“Hi, I’m Steve. I’m a bookaholic.”
“Hi, Steve!”
I suspect that’s how my 12 step program would go if I ever sought treatment for my disease. My sweet wife of 23 years would have to go to treatment with me, or it would never work out. She’s more addicted to books than I am, and that’s saying something. We have the “100 greatest books ever written” series, the Harvard Classics series, scads of theological and historical volumes, novels, guide books, how-to books, and books about books (How to Read the Classics, How to Read a Poem, How to Read a Book, How to Study the Bible, etc).
The disease has followed us here: I thought that, since we don’t read French very well and most of the books found around here are in French, we wouldn’t be tempted to buy any books here. The current count, at the halfway point of our visit, stands at 15 books, all but one in French. Ouch! Our suitcases were not that far from the 50 pound limit when we left the States, and now they are sure to be over. Beth cheerily notes that we only brought 3 suitcases and are allowed 4, and she conveniently bought a large zippered bag on one of our many shopping outings, so we have something to stuff books and coats into (shopping sprees: see previous blogs).
To be sure, our French teacher Marguerite is to blame for some of our splurge, since she assigned us a book to work from when we started our lessons. But that’s only one measly book, not 15. The rest happened when we went to get the one assigned to us, and we saw all kinds of other cool books in Gibert Joseph, the big bookseller near the Sorbonne University on the Rive Gauche.
There’s no question that it’s easier for an Anglophone (that’s an English speaker) to read French that it is to understand spoken French. We have been surprised at how well we can read these books (many are on how to learn French, so I suspect they are dumbed down for us debutants), but we’ve been even more surprised to realize that we can read the newspaper, magazines, advertisements, movie posters (“Le diable s’habille en Prada” starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway), and most important of all, French menus.
Last year was a big adventure in the restaurants and cafes because, while I could read some French at that time, the menu at a restaurant has a lot of specialized words for ways of cooking things, as well as the names of different types of meats, poultry, fish, vegetables, and spices. I used to just order the special of the day without even knowing what it was. I did this first, because I didn’t want to ask what everything on the whole menu was. Second, because even if I did, the waiter’s command of English was quite variable:
“What’s this?”
“Poisson.”
“What’s that?”
“Feesh.”
“What kind of fish?”
“Rouget.”
“What’s that?”
“Feesh.”
“What does it look like?”
“Eet eez white. Eet eez veruh goood.”
“Fine, I’ll take it whatever it is.”
Third, the special is usually the freshest, best, and least expensive item on the menu, and whatever it is, you’ll probably like it.
That system broke down today, and it was only by learning to read French with all these books we are hauling around that I averted disaster. We moved from our hotel in the Marais, Caron de Beaumarchais, to an equally lovely Hotel Saint Paul Rive Gauche in the St. Germain des Pres quarter on, you guessed it, the Rive Gauche (the left bank). There’s an old restaurant Le Polidor (it actually dates back to the mid-19th century) two doors down from our new hotel on rue Monsieur le Prince (that’s Mr. Prince to you), and I told Beth we had to eat there. One of my favorite also-rans is a bike racer from the 50s and 60s named Raymond Poulidor. The name similarity was too much to resist. Besides, who could resist a guy who was nicknamed Pou-pou?
He was a great cyclist, but was the eternal second in the Tour de France, finishing behind the legendary Jacques Anquetil 4 times from the late 50s to the mid 60s; then when Anquetil finally retired and Pou-pou looked like a shoo-in to finally win in 1969, along came Eddy Merckx, the Cannibal, and Pou-pou again finished second. The Cannibal destroyed everyone in the field that year, and Pou-pou took it as a sign to throw in the towel.
I don’t think the restaurant has anything to do with the cyclist, but I took it as a sign to eat there. It was the fastest meal I’ve ever eaten in France by a mile, so it was a winner of sorts (I’ll get to that). The special du jour today was rognon in a wine sauce, which sounded really good until we remembered that rognons are kidneys of some unknown beast. Our knowledge of the culinary language saved us from certain gastronomical disaster. I can eat goose liver (it’s one of my favorite all-time French foods), but I draw the line at this particular toxin-filtering organ.
I ordered: feesh.
The lady who took our order seemed a bit agitated, and came back several times within a minute or two to see if we were ready to order. Finally she told us that the kitchen was closing in 5 minutes, so if we wanted to eat anything, we’d better order right away. We did, and within about 5 minutes, the food appeared (strange item #1, since usually you wait for 15 minutes or so for the first course). Then, before we were finished with our plate, she returned inquiring if we’d be having dessert (strange item #2, again you usually wait a while between courses). We said yes, ordered some ice cream, and she returned in 2 minutes with it.
I had taken the hint at that point, and devoured the rest of my redfish and rice with olive oil and herbs so she wouldn’t take it away from me in mid-bite. Sure enough, she whisked the plates away and plunked down the ice cream (I have been in the habit of ordering Chocolat Liegeois, a fantastic dark chocolate ice cream with dark chocolate sauce and Chantilly whipped cream on top). Before I had many any headway, she was back to see about coffee. I ordered some, and she was back in a flash with it.
A minute later she was back: “you can stay as long as you want, but can you please pay me right away? We’re closed now until suppertime.” This is the ultimate strange item, since I have never in all my French meal experience had the waiter bring the tab (l’addition in French) without me motioning him over and specifically asking for it. There is an unwritten rule here in the cafes and restaurants: once you sit down to a table and order something, even just a Coke, you have the table for as long as you want to stay, and they usually won’t bring the tab until you specifically ask for it.
For instance, three years ago, on my first trip to Paris, a cycling friend and I sat down at a little outdoor café off the Champs-Elysees (see yesterday’s blog) at around 5 PM for a Coke. We talked and talked (the night being fine and the topic bicycling, we could have stayed all night). Around 8:30 we decided we were hungry, so we motioned the waiter over and ordered some supper. Coffee came about 10:30, and at 12:30 sharp we got up from the table for the first time in 7.5 hours. We spent the equivalent of an entire work day sitting at a café table. That’s France.
As I sit here surrounded by my new books, I just realized that I haven’t actually used any of them today to help with my homework for our French lesson tomorrow with Marguerite. Zut alors!
I’m going to stop giving teasers about tomorrow’s blog, because I always forget what I promised to write about. So from now on, anything goes…
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