Galette des rois

In France, as in so many other places, holidays are excuses to eat specific foods. On Epiphany day or on the Sunday closest to it, people (whether or not they are Christian and whether or not they are observant if they are Christian) eat galette des rois. I will complete this post by tomorrow, the actual feast. Meanwhile, happy drooling. I don't think there is galette des rois here in Greensboro.

As Christmas approaches...

... I think back to France, where I lived when I was growing up. I had hoped to be there for these holidays, but for a variety of reasons I could not go. Perhaps just as well since airport and other traffic in Northern Europe have been in a snarl due to snow. I hear from a friend, though, that things are lovely in Southern France.

Here is "Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle," which some of you will know as "Bring a Torch, Jeannette, Isabella." This is the way it is supposed to sound.

Tintin movies!?

Spielberg is making a Tintin movie. As is some other American filmmaker. Who knew? Apparently previews of the Spielberg film, at least in the form of stills, will be shown at the forthcoming Angoulême festival. That's the big annual comics festival in France. Angoulême is a small city northeast of Bordeaux. The English occupied it briefly in the 14th century.

Gratuitous Romanesque Europe nostalgia photo: Sénanque Abbey and its lavender field

This is one of my favorite places.

I haven't been to the Abbey of Sénanque in about 30 years, but the parents of an old and dear friend of mine from high school have retired to the nearest town of Gordes, and their granddaughter (my friend's oldest child) was married there in Gordes, just miles from the abbey, last weekend. Alas, I couldn't be there because we had just started school at Guilford.

Enjoy the picture, and click the links if you want to know and see more.

Click on the photo to enlarge it. Gorgeous.

Lost Things and the Power of Memory

My latest essay, "Lost Things and the Power of Memory," is up at the Episcopal Café today. The Café welcomes your comments. (If you don't already have a login there you'll have to get one, but it's free and easy. See here.)

I've also posted the link on Facebook.

Lost and found

I have been cooking an essay called "Lost Things" which has suddenly started flowing out of my fingers. It may or may not be my next piece for the Episcopal Café, whose editor has been extraordinarily patient with my absence from my contributor duties during this difficult year. I have been musing about the things I have lost or have had stolen from me over the course of my life and about why their absence bothers me. The essay comes straight out of those musings.

In the course of hatching a rough draft, I have remembered once again one of my favorite books from childhood, one which I reread many times as a young adult and which my parents had to give away or leave behind during a major move. I cannot hope to track down that very copy of the book but in these days of the World Wide Web it is possible to find a book that has long been out of print. Every so often I search for it on the internet.

Lo and behold, after two and a half pages of writing I began poking around for the first time in months, and I found not only copies of the book available for sale but confirmation that the book was in fact the one I loved in the form of a picture of the book cover! The first few copies I saw online had either no picture of a cover or a very different picture from the edition I remember. So here is a picture of my beloved book. At some point I will order a copy for myself, or perhaps I will wait till my next trip to France or ask a friend to get it for me. I really want to read the book again but I am just happy it still exists somewhere.


By the way, the book is full of wonderful fables and legends and tales: how certain streets in Paris got their name, what a fortune-teller said to one of the Medici queens (two Medici women married French kings), who built what when, and how the city got its start. That part is not fable but historical fact. It is through this book that I learned about the Parisii, the tribe that gave Paris its name. Paris was a city of boat people, clustered on a few islands that were later consolidated into the two islands we know at the heart of the city. The Romans, of course, took over the islands when they conquered Gaul, did a lot of building, and named the city Lutetia (Lutèce in French), though some sources say that the city's name was already Lutetia by the time the Romans conquered it in 52 BCE. Bits of Roman amphitheatre and baths survive, but the Parisii came first and it is their name that endures.

The book is also chock-full of stories of the saints, and I still remember them: Denis, martyred (on what became known as Mons Martyrium, later abridged to Montmartre) and carrying his head in his hands all the way to what is now the town of St. Denis, where a basilica commemorates him; Geneviève the shepherd girl, praying away the Huns; and others, but those two especially.

