French eat French food. I am not (anymore).

When you are French, you have quite the reputation.
You are supposed, no, expected to be pretty, thin, stylish, romantic, on top of being a great kisser and a master in the art of wrapping a scarf.

Who cares if you are also supposed to smoke 5 packs a day, have hairy armpits and not floss??
(Yep, some stereotypes will never die. The hairy armpits thing apparently stems from the GI of WWII, horrified to see French women shamelessly exhibit this 'shady' part of their anatomy while greeting them during the Liberation. Did it really occur to them that these poor girls had other things on their mind than shaving their underarms?!?!? Gosh...these men....so superficial.)


But one of out most celebrated qualities is also the tastiest one: gastronomy and France seem to have been walking hand in hand for quite a while now, and sure enough, I am most of the time regarded as some sort of supreme judge of food and wine, as if my nationality alone was elevating me to the levels of the posh and sophisticated writers of Bon Appetit magazine, these fierce critics whose sole purpose in life is to dissect every single bite they take, and try to turn it into a edible poem of sorts nobody but themselves understand.
You know them. Nope. No name dropping.
That's really not classy.

The truth is, I was not born that way.
I became a true foodie when I moved to the US.
This may come as a shock, and may very well be to a lot of my friends still out there. The US of A: the Enemy and its intent on imposing the Golden Arch all over the world, destroying everything on, above and below its way to the globalization of taste!!! The Americans don't know how to eat! Look at them! All obese and sitting on their couches! Burgers and pizza! Snickers!
And the decisive argument: They put ketchup on everything......
(what about: they drink coke with their meat? but of course they don't have good wine over there so....they don't know any better.)

Oh yeah. I heard and read these statements over and over again. It is a favorite litany, as if people needed to reassure themselves by denigrating the other, the easy target being this Uncle Sam that everybody strangely hates and loves with the same equal passion.
And yet, they don't know about the true abominations: Twinkies, French dressing (you should have at least the courtesy to leave us out of this), Velveeta, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and what not...
Would they know, I don't think their heart could go on beating.

Talking about food is probably one of my favorite things. I have always been a curious and avid eater. I went through a rebellious phase where dairy products couldn't possibly find their way down my throat but since I successfully defeated that heresy around the age of 5 (really?!? no yogurt, no cheese, no butter?!?!? Who was that alien hidden inside of me?), I can say that it is almost insignificant in my history. Cauliflower gave me some trouble too, as well as strong cheeses (conquered through nose plugging - French ingenuity) and I have to admit that to this day I am rather picky with my meat. Big chunks of fat, cartilage, tendons.......yeah...nope. I want muscle, Diana Ross style, thankyouverymuch. Other than that I am pretty much game for anything.

But growing up in France does limit one's exposure to the world of food. Sure, French food is worth celebrating and harbors treasures that changed the culinary universe.
The mother sauces, the use of butter, CHEESES - hundreds of them, bread, the ever so important notion of the soil, the terroir. Bordeaux, Beaujolais, Bourgogne, Careme, Brillat-Savarin, Escoffier, the Guide Michelin and its star ratings. A rich heritage that every family tries more or less to live by, to respect, seek and reproduce on its own scale. My mom, a housemaker (Man do I love that expression. It is so.....unfairly deceiving. I used to think that homemaker was a synonym for 'architect'. Ha! so naive) is a good cook. She goes all out for special holiday dinners, and happily spends hours in the kitchen preparing a meal she thought about for months in advance. It's a stressful process. No one is allowed in the kitchen. Twenty dishes, pots and pans later - and a few merde and putain down the way too - the result is not only lovely and pleasant to the eyes, but delicious and refined.
And SO French.
That's the problem.

I was lucky enough though to be exposed to very exotic influences through my stepmother. Born and raised in Madagascar she brought to the dinner table scents, textures and flavors totally unknown to me. And spices. Hot, smoky, tangy - different, foreign, strange, and absolutely disgusting to the eyes of the 8 year-old I was at the time. I complained bitterly about that torture imposed on me to my mom. "She is a horrible cook!!! I hate eating there! It stings!" I used to cry while coming back home every other Sunday night. I gradually learned to love it all, and crave the kick of hot pepper, cayenne, and ginger, the earthiness of cumin, the richness of saffron, the pungency of massalas and five spice.
I discovered Carribean, Indian and Chinese cuisines.
I learned to handle the heat.
To this day my mom can't even eat a sweet mole without choking.

