365 Memories

I remember one year—was the baby born? only just, so it must've been around six years ago—deciding to test myself in the kitchen with a recipe from the series of books: Grand Livre de Cuisine d'Alain Ducasse . Not sure why exactly I would do this with a baby in the house—what, is plain old post- partum not enough torture for a lady?—but I set myself the task. I remember the heft of the cookbook, its silver jacket and the pages of exquisite photos, daring you to reproduce the color, the reflections of light on each fruit or vegetable. I went easy on myself, selecting the Bistrots , Brasseries, et Restaurants de Tradition volume. A sleep-deprived home cook without even the luxury of an automatic dishwasher, let alone other intricate culinary tools, I figured that tradition was more my speed than gastronomie . And even then, I selected what seemed to be the easiest recipe: Soupe au pistou , a lovely pesto soup. The pesto already made (that was easy; I make pesto frequent...

When I was young, someone told me of a superstition: as when going through tunnels, if you pass a cemetery, you are supposed to hold your breath. I don't remember who told this to me, but I know we were in a car. It made some sense to me at the time. People are (perhaps rightly) a bit squeamish about cemeteries. But—at least while living—I actually enjoy them. Which is not to say that I seek them out in some morbid thrill; I am not in any way obsessed with them. But if I am passing by, especially in a foreign country, I will almost always wander in. And there are some that really do merit a visit for their landscaping and the ornate sculptures of tombstones and mausoleums. The marble cutting is often exquisite. I have never visited The Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, nor have I been to Woodlawn , which is in the Bronx, although I have driven past them countless times. I do, however, remember two cemeteries that made impressions upon me: one is famous, and people do make pilgrimag...

Another food memory, once again in France. I would wonder if readers are tiring of this cycle of posts, and yet . . . who could tire of the undeniable romance of French fare? Done simply and well, certainly not I. This memory is of tomatoes. Other things, too, but mostly tomatoes; some very particular ones. Deep crimson and full of taut tomato flesh. Not the pale, dry, mealy disks that pass for tomato slices in many places. No, these were real, juicy tomatoes with more meat than membrane and seeds. Sliced and served up in a perfect rustic arrangement of a tart, with a quintessential French butter pastry crust, simple. I don't remember ever before (or since) tasting a tomato that was the epitome of tomato; a tomato in which you could taste the earth it was grown in, the sun that ripened the fruit, the farm freshness, the . . . terroir . Does anyone talk terroir when talking tomato? If they don't, they should. And these would definitely be AOC tomatoes. Where were they? Served...

At some point, a marriage becomes a matter of routine; taken for granted. It's something that, being human, we are all guilty of at some point or another, despite the folly of the practice. We tell ourselves that it's just a comfortable sort of being together, worn like a favorite shirt that's fading at the elbows but still intact; more often, though, it's stagnation. It's our duty, I believe, to fight against complacency. Some people do this with reminders of those early days, however long ago, when everything seemed new. Others seek to replicate the newness by seeking future adventures, possibly crazy ones (depending on how prone to midlife crisis one is). Past, future . . . the best way is of course to pay attention to the now. And when you do that—really pay attention—you can amaze yourself with the power of your memory. My husband and I seem to be people who look back on the first blush when we want to rekindle. And our collective memory, I must say, is all abo...

To enjoy your French breakfast: 1. Sit outside at a wrought iron patio table, in a patch of light. 2. Lift a warm bowl (not cup!) of creamy coffee to your lips. 3. Notice how the baguette, baked just minutes ago, is still warm; split it lengthwise through its perfect golden crust to expose the soft, white inside. 4. Demi - sel butter? Slather it on without hesitation. 5. Take the slim, long-handled wooden spoon resting at your elbow and dip it in lavender honey—pale, thick, creamy. Spread this over the buttered bread. Its aroma will make you want to sleep in a field in the sunshine, content. 6. Dip your buttered, honeyed bread into your coffee. 7. Smile at the man sitting across from you. There will always be a handsome man sitting across from you in France. 8. Sip the coffee. Bite the bread. Chew. Swallow. Repeat at leisure. A charmed morning in Provence: waking up to love. Honeymoon, day one. France forgives us our tired-writer clichés , seen through a newlywed's rose-colored gl...

