Brenda and the F Word

This is “Pierre’s” house.  The first time we arrived, we parked our car at the gates and sat there, stunned in fits of helpless laughter. The scene was like a page ripped straight from a fairy tale. It wasn’t just the miles of stone walls, the pigeonniers, or the neatly raked long drive. There was even a f’ing moat.

Pierre is a member of what the French refer to as ‘les grandes familles’. A noble of the blood and a direct descendant on both his mother’s and his father’s side of the Sun King. When I met him in my late teens, I knew even less about French history than I did about French table manners. Which was probably a good thing. I knew only that he was devastatingly handsome: a sharp, thin nose, cheekbones to beat the band, dark brown eyes, and a wonderfully wry sense of humor. Always the first to make fun of himself,  I now understand that the humor was a means of putting other people at ease; people who might have been intimidated by his name and/or history.

As a small child, Pierre wore white gloves and a suit and tie.  Raised by an English nanny, he visited his mother and father only after breakfast and supper and addressed his mother with the formal ‘vous’ versus the more familiar and intimate ‘tu.’ I’m not sure if such distance makes the heart grow fonder. But for centuries, this form of address has been considered a sign of good manners and respect for one’s elders. One of four boys, Pierre’s bedroom was high up under the eaves; up where the maids once did the family laundry. It’s hot and dry, this room that stretches the entire length of the chateau. A vast, sunlit space criss-crossed with a cat’s cradle-like maze of ropes for hanging sheets and shirts. There is an old-fashioned mangler, deep, marble sinks, and ironing boards that pull out and down from the walls. I imagine that it must have been comforting for a small boy, to be surrounded by that smell of starch, soap, and freshly washed laundry. Nothing much has changed in Pierre’s old bedroom since he knelt beneath the wooden crucifix above his iron cot to say his evening prayers. Monopoly games, a wooden rocking horse, dominoes, even a metal toy train set. All reminders of childhood summers spent outdoors, playing in the park and swimming in the pond.

Every Sunday, a priest from the village came to celebrate Mass in the chapel on the first floor. A chapel that is now deserted and full of dust and discarded furniture. The pews are still there as is a 6ft. oil painting of the crucified Christ. A shaft of sunlight cuts across the abandoned altar like a rainbow. And I picture Pierre and his brothers, backs as stiff  and straight as those ironing boards upstairs, gloved hands folded in the privacy of prayer.

I like to touch the tusks of the stuffed boar that stands guard near the chapel and in the front foyer. There are several salons on the first floor. But the kitchen is the most intimate room in the house. Pierre’s wife, a marvelous cook, once showed my husband how to make an apple tart. Reaching into a basket of clean, white pebbles, she pressed them one by one into the doughy crust,  flattening them with the tips of her fingernails. All I could think was that kid’s story, Stone Soup. We used the straw baskets to collect mushrooms in the forest, too.

The renovation has been slow, arduous, and exorbitantly expensive. In fact, until recently, guests often slept on horsehair mattresses. But God! How I love “our” bedroom. It’s at the top of the stairs with floor-to-ceiling French windows that overlook the park. The toilet is down a long, dark corridor. But what a glorious bathroom…All sparkling white tiles with a great marble tub, two sinks, and a vanity table and mirror. When you open the windows and lay back in the tub, the room seems to fill with nothing but sultry summer breezes and clear, blue sky. There are eight other bedrooms on the floor and all but Pierre’s and a guest room remain exactly as they were back in the hey day of his mother’s weekend social life. A period of time that included the war years when as many as twenty friends would descend from Paris for a day or two of hunting, card playing, and walking in the woods.

More later.

To give you a special update on How To Kill A Free Range Chicken

This is for all of you who’ve sent emails regarding my love of fois gras. Apparently, you think it’s obscene. Eating/enjoying something that has endured such terrible suffering. So let’s see what you think about the charmed life and death of a free range chicken.

