tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56347461216364927572024-02-07T20:31:54.577-08:00The Frog Blog: A Frenchman Moves from France to AustraliaThe Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-37287443199411918972016-10-07T12:30:00.002-07:002016-10-11T14:23:29.396-07:00The Melbourne Cup: The Frenchman Who Can't Cope with the Cup
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My French husband Maxime chose a classic Aussie
moment - the middle of a BBQ lunch on day of the 2016 AFL Grand Final - to
say the following:</div>
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'Australians have no culture.'</div>
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I looked at my friend Marisa, of Italian heritage.
Years ago, she had said exactly the same thing, sparking an angry argument with
Aussie friends.</div>
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'You said that once!' I said to her.</div>
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'Yes. But I don't say it anymore,' Marisa replied
quietly.</div>
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'Right - because I think we do have a distinct way
of life, a way of approaching life, that's Australian. I think that's what
culture is. And if you count thongs and a hat with corks on it, we even have a
national costume.'</div>
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'Yes,' said Marisa. 'Not a fan of the hat, but I
think Australians are more laid back than Europeans. Europeans have their
protocols, they can get upset by trivialities.'</div>
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'Like when to go to the toilet!' I cried. </div>
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I had once been scolded in France by getting up to
go to the bathroom in the middle of dinner.</div>
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My dad then pointed out that it used to be like
that in Australia too. He itemised all the dinner-table rules there used to
be, saying that he was not allowed to put his elbows on the table and so
on. We have obviously loosened up a lot since then, but our European cousins
have not. Manners, politeness and structure have their place of course - the
idea is to get the balance right. Which Maxime evidently thought we hadn't:</div>
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'All Australians care about is sport and horse
racing,' he said.</div>
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'Horse racing?'</div>
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I was quite happy to agree that obsession with
sport was part of Australian CULTURE, but it had not occurred to me that we
were particularly obsessed with the horse. In France, there are
famous horse races at Chantilly (as in the cream ... and the castle ...
and the race-track) and Longchamp (as in the handbag and the race-track), for
example. There are sports bars dedicated to betting run by the
French version of TAB, called PMU (Pari Mutuel). The PMU logo even
includes horses! The same characters are found in both versions of the sports
bar; they just speak different languages - and the Aussies are on beer
and Winfields while the French are on wine and Gitanes. And so, as Marisa
turned to Maxime to take up the argument against him, I tried to think what
would have caused him to think Australians were crazy about racing.</div>
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We had taken him to the picnic races at Drouin
twice. And I now recalled that he ... didn't like it. He ate take away burgers
from food trucks happily enough but was deeply suspicious of the whole betting
thing. J</div>
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'I just put a dollar each way. Just on a horse whose name I like,' I had explained. 'It's a bit of
fun.' -</div>
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On our various picnic rugs, we had spread what we'd
brought to eat - rolls, salads, roast chicken, mini quiches etc., and popped some
bubbly and set about enjoying ourselves. What was not to like?</div>
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But going to the races was something the Frog had
never done. And so he was wary. Towards the end of the day, when the crowd had
swelled and teens were getting hammered at the pop up bars, Maxime had gone
from out-of-his-comfort-zone to scathing.</div>
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And while our French kids happily accrete around the TV to watch the Melbourne Cup every year and excitedly talk about which horses they had in the school sweep, Maxime retreats to the kitchen to console himself with cheese. If we'd held a Literature Cup and had eaten delicate canapes and sipped real champagne, that would have been fine, I'm sure. </div>
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Well, let me just say one thing: if I score any winnings on my dollar each way bet this Melbourne Cup, a certain Drog won't be getting half of the packet of Cheezels I buy with it!The British came up with rules of modern horse racing, and so that may well be an additional reason for French aversion.</div>
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What's ironic is that I wrote this post on the
train to Caulfield. On the train with me were the best dressed people you've
ever seen on the Frankston line. It was Caulfield Stakes Day,
apparently. Thankfully I wasn't on that train with a certain Frenchman ...</div>
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The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-20958921161198963992015-06-03T04:51:00.000-07:002016-01-01T18:56:58.677-08:00What Do the French Think of Australia's Top Restaurants?My French in-laws were in Melbourne recently. As a birthday present, we got them a voucher for Attica, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/australia-food-blog/2014/apr/29/attica-australia-best-restaurant">Australia's top resto</a>.<br />
<br />
We got them this because on their last visit to Oz they hadn't known where to go for good food.(And being French, of course, sourcing good food was priority number one!). They'd gone to fish and chips shops, for instance, hoping for fresh seafood - and then spent hours afterwards peeling batter off fish. My mother-in-law pleaded staff not to batter the scallops to no avail (and much peeling). <br />
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My husband Maxime had an additional reason for wanting to arrange things for his parents to do. <br />
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'Otherwise, they'll just spend their time going to Coles,' he explained.<br />
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So you can imagine his chagrin when he read their email recounting how they'd spent their first day in exciting Melbourne, beginning with breakfast and then shopping <em>'chez</em> <span class="il">Cooles [sic]'.</span><br />
<span class="il"></span><br />
In comparison to Coles tubs of mashed potato, and deep fried flake, Maxime and I were quietly confident that their evening at Attica would be a roaring success.<br />
<br />
But it wasn't entirely in the bag. Never under-estimate the powers of the Frenchman to criticise. They would have to be the most imaginative, creative critics in the world. What's more, my mother-in-law Jeanne, herself an accomplished cook, says she always orders risotto in top restaurants - because it's so hard to get right. (When I first heard this, I made a mental note never, ever to cook it for her myself). And she was taking a notebook in order to take copious notes throughout the meal. Maxime and I kept our fingers crossed ...<br />
<br />
The next day, they gave us their detailed analysis of the night.<br />
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'Some people dressed very casually, while other people dressed up.' Why don't they feel the need to show respect to the restaurant and the other diners?'<br />
<br />
Because we're barbarians. 'Erm, well -'<br />
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'There was a series of small plates - really microportions - of tastes of native herbs. Sebastien was hungry so he ate all the bread. And he asked for more.<br />
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In this sentence, Jeanne got to diss the resto AND her husband all in one go - nice work!<br />
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'And then there was this sort of undercooked potato thing' Jeanne was completely mystified by this object. The hungi homage had totally passed over her head. Oops.<br />
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'But the strangest thing was when I went to the toilet.' <br />
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'Ah,' I said, thinking, I'm really not sure I want to hear this,,,<br />
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'The waiter led the way and then held the door open for me!'<br />
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This was apparently deeply shocking.<br />
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'It would NEVER happen in France!'<br />
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'Why not?' I aked, confused. I mean, it wasn't as if waiter had asked if she wanted to do a number one or number two.<br />
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'Because we don't do this!'<br />
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'Why?'<br />
<br />
She was astonished I even needed to ask and was at a loss to explain something so obvious.<br />
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'It's too intimate.'<br />
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Well. I don't find toilet doors very steamy myself, but then I'm not French.<br />
<br />
Luckily, Jeanne recovered from having the door to the intimate toilet world touched by the waiter and managed to continue with the meal. <br />
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'The dessert was too sweet. Of course, Sebastien wolfed it down.' <br />
<br />
Bingo - another double whammy. She was in good form!<br />
<br />
But the micro-portions thing stuck in my Australian craw. <br />
<br />
'I mean, the French <em>invented</em> nouvelle cuisine!' I complained to Maxime later. <br />
<br />
'That was the Parisians,' he said, smugly happy to stick the knife in to those smug Parisians. 'You wouldn't see that in Alsace!'<br />
<br />
No, I thought, but you do see a lot of diabetes....<br />
<br />The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-20043186475881530002015-03-30T22:26:00.000-07:002015-03-30T22:26:47.847-07:00Cricket World Cup 2015: Is Cricket Really French?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Married to a Frenchman, I was unable to spend the day of the
Cricket World Cup final as I would have liked – i.e., eyes glued to telly, beer
glued to hand. Instead, I was required to participate in a 6 hour lunch and
consume my share of 7 bottles of French wine with another French expat and his
wife. Yep, a hard gig, I know.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I strongly suspected that our French hosts would not be
interested in the match, ‘le criquet’ being unintelligible to the French. For
instance, my French in-laws, currently visiting us in Melbourne, have not been able to make head or tail of it.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘So when someone hits the wicket, the wicket keeper goes
away?’ asked my mother-in-law the other night. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Ahhh … not as such,’ I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘And why does everyone shout a lot and go crazy when someone
hits the ball into the audience?’ she wondered.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Explaining cricket to the in-laws was probably going to be a
task beyond my meagre powers, I realised. My husband Maxime did profess to have
a mild interest in the World Cup, however. He sort of learnt cricket by osmosis
– through having previously been forced to listen to the Ashes on ABC Grandstand
radio as we drove all around Tasmania. By the end of that trip, he was
practically channelling Jim Maxwell. And now, Maxime’s view was that the World
Cup as an international contest was important … and even if France never got close to ever being in one, a Frenchman could still have a giggle at England
getting spanked by Bangladesh. This is why Maxime readily agreed to keep me
appraised of the Aussies’ progress in the World Cup final during the meal at
our friends’ house via a surreptitiously-held-under–the-table phone. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So it was that just after we and our hosts had sat down to
the entrée of chicken terrine and fennel salad, Maxime announced, ‘They got
McCullum [the NZ captain]. In the first over!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Our friends looked up in surprise (and I looked up in delight).
Normally at this stage in a lunch, Maxime would say ‘mmmmm’ or maybe ‘the
Riesling is excellent.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Do you understand cricket?’ our host Olivier asked Maxime, somewhat
suspiciously (wondering if he was a closet Anglophile I imagine).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Yes. It wasn’t hard to pick up,’ Maxime said, sounding every
inch the insufferably smug frog. (What was nice is that he was being
insufferable and smug to other frogs for once. As opposed to me.) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Do <i>you</i> understand
cricket?’ I asked Olivier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Not at all,’ said Olivier proudly. He’d trumped Maxime by
playing the ‘it’s-all-Anglo-Saxon-gobbledigook-so-cultured-French-don’t-care’
card.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I had an ace up my sleeve waiting for that: ‘Well,’ I
said, ’maybe you <i>should</i> be interested
in cricket. It turns out that cricket might be French!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">People raised their eyebrows gratifyingly high. So I elaborated: I’d been recently dumbfounded to read in the French version of Wikipedia that
the French may have invented cricket. According to the article, the oldest
reference to cricket is in a letter of 1478 to the king, no less, about a match
of ‘<i>criquet</i>’ in Liettres in the north of France. So cricket must have been bloody
important to the French at some stage if they were whinging to the king about
not getting their LBW decision (now there’s a third umpire for you!). The
English actually planned their first-ever match outside England against France,
but they picked a dud year for it. The 1789 tour was a bit of a fizzer. And after
1789, the French got a little side-tracked and replaced cricket with the sport
of knocking people’s blocks off with a large blade instead of the traditional
ball.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Typical English,’ said Olivier with a roll of his eyes as I finished my story. ‘We French have all the good ideas. The Anglo-Saxons just
steal them.’ (Right, so NOW he thinks cricket is a good idea, since it might be
French.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I laughed. ‘Anyway, in the Revolution, it seems you lost the habit of playing cricket
as well as a lot of heads.’ Then after a bit of reflection I said, ‘Although
half the South African team seem to be French.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘A lot of Huguenots went to South Africa,’ explained Maxime.
Huguenots were protestants escaping persecution in catholic France in the 17<sup>th</sup>
and 18<sup>th</sup> centuries.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Right. So now you have Jacques Kallis and Faf du Plessis and de Villiers,’
I said. ‘And Philander seems appropriately French too somehow. But what sort of
name is ‘Faf’ anyway? Is it French?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I subsequently read it’s short for Francois, but Maxime said,
‘It means Fascist in French slang.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Good Lord!’ I said, laughing. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ah well, it could be worse. Faf
could have been French slang for dick. An astonishing number of words do seem
to be slang for dick in French. I sometimes complain that I can’t get a
sentence out without Maxime doubling over with laughter, telling me I’ve just
said I’d like a piece of dick or something. And unfortunately, when it comes to
cricket, there is also the slips cordon, giving Maxime the opportunity to shout things like ‘he was
caught in womens’ underwear!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After much hilarity at the expense of the poor old South
Africans, we settled back for main course - Alsatian baker’s stew with beef and
potatoes - and knocked over a St. Emillion Bordeaux and an Aloxe-Corton Burgundy. By this
stage, the Kiwis were in as much trouble as our digestive systems. It was all
going nicely until Boult came in to bat. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;">Maxime pondered a bit and then said, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;">‘Bout means dick in French.’</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Let’s just say I will not be taking Maxime to the cricket with
me any time soon. Or New Zealand.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-1390682780561002672014-12-20T13:14:00.000-08:002014-12-23T10:46:17.690-08:00What Happens When You Transplant a Frenchman into Australia for Christmas? Christmas Conflicts<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">A few years ago,
my French husband Maxime and I were set to travel back to Australia for
Christmas, as we did every other year. We had one last lunch with French
friends before the flight. They were curious to know what an Australian
Christmas was like.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘And the family in
Australia … do you fit in?’ Sebastien asked Maxime as he swirled a glass of Alsace
Riesling.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh yes,’ said
Maxime easily. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Err … it wasn’t
always that way,’ I reminded him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh, well, yes.
The first Christmas there, I made a few mistakes,’ Maxime confessed, referring to his first ever visit to Australia, when things had gone ... interestingly. Especially where food was concerned. ‘At Christmas,' Maxime continued, 'they have
this sort of gummy cake, the Christmas pudding. And they serve it with some
sort of amorphous mass.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">The amorphous mass
he was referring to was actually brandy butter. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">My sister’s
girlfriend Wendy the Fluorescent (named for her colourful tracksuits) was
immensely proud of her contribution to Christmas dinner. She was thought by
everyone to have considerable pudding savoir-faire, and had spent the entirety of
Christmas morning whipping up a special brandy butter flavoured with Cointreau.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘When they put it
on the table,’ Maxime said, ‘I made a remark about its appearance that
wasn’t appreciated.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Um, actually you
said it looked like vomit,’ I said. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh <i>putain</i>!’ laughed Sebastien.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When Maxime had offered this choice observation
that first Christmas lunch, there’d been a pause as everyone tried to decide whether
or not he had really just described Wendy’s labour of love as vomit. Eventually
deciding vomit must be French for lovely or something, people got on with their
pudding.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But it wasn’t just
brandy butter that got Maxime into hot water that first Christmas in Australia.