I was 18 when I first started going to restaurants on my own. Well - not exactly; my boyfriend and I would try every restaurant we could think of (and afford) during our first few months of dating. We never stopped. But living outside of Paris, Lyon and a couple of other major cities with livelier restaurant scenes, our options were somewhat limited. For example, we first tried sushi during a trip to the capital while visiting my best friend. You see, we didn't have any Japanese restaurant. I remember very clearly the puzzled looks on our faces while studying the menus. We knew we were in for raw fish but that was about it, and frankly that was already quite enough. Had never heard of the difference between sushi, sashimi, maki. Had no clue on how to use wasabi or pickled ginger. Hated the miso soup.
First experience: major fail. Swore off the Japanese and their 'stuff', and moved on.

So yes. France is a foodie destination, but doesn't do much in terms of educating your palate. It's good, no doubt about it - at least when the cook knows what s/he's doing, which is not guaranteed by any means - but it's also unidimensional, even verging on flat and boring if talent is lacking.
What I discovered here, on the other side of the ocean, is diversity. Vibrancy. Creativity. A melting pot indeed.

A story - a meal? - to be continued.
We have barely touched the menu.

Parlez-vous le....social media?!?

I grew up without a computer. I was not even thinking about it. A computer?!?!? That was for all the spectacled geeks of my prep high school who were wasting their lives playing "Lemmings" (remember those?!? These little guys who were shaking from left to right and yelling "Oh no!!" just before exploding. So much fun. Right.) and whose idea of having a blast was to write programs in Pascal that would allow them to write swear words on a glittering screen.
Yeah. Not for me.

My parents didn't have a lot of money while growing up, but that was not even a financial matter. Most of my friends didn't have any PC. Let alone Macs. God forbid. We were too busy falling in love with rock stars and singing their songs in our bedroom, secretly hoping for them to kidnap us at night during our sleep. Or noticing us in the middle of a concert crowd. We were just fiiiiiiiiiiine. Which is pretty incredible to believe at this day and time, but I swear you guys - it's the truth. The whole and naked truth.

I got my first 'machine' at home in 1999.I was 23 and a few months, and desperately needed one. No, I hadn't turned into a game junkie overnight. And I was not addicted to on-line porn either. I was a graduate student, writing her master's thesis.
And I was not going to do it by hand.

At first I couldn't even type. It got easier. And easier. Using Word, sure, but also surfing the Internet.
I had discovered the virtual world and its innumerable connections to the real one.
It - literally - changed my life.

On March 3rd, 2001 I applied to a whole bunch of doctoral programs in the United States. In French. I wanted a change. Needed one. A big, huge, deep, transforming one.
And it came.
Quite to my surprise.
Through the Internet.

Now typing is a second nature. No need to look at the keyboard, I just wish I had one to use in bed to type the surrealistic dreams that affect my sleep so that I could send them as movie scenarii (yep, scenarii and not scenarios in proper Italian, which is the only language you should know the syntax of, and don't ask me why) to all the uninspired Hollywood producers out there. Going to the theater would be a quite the thrilling experience, let me tell you.

Emailing? sure. Add to that updating statuses on FB, loading up pictures, chatting, twittering, Yelping, blogging, advertising, posting*, again and again. Adding @, # and https every other word.
Without. One. Hour. Of. Respite.

How did I get there?
Seriously?
Could I possibly be one of these women - 49% of them!!!!!! - who would rather give up sex than their online surfing which, according to them, doesn't require any 'special warm-up, treat and/or effort'?!? Hmmmm.....

I am not the only culprit. I am sure that all of my friends are in the other 51% (right?!?!?!?) but still, sometimes I cannot help but wonder what happened to us. For God sake, I didn't even a cell phone in France!! My addiction coincides for me with my arrival to the US. It is therefore hard for me to make a distinction between the two. Being away from home led me to find home on the screen, and everything followed. Effet boule de neige. Snowball effect. It all made sense. And at the university where I was surrounded by these colorful Apple monitors (hell-uuh cuties!!) it seemed....normal.
And at the time I was still social-media free.

