An American in Provence

Happy Father's Day to the best dad in the world, and all other dads too.

comfort food. American comfort food. American fall comfort food.

This time of the year, my thoughts turn to:

Banana bread
gingerbread cookies
pumpkin pie
apple pie
hot apple cider
halloween candy
Thanksgiving
biscuits
pancakes

Are you getting the general idea? It is all I can think about. Something about the weather, planning on going to Colorado for Christmas, etc etc.

I might even try my hand at making some of the above, if I can ever find all of the ingredients.
Questions for those living in France:
Is shortening Fruit d'or for example?
can brown sugar be found? (and not just sugar that is brown?)
Does pâte sablée really taste like pie crust to you (because to me it tastes different).

Fall is always the hardest time for me as far as homesickness is concerned. I never was a big Fall-lover back in the US. Yes, the leaves are pretty. Yes it is nice to have Halloween and Thanksgiving, blah blah blah.
I would have always have said that I was a Spring Gal.
But now I miss stuff like hot apple cider and knowing that football games are on (even if I don't give a flying patoie who is playing or why or when) and Halloween decorations, etc.
At least we are planning on going home for Christmas. (once I get over the price-shock and actually grit my teeth and order the tickets. Wow prices have gone up in 2 years!)

They DO exist in France! What you ask? Bagels of course! In a country that loves bread so much, I am surprised there aren't more of these. Last week, as I was doing my grocery shopping, in between my stop for cheese and crepes, I was walking down an aisle when I saw right in front of me, like a mirage in the desert, a new exotic food being introduced to the masses. Bagels!

As to be expected, the fourth of july passes rather quietly here. Perhaps if there was a bigger American community here like there is in Paris, or if I worked for the Consulate, it would be different. I don't know. Instead, I went to work as usual. Last year we went to the fireworks display on the 14th of July, bastille day. I just pretend that it is the 4th. Red white and blue, fireworks, all good. I posted this entry last year about national identity.
Am always interested in hearing people's comments.

One of my favorite hobbies has always been (well, since the age of 10) crosstitching. Here it is called broderie (embroidery) or point de croix (crosstitching). For the moment, it isn't particularly easy to find the necessary materials, but I believe it is becoming more popular. Women here seem much more into crafts such as the yarn stitching (like for pillows), knitting, embroidery, beading, etc. Quilting and scrapbooking are slowly becoming popular as well.

Last year I went to an arts and crafts exhibition (same place as the Marseille Fair, but much
much smaller.) I think I saw two men there. Most of the stands were for needle arts, but some painting, wood working, children's crafts, etc were available. There is only one specialty crosstitch store in all of Marseille (that I know of). Other stores, such as "Loisirs et Creations" have crosstitch sections. They mostly have kits only or projects such as crosstitching on towels, purses, baby bibs, etc. The regular old DMC thread that is 25 cents or so at Walmart is about a dollar and a half here, and they usually don't have specialty threads, such as metallic thread. Crosstitch fabric is available, and some patterns can be found or else special ordered. I ordered some fabric and thread from an online US store, and it never arrived. I asked them about it, and they sent another package with never arrived either. I guess both either got stuck in customs purgatory or arrived at some bewildered person's door. They refunded my money, which I thought was good of them. Each time I go back to the US (all of once so far) I take an inventory of my supplies and stock up. Also, my dear mom has been kind enough to send me some things I need, mostly threads.

Other supplies, such as beads and buttons to adorn crosstitch designs, are also very hard to find here, or else very expensive. Some online French stores are getting in on the act, but the price still isn't comparable to the US.

I think if I could have five US stores magically implanted in France I would choose
1) a good crafts store such as Michael's or Hobby Lobby (would have been so nice while wedding planning!)
2) a good bagel store, like Bodo's. I don't see why the French don't like bagels. They like other bread. I have heard that there is one in Lyon. A pilgrimage may be necessary.
3) Bed, Bath and Beyond
4) A good bookstore, like Barnes&Noble. But not with the French versions, English please.
5) A Super Walmart or Target. Yes, there are large all-in-one stores here, such as Carrefour, but they don't have the products (cosmetics, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, other important things in ife) that I like.
Yep, I think those five stores just about sum up my life.

