Friday, November 13, 2009
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Autumn in Avignon
I haven't posted any pictures yet from vacation. And I know that's not right.
Walk out of the youth hostel, turn left and see: the Rhone River, the Pont d'Avignon (do you know the song?), and a little bit of Notre-Dame-des-Doms and the Palais des Papes.
Walk out of the youth hostel, turn left and see: the Rhone River, the Pont d'Avignon (do you know the song?), and a little bit of Notre-Dame-des-Doms and the Palais des Papes.
Le Palais des Papes, 14th century home to the popes and their entourage.
It's mostly huge and stone, with cool features like secret underground coffers to stash their wealth.
It's mostly huge and stone, with cool features like secret underground coffers to stash their wealth.
Inside, looking out.
Less than an hour away from Marseille by train, yet Avignon looks totally different -- it actually looks like fall. The color of the stone and the particular quality of fallness made me surprisingly nostalgic for Paris.
I'm turning into my mother :-)
I've been meaning to take a picture of my adorable little French eggplants for ages. (Which is something my mother would have thought of and done weeks ago, hence the title.) Are they not the cutest little things you've ever seen? I can't tell you how delicious they are, sauteed in olive oil, with maybe some tomatoes, chick peas, and bell peppers for good measure.
They're posing here with my shopping basket, that I bought expressly for filling with fruits and vegetables at the market. Have I mentioned how beautiful the market is? It is probably the one thing I will miss the most about France. Unlike American farmers' markets, I don't believe the vendors are actual farmers; which means that the produce could still be imported from non-Provencal locations. (Not sure locavorism has quite caught on here...) But what amazes me every time is how much really high-quality produce is available for such low prices. I filled my basket with eggplants, bell peppers, clementines, kiwis, tomatoes; plus bananas and apples. At an American grocery store, would that not cost more than 7 euros? And would it not be a little difficult to find nice tomatoes and nice clementines at the same time? I don't know how they swing it, but it really seems a lot easier -- in terms of quality, availability, and cost -- to eat a ton of fruits and vegetables here than it did in the US.
Another observation on health. There are McDonald's here, and there are advertisements for McDonald's. And at the bottom of every ad for fast food, there is a reminder that, for your health, you should exercise regularly and eat at least five fruits and vegetables a day.
More on le mistral
Now that it's 10 degrees colder in the South of France than in my old northern stomping grounds, there's heat on in the school, and I got my shoes soaked through by the rain last night, can I complain about the weather?
I don't really want to complain. In a confusing, unfamiliar way, I think it feels like fall. When I walked out my door this morning to go to the (open-air) market, it felt even wintery. You know those bright winter days we have in NH, where the sky such a clear, icy blue and the air is so dry, and there's nothing stopping the sun from shining, but you can tell just by looking at the sky and the way the light falls that it's winter? It felt like that. Except, I must be losing my grip on reality, because it's really not cold at all. The wind can be fierce, as it is today, but it isn't needles to the face so much as chaos in the air. And when the wind stops, the air is gentle.
It's not swimming weather, but it's not bad. It is weird, though. It's weird to go out in the evening, at 6pm, when it's already dark, so it feels like winter is coming, and yet... by day there are palm trees, so it looks like summer. There's a strange cognitive dissonance going on. I am curious to see how it will feel to have a winter without snow. I'm guessing that I will be tricked into feeling normal. After all, we wouldn't want to subject even weather to ethnocentrism.
I don't really want to complain. In a confusing, unfamiliar way, I think it feels like fall. When I walked out my door this morning to go to the (open-air) market, it felt even wintery. You know those bright winter days we have in NH, where the sky such a clear, icy blue and the air is so dry, and there's nothing stopping the sun from shining, but you can tell just by looking at the sky and the way the light falls that it's winter? It felt like that. Except, I must be losing my grip on reality, because it's really not cold at all. The wind can be fierce, as it is today, but it isn't needles to the face so much as chaos in the air. And when the wind stops, the air is gentle.
It's not swimming weather, but it's not bad. It is weird, though. It's weird to go out in the evening, at 6pm, when it's already dark, so it feels like winter is coming, and yet... by day there are palm trees, so it looks like summer. There's a strange cognitive dissonance going on. I am curious to see how it will feel to have a winter without snow. I'm guessing that I will be tricked into feeling normal. After all, we wouldn't want to subject even weather to ethnocentrism.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
My week in food
A culinary summary of this past week, eating on the cheap:
Default sandwich: Variations on a Nicoise salad, involving a half-baguette featuring tuna and olives. A little drizzle of Provencal olive oil and pepper really goes a long way.
