It's good to be a foodie

France is turning me into a foodie.

Maybe it's just finally having enough money to eat more than Ramen. Or being forced by the lack of American ready-made mixes and sauces to learn how ingredients go together. Or the exposure to different cuisines that comes with life in a city. Or maybe (likely) it's Tom.

In any case, I'm eating better now than I ever have. To start with, I'm eating out more often and more diversely. In the last week or so I've been to a French jazz brunch, a Vietnamese restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, and of course, several bakeries/brasseries for pastries, sandwiches, demi-pints and even a late-night rum & ice cream sundae. Delicious. And fairly affordable, too, if you do things wisely.

Even better than eating out, however, is eating in. Using the kitchen here is a social experience, and even if you're just boiling some pasta for yourself you're bound to run into a friend. The fourth floor community averages about two impromptu shared meals a week, which are a lot of fun and extremely tasty. The blend of nationalities and life experience means that everyone brings their own set of expertise and flavors to the stove. Tom has made fish n' chips, shepherd's pie and a mean curry, Alicia does Indian dishes, Maria has made a few delectable Greek dishes, Silvan brings some German to the table, Delphine does French quiches and cakes and Lucy specializes in desserts and Southern cuisine. As for me, I'm still learning, but I did manage to whip up a pretty hearty chili meal last week, complete with black beans and cornbread I had brought back from Christmas break.

I'm also learning secondhand how to manage French cooking, or cooking in France, at least. Many of the ingredients I rely on in the States are either expensive and difficult to find or completely nonexistent in Paris (examples: peanut butter, corn meal, black beans, anything spicy, baking powder, chocolate chips, brown sugar, canned broth, Bisquick, cake/sauce mixes, etc.). Instead, I'm discovering how to use foods like butter, tomato purée, cream, butter, lardons (cured bacon strips best translated as "lardlings") aubergine, butter, endives, fresh basil and herbs, and a range of cheeses. Oh, and lest I forget: butter. I've also been trying out a new sport of haphazard baking. Since I don't have measuring cups or correct ingredients, each time I bake I just approximate components and amounts until the batter tastes good and looks to be about the right consistency. So far I've made a batch of cake-like chocolate chip cookies and a banana bread which both turned out amazing well, considering.

Anyway, life is good, and tastes even better. If anyone has simple recipes to share I would love to have them. I might need to break down and actually buy some cooking utensils, though. Oh, and some new pants.

Dragons and Valentines

This year's Saint-Valentin weekend was as much a celebration of my love for Paris as of my relationship with Tom. Although we did nothing particularly spectacular, we spent a long, leisurely weekend together, taking advantage of all the city has to offer. On Friday we met up at the legendary "L'As du Falafel" (recommended by Lenny Kravitz, apparently) for lunch before spending an afternoon amongst the orthodox Jews and drag queens of the Marais, visiting a museum, stopping for hot chocolate, and generally enjoying the unseasonably sunny day. Dinner was a French-inspired collective effort with Lucy, an artist-in-residence whose cooking skills rival Tom's: basque prawns and rice, a Roquefort/walnut salad, and an apple tart and custard for dessert.

Saturday: stroll around the Alesia area and a visit to a vibrant weekend flea market to pick up extra plates and cutlery. Dance at the Canadian House, which was small but delightfully goofy and Valentine's themed (because who doesn't associate tea-light candles, lasers and shitty American pop music with February 14th?). Sunday: Chinese lunch in the "ethnic" Belleville quarter, in a packed restaurant with a street-side window to afford a view of the the slightly lame Chinese New Year parade. Happy year of the Tiger!