My family were meeting him for the first time, and were expecting a polished,
sophisticated European. Mum had been
vacuuming the house twice a day for weeks in preparation for his visit. To be fair, Maxime
CAN do a decent line in polished and sophisticated at home in France. But
somehow in Australia, it all unravelled. I suppose it was because all the rules
are different here – when there are any.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And prehaps the little gastronomic shocks Maxime had to cope with rattled him. The first in store was when he discovered that at lunchtime, rather than coq au vin, Australians ate square pieces of bread. ('You eat <i>sandwiches</i>? Every <i>day</i>?' he'd said.) But it was our Australian Christmas Eve that really took the cake (or the presliced bread). The thing is that since Mum would be doing a lot for Christmas dinner the following day, we’d decided to order takeaway pizza for dinner on Christmas Eve. When it
arrived, the boxes were arrayed on the kitchen table and Dad got out some tumblers
and a bottle of milk. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime had stared at the table in utter
horror.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What’s wrong?’ I asked in concern.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It’s December the 24<sup>th</sup>!’
Maxime squeaked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Yeah, I know.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘But it is <i>Christmas</i>!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No no,’ I said. ‘That’s tomorrow.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No! Christmas is today.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘In France, we celebrate Christmas on
December the 24<sup>th</sup>.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh shit. It was French
Christmas Day! Maxime would normally have been feasting on <i>canard à l’orange</i> and champagne and here he was with a bendy slice of
pizza and a glass of milk. Maxime nibbled his slice weakly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After the shock of celebrating French
Christmas with takeaway pizza, Maxime was perhaps not in the best frame of
mind to celebrate Australian Christmas the next day. He perked up a bit just
before lunch when someone offered him a glass of champagne, but sagged again
when I was forced to admit that it wasn’t <i>real</i>
champagne, it was just a five dollar bottle of Aussie bubbly. By the time he
got to the brandy butter, Maxime’s gastronomic expectations had sunken considerably.
Although to think he was being served vomit was maybe going a bit far.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5dSyrxne8xmQRxEOMg7c_fTUH3xhdACgDGvn_0d8sTsHvrFTk5dTkQqNdnzrpmw9qjKAVLxgygQa05pgksOn7vGNLcrOO-NpjgadmkiY_68L5hRlt7G0UasweIbfYUBxgbizaSR5UOLW/s1600/IMG_5835.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge5dSyrxne8xmQRxEOMg7c_fTUH3xhdACgDGvn_0d8sTsHvrFTk5dTkQqNdnzrpmw9qjKAVLxgygQa05pgksOn7vGNLcrOO-NpjgadmkiY_68L5hRlt7G0UasweIbfYUBxgbizaSR5UOLW/s1600/IMG_5835.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christmas food ...who knew it could be so contentious?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">And so our Christmas had continued. After
lunch, Mum asked Maxime if he’d like to take a look at our garden. We all knew
that the garden was Mum’s pride and joy. Well, all of us except Maxime. We were all
waiting for him to say ‘I’d be delighted’ and so we were a bit taken aback when
Maxime said, ‘Oh, no thanks’.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime had made the mistake of thinking
Mum was asking if he <i>genuinely wanted</i>
to walk around and look at her climbing roses. ‘In France, you show respect to your guest by
making them comfortable, you fit in with <i>their</i> wishes,’ Maxime explained to me
later. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sadly, Mum just
thought that all this was not because he was French, but because he was a philistine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The failed garden
tour was followed by a BBQ on Christmas night. My uncle was doling out drinks.
He gave Maxime a glass of sparkling wine which he called champagne. I winced,
but Maxime accepted it with reasonable grace and took a sip. Then he promptly
spat it out on the lawn. We stared at him aghast.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It’s corked,’ Maxime said. Then he saw everyone staring at him open-mouthed. ‘What?’ he said. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime simply
couldn’t understand what everyone was upset about. ‘They get offended as if
they made the wine themselves!’ he said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We left Australia after
that Christmas having offended most of my friends and relatives, all of whom urged me to ditch the rude Frog.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But I didn't of course and things are
different now. Maxime has leant to feign interest in gardening where
appropriate, and my family expect him to do strange things with wine. And
nobody forces him to eat takeaway pizza on Christmas Eve. He has fish and
chips.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-56804783658186790782014-12-05T17:46:00.002-08:002014-12-07T13:01:37.119-08:00The Victorian State Election: As Seen By a Frog<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">My French husband Maxime is in self-imposed political exile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Well, sort of. At any rate, when we lived in France, he
announced to friends that if it came down to Hollande versus Sarkozy in the
second round of voting for president in 2012, he would emigrate to Australia.
And so … he emigrated to Australia. Nor, in his disgust, did he bother to vote in 2012,
since in France, voting is optional. Some people think that’s more democratic,
but how representative is a government that’s voted in by a measly 30% or so of
the population (and zero Maximes)? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_voting">Even the ancient Greeks
realised</a> that people need a little prod to make democracy work. Well, to
the extent that it can.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;">I</span></i><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"> voted in the 2012 French presidential second round, however.
I’d only just got my new, shiny French citizenship and voting rights, and I
wanted a ‘go’ of them! On the sunny voting day morning of the 2012 election, I walked down to our local hall in Alsace to vote. The streets were deserted. The only faces I saw
were those on the election posters (I noted with amusement that someone had drawn
a Hitler moustache on Sarkozy). It was so quiet at the polling station the only
thing missing was a couple of tumbleweeds floating by and a whistling,
empty-sounding wind.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not only was there no queue at the polling station, but
voting itself was over in a literal click of a button - a simple click on a
computer panel for Sarko or Holloande and Bob’s your president. I have to say,
it was a bit dissatisfying. I’d had to wait four years for my French citizenship, fill
out around one billion forms, and have the foreign police visit my house to
check that I was really married and not in a ‘<i>mariage blanc</i>’ (the Frog’s underwear hanging to dry all over the lounge
probably convinced them). After all that effort, I wanted a bit more fanfare as
I exercised my rights for the first time. I wanted a few more boxes to tick and
people to choose from and a senate paper the length of the Seine like we have
in Australia. It was like looking forward to Christmas and then waking up on
Christmas morning to find you have only one present. Not that politicians are
much like Christmas presents. Maybe it’s like Christmas when all you get is
socks.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But what I wanted even more than a smorgasbord of political choice on that French election day was a sausage. I wanted the traditional Aussie post-vote
reward of a freshly sizzled snag from a stall outside the polling station
run to support a local school or kinder.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How different it was when I voted during last Saturday’s Victorian
State election. In the car on the way to the local school, I heard on the radio
that there are even <a href="http://www.electionsausagesizzle.com.au/2013-federal-election-sausage-sizzle-map/">websites advising people on what food is available at whichelection station</a>. Even <a href="http://boothrev.net/">sites that rate the quality of your snag</a>! <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Returning home from voting (and sausage consumption), I
announced triumphantly to Maxime that I had the answer to France’s abysmal voter
turnout issues: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘You need sausage sizzles in France – you’d improve the
voter turnout no end.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Yeah! True!’ agreed Maxime, perking up as usual at the mention of food.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I wondered how come the French of all people haven’t come up
with a foodie solution for their voting issues. Maybe if Sarkozy had been out flipping burgers in
2012 he would’ve got over the line (OK, perhaps only if he'd provided foie gras burgers). What’s
more, Maxime himself is proof that intelligent use of food would work in French
election campaigns: once, he even tried to vote for a sausage - le Chien
Saucisse, a sausage-dog running for the seat of Marseille. (Sadly, however, we'd not been in Marseille, but in Alsace, and no sausage-y candiates were running.) Maxime’s estimation of French politicians also correlates suspiciously with
their appreciation of wine. Come to think of it, why not have a ‘<i>vin d’honneur’</i> after voting – a free
glass of wine just like they have after wedding ceremonies in France (and after
just about any other official occasion except, apparently, voting).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Speaking of Frenchmen and elections, you might be wondering
what interest Maxime has shown in the Victorian election. Not being an
Australian citizen, he can’t vote, so you mightn't expect him to get too excited about it. Nevertheless, his interest might have been engaged had it not been
for the fact that the main issue of debate (apart from federal politics) seemed to have
been over Melbourne’s east-west link. (Not only does the link lack interest for
Frenchmen, the poor ol’ regional Victorians must be feeling a little
under-cherished given the central focus of the election too.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Why don’t they join up that
road-in-the-north-whatever-it’s-called to the Eastern road and complete the ring
road?’ Maxime asked me. ‘A city the size of Melbourne deserves a ring. The ring
might be longer but it must be cheaper than digging up the city. I’m in favour of
doing things the proper way, not the shitty way.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus Maxime dealt with the east-west link project with typical
French harshness (perhaps the frog smelt a rat!), and after this, he largely lost
interest. What he’d REALLY like to see is laws relaxed to allow you to drive at your speed of choice after a seven course lunch with matching wines and possibly coffee and a balloon of Armangac, but no-one seemed to be running on that. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘And the Melbourne public transport is a joke for a population its size,’ Maxime had
added.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘We’ve got the same make of tram as Alsace,’ I said lamely.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Frog shrugged.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Regarding Melbourne’s public transport, it’s true that I ‘ve
been shocked myself to find that after 13 years away, the Melbourne transport
network hasn’t changed even though the city has at least half a million more
people in it. In that same period of time in France, Alsace was connected to
Paris and Dijon by a super-fast TGV, and our local area in Alsace got a new
tram network. And this was all apparently without people even bothering to vote
for it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ah well. There may be a lack of Aussie candidates at elections proposing Frog-approved infrastructure, but at least here, I get my sausage ‘n’ sauce!</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-25086099996584135802014-11-23T11:47:00.000-08:002014-11-23T11:47:16.534-08:00Why Frogs Love Frogs' Legs<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A few years ago, my French husband Maxime and I went on holiday in the Dombes region of France, in the Ain. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the second day of the trip, we were driving to the restaurant Maxime had selected for lunch when Maxime announced, 'This
is a gastronomic region!' and his eyes gleamed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I looked at him, puzzled. 'I thought all of France was a gastronomic region.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'No!' he said. 'The only true gastronomic regions are Alsace [of <i>course</i>, Alsace is Maxime’s home region], around Lyon [i.e., where we currently were] and the
South West.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What about Paris?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Pffff!’ Maxime pffffed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘And what about all those I dunno, cheeses in the north of France, and
Normandy's Isère butter and Champagne’s…um, champagne and – '<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No no. In true gastronomic regions, the food and wine are
accessible, affordable - enjoyed by everyone – it’s democratic food.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I thought about this for a while. 'OK ... so what’s this wonderful gastronomic region were in now famous for, then?'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Frogs.'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Oh.' </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I felt a little crestfallen. Not truffles or brie then. Not even something edible.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime explained that the whole region was full of man-made
ponds, and was hence famous for frogs' legs. The Dombes was frog central.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Well, quite frankly, I don’t think I’ll mind if the Dombes people don’t want to democratically share their frogs with me.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But Maxime said, ‘I can’t wait to eat some!’ and his eyes shone even
brighter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He was getting inordinately excited about frogs' legs, I
thought. But it can be amazing what foodstuffs can rouse the passions of
Europeans. They don’t just celebrate the births and ressurections of deities
but also hold fetes where they can worship snails, asparagus and particular
varieties of onion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'But there’s so little meat on frogs,' I said. 'I mean why do you bother? Why not just eat chicken?'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Because frogs' legs are thin,' Maxime said. 'When you fry them, you get this caramelised juice that you get at the
surface of a chicken wing. It’s like the chicken wing surface without any of the
boring stuff underneath.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;">'Hmm,' I said, unconvinced.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="color: #222222;"><span style="background-color: white;">At lunch, of course, Maxime ordered legs. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">I had actually seen frogs' legs before, at a gastronomic restaurant in Alsace. In that case, people were served a little leg with sauce. You could have almost pretended it was little bit of quail or
something, and that’s what I was expecting Maxime would be served now. But what the waiter brought out to us was a metal
platter piled high with stiff-looking V shapes. I leaned forward for a closer
look. And then I recoiled with a cry. The V shapes were whole cut-in-half frogs.</span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;">'Oh, that’s
appalling!' I exclaimed, trying and failing to not imagine someone cutting all
the little frogs in half. 'You can’t eat those! They’re too … froggy
looking.'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;">Not to mention the fact that in this case, Maxime'd be eating not just the legs but the
frog’s rude bits too.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No amount of
caramelisation could lull me into forgetting that I was eating a demi-frog, but
Maxime just said ‘mmmm’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it wasn’t just Maxime who loved frogs' legs. An Alsatian
friend of mine who liked to educate me in the culinary ways of Alsace talked once of the fabulousness of frogs’ legs:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'They're delicious,' Patrice said. 'Although in my Grandma’s
day, the legs were better.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘They were more shapely back then?’ I smiled.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No, no!’ said
Patrice, serious because it was a serious topic. ‘They were smaller - more
concentrated in flavour.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I was doubtful
that strong frog flavour was a good thing, just quietly. But if you ever find
yourself in a suitably ‘democratic’ region of France, you can judge for yourself.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-39056692685789980312014-11-15T13:03:00.000-08:002014-12-23T10:54:31.084-08:00Why DO the French Eat Snails?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">‘Did you know Daddy eats </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">snails</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">?’