The honeymoon starts unfairly, with my love divided. Moving along the curving Provençal roads, shaded by plane trees, we leave the festivities of the (beautiful but exhausting) wedding behind us—hightail it out of the Southwest region, trading Dumas for Van Gogh , for Cézanne . We arrive on the outskirts of Aix , and there she is: Mont Sainte Victoire in all her rocky glory. I have never been here, but I feel a sense of homecoming and desire, like returning to a lover after a long absence, seeing again the delicate way she peels an orange in a single spiral for your pleasure. I spent years looking at this mountain, through the eyes of the painter Paul Cézanne ; semesters analyzing his obsessive analysis of its geometry: the critical thesis for my MFA compared Cézanne and his modernist literary relation, Lawrence Durrell . But what can you really capture of a lifelong love? Which face presents itself to you, at what moment? A mountain, an Alexandrian woman, two people beginning thei...

We stopped at the side of the road, shocked by yellow. A full field of sunflowers, turning their large, open faces to the sun. Tournesols in French. My friend, D., and I jumped out of the car, went to stand at the edge of the field, and had our pictures taken. Saturated color: gold and cyan behind and above us. Kodachrome tribute. But even in black and white the shots are impressive, the flowers big as our own heads, a field of dark eyes glistening. Before France, I had never seen a vibrant field of growing sunflowers, only their kin, turning up sometimes in a florist's shop or else in the farmer's market. Bringing them home, there was never a vase large enough or heavy enough to hold them; their long, thick stalks had to be cut with knives. The flower heads would bow toward the table, stooped under the weight of their cheerful petal halos and spiky, mane-like leaves. Across the street from the house purchased jointly in name ( post about that here ), there are also fields li...

OK, so after choking on this post for a while, I have realized that it is pretty much impossible to create something that will live up to the expectations that we (people in general, I specifically) put on the "big events," in this case my hopes for a post to perfectly capture a single facet of my wedding day in stunning detail. In part this is because I am tired today, but in part it's also due to the fact that weddings are like this for the couple in question—at least for most brides, I think: hard to experience fully in the moment. This is one reason why a good photographer is worth every expense; you are too invested, too much the director of this production to set yourself aside and just live fully in the "now" of it all. Our ceremony was lovely, beyond a doubt. It was full of love and joyful celebration and outrageous indulgence and passion. All these things, and yet it passed in such a blur. My memory of the event itself is a fragmented collage, a culmina...

Sublime: We are standing at what seems to be the summit of the world. Cordes - sur -Ciel, France. A fortified town (" bastide "), founded by the Count of Toulouse in 1222 as a safe haven for the heretic Cathars . The old town juts into the sky, high above the valley below, even above the clouds. Our physical height begs for metaphorical application: a couple of days now before our wedding, and we are also feeling high on hopes for the future, the beginning of a new chapter of life. Inside the ramparts, we stroll with some of our guests, point out the sculptural details of 13 th - and 14 th -century Gothic architecture. All is beauty and bliss. Chèvres : Amid the tall stone columns of the open-air marketplace, under the thick wood rafters and medieval pennants in the center of Cordes , our sublime moment takes a turn toward the ridiculous. My husband is on a cell phone, checking in with the manager of the château in Couiza , where plans for our wedding reception are underway...

A funny memory: Days before our wedding in Carcassonne , France, my husband and I were in Toulouse, playing host and hostess to guests arriving early from overseas. Some of my husband's family were joining in these festivities, but the main goal of the pre -nuptial evenings was to introduce my parents, some aunts and cousins, and some close (mostly American) friends to the pleasures of Southwest France. Toulouse, being the home of decadent, rich dishes such as cassoulet , foie gras , and the famous Toulouse sausage, is not necessarily known for seafood, but the rosy-bricked city does lie on a stunning river, the Garonne ; a twilight meal on a " péniche ," or houseboat, seemed just the right way to ease travel-weary guests into the local color and fine dining scene. We decided to take our party to the Bateau Restaurant La Daurade . My husband and I were running a little late that evening, coming as we were from a hellish (for me anyway) legal rendez - vous . The decision...