Paris, je t'aime

By the time you read this I will have officially been here a week. And what a week it has been. I still don’t feel like I will ever be rich, stylish or elegant enough to quite fit in here, but I love it nonetheless. There’s always something to see, always a market, a festival, a concert, or just interesting people to watch on the metro. I spent most of this weekend out and around with no company but my iPod, and as I browsed the antiques market, the used bookstore, the camera store (currently on my 4th lens cap for this Nikon), the transportation festival (weird, I know, but I saw some Seussian bicycles and the world’s first hydrogen-powered plane) I had that wonderful “all is right with the world” feeling. And now, grab-bag tidbits…

*Dorm life is still going pretty well. My only complaint continues to be the lack of soundproofing; I would be sleeping now if my neighbor weren’t watching TV. The showers aren’t bad but remind me of camping (push button, and no control over temperature, although it’s the perfect level of warmth anyway). I’ve seen a few other people’s rooms now and there’s a surprising amount of variation in size and furnishings—I have even more appreciation for my new, huge desk and shelves.

*I hear the Canadian house has en-suite bathrooms in the bedrooms and a gym. By my previous logic, this would mean France loves Canada more than anyone.

*I attended a director’s “screening” of an independent Zombie movie called “Zombies of Eureka,” composed entirely of no-budget music videos strung together from the local music scene of Eurka, CA. Strange but oddly amazing—you can find the full length thing on imdb if you’re curious. Why did I go? It was the first of many student activities in the “rectangle”—a room with a ping pong table, couches and a flatscreen in the basement, which apparently hosts weekly movie nights, open mics, and bar nights. Yummy. Can’t wait for the French semester to start and everyone to move in.

*I caught a glimpse of my mysterious musician neighbor in action in one of the basement practice rooms. Apparently he’s a she, and it’s a clarinet, not a bassoon.

*I used the kitchens for the first time this past weekend to make dinner with some GA Tech undergrads. They contributed most of the food, I brought the wine and cheese (because when I had to limit myself at the grocery store, those were, naturally, my priority items).

*One of the other grad students, Stephine (pronounced Stephanie, but she goes by Phinn) also lives here, about a floor below me. She showed up at my door this morning at the ungodly hour of 11am, beaming enthusiasm as I struggled to shrug off grogginess enough to be social. Morning people sicken me.

*I’m “auditing” the undergraduate preliminary language course (although still fully participating, oddly). The course itself is pretty useless, but I’m learning about the center and meeting a few people. Everyone has had as much trouble with housing as me, and we’re all equally frustrated with the lack of communication/organization, and impatient for formal introductions when orientation starts this Thursday.

*There are approx 200 students at the (adorable) NYU center, in the heart of the chic 16th arrondissement. 150 are (really impressive) undergrads doing a study abroad semester. 30 are Freshman in this intensive international liberal arts program they have going, of which many seem to be from diplomatic families. 18 are in the graduate program—4 in my literature track, 4 in the language and civ track, and 10 in the education track. 2 are boys. It remains to be seen if either of them are straight, but if the undergrads are any judge, signs point to No. I think the idea of France must be threatening to American masculinity somehow (not that I have any objection to the happy mélange of strong women and queers that my field seems to consist of).

*I love my iPod, and listen to it on the metro and sometimes while I walk. I have songs from the Amélie soundtrack on every playlist now, and when they come up on shuffle as I’m strolling across cobblestones my heart flutters a little (and I feel like a total dork, and am glad none of the French know what I’m listening to).

*Yesterday I met up with a friend from the Tunisia program, Brittany, for dinner in the Latin Quarter (9 euro three-course menu!) and today I went out for a Kir aperitif with a few girls from the program. Ahhh, living in a city.

*It takes me 40 minutes to get from my door to the NYU center, including walking and metro time. Not bad. The route, line 6, takes me across the bridge for the best possible view of the Eiffel tower...you know, just in case I need a reminder of how awesome my life is on the way to school.

Dorm Inform

So first off, I’ve added a picture to my last post of me with all of my crap in front of the super classy sign of the Super Hotel that I stayed in for two nights. The photo comes courtesy of my friend the Super front desk man, and doesn’t really do justice to my huge backpack, which you can hardly see. It doesn’t really do justice to my face, come to think of it. I was going for a tough woman look and it came off more like pissed off chipmunk. Alas. It’s a good thing it’s my brother who’s the actor and not me.