I am sure that things are exactly the same in France. In fact, I know they are (yes, we do have computers, and they work, too. We even have high speed and wifi, which some of my students couldn't believe even last year). My baby brother (of 23) in on FB, and actively so. A few days after the launching of Yelp France I received a compliment on my account from a brand new 'Yelper' based out of Metz (my hometown) who was telling me that he didn't know how well Yelp would do since there were already so many similar reviewing sites......
Really?!?
I am much further behind than I thought.
I felt down right stupid for asking him what he thought about it. He knew already all about it, and much more.
Not having been back home in almost 4 years I feel a bit out of touch with the everyday reality. But I am learning step by step to get back into the virtual one.
One megabit at the time.

I have to admit that I love social media. They helped me find love (thanks Yahoo Personals!), friends, jobs and a ton of other opportunities. They also steal some of my freedom and impose the irritant ramblings of people I would rather strangle than read. Submit them to a thousand Chinese tortures??!? yeah......nice...
But these are the rules of the game. I cannot change them.
And I play the game. The best I possibly can. For better or the worse.


* The only thing I have been refusing with an animation I don't always really understand myself is Skype. I don't want it. Gives me the chills, in a bad way. I am doing way too many things while I am on the phone, and I am not ready for anyone to see them. Particularly not my mom. She would immediately notice my pimples, my roots, and my weight gain. Talk about a nightmare. Some things should really remain archaic.

Hardships... are still floating

I wrote my French master thesis (a big ordeal in France.....at least 85 pages - I did 86 - that you spent a whole year working on) on how melancholy was a powerful stimulant for writing. I was focusing on a somewhat obscure French author of the 17th century. His name was Tristan L'Hermite and to me, he looked a bit like Lord Byron, two centuries early. No stupid wig, dark long hair and a little mustache...
I loved it.

But I really have to question the veracity of this thesis.
Because, seriously - melancholy, pain, sadness, depression, sorrow or whatever you want to call it - has radically the opposite effect on me: it drains me OUT.

Things have been pretty hard in our lives for the last few years. Nothing is ever easy for anyone but sometimes you have to wonder what it is exactly that you did to anger the gods to that extent. I am not sure; sometimes I joke around and say that Chicago is not meant for me. Even though I love this city with a fierce passion I often feel that the 'feeling' (if I may say so) is not mutual. Well - too bad. I am sticking around. I was born stubborn and will stay that way.
Hopefully for me the curse was mainly hovering above the University and won't follow me for too long in this lovely Village with which I have fallen head over heels.

And sometimes it is hard not to lose hope, and find the strength to go on - no matter what. But after a moment (or a few) of obligatory mourning, head buried in pillows, tissue in one hand, chocolate/remote/cheese/cupcake in the other something mysteriously happens deep inside. Suddenly it doesn't hurt as much, it's not as dark, the clouds break away and a ray of sunshine, shy, and still pallid comes to warm up the sky.
It happened today, around 2pm.

Let's go back on the field to fight the battle.

Say 'fromage'!!

Warning: this - is a posting on this type of 'food prepared from the pressed curd of milk, often seasoned and aged' (dry dictionary definition. My words would be more along the lines of:
'the best thing ever created by man since the beginning of times, so good in fact that it might be the only and ultimate evidence that there is a good-natured supreme being above us. And she is female'. But then again I am not paid to write entries in the American Heritage® Dictionary, or any other one for that matter...).

So....beware if you are lactose intolerant. Or if the faint stinkiness of aged cheddar is already too much to handle for you and make you faint in your slippers.

When I step back from my life and think a bit about what-the-hell-I-want-to-do-when-I-grow-up (which roughly happens 5.43 times a week), or when I am so jaded by our capitalistic society which merciless crushes every single one of us with the high heels of its Manolo Blahnik red patent leather stilettos (yeah, I fancy it as a bitchy high maintenance fashion victim) I jokingly say that I want to retreat somewhere wild and beautiful, herd goats and sheep and make cheese out of their milk.
Woodstock without the beads and the bell-bottom jeans.

And I have to say that, most often than not, it sounds damn tempting. And interesting. Appetizing. Drool-inducing. And probably too much to handle for someone who is on a good pace to lose a fraction of the pounds she gained over the last 3 years of couple food debauchery.
(The cover of the RedEye read a few months ago read: "My boyfriend makes me fat". I wanted to kiss that girl for sharing my misery.)

Truth is - I absolutely adore cheese. All of them. At all temperatures, with anything, any day of the year, any meal of the day. It took me a little while to become an addict but once I started there was no going back. I even learned to master - at the venerable age of 8 - the redoubtable Munster of my home region (which has nothing to do with its American homophone) by eating it while plugging my nose.
Patented technique that I would recommend to anyone planning a trip to the Vosges region in Northeastern France.

