Blogger Postcards from Around the World

These postcards are now finding their way through the French postal system to a certain blogger whose name and address I received after we both signed up for Blogger Postcards Around the World #2, an event organized by Meeta at What's For Lunch Honey? For this event, each person sends a postcard (or three) to an assigned fellow blogger somewhere in the world and also then receives a postcard from someone else. Everyone writes about the cards at each end of their journey.

The theme was Valentine's Day, but I couldn't find specifically Valentine's cards at the papeteries, and although I found quite a few variations on postcards for 'I Love Paris' and 'I Love You', those didn't quite hit the mark for this occasion. I think that friends here don't generally wish each other 'Happy Valentine's Day!', and the focus is more on lovers and chocolate. Stretching to fit the theme, then, I chose a card that has a boy and a girl doing Parisian things like walking a tiny dog and sitting at a cafe, another that had confetti and the Eiffel Tower, and one showing a toy gorilla climbing a toy Eiffel Tower on a map of Paris, that kind of reminded me of King Kong's tragic love for Ann Darrow.

I'll post a link when my cards land on the blog of their recipient and of course I'll tell you all about the postcard I'm eagerly awaiting. Or, you can check out the other blogs that are participating.

Meeta's blog is also worth checking out for some nice photograpy and food blogging events. It's in my list of blog links now.

French Film: Jacquou le Croquant

I don’t know quite how to translate the title of the French movie I saw Saturday night, (‘Jack-o the Cracker’?) but I’m fairly sure this one won’t be seeing too many American movie screens, so the point is perhaps moot. Anyway, ‘croquant’ is a nickname given to the thousands of peasants who revolted against unfair taxation by nobles in the 16th century. The French book that inspired the film, as well as 1969 TV mini-series, tells the story of a rural peasant who is treated cruelly by the local nobility as a young boy, then grows up to lead a rebellion and get his revenge.

The leading star of the movie is Gaspard Ulliel, the former male model who starred with Audrey Tautou in ‘A Very Long Engagement’ and will soon be seen as the young Hannibal Lecter in ‘Hannibal Rising’. In this film, he loses the first half screen time to a cute kid who plays the young Jacquou, desperately in need of a hair cut(see photo). Among the other stars are Tcheky Karyo, who was also in ‘A Very Long Engagement’, and the darkly alluring Bojana Panic, in one of her first major roles to accompany her modeling career.

My movie companions were two fellow etrangers, from England and India, so I can’t say that we got everything from this movie, but we found that we had a good time anyway. It lasted two and half hours, and we were a little nervous about getting lost in the dialogue, but in fact even the least French-able of us could follow, due to the straightforward plot. Now, that seems like a contradiction, right? How can a straightforward plot go on for two and a half hours? The solution: about an hours worth of walking in the woods, in the snow, and running through fields of flowers. My Indian friend commented that she was worried that they were going to start singing and dancing as if it were a Bollywood film.

There was at least some dancing: a crucial clog-dancing competition which ended in a tete-a-tete between the Count and Jacquou. Guess whose inspirational clog-dancing was the talk of the town, and who left in disgust (see photo of the Count and his youngest daughter).

The adult Jacquou has two main women of interest in his life: his sweet childhood love Lina, of the flowery fields, and the proud huntress La Galiote, the youngest daughter of the Count. In the course of the movie, both of them try to sneakily catch glimpses of naked Jacquou. Nonetheless, the two are opposites, and even though Jacquou wants to hate La Galiote, he is attracted by her fiery will and dark come-hither eyes. Jacquou himself is pretty much consumed by the need for vengeance against the Count, but somehow finds himself torn between them, especially at the end of the film. I won’t give away the ending, but I will say that, in the end, a boat sails away into a beautiful CGI sunset.

If your interest is piqued, you can watch the trailers and clips on allocine.fr.