Interesting how stories pour out of us when we are ready, or sometimes long after we were ready. I should have known by the grumpy mood of the last few days that I was cooking several pieces of writing. Reports and other mundane word processing stood at the doorway and blocked them. I must get back to those duty-bound words, but now I know what was ready to come forth, and there will be no stopping it.

Parents of Acts of Hope sighted in Paris, and a "whassup" update

The intrepid parents of Acts of Hope are on the fourth and last leg of their European trip, in our beloved former home, Paris. So says our correspondent, who keeps track of them and reports to me at my worrying-but-cheering-daughter stateside post. All went well in the Abruzzi and the related short stay in Rome.

Meanwhile, I posted the following update on Facebook this morning:

Jane Redmont is extremely very cranky, adding to the to-do list, about to deal with the bureaucracy, and not amused. Gazing at the irises in bloom as much as possible, drinking Assam tea, and looking forward to the Women's Studies dinner tonight. Hoping to check off two major items on the to-do list by lunchtime. Organizing graded and ungraded student papers in stacks. In despair over the state of grammar and punctuation.

Special thanks to Rowan the Dog, Bishop of Playing, who made an appearance on Facebook via his guardian Lindy in the comments section of the update.

Daffodil report

A lone daffodil was working very hard to emerge from its green sheath this morning and to burst into yellow.

It is still working at it, but under the influence of the noon sun, has been joined by several of its siblings.

Daffodil solidarity!

+Maya Pavlova has been asleep all day. Doubtless she will emerge when the sun starts to go down. She has missed all the vacuum cleaner action so far. We're in Mardi Gras cleaning mode. Soon friends will pop in for crêpes. (More on my annual Shrove Tuesday event here.) The party is early this year, at tea-time, because I am teaching on Tuesday evenings this semester. We'll also have a little late crêpes-eating after I get home at 10:30 p.m. Crêpes in the morning, crêpes in the evening, crêpes till the midnight hour.

Quelle surprise (not)

You Belong in Paris

You enjoy all that life has to offer, and you can appreciate the fine tastes and sites of Paris. You're the perfect person to wander the streets of Paris aimlessly, enjoying architecture and a crepe.

What European City Do You Belong In?

Back on the farm; reflections on home and health

I have returned to home base, after a visit home (intentional repetition of "home") with my parents who raised us in a home in another country and my brother and his beloved whose home is in two more countries. Home, home, home, home, home.

There's a meditation in that one, but for now, I am in catch-up mode at the office and in continuing mode with the stack of term papers. Church projects await as well - and the gym, to which I have sworn to return this week after an absence of weeks and weeks; most of the semester, truth be told. Not good. I am joining my buddy Paul in hauling my middle-aged arse back to the land of workouts. I've been walking and doing a bit of yoga all semester, but not enough of either. Ever since the tree fell the second week of an already packed semester, my life has been one long sleep-deprived term with less exercise than I have ever had in my adult life. Having to make choices between work and sleep, or sleep and exercise, or exercise and work, is not a healthy way of living. In Advent and as the academic semester ends, I am trying to restore the balance.

November 22: death of John F. Kennedy (1963), birth of Charles de Gaulle (1890)

President John F. Kennedy's family has always preferred remembering him on the anniversary of his birth, May 29, to remembering his on the anniversary of his death.

That is the more appropriate remembrance, but for the rest of us, November 22 is the day when we have the reflex of memory. Any of us who were over the age of three or four on November 22, 1963 --45 years ago today-- remember exactly where we were when we heard that the President had been shot in Dallas, Texas, and had died.

As I just posted in comments over at Padre Mickey's (he has a remembrance of November 22, 1963, as does Dcap), I was a child of eleven in Paris. It was evening. My grandmother was visiting from the U.S. The phone rang and she picked it up. (My mother may have been working on Thanksgiving dinner in the kitchen.) She walked in from the bedroom to the front of the apartment where the rest of us were and said "the President's been shot."

We really do all remember where we were when it happened. (Now we also remember where we were when the planes hit the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on 9/11/01.)