Olives: These are REAL olives. I've walked past the olive trees. They are pungent and potent and ever so olivey. These beasts are not for everyone (and I'm only just now developing a taste for the little punks), but there is no arguing with some quality olive oil.
Fougasse aux olives: Some brilliant, delicious pastry with a shiny, slightly sweet patina, slightly sweet cheese filling and olives. I was not prepared for how delicious this was going to be.
The latest in ice-cream: Olive oil, honey and nougat (?). Still don't know what the nougats were, but for a relatively unsweet ice-cream, this was a cool experience. I have no idea where the ice-cream place was, though -- could be any one of millions of little streets in Arles...
Pistacio-apricot tarte. Creamier than an American fruit pie, and a beautiful shade of green. Why must bakeries put such pretty things out in the window to tempt weaklings like me?
Chausson aux pommes. Puffy pastry with apple compote (think apple butter) inside. At a high-end bakery (like a certain one in Nimes, near where my last sighting of that intriguing stranger took place...), this stuff is serious.
Coffee. It would still be delicious even if it weren't in those cute, cute little mugs.
Hot chocolate. In the cafe where Van Gogh used to hang out. And yes, for that, you may charge me that much for a little cup of ordinary hot chocolate. The put a little packet of sugar on the saucer, too.
Bread and cheese. I can't go long without this stuff.
Next week: Vegetables (have I ever mentioned how cute French eggplants are??) and lesson plans.
Default sandwich: Variations on a Nicoise salad, involving a half-baguette featuring tuna and olives. A little drizzle of Provencal olive oil and pepper really goes a long way.
Olives: These are REAL olives. I've walked past the olive trees. They are pungent and potent and ever so olivey. These beasts are not for everyone (and I'm only just now developing a taste for the little punks), but there is no arguing with some quality olive oil.
Fougasse aux olives: Some brilliant, delicious pastry with a shiny, slightly sweet patina, slightly sweet cheese filling and olives. I was not prepared for how delicious this was going to be.
The latest in ice-cream: Olive oil, honey and nougat (?). Still don't know what the nougats were, but for a relatively unsweet ice-cream, this was a cool experience. I have no idea where the ice-cream place was, though -- could be any one of millions of little streets in Arles...
Pistacio-apricot tarte. Creamier than an American fruit pie, and a beautiful shade of green. Why must bakeries put such pretty things out in the window to tempt weaklings like me?
Chausson aux pommes. Puffy pastry with apple compote (think apple butter) inside. At a high-end bakery (like a certain one in Nimes, near where my last sighting of that intriguing stranger took place...), this stuff is serious.
Coffee. It would still be delicious even if it weren't in those cute, cute little mugs.
Hot chocolate. In the cafe where Van Gogh used to hang out. And yes, for that, you may charge me that much for a little cup of ordinary hot chocolate. The put a little packet of sugar on the saucer, too.
Bread and cheese. I can't go long without this stuff.
Next week: Vegetables (have I ever mentioned how cute French eggplants are??) and lesson plans.
Avignon, Nimes, Arles
I just spent the last week all around Provence, seeing sights and thinking thoughts -- I can't decide what to tell you about.
The main points revolve around ancient buildings (including Roman structures from the 1st century AD and a 14th century papal palace); wandering through impossible tangles of French streets and stumbling upon places I may never find again; contemplating art from the 14th and 21st centuries; eating (yes, really); and talking with all sorts of nice people. We could also get into both the introspection I had time for, my renewed appreciation for my bathroom (toilet seats! you don't see those every day), and small epiphanies on language.
I walked through a lot, a lot of very old stone buildings. No sooner did I recover from the shock of a 14th century palace, than what should appear but a 1st century arena. It is impossible for my 23-year-old mind to grasp 2000 years old -- although my young viscera definitely got the "I know this tower has lasted 2000 years, but can this narrow winding stone staircase really hold up until I get to the bottom safely?" bit. So we must be impressed then by the size and grandeur of the structures -- but even that's out of reach. At its finest, the architecture is so perfectly proportioned that it doesn't feel huge and you don't feel small; but the people walking around in front of you do seem a little silly in their irrelevance. I wonder what it was like to be walking around these buildings not as a reverent visitor, but as an inhabitant? I'm talking about the Palais des Papes, temporary seat for the Popes when they were in Avignon (starting around 1309, I believe), a place that housed not only the pope but the hundreds of people who worked with, under and around him; I'm talking about the 1st century AD Roman arenas, where 20,000-30,000 people could watch machismo in its bloody glory. What would it be like to see all that lavish extravagance as functionality rather than a sacred cocoon of History?