Anyway - cheese has been the longest love story of my life. Well - with chocolate and pasta. Imagine the desolation that washed over me the first time I stopped in front of the cheese aisle in a supermarket lost in the middle of the Connecticut forest. Big Y, Mansfield Road. My heart must have skipped a few beats, and color leave my face.
And I probably lost a few ounces of Frenchness.

"How can one rule a country that counts more than 360 cheeses?" the General de Gaulle supposedly said one day. I don't know, and I don't really care either. I just know that I was damn lucky to be born there, and have the privilege to discover one after the other. Comte, Morbier, Mont d'Or, Raclette, Gruyere, Emmenthal, Camembert, Pont L'Eveque, Epoisses, Bleu d'Auvergne, Livarot, Puant de Lille, Roquefort, Port-Salut, Crottin de Chavignolles, Cantal, Boursault and even the Babybel from my childhood....the days before I became serious....you know....blandness was all I could muster as a baby. I didn't come out of my crib armed with a piece of Stilton. Oh - and Reblochon!! How can I forget it!
The variety makes your head spin.

Again it's only over time - and once I started living in the US - that I expended my horizons. What need would I have had to explore over fields and turfs when my local cows, ewes and kids' moms were giving me all I needed, and even more? Here - I learned all about talaggio, manchego, Garrotxa, Gorgonzola, Humboldt Fog, Monterey and the Wisconsin producers. And to my chauvinistic surprise, I liked what I saw, smelled and tasted. I occasionally splurge on some big chunks of milky bacteria from home, for sure, but most of the time I am happy to trust a cheery (cheeky?!) cheese-monger and let him/her guide me through more wonders. I dream of a day where the FDA (no bird names here, I am trying to make friends) will lift its (umm, stupid, retarded and senseless, umm) ban on raw unpasteurized milk cheeses (under 60 days) because, guys, that IS the real deal. Since it has been in effect since 1949, I don't think it's going to happen tomorrow. But honestly. If you have ever tasted a raw milk brie, you know what I mean. This angel-breath you find in most supermarkets has nothing, NOTHING to do with it.
Sigh.

Want to see something incredible?!?!? Check out the cheese TABLE put up by Cibo Matto the latest Yelp Chicago Elite Event: now isn't that totally nuts?!
There was a stinky cheese on there that nobody liked but me...hehehe.... Kudos to the incredible team of the Wit Hotel and the Yelp CMs of Chicagoland!!!

If you are generally interested in cheese:
- this is a good start to know more about it: www.cheese.com/
- but be sure to also have a look at: http://www.cheesesociety.org/

If you live in Chicago and want to really experience cheese in all its glory, check out this places:
- http://zhmarketcafe.com
Located on 47th street this is a GEM. Sam, one of the owner, is simply wonderful and Alex, who works the cheese station more often that not, is a walking encyclopedia. They don't hesitate to make you taste everything, and the prices are good. GO.

- http://www.pastoralartisan.com
With three locations these guys know their cheese, and know them well. They are passionate with food and offer classes (around $45) to help you explore this fantastic universe. You can also buy their products on-line. Doesn't get any better than that.

- restaurants/bars that have a good cheese program and to which I like to give my business:
Rootstock, Bin 36, Bluebird, Eno and in Oak Park, IL, Marion Street Cheese Market.
Don't hesitate to add yours!!!

Tasty Pearls

You know these questions when you are setting up a profile.....supposedly to help people know you 'better' and make you sound interesting, exciting and worth 'befriending' or 'following': what is your favorite movie, the best book you ever read, your first concert, your ideal day off, are you tea or coffee, cats or dogs, would you rather be blind or deaf, be a deep sea diver or an astronaut, wear everyday a school uniform or a Halloween costume.
Or whatever else these Internet tortured minds can think of.

I hate those.
Because I hate choosing. Electing. Eliminating. Ranking. That's painful, unfair, and pretty much always inaccurate. What can I say? I am versatile. That keeps things interesting.
But the only dilemma I never had any problem solving was that one:
MY LAST MEAL ON EARTH.

Ok, yes, it is a bit depressing. But if you think of it as "what is the food I would choose above all others" as opposed to "I am going to die (or be cruelly devoided of my beloved digestive system by some alien experiment) and this is my last chance to eat" - suddenly it is not that bad but rather enjoyable. Nothing better than thinking about food.
Almost.

