The Script Ended

Roll back that Stone

Easter Sunday. As I write those two words, long held images immediately come to mind. I see white patent leather shoes and a pastel colored dress, printed with hideous '70's style flower power daises which, come to think of it, are back in style. I smell the sugary melange sticking to the green Easter grass in my woven plastic easter basket. A stew of jelly beans, yellow and pink "peeps", See's candy eggs in polka dotted foil wrapping and the star of the show - a milk chocolate Bunny lording it over all the other lowly candies. My Boss Bunny knows that he will survive well past the bite sized supporting cast of candies, before he is dismembered, ear by ear and paw by paw until finally he is reduced to one last chocolaty chomp.

Ahhhh.........Easter Sunday in 1960's-'70's Los Angeles. Yesterday was Easter Sunday in Paris, 2008.

In the intervening 30 + years Easter is one holiday that has not suffered too many different incarnations. I suppose that is not unusual. Just like Christmas and Thanksgiving, there are certain traditions that remain largely unchanged, clung to fiercely as the years pass. Ham, chocolate eggs, new clothes, a day that almost always dawns brightly (God sees to this one).

Yesterday, my first Easter in Paris looked different, though it did start out sunny, right on cue. The holiday, as you all know, was very early this year. In fact, so early, that it was sprung on me near the end of last week. I was out of the Lenten loop this year. That may have been a slice of self preservation at work in my sub-conscience. You see, last Easter I had looked toward the promise of renewal as I flew to San Diego to be reunited with my husband after his long monastic retreat and subsequent work assignment. All our wonderful girls would be celebrating with us as well as all of my siblings, lots of cousins, extended family and friends. Easter was all organized to do its normal job. Instead, the resurrection was canceled.

So much of what we are taught in religion is, I think, metaphorical. It is a way for us to make sense of our lives and instill the faith we need to keep moving through the muck. The faith that there are rewards and happiness, not on the other side of a set trials and tests that once suffered, are over forever, but interspersed all along the way. Christ rose from the dead after 3 days buried in a tomb. My renewal has taken the better part of a year - my metaphorical 3 days.

So instead of white patent leather shoes on either my girlhood self, or on the eight little feet of my daughters,  yesterday we three Carey Parisians, were clad in the comfort of stay-at-home cozy wear serenaded by John Coltrane. After a long morning coffee, I climbed on a velib (the public bikes of Paris) and pedaled all over my new home town. Though my ride began in sunshine, I even put on my sunglasses!, it was COLD. Really cold. My hands and feet quickly became ice cubes as my core heated up.

I rode past grand monuments and around frenetic traffic circles which have become routine. I passed groups of church goers whose black coats I presume hid their Easter finery (do they do that here?) and joggers in the Jardin du Luxembourg. There is a difference between being lonely and being solitary. Yesterday I was solitary on this bike ride and it gave me the opportunity to allow the events of the past year to flash through my mind as the elegant landmarks of Paris flashed by my speeding bike.

My ride began in sunshine and ended with storm clouds gathering, in ironic opposition to this past year sandwiched between 2 Easters. Last Easter was unbearably sad, shrouded in darkness and this Easter, a timid, but glimmering light is pushing through the cracks.

The French do many of the same things we do in honor of Easter but with their own twist. The Easter Bells rather than the Easter Bunny brings chocolate eggs and bunnies and chicks to the children. They roast a leg of lamb rather than a ham, and make a Pate' de Paque where we might have roasted asparagus. But they spend the day enjoying their families just as we do.

I roasted my leg of lamb, gigot d'agneau, prepared the surrounding dishes, baked a beautiful raspberry Clafoutis and played the Easter Bunny for my daughters. We poured glasses of champagne and toasted daughters 2 & 3 whom, though asleep in their beds 9 hours behind us on the West Coast, were with us in spirit around the table.

There is a new, though fragile peace, settling into our lives. The promise of rebirth has been upheld, I can see the end of those long dark days in the tomb. Someone finally found the strength to roll back that stone blocking the way ...........and I think that someone was me. It just took me a while.