one of our daughters asked another the other day. ‘That’s disgusting!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Does he eat spiders too?’ asked Elise.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No,’ I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Why not?’ she asked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Good question,' I said. 'I don’t know.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I mean, if my French husband Maxime eats something as
unappetising (and slimy) as a snail, then why stop there? Why not ingest
arachnids and suck on slugs? And so I put the matter to him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Spiders have no meat,’ explained Maxime. ‘Snails are a lean
meat with a nice texture.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I think the snails are just a nice excuse to have garlic
butter. But why not put the garlic butter on something nice, like chicken?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘<i>Non!</i>’ exclaimed
Maxime, getting surprisingly agitated. ‘The combination of chicken with garlic
sauce would be AWFUL! They don’t compliment one another. You need the snail
texture.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The combination of the
snail-y texture with garlic sauce. Quite frankly, the thought of snail texture
makes me gag. Mind you, I have eaten snails. The first time was in an Alsatian winstub (a 'wine pub', serving rustic local fare). I’d been dismayed to find the snails were served still in their shells. (It’s one reason I avoid crustaceans – I hate having to
dismember something in order to eat it.) Maxime had then shown me how to hold the
snail shell with the special snail tongs and prise it out with the special snail-gouging
fork (and although it involved no dismembering, I still found the process quite
disturbing). As I forced myself to chew the freshly shucked snail, I enjoyed
the warm garlic butter sauce but I didn’t have the impression the snail added
anything to the experience and more than a piece of rubber would have.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Snail has quite a subtle taste,’ Maxime had said, chewing
with pleasure, a far-away look in his eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Like dirt,’ I said, spoiling the moment somewhat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No!’ Maxime replied, forced yet again to defend his national
cuisine against my barbaric cluelessness. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">He raised his hands as if about to expound upon the loveliness of snail, but then let them fall in defeat. I was a hopeless case. (But it <i>did</i> taste like dirt.) I allowed Maxime to finish my snails while I concentrated on the wine he had chosen for the meal: a Riesling. He'd explained you need to pair snails with a dry wine. I imagine it was dry to counterbalance the sliminess.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then I wondered how
people ever came to eat snail. I wondered if during some sort of medieval
wartime, the French began to eat them to avoid starvation. They’d sometimes
been driven to eat rat in wartime, I knew. But then for some reason in time of
peace, they continue to enjoy snails but shun fricassee of rat. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Actually, I read that the
French have been eating snails at least since Roman times – as the Romans did
too, apparently. Indeed, Maxime and I ate snails on holiday in Rome (I gave
them a second chance – it was a two-Michelin-star restaurant. I'd wondered if two
star snails would do it for me. Nup. Still tasted like dirt. Expensive dirt in
this case.).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I had no more contact with snails after that until another holiday a few years later, this time in Burgundy. We had kids
by this time and our five-year-old Chlo</span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">é</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> had come upon a snail on the hotel
terrace. She ‘rescued’ it, putting it in a glass full of ice. I didn’t view being
put in an ice bath as being rescued personally, but I left Chl</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">o</span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">é</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> to it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What are you rescuing the
snail from?’ I asked her.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘From the hunters!’ she
replied.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Snail hunters? People don’t
hunt snail.’ They sort of don't require chasing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the other hand, I reflected, maybe
people gather them, as they gather mushrooms and things. Maybe that’s a sort of
hunting? I decided it was best to keep this upsetting idea from Chl</span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">o</span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">é</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">, the
small defender of snail rights. And things went well until lunch the next day when
Maxime ordered half a dozen snails as an entrée.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Maxime, what are you <i>doing</i>?’ I hissed at him. ‘You know Chl</span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">o</span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">é</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> is attached to snails at the moment!’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What would Chl</span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">o</span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">é</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> do when she
saw Papa dining on murdered molluscs?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The answer, to my relief,
was nothing. Chl</span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">o</span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">é</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> apparently didn’t connect the need to hunt with the fact
that Papa was eating something. Similarly, she’d been terribly upset to find
out that her grandfather hunted deer, but didn’t react to people eating venison
stew, as we did a lot in autumn in Alsace.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Venison – now <i>there’s</i> an improvement on snail. But as for the French, they eat snail because they really actually like it. There's also the French attraction to frogs' legs - another highly emotive issue. I'll deal with that next time!</span></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-79010612953171872962014-11-08T21:15:00.002-08:002014-11-15T18:07:29.297-08:00Behind The Scenes Of A Crowdfunding Campaign - A Frog's Eye View<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I feel like I owe my regular readership – or perhaps, what <i>was</i> my
regular readership – this apologist post. Even though food and wine and Frenchness may
not feature (much). </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I had to take a break from blogging in recent weeks because my intellectual
and emotional resources were all-consumed by the crowdfunding project I was
involved in. In fact, my French husband Maxime also found himself being sucked
into the crowdfunding vortex with me, despite the fact that only one of us had been hired to do it and he had a day job. Nevertheless, every day for two months, he'd monitor the campaign page to see how much we’d
raised and give me ‘help’, Maxime style.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It all started when I was contacted by some local Melbourne innovators some months ago. They were not social media savvy and needed help to promote a campaign
to fund a clinical trial of a new potential therapy for chronic tinnitus. My first response was, ‘what on
earth is chronic tinnitus?’ Then, when it was explained to me, I thought about
the temporary ringing in the ears we all experience from time to time and
thought: but what if that ringing never STOPS? If you can never escape it? And
the penny dropped – it must be terrible. I mean, even our three year old stops crying
<i>sometimes</i>. So I got on board with the project.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What’s more, once I began to talk about it, heaps of friends and family began to ‘come
out’ and confess that they suffered from tinnitus. I was almost hurt. ‘But you never TOLD me!’
I would say to them. I felt as if they’d been keeping a huge secret from me - as
if they had a secret identity and were in fact a goat.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">And so I learnt about tinnitus and beavered away on Twitter, Facebook and traditional media. I
even created a flyer for the campaign in French, to be pinned up at various places in France
which we would be visiting. We weren't going to France for the campaign (the sort of campaign that can afford that doesn't need crowdfunding), it was because Maxime had to go to Paris for
business, and the kids and I tagged along to visit the French family and friends we left behind when me moved to Australia almost two years ago. Maxime was dubious about approaching the French for crowdfuning help, however. </span>They would be way too suspicious of something so new as crowdfunding!<span style="line-height: 200%;"> But despite Maxime's warnings about the French resistance to newness, I thought sticking up flyers couldn’t hurt. (Besides, didn't the French invent the term avant-garde?)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I soon came to regret making a flyer in French though. I did my best, looking up the French for tinnitus (<i>les acouph</i></span></span><span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit;">è</span></i></span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">nes</i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">, would you believe), and asked Maxime to print off a few copies while I went to check the dinner.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 26.6666641235352px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 32px;">'</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 26.6666641235352px;">You mean print a few copies and <i>correct</i> it,' came Maxime's reply. 'Who wrote this? The French is a catastrophie.'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 26.6666641235352px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 26.6666641235352px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Uh ... me,' I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; color: #222222; line-height: 26.6666641235352px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 26.6666641235352px;">He threw up his hands as if to say ‘but of course’. </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">Maxime then sat at the computer for the next hour, composing an</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> impossibly wordy but probably quite beautiful version of the French flyer.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'People have about three seconds to read this, Maxime,' I said to him. 'This is a flyer. We can’t give them something the length of a novel by Proust, no matter how well-crafted the French.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is not to say that writing the English version of the flyer was any easier. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'You can’t talk about 'feedback loops',' said Maxime. 'It’s got to be understandable by simple people - like real estate agents.'</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I don’t know what Maxime has against real estate
agents. But I insisted on keeping some science-y stuff – people like to feel they’re helping
advance science, I thought (although apparently they don’t generally like it enough to
actually go to their computer, look up your website and enter a really long credit card number).</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">For all his criticism, constructive and otherwise, Maxime <i>did </i>write to people on behalf of the campaign, and the French ended up being the
second largest group of supporters after the Australians. You see, </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">Maxime, having the
Frenchman’s seemingly inborn knowledge that he’s absolutely terrific, had no
issues with writing to people to ask for contributions. But for me, writing
and sending emails to contacts asking for help was the mental equivalent of a really long Chinese
burn. For some reason, I was afraid people would write back and say ‘I hate you
forever for asking me to give money’. I was actually surprised (and hey,
relieved) when instead of ‘bugger off’, people replied ‘OK’. Of course, Maxime
could have pointed out how silly I was being about all this. Which is why I didn’t tell him.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And, unlike Maxime, I didn’t feel I could ask people for help without
giving something in return. The only carrot I had was to invite people a party where I would could place before them my traditional buffet of Too Much
Food. As an added bonus, they would get to drink Maxime’s wine (another thing
on my list of stuff not to mention to him). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">In the end, we raised over 5000 dollars, which, although short of the target, is
apparently not TOO bad when you have nothing to sell and contributions aren’t tax
deductable. </span>I'd seen that</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">not even Maxime's flowery French would get us to our target when it was clear that tinnitus organisations wouldn’t help out, not even with a measly re-tweet or two, </span>(though wishing us well), <span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">since this was not a not-for-profit exercise. At that point, I realised we were pushing a rather large amount of faeces up a very large hill. Now, other avenues must be explored to fund the tinnitus trial. Or, as Maxime pointed out, we could run the campaign again, and do it properly this time (i.e., listen to him more).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At least the crowdfunding campaign gave me an excuse to have a party. And, after the hordes had left the party and the empties had been put in the recycling,
Maxime had an excuse to go out and buy more wine.</span></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-1291563539976547142014-09-25T15:12:00.001-07:002014-09-25T15:12:03.688-07:00Is it Possible to Have a Buddhist Holiday in France?<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">You
would think that my French husband Maxime would be overjoyed to be going back
to France. Three weeks revelling in Bordeaux wines, truffled foie gras and
other froggy delights! But in fact, he's a bit nervous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">Since he took up his new health regime, Maxime has replaced his formerly
favourite breakfast of chocolate sandwich (yes, really - chocolate in bread -
instant croissant au chocolat!) with ... rice bran smoothies. He has shunned
wine in favour of filtered water or cider on special occasions. He used to say
he lived to eat, and now he trots out pseudo-Buddhist maxims about keeping
things in balance. I feel like I'm living with a yogi. Or maybe Yogi Bear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">But in France, such
temperance -<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>ça ne va pas!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">'My friends are used to me living a little differently,' he told Mum
ruefully the other day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">That is, opening champagne at 10 in the morning, ordering steak for
dessert and dancing with his glass of wine instead of me at weddings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">'I'm not sure what will happen to my weight,' he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">Hmm, I think I could have a stab at that one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">So which Maxime will our French friends great when we get off the plane
tomorrow? The low-alcohol Amazing Ciderman or the Wine Lord? My money's on the
latter - the temptation of ripe brie and baguette, pommes de terre sautés,
confit de canard, a glass or five of Vieux Telegraphe ... not even Buddha could
say no!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">Let's wait and see. The next post from Alsace, France!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-12623407706231845532014-09-20T15:42:00.000-07:002014-09-20T15:42:47.558-07:00Lunch is No Déjeuner Downunder<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">One of the prickliest issues between my
French husband and Maxime and I is … lunch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">What do YOU have
for lunch? Perhaps it’s leftovers from home heated up in the company microwave?
A souvlaki from the takeaway round the corner? A sandwich? As a student at uni,
before I left for Europe, I used to have a Vegemite sandwich for lunch each
day. (Vegemite, for those who don’t know, is a black lunch spread made from the
leftovers of beer-making). I thought my sandwiches were quite acceptable and
savoured every salty morsel.</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">But …<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">Maxime grew up in France, where kids have
a cooked three course meal, starring such ingredients as foie gras and duck confit, served to them at school each day. At home, lunch is
cooked as well. At work as an adult in France, Maxime enjoyed three course lunches at the
work canteen, or a restaurant outing perhaps. A bottle of wine might also be
consumed, to celebrate the special occasion of it being lunchtime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">When I first took Maxime on a visit to
Australia, we stayed with my parents, and ate with them. We had roast lamb on
Saturday nights - all good. Barbeques in the Dandenongs were fine too (well,
except that Maxime insisted in peeling the slightly singed skin off his
sausages). But Maxime’s eyes popped in disbelief when at 12 each day, my
parents would begin assembling pre-sliced bread, Vegemite, peanut butter and
margarine. And it didn’t help that he believes margarine is poisonous. ‘But
where’s the lunch?’ he’d say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">'Maxime's used to a cooked lunch,' I would explain. I guess I could have offered him toast.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">Now that we live
in Australia, people become very anxious whenever they are put in a position of
needing to provide Maxime with anything to eat. So you can imagine that the cat
was really set among the pigeons when I announced that instead of just coming alone as planned, I'd be bringing Maxime along for lunch at my parents' house. My parents had already ensured they had something in stock for me to eat - these days, I have a salad for lunch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘We have a pile of leaves for you,' said Mum when I phoned her with the alarming news, 'but what on earth will Maxime eat? We're just having sandwiches.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘he’s in Australia
now – he has to adapt!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">Then I remembered that so far, Maxime 'adapting' to lunch in Australia had involved either me cooking or (preferably) a restaurant. Nary a sandwich had passed his lips.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">At 11 o’clock on the day of the lunch visit, I took Maxime aside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">‘Lunch will powerfully affect your
sensibilities,’ I said. ‘You will be asked to make sandwiches for yourself for
lunch using brown and black pastes, which are unlikely to be presented as
sculpted pyramids and or garnished with truffles.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">I told him I would take to his private
parts with a cheesegrater if he breathed so much as a syllable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">And so we arrived
at 12 to find Dad setting out the spreads and breads. He’d anticipated Maxime’s
reaction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘You need adulterated food to keep your immune
system in shape,’ he smiled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Hmm,’ said
Maxime, surveying the table doubtfully.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">He opted for things that bore some resemblance to what he calls food – ham and cheese, even though
the ham was suspiciously uniform in colour and texture and the cheese was hard
and didn’t smell of sock like his preferred French <i>fromages</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">I winced and
waited for Maxime to trot out his usual lines about the cheese ‘not being
cheese’. But in the end I was proud of him, because he was good enough to wait
until we were in the car on the way home to ask if I thought there may have
been asbestos filaments in his cheese.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">'It had this stringy texture,' he explained.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">Of all the things
he could have said about supermarket cheese, a resemblance to asbestos is not
one I saw coming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">'But was it good?' I asked.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">'No.'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">'Oh.'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">But in the end, Maxime still got a cooked lunch. In a moment of inspired genius, Dad boiled him an egg!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-58591750004757142052014-09-06T14:01:00.001-07:002014-09-06T14:01:05.548-07:00Blog-i-dayDear readers,<br />
<br />
The whole family have some sort of bug so I'm taking a short holiday/blog-i-day.<br />
<br />
The Frog has the man flu which is bad enough, but I have the woman flu, which is worse - because you can't lie on the couch like a corpse - you have to keep on keeping on (and besides, the kids will jump on you).<br />