My answer - it hasn't changed in almost two years, and it most likely won't any time soon - is the following: oysters, mignonette, some French crusty bread, salty butter from Brittany and a glass of fruity Chardonnay.
Period.

I came to oysters pretty late. For the longest time the thought of eating something alive, and, let's face it, rather snotty looking was more than I could stomach. There was enough fish in the sea (and crabs, shrimp, prawns, lobsters) to satisfy my maritime cravings whenever they were striking. No disgusting sighting required, thankyouverymuch. And then one day, as I was having dinner in a quaint little restaurant inside the walled city of Saint Malo, I decided to give them a try. Just one. My Normand boyfriend was insistent, I didn't want to be stupid and stubborn so I gave in.
I drowned the thing in mignonette, which is the French staple condiment for oysters (basically made out of red wine vinegar, shallots and pepper), closed my eyes and opened my mouth.

And I heard the song of angels.

That was such a revelation that I couldn't believe it. Love at first bite.
I grabbed a second one from his plate, and ended up ordering a dozen of my new found stomach mates. I couldn't get enough.
That year, I indulged so often that I probably exploded my iodine levels.

On my 30th birthday, I was alone in Paris. A huge storm was rolling in. I walked to one of the best seafood restaurants of my former neighborhood, sat down in the deserted dining room and made myself the best gift I could think of at the time: unlimited oysters.
Best. Dinner. Ever.
What a fantastic way to enter a new decade.



Living in Chicago is a slow form of torture for me. I tried oysters in many different places, only to be disappointed each time. They are big, fat, tasteless, expensive. And served with cocktail sauce. Supreme sacrilege. It actually makes me angry. Really angry. But on a few occasions kumamoto babies crossed my path. Little treasures from the West Coast. Bearers of potential bliss.
Every time, every single time, it's a pure moment of elation. Always too short.

I love, love, LOVE oysters - and not only because they are rich in zinc, one of the minerals required for the production of testosterone (urban myth explained. Blink-blink). The intense ocean flavor that lingers in my mouth well after swallowing down the little mollusk just takes me straight up to heaven. Salty, briny, nutty, fresh and so intensely stimulating - they are the true pearls of the ocean.
I am pretty sure that God, wherever she lives, has her headquarters on the seashore by a big-ass oyster reef.
I would.


Links:
My favorite place to get oysters in the US: Hog Island Oysters Co. They have a bar in San Francisco (inside the Ferry building) and Napa, but visit their farms on Tomales Bay in Marshall, CA. You can even picnic there.
http://www.hogislandoysters.com

In Chicago:
- Pops For Champagne consistently serves the best kumamotos (when in season) and even provide mignonette. Great list of bubblies to wash them down.
http://www.popsforchampagne.com/

- the best oyster dish I have ever had was at Naha. Quilscene Oysters (from WA) served with a Pernod Sorbet, Creme Fraiche and Candied Citrus and Thyme. Heavenly.
http://www.naha-chicago.com/

Dirty Business

There are two magical letters in English.
And no, it's not AC (close enough, but not quite there), TP (useful but magical??!? Me thinks not), BP (they are more on the black magic side of things, excuse the pun - no harm intended), IQ (overrated), OK (or KO - according to your level of energy), HR (they are wicked), ET (alien, not magical) or IV (life saving maybe, but there is nothing magical about getting a needle in your arm, believe me).

Nope.
The magic comes from opposite sides of the alphabet.
W and D.
W/D.
Washer/Dryer.

Surprising?
You must be born in the USA just like Bruce then. Because for all of us French expats the laundry situation is a dire one.
Allow me to explain.

As long as I can remember, I had a washing machine in my house. No dryer, mind you but something mechanical and electricity-operated that allowed my mother to wash our clothes and all the linens. Never even questioned it. We had drying ropes above the bath tub like 3/4 of the population, and when we had the chance to have some sort of outdoor space (most of the time, a small size balcony) we would use a drying device called "Tancarville" - in reference to one of the biggest suspended bridge in the country and whose design is actually quite reminiscent of this architectural 'wonder':

The aesthetics is highly disputable, I allow you that one, but the convenience of not having to fold back every single piece of clothing hanging above the tub before taking your shower? Priceless, I am telling you.
(My mom finally gave in and bought a dryer a couple of years ago. Everything is getting lost.)