A New Set of Nightmares

Do you remember the dream where it is the day of the final exam and you realize that you have forgotten to go to class the whole semester? My version of this nightmare usually includes wandering the halls of my high school desperately searching for the right classroom (sometimes wearing only my pajama top) while hearing a voice in my head chiding me that of course I can't find the classroom because I had forgotten to go to class all year and by the way, I forgot to read the book too. I deserve to be this desperate for being such an irresponsible idiot. The whole scenario is usually wrapped up in panic, it is a nightmare for god sakes! I know there must be a psychological analysis of such a dream and what it means about me and my deep seated issues.

Well, my issues recently have revolved around such things as browning bones for sauces and the proper ways to gut a fish. Instead of racing the halls of high school while simultaneously trying to read the entire text of World Civilization Volume II, I have been dreaming of being faced with a tray full of ingredients without a clue as to the recipe, or climbing endless flights of stairs in search of the proper kitchen. The scene of my scholarly negligence has changed, but not the crimes. I show up to the final exam in my Chef's jacket and realize that I have forgotten to wear the pants.

Yesterday was, in real life, our final practical exam in Le Cordon Bleu's Intermediate Level of Professional Cuisine, so my subconscious has been making its issues known to me for too many nights lately. One would think that I am too old for this. I suppose we are never too old for lots of things.......I had studied the 10 dishes that we had been told ahead of time would be from which the 2 dishes for exam day would be chosen. It must be my muddled middle aged brain rebelling from being told what to do, but I have surprised myself (unpleasantly I might add) with how easily confused I can get these days. Everyone who knows me knows that I love to cook and am capable of producing very edible meals, but when faced with the pressure of a precise French Chef peering over my shoulder as I mutilate a rack of lamb, my mind has a new bad habit of combining a blank with a dizzying spin. (I think this is called menopause)

We LCB students have become a tightly knit group. You can't chop, stir, peel and slice next to somebody for 6 months and not bond. We share fumbles, disasters and triumphs side by side and as in every satisfying relationship, we can get totally pissed at one another too for things like cutting ahead in the meat grinder line, or when the other guy leaves you all the rotten onions. But, there is nothing like a looming exam to pull the troops together. Our reconnaissance down in the basement prep kitchen leaked the contents of the school's delivery the night before exam day.  There were whispers flying around the school: They got in Trout! Darn it - that's a hard dish ! There is Lamb so there is a God, especially if I get to cook this one. We were 95% sure which 2 dishes we would be faced with the next day. All ill gotten info such as this is freely shared between everyone, what competition may exist is trumped by a "we are in this together" bond.

As we marched into the kitchen on exam day (and I remembered to be fully dressed in real life!) we chose a token from a deep cup that corresponded to one of the two dishes. Even though I haven't been in a church pew for a while, my guardian angel appears to have not been quite so negligent, because I ended up with the green token. Green is my favorite color AND it represented the lamb dish that I was shamelessly praying I would pull.

All began well except somehow my lamb loin didn't quite "roll off the rack" as we were taught. I am sure the eagle eyed Chef Phillip didn't miss this early blip but in the end the loin was cleanly off the bone in one piece. I worked through the bone chopping, onion slicing, mushroom peeling (yes, that's right, at LCB one PEELS mushrooms among other obsessive compulsive food prep steps such as peeling grapes and carving carrot rounds into tops) relatively efficiently. I even remembered to wipe my station down every few minutes to eliminate any wayward water or oil droplets. (A clean chef is a good chef). Things were going too well........I must be forgetting something.

I shouldn't have worried.