<br />
Wishing you all a great weekend et <i>à bientot</i>!<br />
<br />
Kate.The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-91931693264921925222014-08-22T13:30:00.001-07:002014-08-22T13:30:54.278-07:00What Sort of Wine Deserves a Medal?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">When we lived in
France, I did a wine course, as I recounted in an <a href="http://frogblogfrance.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/what-sort-of-people-take-french-wine.html">earlier post</a>. Not only that,
but I topped the wine exam at the end, beating all the frogs – a fact which is
a constant source of satisfaction to me, especially the fact that I did better
than my French wine-expert husband Maxime. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">But the story doesn’t end there: </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">having done well in the exam, I was invited to go to Colmar to be a
judge at of the latest Alsace vintage. It was to be one of those events where
they award those little medal stickers you see on some bottles in the
supermarket. How exciting! I thought. But I was too shy to ring up and accept
the invitation in French. I decided to make Maxime do it for me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, he had no problem
making the call for me. In fact, he seemed strangely eager to do it. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After
Maxime made the call, he got off the phone and said, ‘Yes, it’s fine – you’ll
be judging Riesling and I’ll be judging Crémant.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What do you mean <i>you’ll</i> be judging Crémant? YOU didn’t get
invited!’ I said indignantly. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What’s more Crémant was MY favourite wine! How
come Maxime got to be the Crémant judge?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I asked if I could be a judge
too, since I also did that course. And they said yes.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No wonder he’d been so keen to
do the call. ‘I can’t believe you did that,’ I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Actually I could. Maxime has
more front than Myers. This is a man who talked his way into a private tasting
with Didier Dagenau (when he was still alive) and inveigled himself into being
invited to Vinexpo.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyW3hbVVQt0p7UzBvtEnqWGV1MH6bCJUmTPPY3fElEoD5pAHNP7gkjBc0g2hZuyHPDOIk4PkdUoYMNIw_-FdJKVoQaLn9hBCUaslwNQ46msd6-9KoQrCGYBqfBwKcZEvdhTjrDLh2eKv81/s1600/IMG_5235.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyW3hbVVQt0p7UzBvtEnqWGV1MH6bCJUmTPPY3fElEoD5pAHNP7gkjBc0g2hZuyHPDOIk4PkdUoYMNIw_-FdJKVoQaLn9hBCUaslwNQ46msd6-9KoQrCGYBqfBwKcZEvdhTjrDLh2eKv81/s1600/IMG_5235.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Awarding a medal to my nightly drop</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The judging day began at 9 in
the morning, in a great barn-like exhibition building in Colmar, capital of
South Alsace. An old wine official bloke began proceedings by giving the
assembled judges (there were actually dozens of us) a briefing. We were meant
to award wines that reflect what is typical of Alsace, and of the grape
variety, so that the consumer would get an idea of what ‘Alsace’ should taste
like. To some winemakers, this is an anathema. What should be celebrated is the
individual terroir (that mystical term encompassing climate, soil, topography
etc. of an area of land) and the variety of taste you can have thanks to each terroir’s
uniqueness. You should not be trying to produce some sort of common denominator
wine! As one Alsatian winemaker complained to me once ‘they want us to make
wine which is typical. But which typical is that?!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It seemed I was going to work
for the Dark Side of the Force. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After being given our
instructions, we went to our tables. I sat at the ‘Riesling table’ with two
other judges, who were both Alsatian winemakers. It made my head spin to think
that when I’d first come to France, I didn’t even know that Riesling was <i>grown</i> in Alsace. My knowledge of
Riesling back then had been based on encounters with four litre cardboard casks
of ‘Rhine’ Rieslings back in Australia, labelled Kaiserstühl or some such. Now
I was to judge real Riesling from out of a bottle instead of a cardboard box
(and the real Kaiserstühl was just up the road). </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The two winemakers and I had
nine Rieslings from the year before to rank and one reference wine that was meant
to illustrate what the powers that be deemed to be ‘typical’ Alsace Riesling
taste. The samples are tasted very young – as the tasting went on, it began to feel
as though the acid was stripping all the skin off my lips and my teeth felt
strangely furry. It did not at all turn out to be as much fun as I thought it
would be. Especially since only some winemakers submit their wines for medal
awards and the top winemakers tend not to. They don’t need a little medal
sticker to sell their wine. My fellow judges and I sipped our wine tentatively,
and the winemakers looked at one another in dismay and made ‘pfff’ sounds. They
didn’t want to give a medal to any of the wines. But award we must.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime, on the other hand,
seemed to be having a fine old time on the Crémant table. He and the others at
his table were laughing and rosy-cheeked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘This is actually quite good –
taste this,’ Maxime said, handing me a glass as I approached. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Bastard! I thought. He not
only bloody muscles in on my wine judging debut and scores a spot on the Crémant
table but he gets decent wine!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB">Of course, Maxime didn’t really need to be appointed a wine judge. He is
one naturally. And no one is safe from his pronouncements. Now that we live in
Australia, not even the Australian Prime Minister is safe. Upon reading <a href="http://www.watoday.com.au/national/public-service/tony-abbotts-wine-cellars-tragic-bewildering-20140819-105ld9.html%20http:/www.watoday.com.au/national/public-service/tony-abbotts-wine-cellars-tragic-bewildering-20140819-105ld9.html">an
article</a> on the contents of Mr. Abbott’s wine cellar, Maxime adjudged it to
be ‘</span><span lang="EN-AU">the cellar of a yobbo’. And as I’ve said before,
wine rules Maxime’s politics. So the PM should be thankful that he can’t vote
in Australia! </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">Yet. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">Maxime plans to get citizenship ASAP so he can vote for
someone who appreciates Clonakilla Shiraz Vigonier.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">Mind you, Aussie
wine critic Jeremy Oliver can dish it out almost as harshly as Maxime. I
particularly love the bit in the article where he says that in the PM’s cellar,
</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="background: white; line-height: 200%;">‘the only Riesling listed is
from Margaret River, where it should be classified as a weed.’<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 200%; padding: 0cm;"><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 200%; padding: 0cm;"><br /></span></span>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="border: 1pt none windowtext; line-height: 200%; padding: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Can you
imagine having dinner with a pair of wine critics like that!? Actually, it’s
probably better not to.</span></span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-32100574762527006642014-08-15T14:05:00.000-07:002014-08-15T14:05:47.948-07:00Can the French Play Footy?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">It doesn’t seem to have had much
publicity, but nonetheless, the <a href="http://www.afl.com.au/global/AFLIC14">International
Aussie Rules Cup</a> is on at the moment in Melbourne. The important thing from my French husband Maxime’s point of view is that it provides yet another
excuse to hang out with his fellow frogs. Thus it was that last Sunday, we trekked
up to Royal Park to watch France versus Britain. I was looking forward to a
fierce fight fuelled by the traditional French-English rivalry. Last year,
England beat France in the final of the Euro Aussie Rules Cup, so what with
that and Waterloo, the French should have been keen for revenge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">We arrived a little late, and Maxime
headed off in search of nourishment in the form of woodfired pizza (such are
his priorities). It was almost quarter time when he returned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">‘Where’s France’s score?’ Maxime asked as
he approached with the only slice of pizza which had survived the journey back
from the pizza van.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">‘Where’s France’s score’ effectively
summed things up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">‘There isn’t one,’ I said. ‘But, I mean,
they don’t stand a chance. The French players are all microcscopic.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">The Brits towered over the Frogs, easily
outmarking them (not that the marking was great, I have to say), and brushing
them off with relative ease. With the average French player being the size of
Napoleon, the game was rapidly turning into another Waterloo. (Les Coqs versus
the Bulldogs. Seriously, who would you predict to win a fight between dogs and
chooks?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDGcs7e_qUob0YqbN5rV4u8OnjjE1gX9e0Jen0Y12vgus1Riro7h9TS1JpY40HcnP1OG2_qjwoEJXA3cN7QsWl7Vozhy2aGcuwZUuiqwjFZ8iohw-hEOLng9ej4X_Y0V8K6WElv9wMilhe/s1600/IMG_5196.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDGcs7e_qUob0YqbN5rV4u8OnjjE1gX9e0Jen0Y12vgus1Riro7h9TS1JpY40HcnP1OG2_qjwoEJXA3cN7QsWl7Vozhy2aGcuwZUuiqwjFZ8iohw-hEOLng9ej4X_Y0V8K6WElv9wMilhe/s1600/IMG_5196.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Napoleon and Asterix take the field for France</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">‘The French seem hesitant,’ said Maxime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">I’d be hesitant too if I was 4 foot
nothing and playing on a yeti.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">‘Look, there’s Asterix!’ said Maxime next,
spotting a small blond French player we’d met at the meet-and-greet the week
before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">‘They don’t need Asterix, they need Obelix!’
I said. ‘Where’s the magic potion? Give the man some supplements!’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">By the last quarter, France were yet to
score a goal. Nevertheless, a crowd of perhaps 70 French watched the game
through to the bitter end. Not that the French supporters provided much in the
way of actual support. They were the most silent footy crowd I’d ever stood with,
muttering the occasional ‘ah <i>merde!</i>’ or
‘<i>ce n’est pas vrai</i>’ or ‘Oh prostitute’.
The only vocal member of the crowd was an Aussie bloke, who would periodically
yell ‘man up, France!’ I’m not sure the French understood what this meant. At
any rate, they certainly didn’t do it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMOOEJB-8ZQOLhsQCdNJnGClqte81GivrS4Ebxdd61ZSajHYeNVoQQ0faNECrVwaUBiukVqQFDNCIQBNOt9C7sC_X3KO6UybCobb9w6jVCmYM9tM1KfmEWT5ryMAj3m8t2ELud7DBim5U/s1600/IMG_5194.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKMOOEJB-8ZQOLhsQCdNJnGClqte81GivrS4Ebxdd61ZSajHYeNVoQQ0faNECrVwaUBiukVqQFDNCIQBNOt9C7sC_X3KO6UybCobb9w6jVCmYM9tM1KfmEWT5ryMAj3m8t2ELud7DBim5U/s1600/IMG_5194.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">France's end. Which about sums it up.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">The final score was 88 to 7, with France’s
only goal kicked just before the final siren (which I missed it because I’d
chosen that moment to go to the toilet. Maybe should have gone more often!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 200%;">Today there might be a chance for France to score a win. France takes on the Indonesia
garudas, who were comprehensively squished by tiny Nauru (227-7) and Fiji
(208-0). According to Wikipedia, a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garuda">garuda
is a ‘large mythical bird’</a>. So there’s definitely hope for France – Indonesia are
birds too. What’s more they don’t even exist. <i>Allez, les Coqs!</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-91694961928737102112014-08-08T22:35:00.002-07:002014-08-08T22:35:23.180-07:00Can a Frenchman Love Footy?<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 18.0pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Honestly, sometimes I
think we're still in France. My French husband Maxime tends to organise our
social outings and they involve one (or preferably both) of the following
elements:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1.
Food<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2.
French people<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But
last night's food-and-French-people outing at least had an additional element
to interest me - Aussie Rules!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It
was the meet-and-greet with the French Aussie Rules team, over from France to
contest the International Cup in Melbourne. Over 300 French expats were
expected to come along, and maybe the police got wind of it, because the venue was
flanked with booze buses. Maxime was even breath-tested on the way in (maybe they
also caught wind of his form when it comes to wine). But the police were out of
luck - Maxime hadn't had a drop (in fact, the police were keeping him from having
some drops). Billy Brownless may have stubbies rolling around in his car (as he
announced on Triple M's Rush Hour), but our car is, sadly, a dry area.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As
we entered the venue, the French football team was busy giving a rendition of
the Marseillaise. So in true footy spirit, I sang 'We Are the Boys From Old
Fitzroy' (OK, it was really just to annoy Maxime by messing up his anthem).
Then the players introduced themselves to the assembled French expat masses. (We learned that the players included one with the nickname of Asterix, which means the opposition will need to look out for rovers on supplements.) As I listened to the player introductions, I looked about me and noted from the banners that the French team had chosen
the name of 'the Coqs' (roosters). A little foolhardy for a
competition in Australia, I thought. At any rate, I'm not sure I'll be shouting 'up the
Coqs!' when I see them play ...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjwgaTQvbXzOrB5IsHVo1YHUks3QBA0Xmt2wvDNIx2xiBXUV7B-7R4pLTPtXkj1VuPSZE12tm6UV3wUkZ6M4fioEeLfcscNS_RfJbLx3AL9GBl2mB4n3PzCbJSxR7OmccjcEMWhdmMZHts/s1600/IMG_5145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjwgaTQvbXzOrB5IsHVo1YHUks3QBA0Xmt2wvDNIx2xiBXUV7B-7R4pLTPtXkj1VuPSZE12tm6UV3wUkZ6M4fioEeLfcscNS_RfJbLx3AL9GBl2mB4n3PzCbJSxR7OmccjcEMWhdmMZHts/s1600/IMG_5145.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Singing the Marseillaise</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /><div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">French footy was actually born in Maxime's home region of Alsace. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Maxime didn't start it, of course. But he did come across the Alsatian footy team when we lived in France. He had been surfing the net to find information on the microscopic
size of Aussie footballers' ... shorts. (Such are the things Maxime looks up on the net).
Instead of short footy shorts, he found a footy team - the 'Strasbourg Kangourous', just
up the road from us in Alsace, and started by one Marc Jund. Back in the 80s, a
couple of games of Aussie Rules were televised in France, and Marc had seen them.
Probably it was a slip-up - the network probably meant to show some weird
European winter sport involving someone going down a slide in sub zero
temperatures dressed in Lycra. Be that as it may, Marc had been hooked and decided
to start his own Aussie Rules club. He sought help from the AFL, and received a couple of
footies and the rules in English. Which no one spoke. So much for that then, you might think.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not at all! The dogged Strasbourgeois kept up their club. They did their best trying to nut out the game, watching all the footy
replays they could get their hands on. More than ten years later when Maxime and I visited the Strasbourg team, they still hadn't worked out how to bounce the
ball. (And so I showed them. 'Ah!' they said, fascinated as though I'd just performed an arcane act.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so it was that footy gradually caught on in France despite considerable odds and the
inability to drop punt. The reason it does survive in France and other countries in Europe is down to European footy
players who are not so much footy mad as footy insane. Like a Czech tigers fan
I ran into in Europe whose entire house is festooned in black and gold. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last night, I met a case in point: as the French footy meet-and-greet evening wound down, and les
Coqs became les Coqs<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>au vin</i>, I was introduced to a tall Toulousien at
the bar named Gregoire Patacq. I asked whether his club, the Toulouse Hawks, had had any support from the
AFL (some rules in English, perhaps). No, seemed to be the answer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'When
Demetriou said the AFL wasn't interested in expanding the game, I was
devastated,' said Gregoire. 'I'd had a hard week at work and then that. It was really tough.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Did
he really say that?' I said. 'I seem to remember someone telling me the AFL
were practically throwing money at the middle east in order to get <i>them</i> to take
it up.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then I added a few sympathetic things about things not being fair even in Australia - about how poor old Tassie doesn't ever get an AFL team, for instance (despite actually wanting one).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Well,' said
Gregoire defiantly, 'we still have footy. And we're not giving it up!' </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And I understood that if any football authority ever tried prevent them from playing it, the French would be up on the barricades. The French are always so </span></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">passionate about things. But who would have thought one of those 'things' would be footy? </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 18pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fantastic.</span></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-54668126741936761662014-08-01T18:04:00.000-07:002014-08-01T18:04:43.396-07:00Just How Badly Do the French Cope With a Melbourne Winter?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In his spare
time, when he’s not looking up restaurants on Urbanspoon, my French husband
Maxime is doing something you don’t necessarily associate with Frenchmen. He’s
looking up the weather on the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Actually, Maxime used
to look up Météo France too, when we lived in France, but that wasn’t half as
much fun. It never caused him to throw up his hands in horror and exclaim that
the ‘weather is absolute crap’. This is because he considers French weather to
be perfectly acceptable. If it was minus 20 and blizzards, he’d say ‘I love
snow. It reminds me of my childhood.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Take, for
instance, a particularly cold winter in Alsace. 2006, I think. In February-March,
the region was covered in snow for six weeks straight. I was depressed because I
was too wary of snow to go outside (I mean, it might be cold!), and I didn’t
like having to dress up in so many layers I looked like the Michelin Man in
order to do it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What are you
complaining about?’ Maxime said one morning. It’s sunny!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it was - for
once. So to demonstrate to me how perfectly hospitable a metre of snow is,
Maxime took a bottle of champagne, went outside and stuck it in the snow. Then
he retrieved a couple of glasses and some cheese. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘We can have a <i>pique-nique</i>,’ he announced. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I ventured outside
and moved gingerly towards the champagne. I secured a large glass of it and then
retreated inside to have my picnic in front of the fire.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And it wasn’t
just me who thought it was cold. When holidaying in the south of France, people
would say, ‘it's very cold in Alsace, isn't it?’ and shiver at the very thought of
it. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Maxime would
scowl and say that people in the south of France thought they knew about Alsace
based on their preconceived ideas, but really, they had ‘no clue’.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They did have a
clue. Winter in Alsace was like living in a chest freezer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnhgUKeuN9JACtXBDpMxaDDJGg6156Xg_AB8BYNhVR0Y-SEo2tUzFp2EuYtMMzYwgy8vGIO8NtJBSEsItIa7pNLlCe-rffNiJiXZO3WtgH93hvH9BV5yxWL_w2J9ihSv9z38RuS5pAGBOW/s1600/IMG_1859.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnhgUKeuN9JACtXBDpMxaDDJGg6156Xg_AB8BYNhVR0Y-SEo2tUzFp2EuYtMMzYwgy8vGIO8NtJBSEsItIa7pNLlCe-rffNiJiXZO3WtgH93hvH9BV5yxWL_w2J9ihSv9z38RuS5pAGBOW/s1600/IMG_1859.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Le Grand Ballon, Alsace</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So you can image
that one of the things that made it so great to move back home was that in
Melbourne, the coldest daytime maximum temperature is 9 or 10 degrees C and not minus 36.