First, you have to catch it. We’re talking free range here. So they’re pretty fucking fast on their feet. Once you catch it, hold it upside down and swing it all about. Really. Sounds like a square dance, right. Spin it till it’s dizzy. Then stick it, headfirst, into this plastic cone-like thing.  The kind of cone dogs wear around their necks after surgery. Now slit its throat.  Do not decapitate.  Allow blood to drip, drain into plastic tub. Remove from cone and carry over to plucking machine. Which is something like riding the Hell Hole for chickens. Watch the feathers fly. Then cut off the head. Touch its belly. Go ahead. Listen to it squawk. I kid you not. It still squawks. Now cut off the feet. And tell me why kids call other kids “chicken” when they’re scared. I’d rather be a stuffed goose, thank you very much.

Oh. The report comes from a friend of my daughter who worked on an organic farm for the summer.

Yesterday, I mentioned being sleep-starved. Which may explain why I am so obsessed with beds. Last week, it was photos of my favorite Parisian beds. This week, I’m in Istanbul 600 years ago.  Visiting the bedroom of Sultan Murad. ” A secret enclosure in palace chambers, far apart,” according to documents that once belonged to the Seraglio’s architect, Sinan Agher.  Just try and imagine slipping between the linen sheets here “in a canopied bed carved and gilded… The hangings… are particularly magnificent. Of black Velvet with an embroydery of great pearls, some  long, others round like buttons….There is Another of White Velvet set out with rubies and emeralds and a third of Violet colored Velvet embroydered with Turquoises and Pearls.  The posts supporting the balaquin were gilded and painted and worked with precious stones, the curtains roped back with swags of pearls while coverlets of tufted velvet or cloth-of-gold lined with lynx or sable were flung among the pillows…”

Frette and Pratesi.. Eat your heart out.

“Do you live in the present, Brenda?” asks an old Parisian friend.

“Ca depend du moment, Charles.”    It depends on the moment, I reply.

So far, my Paris posts seem to read as if I were sleep deprived and starving. And maybe I was. But what delirious pleasure, feeling so hungry that night I ate alone. Its all about appetite, I guess. An appetite, a lust for living life now.  Paris, for me, has always been about the now.   Perhaps, because it renews me. It is reassuringly familiar and marvelously foreign. And I love how they continue to do all the things we do, differently.

I love the little green men in their phosphorescent green uniforms with their neon green whisk brooms who sweep the streets as clean as a parlour floor.

I love the clatter of plates, the clink of silver and glasses, at lunchtime cafes.

I love the way they move house.  Not through doors and up elevators but through the windows with metal palettes that unfold like giant accordions.

I love the Abrisbus. (Shelter bus) It looks like a fabulous rock n roll RV but is used for SDS. Those who are sans domicile. Homeless.

I love to see people smoking and laughing.

I love the fact that so many French movies still take place at dinner tables where everyone is, yes, smoking and talking and talking and still talking.

I love the arrogance. I love living here as if there is no fucking tomorrow.

Hell, I even love Sarko. I do.

There was a night I went out alone for dinner in Paris. Now, dining alone in Paris doesn’t demand the same kind of courage and foolishness it takes to climb the Eiger. But people do look at you, strangely. Somewhat  immune after years of dining solo in New York (which I am as committed to doing as others are to doing their cardio work) I chose a restaurant, a bistrot, that probably hadn’t changed much since the 50’s: linoleum floors, lace curtains, a battered wooden bar, and rickety, white-linen covered tables and chairs. The menu matched the decor. There was nothing nouvelle about it. In fact, anyone who does their cardio work would have taken one look and run for the nearest Elliptical machine. (What is an Elliptical, anyway? It sounds like a ride at Six Flags.)

Seated near the window by the bemused, cross-eyed wife of the chef and owner, I was handed a menu with what I mistook for a smile. So far, so good.  Traditionally, bistrots reserve their real smiles for regulars not newcomers. And certainly not solitary, female newcomers. Sipping a glass of chilled Rose, I skimmed through to the  daily specials while listening to another solo diner. A German woman. Armed with a novel in one hand and a cellphone in the other, she proceeded to navigate her way through a map on the table, issuing what I assume were directions  to a lost companion. (I wish I knew why, when I hear people speaking German, it always sounds like they’re giving orders. ) I could see the waiter, owner, and chef rolling their eyeballs near the kitchen door as the woman began to shout. Now, it definitely sounded like orders. All I could think of was Inglourious Basterds.