When I moved out of the house I didn't have a W/(D) at once. In fact with my boyfriend, we used to take our laundry to our respective parents during the weekend. Everybody was doing the same; no shame. We didn't think twice about it. We really felt like 'real' grown ups when we were able to buy our fist Arthur Martin/Electrolux machine. The bathroom had been waiting for it for years; everything was already in place. It was simply a matter of cash. And laziness? Sure, if it makes you happy. We enjoyed our new luxury, and gladly climbed all the way up to the ancient attic to use the drying lines, their white plastic coating slightly yellowed over time but sturdy and efficient all the same.

Then.....I moved to the US.
And fell in laundry hell.

At first it wasn't that bad. True, I had chosen a room blindly on the Internet, praying for the best, and getting (almost) the worst. Tom and Terry were a middle-aged, lower middle-class couple. The rest of their lives was nothing average though; heavy-weight, hoarders, borderline stalkers and perverts, they had never heard the words 'brooms' or 'vacuum' and their 75-pound dog shed happily all over the place. Sharing their house was no small feast. I cried nonstop on the night of my arrival. Then got slightly used to it. Surprisingly enough they had a decent laundry room; walking in there was to take a trip back to the early 70s, but everything worked alright. Most of all, it was there.

I hit the bottom the following year. Hard.
By the time I had moved into a small semi-detached cottage on Mansfield Road, Mansfield Center, CT. It was quaint with its blue wooden sideboards, its little porch, its long driveway and its 13 windows and 3 doors which transformed the whole thing in a 450 square foot icebox in the winter. Of course, it didn't have any WD. And living in the middle of the woods (albeit on a main road) I had to drive to clean my laundry.
Un-freaking-believable.

The laundromat was by the UConn campus, located on the first floor of the tiny strip mall across the street from the local high school. It was small, smelly, Greek-owned and operated. Laundry days were by far the worse ever; sitting there for hours in the middle of the over-heated room among other jaded students and the couple of poor Puerto Rican families living in the area was the most depressing experience I had had to go through in my entire life. Then winter came. Connecticut had to live through 8 or 9 blizzards that year; that was brutal.
I will always remember the day where I parked the car in the mall, grabbed the laundry basket and the detergent in the trunk, braved the ice, the snow and the wind, half stumbled inside, filled in a couple of washers (one with whites, one with colors) - only to discover that the Purex that I kept stored in the cold pantry at home had frozen in the bottle.
I was so stunned that I burst out laughing.
The in-house distributor was empty.
I had to drive all the way back to Walmart to buy my fix. A 15-mile ordeal that took me way more than an hour, and probably killed a few hundreds of my brain synapses all at once.

Chicago treated me better. But not having to worry so much about getting to the premises themselves led me to question the efficiency of my new cleaning surroundings. 'Cause, you see, stains had the unfortunate tendency to - literally - stick around. No matter how fresh they were, no matter the detergent I used - the diagnostic was invariably the same: not. good. I first blamed it on the cleaning supplies (what can you really expect from something called "Purex"?!? Honestly? I just picture a whole mashed-potato mess, clumping and sticking all over my clothes and making everything much, much worse than before) before realizing that we basically used the same products back home, under different names (may I add here that our marketing firms are doing a significantly better job?!?).
I then came to realize that the machines themselves were the real culprits. I should have known right away. Most of them belong, style-wise, to my grandmother's basement (if she had had one). They are bulky, noisy, incredibly basic....should I go on?!? They just don't look efficient. See the difference for yourself:













on the left: French model "Le Linge"
on the right: American GE model

I think it's clear enough.

Next time I hear someone, even as a joke, asking: "Do you have computers in France?" I might just tell them that no, we don't but we have at least perfected The Art of Clean.
And that's plenty to be proud of.

PS - Moving out of our condo two months ago, needless to say that the in-unit W/D was a top requirement of mine. You live, you learn.

Hoppy bubbles

I was 27 and a few months when I lost my beer virginity.


It wasn't great. First times, you know... I do remember it clearly though: a Mexican restaurant in Evanston, an iced cold Corona, a wedge of lime, and a frosty glass. I gathered all my will, squeezed the citrus in the bottle, pushed it deep down the neck, grabbed the culprit and brought it to my anticipating (albeit slightly dreading) lips.
I took a gulp.
Closed my eyes.
Swallowed it.