Nevertheless, I wondered if Maxime’s neck would be able to make it through our
first Melbourne winter. Without me strangling it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now that we’re in
Melbourne, Maxime takes a rainy day as a sort of personal affront. He’ll protest
at the injustice of having his day dampened and wait testily for the clouds to
apologise. I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to say ‘look, Maxime. It
just rains in winter, OK? Get <i>over</i>
it!’ And then there's Melbourne's famous changeable weather, or ‘brutal changes of temperature’ upon which
Maxime blames all of his colds.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">One day he actually
said he thought winter was worse in Melbourne than in Alsace. </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">My mouth opened.
And then I shut it again. I mean, there are some statements so patently
ridiculous you can argue with them.</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Maxime’</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">s behaviour put me in mind of a
French student I knew back when I was studying at Melbourne Uni. I called
him ‘The Sad Grover’, due to his endless complaining and to his resemblance to
a certain blue Sesame Street character. He was an avid movie-goer, and I began
to relish, in a perverted way, asking him each morning how he liked the film he’d
been to the night before. His answer was always the same. ‘It was crrrrap!’ He
seemed so perpetually miserable that eventually I took pity on him and invited
him to a party. I offered him a cup of cask wine, not realising I may as well
have offered him a beaker of horse urine.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">‘No thanks,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to lose control.’</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Hmm, shame, I thought. And just
like Maxime, the temperature was never right for Sad Grover in Melbourne – the
restaurants were too cold, he asserted. Why didn’t we take heating seriously? And
the girls were also too frigid, Sad Grover thought. Maybe they just didn’t like depressed
Muppets.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Our little French kids, at least, have no problem with the weather in Australia.
Except that there’s no snow. '</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">I miss snow’ they would announce over and over last winter.</span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">‘It’s because
I was born in the snow,’ Chloé said. (It was snowing in France when she was born.)</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">'No you
weren’t, you were born in a hospital,’ I countered. ‘And anyway, </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">there <i>is</i> snow here. You just have to go to the mountains.'</span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">The kids didn't believe me, and so we took
them to Lake Mountain to demonstrate the existence of Australian snow.</span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoifgGLhRJTqYl-JQoLERh8MPiuKBE42Rd7H3DXPE2thG2LjfdVSrF_0f-b4VQjqoek7HY38a1Bo6QTZXWipljA_1rQDIlR4p9sFwCg6Kp7jHUXa0hVcCJUj3V-sXlwGREQRQH1gyW5lw_/s1600/IMG_0268.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoifgGLhRJTqYl-JQoLERh8MPiuKBE42Rd7H3DXPE2thG2LjfdVSrF_0f-b4VQjqoek7HY38a1Bo6QTZXWipljA_1rQDIlR4p9sFwCg6Kp7jHUXa0hVcCJUj3V-sXlwGREQRQH1gyW5lw_/s1600/IMG_0268.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lake Mountain last year. Enough snow if your snowballs aren't too big.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<div style="line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 35.45pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;">It
was - um - not a success. We paid a fortune to enjoy a patch of snow about the
size of someone's front lawn, with 500 odd people gamely trying to go sledding
on it. </span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;">'It's cold and wet,' remarked Elise.</span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;">Well, yes. It's snow.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;">Maxime and Little Miss I-was-born-in-the-snow were the only ones at ease. Elise was yammering at me about going home, and so we left, after a whole 20 minutes: I had managed to
coax Maxime off the mountain with the lure of lunch in a Yarra Valley winery. </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;">Works
every time.</span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 35.45pt;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit, serif;">And as long as we don't discuss the weather during lunch, everyone's happy.</span></div>
</div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-57664891030669226072014-07-25T18:44:00.001-07:002014-07-25T18:44:33.538-07:00What Sort of People Take French Wine Tasting Courses?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;">At first, naïveté</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;">makes everything like Christmas - all newness and wonder. But when it comes to wine tasting, after a
while you get tired of knowing less about wine than even your glass does.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When we lived in France, every
night at dinner, my French husband Maxime would retrieve a bottle of wine from his
wine safe. Then he'd hide the label, make me taste the wine and try to
guess what it was. These incessant wine tests and my incessant failing of them
reached the point where I’d had enough. I didn’t want to stop drinking the
lovely French wines, but I did want to stop getting a headache every time I
did.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So I came up with a plan:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Tonight, <i>I’M</i> choosing the wine,’ I announced to Maxime one evening. ‘I mean,
it’s not fair, you get to choose every night!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And if I chose it, I was
certainly not going to test myself on it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime looked at me dubiously.
‘OK …’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I grinned triumphantly and
jumped up to grab a bottle. But um … which one? Oh God, I could feel another
headache coming on. I could imagine several things happening:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">a<span style="line-height: normal;"> a. </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I’d inadvertently choose a sweet wine<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">b<span style="line-height: normal;"> b. </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I’d inadvertently choose something
that wasn’t ready to drink<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 200%; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">c<span style="line-height: normal;"> c. I</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">’d inadvertently choose something Maxime
was saving for a special occasion<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Luckily I had a solution. It
was to say ‘oh bugger it!’ and pick a wine at random.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I ferried the random bottle to
Maxime, flinching a bit as I handed it over for inspection.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘This is undrinkable,’ he
announced.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh. At least that particular answer
was unexpected.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Well, what are <i>you</i> doing with an undrinkable wine in
your fridge?’ I answered back.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I was given it by a friend.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The poor friend, I thought.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘You can drink this if you
want, but I’m not,’ Maxime said, and marched stiffly off back to the wine safe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I sighed. Here we bloody go
again. Then something occurred to me. Maxime couldn’t have been born knowing
about wine (although you could certainly be forgiven for thinking so). He must
have learnt somehow.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘How come you know about all
these wines?' I asked him. 'How come whenever anyone makes <i>you</i>
guess a wine, you always get it right?’ (I can’t tell you how annoying that is.
You’re just hanging out for the Wine Lord to take a fall.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I did a wine course.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Oh. Oh good! I thought. Maxime’s
not really a supernatural wine freak. He had to learn like a mere mortal! And …
I’m a mere mortal. Maybe I could learn too …?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And so it was that every
Friday evening after that, I drove to the Alsatian town of Rouffach on the wine road. I would spend a couple of hours with a room full of others in an building that looked
like an old schoolhouse, covered in shaggy stork’s nests, and listen to
Alsace’s wine experts hold forth. ‘Apple taste, malic acid, in Sylvaner grape,’
I would write. ‘Chaptalization - adding sugar - what some naughty winemakers do
in Alsace.’ After the theory, there was the practice: we students went to our benches,
each with a sink for rinsing, and the teacher would pour samples of wine for us
to guess and describe. We covered the six Alsace white grapes, learning what
makes a good wine, and how to comment on it, judge it and detect a range of
defects. Sounds good, right?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not good. The thing was, the course
was in French and the other students all worked in the wine industry. I
wondered if I’d bitten off more than I could chew. Would Maxime divorce me if I
failed a wine exam?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At the end of the course, I went to the Alsace wine headquarters
in Colmar for the wine exam. The interior of the building was UFO shaped and laid out like a
futuristic parliament. The examiners were seated in the middle on a dais, dressed in
official wine robes. They looked like real wine lords, looking down on us with
grave faces. No one said a word as the robed ones got up and walked around,
silently filling our glasses. With a shaking hand, I took a large sip of the
first glass to settle my nerves (that’s the advantage of an exam in wine. I could've done with a big glass of Riesling in year 12 maths. My answers might have
gotten a little more creative than is desired for maths, but hey, it would’ve
been a lot more fun).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeQZDRGu0xWf1kppNkYU7n_yjMmUhXkmi3bA4eyFEsufyJv12-dhc7vHKpEb91Jc6EYBr3tjpQ7vMq5wCCzIYxQ5UdzVaNl5F6LJQiFAslQ0lkfK_E1ZFK0mTHIcN5kD_Szf2KHpzFEp3/s1600/IMG_5142.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeQZDRGu0xWf1kppNkYU7n_yjMmUhXkmi3bA4eyFEsufyJv12-dhc7vHKpEb91Jc6EYBr3tjpQ7vMq5wCCzIYxQ5UdzVaNl5F6LJQiFAslQ0lkfK_E1ZFK0mTHIcN5kD_Szf2KHpzFEp3/s1600/IMG_5142.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The first task was to identify the
grape varieties, and then guess the defects in various wines the examiners had
added things to. The finale was a commentary on a mystery wine to be delivered before the examiners. When my turn came for the commentary, I was left in a room by myself to
bond with a glass for ten minutes before being summoned before the examiners. I
picked up the glass and found myself sniffing and swirling the way I’d seen
many a person I’d assumed to be a pretentious git do, and what Maxime does. (But
Maxime, when he tastes, doesn’t seem to be out to impress anyone. In fact, it
seems that at that moment, he wouldn’t care if he was alone on the planet.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Having finished my git-like wine
swirling routine, I went back into the UFO and stood before the robed examiners. I
was to start by giving them a visual description of the wine. We had been
taught to begin by saying ‘I am in the presence of a white wine’. But I simply
couldn’t bring myself to say something so bloody naff. I said I thought the
wine looked dark gold instead. Luckily the wine lords didn’t appear to mind. I moved to the nose, the bouquet.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I can smell mushroom,’ I
announced. Not very bouquet like, that wine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘OK,’ said one of the examiners. ‘And
does the wine also taste like mushroom?’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I couldn't taste any mushroom. I panicked. Oh God, should it
taste of mushroom? Should it? Maybe he was
trying to trick me?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No,’ I said finally. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Good. It shouldn’t taste like
mushroom.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Phew. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My palms were sweating like
two little fountains by the time we finished. Feeling faintly sick after the
harrowing session with the mushroom wine (drinking at nine in the morning may
also have had something to do with it), I milled about with the other wine
students while the examiners marked our papers. Eventually, we were called back into the UFO. The examiners announced
who had passed, and who had got the highest mark. Well! Let’s just say the
result was a turn up for the books. I came out wearing a smile wide enough to
crack my face. I had done EVEN BETTER THAN MAXIME! It was a real David shoves
it up Goliath moment.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So Maxime wouldn’t have to
divorce me after all. Wait a minute, I thought - Maxime got a lower mark than
me, so maybe I should divorce <i>him</i>? Or at least make him do the vacuuming.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
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The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-10672645972128345582014-07-18T17:52:00.000-07:002014-07-24T18:59:11.028-07:00French Tips on Mixing Business With Pleasure (a.k.a. Food and Wine)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">The other day, my
French husband Maxime observed rather mournfully that Australians don’t do
business lunches very often. Personally, I'm not so keen on business lunches - I’d rather have a break at lunchtime, and do business meetings at a table without getting crumbs in
my computer and sauce on my reports.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘But it’s the
ambience,’ Maxime said. ‘It’s nicer to be in a restaurant than a sterile
office. And the good food makes me feel happier.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Business meetings
aren’t supposed to be about pleasure,’ I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">Or are they?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">When we lived in
France, Maxime had ‘business’ lunches every day. His calendar was planned
months in advance,detailing whom he would meet at which restaurant. I would ask each
night how the business lunch went, and Maxime’d go into raptures about the food and
tell me which wine they chose. So not much business got done then, I thought to
myself. Unless it was the business of eating and drinking. Maybe his business lunches should have been called 'pleasure lunches'.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">Of course, in
Australia, things are different. Maxime has been forlornly lunching alone and
wineless. But now it seems things have taken a turn for the better: Maxime came
home from work yesterday brandishing a bottle of 2003 Pinot Noir from Orange,
NSW, and grinning from ear to ear.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘It’s for work,’
he explained.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Is it?’ I said
doubtfully.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘We found dozens and
dozens of crates of wine in the warehouse!’ Maxime’s eyes were shining like
stars. ‘And my job is to taste it to make sure it’s OK!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘And who decided
that would be<i> your</i> job?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Me.’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">Surprise,
surprise.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4kqniJq-wuHtHxvtx0-URoblXjYzuoKrfsYCHicvUSNzvBzl8eZBVoBpueLLdhCr0s6Qi_HaGp2kXhXLbB-zmH39t18BWAg4Y9PgmWfacUiYChg4ioesRmjBlOUKuDK-gTBb2dthRsPx/s1600/IMG_5139.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4kqniJq-wuHtHxvtx0-URoblXjYzuoKrfsYCHicvUSNzvBzl8eZBVoBpueLLdhCr0s6Qi_HaGp2kXhXLbB-zmH39t18BWAg4Y9PgmWfacUiYChg4ioesRmjBlOUKuDK-gTBb2dthRsPx/s1600/IMG_5139.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maxime's work for the weekend</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">But now that I come to
think about it, wine has been very helpful to Maxime at work. He's always been respected for his wine knowledge by his bosses. What's more, he's used wine in recruitment: when we lived in France and Maxime held job interviews, he always asked the interviewee if they liked wine. 'I need to know if they'll fit in the team,' he would say. T</span>he German who replied to the question 'do you like wine?' by saying 'yes, when it’s mixed with coke' did not get a job.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU">What is worse, (or perhaps better?), Maxime also uses wine to decide how to vote. </span>He was delighted a few years back when he read in a French wine review that the people he favoured in French politics were those who most liked wine, and was thrilled and vindicated when he read that François Bayrou got drunk on pacharenc (a fortified wine) to cure a speech impediment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;">Sarkozy, the teetotaller, is of course completely despised by Maxime. 'A bit of a yobbo,' Maxime calls him, showing how well his Aussie slang is coming along. Sarkozy is 'totally lacking in culture'. Not only is Sarkozy a teetotaller, but Maxime suspects that when Sarko was president, Carla Bruni, who knows her wines, was drinking the