Housing update: I am now a resident of the Fondation des Etas-Unis at Cité Universitaire at the south end of the 14è arrondissement, for those who know their Parisian geography. My address, school land line and new swanky French cell phone are all now listed on my Facebook page should anyone feel the need to send me some lovin’ (ie drunk text message…yes, you can still text me, although I have no idea if that’s covered under Verizon unlimited). Since my last post, I actually had a last minute opportunity to move into my choice of two apartments in the upscale 15th/16th arrondissments; however, due to price relative to size and merits and some really positive feedback about Cité’s dorms from a former grad student, I opted to schlep on over here.

The deal I have here is really a bargain. For 425 euros/month, I have a pretty big room to myself with a big closet, a bed, a desk and chair, a sink (!), some lamps, and more shelves than I will probably be able to fill (says the literature student who hasn’t even started buying anything from her five page long reading list yet). Shared toilets, showers and a kitchen are right down the hall. I’m up on the 4th floor, which in France actually means 5th (they start at zero) so I have a fair amount of stairs to climb (there is an elevator, it’s just slow and French) but luckily they’re pretty spiral stairs. Being this high means that I have sun in my room for almost all of the afternoon/evening, so I can enjoy my garden and ivy-wall view, as well as a nice amount of wind. After answering ads on bulletin boards right after I got here, I have already managed to score a used, medium-sized fridge for 70 euros, which was hand-delivered to me by the Benin(ese?) man who used to own it after I finally found his apartment, as well as a big red section of carpet (from a departing student) for 6 euros. I still need a few more things, like a shower caddy, floor lamps, posters, etc (admittedly, it’s a little bizarre to be repeating my pre-freshman year shopping trips) but so far I’m pretty happy. More good news: I can receive guests here willing to share my small space if I declare them in advance—4 euros a night if you want to crash on my carpet, and 8 euros if you want to use one of their loaner fold-a-beds. Pretty sweet, right?

The campus is designed as an affordable community for (about 60%) international students to live. There are houses representing each country, varying in size and quality by what seems to me to be based on how much France likes that particular country. The US, German, Spanish and British houses are all pretty nice, while Morocco is shunted to the very edge and housed in a decrepit, institutional building, Tunisia is shut indefinitely for renovations (it needs it) and Algeria…well…doesn’t exist (while other more obscure countries with less of a “history” are represented, Armenia, Cambodia, Liban). (I actually stayed on this campus for a week during a heat wave four years ago and I was housed in the French engineering house, which was utterly miserable. Logical conclusion: Moroccans > engineers > Algerians). The campus is pretty, with a lot of grassy quad areas and trees, and a big campus center with a bank, a café, a cafeteria, a theater and a pool. (The cafeteria is no Great Room, but dinner is only 2.90, so I guess I can’t complain). It’s not real centrally-located, although it’s pretty well connected—there are bus, tramway and RER (part of the métro system) stops within a five minute walk from my building.

The building itself is pretty old and cool, with black-and-white spiral staircases, a computer labstudy rooms, lounges and a lecture hall that remind me of my dorm in Oxford. My only real complaint is the thinness of the walls. My neighbor seems to be a party-er, so fingers crossed it doesn’t continue too long into the semester. I’ve only met a few people so far (the Parisian semester doesn’t start until late Sept/early Oct, so we’re still fairly empty), but most people seem pretty cool. There’s an intentional 50/50 split of American and “other” to encourage comfort and exchange. Most of us are grad students, although there are a few undergrads as well as a few adult professionals, who are here on a short-term basis as researchers and living in the fully furnished suites with their families. The floor above mine is the artist’s floor, which houses musicians on the main hallway and visual artists in the four loft-style “studios” in the wings. I love the idea, although coupled with the lack of sound-proofing it can be a little annoying—I’ve already discovered that there’s a pretty prolific bassoonist/pianist in the room above mine (on the bright side, he’s really good! I recognized Gershwin today…).

Spent today enjoying random French conversations with strangers around campus and buying as much as I could comfortably carry home in reusable bags at Monoprix (in other words, not much). I think I need to get me one of them old man wheeley grocery stroller things.

