Saturday, November 22, 2003

He Said, She Said - how we found a great new restaurant He said, She said, or . . .       How we ended up in the wrong restaurant and still had a great time!   Paul and I have several loosely defined roles on this trip, two of which are:  I make the suggestions for where we might go and/or have dinner on any given night, and he maps out our route.   This is a pretty good arrangement and has worked amazingly well.  There are times however, when we don’t get it quite right!    Last Thursday was a prime example.  I had suggested we go to a restaurant called “Henry IV” which we had passed on our way home from the Latin Quarter some time ago and Paul had looked up in Zagat’s and found it to have a great review.  He gave me the number, I made the reservation and on the night in question, we headed off.    Now, one would think that with the address and map in hand, finding our way, would be pretty straight forward!  Wrong!  These two directionally challenged individuals - one with the address and map, the other with a notion that she remembered where the restaurant was - argued over the route we were taking and came close to missing our reservation.   Our trip started out right. But then we started to go in what, I felt was the wrong direction. It was taking us away from where I thought we had seen the restaurant.  Paul was determined he was going in the right direction, but agreed that it didn’t seem right either.  I became fixated on heading my way, and he on his—in opposite directions!  We stopped a woman to ask for help. She didn’t know the restaurant but knew where the address was. Armed with this “confirmation”, Paul (he’s bigger than me), stopped arguing and just took me by the sleeve and away we went – the woman followed to make sure we didn’t get lost.  I ‘harrumphed’ and indignantly went along to the restaurant whose address we had , “Chez Henry ” - NOT Henry IV!    This story has a happy ending because the restaurant turned out to be a Great Find!  It was small, local with not a tourist in sight.   In addition, this was the day of the introduction of Beaujolais Nouveau and to honour the occasion, there was live music in the form of an accordionist.    Our meal by the way was outstanding—our first beef since arriving and it couldn’t have been better.  Paul started with frog’s legs and I with a rabbit terrine, followed by chateaubriand and concluded with a mousse au chocolate and Tart Tatin (apple tart).  We’ll be back!      A bientôt, CDF/22/Nov./03   Moulin à Vent "Chez Henri" (Au) 19 12 17 €60 5ème arrondissement 20, rue des Fossés St-Bernard (Jussieu) Paris 014 3549937 "A kingdom of copper and Châteaubriand" sums up this well-liked, pot-adorned spot, known for "exceptional meat", "sautéed frogs' legs" and other "Classic French dishes" offered by "adorable servers"; the stingy snap "you can find as good for less money elsewhere", but for most, this "bistro experience of yesteryear" "should be protected."   2:03:52 PM    comment []

Some thoughts on living in Paris vs the US   Copyright ? 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Stay or go home? On each side there's an answer of 'Yes, but' Jim Peterson IHT Saturday, November 22, 2003   PARIS We are an American expatriate family who chose three years ago to stay in France at the end of the corporate assignment that brought us here. It's now time to face an annual dilemma: Is it time to go home? Or shall we re-up? The initial answer seems pretty brainless: What are we doing still here? We regularly receive security alerts from the U.S. Embassy, so for safety's sake we take the extra peek over our shoulders. On account of our taste in wines and the occasional frites, sectors of the American media excoriate our virtually traitorous support of "old Europe." On the financial side, the purchasing power of our dollars has fallen by more than 20 percent in the last year. And under the last U.S. tax bill, American expatriates were threatened with the loss of their tax break on the first sizable chunk of income earned abroad - one of the few sources of relief from the heavy imposts of two countries' taxation systems. In short, the only sensible strategy should involve movers, packing cartons and return tickets. And yet . . . This morning I walked our daughter to her bilingual school. I am writing these notes on the sunny terrace of the corner caf?And somehow I don't feel so sure. Julie has gaps in her American history and state capitals. But her school class of 14 students is a rainbow of 11 nationalities, kids who learn together gracefully and with seamless transitions among their languages of choice. She identifies as a highlight of life in Europe