French presidential cellar dry together with hordes of Italian interlopers.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Then, horror of horrors, president Hollande sold off the rest of the presidential cellar to the Chinese! Maxime was incensed when he heard. 'But that's the French <i>patrimoine</i>!' he cried.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
In 2011, Maxime announced to friends that if it came down to a choice between those two wine dingbats Sarkozy and Hollande in the 2012 French presidential election, he would emigrate to Australia.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
And of course, he did! Now <i>that's</i> how to take wine seriously.<br />
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The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-91802914128251728412014-07-11T14:42:00.000-07:002014-07-24T18:59:41.970-07:00France versus Australia: Who Will Win the Argument?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">I was a bit disappointed
with the trip away on the weekend. Me and the Frog (my French husband Maxime)
and our kids had travelled far, far away from the bright lights of Melbourne,
and more importantly, far from the bright lights of its restaurants. I expected
that being out country, we’d have some spectacularly dreadful meals and Maxime
would say spectacular things about them, seasoning his sentences with French insults
concerning people’s grandmothers in shorts - thereby giving me fantastic
material for this blog post. But the food was good, damn it! (We were too close
to </span><a href="http://www.visitvictoria.com/Regions/Daylesford-and-the-Macedon-Ranges/Destinations/Daylesford" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Daylesford</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">,
apparently.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
And so, sadly, there was no parmigiana Parmageddon. But then on Sunday, we stopped at a winery on the way back home and, oh joy! The winery delivered!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinF7hw7lgDjubD6dwoMOnAJQoHVOH9MTe-1NQ7iMNSjm3jtxbWyblaSdQIi7RzvfE5csLfjNDux7SbonbuA2LcInnXZDOoSETfHzAB3o_CvbgnTu5wdWXmgftz_6F4lkMw79772kdpWxFa/s1600/IMG_5099.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinF7hw7lgDjubD6dwoMOnAJQoHVOH9MTe-1NQ7iMNSjm3jtxbWyblaSdQIi7RzvfE5csLfjNDux7SbonbuA2LcInnXZDOoSETfHzAB3o_CvbgnTu5wdWXmgftz_6F4lkMw79772kdpWxFa/s1600/IMG_5099.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Wintry Way Home, Warmed by a Winery</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">It wasn’t the food
or the wine – they were fine. Nevertheless …</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime and I had made
our workmanlike way through the list of wines on offer. And of course, the
ciders, due to the Frog’s <a href="http://frogblogfrance.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/the-frog-does-diet.html">rather
dubious predilection for </a><u>them</u>). But at first I was worried: during the
tasting, Maxime was calm; polite; complimentary. Don’t tell me everything’s
OK?! I thought.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then afterwards, in the car, it
all came out. Not the wine - the French rage.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I couldn’t stand
that guy!’ fumed Maxime (referring to the man serving us in the wine tasting). ‘He
only served borderline acceptable amounts in the glass. And he knew <i>nothing, nothing!</i>’ (The hapless winery
bloke had told us, ‘I only pour the wine, I don’t know about it.’ Which I think
was a joke. But if you’re French, wine is not the stuff of jokes). ‘<i>AND</i>,’ Maxime went on, ‘after the sweet
cider, he didn’t give me a new glass for the dry whites!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Serve you right
for drinking lolly water!’ I laughed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘So I used the
Pinot Grigio to wash my glass out.’ (Which Maxime thinks is as good a use as
any for Aussie Pinot Grigios. He prefers the French-spelled ones.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But here’s the
interesting thing - Maxime didn’t actually say anything to the winery bloke’s
face. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">This is something
of a first for Maxime. He has – or at least used to have -</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> the Gallic way of venting when something is bothering him. You just yell. And getting yelled at doesn't bother you, because you know not to take it to heart. In short, the French believe in letting off steam instead of stewing, and there’s something to be
said for that. Except if you're not used to French culture and you're on the receiving end. For instance, instead of suggesting that perhaps it might not have been such a
good idea to leave the foil on the bottle neck, Maxime would cry ‘what the <i>hell</i> are you doing!? You’re completely
deranged!’ Then, having screeched at me for ten minutes, he would put his
arm around me and suggest trying the wine. I would look at him in amazement. ‘What?’
he’d say in surprise. ‘Are you upset?’ I’d be almost lost for words.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Of course I’m upset! You just
said I was deranged!’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh is that all? Of course I
didn’t mean that, I was just angry. Why do you take everything so <i>personally</i>?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘You called me deranged! How
much more bloody personal can you get?!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I would stick to my guns and
insist that Maxime may not have meant to hurt my feelings but he nonetheless had, and demand an apology. To give the
Frenchman his due, he always gave me one. But even when I was furious, I
was curious. The French way of seeing things was so different. (Curiosity kills
the K, I thought.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Anglo-Saxon – French differences
in argument style were a problem for Maxime at work too, when we lived in France.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">Anglo-Saxon
colleagues sometimes felt he was too harsh. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">‘What exactly did you say?’ I asked Maxime
on one such occasion. He told me.</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">OK … you
know, there are other, gentler ways of telling people they could do better,’ I
suggested. ‘You shouldn’t really say to an Anglo-Saxon things like, “this document
is a piece of shit and working with you is a complete nightmare.”’</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But now that we’re in Australia, it seems
the Frog’s French edges have become softened with Anglo-Saxon restraint. Well, that’s all to the good. I won’t get called deranged anymore! Until I run into another
Frenchman perhaps.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">IF YOU LIKE THIS POST, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE (see email subscription box in the sidebar)</span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-87869436003074862272014-07-03T12:18:00.000-07:002014-07-24T18:59:54.676-07:00What Do the French Hate About the French?<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last night, my French husband Maxime went out for a night on the
town with fellow French engineers. They went, predictably, to a European beer
bar. Maxime said he had chicken parmigiana. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘To be safe,’ he said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Safe? I wondered. How can a chicken parma be safe? It won’t blow
up on your plate? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It was pub food,’ Maxime explained.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Meaning there was danger of the food being sub-frog standard,
but, Maxime thought, no chef can stuff up a parma. Actually, I think they
can. One day, Maxime will have a rude parma awakening in some godforsaken pub
in the back of beyond (and I want to be there to take a pic when it happens).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It might happen sooner rather than later too: this weekend,
we’re heading up Bendigo way and staying in some tiny town we’ve never heard of
(which Maxime complains is in the ‘arsehole of nowhere’. So refined, my Frog.)
We are going to try some ‘safe’ parma at its pub tomorrow night.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, back to the French engineers' boysy night out. Maxime was
a bit doubtful about the first fellow frog he talked to, he said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I thought Olivier was a bit of a wanker,’ Maxime said (he’s
really got the Aussie lingo down now) ‘too French.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘French people are wankers?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘The Franco-French,’ Maxime precised – people who are ultra-French.
‘The ones who think they are owed everything,’ (oh no, not entitlement again. Thoroughly
sick of that word at the moment), ‘who are afraid of everything and never go
out of their comfort zone, and they have the <i>pensée unique</i>.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;">Maxime often brings up this <i>pensée
unique</i> thing when he bags his countrymen. He doesn’t mean they have a
unique thought – rather the opposite. He means these deplorable <i>Franco-Français</i> think there is only one
way to do things. And that’s the French way of course! I wonder what the Aussie
version of Franco-French is? Ocker? Someone in thongs holding a beer can who
believes in mateship and thinks the establishment can get stuffed? <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocker">Wikipedia says Ocker</a> means an ‘</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Australian
who speaks and acts in an uncultured manner</span>’ which I reckon is a little
harsh.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anyway, Olivier wasn’t a wanker as it turned out. He and Maxime
soon bonded over bitching about England (both had lived there for a year). Olivier
told Maxime how he’d moved from Normandy to St. Albans as a teenager, and went
to the local bakery to get something to eat and find accommodation. I really
can’t say why he thought the baker would give him a bed. Must be a Norman
thing. Whatever, the thing was … there WAS no bakery. Olivier ended up without
decent bread and in an attic being sublet by a Pakistani. Before moving into a
share house with a muslim fundamentalist who insisted on reading the Koran to
him every morning over brekkie.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime had things a little better during his stint in London. He
shared with an Italian who stayed in bed most of the day and who cooked
fabulous pasta. He and Maxime even invented a dessert together, a regular
Escoffier and Carème:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime and
Guiseppe’s Killer Dessert<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1 container of yoghurt (large)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">5 spoons of honey<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1 bottle of rum (large)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1 aspirin (for later)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After Maxime and Olivier had reminisced about their time in Old
England, they moved on to having a dig at those wankerish ‘Franco-French’: Olivier
had had a short stint in Oz four years ago and then had had to return to Paris.
In January. It wasn’t warm and it wasn’t fun. The Parisians got up his nose
(the way they clamber up the nose of all provincial French) with their cold
hoity toityness. So when Olivier got offered a permanent job in Australia, he
booked the tickets the same day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh you’re so <i>lucky</i>!’
Everyone said to him. ‘I’d love to live in Australia but I don’t speak
English.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But according to Olivier and Maxime, moving to Australia wasn’t
luck, it was hard work (getting engineering degrees and learning English, for
example), and if their French countrymen got off their ‘entitled’ bums, they
could move to Australia too. Hmm, just think of all the new French bakeries we
could have then! Even a few Normandy-style bakery-hotels perhaps.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s funny, though, hearing Maxime talk like that. Now that he’s
moved here, Maxime talks about moving to Oz as the most sensible, natural step
for him to have taken, and is not above looking down at those who have stayed
put in Frogland. He has conveniently expunged from his memory the fact that I
had to threaten, cajole, emotionally blackmail – use every trick in the book –
to get him to even <i>consider</i> moving to
Australia. We suffered through years and years of rows and cried buckets of
tears (actually those were just my buckets) before he agreed. And now, if someone
asks him if it was hard to move to Australia, he’ll just say ‘of course not.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Arrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;">OK, OK. I’ll chill. I mean, we’re here now. Even if it’s only </span><span lang="EN-AU"><span style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="http://frogblogfrance.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/bonjour-australia-and-about-bloody-time.html">thanks
to a piece of cheese.</a></span></span></span><br />
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The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-76654998911044136142014-06-27T13:58:00.001-07:002014-07-24T19:00:12.963-07:00Why You Should Never Go Wine Tasting With a Frenchman<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now that my French husband
Maxime is into a fitness regime, we don’t go wine touring so often. This was
making me a little sad … until I reminded myself what wine tasting with the
Frog was actually like.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Back in France, we often took
visiting friends and family to one of Maxime’s favourite wineries in Alsace – <a href="http://www.marceldeiss.com/fr/">Domaine Marcel Deiss</a>, situated in the
half-timbered medieval wine village of Bergheim near Colmar. My uncle and aunt
were among the fortunate first to be taken there. And, as often happens in
France, we were greeted not by some black-apronned flunky but by the winemaker.
Or in this case, Jean-Michel Deiss’s wife. My aunt and uncle traded pidgin
French for pidgin English with Mrs. Deiss and things started well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Especially since she gave us
all a glass of crémant (Alsatian sparkling wine), which went down a treat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Ooh, champagne!’ said my Aunt
appreciatively.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It’s not champagne,’ began
Maxime.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Don’t you start!’ I warned
him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then we tasted a wine made of
a blend of different Alsatian grape varieties known as Edelzwicker in Alsatian
dialect (just trying saying that after a few glasses of Alsatian champagne).
Most Edelzwicker, which means noble mixture, is not very <i>edel</i> at all, (one winemaker once let on it was just all the
leftovers the Alsatians pass off on the Germans). But Jean-Michel Deiss,
relishing tradition, terroir and trend-bucking, went back to the ancient
co-planting ways, and worked hard, employing the most fastidious winemaking
methods until he was given a big elephant stamp by critics for his Edelzwicker
experiments.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In short, these mixture wines
were the pride of the Domaine. Presenting us with the flagship wine, Mrs.
Jean-Michel waited expectantly to hear how we liked it. And this was when the
wine tasting got dangerous. When asked what I thought of a wine, I usually came
out with terrible clunkers: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It smells like petrol,’ I
would announce to a winemaker. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No! It’s got great
minerality!’ Maxime would hiss in my ear. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh right. It’s very minerally.
Yeah. And it smells a bit like grass.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> A small groan beside me. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the way home in the car, Maxime
would explain. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘You don’t say it’s like grass,
you say herbaceous or lively,’ he would scold. ‘If you don’t like the wine,
then go ahead. But to say the wine tastes like petrol or grass you’re telling
the winemaker you think it has a defect!’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I had been also been known to
observe that wines smelt like ham, hessian sack or green capsicum. If what
Maxime said was true, the maker of the hessian sack wine no doubt went out the
back and shot himself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now, holding a glass of Mrs.
Deiss’s husband’s pride and joy, I felt a few butterflies. What could I say
about it that would not cause Madame Deiss to slit her wrists or keel over in a
faint? What did Maxime say I should call petrol wines again? I should have
written cheat notes on my hand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Luckily for me, Madame Deiss
turned to my unfortunate uncle for feedback. He went red as he tried to think
of something to say. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It’s nice ... and ... and ... warm,’
he said finally. He brightened, having thought of something to add. ‘Yes. It’s
like sherry!’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There was a silence.