The next day, when I got to school, one of my French friends said her mother had told her might not be in class that day.

The French were in shock. They loved JFK and remembered his 1961 visit to Paris with his wife, who charmed General Charles de Gaulle, president at the time, and who spoke fluent French. (When was the last time we had a bilingual First Lady? That was it.) JFK knew his wife had been a big hit and at the news conference luncheon of the Anglo-American Press Association, he quipped in his opening remarks, "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris."


General de Gaulle's birthday, coincidentally, was November 22. He received the terrible news the day he turned 73.

De Gaulle, my father wrote in his memoir, "was the man who made the immortal comment: 'How can you govern a country that has 246 varieties of cheese?' " He added "I cite this for a reason: To remind ourselves that this austere, grandiloquent guardian of French glory, a man of vision who knew when to take risks, was also a man of wit and humor not just the aloof, forbidding figure of legend." (Bernard S. Redmont, Risks Worth Taking: The Odyssey of a Foreign Correspondent, University Press of America, 1992, p. 144)

Second City bound

Remember last November? The American Academy of Religion (AAR), just before its split from the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) (rumor has it the two Annual Meetings are going to get back together, but I digress), was at the two societies' joint conference, just before Thanksgiving, in San Diego. I was a little wacked out from jet lag and culture shock, having just returned from another conference in Belgium with a side trip to Paris, or maybe Belgium was the side trip and Paris was the main course; they were both wonderful.

At the San Diego meeting my colleague Eric and I were interviewing candidates, sixteen of them as I recall, for the soon to be vacant position in our department (and eventually, in the spring, hired Parveen, our new colleague who arrived two and a half months ago) and the conference was half consumed with that work. It was tiring. I also was a respondent to a paper and attended a few other sessions besides the one at which I was a respondent. It's like going to school for three days, except that last year I couldn't do as much learning as usual due to our being "in a search," as they say in academe. I did manage to have a meal or two with friends.

This fall the two professional societies are meeting separately and at different times in November, and I am only going to one of those conferences, the AAR one, which is in Chicago this year. It begins this weekend. I head for Chicago later today, after my late afternoon class, because I have a pre-conference meeting tomorrow and also because I want to make sure I get to the Art Institute, which is very close to the hotel. Girl with no social life and a big culture deficit finally gets a break.

It's especially nice to see some of my friends and colleagues from the West Coast. I'll be seeing some from California and Oregon this year, and also some folks from the U.K. and a colleague from Mexico I haven't seen in years.

My publisher is throwing me a little party Sunday night in honor of the book's release; Chicago folks or people with Chicago peeps (ahoy Dennis) write me at widsauthor at earthlink dot net, and I can have Amanda The Publicist contact them with the info.

Monday morning I am presenting a paper (my first one at the AAR, I have only given responses to other people's papers thus far, the competition can be stiff to get a paper accepted) in the morning. Have I finished writing it yet? Of course not. The title of the paper is pretty sexy, but if I write it here MadPriest will mock me (he had a field day with this last year) so perhaps I'll just write it in the Comments section below.

In the afternoon I am presiding at a session where other people are giving papers. It's not as glamorous as it sounds: I get to be the timekeeper and hold up little signs saying "TWO MINUTES" and I facilitate the discussion after everyone has presented.

Then I fly back to Greensboro, and Godde and the airlines willing, get in not too late, get a good night's sleep, and get up Election Day and volunteer for the Obama campaign until it's time to teach my afternoon class. Yes we can.

5 days.

Brought to you by your daily ¡Sí, se puede!

Activated till the polls close on November 4.


Photo: Camel and Rider, Tang dynasty (618-907 C.E.), China, 1st half of 8th century. Permanent Collection, Art Institute, Chicago.

Yikes, how did I miss this? Le Clézio's Nobel

One more proof that I am not functioning at full tilt: I somehow missed the announcement of this year's Nobel in literature ten days ago, and it went to a Frenchman, too! J.M.G. Le Clézio, and you can read about him here.