History's overwhelming; let's talk about Art. I saw two art museums: One of medieval Italian paintings, one of contemporary photography and sculpture. I realize that my nerdiness really borders on snootiness when I get all excited about Art and Western Culture and the New Yorker magazine and all those fancy elitist things that people pretend to like, but, seriously, fusty old paintings are a big deal. Looking at what one man (or woman) decides to put in one frame that ostensibly represents one moment in time puts me in their mind like nothing else can. Because of course they couldn't possibly confine the meaning of the painting to only one idea, even if they wanted to. What informs their decision to choose those expressions, those colors, those gestures? Nothing less than the entire world they live in. And so in room after room of Virgin Mary and Child, we see not the same woman with the same child but dozens of different artists as people, the towns they lived in, the conversations they had, the qualities they valued... as many enigmas as insights.
Wandering through narrow, windy little streets, or across ancient stone floors, is the best way to mull over all these thoughts about art and places and the world and what I'm doing here. And none of these words looks quite the same on my laptop screen as it did floating above a ivy-shaded shuttered window somewhere in Arles. I'll try again later.
The main points revolve around ancient buildings (including Roman structures from the 1st century AD and a 14th century papal palace); wandering through impossible tangles of French streets and stumbling upon places I may never find again; contemplating art from the 14th and 21st centuries; eating (yes, really); and talking with all sorts of nice people. We could also get into both the introspection I had time for, my renewed appreciation for my bathroom (toilet seats! you don't see those every day), and small epiphanies on language.
I walked through a lot, a lot of very old stone buildings. No sooner did I recover from the shock of a 14th century palace, than what should appear but a 1st century arena. It is impossible for my 23-year-old mind to grasp 2000 years old -- although my young viscera definitely got the "I know this tower has lasted 2000 years, but can this narrow winding stone staircase really hold up until I get to the bottom safely?" bit. So we must be impressed then by the size and grandeur of the structures -- but even that's out of reach. At its finest, the architecture is so perfectly proportioned that it doesn't feel huge and you don't feel small; but the people walking around in front of you do seem a little silly in their irrelevance. I wonder what it was like to be walking around these buildings not as a reverent visitor, but as an inhabitant? I'm talking about the Palais des Papes, temporary seat for the Popes when they were in Avignon (starting around 1309, I believe), a place that housed not only the pope but the hundreds of people who worked with, under and around him; I'm talking about the 1st century AD Roman arenas, where 20,000-30,000 people could watch machismo in its bloody glory. What would it be like to see all that lavish extravagance as functionality rather than a sacred cocoon of History?
History's overwhelming; let's talk about Art. I saw two art museums: One of medieval Italian paintings, one of contemporary photography and sculpture. I realize that my nerdiness really borders on snootiness when I get all excited about Art and Western Culture and the New Yorker magazine and all those fancy elitist things that people pretend to like, but, seriously, fusty old paintings are a big deal. Looking at what one man (or woman) decides to put in one frame that ostensibly represents one moment in time puts me in their mind like nothing else can. Because of course they couldn't possibly confine the meaning of the painting to only one idea, even if they wanted to. What informs their decision to choose those expressions, those colors, those gestures? Nothing less than the entire world they live in. And so in room after room of Virgin Mary and Child, we see not the same woman with the same child but dozens of different artists as people, the towns they lived in, the conversations they had, the qualities they valued... as many enigmas as insights.
Wandering through narrow, windy little streets, or across ancient stone floors, is the best way to mull over all these thoughts about art and places and the world and what I'm doing here. And none of these words looks quite the same on my laptop screen as it did floating above a ivy-shaded shuttered window somewhere in Arles. I'll try again later.
The writing on the wall
"Smoking kills."In America, this would be to avoid a lawsuit. In France...?
McCafe.
McBoobs.
McMarketing.
McBoobs.
McMarketing.
"Long live the Pope."
What century am I in?
What century am I in?
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