Jean-Michel’s wife knitted her brows and cocked her head on one side, waiting
for my uncle to elaborate. A wine tasting like sherry may be approaching the asymptote
of divine for my parents’ generation, but in winespeak, it was more like saying
‘it’s crap’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime threw his hands up in
the air and was about to harangue my uncle when I tugged him by the sleeve.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What do you think of this
vintage compared to 2003?’ I asked him hurriedly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Successfully distracted,
Maxime now began a rather lengthy monologue about recent vintages in southern
Alsace.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">With a bit more sleeve-tugging
on my part, we managed to negotiate the rest of the wine tasting. I was quite
exhausted by the time we left, the car boot loaded up with crémant and
sherry-wine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After the wine tasting, we
headed off to an architecture exhibition at the open air Alsatian museum, the
Ecomusée. My uncle is an architect himself, so at the architecture exhibition,
he would enjoy being the knowledgeable one while Maxime would be the novice. Until
we came to the house made of bottles, that is.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-16937310832742911232014-06-20T16:06:00.001-07:002014-06-20T16:07:50.472-07:00The Frog's Predictions For the World Cup 2014<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My French husband Maxime has an uncanny ability to predict games
and final scores in World Cups. He predicted the Australia-Netherlands 2-3 result, for instance. Deciding
he must have magical powers, I asked him if he wouldn’t mind predicting an Oz
victory in their next match:</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘OK … 2-1,’ he said. But he looked dubious.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime’s powers desert him where France is concerned, however.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Will France win the world cup, do you think?’ I asked him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘They might,’ he said. </span></span><span style="color: #333333;">‘</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Or they might not.’ </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Helpful. At least he won’t be wrong! </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">‘Deschamps is a good coach. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks,
he just wants to be the best.’</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘And what about Ribery not playing?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘We don’t need prima donnas like that,’ Maxime sniffed. ‘Even without him, we’ll
beat the Swiss 4-0.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: 12.0pt; margin-left: 0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 12.0pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I must confess that during some of the match at least he was
correct. France <i>did</i> lead 4-0. Then the Swiss ruined
everything by scoring.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonVggn8yvUkYRBEbfxAyN2r8LCuXkGbtNGUTz33i3SrXj609WLgXQ6_iANsXobDL0gxAEiSdslWcWztLriZdo5b_AvI5bF3-eVA6Lsir433YIuc0nNgRI1c9crmNzgdsoEN5nwNJY1sLM/s1600/IMG_5071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjonVggn8yvUkYRBEbfxAyN2r8LCuXkGbtNGUTz33i3SrXj609WLgXQ6_iANsXobDL0gxAEiSdslWcWztLriZdo5b_AvI5bF3-eVA6Lsir433YIuc0nNgRI1c9crmNzgdsoEN5nwNJY1sLM/s1600/IMG_5071.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here they come, to ruin French fun!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Maxime looked downcast at this and released a few French expletives such
as ‘prostitute!’ and ‘your grandmother in shorts!’, then said, ‘Well, all the
Swiss players are from the Balkans anyway.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ah yes. I said. ‘And all the French are from France, are they?
What about him?’ I pointed at a rather dark-skinned Frenchman.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘There’s still the French West Indies.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What about him?’ I pointed to another.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh, a typical Parisian,’ said Maxime cooly.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And a French player with a Polish name entered the fray. I
arched my eyebrow at Maxime.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘A typical Alsatian,’ he replied without missing a beat (there
are many people descended from Polish miners in Alsace). Maxime has a tendency
to twist and bend logic until it fits what’s best for France. Then he thought
for a bit. ‘I think it’s good the Swiss got a goal.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Hey?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It gives our defence some practice. Something to learn from.’
(See what I mean about twisty logic? If he twists it too much more it may snap
on him. Would he manage to make a loss for France seem like a win? Actually, he
probably would.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then there was the controversial last French goal which was not
counted. According to Maxime of course, the ref was wrong to blow the whistle
in the middle of a passage of play. I know as much about soccer as a dried pea,
so I have no idea if he was right, but the commentator seemed to think the ref was right.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘The commentator is English,’ said Maxime.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Of course, the detested Anglais. How Maxime grinned when he heard they were out of the World Cup!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Yes, Mummy,' our daughter Chloé joined in. 'The commentator is English. He says the French names wrong. Just like you, Mummy!'</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Cheers.</span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Well, France won anyway,’ I said, to get the subject off my French pronunciation. Or lack thereof.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Yes! I have to write to André!’ said Maxime.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">André is Swiss, and had unwisely commented on LinkedIn
that we could all relax in the knowledge that the Swiss would win. Maxime now wrote
back that at least the Swiss are world champions in train driving.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Train driving?’ I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Yes. When Switzerland hosted the World Cup, in the papers, the
Swiss said they were ‘Weltmeister im Zugfahren.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I guess you can’t argue with that.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No. Especially given all the strikes of the French rail!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: #333333; line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And probably that’s the safest prediction of all: Swiss trains
will arrive on time and French trains will not arrive at all. Oh, and the French will celebrate when the Poms take a pounding.</span></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-44422123070445512012014-06-13T18:49:00.001-07:002014-07-24T19:00:34.161-07:00The MasterChef and the Frog: How Not to Have a French Dinner Party<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">As I said in my last post, my French
husband Maxime often looks over my shoulder when I’m cooking. This, as you can
imagine, is bloody annoying – I feel like I’m being judged on </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><a href="http://tenplay.com.au/channel-ten/masterchef">MasterChef</a>, <a href="http://www.foodnetwork.com/shows/food-network-star.html">Food Network Star</a> or <a href="file:///C:/Users/Stephane/Documents/My%20Kitchen%20Rules%20-%20Official%20Site%20-%20Yahoo!%207%20TV">MKR</a>
- </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">but what is worse, he’s full of ‘helpful’ comments: ‘The
carrot should be cut this way.' 'That’s too thick.' 'Why did you use that cheap wine for the marinade? You must use quality products!’ and so on (and on and on). Being a frog, he just can’t help sticking
his nose in where food’s concerned. And then I threaten to apply a cheesegrater to it.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Early in our relationship,
when we lived in France, I thought I had had found a solution: Maxime could
cook instead!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So one evening when I’d had a
gutful of little over the shoulder comments, I said, ‘Right! It’s your bloody
turn to cook!’ and stormed from the kitchen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I even began to feel wistful
about my ex. We’d had many arguments, but never over how to cut up a carrot. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But the thing is, as painful
as it was to cook for Maxime, I soon deeply regretted suggesting he cook for
me. Maxime is such a perfectionist. He spent hours in the kitchen enlarging my
vocabulary with French swear words as he fretted over not being able to find
the correct spatula. He would cut himself and burn himself, set his nosehairs
on fire and hop around the kitchen screaming. It looked more like a Masai
tribal dance than cooking. We didn’t eat before ten, and this was only pasta,
for crying out loud. But Maxime emerged from the flames all bright eyed and
enthusiastic from the experience. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘I know! Let’s cook <i>together</i>!’
He said. ‘We can cook together every night.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I looked at him in disbelief. ‘Are
you completely insane? I’d knife you after five minutes!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Most of our discussions about
domestic issues and social mores tended to end that way. We weren’t angry so much as
speechless with amazement. When speech returned, it took the form of ‘are you
mad? What planet are you from?’ Or ‘what the hell are you on about?’ And
Maxime’s personal favourite, ‘are you deranged?’<b> </b>He called me mad more often, because I’m more polite. Or more mad.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘But why <i>not</i> cook together?’ Maxime persisted, a bit hurt. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I thought about how to
explain. ‘Well, let’s take a pumpkin. Would you, or would you not, insist on
cutting a pumpkin up into perfectly equally sized cubes?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Of course.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No, <i>not </i>of course!’ (This is another frequent conversional exchange we
have). ‘I wouldn’t. I don’t want to lose
time over a bloody pumpkin!’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Ah,’ Maxime said, imagining with
distress some imperfect pumpkin polygons. ‘I see what you mean.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But what really made me want
to end my life was the thought of cooking for Maximes’s parents, my French
in-laws. I had a sinking feeling this was expected of me, and I was pretty sure
of not coming up to scratch. Not being French and marrying an only son was a
sin I didn’t expect to be forgiven in a hurry</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On the night of my first dinner party with the in-laws, m</span></span>y game-plan was to serve three times the number of dishes so that if two didn’t work, I still had a backup. M<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">y
first salvo was a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarte_flamb%25C3%25A9e" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">tarte
flambée</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">, a wafer thin Alsatian pizza with sour cream, bacon and onions.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It’s nice,’ Maxime said, ‘but
it doesn’t taste like tarte flambée.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hmmm. Nice, but different to the
traditional version. OK, I was on par. I could live with that. I went on to
serve tandoori lamb and coconut rice. They won’t know enough about Asian food
to know if I mess it up, I thought. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I overheard Maxime’s mother
complaining to his Dad that I’d overcooked the rice, thinking I didn’t
understand the French.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘<i>Ça me derange</i>,’ my
mother-in-law said. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was bad enough when I was
deranged, but I had a feeling a deranged mother-in-law was much worse. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">To top it off, on my way back
to the kitchen, Maxime whispered that I put too much food on people’s plates.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘My mother was offended,’ he
said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘She doesn’t have to finish
it! What’s the problem?’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It’s an insult to the host if
you don’t finish your plate,’ Maxime explained. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘What?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘In giving people too much
food, you force them to be rude and leave some,’ he said. ‘You should give a
small amount to start with and re-serve.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> But I wanted to put a lot on the plate to make
sure everyone had enough. ‘Some people feel shy about asking for more,’ I
countered. (Even after Maximes’s explanations, I couldn’t really change. My
brain seemed to be hardwired. It just seemed too stingy to put only a little on
a plate. In the end, Maxime developed a workaround, which was to warn guests
beforehand that they would be getting an ‘Australian portion’). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWnlKJbf6gB96i3oeF3MbZK4mKQ7E2GCWpuE8LpAoO6d-h4KtV4oWYm_vfkJv96F17nltMIcyQSAoPdnHQVvmyOu7UUOgHgxvIYbsGwvyDmNGs_OxkWTXnyT1te1WvjiYJxz3k4mm7SQ8a/s1600/IMG_5048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWnlKJbf6gB96i3oeF3MbZK4mKQ7E2GCWpuE8LpAoO6d-h4KtV4oWYm_vfkJv96F17nltMIcyQSAoPdnHQVvmyOu7UUOgHgxvIYbsGwvyDmNGs_OxkWTXnyT1te1WvjiYJxz3k4mm7SQ8a/s1600/IMG_5048.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Australian portion' of tandoori lamb anyone?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And then there was the
presentation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘There’s not enough white
space on the plates,’ said Maxime. ‘It’s not elegant. It doesn’t look
appetising.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My presentation was not <i>à la Française</i>, it was</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <i>à la</i> rubbish heap. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This was beginning to feel more like a maths exam than
a dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other problem was that in
striving to impress, I tended to trip over my own creativity. Maxime urged me
to keep it simple, to put the product first, letting it sing the melody instead
of drowning it out with a chorus of tandoori spices. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘It’s a matter of balance,’ he said, yogi-like: ‘spicy/bland, crunchy/mushy, carbs/protein, acid/sugar.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Right. Then you put a tiny
smudge on the plate and sculpt it into a replica of the Pietà. Easy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At least the cheese course was
problem free. I’d made Maxime buy the cheese, because he’d know the ‘right’
shop to buy it from, and let them warm to room temperature before serving to
ensure appropriate smelliness. The dessert course went down well too – I had
wisely chosen a summer champagne and fruit soup, something not even I could mess
up. And the alcohol went down a treat by this time, let me tell you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">After about a year of French dinner
party purgatory, I hit upon a marvellous idea to save me from dressing plates
and stressing over serving sizes: I began to serve dinners in communal
platters, so people could serve themselves as much or as little as they chose.
This means that the food isn’t kept warm in the meantime, and I’ve been waiting
for some frog to point this out, but no one has. Woo-hoo!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;">But I still</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">
always make too much food. Which leaves me with the issue of leftovers. The bit
of Scottish heritage I have from my mother's side is not enough generations
distant (and the French heritage several centuries too distant) to allow me to
throw out leftovers. But I live in fear and trepidation of serving them to a
Frenchman, despite the Auld Alliance. The result is that I have to keep them in
the fridge until they are sufficiently inedible for my conscience to allow me
to throw them out. The fridge takes on an appearance sadder than Culloden. Hmm.