Paris, part I: The Apartment Odyssey

Well, I’m here. Wrestling my luggage through the Parisian metro was not fun (I sweated through a shirt even though it was only about 70 degrees at 7am…gross) but it was actually a little more doable than I had feared. For anyone that has seen Auberge Espagnol, I really looked like Xavier…I was wearing a backpacking pack with a little neck pillow bungeed to it on my back, and sling-style laptop briefcase on my thigh balanced by a large purse on the other side—or, sometimes, around my neck, when I needed two hands to carry my baby whale-sized rolling duffel up or down stairs. For those of you who prefer more classic allusions, I felt rather like Jacob Marley, suffering under the weight of my wanderlust. Getting from the airport to the RER is happily elevator-friendly, but as I realized when I took Sam to Paris, the metro itself is stairs stairs stairs. I had to transfer lines twice, and each time meant several ups and downs, which either meant that I had to grunt and use my iron woman skills or rely on the kindness of a stranger to grab the other handle on the duffel and help me carry (which seemed to happen un-requested, happily). I got stuck only once, for a moment or two (one hundred cool points if you get THAT reference) when I managed to get myself and the duffel wedged in a turnstile together for a full minute. I honestly thought I wasn’t going to be able to get out without taking out clothes to make it more mashable (meanwhile I’m holding up rush-hour traffic) but somehow me and the whale both sucked in our guts and muscled through. Haha.

After wandering the wrong way on the street for a while, I arrived at my little two-star hotel panting and frizzy, where I had to wait to be able to check in to avoid abandoning my luggage. Once checked in, I enjoyed a shower and a nap before I started hardcore apartment research. I’ve never done the whole apartment thing before, but it’s a harrowing and bizarre process. Overall I think I’ve sent a total of more than 50 emails, made about 30 phone calls (and gone through entirely too much cell phone credit). I’ve learned that in this market, my buying power isn’t really a commodity and I don’t matter even remotely. The demand for affordable student housing is so high that you have to respond pretty immediately to an ad to get attention, and even then, my lack of perfect French seems too much of a hassle for already exasperated landlords. When I do get a response, it is often to say that the room will be unavailable until (insert future month here, ranging from October to June 2010?!?) or that to be considered I must produce a stack of different French legal documents which, of course, I don’t have. One woman letting a room refused to tell me where her house was located because she wanted to “take her time” to see if she liked me. Lady, I’m living in a hotel—I ain’t got time.

My best hit so far was with a girl who has an apt in the 15th. We met for coffee, then, after I passed her roommate test, went to visit the apartment. I loved the girl, but much to my dismay (and to the contradiction of her ad!) the apt was a one-bedroom, and I was expected to sleep in the mezzanine above the living room. I feel like I can compromise on a lot in terms of housing, but I at least need a little bit of my own space.

Somehow I feel kind of shy and naïve walking around, I think more from inexperience with city life than with French culture. Although I’ve been here before, it’s always been as a tourist, and just the knowledge that I am a) alone, and b) in for the long haul give the whole experience a different vibe. St. Mary’s made me comfortable in small communities with a eclectic sort of routine (if that’s possible) and few variables, and city life is the opposite. It’s definitely stimulating, though. On my relatively brief wanderings so far, the highlights have some of the space invaders mosaic graffiti that my French professor at St. Mary’s has been tracking, a romantic couple composed of a huge, muscled Arab man and an Asian midget, (Word is telling me those races need to be capitalized—as if that makes the observation any more pc…) and an eerily gorgeous black woman with a hot pink fro. The food is also (of course) amazing—as far as grab & go items go, I’ll take a baguette sandwich and pastry over pretty much anything.

Today my shoulder muscles ached from the pack and my hands are red and sore (from pulling the whale handle with sweaty hands) in a way that gave me an odd-sense of déjà-vu, until I realized what it was reminding me of—monkey bar “injuries” as a kid. I will be incurring more of those tomorrow, I fear. Unless I hear something back about short-term housing by 9am, I’m going to be checking out of here and trooping on over to the international dorms at Cité Universitaire. Yes, I thought I was done with the dorm part of my life, but dorms in Paris > living at home, right? Wish me bonne chance…