What things plow through a woman's mind just days before her wedding, making her fertile perhaps but also furrowing her brow? If, like me, you are overseas, marrying someone from another culture (albeit one you are familiar with; it is European, Western, and you speak the language), the wedding ritual is made slightly more complicated, concerned as you are with the comfort of international guests and the possibility that any of your own faux pas will be magnified through the lens of difference: different customs, a different church, different any- and everything. A destination wedding is beautiful, but it is also an act of loyalty, courage, and maybe insanity (or at least masochism). All this to say that a lot was going on in my head space four days before taking vows, much of it logistic. An abundance of logistical detail of course means that you do not have to think too deeply about your emotional state. But here's what I remember about June 25, 2002, exactly seven years ago...

When I was living in Paris in the spring of 1991, I went out at night as much as possible. Mostly this was to escape my dysfunctional and completely inhospitable host family. If people visited, then I crashed in their hotels. If there were no family or friends from home in town, then I often had an evening of dinner and music and sometimes dancing with my French professor, a woman with the initials E. F. (see another post about her here ). She lived in the Latin Quarter; I was on the other side of the city. Not much of a trip on the Paris Métro , but quite a long walk. I think the last train of the night—the famous " dernier métro "—was at around 1:30 in the morning, and service didn't start up again until sometime in the 5:00 a.m. hour. Of course, being used to the 24-hour convenience (if dubious late-night safety) of the subway system in New York City, the fact of the trains shutting down often escaped my mind. So I'd miss the last train, and although it was late, ...

No, it is not what you think, get your mind out of the gutter. The etiquette in question is oenological , not sexual, although another writer might well draw parallels between the adult pleasures of wine, sensuality, and physical arousal. For a wine professional, of course, it is really no question at all. Faced with a long lineup of vintages for tasting, the thing to do is to sip, swish, and spit. Etiquette likely isn't even a concern; it's just standard practice, reflexive. For a twentysomething woman raised with good manners, who has never been on a wine tasting before, however, spitting is just not an easy thing to do. These days, of course, I know better. I am the wife of a sommelier , and after ten years of dating and marriage, I have been to enough tastings to know that any highfalutin idea of manners may be safely (and should prudently be) forgotten. But back in 1998, I knew no such thing. In October of that year, I traveled to southwest France to meet my husband (then...

I don't consider myself a phobic person. I have never been afraid of heights (though I have blogged about a recent fear of flying, here ); in fact, I have been skydiving and loved the experience. I am not fearful of things like speaking in public or needles or spiders. I am not afraid to take creative risks or to make mistakes. I am not, strictly speaking, afraid of the dark. However, on this last item, I have to confess: it depends on what is meant by "dark." For most of my life, I thought I knew what darkness was—I don't mean metaphoric darkness; I'm talking about the lack of light at midnight. But I was raised primarily in large cities—New York, Chicago, L.A.—and in a city like this, the darkness is never complete. There is always a light-leak from someplace. You get ready for bed, turn off the lights, and at most it takes your eyes a few seconds to adjust before you see outlines of objects emerging from shadow. If you have a window in your bedroom, then you sl...

Senses swimming in a deep, blue hue. An unexpected bath of color, and the feeling of being washed clean. In the intimate, empty auditorium of the Musée Chagall, in Nice, France, I sat in shafts of light made dazzling by the stained-glass windows of the artist's spiritual genius. Outside, at the base of the hill on which the museum perched, the January air did little to keep beach goers off the Promenade, but my mom and I preferred being inside, in this museum. I am surprised we did not go back daily while in Nice. It was 1990. I was living my twenty-first year, and in that moment, in front of that three-panel installation of Chagall's windows, I could allow myself to feel that I was just then, only then, beginning to live. In fact, the windows are called La création du monde , or "The Creation of the World," dating from 1971–1972. I was two to three years old when they were made, so we were very nearly born at the same time, the windows and I. The auditorium was u...

