just "sauce" & the luck of the point

Paris, so far, has been a blur. Touring a city is often tiring so when the weekend arrived I was ecstatic at the thought of sleeping in. On Thursday night I literally fell into bed and awoke a blissful ten hours later. It was awesome. But I had a buttload of homework--which was slightly less than awesome. Eight readings, eight corresponding responses, and two assigned journals filled with sensory details later, the sun (or what constitutes as "sunshine" here) had set and I was starved. Some of my classmates and I rode the Metro to a promising taqueria called Guacamole. I scarfed down three carne asada tacos having been deprived of good Mexican food for over a week! And when you live in Southern California where there's a taco joint on every corner, it might as well have been a year! I have a feeling Parisians aren't too fond of spicy foods though. The hot sauce should have just been called "sauce." I noticed too, when I had Pho the week before, the Sriracha seemed a bit watered down. It was in a different container so it was probably a knock off rooster sauce. Note to self: bring your own Tabasco. The only somewhat "spicy" sauce here is their mustard which Parisians seem to put on their food religiously.

On Saturday I awoke pretty late as well. My friends and I had planned to go to what we've dubbed as "Little Vietnam" on a Metro stop called Tolbiac to scour about for some Thai food. We needn't scour very far, though we did have to wait thirty minutes for a table. The place was packed which we thought to be a good indicator of the restaurant's food. The servings were pretty small and the prices were a wee bit steep, though it was lunch time in a European country. However, what it lacked in substance, it made up for in flavaaa. Every time I place an order here I feel as if I've just gone through an interrogation. Usually when the waiter comes by to take my order I do what I refer to as "The Luck of the Point," wherein wherever my finger lands on the menu, I'll have to eat. 

Later that day my friend Nina and I went to a brasserie close to our hostel. We planned to have a drink and do some reading, très French, excluding the fact that we don't surround ourselves in a cloud of smoke. We walked into the building proud of ourselves for pulling the door open upon entering rather than pushing (we've had many an incident in which we open and close the door of a shop the wrong way). A waiter materialized before us and I held my fingers up in the universal sign for two--and it didn't hurt that this symbol is also universally known as peace. We come in peace, I tried communicating through my eyes. It didn't work. He pointed to a booth so Nina and I got ourselves situated before studying le menu. My finger ran down the Vin Rouge list. I stopped on a word that read Bordeaux, a city in France I'm familiar with having attended a school named after a saint from the city. I shrugged (Luck of the Point!) and told Nina my order while she told me of her plan to ask the waiter for something fruity and dry. The round-bellied, hairless headed man (all of the waiters I've had seem to be balding old men, don't they?) came to our table five minutes later, notepad in hand staring at us in boredom. "What you eat?" he said. Nina began asking him about the wine and was interrupted by the bewildered man. "No! What you eat? This table for eating!" We told him we just wanted drinks. He shook his head. "This table for eating!" he said again. He pointed to the fork: "This is a fork!" He pointed to the knife: "This is a knife!" He pointed to the place setting: "This is for food!" He was like a culinary drill sergeant telling us what was what on the table: You place food on table! You pick up fork with hand! You lift fork with the tongs end toward mouth! Insert food! Chew and swallow! A-TEN-HUT! We put our hands up in surrender. "You want to drink only? You sit over there! This table for eating!" He took our order then, before we slumped red-cheeked and sweaty-palmed, to a new table setting-less booth. We get our wine (which wasn't too bad) and some trail mix in a little ceramic bowl. A few chapters and an hour and a half later, the waiter returns. "You pay bill now, I leave." I got my wallet out and started fingering some of the bills and counting coins. "Where you from?" I hear. I looked up at Nina before staring at the waiter. "California," Nina said. He smiled as if remembering something, and then: "I have cousin in Monterey! You know Monterey? Near Santa Cruz! I love San Francisco!" He then proceeded to name every street and tourist sight in SF: "Fisherman's Wharf. Union Square. Lombard Street. Coit Tower." Gone was the vicious waiter of old, replaced instead by this amiable fellow who I thought would have made a very good Bay Area tour guide. After he was finished reciting the San Francisco traveler's book and the l'addition was paid, we exchanged Au revoir's and Bonne Annèe's, Nina and I rather puzzled at our waiter's temperament.

And on that odd note...guess what! Guess WHAT! GUESS! WHAT! I just received my first essay grade for Writing Through Paris as well as a fully detailed evaluation (on how awesome it was! DUH!). If you couldn't pick up on my excitement through my use of CAPITAL LETTERS, let me just lay it out fo' ya! I got an A! And I couldn't be happier!

I have failed to tell you about my Sunday meal (escargot, pasta with porcini mushrooms and ham [which was EH], one scoop of chestnut ice cream [eh, again], and one scoop of coconut [BOMB]), but I can't stop reading my paper eval, so I'm going to call it a night! Also, I have class in the morning!