Tribute to Abbé Pierre

This was the scene outside the Val de Grace hospital on Blvd Port Royal tonight and for the last several days, where people have been paying tribute to the late French Catholic priest, Abbé Pierre. The letters, flowers, and candles honor his lifelong campaign for human rights and especially the provision of housing for the poor and homeless. Just after the war, there were many poor and working class families in France without adequate housing as a result of limited public construction and the destruction resulting from the war. He served in the government to speed up the starting of public housing projects, and several years later, during an especially cold Paris winter, he issued a famous radio appeal to all of France to support those in need, and the Emmaus movement took off. The Emmaus International organization supports campaigns all over the world to relieve suffering by improvements in living conditions among the poor. The best tribute to this great leader would be to do what you can to contribute to the movement to end extreme poverty and to defend human rights.

Weekend in London

I had a great time in London last weekend, but I’m little sad because I didn’t have time for even half of the things that I wanted to do. Fortunately, its not difficult to get there from Paris, just two and a half hours on the Eurostar. I went by plane this time, only because the Eurostar would have been 70 euros more expensive than flying. Even though the flight is less than an hour long, flying takes far longer than going by train because of the hassle of getting to the airport and going through security. On the positive side, I had an awesome view of London at night from the airplane.

I bought my trip as a package through lastminute.fr, and I was a little nervous about the hotel, but it turned out to be a good location and it was pretty standard relative to the norm for inexpensive hotels in Europe, though not memorable enough to recommend. The hotel itself was on a side street in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which sounds pretty impressive, doesn’t it? The neighborhood was quiet, but it was close to a tube station, so I could get to the heart of London without much trouble. My first impression of England was that British people are more friendly than the French, because the subway drivers are so polite (‘please, mind the gap’) and that I actually got valuable assistance from one of the ticket cashiers at the tube station, something that I have yet to experience in Paris.

Friday night, I had dinner with a bunch of students, professors, and alumni from Harvey Mudd College. The students and professors were concluding a two week trip that was the capstone of a semester-long course on Dickens and Hardy. Having dinner with them was a real treat because they had a lot of interesting stories to tell about their trip and about life at Mudd. We were at a well-known pub called the Albert, near the Victoria tube station, that has a restaurant on the upper level that features a carving station of roast beef, turkey, and pork, with all the traditional English trimmings. After the dinner, I went with some of the students to another pub.The atmosphere in English pubs is really convivial and appealing, compared to the bars and brasseries I’ve been to in France, where I never have felt quite comfortable. It doesn’t hurt that good beer is pretty darn cheap (less than two pounds for an English pint).

Saturday, I met up with an American friend who works outside London, and together we visited the Tower of London. Our tour, led by one of the caretakers of the tower, who themselves live on the grounds, was fabulous.

The guide was very engaging and gave a lot of interesting insights into the history of the tower, which is actually a castle of multiple towers, of course. They keep a flock of ravens there because of the traditional superstition that the tower would fall if the ravens all leave. The ravens will sometimes let you get pretty close to them, but they are not so appealing when you are watching them tear apart a piece of raw meat.

After the Tower, we had lunch in another pub, where I had a rich and juicy venison stew with potatoes. Then we browsed the National Gallery, including the current special exhibition highlighting the relationships various impressionist artists and artists in later movements in painting. Just outside, Trafalgar Square was completely mobbed with people celebrating a Russian Winter Festival, which seemed more like a rally since all we saw were speeches being given in Russian and a lots of vodka advertisements. Finally, we went over to St. Paul’s for the evening vespers, which was a lovely experience, but after a busy day of sightseeing, I admit that I nodded off for a few minutes.
On the way to dinner, we stopped to walk along the river and got some nice views of Parliament and Big Ben.

For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant across the street from the Lambeth tube station. It’s not a big, well-known, or fancy looking restaurant, but the friend I was with had been there before and knew that the food was really good, which was absolutely true. I had one of the night’s specials, a seafood risotto, which was really memorable for the perfectly cooked rice, with pieces of squid and octopus that were tender and not rubbery and overcooked. I had imagined it would come in a creamy parmesan sauce, but it was in fact based on a lovely rich tomato sauce. The prices were very reasonable for London, with starters averaging 6 pounds and main dishes around 10 pounds, and all of the servings were generous. The name and address are Cotto Restaurant, 89 Westminster Bridge Road.