Paris, 1991. I was twenty-one years old that spring, living in the City of Lights, working a "stage" (internship) at a software-publishing association, and learning what is arguably the most romantic language in the world. I had left a serious boyfriend back in New York State, in the Hudson Valley, and I was at least technically faithful to him (flirtations don't count for anything in Paris). I don't remember when it was exactly, but for nearly a full week he took a vacation from his job (he was nine years older than I and owned his own business) and came to visit. I had found us a modest, clean hotel: the Hôtel du Danube in Saint Germain. It is now a refined three-star accommodation that I wouldn't recognize except for the warm, wood paneled part of the facade where the hotel's name is spelled out in raised gold letters. At the time, though, we could've stayed almost anywhere minimally decent, and I would have been happy. Because it was a romantic visi...

March 2000. The "French Engagement Tour," I'll call it: Paris, Toulouse, Carcassonne . I had been to France with my husband-to-be about a year an a half prior, but at that time I was the "petite amie ," and this was different; this time, I was the " fiancée ," and the circle of people I needed to meet had grown considerably. On the flight across the Atlantic, and again the night before our official engagement party in my mother-in-law's home, I was briefed on the various branches of the family—the bevy of tantes , flocks of cousin(e)s, the assorted copains / copines . I have great memories of the engagement party and other festivities, introductions, moments of agitation and repose, and I may well post about some of these, but for some reason what stands out from this trip at the moment is one of the more casual evenings, a quieter one toward the end of our journey. My mother-in-law had invited some friends over (two couples of her age), and she ha...

My father-in-law was born on this day in 1943, in France. He lived his adult life in authoritarian civil service, as a gendarme—that Gallic cross between the police and the military. Three and a half years ago, at the age of sixty-two, he lost his life to advanced lung cancer. He was a difficult man in many ways—a stubborn man who was responsible for the rupture of my husband's childhood family, divorcing acrimoniously when my husband was at the beginning of his adolescent years. These facts, personal opinion aside, are a matter of public record, documented by the notorious French bureaucracy. What does not belong in the public record, but what rests with me as the sum impression of my own memories of the man, is the following: my father-in-law was a man who loved his children, quite deeply I think, but who did not know how to show it in any of the expected ways. I first met him in October 1998, the first time I traveled to southwest France to join my (future) husband on vacation a...

Back in the Paris Métro , I don't remember which station. I was with a couple of friends, G. and (I think) N., one male and one female, both of them participants in my study-abroad program. We were on a cultural excursion that day, waiting to the side of the ticket booth for the entire group to assemble before continuing on toward the platform. I remember it was a very cold day. All the more reason for us to take notice of the two men (Scots, we assumed) in their kilts on the other side of the entry/exit barriers. None of us, not even the most feminine girls, could imagine wearing a skirt on a day that cold—at least not without tights, which the Scots certainly did not have on. They were trying to exit, but were having some difficulty. We watched them attempt repeatedly to get past the barrier without success. Was it N. who asked whether the rumors were true? It was said that men in kilts wore nothing underneath. In a flash, it was decided: the men shrugged and vaulted over the bar...

She was short, very, with a compact build. Not overweight at all, but definitely not exemplary of the type of thin Parisian silhouette so much in fashion, so expected in France. She wore trim black trousers, tight black sweaters, flat black shoes; she wore no lipstick but sometimes lined her eyes, doe-like, in liquid black; sometimes she knotted chiffon scarfs around her neck (she did have a way with fashion nonetheless). Her hair was glossy black and short, slightly wavy. She was Parisian, born and raised, but because of her "Arab" name and her darker complexion, she often faced discrimination. She transformed a lifelong feeling of being marginalized into a streak of deliberate nonconformity and a critical wit. She was my French teacher while I lived and worked in Paris, and I believe she saw herself as an ambassador of the "other" France. She and I became fast friends—we were not all that far apart in age, actually—and she made it her project to usher me past the ...