One thing I really enjoyed while in the US was getting magazines. I loved opening my mailbox and finding the latest Brides magazine (yeah, had to hide those when A. and I first met), Glamour, Organic Style, Newsweek, Shape, Runner's World, etc. I would read them through, page at a time, not skipping around, and rip out articles that I wanted to keep. I would then put these into separate binders- wedding planning, exercise, recipes, or general life (beauty, articles, etc). These magazines were usually from one of those sites where you get 5 for the set price of 30$ or so.
I don't get any here in France. Sometimes I go out and buy Femme Actuelle, (yes, I am an Actual Woman thank you very much) a weekly magazine with your regular assortment of the newest anti-cellulite creams, recipe of the week, how to copy a designer look for less, and the pseudo- serious articles that Women's Magazines put in to prove that they are about more than just Clothes, Makeup, Hair, Thin Thighs and Great.....
I have recently looked into ordering some of my favorite magazines from the US. There are four options
1) Have them sent to a certain place (hello mom and dad!) and then either pick them up when I return for a visit or else have them packaged up and sent here. As I don't want to waste precious candy and make-up space (see American Candy post) and they are rather heavy to send, this option is out.
2) Have them sent to a mail-forwarding service. Rather expensive for the small amount of mail I want forwarded. So no. I guess this is mainly for businesses.
3) Try to find them here. The only one I have found, is Glamour for 4.90 euros, at current exchange rates 6.22$. Oh, and they have Newsweek and Times in the library downtown.
4) Pay for the overseas subscription,
Oprah 40$
Cosmo 42$
Marie Claire 32$
Newsweek 79$
National Geographic 33$
Shape 30$
Running Times 53$
Runner's World 50$

Hmm. So I guess the best option is just to decide which magazines I would really like sent to me, and pay the international subscription rate.
I would like to get more Bridal magazines but Alain will really think I'm nuts. I just like to see the latest dresses!
So I am waiting until we get our new address, then I will order a few, probably Glamour, Shape, and National Geographic. The others I might pick up the latest when home to flip through.

The Day Nobody (in France) Cared.

To celebrate/commemorate September 11th I have watched the two documentaries on Sept. 11 that I got back when I was in Charlottesville.
I really wish I knew some Americans in Marseille.

Despite this slightly disturbing picture, I think it accurately expresses the feelings of many ex-pats...

Big soft salty warm mall pretzels
Bagels with cream cheese or hummus
Cottage Cheese
Chunky peanut butter
Hershey's in general
Hershey's with Almonds
Peppermint Patties
Moose Tracks Ice Cream
Grape Soda, Root Beer
Starburst, Skittles
Oreos
American Imitation Chinese food, compared to French Imitation Chinese food
Softees from Wendy's
Big crunchy pickles with or without Lemonade (my favorite snack in elementary school)
Cadbury Eggs
Hot Apple Cider
Banana Cream jello (to be made into pies)
Those chocolate oranges
Chocolate syrup and chocolate fudge for ice cream (preferably chocolate)
Biscuits
AMERICAN APPLE PIE!!! I just can't get the darn thing right over here!!!!

lots of other junk that I can't think about but I am sure I would say Oh yeah I miss that! if walking through the standard American grocery store.

Yep. I know what I will be doing the first week back in the US. And it isn't healthy. I guess I need to loose about five pounds before going just to come out even at the end.

It doesn't help that there are companies such as this one
http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/aaasmt/
that you can order candy or soda or peanut butter in bulk for an arm and a leg. I think it would be cheaper to take a weekend trip to New York. "Oh, what did you see when you were in New York?" Uh, the inside of a grocery bag.

Wish that a) there was a commissary here in Marseille
and that b) I had access to it.

Other countries can make a lot of foods better than the US- cheese, bread, cakes, etc. but gosh darn it I am sticking up for my country and not ashamed to say it-
America has the best candy in the world and I am proud of that fact by-god.
There. I have said it.
That could be a negative but who knows.

The Association of American Wives of Europeans club, which is based in Paris and of which I am a new member (thanks Genevieve) has a little blurb in their handbook.



Are they joking? Any "spare room" in my suitcase that isn't taken up with presents, things mom and dad have threatened that I had better take back with me to France or else they are throwing out (No!!! Mr. Snuffles!!!!) and odd items like cheap drugstore mascara that might as well be Chanel for the price it is here, are going to be food items FOR ME. No way am I parting with my hard-earned candy. Hey, I braved holiday airport traffic for this candy bar lady, you are prying it from my cold dead fingers.

Foods I Don't Miss:
Just about nothing.