Saturday was a lot sunnier than Sunday, but you’ll have to forgive all of the shadows in my photos, because the sun didn’t really get very high, even at mid-day. After taking some photos at the Tower Bridge, I decided that it was a nice day for a stroll, and as I walked from The Royal Courts of Justice in Westminster to St. Paul’s Cathedral the bells were ringing in the beginning of the service, which was awesome. From there I went over to the Covent Garden Market and checked out Neal's Yard. It was really a shame that the Neal's Yard Dairy was closed, since I've read so much about their delicious cheeses. Next time, I'll be a more dedicated food lover and go shopping on a market day!
Anyway, then I walked over to Soho, took a picture of the Palace Theater,

went through Chinatown and on down to Leicester Square. Recently went to an exhibition of Hogarth’s works at the Louvre, so I had to photograph his statue in the square. I’d like to imagine that he’s turned away in disgust from the Starbucks across the street behind him.

I guess my walk took me by some of the more cheesy touristy places, but it was fine with me. You can’t spend all your time in museums! Eventually, though, I was pretty cold, so I spent a few hours looking around at the National Portrait Gallery. After a couple hours, I thought I had the lineage of all the kings and queens straight, but unfortunately they didn’t stay that way very long. In general, the portrait gallery is really worth seeing, especially with the audio guide to give a few entertaining stories about the portraits and their painters as well as their sitters. It was somewhat disappointing to me to see JK Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe among their more recent portrait acquisitions, but I guess they hold a pretty important place in the cultural scene, at least for now.

Oh, there are so many other cool places to go in London. I’m eager to go back to go to the theater and the Tate Modern, and several other museums, and cathedrals, and go to Greenwich, and… Maybe I should do another postdoc over there. Just kidding, Matt!

Banoffee (or Banoffi?) Pie

I took a short flight to London last weekend to meet up with some Harvey Mudders and bounce around the city a little with a friend. I had a great time, and saw tons of different things that I hadn't the chance to see the last time I was there. I'll write about it later, but you can check out pics from Saturday on my Flickr site, and have a taste of this dessert that my friend and I shared after dinner.

It's Banoffi Pie, which was supposedly invented at the Hungry Monk Restaurant in 1972. This incarnation wasn't completely true to their recipe, which calls for cooking an unopened can of condensed milk in boiling water for five hours. The crust was more like a crushed graham cracker crust than a shortcut pastry, and there were chocolate bits and chocolate sauce all over the top, but the banana and toffee combination was delicious, and something I wouldn't have thought of. The British seem to like their toffee pretty well, even in yogurt. I ate this, but it was too sugary for me. I like the image of toffee springing from a dewy blade of grass, though.

Christmas in Scotia, NY

I meant to update my blog during the holidays – silly me, I thought I would have spare time during my two weeks of vacation! However, I was fully occupied with enjoying the time I could spend with my family and of course with my fiancé and his mom. It was the first Christmas that Matt and I had ever celebrated together, and also the first time that my family had met anyone from his family. Matt waited for me to come back from Paris to go shopping for decorations, only to find out that the stock of decorations in the stores had dwindled, few trees were left for sale, and that even finding lights for the tree was difficult! Of course, it was worth the trouble and a nice memory, since the tree was, in the end, beautiful.

My lovely stand mixer and I spent some quality time together over cookie dough, even though my Christmas Eve search for the ice cream maker attachment was unsuccessful. Here are some of the cookies my family decorated: frosted sour cream cookies (made with lard!), unfrosted sugar cookies, and my favorite peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses. Cookie consumption was at very high levels this week.


Although there were terrible snowstorms out west, the weather in Scotia was mild and rainy. Since I have spent the last 10 Christmas holidays in Florida and because of course Paris has little hope of seeing snow this winter, I was disappointed to miss what I considered to be my only chance to play in the snow. A few days after Christmas, we did get a little, which was beautiful while it lasted (about 36 hours). Sunday morning, I took a little walk around Scotia, and ended up following some squirrel tracks down to the Mohawk river.