Another rule is that a chef who finishes on time is a good chef - mustn't keep the customer waiting. Therefore, like clockwork, Chef Phillip began to call out the remaining time in his Gallic warning tone. Just as a watched pot never boils, as the clock ticks down we always run out of time. In spite of internal admonishments to remain calm, I started to do STUPID things in my rising panic. Stupid thing number one - I strained my sauce into a dirty bowl where it mixed with lamb fat strained away in an earlier step, just like immediately regretting a haircut - there is NOTHING you can do about this. This was certainly the kiss of death for the consistency of my finished sauce. Stupid thing number two followed shortly thereafter. As Chef Phillip counted down the minutes for us I desperately whisked away at my Bearnaise. Bearnaise is a physical endeavor as you are required to constantly whisk your egg yolks until they thicken (about 7 minutes or so) and then drizzle clarified butter sssslllllllllllllooooowwwwly into the egg yolks, whisking all the while until you end up with the mousse like concoction the chefs expect. No wonder my tennis elbow has made a recurrence. Well I achieved my moussey sauce only to hurriedly slop it into the presentation dish right in front of Chef Phillip without straining it. Doesn't sound like a big deal but believe me it is. Not straining a sauce is on the order of a mortal sin in the kitchen. I turned my head just in time to see the arched eyebrow of the Chef disapprovingly noting this infraction. Back the sauce went, I scraped it all out of the dish and pushed it through the fine sieve, losing of course all of my beautifully minced herbs, and quite a bit of the sauce to the sieve.

5 minutes to go and my Tian d'Agneau was yet to be plated. The kitchen was a madhouse of scurrying students, all of our cleanliness of the past 2 1/2 hours disappeared under a pile of last minute strainers, pots, ladles and skimmers. In a matter of 10 minutes my station became the model of how one is NOT supposed to look, butter smears, herb confetti and piles of dirty tasting spoons and used knives were everywhere. The pressure that the Chefs apply is training for the real world of professional kitchens, where life is likened more to the army than to some esoteric gourmet experience.

Well, I did plate my dish on time and in spite of the goofs along the way, that guardian angel came through once more as I sliced into my lamb loin and was rewarded with perfectly done rosy pink meat. Too bad about the sauce.........

We lined our finished dishes up in a row and were told to exit the kitchen immediately, no last minute fooling with your garnish. The Chef Judges paraded right in behind us and bent their Toques over our dishes.

I wonder if in my next History Final Exam nightmare, the only thing I will be wearing will be an apron?

Bessie's Everywhere

As a student of Le Cordon Bleu, we were offered the opportunity to attend a guided tour of the Salon de l'Agriculture given by a member of the French chapter of the worldwide Slow Food Movement. Curiosity prodded me to sign up and spend a Friday afternoon checking this thing out.

I had no idea where I was going or what exactly was the Salon de l'Agriculture. Turns out the whole shebang was only 2 metro stops from my apartment. The event was housed in a convention site I could walk to but didn't even know existed. Zoning in Paris is definitely NOT of the planned community cul-de-sac variety.

Stepping through the glass doors landed me in a kind of Kansas. Stretching out all around were more cows, pigs, chickens, sheep, goats and lambs than Old McDonald ever had on his farm. And between each stall and pen and cheek to jowl in every aisle were throngs of people. Very excited people. This menagerie was obviously a big deal to the French. France likes to think of its self as an agricultural country and they have all sorts of socialist style protectionist regulations to help maintain that image. The French like to know where their food comes from, they are very serious about maintaining regional tastes and processes and when they think of a leg of lamb for example, they do not dream of a shrink wrapped piece of flesh.

Hence the extremely well informed and verbose guide who treated us to 2 hours of cows. Down on this farm in the center of Paris there were more varieties of cows than I could have imagined. Apparently each produces its unique tasting dairy products with subtle taste differences between each pat of butter. The most impressive thing to me about these cows was that many of them were enormous. They looked like ships tied up to a dock. Our guide spoke reverently about each individual cow and the magic that was her milk. Will the French never cease to amaze?

Beautiful Bessie's belong right next to supermodels here in Paris and I have a feeling that the average French person would prefer Bessie to Kate Moss any day.

I am definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Right Now

A couple of weeks ago I commented on a piece by Anna Quindlen about living in the moment. Another dimension of those observations occurred to me this last week.