Today I am going over to visit Alain's parents, Jacques and Josée for lunch. Alain is gone for a week for work. I proudly announced that I would bring a dessert. Jacques said "Oh no, don't worry, you don't have to..." which now that I think about it, could have been French for "Oh god please no spare us!!!!!!"
As the cooking urge doesn't strike me very often, when it does hit, I figure I just have to run with it because there is no tellng when it may come back again.

So I found a recipe off the internet for "The Best All-American Apple Pie Recipe". Okay, that will work. American apple pies are different than French ones because 1) they are covered with a top crust and 2) lots and lots of cinnamon, which the French seem to generally regard with suspicion and mistrust.
I went to the nearest Intermarché to find the ingredients for my apple pie. And promptly spent about half an hour gazing stupidly at the sugar/flour section. What the heck is Cornstarch in French? In fact, now that I think about it, what the heck is cornstarch? I could have asked someone for help, but wasn't sure exactly what to say. "You know, 'cornstarch'? 'Cornstarch'? Oh heck, I don't know how you call in French, it's uh, white, I think, and powdery... No, not flour!" After giving up baking powder and cornstarch as lost causes, I wandered over to the spice section in seach of nutmeg.
Oh drat, what is nutmeg? I was hoping it would be the same name. Don't know why I thought that. Conversation with myself..

Me: Self, what does nutmeg look like?
Self: I don't know, a sort-of brownish powdery thing right?
Me: Yeah, I guess you are right. It has been a really long time since we made an apple pie. What does nutmeg look like in it's natural state?
Self: Beats me. I figured it grew in those little spice bottles.
Me: Well, here is brownish nut thing. That could be it. What does a Meg look like?
Self: Don't know, but we especially should know this don't you think?!
Me: Well, considering we wouldn't know it by taste or smell, I think we should just give up.

Turns out, when I checked it out online later, the bottle I thought it was, mouscade, was right. Oh well.

So considering I had no idea whether the flour was pastry flour or bleached all-purpose flour, there was no way I was finding baking powder, cream cheese, or cider vinegar, I gave up the idea of making my own crust and decided to buy a ready-made. There are two kinds- feuillette (flaky) and brisée. No idea what brisée is, but knew I didn't want the flaky one, so I bought two of the brisée and hoped for the best. I was just hoping it wasn't some sort of pizza crust or the like.

Considered the rest of my recipe for the filling-
Raisins? Who the heck puts raisins in an apple pie? That is just plain un-American. Out with the raisins.
Lemon juice? No way.
Cornstarch? Nope, don't have that either.
Nutmeg? Nope.
Brown sugar? Well, the sugar has a hint of brown color, that will have to do.

Came home determined to find a different American Apple Pie recipe, one without the above ingredients.
Finally found one that sounded about my level, Easy Apple Pie. Yeah, here we go.

Get all prepared to start measuring things out and realize-
Hey wait a minute. This is an American recipe. Which means that all the measurements are in the wacked-out English system of which, I have no measuring cups or spoons. Darn. Hmm, well I can convert the measurements into metric.
Here all the recipes are given in weight and soup spoon/coffee spoon, which I hope are the rough equivalents of table and tea spoons.
So I convert the cups into mL but have only Alain's protein shaker thing that has the mL marked on the side.
" 'Between 1/3 and 2/3 of a cup of sugar'?! Oh thanks for being really precise there!!!"

So I set off, peeling and cutting my apples- one recipe said 6, other said 8, I bought seven, cut up five and needed about 3. Whenever peeling, cutting, and general cooking skills were being passed out, I must have missed them because by the fifth apple my hand was killing me and I was ready to chuck them all out the window.

So I finally get the sugary cinnamony nutmeg-less apple mixture into the two pie crusts in the teeny tiny pan, shove it into our toaster oven and wait. After about two minutes the crust is brown, by ten it is starting to burn. Drat. I think it is supposed to cook only from the bottom right? Well, not an option with our toaster oven. I just hope the bottom crust is cooked and not a gooey mess still.

When I told Alain I was fixing an apple pie for his parents, he said
"Please try not to poison them. We might still need them..."
We shall see. Maybe I will buy some vanilla ice cream, cover the re-heated apple pie in that, and hope for the best.

Several months ago I was talking with an American man married to a French woman. He has lived over here in France for the past twenty years or so, and they have three teenage children. He said some interesting things.

The first is that he doesn't really feel like he fits in anywhere. Here in France, though he speaks excellent French and is quite used to the customs and way of doing things, he is considered to be an American with American thoughts and points of view. When they go back to the US for a visit, he feels out of place as well. While he doesn't speak English with a French accent, he still has a bit of the French or ex-pat point of view on things- American politics, events, etc. So if you don't quite feel like you fit in your birth country or your adopted country, what are you?