the chances for exploration. She has traveled the alphabet from Amsterdam and Antwerp to Zermatt and Zurich, where she can knowledgeably compare not only the major landmarks but also the quality of room service and the cartoon cable channels in the hotels. She cheers for the soccer played by les Bleus and knows a lot about red cards and golden goals - but none of the nuances of baseball's infield fly rule. Still, last summer while visiting the United States, she made a specific request to spend an afternoon at Wrigley Field. There are a host of influences that pull us in opposing directions: It matters that I can bring our pet Westie on the morning rounds. In the caf?he collects croissant crumbs and greets her other pals with their own humans, and she will walk with me through the shops and errands on the way home. Because Paris is not New York, the local dogs still foul our sidewalks. Yet daily sweeping and garbage removal keep the city well-tended. It matters that in the twice-weekly farmers' market on our street, the fruit merchant will select a melon or an avocado of particular ripeness depending on whether I want it for today or tomorrow. For freshness of our bread, we go to the bakery at 6 p.m., rather than at noon. I maintain our wine stock through weekend jaunts to Burgundy, straight to the tiny plots and tasting rooms of the individual growers, who offer their premier crus at prices unburdened by the rhetorical excesses of the glossy magazines. After years of futility, I have simply given up on repairs to a broken shutter in our living room. I simply tie it open with an old shoestring. But even if I can't book a maintenance man, our family doctor does make house calls. The effect on French unemployment of the 35-hour work week is hotly debated, and under its fractured labor relations, the start of any holiday trip may be held hostage to yet another transport strike. But the French commitment to leisure time contributes to both professional renewal and family cohesion. In America the idea of an extended annual vacation nearly amounts to employer betrayal, while in France, every employee has five weeks of vacation and a dozen paid holidays - and takes them all. I am not a naive apologist. It is romantic to stroll the lavender lanes of Provence in July, but Americans used to customer service may argue that French town halls operate under the slogan, "It's not my fault." In a culture both well-informed and eager to debate, we are challenged by differing French-American positions on everything from NATO to genetically modified foods. But within two days of Sept. 11, we had a handwritten note from our landlady, expressing her sympathy for us as affected Americans. And it is a certain antidote for the local passions about Iraq to walk between the rows of crosses in the American cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach.As a French friend observed after visiting the United States, in the French markets you can choose from 200 kinds of cheese but only three brands of breakfast food. In an American supermarket, it's just the reverse. At my regular fish restaurant down near the Seine, my waiter does not insist on an intimate first-name relationship. He does his job as a professional, flawlessly filleting a grilled sole and he is not in between acting jobs. True, In a French caf?ou can't get a Starbucks. And you may literally rub elbows with your neighbor, who may well be a smoker. Yet your privacy will be respected absolutely, and the noise level will not intrude (at least not by the French themselves; tourists in white sneakers are another matter). For the price of one caf?xpress, you have effectively leased your table for the entire morning. And in exchange for a smile and a little outreach, the quality of welcome and service is seen in a friend's recent caf?xperience: Friend: "Could I have an ashtray, please?" Waiter: "Well, here on the terrace, our customers usually just put their ashes on the ground." Friend, Pointing under the table at her new beagle, "No, it's for my dog." Waiter: "What? Your dog is a smoker?" Friend: "No. It's for water." Waiter: "Huh! You'd put water for your dog in an ashtray? Wait!" Whereupon instantly appeared a branded porcelain water dish, for the satisfaction of a thirsty puppy. With all its drawbacks, with the impending gloom and damp of winter and the strikes and the politics, you could vote to live for quite a while in a country so inspired. Jim Peterson's biweekly column, Balance Sheet, appears in the IHT's Money Report. His email address is jrpllc@aol.com. Copyright ? 2003 The International Herald Tribune   6:23:50 AM    comment []