Wow-wow-wow.
Stop.
I feel like I need to give a few precisions here.
I am no angel. No choir boy (if I could have been one) either. I was no adept of some obscure non-drinking club where I was supposed to save myself for "The One" (Ketel? Hanger? who knows?!?)
Nope.
None of that.
Being a French chick I was allowed to drink pretty much since kindergarten. And I am only slightly exaggerating; you will probably not be allowed to get totally inebriated in a bar or a nightclub when you are 15 (and even this is highly disputable point, and completely up to your garçon's sense of morality) but at the same time no-one will stop a 10-year old from buying beer, wine, vodka or moonshine liquor at the supermarket.
It's just how it is. And frankly it doesn't make things any worse.
No taboo. No thrills of the transgression. Ok, that's a little too simple but you get the gist.

But being a French chick precisely, I was destined to one libation of choice: wine. Cliché? Maybe. Yet true story, at least for me. I started my drinking career with reds, whites and blushes. And champagne. Bien sûr. It was a long education, very unsavory at first. But as years went by I learned to appreciate the grape juice for grown-ups that was being offered to me at family dinners. I started to request a little more than my usual glass-bottom. And then, ask for another glass.
And so on.

But beer?!?!?!?
Hell no!!
Beer in my French world meant two things: Kanterbrau and Kronenbourg. Talk about choosing between two evils. I took a few sips in my time. From my dad's glass as a kid. From my friends' growing up. My requirement to date someone - to kiss someone - was : "No beer drinking". I was serious. One hoppy close encounter had left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Foul play. Never again.

Up until this day in March 2004. To my surprise I discovered that this not half as bad as I remembered. Second sip to confirm the first.
Yeah...
And just like that, the curse was lift.
A new world was opening up to me.

My friend Mary introduced me to the first brew I really liked: Blue Moon. We had gone to her place after class one day only to discover that she was out of wine. We braved the cold and gray Chicago night and walked to the neighboring liquor store to buy a six pack. My first one ever. We shared it. I got almost sick on my train ride back home, but I was hooked.

And then I met Robert. We exchanged - among other things - knowledge: my wine VS his beer. I quickly became a convert, a happy and eager one. I learned all about ales and lagers. The varieties. The malts. The wheats. Ohhhh...the wheat....The colors. The cloudiness. The draft methods. And the rich, infinite and delectable palette of tastes. Orange, cloves, vanilla, banana, leather, chocolate, coffee, tobacco........the whole universe can be contained in a mere 12-ounce vessel.

And how can words give justice to the supreme pleasure one knows after the first gulp (the French gorgée is so much more sensual; not as onomatopoeic as English, it smoothly rolls down in your throat. Beautiful.) of a fresh, iced cold beer on a hot summer day? This very first one; the one you anticipated feverishly during the few minutes it took the waiter (or your wife) to bring your order. You know this one. It's divine. You keep drinking, waiting for the magic to happen all over again, but it's gone. Read Philip Delerme about it - he's magnetic.


Of course the whole 'world in a glass' comment can be made about wine. Which has the distinct advantage of not making your stomach swell like you are expecting a set of triplets. Or a baby keg. Besides wine is refined, elegant, feminine in essence. Crimson, ruby, velvet, burgundy...it screams good-taste and aristocracy. Beer, on the other hand, is definitely working class. A frothy pint cannot compete with the fine crystal of a carafe. But despite its figure-unfriendly characteristics and its popular roots beer has a particular appeal to me that I cannot quite explain. The more I try to pin it down, the more elusive it gets.
A volatile quality.....
Could it be the magic of bubbles?
This light sparkle, the subtle but decisive dance on your tongue, distinct from any other effervescence, specific and unmistakable....allied to the rich and mealy mouthful that only truly belongs to the beer. The ambrosia of the gods, in all its wondrous honey color, was probably nothing else.

Too much talking, huh? you may be right. There is surely no better way to celebrate the marriage of hops and yeast than to wolf down pints after pints, leaving the words to philosophers.
But even thinkers are thirsty.

One last word:
If beer is your thing, two interesting websites for you:
- www.michiganmicrobrews.com - a great website "for Michigan Craft Beer Enthusiasts" (and others). You will find all about festivals, breweries, where to buy beers and homebrewing supplies, as well as employment opportunities.

- www.ratebeer.com - " the largest collection of beer reviews and used as an authoritative buying guide by consumers worldwide".

Cheers!
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