I asked him how long it took before he felt that he was really fluent in French. He said that he doesn't yet. Which scared me. But he went on to explain that while he feels that he can just as easily express himself in French as in English, that he still feels that he thinks in English. His children spoke English very well, but an American could tell that they had a bit of an indefinable foreign accent.

I was talking with my French teacher the other day and he was talking about things I could do to lose my accent. Now don't get me wrong, I would love to speak French with perfect grammar and vocabulary, to not get messed up with the verb tenses, okay now does that end in -ais or -ait?
But would I really want to completely lose my accent so that a French person talking to me casually would not guess that I am a foreigner at least? Or is your accent and the way you speak (intonation and the "musicality of the language")part of personal identity too? When you run into a Texan in a hotel in Dubai, you know something about him and know that you share something in common with him. It is a starting point for conversation at least.
But if I never loose my accent, do I want to have that moment of "Oh, you are a foreigner"-reaction every time I go to buy bread? There are times when everyone wants to just blend in and not be noticed instead of being That Foreign Woman who Lives in That House There.

More than just accents, there are different frames of reference depending on where you grew up. For instance, an American living in the United States at the time would have a different view on the events of September 11th than an ex-pat who watched it on TV. Neither one is better, they are just different. A person in the United States would have more of an idea of how fellow Americans reacted while the one outside of the US would have more of a feeling of the rest of the world felt about it and portrayed it. And I would think that the two discussing the event would have a hard time really understanding the other's emotional viewpoint about it.

National holidays- sure, you can celebrate 4th of July by inviting other American families over for a BBQ and sparklers in the backyard, but you aren't going to get the parade down the street with the regulatory firetrucks and kids on bikes with red white and blue streamers, followed by the big band and fireworks after sunset. How important is that to you? Is it strange to see everyone else not giving two hoots about a day that is important to you? Even holidays that are shared, such as Christmas, feel different, especially in mixed nationality families.

What are you going to instill in your children? How will they really feel connected to this country that they are a citizen of but only visit once in a while and read about in books? And especially if your children do not live in/visit regularly the US, how would your grandchildren be connected to it at all? After a generation or two would the Americaness just die out of your family line?
Will you vote? Do you really care whether Colorado State Senator What's His Name gets re-elected for the billionth time? Do you feel that you still have a right to vote for issues that don't concern you directly? Will you keep your driver's license up-to-date? Will you go to your high school reunion?

Why do you have two nationalities if you are never planning on going back there to live? Some countries do not allow a person to have dual nationalities. They figure that you can only really be a Citizen of one country at a time.
For your children? Do you care if they don't have the same High School experience- Proms and football games and trying out for the Cheerleading squad? What if they don't care about the things that you consider an important part of the national consciousness- the history and literature and art?
How do you keep your cool when others start saying bad things about your country? Does it make you a bad American if you don't defend your country, ? What if you do defend your country, are you defending it just because you feel you have to because you are a representative of it in the outside world?

After all this, can you REALLY still call yourself a citizen of X country anymore? Is the American-born person who spent their entire life outside of the US really more American than an immigrant who has spent almost their entire life inside the US but is still not a citizen? If so or if not, what is national identity?

On this 4th of July (or whenever you happen to read this entry) please leave a comment saying what National Identity means to you.
Thank you and Happy 4th of July.

I have done it. I have completed Stage 1 of my Super Important Mission. I have converted Alain to the joys of Peanut Butter. That's right- Butter of the Peanuts.
The French, in general, seem to hate it and consider it as one of those Strange American Things. It is difficult to find in the average grocery store. Once, when I first arrived here, Alain and I were wandering the grocery store and I wondered out loud where the peanut butter was. Another American woman apparently overheard me and went off and got two jars of it to show me- it was located in the specialty Regional Foods section. Yes my fellow Americans, America was represented by Tex Mex Taco Filling, Tacos, and Peanut Butter. Sniff. (tear in my eye) I am so proud.
Apparently however the French didn't feel anything else was worth importing, such as chocolate (no big surprise there) soda, or sadly, Macaroni and Cheese. That is my next mission. Import a big case of it and hand it out free in the super markets. Okay, back to the regularly scheduled program.
Yes, anyway, so after a long time of funny looks, I have finally converted him to the simple joys of the Food of the Gods.