I’ll have to figure out a way to disguise leftovers in a pie or something.</span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then I’ll let Maxine cut French sized pieces while I recover from the stress with an Australian sized wine.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="text-align: start;">IF YOU LIKE THIS POST, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE (see email subscription box in the sidebar)</span></span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-47154949916834391122014-06-08T17:17:00.002-07:002014-07-24T19:00:49.163-07:00When Should You Lie To Your Husband?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Is it ever appropriate to lie to your partner? </span></span><br />
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes: when he’s a French
cleaning maniac.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">For instance, when I’m cooking, my French husband Maxime will often appear at my shoulder, and ask me a loaded question such as: 'd</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">id you wash that pot? It doesn't look very clean!' or ‘where did you buy that meat?’ or ‘is it meant
to have that uncooked texture?'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lie, lie, always lie (and then
banish your husband from the kitchen). White lies are your friends. This is my maxim for Maxime, and it helps me to refrain from strangling him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">I learnt the inestimable value of the white lie the (very) hard way, however. I went through years of domestic discord with Maxime in France: there are all sorts of aspects
to cleaning I had been blissfully unaware of until I met him - and they are
all aspects to which he attaches critical importance. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">For instance, Maxime is very particular about the washing, sorting
clothes into five separate piles to be washed at different temperatures and
speeds. I had never heard of anyone doing that before, and in a moment of
madness, I amalgamated two of Maxime’s piles to wash. Worse, when he asked if
that’s what I had done, I was honest and confessed. Oh, the histrionics that
followed! Maxime squawked with outrage and disbelief and flapped his arms as if
he was doing a seagull impression. Then he lectured me extensively about
washing machines (a topic in which I have only minimal interest), every now and
again bursting out with exclamations like ‘I can’t believe you did that!’ and
finally finished with a series of dramatic sighs that would’ve done a Bell Shakespeare actor proud.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Although I have to
say I was not altogether unhappy with the final outcome: I was promptly sacked
as clothes washer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">Nevertheless, it
would have saved a great deal of heartache (and time) if I’d just said ‘of <i>course</i> I washed your five piles of
clothes separately, Maxime.’</span><span lang="EN-AU"> But as I've said, it took me a while to
learn my lesson, and my domestic misery after Washing-machine-gate continued:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">I thought I would
be safe doing the dishes. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">I mean, we have a
dishwasher and I don’t have to wash dishes myself! But no. </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When a piece broke off our salad bowl, I glued it back on and continued to use the bowl as normal – and wash it as normal. One day, Maxime saw me unloading the
dishwasher. The salad bowl was on the bench nearby, looking suspiciously like
it had been recently unloaded.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> 'Did you put the salad bowl in the <i>dishwasher</i>?' Maxime shrieked.</span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Yes,' I said (stupidly). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'No wonder it broke.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'But that’s not how it broke!'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Yes it was. It broke due to
accumulated stress,' said Maxime. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I know how it feels, I thought.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then Maxime gave me a series
of complicated instructions about dishwashers which I would henceforth forget. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But the question I really wish
I’d lied about was when Maxime said, </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">‘Do you know how to
iron?’</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcqneLwrt4sLM_VdvPPkDttrzo3ge2t_yexKF_FfMABEcFJ1y2J4J2_nGNzsTkgkunyJq4A6Appd_h10YsE3yJbB3ngCXmmtLyQux4q-qWyTHuBmGGwMgBgwQIurAgDYVRN6lSwNgVSuk6/s1600/IMG_5047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcqneLwrt4sLM_VdvPPkDttrzo3ge2t_yexKF_FfMABEcFJ1y2J4J2_nGNzsTkgkunyJq4A6Appd_h10YsE3yJbB3ngCXmmtLyQux4q-qWyTHuBmGGwMgBgwQIurAgDYVRN6lSwNgVSuk6/s1600/IMG_5047.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A very contentious object</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">‘Yes,’ I said, and
plunged into a reverie about ironing handkerchiefs while watching the cricket back home in Australia.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'I don’t know how to
iron,’ said Maxime. ‘Could you iron this shirt for me please?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh, OK.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A little while
later, I brought the ironed shirt in to him. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Oh,’ he said
(instead of thank you), and he gave the shirt a puzzled frown. ‘So … for you, that’s ironed?’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I made it clear from
now on he could learn to iron himself or employ an ironing lady, or I would iron his
face. After all, we were both working full time, and I did the cooking, which
thanks to a certain frog was far more work than it needed to be (I'll deal with that issue in another post).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">The cleaning crises
got to the point where a visiting friend said he thought that if we didn’t hire
a cleaning lady, we’d break up. I thought it would be a bit foolish to break
up over a sponge, and so I began to think about it. Especially since Maxime was saying with increasing frequency that 't</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">he house looks like nothing'. Maxime often talks about stuff being invisible. I know by now that if something’s
invisible, it’s bad. I <i>did</i> clean the house of course, but as you can imagine, my
efforts at cleaning were not up to scratch - I used the wrong product with
the wrong sponge on the wrong surface (my crimes were legion). But when Maxime
cleaned anything himself, it would take the whole day, with him emitting more of those angry squawks or
long-suffering sighs. I couldn’t bear it. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Eventually we trialled
a cleaning lady and I thought we were saved. Wrong. After the cleaning lady had finished, Maxime was even fuller of complaints than when <i>I</i> cleaned the house (I
could be seen leaping for joy in the background. I wasn't the worst cleaner in the world after all!). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'I could clean
better myself,' Maxime concluded after a tour of the house. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Yes but you <i>don’t</i>, that’s the point.' I said.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'It seems to me that the
cleaning lady doesn’t have a sense of vocation - she’s not dedicated.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Er, Maxime, how many
people do you think say they want to be a cleaner when they grow up? I hate to
break it to you, but we are not going to find someone with a PhD in cleaning.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus the cleaning lady
solution fell through. But Maxime and I are still together. How did we manage it? Well, for
one, Maxime, due to the sheer exhaustion of having to maintain his level of cleaning
rage has sort of burnt out. He’s lowered his standards and allows me to vacuum. As for me, I learnt the value of the white lie of course. Now if Maxime asks if I
know how to wash cars, for instance, I say no. (It’s remarkable, the number of things I
suddenly don’t know how to clean.) I don’t know how to sew on buttons (actually
that’s true) or darn socks and, if I hadn’t been sacked as clothes washer, I would tell Maxime
that I always <i>always</i> sort the washing
into five piles. The result is that Maxime and I now live in semi-messy
domestic harmony.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Except for the day I
got a particular email from Mum. ‘Maxime’s parents say they do his ironing for him,’
she wrote. ‘They are wondering why you don’t do it?’</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!</i><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">IF YOU LIKE THIS POST, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE (see email subscription box in the sidebar)</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-90771574952665539922014-06-03T14:47:00.001-07:002014-07-16T16:42:58.850-07:00Hollande Causes an Upset<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">It appears Président Hollande has
grand plans for merging regions, such as Alsace with Lorraine (and Champagne-Ardennes too perhaps).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">'Alsace has
nothing in common with Lorraine!' My French husband Maxime cried when he heard. 'Hollande is trying to destroy
our culture!'</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">This is all
salt in a longstanding wound for Maxime: </span><span style="line-height: 24pt;">the rest of France seems not to
understand Alsace very well, from what he says, and nothing is apt to drive him
out of his tree so much as when French politicians lump Alsace together with
Lorraine. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">'It's
because the politicians don't know their history. They think the Germans
occupied Alsace-Lorraine!' Maxime will shout (referring to the German
occupation of 1870-1914). 'It was Alsace-<i>Moselle</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>that was occupied, not Lorraine!'</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">The first time Maxime shouted this, I rather cluelessly said, 'Isn’t Moselle in Germany?'<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">(And he still married me despite this!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">'Moselle is a<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>département</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>of Lorraine. But the rest of the
Lorraine was not occupied,’ he explained.<u1:p></u1:p><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">To be honest, (which I luckily wasn’t), as an Australian, I
was still coming to terms with the fact that Lorraine was a place and not just
a quiche.You would think that the Moselle was a purely French river from the
way Maxime spoke of it. I subsequently rushed to Wikipedia just to check that
The Moselle River flows into Germany too. It does, of course, and many fine Rieslings are
made there, but for the sake of domestic harmony we try not to mention this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">And what is worse about this whole merging
of regions is that Maxime suspects Hollande of wanting to copy the <i>Germans</i>.
Like many Alsatians, Maxime is rather sensitive about the German thing: t</span><span lang="EN-US">he
history of the Alsace is perhaps best summed up in the joke by the Alsatian
cartoonist Tomi Ungerer:</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">Q. Why is Alsace like a toilet?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">A. It’s always occupied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%;">The history of the region is often sad. Alsace was decimated
during the thirty years war, and in 1870, it was the Prussians’ turn to invade.
They didn’t quite see themselves as invading though. On entering Alsace, they
assumed they would be welcomed as liberators by their 'German' brothers. The
Alsatians unfortunately didn’t share this point of view: the people of
Alsace may not have been French for long (since Louis XIV or Napoleon’s time
depending on the town), but they weren’t German either. They were Alsatian,
having previously been largely independent as part of the loosely bound hotch
potch that was the Holy Roman Empire. The Germans kept at it and forbade the
speaking of French, and forced the Alsatians to fight as Germans in the wars. These
soldiers were called the ‘<i>malgré nous’</i>, fighting the Allies ‘despite
ourselves’, since it was made clear to them that their family back home would
suffer if they did not comply.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">So you can
imagine how incensed Maxime gets when the French, even worse than lumping
Alsace in with Lorraine, lump them in with Germany! </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">The French
misunderstanding of Alsace was illustrated to me by a Vietnamese lady we met
when we were living in France, who told us how she’d come to Paris as a
refugee. Trouble was, she didn’t warm to Paris. Being from the country,
she wanted to seek out a more pastoral corner of France, and putting her finger
randomly on a map of France, she hit Colmar, capital of Southern Alsace.</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">'Oh la la!'
the Parisians had cried, 'you can’t go there! They don’t speak French!'</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">'That’s OK,'
she replied, 'neither do I!'</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">
</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">A couple of
weeks later, she got off the train to find she had debunked a Parisian myth -
the Alsatians all addressed her in French. Oops. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit;">Perhaps it's best not to ask Hollande what language he thinks they speak in Alsace while Maxime is in earshot - just in case!</span></div>
The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5634746121636492757.post-39841384605743673742014-06-01T18:41:00.000-07:002014-07-24T19:01:06.427-07:00What Does a Frenchman Love More Than Wine and Cheese?<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">So, w</span><span style="line-height: 32px;">hat <i>does </i>a Frenchman love more than wine and cheese?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">French. Yep, a Frenchman literally loves to hear himself speak. Which is all very well - the problems set in when he hears someone</span><i style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> else</i><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> speak French.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">On Saturday night, I watched a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spicks_and_Specks_(TV_series)" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">Spicks and Specks</a><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> rerun with our daughter Chloé, who is 9 years old and a native French speaker. We'd have a nice, peaceful evening in front of the telly, I thought. Wrongly.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Who wrote the
music for the opera </span></span><span style="line-height: 200%;">“</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Carmen</span></span><span style="line-height: 200%;">”</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">?’ asked quiz host Adam Hills.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Bizet,’ someone probably famous replied.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Georges Bizet,’ confirmed Adam Hills.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Chloé was
incensed: '</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">They got it
wrong!'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'No they didn’t,' I
said<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Yes they did,
Mummy! Adam Hills said it wrong! That’s not the answer. He didn’t say it
properly.’</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU">Chloé was gesticulating at the TV in a small person version of Gallic outrage. ‘It’s Georges Bizet!’ she cried, saying Georges with a big and throaty ‘r’.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Oh for goodness' sake, you're as bad as your bloody dad!' I laughed. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">I don't usually refer to my French husband Maxime as 'bloody', but I did have some reason to feel a bit miffed with him. Earlier that day, I'd gotten an email from the conductor of a choir I'm in, asking if I could make a recording of the lyrics of some French songs we’d be singing, so that the other choir members could hear the correct pronunciation. Hmm, I thought. I <i>do</i> speak French, but was it good enough? I sought out Maxime.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘I’m not sure about this,’ I said to him. ‘I mean, my pronunciation isn’t the best.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US">(My 'r's are not so much rolled as stationary.)</span><span lang="EN-AU"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Oh yes, your pronunciation is <i>terrible</i>!’ said Maxime. ‘I don’t understand why it’s so bad.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU">Ouch. Why do Frenchmen have to be so bloody honest? (I’ll tackle <i>this</i> issue in my next post.) Well, at least things were clear: Maxime would do the recording of the French for the choir instead of me. I rang the conductor and told her.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">‘But you don’t need to bother your husband. I’m sure you’ll do it fine,’ said the conductor.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Well, it's just that Maxime thinks I might not do it up to his standards. It’s better if he does it. Otherwise, when he sees the concert – ’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Ah! He’ll say it wasn’t up to scratch and it’ll be your fault!’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU">‘Exactly!’<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-AU">He would have seen me as the perpetrator of an <i>en masse</i>, public mauling of his beloved language.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-AU"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkIMhm1EToVPl89wIdyDZUw_iaPaib351YtH4RnZh_zgKvieBTd6BQR7B6CoMMghLXlbmm4AbRyhTzfXXnYapOa5HmKVC-P7BvRmhoaYbfFsYi39YUaYpgWtNLaKwTuon2P2a9HBWMTWz/s1600/IMG_4993.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpkIMhm1EToVPl89wIdyDZUw_iaPaib351YtH4RnZh_zgKvieBTd6BQR7B6CoMMghLXlbmm4AbRyhTzfXXnYapOa5HmKVC-P7BvRmhoaYbfFsYi39YUaYpgWtNLaKwTuon2P2a9HBWMTWz/s1600/IMG_4993.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">At least I can pronounce half of this book ...</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-AU">So the lyrics issue was sorted. And even if Maxime was harsh, at least Chloé hasn't criticised my French yet - she seems to save that for other people (and TV personalities). </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">In fact it’s
really not advisable to try out your rusty French on our French kids. When visitors do try, the kids usually burst out laughing, much to the surprise and bruised
pride of the visitor.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘Well, I didn’t
think I was <i>that </i>bad,’ said a rather miffed Aunt on one such occasion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">On another day, a friend foolishly said
something about an ‘<i>arbre vert</i>’, beaming with pride at having fished out the
words for ‘green tree’ from a dusty corner of his memory. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">‘No, no!’ said Chloé.
‘Not <i>Abwe vair. Arrrrbrrrre vairrrrrrr.</i>’ </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">The friend was then made to practice saying ‘<i>arbre vert</i>’ until Chloé finally ran out of patience. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">‘You’re still not saying it right. You must
say the French </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">“r</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">”</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">. Not the English one. The </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">“r</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">”</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> in English is pronounced </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">“</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">w</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">”</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">,' Chloé informed our friend, who was beginning to look very confused. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">(Our flimsy Australian 'r's
sound like 'w's to Chloé. It took me an age to get Chloe to say three instead of
fwee. 'Come on, Chloé, you can say '</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">“r</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">”</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">,' I'd said. '<i>I'm</i> the one who can't say </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">“r</span><span style="line-height: 200%;">”</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">!' Now Chloé says thrrrrrrrrrrrrrree.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The French believe
in speaking languages with absolute correctness. Which, incidentally, is why they
don’t like speaking other languages. </span></span><span style="line-height: 200%;">(See</span><span style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><i style="line-height: 200%;"><a href="http://www.slate.fr/story/68577/francais-nuls-anglais">'Les Français sont vraiment nul en anglais'</a></i><span style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><span style="line-height: 200%;">The French are Really Bad at English).</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> They want to be able to do it well, or not
at all.</span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;"> This also means that Maxime has been quite stressed over the kids’
French, and whether it will deteriorate now we’re in Australia. ‘I want the
kids to speak correct French. I don’t want them to be laughed at,’ he says.
Hmm, so it’s normal for the French to laugh at people for messing up French
then? I only got laughed at the once when we lived in France, and I had thought that the
bloke who had laughed at me was rude (and annoying). Maybe he was normal? </span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%;">I’d been applying for French citizenship, and a flunky behind a desk called me in to see him. As we went through my
application, my accent and choice of words amused the guy no end. He would
repeat them to himself and giggle. He even called his secretary in for a listen,
for God’s sake. I should do shows, I thought.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-AU">When I actually
got granted French citizenship, I felt like such a fraud. And I sounded it too.
Not good when you’re stopped by the police for cutting a corner while driving:</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">'Your
documents, please,' the police asked me, in French.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I
started extracting cards from my bag: </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">'Oops, not that one, oops, not that ...'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">The <i>gendarmes</i> regarded me with curiosity as cards of various hues and nationalities flicked
before their eyes.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">'<i>Voilà</i>,' I said finally and handed over my ID.</span><br />
<span lang="FR-CH" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="FR-CH" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">'<i>Vous-</i></span><span lang="FR-CH" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><i>ê</i></span><span lang="FR-CH" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><i>tes Australienne, Madame</i>?'</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">'<i>Oui.</i> Oh wait - <i>et Française</i>.'</span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">'<i>Française?!</i>' </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">(With <i>that </i>accent?
I could see them thinking.)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 200%; text-indent: 35.4pt;">Oh no, they’re going to revoke my citizenship because I speak crap French! I thought. But they didn’t revoke it. They even let me go
with just a warning. Although, now I come to think of it … they laughed.</span><br />
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The Frog Companionhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03096282919153213909noreply@blogger.com0