I am sure that not everyone who is in my baby boomer age bracket will agree but I realized that enjoying each moment of one's life as it exists is jeopardized by "planning for the future". Don't tell my college graduating kids that I said this, but planning for the future can be hazardous to one's happiness.

I used to drive myself crazy as a young woman looking for "something to look forward to", as if what was now was not good enough to pay attention to and needed to be rushed through to get to some future nirvana out there.

Well finally at age 49 I am almost over that destructive habit. What's wrong with today? As it happens, nothing. Yes, in the big picture there are all sorts of issues to be dealt with but why complicate them further? An old habit of my mind was to project happiness on to something out there....... where, when I finally arrived, Boy, it would be great! Problem was as soon as I got to that place another nirvana would rise up just over the horizon to tease me with its fresh promise of happiness. So, back on the road I would go again.

It is endless, so I have stepped off that ladder. I am sick of climbing and that fatigue instead of making my eyes shut, has woken me up. Thank God. There is no Emerald City just over the next hill, and even if there was, rushing there would cause me to miss some pretty damn good days that I happen to be living right now.

Paris is being teased by hints of spring, the grey days are beginning to be muscled out by some shy sunshine and brave daffodils. The long yellow brick road that I had made into a hamster's wheel has finally come to a dead end. Dead end has a bad sound - let me rephrase that - it is being blocked by a sea of daffodils that sprouted up screaming, look where you are right now!!

Anti-Aging Remedy #1

In a renewed attempt to live healthily I recently went back to several worn but worthy strategies. As I approach my 50th (still MONTHS away, well.... 2 to be exact) some of the same things that my mom and other health pundits have told me to do still make sense.

So I restarted my jogging regime, I cut way down on my wine consumption, swore that I would NOT buy that incredible feuillete de menthe chocolate ice cream that must have been invented by the Devil as he wrought further temptations on us weaklings, cut my increasing espresso habit back down to 2 a day, and tried to beat a path to my bed before the clock strikes midnight.

All of the above seemed to be working as a surreptitious look in the mirror each morning reflected deflating eye bags and a general glow beginning to fight through my winter pale.

And then I met this guy. Damn!......sort of. It started innocently enough this past week. A casual rendezvous for a drink on Tuesday night saw us sip that one drink for over 2 hours. Our glasses lasted that long because we didn't stop talking. Hard to sip, chat and laugh simultaneously and we picked the chatting laughing activities.

So okay, I thought, that was nice. I don't mind seeing him again sometime soon. When he asked if I was free over the weekend I threw out all the play hard to get adages and told him "yes, completely". So he asked me to reserve Friday night.

That sounded good and I continued on with my healthy regime. Believe it or not the getting to bed early resolution is my biggest problem now that I live in Paris. There is something about the vibe of this city, it seems to live even inside of my apartment, that keeps me awake, busy and alert until the wee hours of the morning. And to think that throughout my long married life, we rarely saw 10:30pm come around while we were still conscious! But all last week I continued to force myself in bed before 12 and to turn off the light and put down my book soon after. Sleep at my age is a rocky and increasingly difficult activity. It seems to come only in short bursts lasting about 2 1/2 - 3 hours, before taking a wakefulness breather. So every moment of its presence is precious.

Then Friday night arrived.

A stroll around Montmartre perched atop all of Paris, led my Frenchman and me through narrow cobbled streets that glistened with just fallen raindrops and up and down lamp lit stairways. Believe me, this IS the Paris of the movies and dreams. A street artist approached him offering to capture une jolie femme on paper for him (he has to say this, he's a salesman after all!) and he replied that he was lucky enough to have me beside him in person. Inside the bowels of L'Sacre Coeur incense mingled with sacred mystery as we wandered the dark corridors. We wound in meandering circles alternating between whispered french nothings and sharing our stories with each other. Dinner found us wedged close in a corner, candlelight separating us.