So bonsoir Paris! Good morning California!

You'll be hearing from me again soon!

winter interlude

Je me presse de rire de tout, de peur d'être obligé d'en pleurer.

I make myself laugh at everything, for fear of having to weep.

-Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais

The Barber of Seville

Photo from my cousin, Jas

conversation and observation at au chai de l’abbaye

The clink clank clink is the cacophony common in a cluttered café. It’s an orchestra of silverware and plates that contribute to the movement of the place. As my glass empties, my observation skills seem to wane, or perhaps they become sharpened and sensitive. In any case, my hearing seems more attuned with the atmosphere and if I close my eyes for a moment, I can concentrate and detect what actions accompany these sounds. A spoon hits the edge of a glass, a fork scrapes at meager crumbs on a plate, the strike of a match lights a cigarette, lips sip on espresso, and finally the contented sigh from a patron.

I open my eyes and the first thing I see is the table that holds my pen and paper. It is an ivory marble with gray veins framed by a dusty tan wood. I sit on a chair with a scarlet cushion and brass buttons. I adjust my feet under the table and look up. The light in the café is bright in some places and dim in others. A single florescent bulb hits the shiny, hairless head of the waiter. He has his eye on me. It’s easy to tell I’m American, though I’ve been “Ni Hao”-ed at everyday since I’ve gotten here. I had attempted to ask him what he recommended when I first placed my order. One of my companions told me how to say, “what do you recommend?” in French and I repeated the phrase in my head over and over, confident that he would point out a few choice reds on the wine list upon hearing my question. However when the time came to ask, I noticeably shrunk before him and stuttered the words unintelligibly. He shook his head back and forth and looked between my companions and myself, slightly outraged. When one of my friends clarified my question the waiter looked surprised and pointed to himself wide-eyed, saying “Moi?” Finally he pointed to practically every wine on the list and a light sheen of perspiration broke out on my forehead as I tried to keep up with his quick pointing fingers and rapid French tongue. I blindingly chose one, feeling slightly as if I had just gone through an interrogation. Upon my choosing, he snatched the menu from my hand and I looked up at his face to see that he looked somewhat satisfied. Perhaps he was just as relieved as I was that the line of inquiry was over.

A group of two British men and two British women are seated to the left of me. I think they’re on holiday. Their conversation topics consist of cheese and wine and I recall Chris telling us of the great width and appetite of Balzac. He said they don’t talk about these things in Britain, but I suppose since they’re in France, this type of conversation is relatively safe. A few Frenchmen sit behind me on my right. I hear a couple of deep, distinct voices, so perhaps there are only two of them. The guttural yet fluid sound is soothing like the warmth of the red wine flowing down my throat and settling in my stomach. It makes me sleepy, but pleasantly so (at the end of a long day I always find myself dozing off on the metro ride home). I hear a couple of women now behind me as well. They were here when the café was rather empty, though they were silent. I think it’s the rising noise level of the café and the liquor and espresso in their systems that accumulate to their own volume. They’re Japanese from the sound of it. Conversation never ceases here, though I find I’m a bit fearful in lending my own voice to the noise. For now, I sit back in my seat and take what comfort I can of the café, waiting for the rain to stop and waiting to be inspired.

food for thought in a hole in the ground

The concave walls of the hallway are reminiscent of the architecture of a tunnel at the aquarium. I call to mind past elementary school field trips, shared Valentine’s Day dates, and long afternoons of reflective solitude. The wall on the right is colored blue depicting scenes of life underwater, further alluding to my recollections of the aquarium. The hall is long and great. Sound, like the people walking, travels quickly in the large space. The noise bounces from wall to wall and off of the arched ceiling creating vibrations like the thunder of a summer rain.

There are three narrow strips moving on the floor, transporting people from one end of the hall to the other. We are just items on a conveyor belt at Safeway. I choose the middle aisle and begin to walk on the left side, forgoing the option to stand on the right. The girl in front of me pauses to fix her shoe and I stop, just barely, on the tip of my toes to prevent from crashing into her. She shifts toward the right giving me leeway to pass by and smiles sheepishly. She has long copper hair and I automatically decide that if she were an item on a conveyor belt, she’d be a carrot. The couple the carrot steps behind is locked in an amorous embrace; I glance openly at them catching a glimpse of a kiss notoriously named after the French. They don’t seem to have any restraints on public displays of affection here, or PDA, which my friend has coined to actually stand for Put Dat Away. Perhaps this pair would be a couple of Hershey’s Kisses. I shake my head; no, they’d definitely be two unsliced Genoa salamis. I shiver at the thought of standing next to two unnaturally oversized slabs of meat on the slim walkway and embarrassingly scurry away, no longer looking at anything save for the flickering light at the end of the tunnel. I am on my way to lunch, my appetite now eaten away by nausea. I decide there should be no food for thought in the station of a metro.