potatoes (in an amazing amount of different types, shapes and sizes). I also found some more unusual items, such as leek patties and not-so-bad quiches. I, however, never came across frozen fruit. No strawberries, no blueberries, no mangoes, no cherries – nada.

During berry season, I would stock up on my favorites (Mara des bois strawberries, for example) and freeze what would fit in our tiny freezer (I do mean tiny – it’s just as high as a pint of ice cream). The rest of the year, I was at a loss – and not getting my customary dose (or overdose) of phytochemicals.

If I wasn’t so stubborn, I would have found the frozen berries sooner. But, I said “No, I’m not going to Picard.” This is a French chain-store that is wholly dedicated to frozen foods. I’d walk past it every day on my way home from the metro, and I’d imagine (in one of those scouring, devilish ways) what was inside: rows of ice-cold pre-packaged meals, just waiting to be taken home, thrown in the microwave and devoured in front of the television. That’s not why I came to France. This place was for those who didn’t cook – and that’s where I was a little wrong. While I still don’t like the idea of going into a huge white room that reminds me of the guts of a giant meat freezer, Picard has proved to be my organic frozen berry oasis. In addition to the ready-made meals, they have a large variety of pure and simple frozen fruits and vegetables – including organic ones.

Now, because I’m like that, once I actually found my berries, I started wondering if frozen food is actually a good thing. Here’s my dilemma:

Environmental Disadvantages of Frozen Foods:

1. Freezers consume electricity and create CO2.

2. There’s a lot of plastic packaging.

Environmental Advantages of Frozen Foods:

1. A full freezer uses less energy than an empty one.

2. Freezing helps reduce food waste. You only take eat what you need and keep the rest frozen until you need it again. Also, frozen produce tends to use more of a harvested crop.

I guess it’s kind of a toss-up. If we could use low-energy consumption freezers and biodegradable storage containers, we might be okay.

To help us contemplate, here’s one of my favorite recipes, using frozen (or fresh) berries.

You can replace the fromage blanc with yogurt (yaourt brassé is a nice alternative in France). Fromage blanc is a fresh cheese the consistency of thick, creamy yogurt or sour cream. I love the wholesome taste of plain yogurt, but sometimes I want a dessert that makes me feel like I’m being naughty – yogurt is for good-girl days. The pure smoothness and lack of bitterness of fromage blanc is what makes it feel like dessert. Kind of like the way mascarpone works in tiramisu.

The speculoos sprinkled on top add a sort of pre-holiday cheer to this simple dessert. Speculoos are Belgian spice cookies made with cassonade (dark brown sugar) and spices (i.e. cinnamon and cloves). They kind of remind me of ginger snaps.

Shopping List

A mix of berries

Liquid sweetener (mayple or agave syrup)

Fromage blanc

Speculoos cookies

Recipe:

1. If using frozen berries, cook them over medium heat and add a small amount of sweetener if desired.

2. In a small bowl, mix the fromage blanc with small amount of sweetener to taste.

3. In a glass jar or other suitable container, layer the berries, the fromage blanc and broken pieces of speculoos.

Serve immediately.

As I’m writing this, there’s a brand-new jar of confiture de lait staring at me from across the table.

I’m opening the lid now- why not? Too curious to wait for the bread, I’m tasting the brown goo falling off the spoon- with my fingers, of course. Hmmm, not bad, not bad at all- sweet, and creamy. Not the same smooth texture as caramel, almost mealy- not in an old-rotten-apple kind of way, but in a this-actually-works kind of way. It’s sweet, very sweet. Maybe too sweet?

Now I’m eyeing the boring old peanut butter (the organic, no sugar kind that, at 5:00 on a Tuesday afternoon, just doesn’t cut it alone). Don’t know if this is allowed, but I’m spreading the purée de cacahuete over a torn-off piece of the baguette de campagne I just bought on my way home from work. And now a dab of this blissful “jam” (that isn’t jam at all). Wow! That’s good- might never stop.

I’m reading the jam jar now- goes on top of yogurt, bread, ice cream… This is a new find.

I’m looking on the Internet now…oh, I see. It’s like dulce de leche- it all makes sense.

When I moved to college, one of the first gadgets I had to buy was a blender.

Since we’re all products of our environment, my breakfast habits have little-by-little been influenced by those of the French. The typical petit déjeuner in France includes a hot drink (coffee or tea, but usually coffee) and some bread or biscottes (little dry, crunchy breads that we have yet to find in the United States) smeared with creamy butter and/or jam. On the weekends, breakfast branches out to fresh-baked goodies from the boulangerie. This straightforward routine, obviously, was an easy trap to fall into- especially since I’ve discovered the foam function on the coffee machine. Now, without a comforting hot drink, I just don’t feel like my day is starting out right.

That’s until the first hot days of summer arrive. Then, all I want is an ice-cold smoothie. Just for info, the temperature in Paris today was a very warm 29 degrees C (84 degrees F).