In time, the waiter moseyed over and pulled out his pad. We both shared a snicker at the

German’s very bad manners and I asked for the fois gras followed by magret de canard. I think he may have saluted. Not the German. Me. A thin, middle-aged woman choosing such classic, heavy French fare.  The German woman was now reading her novel and tapping her foot. I sipped my Rose and gazed, happily, out the window.

There was another summer, years ago,  I spent with some English friends in a picture perfect farmhouse near Apt in Provence. During the day, I clumped around in a bathing suit and a pair of black rubber galoshes. It wasn’t raining. I was terrified of being bitten by deadly vipers. Someone had told me the French government dumped them over the countryside in burlap sacks from choppers . The idea wasn’t to kill British and American tourists (although a few dead tourists wouldn’t have bothered them) but to keep the rodent population in check.  Yeah, right.

At the end of the day, I’d clump up the dirt road to a farm and buy fresh fois. Floating in a sea of golden fat, it came in vacuum packed Mason jars. Washed down with gallons of a local Rose, we slathered slabs of it on toasted bread and sliced it for the top of salads. We ate it like dessert all by itself.  It was heaven.

This fois, here in Paris, is almost as good.  I devour every bit of it, despite the German’s frustrated hollering into her cellphone.  She’s folded the map in half now and appears to be tracing some route with her finger.  For tanks, perhaps?  I mean, nothing short of planning a full-scale invasion could possibly take this long.  Not unless, she’s giving directions to some guy walking in from fucking Frankfurt. I overhear loud conversation in the kitchen when my magret arrives.

Tender and as pink as my Rose in a dark, red wine sauce, it comes with a side of pureed celery root and parsnips. I’m floating. More like sinking and still ravenous when the chef  races out from the kitchen and confiscates the cell phone. All hell breaks loose.

Holding the phone up in the air,  just out of reach, the German grabs for it. She’s howling in her native tongue.  With the exception of the word Nein, it falls on deaf ears, or course.  Eventually, the chef lures her towards the door,  the phone still out of reach. With the wife, standing at attention at the now open door, they exit to the street. There are cheers when he walks back in, alone.

Making a bee-line for my table, he pulls up a chair to chat. We exchange some fairly banal personal info before he asks me if I will allow him to choose the cheese course. Bien sur, I reply. Delighted.  Pushing the chair back, he asks me why I am eating alone.  “Eating, for us, is a such a pleasure,” he says. “And pleasures are best savored when shared.”  Which sounds like an aphorism from Montaigne. I explain that dining alone, for me,  is a luxury.  And it is.  There’s no need to talk, to amuse and or entertain. It’s a moment in Pause, I say. When I’m free to simply focus on my appetite. Which is, certainly, out of control at the moment.

As he circulates around the crowded room, slapping shoulders,  laughing, I remember another meal in France. It was in the dead of summer.  A ten course extravaganza in a room so airless, we fantasied about stripping off our clothes and eating nude.  The room was full but as silent as a Church.  Forced to whisper as one silver-covered dish after another arrived from the kitchen, I nearly expired from the combination of heat and food that afternoon.

Speaking of which…Weaving his way through the crowded tables, my waiter sets down a plate of cheese.  A deliciously runny Brebis, a nice, ripe Camembert, a slice of Roquefort, and a thick, rock hard tranche of sweet Mimouette. It’s as orange as a Tequila sunrise. He’s also delivered half a baguette and a demi carafe of Sancerre. (“On the house,” he smiles.)

To make what has become a very long story shorter, I finish off the cheese and a chocolate mousse (which is ladled out in heaping spoonfuls from a silver bowl) Then order coffee and an ambulance. Kidding.   I pay a total of $52.00  (service compris) and reel off to bed.