La Vie en Rose (Macarons)

I just got back from seeing “Julie and Julia.” As a self-professed foodie of a certain age, how could I not? The film provoked many questions, like

-How did low level diplomats get such fab Parisian lodging?

--Why does a dinner party in 1950s Paris--with wasp-waisted women and sharply suited men swilling martinis and taking drags on cigarettes-- look so damned appealing?

---Where are the loving, incredibly supportive (indulgent, doting) men of food-obsessed women to be found? (Sign Me Up!)

----What kind of blogs and bloggers get book deals???

Mostly, though, the film took me back to the beginnings of my own love affair with French food.

The first restaurant meal I can remember was at a French (or, in those days, Continental) restaurant where I downed an entire plate of escargot. This was at age two and a half. My first proper cookbook was not Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking but a slim volume on French food that was part of a series on world cuisines. I loved making the crème caramel recipe and, as a pre-teen cook, it quickly became my “signature” dish. (I had looked at the Italian volume but it didn’t speak to me they way the recipes in that French volume did; those recipes alchemically transformed eggs and cream into unctuous manifestations of the lick-the-plate divine.) By age 10, my favorite cheese was Camembert. My sister would curl her nostrils when I took it out of its box and tell me it smelled like “death,” but, then again, her favorite cheese was Velveeta.

By the time junior high rolled around, I knew I had to take French rather than Spanish language class. I endured three years with M. Summer-- an oversized Hercule Poirot, his chubby nail-bitten fingers methodically combing his 70’s ‘stache as he thought of how best to insult you for your ‘ideous pronunciation or stupid! ridiculous! grammatical mistake. But I endured that soul-squashing language teacher because I knew that, one day, I would speak my language of love: the language of la cuisine francaise.

My parents, as with all things gastronomical in my life, are to blame for this obsession with French food. We didn’t have much money when I was younger and as I got older it came in great hailstorms punctuated by long droughts. No matter what, my parents spent their disposable income on going out to eat. We went almost exclusively to French restaurants. I cannot remember the restaurant’s name but I do remember a place in the eastern SF Valley, its exterior painted with the tri-color scenes of Paris, and driving back happily sated in the warm night air of an LA summer. (That my father had a 1959 white convertible T-bird that we drove slowly down "The Boulevard"—a.k.a. Ventura Blvd, the main artery of the San Fernando Valley—is a good part of the memory as well). Then there was René’s and the Seashell and, later, La Serre. At René’s I was introduced to pâté au compagne and those gorgeous, addictive pommes soufflés—airy and crisp and salty. At the Seashell, I ordered fish--which I never ate at home or anywhere else, because it was bathed in butter and sometimes butter, cream, AND shrimp. At La Serre, I always started with the Feuilleté aux Quatres Champignons (and so my love of morels began). Somewhere I was introduced to Oeufs à la Neige. Clearly I was child cream addict. Beyond that, though, is what I really loved about French food: its ability to balance in perfect Taoist contradiction the extremes--rustic and earthy was also refined; luxurious was also delicate; simple was complex.

I finally made it to France at age 36 or 37. It did not disappoint. The apple pastry from Poilane, its crust so rich in butter that the paper bag was soon stained with a Rorshach of ecstasy. At the gilded Laduree, the sublimely delicate rose macaron filled with rose ice cream. In Normandy, the vergers and their simply perfect farm lunches of duck rilletes, goat cheese, salad, and cidre. And, of course, there was the CHEESE. (Next up will be a blog-ode to Vacherin de Mont D'Or!) In Dijon, at Restaurant Jean-Paul Thibert, I had the most memorable meal of my life: a 12 course culinary narrative that lasted four and a half hours. On my return to Paris, I immediately called my mother to tell her about the meal, mouthful by surprising mouthful. I knew she would understand my giddy reverie.

Perhaps I will make it to France next year. I hope so. Almost as good is that my son heads out to France next week for a four month stay in Lyon. I cannot wait for that "guess-what-I-just-ate?!"phone call.