Friday Night Date~Table For One

Friday night has often been a special night for me, a night of dining, dancing and relaxing~with myself as the beloved focus of my attention. Eating the evening meal alone can be seen as a sad thing in American culture, an indication that one is unattractive to the opposite sex, a nuisance to ones friends, or even worse, a social pariah to ones family. In America, if one eats alone, particularly on a weekend evening, then the unlucky diner is to be pitied and heads shaken mournfully when discussing their plight. It is not so in France, and having grown up in a home with strong French roots, it was not so in our household. Once my sister and I were grown and left school behind, my parents assumed we would exercise the self-sufficiency we had been trained to value. There were no hovering visits or worried phone calls as to whether we were eating properly, or even if we were eating at all. My parents were certain that they had raised competent adults, full capable of shopping for and cooking a satisfying and tasty meal at the end of the work day.

Standing in my Mother's kitchen and watching her prepare food was one of my favorite things to do as a child. It was a daily event that was as natural to her as breathing and she rarely used written recipes for the foods that were part of her weekly repetoire. Small portions of roast meat or fish appeared on our plates several times during a week, along with ladles full of steaming, perfectly cooked vegetables and home made breads with lots of butter. From Friday to Sunday, the meals became more festive, with cooking shared by both my Mother and Father. My Father did not barbecue, a type of meal so foreign to our family's palette and a masculine affectation so amusing to my Father's sensibilities that I never even knew what 'grilled' tasted like until my twenties. On Sunday mornings, my Father would begin to create breakfast about 9:00 a.m, letting my Mother sleep and groom as long as she wished before greeting her romping children. As easily as my Mother allowed observation and participation in her daily meal preparation, my Father did not. Our home became his grand restaurant, and as its owner and Chef, he chose to keep his techniques and recipes a secret, allowing no one to enter the kitchen once his process began. Of only one thing could we be sure as we waited patiently for the food to be placed on the table~there would be several dishes, and each of them would be delicious. Having grown up on a farm, my Father's breakfasts always contained lots of eggs and cheese, pork and potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, onions, and herbs, combined into tasty forms, and served along with fresh fruits, breads, and milk. Once seated at the table, my Mother would turn her head ever so slightly, look up at him from under her lavish dark lashes and smile. Cooing contentedly, she would pick appreciatively at her plate, sliding the food around expertly so my Father would not notice how little she actually ate. My Father adored her and always pretended not to notice, and when he saw his daughters perform the same charming ritual with their plates, he simply winked and continued to eat.
My Mother's idea of breakfast, much like my own, was a huge mug of hot, dark sweetened liquid and a small roll and a yogurt or a bagel and thinly sliced cheese, thoughtfully swallowed and chewed over a couple of hours while reading mail or newspapers. My Father worked late several nights a week, so my sister and I supped early in the evening and were allowed to carry our plates to our rooms to read or outside into the garden if we wished to enjoy the night breezes. My Mother would wait to dine with my Father, and not long after I was tucked into my little bed with a kiss and a gentle pat, I would hear the sounds of their low, murmuring voices and soft laughter filtering through the cracks around my closed bedroom door, cherishing their private time as lovers do. On the rare occasion my Father had to go out of town, my Mother would follow the normal evening meal routine with her children and invariably choose to dine alone, seemingly with the same pleasure as she did when my Father was present. When arising in the morning, I would see her single wine glass, cutlery and dinner plate washed and dried in the dish rack near the sink, and a novel lying open on the kitchen table. She appeared rested and was smiling as she greeted me, ready to brush my hair and help me dress for school.

One of the wonderful recipes my Mother prepared for her evening of dining pleasure was a dish called Potatoes Dauphinois. Whenever my sister and I saw her come home from the market with a chunk of fresh Gruyere and a bottle of cream, we knew that her delicious potatoes were going to be on the menu that evening. The smell of the potatoes baking was so heady that my sister and I would find ourselves dancing around giddily while the pan cooked, waiting impatiently for the amazing taste of the steaming creamy layers of potatoes and cheese to fill our mouths. The crisp and slightly bitter green salad covered with chopped hard boiled egg and tomatoes my Mother served with them were the perfect pairing to our minds. I prepare these potatoes and a salad in my Mother's memory on many of my single celebratory Friday evenings and lift a glass to her photograph as I read my own spicy novel. Bon Appetit!

GRATIN DAUPHINOIS
3 Tbsp butter, melted
2 lbs baking potatoes (about 6 potatoes), peeled and cut into slices 1/8" inch thick
1 clove garlic, finely minced
1 cup shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese
1 cup half-and-half or milk, heated but not boiled
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Brush a 11" x 8" baking pan or gratin dish (with at least 2" depth on the sides) with 1 Tbsp of the melted butter. Layer half of the potatoes in the dish. Sprinkle with half of the remaining butter, half the garlic and salt and pepper, and half of the cheese. Repeat the layering. Pour the heated milk or cream over the top of the layered potatoes. Let stand for 2 minutes.
Place in the preheated oven for approximately 45 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the potatoes are tender. Serve immediately.