Tip of the fedora to Maitresse, whom I wandered over to see in a late night tour of blogs I hadn't visited in a while. Her post about the Nobel is here.

An interesting interview with Le Clézio, pre-Nobel, is here, courtesy of France Diplomatie, the online publication of the French Foreign Ministry (what we call the State Department).

Oh, and the Booker Prize just went to Aravind Adiga (sometimes spelled Adigha), whom I'd never heard of. He's an Indian writer; both he and Amitav Ghosh (whom I have heard of and read) were short-listed this year. Adiga is only 34 and The White Tiger is his first novel.

I want to spend three months doing nothing but reading fiction.

Two signs of the times in France

Two interesting stories on French culture and society. Warning: they are in French. I will be happy to provide a short summary in the late evening today; just leave a request in the Comments section.

1. Twelfth transpeople's march in Paris yesterday (Saturday) draws nearly 400 people. The annual Pride march in Paris, which is much larger, has not highlighted transpeople, who felt they needed their own public presence.

2. A former trader on the stock exchange became a monk two decades ago. Still under vows and living in a small community of brothers, he now teaches in a poor immigrant neighborhood of the Southern port city of Marseille.

What will you drink during the debate?

Okay, campers, whatever your persuasion, imbibing or twelve-stepper, highbrow or lowbrow or middle browbrow, we want to know: What are you going to drink during the Biden-Palin debate tomorrow?

The Comments await you below.

A prize (yet to be determined, but most likely of the foodie sort) to anyone who invents a good mixed drink (alcoholic or non), not a joke drink, for the occasion.

If you think the occasion does not in any way call for mixed drinks, say so.

You may NOT waste a Château Haut-Brion or Castello Banfi's Excelsus Sant'Antimo D.O.C. on this debate. Champagne is also off limits: we are not hexing this election. Anything else is fair game. Off you go then, as MadPriest would say.

Two from today's Times

Mother of Acts of Hope (age 90 - her birthday was the weekend I moved after the Great Tree Disaster) highly recommends this op-ed by Bob Herbert (photo left), "When Madmen Reign."

When President Bush went on television last week to drum up support for the bailout package, he looked almost dazed, like someone who’d just climbed out of an auto wreck.

“Our entire economy is in danger,” he said.

He should have said that he, along with his irresponsible Republican colleagues and their running buddies in the corporate and financial sectors, put the entire economy in danger. John McCain and his economic main man, Phil (“this is a mental recession”) Gramm, were right there running with them.

Meanwhile, back home in France...

This fascinating report, also published in today's New York Times, speaks of Catholic schools as havens of interreligious tolerance and companionship.

In France, which has only four Muslim schools, some of the country’s 8,847 Roman Catholic schools have become refuges for Muslims seeking what an overburdened, secularist public sector often lacks: spirituality, an environment in which good manners count alongside mathematics, and higher academic standards.

No national statistics are kept, but Muslim and Catholic educators estimate that Muslim students now make up more than 10 percent of the two million students in Catholic schools. In ethnically mixed neighborhoods in Marseille and the industrial north, the proportion can be more than half.

The quiet migration of Muslims to private Catholic schools highlights how hard it has become for state schools, long France’s tool for integration, to keep their promise of equal opportunity.

Okra ratatouille - no kidding

You know that as soon as I say I have something major to write and I'm going to stop posting, I start posting like a maniac. What's that about? Not just procrastination, though it is that. It also seems to prime the pump for other writing.

It has been a while since we have had a foodie post here. I have been eating simply of late and not cooking much of anything, which doesn't mean meals haven't been tasteful and nutritious. There was also a fair amount of take-out the weekend of the move.

Saturday, though, I went to both farmers' markets (one downtown, one near the highway and very different from each other), which I rarely if ever do. I hadn't been in weeks, so it was time. I also hadn't bought okra all summer, because I wasn't cooking, and with okra, you gotta cook.