My newest obsession is kefir in my smoothies. This is a slightly tart, fermented milk- thicker than drinking milk, but thinner than yogurt. It’s made from milk (cow, goat…) and “kefir grains”- a bacteria and yeast culture. Originally from the Caucasus, kefir is known to be quite good for you, especially for your digestive system- thanks to the presences of probiotic bacteria. Best of all, it’s delicious in a smoothie.

My other smoothie obsession is bananas. All smoothies must have them. Trick: when your uneaten bananas start getting too ripe throw them in the freezer (just as they are) and keep them until you make a smoothie. To peel, run under hot water until you can easily take off the skin. I’d recommend putting a strainer at the bottom of the sink to keep the gooey peel from going down the drain.

This recipe makes 1 really big or 2 medium glasses:

Shopping List

1 banana (fresh or frozen)

1/2 cup plain kefir

2/3 cup organic berries (blackberries, blackcurrants, wild blueberries, raspberries, strawberries)

1/2 cup orange juice

Liquid sweetener (honey, maple syrup, agave nectar) to taste, if desired

Blend and enjoy.

This week I got to meet David Lebovitz and picked up a beautiful (and heavy) copy of his latest cookbook, Ready for Dessert.

Once a pastry chef at Alice Water’s Berkley-based restaurant, Chez Panisse, Lebovitz now lives in Paris. On his blog and in his books, he not only shares recipes, but also comical anecdotes about his everyday life in Paris- many of which the rest of us can identify with. My first glimpse into the chef/author’s world of witty sarcasm and goofy observations came as I was leafing through the introduction of an earlier book, The Sweet Life in Paris. Here, he describes the “exact” moment he “became Parisian.” This story alone is worth a trip to the bookstore, especially for we foreigners who will undoubtedly chuckle and say, “That’s so true!”

At the WHSmith-sponsored reading, Lebovitz kept joking about one of his recent blog posts and his misadventures at the grocery store. I, too, have grocery store stories, but more generally I seem to have plastic bag stories. This, in fact, is one of the five or so items I’ve cried over in France- well, it’s never really the bag itself, but the callous person behind the bag who is always the last straw in an already long line of straws. One of the bag stories put an end to my buying produce at the grocery store. The other story put an end to frequenting one of my favorite boulageries.

I don’t actually know what the real policy is because each grocery store employee seems to dictate their own rules. Until that day (incidentally, the same day Obama was sworn into the White House), no one had ever abided to the “all produce must be in a much-too-big plastic bag” mantra. In many European grocery stores, you must weigh your produce and stick the price on it before proceeding to the cash register. In some stores, there is someone who does this for you- usually they are friendly enough. The weighing process often involves a large plastic bag- which I never want (and, in my opinion, goes directly against the grocery stores’ marketing ads supporting sustainable development). Sometimes, there are small paper bags that you can use, but it seems I’m always having to ask for them. Thus, for thick-skinned, easily-portable items (such as a single lemon or three attached bananas), I’ll get them weighed without a bag. Usually, no one cares and I leave the store happily counting the lack of non-biodegradable items in my canvas shopping tote. One day, however, the antagonist of my story not only says (in a very unfriendly tone) that my lemon must be in a plastic bag, she refuses to give me a paper bag (stacked in a neat pile next to the scale)- even after I tried to explain why I didn’t want yet another plastic bag (that would be sealed with the price sticker and, once broken, not reusable). I went on about how it was the store’s policy to be sustainable. When people aren’t friendly, I don’t buy- unfortunate for me, because I couldn’t make lemon bars that day.

My other plastic bag story was at the bakery, about three years after moving to France. Had it been any old bakery, I might not have cared so much, but this was the very first bakery I had ever been to in France and, thus, it had quite a bit of sentimental value attached to it. I remember buying my first pain aux raisins from a cheerful, blonde girl with a bouncy ponytail. It was the most wonderful thing my twenty-something self had ever eaten. Throughout that entire first year I went there all the time. Thus, my deception when, years later, a grumpy woman refused to give me a plastic bag (the only reason I wanted one was because I had just bought two items, it was raining and I didn’t have any room in my book bag). Completely unprepared for the storm that was to hit me, I was paralyzed by the bark that informed me the bags were only for the sandwiches. I tried to insist, and was hoping the people in line behind me would support my cause, but all I ended up with was a pool full of water about to overflow from my eyes. I managed to get out of there before the tears really started flowing and my face turned all red.

These stunned, helpless moments don’t happen that often, but when they do- I wonder, “Was it my fault?” When I ask Sébastien (who in the evening can probably still see the blood simmering under my skin), he says, “No” and that “It’s not normal.” This is to say that even French people find this sort of behavior shocking and wonder where it comes from. Since neither of us are from a big city, we wonder if it’s that. Or maybe it’s the latitude and the lack of sunlight in winter that creates a handful of grumps. Unfortunately, I’m afraid it’s these few cranky people who give France a bad image. Think about it, if I came to Paris for a week-long vacation and encountered the woman at the bakery, I’d probably say “the French are rude,” too- something we know isn’t generally true.

Back to Lebovitz, go out and get his latest book if you’re up for baking (and stories). Also, if you’re interested in meeting him, he’ll be at Café Etienne Marcel on Friday, May 28^th. Check the WH Smith website for details.