Scientific proof of my folding gene theory   Copyright ? 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Dave Barry: True fact: guys' brains really are different Dave Barry Miami Herald Saturday, November 22, 2003   Miam I like to think that I am a modest person. (I also like to think that I look like Brad Pitt naked, but that is not the issue here.) There comes a time, however, when a person must toot his own personal horn, and for me, that time is now. A new book has confirmed a theory that I first proposed in 1987, in a column explaining why men are physically unqualified to do housework. The problem, I argued, is that men - because of a tragic genetic flaw - cannot see dirt until there is enough of it to support agriculture. This puts men at a huge disadvantage against women, who can detect a single dirt molecule 20 feet away. This is why a man and a woman can both be looking at the same bathroom commode, and the man - hindered by Male Genetic Dirt Blindness (MGDB) - will perceive the commode surface as being clean enough for heart surgery or even meat slicing, whereas the woman can?t even ??see?? the commode, only a teeming, commode-shaped swarm of bacteria. A woman can spend two hours cleaning a toothbrush holder and still not be totally satisfied; whereas if you ask a man to clean the entire New York City subway system, he?ll go down there with a bottle of Windex and a single paper towel, then emerge 25 minutes later, weary but satisfied with a job well done. When I wrote about Male Genetic Dirt Blindness, many irate readers complained that I was engaging in sexist stereotyping, as well as making lame excuses for the fact that men are lazy pigs. All of these irate readers belonged to a gender that I will not identify here, other than to say: Guess what, ladies? There is now scientific proof that I was right. This proof appears in a new book titled "What Could He Be Thinking? How a Man's Mind Really Works." I have not personally read this book, because, as a journalist, I am too busy writing about it. But according to an article by Reuters, the book states that a man's brain "takes in less sensory detail than a woman's, so he doesn't see or even feel the dust and household mess in the same way." Got that? We can?t see or feel the mess! We?re like: "What snow tires in the dining room? Oh, 'those' snow tires in the dining room." And this is only one of the differences between men?s and women?s brains. Another difference involves a brain part called the ??cingulate gyrus,?? which is the sector where emotions are located. The Reuters article does not describe the cingulate gyrus, but presumably in women it is a structure the size of a mature cantaloupe, containing a vast quantity of complex, endlessly recalibrated emotional data involving hundreds, perhaps thousands of human relationships; whereas in men it is basically a cashew filled with NFL highlights. In any event, it turns out that women?s brains secrete more of the chemicals ??oxytocin?? and ??serotonin,?? which, according to biologists, cause humans to feel they have an inadequate supply of shoes. No, seriously, these chemicals cause humans to want to bond with other humans, which is why women like to share their feelings. Some women (and here I am referring to my wife) can share as many as three days' worth of feelings about an event that took eight seconds to actually happen. We men, on the other hand, are reluctant to share our feelings, in large part because we often don't have any. Really. Ask any guy: A lot of the time, when we look like we're thinking, we just have this low-level humming sound in our brains. That's why, in male-female conversations, the male part often consists entirely of him going "hmmmm" This frustrates the woman, who wants to know what he?s really thinking. In fact, what he's thinking is, literally, "hmmmm". So anyway, according to the Reuters article, when a man, instead of sharing feelings with his mate, chooses to lie on the sofa, holding the remote control and monitoring 750 television programs simultaneously by changing the channel every one-half second (pausing slightly longer for programs that feature touchdowns, fighting, shooting, car crashes or bosoms) his mate should "not" come to the mistaken conclusion that he is an insensitive jerk. In fact, he is responding to scientific biological brain chemicals that require him to behave this way for scientific reasons, as detailed in the scientific book "What Could He Be Thinking? How a Man's Mind Really Works," which I frankly cannot recommend highly enough. In conclusion, no "way" was that pass interference. Copyright ? 2003 The International Herald Tribune   6:05:01 AM    comment []

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