Summer In The City, 105 Degrees & A Sea of Legs

I love the Sun, let me make that clear. I like to look at it through my dark, dark lenses and from under my big hat brim, and I love to feel its warmth on my calves and feet. Having a love-hate relationship with the Sun is the way of the Francophile. Our milky skin is seemingly genetically paired with an inherent boredom with the monotiny of bright blue days that stretch beyond the week of our yearly vacation. We French are even willing to travel to see that glowing orb and feel its warmth on coastal beaches for a few hours during that week of relaxation. It is, after all, the divine Brigitte Bardot that made iconic the bikini swimsuit and St. Tropez.

Living in the desert Southwest has been a cultural shock of the highest order for me. More than the endlessly repetitive blue sunny days, more than the relentless sunrays which bleach the very color out of the fabric of the pillows on my patio in less than one season, more than the need to close my office drapes by 8:30 a.m. to see my computer monitor as it is obliterated by the cornea-boiling brilliance engulfing my windows, it is what I view through those dark, dark glasses when I do venture out into the youth-sucking heat which is creating discomfort for me. I find myself horrified and hypnotized by a sea of human legs, legs of all shapes, sizes and colors; from toddlers to wizened elders. Day and evening, this sea of legs rolls over the landscape of the city in a seemingly never-ending wave. These legs poke out from the bottoms of baggy shorts, hip creasing bikini bottoms, camel-toed Daisy Dukes, and poly stretch capri pants that have expanded beyond the limits of the thread's containment factor. Men and women, seemingly unaware of the visual assault to the eyes of the world these legs comprise, strut and stroll, perch and chat, jog and pound, lean seductively in pairs; mince with leashed dogs and strain to push overloaded grocery carts through the wavy heated haze reflecting off of the asphalt parking lot. All the while, a French woman smooths the skirt of her 1950s sundress as she carefully sits down on a bench amid this arid tableau and reminds herself over and over again to eat her yogurt and not to stare, but to pull down the brim of her floppy hat and masquerade her reactions to these shocking observations with her dark, dark lenses.

There is no river, natural lake or ocean here, propelling the parched desert dwellers to assauge their need for cool, sparkling wetness with swimming pools, large and small, filling nearly every backyard space of every home in the Valley. From paddle pools to kidney-shaped wonders of Olympian proportions, replete with cascading waterfalls and gurgling fountains, these Sun-dazed residents make an attempt en masse to cool the fire in the sky with chemically-treated 'cement ponds'. Spending long afternoons jointly lounging and dangling and splashing, stroking and slurping through the endless hours before sunset, the need to change clothing for that quick trip to the convenience store for beverages, to see a film and shop, or to dine at the local trattoria or seafood restaurant, for example, seem to have been permanently burned out of their brains. Slovenliness has morphed into the new 'casualness' and those of us with memories of more civilized times, the days when men and women paid close attention to even their weekend wear are left to weep and wander through the streets incognito, 'disguised' in what would have once been viewed as simply appropriate and well-groomed.

Having successfully moved through the sea of legs without having drowned in their dissonance , I return home, pour myself a glass of Chardonnay, and content myself with the act of sitting down at the small table in my pool-less back yard and lifting my glass to that blazing ball of light as it sinks below the horizon...

The Awakening Of Sweet Coquette

My most vibrant memories of my childhood are of the time spent sitting at my Mother's vanity, tentatively touching her precious treasures~her gilded hair brush and comb, lavender 1940s musical powder box wreathed in faux pearls, Avon perfume bottles in flowery scents, golden tubes of crimson lipstick..For me, each item was embued with the powerful magic of transformation, promising to turn me into a mysterious, beautiful and sensuous beauty like her. No matter how busy her day, my Mother always exuded that inherent cool chic that French women seem to effortlessly display. Slim, toned and sleekly coiffed, she would slip into her little black sheath dress, wind strands of shimmering pearls around her neck, and add peep toe pumps and a matching reptile bag. Voila! She was ready to go to the market to buy fresh ingredients for our dinner, stopping at the local butcher and bakery for delicious sausages and freshly baked bread as I trailed at her heels. As she spoke to the shop owners, I clung to her leg, my little head barely visible under the hem of her skirt, feeling the security of her smooth flesh under my hand. At that moment, I awoke to the amazing effect a tilted head, slightly lowered eyes, and a smiling backward glance had on people~the doors it opened, the bargains it obtained, and the appreciative sighs it elicited. I slip into my Mother's old shoes and linen sheath and suddenly I am invincible, filled with confidence and certainty that I can conquer the world, or at least my day, with style and chic~just as she did.