When I slipped into bed much later than night, I looked forward to some sweet romantic dreams. Instead, I felt as if I had had a night cap of espressos. My heart was in what felt like a caffeine induced race. But there had been no caffeine, and very little wine either. Darn it! Don't tell me that the prospect of a satisfying love affair, brings not bliss, but insomnia. That is ALL I need.

Fortunately the insomnia didn't dampen my spirits, but passing a wonderful Saturday afternoon/evening making like a 1942 Doisneau photo with him, cranked my racing heart up another speed.

Will somebody please tell me that fresh happiness does not mean that my face will return to a permanent baggy eyed state, looking in the mirror is terrifying enough without that!

Aftereffects of insomnia not withstanding, I am smiling. My inbox just received a poem written in gentle French prose. The skies are Paris grey this morning and my eyes have grown new luggage, but I do remember that there is another powerful anti-aging remedy touted by all the experts - new happiness - I think that I may be its latest test case.

Hope it will become a healthy habit.

Chic and Why?

I was writing to one of my best friends today and ran into a subject that I thought was worth mentioning. That subject is hair.........specifically hairstyles for us girls in our 40's and 50's.

I live in Paris now, as you all know, and since much has been made of the effortless chic -ness of the Parisian woman throughout history I wanted to offer my observation that part of this look is due to the lack of a real hairstyle on top of those chic little Parisian heads. The majority of Parisian women do not wear a definite hairstyle, they instead have wayward locks shielding their eyes and wisps of sexy strands pushed behind their ears. It all looks quite natural and not contrived - even if looks can be deceiving.

I have worn my hair in various incarnations of short for about 15 years. The main reason for this was that my husband preferred my hair short and it pleased me to please him. I also do not possess the kind of hair that screams ASSET, so it was just as well that I kept it short enough that most people would not hear it screaming LIABILITY.

There is something though about reaching the age that I have reached that makes me think about "the last time I will probably have this, or the last time I will ever do that........"Now that I am getting divorced and no longer have my husband here liking my short do, it seems to be the time to grow my hair for that last time.

So grow it has. For some blessed with sexy long locks, my hair is still butch short, but for me, it is long enough to actually toss when I shake my head. I might as well be Farah Fawcett in my mind.

So you know what is coming next girls, don't you? What happens as soon as you struggle through the months of agony of bad hair days; growing out choppy layers, dreaming of smooth, flowing locks?

You cut it all off of course and watch the salon assistant's broom sweep all your hard earned inches up off the floor.

I have not done the deed yet, but I am seriously considering it.

So, back to those impossibly chic Parisian women. I have analyzed what sets their hair apart from ours in the US and have decided that there is a definite lack of product usage (sorry Susie), though the salons are full of products. Go figure! I also do not think that Parisian households are serenaded regularly with the whine of the blow dryer. Maybe it is the length of my hair or maybe it is the Parisian air it is breathing, but I have never been able to just get up and run a brush through my hair and go...... until now. Have my self assessment capabilities been influenced to such a degree as to actually walk out of the house with hair that has neither been moussed nor washed and blow dried within 90 minutes and think that I look okay? Maybe senility is setting in as I approach my 50th.

Or maybe the Parisian women are on to something. I have come to the realization that the foundation on which chic style is built, is the ability to be comfortable in one's own skin. The French have the expression, bien dans sa peau, and from there all good things come. Whether it is expressed by allowing your natural wave  to fly off in an uncontrolled direction, or wearing your mom's funky 40's beaded cardigan with a certain je ne sais quoi (which, by the way, I have learned is a completely out dated expression over here but you all know what I mean), the important thing is to wear it as your own and for yourself. Everybody else will sense it immediately. And that boomerangs right back to your self esteem.

When I walk through Paris I feel light and unencumbered by tight style restrictions. There is something in the atmosphere that feeds one's soul (or at least my soul) with the freedom to just be. Whether it is un-moussed hair, or an un-styled style, there is a certain authenticity that I believe happens to be what true chic is all about.

I promised myself that I wouldn't cut my hair for at least another week.