Francophile

Lately I’ve found myself to be quite the phile. I just don’t like certain cultures, objects, or food groups I LOOOOOOOVE them, with lots of extra O’s for emphasis. Probably my greatest crush in the last few years has been France. Yeah, yeah - I’ve heard it all before. French people are snobby. French culture is too refined. If it weren't for us French people would be speaking German by now.....blah blah blah. I hold no such grudge against the Gauls; I love them tremendously. Hellooo, Alexandre Dumas is my great great great grandfather….wink!

Grandpappy Dumas

But in all honestly, French culture is everything I think a perfect world should be. Insanely delicious food, fashion, day-time drinking in cafes, butter…the list goes on. In the last two weeks I’ve read two novels that were pretty well drenched in all things French and I could not have been happier! Afterwards I found myself merci-ing right and left and wearing every black and white Parisian striped dress that I own. So here they are..... Reading Rainbow style!

13 Rue Therese

By Elena Mauli Shapiro

This book is quite the gem. Part history (it takes place post WW1 but with lots of references to the actual war), part French culture, part time travel mystery! There are two basic narrators. Louise Burnet is a bored, stay at home wife in 1920s Paris. She teaches music on the side to one pupil, but is constantly visiting past memories of a lost love (who was killed in The Great War) and stirring up trouble with her hot new married male neighbor. The other parts are narrated by a visiting professor at a Paris University circa 1960, who receives a box of old letters and belongings upon arrival at his new school. The box ends up being Louise’s and her story unfolds through his deductions and her memories.

I don’t know if I completely got the whole time travel thing; there was some inter-dimension stuff that I really didn’t understand but the writing was beautiful, poetic and also at times a bit…..erotic. Get ready for things to get a little steamy! The best part is that this story is partially true! Ok, regretfully not the time travel, but the author based the story around a box she received when she was a young girl. A old woman died in her apartment building (13 Rue Therese of course) and she had no family, so the tenets in the building were allowed to go through her things and take what they wanted. Her father brought home this box filled with old photos, gloves, and letters about a real Louise Burnet. So while the story itself is fictional, the artifacts shown in the book are real! A memorable read for me.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

By Muriel Barbery

For the second weekend in a row I’ve had a case of the hangover blues. You think I would have learned at this stage of my life that too much wine = bad times. But where is the fun in that? So this past Sunday I found myself bed-ridden with severe dehydration and a headache. Since I wasn’t going anywhere fast, I took this time to read this book---in one day.

God, I loved this book. I can’t really even pin-point why; it was just really beautiful. It was translated from French, which is always interesting yet tedious for me. I constantly get distracted when I read translations because every other word I read, I think in the back of my mind if this is what the author really meant to say? Also, when I see a phrase that was not translated, I wonder why they couldn’t translate it, and it makes me feel bad about only being able to speak English. There is a lot of philosophical and existential ideas in this book, which would normally make my eyes roll back in my head, but I actually kind of liked it.

The story follows the residents of a large apartment building in Paris. The two main narrators are the concierge, a 50 something widow named Renee and Paloma, a precocious and brilliant twelve year old who lives in the building with her parents and sister. The chapters are short and alternate between these two; exploring different meaning of life themes and overall French culture. I got kind of emotional at the end too, which I don’t tend to do. This book made me glad to be alive on a day when I’m pretty sure when I woke up I had wished I was dead---Amen for that!

Post Disco Chili

This weekend we had a disco themed party at our apartment. In the course of a few hours we took our cozy little 3 bedroom apartment and turned it into the likes of Studio 54! We had Tang, we had polyester, and we had Earth, Wind and Fire! Being the foodie that I am, I thought no decade party would be complete without quintessential 70’s party food. I had hoped to do fondue, but I envisioned that turning into a fire hazard pretty quick (especially with all the polyester!) so I opted for something a little less flammable. I quickly realized that buying food for a 70s party was pretty damn depressing. The only thing I bought that wasn’t processed or artificial in some way were oranges; and those only went into the punch that was made from powdered orange juice! Spray cheese was invented in the 1970s, so that make the cut. It turns out that spray cheese barely tastes like cheese and never had to be refrigerated. Hmmmm… suspicious. I did make a French Onion Dip from scratch (hooray) and pigs and a blanket for both the meat-eaters and vegetarians. We also had disco cupcakes, cheese-wurst (haha, don’t ask) and various crudités. To sum up, 1970s foods are terrifying and I was glad to be back in 2011 where at the stroke of midnight everything became organic and less carcinogenic!

I ended up sleeping till about noon on Sunday, or in decade terminology---1985. I drank so much vodka infused Tang the night before that I was up till the wee hours watching old episodes of Fat Albert on Netflix instant watch. That stuff is no joke; astronauts drink it! So anyways, I thought chili would be perfect for a Sunday meal. It’s a great one pot meal and since I spent most of my paycheck on spray cheeese and Tang, I thought a week-long leftover would work out nicely. Chili is also great because once you know how to make a basic recipe, you can customize it to your liking. If you feel like adding kidney instead of pinto beans, or using turkey instead of ground beef, it’s easy to swap ingredients out. I call this particular recipe Christmas Chili because of the festive green and red color combo. As I look at it bubbling away, I just want to bust out my collection of Nat King Cole Christmas tunes……only 9 months to go!

Christmas Chili

Olive oil

1 onion, diced

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 green bell pepper, diced

2 pounds of ground beef or bison, turkey, chicken…whatever*

2 T chili powder or to your liking

1 t paprika

1 t oregano

1 cup of beef broth

1 can of beans, drained 2 cans of diced tomatoes with juice

Optional---one roasted jalapeño, seeds removed and diced

*If you use ground beef, stick to the 85/15 or 90/10 meat to fat ratio. I once made the mistake of using 75/25, and I had a really unappetizing layer of grease that I had to skim off. Ick.

Heat 1 to 2 T of olive oil in a soup pot over medium high heat.

Add onions and garlic and sauté for about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add diced bell pepper and sauté another 2 minutes. Add ground beef and break apart with spoon. When meat is crumbled, add chili powder, paprika, and oregano and cook meat until no longer pink, about 5 minutes or so.

Add beans, broth and 2 cans of tomatoes and bring chili to a boil. Turn heat down to a simmer and let cook for another 30 to 40 minutes. You want the liquid to be reduced and the flavors to mesh together.

Serve with cheese, sour cream and crushed tortilla chips. For added heat, I like to add a roasted jalapeño. Simply place the pepper under your broiler for a few minutes until is blackens. Remove and wait till it cools and then peel off outer blackened layer. Cut in half, remove seeds and stem (unless you want A LOT OF HEAT), and chop finely. Add to chili as the last step.