There at one of the farm stands was some fine looking okra, and my Southern-transplant guilt got to me. What? A whole summer without okra? Impossible. I knew what I was going to make, too, and tonight, around 9-something p.m., I made it for dinner. Okra ratatouille. I invented it three years ago, the summer I moved here. Like any ratatouille, it's good both hot and cold. When you have it cold, the flavors are even more intense than the day before because they have had time to sit with each other. Don't serve it fridge cold, though. Like most good food except ice cream, it likes room temp.

Okra ratatouille works the same way as regular ratatouille, except that instead of zucchini and eggplant you use okra, sliced into little rounds. Start with olive oil, sauté the onions on not too high heat, because you don't really want them to get brown, or if you do, they should also get to a translucent phase and not burn. Then slice the okra and add it to the mix, and also a clove or two of fresh garlic, cut into a few pieces. You might have to add more oil. Add sliced tomatoes (the last not very pretty tomatoes of summer are great --I had some sorry-looking red ones and yellow ones too, the low-acid ones -- but a can of tomatoes will work too. I sliced in a tiny bit of a red jalapeño I got at the market a few weeks ago from a farmer who was selling assorted peppers of assorted levels of heat, just enough to give some kick to the dish, not the whole little pepper. I finished the dish up with some coarse sea salt, just a bit. The colors were beautiful: the okra got brighter green as it cooked, the tomatoes were bright (see above), and the onion added its pale yellow-white-clear color too. I used one humongous white onion, but that's probably three regular-sized onions. I had two servings and there is more of the ratatouille left for tomorrow or whenever I decide to eat it. Stores fine in the fridge.

Don't cook it too long. The okra should be cooked but bright green and the tomatoes still have some shape. The beauty of this is that the onions (especially if you have put the lid on the pan during the time the onions are sweating at the medium/low stage of things after you've gotten a bit of sizzle onto them) will absorb the slimy part of the okra, the juices of the tomato will help, and the okra will act as a slight thickener and you will have a good dish that isn't slimy but holds together .

This is what you get when you transplant a Parisian/sometime Californian to the South.

Enjoy.

July 14 blog flashback #2: secular France, with affection, wit, and charm

Blog flashback: last year on this date....

Thoughts on France, with pictures. Note the artistic dog poop disposal and the dishy firefighters.

July 14 blog flashback #1: La Marseillaise

Blog flashback: last year on this date...

In honor of what Americans call "Bastille Day" and the French simply call "le quatorze juillet" (the 14th of July) or more formally "la Fête Nationale" (the National Holiday) I posted the famous and stirring Marseillaise scene from the movie "Casablanca." Everybody out of your seats, on your feet, and singing!

I grew up singing this and I must say I still love it, despite my pacifist leanings.

July 7: birthday of Marc Chagall (and of beloved nephew)

Today is the birthday of the Russian-French painter Marc Chagall, one of my favorite artists.

I have a small lithograph of the above in my study. (Back in the 1970s, you could find 'em cheap in a French art magazine called Derrière le Mirroir.)

Chagall is not all flowers and flights of fancy. The painting below, "White Crucifixion," was occasioned by his reflection on the Shoah (Holocaust) and the decades of persecution and pogroms suffered by Chagall's Jewish neighbors and kin in his native Russia.

One also wonders whether the story of the Jewish artist in Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev (am I remembering the right book?) and his use of crucifixion as a symbol in his painting was in any way inspired by Potok's viewing of this painting. Just a speculation, but it's possible.

Today is also, by happy coincidence, the birthday of Nephew the Younger, who is 35 years old!

(Brother of Acts of Hope, father of Nephew the Elder and Nephew the Younger, is a decade older than his baby sister, Ms. Acts of Hope here, which accounts for the adult nephews.)

Nephew the Younger, to the delight of everyone in the family, is in the wine biz. Alas, he lives in Italy (and is not to be confused with Nephew the Elder, who lives in Portugal) so it's a little hard for Auntie Jane R to bop on over and mooch freebies from him. He is also a cat person and Her Grace Maya Pavlova and I have sent him love and feline vibrations on this auspicious day.

And a couple more...

This next one is part of Chagall's series inspired by the Song of Songs.